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Authors: Bill Pronzini

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BOOK: Schemers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Novels)
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“No idea. Anna might be able to tell you—Anna Kovacs, Pauline’s sister. She was in Fort Bragg for the services and out here afterward cleaning out the house. I asked her where Tucker was but she didn’t want to talk about him. Acted like she wouldn’t lose any sleep if she never saw him again.”
“Where does Mrs. Kovacs live?”
“Some town near Sacramento. I forget the name.” A sudden thought recreated the dried-gourd look. “Could be he didn’t come to the funeral because he’s back in some institution. Wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Institution?”
“Loony bin. They put him in one once, I don’t know what for.”
“Who did?”
“Police, doctors, courts—whoever.”
“When was that? While he was living here?”
“No. Couple of years after he left.”
“Where was this, do you know?”
“Nowhere around here, I can tell you that much.”
“Did Pauline tell you why he was institutionalized?”
“She never wanted to talk about it. Well, she did say something once … what was it? Something about an episode.”
“Psychotic episode?”
“Episode, that’s all I remember.”
A
fter five by the time he got back to Fort Bragg. Misty, the wind herding in banks of low, scudding clouds that backed up the Deer Run woman’s forecast of rain. The smart thing to do was to take another motel room here for the night, head out early in the morning. But that would make for another long period of downtime.
He hunted up an Internet cafe. No need to burden Tamara with the basic searches that needed to be done now. The agency subscribed to a bunch of different search engines, some more sophisticated than others, and he had the passwords to most of them.
An address for Anna Kovacs in the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova was easy enough to find. Tucker Devries was a different story. One of those individuals whose lives are scattered enough to keep them off the radar. No easily obtainable address or employment record, didn’t own property anywhere in the state, and his “episode,” whatever it was, hadn’t been of sufficient newsworthiness to make any of the papers with online files. Access to criminal records and DMV files was prohibited by law to private citizens, even those who worked for detective agencies, but Tamara had ways and means of getting the
information. He e-mailed a request to her to pull up what she could on Devries.
In the car he started to call the number he’d gotten for Anna Kovacs, to set up an appointment for tomorrow. Changed his mind mid-dial. Better to interview her cold. People were more likely to answer questions about relatives face-to-face than to a stranger’s voice on the phone.
The one call he did make was to Cliff Henderson’s number in Los Alegres—checking in to make sure everything was all right there. Tracy Henderson answered, reported status quo. She wanted a progress report and he put her off because he didn’t know enough yet to be sure he was on the right track with Tucker Devries. She and the rest of the Hendersons had enough to deal with as it was.
Choice to make now. Three hours plus to San Francisco, but then he’d have to fight commute traffic on Highway 80 to Rancho Cordova in the morning. At least a four-hour run straight through to the Sacramento area. As much as he liked to drive, it had been a long and busy day and with the weather turning bad, four hours was pushing his limits.
All right, then. Cut the distance to Rancho Cordova in half tonight, then stop at a motel somewhere. Two hours on the road was manageable, and by then he’d be hungry enough to eat and tired enough to sleep.
JAKE RUNYON
A
nna Kovacs had no use for her adopted nephew, “that crazy little shit,” and was reluctant to talk about him. Runyon had to do some fast talking, citing the seriousness of the situation with the Henderson brothers, to keep her from shutting the door of her downscale tract house in his face. At that, she wouldn’t let him inside; they had their brief conversation on the chipped concrete porch. And he had to work to keep it focused on Tucker Devries. Mostly what she was interested in was herself.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the one you’re looking for,” she said. Large woman in her late sixties, heavily lined face, little piglike eyes pouched in fat. Too much lipstick made her mouth look like a bleeding gash. “Crazy, like I said. Nothing but grief for that poor dumb sister of mine. I told Pauline not to adopt the kid after brother Tom’s girl was killed, but no, she had to be a mother. Well, she learned to regret it.”
“In what way?”
“Didn’t leave her house to him, like I was afraid she would. Left it to me, and rightfully so—I’m her only blood relative left. But up in the boonies like that, it won’t be easy to sell. Not a single offer so far.” She sighed and looked off down a street lined and cluttered with junk cars, pickups, stake beds, boats on trailers—metal-and-glass weeds in a decaying neighborhood. “My husband and me, we can sure use that money. He’s a semi-invalid since his stroke. Needs constant attention. A burden, some days. A real burden.”
“Where can I find Tucker, Mrs. Kovacs?”
She wasn’t listening. “Pauline didn’t have much in the bank, and her furniture and the rest didn’t sell for much. Well, she never had much to begin with, just that house Tom willed to her when he died. Thirty years now, Tom’s been gone. Construction accident. He would’ve raised Tucker if he’d been alive. Didn’t take any crap from anybody, Tom didn’t—he’d’ve raised that boy right, ironed out his kinks good and proper.”
