Camouflage (Nameless Detective Mysteries) (17 page)

There was nothing Chavez could do, no way he could get over in time to make the exit himself.

“Maldito!”

The word exploded out of him with such ferocity that Elmo jumped up on the backseat and began a frightened yipping.

Long way to the next exit, across Richardson Bay. He drove as fast as he dared, turned off, and came back around southbound to the Mill Valley–Stinson Beach exit. The Mill Valley road was jammed with homeward-bound commuters; even if the Explorer was among all the tightly packed headlights and taillights, trying to locate it would be an exercise in futility. McManus also could have turned off on one of the side streets and doubled back onto the freeway northbound, or even southbound to return to the city. There was just no way to tell.

The woman must be plain crazy to have pulled that sudden lane change stunt on fog-slick pavement. Either that or she’d been alert to a tail and spotted him despite his precautions. Sure, that was it. Explained the roundabout crosstown route to the bridge.

Not his fault, then. You’d have to be invisible to follow somebody who’s on the lookout for it. But that didn’t make him feel any better.

All that mattered was, he’d lost them.

20

JAKE RUNYON

He had agency work to attend to after leaving Dragovich’s office, in and out of the city; he spent four hours doing it, keeping his mind on a strict business focus the entire time. Continually agonizing about Bryn and her situation was wasted energy, negative energy.

The last piece of business was an interview in the Haight; from there he drove to the Hall of Justice. He hadn’t heard from Dragovich, which likely meant that Bryn was still AdSeg’d. That was the case, dammit. He still couldn’t get in to see her.

Three thirty-five. Twenty-five minutes to kill before the homicide inspectors, Farley and Crabtree, came on for their four-to-midnight tour. Runyon went into the cafeteria, bought himself a cup of tea and a corned-beef sandwich. He wasn’t hungry, but he hadn’t eaten all day and he needed to put something into his empty stomach.

At four o’clock he went up to General Works. Crabtree and Farley had both signed in, but neither was at his desk in the Homicide Division. Runyon did some more waiting, nearly ten minutes, before Crabtree showed up carrying a sheaf of computer printouts.

“Your timing’s good, Mr. Runyon. Just the man we wanted to see.”

“If it’s about my statement, that’s one reason I’m here.”

“It’s about more than that. Mrs. Darby’s statement, primarily.”

“What about her statement?”

“It’s full of lies.”

Runyon felt himself tighten up inside. “What makes you think that?”

“Not think it, know it for a fact.”

“How?”

Crabtree gestured to an empty chair, then leaned back and laced his fingers at the back of his neck. Big man, very dark, with a shaved head and, as if by way of compensation, a thick, bristly mustache. Neatly, almost nattily dressed in a brown pin-striped suit, salmon-colored shirt, brownish gold tie.

“Francine Whalen wasn’t killed in a struggle with Mrs. Darby,” he said. “Evidently wasn’t killed by Mrs. Darby, in self-defense or otherwise. Preliminary lab tests are in. Three identifiable partials on the handle of the knife, another partial on the kitchen counter. None of them belong to her.”

That was the last thing Runyon expected to hear. He digested the news before he asked, “Who do they belong to?”

“We don’t know yet. Could be anybody’s. Even yours.”

“I never touched the knife. You think my story’s a lie, too?”

“Is it? Any part of it?”

“No. All I know about what happened is what I told you yesterday. So what now? Drop the homicide charge against Mrs. Darby, release her?”

“Depends on what she has to say to my partner. He’s up talking to her right now. If she doesn’t come clean, we’ll keep right on holding her and let the DA decide. He may want to pursue an obstruction charge at her arraignment.”

Runyon was silent.

“She’s protecting somebody,” Crabtree said. “That’s pretty obvious. You were there—you’re the logical first choice.”

“And the wrong one. I had no reason to harm Francine Whalen.”

“Who do you suppose it is, then?”

“I don’t know.”

But he did know. There was only one person Bryn would lie to protect, the most important person in her life.

Her son, Bobby.

*   *   *

Bobby. Nine years old, quiet, shy. Not a big kid, but wiry, strong. Capable of plunging a knife into the woman who’d been abusing him?

