Mourners

8

JAKE RUNYON

He couldn’t get Risa Niland out of his mind.

She rode with him all the way back to the city, a presence that kept interfering with his thoughts and memories of Colleen. The resemblance, the initial shock… yes, sure. He understood that. What he didn’t understand was the way he’d reacted afterward, was still reacting. Abandoning a surveillance, talking to the woman as he had, the impulsive offer of help, this fixation-none of that was like him at all. Unprofessional, out of character. Disturbing, because he sensed that it wasn’t just a momentary aberration he could shake off and forget about. He’d spent months after Colleen’s death coming to terms with the rest of his life; established a mind-set and a course of action, his narrow, empty little world arranged and compartmentalized and clearly defined. And now this. All of a sudden, in a few short minutes, something had happened to throw it all off kilter again and he didn’t even know what it was.

He forced himself to focus on James Troxell. Three places he knew of where the man might have gone; his home in St. Francis Wood was the least likely, check the other two first. Potrero Hill was the closest. He swung over to 101, followed the same route to Wisconsin Street the subject had taken last night. No sign of the silver BMW anywhere in the vicinity of the Linden property. He made a quick check of the neighborhood, just in case, and then drove downtown to the financial district.

Troxell had a monthly space lease in a parking garage on New Montgomery, a couple of blocks from where Hessen amp; Collier had their offices. The location of the space was in the case file: second floor, number 229. And that was where he found the BMW, nose in tight against a concrete pillar. All right. Evidently this was one of Troxell’s days to attend to his profession.

He reported this to Tamara. Did she want him to hang around in case Troxell decided to go out again? The answer he wanted to hear was no, and that was the answer he got. She had another job for him, the kind he preferred, the kind that would keep him moving and his mind occupied.

Most Bay Area commuters worked in San Francisco and lived in one of the neighboring communities. Ralph Linden was one of the smaller percentage whose lives were structured the other way around, city dwellers with jobs outside the city-the fortunate types who had a relatively easy daily commute because they traveled opposite morning and evening rush-hour traffic.

The company that employed Linden, Yumitashi International, was located in Emeryville-two floors of a high-rise on the inland flank of Highway 80. The glass doors to the reception area bore a circular logo with the initials YI intertwined in the center; another, much larger logo, this one sculpted of bronze, covered part of one wall inside. There were no other adornments except for a couple of modernistic paintings that looked like original art and several pieces of modernistic furniture. Runyon saw nothing anywhere to indicate the nature of Yumitashi International’s business enterprise.

He told the woman on the reception desk that he was there to see Ralph Linden. She sent him down to the lower floor, where he repeated his request to another receptionist there. No, he didn’t have an appointment; it was a personal matter. One of his business cards persuaded her to call into the inner sanctum. Before long a fresh-faced young Japanese woman appeared through a doorway, smiled at him in exactly the same bright impersonal way as the two receptionists, asked him to wait please, and went back inside with his card. Short wait. She returned in less than five minutes, and this time it was him she took inside.

Two other employees, one Japanese male and one Caucasian female, offered bright impersonal smiles in the hallway; another Japanese male did the same from inside one of the offices. One big happy family at Yumitashi International. Or the smiles were company policy designed to convey that impression. Either way, the effect on Runyon wasn’t the one they intended. All the smiley faces gave him an off-center feeling, as if he’d stumbled into a training center for pod people.

Ralph Linden wasn’t one of the clones. He was on his feet behind his desk, mouth turned down instead of up, muddy brown eyes behind thick-lensed glasses betraying a nervous bewilderment, when the smiling woman bowed Runyon into his small office. The business card was between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, the way you’d hold something that might explode. He looked at it again as the woman retreated. When the door closed softly behind her, he said, “I don’t know you, Mr. Runyon, I don’t understand why you’re here. What would a private investigator want with me?”

“Information.”

“What sort of information? You mean about me?”

“Not directly.”

“My wife? Someone in my family?”

“No.”

