“Did you see him again later?”
“What do you mean by that?” Sharp, defensive.
“He was in Eagle Lake three more days. The cabin he was staying in is right down the road from where you live.”
She leaned forward, so low and close that the thrust of her large breasts nearly touched his arm. “What the hell you trying to say, mister?”
“Just asking if you saw the man again.”
“So what if I did? It’s none of your business.”
“Not mine—his wife’s.”
“What’s his wife have to do with it?”
“She wants to know what he did the four days he was in Eagle Lake, why he stayed here when the woman he was waiting to meet stood him up. He was supposed to be in L.A.”
“How should I know what he did? I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“Don’t care that he’s dead?”
“I didn’t know him; why should I?”
She straightened, pivoted away from the booth. When she came back with the tea, she wouldn’t make eye contact. She slapped the cup down hard enough to spill some of it on the table, went away again fast.
Runyon neither drank the tea nor mopped up the spill. He put two dollars on the table and left the café. No need to linger; he’d found out what he’d gone there for.
* * *
The Meeker cabin sat on high ground across the road from the lake. On one side of it, a section of forest had been cleared to make room for two outbuildings—one of them large, the size of a small barn, which probably served Joe Meeker as a workshop, the other a shed for storage of winter firewood. There were no vehicles in sight when Runyon drove by. No smoke from the cabin’s chimney, either, or any other signs of life.
Since he was close to the Hansen cabin, he figured he might as well have another look around the property. But it wasn’t deserted as he’d expected. A dark green Chevy Silverado pickup with a contractor’s service body of racks and bins fitted onto its bed was parked in the meadow below the cabin. Joe Meeker’s vehicle, evidently. The plywood sheet had been removed from the side-wall window and a short blade of a man was in the process of installing a new pane of glass. He stopped what he was doing when Runyon drove in, stood watching him park and then cross the pine-needled ground.
Meeker was somewhere around forty, the owner of a narrow, bony face and the small, bright eyes of a lizard. Long, shaggy brown hair was pulled back on his scalp and rubber-banded into a ponytail. Despite his thinness, there appeared to be a lot of muscular gristle in him. A tool belt circled his narrow waist and he held a putty knife in one knobby hand.
“Who’re you?” he demanded.
Runyon told him. And got a slitty look in return.
“Detective? What’s Dennison’s wife want with a detective? His death was an accident; he was drunk and he slipped and fell. There’s no doubt about that. Cabin was all locked up.”
“I wasn’t hired to investigate the man’s death.”
“No? What for, then?”
Runyon repeated what he’d told Meeker’s wife at the café.
“You’re wasting your time,” the handyman said. “Dennison didn’t have any woman with him while he was here.”
“You know that for sure? I understand you were away all weekend on a hunting trip.”
“Who told you that?”
“Deputy Rittenhouse happened to mention it.”
“Yeah, well, that’s right. Wasn’t worth the trip. One small buck and I had to share the meat with my two buddies.”
“When did you leave?”
The question produced a frown. “What’s it to you?”
“I was just wondering if you saw Philip Dennison before you left.”
“No, I didn’t see him. Left early Friday morning, got back late Monday night. Never laid eyes on him until I come by Tuesday morning and spotted his body through this window.”
“Never? He’d been up here a couple of times before. With a woman each time, apparently.”
“I don’t know nothing about that. He was a stranger to me.” Meeker gestured with the putty knife. “Listen, I got permission from the owner to be here, fix this window. He give you permission to come snooping around? Or did Rittenhouse?”
“No.”
“Then what’re you doing here? There’s nothing for you to see. Maybe you better just leave, let me finish my work.”
Runyon shrugged. “Maybe so.”
He walked to the Ford, backed it around. As he was pulling up onto the road, he glanced in the side-view mirror. Meeker was still standing in the same spot, looking after him, his bony features drawn into a frown.
* * *
In his room at the lodge Runyon went through the address book on Philip Dennison’s cell phone. There were more than forty numbers that ranged over much of California, some with the names of companies, some with full or partial names, some with initials, a few with no identification of any kind. All of the full or partial names were male. He copied down those with initials only and those without ID, a total of fourteen. The lodge was equipped with high-speed Wi-Fi; he hooked up his laptop and transferred the list of fourteen numbers into an e-mail to Tamara at the agency, along with a request for as many names and addresses as she could locate.
While he was at it, he made one other request—for background information on Patricia Dennison. He was still leery of her interest in her husband’s mistress, her desire to confront the woman. The more he knew about Mrs. Dennison, the better able he’d be to understand what motivated her and what her intentions might be. And how to handle the situation if he did manage to uncover the girlfriend’s identity.
A number in Philip Dennison’s address book labeled Lloyd was the same as the one Rittenhouse had given him for Lloyd Hansen’s insurance agency in Sacramento. He called it and was told that Hansen had already left for home. Runyon talked the woman he spoke to into letting him have the home number.
Hansen sounded wary and flustered when he came on the line. And not very convincing when he said, “I already told the deputy up there, Rittenhouse, everything I know about Phil Dennison.”
