Mourners: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery) (16 page)

“Was?”

“Still is, I guess. He doesn’t work for SunGold anymore.”

“Since when?”

“Oh, must be a couple of years now.”

“Quit? Fired?”

“Quit,” Harry said. “Offer of a better job somewhere else.”

“Do you know where?”

“No, sure don’t.”

“Or what kind of job?”

“Sorry. He didn’t talk much, about himself or anything else.”

“Shy.”

“Real shy. Kind of a loner.”

“The brooding type?”

“I wouldn’t say that. No, he seemed pretty upbeat most of the time, usually had a smile on his face. Good guy, like I said.”

“What’s his last name?”

“Osgood? No, that’s wrong. Something started with an O . . . Ostrow? That’s it, Ostrow.”

“O-s-t-r-o-w?”

“Sounds right.”

“And Sean, spelled S-e-a-n or S-h-a-w-n?”

“S-e-a-n.”

“Do you know where he lived?”

“Someplace over by Golden Gate Park,” Harry said. “I know that because the park was on his route and sometimes he’d time his deliveries over there so he could go home for lunch. Big eater. Man, he could really pack it in.”

“Any chance you could find out the address for me?”

“How would I do that? You mean check the company files?”

“I’d be willing to pay for the information.”

“Hey, no, I couldn’t do that,” Harry said. “Not for any amount. Bosses found out, they’d throw my ass right out of here. I shouldn’t even be talking to you right now.”

Now he had a name. Sean Ostrow. With that and the other information Runyon had gathered, it should be relatively easy to track the man down.

Should be, but wasn’t.

Back at the office, he checked the city phone directory. No listing for Sean Ostrow. The agency kept phone books for all the Bay Area cities dating back five years, and he checked each of the San Francisco books for that period. Same results. An Internet background search was the next step. He could have started one himself, but Tamara was far more skilled at that kind of thing than he was. He went to her with the need and the favor.

She said, “We’re off the Troxell case. And we don’t have a client to justify mixing in a homicide investigation.”

“Unofficial client. My time, my expense. I told Erin Dumont’s sister I’d try to help.”

“Why?”

Because she looked like Colleen. Because she seemed to be stuck in his head and he couldn’t get her out. He said, “Because she’s the type who’ll keep on grieving until there’s some kind of closure. And the SFPD hasn’t come up with anything in six weeks. You know what that means.”

“Unsolved file.”

“If it isn’t there already.”

Tamara sighed. “What makes you think Ostrow did that girl?”

“I don’t. I think he’s a possible.”

“Why?”

“Everything points to an obsession killing. Love, rejection, hate, lust, remorse—all part of the pattern. And Ostrow fits the profile.”

“Maybe so. But hanging around her for a month two years ago doesn’t make him obsessed.”

“Neither does being obese, shy, a loner. But add them all together and you’ve got a possible.”

“Yeah. But what doesn’t add is that two-year gap. If he was so obsessed with her, how come he stayed away from her all that time? What took him so long to work up to that night in the park?”

“Could be he didn’t have a choice,” Runyon said.

“What, you mean he might’ve been locked up somewhere those two years, for some other crime?”

“Worth checking on.”

But Ostrow, according to Tamara’s contact at the SFPD, had no criminal record of any kind in California. A record in another state was still a possibility, but getting that information would take time.

She ran other checks. Sean David Ostrow was a member of the Teamsters Union, but obtaining personal information from a major union on one of its members was almost as impossible as obtaining it from the IRS. Under a fairly recent state law, private individuals—and that included private detective agencies—no longer had open access to DMV records. But the DMV, unlike unions, could be circumspectly breached with the right kind of know-how. Ostrow had a California driver’s license, issued four years ago in San Francisco and valid for another two years. His registered vehicle was a 1988 Ford Taurus, license number 2UGK697. The first numeral and first letter matched the ones on Troxell’s memory notes, but that didn’t have to mean anything; 2U was a common enough prefix. His birthdate was May 14, 1979. His address was listed as 2599 Kirkham, and there had been no notification of change since the date of issue.

