Zigzag (4 page)

All pretty standard stuff, at least on the surface. Ex-con is released from prison, gets a dealer's name somewhere, goes off to make a buy, there's trouble over price or amount, and both men end up dead. Still, there were a lot of unanswered questions. The ones Heidegger and I had discussed. And others: Why would Fentress have driven all the way up to the Russian River to make a buy, even if he knew Mears, when you can score pot on just about any street corner in San Francisco? Why had he taken a gun with him? Protection? To rip off Mears? Neither of those answers seemed likely: small-time dealer, relatively small amounts of weed, no large amount of cash on the premises, and Fentress had no record of violent crime other than his drunken assault on the cop. Before that Fentress had worked for a Millbrae-based landscaping firm—from all indications, just another average law-abiding citizen.

The media played up the mystery angle a bit, especially in Sonoma County, but there wasn't enough juice for the story to have legs. It was already beginning to fade under the weight of more sensational news by the morning of the third day. Fading in my mind, too, by force of will as much as anything else. Too many crime scenes, too much blood and gore for me to dwell on it as it was.

I was home that third day, a Friday. One of my nonworking, free to enjoy my semiretirement days. Right. What I was doing when Tamara called was replacing a defective P trap on the kitchen sink. Down on the floor on my already-aching back, wrench in hand and face speckled with scummy drip as I dismantled the old trap and replaced it, Shameless the cat rubbing around me and purring as if he thought I was playing a game for his amusement. I had just finished tightening the upper ring seal on the new trap when my cell phone went off. I would not have answered it if the thing hadn't been in my shirt pocket and I wasn't ready for a break to ease the stiffness in my back.

“Sorry to bother you,” Tamara said, “but I figured you'd want to know.”

“Know what?”

“You busy? You sound busy.”

“I was, but I'm almost done. Know what?”

“A woman came in a few minutes ago asking for you. I told her it was your day off and you'd be in the office on Monday, but she doesn't want to wait that long. Practically begged me to call you. She's waiting out in the anteroom now.”

“What does she want?”

“She wouldn't tell me. Has to be you.”

“Why? Who is she?”

“Doreen Fentress. Ray Fentress' widow.”

 

5

Doreen Fentress was one of the saddest-looking women I'd ever seen. It was not just the obvious grief she was suffering; it was a deeply ingrained melancholy, a defining part of her like something in her DNA. She was a too-thin dishwater blonde about the same age as her late husband, or maybe a few years older. It was difficult to be sure because of the lines in a narrow face that gave the impression of drooping, as if it were pale-colored wax instead of flesh that formed her features. One long look at her and another into liquidy brown eyes like those of an abandoned puppy and I was pretty sure of two things: I was not going to like what she wanted of me, yet I might be disposed to accommodate her anyway if I could.

She didn't seem to mind the fact that it had taken me more than an hour to get cleaned up and drive down to South Park from Diamond Heights. She hadn't had an easy life, that was plain, but one thing it had taught her was something I lacked: patience. All she said when I walked into the agency and Tamara came out and introduced us was, “Thank you for seeing me. I wouldn't have asked if it wasn't important.” Diffident and deferential, too. Oh, yeah, she had me hooked already.

We went into my office. She walked stiffly, as if her feet or maybe her back hurt. The connecting door to Tamara's office was closed, but my partner is an inquisitive and sometimes rash young woman; I would not be surprised to find out later that she had an eavesdropping ear to the panel on her side.

I said, “I'm sorry for your loss, Mrs. Fentress,” when she and I were seated. The words had a hollow, awkward ring, as they always do when you say them to a stranger.

“Thank you. It was … a terrible shock. Ray was only home a week. Seven days, that was all we had after eighteen months apart. You know he was in prison?”

“Yes.”

“For a foolish crime he committed while he was drunk, God knows why. There's no doubt he was guilty of that. But what happened up north, what they claim he did there … no. No.”

