Camouflage (Nameless Detective Mysteries) (2 page)

She was busy, as always, but she didn’t seem to mind the interruption or being handed additional work. There were a number of different Tamaras living inside her slightly plump young body; there were Grumpy Tamara, Professional Tamara, Tough Tamara, Streetwise Tamara, Philosophical Tamara, Playful Tamara, Sex-Starved Tamara, and a handful of others. But what we’d had for the past ten days or so was a brand-new member of the team: Unflappable Tamara. Or maybe Seriously Adult Tamara. Not exactly serene or cheerful, but exhibiting signs of both, and neither bothered nor shaken by anyone or anything. I liked most of the other personas, but I was developing a particular fondness for this one. No surprises, no put-ons or detailed commentaries on her sex life or lack thereof, and no need for me to shift into one of my own multiple personalities—boss, mentor, father confessor, pacifier—in dealing with her.

The reason for the appearance of this welcome new Tamara had to do with her involvement, both personally and professionally, with a con man calling himself Lucas Zeller. The secretive professional part had been a mistake, one that had nearly cost her her life, and the experience seemed to have had a profound effect on her. She was smart as a whip, but in the six years I’d known and worked with her she’d been unpredictable, not completely grounded, and just a little immature. I had the feeling that none of those applied any longer, that now, at age twenty-seven, she’d learned the lessons that come with full maturity. Seriously Adult Tamara.

She glanced at the photo, read through my notes. “Weird,” she said. “Bet you never had a case like this before.”

“Not even close. At first I thought I’d caught another cutey.”

“Cutey?”

“The oddball cases I seem to get stuck with. Pretty straightforward, once Virden explained his motives.”

“Uh-huh. I didn’t know the Catholic Church could annul marriages that’d already ended in divorce.”

“It’s not common knowledge outside the faith.”

“Three exes and now the dude’s looking to marry number four. This one must have money.”

“Good guess.”

“Greed beats love every time for some guys.”

“He was up-front about it; I’ll give him that,” I said. “I wouldn’t’ve taken him on if it wasn’t a simple trace job.”

“Simple as long as his checks don’t bounce.”

“I’ll run his retainer check down to the bank on my lunch break.”

“Low-priority case, right?”

“Right. Fit it in when you can.”

She gave me a patient little smile, my cue to go away and let her get back to work. I liked that, too. It was a much more pleasant cue than some of those her other personalities indulged in.

*   *   *

Jake Runyon rolled into the agency a little past four thirty, just as I was about to leave for the day. I had my overcoat and hat and muffler on; the weather lately had been fog ridden and blustery, the kind—even though it was only April—that had inspired Mark Twain to write that the coldest winter he’d ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. Runyon, on the other hand, was coatless in a rumpled suit and tie. He seemed impervious to weather conditions of any kind, maybe because he was a native of Seattle. The fact that he was twenty years younger than me might also have had something to do with it; I hadn’t been nearly so aware of weather extremes when I was his age.

He’d been out on a hunt for a witness to a near-fatal hit-and-run auto accident. The agency doesn’t usually handle personal injury cases, but the injured party involved in this one was a local politician whose attorney knew a criminal lawyer I’d done some work for in the past. So we’d taken it on as a favor. Quid pro quo is a necessity in any successful detective business.

“Find the witness yet?” I asked Runyon.

“Name and address, but he’s out of town for the weekend. Back on Monday—I’ll brace him then. Anything new for me?”

“Nope. One new client today, but it’s a minor trace job and Tamara and I are handling it.”

He ran a hand over his slablike face. Something on his mind; I could see it in his eyes. “You in a hurry to get home?”

“Not really. Why?”

“I can use your input on a problem.”

“Business?”

“Personal.”

That was a surprise. Runyon was usually reticent when it came to his personal life; he’d offer up snippets now and then if you asked him a direct question, but he seldom volunteered any information.

“Sure thing,” I said. “How about we go across the square? I can use a beer.”

“I’ll buy,” he said.

