Camouflage nd-36

by Bill Pronzini

  The barking and whimpering picked up as I moved along the cement floor between the cages. Two occupied, the rest empty. The bigger and louder of the dogs, the one doing the frantic barking, was a shelty that hurled himself against the gate as I passed. The other animal, smaller, short-haired, a breed I didn’t recognize, lay on her belly with her front paws scrabbling at the cement floor; the whines and whimpers she was making had a frightened, mournful edge. It wasn’t me that had them so frantic; it was hunger, thirst. The food and water dishes in both cages were empty, apparently long empty. And the cement floor in both was stained with urine, spotted with piles of feces.

  Abandoned. Coldly, cruelly left here to starve.

  Anger welled up in me, cold and hot at the same time. One thing I can’t abide is the mistreatment of any living being, human or animal.

  There was a utility table built against the wall farther along; a couple of twenty-pound bags of kibble sat on it, one half-empty and the other unopened. The empty cages were clean and contained water and food dishes. All of their doors, like the ones housing the shelty and the smaller dog, had thick wooden pegs for fasteners. I got clean dishes out of two of them, filled two with kibble, the others with water from a spigot alongside the table, and replaced them in the empty cages.

  The shelty was still barking and frantically throwing himself against the mesh, but he didn’t look mean. And wasn’t. He bounced up against me when I opened his cage, let me take hold of his collar. He’d seen where I put the food and water, all but dragged me into the first of those cages, and immediately began wolfing the kibble. The smaller dog, a female, was harder to transfer. She cringed away from me, cowered shaking against the outer wall. I had to drag her out of there, into the other clean cage and up to the two bowls. She went for the water first, with wary eye shifts in my direction as I backed out and repegged the door.

  There wasn’t anything else I could do for the dogs now. They’d be all right until I could get the SPCA out after I was through here.

  Outside, I sucked cold air for several seconds to clear my sinuses of the kennel stench. The windows in the bordering houses all looked empty-no nosy neighbors to wonder what I was doing on the property. I went first to the rear entrance, still trying to look as if I belonged here. A screen door was unlocked, but the hardwood door inside it was secure.

  Up the driveway, then to the side porch, up the stairs to the door. I expected this one to be locked, too, but it wasn’t. The knob turned under my hand and the door eased inward a couple of inches. According to Chavez’s report to Tamara, this was the door McManus and Carson had used to haul their belongings out to the SUV; they’d been in such a hurry they’d neglected to lock it before leaving. Or hadn’t cared enough to bother.

  If I went inside I’d no longer be bending the law; I’d be breaking it. From illegal trespass to unlawful entry. Chances were I wouldn’t find anything anyway. On the other hand, there was always the possibility they’d forgotten or overlooked something incriminating. I’d never know for sure unless I looked.

  Well?

  The hell with propriety, I thought. McManus and Carson were guilty of Christ knew how many crimes, and the only one we had any real evidence of was negligent cruelty to a couple of boarded dogs. All I was doing standing out here was wasting time and running the risk of calling attention to myself.

  I shoved the door open and walked in.

  This was the part of the house they’d used for Canine Customers. Combination storage and supply room: more bags of dog food, extra dishes, a couple of carrying cages, leashes hanging from wall pegs. And a stack of moving cartons near the door. I opened one of them. Clothing, odds and ends. Left here because there was no more room in the SUV? Or did McManus and Carson intend to come back from wherever they were heading for another load?

  I went through an open doorway at the far end. Office. Desk, a couple of cabinets, cords and wires where a computer and printer, both now missing, had been hooked up. The cabinet and desk drawers were open and there was a scatter of papers over the desk and floor: they’d done their packing in a hurry. I picked up several papers at random for a quick look. Paid customer invoices, paid utility bills, and the like. What was left in the drawers was more of the same. No income records, no bank statements, nothing pertaining to individual or professional finances. No correspondence or anything else of a personal nature.

  There was nothing to see in the Canine Customers anteroom. I went from there through the foyer, into a sprawling living room.

