Bill Pronzini - Schemers

“How do you mean, you didn’t beg Lloyd?”

“To stop cheating on me. I asked him, I threatened him, but I wouldn’t beg.”

“That’s the real reason you left him?”

“Yes. I stood it as long as I could, for the sake of the boys, until I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“A lot of women?”

“Almost from the beginning. One after another after another. He couldn’t leave them alone. I gave him as much of myself as any man could want, and it wasn’t enough. He had to have more, he had to have different.”

Lloyd Henderson, pillar of the community.

“When that woman from up north came to the house,” Mona Crandall said, “that was the last straw. A person can take only so much humiliation. Only so much.”

“What woman, Mrs. Crandall?”

“One of his bitches. No, that’s not right, I shouldn’t call them that. They weren’t bad women, most of them. He could be so attentive, so charming. I let him seduce me before we were married, why shouldn’t they let him seduce them?”

“When was it this woman showed up at your house?”

“Twenty years ago. She was the reason I left Lloyd.”

“You said she was from up north? Where, exactly?”

“Mendocino County. Some town I’d never heard of.”

“Near your husband’s hunting camp?”

“I don’t know. I never went there with him and the boys. Hunting, fishing… I never liked killing things. Lloyd did. He made the boys like it, too.”

“What did she want, this woman?”

Mona Crandall didn’t seem to hear the question. Her eyes were distant, fixed on the teacup, as if the past were visible to her in the dark liquid. “He never wanted me to go with him. Took his women there, I knew that. All those weekends… it wasn’t always his men friends he went with, it was his women, too.”

Runyon waited until she blinked and focused on him again, then repeated his question. “What did the woman want, Mrs. Crandall?”

“Lloyd. She wanted him. She said she was in love with him, pregnant by him. He’d made promises to her, she… oh, I don’t remember everything she said. It was a shock, you know. Being confronted with his cheating like that, so suddenly and right in my face.”

“What did you do?”

“What could I do? Sent her away, sent her to him at his office. He was furious when he came home-furious with me, as if I was at fault. We had a terrible fight. That was the end for me. I left him the next day.”

“Do you remember the woman’s name?”

“No. It was such a long time ago.”

“If she was pregnant, do you know if she had the child?”

“No. What does it matter now?”

“It may have a bearing on what’s been happening to your sons.”

“After more than twenty years?” The bitterness returned to her voice. “Lloyd has been dead… what is it, five or six years now? Cliff and Damon didn’t tell me when he died, I had to find out from a friend here. I wouldn’t have gone to his funeral anyway, but they should have told me. Don’t you think they should have told me?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Past sins catching up. Is that what you’re saying?”

Runyon nodded. “Past sins,” he said, and let it go at that.

He finished his tea, refused a second cup. The refusal put a brief sadness in her eyes; she’d hoped he would stay longer. But she didn’t make an issue of it. She’d been left alone so often in her life, by loved ones and strangers alike, that she’d come to accept it and the pain that went with it as her lot.

He was at the door when she said abruptly, “Mr. Runyon.”

“Yes?”

“I remember now. Her name, the woman who came looking for Lloyd. Jenny. I’m sure that’s what it was.”

“Last name?”

“I don’t believe she gave it. Jenny, that was all.”

T amara was skeptical at first. “Lloyd Henderson’s bastard son? I dunno, Jake. Why would he just show up all of a sudden, after twenty years, and start throwing acid at his half brothers?”

“Say he only recently learned Henderson was his father and went to Los Alegres to confront him-money, payback. Say he’s mentally unstable. Finding out Henderson’s been dead for five years throws him into a rage. He takes it out on the old man’s grave, but that doesn’t satisfy him. So he goes after the two legitimate sons.”

“Stalking them with acid just because Pop’s been underground for five years? Sounds far-fetched.”

“Depends on the details. What happened with Henderson and his mother, what his life was like, how he found out the truth. Kids can build up a lot of hate for a parent they think abandoned them.” He thought but didn’t say: I ought to know.

“So what do you want to do? Go up to Mendocino?”

“Worth the trip,” Runyon said. “It’s the only lead I’ve got.”

“When?”

“Right away. I can make the drive in a couple of hours. Spend the night, start checking first thing in the morning.”

“All right, go for it. You tell the clients about any of this yet?”

“No. Not until I see if the lead goes anywhere. The hunting camp is near a village called Harmony. Can you get me the exact location?”

“County tax records and MapQuest-no problem.”

“I’ve got my laptop. E-mail the info and I’ll pick it up when I get to a motel.”

Julian Iverson lived in Pacific Heights not far from my old apartment, but three streets higher-a much more rarified atmosphere. My place had been four rooms in a venerable, rent-controlled building with a snippet of a view from one bay window; Iverson’s condo was on the fourth floor of a newly renovated low-rise, had seven rooms and unobstructed views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, and had probably cost him a couple of million dollars.

Three of the interior rooms were partially walled with books, less than half as many as Pollexfen had accumulated, but they weren’t Iverson’s only interest. He also had a taste for antique furniture, paintings, etchings, and other artwork, and Oriental carpets-rare Sarouks, a fact I wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t made a point of saying so. More proud of the carpets, it seemed, than his books. All he said about the collection, with a casual sweeping gesture as we entered, was, “Children’s literature and fine bindings. My specialty.”

He was seventy, but he could have passed for fifty-five or so. Lean, fit, his face smooth, his hair still thick and dark except for threads of gray. He’d been accommodating on the phone: “Greg told me to expect a call from you. Come by any time.” He was just as accommodating in person, soft-spoken and cordial. We did our talking in a room dominated by fine bindings and half a dozen tasteful paintings of nudes in bucolic settings.

“How long have you known Gregory Pollexfen, Mr. Iverson?”

“Nearly thirty years. We met at an ABAA book fair.”

“Close friends, then?”

“I wouldn’t say that. We’re both avid bibliophiles-that’s the basis for our friendship. We have little else in common.”

“So you don’t socialize?”

“No. He comes here and I visit him at his home, to talk books. I’m a widower, you see.”

A fact I already knew from Tamara’s research. I nodded and said, “Your collecting interests are quite a bit different.”

“True, but our passion for first editions is what drew us together and keeps the friendship alive. Greg may collect nothing but crime fiction, but his knowledge and interest exceed his specialty. As do mine.”

“How would you characterize the man?”

Iverson smiled. “Passionate, as I said. Intense. Competitive. Generous when it suits him.”

“His wife considers him manipulative.”

“Does she? Well, she’s probably right. I’ve known him to be devious and scheming when he lusted after a particular book.”