Runyon drove out to Kirkham Street. Number 2599 was a twelve-unit apartment building not far from Golden Gate Park, but on the opposite side several miles from where Erin Dumont and Risa Nyland lived. Ostrow’s name wasn’t on any of the mailboxes in the foyer. None of the other boxes bore a building manager’s label, so he rang bells until he’d gone through all twelve. Three responses. A woman on the second floor said she remembered seeing Sean Ostrow in the building (“How could you miss him?”), but she hardly
knew him and had no idea where he’d moved to or when. A sharp-tongued woman on the same floor said she didn’t know anybody named Ostrow; she’d only lived there a year and a half, and added mistakenly that she didn’t want anything to do with any goddamn salesmen. An elderly black man on the same floor said he’d known Ostrow slightly, that he was friendly enough but didn’t have much to say to anybody; he’d lived there about a year and moved out abruptly “two years ago last May. I remember because it was the same week I fell and broke my hip. Asked him how come he was leaving. Said there was something he had to do and he couldn’t do it in the city. Said he was going east.”

“No specific place?”

“Just east, that’s all.”

“What was it he had to do?”

“Asked him, but he just smiled and walked away.”

When Runyon got back to the agency, Tamara had more background information on Ostrow waiting for him. Most of it was routine. Born and raised in Astoria, Oregon, worked there as a beer-truck driver for a year after high school graduation. Mother deceased, father’s whereabouts unknown. No criminal record in Oregon. Spotless driving record in both Oregon and California.

But there was one potential lead. Ostrow had an older sister, Arlene, married the same year he’d quit his job in Astoria. Her name was Burke now, and she and her husband had also relocated to northern California—to Santa Rosa, where they were still living.

The weekend started off on a troubling note and kept getting progressively worse.

Kerry was still in a funk Saturday morning. Not the withdrawn, openly depressed, gloom-dripping variety; the kind that in some ways was even worse because it was all pretense and sham. False cheerfulness. Pallid little smiles. Chatter about anything and everything except what was going on inside her head, and evasions and circumlocutions whenever I asked her a direct question or tried to draw her out. At breakfast I suggested that the three of us go for a drive down the coast, have lunch in Half Moon Bay or a picnic on one of the beaches around San Gregorio. Wonderful idea, she said, but she needed to work on one of her accounts, the Harmony Dairy account; it probably meant a trip downtown to Bates and Carpenter at some point, hadn’t she mentioned this last night? Maybe tomorrow we’d go for the drive, if she could come up with the right copy for Harmony’s new ad campaign by then. Or maybe Emily and I should go today, just the two of us,
she didn’t want to spoil our weekend just because she had to work.

She gulped coffee and excused herself and went away to her study. Her plate was still full of eggs and toast; she’d eaten no more than two bites of either. Emily looked at the plate, then looked at me with an expression of deep concern.

“Something’s wrong with Mom,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“What? What’s the matter?”

“She won’t talk to me about it.”

“Me, either. I asked her, but she just changed the subject. What’re we going to do?”

“Wait until she’s ready to tell us. We can’t force her.”

“No, but . . . I’m really worried.”

“So am I.”

“What if it’s something
serious?
What if—”

“We’re not going to play the ‘what if’ game,” I said. “All that does is make the waiting and the worrying worse.”

“So we just pretend everything’s okay?”

“For now, for today. How about that drive?”

“I don’t feel much like it, Dad.”

“It’s clear here, it’ll be nice down the coast.”

“Can’t we just stay home?”

“You can if you want to. I need to get out for a while.”

Emily chewed her lip. “I guess I do, too. I guess I don’t want to stay home after all.”

Charles Kayabalian called at two thirty, just after Emily and I got back from lunch and a batch of errands. “Well,
I wouldn’t want to go through that again,” he said. “Makes trial law seem like a walk in the park.”

“Troxell didn’t take it well?”

“Hard to say just how he took it. He didn’t put out any arguments or denials, didn’t seem upset by the fact that Lynn was having him followed or the contents of your report. Didn’t say more than a dozen words the whole time, most of them monosyllables. He just sat there like a stunned deer. The look on his face . . . Christ.”

“He agree to go to the police voluntarily?”

