Camouflage (Nameless Detective Mysteries) (24 page)

He said, “I had to risk it,” in a pain-edged voice. “Glad I didn’t miss.”

“No risk. You had a clear shot.”

Outside, there was the sudden sound of a car engine firing up.

We reacted immediately, the adrenaline in both of us still pumping. The one door half stood partway open from the force of the dog’s collision with Chavez; I shouldered through it first with the .38 still in my hand.

The gunshot had galvanized Carson and McManus. They were both in the Nissan, the car slewing ahead deeper into the yard because the U-Haul was blocking the way behind. Carson, driving, couldn’t make any speed because of all the refuse littering the grass; the compact bumped over something, rocking, back wheels churning for traction.

I ran toward it at an angle, slowed to draw a bead, and blew out the left rear tire. I would have done the same to the right rear or left front, but it wasn’t necessary. The Nissan tipped a little, slewed, then the front end jarred into some hidden object and the engine stalled. Carson ground the ignition but couldn’t get it started again. I moved closer, and as I did the passenger door flew open and McManus came out in a lurching run. The driver’s door stayed shut.

McManus did not even glance in my direction. She headed straight for the track, running like a sprinter—head down, body bent forward, elbows close to her body and pumping like pistons. I yelled, “Stop!” but the command had no effect. I veered past the Nissan, stopped to brace myself, and fired a warning shot over her head. Followed it with another shout: “Stop or you’re dead!” None of that had any effect, either. She didn’t falter or slow down, just kept right on racing along the track.

I let her go. Even if I wasn’t a little rubber legged from the skirmish in the barn, I wouldn’t have been able to catch her, and I was not about to chance a leg shot to bring her down. Besides, where was she going to run to? She might make it off the property, might be able to hitch a ride with somebody or find someplace to hide, but she wouldn’t stay a fugitive for long. Not with the kind of police manhunt those rat-chewed remains in the well house would generate.

I turned back toward the Nissan. Chavez had the driver’s door open and was standing off a few paces, looking in at Carson, his left arm hanging loose and dripping blood. I leaned through the open passenger door to yank the key out of the ignition—a precaution even though she was no longer making any effort to get away. She didn’t seem to know I was there. Her eyes were on Chavez.

“He’s dead, isn’t he,” I heard her say as I came around the front. “Thor.”

“Oh yeah,” Chavez said. “Dead as all those people you killed.”

The look she gave him was one of pure steaming hate—not because she’d been caught, I thought, but because the dog had been blown away. She transferred the look to me when I came up next to Chavez, then swiveled her head and stared straight ahead. Queer, what happened then: her face went blank. Literally blank, like a mannequin’s. She sat unmoving, staring at nothing or at something inside her head.

I said, “Need to tend to that wound, Alex.”

“Be okay. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Yeah, it was. Out here in the sunlight I could see the torn flesh, the bone-deep bite marks on his left forearm. None of the bites had severed an artery, but enough blood flowed to make a red glove of the hand and fingers.

I told him I’d be right back and ran into the barn. I had to yank open three of the storage cartons before I found the kind of clothing I was looking for—silk blouses, clean. When I came back outside with three of the blouses, Chavez was leaning against the Nissan’s rear fender, his left arm cradled in against his chest, his weapon holstered and his cell phone against his ear. Making a 911 call, telling the dispatcher what had just happened and asking for an EMT unit.

“Better sit down in the U-Haul,” I said when he finished, “let me wrap up that arm.”

“Carson?”

“Not going anywhere.” She still sat in that same motionless, blank-faced pose, her hands resting on the steering wheel; as far as I could tell she hadn’t moved an inch. Automated mannequin with all the juice drained out of her batteries.

I opened the driver’s door on the U-Haul, got Chavez sitting sideways on the seat, then tore one of the blouses into strips and tied the largest into a tourniquet around his upper arm. With the second blouse I swabbed the wound as best I could, fastened it in place with the rest of the strips. Finished up by making a sling out of the third blouse, tying the sleeves around his neck. Stanch the blood flow, keep the wound clean and the arm stationary until the EMTs arrived.

