Vixen

5

I seldom go into the office on Saturdays anymore; it was pure chance that I happened to be at my desk when Runyon’s call came in. My weekends are usually reserved for family activities, but this day was an exception.

Emily was one of the leads in a musical production her school was putting on and had to attend a semifinal rehearsal, and Kerry had gone over to Redwood Village, the Marin County care facility where her mother, Cybil, lived. Cybil is eighty-eight and in fragile health, not quite bedridden but no longer able to get around much by herself. The three of us had visited her the previous Sunday, but Kerry was worried about her and wanted to see her again, even though they talked on the phone nearly every day now. I offered to go along, but she said no, too many visitors at once was too tiring for Cybil and she would rather just make it a mother-daughter visit this time.

That was fine with me, but it left me at loose ends. I did not have anything I particularly wanted to do by myself, didn’t feel like spending the day alone at the condo. There was some paperwork to be finished up on the employee background check, so I decided I might as well go on down to South Park. I had company while I slogged through the notes and printouts on my desk because Tamara had decided to work today, too, as she often did on Saturdays. She was even more of a workaholic than I’d been in my prime.

She was busy at her computer, so I took Runyon’s call. Good news that he’d found Kenneth Beckett, but the details of their conversation didn’t set any better with me than they did with him. Jake’s instincts are pretty well honed; if he believed Beckett’s story was straight goods, then it probably was. Which, as Tamara had suggested, made Cory Beckett the complete opposite of the person she’d pretended to be in Abe Melikian’s office. Control freak, sex addict, schemer. With motives that didn’t seem to make much sense. Why would she talk her brother into taking the fall on a bogus theft charge? How could it benefit either of them?

I’d told Tamara that it didn’t matter if a client lied to us as long as it had no effect on the job we’d been hired to do, and that was true enough up to a point. But if the lies and misrepresentations involved a felony, we had a legal obligation not to ignore them.

“You haven’t notified the client?” I asked Runyon.

“No. I thought I’d give Beckett a few minutes to calm down, then make one more try at reasoning with him.”

“Likely to do any good?”

“I doubt it. He’s pretty strung out.”

“But not on drugs.”

“No. Doesn’t look to be any in the shack, but I’ll search it after we’re done to make sure.”

“So that’s probably another lie by his sister. She didn’t want us talking to him, but in case we did we’d put down anything he said to junkie ravings.”

“Same take here.”

“Okay,” I said. “Suppose I break the news to her, see if I can find out what she’s up to. If you can convince Beckett to let you bring him back, go ahead. But in that event deliver him here to the office for the time being, not to their apartment.”

“Right.”

“Let me know if that’s how it plays out. Otherwise, hang around the shack and keep an eye on him until you hear from me.”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Runyon said. “I’ve got his van blocked with my car and his keys in my pocket to make sure.”

After we rang off, I went in to brief Tamara. She said, “Weird. What d’you think the Beckett woman’s up to?”

“No idea… yet.”

“How about I do a deep backgrounder on her? That stuff I pulled up last week only scratched the surface.”

“Go ahead when you have the time.”

“Like right now.”

The Beckett apartment on Nob Hill was only ten minutes or so from South Park, but street parking up there is always at a premium and garage parking fees are exorbitant. It took me another ten minutes to find curb space, one that was only marginally legal and two steep uphill blocks away.

I was short of breath by the time I reached the building, a venerable four-story pile near Huntington Park that may or may not have been some fat cat’s private mansion a hundred years ago. Nob Hill, or Snob Hill as the locals sometimes call it, is where many of the city’s upper-class families and affluent yuppie transplants hang their hats. It takes big bucks to live there, and I found myself wondering if Cory Beckett had dragged enough out of her two marriages to pay the rent, or if somebody else-not her deckhand brother-was contributing to the monthly nut.

Right. Somebody named Andrew Vorhees.

In the coincidental and serendipitous way things sometimes happen, I had probable confirmation much sooner than I could have expected. About ten seconds after I reached the building, as a matter of fact.

Just as I stepped into the vestibule, the entrance door opened and a lean guy with tanned, craggy features came striding out. His glance at me as he passed by was brief and dismissive; I was nobody he knew. But I’d seen his picture and I knew him: Andrew Vorhees in the flesh.

I managed to catch the pneumatic door just before it latched, slipped inside as Vorhees turned out of the vestibule. He had to have been visiting Cory Beckett; that he knew one of the other tenants would be stretching coincidence to the breaking point. It was possible the visit had something to do with his former employee and the theft charge, but more likely his reasons were the same personal ones that had brought her to his yacht the day of the alleged theft. Nice conquest for a scheming woman, if they were lovers-a man in the same wealthy yachtsman class as her two ex-husbands. The fact that he was married wouldn’t mean much to a playboy with his reputation, but it might mean plenty to his wife. If Vorhees was having an affair with Cory Beckett, it was a possible explanation for the alleged attempt to frame her.

But I was getting ahead of myself. I did not have enough information yet-and most of what I did have was secondhand and hearsay-to form any definite opinions. If I handled things right, I’d know more after some verbal sparring with Cory Beckett.

The Beckett apartment was number 8, top floor front. I rode the elevator up, pushed a pearl bell button. There was a one-way peephole in the door, but Cory Beckett didn’t bother to look through it. The door opened almost immediately, wide enough so I could see she was wearing a shimmery lavender silk negligee at one o’clock in the afternoon, and she said, “Did you forget-” before she saw me standing there.

