Camouflage (Nameless Detective Mysteries) (22 page)

“I have to ask you something about Thursday,” he said.

“Jake, please, no more questions.”

“This may be important. You told Inspector Crabtree you didn’t disturb the crime scene in any way. Is that the truth?”

“Yes. I didn’t go near the … her.”

“Last night Bobby told me he heard a crash, something breaking in the kitchen, just before she was stabbed. But when I was in there I didn’t see anything broken.”

“Oh … it was a plate.”

“A plate.”

“A plate of cookies. Broken on the floor.”

“Where? Near the body?”

“No, between the sink and the center island.”

“And you cleaned it all up?”

“Threw everything into the garbage under the sink, yes. That’s how I cut my finger, on one of the shards.”

“Why did you clean up?”

“I don’t know … I wasn’t thinking clearly. I suppose because I was afraid the mess pointed to Bobby, that the police would think he’d knocked the plate off the island when he … when Francine was stabbed. She must have been baking Toll House cookies for Robert; they’re his favorite, Bobby’s, too.…”

There was more, but Runyon was no longer listening.

Cookies, he was thinking. A plate of chocolate-chip cookies.

25

JAKE RUNYON

He found Francine Whalen’s murderer in church. Late that afternoon, after he’d dropped Bryn off at her house and then driven immediately to the East Bay.

It was an old, well-kept nondenominational church a few blocks from Gwen Whalen’s apartment building. Guesswork and an obliging neighbor who knew where Gwen worshiped were what led him there.

She was the only person in the nave, her massive body squeezed into one of the forward pews near the lectern, her head bowed. Dressed in plain black, with black hat and black purse and neatly folded black coat next to her. Mourning clothes. Thorn-crowned Christ on a bronze cross looked down on her from the wall above the altar; so did the Virgin Mary and the twelve apostles from backlit stained-glass windows. Runyon’s steps made faint hollow sounds as he moved down the center aisle, but she didn’t seem to notice. Didn’t move when he slid onto the hard, smooth bench beside her.

“Hello, Gwen.”

Her heavy chins lifted at the sound of his voice. She blinked at him without recognition at first, then with slow, dull recollection. For a couple of beats her gaze held on his; then it shifted away to peer up at the crucified Christ image. Her rosebud mouth formed silent words of prayer.

“You remember me, don’t you?”

She finished praying before she said, “Yes,” with her eyes still canted upward. “You came to my apartment.”

“And we didn’t have a chance to finish our talk.”

“Mr. Runyon. A detective.”

“I’d like to finish now, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, not here,” she said. “Not in church.”

“Outside, then. Would that be all right?”

“I’m not done talking to my savior, Jesus Christ.”

“When you are. I’ll wait outside for you.”

She didn’t answer him. Closed her eyes, bowed her head again.

He left her, went out into the warmish afternoon. There was a small garden alongside the church, with a wooden bench and a fountain—a quiet place. But he wouldn’t have a clear view of the entrance if he waited there. There’d be at least one other way out of the church, but he didn’t think she’d use it. She wasn’t trying to hide and she wouldn’t run away.

Fifteen minutes before she appeared. Runyon stood as she came down the steps in her rolling, hip-swinging gait. She wore the black coat and hat now; they made her seem even larger, more shapeless.

He said, “We can talk over there in the garden.”

“I have to eat something. I’ll be sick if I don’t eat.”

“Do you want to go home instead? Or to a restaurant?”

“No. I’d rather stay here, close to Jesus.”

She made no objection when Runyon put a light hand on her elbow, guided her into the garden. The bench creaked and tilted when she sat on one end. Immediately she opened her voluminous purse, brought out three candy bars: Hershey milk chocolate, Butterfinger, a triangular package of Toblerone. She tore the wrapper off the Hershey bar first, balled it, returned it to the purse, and then filled her mouth with half the candy in a series of quick, avid bites. Watching this made him wince. He felt her pain, he pitied her, but that wasn’t going to stop him from adding more hurt to her already-battered emotional state.

“You like chocolate, don’t you, Gwen.”

She murmured something that sounded like “Comfort food.”

“Chocolate milk, candy bars. What else?”

“Ice cream. Double chocolate fudge.”

“And chocolate-chip cookies.”

