The McCone Files (11 page)

“The sheriff's department is trying to make an identification. Probably his fingerprints will be on file somewhere. In the meantime, there are a few distinctive things about him which may mean something to you to John.”

John sat down next to Corinne. “Such as?”

“The man had been crippled, probably a number of years ago, according to the man from the medical examiner's officer. One arm was bent badly, and he wore a lift to compensate for a shortened leg. He would have walked with a limp.”

The two of them looked at each other, and then Tilby said—too quickly—“I don't know anyone like that.”

Corinne also shook her head, but she didn't meet my eyes.

I said, “Are you sure?”

“Of course we're sure.” There was an edge of annoyance in Tilby's voice.

I hesitated, then went on, “The sheriff's man who examined the body theorizes that the dead man may have been from the countryside around there, because he had fragments of madrone and chaparral leaves caught in his shoes, as well as foxtails in the weave of his pant. Perhaps he's someone you knew when you lived in the area?”

“No, I don't remember anyone like that.”

“He was about Gary's height and age, but with sandy hair. He must have been handsome once, in an elfin way, but his face was badly scarred.”

“I said, I don't know who he is.”

I was fairly certain he was lying, but accusing him would get me nowhere.

Corinne said, “Are you sure the costume was Gary's? Maybe this man was one of the other clowns and dressed similarly.”

“That's what I suggested to the sheriff's man, but the dead man had Gary's pass in his vest pocket. We all signed our passes, remember?”

There was a long silence. “So what you're saying.” Tilby finally said, “is that Gary
gave
his pass and costume to his man.”

“It seems so.”

“But why?”

“I don't know. I'd hoped you could provide me with some insight.”

They both stared at me. I noticed Corinne's face had gone quite blank. Tilby was as white-lipped as when I'd come upon him and Nicole in his dressing room shortly after Fitzgerald's disappearance.

I said to Tilby, “I assume you each have more than one change of costume.”

It was Corinne who answered. “We brought three on this tour. But I had the other two sent out to the cleaner when we arrived in San Francisco…Oh!”

“What is it?”

“I just remembered. Gary asked me about the other costumes yesterday morning. He called from that hotel where he was staying. And he was very upset when I told him they would be at the cleaner until this afternoon.”

“So he planned it all along. Probably he hoped to give his extra costume to the man, and when he found he couldn't, he decided to make a switch.” I remembered Fitzgerald's odd behavior immediately after we'd arrived at the pavilion—his sneaking off into the audience when he'd been told to stay backstage. Had he had a confederate out there? Someone to hand the things to? No. He couldn't have turned over either the costume or the pass to anyone, because the clothing was still backstage, and he'd needed his pass when we returned to the dressing room.

Tilby suddenly stood up. “The son of a bitch! After all we've done—”

“John!” Corinne touched his elbow with her hand.

“John,” I said, “why was your cousin staying at the hotel in the Haight?”

He looked at me blankly for a moment. “What? Oh, I don't know. He claimed he wanted to see how it had changed since he'd lived there.”

“I thought you grew up together on your father's ranch near Clayton and then went to Los Angeles.”

“We did. Gary lived on the Haight before we left the Bay Area.”

“I see. Now, you say he ‘claimed' that was the reason. Was there something else?”

Tilby was silent, then looked at Corinne. She shrugged.

“I guess,” he said finally, “he'd had about all he could take of us. As you may have noticed, we're not exactly a congenial group lately.”

“Why is that?”

“Why is what?”

“That you're all at odds? It hasn't always been this way, has it?”

This time Tilby shrugged. Corinne was silent, looking down at her clasped hands.

I sighed, silently empathizing with Fitzgerald's desire to get away from these people. I myself was sick of their bickering, lies, backbiting, and evasions. And I knew I could get nowhere with them—at least not now. Better to wait until I could talk with Kabalka, see if he were willing to keep on employing me. Then, if he was, I could start fresh.

I stood up, saying, “The Contra Costa authorities will be contacting you. I'd advise you to be as frank as possible with them.” To Corinne, I added, “Wayne will want a personal report from me when he comes back; ask him to call me at home.” I took out a card with both my All Souls and home number, laid it on the coffee table, and started for the door.

As I let myself out, I glanced back at them. Tilby stood with his arms folded across his chest, looking down at Corinne. They were as still as statues, their eyes locked, their expressions bleak and helpless.

Of course, by the time I got home to my brown-shingled cottage the desire to sleep had left me. It was always that way when I harbored nagging unanswered questions. Instead of going to bed and forcing myself to rest, I made coffee and took a cup of it out on the back porch to think.

It was a sunny, clear morning and already getting hot. The neighborhood was Saturday noisy: to one side, my neighbors, the Halls, were doing something to their backyard shed that involved a lot of hammering; on the other side, the Curleys' dog was barking excitedly. Probably, I thought, my cat was deviling the dog by prancing along the top of the fence, just out of his reach. It was Watney's favorite game lately.

Sure enough, in a few minutes there was a thump as Wat dropped down from the fence onto an upturned half barrel I'd been meaning to make into a planter. His black-and white spotted fur was full of foxtails; undoubtedly he'd been prowling around in the weeds at the back of the Curleys' lot.

“Come here, you,” I said to him. He stared at me, tail swishing back and forth. “Come here!” He hesitated, then galloped up. I managed to pull one of the foxtails from the ruff of fur over his collar before he trotted off again, his belly swaying pendulously, a great big horse of a cat….

