Spook

6 Jake Runyon

Back in his element.

Little twitches of life in him again.

Funny way to feel, walking among the homeless and the derelicts shivering in the gray cold of Franklin Square. But you couldn’t control something like that. He’d been numb for so long, ever since Colleen died. No, before... from when the chemotherapy hadn’t done any good and hope faded and he’d been forced to face the fact that he would lose her. So numb he could barely function, walking around like a zombie — days and nights of the living dead. So numb after she was gone he couldn’t even lift his .357 Magnum, much less shove it into his mouth and eat it. Three nights of that, three nights of sitting numb and sweat-soaked with the gun as heavy as a slab of granite on his lap before he’d faced another fact: he didn’t want to die yet. That had numbed him even more, because the desire to live seemed like a betrayal of Colleen, a mockery of her suffering.

The decision to leave Seattle, the move to San Francisco, the attempts to contact Josh... all done numbly. Even the need for work, something to occupy his time and thoughts, had been a dull need motivated more by inactivity than desire. The job application and interview, the call saying he’d been hired, the second call putting him to work on this Spook business — none of it had made him feel any less empty. Numb this morning, numb at the agency office, numb at Visuals, Inc. It wasn’t until he’d left Bill and walked over here that he’d begun to regain some awareness, to feel again. For the first time he was smelling this city, the dank effluvium of its streets. Feeling the cold, tasting the salt in the wind. Just vagrant twitches of his senses, but sharp enough to cut through the numbness. Like when you woke up with your arm asleep and for a while you couldn’t lift it or move your fingers and then all at once the tingling started, little pinpricks of life returned.

He knew this kind of urban environment, maybe that was part of it. The streets, the down-and-out who lived on them, the predators who hunted on them. Seattle or San Francisco or any city you could name, it didn’t make any real difference. The streets and the people were essentially the same. His element, no question. He was at his professional best out here on the squalid sidewalks, the needle- and bottle-strewn gutters. He’d been away from the streets too long, hadn’t really worked them since his days on the Seattle PD before the car smash that had killed Ron Cain. The Pike’s Market area downtown, before they cleaned it up; West Seattle and the railyards and the terminals along the East Waterway and the Duhamish Waterway. His beat. His dirty little world.

The five years with Caldwell & Associates had made Colleen happy, but not him. White-collar work in better neighborhoods, among the middle-class and the gentry. Mostly safe, and mostly without either challenge or any real satisfaction. Much smaller agency here, operating out of far less opulent quarters than Caldwell’s, and just two people to answer to — a mismatched pair, if he’d ever seen one, but even so a business relationship that seemed to work. Maybe this Spook case was atypical of the kind of jobs that came their way; could be he’d end up handling the same type of mostly boring, by-rote investigations he’d been given at Caldwell. And maybe not. Bill had been in the game a long time, public and private both, and he’d had his share of dealings with rough trade; you could tell it by the questions he asked, the way he handled people, and you could see it in that craggy, beat-up face of his. Solid rep, and willing to take on a lowdown case like this one, the kind the bigger agencies like Caldwell wouldn’t have touched. Tamara Corbin was no amateur, either, despite her age. Sharp and sharp-tongued, streetwise and nail-tough under her deceptively soft exterior.

Thoughts while he walked, between brief conversations with the inhabitants of Franklin Square. Another indication of life stirring in him again. He hadn’t done much thinking the past four months. Mostly just shut his mind down while he went through the zombie motions of daily existence. The way he felt now, with his mind working again, didn’t mean rebirth; he wasn’t going to wake up whole again some morning. Forming a close bond with Josh wasn’t going to happen, either; no illusions about that. But it he could just reach an understanding with his son, then that combined with work should make getting through the days easier, a little more tolerable.

The square was mostly grass and shade trees, a small playground, a fenced-off soccer field in the middle — downscale neighborhood park like any city park that had been taken over by the homeless. Piles of personal belongings were scattered on the grass and footpaths, on a couple of picnic benches; a dozen or so men and women, one of the women young, with a baby slung in a harness over her shoulders, were huddled among the belongings and along the soccer field fence, alone and in pairs and small groups. None of them was a big, dark man in a red and green wool cap. And none would talk to him, once he admitted that he wasn’t a cop, unless he offered money first. He doled out spare change and dollar bills, got noninformation in return. Big Dog? Never heard of him. Delia, Mac, Pinkeye? Never heard of them. Spook? Eyes averted, mouths clamped shut. “We don’t want nothing to do with murder, man,” one of the men said.

Wasted effort until he approached an old woman sitting alone, cross-legged, on a blanket at the far end of the fence. Next to her was an ancient backpack: in her hands was a container of what smelled like Chinese takeout. She was eating with a plastic spoon, smearing the food into her mouth. Thin, dried out, so wrinkled her blotched face seemed almost mummified, age anywhere from mid-sixties to late-seventies. Bundled up in a worn, patched coat and tattered wool scarf, strands of wispy gray hair showing at the edge of a once-white headpiece like the ones women wore back in the forties. Snood? Something like that.

