Endgame--A Nameless Detective Novel Read online

  “I don’t know what happened to Alice,” she said.

  “Mr. Cahill says he has no idea, either. Do you believe him?”

  Instead of answering the question, she invited me in with a wave of her hand that made the bracelets dance noisily. I went in past her, and she shut the door, put on the chain, then circled around me to the nearest of a pair of workbenches that covered two walls.

  Some workshop. Organized chaos was the best description for it. Large, brightly lit, the room was packed with a variety of small hand and electric tools, some of which I could not identify; bins of beads and wood scraps and semiprecious stones; trays of silver and gold plate and copper; jars of hooks and rings and other kinds of fasteners; racks containing finished and partially finished jewelry items; hand-drawn designs on sheets of paper pushpinned to corkboards strung above the benches, and another design on a small artist’s easel; and three different kinds of stools with padded seats. The smell of hot solder, metal, incense, and Ms. Woodward’s musky perfume made for an uneasy mix that turned me into a temporary mouth breather.

  She half-sat on one of the stools, her slender legs crossed at the ankles, the toe rings glinting in the light from overhead fluorescent tubes. “I believe him,” she said, as if there hadn’t been any elapsed time after my question. “I like Jimmy, despite his flaws. Always have.”

  “What sort of flaws?”

  “You’ve met him, right? Kind of dorky in a sweet way.” She waved a hand. “Sit down, why don’t you. Take a load off.”

  Neither of the remaining stools looked as if they would hold my weight. I said, more or less truthfully, “Thanks, but I’ve been sitting most of the day. Dorky. I’m not sure what that means.”

  “Mild-mannered, passive. A small-balls guy.”

  Tamara would love that phrase. “Weak?”

  “Not really, just never been able to get his shit together. Not that many men could, living with Alice. Actually, he was perfect for her.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He’s a pleaser, she was a take-charge girl. Did things her way and usually got what she wanted. Ruled their roost.”

  “You used the past tense. Do you think she’s no longer alive?”

  “Jesus, I hope she is. We’ve been friends since college; I guess Jimmy told you that. But it’s been a week now and not a word yet.” Ms. Woodward didn’t seem particularly upset, but then some people keep a tight lid on their emotions. If they have any in the first place.

  “And you have no idea what might have happened to her?”

  “No. Only thing I can think of is some stranger kidnapped her. No way she walked out of that house on her own.”

  “Would she have let a stranger in when she was there alone?”

  “She might if she was given a good reason.”

  “Did she tell you about the woman who accused her of plagiarism?”

  “No. Not a word. She always confided in me about everything, but not that. She must’ve felt it was so ridiculous it wasn’t worth mentioning.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Jimmy told me, the last time I talked to him, a couple of days ago. He didn’t know, either, until he found her e-mail file.”

  “Would you say there’s any validity to the claim?”

  “Are you kidding? Hell, no.” Ms. Woodward paused, frowning. “You don’t suppose that woman did show up at her house?”

  “Would Alice have let her in if she had?”

  “Might have, in order to bitch-slap the hell out of her. That’s what I would’ve done.”

  “When did you last see Alice?”

  “A few days before she disappeared.”

  “How did she seem then? More upset, more nervous, than usual?”

  “A little. She wouldn’t say what was bugging her. The plagiarism crap, maybe.”

  “Or trouble with her husband?”

  “She never had any trouble with Jimmy.”

  “Not even when he was drinking heavily?”

  “What? He’s not a boozer. What gave you that idea?”

  “He’d had a couple of drinks when I talked to him earlier today.”

  “Well, who can blame him, the pressure he’s under? But normally, no, one is his limit.”

  “And alcohol doesn’t make him aggressive?”

  “Nothing makes Jimmy aggressive. He’s just not built that way.”

  “Her sister says they fought all the time and she was afraid of him, especially when he’d been drinking.”

  Fran Woodward made a derisive snorting noise. “I wouldn’t believe a word that bitch Kendra told me. No, they didn’t fight all the time, and no, she wasn’t afraid of him.”

  “She evidently believed he wanted her dead, that he once tried to strangle her.”

  “Strangle her? Jimmy? Bullshit.”

  “He said she misinterpreted an attempt at an embrace and tried to brain him with a lamp.”

  “Well, then it must have been during one of her anxiety attacks. She was liable to do or say anything when she forgot to take her meds. She went off on me once over some trivial thing, I don’t even remember what it was. Next time I saw her it was as if it never happened.”

  “Did she forget her meds often?”

  “Now and then, when she got wrapped up in her writing.”

  I said, “I take it you don’t much care for Kendra Nesbitt.”

  “Can’t stand her. She’s the one Alice fought with, not Jimmy. They knew how to push each other’s buttons. One of those love-hate sibling relationships.”

  “What did they fight about?”

  “Jimmy, mainly. Kendra doesn’t like him, never did. Thought he was bad for Alice, that she ought to divorce him.”

  “But Alice didn’t agree.”

  “No way. She didn’t love him anymore, but she depended on him. And he needed her just as much.”

  “She told you she didn’t love him anymore?”

  “Not in so many words. Pretty obvious, though.”