I didn't say anything. Family members often staunchly believe their husbands, wives, sons, daughters, are innocent, no matter how serious the crimes or how much evidence there might be to the contrary.

“He didn't do it,” she said again. “He didn't kill that man Mears. Or shoot that poor dog, either. He loved dogs … we have one of our own.”

“The crime scene evidence says otherwise.”

Vehement headshake: disbelief, denial. “It's wrong, that's all; it couldn't have happened the way it looked. Ray never owned a handgun. A hunting rifle, yes, he used to go deer hunting sometimes, but not a handgun. He wouldn't have one in the house.”

Maybe that was because he'd never had need of one before. I could have said as much. I could also have told her how easily almost anybody, and particularly a man who'd just been released from prison, could buy a Saturday night special on the streets on short notice. Or reminded her of the fact that the forensic tests proved he'd fired the one found in his hand. But none of that would have swayed her, so I said nothing at all.

She said, “Whatever Ray's reason for going to see Floyd Mears, he didn't bring a gun with him and it couldn't have had anything to do with marijuana. Please believe me.”

I said carefully, “Mrs. Fentress, it makes no difference whether I believe you or not. It's strictly a police matter—”

“He had asthma,” she said.

“… How's that again?”

“Ray. He had severe asthma. He didn't smoke; he couldn't stand to be in a room with anyone who did.”

“Well … some asthmatics claim that marijuana doesn't affect—”

“Ray wasn't one of them.”

“You do know the investigating officers found a Baggie of it in his coat pocket? Three hundred dollars' worth.”

“Somebody put it there, the same person who put the gun in his hand.” When I made no comment, she said, “You think he might have picked up the habit in prison,” which was exactly what I was thinking. Cons in lockups like Mule Creek have more ways than you might think of obtaining drugs. “But you're wrong. He never smoked a joint in his life—he
couldn't,
I tell you. His asthma was so bad he had to carry an extrapowerful prescription inhaler to prevent severe attacks. That's one of the reasons, the main one, we were planning to move.”

“Move?”

“To Arizona or New Mexico, we hadn't decided which. Someplace where the air is dry. Someplace where nobody knew he'd been in prison.”

“When were you planning to leave?”

“At the end of the next week. I've already given notice at the store in Stonestown where I work.” Her mouth bent downward at the corners, making the facial droop seem even more pronounced. “Now … If they don't hire me back I don't know what I'll do.”

“How were you going to finance the move?”

“Finance it? Oh … I managed to save some money while Ray was … away. Not a lot, but enough for a new start. And Ray said he might be able to get a loan to help us out.”

“Oh? From whom?”

“A friend. Joe Buckner.”

“How large a loan?”

“He didn't say, but it couldn't have been very much. Joe isn't well-off; he works as a bartender.”

“Did Buckner agree to the loan?”

“I don't know if Ray had asked him yet.”

I let a few seconds slide away before I said, “Do you know if your husband was acquainted with Floyd Mears?”

“He never mentioned the name to me. Or said anything about the Russian River—it's not a place we ever went to.”

“Yet he went to see Mears that night.”

“I can't imagine why. I wish to God I knew.”

“Where did he tell you he was going?”

“He didn't. All he said was that he had some business to attend to and he might be back late.”

“How did he seem when he left?”

“Seem?”

“His mood, his frame of mind.”

She chewed at her underlip. “A little … I don't know, a little nervous. But he was that way from the time he came home.”

“I have to say this, Mrs. Fentress. It's possible your husband had no intention of asking his friend Buckner for a loan. There's another way he could have gotten money to help finance your move, another explanation for why he went to see Mears.”

“What do you mean?”

“Marijuana is a highly salable commodity, as I'm sure you know.”

“You think Ray— No. He wasn't a thief and he would never have sold drugs.” She drew a deep, shuddery breath. “My husband made mistakes, God knows, but he was a good man at heart. I was married to him for nineteen years. Don't you think I would have known if he wasn't?”

