Camouflage(24)

Runyon had already decided not to repeat what Dinowski had told him to Bryn. Without the self-centered banker’s cooperation, it would only increase her fear and anxiety.

Dinowski, out. Francine’s two sisters, out. Maybe Charlene Kepler had a horror story of her own to tell and was willing to pass it on to Robert Darby. But even if she did, there was no guarantee it would do any good. Without a second or third person’s account to back it up, Darby might claim she had an ax to grind and dismiss it as fabrication. A man in love or lust, a man who had yet to be subjected to Francine’s violent outbursts, was a man in denial.

Runyon had lost his appetite, not that he’d had much to begin with. He left half the meal unfinished, went back out into the foggy night.

* * *

Charlene Kepler was home and willing enough to talk to him. Runyon interviewed her in an untidy living room while her current roommate banged pots, pans, and dishes in the kitchen. Kepler was a plump thirtyish redhead, the chattery, scatterbrained type who had an annoying habit of starting every other sentence with “well” and sprinkling others with “you know.”

“Well, I don’t know what I can tell you about Francine,” she said. “We were roomies for only about five months and that was, what, six or seven years ago. I haven’t seen her since she moved out to get married.”

“So you weren’t close friends?”

“Well, no, we weren’t. We shared expenses and that’s about it.”

“How did you happen to get together?”

“Well, we were both working at the same place, Mitchell and Associates—that’s a law firm in Cow Hollow. I was in the secretarial pool and she was one of the, you know, the paralegals. Well, she’d been living with this guy and they broke up because he got another job back east someplace and she needed a place to live. And I needed a roommate because the girl I was living with moved out to get married. My roomies are always moving out to get married, I don’t know what it is—I wish I had that luck with my relationships. Well, anyway, that’s how we got together.”

“The guy Francine was living with—do you remember his name?”

“Well, no, not exactly. David, Darren, something like that.”

“Last name?”

“I don’t think she ever mentioned it.”

“Did she say what kind of work he did, where his new job was?”

“Well … no, I don’t think so. She didn’t talk about him much. I mean, well, you know how it is when you break up with somebody; you don’t want to even think about the person.”

“How did you and Francine get along?”

“Oh, well, okay, I guess. We didn’t spend very much time together. She had her life and I had mine.”

“Ever have any problems with her?”

“Problems? You mean did we argue or fight about stuff?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there were a few times. She liked everything neat and tidy and I’m not a neat and tidy person. I mean I try not to be a slob, but I just don’t care about picking up after myself, you know? Life’s too short to worry about the little things.”

“Did she ever become violent?”

Kepler blinked at him as if he’d asked her a question in a foreign language she didn’t understand.

Runyon said, “I’ve been told that Francine has a violent temper, a tendency to lose control when she’s angry. Did she ever attack you, try to hurt you?”

“Well…” The plump face colored slightly. Kepler’s voice was rueful when she said, “Well, there was one time, right before she moved out. She got all dressed up to go out on a date with the guy she married, Kevin I think his name was, and the outfit she had on … well, the colors, you know, they just didn’t go with her blond hair. I shouldn’t’ve said anything, but I did and she got real mad, I mean real mad, and started yelling four-letter words at me. I tried to tell her I was sorry, but she wouldn’t listen, just started after me like, you know, like she wanted to break my neck or something. I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. She pounded on it a few times and I guess after that she calmed down and went out. Well, I was so shook up I stayed in the bathroom for a good half hour, until I was sure she was gone.”

“What happened when you saw her again?”

“Well, she acted like nothing had happened. I told her she’d scared me pretty bad and she said, ‘Well, don’t ever criticize my clothes again,’ and I said I wouldn’t and that was the end of it.”

“And that was the only incident?” Runyon asked.