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Camouflage(40)

By:Bill Pronzini


“You know Alex—he’s always careful.”

“Okay, then. Give him a call.”

“Already did. He’s on his way.”

One jump ahead of me, as usual. “There’s another tack we can take,” I said. “Find out the names of some of McManus’s other roomers, track down their present whereabouts. Maybe one of them has some information we can use. What’s the real estate outfit that handles her lease?”

“Barber and Associates. Offices on Sansome downtown.”

“You have the agent’s name?”

“No, but I can get it.”

“Do that. I’ll make a second canvass of McManus’s neighbors, too—have another talk with Selma Hightower.”

Tamara favored me with a satisfied grin. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” she said.

* * *

Alex Chavez had come and gone, fully briefed, and I was on my way out when the third piece of news arrived. This one came in a text message from Felice Johnson, Tamara’s friend and contact at SFPD. Tamara had asked her for a personal BOLO for David Virden’s Porsche Cayman, and the car had just turned up—or what was left of it had—in an alley out near the Cow Palace. A couple of message exchanges later, we had the details.

Found abandoned, stripped down to the frame. The officers who’d spotted it were regulars on that beat; their report said it hadn’t been there when they made their first pass through the area shortly past midnight. Driver’s window smashed, the ignition hot-wired. No signs of blood, interior or exterior. Nothing to indicate what might have happened to Virden.

I said, “The ignition hot-wire pretty much rules out a carjacking.”

“Tells me it was abandoned twice,” Tamara said. “First time on some dark street near the projects. Wouldn’t’ve lasted more than an hour after midnight. Sweet set of wheels like that’s a prime target for car boosters. Then hot-wired and driven over to that alley and stripped.”

“McManus and Carson again.”

“Who else? One of ’em drove it out of Dogpatch sometime Tuesday; the other one followed in the SUV to bring her back.”

“That’s one explanation,” I said. “Another is that the first boost was by somebody in Dogpatch or elsewhere.”

“Car thieves don’t hang on to a ride three days before they strip it.”

“Nonprofessionals might. Joyriders, gangbangers.”

“Then what happened to Virden?”

“Hit over the head, robbed, the body dumped where it hasn’t been found yet.”

“By joyriders or gangbangers? I don’t buy it. McManus and Carson whacked him, all right.”

“How do you suppose they managed it? Big healthy guy, mad as hell, and two smallish women.”

“And one killer dog. Sicced that Rottweiler, what’s his name, Thor, on him, ripped his throat out.”

“Uh-huh. Which would mean blood all over the place. One hell of a job cleaning it up.”

“Not if it happened outside.”

“Where his screams could be heard a block away.”

Tamara made a face at me.

I said, “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Time to call Judith LoPresti, let her know about the Porsche being found. Police probably wouldn’t have notified her yet and it’s better if she hears it from us.”

“You going to say anything about McManus and Carson?”

“That we might be dealing with a couple of identity thieves who also happen to be Madam Bluebeards? Not hardly. She’ll be upset enough as it is.”





16



JAKE RUNYON

When he left the agency he drove down to the Hall of Justice to have a talk with Bryn. Only he didn’t get to do that because they wouldn’t let him see her. She’d been put into Administrative Segregation for her own protection the night before, which meant no visitors except for her attorney. Why the hell would they AdSeg her? Nobody would tell Runyon the reason.

Maybe Dragovich could. Runyon wanted to talk to him anyway, in person, to get his take on her legal situation. He called Dragovich’s law office to make sure he was in before driving downtown.

The doubts about Bryn’s story still plagued him. He’d been over it and over it and still he couldn’t quite put his finger on what rang false. Part of it had to do with the sudden shift in her emotional makeup: frantic, nearly hysterical, when she’d called him, calm when he’d arrived at Darby’s flat. The twenty-five minutes it’d taken him to get to the Marina was time enough for her to regain control, yet her calm hadn’t had the residue of shock and terror in it. What he’d seen, sensed, was a mixture of resignation and determination, as if in the interim she’d made some sort of accommodation or decision. Possible he’d read her reactions wrong, but his cop’s instincts said he hadn’t.