Not necessarily. Nobody knows anybody all that well, spouses included. Spouses especially in some cases. I thought that, and then I thought cynically: Salt of the earth, Ray Fentress. Incapable of killing, except where four-footed animals like deer were concerned; never owned a handgun, never smoked, and wouldn't ever sell dope. Good husband, good man at heart, hardworking average citizen. Until he drove drunk one night, resisted arrest and assaulted a police officer, and got himself locked up in a cell for eighteen months.

I said, “Why did you want to see me, Mrs. Fentress? I can't tell you anything to ease your mind, and if you're thinking of hiring me to investigate the shootings, I couldn't oblige you if I wanted to. A private detective has no legal right to interfere in an open homicide case.”

“It's not open, it's closed. The man in charge up there, I can't remember his name—”

“Lieutenant Heidegger.”

“Yes. He as much as told me so.”

I doubted that. No homicide investigation, especially one with as many quirks and questions as this one, gets marked closed in only three days. Still, inasmuch as Heidegger and his crew hadn't turned up any new evidence and the sheriff's department likely was overworked and understaffed, they might well be leaning toward an acceptance of the most obvious explanation. The lieutenant wouldn't have told Doreen Fentress that, but then he might have said something to her that hinted at it.

“I'm sorry,” I said, “truly, but that's not official and probably won't be for some time. I could have my license suspended if I tried to mount an investigation of my own.”

“Couldn't you do something else for me?” The liquidy brown eyes added mute appeal to her words.

“Such as?”

“Try to prove I'm right about the kind of man my husband was. Try to find out how he knew Floyd Mears, why he went to see him that night. That's not the same thing as investigating the murders, is it?”

“Well, technically, no, but—”

“I'll pay you whatever you ask until all the money I have runs out.”

“It's not a matter of money, Mrs. Fentress. Or rather it is where you're concerned. What you're asking would likely be a fruitless undertaking and you'd be depleting your savings for nothing.”

“I don't care about my savings. You're a detective, a good one according to what I've read; you have ways of finding things out. You could try, couldn't you?” When I didn't answer, she said with desperation rising in her voice, “I can't stand living the rest of my life not knowing. Even if it turns out I'm wrong and Ray did intend to rob Mears, even if he was a … a killer after all, I'd rather know than not know. You understand?”

All too well. I nodded.

“Then please help me. Please try to find out.”

Thankless job, nowhere job. Waste of her money, waste of my time. I'd have to notify Heidegger, get his permission for an offshoot investigation. I'd have to go poking into a dead ex-con's life before and after his prison sentence with little enough hope of finding out something that would relieve Doreen Fentress' burden of grief. I'd be a damn fool to make the effort. I'd be a damn fool to say yes, okay, I'll see what I can do.

“Yes, okay,” I said, “I'll see what I can do.”

 

6

Tamara didn't think much of my decision, either. She'd been listening at the door, all right, and when Doreen Fentress was gone she came out of her office and admitted it. When I suggested that she could have waited to hear the gist of the conversation from me, she said, “Well, I was curious after the silent treatment she gave me. No secrets around here, right?”

“Not when it comes to business, anyway.”

“What's that mean?”

Whoops. Indirect reference to her recent disinclination to discuss her love life, which she'd always done before with casual candor and in more detail than I cared to know. But since she'd taken up again with her musician boyfriend, Horace Fields, after his return to the city following a failed near marriage, she hardly even mentioned his name. Maybe it was because she knew I had my doubts about the wisdom of hooking up with him again after the shabby way he'd treated her the first time around, but more likely it was because things weren't going well between them. There'd been little indications that led me to suspect this was the case—grumpy mornings, puffy eyes indicating lack of sleep, long, brooding silences.

But I hadn't made any attempt to pry; it would only have created unnecessary friction between us. Even an oblique reference was a mistake on a day when she was in a more or less upbeat mood. None of my business anyway unless she brought up the subject or her relationship with Horace affected her work, which so far it hadn't.