His Saturday wish that he had a gun like Runyon’s to “keep for the next time” she hurt him … wishful thinking, a mistreated kid’s fantasy, but maybe symptomatic of a genuine dark urge. Like the look on his face when he’d said, “I hate her, I hate her,
I hate her!
” just before jumping out of the car and running into the house. A boy his age might think about firing a handgun at an adult, but even if he had the opportunity he wasn’t likely to go through with it unless he’d been taught how to use one, something Bryn would never have permitted. It took nerve, a steady hand, and a certain callousness to deliberately blow somebody away.

But it didn’t take any of those things to make a killing thrust with a sharp kitchen knife. Self-defense weapon, the kind even a nine-year-old might snatch up if it was close at hand and he’d just been hurt again, was bleeding from a blow to the face and jammed up with fury, hate, humiliation. One quick blind jab, then the reactive shock when he realized what he’d done, and the guilt-ridden retreat within himself.

Was that the way it happened?

Bryn must think so. There was no other reason why she’d have taken the blame. It explained her sudden emotional shift: the immediate reaching out to the only man in her life she trusted, while still in a state of shock, then her protective maternal instincts taking over, calming her down so that she could fabricate her story; that was why the story had struck him as rehearsed. It also explained why she’d gone against his advice and volunteered information at the crime scene: trying to keep the focus on her. The other thing that had been bothering him was clear now, too—the words she’d been saying to Bobby in the boy’s bedroom.
It’s going to be all right, baby. It’s going to be all right. You didn’t do anything wrong, it was all just a bad dream. Don’t think about it, forget it ever happened. It’s going to be all right.
She hadn’t only been reassuring her son; she’d also been absolving him and urging him to keep quiet.

But did she know for a fact that Bobby had done it? Had she found him in the kitchen with the body and his hands stained with Francine’s blood, listened to him tell her he was responsible? Or was the boy already in shock and uncommunicative when she got there and she’d just assumed he’d done it because nobody else was in the flat? Could’ve happened that way, too. Bobby could be innocent. And if he was, then who was guilty?

Runyon didn’t blame Bryn for trying to shield her son. Or for lying about it; she’d known he wouldn’t go along with the cover-up. It was a relief to know that she hadn’t had a direct hand in Whalen’s death, but Christ, all she’d succeeded in doing was complicating an already-difficult situation, making things difficult for herself. A charge of obstruction wasn’t nearly as serious as a homicide charge, but if she was prosecuted and convicted, she’d still face prison time.

All of this went through Runyon’s mind while Crabtree put him through another ten minutes of Q & A, checking points in his statement, maybe looking in vain to trip him up. But he didn’t confide any of it to the inspector. Let him and his partner figure it out on their own, if they didn’t already suspect it.

Farley’s appearance put an end to the questioning. The two inspectors left Runyon sitting there and went into a huddle nearby. When they came back, Farley—shorter, thinner, and lighter skinned than Crabtree, with drooping eyelids that gave him a deceptively sleepy look—confirmed what Runyon had expected: Bryn had denied she was covering for anybody, kept sticking to her story. Claimed no knowledge of whose prints were on the knife.

Crabtree said, “Maybe you can convince her to cooperate, Mr. Runyon. Want to give it a try?”

“Can I talk to her alone?”

“Along with her attorney, sure.”

“I don’t mean in an interrogation room with you listening behind glass. I mean just her and me, in private.”

“You know we can’t allow that while she’s in AdSeg,” Crabtree said.

Runyon knew it, but he had to ask. He didn’t want to bring Bobby’s name up to Bryn in front of an audience if there was a way around it. In order to get through to her, he had to know what she knew and was hiding about the murder. If she was certain Bobby was guilty, she’d never give him away.

“So what do you say, Mr. Runyon? Do it our way?”

“I doubt it’d do any good. If she was going to confide in me, she’d’ve done it at the crime scene.”

“Maybe she did,” Farley said mildly. “Maybe you’re the one she’s protecting.”

Blowing smoke, the same as Crabtree had. They weren’t all that suspicious of him—they’d have checked his record and found it clean—but they were good cops covering all the bases. He’d have handled it the same way when he carried a police badge.

