F is for Fugitive

"I'm afraid I don't follow. A witness to what?"

I fanned the air with a loose fist, using a hand gesture he seemed to grasp right away.

His smile was losing wattage as I closed the door behind me.

Outside, the air seemed mercifully warm. I got in my car and sat for a few minutes. I leafed through my notes, looking for unturned stones. I don't even know what I was hoping to find. I reviewed the information I'd jotted down when I went through Jean Timberlake's school records. She'd lived on Palm then, just around the corner from where I sat. I craned around in the seat, wondering if it was worth it to go have a look. Oh hell, why not? In lieu of hard facts, I might as well hope for a psychic flash.

I started the VW and headed for the old Timberlake address. It was only one block down, so I could have left the car where it was, but I thought I'd better free up a parking space for the hearse. The building was on the left, two stories of shabby, pale green stucco jammed up against a steep embankment.

As I approached, I realized there was nothing much to see. The building was abandoned, the windows boarded up. On the left, a wooden staircase angled up to the second floor, where a balcony circled the perimeter. I climbed the stairs. The Timberlakes had lived in number 6, in the shadow of the hill. The whole place looked dreary. The front door of their apartment had a perfect round hole where the knob should have been. I pushed the door open. The veneer had been splintered, leaving stalagmites of lighter wood showing along the bottom edge.

The windows here were still intact, but so grimy that they might as well have been boarded up. The incoming light was filtered by dust. Soot had settled on the linoleum floors. The kitchen counters were warped, the cabinet doors hanging by their hinges. Mouse pellets suggested recent occupancy. There was only one bedroom. The back door opened off this bedroom onto the rear of the building, where the balcony connected to a clumsy stairway anchored to the side of the hill. I looked up. The sheer sides of the dirt embankment were eroded. Dense vines spilled over the lip of the hill maybe thirty feet above. Up there, at the top, I caught a glimpse of a private residence that boasted a spectacular view of the town, with the ocean stretching off to the left and a gentle hill on the right.

I returned to the apartment, trying to roll back the years in my mind. Once this place had been furnished, not grandly perhaps, but with an eye to modest comfort. From gouges in the floor, I could guess where the couch had been. I suspected they'd used the dining ell as a sleeping alcove, and I wondered which of them had slept there. Shana had mentioned Jean's sneaking out at night.

I passed through the bedroom to the back door and studied the rear stairs, letting my eye follow the line of ascent. She might have used these, climbing up to the street above, where her various boyfriends could have picked her up and dropped her off again. I tested the crude wooden handrail, which was flimsily constructed and loose after years of disuse. The risers were unnaturally steep and it made climbing hazardous. Many of the balusters were gone.

I trudged upward, huffing and puffing my way to the top. A chain-link fence ran along the crest of the embankment. There was no gate now, but there might have been at one time. Carefully I turned my head, looking back over the neighborhood from above the rooftops. The view was heady-treetops at my feet, the town spread out below-creating a mild vertigo. A parked car was about the size of a bar of soap.

I studied the house in front of me, a two-story frame-and-glass structure with a weathered exterior. The yard was immaculate and beautifully landscaped, complete with a swimming pool, decking, a hot tub, a Brown-Jordan glass-topped table and chairs. Situated anyplace else in town, the property would have required shielding shrubs for privacy. Up here, the owners could enjoy an unobstructed 180-degree view.

I struck off to the right, clinging to the fence as I made my way along the narrow path that skirted the property. When I reached the lot line on the right, I followed the fence, which defined the vacant lot next door. The street beyond was the last stretch of a cul-de-sac, with only one other house in sight. As far as I'd seen, this was Floral Beach's only classy neighborhood.

I approached the house from the front and rang the bell. I turned and stared out at the street. Up here on the hill, the sun beat down unmercifully on the chaparral. There were very few trees and there was very little to cut the wind. The ocean was visible perhaps a quarter of a mile away.

I wondered if the fog stretched this far; could be desolate in its way. I rang the bell again, but there was apparently no one home. Now what?

The word "Sanctuary" was nagging at me. I'd assumed it meant the church, but there was another possibility. The hot tubs up at the mineral springs all had names like that. Maybe it was time for another visit with the Dunnes.