Schemers

1

Damp February Monday. And a day for oddball cases.

Mostly the jobs the agency takes on are pretty straightforward, pretty routine. Insurance claims investigations, skip traces, employee background checks, domestic matters not involving divorce, finding and collecting from deadbeats of one stripe or another, information gathering for lawyers on criminal and civil cases. But now and then something unusual comes along to spice things up. Not often two in the same day, however.

The first of the pair on this Monday came by phone shortly after ten o’clock, from an unexpected and less than pleasing source. I was manning the South Park offices because Tamara wasn’t. My partner is the agency’s nerve center, a twenty-six-year-old technology expert and human dynamo who keeps it running smoothly and efficiently. With me and my limited computer skills in charge, it clanks along at about three-quarters power. Since my semiretirement I try to work only two or three days a week, and Monday isn’t one of them, but Tamara had called me at home before breakfast and asked if I’d cover for her, she wouldn’t be in until around noon, she’d tell me the reason when she saw me. I figured it must have something to do with the new flat on Potrero Hill she’d just moved into; something pleasurable, in any case, judging from the sunny sound of her voice.

When I answered the first call, a woman’s voice asked for me by name. I owned up, and she said, “Margot Lee, Mr. Rivera’s assistant at Great Western Insurance. Mr. Rivera would like to see you on a business matter, if you’re available.”

I was silent for so long she said, “Hello? Are you there?”

“I’m here,” I said. “What sort of business matter?”

“A claim investigation, of course. Mr. Rivera would prefer to discuss the details in person.”

“With me personally?”

“That’s what he said, yes.”

“When and where?”

“One o’clock today, here in his office, if that’s convenient.”

I almost said no, I wasn’t interested. But I couldn’t quite get the words out. An olive branch, maybe? Probably not; Barney Rivera wasn’t given to offering olive branches to anybody. Must be a genuine business proposition. Why, all of a sudden, after five years?

“ Would one o’clock be convenient?” Ms. Lee said.

“It would,” I said before I could change my mind. “I’ll be there.”

Barney Rivera, Great Western’s chief claims adjuster. Barney the Needle. We’d been friends once, poker buddies, and he’d thrown a fair amount of business my way in the days when I was running a one-man agency. That had all ended five years ago. Rivera had a malicious streak in him; he could be a gossip-mongering, backstabbing son of a bitch when he felt like it. He’d felt like it with me at a difficult time, when Kerry and I were going together and things were a little rocky and she’d thought maybe it wasn’t me she wanted to be with but a guy named Blessing, the head of one of her ad agency’s accounts. Rivera had seen them together at a restaurant and through sly, nasty innuendo implied to me that they were having a hot and heavy affair. They weren’t-she never slept with Blessing-but Rivera’s jabs had given me a bad time for a while. I’d never forgiven him. And when I turned down a couple of job offers afterward, he’d quit offering and I hadn’t heard from him again until today. And not directly, at that. Just like the little bastard to have his assistant make initial contact.

Five years. A long time. And now, out of the blue what sounded like it could be a legitimate job offer. The “why” I couldn’t figure at all.

I was mulling it over, and brooding a little about that rough patch in Kerry’s and my relationship, when Jake Runyon came in. Good man, Jake-a former Seattle cop and former investigator for Caldwell amp; Associates, one of the larger private agencies up there. Big, slab-faced, hammer-jawed. Smart, tough, loyal, and dead-bang honest. He’d moved to San Francisco after the cancer death of his second wife, to be close to the estranged son from his first marriage, the only family he had left. They were still estranged; an attempt at reconciliation hadn’t worked out.

For the first year he’d been with us as field operative, Runyon had been a reticent loner still grieving deeply for his deceased wife. Lately, though, there’d been a subtle change in him. Less dour, more open and upbeat. He’d even shaved off his mustache, as if he were making an effort to alter his physical appearance. Reason: a woman named Bryn Darby. He wouldn’t say much about her or the nature of their relationship, and Tamara and I had yet to meet her, but it was plain that she was having a positive influence on him.

He had a light caseload this week, a fact that didn’t set well with him. The restless type, Jake, uncomfortable unless he was on the move somewhere. So he’d come in hoping we had some work for him. I had to tell him no, though maybe the appointment with Barney the Needle would produce something for him to handle. We bulled a little, he went out to his desk in the anteroom, and I went back to the report I was writing.

And a short while later, oddball case number two showed up in person.

I heard them come in, a man and a woman, and the low buzz of conversation as Runyon spoke with them. Then he came into my office, shutting the door behind him. “Couple named Henderson, Tracy and Cliff,” he said. “From Los Alegres. I think you should talk to them.”

