by Robyn Carr
That night I had trouble sleeping for another reason; I felt guilty about what I’d done. I didn’t feel I was wrong to do it, I felt bad that I had had to. Had I been ignored in the creepy digit distribution, I would not have hurled that file at Bodge. I would have walked away from Tom Wahl, his suspicious history, my feelings of unease.
On Monday I told Roberta I planned to hang around home until Mike was ready to leave town, which he planned to do in mid-afternoon for a night flight back to L.A. from Denver. I had slept later than usual and was at least rested.
Mike went to the hardware store and bought the kind of locks he believed would do the trick: padlocks for the garage and bar locks and hinge locks for the downstairs doors and windows. With his hardware in his trunk, he dropped in on Bodge, had a quick look around, and came back to my place. He was not in a good mood. He was quiet and grumpy as he puttered around my house. Then I asked a favor.
“One last thing, and if you think it’s stupid, you have to tell me.”
“Shoot,” he said.
“I want you to go with me out to Tom Wahl’s place. I want to look him in the eye and tell him that I’m sorry he’s upset, that I was scared and that’s why I told Bodge about his past. I want to look him in the eyes when I tell him, for the last time, that we aren’t going to be friends. We’re going to be polite in public and call it done.”
He thought about it for a second and then said, “Yeah. That’s a good idea. Let’s do that.”
13
Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky was in an intense mood on the drive out to Tom’s. Since I was no jovial companion myself, I didn’t question or examine him. I was concentrating on what I was going to say, and how to say it. I saw Wharton out in his field in his little truck, loading up hay or counting cows or whatever ranchers do, as we neared the fork. I could see Wharton’s dilemma about the fence; from the fork you could see the roof of Wharton’s house. Cars coming and going down that road at night could be heard; barking dogs would increase the irritation. Who else could it be? As in my own case, I couldn’t find any other answer. Even with my imagination at its wildest, I could not envision that on the same night I’d had an argument with Tom he would accidentally cut off a finger and an unrelated finger would be wrapped in my newspaper. I understood Wharton’s quandary; it matched my own.
I was surprised to find Tom outside in his drive between the house and barn. It appeared that he was attempting to load a trailer attached to his truck. A few boxes and large garbage bags were lying around, plus large metal chests that I assumed to be big toolboxes. I was relieved that I didn’t have to go knock on the door. He stopped whatever he’d been doing in the back of the truck, closed it, and stood beside it.
He wore a big, thick gauze bandage around the finger and hand. It was wrapped up around his wrist and held in a sling. He stood there, an intolerant look on his face, the thumb of his good hand tucked into his pants pocket. I got that feeling again: I was going for a ride. Which Tom would he be today? I knew before he spoke that he was going to sound convincing and sincere. Intelligent; filled with the righteous indignation of the greatly wronged.
He looked past me and eyed Mike. He stiffened slightly; he shot his eyes back to me after a mere glance. Mike was wearing his tie and sport coat, his loafers, and his gun. I don’t think Tom could see the gun, however. I thought it was Mike he was reacting to.
“I’m sorry about your finger,” I said tentatively.
“What do you want from me, Jackie?” he asked. “Just tell me what the hell you need to know. We’ll get it over with once and for all.”
“Take it easy, buddy,” Mike said. “She came to explain.”
“Explain? Look, let’s stay clear of each other from here on. I don’t get it, what you’re doing to me. You’re inviting me to dinner, you’re avoiding me, you’re talking to me about your problems like I’m your best friend, you’re sending the sheriff out here to interrogate me. Listen, I don’t know what the hell’s going on with you, but I can’t take this. This is getting to be too damn much.”
“Tom, I’m sure Bodge told you what I found in my newspaper, didn’t he?”
“You could honestly think, for one small second, that I’d chop off my finger and drive it over to your house, stick it in your paper, and leave?” His voice rose an octave, became filled with incredulous wonder. “Even if you thought I was sick enough to do that, how did you think I physically could?”
