Zigzag (16 page)

What are the odds? Astronomical. You could live three or four lifetimes and nothing like it would ever happen again.

It's a little like hitting the megabucks state lottery. That night, Runyon and I were the ones holding the winning ticket.

 

REVENANT

 

1

The weirdest damn case I've ever been involved in began, innocuously enough, with a phone call.

I was alone in the agency office when it came in late that May morning, the day being one of the two per week I spend at my desk now that I'm semiretired. Tamara had gone down to the South Park Cafe to get us some take-out lunch, and Jake Runyon and Alex Chavez were both out on field assignments. So the decision to follow up or not follow up was mine to make, and the subsequent investigation mine if and when it came to that.

The caller gave his name as Peter Erskine, his profession as stockbroker and financial advisor, and said that he was calling from his home in Atherton. The location got my attention right away; Atherton is an uber-affluent community on the Peninsula some thirty miles south of San Francisco. His problem, he said, was personal and “very strange and disturbing.” When you've been a detective as long as I have, you get so you can read voice nuances over a phone wire. He didn't sound particularly upset, but there was a detectable undercurrent of tension in his businesslike approach—the way a man speaks when he's keeping himself under tight control.

“How do you mean strange, Mr. Erskine?”

“It's … complicated, and it takes considerable explaining better done in person. Could you possibly come to my home this afternoon?”

I said, “Our policy with prospective new clients is an initial consultation here in our offices, to determine if our services meet your needs. You understand, I'm sure.”

“Yes, of course, but this matter also concerns my wife. She'll want to meet and speak with you as well, but her health is poor and she doesn't travel well. If you could see your way clear to driving down, I'll pay you two hundred and fifty dollars for your time, plus travel expenses, whether you agree to help us or not. In cash if you'd like.”

Well, we'd been offered more than that up front, but not very often and not in recent memory. Besides which, the “very strange and disturbing” appellation to his problem was tantalizing, I was not particularly busy, just working a routine employee background check for a large industrial company, and the weather was too unseasonably nice for this time of year to be cooped up inside if you could justify a field trip. Two hundred and fifty bucks plus expenses was plenty enough justification.

I said, “What time would be convenient for you?”

“As soon as you can make it.”

“Two o'clock?” I was thinking about my lunch. No breakfast to speak of this morning, and my stomach was grumbling.

“Two o'clock, yes, that's fine. Thank you.”

“Address? Phone number in case I should need it?”

He provided them, along with general directions that weren't necessary. The GPS Kerry had talked me into installing in my car—rightly so, I had to admit, despite my general dislike of electronic gadgets—would take me to his home by the shortest possible route.

Tamara came back and into my office as I was ending the conversation with Peter Erskine. Tamara Corbin, my partner and just about young enough to be my granddaughter. Whip-smart and as organized and creative as they come—literally the guiding hand and beating heart of the agency. When I'd first hired her for her computer expertise several years back, I'd been running a modest one-man operation; once she learned the ropes and took on more and more responsibility, she'd worked tirelessly to expand the business to the point where now we employed two full-time field operatives and another on a part-time basis and were dragging down five times the annual profits I'd made on my own. One of these days, long after I was gone, she'd undoubtedly head up the largest investigative agency in the city.

She set one of two Styrofoam sandwich containers on my desk. Its contents had the warm, spicy aroma of hot pastrami. “New client?” she asked, nodding at the phone.

“Prospective. Peter Erskine, stockbroker and financial advisor, Atherton.”

One of her eyebrows went up at that, climbed another fraction when I told her about Erskine's cash offer. “Man's serious, whatever his problem. Could be interesting.”

“Could be,” I agreed.

Interesting? What a hell of an understatement that turned out to be.

