Instead of steps, a switchbacked handicap ramp led up to the door of the Lightfoot trailer. Strips of rough, sandpaperlike material made the footing on the ramp more or less secure. The door was set into a glass-fronted porch that offered a partial view of the distant, snow-clogged Sierras. There was a little brass knocker instead of a bell push; Runyon used it twice, didn’t get a response either time.
When he came back down the ramp, a woman was standing on the open porch of the trailer across the narrow courtyard. Late sixties, gray-haired, bulbous body encased in a white chenille bathrobe; wool-stockinged legs as thin as pipe stems showed beneath the robe’s hem. The overall effect was of a giant shorebird with an inquisitive expression in place of a beak.
Runyon bypassed the Ford, moved slowly across to the edge of her yard. The frigid weather had started a steady ache in his weak leg, but he didn’t favor it. He refused to let himself limp, no matter how much the leg hurt. Stubborn pride, Colleen had called it, but she’d understood. There wasn’t anything about him she hadn’t understood.
“If you’re looking for Mr. Lightfoot,” the woman said, “he’s not home.”
“Can you tell me when he’ll be back?”
“After services. He’s a Methodist.”
“Ah.”
“They hold services later than we do, the Methodists. I’m Catholic, I’ve already been to Mass.”
“Ah.”
“Mrs. Doyle took him about twenty minutes ago,” the woman said. “She cares for him, you know.”
“Nurse?”
“Housekeeper. She comes three days a week to clean and cook, and on Sundays she takes him to church.”
“He’s an invalid, then.”
“Confined to a wheelchair, poor man, since his stroke. That was... let’s see, four years ago. No, five years ago.” Her breath plumed. “The older you get, the harder it is to keep track of time.”
“Mr. Lightfoot doesn’t have any family?”
“Well... I don’t really know. I suppose not.”
Evasive answer. He said, “Lightfoot’s not a common name. There’s a George Lightfoot in Lee Vining. Maybe they’re related.”
“They may be. If they are, George Lightfoot doesn’t come to visit. In fact,” she said pointedly, “Robert hardly has any visitors except for Mrs. Doyle.”
“Is that right?”
“He’s... well, he’s not the most neighborly person, poor man. His stroke, you know.” She seemed about to add something, changed her mind.
Runyon asked, “How long has he lived here?”
“Since his stroke. He used to live in Aspen Creek, but he had to sell his home. Hospital bills — he didn’t have enough insurance. It’s criminal, what they charge you for medical care these days. Especially when you’re elderly and live on a fixed income, as most of us here in Shady Wood do. Everyone takes advantage of the elderly, or tries to.” Another pointed comment. “Salesmen, for instance.”
“I’m not a salesman.”
“Well, I should hope not. It’s the Sabbath, after all.”
“Would you know if Mr. Lightfoot had a daughter, or maybe a niece, named Dorothy? Married to a man named Anthony Colton in the early eighties?”
The woman’s face went blank, as suddenly as if it had been swept with an eraser. She said, “Why are you asking about that?” in a voice gone as icy as the courtyard asphalt.
“Then he is related to Dorothy Colton?”
“That terrible business again, after all these years. My Lord.”
“What terrible business?”
“... Don’t you know?”
“Only that Dorothy Colton died in Aspen Creek in nineteen eighty-five. I’m here to find out how and why, if there’s any connection to a man named Vernon Snow who died the same day.”
“Why? Who are you?”
“Private investigator,” Runyon said. “What happened back then has some bearing on a case my agency is handling in San Francisco.”
“What case? What agency?”
He ignored the first question, answered the second. “Any help you can give me...”
“You won’t get any from me,” she said. “I won’t talk about it. Not on the Sabbath. And don’t you bother Mr. Lightfoot about it, either. Show some mercy, for heaven’s sake. That poor man has suffered enough.”
She heeled around, disappeared into her trailer. He heard the lock click as soon as the door shut behind her.
On his way out of Shady Wood, Runyon tried his cell phone. It worked, but the signal was weak because of the mountains and the weather; he didn’t even try to make a call on it.
Bridgeport, like Aspen Creek, was built along Highway 395. A little larger, dominated by a courthouse at least a century old, many of its other buildings flanking the icebound East Walker River. The downtown streets were festooned with wreaths and candy canes and strings of lights — a town with more life and civic pride, maybe because it was the county seat. He found a café and a public phone, put through a call to George Lightfoot’s number in Lee Vining.
A woman answered, told him to wait one moment. He waited a hundred or so before a gruff male voice came on. Runyon identified himself, asked if he was talking to a relative of Robert Lightfoot who used to live in Aspen Creek.
Long silence. Then, warily, “Why you want to know?”
“I’m trying to find out what happened to a woman named Dorothy Lightfoot Colton in August of nineteen eighty-five.”
“Christ! Dragging all that up again? Who’d you say you were?”
“A private investigator. Dorothy Colton’s name came up in—”
“I don’t know nothing about it. He’s my asshole cousin, I haven’t talked to him in ten years, I don’t care if I ever talk to him again. I hardly knew the girl. Can’t you just let people forget?”
“Forget what, Mr. Lightfoot? How did she die?”
“Talk to Bob, you want the gory details. I got nothing to say. Don’t call me up again.”
Runyon sat in the café drinking tea and letting time pass. At noon he drove back to the mobile home park. Robert Lightfoot was back from church, and apparently alone: the upper body of a man was visible behind the porch glass, and there was no car in the courtyard until Runyon brought the Ford in there. There’d been some blue in the sky earlier; now it was all gray threaded with black, with the cloud ceiling coming down. Colder, too. More snow on the way.
He went up the ramp to the porch door. From there he could see all of the man, in a wheelchair at the far end. A heavy robe was draped loosely across his lap, the chair turned so that he was staring straight back at Runyon. Even at a distance he looked old, shrunken, what hair he had left as white as fresh snow, his face seamed and lined and drawn in on itself like a gourd left too long to dry in the sun. But the eyes were alive, bright and unblinking. Embers glowing hot in whitish ashes.
Runyon tapped on the glass, made a gesture: All right if I come in? The old man’s hands were hidden under the robe; he didn’t move. Another tap, another gesture. Except for the eyes, Robert Lightfoot might have been dead in the chair.
On impulse Runyon tried the knob. Unlocked. He opened the door, inward to the left; put one foot inside and said, “Mr. Lightfoot, I’m sorry to bother you—”
That was as far as he got, motion and words both. The old man moved more quickly than Runyon would’ve believed possible. Gnarled hands threw off the robe, came into view clutching a short-barreled pump gun; the slide made an ominous ratchety noise as he jacked a shell into firing position. The muzzle held as steady as if it were clamped in a vise.