That seemed to make Linden even twitchier. He was a bulky man pushing fifty, immaculately dressed in a three-piece gray suit, white shirt with gold cuff links, conservative tie. But he didn’t wear the clothes well; he wouldn’t wear any clothes well. There was a rumpled, ungainly look about him, as if he’d been fitted together out of mismatched spare parts. Wrinkly bald head, long jaw, heavy beard shadow, large ears, thin neck, long arms, big hands with knobby wrists, narrow upper body, broad hips. Uneasy on his feet, too, unlike a lot of big men. Even standing still he conveyed the impression of being loose-jointed, awkward. He would shamble when he walked, and prefer sitting down in any kind of interview or social situation, preferably with something like his gray-metal desk like a barricade between himself and anybody else. He’d relax a little then, be easier to talk to.

Runyon said, “All right if I have a seat?”

“This won’t take long, will it? I’m very busy, and the company discourages personal-” A thought seemed to strike him. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Yumitashi International, does it? If it does-”

“It doesn’t. I just have a few questions.”

“Well,” Linden said again, and immediately lowered himself into his chair.

Runyon wedged his body into a molded plastic chair that was more comfortable than it looked. The office was a fifteen-foot-square box, neatly kept, the walls painted an antiseptic white, with one small window that faced west and provided an oblique view of one of the other high-rises on the bayshore side of the freeway and a small piece of the Bay Bridge approach. The desk, the two chairs, a computer workstation, and the two of them filled it and made it seem even smaller. Some sort of graph or chart was displayed on a side wall, headed with the words EXPANDING HORIZONS — ironic in this tight, cramped space. He wondered how anybody could stand to spend eight or more hours a day, five days a week, cooped up in here. He’d been in the office two minutes and already he felt claustrophobic.

He waited until Linden was settled. Right-the man was more at ease sitting down. Then he said, “I’m here about your rental unit, Mr. Linden.”

“My… what?”

“Rental unit.”

“You must be mistaken. I don’t own any rental property…”

“Granny unit on your property in the city.”

“Oh, Christ.” The words seemed to pop out of him. And he was nervous again, wearing a pained, mournful look in place of his frown. “I knew it. I knew this would happen someday… How did you find out?”

“Does it matter?”

“Did somebody report it? Is that how?”

Runyon said nothing.

Linden lifted his hands, held them palm up and stared into them as if he were trying to read something in their crosshatching lines. “It wasn’t my idea,” he said, “I want you to know that.”

“No?”

“My wife, Justine, it was her idea. Her mother didn’t even want to move out here, for God’s sake. She was perfectly happy in Toledo.”

Again Runyon was silent.

“But she had to have her way,” Linden said. “Her brother’s the one who built the unit, not me.”

“Is that right?”

“Ted Mason. He’s a contractor, one of those gypsy contractors. He built it himself on weekends and holidays. Oh, sure, I helped him, but what choice did I have? It was the only way I could keep peace in the family.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wanted to apply for a permit, but he said we didn’t need one. He said there were ways around it as long as none of the neighbors complained. He was right, damn him, but I’ve never felt comfortable about it. I knew we’d get caught someday.” Linden shook his head. “All that money, and she only lived there two years. My mother-in-law. Two years, and Justine found her dead in bed one morning and then what we were going to do? The building was just sitting there, empty.”

Rambling a little now in his eagerness to defend himself, shift the blame, self-justify.

“It was Justine’s idea to rent it,” he said. “I didn’t want to go that route, it left us wide open, but we needed the extra money back then. The job I had wasn’t nearly as good as this one, and she- Oh, good Christ! There’s not going to be any publicity on this, is there?” He lowered his voice. “Yumitashi is a very conservative company, very conservative. You understand?”

“I understand. You don’t have to worry about publicity.”

“Well, that’s good, that’s a relief. I can’t afford to lose my job, especially in this economy. And I suppose there’ll be penalties-fines, back taxes. How much are we going to have to pay?”

“Not a cent, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Nothing? But…”

“I don’t work for the Housing Authority,” Runyon said. “Or any other city agency. That’s not why I’m here.”

Linden stared at him. His eyes, magnified behind the lenses of his glasses, seemed to bulge like a frog’s. “Why are you here then? What do you want? Money not to report us?”

“I told you, the only thing I’m interested in is information.”

“What information?”

“About your current tenant.”

“Is that what this is all about? You’re not investigating us?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, for God’s sake.” Relief put a slump in his shoulders. He took off the glasses, pinched and rubbed his eyes before he put the glasses back on. His expression had modulated again, this time into one of chagrin and embarrassment. “Why didn’t you say so? Why did you let me-” Then, in a small voice, “You scared the devil out of me.”

