“True enough. But she couldn’t’ve gone into the library unless the door was unlocked. And if it was, then why would Cullrane lock it—double lock it—after she was inside? I can’t think of any good reason.”
“Good point. Neither can I.”
“Same question applies if the two of them were working together,” I said. “Why double lock the door from the inside? Why not prop it open while they were gathering up another batch of books? That way, if Pollexfen or Brenda Koehler came home suddenly, they’d hear and have time to beat it out of there quick.”
“Another good point. Any answers occur to you?”
“Not at the moment. Maybe Mrs. Pollexfen can sort it out for you.”
“When she sobers up enough to tell a coherent story.”
The house door opened and Davis came out. “Assistant coroner’s done with his prelim,” he said to Yin.
“Forensics?”
“Almost finished. Okay to release the body?”
“Go ahead.” Davis went back inside and Yin turned to me again. “You can go now. All your contact numbers on the business card you gave my partner?”
“Agency, cell, and home.”
“We’ll need a signed statement. If you don’t hear from us in the meantime, stop by the Hall tomorrow.”
I said I would. She favored me with a tired professional smile and we went our separate ways, me to fend off cameras, microphones, and noisy media people on my way to my car. It took me a few more minutes to get out of there; a police car had blocked me in and one of the uniforms took his time about moving it.
Crime scenes: studies in organized chaos.
On the way home I tried to put the whole sorry business out of my head. None of my concern anymore. Chances were the cops would either find the eight missing first editions eventually or discover where they’d been sold. I’d send my report and expense sheet and bill for services to Great Western, and before Rivera authorized payment he’d jab me with his frigging needle and keep on jabbing afterward for his own amusement. My own damn fault for taking the case in the first place.
No, I didn’t want anything to do with it anymore. But that didn’t mean I had an easy time not thinking about it. Screwy business, full of all sorts of weird angles and nagging questions. The double-locked door. Why would Cullrane lock it if he was in there, alone or with his sister, to steal more books? And the time element. Why would they wait three hours to do the job when they could have done it immediately after Pollexfen left for his auction?
Didn’t add up. Didn’t feel right.
But you couldn’t get around the rest of the facts. Irrefutable, or sure seemed to be. The two of them had
been locked inside that room together—I knew that for an absolute certainty—and one of them was dead, and unless it was suicide, which was improbable as hell, the other one had had a hand in the killing. Had to be that way. Pollexfen and Brenda Koehler and I had been together when we heard the shot; that eliminated them as well as me. Unless some sort of gimmick had been used to trigger the shotgun … oh, hell no. You can’t rig a heavy weapon like that to fire one barrel by using strings or wires or trick gadgets or remote control or any of that nonsense, and even if you could, Yin and Davis and the forensics people would have found it. The police aren’t stupid. You can fool them, just like you can fool anybody else, but not on a crime scene like this one. Cullrane shot himself or Angelina Pollexfen shot him willfully or accidentally, it couldn’t have happened any other way.
Still—it just didn’t feel right.
JAKE RUNYON
B
efore he drove to Deer Run to talk to Jenny Noakes’s aunt, he wanted more information on the homicide. He spent the better part of an hour in the Fort Bragg library, going through microfiche files of the
Advocate-News
and the North Bay region’s largest newspaper, the Santa Rosa
Press Democrat,
for the latter half of 1989. Both carried news reports about the slaying, neither very long, and there was one brief followup in the
Press Democrat.
That was all.
The search produced one useful fact: the investigating officer for the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department had been Lieutenant Clyde Van Horn.
There was no listing for Van Horn in the local or county phone directories. So Runyon made his next stop the sheriff’s substation, a short distance from the library. The young officer on the desk didn’t know a Lieutenant Van Horn, but an older deputy on duty did. Van Horn
was no longer with the department. Retired five or six years ago. Bought a place somewhere down the coast—Little River, the deputy thought it was.
Little River was about fifteen miles south of Fort Bragg, just beyond the quaint tourist-trap village of Mendocino. Runyon drove down there, stopped in at a grocery store and then a cafe. The waitress in the cafe knew Van Horn; he and his wife came in for breakfast now and then. She was pretty sure they lived on Crescent Drive, a few miles south off the coast highway.
Crescent Drive: short road that bellied out along the bluffs overlooking the ocean and dead-ended after a tenth of a mile. Half a dozen houses and cottages were strung along the oceanside. The first one he tried was deserted. A woman at the second told him the Van Horns lived in the last house before the dead end.
It was a small cottage built at the edge of the bluff above a rocky whitewater cove. Fenced garden in front, a lawn spotted with animal sculptures along the north flank. The Land Rover parked in the driveway told Runyon someone was home. The someone turned out to be Clyde Van Horn.