He said, “You’ll find out soon enough those prints on the knife aren’t mine.”

“So then you shouldn’t mind helping us get to the bottom of this. Save Mrs. Darby a lot of trouble if you can convince her to open up. Are you willing to give it a try?”

“I’ll have to talk to her attorney before I give you an answer.”

“You want to call him now?”

“Yes. He hasn’t been informed about the prints yet, has he?”

“Hasn’t been time.”

“I’ll tell him, then.”

Runyon went out into the hall to make the call. But Dragovich wasn’t at his law office; his secretary said he’d gone to a meeting on another case and that he wasn’t scheduled back in today. Runyon tried the attorney’s cell number. Crap. Voice mail.

He went back into the Homicide Division. “Unavailable,” he said to the inspectors.

“So the talk will have to wait,” Farley said. “Just don’t let it wait too long.”

“I won’t.”

“And don’t let yourself become unavailable, meanwhile.”

“I was on the job for fifteen years myself, remember? I know the drill.”

“Sure you do. But sometimes even ex-cops get careless.”

“Only if they have a reason,” Runyon said. “If you want me before Dragovich or I get in touch, I’ll be where you can find me.”

*   *   *

He was at loose ends, now. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, until he heard from Dragovich. He’d promised Bryn he’d try to find out how Bobby was doing, but there wasn’t any way to accomplish that short of asking the boy’s father, and Darby wouldn’t be forthcoming. Dragovich might know; she’d asked him to check as well. Again, nothing to do but wait for the lawyer’s return call.

The agency or his apartment? After five now and South Park was closer to the Hall of Justice, but Tamara would probably still be at the agency. She meant well, he was fond of her, but she’d ask a lot of questions that he was in no mood to answer. Home, then. If you could call a four-room, cheaply furnished apartment home.

The drive up over Twin Peaks and down to Ortega took nearly half an hour. Still no word from Dragovich by the time Runyon got there. The apartment had a faintly musty odor he hadn’t been aware of before: too long without an airing. He turned up the heat and then went to open the bedroom window partway, letting the chill evening breeze come swirling in.

On his way back past the bed, his gaze automatically went to the framed photograph of Colleen on the nightstand. He stopped for a few seconds to look at it. Not a day went by that he didn’t think about her. But the thoughts were no longer morbid, heavy with the crippling grief that had obsessed him for so long; only sadness remained to darken the memories of their two decades together. Bryn was in his life now and he’d keep her in it no matter what happened with this Whalen crisis, but not as a replacement for Colleen. Different kind of relationship, different emotional needs. A mortal version of life after death.

He brewed himself a cup of tea. Some still edible cheese in the fridge and half a box of crackers, but the prospect of another small, tasteless meal like all those he prepared when he was alone made his stomach churn. In the living room he started to turn the television on, changed his mind, and left it dark. No stomach tonight, either, for the company of talking heads and flickering screen images.

He let himself go dark, too. Sat in his waiting mode on the couch, the tea untouched. He would have sat there like that for hours if he’d had to, but he didn’t have to; it was no more than ten minutes before he finally heard from Dragovich.

Runyon ran down the latest developments for the lawyer, including his suspicion that the person Bryn was covering for was her son.

“Good news on the one hand,” Dragovich said, “not so good on the other. I can mount a strong argument at her arraignment that the homicide charge be dismissed for lack of evidence, but the district attorney is likely to pursue an obstruction charge unless she recants her false story and admits she’s protecting her son. In that case, the judge will surely rule in their favor. Most judges take a dim view of any detained suspect who willfully makes a false statement that hinders a police investigation, no matter what the reason.”

“And if Bryn does recant and cooperate?”

“Then given the extenuating circumstances I doubt there’ll be any further charges. The judge might declare her a material witness, but even if he should, she’d be released from custody. But I gather from my face-to-faces with Mrs. Darby, and from what you say, that convincing her won’t be easy.”

“Not as long as she believes Bobby is guilty.”

“Do you believe he is?”

“No, but it is possible. If I could talk to him … but I don’t suppose there’s any way you can make that happen?”

“Not with Robert Darby in his present state of mind.”

Runyon said, “What about me talking to Bryn without the conversation being monitored? Or the three of us in private?”