“Schemes? What kind of schemes?”
“That’s not for us to say.”
“Why the hell not, if you think you know?”
“Legal and ethical reasons.”
“Legal and ethical,” he said, as if they were dirty words.
Runyon said, “Aren’t you going to ask us who arranged the frame in the first place?”
“If I thought it was true, I wouldn’t have to ask.”
“Or who allegedly helped her shift it to her brother?”
“… All right. Who?”
“The same person allegedly recruited to frame her.”
“Goddamn it, who?”
“Allegedly,” I said, “Frank Chaleen.”
The name rocked him like a blow. He got abruptly to his feet, stood woodenly for a clutch of seconds, then leaned forward and flattened his hands on the desktop.
“Bullshit,” he said again.
“Fact.”
“Cory hardly knows Chaleen.”
“She knows him a lot better than you think.”
“How do you know she does?”
Runyon said, “When Kenneth ran off, he went to a place called Belardi’s on the Petaluma River. That’s where I found him. He wouldn’t leave with me, so she drove up to convince him and bring him home.”
“I know that. So what?”
“Chaleen was with her.”
Vorhees started to say something, changed his mind, and opted for a stony silence.
On the ride down here from South Park, Jake and I had decided to push the envelope with him as far as possible. I’d already taken the biggest chance in suggesting, if not directly accusing, Frank Chaleen of complicity in a crime. Now it was time for the capper.
“Chaleen gets around, doesn’t he,” I said. “One woman at a time’s not enough for him. Wives and mistresses, both fair game.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“What do you think it means, if he was involved in the original plan to frame Cory Beckett for theft? It’s common knowledge he’d been having an affair with your wife. Seems pretty clear the only thing that would make him switch his allegiance from her to Cory is that he’s sleeping with her, too-cuckolding you twice.”
A rush of blood put a wine-dark stain on Vorhees’ smooth-shaven cheeks. The veins in his neck bulged.
“Sorry,” I said, “but it stacks up that way, doesn’t it?”
He said between clenched teeth, “That son of a bitch! I’ll make him wish he was never born.”
Runyon and I let that pass without comment.
The sudden fury didn’t last long. Vorhees had not gotten where he was by letting his emotions run away with him. I watched him make a visible effort to control himself.
“You better not be lying to me about any of this,” he said at length.
I said, “We’re not in the habit of lying.”
He lowered himself into his chair, folded his hands together. All business again, except for the fact that the knuckles on both hands showed white. “I’ve got enough to deal with as it is without the media busting my chops again. What would it take for the two of you to keep all of this quiet?”
“Are you offering us a bribe, Mr. Vorhees?”
“Hell, no. A favor for a favor. I have a fair amount of influence in this city. I could do your agency some good-”
“No, you couldn’t. You can’t trade for or buy our silence. You already know that if you’ve checked us out and I’m sure you have. But we’ll give it to you for nothing. We didn’t intend to make trouble for your wife and we don’t intend to make trouble for you. That’s not why we’ve disclosed as much to you as we have.”
“No? Then why did you?”
“We don’t like to see a good kid like Kenneth Beckett facing a prison sentence for a crime he didn’t commit. Or a newly bereaved husband jerked around by lovers and former friends.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Believe what you like.” I got to my feet; Runyon followed suit. “We’ve said our piece-it’s in your hands now.”
He made a derisive noise. But his face was set, hard and brittle, like a ceramic sculpture fresh out of the kiln. He believed it, all right. And his simmering anger was not only directed at Chaleen but at his lying, conniving mistress.
Mission accomplished.
Boat rocked and holed and taking on water, fast.
18
JAKE RUNYON
The interview with Andrew Vorhees produced results more quickly than Runyon and Bill had anticipated. That same evening, Kenneth Beckett broke his silence with another call.
“Mrs. Vorhees is dead, Mr. Runyon, you know that,” the kid’s voice said without preamble. He wasn’t calling from home; multiple voices punctuated with laughter rose and fell in the background. “It wasn’t an accident. Chaleen did it. I told you, didn’t I? You said you wouldn’t let it happen.”
“I tried, but I got there too late.”
“It’s my fault. If I’d told you sooner…”
“Ken, listen to me. Where are you now?”
“A tavern down the block. Mr. Vorhees came to the apartment again tonight. He was mad, real mad-he knows about Cory fucking Chaleen. He kept yelling at her, calling her names, and she kept yelling back. They forgot about me so I sneaked out and came here.”
“What’s the name of the tavern?”
“… I don’t know.”
“Ask somebody. I’ll come there and we’ll talk. Decide what to do.”
“Can’t we just talk now? I don’t want to be away too long. They might… Cory might come looking for me.”
“I can barely hear you with all the background noise. Better if we talk in person anyway. Find out the name of the tavern, okay?”
There was a short silence. Then the bar sounds cut off-Beckett must have put his hand over the mouthpiece. After the better part of a minute, “It’s the Fox and Hounds. On Pine Street.”
“It shouldn’t take me more than half an hour to get there. Promise me you’ll wait.”
“All right. As long as Cory doesn’t come.”
The Ford’s GPS got Runyon to Pine Street and into a legal parking space in twenty-seven minutes. The Fox and Hounds was an upscale Nob Hill version of a British pub: horseshoe-shaped bar, dark wood booths, dartboards, framed fox-hunting prints, signs advertising a dozen varieties of British ales and lagers. There were maybe twenty patrons, most of them in the booths and grouped in front of one of a pair of dartboards where a noisy match was going on. Beckett wasn’t among them.
So the kid hadn’t waited after all. Faded in, made his call, lost his nerve and faded out. Like a shadow-
No, he was still here. Must’ve been in the men’s room because he emerged from a hallway at the rear, moving in a slow, slump-shouldered walk, and went to sit in front of a full glass of beer at the far end of the bar. He was staring into the glass when Runyon got to him.
“Ken.”
Beckett’s head jerked up. Fear showed in his face, visible even in the dim lighting, until he recognized Runyon; then it morphed into a kind of twitchy relief. “I thought you’d never get here,” he said. “I almost left a couple of times.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. Let’s go sit in a booth. More privacy.”
There was one empty booth, just vacated and at a distance from the dart throwers; Runyon claimed it for them. A waitress appeared, began clearing the table, and asked them what they’d like. Beckett shook his head; he’d left his beer on the bar, probably hadn’t drunk much, if any, of it. Runyon ordered a pint of Bass ale, but only because it was necessary to remain in the booth.
When the waitress went away, he said to Beckett, “Now we can talk. About Mrs. Vorhees’ death, first. What did Cory say about it?”
“She said it was an accident, a fortunate accident. Fortunate for me because now for sure I wouldn’t have to go to prison.” The kid was facing toward the entrance; he cast a nervous look in that direction before he went on. “But I could tell she was lying. I can always tell.”
“You didn’t say anything to her about your suspicions?”