Schemers

25

JAKE RUNYON

He was awake as soon as the bedside phone rang. Alert, with the receiver in his hand before a second ring. Product of self-training when he was on the Seattle PD, so any late-night calls wouldn’t disturb Colleen.

The digital clock on the nightstand read 2:29. He registered that before he said, “Runyon.”

“I know it’s late, Mr. Runyon, I’m sorry to be calling so late, but I’ve been half out of my mind.” Woman’s voice, distraught, breathless. Tracy Henderson. “The police, Lieutenant St. John, they don’t seem able to do anything and I thought you might have some idea-”

“Slow down, Mrs. Henderson. What’s happened?”

“It’s Cliff. He… oh God, he went to bowl in his league tonight like he does every Thursday. I begged him not to, I begged him to stay home, but he said he’d be with people, friends, nothing could happen-”

“Slow,” Runyon said again.

Stuttery inhale, whistling exhale. “He didn’t come home. I called the police when he wasn’t here by eleven and they… his truck was still at the lanes but they can’t find him anywhere.”

“Last seen when?”

“Right after he finished bowling. He told his teammates he was going straight home.”

“What time was that?”

“Quarter of ten.”

“Was there anything wrong with the truck?” Acid, he was thinking, but he didn’t want to use the word.

“No, it was just parked there, unlocked. Cliff wouldn’t have left it like that, he always locks it, always. His bag and ball were in the back.”

Caught by surprise as he was about to get into the pickup. Hurt in some way? Possibly, but not with any weapon that would cause noise, bring attention.

“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Henderson said. Sobs in her voice; she was on the ragged edge of hysteria. “All those other terrible things that madman Devries did, the attack on Damon, and now this…”

Escalation, sure, but not the expected kind. Kidnapping instead of hit-and-run assault. Change in Devries’s pattern. Why?

He said, “The police know about Devries, the kind of vehicle he drives-”

“A white Dodge van, yes, Cliff told me. Lieutenant St. John said he already knew about it from you.”

“Did he put out an APB on Devries and the van?”

“APB? I don’t…”

“All points bulletin. To police agencies statewide.”

“I don’t know, he didn’t say anything about that.”

Maybe St. John had, maybe he hadn’t. He was the extra-cautious type. Even if Henderson’s sudden disappearance had convinced him that Devries was the perp, it might be too late.

“I asked him what they were doing,” she said, “but all he’d say was everything possible, everything possible. What does that mean?”

It didn’t mean anything. Copspeak. Synonym for frustration and lack of clear direction. Whatever Runyon could say would be more of the same, so he left her question unanswered.

“Why would Devries kidnap Cliff? Where would he take him?”

The cemetery was one possibility. Put the son down with the father, burn him the way he’d burned Lloyd Henderson’s ashes. But Cliff was only one son. Devries was after both.

Runyon said, “Have you talked to Damon?”

“Yes, before the lieutenant came and again afterward.”

“He and his family all right? No trouble at their home?”

“No, they’re fine. Cliff… only Cliff…”

One at a time, then, rather than both brothers together. The cemetery was definitely out. Besides, St. John would have had the same line of thought, ordered the cemetery checked out first thing; he was cautious and defensive and hard to convince, but he was no dummy.

“Where?” Mrs. Henderson said again. “Why? What does he want with Cliff?”

To kill him. Maybe torture him with acid first. It had reached that point. Psychos were unpredictable for the most part, but an escalation of a monomaniacal psychosis like Devries’s was something you could calculate with reasonable certainty.

“I don’t know,” he lied.

“Is there anything you can do, Mr. Runyon? You’ve done so much for us already, I hate to ask any more of you, but I feel so helpless…”

What could he do? Talk to St. John, and if an APB hadn’t been put out on Devries and the Dodge van, try again to persuade him? St. John wouldn’t like that. Further infringement on his territory. It was even possible he’d dislike the interference enough to make trouble with the state licensing board.

“Anything? Please?”

Begging him now. He couldn’t say no. Couldn’t put her off, either. The hell with St. John and the possible consequences.

Right back in it, like it or not.

“I’ll drive up,” he said, “talk to St. John.”

“When?”

“As soon as I can.” He wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore, and he couldn’t lie in bed or rattle around the apartment until dawn waiting for news. The restlessness, the need for movement, was already sharp in him. “If you have any word about your husband before I contact you, call me on my cell phone.”

“Yes, I will. Thank you, Mr. Runyon. Thank you!”

For nothing, probably. Except wasted effort.

He put the teakettle on, showered in cold water to get the grit out of his eyes and sharpen his mind. Two quick cups of tea helped, too. He’d never needed much sleep. Four hours, which was about what he’d gotten tonight, was enough for him to function normally.

Out of the apartment, through the mostly empty late-night streets, across the fog-cloaked span of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Why the change in Devries’s pattern? Acid in all the other attacks except for the one on Damon Henderson, but the blows with the tire iron had been the result of circumstance, not planning. What was he up to this time?

Through the MacArthur tunnel, down the winding expanse of Waldo Grade.

Where would he take Henderson? Not somewhere in or close to Los Alegres, that didn’t fit Devries’s profile or motives.

Where?