2

The agency’s offices are in an old, salmon-colored building on South Park, a chunk of Bohemian-era San Francisco—private residences, cafés, small businesses, a little park and playground—sandwiched among a lot of high-rise buildings between Second and Third, Brannan and Bryant. It was a prime business location, close to downtown and the Bay Bridge; we’d managed to get a long-term lease shortly after the dot-com industry collapse a few years ago, when office space all over the city was going begging. Lucky timing, because the industry had bounced back and now the area surrounding South Park was thick with high-tech companies paying rents five and six times higher than ours.

The South Park Café, on the opposite side of the square, was already starting to fill up with the Friday evening happy hour crowd when Runyon and I walked in. We managed to claim the last available table just ahead of a young couple who glared at us as if we’d robbed them of something valuable. Funny thing was, it was the same table we’d sat at a couple of weeks ago, at a quieter time of day, for the same reason we were here now—to talk over a personal matter. Only then it had been my personal matter, a nasty bit of business involving my adopted daughter, Emily, that still raised my blood pressure whenever I thought about it. I’d asked Jake to join me in doing something that was borderline illegal, and despite the professional risk he’d agreed without hesitation. I owed him any kind of favor in return.

Runyon had also noticed the coincidence. He said as we waited for service, “Nothing like the last time we were here. Except that it’s about a kid in trouble … maybe.”

“You’re not sure?”

“Not a hundred percent. I could use your input.”

“Glad to help if I can, you know that. Who’s the kid?”

“Bryn’s son, Bobby.”

Bryn was a woman he’d met not long ago, the first relationship he’d had since the death of his second wife, Colleen, in Seattle. Colleen had wasted away slowly from ovarian cancer, which left him devastated. He’d moved down here to be close to his estranged gay son from his first marriage, but they still hadn’t reconciled. Jake’s life had narrowed down to his work—he was a hell of a good investigator—and for the first year and a half he’d worked for the agency he’d been a tightly closed-off loner. Bryn Darby had brought him out of that hard depressive shell, started him living again for something more than his job. She was a commercial artist, divorced, with the one young son and a home in the Sunset District; that was all I knew about her, aside from one reference to a “physical problem” that he wouldn’t elaborate on.

“What’s the trouble with Bobby?” I asked.

This wasn’t easy for Runyon. He sat tight-mouthed for a few seconds, scraping fingernails along his hammerhead jaw, before he answered. “Bryn thinks he’s being abused. Physically.”

“Christ. By whom?”

“His father. Robert Darby. West Portal lawyer, used his position to convince a judge to grant him primary custody.”

“But you’re not sure about the abuse?”

“Bryn is. Bobby showed up at school with a fractured arm, claimed it happened in a fall. The doctor who set it found bruises on the kid’s back and arms. Bobby said he got them playing football with a couple of schoolmates.”

“Any other physical evidence?”

“No. But Bryn says there’ve been personality changes consistent with abuse—withdrawal, that kind of thing.”

“Has she confronted her ex?”

“Roundabout. He denies it, naturally.”

“Taken her suspicions to Bobby’s school counselor or Social Services?”

“Not enough proof without his cooperation.”

“Any chance she could get the boy to a child psychologist, draw it out of him that way?”

Runyon shook his head. “She’s afraid to do anything that might provoke Darby into legally shoving her all the way out of the kid’s life.”

“He sounds like a bastard.”

“First-class.”

“Have you met him?”

“Once. I went to his office a couple of days ago.”

I didn’t say anything.

Runyon said, “Yeah, I know. But I had to do it.”

“Tell Bryn you were going to see him?”

“No. I didn’t want to upset her. Or get her hopes up.”

“How’d you approach him?”

“Calm and polite, as a concerned friend.”

“Tell him you’re a detective?”

“No way around it. Friend wasn’t enough for him—he demanded to know who I was and I didn’t want to start off by lying to him.”

“Bet I can guess his reaction.”

“Yeah. He went all hard-ass lawyer, warned me to keep my nose out of his private life, and threw me out.”

“What was your take? Think Bryn’s right about him?”

“Capable of child abuse—capable of just about anything. Acted outraged and protective of Bobby, called Bryn a paranoid hysteric, but the guilty ones take that line same as the innocent.”

“Every time.”

“That’s where it stands now,” Runyon said. “Nowhere.”

