“Pretty much the same. Cases like this, it takes a media howl for there to be much of an official effort.”
“And the only way that happens is if there’re more beatings and maybe one of the victims dies.”
He nodded. “It won’t get to that point if I can help it.”
“An investigation of your own?”
“Joshua asked me to see what I can do. I’d go ahead even if he hadn’t.”
“So would I, in your shoes.”
“Already started,” Runyon said. “On my own time. I talked to the second victim last night.”
“Anything?”
“Maybe. Too early to tell for sure.”
“Well, the job doesn’t have to be strictly on your own time,” I said. “Agency facilities are yours if you need them. That includes Tamara and me. If there’s anything we can do, just ask.”
“No payoff in it.”
“So? You think this agency’s never done any pro bono work before? Or taken on any personal cases? If it was my kid who was hurting, or somebody in Tamara’s family, wouldn’t you offer to help out if you could?”
“In a minute.”
“Okay. That’s all the payoff we need.”
“Sorry if I sounded cynical.”
“Hell,” I said, “it’s not easy to be anything else these days.”
I didn’t have much opportunity to talk to Tamara during the day. Lunch with Pat Dixon, an assistant D.A. who’d become a friend after a revenge bomber case that involved the kidnapping of his son. Both of us busy in the office with our respective caseloads, client calls, and a drop-in visit from another client who wanted to talk over a report. It wasn’t until three-thirty that we found time to say more than a few words to each other.
“How’d the deadbeat dad thing go last night?” I asked. “DeBrissac living in the cousin’s San Leandro house?”
“If he is,” Tamara said, “he was out later than I was. Three hours’ surveillance was all the down time I could take.”
“Told you stakeouts were a pain in the butt. How about the house? Did it look lived in?”
“Hard to tell. All the windows blinded so I couldn’t get a look inside. Nothing in the front or back yards but weeds.”
“Talk to any of the neighbors?”
“Not yet. Didn’t want to risk it yet.”
“Probably wise. So you’re going back tonight?”
“Yeah.” She hesitated, a frown working up little rows in the smooth skin of her face. “Funny thing,” she said then.
“What is?”
“Something that went down last night.”
“What kind of something?”
“What I saw, or thought I saw,” she said. “Keeps messing around in my head. I did some checking, but… I don’t know, it’s probably nothing. Just my bad imagination, you know what I’m saying?”
“No,” I said. “What is it you saw?”
“Well, while I was-”
The phone rang just then and cut her off. The call was for me, and by the time I finished with it Tamara was involved in a call of her own. I meant to pick up the conversation again, find out what she’d seen that was bothering her, but the press of other business kept getting in the way. Well, if it was anything important she’d come to me about it eventually.
Just before I left the office I called Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Redwood City. The last frayed thread of Russ Dancer’s wasted life had snapped at 1:57 that afternoon.
8
JAKE RUNYON
The first victim of the gay bashings had been a printer and graphic artist named Larry Exeter. Time: a few minutes past midnight on April 4. Place: an alley off Eighteenth Street, not far from where he lived. He’d gone out for a walk around the neighborhood “to get some air.” Two men had accosted him on the street, dragged him into the alley, beat him senseless with fists and an “unidentified blunt instrument.” A resident in one of the flanking buildings had heard the commotion, looked out his window, yelled when he saw what was going on, and the perps ran. Neither Exeter nor the citizen had been able to supply detailed descriptions of the men or their vehicle. Exeter’s injuries were serious enough to require hospital treatment, but the beating had been interrupted before any major damage was done: three cracked ribs but no broken bones or internal damage.
Runyon got all of this from the police report, through one of the agency’s contacts at the SFPD. Joshua hadn’t been able to remember Exeter’s name, and Gene Zalesky had professed not to know him, either. Exeter’s Seventeenth Street address was given in the report, but no phone number; and there was no listing for him in the white pages. A check revealed that he shared an apartment with a David Mulford, who did have a listed number.
Runyon had a window of free time around three o’clock. He tried Mulford’s number then, and the man who answered owned up, reluctantly, to being Larry Exeter. High, thin, timid voice and an attitude to match, he kept saying, “I just want to forget what happened, get on with my life.” Runyon danced with him, playing it low-key and mentioning his son several times, and eventually talked him into a face-to-face meeting. “But you can’t come here,” Exeter said. “David.. my partner… he wouldn’t like it.”
“Any time and place that’s convenient for you.”
“Does it have to be today?”
“If you can manage it. The sooner the better.”
“Well… I should go out for groceries before David gets home. The Safeway on Market and Church, you know where that is?”
“You want to talk while you’re shopping?”
“No, no. Across the street, on the first block of Church, there’s a coffee shop… Starbucks. I could meet you for a few minutes around four-thirty.”
“I’ll be there.”
The second thing Runyon did was to finish up a preliminary background check on Gene Zalesky that he’d started the night before. Financial status and credit rating: solid. Employment record: likewise, twelve years with Coastal Banking Systems. The only blot was an arrest fourteen years ago for soliciting-evidently one of those police stings in which he’d propositioned an undercover cop-and the charges had been dropped for insufficient evidence. Honest, law-abiding citizen, from all indications. So why had Zalesky lied last night? What had scared him enough to suddenly withhold information?
Larry Exeter was in his late twenties, slight, sandy-haired. Soft white skin, washed-out blue eyes. Colorless manner to go with his timid voice and monochrome appearance. If you had to sum him up in one word, it would be meek. One of the biblical inheritors.
Runyon was waiting when Exeter walked slow and stiff into the Starbucks, a plastic grocery sack dangling from each hand. The walk and a long, nearly healed cut along his jawline were the only outward signs of the beating he’d taken. He picked Runyon out of the dozen or so patrons as easily as Runyon had recognized him, came straight to his table.
“Sorry I’m late,” Exeter said when he sat down. It was 4:31 by a clock on one of the walls. One minute late. An apologizer, too-the type of person who would always be sorry for something, eight or ten times a day, every day of his life. “The lines at Safeway at this hour
…”
“No problem. Buy you a cup of coffee?”
“Thanks, but I don’t want anything. I can’t stay long.”
“I won’t keep you.”
“I have to start dinner.” He made it sound like another apology. “David doesn’t like it if I don’t have food on the table when he gets home.”
Runyon nodded. That kind of relationship. The dominant and the submissive, each of them getting exactly what they wanted out of it.
“Just a few questions. What can you tell me about the two men who attacked you?”
“Not very much.” Exeter closed his eyes, popped them open again. “In their twenties, I think. One of them heavyset, the other… I don’t remember anything about him except that he was wearing some kind of hooded jacket. It all happened so fast. I was just walking, minding my own business, and all of a sudden there they were. Grabbing me, saying things, dragging me into that alley…” The memory was vivid enough to produce a visible shiver.