Vixen (2 page)

“Uh-huh. And he's already gone.”

“Yeah. And it don't look like he's coming back for his trial, unless you find him and get him back here in time.”

“Does his lawyer know he skipped?”

“Sam Wasserman? Hell, no. And he won't find out if we can help it.”

That was easy enough to understand. Wasserman was a well-respected criminal attorney, but something of a straight arrow in a profession sprinkled with crooked bows. If he knew his client had skipped, he would probably inform the court and then withdraw from the case.

“How long has your brother been gone, Ms. Beckett?” I asked her.

“At least three days,” she said. She had one of those soft, caressing voices, maybe natural, maybe affected. Intimate even when she was playing the worried little sister.

“At least?”

“I had some business out of the city and when I returned, he was gone from the apartment we share.”

“What did he take with him?”

“Clothing, a few personal belongings.”

“Cell phone?”

“Yes, but he has it turned off. I've left a dozen messages.”

“Why do you think he ran away? At this particular time, I mean.”

“The strain must have gotten to him.… I shouldn't have left him alone. He's not a strong person and he's terrified of being locked up for a crime he didn't commit.”

With any other client, Melikian would have rolled his eyes at that. Nine out of every ten bonds he posted was for an innocent party, to hear them and whoever arranged their bail tell it.

I said, “You have no idea where he might have gone?”

“None. Except that it won't be far, and he'll either be at a yacht harbor or marina—some kind of boat place—or there'll be one close by.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Kenny hates traveling alone, any kind of long-distance travel. He won't fly and he's never driven more than a hundred miles in any direction by himself. And boats … well, they're his entire life.”

“Working on or around them, you mean?”

“That's what he does—deckhand, maintenance man, any job that involves boats.”

“Has he ever been in trouble with the law before?”

“No. Never.”

So the self-imposed travel restrictions didn't necessarily apply. Fear of being sent to prison can prod a man into doing any number of things he'd shied away from before.

“The grand theft charge,” I said. “What is it he's alleged to have stolen?”

“A diamond necklace. But he didn't steal it. I
know
he didn't.”

That meant nothing, either. Most people refuse to believe a close relative capable of committing a serious crime, no matter how much evidence exists to the contrary.

“How much is the necklace worth?”

“Assessed at twenty K,” Melikian said.

Some piece of jewelry. I asked who the owner was.

“Margaret Vorhees.”

“Vorhees. Related to Andrew Vorhees?”

“His wife,” Cory Beckett said. “His drunken, lying wife.”

Andrew Vorhees was a relatively big fish in the not-so-small San Francisco pond. High-powered leader of the City Maintenance Workers Union, yachtsman, twice unsuccessful candidate for supervisor. A man with an underground reputation for fast living and double-dealing and a penchant for scandal. It was whispered around that he had kinky sexual tastes, had been a regular customer of one of the city's high-profile madams whose extensive call-girl operation the cops had busted a couple of years back. It was also whispered that his socialite wife was a severe alcoholic. She had cause, if the rumors about her husband were true.

“How does your brother know Margaret Vorhees?” I asked.

“He doesn't, not really. He works … worked for her husband.”

“In what capacity?”

“Caring for his yacht. At the St. Francis Yacht Harbor.”

“Is that where the theft occurred?”

“She claimed it was, yes—the Vorhees woman. From her purse while she was on the yacht.”

“Why would she have a twenty-thousand-dollar necklace in her purse?”

“Taking it to a jeweler to have the clasp repaired, she claimed. My brother was the only other person on board at the time.”

“Where was the necklace found?”

Cory Beckett sighed, flicked a lock of the midnight hair off her forehead. “Hidden inside Kenny's van.”

I didn't say anything.

“He swears he didn't steal it,” she said, “that he has no idea how it got into his van. Of course I believe him. He's not a thief. He had no possible reason to take that necklace.”

“Except for the fact that it's worth twenty thousand dollars.”

“Not to Kenny. He doesn't care about money. And he certainly wouldn't have taken it to give to me, as Margaret Vorhees claims. Or any other woman. No, she put the necklace in his van, or had somebody do it for her.”

“Why would she want to frame your brother?”

“I don't know. Neither does he. Some imagined slight, I suppose. Rich alcoholics … well, I'm sure you know how erratic and unpredictable people like that can be.”

“Is your brother the kind of man who makes passes at married women?”

“My God, no. What kind of question is that?”

“Sorry, but it's the kind I have to ask.”

“Kenny's not like that at all. He's a very shy person, especially around women. He's never even had a girlfriend. His only real flaw … well…”

“Yes, Ms. Beckett?”

She ran the tip of her tongue back and forth across her lips, moistening them. The movement made Melikian squirm a little in his chair. “If I tell you,” she said, “you'll think he's guilty, that he stole the necklace because of it.”

“My job is to find him, not judge him.”

“… All right. It's drugs.”

“What kind of drugs?”

“Amphetamines.”

“How bad is his habit?”

“It's not a habit, really. He only uses them when he's stressed out. But they don't help, they just make him paranoid, even delusional sometimes.”

“Violent?”

“No. Oh, no. Never.”

“Do you know who his supplier is?”

“No idea. I don't take drugs.”

I hadn't even hinted that she did. That kind of quick defensive response is sometimes an indication of guilt, but it was none of my business if she snorted coke five times a day and had a Baggie of the stuff in her purse. No judgments applied to her as well as her brother at that point.

I said, “How much money did he take with him, do you know?”

“It couldn't be much more than a hundred dollars. Wherever he's gone, he'll try to get some kind of work connected with boats. That's the way he is, no matter how much money he has.”

“Does he have access to any of your bank accounts?”

“No. We keep our finances separate.”

“Credit cards?”

“I let him use mine now and then, but … no, none of his own.”

