Vixen

6

JAKE RUNYON

It was almost three o’clock before Kenneth Beckett’s sister showed up at Belardi’s.

Nothing happened in the interim. Runyon had gone back inside the shack after the phone conversation with Bill to conduct a careful search for drugs and also for weapons. For all he knew Beckett was suicidal and the last thing he wanted was a dead man on his watch and conscience. He found nothing, not even a sharp knife. Beckett stayed buried under the blanket on the cot, sleeping or just hiding. He hadn’t made a sound the entire time.

Outside again, Runyon unlocked the van and poked around among the clutter of tools, paint cans, and other items. Nothing there, either, in the way of weapons or illegal substances.

He did the rest of his waiting in the car. He was used to downtime and he dealt with it as he always did, by putting himself into the equivalent of a computer’s sleep mode-a trick he’d learned to help him get through the long months of Colleen’s agonizingly slow death. Aware, ready for immediate action if necessary, but otherwise as shut down mentally as he was physically.

Boats passed up and down the river, a few of them stopping at Belardi’s dock; cars came and went along Lakeville Highway. Nobody approached the shack until the newish, yellow-and-black Camaro came jouncing along the riverfront track and slid to a stop nearby.

Two occupants, the woman driving and a male passenger. Runyon got out when they did, so that the three of them came together in front of the shack. Cory Beckett was just as Bill had described her, sleek and slender in a white turtleneck sweater and designer jeans, her midnight-black hair tossing in the wind off the marshland. The animal magnetism she possessed was palpable enough, but Runyon would not have responded to it even if he hadn’t had the conversation with Kenneth Beckett. The type of woman who attracted him was subtly sexy, like Colleen had been, or lonely, needy, and pain-wracked, like Bryn when he’d first met her. The too-cool, smolderingly seductive type left him cold.

She gave Runyon a long, slow, appraising look, like a prospective buyer sizing up a stud bull. Whether or not she liked what she saw, he couldn’t tell. And didn’t much care.

She said, “Mr. Runyon? I’m Kenneth’s sister, Cory,” then gestured in the direction of her companion. “This is a friend I brought along to drive Kenny’s van back to the city.”

No introduction, just “a friend”; she didn’t even look at the man as she spoke. He dipped his chin once, sharply, but said nothing, made no attempt to shake hands. He was in his mid-thirties, sandy-haired, well set up and pretty-boy handsome except for a muscle quirk at one of corner of his mouth that gave the impression of a perpetual sneer in the making.

Runyon said, “Your brother’s inside, Ms. Beckett.”

“Is he rational? I mean, I understand you talked to him and he told you some wild stories he made up.”

Is he rational, not is he all right. She seemed less worried about the kid’s welfare than about what he might have revealed.

“Calm enough. Withdrawn.”

“But not high… drugged?”

“No. No sign of drugs on the premises.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Kenny’s much easier to handle when he’s sober and tractable.” Tractable. Another less-than-concerned word.

Runyon was not about to argue the alleged drug-use issue with her. He shrugged and said nothing.

“I’ll get him,” she said. “You don’t need to wait any longer.”

“I’ll just make sure he goes along peaceably.”

“She told you you don’t need to wait,” the sandy-haired man said. “If Cory can’t handle him, I can.”

“I’ll wait anyway.”

Sandy-hair seemed to want to make an issue of it. The Beckett woman said, “It’s all right, Frank,” smiled at him the way you might smile at an overly aggressive pet, laid her smoky eyes on Runyon for three or four seconds, and then moved on past him to the door.

He stood watching the shack. Sandy-hair, Frank, paced back and forth on the weedy ground, his hands thrust into the pockets of a light jacket. The electrical wire strung in from the highway, empty now of birds, thrummed in the wind; that was the only sound until Kenneth Beckett let out a cry from inside and then began shouting.

“No, no, I won’t, why can’t you leave me alone!”

Runyon started toward the shack, but Frank cut over in front of him and grabbed his arm. “Stay out of it,” he said. “She can handle him.”

“Let go of my arm.”

