Camouflage (Nameless Detective Mysteries) (19 page)

“Good for him. He can afford it.”

“We could afford one, too, you know.”

“What, in Carmel Valley? I don’t think so.”

“No, you’re right; the Carmel area is too expensive. But somewhere else—Lake County, the Sierras, the north coast.”

“You’re not serious about this?”

“Why not? Wouldn’t you like to have a weekend getaway place?”

“I don’t know … would you?”

“Yes. I love the city as much as you do, but a change of scenery now and then would be good for both of us. Emily, too. I don’t mean day trips—quiet weekends, minivacations.”

“You sure we can afford it?” Kerry handled all the household financial matters; she has a much better head for figures than I do.

“Since Jim Carpenter promoted me to vice president we can. The market’s down now; we could get a small cabin or cottage for a reasonable price.” The prospect excited her; the candlelight emphasized the high color in her cheeks. “And we could take our time looking in different areas until we find just the right place. It’d be fun.”

“You really think we’d use a second home enough to make it worthwhile? I mean, we don’t get away on weekend trips much as it is.”

“That’s just the point,” she said. “We wouldn’t keep finding excuses to stay home or take only short day trips if we had a place of our own to go to. You’re supposed to be semiretired, but you’re right back to working four and five days a week. Wouldn’t you like to take more time off, do something besides sit around the condo when you’re not at the agency?”

“You work longer hours than I do.”

“Yes, and I’d like to cut back a little myself eventually. Don’t you think we’re entitled to some leisure time? We’re not exactly spring chickens, you know.”

“Don’t need to remind me.”

“There are other benefits, too,” she said. “Buying a piece of California real estate is always a good investment, no matter where it is, and it’ll help our tax situation. And you know we’re almost out of storage space at the condo. We could move a lot of stuff to a getaway place, not just nonessentials but utilitarian items like clothes and furniture. The living-room couch, for instance. I’d been wanting to buy a new— What’s the matter? Why are you staring off like that?”

“Storage space,” I said.

“… What about it?”

“Piece of California real estate. Storage space.”

“Are you all right? You have the oddest look on your face—”

“Lightbulb just went off.” I slid my chair back. “Wait here; finish your wine. I’ll be right back.”

“Where’re you going?”

“Make a phone call to Tamara.”

I tried her home number first; it was late enough so that she should be there by now. Five rings, while I stood shivering on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. On the sixth ring, she answered sounding grumpy.

“Got me out of the tub,” she said. “What’s up?”

“That piece of rural property Rose O’Day inherited. Didn’t you say it was in Marin County?”

“Some place called the Chileno Valley.”

“What kind of property? How big?”

“Farmland. Thirty acres.”

“Buildings on it?”

“I’d have to check the tax records, but—” She broke off and then let out a little yip; quick on the uptake, as always. “And the Chileno Valley is west of Highway One-oh-one going north. That’s where McManus and Carson were headed—
that’s
where they’re hiding out!”

22

JAKE RUNYON

Robert Darby cooled down some after Runyon let him come in and look through the apartment. Darby stood flushed and jittery in the middle of the living room, his red-eyed gaze flicking here and there without resting on Runyon or anything else for more than a second. Man badly in need of rest, beset by grief, anxiety, impotent rage. An unlikable, self-centered shyster whose treatment of Bryn was little short of cruel, but seeing him like this, you couldn’t help but feel for him.

“You’re sure you haven’t seen Bobby, heard from him?”

Second time Darby had asked that question. Runyon gave him a slightly different version of the same answer. “I’d tell you if I had. I’m not your enemy, Mr. Darby.”

“All right. All right.”

Runyon asked, “Did something happen to make the boy run away?”

“No.” Darby shook his head, scraped fingernails through his close-cropped hair. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “The nurse I hired, she went in to use the bathroom and when she came out he was gone. Just like that … gone.”

“How long ago?”

“A couple of hours. Just before I got home.”

“No prior indication that’s what he had in mind?”

“Didn’t say a word to her. To me, either. Closed up tight since that horror show yesterday, wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t eat … ah, Christ. Where would he go?”

Runyon said, “His mother’s house, maybe.”