I sat staring at the foxtail, rolling it between my thumb and forefinger, not really seeing it. Instead, I pictured the hills surrounding the pavilion as I'd seen them the night before. The hills that were dotted with oak and madrone and chaparral…that were sprinkled with people on horses…where a lone horseman had stood under the sheltering branches of tree, his binoculars like a signal flare in the setting sun…

I got up and went inside to the phone. First I called the Contra Costa sheriff's deputy who had been in charge of the crime scene at the pavilion. No, he told me, the dead man hadn't been identified yet; the only personal item he had been carrying was a bus ticket—issued yesterday—from San Francisco to Concord which had been tucked into his shoe. While this indicated he was not a resident of the area, it told them nothing else. They were still hoping to get identification on his fingerprints, however.

Next I called the pavilion and got the home phone of Jim Hayes, the guard who had been on the performers' gate when Fitzgerald had vanished. When Hayes answered my call, he sounded as if I'd woken him, but he was willing to answer my questions.

“When Fitzgerald left he was wearing his costume, right?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“What about makeup?”

“No. I'd have noticed that; it would have seemed strange, him leaving with his face all painted.”

“Now, last night you said you thought he'd come back in a few minutes after you returned from your break. Did he show you his pass?”

“Yes, everyone had to show one. But—”

“Did you look at the name on it?”

“Not closely. I just checked to see if it was valid for that date. Now I wish I
had
looked, because I'm not sure it was Fitzgerald. The costume seemed the same, but I just don't know.”

“Why?”

“Well, there was something different about the man who came in. He walked funny. The guy you found murdered, he was crippled.”

So that observation might or might not be valid. The idea that the man walked “funny” could have been planted in Hayes' mind by his knowing the dead man was cripple. “Anything else?”

He hesitated. “I think…yes. You asked if Gary Fitzgerald was wearing makeup when he left. And he wasn't. But the guy who came in, he was made up. That's why I don't think it was Fitzgerald.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hayes. That's all I need to know.”

I hung up the phone, grabbed my bag and car keys, and drove back out to the pavilion in record time.

The heat-hazed parking lots were empty today, save for a couple of trucks that I assumed belonged to the maintenance crew. The gates were locked, the box office windows shuttered, and I could see no one. That didn't matter, however. What I was interested in lay outside the chain-link fence. I parked the MG near the trucks and went around the perimeter of the amphitheater to the area near the performers' gate, then looked up at the hill to the east. There was a fire break cut through the high wheat-colored grass, and I started up it.

Halfway to the top, I stopped, wiping sweat from my forehead and looking down at the pavilion. Visibility was good from here. Pivoting, I surveyed the surrounding area. To the west lay a monotonous grid-like pattern of tracts and shopping centers, broken here and there by hills and the up thrusting skyline of Walnut Creek. To the north I could see smoke billowing from the stacks of the paper plant at Antioch, and the bridge spanning the river toward the Sacramento Delta. Further east, the majestic bulk of Mount Diablo rose; between it and the foothill were more hills and hollows—ranch country.

The hill on which I stood was only lightly wooded, but there was an outcropping of rock surrounded by madrone and live oak about a hundred yards to the south on a direct line from the tree where the lone horseman with the signal-like binoculars had stood. I left the relatively easy footing of the fire break and waded through the dry grass toward it. It was cool and deeply shadowed under the branches of the trees, and the air smelled of vegetation gone dry and brittle. I stood still for a moment, wiping the sweat away once more, than began to look around. What I was searching for was wedged behind a low rock that formed a sort of table; a couple of tissues smeared with makeup. Black and red and white greasepaint—the theatrical makeup of a clown.

The dead man had probably used this rock as a dressing table, applying what Fitzgerald had brought him in the canvas bag. I remember Gary's insistence on taking the bag with him to the men's room; of course he needed it; the makeup was a necessary prop to their plan. While Fitzgerald could leave the pavilion without his greasepaint, the other man couldn't enter un-made-up; there was too much of a risk that the guard might notice the face didn't match the costume or the name on the pass.

I looked down at the dry leaves beneath my feet. Oak, and madrone, and brittle needles of chaparral. And the foxtails would have been acquired while pushing through the high grass between here and the bottom of the hill. That told me the route the dead man had taken, but not what had happened to Fitzgerald. In order to find that out, I'd have to learn where one could rent a horse.

I stopped at a feed store in the little village of Hillside, nestled in a wooded hollow southeast of the pavilion. It was all you could expect of a country store, with wood floors and big sacks and bins of feed. The weather-beaten old man in overalls who looked up from the saddle he was polishing completed the rustic picture.

He said, “Help you with something?”

I took a closer look at the saddle, then glanced around at the hand-tooled leather goods hanging from hooks on the far wall. “That's beautiful work. Do you do it yourself?”

“Sure do.”

“How much does a saddle like that go for these days?” My experience with horses had ended with lessons I'd taken in junior high school.

“Custom job like this, five hundred, thereabouts.”

“Five hundred! That's more than I could get for my car.”

“Well…” He glanced through the door at the MG.

“I know. You don't have to say another word.”

“It runs, don't it?”

“Usually.” Rapport established, I got down to business. “What I need is some information. I'm looking for a stable that rents horses.”

“You want to set up a party or something?”

“I might.”

“Well, there's MacMillan's, on the south side of town. I wouldn't recommend them, though. They've got some mean horses. This would be for a bunch of city folks?”