F is for Fugitive (28 page)

“No big deal,” he said. “I think they only lived there a few months before she died.” He set his brandy snifter on the coffee table. “You hungry? I'd be happy to fix you something to eat.”

I shook my head, easing him back toward the subject that interested me. “I realized this afternoon that
the back door of the Timberlake apartment opened right onto the stairs. I figure she could easily have used the road up here as a rendezvous point for the guys she screwed around with. You never saw her up here?”

He considered the possibility, searching his memory. “No, I don't believe so. Is it that important?”

“Well, it could be. If somebody saw Jean, they might have also seen the guy she was having the affair with.”

“Come to think of it, I did see cars up here at night on occasion. I guess it never occurred to me it might be somebody waiting to pick her up.”

I love bad liars. They work so hard at it and the effort is so transparent. I happen to lie well myself, but only after years of practice. Even then, I can't pull it off every time. This guy didn't even come close. I sat and looked at him, giving him time to reconsider his position.

He frowned with concern. “By the way, what's the story on Ann's mother? Mrs. Emma called about an hour ago and told me Bailey switched the medication. I couldn't believe it . . .”

“Excuse me, could we get back to Jean Timberlake first?”

“Oh, sorry. I thought we were done, and I've been awfully worried about Ann. It's unbelievable what she's been through. Anyway, go ahead.”

“Were you fucking Jean Timberlake yourself?”

The word was just right, crude and to the point. He
let out a little laugh of disbelief, like he must not have heard me right. “What?”

“Come on. 'Fess up. Just tell me the truth. I'd really like to know.”

He laughed again, shaking his head as though to clear it. “My God, Kinsey. I'm a high school principal.”

“I know what you are, Dwight. I'm asking you what you did.”

He stared at me, apparently annoyed that I'd persist. “This is ridiculous. The girl was seventeen.”

I said nothing. I returned a look of such skepticism that his smile began to fade. He got up and poured himself another drink. He held the brandy bottle toward me, mutely asking me if I wanted more. I shook my head.

He sat down again. “I think we should move on to something more productive. I'm willing to help, but I'm not going to play any games with you.” He was all business now. The meeting was called to order and we were going to get serious. No more silly bullshit. “I'd have to be crazy to get involved with a student,” he went on. “Jesus. What an idea.” He rolled his shoulders. I could hear the joint pop. I knew he wanted to convince me, but the words carried no conviction.

I dropped my gaze to the tabletop, pushing my empty snifter an inch. “We're all capable of astonishing ourselves when it comes to sex.”

He was silent.

I focused on him intently.

He recrossed his legs. Now it was him, not looking at me.

“Dwight?”

He said, “I thought I was in love with her.”

Careful, I thought. Take care. The moment is fragile and his trust is tenuous. “It must have been a tough time. Karen was diagnosed with MS right about then, wasn't she?”

He set the glass down again and his gaze met mine. “You have a good memory.”

I kept silent.

He finally took up the narrative thread. “She was actually in the process of being evaluated, but I think we knew. It's staggering how something like that affects you. She was bitter at first. Withdrawn. In the end, she was better about it than I was. God, I couldn't believe it was happening, and then I turned around and Jean was there. Young, lusty, outrageous.”

He was quiet for a moment.

I said nothing, letting him tell it his way. He didn't need any prompting from me. This was a story he knew by heart.

“I didn't think Karen would survive anyway because the first round was acute. She seemed to go downhill overnight. Hell, I didn't think she'd live till spring. In a situation like that, your mind leaps ahead. You get into survival mode. I remember thinking, ‘Hey, I can make it. The marriage isn't that great, anyway.' I was only what, thirty-nine? Forty? I had a lot of years ahead of
me. I figured I'd marry again. Why not? We weren't perfect, the two of us. I'm not sure we were even very well suited to each other. The MS changed all that. When she died, I was more in love with her than I'd ever been.”

“And Jean?”

