Man on a leash - By Charles Williams Page 0,43

litter on Brubaker’s desk, the still bloody and dust-smeared automatic, his own statement, now typed out and signed, and half a dozen of the scorched aluminum tubes, a handwritten letter and some more papers, and a flat plastic bag of heroin. “I don’t know why he didn’t, except it was Bonner he wanted.”

It was after 4 P.M. Romstead had returned with them to what he had learned by now was called the old Van Sickle place. Brubaker and another deputy had searched the ridge and the area behind it, found a few footprints and the tracks of a pickup truck or jeep, but no brass. The rifleman had taken his four cartridge cases with him, probably, as Brubaker had said, because they were hand loads instead of factory ammunition, possibly some necked-down and resized wildcat too distinctive to leave lying around. The ambulance had driven out across the flat in back of the house, and they’d carried Bonner’s exsanguinated body down from the hillside on a stretcher, looking pitifully shrunken and crumpled in on itself. Romstead had shown them the garbage dump, and after they’d come back to the office, he’d made a full statement and signed it. His face felt sunburned over the old tan and still had dust caked on it. His sweaty clothes had dried now in the air conditioning and stuck to him when he moved.

“Personally,” Brubaker said, “I think they set him up with a sucker phone call sometime this morning, because he took off right from his sister’s funeral without even going home to change clothes. But now we’ll never know. Any more than we’ll ever know what he found out in San Francisco or what they were afraid he’d found out. That’s the beauty of amateurs showing the police how to do it. By God, they don’t waste half their time sitting around on their dead asses making out reports like a bunch of dumb cops or even bothering to tell anybody what they’re doing.” Brubaker removed the cigar from his mouth as if to throw it against the wall but merely cursed again and reclamped it between his teeth.

“Well, he did give you the letter,” Romstead said. “When did it come, and specifically what did it say?”

“It came yesterday morning,” Brubaker said. “But you might as well read it, since it concerns your old man.” He grabbed it out of the confusion on his desk and passed it over.

It was written with a ball-point pen on a single sheet of cheap typing paper. Romstead read it.

Dear Jeri,

Heres enough for one anyway, its all I can spare the way it is now. But you could easy get that other like I told you on the phone, where I stashed it in the old mans car. For Gods sake dont call here again. If I have to say wrong number one more time hes going to guess who it is and if he even thinks I know where you are he’ll beat it out of me and dont think he couldend and wouldent.

Debra

Romstead sighed and dropped it back on the desk. “So he could, and he did.”

Brubaker nodded bleakly. “I’d say so.”

“What did the lab report say? Was the stuff cut?”

“Yes. But she still died of an overdose. She probably didn’t shoot it herself, though.”

“No,” Romstead said. “Of course not. If the stuff was in the car, probably behind the seat cushions somewhere, the dresser was a phony. And in that case, so was the whole thing. They were waiting for her out there—or he was, whoever the hell he is— knowing an addict would eventually show up where the junk was. Did you get the phone number?”

“We occasionally think of things like that,” Brubaker said wearily. He picked up another sheet of paper. “She came home on Tuesday of last week, apparently with enough of the stuff to keep her going for a few days, but by Monday she was climbing into the light fixtures. Monday evening, after Bonner’d gone to work, there were five toll calls to this number in San Francisco at twenty to thirty-minute intervals. Maybe sometimes the man would answer and she’d just hang up, or Debra would answer but he was still home, so she’d say wrong number. This, so help me God, to the home phone of a man who’s apparently trying to find her so he can kill her. Junk.” He shook his head and went on. “Anyway, she and Debra must have made connections on