Camouflage(51)

Runyon was silent.

“She’s protecting somebody,” Crabtree said. “That’s pretty obvious. You were there—you’re the logical first choice.”

“And the wrong one. I had no reason to harm Francine Whalen.”

“Who do you suppose it is, then?”

“I don’t know.”

But he did know. There was only one person Bryn would lie to protect, the most important person in her life.

Her son, Bobby.

* * *

Bobby. Nine years old, quiet, shy. Not a big kid, but wiry, strong. Capable of plunging a knife into the woman who’d been abusing him?

His Saturday wish that he had a gun like Runyon’s to “keep for the next time” she hurt him … wishful thinking, a mistreated kid’s fantasy, but maybe symptomatic of a genuine dark urge. Like the look on his face when he’d said, “I hate her, I hate her, I hate her!” just before jumping out of the car and running into the house. A boy his age might think about firing a handgun at an adult, but even if he had the opportunity he wasn’t likely to go through with it unless he’d been taught how to use one, something Bryn would never have permitted. It took nerve, a steady hand, and a certain callousness to deliberately blow somebody away.

But it didn’t take any of those things to make a killing thrust with a sharp kitchen knife. Self-defense weapon, the kind even a nine-year-old might snatch up if it was close at hand and he’d just been hurt again, was bleeding from a blow to the face and jammed up with fury, hate, humiliation. One quick blind jab, then the reactive shock when he realized what he’d done, and the guilt-ridden retreat within himself.

Was that the way it happened?

Bryn must think so. There was no other reason why she’d have taken the blame. It explained her sudden emotional shift: the immediate reaching out to the only man in her life she trusted, while still in a state of shock, then her protective maternal instincts taking over, calming her down so that she could fabricate her story; that was why the story had struck him as rehearsed. It also explained why she’d gone against his advice and volunteered information at the crime scene: trying to keep the focus on her. The other thing that had been bothering him was clear now, too—the words she’d been saying to Bobby in the boy’s bedroom. It’s going to be all right, baby. It’s going to be all right. You didn’t do anything wrong, it was all just a bad dream. Don’t think about it, forget it ever happened. It’s going to be all right. She hadn’t only been reassuring her son; she’d also been absolving him and urging him to keep quiet.

But did she know for a fact that Bobby had done it? Had she found him in the kitchen with the body and his hands stained with Francine’s blood, listened to him tell her he was responsible? Or was the boy already in shock and uncommunicative when she got there and she’d just assumed he’d done it because nobody else was in the flat? Could’ve happened that way, too. Bobby could be innocent. And if he was, then who was guilty?

Runyon didn’t blame Bryn for trying to shield her son. Or for lying about it; she’d known he wouldn’t go along with the cover-up. It was a relief to know that she hadn’t had a direct hand in Whalen’s death, but Christ, all she’d succeeded in doing was complicating an already-difficult situation, making things difficult for herself. A charge of obstruction wasn’t nearly as serious as a homicide charge, but if she was prosecuted and convicted, she’d still face prison time.

All of this went through Runyon’s mind while Crabtree put him through another ten minutes of Q & A, checking points in his statement, maybe looking in vain to trip him up. But he didn’t confide any of it to the inspector. Let him and his partner figure it out on their own, if they didn’t already suspect it.

Farley’s appearance put an end to the questioning. The two inspectors left Runyon sitting there and went into a huddle nearby. When they came back, Farley—shorter, thinner, and lighter skinned than Crabtree, with drooping eyelids that gave him a deceptively sleepy look—confirmed what Runyon had expected: Bryn had denied she was covering for anybody, kept sticking to her story. Claimed no knowledge of whose prints were on the knife.

Crabtree said, “Maybe you can convince her to cooperate, Mr. Runyon. Want to give it a try?”

“Can I talk to her alone?”

“Along with her attorney, sure.”

“I don’t mean in an interrogation room with you listening behind glass. I mean just her and me, in private.”

“You know we can’t allow that while she’s in AdSeg,” Crabtree said.