Dr. Robert J. Prince first. Figured to be a routine follow-up, but it wasn’t. When she found out his specialty, it surprised her enough to put in a phone call to the Medical Associates offices on Geary. Dr. Prince was “unavailable,” whatever that meant. She tried the need-to-know-for-insurance-purposes dodge with his nurse, but that didn’t get her anywhere. Under no circumstances, the nurse said crisply, did Dr. Prince give out information about his patients, alive or deceased.
She went across into Bill’s office. “Got something,” she said.
“The sports car?”
“Nancy Mathias. Her headaches weren’t simple migraines after all.”
“No?”
“Dr. Robert Prince isn’t a neurologist. He’s a specialist in intercranial disorders-a brain surgeon.”
19
JAKE RUNYON
He was waiting when Sandra Parnell arrived for work at the Hair Today Salon on Tuesday morning.
He’d tried to see her the night before-twice. Nobody home the first time he went to her house, around six. Her father answered the door the second time, a little after eight-a dull, vague man in his fifties who smelled of cheap whiskey and wore the bewildered look of an Alzheimer’s patient. He had no idea where Sandra was, or what time she’d be home. “She’s not in any more trouble, is she?” he said, but not as if he cared much.
The salon was on a side street on the eastern edge of downtown, a narrow storefront sandwiched between a tacqueria and a defunct bookstore. A sign on the door gave the opening time as 9:30. Runyon drove around the corner and through an alley that bisected the block. There was a rear entrance but no parking facilities back there. He circled around again, parked, and waited near the front entrance.
Sandra Parnell’s old Chrysler came up the street at 9:25, slid into a space near the corner. Part of her job must be to open up in the morning; nobody’d gone into the salon before her. She didn’t notice him as she walked back. Eyes front all the way. He stayed put until she was at the door fumbling with her keys, then got out quickly and approached her just as she got it open.
“Hello, Sandra.”
She blinked at him, startled. “Oh-Mr. Runyon. You’re still here.”
“Talk to you for a minute?”
“Well, I’ve got to get things ready inside-”
“We can talk while you’re doing it. I won’t keep you long.”
She hesitated, gnawed at her lip, said, “All right,” and went on in. He trailed after her as she turned the CLOSED sign around and then went to put on the lights. Small place, four chairs in four open cubicles. Clean and neat enough, but with a faintly shabby aura. The sweetish chemical smell of hair lotions and conditioners was thick on the dead air.
She said, “I haven’t heard from Jerry. I keep hoping, but… not a word.”
“What would you have done if you had?”
“I… don’t know. After Sunday and Deputy Kelso, and then the fire at the camp… I just don’t know.”
“Kelso give you a hard time?”
“Kind of. At the station and then in front of my parents. He wouldn’t believe I don’t know where Jerry is.”
“Any possibilities occur to you?”
“No. If they had, I’d’ve gone to look.”
“You still love him, then.”
“Sure I do. Why’d you ask that?”
“And he loves you.”
“I thought he did, until he ran away from the camp.”
“How long have you been going with him?”
“About seven months.”
“No problems between you in that time?”
“Problems?”
“Arguments, harsh words.”
“No.”
“He ever hit you for any reason?”
She stopped arranging combs, scissors, other things, in one of the cubicles. “Hit me? Jerry?”
“Ashley Kelso says he could be violent.”
“Not violent exactly, just… rough sometimes.”
“Then he did hit you.”
“Not hard, not trying to hurt me.”
“Not even when he was high?”
“No. Ashley told you he beat her up, didn’t she? That’s what she told her father Jerry did to her. Kelso tried to get me to say Jerry beat me up, too, but I wouldn’t because it’s not true.”
“Not true in Ashley’s case, either?”
“She never said anything to me. I don’t believe it.”
“Why would she make it up?”
“Because she’s pissed at Jerry for dumping her and going with me.”
“Jealous?”
“No. She doesn’t blame me, she blames Jerry.”
“So you’re not still friends.”
“Not really, not anymore.”
“Why did Jerry dump you, Sandra?”
“What?” Shocked look. “He didn’t dump me. Did Ashley tell you that?”
“No. Jerry’s folks.”
“It’s not true. Why would they say that?”
“Three weeks ago. Because he found out something about you.”
“Found out what?”
“Secrets, Sandra? Something you were hiding from him?”
“No! I never hid anything from Jerry, I told him everything. He didn’t dump me three weeks ago or any time. I love him and he loves me. We’re going to get married someday-we are!”
Runyon said nothing. The girl looked him straight in the eye, her expression earnest despite the evidence of strain.
“Don’t you believe me?” she said.
B attle Hardware was the old-fashioned kind of hardware store-narrow aisles, crowded shelves, bins full of nails and screws and the like, rough wooden floors that retained the faint smell of creosote. There were no customers when Runyon walked in, just one elderly employee perched on a stool behind the counter and the lanky kid with the mop of caramel-colored hair restocking shelves of plumbing supplies.
Zach Battle recognized him. “Oh… hi,” he said with neither enthusiasm nor hostility. “Mr. Runyon, right?”
“Right. Your father around?”
“No. He’s at city hall this morning.”
“Mayor’s office?”
“Yeah. Until one o’clock.”
“Talk to you for a minute?”
“What about?”
“What everybody’s talking about in Gray’s Landing.”
“I don’t know anything about those fires.”
“No opinions, no ideas?”
“It’s none of my business.”
“Friend of Jerry Belsize’s, aren’t you?”
“Not really. He does his thing, I do mine.”
“Ashley Kelso have anything to do with why you don’t get along?”
“I don’t have to answer that.”
“That’s right, you don’t. You think Jerry’s guilty?”
“If he is, I hope they lock him up for the rest of his life.”
“Doesn’t answer my question.”
“You don’t have any right to ask me questions. You’re not the law here; you don’t even live in this county.”
“Why should you mind talking to me?”
“I don’t mind. I just don’t have anything to say. About Belsize or the fires or any of the rest of it.”
“Your father tell you to keep quiet?”
“No.”
“Deputy Kelso?”
“No. Nobody tells me what to do.”
“Not even Ashley?”
The kid didn’t like that. “Why don’t you go talk to my dad?” he said as if he was issuing a challenge. “He likes to talk. I don’t.”
T he Gray’s Landing city hall sat on a block-square rise on the other side of the park from the sheriff’s substation. Gray stone edifice built in the twenties in the neoclassical style of public buildings of that era. If there’d been any renovations done since, the work wasn’t obvious either outside or inside. It had a semideserted aspect, as if the town in general had lost interest in the place and the day when it would shut its doors permanently wasn’t far off.
The mayor’s office was on the second floor front. Carl Battle was there, and he didn’t keep Runyon waiting when an elderly secretary announced him. Battle came around from behind an old mahogany desk set in front of a brace of open windows, clasped his hand, all but guided him into one of a pair of thinly padded visitors’ chairs. Deferential, ill at ease. He wore the same suit and tie as on their last meeting, or ones just like them, and his balding head was just as sweaty, his handshake just as damp and limp. It was stuffy in the small private office. No breeze came in through the open windows, and a ceiling fan stirred the air without cooling it any.