Билл Пронзини - In an Evil Time

There was more give-and-take before they moved on to financial matters. The fees McCone quoted were about what Hollis had expected — substantial, in keeping with the size and location of her operation, but a long way from exorbitant. They signed a standard contract and he wrote a check to cover the retainer fee; five minutes later they were on their way out of the pier building with McCone’s assurance that she would contact them as soon as there was anything definite to report.

Outside, Cassie said, “I feel a little better now. I think we did the right thing.”

“So do I.”

She smiled up at him; he answered with a smile of his own. Thin mouth-stretchings, both, meant to be bolstering but gone in an instant, like scraps whipped away by the chill Bay wind.

On the drive to Los Alegres, Cassie phoned Angela again and spent fifteen minutes trying to convince her to move back home. Angela kept saying she didn’t think it was necessary. Stubborn, prone to wearing blinders — just like her old man. She finally agreed to talk it over with Pierce. If he thought it was a good idea, she said, then maybe she’d change her mind.

Tom Finchley and his helper were just finishing up when they reached the house. The living room had been emptied completely, the one wall painted over to erase the remains of Burke’s message. It was just a room now, like any other empty room awaiting a personal stamp. Yet the aura of violation still lingered.

Hollis called the office, spoke briefly to Gloria and then to Mannix. There had been no sign of Burke at River House or anywhere else in the vicinity today.

Shortly before five, Sharon McCone called to report that the vehicle registered in Burke’s name was a 1992 Nissan Sentra, four-door, white, with the personalized license plate VALBLAW. The woman’s current residence hadn’t been found yet, but McCone had two of her staff working on that and on the background profile.

He and Cassie made the rounds of their neighbors, explaining the situation in terse terms and supplying Burke’s description and the information about her car. The response, as it had been with Rakubian, was strongly supportive.

At five-forty the phone rang again. Pierce. And what he had to say put him solidly in Hollis’s favor. He agreed that Angela and Kenny would be safer living at the Hollises and had talked her into a temporary move. He’d stay in her apartment and keep an eye on things there, he said.

“Angela’s packing right now. Soon as she’s ready, she’ll drive over with Kenny.”

“Follow her in your truck. You’re welcome to stay for dinner.”

“Thanks, Mr. Hollis. I’d like that.”

“And I’d like you to use my first name. Mr. Hollis makes me sound as old as I feel.”

Thursday Evening

Angela wore a smiley face, but her reluctance was plain — she really didn’t want to be dependent any longer, at least not on Cassie and him. Kenny was too quiet, always a sure sign that he was troubled. Hollis scooped him up, took him into the study, and installed him in front of the computer. But the boy’s interest in video games was less avid than usual tonight.

He said as Hollis started to leave, “Granpa? Is David coming back to hurt us?”

My God . “No way. What gave you that idea?”

“I heard Mama and Daddy talking. She’s scared, like she was before.”

“It’s not David Rakubian she’s scared of.”

“Then how come we’re gonna live with you and Granma again?”

“What did your mom tell you?”

“She said it’s just for a little while. She said we never have to be afraid of David again, but I didn’t believe her. Who’s she scared of if it’s not that asshole?”

“Not a nice word, kiddo.”

“Mama says it sometimes. Lots of people say it.”

“Well, they shouldn’t and neither should you.”

“Who’re we afraid of now, Granpa?”

“A bad lady. But it won’t be for long.”

“What bad lady?”

“You don’t know her. Don’t worry, she won’t hurt your mom. As long as I’m around, nobody’s going to hurt anyone in this family ever again.”

Eric called just before dinner. Hollis filled him in on the most recent developments, then turned him over to his sister.

The after-dinner conversation, with Kenny out of earshot in the study, was all about Valerie Burke. Angela said, “I had no idea she was so deeply involved with David, or that she was capable of so much hate. She always seemed... I guess the word I want is passionless. Colorless, too.”

“She kept her feelings well hidden,” Cassie said. “People like her often do.”

Pierce asked, “Did Rakubian ever mention her?”

“Once or twice, but always professionally. I still can’t imagine him with her. She isn’t very attractive, and David was handsome if nothing else... they just don’t seem to fit together.”

“Physical attraction isn’t everything.”

“No, but still. What would make him want a woman like her?”

Hollis steered her away from that by asking, “You don’t know anything at all about her? Where she was born, where she went to school, how she got into paralegal work?”

Angela shook her head. “The whole time I was with David, I barely knew she was alive. I mean, I saw her at his office two or three times but I didn’t really pay attention to her. He never seemed to, either, unless she spoke to him directly. It was as if she was... I don’t know...”

“A piece of furniture?” Cassie supplied.

“No. As if she was hardly even there.”

“Like a shadow,” Pierce said.

Like a phantom, Hollis thought.

Friday

A day like any other recently, except that he felt as though he were living it on the edge of a precipice: moving forward at a retarded pace, watching carefully where he walked, trying not to look down.

Cassie went to work at Animal Care because they were short-handed and needed her. Angela stayed home with Hollis and Kenny. Tom Finchley and his helper arrived to finish repainting the living room. The computer, the TV, and his mother kept Kenny out of mischief while Hollis tried to do a little work in his study. At eleven the Camden Home Security rep arrived with catalogs and a practiced sales pitch, and when he left forty minutes later he had a check for a thousand dollars and Hollis had a receipt for Camden’s top-of-the-line security system and a promise that it would be installed the first of next week.

The phone rang twice: Mannix wondering if there was any news, Gloria with a question about one of their jobs. The silence from McCone Investigations must mean that Burke hadn’t shown up at Rakubian’s house last night.

Twelve-thirty. He bundled his daughter and grandson into the Lexus and drove downtown to the Mill, where Cassie met them for lunch. No one had much appetite, not even Kenny. Hollis felt exposed sitting there in the crowded restaurant, as if he were a character in an action film — one of those loud, messy flicks where somebody in a ski mask suddenly bursts in and opens fire with an automatic weapon. Nothing happened, of course, but by the time he pulled into the driveway at home he had developed a tension headache.

An abortive try at a nap, design work that went badly, a couple of mindless computer games with Kenny... the afternoon crawled away. The phone rang at 3:10: somebody wanting to sell him aluminum siding. Cassie came home at 3:50; Pierce showed up at 4:20. And just as Hollis was about to put in a call to McCone Investigations, the phone rang again and it was McCone herself on the other end.

Some news, but not the news he wanted to hear. Burke still hadn’t been located. No-show at Rakubian’s house, no fixed address after the one on Parnassus, no listing with any of the paralegal services or the American Society of Paralegals, no apparent affiliation with any legal firm in the Bay Area. The background check had produced a still-sketchy but emerging profile of an unstable woman: born in Chico, raised by a single father who ruled her upbringing with an iron hand until he died suddenly of a heart attack when she was eighteen. Married and pregnant at nineteen, to another dominant male who physically abused her and caused her child to be stillborn. Divorce, a mental breakdown that put her in a sanitorium for three months. Moved to San Francisco after her discharge in an effort to turn her life around. Studied law at Heald College, graduated, became an accredited paralegal, worked for one of the larger paralegal firms and a private law firm before joining Rakubian’s operation five years ago. No significant male presence in her life after her divorce and before or since her evident relationship with Rakubian.