Double

15: McCone

The first person in Elaine’s address book I tried to call was her lawyer, Alan Thorburn. I reached an answering service, and the operator told me Mr. Thorburn was out of town until Monday morning. Was there any way I could reach him? I asked. Well, he was out on his boat, but due to call in sometime this evening, or perhaps tomorrow... I left my name and my parents’ number, hoping Counselor Thorburn would indeed check with his service.

Then I examined the addresses for Rich Woodall, Rich James, and the man listed only as Rick. Rich James’s was the closest to the shopping area near Elaine’s house where my phone booth was located, but his telephone had been disconnected. I decided to drive over and see if he was home.

The address turned out to be a decaying apartment house right on Imperial Beach, south of the Silver Strand. Built in the garish architecture of the fifties, it had a gigantic pink-and-turquoise mosaic peacock on the end wall by the parking area. A number of the tiles had fallen away, including those that formed the bird’s left eye, so he appeared to be a molting old peacock with a cataract.

I left my car in the lot and went around to the beach side of the building. Although it was late — close to seven o’clock — the heat had not let up and the sand was still crowded. The sun was low, and flame-like color spread across the water, reducing the people who strolled in the surf to purple-gray silhouettes. Here and there a barbecue fire sent smoke skyward, and a few diehard athletes tossed Frisbees and volleyballs around.

The apartment building was two-tiered, with iron balconies over which a number of beach towels were draped. I went up a concrete stairway at one end and along the top floor, avoiding a tricycle, a surf board, and an assortment of sand toys, to the apartment number that had been noted in Elaine’s book. Already I’d begun to doubt that Rich James was the man Wolf had seen with my friend in the Cantina Sin Nombre. This place had a seedy air that didn’t match the sharp dresser he’d described.

The door to the apartment stood open, and from inside I could hear the dull beat of rock music. I pounded on the doorframe and a few seconds later, a young man with a fluffy blond beard appeared. He wore cutoff jeans and had a dishtowel tucked into his belt.

“I’m looking for Rich James,” I said.

“Sure. Hi. That’s me.”

Disappointed, I said, “I’m Sharon McCone, a friend of Elaine Picard’s—”

“Oh, yeah, Elaine. Look, can you come in?” Without waiting for my answer he turned and disappeared into the gloom beyond the door.

I followed him into a sparsely furnished living room. The drapes were pulled against the sunset’s glare and two little boys, around six or seven, sat on a lumpy rattan couch watching a TV program whose sound competed with the stereo. Newspapers were scattered on the threadbare carpeting, and pop and beer cans sat on every available surface. When the little boys saw me, they stared for a moment, then exchanged a solemn, knowing look. One of them said, “Daddy, we’re hungry.”

“Supper’s coming up any minute now. It’s just got to heat.” To me, he added, “Come on out to the kitchen. I’m cooking. Weekend father, you know.”

I followed him into the kitchen, a tiny, airless room at the rear of the apartment, on the side that faced the street. He picked up a can and dumped its contents into a pot on the stove. “Franco-American spaghetti,” he said, holding up the can. “It’s not much, but I never learned to cook. Mama didn’t tell me it would be like this.”

I glanced around, noting the dirty dishes and the trash that overflowed the wastebasket. A pizza box sat on the counter, full of gnawed crusts. Mama hadn’t taught him to clean up, either. Mentally I shuddered, thinking of my brother John. Would it be like this when he got his own place and took the kids on weekends? What if, by some strange quirk, he managed to get permanent custody of them? Would they live like this all the time?

“So you’re a friend of Elaine’s?” Rich James asked, extending a beer can toward me.

“Yes.” I took the can, eyeing it suspiciously and wishing there were a polite way of wiping off its top before drinking from it.

“What’s wrong this time — the water heater?”

“Huh?”

“Well, the last time she called, it was on the fritz. I replaced the pressure valve, but you never know with these cheapo things they’re installing these days.”

I frowned, beginning to understand.

