F is for Fugitive (9 page)

“Well, they're cute,” I said, hoping he didn't pick up on the note of astonishment.

“They're rascals,” he said fondly. “This was last year. She's pregnant again. She's wishin' she didn't have to work, but we do pretty good.”

“What's she do?”

“She's a nurse's aide up at Community Hospital on the orthopedic ward, night shift. She'll work eleven to seven. Then she gets home and I take off, drop the kids at school, and swing back around to the station. We got a babysitter for the little guy. I don't know quite what we'll do when the new one comes along.”

“You'll figure something out,” I said.

“I guess,” he said. He flopped the wallet shut and tucked it back in his pocket.

I bought a round of beers and then he bought one. I felt guilty about getting the poor man sloshed, but I had another question or two for him and I wanted his inhibitions out of the way. Meanwhile, the population in the bar was thinning down from ten to maybe six. I noticed, with regret, that Shana Timberlake had left. The jukebox had been fixed and the volume of the music was just loud enough to guarantee privacy without being so obtrusive we'd be forced to shout. I was relaxed, but not as loose as I allowed Tap to think. I gave his arm a bump.

“Tell me something,” I said soddenly. “I'm just curious.”

“What's that?”

“How much money did you and this Bailey fellow net?”

“Net?”

“In round numbers. About how much you make? I'm just asking. You don't have to say.”

“We paid restitution on two thousand some-odd dollar.”

“Two thousand? Bulll. You made more than that,” I said.

Tap flushed with pleasure. “You think so?”

“Even bumpin' off gas stations, you made more, I bet.”

“That's all I ever saw,” he said.

“That's all they caught you for,” I said, correcting him.

“That's all I put in my pocket. And that's the honest truth.”

“But how much else? How much altogether?”

Tap studied up on that one, extending his chin, pulling at his lip in a parody of deep thought. “In the neighborhood, I would say, of . . . would you believe, forty-two thousand six hundred and six.”

“Who got that? Bailey got that?”

“Oh, it's gone now. He never did see a dime of it neither, as far as I know.”

“Where'd it come from?”

“Couple little jobs we pulled they never found out about.”

I laughed with delight. “Well, you old devil, you,” I said, and gave his arm another push. “Where'd it go?”

“Beats me.”

I laughed again and he got tickled, too. Somehow, it seemed like the funniest thing either of us ever heard. After half a minute, the laughter trickled out and Tap shook his head.

“Whoo, that's good,” he said. “I haven't laughed like that since I don't know when.”

“You think Bailey killed that little girl?”

“Don't know,” he said, “but I will tell you this. When we went off to jail? We give the money to Jean Timberlake to hold. He got out and next thing I know, she's dead and he says he don't know where the money's at. It was long gone.”

“Why didn't you get it when the two of you got out?”

“Ah, no. Huh-unh. The cops prob'ly had their eye on us, waitin' to see if we'd make a move. Goddamn. Everybody figured he killed her for sure. Me, I don't know. Doesn't seem like him. Then again, she might of spent all the money and he choked her in a fit.”

“Naw. I don't believe that. I thought Pearl said she was knocked up.”

“Well, she was, but Bailey wouldn't kill her for that. What's the point? The money's all we cared about, and why in hell not? We done jail time. We paid. We get out and we're too smart to start throwin' cash around. We laid low. After she died, Bailey told me she was the only one knew for sure where it was and she never told. He didn't want to know in case he ever had to take a lie detector test. Gone for good by now. Or maybe it's still hid, only nobody knows where.”

“Maybe he has it after all. Maybe that's what he's lived on the whole time he's been gone.”

“I don't know. I doubt it, but I'd sure like to have me a little talk with him.”

“What do you think, though? Honestly.”

“The honest truth?” he said, fixing me with a look. He leaned closer, winking. “I think I gotta go see a man about a dog. Don't go 'way now.” He eased off the stool. He turned and pointed a finger at me solemnly like a gun. I fired a digit right back at him. He proceeded to the john, walking with the exaggerated nonchalance of a man who's drunk.