Van Horn was seventy or so, big, healthy-looking, and willing to talk. They sat in a living room that had two walls made of glass to take advantage of the ocean and whitewater views.
“Sure, I remember the Jenny Noakes case,” Van Horn said. “You always remember the ones that go cold on you.”
“She was strangled, is that right?”
“That was the coroner’s opinion. Damage to the hyoid bone was consistent with manual strangulation.”
“Sexually assaulted?”
“Undetermined. Three months in a shallow grave in the mountains, animals digging up and carting off pieces—there wasn’t a whole lot left for analysis. No DNA procedures back then, not in a county like this one.”
“Where was the body discovered?”
“Heavily wooded area about a mile outside Deer Run. Close to the road. County road crew was doing repairs and one of the workers went into the woods to take a leak and spotted the grave.”
“East or west of Deer Run?”
“East. Why?”
“Curiosity. Turn up any suspects?”
“Her ex-husband seemed like a good bet—her aunt said there was bad blood between them—but he was working in an oil field in Texas when she disappeared. A couple of other possibles, but no physical evidence to lay the crime on either one.”
“You recall their names?”
Van Horn thought about it. “One was a transient, young guy fresh out of the army. Potter, Cotter, something like that. Seen in the vicinity of the general store in Harmony where Jenny Noakes worked and was last seen. But he didn’t have a rap sheet and his military record was clean, so we had to let him go.”
“The other one?”
“Man named Jackson, worked as a handyman in the area. He had a thing for Jenny Noakes, kept trying to date her. She wouldn’t have anything to do with him. They had an argument in a local tavern a couple of days before
she disappeared. My money was on him, but like I said, there wasn’t any way we could prove a case against him.”
“Was she in a relationship at the time?”
“More than one, off and on. She wasn’t exactly chaste. Liked men, liked a good time.”
“One of the men Lloyd Henderson, owned a hunting cabin in the mountains east of Harmony?”
Van Horn had a habit of cocking his head to one side when he was thinking; he did it again now. “Henderson … sure. Doctor or something from some place down in Sonoma County.”
“Dentist. Los Alegres.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Lloyd Henderson. Didn’t you say the case you’re investigating involves two men named Henderson?”
“Lloyd’s sons.”
“What, then? You think there’s a connection between him and what happened to Jenny Noakes?”
“Maybe not with her murder, but Henderson knew her pretty well.” Runyon related what Mona Crandall had told him about Jenny Noakes’s surprise visit and pregnancy claim. “It wasn’t long afterward that she disappeared, if Mrs. Crandall’s memory is accurate.”
“Interesting,” Van Horn said. “I don’t remember Henderson saying anything about any of that when I talked to him.”
“You questioned him? Did he admit knowing Jenny Noakes?”
“Had to admit it. They were seen together in Deer Run.”
“To having an affair with her?”
“He wouldn’t go that far. Just acquaintances, he said. But that’s what any married man would say under the circumstances. ’Specially if he knocked her up.”
“But you didn’t consider him a suspect?”
“No cause to. Spotless record, well-respected in his community. Everybody we talked to, including Jenny’s aunt, said their relationship was casual, no trouble, no friction between them. If we’d known about the affair and pregnancy, we’d have leaned on him some. But the coroner couldn’t be certain if she was or wasn’t, as badly torn up and decomposed as the remains were.” Van Horn cocked his head again. “You must’ve talked to Henderson. What’d he have to say for himself?”
Runyon said, “He’s been dead five years.”
“Five
years
? Then what could he or Jenny Noakes’s murder have to do with his sons being stalked now?”
“No clear idea yet. But the first thing the perp did was dig up Henderson’s ashes and pour acid on them.”
“Man. So the real target was Henderson and his sons are, what, substitutes? Because of Jenny Noakes? That seems like a stretch after twenty years. Why would anybody wait that long to go on a rampage against the family?”
Runyon tilted a hand sideways. “I may be way off base here,” he admitted, “but it’s the only angle I have to work on.”
“Well, suppose you’re right and there is some sort of connection. Who could he be, this phantom stalker?”
“The perp’s in his twenties—that’s been established. Jenny Noakes had a son, Tucker, seven years old when she died. He’d be twenty-seven now.”
“Sure, I remember the kid,” Van Horn said. “Took his mother’s death pretty hard. But I still think you’re reaching. If it’s the son all screwed up with hate and wanting revenge, why pick Henderson as the guilty party instead of one of the others I told you about? And why wait so long?”
“Recently uncovered some kind of proof, maybe.”