“I don’t know. I was scared. Things kept happening after I was with you, after we’d talked. The night after we’d had dinner together at my place, sometime after I went to bed, someone came in my house, filled a wineglass with cranberry juice, and tipped it over on my table.”
“And you decided it was me? Why? Did I say something during dinner that got you thinking I’d like to spook you? What did you think my motive would be?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. I had thought I had a motive, then I lost it. ‘Round and ‘round. I was stumbling, trying to make some amends or at least get a feeling for what he was about. “There’s all this terrible stuff in your past —”
“My mistake, Jackie. I thought I owed it to you to be completely honest about that before we got any more involved. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you anything. That’s not the way I operate, but in this case the truth from my own lips didn’t do any good, did it? You still had to see what you could dig up, see if you could ruin me.”
“I wasn’t trying to ruin you; I was only trying to be safe.”
“You said it the other night at the dance. You said you weren’t going to let me move in and take care of you, which I seemed all too willing to do. Well, I’m not that damned willing, Jackie. I was trying to be thoughtful. But you fixed me, Jackie. It’ll be a while before I’ll be considerate again.”
“Bodge tells me you’re going away.”
“I’m going to Florida,” he said with impatience. “A change of scenery, a little warmth.”
“What about your pets?” I asked. He gave me a perplexed look, as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. “The horses? Pat and Sunny?”
“Were you going to offer to feed them? They’re taken care of; the horses went to a stable and the dogs are in new homes. Don’t worry about my business, all right?”
I cocked my head; I didn’t believe him. I didn’t think the dogs were his and I didn’t believe he’d ever had horses. It was just another lie. “Look,” I said, “I don’t think Bodge is going to bandy it about that you had trouble in L.A., that business about your wife and child. I knew all about it and you scared me. Your behavior at the dance was outrageous; you were hostile.”
“I wasn’t hostile, Jackie. I was disappointed. You came on real strong; you backed off abruptly. You avoided me, told me you weren’t going to the festival — then you showed up with a guy. So I wasn’t delighted. Sue me. But I wasn’t hostile. I felt screwed.”
He had been hostile; he made it sound as if I had overreacted to his behavior, too. “Tom, I felt I had to share what I knew because I suspected you. I work in law, Tom. That simple.”
He made a sound, a vibration in his throat that combined a groan with a rueful laugh. “It doesn’t bother me so much that you checked me out. It doesn’t upset me that you felt compelled to tell Bodge Scully my whole damn life story. But do you have any idea whatsoever what it’s like to relive that again and again? And I never told you, did I, that they never believed me.”
I shook my head; there were tears in his eyes.
“That I’d kill my own family; that I’d strangle my four-year old daughter and put her in her mommy’s bed? Jesus. I found them, you know. I will never be able to get rid of that picture!”
I blinked my eyes hard against threatening tears. I’d been to the morgue to identify my dead son. No one knew better than I. “I’m sorry for that,” I said softly. Sincerely.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is, how painful it is to be considered guilty for no reason other than the fact th
at there is no other viable suspect? My own family is not yet convinced of my innocence.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t find a way to lock me up. It happens, you know. They can’t let their only suspect get away; they have to find a way to make him guilty. So I didn’t go to prison... but they damn sure locked me up! Screwed up my whole life! They make sure that anyone who asks gets told they still believe it was me! And it wasn’t me! There’s proof, damn it! There is proof that that guy —” He broke off. I knew what he meant: If Devalian could get out of the hospital to set a fire, he could get out to commit murder. That angle hadn’t worked then, and it couldn’t work now. “Forget it,” he said. “I’m talking to myself.”
“I only wanted to explain,” I said. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“How about saying you’re sorry?” he demanded, his eyes cold and narrow.