She fixed him with bright parrotlike eyes when he approached her. He flashed a dollar bill and her eyes got even brighter. “What you want for that, laddie?” She made a cackling noise, showed him a greasy gap-toothed grin. “Delia ain’t no woman of easy virtue, you know.”

He told her what he wanted. The grin stayed put; so did the brightness in her eyes.

“Big Dog, yeah, I stay clear of that critter,” Delia said. “Junkyard dog, that’s what he is. Mean. Bite your hand or chew up your leg, you get too close to him when he’s had too much wine.”

“Where can I find him?”

“Ain’t afraid of dogs, laddie? Mean junkyard dogs?”

“No,” Runyon said. “Where can I find him?”

“You another cop?”

“Private investigator.”

“Like Kojak, huh? No, Kojak was a cop. What you want with that Big Dog?”

“He knew Spook. You know Spook?”

“Sure I knew him. He’s dead. Killed.”

“Who killed him? Big Dog?”

She cackled again. “Rip your throat out, that junkyard dog, not shoot you with a gun.”

“Who do you think did it?”

“Shot Spook? How’d I know? I wasn’t there.” Delia tapped her temple with a bony forefinger. “Crazy in the head, but he never bothered nobody. Might be it was that fella in the raincoat.”

“What fella in the raincoat?”

“Come around here asking about Spook. Looked like a flasher in that raincoat. That’s what I thought when he come up, I thought he was gonna flash me. Old fart did that one time, he had a pecker like a pencil.” Cackle. “I swear, skinny little thing, just like a pencil. I didn’t let him do no writing on me.”

“When was this.”

“When was what? When the flasher showed off his little pencil pecker?”

“When the man in the raincoat asked about Spook.”

“Sometime. I don’t keep track. Few days, a week, who knows?”

“What’d he ask you, exactly?”

“Where he could find a homeless man called Spook.”

“He say why he was looking?”

“Nope. Didn’t say nothing, just wanted to know where he hung out.”

“You tell him where?”

“Nope. Didn’t like his looks, didn’t like his eyes.”

“What was the matter with them?”

“Kind of funny, that’s all. All hot and funny, like Big Dog’s eyes when he’s full up on wine.”

“You know if anybody told him where Spook hung out?”

“Don’t have no idea. You mean over at that movie place? I like that place. They give you free eats sometimes, fat woman brings ’em out. Not much, not as good as Chinese, that’s my favorite, but better’n no eats at all.”

“What’d he look like, the man in the raincoat?”

“ ’Bout your age. Big. Bet he didn’t have a pencil pecker.”

“Big how? Tall, fat, heavyset?”

“Who could tell in a raincoat? Just big, that’s all.”

“Description?”

“I just told you, didn’t I? ’Bout your age and big.”

“What color hair?”

“Brown hair. No, black. No, brown. Drizzly that day, that’s right, and his hair was wet. Wet and brown and not too much of it. Kinda thin, scalp showing through.”

“Beard, mustache?”

“Clean as a whistle, ’cept he had a thing next to his nose.”

“A thing?”

“Mole or whatever. Big one.”

“Which side, left or right?”

“Uh... left. Left side.”

“What else was he wearing?”

“Couldn’t tell. Raincoat was all buttoned up.

“You’re sure it was a raincoat, not an overcoat?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Overcoats are bulkier, made of heavy cloth, like mine. Raincoats are lightweight — polyester cotton, microfiber.”

“Pretty smart, aren’t you?” she said and cackled. “Wasn’t no overcoat. Raincoat. Brown raincoat.”

“Old or new? Expensive or inexpensive?”

“Old. Old and wet. Who knows how much it cost? I don’t.” She held out her hand, palm up. “You sure do ask a lot of questions. Ought to be worth more’n just that one dollar, my answers, eh?”

Runyon gave her two singles, watched her make them disappear inside her own threadbare coat. “You tell any of this to the police, Delia?”

“Any of what?”

“About the man in the brown raincoat.”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“They never paid me, that’s why not. All cops ever give me is a hard time.”

“One more question,” Runyon said. “You happen to see what kind of car he was driving? The man in the raincoat.”

“Nope. I don’t know nothing about cars, don’t pay no attention to cars unless I’m crossing the street. This is a dangerous city, you know? They drive their cars like crazy people in this city. Run red lights, don’t watch where they’re going, one of ’em almost got me in a crosswalk not long ago. Big hurry in their damn fancy cars.” Delia tapped her temple again. “Crazy people,” she said.

Jack Logan was the only one of the two contact names on duty at the Hall of Justice. He was in his late fifties, salt-and-pepper hair, pepper-and-salt mustache. Quiet, on the reserved side, a little stiff at first. But when Runyon told him who he was working for and sketched out his Seattle background, it produced a warming trend, made Logan almost garrulous.

“Heard a rumor that old Bill was going to retire,” he said. “Been meaning to give him a call, but you know how it is — too much work, never enough time. How’s he doing? His health, I mean.”

“Seems fine.”