“Ah, but Jean. Early on”—he paused to shake his head—“I was crazy. I must have been. If that relationship had ever become public knowledge . . . well, it would have ruined my life. Karen's, too . . . what was left of it.”

“Was the baby yours?”

“I don't know. Probably. I wish I could say no, but what could I do? I only found out about it after Jean died. I can't imagine what the consequences would have been . . . you know . . . if the pregnancy had come to light.”

“Yeah, unlawful sexual intercourse being what it is.”

“Oh God, don't say that. Even now the phrase is enough to make me sick.”

“You kill her?”

“No. I swear. I was capable of a lot of craziness back then, but not that.”

I watched him, sensing that he was telling the truth. This wasn't a killer I was listening to. He might have been desperate or despairing. He might have realized after the fact how perilous his situation was, but I didn't hear the kind of rationalization killers get into. “Who else knew about the pregnancy?”

“I don't know. What difference would it make?”

“I'm not sure. You can't really be certain the baby was yours. Maybe there was somebody else.”

“Bailey knew about it.”

“Aside from him. Couldn't someone else have heard?”

“Well, sure, but so what? I know she showed up at the school very upset and went straight to the counselor's office.”

“I thought the guidance counselors only handled academic matters—college prep requirements and stuff like that.”

“There were exceptions. Sometimes we had to screen personal problems and refer kids out for professional counseling.”

“What would have been done then, if Jean had asked for help?”

“We'd have done what we could. San Luis has social agencies set up for things like that.”

“Jean never talked to you herself?”

He shook his head. “I wish she had. Maybe I could have done something for her, I don't know. She had her crazy side. We're not talking about a girl who'd agree to an abortion. She never would have given that baby up and she wouldn't have kept quiet. She'd have insisted on marriage, regardless of the price. I have to tell you—I know it sounds horrible, but I have to say this—I was relieved when she died. Enormously. When I understood the risk I'd taken . . . when I saw what I had at stake. It was a gift. I cleaned up my act right then. I never screwed around on Karen again.”

“I believe you,” I said. But what was bothering me? I could feel an idea churning, but I couldn't quite sense what it was.

Dwight was going on. “It was a bit of a rude awakening when I heard the stories going around after she'd been killed. I was naïve enough to think we had something special between us, but that turned out not to be the case.”

I kept picking at it like a bone. “So if she didn't turn to you for help, she could have turned to somebody else.”

“Well, yes, but she didn't have much time for that, as I understand. She had the test done in Lompoc and got the results that afternoon. By midnight she was dead.”

“How long does it take to make a phone call?” I said. “She had hours. She could have called half the guys in Floral Beach and some in San Luis, too. Suppose it was someone else? Suppose you were just a cover for another relationship? There must have been other guys with just as much to lose.”

“I'm sure it's possible,” he said, but he sounded dubious.

The phone rang, a harsh sound in the stillness of the big house. Dwight leaned back, reaching over to pick up the receiver from the end table by the couch. “Hello? Oh, hi.”

His face had brightened with recognition and I saw his eyes stray to my face as the person on the other end of the line went on. He was making “unh-hunh” noises while someone rattled on. “No, no, no. Don't
worry. Hang on. She's right here.” He held the phone out and I took it. “It's Ann,” he said.

“Hi, Ann. What's happening?”

Her voice was cold and she was clearly upset. “Well. At long last. Where the hell have
you
been? I've been looking for you for hours.”

I found myself squinting at the phone, trying to determine the reason for the tone she had taken. What was wrong with her? “Is there a deputy with you?” I asked.

“I think we could say that.”

“You want to wait and call me back when he goes?”

“No, I don't, dear. Here's what I want. I want you to get your ass down here right away! Daddy checked himself out of the hospital and he's been bugging me ever since. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” she shrieked. “Do you have any idea . . . do you have any IDEA what's been going on? DO YOU? Goddamn it! . . .”