“You said he drives a van. Make, model, color?”

“A Dodge Ram, dark blue. The right rear panel has a dent and a long scrape—a parking lot accident.”

“Can you give me the license number?”

She could, and I wrote it down.

“Anything else you can tell me that might help me find him? Friends in the area, someone he might turn to for help?”

“There's no one like that. He doesn't make friends easily.” Cory Beckett shifted position in the chair, recrossed her legs the other way. Gnawed on her lip a little before she said, “Do you honestly think you can find him?”

“Sure he can,” Melikian said. “He's the best, him and his people.”

She said, “I don't care what you have to do or what it costs.”

Abe winced at that, but he didn't say anything.

“No guarantees, of course,” I said. “But if you're right that your brother is still somewhere in this general area and working around boats, the chances are reasonably good.”

“The one thing I ask,” she said, “is that you let me know the minute you locate him. Don't try to talk him into coming back, don't talk to him at all if it can be avoided. Let me do it—I'm the only one he'll listen to.”

“Fair enough. You understand, though, that if he refuses to return voluntarily, there's nothing we can do to force him.”

Melikian said, “She understands. I explained it to her.”

“And that if he does refuse, we're bound to report his whereabouts to the authorities.”

Cory Beckett nodded, and Abe said, “Do it myself, in that case,” without looking at her. He wouldn't sacrifice even a small portion of fifty thousand to keep his own mother out of jail.

“One more question,” I said. “If we find him and bring him back, how do you intend to keep him from running away again?”

“You needn't concern yourself with that. I guarantee he won't miss the trial.” She added, not so reassuringly given the fact that he'd already skipped on her, “Kenny and I are very close.”

I asked her for a photograph of her brother, and she produced a five-by-seven color snapshot from a big leather purse: Kenneth Beckett standing alone in front of a sleek oceangoing yacht. You could tell he and Cory were siblings—same black hair, though his was lank; same facial bone structure and wiry build—but where she was somebody you'd notice in a crowd, he was the polar opposite. Presentable enough, but there was nothing memorable about him. Just a kid in his early twenties, like thousands of others. The kind of individual you could spend an afternoon with, and five minutes after parting you'd have already forgotten what he looked like.

We got the paperwork out of the way, and Cory Beckett wrote me a check for her half of the retainer; we'd bill Melikian for his half. The check had her address and phone number on it. The apartment she shared with her brother was on Nob Hill, a very expensive neighborhood. Melikian had mentioned at the start of our conversation that she worked as a model. One of the more successful variety, apparently.

We shook hands—hers lingered in mine a little too long, I thought—and she favored me with another of her concerned little smiles while Melikian patted her shoulder and chewed on her with his eyes. And that was that. Routine interview. Routine if slightly unusual skip-trace. Nothing special at all, except that for a change the client was a piece of eye candy.

Just goes to show how wrong first impressions can be.

 

2

From Bryant Street I drove to the agency offices in South Park. It was almost five by then, but Tamara, a workaholic like Jake Runyon was and I used to be, would probably stay until seven or so. Unless she had a date tonight. She'd taken up again with her old boyfriend, Horace Fields, who had moved back to the city from Philadelphia after losing both his cellist's chair with the philharmonic there and the wife he'd dumped Tamara for. The reconciliation was a mistake, as far as I was concerned—she didn't seem as happy as she should have been if it was working out well—but she hadn't asked for my opinion and I hadn't offered it. The Dear Abby syndrome is not one of my shortcomings.

I gave her a capsule report on the interview, then put the notes I'd made in order and gave them to her to transcribe into a casefile. Tamara does most of the agency's computer work—I've learned to operate one of the things, but with limited skills and a certain reluctance—and she is about as expert as they come. She also coordinates the various investigations, handles the billing and financial matters. Tamara Corbin, twenty-eight-year-old desk jockey dynamo who had tripled our business since I'd made the wise, very wise, decision to make her a full partner.

She set to work on the preliminaries. Skip-traces are an essential part of the agency's business, along with insurance-related investigations and employee and personal background checks, and most can be dealt with by relying on the various real-time and other search engines we subscribe to. The Beckett case didn't seem to be one of those because of the circumstances and particulars, but you never know what might turn up on an Internet search.

She suggested I hang around while she ran the initial checks—she's fast as well as expert—and I did that. Kerry wouldn't be home much before seven and Emily would get dinner started; singing was her primary passion, but she also loved to cook. Very good at both, too.

I was in my office, going over the file on a new, and routine, employee background check, when Tamara came in through the open connecting door carrying a printout in one purple-nailed hand. The purple polish didn't go very well with her dark brown skin, or at least I didn't think it did, but I wouldn't say anything to her about that, either. Who was I to criticize the fashion trends of a woman young enough to be my granddaughter?

“Nothing much on Kenneth Beckett,” she said. “No record prior to the grand theft charge, just a couple of minor moving violations and a bunch of parking tickets, most of them in the L.A. area. Worked at two yacht harbors down there, Marina del Rey and Newport Beach. Good employment records in both places, left both jobs voluntarily for unspecified reasons. Worked on Andrew Vorhees' yacht for six months before his arrest—no problems there, either. Parents both dead, no family except for the sister. No traceable contacts with anybody else down south or up here.”

“Pretty much confirms what Cory Beckett told me about him.”

“Yeah. But I'll bet she didn't tell you anything about
her
background.” Tamara waggled an eyebrow. “Juicy stuff.”

“What, you checking up on our clients now?”

“After that fiasco with Verity Daniels, you bet I am.”

The Daniels tangle was a sore subject with me, too. It had landed Jake Runyon in jail on a bogus attempted rape charge, almost gotten the agency sued for malfeasance, and its finish was the source of my promise to Kerry to keep myself out of harm's way.