“I have. I did. I’m sorry you were upset. I’m sorry for any pain and inconvenience. I’m sorry you’re hurt. I did what I did, telling Bodge about you, because I was upset, in pain, inconvenienced, hurt, and mostly scared to death. I would do it the same way again. Much as you’d like to, you can’t run away from it — as long as there’s a record, it’s going to come up from time to time. Maybe it’s better that it did; there isn’t any mystery anymore.”
He laughed, shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You think it’s better that it’s out? You know what it’s like to have people who liked you, trusted you, start to think you’re a killer? Not an ordinary killer, but the kind of sick son of a bitch who would kill his wife? His baby? God. You’re something.”
“Tom —”
“I came home at four in the morning once and found my family dead! My front door standing open and my family dead! And if it wasn’t enough that I had a killer stalking me and had lost the people I loved most in the world, I got some hotshot cops who couldn’t get him, so to look good they went after me! And to make sure I never forget, to make sure I never have a day of peace, they keep it open; they keep me as the only suspect!
“Now you tell me something, Jackie. Do you have the slightest understanding of why I’d like to keep that to myself? Can you even begin to understand what it’s like to have no one believe you? Do you know what it’s like to go to bed with someone, make love, get happy... and have that person join the other forces in making your life hell?”
“Come on, Jack,” Mike said. “That’s enough.”
I turned to go. I might have hung my head; I could imagine Tom’s anguish.
“Stay away from me, do you hear? Stay the hell away from me and mind your own fucking business!”
The ride back to Coleman was quiet. Glum. Mike was driving his rental car and would drop me off at my house and then head for Denver to fly home. We drove for five or ten minutes before he spoke.
“How do you feel about it now, Jack?”
“I feel awful. You?”
“Me? I have my doubts, but then I usually do.”
“What doubts?”
“Didn’t you notice? You’re the bad guy now.”
“Oh, I noticed,” I said. “That’s the game we’ve been playing. He tells me he wants to share the truth with me because we’re close, then he’s furious because I got my own information, then he’s contrite and needs to be forgiven and gives me even more information, then he’s mad as hell because I know that stuff. Mike, I did not come on to him.”
“Let me ask you something, Jack. What if you’d been accused of murder... stinky murders like those. And what if you were innocent, but no one believed you? So, what if that was so terrible for you, you went somewhere to start over, changed your name and everything. So, would you tell anyone? I mean, if you want it to go away, would you tell anyone?”
“No. It is possible he was trying to be fair by telling me himself before we got involved.”
“Well, maybe. And what if he hadn’t?”
“I could have found out.”
“How?”
“Roberta knew. There was a short case file; it’s probably ready to be tossed out by now since we don’t keep things for long that don’t go to court. He went to see Roberta a couple of years ago about filing a suit against the state of California because the alleged murderer had been an inmate at the time of —”
“Why would he do that? Huh, Jack?”
I thought for a moment. “Well, there wouldn’t be any case, would there? Since they never had any grand jury or indictment or arraignment or anything. He’d have to prove the other guy did the killing before he could prove the state of California mishandled him.”
“So?”
I shrugged. “So, I guess Roberta would have told him that and he dropped it.”
“Kind of think a smart guy like that would know that much, wouldn’t you.”
“What are you getting at?”
“There’s only one thing that doesn’t fit together. If he’s so goddamn insistent that no one know about this trouble he has, and if it’s so goddamn painful for him to be a suspect, then why would he ever tell anyone anything? Why would he go to an attorney in the town where he wants to start over and be anonymous, and tell that attorney that all this shit went on in his life? That’s not a logical move.”
“Client-counselor privilege. Roberta was sworn to secrecy.”
“Aha. So he told you.”
“Well, I’m in the office and had access to the files. He might have felt that since he wanted to date me, and since I would find out anyway, he should tell me his side of the story before I found out on my own. Wouldn’t that be sensible?”
“If you could make it sensible that he went to Roberta in the first place, then the rest would follow. If it were me, though, I’d go to a lawyer in Denver. I don’t think in a case like that one or in a deal like that one I’d go to a small-town lawyer right where I don’t want anyone to know. But there’s no accounting for judgment. Unless... I did want someone to know.”