  “How did Alice get along with her doctor?”

  “Doctor? Oh, you mean Kendra’s husband. Paul was Alice’s doctor only by default. She wouldn’t let anybody else examine her, prescribe her meds.”

  “So they got along well?”

  “Oh, yes. Fine and dandy.”

  “What’s your opinion of him?”

  “Not my type. But he’s good-looking and I’ll bet he has a hell of a bedside manner.” That came out through a brief smirk. “He’s a whole lot easier to get along with than Kendra.”

  “There’s something else Mrs. Nesbitt told me,” I said. “She thinks my client is having an affair.”

  Fran Woodward looked startled, then clapped her hands together hard enough to set the bracelets clicking like castanets. “An affair? My God, that’s a hoot.”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  “Not on Kendra’s say-so. Who’s the alleged woman?”

  “One of his co-workers. Megan Sprague.”

  “Never heard of her. If it is true, which I doubt, how did Kendra find out?”

  “She wouldn’t say.”

  “Then she probably made it up to make Jimmy look even more guilty. She’s the one who sicced the cops on him in the first place, you know.”

  “Would Alice have said anything to you if she’d found out he was having an affair?”

  “Sure she would. I told you, she always confided in me about anything important.”

  “How would she have handled it? Confronted him? Or just kept quiet and let it go on?”

  “Why would she let it go on?”

  “You said she didn’t love him anymore.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’d want him screwing somebody else. Even though they weren’t sleeping together anymore. Kendra told you about that, too, I’ll bet.”

  I let that slide by without a response.

  “As for Alice’s sex life,” Fran Woodward said with another of those slight smiles, “she knew how to pleasure herself.”

>   “Uh-huh. So then she might have tolerated an affair.”

  “Not before, she wouldn’t have.”

  “Before?”

  “Before the accident, the agoraphobia. The way things were now, needing Jimmy the way she did … Oh, hell, who knows? Alice was capable of just about anything except leaving that house of theirs.” She shoved up from the stool. “If you’re out of questions, I need to get back to work.”

  “Just one more. What color and make is your car?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “What does that have to do with anything? Oh, right … the car Jimmy’s neighbor saw in their garage that afternoon. You’re way off base if you think it was mine. I was with a customer from noon until after three. That Walnut Creek cop, Kowalski, already asked me about that.”

  “I’d still like to know.”

  “VW Bug, two years old. Bright red. Satisfied?”

  No, I wasn’t, not at all. But I said, “Yes. Thanks for your time, Ms. Woodward.”

  “Well, I hope you find out what happened to Alice—nobody else seems able to. If she is alive, all the better for Jimmy. Me, too, of course.”

  She walked me to the door, shook my hand with her beringed one. As soon as I was outside, she shut it and I heard the chain and then the dead bolt rattle into their slots.

  The interview had raised more questions than it answered, supplied more conflicting information to be sorted through. Fran Woodward seemed less concerned about the welfare of her best friend than she was about that of Jimmy Cahill. A secret passion for him, despite the disparaging statements about his character? She’d exhibited as much shock as disbelief and scorn over his alleged affair with his co-worker. If she did have a thing for him, it gave her a motive for disposing of Alice Cahill. The fact that she drove a red VW meant nothing; larger cars, the kind you can use for transporting somebody dead or alive, can be rented or borrowed.

  One thing I was pretty sure of. Fran Woodward had not been completely truthful with me; was hiding something, some knowledge, for reasons of her own. She was guilty of that, if nothing else.

  7

  JAKE RUNYON

  The main lounge at the Eagle Lake Lodge was a huge room, with a circular bar in its center surrounded by high and low tables, overstuffed chairs and couches covered in red-and-gold patterned cloth. Two walls were of floor-to-ceiling glass, one offering a view of a now-barren ski slope and its shut-down ski lift, the other of distant mountain peaks with their snow-laden crests. A native-stone fireplace stretched the entire length of a third wall, a log fire blazing on the hearth. At this hour, shortly past four o’clock, only a handful of early drinkers were on hand.

  Runyon took all of this in, in one sweeping glance, then filed it away in his memory bank and paid no more attention to any of it. He waded through thick carpeting to the bar. Two customers sat on high-backed stools at one end; behind the plank, an equal number of barmen wearing red-and-gold jackets were doing busywork. One of the bartenders was black, the other white. It was the black man who came over when Runyon sat down.

  “Yes, sir. What can I get you?”

  “Draft beer. Would you be Sam Granger?”

  “I would. Don’t believe I know you.”

  “Jake Runyon.” He had his license case out; he laid it faceup on the bar top. “Deputy Rittenhouse gave me your name, said to tell you it’s okay for you to answer some questions for me.”

  Granger was middle-aged, gray at the temples of his close-cropped hair, more gray salting his thick mustache. He’d worked at his trade a long time, Runyon judged, encountered all sorts of different people; nothing much would surprise him, or alter his professional demeanor. He looked at the license, looked at Runyon, nodded, and said, “I’ll get your draft first. Any preference?”

  “Your favorite will do fine.”