“Yeah? Suppose I don’t?”

Runyon jerked loose, started around the man. Combatively Frank moved to block him. They did a little two-step shuffling dance that ended with Frank trying to shove him backward, saying, “Don’t mess with me, man, I’ll knock you on your ass-”

He half choked on the last word because by then Runyon, in two fast moves, had his arm locked down against his side with forearm and wrist grips. That brought them up tight against each other, their faces a couple of inches apart. Frank worked to struggle free, making growling noises in his throat, but Runyon held him immobile for half a dozen beats before he let go. When he stepped back, it was just far enough to set himself in case Frank had any more aggressive notions.

He didn’t. Just glared and rubbed his arm without quite making eye contact again. Runyon had dealt with his type any number of times while on the Seattle PD and since. A testosterone-heavy hothead, semi-tough until he came up against somebody tougher, more assertive. When that happened, his temper cooled fast and more often than not he’d back down.

Runyon put a little more distance between them before he turned toward the shack. The yelling had stopped; it was quiet in there now. But he went to the door anyway, shoved it open.

The two of them, brother and sister, were standing next to the table, close enough for her to have been putting low-voiced words into his ear. Both looked at Runyon in the open doorway. Kenneth Beckett’s face was moist with sweat, but she’d managed to calm him down except for little twitches in his hands, as if they were being manipulated by invisible strings. He looked docile enough in a resigned, trapped way.

“It’s all right, Mr. Runyon,” the Beckett woman said. “He’ll come with me now. Won’t you, Kenny?”

He shook his head, twice, but the word that came out of his mouth was, “Yes.”

“But you’d better change your clothes first. So you don’t get mud all over my car.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“How did he get so muddy?” she asked Runyon.

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“No. He wouldn’t say.”

“He slipped and fell on the riverbank.”

“The riverbank? What happened?”

“Minor panic attack when I got here. He ran out, I ran after him.”

Slight frown. “You didn’t hit him or anything?”

“I don’t operate that way, Ms. Beckett.”

“He never touched me,” the kid said. “It was my fault. My fault. It’s always my fault.”

She slipped her arm around his shoulders. “That’s enough, now. Go ahead and change your clothes, and I’ll pack the rest of your things.” Then, to Runyon, “We’ll be ready in a few minutes. It’s quite all right for you to leave now.”

No, it wasn’t. He backed out and shut the door to give them privacy. Frank was moving around behind him, walking off his anger and humiliation in tight pacing turns. Runyon went to the Ford, backed it up far enough to allow the van clearance, then switched off the engine and got out to stand next to the driver’s door. He didn’t move, watching the sandy-haired hothead continue to pace, until the Becketts came out five minutes later.

Kenneth Beckett balked when he saw Frank. “Why’d you have to bring him?” he said to his sister.

“I explained that to you inside, Kenny. Somebody has to drive your van back to the city.”

“Not him, not Chaleen.”

She seemed not to like the fact that he’d used Frank’s last name. But all she said was, “Would you rather ride with him than me?”

“No!”

“Then please don’t make any more fuss.”

Runyon moved over to where the two of them stood. Cory Beckett said, “Really, Mr. Runyon. Why are you still here?”

“Because my job’s not finished until you’re on your way. And because I have the keys to the van.”

He handed them to her. Frank Chaleen came stomping over, the incipient sneer fully formed now, and took the key ring out of her hand. He said to Runyon, “I hope we cross paths again sometime, buddy. Things’ll be different then.”

“I doubt that.”

Chaleen stalked away to the van. Kenneth Beckett said to the middle buttons of Runyon’s shirt, “I didn’t mean what I said before. About Cory, about the necklace… I made it all up. I was kind of disoriented, I didn’t know what I was saying.”

Runyon said nothing. The kid’s words had a dull, recited cadence, like lines delivered by an amateur actor. Coached, he was thinking, as Cory Beckett led her brother to the Camaro. Part of what she’d been whispering into her brother’s ear inside the shack. That, along with Frank Chaleen’s presence and attitude, made him even more convinced that what Beckett had told him earlier was the truth.