“But why?” I asked him. “You can’t have it both ways; you can’t have a secret and then tell it.”
“Unless you think admitting you’re a bigshot psychologist gets you in someone’s pants. Or gets you some special compensation, like respect. Or maybe he wants it kept a secret but at the same time can’t handle keeping all that in his gut. Beats me. I think he brought it all on himself and can’t blame you for anything.”
“Thanks. I guess.”
“You feel better that he’s leaving town?”
“I feel sorry for him,” I said. “That’s what I’ve hated about this whole thing since the first day I met him; I would feel suspicious of him, then I’d feel he was misjudged, then I’d think he was a murderer, then I’d feel sorry for him. I can’t figure the whole thing out.”
“I think you’ve been used, Jack. I think the guy is a class A manipulator and you started to get sucked in. I think you gotta stay away from him. As in far.”
“No other choice,” I said. “At least he’s leaving town. Maybe he’ll stay gone.”
“You still determined you want to live here? There’s crime here.”
I sighed. “There’s crime everywhere, Mike. I’m one of the few women I know who hasn’t been robbed, mugged, or raped. L.A. is more scary than Coleman; the chances of being a crime victim are greater in L.A. than here.”
“True. True.” He began to whistle. “Look at all those hills, all those trees. It goes on for miles and miles and miles. You could wander around out there for days and not see another human being.”
“There are lots of hikers, trail riders, backpackers, and campers in Coleman.”
“There’s also something else out there, Jack. It’s going to be press before long and I asked Bodge if it was all right to give you a heads-up on this.” He had my attention. “There seems to be some link between the Porter woman’s death and some others. Looks like a serial killer somewhere around here in Colorado. Somewhere in the big valley.”
“Here?
” I asked, dreading the potential answer.
“There haven’t been any bodies found in the area surrounding Coleman. The fact that Cathy Porter was taken from Coleman, maybe from her house, isn’t giving Bodge any comfort. And, of the bodies they’ve found, she was one of the first to be killed that way.”
“Oh, God,” I said. “How many?”
“So far? Eight that look like the Porter murder. There’re some similarities; I am not on the need-to-know list and I’m grateful in a way. Long and short, the bodies have been found in wooded areas outside of small towns. And they’ve been buried with their clothes and rings and jewelry on.”
“Hands bound and bags over their heads?” I asked.
“I wasn’t told. Is that how the Porter woman was found?”
“Yes,” I answered with a shudder. “And who knows what else.” I asked him to tell me what Bodge had said. They had leads that went nowhere; there were only a few common forensic details, but Mike was careful to point out that similar executions of crimes — modus operandi, forensic prints, behavior prints — might tie one killer to many crimes, but might not be the extent of his crimes. He may have committed murders that don’t match his usual pattern. If the police thought they had one killer, they had found some traits in common. Eight women, between the ages of eighteen and forty, strangled and buried in their clothes, seven of them suddenly missing from their homes.
One woman in Gunnison, a small town southwest of us, saw a man in a suit go to her neighbor’s door. She couldn’t identify him or what he’d been driving; he appeared to be on foot, like a door-to-door salesman. Her neighbor’s body was found in a wash fifty miles away. A gas-station attendant saw another woman who was missing leaving town with a priest in a small white Datsun. Another victim had been seen at a truck stop and was assumed to be hitchhiking; she was the youngest one. Her body was found thirty miles from the place she was last seen.
It was because the police had found two bodies, recently killed and buried, that they had something. Two women, killed in late spring, had been found in deeply wooded areas; their bodies had not decomposed enough to make forensic pathology impossible. Now they had forensic detail. I wasn’t sure if it was information Bodge had given me — the twine, clothing, plastic bags — or new stuff that I was not privy to. Only the investigators — and the killer — knew certain things. It was part of the confidential information that could allow the police to arrest and charge.