Richard Novak
I finally tracked down John Faith a little after ten o’clock. At the one place in Pomo I least expected to find him — Cypress Hill Cemetery.
I’d been all through town, half around the lake, and just missed him twice — once at the Northlake Cafe, where he’d had a late breakfast while I was out talking to Harry Richmond, and once on Redbud Street. Della Feldman, the day sergeant in charge, had had a frantic call from Zenna Wilson, who claimed Faith had been stalking her daughter and a playmate on their way to school. The Wilson woman was a nuisance and a wolf-crier, and the claim was likely another of her hysterical fantasies; still, after the prowler at Audrey’s home last night, I wasn’t about to treat any report of suspicious activity lightly.
But there was no sign of Faith or his Porsche in the Redbud neighborhood, and that frustrated me even more. I had no real reason to suspect the man of any wrongdoing, just the vague uneasiness he’d stirred in me yesterday, but there was a slippery, secretive quality to the way he kept moving around town, one place to another with no apparent motive. I should’ve gone out to Lakeside Resort as soon as I left Audrey’s the first time, rousted him out of bed, and to hell with protocol and a natural reluctance to hassle a man without provocation. But instead I’d gone to the station, given Verne Erickson the Porsche’s license number, and had him start a computer background check on Faith — find out if he was wanted for anything, if he had a criminal record of any kind.
I’d told Verne about the attempted break-in at Audrey’s and asked him to keep quiet about it for the time being. There was no sense in inciting fear of night prowlers and masked rapists. Zenna Wilson was a perfect example of why things like this needed to be kept under wraps until, if, and when it presented a public threat. Then, as tired as I was, I’d managed a couple of hours’ sleep on my office couch. Long, bad night. Half a pot of coffee and some breakfast at Nelson’s Diner, after which I wasted another half hour looking around Audrey’s yard and the cottage next door. And after that, Faith kept eluding me — until, as I was passing by on my way back from Redbud, I spotted his Porsche in the parking area just inside the cemetery gates.
I turned around and drove in and parked next to the Porsche. Faith wasn’t inside, or anywhere in the vicinity, and I didn’t see him on the narrow roads that led up into the older sections of Cypress Hill. But with all the trees and hillside hollows you can’t see much more than half the grounds from below.
The Porsche wasn’t locked. I opened the door, bent for a look inside. An old army blanket on the backseat, a plastic bag full of trash on the floor in front of the passenger bucket — that was all. I leaned across to depress the button on the glove compartment. Owner’s manual, a packet of maps bound with a rubber band, two unopened packages of licorice drops. And under the maps, the car’s registration slip. John Faith, street address in L.A. proper; the registration was current and had been issued eighteen months ago. I made a mental note of the street address, put the slip back where I’d found it, closed the box, and leaned back out.
“Finding everything all right, Officer?”
He was propped against one of the cypress trees about thirty feet away, in a patch of the pale sunlight that had come out a while ago. One corner of his mouth was curved upward — a smile that wasn’t a smile, just a sardonic twisting of the lips.
“More or less,” I said. “You mind, Mr. Faith?”
“Would it matter if I did?”
“It might.”
“Sure. Release lever’s on the left there, if you want to check inside the trunk, too. Nothing in there except a spare tire, some tools, and an emergency flashlight, but don’t take my word for it. Go ahead and look for yourself.”
“I think I will.”
I yanked the release, went up front, and peered into the shallow trunk compartment. Spare tire, some tools, an emergency lantern. Nothing else.
He came over to stand next to me as I shut the lid. “Mind telling me what you’re looking for?”
“What would you say if I told you a ski mask?”
“A ski mask. Uh-huh. I guess I’d tell you I don’t ski. Couldn’t if I wanted to in country like this, since there aren’t any mountains and not even a flake of snow on the ground.”
“Where were you between midnight and two A.M.?”
“In bed, asleep.”
“Not according to the owner of the Lakeside Resort. He says he was awake at twelve-thirty and you weren’t in your cabin.”
“Is that right?”
“But you say you were.”
“I was. He’s either blind or a damn liar.”
“Why would he lie?”
“Why would I lie? Somebody wearing a ski mask do something between midnight and two A.M.?”
“Somebody tried to do something. Attempted break-in, possibly with intent to commit rape.”
“Yeah? Well, it wasn’t me.”
“I hope not.”
“You have any reason to think it was me?”
“No particular reason.”
“Just figured you’d hassle the biggest, ugliest stranger you could find.”
“I’m not hassling you. Asking questions, that’s all.”
He showed me the non-smile again. “Anything else, Chief?”
“Your car registration says you live in Los Angeles,” I said. “Pomo is a long way from L.A.”
“Pomo’s a long way from anywhere.”
“Then why’d you come here?”
“Why not? Everybody got to be somewhere.”
“Answer the question.”
“Yes, sir, Chief. L.A.’s where I used to live. Got to be a town I didn’t like anymore, so I pulled up stakes a couple of weeks ago. You might say I’m scouting a new location.”
“Pomo?”
He shrugged. “I doubt it.”
“What’d you do down in L.A.? For a living, I mean.”
“Construction work.”
“You won’t find much new construction around here. This is a depressed county, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I noticed. I’m not interested in a job right now.”
“No? Why is that?”
“I made good money down south and I saved enough to treat myself to some time off. I’ve got about five hundred in my wallet, if you want to see it.”
“Why would I want to see your money?”
“Come on, Chief. We both know the difference between transient and vagrant.”
“I don’t think you’re a vagrant.”
“Just a prowler and would-be rapist.”
That jabbed my temper. “Don’t get smart with me.”
“Smart?” He spread his hands. “I’m cooperating the best way I know how.”
“You do that and we’ll get along,” I said. “I’m not accusing you of anything, I’m just doing my job the best way I know how. You may not believe it, but I try to take people at face value — until I have cause to take them otherwise.”
He laughed, a quick, barking sound. “Me too, Chief. Me too.”
“A few more questions and you can go on about your business. What were you doing on Redbud Street earlier?”
“Redbud Street?”
“Residential neighborhood not far from here.”
“The one with all the trees and older houses? Looking, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“Seemed like it’d be a nice street to live on.”
“It is. Nice and quiet — a family street. Why were you driving so slowly?”