Schemers

9

JAKE RUNYON

The Henderson Construction Company was building three new homes in a hillside cul-de-sac on Los Alegres’ southwestern edge. Two homes framed out and in different stages of completion, the third staked and ready for the concrete foundation to be poured. All three sites were fenced-new Cyclone fencing, from the look of it, probably put up after the vandalism. The gates were open now, half a dozen pickups parked inside, a forklift unloading board lumber from a flatbed truck on one site, a dozen or so workmen making the usual amount of noise.

Runyon left his Ford outside on the street and hunted up Cliff Henderson at the the home nearest completion. They went over by a large, portable tool-storage shed to talk. Even before Henderson pointed it out, Runyon had noticed the acid damage done to the unit’s metal siding.

“Bastard couldn’t get inside the shed,” Henderson said. “Didn’t have enough time to burn the locks off, so he just splashed acid on the sides. If he had gotten in… thousands of dollars’ worth of tools down the toilet.”

“No attempt at a second pass?”

“If he was thinking about it, the fencing, police patrols, a private security patrol I hired changed his mind. I can’t afford to take any more losses on these sites.”

“How’s your brother?”

“Better. Might let him go home today, tomorrow for sure.”

“You have a chance to talk to him about the missing photo album?”

“On the phone last night. He can’t figure it either. Why the guy would risk poking around in Damon’s garage during the day, why he took the album. Just gets crazier and crazier.”

“Mostly photos of the two of you and your father, you said.”

“Yeah. On the fishing and hunting trips we used to take.”

“Any particular place?”

“Same place every time. Hunting camp in Mendocino County, east of Fort Bragg. Dad built it back in the fifties.”

“Still own the property?”

“Sure. Damon and I don’t get up there as much as we used to, but two of Dad’s old hunting buddies still go now and then. They don’t hunt anymore, they’re both in their seventies, but they fish and play cribbage… you know, just to get away for a few days.”

“Hayden Brock one of them?”

“That’s right. And Dr. George… George Thanopolous.”

Runyon asked, “Anything unusual happen on any of the trips?”

“Like what?”

“Anything at all. Anything that might have been in those snapshots.”

“Not on the trips Damon and me were on. We caught fish, shot a buck if we were lucky, played cards, drank beer, told stories, goofed around. Guy stuff, that’s all.”

“How about on the ones your father took with his buddies?”

“Not that I know about.” Henderson frowned. “What’re you getting at? This stalking crap couldn’t have any connection to my dad or the camp.”

“Then why was the album stolen?”

“Christ, I don’t know. But Dad… he was salt of the earth. Ask anybody, they’ll tell you. He’s been gone five years. And the last time he was up at the camp was three or four years before that, before he got sick. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

R unyon spent the rest of the morning making the rounds of friends, neighbors, and business acquaintances of the Henderson brothers. None of them had anything to tell him. The Hendersons were great guys, good family men, regular churchgoers. Honest as the day is long. No harm in either of them. Incredible that anybody could hate them enough to do what had been done to them.

By the time he finished, he was convinced that the motive for the harrassment and assault lay elsewhere. Something to do with the father?

Wrong tree or not, it was worth some more barking.

H ayden Brock leaned back in the swivel chair in his law office, hooked his thumbs under the straps of his old-fashioned galluses, and gave Runyon an unreadable lawyer stare. His eyes were a cold blue under bushy white eyebrows. White hair, fine as rabbit fur, and a thick white mustache gave him a stern and frosty look.

“If you’re looking for dirt on Lloyd Henderson,” he said flatly, “you won’t find it here.”

Runyon said, “The only thing I’m looking for is answers to why his sons are being stalked.”

“Terrible thing, that, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Lloyd.”

“Everybody keeps telling me that.”

“But you don’t seem to listen.”

“When you can’t find an answer in one place, you look in another. Right now I’m looking at Lloyd Henderson.”

“Just because the first act of vandalism was the desecration of his grave?”

“That’s one reason. Another is the stolen photo album. Can you offer any explanation for that?”

“No.”

“Do you know of anything unusual that happened on the family’s hunting and fishing trips to Mendocino County?”

“I do not.”

“On any of the trips that didn’t include the two sons?”

“No. Weekend getaways, that’s all they were.”

