Camouflage (Nameless Detective Mysteries)

by Bill Pronzini

  Tamara had most of her priority client work caught up by two thirty. Which left reports and bookkeeping, neither of which she felt like tackling just yet. Instead she started in on the deep backgrounder for Jake. Child abuse was about as low a crime as there was; anything she could do to help put a stop to what was happening to Bryn’s son was a mandate.

  Francine Whalen. Jake had been fairly thorough in what he’d pulled up on the woman so far, but the Net was a vast storehouse of information, some of it distorted and useless, and what you had to do was get down into the nooks and crannies far below the surface and then start a careful sifting. Same principle as rummaging around in attics and sub-basements and dusty old buildings where the long-stored, valuable stuff was hidden away.

  Didn’t have much luck at first. The twenty-nine years of Whalen’s life to date seemed pretty clean, without any apparent psychological or other problems. Except for the five-months-and-out marriage to the investment banker, Kevin Dinowski, but that could’ve been simple incompatability; whatever the reason for the quick split, there was no indication of it in the public record. Still, everybody had some dark spots in their lives, no matter how small or how well buried. Get a hint of what they were and you could usually pull them out into the open.

  Tamara picked up the Whalen hint when she started probing into the lives of her two sisters. Gwen Whalen, the unmarried one living in Berkeley, had tried to commit suicide when she was sixteen and had spent three months in a psychiatric facility. Wasn’t her only stay in a twitch bin—six months in another at age twenty. No public record on cause or treatment in either case, and hacking into private hospital files was a risky proposition; get caught and there went your career down the rabbit hole. The last of Gwen’s two incarcerations was six years ago; she seemed to have pulled her life together since then. The past several years she’d worked as a caregiver in a Berkeley elderly-care facility called the Sunshine Rest Home and, from all indications, appeared to be leading a normal life. What passed for one these days, anyhow.

  Tracy Holland, the second, married sister living down in Ojai, had one stand-out blemish on her record: arrested four years ago for battery on her six-year-old daughter, the charge brought by her mother-in-law. Charge was dropped the next day, either because the mother-in-law changed her mind or because Tracy’s husband had stepped in on her behalf. Social Services had looked into the matter, but they must not have found anything to justify taking further action. The Hollands were still married, still had custody of the child.

  Broad hints, both of these. When kids were abused, they often developed one kind of psychological problem or another as they got older, and some of them turned into abusers themselves when they became parents. So if all three Whalen girls had been childhood victims of abusive parents, that might be the answer to why a childless woman like Francine would start beating up on the first kid to come into her charge.

  One problem with that idea: the girls’ parents weren’t the likeliest of suspects. The father, George Whalen, had died in a freak industrial accident when Francine, the oldest of the girls, was five and the youngest, Gwen, just two. Pretty young for abuse to start … unless he’d been one of these real sickos who get off on sexually and physically molesting their kids when they’re barely out of infancy. Could also have been the mother, after the father was dead, taking out her frustrations on her daughters—that kind of thing happened often enough—but Arlene Whalen had been in declining health for years with a blood disease that finally took her out when Francine was thirteen. Neither George nor Arlene had any kind of police record, and there were no red flags in their personal or professional lives.

  After Arlene’s death, the girls had been raised by her mother in Grandma’s home in Concord. Another possibility there. The grandmother, Joan Cartwright, had been in her mid-sixties, widowed and living alone for eight years, when she took the kids in. Figure her quiet life had to’ve been disrupted by the presence of three young girls and the hassles of coping with them. Possible she’d taken out her frustrations by using them as punching bags.

  Tamara did some probing into Joan Cartwright’s life. Nothing there to support the theory. So then she went back and dug deeper into Francine Whalen’s, as deep as she was able to without a lead in a new direction, but all she got out of that was an empty hole.

  Well, the sisters-abuse angle was something, at least, for Jake to follow up on. She got him on his cell, caught him free, and laid out what she’d learned and the possibilities it indicated. Nothing more she could do for him now.

  Time to bite the bullet, get to work on the backlog of reports and bookeeping. But the phone, which had been silent most of the day, kept ringing to interrupt her. Three calls in the space of half an hour, the first two expected and routine: Bill checking in, then Alex checking in. It was the third call and the reason for it that surprised and rocked her.

  “This is David Virden. What the hell’s the matter with you people?” Angry, real angry. “One simple little job and you go and screw it up, make me look like a fool. How could you make such a stupid mistake?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Finding my ex-wife, what do you think I’m talking about. Christ, no wonder that woman wouldn’t take the goddamn envelope.”

  “What woman?”

  “The dog-boarding McManus,” Virden said. “Her initials might be the same, she might look a little like Roxie, but she’s not my ex-wife. I never saw that woman before in my life.”

  7

  JAKE RUNYON

  He was in the East Bay, done with interviewing a second witness in the hit-and-run case whose name had been provided by the first one he’d tracked down, when Tamara called. He’d intended to talk to Francine Whalen’s ex-husband before the sister in Berkeley, but since he was in the general vicinity, and given what Tamara had uncovered, Gwen Whalen was a better choice. If there was a history of abuse in the Whalen girls’ childhood, it might explain Francine’s behavior toward Bobby. Convincing anyone to admit to that kind of thing, particularly a woman who’d spent time in mental hospitals, was liable to be difficult. Depended on how close Gwen was to her sister, their joint history. The fact that she worked as a caregiver likely meant she had compassion, a sense of mercy. Work on that angle if he could.