“What’s their problem?”

“They’re being stalked, but they don’t know who or why.”

“Stalked? They been to the police?”

He nodded. “No help there so far.”

“If the police can’t help them…”

“I know. But they sound pretty desperate.”

“Well, we can listen to their story. You want to sit in?”

“Yes.”

The Hendersons were in their late thirties, married thirteen years, with two young daughters. He was balding, rangy, tense, the owner of a construction company in Los Alegres, a small town some forty miles north of the city; she was blond, a little on the plump side and wearing clothes designed to diminish the fact, and a teacher of English and American history at the local high school. The look in her eyes was one I’d seen too many times before-a stunnedanimal mix of hurt, fear, bewilderment, desperation. His eyes reflected more frustrated anger than anything else. Ordinary people suddenly and inexplicably threatened by extraordinary circumstance.

Once they were settled in the client chairs, and Runyon had taken up a position against the wall beside my desk, Tracy Henderson said, “I know we should have made an appointment, but after what happened last night… Well, we decided we should see someone as soon as possible.”

“One of Los Alegres cops gave us your name,” Cliff Henderson said.

“Lieutenant Adam St. John. He said your agency has a very good reputation.”

I didn’t know St. John. But when you’ve been in the business as long as I have, and have had enough-too much-publicity on some cases, word gets around and police, lawyers, other professionals remember your name.

I said, “I understand you’re being stalked.”

“My brother Damon and me,” Henderson said. “That much we’re sure of.”

“By an unknown party?”

“Unknown, and for no damn reason anybody can figure out.”

“Stalked in what way?”

“Different ways, frightening ways,” Mrs. Henderson said. “The night before last it got really ugly.”

“Damon’s in the hospital,” Henderson said, “with a cracked head and a busted collarbone.”

“What happened?”

“Attacked in his garage, middle of the night. Caught the bastard in there and got belted with a tire iron. He’s lucky to be alive.”

Runyon asked, “When did this trouble start?”

“Two and a half weeks ago. First thing he did, whoever he is, was vandalize our cemetery plot. My father’s grave.” A fierce anger darkened Henderson’s face at the memory. “Got in there in the middle of the night and dug up the urn with Dad’s ashes, poured acid all over it. Acid, for Christ’s sake. Destroyed the headstone the same way.”

“And he left a crude red-lettered sign,” Mrs. Henderson said. “‘This is just the beginning.’”

“Cops thought at first it was random vandalism. But no other grave was vandalized that night or any night since.”

I asked what else had happened.

“He trashed one of my job sites,” Henderson said. “Paint, acid all over the place. Dumped more acid on my truck, parked right in our driveway. Damon’s car, too. Then that garage break-in… Christ knows what he would’ve done in there if Damon hadn’t heard him and run out.”

“Did he get a look at the man?”

“No. Too dark, happened too fast. Bastard hit him from behind, straddled him, broke his collarbone with another swing. Damon thought he was a dead man. But the guy said something like ‘Not yet, it’s not time yet’ and got off him and beat it.”

“Is that all that was said?”

“That’s all.”

“Has he contacted either of you in any way? E-mails, letters, anonymous phone calls?”

“No. Just that sign at the cemetery.” Henderson’s fingers clenched and unclenched, as if he were flexing them around the perp’s neck. “Crazy. No damn reason for any of it.”

“And you know of no one who might have a grudge against you and your brother?”

Mrs. Henderson said, “No, absolutely not. That’s what’s so frightening.”

Runyon asked, “A business deal where a third party felt wronged in some way?”

“We thought of that,” Henderson said, “but that can’t be it. He’s after both Damon and me and we’ve never done a business deal together with anybody, not even each other.”

“What does your brother do for a living?”

“CPA. Small practice, mainly local businesses. Never a hassle with any of his clients. Never a hassle with anybody I’ve worked with, either.”

“The cemetery vandalism was two and a half weeks ago, you said. Did anything unusual happen around that time, or in the month or so before? An accident of some kind, an altercation, even a few harsh words with somebody-anything that might have triggered this man’s rage?”

“No. I’ve racked my brains, we all have, and there’s nothing. Nothing. We live quiet, do our jobs, go to church, raise our kids the best way we know how, don’t get on anybody’s wrong side. A faceless enemy like that… I don’t know, I just don’t know.”

“We have two daughters, nine and thirteen,” his wife said. “Damon has a son, twelve. What if this lunatic decides to go after one of them? We’re at our wits’ end.”

“The cops have sent out patrols to keep an eye on our homes and businesses. But they can’t watch twenty-four seven.”

