Mourners

12

JAKE RUNYON

Scott Iams, Erin Dumont’s boyfriend, worked for a catering company on Union Street on the edge of Cow Hollow-one block from the boutique FashionSense, where she’d been employed. Upscale neighborhood, mostly residential, tucked between Pacific Heights and the Marina, so named because city farmers and ranchers had kept dairy and beef cattle there during the Gold Rush years. Choice real estate nowadays, the kind of district where young, unskilled people worked and counted themselves lucky for their above-average salaries, but still couldn’t afford to live.

Iams was twenty-four, red-haired, linebacker-sized. He had the kind of face that would normally be good-natured, easygoing, but that was marked now by the filaments of tragedy. His blue eyes were mournful, his manner dull and listless. Runyon’s name and ID stirred up a little animation but no surprise; Risa Niland had called him earlier, he said, told him about her meeting with Runyon at the cemetery and his offer of help. He had a break coming and suggested they go for a walk while they talked. “I can’t seem to sit still since it happened. Seems like I have to be moving all the time, even in the middle of the night.”

Outside, Iams set a fast, long-striding pace that Runyon had to work to match. It was cold and windy here, this close to the bay, and there were twinges again in his bad leg. Exercise was good for the rebuilt bone and muscle; he’d learned to relish the pain, convert it into positive energy.

Iams said, “I don’t know what I can tell you, Mr. Runyon. Some nights I’d go jogging with Erin, but that night I had to work late. That night of all nights. Jesus, it makes me half crazy every time I think about what she must’ve gone through. I loved her, you know? I mean I really loved her.”

“How long had you been dating?”

“Six months, about. We met at Perry’s, that’s a bar up the street. We hit it off right away. I don’t believe in love at first sight or anything like that, but this was pretty close. You know?”

“Was she seeing anybody else at the time?”

“Not really. She had a lot of dates, she was so beautiful…” His voice caught on the last two words; he shook his head and repeated them, more to himself than to Runyon this time. “So beautiful.”

“Any steady boyfriends before you?”

“A couple, sure.”

“Relationships end on friendly terms?”

“As far as I know.”

“Was there anybody she had problems with?”

“Problems?”

“Men she dated who came on too strong, men she rejected who wouldn’t take no for an answer, kept bothering her?”

“Cops asked me that, too.”

“And?”

“I don’t think so,” Iams said.

“But you’re not positive?”

“She’d’ve told me if there was.”

“It wouldn’t have to have been recently. Before she knew you, at any time.”

“No, she’d’ve told me. We told each other everything about ourselves. That’s how serious it was getting between us… ah, Jesus. Jesus. Why her? Of all the people in this city, why Erin?”

There was nothing for Runyon to say to that.

Iams said, “I’ve been thinking the guy must’ve been a stranger, one of those crazy random things. But I guess he could be somebody she knew. And he wouldn’t’ve had to be hassling her, right?”

“Not necessarily.”

There was a little silence before Iams said, “Fatso.”

“Who would Fatso be?”

“A guy who was hanging around her for a while. But it couldn’t be him.”

“Why couldn’t it?”

“Well, it was a couple of years ago, before we hooked up. And he didn’t hassle her, not the way we’ve been talking about.”

“What did he do?”

“Just kept showing up, following her around like a big fat dog.”

“Is that the phrase Erin used, a big fat dog?”

“Yeah. She said he was humongous.”

“How big is humongous?”

“Three hundred pounds or more.”

“Where was it he kept showing up?” Runyon asked. “In this neighborhood? Where she lived? Someplace she went regularly?”

“… I don’t know. All she said was he was around for a while and then he was gone, like maybe the Animal Control people came and carted him off to the pound. She thought it was funny. She was laughing when she told me about him.”

“What was his real name?”

“All she called him was Fatso.”

“She know what he did for a living?”

“If she did, she didn’t say.”

“He followed her around, you said. Literally?”

“I don’t think she meant it like that,” Iams said. “Just that he kept turning up places she went.”

“Did he approach her, strike up a conversation?”

“Hi, how are you, that kind of stuff.”

“Ask her to go out with him?”

“Once. She blew him off.”

“How did she blow him off?”

“How?”

“Cut him short, let him down easy, laugh at him?”

