Spook

21 Jake Runyon

He was waiting on the steps, huddled against wind and blowing snow, when the Mono County courthouse opened at nine A.M. Vital Statistics, first stop. Not much there. No birth certificate for Luke or Lucas Valjean. Nobody named Valjean residing in the county at present, but two others had died in Aspen Creek within a year of Luke: Everett, age 67, in 1986, and Dinah, age 66, in 1987, both of the same address. Luke’s parents? Seemed likely. Vernon Snow had lived in Aspen Creek all his life, been widowed at the time of his death, and had fathered two daughters; one of the daughters had been married in Mammoth Lakes, but there was no current directory listing under her husband’s name or her maiden name anywhere in Mono County.

The Sheriff’s Department had offices in the courthouse, but Runyon didn’t want to walk in there cold. Dealing with newspaper people was a chore he avoided whenever possible. That left the local library. It was open when he got there, and the librarian said yes, they had issues of the weekly Mono County Register on microfilm dating back as far as 1985. She set him up in a cubicle, brought the file dates he asked for, and left him alone.

Front-page scare headlines in the issue dated four days after the homicides. Grainy photograph of a lean, hollow-cheeked, nondescript man identified as Anthony Colton that bore no resemblance to the ravaged, faceless corpse in the San Francisco city morgue. The news story was a mix of lurid details and provincial, “this kind of thing doesn’t happen here” outrage. The facts were pretty much as O’Sheel had outlined them the afternoon before. Anthony Colton’s car had been found in the Toiyabe National Forest, a wilderness area across the state line a hundred miles or so from Aspen Creek. California and Nevada authorities had cooperated in the manhunt and the FBI had been called in “for assistance” after the car was found. Sure they had. The FBI didn’t assist, they assumed control; and state police agencies squabbled over jurisdiction as often as they cooperated. Confusion, ruffled feathers, and wasted time were the usual result. That and blind luck explained Colton being able to elude capture, find his way out of the mountains and into a hole somewhere.

The follow-up articles rehashed events and expressed frustration and public anger at the continued failure of the authorities to find Anthony Colton. The Mono County sheriff and one of his deputies were quoted; another deputy was mentioned by name. Runyon made a note of those three, and a fourth name: Thomas Valjean, Lucas Valjean’s older brother, who at that time had lived in the village of Mono City and operated a well-digging and septic service. He was quoted twice, both angry denunciations of law enforcement efforts.

From the library, Runyon drove back to the courthouse and the county sheriff’s offices. Two of the three officers named in the news stories, he was told, including the then-sheriff, were no longer with the department. The third, Lawrence Hickox, was now a senior deputy at the Mammoth Lakes substation, fifty miles to the south.

Runyon hunted up a phone — his cell still wasn’t working — and put in a call to the Mammoth Lakes station. Hickox was on duty, and when Runyon said he had new information on Anthony Colton, the deputy sounded eager to see him. They made an appointment for one o’clock.

It was after eleven now. Better check in; they’d be wondering what he’d found out, maybe had something to pass on in return. He made the agency number in San Francisco his second call.

It snowed all the way to Mammoth Lakes, flurries now and then, mostly a light dusting; but the highway was slick and pre-holiday traffic made for even slower speeds. A local radio station, the only one he could get on the car radio, said there would be a partial clearing later in the day but another storm was expected tonight, high winds and up to three inches of snow tomorrow. If he came back up 395 right after the talk with Hickox, he ought to have a fairly easy drive as far as Carson City or Reno. And if the storm held off and road conditions were good in the Sierras, he might even be able to make it all the way back to San Francisco without having to lay over.

Spook’s identity was pretty much established now; some sort of corroborating evidence was all that was missing, and Hickox should be able to supply that. In the days when he still had Colleen, the manhunter in him might’ve chafed at quitting an investigation while parts of it were still hot. Now it just didn’t matter. Employee doing a job, grunt taking orders — that was all he was and all he cared to be.

When he finally reached Mammoth Lakes he found himself in an upscale mountain resort community already teeming with holiday ski crowds. SUVs, vans, ski-laden cars clogged its neatly plowed streets; by the time he maneuvered through the traffic and located the sheriff’s substation, he was better than fifteen minutes late for his appointment.

Lawrence Hickox didn’t seem bothered by the delay. He was in his fifties, ruddy-featured, broad head coated in gray fuzz, friendly manner tempered with reserve. They went into his private office to talk. The reserve faded once Runyon mentioned his background and provided a more detailed rundown on the investigation: two professionals on more or less equal footing.

“Anthony Colton, after all these years,” Hickox said. “I figured him for dead long ago.”

“I would’ve, too, in your place.”

“Pure crazy luck, him squeezing through the dragnet that summer, disappearing without a trace. Seemed like he had to be dead. I mean, he was no Richard Kimble. You know, ‘The Fugitive.’ Colton wasn’t half that smart or resourceful.”

“What kind of man was he?”

“Average. Model citizen until the day he snapped. Lived quietly, no bad habits, never in trouble of any kind. Didn’t hunt or do much hiking or fishing — didn’t have any survivalist skills. I’d love to know how he got out of the Toiyabe after he abandoned his car; we never found anybody who might’ve given him a ride. By all rights a man like Colton, wandering around in that wilderness, ought to’ve been dead inside a week. That’s what I told those TV people that came sucking around.”

“TV people?”

“Scouts for one of those fugitive shows that were popular awhile back — ‘America’s Most Wanted,’ ‘Unsolved Mysteries,’ one of those. They hung around a few days, asked a stream of questions, then went away and we never heard from them again. Maybe my saying Colton must be dead had something to do with it. More likely, they decided the shootings were too cut and dried, or the sex angle too gamy for TV. Two of the victims naked in the sack when they were shot... that’d be hard to adapt for a network show, even these days.”