“Kinks,” Runyon said. “I understand Tucker has been institutionalized.”
“What? Oh, the twitch bin. Sure, more than once. They should’ve kept him locked up the last time. Better for everybody if they had, Lord knows.”
“Why was he locked up?”
Disgusted snort. “Always taking pictures of people and not all of ’em clean and wholesome, I’ll tell you. They caught him in Sacramento taking sneak pictures of women naked in their bathrooms, not once but twice, and the
second time he went nuts when the cops tried to arrest him. Bit one, broke another one’s arm. Another time he threatened some man, said he’d kill him if he didn’t stop following him. Only the man didn’t know Tucker from Adam’s right buttock.”
Tucker Devries: paranoid schizophrenic.
“All they done was lock him up for a while,” she said, “and then let him back out on the streets. But that don’t mean he ain’t dangerous. My husband and me, we won’t have him in the house.”
“Obsessive about cleanliness? Washes his hands often?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s another of his nut things. Says he can’t stand dirt.”
Paranoid schizophrenic with OCD—a bad combination.
“Last time I saw him,” Anna Kovacs said, “he washed his hands right over there with the hose. And he wasn’t here five minutes.”
“When was that?”
“Three weeks ago. Come to pick up the trunk.”
“Trunk?”
“That’s all Pauline left him, his mother’s trunk, and I wish she hadn’t done that much. I hauled it back here from Deer Run, thought maybe we could use it for storage, and then her lawyer told me she willed it to Tucker. What else could I do but let him have it? Not that I minded, once I had a good look at what was inside.”
“Which was what?”
“Clothes, books, photographs—Jenny’s crap. Pauline kept it all these years, up in her attic. Never told him she had it. He seemed real upset about that.”
“How upset?”
“Started yelling after he got the trunk loaded in his van and washed his damn hands, called Pauline a
b-i-t-c-h.
After all she did for him. Well, if that’s what she was, I told him, then you’re a son of a
b-i-t-c-h.
He said F-you and that’s the last I saw or ever want to see of the little shit.”
“Where does he live?”
“Vacaville. Up to last Christmas, anyway. Pauline had his address, probably wanted her to send him money.”
“You still have the address?”
“No. I threw it out.”
“What kind of work does he do?”
“Clerk in a camera store.”
“Name of the store?”
“How should I know? I could care less.”
“You said he drives a van. Make, model?”
“I can’t tell one from another. White van, old, beat-up.”
“Lettering on the sides or rear?”
“Just a crappy white van. Listen,” she said, “it’s cold out here, no sun again today, and I’m tired of talking about Tucker. You want him, you go find him. And when you do, do the world a favor and stick him back in the nuthouse where he belongs.”
V
acaville. A little less than halfway between Sacramento and San Francisco, and some fifty miles from Los Alegres. Location of two prisons in the nearby hills: California Medical Facility, the state’s health care flagship, and California State Prison, Solano. The medical facility might be the reason Devries was living in Vacaville; if he’d
been remanded for observation to the psychiatric unit there, he could’ve decided to stay in the area after his release. One town, one clerk’s job, was the same as another to a paranoid schizophrenic whose passion was photography. Vacaville’s population was around ninety thousand. There were bound to be more than a couple of camera stores in a city that size, but not too many to make a canvass difficult.
By the time Runyon reached Vacaville, Tamara had called with the DMV and other information he’d requested. He’d guessed right about the California Medical Facility: Tucker Devries had spent nearly seven months there three years ago. Devries had a valid California driver’s license and the vehicle registered to him was a fifteen-year-old Dodge Caravan. Height: 6’0. Weight: 180. Description from his license photo: round face, cleft chin, light-colored eyes, dark blond hair parted in the middle and worn in short, in-curling wings low on his forehead. Last known address as far as the DMV was concerned: 2309 Crinella Street, Number 11, Vacaville.
As for camera shops and other stores that sold photographic equipment, just a handful. Runyon asked Tamara to hold, took the first Vacaville exit off Highway 80, and pulled over long enough to write down the names, addresses, and MapQuest directions she gave him.
He made 2309 Crinella his first stop. It was in the older part of town, a residential street not much different in look or feel from the one Anna Kovacs lived on. More rundown, if anything. Cracked stucco apartment building, the two-storied kind built around parking areas and dead
or moribund landscaping. Runyon parked on the street, considered arming himself, decided it wasn’t necessary, and went into the central foyer where the mailboxes were. The box marked with the numeral 11 had no nameplate. He moved through the grounds until he found the unit, on the second floor overlooking a section of communal Dumpsters.
Half a dozen raps on the door brought no response. He tried the knob—locked tight. The window beside the door was curtained, the folds crossing fully from top to bottom so that it was impossible to see inside.