  Granger moved over to the line of spigots on the backbar, came back with a pint glass filled to the brim. He set it down on a coaster, swabbed the bar around it with a towel, and then straightened and stood as if at attention. Ex-military, probably, Runyon thought.

  “You’re here about the man found dead out at the lake, I expect,” he said.

  “Philip Dennison, yes. I’m representing his wife.”

  “Poor woman.”

  “In more ways than one.”

  Granger nodded. “She know what kind of man he was?”

  “No illusions.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, I figured he was married the first time I set eyes on him. Told me he wasn’t, no wedding ring, but you get so you can tell.”

  “He was here last Friday night, I understand.”

  “Came in about five. We weren’t busy and he was the talkative sort. Said he was waiting for a lady friend, she’d be meeting him here any minute. Only she didn’t show up.”

  “He mention her name?”

  “Not that I recall. Drinks and faces I remember, names not so much.”

  “How long did he wait for her?”

  “Until almost seven. Four Tanqueray martinis and getting madder with each one. Kept grumbling about women always being late, always making a man wait to get them into bed, that kind of talk. Tried calling her a couple of times on his cell phone, but he couldn’t get a clear signal. He left after I told him he’d have better luck using a landline.”

  Runyon took a sip of his beer. “Was that the last time you saw him?”

  “No,” Granger said. “He came back an hour or so later, sat down here at my station again. Angrier than before. Ordered another martini and started in mouthing off against women in general and his lady friend in particular because she’d stood him up.”

  “Did he say why she stood him up?”

  “Something about all of a sudden changing her mind.”

  “How long did he stay that time?”

  “Hour or so. Two more Tanquerays.” Granger’s mouth quirked slightly. “Muttered something like ‘I’ll show her’ and then started in trying to work the room.”

  “Hitting on unattached women?”

  “Trying to, like I said. There weren’t many, not this time of year. Turndowns made him even madder. Asked me where a man could find some action in this damn dead backwater. His words.”

  “What was your answer?”

  “The truth,” Granger said, and let it go at that.

  Runyon asked, “Did he leave then?”

  “No. He wanted to know about a blond waitress over at the Lakefront Café. He’d been in there earlier and she’d given him the eye, acted real friendly, let him know she got off work at nine. He figured her for a pushover—what did I think? I didn’t tell him what I thought. If I had, it might’ve cost me my job.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him she was married and her husband was big and jealous and mean as a badger. He just laughed. Cocksure, the way drunks on the make can get. Climbed off his stool and out he went.”

  “Did you see him any night after that?”

  “No. Never came in while I was on shift.”

  Runyon was remembering the waitress who had served him and Rittenhouse at the Lakefront Café earlier. Blond, attractive, wearing makeup that didn’t quite conceal the bruise under one eye. He said, “I have to ask this. If Dennison went to the café and hit on the waitress, would he have stood a chance with her?”

  “I’d rather not say. Draw your own conclusions.”

  “Mind telling me her name?”

  “Verna. Verna Meeker.”

  “Meeker. Any relation to the man who found Dennison’s body, Joe Meeker?”

  “Her husband,” Granger said. “Only he’s not big. Thin as a rail, can’t weigh more than one-fifty.”

  “Jealous, mean as a badger?”

  “Jealous anyway.”

  “Would you say Dennison made a mistake if he did go after Verna Meeker?”

  “I’d say any married man who goes after another man’s wife is a damn fool.”

  * * *

  Except for a handful of early-bird diners, the La
kefront Café was in a lull period. The blond waitress, Verna Meeker, was still on shift. Runyon sat in the same booth as before; the ones on either side were empty.

  She came over to him, her movements slower than before, almost shuffling. Not so much tired from a long day on her feet, but as if she was stiff and hurting. He hadn’t looked at her closely before; he did so now. The lines around her eyes and mouth said that her thirty-five years or so of living had not been easy ones. Some of the makeup covering the eye-shiner had worn off, so that you could see it more plainly, and her hair, more wheat colored than true blond, hung limp and lusterless over her uniform collar. Still, she was attractive in a hard and hungry sort of way.

  He said, “Remember me? I was here earlier with Deputy Rittenhouse.”

  “I remember. Hot tea, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Anything else?”

  “A few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  Her mouth bent cynically. “Don’t bother asking them. I’m not interested.”

  “Not those kinds of questions.”

  “Well, then?”

  “They concern the man your husband found dead two days ago, Philip Dennison.”

  An emotion Runyon took to be fear flashed in her eyes, then vanished as though behind quick-drawn shutters. One hand came up toward her face, as if to touch the bruise—an involuntary gesture that she caught and arrested midway. “What about him?”

  “Did you know him?”

  “No.”

  “He came in here a few times, didn’t he? Big, friendly guy. You must have waited on him.”

  “I’m not the only waitress works here.”

  “But you were working Friday night. He came in around eight-thirty or so, half in the bag on martinis. Remember him now?”

  “… All right, so I remember him. So what?”

  “The woman he was supposed to meet stood him up and he was looking for company.”

  “Yeah? Well, he didn’t find it here.”

  “But you waited on him, talked to him?”

  “Like any other customer. Like you.”