Runyon had nothing to say to that, just nodded.

“So,” Hickox said. “You’re convinced this dead homeless guy in S.F. is Colton?”

“Everything points to it.” He went into more detail: Spook’s ghosts, the high school yearbook page, the rest of the trail that had led to Mono County. “SFPD didn’t get onto the connection because there was no match when they ran his prints through NCIC.”

“That’s because he was never officially fingerprinted — no military service, no police record, no sensitive job, etcetera. Things were hectic as all hell at the crime scene that first day, people in and out, but we did manage to lift a few clear latents we were reasonably sure were Colton’s. A few others from his office, too. But we had nothing to match them against for verification. Sheriff turned the lot over to the FBI after they came in, but I guess the prints never made it into their database.”

“I saw the body in the morgue,” Runyon said. “Did Colton have a strawberry birthmark on the upper right arm? A scar a couple of inches long under his chin? Three mutilation scars in the genital area?”

“Birthmark rings a bell.” Hickox opened a folder, shuffled through a sheaf of computer printouts. “I pulled up the file after you called. We don’t usually put old cases into the system, even unsolved ones, but I made sure the Colton casefile got saved... Here we go. Birthmark, upper right arm. Doesn’t say if it was strawberry or not, and I don’t recall where the information came from. One of the victims’ relatives, probably.”

“Location seems conclusive enough.”

“Agreed.” Hickox was still studying one of the printouts. “Nothing here about any scars. Did you say mutilation scars in the genital area?”

“Possibly self-inflicted.”

“Suicide attempt? Well, that’d be in character for a man ended up as crazy as you say he was. Bad cuts?”

“Bad enough.”

Hickox shook his head. “That kind down there don’t heal by themselves. He must’ve had professional treatment. And if it was a suicide attempt he’d’ve been held for observation. All that attention... and nobody realized he was a wanted man.”

“It happens,” Runyon said. “People slip through the cracks, homeless and mentally ill more easily than anybody else.”

“Sure, but he kept slipping through for seventeen years, Christ knows how many times. Phenomenal run of luck.”

“Everybody’s luck runs out sooner or later.”

“Yeah. Shot with a forty-one caliber weapon, you said?”

“One bullet, back of the head execution-style.”

“You think whoever did it knew his real identity?”

“We’re not being paid to find out who or why, just the ID.”

“I’m asking your personal opinion.”

“Then yes, that’s what I think. Shooter knew him, had reason to want Anthony Colton dead, not a homeless crazy known as Spook.”

“Seventeen years is a long time to nurse that kind of hate.”

“Not if you were related to one of his victims.”

“That occurred to me, too. Anybody specific in mind?”

“Robert Lightfoot, for one.”

“The wife’s father? I didn’t know he was still alive.”

“Lives in a trailer park in Bridgeport. Had a stroke sometime back, confined to a wheelchair.”

“If he’s in a wheelchair, that lets him out.”

“Not necessarily. He knew Spook was Colton before the shooting. How, I don’t know.” Runyon explained about the phone call to Human Services. “Lightfoot’s involved in the first homicide, if not the second. He threw down on me with a pump gun when I tried to talk to him yesterday.”

“Then you make it a two-man operation?”

“Adds up that way. The shooter somebody with just as much motive to want Colton dead.”

“Another relative?” Hickox said. “Well... maybe. I can think of one who fits the bill.”

“Thomas Valjean?”

Raised eyebrow. “You do dig deep, don’t you? That’s right, Lucas Valjean’s brother. According to him, Colton didn’t just murder one member of his family that day, he murdered three. Father and mother both died within a year or so of the shootings, couldn’t seem to reconcile the loss of their son and just gave up on living. Tom was always a hothead. For a long time afterward he came around the department every few weeks, demanding to know why Colton still hadn’t been caught. Once he pitched a scene and we had to put him in a cell to cool off.”

“Sounds like a man capable of violence.”

“Oh, yeah. Beat up a drunk in a bar fight one time, put him in the hospital. Arrested another time for poaching deer out of season. Big hunter. Collected guns, too, come to think of it.”

“You remember if he has a large facial mole? Next to his nose, left side.”

“Mole? That’s right, sure, Tom has one.”

“A man answering that description was in the city a few days before the shooting, hunting for Spook.”

“Then Valjean sure does figure to be the shooter, doesn’t he.”

“I checked the local directory — he doesn’t live up here anymore. Any idea where he’s living now?”

“Seems to me I heard he got married and moved away,” Hickox said. “Offhand I don’t recall where, but I know somebody who can probably tell me. Friend he used to go hunting with, lives here in Mammoth Lakes.”

Runyon watched the deputy make a call, listened to his side of a three-minute conversation. When the call ended, Hickox said, “They’re still in touch. Valjean lives down your way, all right. Vallejo. And he’s had a load of hard luck lately — IRS troubles, lost his business, wife left him. Enough right there to shove a man like him to the edge.”

“And Colton turning up pushed him over.”

“Yeah. Who’s handling the homicide investigation at SFPD?”

“Lieutenant Jack Logan’s the man to talk to. Friend of one of my bosses. He knows by now that the John Doe was Colton.”

“I’ll give him a ring, fill him in about the birthmark and the rest of what we’ve discussed. You want to talk to him?”

“No need. My job’s finished — we’re out of it now.”

“Good job, too. Heading home then, get back in time for Christmas?”

Home. Christmas. Just words.

“Yes,” Runyon said. “Heading back to San Francisco.”