“I’d appreciate hearing it from you in person. I could drive down to Sacramento tomorrow, any time that’s convenient for you.”
“… Well, as a matter of fact, I’m planning to drive up there in the morning. Check on the cabin. The handyman, Meeker, is supposed to fix the broken window—”
“He already did.”
“Good. But I still want to have a look at the place, clean it up. I don’t suppose the sheriff’s people did that.”
“What time do you expect to get here?”
“Sometime around noon, probably.”
“I could meet you at the cabin,” Runyon said, “and we could talk there. I won’t take up much of your time.”
“I guess that’d be okay.”
Unless Patricia Dennison contacted him tonight, tomorrow morning before she left for San Francisco was soon enough to speak to her again. It wouldn’t be much of a conversation in any case. He had nothing to report to her yet; suspicions weren’t facts. For that matter, even if he was able to verify that Philip Dennison and Verna Meeker had had relations he was not at all sure he would tell her about it. Did she really need to know about, much less have words with, a local tramp Dennison had picked up on the drunken rebound? He didn’t think so.
He lay down on the bed, used the remote to put on the TV for noise. Later, when he felt hungry enough, he’d go out somewhere to eat. But it wouldn’t be to the Lakefront Café.
8
TAMARA
She was thinking again about Horace’s marriage proposal when the surprise call came in to the agency.
The call had nothing to do with Horace or the proposal. It was 4:30 and she was once again taking a break from her work, sitting tipped back in her desk chair, her fourth or fifth cup of coffee of the day in hand. The coffee didn’t do anything for her except make her have to pee, but it was as good an excuse as any
to get up and fuss around when her attention started to wander from the business at hand, as it had been doing most of the day.
“Marry me, Tam.” Just like that, out of the blue … well, out of the semidarkness of her bedroom last night after they’d finished making sweaty love. No warning of any kind, wham. If words could knock you down, she’d have been out of bed and lying dizzy on the floor.
“You’re kidding, right?” she’d said.
And he’d said, “I’ve never been more serious. I love you and you love me; it’s about time we made this arrangement permanent. What do you say?”
Well, what could she say? You’re crazy, bro, and I’d be crazy to say yes? You big ugly bastard, you walked out on me for that two-year gig with the Philadelphia symphony, broke my heart when you moved in with Mary from Rochester after promising you’d always be faithful to me, and then when both the gig and the affair busted up you come crawling back to San Francisco and sweet-talk me into bed again. Things haven’t been all rosy since, either. Together again, not together for a while, back together again; work too hard, sleep and eat too little because I’m off my feed. And now all of a sudden you expect me to let you put a ring on my finger and another one through my nose. You really think I’m so hot for you and that dumbstick of yours I’ll forget about the past and go traipsing off into a future full of who knows what?
Maybe I am.
Damn you, Horace Fields, maybe I am.
She tried again to imagine what it would be like having him around all the time instead of two or three nights a week and a weekend now and then; to come home to him from the agency every night, completely change her comfortable, do-what-she-liked-when-she-liked lifestyle. Sure, they’d lived together before he went off to Philly, but they’d been a lot younger then, her studying computer tech at S.F. State and then going to work for Bill, Horace studying cello at the conservatory. Good times with no real commitment. And he hadn’t been easy to live with, always on her case about her prickly family relationships and her “low-life friends” and not keeping the apartment as neat and clean as he liked it.
Now they weren’t just years older; they were different people, different kinds of opposites. Back then she’d been an angry, know-it-all, grunge-dressing wiseass; he’d been dedicated and tolerant and mostly together. Positions reversed now. She was the responsible one, the focused one, running a business she’d helped build up from a one-man operation into one of the more successful private agencies in the city, putting in long hours by choice and loving it; he was just drifting, working at a teaching job he didn’t much like, playing his cello on a catch-as-catch-can basis with a freelance chamber music group, worrying that he wasn’t good enough or lucky enough to ever get another symphony seat.
All the makings of a big mistake, Tamara. Man’s not about to change and neither are you. Are you really ready to give up your freedom for Horace, no matter how much you think you might still love him? Be tied to him for the rest of your life, or however long the marriage might last?
Love. What is love, anyway? A whole lot more than just sex, that’s for sure, no matter how good the sex is. It’s caring and overcoming adversity and being there for each other, no matter what. It’s the kind of marriage Mom and Pop have had for nearly forty years, that Kerry and Bill have. You’d always be there for Horace because that’s the kind of woman you are now, but would he always be there for you? Like if something really bad happened, a disease or an accident or some new on-the-job crisis, God forbid. Or would he man-down instead of man-up and just slip and slide away?
That Mary from Rochester … one minute they were so hot for each other they were planning to get married; then all of a sudden they were quits. He claimed it was because he realized he was still in love with his old sweetie Tamara and that was why he called it off with Mary. But was that the truth? Or had Mary dumped him when he lost his seat with the Philly symphony and the only reason he’d come back to S.F. was because he couldn’t find another gig or another woman who’d have him back there?
