Bill Pronzini: Camouflage

Fifteen minutes before she appeared. Runyon stood as she came down the steps in her rolling, hip-swinging gait. She wore the black coat and hat now; they made her seem even larger, more shapeless.

He said, “We can talk over there in the garden.”

“I have to eat something. I’ll be sick if I don’t eat.”

“Do you want to go home instead? Or to a restaurant?”

“No. I’d rather stay here, close to Jesus.”

She made no objection when Runyon put a light hand on her elbow, guided her into the garden. The bench creaked and tilted when she sat on one end. Immediately she opened her voluminous purse, brought out three candy bars: Hershey milk chocolate, Butterfinger, a triangular package of Toblerone. She tore the wrapper off the Hershey bar first, balled it, returned it to the purse, and then filled her mouth with half the candy in a series of quick, avid bites. Watching this made him wince. He felt her pain, he pitied her, but that wasn’t going to stop him from adding more hurt to her already-battered emotional state.

“You like chocolate, don’t you, Gwen.”

She murmured something that sounded like “Comfort food.”

“Chocolate milk, candy bars. What else?”

“Ice cream. Double chocolate fudge.”

“And chocolate-chip cookies.”

No response. She was busy devouring the rest of the Hershey bar.

Runyon said, “Fresh-baked Toll House cookies. I’ll bet they’re another of your favorites.”

“They used to be. Not anymore.”

“Not since Thursday afternoon.”

He watched her open the Toblerone, shove in three wedges of the chocolate, honey, and almond nougat candy. She chewed ravenously, some of the gooey mess oozing out at the corners of her mouth. As soon as she swallowed she reached into her purse again, picked out a Kleenex, and used it to wipe the residue away.

“Tell me about Thursday afternoon,” he said.

It was a little time before she answered. “Taking a life is a cardinal sin. I begged Jesus to forgive me and he has; he told me so.” The rest of the Toblerone vanished. “But I can’t forgive myself. Thou shalt not kill. Francine was wicked, but she was my sister. Thou shalt not kill. Jesus forgave me, but I don’t think he’ll let me into heaven. I’m afraid my immortal soul will burn in the fires of hell.” All of this in an emotionless voice blurred by the glot of candy.

“Why did you go to see Francine?”

“The fires of hell,” she said again, and her features squeezed together and for a few seconds Runyon thought she might break down. But the Butterfinger saved that from happening.

He repeated his question while she peeled off the wrapper.

“Why?” she said. “Because of what you told me.”

“That she’d been hurting Bobby Darby.”

“I kept thinking about that. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. All the things she did to me, to Tracy when we were little… all those terrible things. I couldn’t let her keep on hurting another of God’s children.”

“But you didn’t go there to kill her.”

“Oh no. No.” Half the Butterfinger in one bite. Chewing, she said, “Just to talk to her, tell her she mustn’t hurt that little boy anymore. Ask her to pray with me. I remembered the man’s name, the man you said she was living with in sin-Robert Darby. I looked up his address and I drove over there to see her. I didn’t want to, not ever again, I’ve always been afraid of her, but I went anyway.” Another dab at her mouth with the Kleenex. “I shouldn’t have. The Devil had crept inside me that day and I didn’t know it.”

Runyon said nothing. No need to prompt her anymore. It was as if she were back in church, confessing to her savior-a confession he thought she would be compelled to make again and again, to anyone who would listen, for the rest of her life.

“She wasn’t happy to see me. She said I was disgustingly fat, a bloated pig, a walking pile of blubber. She laughed when I asked her to stop hurting the boy and pray with me, find salvation like I have in the bosom of Jesus. She called me more names, filthy names through her candy smile. My sister, my flesh and blood. Evil.”

The last of the Butterfinger disappeared. Gwen Whalen did some more rummaging in her purse, came out with another Toblerone. “I can’t stop eating,” she said.

Runyon looked away.

“I couldn’t stop that day, either. The awful things Francine was saying to me, I wanted to put my hands over my ears, I wanted to run away, but all I did was reach for one of the cookies she’d been baking. Warm cookies on a plate, I could smell them, why should she care if I took one? But she did. She said, ‘Don’t touch those cookies, you fat cow’ and slapped my hand. She hit the plate too and it fell and broke on the floor, but she said it was my fault. She called me a cow again, an effing cow, and slapped my face, hard.”

Fat cow, effing cow. The “weird stuff about cows” Bobby had heard.

“Then she punched me in the stomach with her fist like she did when we were growing up. It hurt, it hurt, and Satan reared up and seized control and put the knife in my hand and I… She screamed and I slew her, I slew my sister. Thou shalt not kill. Her blood was on my hand, I couldn’t stand to see it, I hid it inside a dish towel. Then I ran away and drove home, I don’t know how but I did, and begged Jesus to cast out the Devil. He did, he forgave me, but I kept seeing Francine’s face, her blood like the blood of Christ. I prayed and prayed, but they wouldn’t go away. Candy smile, chocolate smile. I’m so hungry…”

The second Toblerone went in two gulping bites. She pawed frantically inside the purse once more, came up with a handful of Hershey’s Kisses. That was as much as Runyon could stand; he’d heard enough, seen enough, added enough to her suffering. Crabtree, Farley, Halim, somebody else, anybody else, could take over and be the next to listen to Gwen Whalen’s confession.

He left her sitting there with her eyes squeezed shut again, her chocolate-smeared mouth moving silently, her fingers unwrapping more of the Hershey’s Kisses-still trying to pray away, eat away, her guilt.

The climb down the hill was a lot easier than the ascent had been; I wasn’t winded when Chavez and I reached flat ground. Still, the muscles in my legs and thighs were tight and quivery as we hurried along the rutted track. Kerry was right: I needed to get more exercise. She was always after me to go for long walks, join a gym, take up jogging again. No way on the jogging; I’d tried that a few years back and gave it up quick, mainly because I felt like an attention-drawing idiot pounding along public streets in my sweat suit. I’d feel the same way in a gym, huffing and puffing on treadmills and the other machines they have in those places. The long walks, though, were a good idea, and I’d been promising myself I would start taking them on a regular basis. Now maybe I had the impetus to follow through.

The sky was mostly clear now, the day warming up. I could feel sweat dripping under my arms, down the back of my neck into my shirt collar, as we moved ahead. The road ruts were deep and the earth between them and on either side rumpled and broken in places, so that you had to watch where you put your feet. The last thing either of us needed now was to sprain an ankle.

Once we were through the narrow passage between the hill folds, we angled ahead to where the track made its long loop to the north and stopped there. The buildings were visible from that point, with very little ground cover between. I unsheathed the Zeiss glasses for another sweeping scan. Still a frozen tableau, no sign of life anywhere. But when I had the binoculars cased again, I put my hand back on the butt of the. 38 in my pocket. Never take anything for granted when you’re in unfamiliar territory.