Step to the Graveyard Easy (14 page)

“I never said I was a good Samaritan. I don’t put that label on myself.”

“What label would you put on yourself?”

“None. I wore one for too many years in Rockford.”

“Answer the question. Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“It would’ve meant hanging around there for days, maybe longer. I didn’t want to get that involved.”

“You drove up here with those photographs. Got yourself involved with Mahannah and the Vanowens.”

“They’re not the main reason I came to Tahoe,” Cape said. “I like to gamble, I told you that.”

“So delivering the photos and telling about the Judsons was an incidental good deed.”

“If you want to put it that way.”

“Like divvying up the sixteen thousand among the other marks.”

“Not so incidental in that case.”

“You didn’t think for a minute about keeping the entire sixteen
thousand? After all, who’d’ve known except the Judsons? And they weren’t in a position to do anything about it.”

“I’m not a thief,” Cape said. “It was the other players’ money, they’d been cheated the same as I had. If you don’t believe I returned it to them, I’ll give you their names, and you can get their addresses from the hotels and ask them.”

D’Anzello said mildly, “Maybe you just had bigger fish to fry.”

“Meaning what?”

“The Vanowens and Vince Mahannah. Using those photos to worm your way into their good graces, get yourself an invitation to the private game tonight.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I don’t think anything. Yet.”

“I had no idea who the people in those photos were when I came here.”

“Might’ve been something else in the satchel to identify them.”

“There wasn’t.”

“So you say. But we only have your word for that, don’t we.”

“And I suppose I knew about Mahannah’s private game in advance, too. Also from something in the satchel.”

“It’s possible.”

“I didn’t invite myself here tonight,” Cape said. Hammer-pound in his head now, a gnawing queasiness in his gut. “Mahannah issued the invitation. Ask him.”

“I already did. If he hadn’t invited you, you could’ve been ready to manipulate him into it.”

“To set up what happened here tonight, is that what you’re getting at?”

“The robbery, yes. Another possibility.”

“Me and the gunman in cahoots. Crap.”

“Mr. Vanowen identified him as Boone Judson just before he was shot. Everyone agrees to that.”

“Well, he was mistaken. The right body type, but Judson has blue eyes and the gunman had brown eyes. I told the others that before you got here. And he wasn’t wearing contact lenses, if that’s what you’re thinking. There’s no good reason for Judson or whoever the real gunman was to try to change his eye color.”

“That isn’t what I was thinking,” D’Anzello said.

“No?”

“No. What I’m thinking is that we have only your word, your unsubstantiated word, about the color of Judson’s eyes. Or anything else about him.”

“So what’s your scenario, then? Vanowen was killed because the gunman panicked at being recognized?”

“Makes sense that way.”

“He wasn’t Boone Judson,” Cape said. He had to struggle to keep a tight rein on his temper. “And his last two shots were meant for me. Look at the burn hole in my shirt, if you don’t believe me. If I was his partner, why would he want to take me out?”

“Pretty obvious, isn’t it? He had the loot in hand, and with you dead he wouldn’t have to split it. Kill one, kill two.”

“You’re wrong, Captain. Dead wrong.”

“Then give me a better explanation. Who’s the shooter, if not Judson?”

“Somebody with a boat. Somebody who knows the lake well enough to find this place in the dark, and stoned besides. Somebody local.”

“Stoned?”

“The way he kept fidgeting, the sound of his voice. And his pupils were dilated.”

“Then how could you tell they were brown?”

“Dilated, not invisible. They were brown, all right.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

“I didn’t have a chance. You kept me too busy with questions about my personal history.”

D’Anzello didn’t like that. But he said only, “If Vanowen’s ID was wrong, why was he shot?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did Judson and the woman—Tanya, is it?—have the photographs in the first place? Why did they come to Tahoe? Why was she so scared when she showed up in your room at the Grand? How did she know where to find you? What’s their connection to what happened here tonight?”

“Same answer to every question. I don’t know.”

“All you know is what you’ve told us, what you’ve been telling everybody all along.”

“That’s right. And you can’t prove any different.”

“Can’t we?”

“No, because it’s God’s honest truth.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Cape said, “More questions, or can I leave now?”

“This room, but not the premises. We’ll tell you when.”

“I’d like to get some sleep.”

“Wouldn’t we all,” D’Anzello said. When Cape turned for the door, he added, “Once you get back to the Grand, better make arrangements for an extended stay. You understand?”

Bitterly: “Yeah, I understand.”

“Cooperation goes a long way with me, Mr. Cape. It helps me stay focused on a man as innocent until proven guilty, instead of the other way around.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be available when you want to talk to me again.”

Available. Another word for trapped.

Three A.M. before they let him leave. Cape was in the ’Vette, the engine rumbling, warming up, when Mahannah came rushing out of the house and leaned down to the driver’s window. It was the first chance he’d had for private words with Cape since the law’s arrival; the way he hissed them out, they’d been building in him like gas.

“If you had anything to do with this, Cape, by God I’ll make you sorry you were ever born.”

“I didn’t.”

“Even if not, you’re still partly to blame.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Showing up here, putting all of us on edge. None of this might’ve happened if you’d stayed the hell away from Lake Tahoe.”

“Odds on the robbery would’ve gone down whether I was at the table tonight or not.”

“So you say. I don’t like those odds.”

Cape made no reply.

Parting shot from Mahannah: “Innocent or guilty, Cape, you’re bad luck. You’re a walking pair of snake eyes.”

No sleep. Too keyed up.

He kept going over it in the clinging darkness. Dead ends, angles that wouldn’t connect to other angles. Like trying to work up a sales pitch with half the facts and figures missing.

Mahannah’s last words to him added up, though. About the only thing that did.

Bad-luck Cape.

