Murder Take Two (32 page)

Susan wanted a cigarette. Come on now. No reason he couldn't do anything he wanted, reunite with anyone he pleased. So get your mind where it belongs.

Every entry was dated and the time noted. The first rambled on about Laura Edwards, the movie being filmed in Hampstead, and the many instances that the universe was with him. When he made the decision to come to Hampstead, he wore a blue shirt and saw a blue car with the letter B on the license plate. These were important signs that told him the universe approved his decision. Whatever he did, wherever he went, he made these minute little connections.

In Hampstead, he watched all the outdoor filming; indoor shots, he got as near as he could and watched from there. Getting hired as an extra was big proof the universe applauded his venture.

On Monday, June 3, the day the stuntwoman had died, Delmar had been with other spectators outside old Josiah's barn. Even though he couldn't see any of the filming, it was enough for him to see Laura arriving. He went on for several pages about her love for him and how she looked at him and her plea that he make it possible for them to be together.

The stuntwoman received a brief mention; her attempt to look like Laura upset the spirits.

Susan couldn't define the difference between spirits and universe, except spirits tended toward bad and the universe toward good. The spirits brought fear when the universe wasn't pleased. The entries were hard to read: rambling, convoluted sentences started with one subject, then shot off onto something else. A single sentence was often more than a page in length. Pronouns were used without thought to antecedents, and much of the time only Delmar could possibly know what he was writing about.

In the middle of the next page, she found, “The impostor is dead.” That was all, unless “like the sounds of locusts” had reference to sawing through the loft railing. In Delmar's world everything symbolized something. What a very exhausting world he must live in.

She tried to scan pages, but the smallness of the writing and the crowding of words made it impossible. There were a dozen or more pages on the decision that Laura Edwards must be shot, that being “the most humane” death. Pages on the decision to kill Yancy to obtain his gun, and how this would be done.

Pages of despair when he'd not succeeded in killing Yancy in the trees by the river, fear that the universe had turned against him. How in the hell could this man hold down a job? And isn't it grand that someone like him is teaching our college students? Detailed account of Delmar following Yancy, being chased by the dog, pages of the actual stabbing and taking of the gun.

The labyrinthian paths of a psychotic mind were awesome to behold.

On the night of Sheri Lloyd's murder, he wrote about being on the Patio. Yancy's mother, “the quiet woman with knowing eyes,” several paragraphs about the “vicious, dangerous dog,” pages about Laura and Nick Logan, and Sheri joining them. Imagined looks of love and pledging eternal fidelity from Laura. Her anger at Sheri Lloyd had been twisted into anger at Delmar for taking so long to claim her. No mention of a teenager. The following day, he wrote, “She can no longer upset Laura my beloved.”

They could get him for assault, attempted murder, stalking, and a number of other things, and a damn good thing to get him off the street, but—never mind his confession—he hadn't killed the stuntwoman and Sheri Lloyd. Forget the questions about how he could have known where to find the saw and the knife, and forget that he thought he'd killed two people—Laura and Yancy—who were still alive, every tiny detail as mundane as what he ate for breakfast while he was planning to kill them was written about. One line about the stuntwoman and one line about Sheri Lloyd? No way. If he'd killed them, he would have written pages and pages before he did it, and pages and pages afterward.

They still had a killer out there.

*   *   *

Yancy tracked down Dr. Sheffield in the ER. Midmorning on a Sunday, the place was almost deserted. All the bad folks were sleeping it off and all the good folks were in church. The doc was sewing up a little boy who had fallen on some pieces of broken glass. When the boy was handed back to his mother, Sheffield turned to Yancy.

“Does this hurt?”

“No.”

“How about this?”

“Yes.”

“Any fever?”

“No.”

“Bleeding?”

“No.”

With a warning to avoid mad sprints until the rib healed, Sheffield scribbled a prescription for pain, told Yancy he was allowed limited duty, and rushed back into the fray.

Yancy was curiously relieved. After seeing this movie through two murders and the stalking of its star, he felt entitled to see it through to the end. He wanted, with his thumbs hooked in his belt, to watch the whole caravan leave town.

