James Keverne was what the newspeak advocates would call “a person of weight.” He stood about five-nine, would probably tip the scales at 275, and had two well-defined chins and an incipient third. He also had male-pattern baldness — what hair he still owned was carrot-colored and curly — and a none too jovial manner. Nedra Merchant’s relationship with him, I thought as we shook hands, figured to be strictly professional.
I told him I was investigating a matter involving Nedra Merchant; that she’d dropped out of sight under unusual circumstances in early May and I was trying to find her. He said he hadn’t had any dealings with her in over a year. He also said he knew virtually nothing about her private life. I believed him on both counts.
He asked then, “Do you suspect foul play?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Is that the reason you’re here? My paralegal said you mentioned a restraining order. The one I obtained against Edward Cahill, I assume.”
“That’s right.”
“You think Cahill is involved in her disappearance?”
“No,” I said. “He was still in prison in May; he got out just three weeks ago.”
“I knew he’d been sent back to prison, of course,” Keverne said. “A felony assault charge, wasn’t it? Ms. Merchant was very relieved.”
“He made life pretty miserable for her, I understand.”
“Yes. She was terrified of him.”
“Well, I’m afraid prison didn’t straighten him out any. He’s still obsessed with her. He’s been hanging around her house, and two nights ago he committed another assault, against a friend of hers. He also has been making threatening telephone calls to the friend and the friend’s family.”
“I see.”
“If Nedra Merchant is alive and well, and he finds out where she is, he’ll make trouble for her again. Unless he can be put back behind bars.”
“Naturally I’d like to help put him there. And help you find Ms. Merchant. But I don’t see how I can do either.”
“Neither do I. Frankly, Mr. Keverne, I’m grabbing at straws.”
“About all I can tell you are the details of Cahill’s harassment two years ago, if you’d care to hear them.”
“I would, yes.”
Keverne folded his hands together; they were thick-fingered and as red as a washerwoman’s. “Cahill made dozens of telephone calls to Ms. Merchant. At first they were pleading, cajoling; all he wanted, he said, was to spend some time with her. Inevitably they turned sexual in nature, and finally threatening.”
“Did she change her telephone number?”
“Of course. Under the circumstances, it did no good.”
“What circumstances?”
“Cahill had been fired by then, but he still had access to telephone company records. I suppose a fellow employee helped him.”
“Wait a minute. Cahill worked for Pac Bell?”
“You didn’t know that?”
“No, I didn’t. In what capacity?”
“Repairman and installer,” Keverne said. “Ms. Merchant was having a problem with one of her extension phones and Cahill was the man sent out to fix it. She made the mistake of being nice to him and he misinterpreted her motives. The calls began the next day.”
I asked Keverne a few more questions — about the incidents in which Cahill had accosted Nedra Merchant in public, mainly. But they were in the interest of thoroughness; the answers were irrelevant. My mind was on what he’d already told me, forming a hunch that grew stronger by the minute.
If the hunch proved out, Eddie Cahill was even more slyly dangerous than I’d thought. And James Keverne might just have handed me the key to lock him away inside another prison cell.
In my car I used the mobile phone to call George Agonistes at his home in San Bruno. He was a fellow private investigator, one of the new breed of specialist; we’d once worked on the same job, from different angles, and developed a mutual respect for each other’s abilities. We exchanged favors every now and then, ours being a back-scratching kind of business.
He was home and he wanted to stay there. “I don’t work Saturdays or Sundays,” he said, “not for any amount of money.”
“I think I can get my client to pay five hundred for an afternoon’s work.”
“Maybe I could make an exception,” he said.
I gave him the Crestmont address, asked how long before he could meet me there. He said twelve-thirty. It was eleven now. An hour and a half was plenty of time for me to swing by Ashbury Heights on the way.
“Twelve-thirty’s fine. Bring all your equipment, George. I don’t know what kind of thing we’re dealing with here.”
“You insult my professionalism,” Agonistes said. “I never go out on a job without a full load. Not these days, I don’t.”
Kay Runyon opened the door to my ring, custard-pale, squinting through the smoke from one of her cigarettes. She started to speak, but I put my finger to my lips and caught her arm and drew her out onto the porch. Then I motioned for her to shut the door, to follow me down to the landing between the two flights of brick steps.
“What is it?” she said then. “What’s going on?”
“I didn’t want to talk in the house.”
“Vic’s lying down, he wouldn’t have heard us—”
“It’s not Vic I’m worried about.”
“I don’t understand...”
“Have you had any maintenance or repair people here in the past three weeks? A man from the telephone company who showed up without being called?”
She said blankly, “The phone company?”
“Wanting to check a line or phone inside.”
“...A repairman did come out, yes, but—”
“Describe him.”
“I wasn’t here.”
“Who was? Matt?”
“Yes. He mentioned it when I came home that night.”
“Is Matt here now?”
She nodded.
“Go in and ask him to come out here with you. Don’t say anything else.”
“Will you please tell me what’s going on—?”
“Go get Matt. Then I’ll tell both of you.”
She hurried into the house, returned with her son in tow. I said to him, “Your mother tells me a man from the telephone company showed up a while back.”
“Yeah. A repair guy.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He said there was a problem with the lines in the neighborhood and he needed to check our phones. He told me what it was, the problem, but it didn’t mean anything to me.”
“And you let him inside?”
“Well, I didn’t see any reason not to. I mean, he was wearing a uniform and a tool belt with all the junk phone repair guys carry, and he showed me an ID card with his picture on it.”
“What name was on the ID card?”
“I didn’t pay much attention.”
“How long was he in the house?”
“Half an hour or so.”
“Were you with him the whole time?”
“I don’t remember... I guess not, no.”
“Describe him for me, Matt.”
“He was... I don’t know, short, about my folks’ age. Built pretty good — like he worked out a lot.”
“Losing his hair? Reddish face?”
“Yeah, that’s right. What—?”
Kay Runyon made a sharp little noise in her throat. “My God, it was Cahill, wasn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so.” Wearing his old uniform and tool belt, flashing his old Pac Bell ID — all kept illegally after he was fired and then stashed somewhere while he was in prison. At his sister’s home, probably.
“What was he doing here?”
“I think he was planting bugs,” I said.