Demons

Chapter 12

Matt answered the bell at the Runyon house in Ashbury Heights. Giants sweatshirt today, sleeves cut off at the shoulders; in one hand he held a rumpled copy of the Sporting News. There was a thin line of blond fuzz on his upper lip, as if he’d suddenly decided to grow a mustache. He didn’t seem happy to see me, but then he didn’t seem unhappy either. The young-old eyes were as bleak as they’d been last night at S.F. General.

“How’s it going?” I asked him.

“Shitty. You want to see my mom?”

“If she’s home.”

“Out back in her studio. I’ll show you.”

“How about your dad? Still in bed?”

“No, he’s up.”

“How’s he feeling?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said.

“Not talking?”

Headshake. “I tried and Mom tried.”

“He hasn’t tried to leave the house?”

“No. Not yet.”

He took me through the kitchen, out the back door. A covered walkway connected the house to an outbuilding that had been erected next to the garage. There was still plenty of yard — a long strip of lawn, flower beds, a liquidambar tree between the outbuilding and an eight-foot wooden fence with an access door shaped into it. Beyond the fence, partly visible from the porch, was one of the narrow pedestrian ladder streets that you find in some of the hillier sections of the city.

Matt knocked on the studio door and we went in. It was one big room, naturally lighted: the east wall and part of the ceiling were of glass. Ficus plants in redwood tubs gave it a partial greenhouse effect. But there was no mistaking the fact that it was a painter’s studio. Canvases in various sizes were everywhere — finished, unfinished, blank; some displayed on easels and on the two white walls, others in rows along the floor. Kay Runyon, wearing a paint-spattered smock, stood before an easel set up in front of the glass wall, a table beside her cluttered with paints and brushes and an open bag of dryer lint. But she hadn’t been working; just standing there, arms folded across her breasts, like a sculptured likeness of an artist in repose.

She turned abruptly as we entered. At first she seemed more pleased to see me than her son had been, but that didn’t last long. One careful look at my face told her the news wasn’t good; the hope died flickering. She made a gesture to Matt, who was hovering near the door, and he left us without a word. Then she picked up a rag, wet part of it from a tin of turpentine, and began to scrub at her hands — clean hands, no paint on them anywhere.

“You found out who he is,” she said. “You saw him.”

“Yes.”

“And you couldn’t frighten him or make him listen to reason.”

“No, but I gave him plenty to think about.”

“Is he as... dangerous as I think he is?”

I couldn’t lie to her. “Potentially.”

“I knew it. Tell me about him.”

I told her. Cahill’s name and where he lived, his prison record, the restraining order two years ago, the gist of my conversation with him earlier. She listened stone-faced. When I was done she took cigarettes and a lighter from a pocket in her smock, set fire to a weed before she spoke.

“He’ll come after Vic again.” It wasn’t a question.

“Not if I can talk your husband into filing an assault complaint against him.”

“You can try,” she said without much hope.

“Even if he won’t do it,” I said, “the situation with Cahill isn’t as grim as it looks. He doesn’t want to go back to prison. He knows he can’t hurt your husband again without paying a high price; he’s not anonymous any longer and neither are his motives. He’s smart enough to realize that and I think it’ll force him to put a leash on himself.” I paused. “You know your husband far better than I do, Mrs. Runyon. Is he capable of violence against another human being?”

“My God,” she said, “you don’t think Cahill’s right? That Vic did something to that woman?”

“I don’t, no. I’m asking your opinion, if you think it’s even remotely possible.”

“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

“Then no matter how much Cahill might prod and threaten, there can’t be anything for him to find, anything to set him off again. If I can find Nedra, alive or dead, and prove to Cahill that your husband is innocent, he’ll take himself right out of your lives.”

“If,” she said. “That’s a big if.”

“Maybe not. I’ve already turned up some leads.” I told her about the postcards Dr. Muncon had received.

“That proves Nedra is alive, doesn’t it?”

“Not to Cahill; he didn’t believe me when I told him about the cards. I’m not so sure I buy it either.”

“You doubt that she sent them?”

“Muncon said they were in her handwriting and handwriting isn’t as easy to fake as people think. What bothers me is that Muncon received cards but your husband apparently didn’t; and I’ve yet to find any evidence that she sent cards or letters to any of her clients. Why only to her therapist? Something doesn’t ring true.”

“Yes, I see what you mean.” She jabbed out her cigarette in an oyster shell ashtray, immediately lit another. “Even if you do find her, it’ll take time. Won’t it? A lot of time?”

“It might. Then again, I might get lucky.”

“What do we do in the meantime?”

“About Cahill? Unless your husband presses assault charges, I’m afraid there’s nothing much you can do. Except to not provoke him if he calls again. And first thing Monday, contact the phone company and have your number changed.”

“What if he comes here to the house?”

“I don’t think he will.”

“But if he does?”

“Don’t let him in, don’t talk to him under any circumstances. But the best safeguard is not to be here, none of you.”

“You mean convince Vic to go away for a while.”

“The three of you, yes. Visit friends... go someplace you’ve enjoyed together in the past, familiar surroundings.”

“He won’t do that either,” she said. “I can’t get him to do anything anymore. He just won’t listen to me.”

“Is he talking to you at all?”

“Barely.”

“Say anything about what happened with Cahill?”

“Not a word. He’s in a great deal of pain. I think if he wasn’t he’d have tried to leave, to go back to her house today. I hid his car keys, both sets. Ridiculous, isn’t it? Having to do a thing like that with a forty-year-old man?”

I put an awkward hand on her arm. Gently I said, “Maybe I can get through to him. He was willing enough to talk to me on the way to the hospital.”