I waited fifteen minutes, nursing my beer, with an occasional glance at the door to the unisex facility. The woman who'd been dancing with Shana Timberlake was now playing pool with a kid who looked eighteen. It was nearly midnight by then, and Daisy started cleaning off the bar with a rag.

“Where'd Tap go?” I said when she had worked her way down within range of me.

“He got a phone call and took off.”

“Just now?”

“Few minutes ago. He still owes a couple bucks on that tab.”

“I'll take care of it,” I said. I laid a five on the bar and waved away any change.

She was looking at me. “You know Tap's the biggest bullshitter ever lived.”

“I gathered as much.”

Her gaze was dark. “He might have been in trouble
some years ago, but these days he's a decent family man. Nice wife and kids.”

“Why tell me? I'm not hustling his buns.”

“Why all the questions about the Fowler boy? You been pumping him all night.”

“I talked to Royce. I'm curious about this business with his son, that's all.”

“What's it to you?”

“It's just something to jaw about. There's nothing else going on.”

She seemed to soften, apparently satisfied at the benevolence of my intent. “You here on vacation?”

“Business,” I replied. I thought she'd pursue it, but she let the subject drop.

“We close about this time weeknights,” she said. “You're welcome to stay while I lock up in back, but Pearl doesn't like anyone around when I close out the register.”

I realized then that I was the last person in the place. “I guess I better let you get on with it, then. I've had enough anyway.”

The fog had curled right up to the road, obscuring the beach in a bunting of yellow mist. In the distance, a foghorn repeated its warning note. There were no cars passing and no sign of anyone on foot. Behind me, Daisy flipped the dead bolt and turned off the exterior lights, leaving me on my own. I walked briskly back to my motel room, wondering why Tap hadn't said good-bye.

 

 

 

 

 

Bailey's arraignment was scheduled for room B of the Municipal Court, on the lower level of the San Luis Obispo County Courthouse on Monterey Street. Royce rode with me. He didn't really seem well enough for the trip into town, but he was determined to have his way. Since Ann was taking her mother to the doctor that morning and couldn't accompany us, we tried to minimize the exertions he'd be subjected to. I dropped him out in front, watching as he made his way painfully up the wide concrete steps. We had arranged for him to wait for me in the airy lobby coffee shop with its skylights and potted ficus plants. I had already briefed him in the car coming over and he'd seemed satisfied with the state of my inquiries to that point. Now I wanted the opportunity to bring Jack Clemson up to speed.

I left my car parked in a small private lot behind the attorney's office, a block away. Clemson and I walked
over to the courthouse together, using the time to talk about Bailey's frame of mind, which he found worrisome. With me, Bailey had seemed to alternate between numbness and despair. By the time he and Clemson chatted later in the day, his mood had darkened considerably. He was convinced he was never going to beat the escape charge. He was certain he'd end up at the Men's Colony again and equally certain he'd never survive incarceration.

“The guy's a basket case,” Jack said. “I can't seem to talk any sense into him.”

“But what are his chances, realistically?”

“Hey, I'm doing what I can. Bail's been set at half a million bucks, which is ridiculous. We're not talkin' Jack the Ripper here. I'll enter a motion to reduce. And maybe I can talk the prosecuting attorney into letting him plead to escape for the minimum. The time'll be added on, of course, but there's no way around that.”

“And if I come up with some convincing evidence that someone else killed Jean Timberlake?”

“Then I'd move to set aside the original plea, or maybe file a coram nobis. Either way, we'd be set.”

“Don't count on it, but I'll do what I can.”

He flashed a smile at me, holding up crossed fingers.

When we got to the courthouse, he left me in the lobby while he went down to meet with the prosecuting attorney and the judge in chambers. The coffee shop was really no more than a wide expanse of central lobby, jammed with people now, the press in evidence.
Royce was seated at a small table near the stairs, his hands folded across the top of his cane. He seemed tired. His hair had that matted, slightly sweaty cast of someone in ill health. He had ordered coffee, but it sat in the cup looking cold and untouched. I took a seat. The waitress swung by with a fresh pot of coffee, but I shook my head. Royce's anxiety enveloped the table like a sour, hopeless scent. He was clearly a proud man, accustomed to bending the world to his will. Bailey's arraignment already bore all the trappings of a public spectacle. The local paper had been running the story of his capture on the front page for days, and the local radio stations made mention of it at the top of each hour and again in the quick news summaries on the half hour.

