Mourners: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery) by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online

she moved, too, cutting away across the lawn. “Wait!” she called after Troxell. “Wait!” But he neither slowed nor turned his head, just kept fast-walking to where he’d parked his BMW.
    Runyon cut ahead to the flower-banked grave, paused there just long enough to read the inscription on the marble headstone.
    IN MEMORY OF
ERIN DUMONT
1980-2005
“In the midst of Life there is Death”
    The woman seemed to have realized that she was running across gravesites instead of in the grass strips that separated them; he saw her falter, then slow and shift her routesideways. Troxell was already inside the BMW, a hundred yards away. There was enough time for Runyon to get to the Ford and reestablish pursuit, but he didn’t do it. The woman had halted next to a marble bench, and when Troxell pulled away she sank down on it, unmindful of the fact that it was a memorial rather than a public bench and wet with mist besides. She lowered her head into the splayed fingers of one hand.
    Runyon approached her slowly. She didn’t seem to know he was there, even after he stopped in front of her, until he said, “Excuse me, miss.” Then her head snapped up and she blinked at him.
    Up close, the resemblance to Colleen wasn’t nearly as strong. Younger, no more than thirty. Face longer and thinner. Hairstyle similar, shoulder length, parted in the middle, but the color was several shades lighter than dark burgundy. Eyes blue, not green, faintly slanted, and liquid with an emotion that he recognized as pain. Mouth wider, the upper lip thicker. Still, there was enough similarity, too much similarity. His mouth was dry. He could feel his own hurt like a fresh probe moving through him.
    “What is it?” she said. Voice different, too, pitched lower and not as soft as Colleen’s. The blue eyes were wary. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
    “I’m sorry. You . . . remind me of someone.”
    She said, “Oh for God’s sake,” in a tone of weariness mixed with disgust.
    “That’s not a line and I’m not trying to pick you up. I just want to talk to you.”
    “About what?”
    “The man you spoke to at Erin Dumont’s grave.”
    Abrupt change in her expression; she was on her feet in one quick motion. Almost eagerly she said, “You know who he is?”
    “That’s one of the questions I was going to ask you.”
    “Why?
Do
you know him?”
    “I know who he is. I followed him here.”
    “Followed him? I don’t . . . my God, are you a policeman?”
    “Private investigator.” He flipped open the leather case Colleen had given him as a birthday gift, showed her the photostat of his California license. She studied it—memorizing the information, he thought—before she met his gaze again.
    “Why are you following that man, Mr. Runyon?”
    “I can’t tell you that. Confidential.”
    “But is it because you think . . . somebody thinks . . . he might have something to do with what happened to Erin?”
    “No. That’s not the reason my agency was hired.”
    It was not what she wanted to hear. She bit her lower lip, sank down again on the edge of the bench as if she were suddenly tired.
    Runyon said, “Do you mind telling me your name?”
    Brief hesitation. “Risa Niland.”
    “Risa?”
    “Short for Marisa.”
    “Erin Dumont was a friend or relative?”
    “She was my sister.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t say that. I’m tired of hearing it from strangers who don’t really mean it. You didn’t know Erin, you don’tknow what it’s like to lose someone close to you in a terrible way.”
    He was silent.
    After a few seconds, she said more softly, “But you
have
lost someone, haven’t you? I can see it in your face.”
    “What happened to your sister, Ms. Niland? Or is it Mrs.?”
    “Not anymore.”
    “How did she die?”
    “Somebody killed her. Raped and strangled her.”
    “. . . When?”
    “A little over two months ago.”
    “And the man responsible hasn’t been caught or identified?”
    “No. There