 

2

Atherton is one of those expensive, wooded, hillside communities that prides itself on its scenic attractions and considerable amount of open space. The homes in the upper sections below Highway 280 are mostly situated on large parcels shaded by heritage trees and surrounded by lawns and carefully tended gardens. There are quite a few that qualify as estates, tucked away on acres of real estate behind stone walls, ornate fences, high hedges. You could buy yourself one of those for ten million on up to thirty million or more if you were one of the upwardly mobile, mega-rich folk who'd made their pile down in Silicon Valley. Even the less opulent properties would cost you seven figures on the open market.

The property that evidently belonged to Peter Erskine and his wife was modest in comparison to some of its neighbors, probably worth a paltry three or four mil. It had a whitish stone fence and a gated entrance drive, the gates mounted on ornate pillars and open now. I drove on through.

Half an acre of barbered lawn and flowering shrubs separated the house from the road. Two stories of angular modern architecture, faced in the same kind of whitish stone as the fence and decorated at the corners with red fire brick, the house wasn't half as large as most in the vicinity—no more than a dozen rooms, not counting baths. Over on its right side I had a glimpse of a redbrick terrace and, at a distance at the edge of a copse of evergreens, a large hexagonal outbuilding that I would call a gazebo and the Erskines probably labeled a summerhouse. There'd be a swimming pool, too, somewhere around back.

The driveway ended in a white-pebbled parking area that would accommodate half a dozen cars. Mine was probably the oldest and cheapest passenger vehicle that had ever been left there. I made my way to the porch and rang the bell. Rolling melody of chimes, footsteps, a pause while I was scrutinized through a peephole magnifier, then a male voice saying my name interrogatively even though it was five minutes of two and I was expected. Erskine being careful nonetheless, for reasons I was about to learn, before he admitted a stranger.

When I confirmed my identity, a chain rattled and he opened up. He was not quite what I expected, but then that's often the case when you form a mental image of someone you've only spoken to on the telephone. I'd figured him for fifty-plus; he was not much older than thirty-five. Casually dressed in a long-sleeved, light blue shirt and fawn-colored slacks. Well set up, fair-haired, strong jawed—not quite pretty-boy handsome but on the cusp. His unsmiling mien, the tight little muscle bulges along his jawline, confirmed the impression I'd had from his phone voice: man under some pressure and determined not to show how much he was affected by it.

If I was not what he'd expected, either—a conservatively dressed man in his mid-sixties instead of your typical young, mod Hollywood version of a private investigator—he gave no indication of it. He thanked me for being prompt, shook my hand, ushered me in and down a long hallway into a large, bright room with two walls of floor-to-ceiling French-style doors and windows that overlooked the terrace and the gazebo/summerhouse in the distance. The terrace wrapped around to the rear, where I could see a lot of white wrought-iron lawn furniture and the glint of sunlight on water. Swimming pool. Right.

On Erskine's invitation I parked myself on one of several red-and-green-patterned chairs. The room, warm from the sun's slanting rays, was decorated strictly according to a woman's taste—the remaining two walls painted a pale yellow, half a dozen whimsical watercolor paintings of elves, gnomes, and leprechauns, lamps with frilly shades, a glass-front display cabinet filled with expensive-looking porcelain and pewter knickknacks. Bright, cheerful elegance, but the kind of room that would make me uncomfortable if I had to spend much time in it.

He didn't immediately sit himself; he went first to the side windows, stood there as if composing himself, then turned abruptly and went to perch stiff backed on a chair facing me.

“This thing that's going on is unnerving enough to me,” he said without preamble, “but it's having an even greater effect on Marian, my wife. Her health is fragile as it is. She's resting in the summerhouse now; she likes to spend her afternoons there when the weather's good. We thought it would be best if I spoke to you alone first.”

I said, “What is it that's going on, Mr. Erskine?”

“I think my life may be in danger. We both do.”

“You think so? You're not sure?”

“Not completely, but there's every indication of it.”

“Someone has cause to harm you, is that it?”

“Not as far as I'm concerned. The idea is fantastic.”

“A person you know well?”