No response. She was busy devouring the rest of the Hershey bar.

Runyon said, “Fresh-baked Toll House cookies. I’ll bet they’re another of your favorites.”

“They used to be. Not anymore.”

“Not since Thursday afternoon.”

He watched her open the Toblerone, shove in three wedges of the chocolate, honey, and almond nougat candy. She chewed ravenously, some of the gooey mess oozing out at the corners of her mouth. As soon as she swallowed she reached into her purse again, picked out a Kleenex, and used it to wipe the residue away.

“Tell me about Thursday afternoon,” he said.

It was a little time before she answered. “Taking a life is a cardinal sin. I begged Jesus to forgive me and he has; he told me so.” The rest of the Toblerone vanished. “But I can’t forgive myself. Thou shalt not kill. Francine was wicked, but she was my sister. Thou shalt not kill. Jesus forgave me, but I don’t think he’ll let me into heaven. I’m afraid my immortal soul will burn in the fires of hell.” All of this in an emotionless voice blurred by the glot of candy.

“Why did you go to see Francine?”

“The fires of hell,” she said again, and her features squeezed together and for a few seconds Runyon thought she might break down. But the Butterfinger saved that from happening.

He repeated his question while she peeled off the wrapper.

“Why?” she said. “Because of what you told me.”

“That she’d been hurting Bobby Darby.”

“I kept thinking about that. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. All the things she did to me, to Tracy when we were little … all those terrible things. I couldn’t let her keep on hurting another of God’s children.”

“But you didn’t go there to kill her.”

“Oh no. No.” Half the Butterfinger in one bite. Chewing, she said, “Just to talk to her, tell her she mustn’t hurt that little boy anymore. Ask her to pray with me. I remembered the man’s name, the man you said she was living with in sin—Robert Darby. I looked up his address and I drove over there to see her. I didn’t want to, not ever again, I’ve always been afraid of her, but I went anyway.” Another dab at her mouth with the Kleenex. “I shouldn’t have. The Devil had crept inside me that day and I didn’t know it.”

Runyon said nothing. No need to prompt her anymore. It was as if she were back in church, confessing to her savior—a confession he thought she would be compelled to make again and again, to anyone who would listen, for the rest of her life.

“She wasn’t happy to see me. She said I was disgustingly fat, a bloated pig, a walking pile of blubber. She laughed when I asked her to stop hurting the boy and pray with me, find salvation like I have in the bosom of Jesus. She called me more names, filthy names through her candy smile. My sister, my flesh and blood. Evil.”

The last of the Butterfinger disappeared. Gwen Whalen did some more rummaging in her purse, came out with another Toblerone. “I can’t stop eating,” she said.

Runyon looked away.

“I couldn’t stop that day, either. The awful things Francine was saying to me, I wanted to put my hands over my ears, I wanted to run away, but all I did was reach for one of the cookies she’d been baking. Warm cookies on a plate, I could smell them, why should she care if I took one? But she did. She said, ‘Don’t touch those cookies, you fat cow’ and slapped my hand. She hit the plate too and it fell and broke on the floor, but she said it was my fault. She called me a cow again, an effing cow, and slapped my face, hard.”

Fat cow, effing cow. The “weird stuff about cows” Bobby had heard.

“Then she punched me in the stomach with her fist like she did when we were growing up. It hurt, it
hurt,
and Satan reared up and seized control and put the knife in my hand and I … She screamed and I slew her, I slew my sister. Thou shalt not kill. Her blood was on my hand, I couldn’t stand to see it, I hid it inside a dish towel. Then I ran away and drove home, I don’t know how but I did, and begged Jesus to cast out the Devil. He did, he forgave me, but I kept seeing Francine’s face, her blood like the blood of Christ. I prayed and prayed, but they wouldn’t go away. Candy smile, chocolate smile. I’m so hungry.…”

The second Toblerone went in two gulping bites. She pawed frantically inside the purse once more, came up with a handful of Hershey’s Kisses. That was as much as Runyon could stand; he’d heard enough, seen enough, added enough to her suffering. Crabtree, Farley, Halim, somebody else, anybody else, could take over and be the next to listen to Gwen Whalen’s confession.