“She didn’t say anything about that. But Erin… she wasn’t a cruel person. She made jokes about him, sure, but she wouldn’t’ve done it to his face.”

“How did he take the rejection?”

“Like it was what he expected. Went off with his tail between his legs, Erin said.”

“Did he keep coming around after that?”

“I think maybe once or twice.”

“How long altogether?”

“Not very long. Maybe a month.”

“Then he just disappeared? No reason or provocation?”

“Nothing she said or did, no. There one day, gone the next.”

“Did she see him again after that?”

“No. Erin said they probably put him to sleep at the pound because nobody would want to adopt him, he’d cost too much to feed. She was really pretty funny, all that dog stuff.”

“Sure,” Runyon said. “Funny.”

“He couldn’t be the one, could he? I mean, he never really bothered her or anything. And it’s been a long time…”

“Do you know if Erin told her sister about this man?”

“Well, she probably did. They were close.”

“How about girlfriends she might have confided in? Or who might’ve been with her when Fatso was hanging around?”

“Well… she had a lot of friends, and I don’t know all of them. Risa could tell you better than I can.”

“I’ll ask her,” Runyon said. “One more thing. Did you tell the homicide inspectors about Fatso?”

“Yeah, I did. But they didn’t ask nearly as many questions as you did.”

Which meant they didn’t see much in it and wouldn’t have spent a lot of time on the lead. Maybe they were right. And maybe they weren’t.

The two women who owned FashionSense had nothing to tell him. At first there was a pretense of restrained cooperation, but after a handful of questions it was plain that they resented the intrusion. One of them, Joy Something, a sleek blonde in her early thirties, ended the pretense finally by saying, “Oh, Lord, we don’t know anything about what happened to Erin, if we did we’d have told the police. We’ve answered these same questions so many times already. Really, it’s becoming tedious.”

“Tedious,” Runyon said flatly. “A young woman who worked for you was brutally raped and murdered less than two months ago, the man responsible still hasn’t been identified, and you find the investigation tedious.”

The other woman, dark-haired, Tess Something, said, “For heaven’s sake, Joy didn’t mean it that way.”

“Of course I didn’t,” Joy Something said. “We’re not insensitive people. But you have to understand our position, Mr… what was your name again?”

“Runyon.”

“Mr. Runyon. Policemen and now a private detective trooping in and out, asking questions… it isn’t good for business. We’re just making ends meet as it is, and the landlord is threatening to raise our rent again…”

“Who hired you anyway?” Tess Something asked. “Erin’s sister?”

He just looked at her.

“I didn’t think she had enough money. And besides, what can you do that the police haven’t?”

“We’d help if we could,” Joy Something said. “We liked Erin, she was a pleasant girl, a good employee, what happened to her was a terrible thing, but we just don’t know anything.”

“Nothing at all.”

“And we do care, even if you don’t think so.”

“But you can only grieve for someone so long, especially someone you didn’t really know well. Life has to go on. You can’t expect us to put ours on hold.”

Runyon still didn’t trust himself to speak. He put his back to them and walked out, fast, before the anger in him boiled over and he said or did something he would later regret.

Risa Niland said, “Fatso? Yes, I remember Erin mentioning him. But that was two years ago, and she didn’t have any trouble with the man.”

On the phone her voice sounded lower, with some of the same huskiness as Colleen’s. Imagination? He tried not to focus on it as he said, “Are you sure about that?”

“She’d have told me if she had.”

“What did she say about him, exactly?”

“Just that he was worshipful, like a big dog. She laughed about it.”

“Did she say where and how she’d met him?”

“Let me think… In the park somewhere, the first time. Stow Lake? Yes, Stow Lake. She was there with one of her girlfriends and he came up and spoke to her. I guess it surprised her.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, he weighed three hundred pounds.”

“You saw him yourself?”

“No, that’s what Erin said. I never saw him.”

“Did she describe him in any other way?”

“… Yes. Long hair in a ponytail.”

“What color?”

“I don’t remember her saying.”

“Age?”

“Around her age. Not much older or she wouldn’t have found him so amusing. She had a thing about older men hitting on her.”

“Anything else you can tell me about him?”