I said, “If you’re looking to hire bodyguards…”

“No. Not yet, anyway, not unless there’s a threat to the kids. We’ve made our own arrangements to protect them for now. An investigation’s what we want. Thorough, not the kind the cops are giving us.”

“A fresh perspective,” Mrs. Henderson said.

“I understand. But I have to be honest with you. There may not be a great deal we or any other private agency can do.”

“Are you saying you won’t help us?”

“Not at all. We’ll investigate, but in a case like this, with so little information to go on…”

“We don’t expect miracles,” Henderson said. “Just do what you can, that’s all we’re asking.”

I laid out our standard fees, as well as the probable expense account charges, and the amount required as a retainer. The figures didn’t seem to faze them. I had them sign an agency contract, and Tracy Henderson wrote out a check. Then I took down two pages of names, addresses, phone numbers, personal information-everything we’d need to open an investigation.

Runyon’s body language said that he wanted the job, so I told the clients he’d be handling it. Henderson asked when we’d start. Runyon said he’d drive up to Los Alegres this afternoon.

Solemn handshakes, and they were gone.

Runyon said then, “Phantom stalkers are the worst kind. And this one sounds unstable as hell. Okay if we make the investigation a priority?”

“I think we’d better. Can you shuffle your schedule for the rest of the week? Alex can cover for you if needs be.” Alex Chavez, our part-time operative.

“Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Okay. I’ll photocopy my notes before you head for Los Alegres. And when Tamara gets here I’ll have her get started on deep background checks on the Henderson brothers.”

“Where is she anyway?”

“Took the morning off.”

“That’s not like her.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “She must have a good reason.”

G ood reason? Yes and no.

Tamara showed up at one minute past noon. Bounced straight into my office, high color in her cheeks, big cat-ate-the-canary smile, and announced, “Well, I finally got my groove back.”

“Come again?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, grinning.

“Huh?”

“I finally got laid.”

Well, what do you say to that? If she’d been a man, I might have made a mildly bawdy observation. As it was, all I could manage was a lame “Oh.”

“Four times altogether,” she said. “Last night and this morning.”

“Uh.”

“That’s why I took the morning off. Been so long, I figured I was entitled.”

“Mm.”

“Almost a year since the last time, can you believe it? I’d almost forgotten what it feels like.”

“Ah.”

“His name’s Lucas Zeller,” she said. “I met him at Vonda’s wedding reception, knows her brother James. Not exactly a brother himself, though.”

“No?”

“Fudge swirl,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Mostly dark with a little white mixed in. Like fudge swirl ice cream. Hot fudge sundae!”

The conversation was making me uncomfortable, as personal conversations with Tamara sometimes did. As outspoken and uninhibited as she was, she was liable to launch into a blow-by-blow-literally, God forbid-description of her evening and morning activities with the fudge swirl, and that was information I had no desire to tune in.

“Anyhow,” she said then, sparing me, “nothing clicked between us that day at the reception, not for me, but Saturday he called up out of the blue, said he had tickets to the Zombie Boys concert yesterday-”

“The which?”

“Zombie Boys, they’re a hard-rock blowout band, very cool, usually you can’t get tickets.”

“Ah.”

“So I said sure. We went out to dinner first, then the blowout, then back to my place and the rest is sweet history. That man is something fierce in bed, you know what I’m saying?”

I said quickly, “Serious, you and this Lucas?”

“Doing the nasty is always serious when you haven’t been doing it.”

“You know what I mean. Potentially serious relationship.”

“No way. I had enough of that with Horace. All I’m looking for is some fun, a little action. Lucas feels the same. Besides, I think maybe he’s Mama’s boy.”

“Uh?”

“Thirty-four, salesman for a company that sells electronic equipment, still lives with his mother. Can you believe it? She was all he talked about at dinner, what a great person she is, all that-almost spoiled the mood. But once we got between the sheets, Mama wasn’t there anymore.”

“I should hope not.”

“Whooo! That man’s a real dawg when it comes to-”

The telephone rang just then. Thank you, Lord, I thought.

The call was for me, a minor matter I disposed of in less than a minute. Tamara was still standing there, grinning and glowing, when I hung up. To forestall any more discussion of her sex life, I said, “Busy morning here, too, while you were playing. One new case and one surprise call, both oddball.”

“How so?”

I told her, the Henderson business first, then about the call from Barney Rivera’s assistant.

“Rivera, huh?” she said. “You think maybe he’s up to one of his little tricks, for old times’ sake?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past him,” I said. “Whatever he’s up to, I’ll know in about an hour. And it better be legitimate business. If it isn’t, he’ll be ingesting those peppermints of his through a different orifice than his mouth.”