A crew with a minicam passed just to the right of us, heading down the stairs without realizing Bailey Fowler's father was sitting within camera range. He turned a baleful eye on them and the ensuing smile was bitter and brief.

“Maybe we better go on down,” I said.

We descended the stairs, walking slowly. I controlled an urge to give him physical support, sensing that he might take offense. His stoicism had a hint of self-mockery to it. He was grimly amused to have prevailed thus far, forcing his body to do his bidding regardless of the cost.

The corridor below was lined on one side with big plate-glass windows, with two exits into a sunken courtyard. Both the interior passageway and the exterior
stairways were filling with spectators, some of whom seemed to recognize Royce as we passed. There was a silent parting in the crowd; gazes averted as we made our way into the courtroom. In the third row, people squeezed together to make room for us. There was the same hushed murmuring as in a church before services start. Most had dressed in their Sunday best, and the air seemed to stir with conflicting perfumes. No one spoke to Royce, but I could sense the rustling and nudging going on all around us. If he was humbled by the reaction, he gave no sign. He had been a respected member of the community, but Bailey's notoriety had tainted him. To have a son accused of murder is the same as being accused of a crime oneself—parental failure of the direst sort. Unfair though it may be, there is always that unspoken question: What did these people do to turn this once-innocent child into a cold-blooded killer of another human being?

I had checked the docket posted in the upstairs corridor. There were ten other arraignments scheduled that morning in addition to Bailey's. The door to the judge's chambers was closed. The court clerk, a slim, handsome woman in a navy-blue suit, was seated at a table below and to the right of the judge's bench. The court reporter, also female, sat at a matching table to the left. There were a dozen attorneys present, most in dark, conservatively cut suits, all with white shirts, muted ties, black shoes. Only one was female.

While we waited for the proceedings to begin, I scanned the crowd. Shana Timberlake was seated
across the aisle from us, one row back. Under the flat fluorescent lights, the illusion of youth vanished and I could see the dark streaks at the corners of her eyes, suggesting age, weariness, too many nights in bad company. She was wide-shouldered, heavy-breasted, slender through the waist and hips, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. As mother of the victim, she was free to dress any way she liked. Her hair was nearly black, with a few strands of silver here and there, combed straight back from her face and held with a clip on top. She turned her hot, dark eyes on me and I looked away. She knew I was with Royce. When I glanced back, I could see her gaze lingering on him with a blunt appraisal of his physical condition.

One other woman caught my attention as she came down the aisle. She was in her early thirties, sallow, thin, wearing an apricot knit dress with a big stain across the hem. She had on a white sweater and white heels with short white cotton socks. Her hair was a dishwater blond, held back with a wide, tatty-looking headband. She was accompanied by a man I assumed was her husband. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with curly blond hair and the sort of pouty good looks I've never liked. Pearl was with them, and I wondered if this was the son he'd referred to who had seen Bailey with Jean Timberlake the night she was killed.

There was a faint escalation of murmurs at the rear of the courtroom and I turned my head. The crowd's
attention focused in the way it does at a wedding when the bride appears, ready to begin her walk down the aisle. The prisoners were being brought in and the sight was oddly disturbing: nine men, handcuffed, shackled together, shuffling forward with their leg chains. They wore jail garb: unconstructed cotton shirts in orange, light gray, or charcoal, and gray or pale blue cotton pants with
JAIL
stenciled across the butt, white cotton socks, the type of plastic sandals known as “jellies.” Most of them were young: five Latinos and three black guys. Bailey was the only white. He seemed acutely self-conscious, high color in his cheeks, his eyes downcast, the modest star of this chorus line of thugs. His fellow prisoners seemed to take the proceedings for granted, nodding to the scattering of friends and relatives. Most of the spectators had come to see Bailey Fowler, but nobody seemed to begrudge him his status. A uniformed deputy escorted the men into the jury box up front, where their leg chains were removed in case one of them had to approach the bench. The prisoners settled in, like the rest of us, to enjoy the show.