Cape, the walking pair of snake eyes.

Somewhere past six he finally slept. Two hours or so, that was all. He woke up groggy, aching in his joints, soaked in sweat. A long shower didn’t make him feel much better.

Before he left the room he called Visa and MasterCard to report that his credit cards had been stolen. Downstairs, he made arrangements for a lengthier stay at the Grand. He’d left a thousand dollars in the hotel safe before heading out to Mahannah’s last night; he claimed three hundred of it now. Four thousand gone in the robbery, along with his wallet and cards. If D’Anzello didn’t open up his box pretty soon, he’d have to arrange with a local bank for a transfer of funds from his Rockford account. Losing the money was bad enough. Losing his freedom for an indefinite period was a hell of a lot worse.

The day stretched ahead of him, long and empty.

Pioneer Trail, Black Bart Road.

Nothing. Grabbing at straws, pissing in the wind.

Cave Rock.

Lacy wasn’t home. He drove around, drove around, stopped at a café and forced himself to eat something, returned to her dog-vomit house on Lake Summit Road. Still not home.

Back to the Lakeside Grand? No. Mahannah’s house, see if he was there and what his mood was today? Not yet, not this soon.

That left Rubicon Bay.

The gates were open at the entrance to the Vanowen property. When Cape reached the bottom of the curving drive, he had the parking area to himself. But a car was drawn up under the carport: silver BMW, the same one as in the photo of Stacy Vanowen.

No answer at the door. Cape followed a path that led around the house and down toward the boathouse. At the rear the path branched, its shorter arm leading to a gated terrace—broad, rectangular, balustraded with peeled-bark logs, extending out a few feet over the lake on thick pilings. On the terrace were several pieces of white tubular furniture, an open-fronted redwood hutch that served as an outdoor bar. And Stacy Vanowen, sitting alone at an umbrella-shaded table, staring out across the sunstruck water.

Cape went to the terrace gate. Hot back here in the open; temperature must be close to ninety today. The early-afternoon sun was like a heat pad on the back of his neck. Quiet here, too: faint boat thrummings from the lake, an onshore wind making rustling, crying sounds in the tops of the pines.

“Mrs. Vanowen?” He had to say it again before his voice penetrated. Her head snapped around; she flipped up the dark glasses she wore.

“Oh… it’s you.”

“I didn’t mean to startle you. I rang the bell—”

“I didn’t hear it. What do you want?”

“To talk to you briefly. Offer my condolences.”

No response.

“Okay if I come in for a minute or two?”

“… Yes. All right.”

She lowered the shades again, so he couldn’t see her eyes as he approached the table. But her attitude was wary, as if she wasn’t sure whether or not to be afraid of him. She wore shorts, a loose Hawaiian-style shirt, sandals. Face composed, without makeup or evidence of grief. The table beside her was bare of any sorrow-drowning substance.

“I’m sorry about your husband, Mrs. Vanowen.”

“Yes. Everybody is. The police. Vince. The phone… it keeps ringing. That’s one of the reasons I came out here, to get away from the phone. You can only listen to people being sorry for so long.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

“You’d rather be alone. I won’t stay long.”

“I do and I don’t,” she said. She tilted her head back to look at him. “Vince thinks you might’ve had something to do with what happened.”

“He’s wrong.”

“He says you won’t get away with it if you did.”

“Whoever’s responsible won’t get away with it. The law will see to that.”

“Who
is
responsible? Those people, the Judsons?”

“They’re mixed up in it somehow,” Cape said. “But Boone Judson wasn’t the man in the ski mask.”

“You’re certain of that?”

“Positive.”

“Every time I try to think about it, it just… my head starts to hurt. Confusing, senseless. Andy… he—”

“He didn’t suffer,” Cape said, “if that helps.”

“It doesn’t. He’s gone, and I’m here, I
am
suffering. Not only because of the way he died, because I—”

“Yes?”

“Never mind. It’s none of your business.” She looked out over the lake again. “I wish I was out there right now,” she said.

“On the water?”

“Far out, in the middle. Away from here.”

“Where people being sorry can’t get at you.”

“People, pressures, things that hurt,” she said. “Out there, it’s
like you’re on an island all your own. That’s the real appeal of boats, you know.”

“Floating islands. Safe havens.”

“Exactly.” Her gaze shifted to him again. “Do you know anything about boats, Mr. Cape? Boat engines?”

“A little about engines in general.”

“Can you fix one that won’t start?”

“Depends on the problem.”

Abruptly, she was on her feet. “Come with me.”

He followed her off the terrace, down to the boathouse. Fast walker, Stacy Vanowen, hips rolling and long legs scissoring. Legs as long and strong and nicely formed as her sister’s. Cape looked at them, looked away. Legs that belonged to a brand-new widow. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the image of Andrew Vanowen’s exploding face.

Cool, gloomy inside the boathouse. She flipped on an overhead light. Two berths, each outfitted with a curve-armed electric hoist, but only one boat sat in the placid water. A seventeen-foot, four-seat Sportliner inboard, sleek and low-slung. The housing was off the engine, an open toolbox beside it.

“It turns over, but it won’t start,” she said. “I looked at it, but… I don’t understand mechanical things very well.”

Cape stepped over into the stern, squatted to peer into the engine well. Powerful four-cylinder job, well cared for. It took him less than a minute to locate the problem, another minute to repair it with a wrench and a screwdriver from the toolbox.

“Loose ignition wire,” he explained to Stacy Vanowen.

“Will it start now?”

“We’ll find out.”

He swung over behind the wheel. Key was in the slot. On the first try the engine farted, caught, choked off. On the second it caught easily, steadied into a low rumbling purr.

“Leave it running or shut it off?”

“Leave it running. I want to take her out right now.”

“Mind if I go along?”