Camouflage

14

JAKE RUNYON

Lousy timing, dammit. Another few minutes and the law would be here and they’d be the ones to break the news to Darby. Now Runyon would have to do it. And it was bound to make a bad situation even worse.

Runyon made a slow advance, his hands spread in front of him. “Take it easy, Mr. Darby. Bryn’s here, too-she’s in with Bobby.”

“Bryn? She has no more right in my home than you do.” Glowering, glancing around. “Where’s Francine?”

“There’s been some trouble.”

“… What do you mean, trouble?”

“An accident, pretty bad. The police are on the way.”

Darby was a big man, jowly and going soft around the middle, but he had one of those faces that make some lawyers better than others in a courtroom: smooth, tight, unreadable, his feelings hidden behind a pair of piercing gray eyes. He stared at Runyon as if he were a hostile witness who had just made an outrageous statement on the stand.

“What kind of accident? What are you telling me?”

“Maybe you’d better sit down-”

“Answer my question. What’s happened here?”

No way to soften it. “Your fiancee’s dead, Mr. Darby.”

“Dead.” As if the word didn’t compute. “Francine?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“How, for God’s sake? What happened?”

“An accident. Stabbed.”

“Stabbed.” Another word that didn’t seem to compute. Then, in a sudden angry flare, “ You, you son of a bitch?”

“No.”

“Who, then? Who stabbed her?”

“She’s been abusing your son. Hit him in the face today, bloodied his nose, cut his cheek-”

“Who stabbed her!”

“She did it herself, accidentally. She-”

Dark blood suffused Darby’s face. He came up on his toes in a forward lean, his lips peeled back from his teeth. Runyon set himself; no matter how upset the man was, he wasn’t going to get anywhere near Bryn. But Darby didn’t charge him. Stood breathing hard, struggling with his control.

Half a dozen beats. Then, “Where? When?”

“Here. Less than an hour ago.”

“You see it?”

“No. I’ve only been here a few minutes.”

“Then how do you know what happened?”

“Bryn told me. Francine attacked her-”

“I don’t believe it. She’s lying.”

“No. I told you, Francine has been abusing your son. She fractured his arm, among other-”

“Where is she? Where’s Francine?”

“Kitchen. But you don’t want to go in there.”

“The hell I don’t.”

Darby moved then, jerkily, heading for the swing door. Runyon called after him, “Don’t touch anything,” an automatic warning that he regretted as soon as the words were out. Insensitive. And Darby wasn’t listening anyway. Runyon could have followed to make sure the warning was heeded, but he didn’t; he was enough of an intruder already.

A sound behind him turned his head. Bryn was standing in the hall doorway. “I was listening,” she said. “Why did he have to come home now?”

“Go back in with Bobby.”

“Where are the police? Why don’t they get here?”

“Any minute. Stay in the bedroom.”

Too late. Darby reappeared, walking in a flat-footed, not quite steady way; his face was ashen, the only outward indication of what he was feeling. When he saw Bryn, he said in a thin, strained voice, “You crazy bitch, what’ve you done?” and this time he did come stalking forward.

Runyon got in Darby’s way. Body block, legs spread, shoulder lifted and turned, keeping his arms down in front of him. Lay hands on a lawyer in a situation like this and it could be construed as assault. But it didn’t come to anything physical. Darby pulled up just before there was contact, so close Runyon could smell the minty odor of his breath, and glared past him at Bryn in the hallway.

She said, “Robert, I’m sorry, I never meant for this to happen-”

“You’ll pay for it, count on that.”

Runyon said, low and even, “Back off, Mr. Darby.”

Darby’s gaze shifted back to him. He drew a heavy breath, retreated a step to put a little distance between them-but only the one step. “I want to see my son.”

Couldn’t deny him that. “All right. Bryn, come out here.”

“No. Robert, leave the boy alone, please…”

“Shut up, damn you. Shut up!”

Bryn made a low, anguished sound.

And that was when the first blue wave rolled in.

The pair of uniformed officers, one male, one female, didn’t have time to do much except add to the tension. It wasn’t until the arrival of the team of homicide inspectors a short while later that things calmed down. Runyon didn’t know either of them, quietly professional black men in their fifties, Farley and Crabtree. They’d been partners for a long time, visited crime scenes a lot bloodier and more chaotic than this one; you could tell that from the practiced way they took charge.

They had their look at the body, turned the kitchen over to the forensic team that had come in with them, then started their Q amp; A. Bryn first, after which her rights were read to her, then Runyon, then Darby, who settled down once he realized his accusations against her were having no effect. At first, foolishly, she disobeyed instructions by trying to explain what had happened and to justify her actions. Runyon warned her to wait until she’d consulted with her attorney, and after that she kept quiet. He answered the questions put to him truthfully but impersonally and with as little detail as possible. Otherwise he, too, kept his own counsel.

The EMTs showed up finally, late because it hadn’t been an emergency call. The verdict on Bobby was slight cartilage damage to his nose, minor facial injury, and suffering from shock. Hospitalization not required, a visit to the family doctor recommended if the shock symptoms persisted. Darby vehemently denied that Francine had been abusing the boy; Bryn, with Runyon’s backup, just as vehemently insisted she had. One of the inspectors, Crabtree, tried to talk to the boy; so did Darby. Neither of them got anywhere.

The whole thing took little more than an hour. End result: Bobby was allowed to remain in his father’s charge and Bryn was handcuffed and turned over to the pair of uniforms for transport to the women’s jail facility at the Hall of Justice. Runyon managed a few words with her before she was led away, to let her know what he was going to do. A short time afterward, the inspectors allowed him to leave on his promise to appear at the Hall of Justice the next day to sign a formal statement.

There was nothing more he could do now. Bail would probably be set high at her arraignment-it usually was in a homicide case, no matter what arguments the defense attorney put forth-but whatever the amount, Runyon wouldn’t let it be a problem. Abe Melikian owed him a favor-he’d saved the bondsman a bundle on the Madison case a short while back-and he’d call it in when the time came.

Runyon was too jittery, too jammed up inside, to face his empty apartment. He fed his Ford a tankful of gas, took himself out of the city to the south and on up to Skyline. He drove all the way down the spine of the Coast Range to the intersection with Highway 84, took 84 over to the coast and its juncture with Highway 1 at San Gregorio. Dark, winding, forest-flanked roads, fog draped, neither of them with much traffic. The kind of long, semirelaxing night ride he’d been prone to before Bryn came into his life.

But the drive didn’t ease him down any on this night. Didn’t banish the doubts that kept crawling like bugs through his mind.

Had Bryn told the whole truth about Francine’s death?

He was pretty sure she’d never lied to him before; he didn’t want to believe she was lying now. Yet something didn’t quite ring true about her story. It seemed plausible enough on the surface, but when he replayed it in his mind it struck a faintly rehearsed chord, like half a hundred similar tales he’d listened to that had been proven partly or completely false during his years on the Seattle force.

What she’d said about Francine on Saturday echoed darkly in his memory.

I don’t blame Bobby for wishing her dead. I’d like to kill her myself…

Damn her! She’ll keep right on hurting him, and the next time… the next time… I won’t let it happen. I won’t.

Accident as she claimed, end result of a struggle after Francine picked up the knife? Or had Bryn been the one to pick it up, use it deliberately-maybe even gone to the flat with that idea in mind?

Self-defense-or murder?