“She did send you about something for me to fix around the house, didn’t she? I told her I’d had the phone taken out.” He smiled disarmingly. “I’m a compulsive caller, especially when I’ve had a few. And everybody I want to call seems to be long-distance. So I had the thing disconnected.”

“You’re Elaine’s handyman,” I said.

“Yeah.” Now it was his turn to frown. “Who’d you think I was?”

“I take it you haven’t seen the news.”

“Nope. The kids like to watch reruns of Cannon and Quincy on Saturday. That station doesn’t have news until seven. What about it?”

“Elaine’s dead. She fell from one of the towers at the Casa del Rey this morning.”

His face went slack with surprise. “Jesus, that’s terrible!”

“Yes, it is. I’m locating her friends, trying to find one in particular, named Rich. Your name was in her address book.”

“Friends? I wouldn’t say we were exactly that. I’m a buddy of her nephew Jim’s. We lived in the same apartment complex over in Lemon Grove, until the wife booted me out. When I moved over here, Jim suggested maybe Elaine could use someone to help around her new house. And she sure could — water heater, electrical, plumbing, you name it — everything went wrong. That lady sure knew how to pick them.”

“I guess you spent a lot of time over there, then. Did you ever meet any of her friends?”

He shook his head. “Elaine didn’t seem to have many. Oh, there was this blonde fox that came around sometimes, Karyn somebody-or-other. But no men, if that’s what you mean.”

“I see. Was Elaine close to your friend Jim?”

“Not really. I mean, he liked her and all, but he thought she was strange, the way she kept to herself. I doubt if he knew her any better than I did.”

“And you don’t know anyone else named Rich whom she might have been close to?”

“Sorry, I don’t—” There was a bubbling noise on the stove, and the spaghetti boiled over. “Damn!” Rich snatched the dishtowel from his belt and began mopping at the orange-colored mess.

“I’d better be going,” I said, setting my unopened beer on the counter. “It looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

“Yeah. Let me tell you, I never appreciated what my mother went through all those years. Thanks for telling me about Elaine. I’m sorry she’s dead. She was kind of strange, but she was a real nice lady.”

“I thought so too.” When he started to follow me to the door, I added, “Don’t bother, I can let myself out.”

As I passed through the shabby living room, the boys looked up in surprise, and after I’d gone outside, I heard one say, “She’s not staying. They always stay, don’t they?”

Again I shuddered at what might be in store for my brother’s kids. Much as I loved John, I knew he was as ill prepared for the role of single father as Rich James was.

The next address, for the Rick listed in Elaine’s red book, was downtown on Seventh Avenue, between Broadway and C Street. It was a fairly nice section, with a number of the new high-rise buildings that all seemed to contain banks, and smaller structures housing specialty shops that catered to the daytime population of office workers. The number I was looking for turned out to be a renovated brick storefront sandwiched between a delicatessen and a hairdressing salon. A stylistically lettered sign announced it to be the HOUSE OF SLENDERIZING AND MASSAGE.

Of course, I thought, remembering the stationary bicycle and set of weights in Elaine’s TV room. She hadn’t stayed in such good shape without a great deal of effort. Probably she’d come over here to work out. But why, I wondered, had she come all the way downtown, rather than to an establishment closer to the Casa del Rey or her home in Chula Vista? Surely they had health clubs there.

And, more important, who was Rick? A masseur? Her exercise instructor? I supposed, from the description Wolf had given me, that the man in the bar at the Casa del Rey could have been either. But since the health club had a CLOSED sign in the window, I wasn’t going to get any answers to my questions tonight.

I waited at the curb in front of the place, hoping someone might be inside in spite of the sign, but couldn’t make out any lights. Then I took out the red book and looked up the address for my last prospect, Rich Woodall. He lived quite far out of town, north of El Cajon, near Lakeside, but I decided to check on him anyway.