“To a stranger but not to his wife and son.”

“Guilt, Mrs. Runyon. You know that.”

“Yes, I know, but it still hurts...” Angrily she snuffed out her second cancer stick. “Oh, shit,” she said, “let’s go inside. I don’t know why I came out here in the first place. I thought painting might ease my mind, but I should have known better. I can’t concentrate — I can barely think straight.”

Inside the house, in the kitchen, she said, “Would you like a drink? Some coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“I’m going to have a Scotch. I need one. You want to talk to Vic alone, don’t you?”

“It would be better that way.”

“He’s in the TV room. At least, that’s where he was earlier. Straight through that door over there.”

I went through the door and across a dining area, following the muted babble of television voices. The TV room was large, comfortably furnished. No Dreamsicle effect here; the color scheme was autumnal browns and golds. Victor Runyon sat in a recliner, both feet flat on the floor. He wore slippers and a bathrobe. The bandage across the middle of his face, the bruises that had spread upward from his broken nose to darken his eyes, made him look grotesque and pathetic. I might have felt compassion for him if he’d been a different sort of man, suffering for different reasons; as it was, I felt nothing. All my tender mercies were reserved for his wife and son.

The pained eyes stared blankly at a twenty-five-inch TV screen, where cartoon characters screeched and gabbled and chased each other across a cartoon landscape. He didn’t know I was there until I moved over to form a block between him and the screen; then he blinked and his head lifted and he stared at me.

“Remember me?” I said. “I’m the detective who hauled your sorry ass to the hospital last night.”

That failed to get a rise out of him. He said in a monotone, “I remember.”

“I’ve identified the man who attacked you. His name is Cahill, Eddie Cahill. He’s been in prison twice before, once for felony assault. Two years ago, before he went to jail the second time, he threatened and harassed Nedra Merchant to the point where she had a lawyer obtain a restraining order against him. She never told you about that?”

“No.”

“He’s a dangerous man, Runyon. A threat to you and your family. Something has to be done about him.”

No answer.

“I’m telling you the hard truth here. I saw him again this afternoon, tried to talk sense to him; he won’t listen. He’s convinced you’ve harmed Nedra in some way. Sooner or later he’ll come after you, or maybe after your wife and son. You can prevent that by pressing assault charges against him. How about it, Runyon?”

“Go to the police? Tell them about Nedra and me?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“Why not? A lot of people know the truth now — your wife, your son, me, Cahill, Nedra’s ex-husband, her shrink, a couple of others. What difference does it make if the police know too?”

Silence.

“If you don’t give a damn about yourself, fine. But think about your family for a change.”

“I won’t let anything happen to my family.”

“No? How are you going to prevent it?”

“I won’t let anything happen.”

“There’s Nedra too,” I said. “He’ll be a threat to her when she comes home, if you don’t put him back in prison where he belongs.”

“Nedra,” Runyon said. As if he were invoking the name of a deity.

“So? What’s it going to be?”

“I have to think.”

“Don’t take too long.”

“I won’t.” He moved painfully in the chair. “Go away now, will you? Leave me alone.”

“One question first,” I said, and asked him about the empty spare-key hook in Nedra’s desk drawer, the one marked ‘Thorn.’ “Mean anything to you — the abbreviation?”

“No.”

“You’re sure? There’s no place she used to go that starts with ‘Thorn.,’ no person she knows with that kind of name?”

“No,” he said again, and again he shifted position, wincing. “Please go away. Talking makes my face hurt.”

Mine, too — talking to him. I went away and left him alone.

Kerry hadn’t called back. The only message on my office machine was from James Keverne, Nedra Merchant’s attorney.

I sat down at my desk. After six-thirty now; the building was silent as a tomb. Too late to call Keverne back — but he would be in his office tomorrow morning, he’d said. Too late to do much of anything else work-related tonight. The evening stretched out ahead, so long and far that I couldn’t see the end of it. Friday evening. For most people it was T.G.I.F., the beginning of a weekend of freedom. Dinners out, shows, nightclubs, ball games... lovemaking too. But not for me. Not for Kerry, either, by her own testimony.

Why hadn’t she called back? She couldn’t be that busy, for Christ’s sake.

I caught up the phone, punched out her private number at Bates and Carpenter. No answer. Not tonight. I just can’t. I’ve got to get some more work done on the Blessing account. I stayed on the line, and pretty soon the call was switched automatically to B and C’s in-house switchboard. I asked the operator if Kerry was still on the premises; she said Ms. Wade was unavailable. What the hell did that mean, unavailable? It sounded evasive. I asked when Ms. Wade would be available and the operator said she didn’t know, did I want to leave a message? No, I said, no message.

I went and got some water and put it on the hot plate to boil. Then I watched it boil. Then I made a cup of instant coffee. Things to do with my hands and my eyes; little time killers.

Getting darker in here now. even though there were still a couple of hours of daylight left: clouds crawling over the sky, fat gray bloated things that shut out the sun. The night sounds were already starting — groans and mutters in the walls, like an old man complaining aloud to himself. Why don’t buildings make noises in the daytime? Or if they do, why don’t we hear them even when it’s quiet? Why do old joints creak and phantoms walk only at night?

I took my coffee to the desk. And in my mind’s eye I could see myself sitting there in the darkening room, hunched and alone with the cup steaming in one hand. Pathetic image, like one of those black-and-white studies you see in arty photographic books, above titles like “Estranged” and “Study in Twilight.”

To hell with that; no man wants to view himself as a cliché. I got up again, carried the coffee down the hall to the toilet, and emptied it out. Then I locked up and let the spooks have the office and the building to themselves.