I caught Kay Runyon’s eye, gestured to her. She got up immediately and hurried over to me. The strain had hollowed out her cheeks even more, built little ridges of muscle around her mouth and along her jawline. But she was a strong woman, a hell of a lot stronger than her husband, and she had herself under rigid control. No tears tonight, not here and probably not in private.
I said, “Why did you bring the boy?”
“Matt knew something bad had happened,” she said. “He could see it in my face. I couldn’t lie to him. I told you yesterday, we don’t have secrets.”
Runyon in the car, talking about Nedra: We have no secrets. “Everybody has secrets,” I said. “Besides, this isn’t something a seventeen-year-old kid ought to know about his father.”
“...Is it that bad?”
“Pretty bad.”
“Tell me.”
“Not just yet. The nurse has insurance papers to be filled out. Can Matt do it?”
“Yes.”
“Give him the job. Then we’ll talk.”
She moved away to talk to the admissions nurse. While she was doing that an intern came out with a wheelchair, and he and Matt helped Runyon into it. Runyon’s face was a purple-and-red horror now, his nose swollen lopsidedly to three times its normal size. Whatever the boy felt looking at it, his own face betrayed nothing. He stood stoically as the intern wheeled his father out of sight.
I sat on a bench, away from everybody else, and watched Kay Runyon hold a low-voiced conversation with Matt. He argued with her but not for long; in less than a minute he took the insurance papers and sat down and began to scratch at them with a ballpoint pen.
She joined me again. Sat heavily, fumbled in her purse and came out with cigarettes and a lighter. I tapped her arm, pointed to a no smoking sign on one wall. She said, “Shit,” and put the cigarettes away. Then she said, “I hate hospitals. The smell... it’s a death smell. Especially in a place like this. How can doctors and nurses work here?”
“Probably because to them it isn’t a death smell,” I said. “To them it’s a life smell.”
“I wish I cared about other people that much.”
“You care, Mrs. Runyon.”
“No, I’m selfish. I only care about my own.” She drew a thin, shuddery breath. “Who did that to Vic, hurt him like that? The man who’s been calling?”
“Yes. I don’t know his name yet, but I will tomorrow.”
“Nedra? You found out who she is?”
I nodded and told her about Nedra Adams Merchant. All of it, full details and without trying to soften any of the facts. Bare knuckles don’t hurt any more than blows encased in velvet. She had steeled herself for the worst, but there was no way she could have anticipated Nedra Merchant’s disappearance or the scope of her husband’s reaction to it. The news grayed her skin, added sickness to the pain in her eyes.
“I don’t know him anymore,” she said. “I don’t know the Victor Runyon you’re talking about.”
“But he knows himself now, better than he ever did before. That’s part of his problem. He knows and he can barely cope with the knowledge.”
“He’s still a stranger to me. I love the man I married, but I loathe and despise that stranger in there — I hate him as much as I’ve ever hated anyone. Does that make sense to you?”
“Some.”
“Maybe I’m having a breakdown too,” she said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Vic is. We both know that.”
“Yes.”
“What do I do about it? Talk to a psychiatrist?”
“I would. As soon as possible.”
She nodded; it was a decision she’d already made and she’d wanted support for it. “But I can’t force Vic to get help and I can’t keep him chained at home. He’ll go back to her house, you know he will. What if that man shows up and attacks him again?”
“There’s something to be done about that. Once I know who he is I’ll have a hard talk with him, threaten him with police action or a lawsuit. That might scare him off.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll talk to your husband, try to convince him to press assault charges.”
“Suppose he won’t? Then what?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“What about Nedra? Do you have to report her disappearance to the police?”
“Reporting it isn’t up to me, not unless I have evidence of foul play, kidnapping, some sort of crime.”
“Is that what you think happened to her?”
“I don’t have any opinions yet.”
“Can you find out? Just you alone?”
“Three and a half months is a long time,” I said.
“But it is possible.”
“With some luck, yes.”
“Will you try? If it turns out she’s dead, if Vic is shown proof that she’s gone for good, it might bring him to his senses. Don’t you think so?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Will you do what you can? Please?”
“I’d already planned on it.”
She started to thank me, but I didn’t want to listen to that; she had nothing to thank me for. I cut her off by saying, “About your husband’s car. Do you want me to drive you to Forest Hill so you can pick it up? Or drive your son?”
“No, not Matt. I don’t want him to see where she lives. You can drive me. I’d just as soon leave the car where it is, but that won’t keep Vic home. He’d only take a taxi.”
“We can go now or in the morning.”
“Now. I can’t stand this place another minute. And I need a cigarette — God, I need a cigarette. Matt can drive his father home in my car.”
Kay Runyon did not have much to say on the ride to Forest Hill. She sat stiffly, smoking one coffin nail after another in that quick, nervous way of hers. Even with my window down, enough of the smoke stayed in the car to irritate my lungs. But I endured it; I didn’t have the heart to take away the one thing, even briefly, that gave her a measure of comfort.
When we rolled onto Crestmont she sat up straighter and peered intently through the windshield, like an animal entering hostile territory. And when I pulled over behind her husband’s BMW she asked abruptly, “Which house is hers?”
I pointed it out.
“Very nice,” she said. “I’m sure it’s lovely inside. Does she have good taste in furnishings too?”
I didn’t answer that. She didn’t expect one anyway.
I kept the engine running, but Kay Runyon was not quite ready to get out of the car. She sat staring past me at the wood-shingled house across the street — and then she made a sound, low in her throat, a kind of rumbling. It took me a couple of seconds to identify it as bitter, humorless laughter.
“Vic found out some unpleasant things about himself,” she said, “and now I’m finding out some unpleasant things about myself. I don’t have much compassion. I’m as cruel and selfish as dear Nedra.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I hope she’s dead,” Kay Runyon said. “I hope she died suffering; I hope she’s been rotting in the ground somewhere for the past three and a half months.”
Chapter 8
The Ford Econoline van was registered to a Richard Rodriguez, with an address on Lowell Street in the city.
Harry Fletcher at the DMV had that information for me fifteen minutes after I opened the office on Friday morning. The balding guy hadn’t struck me as a Latino, but appearances can be deceiving. So can the registered ownerships of vehicles; people who buy used cars don’t always bother to reregister them, and people who drive a particular one aren’t always their owners. Two other automobiles were registered in Rodriguez’s name as welclass="underline" a second, older Econoline van and a 1990 Olds Cutlass. Whoever Richard Rodriguez was, he believed in buying American. I asked Harry for the license numbers of the second van and the Olds, in case I needed them.