Could she really trust him? Screwed her over once, he could do it again. Couldn’t trust her feelings, either, for that matter. Men she’d cared for had been screwing her over most of her life. Dudes back in her grunge days, Horace, then that son of a bitch Lucas Delman … she’d trusted Lucas, thought she might be falling for him, and look what’d happened there. She was lucky to be alive after that monster mistake.
But Horace wasn’t Lucas, dammit. He had his good points—he was gentle, he was affectionate, he was honest (well, mostly honest), he insisted on working and paying his own way. And he genuinely cared for her or he wouldn’t have made the proposal. “I love you, Tam, I’ve always loved you.” Could’ve been bullshit, but she didn’t think so. But did he know what love really was any more than she did? The proposal had come right after they’d hotted up the sheets for more than an hour. Could’ve had more to do with that than been a genuine expression of his feelings, couldn’t it?
Back and forth, back and forth.
She needed time to think, weigh all the positives and negatives, before she made up her mind and gave him her answer. She’d told him that and he’d said, “Don’t take too long, baby,” and then he’d laughed and added, “I might change my mind and withdraw the offer.”
Not funny, Horace. Nothing to joke about. Serious business, man, real serious business …
The ringing phone jerked her out of her reverie. Not her cell, the agency landline. She set down the cup of cold coffee, lifted the receiver, gave the standard agency greeting.
Couple of seconds of staticky silence. Then a man’s voice, young and so low-pitched she could barely make out the words, said, “I want to speak to Jake Runyon.”
“He’s not here. Can I take a message?”
“Will he be in today?”
“No, I’m sorry, he’s away on business.”
“Away from the city? From the Bay Area?”
Tamara frowned. There was an odd sort of inflection in the young voice, a kind of tension. “I can’t give out that information. Who’s calling, please?”
“When do you expect him back?”
“Not until Monday.”
“Where can I reach him? I had his card with his cell and home numbers, but I misplaced it.”
“You know Mr. Runyon, have business with him?”
“I know him.”
“I asked if you have business with him.”
“Yes. Business.”
“What kind of business?”
“Personal. What’s his cell number?”
“You’re just a voice to me,” Tamara said, losing patience. “Who are you and why do you want to speak to Mr. Runyon?”
Silence. She was on the point of breaking the connection when he said, “Never mind. There’s really no point in talking to him if he’s away somewhere. I can wait until next week. Monday’s soon enough.” Another pause. Then, abruptly, “Will you be speaking to him before then?”
“I don’t know. Possibly.”
“If you do, don’t tell him I called.”
“Don’t tell him who called?”
“Joshua Fleming.”
And the line went dead.
Tamara sat holding the receiver. Joshua Fleming. Jake’s son, his estranged gay son. The reason Jake had moved down from Seattle after his second wife died, to try to end a twenty-year estrangement, re-establish a relationship. Total failure. Even after Joshua’s lover was gay-bashed in the Castro and Jake had nailed the homophobes responsible, the dude still wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Poisoned against him while he was growing up by his mother, Jake’s first wife, a bitter, grudge-holding drunk—the kind of poison that gets worked in so deep you can’t flush it out. It’d been, what, four years now since that gay-bashing business? Yeah, four years, because it’d happened around the same time she’d made her one and only attempt at doing fieldwork and got herself kidnapped and nearly killed.
As far as she knew, Jake had given up trying to reco
ncile with his son after that, had had no contact of any kind with him since. Now, out of the blue, this phone call. Why? Some new investigation Joshua wanted him to take on? Or had Joshua had a change of heart for some reason, decided it was finally time to end the estrangement?
She really hoped that was it. A reconciliation would mean more to Jake than anything else.
9
A lot of years have passed since the ’89 Loma Prieta earthquake, but whenever I have occasion to drive cross the Bay Bridge I still have a memory tweak and a vague frisson of unease to go with it. Too much imagination, too much empathy. All the destruction when the section of the upper deck collapsed into the lower, the panic, the casualties.
The bridge has undergone numerous repairs, alterations, retrofitting in the years since, including a complete replacement of the span’s eastern leg, yet construction and other problems continue to plague it and cause engineers to question its seismic safety—saltwater intrusion into the tower’s foundation, damage to its anchor rods, substandard deck welds, water leaks near rods that secure the main cable, weak spots in the concrete wall in the Yerba Buena tunnel mid-span. If I believed in jinxes and curses, I might consider the bridge to be doomed. As it is, particularly headed westbound at approximately the same time of day as the quake struck, 5:04 P.M., I can’t help feeling a sliver of relief when I finally exit.
When Tamara called, I was stuck in a long line of cars waiting to get through the toll plaza. The evening rush-hour traffic is twice as heavy eastbound, since large numbers of people who work in the city live in the East Bay, but there’s no toll in that direction, and the westward flow is substantial enough to cause the plaza backup even with the FasTrak lanes. So her call was well-timed because it took my mind off the upcoming crossing.
She asked me where I was and I told her. “Going where?” she asked. “Back here to the office?”
“Hadn’t planned on it, no.”
“Wondering because I’m about to ready to leave.”
“Early night for you. Hot date?”
“Hot bath, alone. How’d your interviews go?”
Endgame--A Nameless Detective Novel Page 7