  Tamara had provided phone numbers. He called the Sunshine Rest Home first; Gwen Whalen’s shift had ended at four, he was told. The facility was in northeast Berkeley, at the edge of the hills near the Albany line, and her apartment was several miles away, on the southwest side of the university. It took Runyon forty minutes to drive there from Union City.

  Four-unit apartment building, old and drab, on a street of similar dwellings. Probably a mixture of off-campus housing for U.C. students and relatively inexpensive rentals for moderate-income members of the workforce like Gwen Whalen. Her apartment was number two, first floor rear. She lived alone, apparently; G. Whalen was the only name on the mailbox.

  No answer any of the three times he rang the bell. But now that he was here, he was reluctant to leave. Give it a while. Could be she’d stopped to run an errand or two on her way home.

  He’d had to park two blocks away, and lucky to get a space that close; Berkeley’s residential streets were always jammed, particularly the ones close to major arteries like this neighborhood was to Ashby. No point in going back to the car to wait, so he walked it off. Ten blocks one way, ten blocks back to ring Gwen Whalen’s bell again. He did this three times, killing most of another hour, before he finally got a response.

  The intercom was ancient and in poor repair; he could barely understand the woman’s voice that came through it amid hiccuping bursts of static. She must’ve had the same problem, kept saying, “What?” each time he spoke, so that he had to repeat himself. Name, profession—shortening it to “investigator”—and a request for a brief interview on a personal matter. The intercom went silent. And again he waited. Maybe she’d buzz him in; maybe she wouldn’t.

  She did
n’t, but she did come to peer at him through a peephole in her door. When he heard heavy steps approaching, he opened the leather case containing the photostat of his license. Let her take a good look at him, then held the license up next to his face and close to the peephole.

  Close to a minute went by before she said, “What do you want with me?” The words were slightly muffled by the door, but the wariness in them came through clearly enough.

  “Personal matter involving a client.”

  “What client? What personal matter?”

  “Her name is Bryn Darby. The case involves her son.”

  “I don’t know anyone named Bryn Darby.”

  That told him something right there. “My investigation has nothing to do with you specifically, Ms. Whalen. I only have a few questions—I won’t take up much of your time.”

  Another minute ticked away. Thinking it over, making up her mind. Curiosity tipped the decision in his favor, as it often did in situations like this. A pair of locks clicked in succession; the door opened partway on a chain. The face that peered out through the gap was moon round, topped by a loose pile of dark, curly hair.

  “My neighbors are home,” she said.

  Not as much of a non sequitur as it might seem. Runyon understood: she was telling him that if he made any kind of false move, all she had to do was scream and somebody would come running.

  “Be easier if we talk inside. If you don’t mind.”

  She thought that over, too, but not for long. The door closed, stayed closed for ten seconds or so as if she was still uncertain; then the chain rattled and she opened up. And immediately retreated a few steps and stood in a nervously defensive posture, her hands fisted under heavy breasts, as he stepped inside.

  Big woman, bulging shapelessly in a set of pale green scrubs. Not quite morbidly obese, but edging up on it. The round face might have been pretty if it weren’t for the bloated jowls, the folds of flesh under her stub of a chin. The fat rolls had a soft, puffy-pink look, the color of a baby’s skin.

  “I don’t like to be stared at,” she said.

  “I meant no offense, Ms. Whalen. Studying people I meet for the first time is part of my job.”

  He shut the door. They were in a longish hallway palely lit by a single globe; a more brightly lit room was visible at the far end. Two odors dominated among the mingled smells: the ghosts of hundreds of fried-food meals, and Lysol disinfectant.

  She said, plucking at a sleeve, “These are my work clothes. I just got home, I haven’t had time to change.”

  “I admire people who work as caregivers.”

  “How did you— Oh. I suppose you know all about me.”

  “Not really. A few basic facts.”

  “What happened when I was nineteen? And afterward?”

  “Yes.”

  It was the right answer. She said, “I don’t make a secret of any of that. It’s part of my therapy to be open about it. Not that I go around broadcasting it, but if someone already knows…” She plucked at her sleeve again, turned abruptly, and waddled down the hallway, casting looks back over her shoulder to see how closely Runyon was following.

  The lit room was a good-sized living room, clean and tidy to a fault, nothing out of place. The furniture was old but of decent quality. On one wall hung a large, painted-wood crucifix, the colors so vivid the blood on Christ’s hands and feet seemed almost real; there were no pictures, no other adornments. Through partly drawn drapes and mullioned windows Runyon could see portions of a small backyard.

  Gwen Whalen turned toward him again. In the brighter light he saw that her deep-sunk eyes were brown and moist—gentle eyes. And now that her wary suspicion had dimmed, the emotions reflected in them were uncomfortably familiar. Pain, loneliness. The same things he saw when he looked into Bryn’s eyes; that had stared back at him for too long whenever he looked into a mirror. Another damaged soul.