“Such as what? Where? How?”
Runyon tilted his hand again. “What happened to Tucker after his mother’s death?”
“Jenny’s aunt took him in.”
“The aunt in Deer Run? Pauline Devries?”
“That’s right. Jenny and the boy’d been living with her since her divorce.”
“She raised him?”
“As far as I know. I lost touch with her after a couple of years. That happens with cold cases … well, I don’t have to tell you.”
“So you don’t know if he’s still in the area.”
“No, no idea what happened to him. You’ll have to ask the aunt, if she’s still living in Deer Run.”
“I will. Did Jenny Noakes have any other relatives?”
“No male relatives,” Van Horn said. “Another aunt, I think.”
“Local?”
“No. I think she lived here in California, but I don’t remember where. Or what her name was.”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult to track down.”
“Internet, huh? Things sure have changed since my day.”
Runyon said, “The changes come faster every year,” and got to his feet.
“Listen,” Van Horn said at the front door, “you find out anything definite about Jenny Noakes’s murder, I’d really appreciate it if you’d let me know. That case has bothered me for twenty years. One of the few I wasn’t able to close.”
“I’ll do that,” Runyon promised, and meant it. There were a couple of cases he’d handled in Seattle he felt that way about. Still cold, as far as he knew, and a source of frustration in the empty hours when he couldn’t sleep.
D
eer Run, according to the sign on the western outskirts, had a population of 603. The village was strung out along both sides of the highway for a sixth of a mile—old buildings that housed a cafe, a couple of taverns, a few other businesses, and a newish strip mall at the far end. Hill Road intersected the highway just beyond the strip mall. It led Runyon up a sharp incline, made a dogleg to the left. The first house beyond the dogleg was number 177.
Only problem was, it had a deserted aspect and there was a FOR SALE sign alongside the driveway.
Runyon pulled into the drive. A chill, damp wind thrust against his back as he climbed the front steps, rang the bell. No response. He stepped over to look through an uncurtained window. The room beyond was empty of furniture.
When he came back down the porch steps, he noticed a woman in the front yard of the property across the road.
She was leaning on the handle of a weed whacker, watching him. He left the Ford where it was, crossed the road to the edge of her driveway, and called out, “Okay if I talk to you for a minute?”
“Not if you’re selling something.”
“I’m not.”
“Rain coming. I need to get this grass down.”
“I won’t take up much of your time. I’m looking for Pauline Devries.”
The woman straightened and gestured for him to come ahead. She was in her sixties, wearing a plaid coat, woolen cap, and work gloves. The wide swath she’d cut in the high grass along the driveway had a rounded sweep, so that she seemed to be standing in a miniature crop circle. Runyon stopped at the edge, smiling a little to let her know he was harmless.
“You a relative of Pauline’s?” she asked.
“No. A business matter.”
“Thought you said you’re not a salesman?”
“I’m not.”
“What kind of business?”
He showed her his license. She blinked, frowning. The frown used all of her facial muscles, so that her features seemed to fold in on themselves like a dried and puckered gourd.
“Oh, Lord,” she said. “Not Jenny again after all these years? Jenny Noakes?”
“Her murder may be connected to a case my agency is investigating.”
“So that’s why you wanted to talk to Pauline?” The woman sighed heavily. “Well, I guess you don’t know then. She passed away four weeks ago. Complications from diabetes.”
Four weeks. That was why the address and phone listings still showed current. Tamara had accepted them at face value on her first quick check, and he’d made the same natural assumption.
He said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“So was I. Friend and neighbor for thirty years.”
“Then you know the boy she raised. Her niece’s child, Tucker Noakes.”
“Tucker Devries, you mean.” The woman made a sourlemon mouth around the name.
“She adopted him?”
“Year after the murder. Big mistake, you ask me. But she never married, never had any kids of her own. Maternal instincts got the best of her.”
“Why do you say it was a mistake?”
“He gave her a lot of grief, that’s why. Strange boy, moody, wouldn’t talk to anybody for days, weeks at a time, not even Pauline.” She tapped her temple with a blunt forefinger. “Not quite right in the head, and worse once he got into his teen years. All he ever cared about was taking pictures.”
“Pictures?”
“Went roaming and sneaking around with a camera she gave him for his birthday, taking pictures of everything and everybody in sight. Told Pauline he was going to be a
famous photographer someday. Hah! She was sorry when he left, but I sure wasn’t. Nobody else around here was, either.”
“When was that?”
“Must’ve been ten years now. Never even finished high school.”
“He keep in touch with her? Come back to visit her?”
“Now and then he’d show up, when he wanted money. Not to pay his last respects, though.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”