“Monday morning. With me along as counsel.”

“Why not today or tomorrow?”

“I suggested that, get it over with as soon as possible, but he wouldn’t go for it. Needs a little time to work himself up to it, I think. The three of us tried to be gentle, but we still hit him pretty hard.”

“Only three of you?”

“Lynn, Drew Casement, and myself.”

“What happened to the family doctor?”

“She decided against calling him. I can’t blame her.”

“But Troxell did agree to get help?”

“Well, he didn’t balk at the suggestion. That look on his face, the few things he said . . . poor bastard, he knows he’s in a bad way.”

“The sooner the better,” I said. “And there should probably be eyes on him until he does.”

“Lynn made him promise to stay home until Monday morning.”

“But will he keep the promise.”

“She and Casement will make sure he does,” Kayabalian
said. “She hid his car keys where he won’t find them, as a precaution. The three of us talked about it afterward.”

“Shaky situation, just the same.”

“I know it. But what can you do in a case like this? There’s only one legal issue and we’ve got that covered. The rest of it . . . no right way or wrong way to handle it, it’s all psychological and emotional gray areas. All you can do is take it slow, feel your way along, hope for the best.”

Kerry had been gone when Emily and I returned; it was after five when she reappeared, laden with Chinese takeout that she’d picked up on the way home from Bates and Carpenter. Still cheerful, her smiles more genuine tonight, and full of apologies. “I know I’ve been in a terrible mood lately,” she said at the dinner table, “and I’m sorry for taking it out on both of you. I won’t keep doing that, I promise.”

Fine, but then Emily asked her why she’d been in such a terrible mood. And she said, “Let’s not talk about it tonight. Soon, okay? A day or two, and everything will be back to normal.”

“You promise that, too?”

“Yes, honey. I do.”

Big smile to go with the words, but it was a pretender’s smile that said the promise was built less on certainty than on hope.

The phone rang at seven thirty that evening. I was closest to it when it went off, so I picked up. And the caller was the last person I expected to hear from, this night or any other.

“This is James Troxell.”

After a couple of seconds I said slowly, to keep the surprise out of my voice, “Yes, Mr. Troxell. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve been reading your report to my wife,” he said. Deep voice, calm, measured, lacking any discernible emotion. “It’s very thorough, very detailed. Very revealing, too.”

“Yes?”

“I feel that I ought to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For helping me open my eyes. You must have found my actions bizarre. I find them bizarre myself, seeing them outlined in cold type.”

What can you say to that?

“It’s as though I’ve been wandering in a daze the past few weeks,” Troxell said. “But I’m seeing and thinking clearly now.”

“I’m glad to hear it. But I’m not the person you should be thanking.”

“You could have gone directly to the police. You didn’t have to allow me a grace period to do what I should have done in the beginning. I’m grateful that you did.”

I said, “Charles Kayabalian tells me you’ll be going in on Monday morning.”

“That’s the plan, yes.”

“It won’t be as difficult as you might expect.”

“No, I don’t think it will be. Once you finally understand and accept what has to be done, you wonder why you fought against it for so long. With help you can find the courage to go through with it.”

“Yes.”

“And I have all the help I need now. No more bizarre behavior, I promise you that.”

“I don’t understand. Why promise me?”

“It won’t be necessary for you to keep watch on me any longer.”

“You think you’re still under surveillance? Not by us.”

“You’re still working for Lynn, aren’t you?”

“No. Didn’t she tell you?”

“Nothing was said. I just assumed you were.”

“Not since yesterday morning. That report is final.”

“I see,” Troxell said. “Were you paid for your services?”

“In full.”

“Well, then. There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say, does there. Except thank you again.”

“Good luck, Mr. Troxell. I hope everything works out for you.”

“It will,” he said.

Strange, awkward conversation. The more I replayed it in my head, the odder it seemed. Something not quite right about it, off-kilter, disconnected, like a conversation in a dream. I was already on edge because of the situation with Kerry, and Troxell’s call sharpened it. I felt that I ought to do something. Call Lynn Troxell, call Kayabalian . . .

But what could I say to them that would help the situation, make a difference? Or do anything except stir up the pot again?