You had to give her credit: her caught-off-guard reaction lasted no more than a couple of seconds. The rounded O of her mouth reshaped into a tentative smile, her body relaxed, and she was back in full control. Or so she thought.

“Oh,” she said, “hello. How did you-?”

“Get in without using the intercom? Andrew Vorhees.”

Didn’t faze her in the slightest. “I’m sorry?”

“He was leaving the building just as I arrived.”

“What would Andrew Vorhees be doing here?”

“Just what I was wondering. Pretty unlikely he’d be visiting somebody else in this building.”

She said, not quite challengingly, “And if it was me he came to see? It’s really none of your business, is it?” Pause. Then, in a different, eager tone, “Why are you here? Do you have news about Kenny?”

She was good, all right. Stonewall, skirt the issue, then a quick shift of subject. I let her get away with it for the time being.

“News, yes,” I said.

“You’ve found him? Where is he?”

“Why don’t we talk inside, Ms. Beckett? If you don’t mind.”

“Yes, of course. Come in.”

It was like walking into an abstract art exhibit. Each wall painted a different primary color, gaudy paintings and wall hangings, multihued chairs and couches, half a dozen gold-flecked mirrors in different shapes and sizes that magnified the riotous color scheme. The place made me uncomfortable, but it also gave me an insight into Cory Beckett. The cool, low-key exterior was pure façade; inside she was like the living space she’d created, with a mind full of flash and intensity and controlled chaos. Her emotional, weak-willed brother must hate this apartment, I thought. So why did he live here with her? Why did she want him to?

After closing the door she made a vague apologetic gesture with one hand, the other holding the top of her negligee closed at her throat. “I’m sorry I’m not dressed. I haven’t been feeling well…” Quick change of subject again. “Kenny. You have found him, haven’t you?”

“One of our operatives has, yes.”

“Is he all right?”

“More or less.”

“Where is he?”

“Before I tell you, I have some questions.”

“Questions? I don’t understand.”

“About the lies you told in Abe Melikian’s office.”

“I don’t… Lies?” Injured innocence now. “I don’t have any idea what you mean.”

“I think you do. Your brother’s alleged amphetamine use, for one. He’s not into drugs at all.”

“Of course he is-when he’s stressed, as I told you. Why would you think otherwise?”

“His word. And no illegal substance of any kind where he’s living.”

“His word? You spoke to him?”

“Our operative, Jake Runyon, did. Judgment call on his part.”

“Then… Mr. Runyon’s bringing him home?”

“No. Your brother refuses to leave with him. Seems he’s not too keen on seeing you again.”

“Oh, God, I was afraid of this. That’s why I asked that Kenny not be spoken to by anyone but me.”

“His version of the theft business is nothing like yours,” I said. “He claims Margaret Vorhees’ necklace was supposed to be planted in your car, not his van.”

“What? Why would I be the intended victim?”

“Because the woman has cause to hate you, he said.”

“That’s ridiculous. I don’t know her except by reputation.”

“But you do know her husband.”

“Not very well. Hardly at all, in fact.”

“Your brother says you were with Vorhees on his yacht that day.”

“Did he? Well, I wasn’t.” She sighed in a put-upon, long-suffering way. “What else did Kenny say?”

“That you talked a man named Chaleen into stashing the necklace in his van.”

Her stare had shock in it, just the right amount to be believable. “Why on earth would I do a thing like that?”

“Important to both your futures that he take the blame, your brother claims. Keep from rocking the boat.”

“That doesn’t many any sense. How could your man Runyon believe such a wild story? Poor Kenny’s not stable… couldn’t he see that? Can’t you?”

I didn’t say anything.

“He imagines things,” she said, “makes up stories that aren’t true. What did he say about me? That I don’t really care about him, that I force him to do things against his will? That I’m a bad person? Well, that’s not so. He’s my brother and I love him, I only want what’s best for him-”

“Who is Chaleen, Ms. Beckett?”

No response other than two or three eye bats.

“Never heard the name before?”

“I may have, it’s vaguely familiar, but…” She gnawed at her lower lip for a little time, then in a hesitant, tentative way she walked over to where I stood. Close enough so I could smell the musky perfume she was wearing. Close enough for those luminous eyes of hers to probe intently into mine. “I’m sorry you think badly of me,” she said then, “but please, just tell me where Kenny is so I can bring him home.”

Nice little performance, not too obvious-she still held the negligee closed at her throat-but I was not fooled by it or affected by her scent or the nearness of her. Vamp stuff doesn’t work on me; I’ve been around too long, seen too much, and I happen to believe in the sanctity of marriage.

I said, “He’s at a place called Belardi’s on the Petaluma River, about forty miles north of here. Third of three fishing shacks along the shoreline north of the pier. Runyon’s there keeping an eye on him.”

“Thank you.” She held eye contact for a few seconds more; then, when I still showed no signs of responding to the sexual pheromones she was putting out, she produced another of her sad little smiles and slowly backed off. “Now if you’ll please leave so I can get dressed…”

I left. It had been an unsatisfactory interview, but Cory Beckett was not easily rattled-practiced liars and deceivers usually aren’t-and I’d prodded her as far as I dared.