“Men only? No women allowed?”

The white mustache bristled. “What kind of question is that?”

“A simple one.”

“Our wives didn’t share our passion for the outdoors.”

Lawyerspeak. Factual but evasive. Runyon said, “So there were no women in the photos that were stolen.”

“I just told you our wives never went along, didn’t I?”

Same evasive response. “What about after Lloyd’s divorce?”

“Now what are you asking?”

“He didn’t remarry. I assume he had women friends over the last twenty years of his life. Did he ever take one of them to the hunting camp?”

“No.”

“Was he involved with any particular woman after his divorce?”

“If he was, it’s none of your business.”

“You won’t give me a name?”

“I will not. Why should I?”

“The more people I can talk to…”

“People who know Cliff and Damon, yes. Not those who knew Lloyd.” Brock leaned forward so abruptly his chair back made a sharp cracking noise. “I suggest you concentrate on finding the link between the two sons and the maniac responsible for harassing them. You won’t find it with their father.”

“If you say so, Mr. Brock.”

“I do say so. Now suppose you get on with your business so I can proceed with mine.”

End of interview. Runyon stood up.

“Just remember what I said about looking for dirt,” Brock said. “It won’t get you anywhere you need to go.”

Second time Brock had used the phrase “looking for dirt.” Protesting too much. If there was no dirt to dig up, why keep mentioning it?

G eorge Thanopolous lived in a large ranch-style home on three or four acres atop one of the west-side hills. The elderly woman who answered the door identified herself as Mrs. Thanopolous, and when Runyon told her who he was and why he was there, she said, “It’s awful, isn’t it? Just awful. Those poor boys. But there isn’t anything George or I can tell you. If we knew anything that might help, we would have told the police.”

“I’m sure you would have. But I’d still like to talk to your husband. Is he home?”

“Out back with his bees.”

“Bees?”

“His hobby, you know. Beekeeping and making honey. Just go on around the side of the house and across the terrace. You’ll see the apiary and bee house from there.”

Runyon followed her instructions. The terrace was broad and flagstoned, with a sweeping view of the town spread out below, part of the valley and the bordering hills to the east. Beyond the terrace was a wide grassy field sprinkled here and there with low white boxes that must be the beehives. Nobody was working among them except bees.

A flagstone path led through the field above the hives, to a shedlike building painted the same bright white. The door was open, and as Runyon approached he heard a hammer banging away inside and then spotted the man using it. He stopped outside and called, “Dr. Thanopolous?”

George Thanopolous was well up in his seventies, his face mostly free of wrinkles-small, energetic, brighteyed. He didn’t seem to mind having a stranger turn up unexpectedly at his bee house. Particularly a stranger with Runyon’s credentials and purpose.

The drop-lit interior was cramped and crowded. Workbench, shelves, Peg-Boards of tools and beekeeping equipment-bee veils, smokers, elbow-length gloves, strips of lathe, glue pots, brushes, a bunch of other items Runyon didn’t recognize. The place had a faint odor, partly sweet like melons and partly sour like decaying flesh. Bee venom? Probably. It sure wasn’t clover honey.

Thanopolous indicated the wood strips that he’d been nailing together into a frame. “Don’t mind if I finish making this comb while we talk? Good. Want to get a few more done today. Stool over there if you care to sit down, just move the bee escapes to the bench here.”

“I’ll stand, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” Thanopolous drove another nail with his tack hammer. “Don’t know what I can tell you,” he said. “Cliff and Damon are both good boys, but Ellen and I don’t see much of them anymore. Why anybody’d want to stalk them… don’t have a clue.”

“Both family men. Faithful husbands, honest in their business practices.”

“Absolutely. Their father was strict with them, growing up. Single parent, you know.”

“Yes. There doesn’t seem to be anything in their lives that triggered the attacks. I’m looking into the possibility that the motive may have something to do with Lloyd Henderson.”

“Lloyd? Oh, now, that’s not possible. He passed away some years ago.”

“I know. But the first act was the desecration of his grave.”

“True. That struck me, too. Just so damn senseless.”

“You and Lloyd Henderson were close friends?”

“That’s right. Thirty years… no, thirty-five.”

“Went hunting and fishing together regularly.”