  Enough daylight filtered in past drawn blinds and shades to let me see without having to put on a light. A lot of money had been spent in furnishing it, but in a haphazard and tasteless way. Heavy antique tables and chairs of different styles, woods, and time periods, a glass-fronted cabinet crammed with gilt-patterned chinaware, heavy floor lamps with fringed crimson shades, an intricately patterned red and blue Oriental carpet that clashed with a couple of big, ugly modernistic paintings hung on two walls.

  Here and there were empty spaces marked by dust lines where other, smaller pieces of furniture had stood. A section of a third wall above a secretary desk and next to a closed-off fireplace was bare except for a couple of metal brackets where something large and rectangular had been mounted; its faint outline was also visible when I got up close enough. One of those monster flat-screen TV sets, probably.

  Too many items missing for them all to have been included with the boxes and other stuff Chavez had seen the two women loading into the SUV, so they must have been taken away on previous hauls. Told me two things: McManus and Carson had been planning to move out for at least a couple of days but weren’t panicked enough to leave behind the bulk of their easily transportable possessions, and wherever they were hauling the stuff to, whether a permanent or an interim location, had to be relatively close to the city.

  In the inner wall was an open doorway that led into a cluttered sitting room. Nothing for me there. And nothing in the kitchen and dining room except more residue of hasty and careless packing. Behind the kitchen at the back of the house was a smallish bedroom, comfortably but not as opulently furnished as the common rooms, with a connecting cubicle that contained a toilet, sink, and tiny stall shower. The room they rented out, likely. The double bed was made, everything clean and in its place, but the bureau and nightstand drawers, the closet, and the bathroom were empty. Nobody living here now. I wondered how long it had been vacant. There was a faint odor of cleaning fluid in the bathroom.

  I went back the way I’d come, through the sitting room. Between the carpet there and the one in the living room was a section of hardwood floor. The floor had been waxed recently; I hadn’t paid much attention the first time through, but this time the bottom of one shoe slid a little on the slick surface. That was what made me look down, then stop and look more closely.

  There was enough light for me to make out a dark discoloration near the fringed edge of the living-room carpet. I dropped to one knee. Irregular stain like a Rorschach blot where something had seeped into the boards. An abortive effort had been made to scrub it away; you could see the marks left by a brush dipped in abrasive detergent.

  Bloodstain?

  I got out my penlight, shone the beam close above the stain. Might be blood, but I couldn’t be sure. Couldn’t be sure how long it had been there, either, though it didn’t appear to be very old.

  If it was blood, it hadn’t come from a minor wound. A fair amount had leaked onto the floor to soak that deeply into the grain of the wood-the kind of seepage you get from direct or near direct contact with a surface. From a person dead or wounded, for instance, a person stabbed or shot or violently clubbed. Or attacked by a vicious dog.

  I climbed the staircase to the second floor. The master bedroom had a massive four-poster bed that had the look of a Victorian antique; the rest of the furniture and adornments were the same expensive mismatches as those downstairs. Discarded articles of clothing were strewn over the bed, another garish Oriential carpet, t
he closet floor. Different sizes, different tastes as near as I could tell, indicating that McManus and Carson had shared this room. I quick-searched drawers and shelves. Nothing but minor leavings.

  The medicine cabinet in the adjacent blue-tiled bathroom was open, the shelves mostly empty. Broken glass and spilled liquid from a dropped and broken bottle of nail polish marred the white porcelain sink; the splashes of polish were the color of fresh blood.

  Across the hall were two more bedrooms, one of them made up but unused, the other turned into storage space, with another bathroom sandwiched between them. The storage room was a welter of empty, half-empty, and filled cartons. The contents of some had been upended and stirred through-clothing, odds and ends, a shiny scatter of costume jewelry. I opened two of the filled boxes: musty-smelling linens in one, articles of women’s clothing in the second. The clothing was of different sizes and different styles and looked to be the sort elderly women would wear.