“And you’re wondering what I’d do if I were in your shoes.”

“Like I said, I can use your input. You’ve had experience with kids—Emily’s not much older than Bobby.”

“Well, the smart answer is drop it, don’t get any more involved.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself. But I can’t just walk away. Would you be able to?”

“Probably not.”

“So?”

“So you’ve got to be pretty careful, Jake. Any kind of strong-arm stuff is out. So is confronting Darby straight on.”

“I know it. He’d sue me for harassment in a New York minute.”

“You run a background check on him?”

“First thing. Nothing there. His record’s clean except for one speeding ticket and an unprofessional ethics charge that got him a warning from the ABA five years ago.”

A waitress finally showed up to take our order for a couple of Anchor Steam drafts. The interruption gave me time to weigh Runyon’s problem. When we were alone again, I said, “You’ve met the boy, right? Spend much time with him?”

“Not much, no. Bryn only gets him two weekends a month.”

“The next is when?”

“This weekend. She picked him up at school today.”

“Is he easy to talk to, get along with?”

“Shy. Doesn’t say much.”

“Would Bryn let you take him somewhere without her?”

“… She might. But if he won’t tell his mother he’s being abused, he’s not going to open up to a stranger.”

“His mother’s not a detective. You’ve interrogated kids before, same as I have. There’re ways to do it without making it seem like an interrogation.”

Runyon thought that over. “Maybe,” he said.

“Worth a shot,” I said. “I don’t see anything else you can do without risking a lawsuit and jeopardizing your license. Except be there for Bryn and the boy.”

“That’s a given. Thanks.”

“
Por nada
. Keep me posted.”

He said he would. The beers arrived then and we shifted the conversation to agency business while we drank them.

*   *   *

Emily was alone in the Diamond Heights condo when I walked in, working on dinner in the kitchen. No real surprise there; she often did the cooking when Kerry had to work late at Bates and Carpenter and it was one of my days at the agency. Emily was thirteen going on thirty, one of those rare kids who were not only intelligent but also good at anything that interested them, from school subjects to the environment to music to Home Ec.

What surprised me a little, and pleased and relieved me, was that she was singing while she cooked.

The unpleasant events of a couple of weeks ago, which she’d been innocently involved in and that Runyon and I had dealt with, had had a rough effect on her. She was a sensitive kid. Lonely and withdrawn when she first came into our lives, the only child of a couple of screwed-up felons who had died separately in tragic and violent circumstances; it had taken a long time for Kerry and me to guide Emily out of her shell, and she still had a tendency, when bad things happened, to retreat into that private little world. She’d been uncommunicative the past two weeks, spending most of her time at home closeted in her room with her computer, her iPod, and Shameless the cat. The cooking and especially the singing were indications that the shell had cracked open and she’d come out into the world again.

She hadn’t heard me, because she went right on singing. I shed my coat and hat, tiptoed to the kitchen doorway. Emily’s ambition is to become a professional singer and there’s no doubt in Kerry’s or my mind that she’ll succeed one day; she has a clear, sweet voice and tremendous range for a thirteen-year-old with a minimum of vocal training. She can sing anything from folk songs to show tunes—rap and reggae, too, probably, when we’re not around to hear her do it. She doesn’t need accompaniment and she wasn’t using any at the moment; her ears were bare of the iPod buds. I didn’t recognize the lyrics or the melody, but what I know about popular music you could put in a disconnected iPod bud.

I stood in the doorway, listening and watching her chop up garlic and onions. And smiling, because she seemed happy again and because I love her as much as if she were my own.

She hit a series of high notes with perfect pitch, finishing the song and the chopping simultaneously, and saw me when she turned from the sink to the stove. She blinked a couple of times, then offered up a shy smile. “Oh, hi, Dad. How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough. What was that you were singing?”

“‘Pointing at the Sun.’ It’s a Cheryl Wheeler song.”

“I’ll bet Cheryl Wheeler doesn’t sing it any better than you just did.”

She said, “Oh, you’re just saying that,” but she was pleased.

“If I didn’t mean it I’d be fibbing. And you know I don’t fib.”