Nemesis (8 page)

Halfway through the quarter-mile walk to the grotto stairs, a huffing middle-aged runner passed him heading west. No one approached from behind.

And no one made contact with Ms. Daniels.

Quarter to six when Runyon reached the grotto. She was standing there looking upward along the deserted stairs, kept her back turned to him as he went by. He walked on up and beyond the incline by seventy-five yards or so, to where he could see a distance along the trail in both directions. Stopped at that point and stood listening, waiting.

Five minutes limped away.

And five more.

Another jogger appeared from the west, a woman this time, hydrating from a water bottle as she ran. No voices came over the Q-Phone.

Six o'clock.

He moved then, back to the grotto. Hurrying now. Verity Daniels was still alone, sitting forlornly on the bottom step. Her head lifted, eyes widening, when he approached her; she made a helpless gesture. That was all, no other display of emotion. The cold wind had put blotchy streaks of red in her cheeks.

“He's not coming,” Runyon said. “Go on back to your car. I'll follow.”

“But why?
Why
didn't he come this time?”

“Quick, and don't look back. I'll call you later.”

She went. He gave her thirty yards and then followed, keeping her in sight all the way up to the parking lot and into her car. As far as he could tell, none of the handful of people still in the area paid any attention to either of them.

In his Ford he locked the Magnum away in the glove compartment, then sat for a minute or two with his hands tight around the steering wheel. Two straight no-shows. That had to mean the extortion demand was either a byproduct or a smoke screen. Blackmailers by nature weren't timid, didn't bother with extended dry runs; they were in it for fast money, eager to get their hands on it, and ten thousand dollars was a lot of green. Persecution must be the perp's real intent. Slow, insidious, the threats of bodily harm possibly genuine. If he hated Verity Daniels enough, it wouldn't be much of a step from psychological torture to the physical kind.

And yet it still didn't feel right. His head said it did, his gut instinct said otherwise.

But if it wasn't extortion, it had to be terrorism, didn't it? What the hell else was there?

 

7

He spoke to Verity Daniels that evening, briefly. The second no-show had her upset, but not as upset as she should have been; there was that funny undercurrent in her voice again. He had no answers for her new round of questions and concerns, even less inclination than before to indulge her clingy need for reassurance, so he kept the conversation short. Truth was, her attitude and her penchant for fabrication had begun to erode the compassion he normally felt for crime victims. A client was a client, a job was a job, but even a man as committed as he was had his limits.

The uncertainty of what he was up against made the job that much harder, that much more frustrating. You couldn't identify the owner of a telephone voice you'd never heard, couldn't put the arm on somebody who refused to come out into the open. All you could do was wait for whatever happened next.

He drove to South Park on Saturday morning, as he sometimes did when he wasn't otherwise occupied, and Tamara was there as usual, talking to Bill on the phone. She gestured to Runyon to get on the line in Bill's office for a conference call. He did that, asked after Kerry. “Getting better,” Bill said. “We're taking it one day at a time.” He seemed in good spirits, upbeat, but Runyon couldn't help wondering if he were putting on a front so they wouldn't worry. Be just like the man to do that—think of the feelings of others in the midst of his own crisis.

It was Tamara who brought up the Daniels case. Evidently she'd been discussing it with Bill. Runyon had given her full reports on his East Bay interviews, the Lands End bust, his growing reservations, and she'd shared the information with Bill to get his input.

“If you're ready to dump it now, Jake, that's okay with us.”

“You mean turn it over to Alex or Deron?”

“No, I mean dump it, period. Let her go to some other outfit. We've got a near-f caseload—we don't need any more of her money. Or any more of her lies. I caught her in another one yesterday.”

“Oh?”

“Did some more checking on her,” Tamara said. “All that stuff she fed us about fund-raising for charities? Pure crap. Lighthouse for the Blind never heard of her. Nor has the Foundation for AIDS Research, or the Breast Cancer Fund, or any other charity organization I checked with. All fabricated so she'll look like a better person than she is.”