“No, he’s not there; I just came from there. First place I thought of.”

“Did you or the nurse tell him where Bryn’s being held?”

“… You think he went to the Hall of Justice?”

“Might have, if he has an idea that’s where she is. You notify the police that he’s missing?”

“No, I drove straight out here—”

Darby broke off, jerked his cell phone out of his coat pocket; fumbled it, almost dropped it in his haste. It took him a nervous two minutes to get through to either Farley or Crabtree; his voice rose and cracked a little as he talked. From Darby’s end of the conversation Runyon gathered the boy hadn’t been seen at the Hall and that they’d put out a BOLO alert for him.

“I should’ve called them sooner,” Darby said when he ended the conversation. “First Francine, now this with Bobby … just not thinking straight.”

“The police will find him. Best thing you can do is go home and wait for word.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, goddamn you!”

Runyon sidestepped the flare-up with a question. “Did Bobby take anything with him when he left? A bag, clothing?”

“What? No. The nurse looked, I looked … a jacket, that’s all.”

“What about money? Bus fare, cab fare.”

“He couldn’t have much, no more than a few dollars from his allowance.…” Darby shook himself, a sharp rippling action like a dog shaking off water. “What the hell am I doing standing here talking to you? If Bobby does come here or you hear from him, notify me right away. Understand?”

Runyon said, “You and the police both,” but Darby was already on his way out.

*   *   *

Why had Bobby run away?

Bad environment in that flat, whether the boy had had anything to do with Whalen’s death or not. Painful memories, ghosts haunting his impressionable mind. Fear made worse by his overbearing father’s anger and grief, by a stranger called in to watch over him, by not being told what had happened to his mother. Sensitive, damaged kid huddled inside himself for security and solace, but too bright and too needy to stay that way for long. Perfectly natural that when he freed himself from his shell he’d want to free himself from his oppressive surroundings as well.

Where would he go?

Linked answer: familiar place where he felt safe, where he might find genuine comfort, where he might find his mother. Her house, his second home, the only real home he’d ever known—that was the logical choice.

Three hours. More than twice as much time as it would usually take to travel by bus from the Marina to the Sunset District. Unless he’d gotten lost or something had happened to him on the way … No, the hell with that kind of thinking. But Darby had been to Bryn’s house, presumably still had a key and searched it, and Bobby wasn’t there—

Or was he?

*   *   *

The brown-shingled house was completely dark, sheathed in mist, when Runyon pulled up in front. Fast walk up the path and stairs to the front porch. Bryn kept a spare key in a little box mounted under the window ledge to the right of the door. He went there first, felt inside the box. Empty.

All right.

He had his own key to the place, as Bryn had one to his apartment—an in-case-of-emergency exchange and a measure of their mutual trust. He let himself in, closed the door behind him, and stood listening before he switched on the hall light. Silence except for the faint snaps and creaks you always heard in an old house in cold weather. Cold in there, too, with the furnace off or turned down; he could see the faint vapor of his breath as he made his way to the bedrooms at the rear.

Bobby’s room was empty, the bed neatly made, everything in place. Same in Bryn’s room. The spare bedroom, her office, the living room, the kitchen were just as empty. She kept a flashlight in the pantry; Runyon found it, tested it, and then opened the door to the basement and flicked on the light.

A short flight of stairs led downward. He hadn’t been in the basement before, took a moment to orient himself. Furnace and water heater at the far wall. To his left, washer and dryer and storage cabinets; to his right, a workbench and rows of hand tools hung on a pegboard. Behind the water heater, Bryn had said. He crossed to it, found the narrow space where he could wedge his body behind the unit. The opening to the crawlspace that led deeper under the house was closed off by a sliding panel. He eased it open partway.

“Bobby? It’s Jake.”

Silence.

He slid the panel open the rest of the way. The pale overhead light didn’t reach this far; all he could see inside was heavy blackness.

“It’s okay for you to come out now,” he said, keeping his voice low pitched, normal. “Your dad’s gone. There’s nobody here but me.”

Silence.

“You can trust me, Bobby, you know that. I’m your friend and your mom’s friend. I know where she is and I’m doing everything I can to help her. But I need you to help me do that.”