“Hope so. You can’t help wondering when somebody our age decides to pack it in, if maybe they’re doing it for health reasons. I always figured an old warhorse like him would stay in harness as long as mind and body permitted.”

“Semi-retirement, from what I understand,” Runyon said. “Cutting back on his hours, giving up most of the field work.”

“Well, that makes more sense. Tired of the grind, I guess. I can sympathize with that.” Logan scratched his head, then shook it. “Time catches up with all of us. Seems to happen all at once, too. One day you’re in your prime, the next you’re staring geezerhood in the eye and your whole outlook’s different, you’re not the same man you used to be. In more ways than one.”

Runyon said nothing.

“Well, the hell with it. You don’t want to listen to that kind of talk and neither do I. So you’re Bill’s new hire. You’ll like working with him. He doesn’t always do things by the book, has a tendency to get mixed up in heavy stuff now and then, but he’s a good man.”

“How about his partner?”

“Partner? Can’t mean Eberhardt. He’s dead.”

“Tamara Corbin.”

“He made her a partner? Kid like her? She can’t be more than twenty-five.”

“Pretty smart for her age, seems like.”

“So I hear,” Logan said. “I’ve only met her a couple of times. Cop’s daughter, and she’s been with Bill four or five years now. Makes sense, if he’s cutting back. Times change, all right. People, too.”

Again Runyon said nothing.

“So. This Spook business is your first case, you said?”

“That’s right. Not a homicide investigation — strictly ID and background search on the victim.”

“Let’s see what we’ve got.” Logan switched on his computer, punched up the case file. “Bupkus,” he said then. “Fingerprint and DNA checks negative, dental check negative, no ID of any kind on the body. Unclaimed John Doe so far.”

“Personal items?”

“Not unless you count a pencil stub, two cigarette butts, and a penny.”

“Any leads to the perp or to motive?”

“Zero. Forensics didn’t find anything at the crime scene or on the vic’s clothing. No eyewitnesses, no ear witnesses, nobody on the street knows anything or will admit it if they do. Random assault or personal grudge — most of the homeless homicides come down to one or the other.”

“Nothing in the report about a big man with a mole on the left side of his nose, asking questions about Spook a few days before the shooting?”

Logan raised a shaggy eyebrow. “Where’d you get that?”

“An old lady named Delia, in Franklin Square.” Runyon summarized the rest of what she’d told him.

“You must be good, to pick that up in a couple of hours.”

“Lucky. Right person, right questions.”

“Still. Investigating officers should’ve come up with it....” Logan checked the computer screen. “Oh, yeah, Gunderson.” His expression said that Inspector Gunderson was somebody he neither liked nor respected. “Not on duty now, but if you want to talk to him...”

“Not much point, is there?”

“Not much,” Logan admitted. “I’ll pass on the info, for whatever good it’ll do. But my guess is this case will wind up in the inactive file — unless you turn up something else in the course of your investigation.”

“If I do, it comes straight to you.”

“That’s what I like to hear from the private sector.”

Runyon said, “Be all right if I look at the body?”

“No problem. But it won’t do you much good as far as ID goes.”

“No?”

“Shot in the back of the head execution style, forty-one caliber weapon, hollow point slug. You know what that means.”

“I’d still like a look.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll call down to the morgue, tell them you’re on the way.”

A .41 caliber hollow point does a hellish amount or damage when fired at point-blank range. The upper half of the corpse’s face, including both eyes, was gone. The lower half wasn’t much better. Bruised and torn flesh from the bullet, decaying teeth, cold-cracked lips, skin lesions, popped blood vessels from alcohol consumption. Age: hard to tell, probably mid-forties, maybe older. Body type: an inch or two under six feet, skinny to the point of emaciation. Identifying characteristics: strawberry birthmark on the upper right arm; thin scar a couple of inches long on the underside of a narrow, pointed chin; long neck with a prominent Adam’s apple; knobs on two right finger knuckles that indicated the hand had once been broken.

The most interesting thing was three other scars, old ones, in a place you wouldn’t expect to find them — the genital area. The largest measured more than three inches, a curving, jagged line across the abdomen and down alongside the shriveled scrotum. The other two were on the penis itself, one across the top, one on the left side, that had deformed its shape. As if he’d been slashed down there with some kind of sharp instrument.

The morgue attendant, standing to one side of the sliding refrigerator drawer, saw where Runyon was looking under the lifted sheet. He said, “Looks like somebody tried to castrate him once.”

“Or he tried to do it himself.”

“Jesus, why would a guy want to cut off his own dick?”

“This one had mental problems.”

“His mental problems didn’t shoot his face off,” the attendant said. “You through here?”

“I’m through.”

The attendant sheeted the body again, slid the drawer shut. “Poor bugger,” he said. “Some life he must’ve had. At least now he don’t have to eat any more of the sandwich.”

“What sandwich is that?”

“Shit sandwich. Friend of mine says that’s what life is for most people — a shit sandwich, and every day we take another bite.”

“A philosopher, your friend.”

“Yeah. You agree with him?”

“He won’t get any argument from me.”