He left her sitting there with her eyes squeezed shut again, her chocolate-smeared mouth moving silently, her fingers unwrapping more of the Hershey’s Kisses—still trying to pray away, eat away, her guilt.

26

The climb down the hill was a lot easier than the ascent had been; I wasn’t winded when Chavez and I reached flat ground. Still, the muscles in my legs and thighs were tight and quivery as we hurried along the rutted track. Kerry was right: I needed to get more exercise. She was always after me to go for long walks, join a gym, take up jogging again. No way on the jogging; I’d tried that a few years back and gave it up quick, mainly because I felt like an attention-drawing idiot pounding along public streets in my sweat suit. I’d feel the same way in a gym, huffing and puffing on treadmills and the other machines they have in those places. The long walks, though, were a good idea, and I’d been promising myself I would start taking them on a regular basis. Now maybe I had the impetus to follow through.

The sky was mostly clear now, the day warming up. I could feel sweat dripping under my arms, down the back of my neck into my shirt collar, as we moved ahead. The road ruts were deep and the earth between them and on either side rumpled and broken in places, so that you had to watch where you put your feet. The last thing either of us needed now was to sprain an ankle.

Once we were through the narrow passage between the hill folds, we angled ahead to where the track made its long loop to the north and stopped there. The buildings were visible from that point, with very little ground cover between. I unsheathed the Zeiss glasses for another sweeping scan. Still a frozen tableau, no sign of life anywhere. But when I had the binoculars cased again, I put my hand back on the butt of the .38 in my pocket. Never take anything for granted when you’re in unfamiliar territory.

Moving again, Chavez letting me have the lead now. The hush seemed deeper here behind the hill; even the birds had quit cawing and chirping. We put a little distance between us as we came into the cluttered yard, walking on either side of the track. The ground was softer here, the ruts deeper and showing the tire indentations we’d seen from the hilltop. Fresh, all right.

The track petered out in gravel and clumps of grass, but the tire marks made a new trail straight to the barn. Check there first. The weather-beaten structure looked as if a stiff wind would knock it down into rubble: listing a little off-center, the roof caving in the middle, the entrance doors hanging crooked. When I got in close enough I saw a rusted hasp on one door half, with a padlock hanging from it by the open staple. There was a narrow gap between the two unlocked halves.

Chavez and I both drew our weapons. Then I wrapped fingers around the edge of one door, dragged it open. Its bottom scraped along the ground, making a sharp noise. I pulled harder, backing to the left, Chavez moving to my right at the same time so that neither of us was standing in front of the open doorway.

Nothing happened.

All I could see in there was gloom broken by skinny shafts of daylight slanting in through gaps in the roof and walls. We eased in, again fanned one to either side. Commingled smells of decaying wood, damp earth, mold, dust, excrement that was probably rodent generated. Something made a faint scurrying sound in the darkness. Yeah—rodents. My nostrils puckered; I started breathing through my mouth.

At first, as my eyes adjusted, I thought the cavernous interior was empty. But after a few steps I could make out irregular piles and stacks along one side, some of which appeared to be covered with the kind of plastic sheets painters use for drop cloths. I went that way, pocketing the Colt so I could fish out my keys and the pencil flash attached to the ring. Chavez came up beside me as I clicked on the light and ran the beam over what was stored there.

Cardboard moving boxes, different sizes, at least a couple of dozen. Chavez lifted one of the sheets to reveal an ornate secretary desk, a slat-backed, hand-carved rocking chair, an antique drop-leaf table, a quartet of Tiffany lamps. Under another tarp was a 48-inch flat-screen television.

“All the stuff they moved out of the house,” Chavez said. “Too much to fit in that one load yesterday—three or four trips.”

“Over the past couple of days, yeah.”

“You think that’s where they went this morning, back for another load?”

“Not after they spotted you on their tail yesterday. Too much risk.”

“Well, they wouldn’t leave all this here indefinitely. Too much chance of it being ruined by rats, mice, the weather.”

“Right. They’re planning to come back.”

“But how soon?”

“When they get themselves a new set of wheels, maybe. Or a better place to hole up.”

I switched off the flash and we went out into daylight. “Might be something inside the farmhouse,” I said then, “if that’s where they spent the night. Better have a quick look.”

“I’ll check around out here.”