  She said, “I’m going to have some chocolate milk. I have coffee and tea, too, but no alcohol.”

  “Nothing for me, thanks.”

  She went into an adjacent kitchen, came back with a plate of chocolate-chip cookies and an oversized, napkin-wrapped tumbler poured to the brim. “Aren’t you going to sit down?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  She waited until he sat on one of a pair of Naugahyde chairs, then lowered herself onto a matching couch and set the plate on a low table between them. One of the cookies went down in three bites, followed by half the chocolate milk in a series of gulping swallows that left her with a slick brown mustache.

  “I haven’t eaten since noon,” she said, “nothing except two Butterfingers. If I don’t get something in my stomach, I start to feel sick.”

  “I understand.”

  She ate another cookie, drank the rest of the milk, and carefully wiped off the upper-lip residue with the napkin. “I haven’t always been this fat,” she said then. “I was just the opposite in high school, almost anorexic. I started eating too much after I got out of the hospital the first time, when I tried to kill myself.”

  “Why did you want to end your life?”

  “The doctors said it was low self-esteem, a lack of direction and purpose. I guess that’s true. I was sad and unhappy and just … you know, drifting.”

  “Why? Difficult childhood?”

  A vein bulged and pulsed on one temple. It was several seconds before she said, “Yes. Difficult.”

  “In what way?”

  “I didn’t care about anything,” she said, not answering the question. “I just wanted to die. That’s what I thought then, anyway.”

  “But now you think differently.”

  “Yes, but it took a long time. I was still sick after they let me out of the hospital. Not so bad that I wanted to die anymore, but I had to go back again later for more therapy before I was finally cured.”

  “Cured by the therapy?”

  “That, and finding work I cared about, my purpose in life—helping people who are worse off, who need me. I found Jesus, too. He really helped a lot.” She looked up at the crucifix, smiled, and reached for another cookie.

  Runyon said, “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

  “Well, I’ve been telling you personal things, haven’t I.”

  “Are you close to your sisters?”

  The cookie stopped moving a couple of inches from her mouth. “My sisters?”

  “Francine in particular.”

  “Why do you want to know that?” Tense all of a sudden, the hurt in her eyes magnified and joined by some other emotion that Runyon couldn’t quite identify. Fear, maybe.

  “The reason I’m here,” he said. “Bryn Darby and her son.”

  “I told you, I don’t know anyone named Bryn Darby.”

  “Francine does. You know she’s engaged to be married?”

  “… No, I didn’t know.”

  “You’re not close, then. Don’t communicate often.”

  “No. I haven’t seen her in…” She dammed up the rest of what she’d been about to say by shoving the entire cookie into her mouth. Ate it so fast, glancing up again at the crucifix, that crumbs dribbled out unchecked; she choked on one of the swallows and that started a spate of coughing. Her face was a mosaic of pink and dark red splotches.

  Runyon watched her get the coughing under control, dab at her mouth with the napkin, then begin picking the crumbs off her lap one by one and depositing them on the plate. At length he asked, “Why don’t you get along with Francine, Ms. Whalen?”

  “I don’t have to answer that.” Not looking at him, still picking crumbs.

  “No, you don’t. So you don’t care that she’s engaged.”

  “Why should I? She doesn’t care about me.”

  “What about your other sister?”

  “Tracy? Francine doesn’t care about her, either.”

  “But you do?”

  “Yes, but she lives in Southern California. We talk on the phone sometimes, but I haven’t seen her in … I d
on’t know, a long time.” Gwen Whalen’s head came up. “Why are you asking me all these questions? What do my sisters have to do with Bryn Darby and her son?”

  Runyon said, “The man Francine is engaged to is Bryn’s ex-husband, Robert Darby. They live together in San Francisco.”

  “Living together before marriage is a sin.”

  “The boy lives with them—he’s nine years old. The father has custody.”

  Her eyes rounded. “Nine?” she said.

  “Francine takes care of him while the father works. The boy doesn’t like her. His mother thinks he’s afraid of her, that he has good reason to be.”

  “Oh, my Lord!”

  “Can you tell me why a little boy would be afraid of your sister?”

  “No!” Neither a negative response nor a denial, but a cry of anguish. “No, no, no!”

  “He has a fractured arm, bruises—”

  “Don’t tell me; I don’t want to hear it!” She heaved to her feet, stood spraddle legged with her hands in front of her, palms outward, as if warding off an attack. Her gaze was back on the crucifix. “O Jesus, look down in mercy. Forgive our sins, forgive those who have sinned against us.”

  “Francine hurt you and Tracy, didn’t she? When you were growing up.”

  Violent headshake.

  “Please tell me. I need to know.”

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour—”

  “For the boy’s sake. To keep him from being hurt anymore.”

  She backed up, still shaking her head. Stumbled against a corner of the couch and staggered off-balance—would have fallen if Runyon hadn’t come up fast out of his chair and caught her arm to steady her. There was a gathering hysteria in her face, the whites of her eyes showing. She wrenched free of him, cringing, as if his touch terrified her.