After tracking down Mac's room number, he dropped in. Mac, hands behind his head, left biceps bandaged, ankles crossed, was stretched out on the bed watching a soccer game on the television mounted on the wall.

“Well, well,” Mac said. “The walking wounded.” He clicked off the television. “What? No flowers? No grapes?”

“I thought I'd see how bad off you were before I spent my money.”

“Huh. That quack down there in the emergency room claimed the bullet only grazed the skin. Didn't even tear up a muscle. Now, how am I going to get sympathy and workman's comp with that?”

“Isn't it a fine movie tradition that it only hurts when you laugh?”

“As a comedian,” Mac said, “you might be a good cop. I keep telling them I'm in terrible pain, but they're going to boot me out of here tomorrow morning anyway.”

“As a patient, you'll never get compassion.”

“Oh, ha ha. The soccer game was better than this.”

Yancy left him to it and headed back to the department to turn in the squad car and pick up his Cherokee. Since the chief's light was on, he went in to relay the news that the doctor had given him a halfway clean bill of health.

Susan threw her pen on the desk and leaned back. “Changed your mind about giving anything to get out of this assignment?”

He smiled, his sweet soft smile. “I think I might miss them when they're gone. I did talk to Howie—uh, he's the assistant manager at the hotel—”

“And?”

“Well, I don't know if it's of any interest at this point, Kevin Murphy—”

“Garbage-can-painting high school football star. What about him?”

“He's been hanging around the hotel. He replaced the battery, like he said. Once he jump-started a van when the lights had been left on all night. But he's been there other times, just to be there.”

A seventeen-year-old kid, football star or not, might be interested in the glamorous movie people. Anything more than that? Maybe it was time to go home. She couldn't get her mind interested in picking at ideas.

“Put yourself to bed, Yancy. I can't help wondering if Dr. Sheffield is an idiot, but if he says you can report for duty, who am I to argue?”

She gathered her scattered thoughts and Delmar Cayliff's notebook. The notebook she took to the evidence room, the thoughts she took out to her pickup. The air was velvet and fresh. She rolled down the windows and let the night blow in around her. In San Francisco, darkness could be an enemy, hiding danger. Deep blackness gathered in narrow streets, inside sad houses, and around cluttered corners. Desires and frustrations mingled like explosive chemicals and traces hung in the night air. Given the propensity of fellow cops for twisted humor, Susan had never admitted to fear, especially fear of the dark, but had used her facade of cool poise to carry her through. Even more than a year here didn't let her accept thick darkness as benign.

This damn case. Back to the beginning. God damn it. She smacked the steering wheel hard with her palm. Someone wanting to kill Laura? Stuntwoman and Ms. Lloyd got in the way. Laura wanting to kill stuntwoman or Sheri Lloyd?

The kitten was glad to see her when she opened the kitchen door. Perissa, twisting around her ankles, nattered about neglect. She dumped fishy-smelling stuff in a clean bowl and set it on the floor by the refrigerator. As is often the case with love, the kitten left her for something better, food in this instance.

The answering machine blinked about messages; Susan ignored it. She felt two steps behind; this was not a feeling she liked. We've collared a stalker, she consoled herself. He's confessed. Yeah, yeah, I've been all through that. I don't think he did it.

So now what? Back to the beginning. Start over. Yeah, I've been through that too.

Well then, how about a drink? The sharp bite of alcohol to cool the frustrated brain. A bottle of chardonnay stood in the refrigerator. Naw. In vino, muddled mind. She passed up the tall cool bottle and moved on to leftover pizza. She never was much of a drinker; her drug of choice was nicotine, and she'd given that up. Sometimes, like now, she wondered why. The microwave beeped a summons and she put steaming pizza next to the
Herald
that she unfolded on the table. The state of the wheat crop didn't hold her attention, nor did the quilting exhibition or the proper feeder for purple martens.

Laura Edwards in close proximity to Lieutenant Parkhurst kept bringing images to mind. Ah yes, well. None of her business. If she ignored famous actresses with cop ex-husbands and the ties that bind, Kevin Murphy was something to think about.