“Up to his camp in the mountains. With his boys and my son sometimes.” A pain shadow crossed Thanopolous’s face, made him pause in his work. “David’s gone now, too. Desert Storm.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Wars like that, like the Iraq mess… stupid. Young men are the ones who pay the price.”

“And their families.”

“Yes. Well,” Thanopolous said, and shook himself, and resumed his hammering. “You were asking me about Lloyd.”

“He have any enemies that you know about?”

“Not Lloyd. No, sir. Everybody liked him. Especially the women.”

“Ladies’ man, was he?”

“Lord, yes. Had more than his fair share.” Thanopolous chuckled-a dry sound, almost a cackle. “One thing he used to say. He was a dentist, you know, and he’d say, ‘I fill cavities all day, and when I’m lucky I get to fill one at night.’ My wife doesn’t think that’s funny, but it always made me laugh.”

“Did he always have a roving eye?”

“You asking if he was a faithful husband? That’s not for me to talk about. Nobody’s business, now, anyway.”

“Was he involved with any particular woman after his divorce?”

“Not that lasted more than a few months.”

“So he never came close to marrying again?”

“Wanted nothing more to do with marriage. Divorce soured him on it.”

“His lady friends. I’d appreciate a name or two.”

“Can’t oblige you. Sleeping dogs.” The dry chuckle again. “Not that they were, any of ’em. Dogs. No, sir, he had good taste, Lloyd did.”

Runyon asked, “Did he brag about his conquests?”

“Some, but he wouldn’t give names or details. Gentleman about that.”

“Brag to his sons, too?”

“No, never to the boys. Strict with them, as I told you. Kept his private life and his kids’ lives separate.”

“He ever bring a woman along on one of the hunting trips?”

“No, sir. Men only. Only time a woman ever showed up at the cabin, he chased her off quick.”

“When did that happen?”

“Oh, a long time ago.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“My memory’s not so good anymore. Why?”

“I’d like to know who she was.”

“Woman from Harmony, nearest place to the camp where you could buy supplies. Worked at the general store there, if I remember right.”

“Can you recall her name?”

“No. Don’t think I ever knew it.”

“Why did she show up at the cabin?”

“Well, I’m not too sure about that,” Thanopolous said.

“Lloyd’s the one who went out and talked to her. Said something later about her being a nosy female.”

“Long conversation?”

“Not too long, no.”

“She leave right away?”

“Pretty quick. Lloyd could be forceful when he had cause.”

“How well do you think he knew the woman?”

“She worked at the general store, as I said.” Chuckle. “You mean in the biblical sense? I doubt it.”

“Why? Was she unattractive?”

“Just the opposite, as I remember. But much younger than Lloyd. He wasn’t a man to chase younger women.”

Runyon asked, “Did he go up to the camp alone very often?”

“Not often. Once in a while. Liked to get away by himself, same as we all do.” Thanopolous finished tacking fine wire mesh across the frame he’d constructed. “Why so interested in Lloyd’s private life and his hunting camp, young man?”

Runyon told him about the stolen photo album. “A lot of snapshots were taken on those trips, I understand.”

“Oh, sure. Lloyd was a camera bug.”

“Did he take any snapshots of the woman from the store?”

Thanopolous frowned. “Now why would he do that?”

“Just wondering.”

“Well, I never saw one if he did.”

“Showed them off, then, did he?”

“Sure. Just about every roll he developed. Camera bug. But there wasn’t anything special about any of them. Why anybody’d want to steal an album full of pictures of fish and dead deer…” Thanopolous sighed, wagged his head. “Pretty frightening, when you think about it.”

“What is?”

“All the crazies running around. Random violence. No wonder people are paranoid these days.” He sighed again. “No paranoia in this case, though, is there? Some loony really is after the Henderson boys.”

“So it would seem.”

“You strike me as a smart fellow. Find out who and why, put a stop to it before something even more terrible happens. The police in this town never will. Incompetent, the lot of them.”

Typical citizen’s complaint. Thanopolous didn’t expect a response and Runyon didn’t offer one.

As he was about to leave, the old man opened a cabinet above the workbench, took down one of the jars it contained, and handed it to him with the air of a man bestowing a prize.

“Clover honey,” he said, “best you ever tasted. No charge.”