The area near Lakeside was full of rocky, barren hills and tree-covered hillocks, all of which looked deserted and uninviting in the rapidly fading light. Woodall’s street, Lost Canyon Drive, was a winding, unpaved road that led up onto a heavily wooded hillside. I followed it for about a quarter of a mile before I spotted a Spanish-style stucco house surrounded by palm trees and partially screened by a big pyracantha hedge covered with red berries.

I parked close to the hedge and went up the walk, my hopes fading when I saw there were no lights on inside the house. In spite of that, I rang the bell, but it chimed emptily and there was no answer. Squinting at my watch, I saw that it was already nine. I was reluctant to give up and go home after coming all this way, but it seemed I had no choice. I’d have to return tomorrow.

Suddenly there was a loud rattling sound. It reminded me of those old-fashioned noisemakers we used to have at Halloween — tin cans that wound up on a handle and, when released, gave off a hollow clacking. The noise was repeated and then the night became still again.

As near as I could tell, the sound came from behind the house. There was a driveway that ran alongside, and I followed it, reminding myself of what trouble I’d got into the last time I’d strayed into a backyard. Still, it had been a strange sound, and for all I knew something could be wrong back there.

The two-car garage was straight ahead, its door closed. To the left, where I assumed the yard should be, was total darkness. I reached into my purse and took out my small flashlight. Switching it on, I shined it around until it illuminated a stucco wall with pieces of jagged glass embedded in its top and a partially open gate. I went over and pushed on the gate.

It swung inward to blackness that was even thicker than in the driveway. I waited for my eyes to adjust, and finally made out several large rectangular shapes, perhaps the outline of a grape arbor like the one in my family’s yard. Stepping through the gate, I shined the light around again. Startled yellow eyes glared at me.

There was a swift snarling noise. I shrank back against the wall, almost dropping the flash. The snarling went on, and then the rattling noise began again. I heard a flapping, like wings, and then from my other side came a whining, feral and dangerous. I felt a prickling at the nape of my neck, and my heart began to race. Getting ready to run, I jerked the light over there.

The whiner had beady eyes and a big black nose. An animal that resembled a raccoon, but wasn’t, enclosed in a sturdy iron mesh cage. It froze when the light hit it.

I laughed weakly and swung the flash back to where the yellow eyes had been. They belonged to a cat — but one that hardly resembled the fat, docile housecat named Watney that graced my home. This one was sinewy and sleek and, from what I’d seen in zoos, probably full grown. Its cage — like the one that housed the thing that resembled a raccoon — looked sturdy.

The cat flattened in a crouch as I held the light on him, and kept growling. The rattling and flapping sounds increased. Wondering what else was here, I turned the light toward the source of the flapping sounds and found a cage of exotic-looking birds. I shook my head in amazement. Apparently I’d stumbled onto a miniaturized version of the San Diego Zoo.

Curious to see what other kinds of animals Woodall was harboring, I swept the light around the yard. There were a number of other cages, one containing more of the raccoonlike animals, another holding two more big cats. There were some lynxes — I recognized them by their lack of tails — and a bunch of foxes, white ones that looked as if they’d been bleached. Another cage held large snakes that I didn’t recognize. I shuddered, staring at their sleek, patterned coils.

Yes, I thought, it was a zoo, and not such a small one at that. But what was Woodall doing, keeping it here in his backyard? Weren’t there laws about what kinds of animals you could have in your backyard? As I recalled, even the ducks my parents had had — the ones the coyotes had eaten — had been illegal.

And why, for heaven’s sake, hadn’t the gate been locked? Big cats were dangerous beasts, and if these got loose there was no telling what kind of damage they might do.

I went over to the gate, fumbled around for the latch, and found a chain with a padlock attached to it. Shining the light on it, I saw that the chain had been broken forcibly. There were marks, as if someone had used a hacksaw on it.

Lights flashed suddenly in the driveway, illuminating the garage door. A motor purred, and a small car came into view. Before I could step back, the lights swept over me.

The car jerked to a stop, and a man sprang from the driver’s seat. Then he was running toward me, yelling, “Hey! What the hell are you doing there?”