He endured it all with nothing more than a couple of grimaces. Tough guy, Alex Chavez. And a good man in every sense of the term—like Jake Runyon, the kind of man you could trust and depend on.

I went around and climbed onto the seat beside him. There wasn’t anything else to do now except wait for the rest of it to be over.

28

JAKE RUNYON AND BRYN DARBY

“Jake, what will happen to Gwen Whalen?”

“If the public defender she draws is any good, he’ll plead diminished capacity and she’ll end up in a psychiatric facility.”

“I don’t suppose she’ll ever lead a normal life again.”

“There’s always a chance. But she’s been emotionally unstable all her life, and killing her sister put her over the line. I doubt she’ll ever come back, no matter how much therapy she gets.”

“That’s awful. I’ve never seen the woman and I feel so sorry for her.”

“So do I.”

“Francine did so much damage to so many people … I won’t pretend I’m not glad she’s dead.”

“No need to. You’re entitled.”

“If only she’d showed her vicious side to Robert the way she did to Bobby and her sister. We might all have been spared.”

“Too calculating and manipulative to allow that to happen before they were married. But she wouldn’t’ve been able to control herself indefinitely. She’d’ve gone off on him sooner or later.”

“Well, he must know by now what she was underneath that sweet facade. But will he admit it?”

“He’d be a fool not to. Overwhelming evidence now.”

“Yes, but he’s such a cold, inflexible son of a bitch … I can’t believe I didn’t see his true nature before I married him. But he could be so sweet and charming when it suited him.…”

“Camouflage, like the kind Francine wore.”

“He’ll try to take away what little time I have with Bobby, out of spite. I know he will.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“How can I stop him? I told you how he manipulated the judge at the custody hearing; he’ll do the same thing again—”

“His influence in the legal community isn’t as strong as you think. Dragovich knows a family law attorney with a much better rep who owes him a favor.”

“I can’t afford another expensive attorney. I’ll have to mortgage the house, take on a lot more design work, to pay my legal bills as it is.…”

“We’ve been over that. Money’s not an issue—we’ll work it out.”

“Jake—”

“No, listen to me. Dragovich spoke to the family law guy, Jeb Murphy, and outlined your situation to him. Murphy will stop Robert from denying you visitation. And he thinks there’s a good chance he can get the original custody decision reversed.”

“… Oh, Lord, could he really do that?”

“If he’s as good as Dragovich says he is. Bobby doesn’t want to keep on living with his father—too many ugly memories associated with the abuse and Francine’s death. He wants to live with you. He told me so, and running away, coming here the way he did, proves it. He’s old enough for his wishes to carry weight with any reasonable judge.”

“I can’t tell you what having him with me again would mean.”

“Don’t try. I think I know.”

“I wish he were here now; I wish I could hold him, comfort him, tell him how much I love him.”

“You’ll have the chance soon.”

“How soon?”

“As fast as the lawyers can make it happen. Murphy will contact you tomorrow morning.”

“You arranged all of this? When?”

“I had a talk with Dragovich before I came over here. He’s the one doing the arranging.”

“But it was your idea.”

“Call it a mutual resolution.”

“You’re such a good man. And I’m such a fool for not trusting you, lying to you the way I did.”

“Let’s not get into that again. You did what you felt you had to do.”

“But I caused you so much trouble.…”

“Trouble’s my business.”

“Don’t joke—please. I’m serious.”

“So am I. Helping people in trouble is what I do, you know that. Helping people I care about makes it twice as rewarding.”

“… Will you do one more thing for me?”

“If I can.”

“Stay with me tonight.”

“You don’t need to show me gratitude, Bryn.”

“It’s not that. No, really, it’s not. I don’t want to be alone tonight. You’re the only person besides my son who makes me feel needed and I want to be close to you. You feel the same way, don’t you? At least a little?”

“More than a little.”

“Then you’ll stay?”

“You know I will.”

“And not just while it’s dark. Until morning. From now on, every night we’re together—until morning.”

