Schemers nd-34

by Bill Pronzini

  “Recently uncovered some kind of proof, maybe.”

  “Such as what? Where? How?”

  Runyon tilted his hand again. “What happened to Tucker after his mother’s death?”

  “Jenny’s aunt took him in.”

  “The aunt in Deer Run? Pauline Devries?”

  “That’s right. Jenny and the boy’d been living with her since her divorce.”

  “She raised him?”

  “As far as I know. I lost touch with her after a couple of years. That happens with cold cases… well, I don’t have to tell you.”

  “So you don’t know if he’s still in the area.”

  “No, no idea what happened to him. You’ll have to ask the aunt, if she’s still living in Deer Run.”

  “I will. Did Jenny Noakes have any other relatives?”

  “No male relatives,” Van Horn said. “Another aunt, I think.”

  “Local?”

  “No. I think she lived here in California, but I don’t remember where. Or what her name was.”

  “Shouldn’t be too difficult to track down.”

  “Internet, huh? Things sure have changed since my day.”

  Runyon said, “The changes come faster every year,” and got to his feet.

  “Listen,” Van Horn said at the front door, “you find out anything definite about Jenny Noakes’s murder, I’d really appreciate it if you’d let me know. That case has bothered me for twenty years. One of the few I wasn’t able to close.”

  “I’ll do that,” Runyon promised, and meant it. There were a couple of cases he’d handled in Seattle he felt that way about. Still cold, as far as he knew, and a source of frustration in the empty hours when he couldn’t sleep.

  D eer Run, according to the sign on the western outskirts, had a population of 603. The village was strung out along both sides of the highway for a sixth of a mile-old buildings that housed a cafe, a couple of taverns, a few other businesses, and a newish strip mall at the far end. Hill Road intersected the highway just beyond the strip mall. It led Runyon up a sharp incline, made a dogleg to the left. The first house beyond the dogleg was number 177.

  Only problem was, it had a deserted aspect and there was a FOR SALE sign alongside the driveway.

  Runyon pulled into the drive. A chill, damp wind thrust against his back as he climbed the front steps, rang the bell. No response. He stepped over to look through an uncurtained window. The room beyond was empty of furniture.

  When he came back down the porch steps, he noticed a woman in the front yard of the property across the road. She was leaning on the handle of a weed whacker, watching him. He left the Ford where it was, crossed the road to the edge of her driveway, and called out, “Okay if I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Not if you’re selling something.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Rain coming. I need to get this grass down.”

  “I won’t take up much of your time. I’m looking for Pauline Devries.”

  The woman straightened and gestured for him to come ahead. She was in her sixties, wearing a plaid coat, woolen cap, and work gloves. The wide swath she’d cut in the high grass along the driveway had a rounded sweep, so that she seemed to be standing in a miniature crop circle. Runyon stopped at the edge, smiling a little to let her know he was harmless.

  “You a relative of Pauline’s?” she asked.

  “No. A business matter.”

  “Thought you said you’re not a salesman?”

  “I’m not.”

  “What kind of business?”

  He showed her his license. She blinked, frowning. The frown used all of her facial muscles, so that her features seemed to fold in on themselves like a dried and puckered gourd.

  “Oh, Lord,” she said. “Not Jenny again after all these years? Jenny Noakes?”

  “Her murder may be connected to a case my agency is investigating.”

  “So that’s why you wanted to talk to Pauline?” The woman sighed heavily. “Well, I guess you don’t know then. She passed away four weeks ago. Complications from diabetes.”

  Four weeks. That was why the address and phone listings still showed current. Tamara had accepted them at face value on her first quick check, and he’d made the same natural assumption.

  He said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “So was I. Friend and neighbor for thirty years.”

  “Then you know the boy she raised. Her niece’s child, Tucker Noakes.”

  “Tucker Devries, you mean.” The woman made a sourlemon mouth around the name.

  “She adopted him?”

  “Year after the murder. Big mistake, you ask me. But she never married, never had any kids of her own. Maternal instincts got the best of her.”

  “Why do you say it was a mistake?”

  “He gave her a lot of grief, that’s why. Strange boy, moody, wouldn’t talk to anybody for days, weeks at a time, not even Pauline.” She tapped her temple with a blunt forefinger. “Not quite right in the head, and worse once he got into his teen years. All he ever cared about was taking pictures.”

  “Pictures?”

  “Went roaming and sneaking around with a camera she gave him for his birthday, taking pictures of everything and everybody in sight. Told Pauline he was going to be a famous photographer someday. Hah! She was sorry when he left, but I sure wasn’t. Nobody else around here was, either.”

  “When was that?”

  “Must’ve been ten years now. Never even finished high school.”

  “He keep in touch with her? Come back to visit her?”

  “Now and then he’d show up, when he wanted money. Not to pay his last respects, though.”

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  “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 citize
ns, 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.

  18

  JAKE RUNYON

  Anna 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. I
t 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.”