“Insecure,” Bill said. “And immature. People who tell the kinds of lies she does usually are.”

“Screwed up, in any case.”

Runyon asked, “Any indication of what she does do with her time?”

“Not that I could find out,” Tamara said. “Doesn't travel—no record of airline ticket purchases or a passport application. Doesn't run up large credit card bills. Doesn't belong to Facebook or Twitter or Linked-In. Doesn't seem to do much of anything except sit on what's left of that money she inherited like a goose on a bunch of golden eggs.”

Bill said, “Maybe she hasn't figured out what to do with it yet.”

“
I'd
know what to do with it, that's for damn sure. Most people would.”

“Most people have interests, hobbies, goals. Jake's reports indicate she's one of the few who doesn't. No social life, doesn't do much except live vicariously through the idiot box.”

“Then why move to the city, buy into a place like Bayfront Towers?”

Runyon said, “Told me she'd always dreamed of living in San Francisco. Her only dream, maybe.”

“She had at least a couple of men in her life before,” Tamara said. “You'd think there'd be plenty now, with all the green she's got.”

“New in the city, hasn't met anybody yet who appeals to her.” Except me, Runyon thought but didn't say.

“But she doesn't seem to be out looking. How come?”

“Her marriage was a bitter failure,” Bill said. “Her fiancé was about to call things off when he died. Maybe the combination turned her off relationships.”

“Not enough so that she wasn't screwing her boss.”

“Jake's impression, not a proven fact. She could still be off men except for the occasional fling.”

“Well, she's a liar for sure. And a pain in the ass. Looks to me like she's been both all her life.”

“She's still in trouble,” Runyon said.

“You positive about that? I mean, she's told so many other lies, maybe she's lying about the extortion, too.”

“Why would she do that? What would she have to gain?”

“Who knows what goes on inside the head of somebody like her?” Tamara said. “But okay, give her the benefit of the doubt. She's in trouble, but it doesn't have to be our trouble anymore. Let her deal with it herself.”

“Not a good idea. She talks a good fight, keeps saying over and over in a giggly little voice that she's on her guard. But that doesn't make her any less vulnerable.”

“Hire somebody else, then.”

“And start over from scratch.”

Bill said, “It's your case, Jake. You want to stay on it?”

The smart answer was probably no, but Runyon's stubborn sense of commitment kept him from saying it. If he tried to put his feelings into words, Tamara might not understand but Bill would. They were alike in that respect. Seen too much human suffering to quit a case cold while the client was still in harm's way.

“Yes,” he said. “At least until the perp makes his next move.”

*   *   *

Saturday passed without any more communication from Verity Daniels. On Sunday Runyon drove Bryn and Bobby down to the Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, a trip that had been planned for a while but that he almost canceled. Personal and professional conflict: he ought to keep himself available in case the client needed him, yet he also had a right to some time off. He settled the matter by calling Ms. Daniels, telling her he would be out of town for the day and suggesting she turn off both her phones until late evening. If the perp called and left her a message, she could get in touch with him any time after eight that evening. She agreed, but he could tell from her voice that she was reluctant, even a little annoyed.

The first half of the day was pretty good. Bobby was excited—he'd never been to Santa Cruz before—and he chattered all the way down. The boy had opened up considerably since moving back in with Bryn; before that, because of the wrenching divorce and the abuse he'd suffered at the hands of his father's live-in girlfriend, he'd been introverted, closed off. Good to see him happy, acting and interacting the way Runyon figured near ten-year-olds ought to. Bobby's enthusiasm was infectious. Bryn was more animated than usual, spent almost as much time communicating with Runyon as with her son.

The Boardwalk and beach were crowded and noisy. Warm day, plenty of sun, adults and kids trying to squeeze a little more merriment out of the fading summer. The three of them stayed off the beach—too jammed, for one thing, and Bryn was uncomfortable enough as it was wandering along the boardwalk. She wore a big, wide-brimmed straw hat pulled down low on the left side, so that it shaded the scarf-covered side of her face. But inevitably a few people stared at her anyway, openly wondering; a couple of callous teenagers smirked and pointed as they passed. Enough to dampen her spirits, focus most of her attention on Bobby.