I held the phone away from my ear. She was really building up a head of steam here. “Ann, stop that. Calm down. It's too complicated to go into right now.”

“Don't give me that. Don't you dare ever, ever give me that.”

“Don't give you what? What are you so upset about?”

“You know perfectly well,” she snapped. “What are you doing over there? You listen to me, Kinsey. And you listen good . . .”

I started to interrupt, but she'd just put a palm
across the mouthpiece, talking to someone in the background. The deputy? Oh hell, was she telling him where I was?

I replaced the receiver in the cradle.

Dwight was looking at me with perplexity. “You okay? What was that about?”

“I have to go to San Luis Obispo,” I said carefully. It was a lie, of course, but it was the first thing that occurred to me. Ann had told them where I was. Within minutes this whole cul-de-sac would be blocked off, the neighborhood swarming with deputies. I had to get out of there, and I didn't think it was wise to let him know where I was headed.

“San Luis?” he said. “What for?”

I moved toward the front door. “Don't worry about it. I'll be back in a bit.”

“Don't you need a car?”

“I'll get one.”

I closed the door behind me, leaped off the porch, and ran.

 

 

 

 

 

The Ocean Street Motel was only four blocks away. It wasn't going to take the cops long. I kept to the pavement until I caught the sound of a vehicle accelerating up the hill. I took a dive into the bushes as a black-and-white sped into view, heading straight for Dwight's place. Lights flashing, no siren. A second black-and-white gunned up the hill after the first. Hotdoggers. The deputy in the second car was probably twenty-two. Big career ahead of him, careening through Floral Beach legally. He must have been having the time of his life.

The solution to so many problems seems obvious once you know where to look. My conversation with Dwight had generated a shift in my mind-set and the questions that had troubled me before now seemed to have answers that made perfect sense. Some of them, at any rate. I needed confirmation, but at least now I had a working premise. Jean Timberlake had been murdered to protect Dwight Shales. Ori Fowler had
died because she was meant to die . . . to get her out of the way. And Shana? I thought I understood why she had died, too. Bailey was supposed to take the rap for all of it, and he'd fallen for it like a chump. If he'd had sense enough not to run—if he'd just stayed put—he couldn't have been blamed for everything that'd happened since.

I approached the motel from the rear, through a vacant lot filled with weeds and broken glass. Many of the motel windows were ablaze with lights. I could imagine all the uproar caused by the presence of sheriffs' cars. I suspected there was still a deputy posted somewhere close, probably just outside my room. I reached the Fowlers' back door. The kitchen light was on, and I could see the shadow of someone moving around in the back part of the apartment. A little black-and-white television now sat on the counter, a taped newscast flickering across the empty room. Quintana was making mouth noises on the courthouse steps. Must have been this afternoon. A picture of Bailey Fowler followed. He was being led, in handcuffs, to a waiting vehicle. On came the announcer, turning to the weather map. I tried the kitchen door. Locked. I didn't want to stand out there trying to pick the lock.

I circled the building, hugging the outside wall, checking darkened windows for one left ajar. What I found instead was a side door that was located just across from the stairway inside the back hall. The knob turned in my hand and I pushed the door open cautiously. I peered in. Royce, in a ratty bathrobe, was
shuffling down the hall toward me, slump-shouldered, eyes on his slippers. I could hear the hum of his weeping, broken by intermittent sighs. He was walking his grief like a baby, back and forth. He reached the door to his room and turned, shuffling back toward the kitchen. Now and then he murmured Ori's name, voice breaking off. Lucky is the spouse who dies first, who never has to know what survivors endure. Royce must have signed himself out of the hospital after Reverend Haws paid his call. Ori's death had pushed him past struggling. What did he care if he sped death along?

The lights from the living room gave the uncomfortable sense of other people very near. I could hear two women in the dining room, talking in low tones. Was Mrs. Emma still with Ann? Royce was reaching the kitchen, where I knew he'd turn again, coming back.