“Did he approach her, strike up a conversation?”
“Hi, how are you, that kind of stuff.”
“Ask her to go out with him?”
“Once. She blew him off.”
“How did she blow him off?”
“How?”
“Cut him short, let him down easy, laugh at him?”
“She didn’t say anything about that. But Erin… she wasn’t a cruel person. She made jokes about him, sure, but she wouldn’t’ve done it to his face.”
“How did he take the rejection?”
“Like it was what he expected. Went off with his tail between his legs, Erin said.”
“Did he keep coming around after that?”
“I think maybe once or twice.”
“How long altogether?”
“Not very long. Maybe a month.”
“Then he just disappeared? No reason or provocation?”
“Nothing she said or did, no. There one day, gone the next.”
“Did she see him again after that?”
“No. Erin said they probably put him to sleep at the pound because nobody would want to adopt him, he’d cost too much to feed. She was really pretty funny, all that dog stuff.”
“Sure,” Runyon said. “Funny.”
“He couldn’t be the one, could he? I mean, he never really bothered her or anything. And it’s been a long time…”
“Do you know if Erin told her sister about this man?”
“Well, she probably did. They were close.”
“How about girlfriends she might have confided in? Or who might’ve been with her when Fatso was hanging around?”
“Well… she had a lot of friends, and I don’t know all of them. Risa could tell you better than I can.”
“I’ll ask her,” Runyon said. “One more thing. Did you tell the homicide inspectors about Fatso?”
“Yeah, I did. But they didn’t ask nearly as many questions as you did.”
Which meant they didn’t see much in it and wouldn’t have spent a lot of time on the lead. Maybe they were right. And maybe they weren’t.
The two women who owned FashionSense had nothing to tell him. At first there was a pretense of restrained cooperation, but after a handful of questions it was plain that they resented the intrusion. One of them, Joy Something, a sleek blonde in her early thirties, ended the pretense finally by saying, “Oh, Lord, we don’t know anything about what happened to Erin, if we did we’d have told the police. We’ve answered these same questions so many times already. Really, it’s becoming tedious.”
“Tedious,” Runyon said flatly. “A young woman who worked for you was brutally raped and murdered less than two months ago, the man responsible still hasn’t been identified, and you find the investigation tedious.”
The other woman, dark-haired, Tess Something, said, “For heaven’s sake, Joy didn’t mean it that way.”
“Of course I didn’t,” Joy Something said. “We’re not insensitive people. But you have to understand our position, Mr… what was your name again?”
“Runyon.”
“Mr. Runyon. Policemen and now a private detective trooping in and out, asking questions… it isn’t good for business. We’re just making ends meet as it is, and the landlord is threatening to raise our rent again…”
“Who hired you anyway?” Tess Something asked. “Erin’s sister?”
He just looked at her.
“I didn’t think she had enough money. And besides, what can you do that the police haven’t?”
“We’d help if we could,” Joy Something said. “We liked Erin, she was a pleasant girl, a good employee, what happened to her was a terrible thing, but we just don’t know anything.”
“Nothing at all.”
“And we do care, even if you don’t think so.”
“But you can only grieve for someone so long, especially someone you didn’t really know well. Life has to go on. You can’t expect us to put ours on hold.”
Runyon still didn’t trust himself to speak. He put his back to them and walked out, fast, before the anger in him boiled over and he said or did something he would later regret.
Risa Niland said, “Fatso? Yes, I remember Erin mentioning him. But that was two years ago, and she didn’t have any trouble with the man.”
On the phone her voice sounded lower, with some of the same huskiness as Colleen’s. Imagination? He tried not to focus on it as he said, “Are you sure about that?”
“She’d have told me if she had.”
“What did she say about him, exactly?”
“Just that he was worshipful, like a big dog. She laughed about it.”
“Did she say where and how she’d met him?”
“Let me think… In the park somewhere, the first time. Stow Lake? Yes, Stow Lake. She was there with one of her girlfriends and he came up and spoke to her. I guess it surprised her.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, he weighed three hundred pounds.”
“You saw him yourself?”
“No, that’s what Erin said. I never saw him.”
“Did she describe him in any other way?”
“… Yes. Long hair in a ponytail.”
“What color?”
“I don’t remember her saying.”
“Age?”
“Around her age. Not much older or she wouldn’t have found him so amusing. She had a thing about older men hitting on her.”
“Anything else you can tell me about him?”
“Apparently he was shy and stumbled over his words. Afraid of rejection, I suppose. He must have had a lot of it in his life. Oh, and she said he looked silly in his uniform. She laughed about that, too.”
“Uniform?”
“That’s all. Not what kind it was.”
Runyon asked, “The first time she saw him at Stow Lake-what did he say to her?”
“He offered to buy her a soda. Erin said no, and that was the end of it.”
“Did he tell her his name?”
“Well, he must have at some point, at least his first name.”
“But she didn’t mention it and you didn’t ask.”
“I didn’t see any reason to.”
“How soon did he turn up again after Stow Lake?”
“A few days later. At a tavern on Geary where she went sometimes.”
“Talk to her there? Hit on her?”
“No, nothing like that. Just said hello and bought her a drink.”
“And hung around, watched her?”
“In a worshipful way. He never bothered her.”
“How many other times did she see him?”
“Once or twice more at the tavern. And once or twice when she was out jogging.”
“Following her?”
“She didn’t get that impression,” Risa said. “She thought he might live in the neighborhood.”
“Did he give her any idea where?”
“I don’t think so.”
“This went on, him turning up, for about a month?”
“No more than that. Then he must have lost interest or moved away.”
“And your sister never saw him again?”
“I’m sure she’d have told me if she had.” Risa paused before she said, “Two years is a long time.”
Runyon said, “There aren’t any time limits on sexual obsession.”
“But why would he go away and then all of a sudden come back and attack her without provocation?”
“People disappear for any number of reasons. And there may have been provocation that night-a more aggressive approach, rejection, sudden rage and loss of control.”
“My God.”
“Just speculation at this point,” Runyon said, “but worth looking into. What’s the name of the tavern on Geary?”
“McRoyd’s Irish Pub.”
“And the name of the girlfriend who was with Erin at Stow Lake?”
“Sally Michaels. Sally Johnson now. She got married about six months ago and moved to Morgan Hill.”
“Do you have an address and phone number?”
“Yes, but not here. At home.”
“Call me on my cell phone when you get there. Number’s on the card I gave you. All right?”
“All right. And… thank you, Jake.”
Jake, not Mr. Runyon. With almost the same little catch in her voice Colleen had when she said his name No. Bullshit, Runyon. What’s the matter with you?
He said gruffly, “There’s nothing to thank me for yet,” and broke the connection.
Nobody at McRoyd’s Irish Pub knew a three-hundred-pound, ponytailed man or remembered anyone like that from more than a year ago. The bartender said, “Check back after six o’clock. The boss comes on then, Sam McRoyd. He’s owned this place thirty years-he’s got a memory like an elephant, knows just about everybody who ever lived around here.”