“Depends on what she has to say to my partner. He’s up talking to her right now. If she doesn’t come clean, we’ll keep right on holding her and let the DA decide. He may want to pursue an obstruction charge at her arraignment.”
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 amp; 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.
Runyon knew it, but he had to ask. He didn’t want to bring Bobby’s name up to Bryn in front of an audience if there was a way around it. In order to get through to her, he had to know what she knew and was hiding about the murder. If she was certain Bobby was guilty, she’d never give him away.
“So what do you say, Mr. Runyon? Do it our way?”
“I doubt it’d do any good. If she was going to confide in me, she’d’ve done it at the crime scene.”
“Maybe she did,” Farley said mildly. “Maybe you’re the one she’s protecting.”
Blowing smoke, the same as Crabtree had. They weren’t all that suspicious of him-they’d have checked his record and found it clean-but they were good cops covering all the bases. He’d have handled it the same way when he carried a police badge.
He said, “You’ll find out soon enough those prints on the knife aren’t mine.”
“So then you shouldn’t mind helping us get to the bottom of this. Save Mrs. Darby a lot of trouble if you can convince her to open up. Are you willing to give it a try?”
“I’ll have to talk to her attorney before I give you an answer.”
“You want to call him now?”
“Yes. He hasn’t been informed about the prints yet, has he?”
“Hasn’t been time.”
“I’ll tell him, then.”
Runyon went out into the hall to make the call. But Dragovich wasn’t at his law office; his secretary said he’d gone to a meeting on another case and that he wasn’t scheduled back in today. Runyon tried the attorney’s cell number. Crap. Voice mail.
He went back into the Homicide Division. “Unavailable,” he said to the inspectors.
“So the talk will have to wait,” Farley said. “Just don’t let it wait too long.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t let yourself become unavailable, meanwhile.”
“I was on the job for fifteen years myself, remember? I know the drill.”
“Sure you do. But sometimes even ex-cops get careless.”
“Only if they have a reason,” Runyon said. “If you want me before Dragovich or I get in touch, I’ll be where you can find me.”
He was at loose ends, now. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, until he heard from Dragovich. He’d promised Bryn he’d try to find out how Bobby was doing, but there wasn’t any way to accomplish that short of asking the boy’s father, and Darby wouldn’t be forthcoming. Dragovich might know; she’d asked him to check as well. Again, nothing to do but wait for the lawyer’s return call.
The agency or his apartment? After five now and South Park was closer to the Hall of Justice, but Tamara would probably still be at the agency. She meant well, he was fond of her, but she’d ask a lot of questions that he was in no mood to answer. Home, then. If you could call a four-room, cheaply furnished apartment home.
The drive up over Twin Peaks and down to Ortega took nearly half an hour. Still no word from Dragovich by the time Runyon got there. The apartment had a faintly musty odor he hadn’t been aware of before: too long without an airing. He turned up the heat and then went to open the bedroom window partway, letting the chill evening breeze come swirling in.
On his way back past the bed, his gaze automatically went to the framed photograph of Colleen on the nightstand. He stopped for a few seconds to look at it. Not a day went by that he didn’t think about her. But the thoughts were no longer morbid, heavy with the crippling grief that had obsessed him for so long; only sadness remained to darken the memories of their two decades together. Bryn was in his life now and he’d keep her in it no matter what happened with this Whalen crisis, but not as a replacement for Colleen. Different kind of relationship, different emotional needs. A mortal version of life after death.