29

The woman we knew as R. L. McManus remained a fugitive approximately six and a half hours after her flight from the Chileno Valley property. Officers from both Marin and Sonoma counties, using helicopters and search dogs, found her hiding in an outbuilding on an occupied ranch three-quarters of a mile to the north and arrested her without incident.

Her real name, we found out later, was Shirley Pulaski. She and Carson, real name Veronica Boyle, were wanted fugitives, all right. In their native state, Minnesota, for grand theft and attempted murder and in Washington State for theft and coercion. They’d been working variations on the same scam for at least six years before they disappeared into their new stolen identities in San Francisco, making a total of thirteen—targeting elderly people with money and other assets who either were alone in the world or had far-flung relatives, at first ripping them off and using threats of bodily harm to keep them quiet. Pulaski and Boyle’s nonviolent MO changed when one of the Minnesota victims caught wise and refused to be intimidated. They broke the old woman’s neck, probably would have killed her if a neighbor hadn’t intervened. It was that incident that turned the two of them into fugitives.

They’d set up another room-rental scam in Spokane, operating under aliases. A spooked victim had blown that one up, too, and again they’d managed to slip away and disappear. Likely that was when they’d headed for California and hatched their plan to steal new identities and not take any more chances on being caught by disposing of their fleeced marks. The real Roxanne Lorraine McManus and the real Jane Carson may have been their first two murder victims, each chosen as much because of the resemblance factor as for the profit motive. Odds were that no one would ever know exactly what had happened to the genuine McManus and Carson. Or to the remains of the pair’s elderly prey prior to Rose O’Day.

Neither Pulaski nor Boyle had confessed to any of the crimes. They weren’t talking to the police, the media, apparently not even to their public defenders. A couple of homicidal sphinxes. Didn’t matter, though. There was more than enough hard evidence on the Chileno Valley property and in the Dogpatch house to convict them. In one of the boxes stored in the barn the police discovered more than fifty thousand dollars in cash and active bankbooks belonging to Rose O’Day, Gregory Pappas, and one other victim. The police also found a .32-caliber Beretta that later matched the slug the coroner removed from David Virden’s skull.

When the forensic people got everything sorted out, the body count in that cistern was five—two men, three women. Virden had died of a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, no doubt on his second visit to the house; the stain on the living-room floor proved to be his blood, confirming that that was where he’d been caught off-guard and shot. The other four had been fed lethal doses of prussic acid. None could be positively identified because nothing was found anywhere for their bone-marrow DNA to be matched to.

I’m not much of a believer in the death penalty, as either a method of punishment or a deterrent, but when it comes to savagely cold-blooded mass murderers the law-and-order principles by which I’ve lived most of my life tend to outweigh my humanitarian sensibilites. I’ve only dealt with truly evil individuals a few times in my life; Pulaski and Boyle were right down there with the worst. If the DA decided to try them for multiple homicide with special circumstances, nobody would get much of an argument from me. All I’d have to do was think of their elderly victims, of what I saw and smelled inside that well house, and I might even say lethal injection was letting Pulaski and Boyle off easy.

*   *   *

For me, the hardest part of the aftermath was telling Judith LoPresti what had happened to her fiancé. Tamara offered to do it, but she’s young and not always as tactful as she might be. The task was mine, lousy and painful as it was. I’d had to do it before, under even grimmer circumstances: telling Emily of her mother’s murder three and a half years ago.

Ms. LoPresti took it pretty well. Better than most—no tears, no drama. Strong woman, the type who would do her grieving in private. Her abiding faith was the foundation of her strength. It seems to me that people who are deeply religious have an edge on the rest of us, not necessarily because it makes them better human beings but because it allows them to cope with pain and suffering on a different level of perception. Life must be a whole lot simpler and easier to take when you believe without question in God and His mercy.

*   *   *

A couple of nights later, as Kerry and I were getting ready for bed:

“I’ve been thinking about your suggestion at dinner the other night,” I said, “that we should buy a second home.”

“And?”

“Decided it’s a good idea.”

“You didn’t seem very enthusiastic then. What changed your mind?”

“Well, as you pointed out, we can afford it and it’ll give us a push to get out of the city more often.”