He didn’t like the idea of bracing Tucker Devries at work, in a public place, but hanging around here on an extended stakeout wasn’t an option. For all he knew, Devries was in Los Alegres planning more mischief.
Two of the local camera shops were in the downtown area. Nobody in either had ever heard of Tucker Devries. The third on the list, Waymark Cameras, New and Used, occupied space in a strip mall back toward the freeway. That was the right one.
The only person in the small, cluttered store was a fat man in a bulky turtleneck sweater who said he was the owner, Jim Waymark. He was all smiles until Runyon dropped Devries’s name. Then the smile turned upside down, thinned out into a wounded glower.
“Yeah, I know him. He used to work for me.”
“Fired or quit?”
“Neither. Disappeared without any notice. I came in late one day, he was supposed to’ve opened up, but no,
the place was still locked up tight. And not a word from him since.”
“When was that?”
“About three weeks ago,” Waymark said. “I was thinking about letting him go anyway. He knew cameras but he didn’t know how to deal with people. Get irritated, snap at customers for no reason. But I didn’t take him for a thief.”
“He steal something from you?”
“I think so, but I can’t be sure. I’ve been around to where he lives half a dozen times, but he’s never there. Left town, for all I know.”
“Money?”
“No, a digital camera. Kodak EasyShare. I don’t know why Tucker would’ve taken it, unless it’s because it has the look and feel of an old-fashioned single-lens reflex camera like his old Nikkormat; there are a lot more expensive digitals in the shop. But the Kodak’s gone and if I was a hundred percent sure he stole it, I’d’ve called the cops on him. Maybe I will anyway.”
“Don’t bother,” Runyon said. “He’s in a lot more trouble than you can make for him.”
T
he first mailbox in the bank at 2309 Crinella bore a label that read:
Apt. 1—J. Morales, Mgr.
Runyon found Number 1 and rang the bell. Ten seconds later he was facing a young Latina with a squalling baby slung over one meaty shoulder. Child voices and spicy cooking odors dribbled out from the clutter behind her.
“Yes?”
“I’m looking for one of your tenants. Tucker Devries, apartment eleven.”
“Oh, him,” she said. Another one with scorn in her voice. “The photographer.”
“Seen him lately, say in the past week?”
“No. His rent’s overdue.”
Runyon flashed his license, handed her a business card; she looked at both with no expression, held the card between thumb and forefinger as if it were something dead and not very interesting.
“It’s important that I find Devries,” he said. “Very important.”
“What’d he do?”
“Hurt some people. Might be something in his unit that’ll help me find him.”
Blank look while she rocked and patted the baby. It went right on squalling.
“It’s worth twenty dollars to me to have a look,” he said.
“Uh-uh. My husband, he wouldn’t like it.”
“Thirty dollars.”
The dark eyes showed interest for the first time. “
How
much?”
“Forty. Best offer.”
“Well, you know, I can’t leave my kids alone here.”
“Forty dollars for a twenty-minute loan of your passkey.”
“Yeah? How do I know you’ll bring it back?”
“You saw my license and you have my card.”
She wrestled with her greed for maybe thirty seconds,
just about as long as it took the baby to stop crying and let loose a loud belch. Then she said, “Just a minute,” and retreated inside and shut the door. Two minutes and the door opened again. In place of the infant she held a key on a tarnished brass loop.
“Forty dollars,” she said.
He gave her two twenties and she relinquished the key.
“You better bring it back,” she said. “And you better not steal anything or I’ll call the cops on you.”
Runyon made his way to Number 11, let himself in. Faint musty odor; nobody there for several days. He found a light switch. Room about the size of one in a downscale motel. Clean, tidy. Cheap furniture, nondescript, the kind you find in those same downscale motel rooms. The only stamps of individuality were on the walls—hundreds of photographs in orderly rows from near the floor to as high as a six-foot-tall man could reach. Mostly five by seven, some eight by ten.
He spent a couple of minutes scanning them. People, places, animals; fences, graffitied walls, junk cars. No rhyme or reason to any of them, except for two short rows on the back wall near the kitchenette. These were all eight-by-tens and displayed in the best location for viewing. And all depicted women—young, middle-aged, old—in various states of nudity, taken through bathroom and bedroom windows. Tucker Devries, the photographic Peeping Tom.
Nothing else in the living room. In the kitchenette Runyon opened the refrigerator. Half-full quart of milk nearly a week past its sell-by date. Eggs, packaged cheese left open so the ends were curled up hard, cold cuts, part
of a loaf of sliced bread that was stiff to the touch and smelled stale.
The bathroom was outfitted as a dark room, the equipment neatly arranged on the cheap vanity sink, a red safe light in place of the bulb over the sink. He examined the bottles. Developing solution, fixer, stop bath. And one that didn’t have anything to do with processing pictures.
Hydrochloric acid.
BOOK: Schemers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Novels)
7.35Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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