The whole thing took little more than an hour. End result: Bobby was allowed to remain in his father’s charge and Bryn was handcuffed and turned over to the pair of uniforms for transport to the women’s jail facility at the Hall of Justice. Runyon managed a few words with her before she was led away, to let her know what he was going to do. A short time afterward, the inspectors allowed him to leave on his promise to appear at the Hall of Justice the next day to sign a formal statement.
There was nothing more he could do now. Bail would probably be set high at her arraignment—it usually was in a homicide case, no matter what arguments the defense attorney put forth—but whatever the amount, Runyon wouldn’t let it be a problem. Abe Melikian owed him a favor—he’d saved the bondsman a bundle on the Madison case a short while back—and he’d call it in when the time came.
Runyon was too jittery, too jammed up inside, to face his empty apartment. He fed his Ford a tankful of gas, took himself out of the city to the south and on up to Skyline. He drove all the way down the spine of the Coast Range to the intersection with Highway 84, took 84 over to the coast and its juncture with Highway 1 at San Gregorio. Dark, winding, forest-flanked roads, fog draped, neither of them with much traffic. The kind of long, semirelaxing night ride he’d been prone to before Bryn came into his life.
But the drive didn’t ease him down any on this night. Didn’t banish the doubts that kept crawling like bugs through his mind.
Had Bryn told the whole truth about Francine’s death?
He was pretty sure she’d never lied to him before; he didn’t want to believe she was lying now. Yet something didn’t quite ring true about her story. It seemed plausible enough on the surface, but when he replayed it in his mind it struck a faintly rehearsed chord, like half a hundred similar tales he’d listened to that had been proven partly or completely false during his years on the Seattle force.
What she’d said about Francine on Saturday echoed darkly in his memory.
I don’t blame Bobby for wishing her dead. I’d like to kill her myself.…
Damn her! She’ll keep right on hurting him, and the next time … the next time … I won’t let it happen. I won’t.
Accident as she claimed, end result of a struggle after Francine picked up the knife? Or had Bryn been the one to pick it up, use it deliberately—maybe even gone to the flat with that idea in mind?
Self-defense—or murder?
15
Friday was what the media refers to as an eventful news day. And like much of what the media reports, the news that came my way was neither pleasant nor particularly enlightening.
The first piece came from Jake Runyon. He and Tamara were having a stand-up conference in her office when I walked into the agency. The grim set of their faces foretold the fact that I was not going to like the subject of their discussion. Right. I didn’t like it one damn bit.
“Police are holding Bryn on a homicide charge,” Runyon told me.
“Jesus. What happened?”
“Party to the death of the woman who’s been abusing her son.”
“Woman? You said the boy’s father was the abuser.”
“Turned out I was wrong. His fiancée, Francine Whalen.”
Runyon couldn’t seem to keep still; he took a restless turn to the door and back, stood then with his feet moving in place like a man on one of those treadmill machines as he explained the situation.
I said when he was done, “Mother reacting to an assault on her son by a woman with a documentable history of violent abuse. Justifiable. Dragovich is a good man—he’ll get her off.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself. But there’s only her word Whalen was the one who picked up the knife. And Whalen’s history is only documentable if one of her other victims steps forward. Darby’s still in denial—he keeps insisting Whalen never laid a hand on Bobby.”
“So it all hinges on the boy.”
“And getting him to talk won’t be easy. His father’s liable to do or say something to drive him deeper into his shell.”
Bleak, all right. But still a long way from hopeless. “You need some time off to deal with this, Jake?”
“I don’t know yet. I might.”
“Take as much as you need. And if there’s anything else we can do…”
Runyon nodded, his feet still moving, and scraped a hand over his slablike face. He’d shaved this morning, but it had been a hasty and probably distracted job; there were little patches of stubble on his chin and one cheek. His eyes were blood flecked, the bags under them as gray as duffles. He hadn’t slept much last night, if he’d slept at all.