“A man I never knew at all. What brought us together, if you can call it that, was an accident. And it was
his
fault, not mine.”

“What kind of accident?”

“On the freeway, just over a year ago.”

“A year is a long time to hold a grudge,” I said.

He made a chuckling sound, dry and humorless. “You don't know the half of it yet.”

“Did this man threaten you afterward?”

“Yes. Vowed he'd have his revenge.”

“In front of witnesses?”

“Yes.”

“Make any threats since? Any attempt to carry out his vow?”

Erskine shook his head. Then, “I thought it was all past history until last Friday night.”

“What makes you think differently now?”

“There's no other explanation for why I'm suddenly being stalked.”

“Stalked? Are you sure?”

“God, yes, I'm sure.”

“Have you been to the police?”

“No. There wouldn't be any point in it.”

“Why wouldn't there?”

Another headshake.

“Look, Mr. Erskine,” I said, “what is it you expect from me? I have to tell you that my agency doesn't do bodyguard work, but I can recommend one that does—”

“No, no, I don't want a bodyguard. There are weapons in the house, licensed handguns, and I know how to use them. I can take care of myself. I want you to find him, the one who's doing this to me.”

“Why a private investigator? Why not the police?”

“Because they wouldn't believe what's been happening, what's behind it, even if I showed them the black host. They'd think Marian and I were imagining things, hallucinating.”

“Black host?”

He didn't seem to hear the question. “You may think the same thing—I won't be surprised if you do. But I swear to you, we're not. I've seen him three times now, Marian twice.”

“Seen who?”

The humorless synthetic chuckle again; the muscles along Erskine's jawline rippled faintly. “Vok. Antanas Vok.”

“And who is he?”

“Not is,
was
. Antanas Vok is dead. He died in a San Jose hospital a year ago last Friday.”

 

3

Several seconds went by while I stared at him. Outside, some kind of bird cut loose with a series of melodious trilling sounds, bright and clear to match the afternoon. Sunlight made golden oblongs of the near side French windows; the places where its rays touched the yellow walls glowed warmly. And here was Peter Erskine, dragging dark shadows into all that cheerful radiance.

I broke the silence finally. “Are you trying to tell me you're being stalked by a dead man?”

“That's how it seems. Marian … well, she can't get over the notion that such a thing is possible.”

“But you don't believe it?”

“No.” But then he pulled back a little by saying, “I sure as hell don't want to believe it.”

“Look, Mr. Erskine—”

He asked abruptly, “Do you know what a revenant is?”

“Revenant? No.”

“Supposedly it's a spirit come back from the dead in human form.”

“… What, like a zombie?”

“No. A zombie is a mindless corpse risen from the grave. A revenant…” He nibbled briefly at his lower lip, then expelled a sighing breath. “A revenant, according to folklore, is the spirit of an evil person with a malevolent purpose—to terrorize and destroy the living.”

I said slowly, “That's a pretty incredible notion.”

“I know it. It's Marian's, not mine. She has always had a fascination with the occult. When she was a girl she thought she might have psychic powers. She studied parapsychology, joined one of those psychic research outfits—still contributes money to it. Later on she developed an interest in witchcraft and black magic. Not that she actually believes in such things as revenants, let's just say she's susceptible to supernatural possibilities. Obviously I'm not. Whoever is stalking me is a living person, somebody in whatever nut group Vok belonged to. That's why I asked you here, why I want to hire you. To find out who and why at this late date.”

I'd been on the verge of getting up and getting out of there. Over the years I've dealt with more than my share of eccentrics, weirdos, smart-ass cuties, and plain crazies, but Erskine did not appear to fit into any of those categories; he seemed straightforward, worried, concerned for his wife if not himself. As long as he didn't expect me to go chasing after phantoms, I was willing to listen to the rest of his story.

I said, “Let me get all of this straight. You had no connection with this Antanas Vok until the freeway accident?”