* * *
I was out of The Dog Hole and in my car, but not driving yet, when my cell phone went off. Small favors. Or so I thought until I answered the call.
“R. L. McManus. Why are you harassing me?” This in a clipped voice as cold as ice.
“I’d hardly call two brief visits to your home harassment, Ms. McManus.”
“I told you on Monday I wanted nothing more to do with you or my ex-husband. And I told him the same thing when he showed up here the next day.”
“Did you, now.”
“In no uncertain terms. And I suppose he sent you back to bother me with more of his annulment nonsense?”
“No. As a matter of fact, I haven’t spoken to him since Monday.”
“Then why were you at my home again today?”
“Because he’s gone missing.”
One, two, three seconds before she said, “Missing?”
“No one’s seen him since Tuesday afternoon.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about that. He was here for no more than five minutes and I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”
“Must’ve been kind of an awkward meeting.”
“It was. Awkward and unnecessary.”
“How did he look to you?”
“… What kind of question is that?”
“Eight years since your divorce. Had he changed much?”
“Not very much, no.”
“Recognized him immediately, then.”
“I’m not likely to forget a man I was married to, am I?”
“And he recognized you right away.”
“Of course he did. I haven’t changed that much, either.” Suspicion in her voice now. “What are you getting at?”
“All you talked about is the annulment, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right, and that’s the last question I’m going to answer. If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll sue you for harassment. You can tell David that goes for him, too, when you find him. Is that understood?”
What’s understood, lady, I thought, is that you’re a damn liar. But I didn’t say it. I didn’t say anything, just pressed the Off button on the cell.
I was pretty near convinced that Tamara was right about McManus. People who overreact by threatening lawsuits usually have plenty to hide. Question was, just how dirty was she?
13
JAKE RUNYON
Another busy road day. Over to Oakland, first thing, for a deposition in an insurance fraud investigation. Then down to union City for another interview with the second witness in the hit-and-run accident case: the attorney for the injured party had some questions he wanted answered to verify the man’s reliability. Then back across the bay on the Dumbarton Bridge and up to Palo Alto to talk to a woman who had new information on the subject of a backburnered skip-trace.
Ordinarily Runyon didn’t mind that kind of workday. Preferred it, in fact. When he’d first joined the agency, he’d asked for assignments that kept him on the move and put in as much weekend work as he could without requesting overtime pay. And most of his spare time had been spent behind the wheel; long drives that he’d pretended were to familiarize himself with the highways and back roads of the greater Bay Area but in reality were excuses to keep him moving, keep his mind occupied and focused on externals. That was how he got through his waking hours. Once he’d accepted the fact that his and Joshua’s estrangement was permanent, work became his only reason for existing. When he wasn’t on a job, he shunned company. Had no use for casual friends, didn’t want another woman even for a single night because he’d lost, or believed then that he’d lost, his sex drive.
But he hadn’t thought of himself as a lonely man. Empty, consumed by loss—a loner by choice and circumstance. It wasn’t until he met Bryn that he realized the truth about himself. And was finally able to let go of his grief, drag himself out of his self-imposed limbo.
Bryn and her son and Francine Whalen were the reason the long road day dragged by. Frustration nagged at him. He kept trying to devise some way to expose Whalen for what she was, but without support from the people she’d wounded he was hamstrung. An outsider, already walking a tightrope line. Confronting her directly, trying to intimidate her, was sure to backfire. You could intimidate a rational person whose emotions were under control, but not a calculating, unstable, and possibly sadistic one. It might even trigger her violent impulses, with Bobby as the handiest target.
Francine, out.
Another face-up with Robert Darby wouldn’t get him anywhere, either. Just be another exercise in futility. The man was too deep in love and denial to listen to reason until the truth was shoved in his face. And then it might be too late.