“Apparently he was shy and stumbled over his words. Afraid of rejection, I suppose. He must have had a lot of it in his life. Oh, and she said he looked silly in his uniform. She laughed about that, too.”

“Uniform?”

“That’s all. Not what kind it was.”

Runyon asked, “The first time she saw him at Stow Lake-what did he say to her?”

“He offered to buy her a soda. Erin said no, and that was the end of it.”

“Did he tell her his name?”

“Well, he must have at some point, at least his first name.”

“But she didn’t mention it and you didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t see any reason to.”

“How soon did he turn up again after Stow Lake?”

“A few days later. At a tavern on Geary where she went sometimes.”

“Talk to her there? Hit on her?”

“No, nothing like that. Just said hello and bought her a drink.”

“And hung around, watched her?”

“In a worshipful way. He never bothered her.”

“How many other times did she see him?”

“Once or twice more at the tavern. And once or twice when she was out jogging.”

“Following her?”

“She didn’t get that impression,” Risa said. “She thought he might live in the neighborhood.”

“Did he give her any idea where?”

“I don’t think so.”

“This went on, him turning up, for about a month?”

“No more than that. Then he must have lost interest or moved away.”

“And your sister never saw him again?”

“I’m sure she’d have told me if she had.” Risa paused before she said, “Two years is a long time.”

Runyon said, “There aren’t any time limits on sexual obsession.”

“But why would he go away and then all of a sudden come back and attack her without provocation?”

“People disappear for any number of reasons. And there may have been provocation that night-a more aggressive approach, rejection, sudden rage and loss of control.”

“My God.”

“Just speculation at this point,” Runyon said, “but worth looking into. What’s the name of the tavern on Geary?”

“McRoyd’s Irish Pub.”

“And the name of the girlfriend who was with Erin at Stow Lake?”

“Sally Michaels. Sally Johnson now. She got married about six months ago and moved to Morgan Hill.”

“Do you have an address and phone number?”

“Yes, but not here. At home.”

“Call me on my cell phone when you get there. Number’s on the card I gave you. All right?”

“All right. And… thank you, Jake.”

Jake, not Mr. Runyon. With almost the same little catch in her voice Colleen had when she said his name No. Bullshit, Runyon. What’s the matter with you?

He said gruffly, “There’s nothing to thank me for yet,” and broke the connection.

Nobody at McRoyd’s Irish Pub knew a three-hundred-pound, ponytailed man or remembered anyone like that from more than a year ago. The bartender said, “Check back after six o’clock. The boss comes on then, Sam McRoyd. He’s owned this place thirty years-he’s got a memory like an elephant, knows just about everybody who ever lived around here.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that.”

A woman’s deep voice said, “Yes? This is Justine.”

“Is your husband home, Mrs. Linden?”

“No, he isn’t.” Then, suspiciously, “Who is this?”

“My name is Runyon, I spoke to him this afternoon-”

“I know, he told me.” Cold now, as if her voice had been quick-frozen in dry ice. “You should have come to me instead of Ralph.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“It might have. I’m not as easy to intimidate as he is.”

“There was no intimidation. We had a conversation, that’s all.”

“You threatened him.”

“Wrong. I don’t make threats. He offered cooperation and I accepted, that’s all.”

Humming silence for several seconds. Then, “I suppose that’s why you’re calling. You want the key.”

“If you’re willing to put it in your mailbox and leave it there for the next couple of days, then you won’t have to deal with me in person.”

“And then what? You keep calling up and coming back whenever you feel like it?”

“Chances are you’ll never hear from me again.”

“What does that mean, ‘chances are’?”

“Just what I said.”

“How do I know you won’t keep hassling us?”

“I’m not hassling you now,” Runyon said. “I’m accepting your husband’s offer. Unless you’d rather rescind it.”

“Oh, sure. And then you’d go straight to the Housing Authority.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that.”

“So you say.”

“You have my word on it.”

“Your word. How do I know you’d keep it?”

“You don’t. You’ll have to trust me, either way.”

Heavy sigh, exaggerated. “You’d better not do any damage to our property.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“And if Mr. Troxell finds out you were snooping around, I won’t take any abuse from him. I’ll lay it all on your head.”

“Or about that.”

“The key will be in the goddamn mailbox,” she said, and broke the connection.