  I dug down into a third box. A couple of dark suits, old but of quality manufacture, some ancient ties, and four white shirts still in their laundry wrappings-all of a size and a style that would belong to a tall, thin man who’d lived at least three-quarters of a century. And folded at the bottom was the clincher: a heavy, old-fashioned black overcoat with a velvet collar. I ran my fingers over the material. Soft wool. Lamb’s wool. Gregory Pappas’s coat.

  There was no point in going through any of the other stuff; McManus and Carson had had plenty of time to sift out and pack up items of value and anything that might be incriminating. I’d been in the house too long, anyway. The place had begun to have an oppressive effect on me. I’d always been place sensitive, particularly to places where bad things had happened, and this one had that kind of aura about it, hardly noticeable when I’d first come in but now almost palpable.

  The aura of evil.

  19

  ALEX CHAVEZ

  The Explorer headed straight up Nineteenth and through Golden Gate Park on Park Presidio, riding the middle lane all the way. Definitely heading for the bridge. But why had McManus taken such a roundabout crosstown route? Quicker one to the bridge from Dogpatch was the 280 freeway into town, then out Geary to Park Presidio. She and Carson hadn’t made any stops along the way, so that wasn’t the answer. Maybe it was just that they preferred the longer route for some reason, weren’t in a hurry to get to wherever they were going.

  Getting on toward the start of rush hour and traffic through the park was stop-and-go; Chavez had to work to keep two to three cars behind them, changing back and forth between the middle and the far right lanes. A delivery truck cut in front of him in the Presidio tunnel, but he managed to maneuver around it just before the toll plaza.

  When he first rolled onto the bridge, he didn’t see the Explorer because of the great gouts of blanketing fog rolling in through the Gate, but he knew they hadn’t gotten off at the last S.F. exit. A couple of quick weaving maneuvers through the clustered vehicles and he spotted them again-still in the middle lane, going the speed limit. He eased over into the same lane, slowing to match their speed, and stayed there three car lengths back.

  How far up 101 were they going? Due north? East? You could get to Highway 80 by crossing the Richmond Bridge or taking 37 along the north shore of San Pablo Bay past Vallejo. Or some other direction or destination? Well, he’d find out. Tamara had told him to stay with the subjects as long and as far as he could.

  He hoped it wouldn’t be too long or too far, wouldn’t require an overnight stay somewhere. The older he got, the less he liked being away from Elena and the kids for even one night. He’d have to call her pretty soon in any case, let her know he wouldn’t be home for dinner. Some terrific woman, always worrying about him and his welfare. And the way she’d handled that tagging business with Tomas last week. Graffiti artist! Hah! The boy wanted to be an artist, fine, but spray-painting stupid symbols on public property wasn’t an art project; it was a crime. Chavez had gone ballistic when he found out, but not Elena. Lectured and shamed Tomas, laid out a just-right punishment, and didn’t raise her voice the entire time.

  Better wait to call her until after he checked in again with Tamara. At least wait and see if McManus took the Richmond Bridge exit south of San Rafael.

  Chavez glanced at the fuel gauge. Three-quarters full, good for maybe a hundred and fifty miles. If the subjects were going any farther than that, gas was liable to be a problem. But even if the Explorer’s tank had been topped off when they left Dogpatch, the Explorer’d be near empty at about the same time as the Dodge-those big SUVs got lousy mileage-and with any luck he’d be able to pull off and fill up when they did.

  Once they were off the bridge, traffic opened up a little. The Explorer moved over into the third of the four lanes; Chavez waited several seconds and then did the same. They wound up the long grade to the MacArthur Tunnel at fifty-five, passed through and down winding Waldo Grade on the Marin side. The fog was heavy here, too, streaming down from the cliffs in coils and stringy loops, laying a wet film on the windshield. Chavez switched on the wipers. The blades were new, but the windshield wasn’t; he had to lean forward, squinting through the smeared glass.

  They curled down to the foot of the grade, the SUV still in the third lane and moving at a steady fifty-five, Chavez two cars and not much more than a hundred yards behind. The highway sign for the Marin City exit swam up out of the mist. Once they passed it, not far ahead, the one for the Mill Valley-Stinson Beach exit appeared.