Silence.

Runyon hesitated. He didn’t want to go into the crawlspace himself or use the flashlight, but he had to be sure the boy was there. Had to get him out if he was, and without scaring him any more than he already was.

“I’m going to put on a light,” Runyon said. “Don’t be afraid. I just want to see where you are.”

Faint rustling sound … the boy moving away from him? He leaned down to put his head and arm inside the musty opening, aimed the flash at an angle to one side, and flicked the switch.

Bare boards, disturbed dust, tattered spiderwebs jumped into sharp relief. Sounds of movement again in the deeper blackness beyond the reach of the light. He moved the beam along the side wall, not too fast, until it touched the crouched shape far back against a maze of copper piping. Bobby, one hand lifted to shield his eyes against the glare.

Immediately Runyon shut off the flash. “Okay, son,” he said into the darkness. “Now that I know you’re there, I’m going to go over and sit on the steps. Come on out when you’re ready and we’ll talk.”

No response.

Runyon backed out of the opening, straightened to step around the water heater, then crossed to the stairs. He sat on the third riser from the bottom, the flashlight beside him, and waited.

Five minutes. Six, seven. If the boy didn’t come out, Runyon wasn’t sure what he’d do. Go in after him, carry him out? Not a good option, because it would likely damage what trust Bobby had in him, keep him withdrawn and silent. Leave him in there, call his father and the police? That wasn’t much good, either. Finding out what the boy knew was imperative, and Runyon would never have a better opportunity than this.

Ten minutes. Eleven—

Faint scraping sounds from across the basement. A soft thud, as of a sneakered foot thumping against wood. A muffled cough. Coming out.

A few more seconds and the pale oval of Bobby’s face peered around the edge of the water heater. Runyon didn’t move, didn’t say anything. Ten-second impasse. Then Bobby moved again, out into the open in slow, shuffling steps, blinking in the ceiling light.

He stopped in the middle of the basement, fifteen feet from where Runyon sat. Stood there in an attitude of expectant punishment, chin down, eyes rolled up under the thin blinking lids, shivering a little from the cold. A purplish bruise under his left eye, the aftereffect of Whalen’s blow to his nose, showed starkly against the facial pallor. Web shreds clung to his hair; his light jacket and Levi’s were streaked with dust and dirt smudges.

Looking at him, Runyon felt a long-forgotten emotion—a tenderness, an aching compassion that had its roots in fatherhood. The time Joshua had fallen out of his crib when he was a baby, bruising an arm … that was the last time Runyon had experienced that kind of feeling. As if this kid, this relative stranger, were his child. He had to stop himself from going to Bobby, wrapping him in a protective embrace.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me, son,” he said. “I won’t hurt you. Nobody’s ever going to hurt you again.”

Four-beat. Then, in a scared little voice, “Where’s my mom?”

“Don’t worry, she’s all right.”

“Where is she? Why isn’t she home?”

“It’s cold down here,” Runyon said. “Let’s go upstairs and I’ll put the furnace on. We’ll talk up there.”

No response.

He got to his feet in slow segments. Bobby watched him without moving. Runyon smiled at him, then pivoted and mounted the steps into the kitchen, leaving the door wide open. The thermostat was in the front hall; he went there and turned the dial up past seventy to get the heat flowing quickly. When he returned to the kitchen, the boy was standing in the basement doorway. So far so good.

Runyon said, keeping his distance, “It’ll take a few minutes for the house to warm up. Want me to get you a blanket meanwhile?”

“No. Where’s my mom?”

“I won’t lie to you, Bobby. The police are holding her in jail.”

“Jail? Why? She didn’t do anything.”

“I know that. The police will, too, before long.”

“When will they let her come home? When can I see her?”

“Soon. Maybe tomorrow.”

Some of the boy’s tension seemed to ease, make him less skittish. His breathing was audible: little nasal hissing sounds.

Runyon said, “But there are some things I have to know in order for your mom to be released. About what happened yesterday.”

No response.

“It’s very important. I need you to talk to me about it, Bobby. For your mom’s sake. Okay?”