The kid had a good time. Hot dogs, sodas, ice cream. Designing a T-shirt for himself in a shop that specialized in that kind of thing. Rides through the Haunted Castle below the boardwalk, on a 1911 hand-carved Looff carousel, twice on the Giant Dipper roller coaster, the second time with Runyon for company—Bryn refused to go. She wouldn't let Bobby go on something called the Double Shot, a 125-foot-high tower that shot riders up to the top and then back down again at the same speed so they could experience the weightlessness of negative-G forces. Too dangerous, she said. Scared her just watching the way it operated.

Runyon enjoyed the time with Bobby in an avuncular kind of way, but it left him with a lingering wistfulness, a rekindled sense of loss. If it hadn't been for Andrea, her alcoholism, her poisonous vindictiveness, he might have had outings like this with his own son while Joshua was growing up. Carnivals, ball games, barbecues, all the father-son closeness that she'd denied him … no, denied them both. Instead he and Joshua stood on opposite sides of the unbridgeable gap she'd created, strangers, the son hating the father because that was what he'd been taught to do. Andrea had died thinking she'd won, but there were no winners here. Only losers.

Bobby, tired out, napped in the backseat on the drive home. Bryn sat quietly against the passenger door, saying little. The fits of deep depression were a thing of the past, or so she claimed, but she could still be moody on occasion. Easy enough to figure why tonight: the boardwalk crowds, the few rudely staring and smirking faces, an awareness of handicap-induced alienation from normal activities such as swimming and sunbathing. At down times like this, when she was still living alone, she would have turned to Runyon for support, or responded to his offer of it, and they'd have talked her through it. Now, even though he tried, she said only, “I don't want to discuss it, Jake,” and lapsed back into a melancholy silence.

She didn't invite him in when they got back to her brown-shingled house in the Outer Sunset. “I'm tired, Bobby's tired,” she said. “A good day, but a long one. You don't mind?”

“No,” he said, “I don't mind.”

Bobby's hug was longer, more affectionate than Bryn's, his parting smile brighter. Quick brush of her lips over his, and she and the boy went inside arm in arm. Bobby looked back and waved before the door closed. Bryn didn't.

Winding down, all right. Like the summer. He felt it even more strongly as he drove home. From now on they'd be friends, because of the closeness they'd shared and because Bobby was his friend, but that was all they'd be. It made him a little sad, but not too much. Never any real doubt that the affair's end would come sooner or later, even though there'd been a time when he tried to convince himself otherwise—he saw that clearly now. In the long run Bryn, the handicapped Bryn, was better off alone. And so was he.

*   *   *

There were no messages on his answering machine. And he'd had no calls on his cell all day. He sat up until eleven-thirty, half watching a movie and then the news. Neither phone rang during that time, either.

*   *   *

Monday was another Verity Daniels–free day. Until 8:15 that night, when the damn case went crazy on him.

He spent the day wrapping up an insurance fraud investigation, then consulting with an attorney representing the wife of a deadbeat dad who'd skipped town owing five figures in child support. Dinner at another Chinese restaurant, not so much because he liked Mandarin and Hunan food as because it had been Colleen's favorite and eating it always brought back some of the pleasant memories of their twenty years together. Home to finish out the rest of his evening routine: blanking out in front of the TV until it was time for bed. Or so he thought until his cell vibrated.

As soon as he opened the line, before he had a chance to say anything, she made a half-grunting, half-crying sound, loud in his ear, and followed it with a rush of strung-together words. “God Jake oh God he was here he had a knife I thought he was going to kill me!”

“Slow down, you're not making sense.”

Drawn breath like a steam hiss. Then, more coherently, “It was
him
 … the blackmailer. Here. Right
here
.”

“In your studio?”

“Not at first, no, in the hallway. He … the things he said … and that knife against my throat…”