“Let’s talk about your tenant,” Runyon said.

“What’s he done?”

“He hasn’t done anything as far as I know.”

“Then why are you investigating him?”

“It’s nothing for you to be concerned about. And nothing for you to discuss or even mention to him. Forget this conversation after we’re finished and I’ll forget what you told me about the rental unit.”

“Mum’s the word,” Linden said eagerly. “Yes, of course.”

“To start with, what’s the renter’s name?”

“His name? You don’t know his name?”

“Just answer the question.”

“James Troxell. He’s a financial consultant, respectable, excellent references, the best tenant we’ve ever had. Some of the others… you wouldn’t believe…”

“How long has he occupied the unit?”

“Since the first of May.”

“He give you any idea why he was renting it?”

“No, and we didn’t ask. It’s none of our business.”

“How did he find out it was available?”

“Well, we don’t exactly advertise. We have to be careful…”

“How did he find out?”

“An acquaintance of my wife’s works for the same firm… Hessen and Collier downtown, she’s a secretary there. She told him.”

“Did he bring anything with him when he moved in?”

“You mean furniture? No, the unit is completely furnished.”

“Phone, television, VCR?”

“Except for those,” Linden said. “One of our tenants broke my mother-in-law’s TV and wanted us to fix it. Can you imagine? Another tenant made all sorts of long-distance calls and we had the devil of a time getting her to pay for them, so we had the extension taken out. If they want a phone, they have to have it installed themselves, pay for it themselves. Mr. Troxell hasn’t, as far as I know.”

“Luggage, other personal possessions?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t home the day he moved in.”

“What about visitors? Any that you know about?”

“I haven’t seen any. There’s a separate entrance, through a locked side gate, and he has a key. Someone could have gone in that way.”

“How much time does he spend there?”

“I really couldn’t say. He’s there on weekends sometimes. I bumped into him last Saturday.”

“Have you been inside the unit since he took possession?”

“No, he’s never invited us in.”

“And you’ve never taken a quick look around?”

“Of course not.” The suggestion seemed to offend Linden. “We don’t snoop on our tenants. What sort of people do you think we are?”

“So you don’t have any idea what Troxell does when he’s there.”

“It’s none of our business. Besides, he seems to be a very private person.”

Runyon nodded and got to his feet.

Linden said, “That’s all then? All your questions?”

“Unless there’s anything you haven’t told me.”

“No, no. I’ve been as cooperative as I can be. Completely candid.” Linden gnawed at his thick lower lip, as if he were considering something. He consulted his upturned palms again before he said, “Is it really important to you, why Troxell rented our unit?”

“It could be.”

“Is there any chance… I mean, it couldn’t be anything illegal, could it? Something that might reflect back on my wife and me, get us in trouble?”

“Anything’s possible.”

“Christ,” he said. “Then we all should know about it. You’d know if you saw it, wouldn’t you? If you had a look inside the unit?”

“I might.”

“In that case I don’t see why we should respect his privacy. You’re investigating him, after all. The man must be up to something.”

Runyon waited.

“We have a spare key,” Linden said. “We tell the tenants their key is the only one, but we keep a spare just in case. You never know what might happen. A situation like this… well, I could open the unit for you, let you inside briefly, when Troxell’s not there…”

“You could do that,” Runyon said. “It’s one option.”

“One… oh, I see. I could make the key available to you and you could have a look inside yourself. Is that what you mean?”

“It’s your suggestion, Mr. Linden, not mine.”

“Yes. Well… would you tell us what you find?”

“If it’s something you need to know, yes.”

“I suppose it would be all right,” Linden said slowly. “I’ll have to talk it over with Justine first, but… When would you want the key?”

“If it’s necessary, I’ll let you know and you can tell me then if your offer is still open. What’s your home phone number?”

Linden provided it. “I really should get back to work now,” he said. “The company… personal matters… well, you understand.”

Runyon was silent.

“I appreciate you keeping this confidential. About the unit, I mean. And I hope I’ve been helpful, I hope everything works out all right. If there’s anything else I can do…”

He’d had his fill of the man. He turned for the door.

“Anything at all,” Linden said behind him. “I always like to do the right thing.”