Sullen, angry young man. Impeccable manners, polite to parody. Complex, filled with hatred for the entire adult world. High school football hero. Beaten by his father—according to Parkhurst—retired test pilot. Smart. Poor grades. An extra in
Lethal Promise.
Is any of this interesting? He'd made a name for himself with his garbage-can art and getting dubbed the mad painter. How much more of a name would he make by murdering Laura Edwards? He might have been at the hotel the night Sheri Lloyd was stabbed. Somebody was—a young person, a teenager. It could have been Kevin. Why had Sheri been killed? The answer might shed light.

Yancy's mother had also been there. Raina had left with her dog and started walking home. She'd been picked up by Kevin Murphy. If Kevin had just killed a woman would he stop to pick up Raina and her dog? Unless Parkhurst's instincts were off, Kevin had picked them up to irritate his father—big hairy dog in pristine car.

She scooped up strings of cheese and popped them in her mouth, swallowed and took a swig of orange juice. Her watch said eight-thirty. Too late to drive out and talk with Raina Yancy?

Yes. She was going anyway. Raina probably wouldn't remember the young person/teenager, but Susan intended to ask.

The little brown Fiat, sitting in the garage next to the pickup, could use a wash; it was so covered in dust, the paint didn't even gleam under the light. She drove it barely enough to keep the battery charged and didn't know why she didn't get rid of it; a reminder of another life maybe. She climbed in the pickup.

The just-past-full-moon poured silver light on fields of wheat that rippled in the wind like the sleek muscles of a running predator. The stars blinked in and out of slow drifting clouds. A jackrabbit on the side of the road sat up on its haunches and turned its large ears like antennae, listening for enemies or judging the safety of crossing the road. She slowed and watched it bound past on its powerful hind legs.

Beyond her headlights, moonlight softened the night. The dense darkness out here on moonless nights made her uneasy. A city creature, she felt safer with neon and two-legged animals than with darkness and four-legged ones.

After more than a year here, she was getting better at finding rural places. Having been to the Yancy house before helped, but even so she missed a turn and had to backtrack.

The house, on a rise with a pale glow inside, sat in an island of darkness. Little house on the prairie. The dog barked, and an outside light came on. She cut the engine, but sat where she was as the dog streaked like a demon toward the truck. It danced around, leaping up to stare her in the eye.

Yancy's sister, standing at the kitchen door with the screen open, called to the dog. It gave one last menacing leap and galloped back to the house. Susan slid from the truck, hoping the hound had been fed.

“Chief Wren?” Serena came toward her, dog at her side. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. I know it's a little late, but—” The dog came at her. She froze, understanding very well why Delmar Cayliff was afraid of the beast.

“He's very friendly,” Serena said.

Right. Elmo shuffled up to her, licked her hand with a soft tongue, and led her into the kitchen. Maybe he was friendly. “I wanted to ask your mother a few questions, if she's still up.”

“Oh, sure, she's reading.”

“Pretending to read, more like,” Raina said. She sat in the overstuffed chair by the window. “Reading isn't what it used to be when you can't remember what you read on the page before.” Fear and frustration sat just below the light words.

“You remember Chief Wren,” Serena said.

“Please sit down. I'll get some iced tea.”

“No. Thank you.” Susan sat on the couch and dropped her shoulder bag at her feet. “I'm sorry to disturb you, but I have a couple questions to ask.”

With a great sigh Elmo spread himself at Raina's feet; she reached down and smoothed his ears.

“I was here around four days ago.”

Raina nodded. “The young actress who got killed.”

“You saw her earlier in the evening, before she was stabbed.”

Raina reached up and turned off the lamp on the end table. “Look,” she said.

Out the window, Susan saw a jackrabbit, ears visible over the flowers. She wondered if it was the same one she'd seen on the road. If so it had gotten here almost as quickly as she had.

“They're timid,” Raina said. “When they're frightened, they run. They've got long teeth for eating plants—they're—oh, what is that word—”