They might have gotten away with it if I hadn’t shown up at Pendarves’s property that night. My investigation since had kept the pressure on; and I’d made it clear enough that I was getting close to the truth. So I had to die too. That was what the telephone conversation between Coleman and Vega last night had been about.
The big question now was where Coleman was. Had he, like Vega, decided some time ago to pack up and run? Probably, if he believed the feds were close to nailing him. It was in character for him to have salted away a large sum of cash as a safety valve; and the past week or so he could have been quietly liquidating assets. What argued against him having already fled was the fact that he’d sent Vega after me. Why bother to have me killed if he was planning to disappear as soon as last night? No, there was only one good reason he’d want me out of the way, the same reason he’d ordered the murder of his brother: to gain enough time to finish stockpiling cash and arranging to cover his tracks when he finally did run.
Then why had he gone off with his wife last night? To give himself an alibi for the time of my death, just in case something went wrong? No, that didn’t add up; he could have just stayed home, surrounded himself with people. To stash his wife somewhere for a few days, so he’d be free to complete his preparations and then slip away quietly when he was ready? That made sense if he didn’t intend to take her with him, if she hadn’t been privy to any of his schemes, and particularly if she had money or jewelry that Coleman could appropriate. But where would he stash her? Someplace the two of them regularly frequented, maybe; some little getaway spot….
A sense of urgency prodded me out of the coffee shop and into my car. I couldn’t afford to just hang loose and wait for Coleman to come back home. Once he found out Rafael Vega was in the hospital and I was still alive, he’d run and run fast; he wouldn’t have much choice. I had to find him before that happened. If it hadn’t already happened.
I drove over to 280 and headed south, back to San Carlos and Sweet William Lane.
* * * *
There was a white Olds Cutlass parked in Eileen Lujack’s driveway. But nobody came to open the door when I rang the bell. An offshoot of the front walk led around the side of the house; I followed it through a rose garden, past another of those damn gnomes peering slyly from behind a bush. On the other side of the garden, along the rear, was a stone-floored patio; a swimming pool, covered now for the winter, occupied the far end and some molded-plastic outdoor furniture was arranged on the near side. Two women sat at one of the tables, drinking out of mugs and taking in the still-warmish afternoon sun. The one facing my way was Eileen Lujack.
When she spotted me she said something to the other woman, who turned in her chair; they both watched as I crossed the patio. Mrs. Lujack said, “Oh, it’s you,” before I reached them. She didn’t look or sound pleased to see me.
Her companion-older, dark-haired, a little on the horsey side in both dress and appearance-said to Eileen, “Who, sweetie?”
“Oh, that detective I told you about.”
“Well, didn’t you tell him you didn’t want him bothering you anymore?”
“I told him. I left a message on his machine.”
“Then why is he here?”
I don’t much care for people talking about me in my presence as if I’m not really there. I said, “I want to ask you a couple more questions, Mrs. Lujack. Then I’ll go away and you won’t see me again. But this doesn’t concern your friend, so either she can go in the house or we can. Whichever you prefer.”
The horsey woman didn’t like being ignored any more than I did. She said to Eileen, “He’s got a nerve. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, sweetie.”
“No, it’s all right, Monica. I’ll talk to him.”
“If you say so. But I’m staying right here while you do.”
Mrs. Lujack shrugged and looked up at me. “It’s all right to talk in front of Monica.”
“As long as the answers to my questions come from you. Do you know where I can find your brother-in-law?”
“Well, at home, I suppose. He lives in Burlingame….”
“He’s not there,” I said. “He and his wife went somewhere last night, with luggage. I thought you might know where.”
“No, I don’t.”
“When did you last talk to Coleman?”
“Day before yesterday. After you were here.”
“Did he say anything about taking a trip?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Where does he go when he wants to get away for the weekend? Any special place?”
She thought about that, with her face scrunched up like a hound’s; thinking would always be a chore for her. Pretty soon she said, “Well, he likes to go duck hunting. Carla does too.”
The horsey woman said, “Ugh. I hate blood sports.”
“So do I,” Eileen said.
“So do I,” I said. “Especially when the prey is human.” I was remembering the prints on Coleman’s office wall, the hand-carved decoy on his desk-things I should have remembered earlier, without help. “Where do they go to hunt ducks?”
“Up to their cabin, I guess.”
“They own a hunting cabin? Where?”
“Oh … that marsh on the way to Sacramento, the big one.”
“Suisun Marsh?”
“That’s it. Tom … sometimes Tom went up there with them.”
“Poor baby,” the horsey woman said, and reached out to pat Eileen’s hand. “Don’t you think that’s enough questions, sweetie?”
“I don’t know,” Eileen said. And to me, “Is that all?”
“Just one more. Do you know where their cabin is on the marsh? The address, if it has one?”
“No. I was only there once, a long time ago….”
“Can you give me a general idea of the location?”
The horsey woman swiveled her head, fixed cold green-olive eyes on me, and for the first time favored me with a direct statement. “Can’t you see you’re upsetting her? She’s just lost her husband, she’s suffered a terrible personal tragedy…. Don’t men like you have any compassion?”
“Don’t women like you ever mind your own business?”
Her mouth hinged open. “Why, you … you shit,” she said.
I didn’t respond to that. Instead I said to Eileen, “Thanks for talking to me, Mrs. Lujack. I really won’t bother you again.” Without looking at the mare, I left them and went back around to the front yard. Thinking sardonically of the bumper sticker you see everywhere these days, the one that says: SHIT HAPPENS.
Yeah. Pretty soon now, in one place or another, this Shit was going to happen to Coleman Lujack.
* * * *
On the way back to the city I considered calling Eberhardt, maybe saving myself some time that way, but I didn’t do it. His memory for details is poor, and I had no desire to listen to another sermon. I drove straight downtown to O’Farrell, went up to the office, and looked through the file Eb had built as part of his background check on Coleman.
And there it was on the TRW credit report, under Property Owned: 15678 Grizzly Island Road, Suisun City.
* * * *
Chapter 18
The Suisun Marsh is the largest single estuarine marsh in the country-thousands of acres of tule grass, freshwater sloughs and backwaters, and unpaved roads spread out along the northeastern rim of Suisun Bay. The California Department of Fish and Game controls most of it, maintaining large sections as a wildlife refuge; those sections are off-limits to hunters and fishermen. But along the network of sloughs there are numerous privately owned parcels of land, whose owners can obtain seasonal permits to hunt certain species of ducks and birds that flock there during the winter months. For men like Coleman Lujack, to whom all life came cheap, it would be a shooter’s paradise.
Grizzly Island Road is the main access into the marsh, a narrow, two-lane paved road that winds in off Highway 12. Fairfield and Suisun City, the two towns that flank the east side of the highway, used to be small, quiet places populated mainly by people connected in one way or another with Travis Air Force Base nearby. In recent years both had grown rapidly, thanks to the burgeoning cost of real estate in the Bay Area; now families had to come this far out-some forty miles east of San Francisco-to find affordable housing. Tracts and shopping centers had blossomed along Highway 12, in places butting right up against the protected marshland.