Vixen

12

TAMARA

The first time the guy called asking for Bill, she had no idea who he was. Just an unfamiliar voice on the phone, kind of tight and demanding. She told him Bill wasn’t there and probably wouldn’t be available the rest of the week. He said, “I have to see him,” and she said, “I’m sorry, that’s not possible, may I take a message?” No message. Was there something she could help him with? Evidently not. He hung up on her without giving his name.

The second call came a few minutes later, while she was taking a short break to drink her second cup of coffee and brood a little. About Bill and Kerry and the death of Kerry’s mother, mainly. He’d called her with the news last night. She had never met Cybil Wade, but she knew how close Kerry and her mother were from the things Bill had told her. She felt bad for both of them. Old people died every day and Cybil Wade had had a good, long life, but that didn’t make it any easier for her family to deal with.

Man, they’d had so much crap in their lives, Kerry especially the past couple of years, and now this. Wasn’t right that bad things kept happening to good people while the bastards in the world went right on sailing along on untroubled seas.

Thinking the word “bastard” led her straight to thinking about Horace again, like continually picking at a splinter or a scab. He wasn’t one of the worst, but he still ran with the pack. Damn the man! She couldn’t make up her mind what to do about him.

Why hadn’t he stayed in Philadelphia instead of coming home to the city and slithering back into her life? Well, she didn’t have to have let him, never mind how contrite he was or pretended to be. Didn’t have to start sleeping with him again, either, for God’s sake. What a weak, stupid mistake that’d been! Same old silver-tongue Horace, talk the panties right off a girl even after she vowed not to let it happen.

Never mind, either, that he was still the best lover she’d ever had, maybe the best she would ever have. It was just sex now, wasn’t it? Sure it was; she didn’t love him anymore, not the way she had before he dumped her for another cellist in the Philadelphia orchestra. Served him right that Mary from Rochester dumped him for some other guy after he’d gone and put a ring on her finger.

Sex, no matter how good… well, it just wasn’t as important as it had been when she was living with him. She was older now, smarter (most of the time, anyway), she had responsibilities and a job she loved, she didn’t need or want Horace complicating her life and maybe messing it up again. She’d told him that, and he swore he’d never hurt her again, he was a changed man. Maybe fact, maybe bullshit. Whatever, he wouldn’t go away and leave her be. And she couldn’t seem to just say no, just tell him adios, and lock the doors every time he came sucking around…

This was what was going through her mind when the phone rang and the same dude as before started another rap about needing to see Bill ASAP. He sounded even more tight-assed this time, as if he were upset about something and working to keep himself under control.

“Where is he? Not in the hospital, is he?”

“The hospital? No. Why would you think that?”

“Out of town, then, or what?”

“I can’t tell you that. What’s your business with him?”

“That’s between him and me. Can you get a message to him? Have him get in touch with me right away? Not by phone, in person.”

“I might be able to, if it’s important enough.”

“It’s important, all right.”

“Who am I talking to?”

Long pause before he countered with, “Who’re you?”

“Tamara Corbin. Partner in this agency.”

“Partner.” Another pause. “This is Frank Chaleen.”

Tamara wasn’t surprised. The hospital question had tipped her. The other thing Bill had told her last night was a brief account of how Margaret Vorhees had tried to brain him with a whiskey glass.

She said, playing the dude, “What was that name again?”

“Frank Chaleen. You know who I am.”

“Do I? What makes you think so?”

Pause number three. Then, “Don’t you people talk to each other?”

“Usually. When there’s good reason.”

“Your partner didn’t say anything to you about me?”

“I didn’t say that. How do I know you’re who you claim to be? Just a voice on the telephone.”

Chaleen didn’t like that. She could tell she’d gotten under his skin; his voice had an angry wobble when he said, “You get a message to him, tell him to come talk to me.” He rapped out the address of Chaleen Manufacturing. “Tell him he’d better show up soon if he knows what’s good for him.”

Like hell I will, Tamara thought. She said, “Good-bye, Mr. Careen,” deliberately mispronouncing his name, and hung up on him this time.

Jake Runyon came in a little before one. She was expecting him; he’d been in the city all morning, finishing up a hit-and-run investigation for the victim’s attorney, and had told her yesterday that he’d stop in with a report and to see if she had anything new for him.

She let him get his business out of the way first. Pulled up the hit-and-run casefile and made notes on it while he talked, in between bites from the sandwich she’d brought from home. When he was done, she said, “News, Jake, none of it good,” and told him, first, about Cybil Wade dying. She’d thought about notifying him last night after Bill’s call, but why lay a load of gloom on the man after he’d put in a long day on and off the road? There was nothing he could do. Nothing she could do, either.

Jake had one of these immobile faces that seldom showed emotion, made it hard to guess what he was thinking. Not so much now, though. The news had the same effect on him that it had had on her. The way one side of his mouth twitched and he muttered, “Damn,” told her that.

“Bill said Kerry seems to be coping all right so far, but after all she’s been through…”

“Yeah.”

“Be a while before he comes back to work. So we’ll have to take up the slack, maybe put in even more overtime.”

“That’s no problem.”

Tamara said, “He got the news just after talking to Margaret Vorhees yesterday. That went down hard for him, too.”

“What happened?”

“She was drunk, belligerent. Wouldn’t believe she was in any danger. He told her as much as he could… a little too much, maybe, he said. Dropped Chaleen’s name, intimated Cory Beckett was screwing him as well as her husband, and she went ballistic. Called him a liar, threw a glass at him that he didn’t see coming in time to duck.”

“He all right?”

“Cut on the forehead, otherwise okay,” Tamara said. “But he must’ve got through to her despite the tantrum. Enough for her to yank Chaleen’s chain and put him in a snit.”

“How do you know that?”

“Man called up twice this morning, looking for Bill. Must be real anxious to know how Bill found out enough about him and the Beckett bitch to warn Mrs. Vorhees.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Put him off for the time being. He didn’t like it, made a half-assed threat against Bill.”

“Worried. Nervous, if not scared.”

“Right. But worried enough to call off whatever they’re planning?”

“If they think Bill knows too much about it.”

“His idea or hers for Chaleen to talk to him, try to find out?”

“His,” Jake said. “He may not even have told her about Bill’s warning. Waiting to get more information first.”

“She’s the one pulling the strings.”

“So it would seem.”

“Anyhow,” Tamara said, “Bill stirred things up pretty good yesterday. What do you think of stirring ’em up a little more?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“You go see Chaleen instead. Walk in on him cold, let on you know what Bill knows without saying what it is. Same careful approach he took with Mrs. Vorhees.”

Jake thought it over. “Tricky,” he said. “And it means getting in deeper than we already are. We’re putting a lot of faith in an emotionally damaged kid’s story as it is.”

“You still believe Kenny told you the truth?”

“The truth as he perceives it, yes.”

“Doubts, Jake? Second thoughts?”

“About some of the details, maybe.”

“But not about the gun?”

“No. Cory’s got one, all right.”

“And not that there’s a murder scheme?”

“My gut feeling says Beckett’s right about that.”

“So if you talk to Chaleen,” Tamara said, “and come on strong enough, you might be able to shake him up enough so he backs out on Cory. No murder scheme without him, right?”

“Theoretically.”

“It’s worth a shot. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Tamara said, “Just watch out he doesn’t get pissed enough to chuck something at your head. And make sure you duck in time if he does.”