  And all of a sudden, so unexpectedly it caught him and several other drivers by surprise, the pursuit ended.

  Brake lights flashed and the SUV swerved dangerously into the far right lane, causing the driver of a pickup to brake hard, nearly fishtail. McManus kept on veering right, the bulky Explorer wobbling and sliding into the exit lane while the slow-lane traffic bunched up behind the pickup.

  There was nothing Chavez could do, no way he could get over in time to make the exit himself.

  “Maldito!”

  The word exploded out of him with such ferocity that Elmo jumped up on the backseat and began a frightened yipping.

  Long way to the next exit, across Richardson Bay. He drove as fast as he dared, turned off, and came back around southbound to the Mill Valley-Stinson Beach exit. The Mill Valley road was jammed with homeward-bound commuters; even if the Explorer was among all the tightly packed headlights and taillights, trying to locate it would be an exercise in futility. McManus also could have turned off on one of the side streets and doubled back onto the freeway northbound, or even southbound to return to the city. There was just no way to tell.

  The woman must be plain crazy to have pulled that sudden lane change stunt on fog-slick pavement. Either that or she’d been alert to a tail and spotted him despite his precautions. Sure, that was it. Explained the roundabout crosstown route to the bridge.

  Not his fault, then. You’d have to be invisible to follow somebody who’s on the lookout for it. But that didn’t make him feel any better.

  All that mattered was, he’d lost them.

  20

  JAKE RUNYON

  He had agency work to attend to after leaving Dragovich’s office, in and out of the city; he spent four hours doing it, keeping his mind on a strict business focus the entire time. Continually agonizing about Bryn and her situation was wasted energy, negative energy.

  The last piece of business was an interview in the Haight; from there he drove to the Hall of Justice. He hadn’t heard from Dragovich, which likely meant that Bryn was still AdSeg’d. That was the case, dammit. He still couldn’t get in to see her.

  Three thirty-five. Twenty-five minutes to kill before the homicide inspectors, Farley and Crabtree, came on for their four-to-midnight tour. Runyon went into the cafeteria, bought himself a cup of tea and a corned-beef sandwich. He wasn’t hungry, but he hadn’t eaten all day and he needed to put something into his empty stomach.

  At four o’clock he went up to General Works. Crabtree and Fa
rley had both signed in, but neither was at his desk in the Homicide Division. Runyon did some more waiting, nearly ten minutes, before Crabtree showed up carrying a sheaf of computer printouts.

  “Your timing’s good, Mr. Runyon. Just the man we wanted to see.”

  “If it’s about my statement, that’s one reason I’m here.”

  “It’s about more than that. Mrs. Darby’s statement, primarily.”

  “What about her statement?”

  “It’s full of lies.”

  Runyon felt himself tighten up inside. “What makes you think that?”

  “Not think it, know it for a fact.”

  “How?”

  Crabtree gestured to an empty chair, then leaned back and laced his fingers at the back of his neck. Big man, very dark, with a shaved head and, as if by way of compensation, a thick, bristly mustache. Neatly, almost nattily dressed in a brown pin-striped suit, salmon-colored shirt, brownish gold tie.

  “Francine Whalen wasn’t killed in a struggle with Mrs. Darby,” he said. “Evidently wasn’t killed by Mrs. Darby, in self-defense or otherwise. Preliminary lab tests are in. Three identifiable partials on the handle of the knife, another partial on the kitchen counter. None of them belong to her.”

  That was the last thing Runyon expected to hear. He digested the news before he asked, “Who do they belong to?”

  “We don’t know yet. Could be anybody’s. Even yours.”

  “I never touched the knife. You think my story’s a lie, too?”

  “Is it? Any part of it?”

  “No. All I know about what happened is what I told you yesterday. So what now? Drop the homicide charge against Mrs. Darby, release her?”

  “Depends on what she has to say to my partner. He’s up talking to her right now. If she doesn’t come clean, we’ll keep right on holding her and let the DA decide. He may want to pursue an obstruction charge at her arraignment.”