Bill Pronzini - Vixen

Vorhees’ spine stiffened. He made another jabbing motion with the letter opener, toward me this time, before he said, “Even if that were true, my private life is none of your affair. Nor was it any of my wife’s affair. I told you, we were legally separated.”

“Are you denying a relationship with Cory Beckett?”

“I don’t have to confirm or deny anything to you.”

“No, you don’t. But it so happens I saw you coming out of her apartment building about a week ago. I mentioned it to her, but evidently she didn’t mention it to you.”

She hadn’t. His effort to hide the fact didn’t quite come off. “What were you doing there?”

“She was my client at the time. I don’t have to tell you she hired our firm to find her brother when he disappeared three weeks ago. One reason I went to see her that day was to inform her that we’d located him, or rather Mr. Runyon had.”

“One reason?”

“The other is that I don’t like being lied to.”

“By Cory Beckett? About what?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“I’m asking you.”

“The theft her brother’s charged with,” I said. “The fact that it was a frame-up and she was the intended target, not him. The fact that it was her idea he take the blame and that she had help shifting it to him.”

The skin across Vorhees’ forehead bunched into ribbed rows. He let the letter opener drop with a small clatter on the desktop.

“Bullshit,” he said.

“Facts.”

“How could you know all that?”

“We’re detectives, remember?”

He didn’t say anything for a time. Then, “Why would Cory want to frame her brother?”

“Ask her.”

“The hell I will. I don’t believe it. She loves the kid, she’s doing everything she can to get him off. She’d have to be crazy to do what you’re accusing her of.”

“Or sane and full of schemes.”

“Schemes? What kind of schemes?”

“That’s not for us to say.”

“Why the hell not, if you think you know?”

“Legal and ethical reasons.”

“Legal and ethical,” he said, as if they were dirty words.

Runyon said, “Aren’t you going to ask us who arranged the frame in the first place?”

“If I thought it was true, I wouldn’t have to ask.”

“Or who allegedly helped her shift it to her brother?”

“... All right. Who?”

“The same person allegedly recruited to frame her.”

“Goddamn it, who?”

“Allegedly,” I said, “Frank Chaleen.”

The name rocked him like a blow. He got abruptly to his feet, stood woodenly for a clutch of seconds, then leaned forward and flattened his hands on the desktop.

“Bullshit,” he said again.

“Fact.”

“Cory hardly knows Chaleen.”

“She knows him a lot better than you think.”

“How do you know she does?”

Runyon said, “When Kenneth ran off, he went to a place called Belardi’s on the Petaluma River. That’s where I found him. He wouldn’t leave with me, so she drove up to convince him and bring him home.”

“I know that. So what?”

“Chaleen was with her.”

Vorhees started to say something, changed his mind, and opted for a stony silence.

On the ride down here from South Park, Jake and I had decided to push the envelope with him as far as possible. I’d already taken the biggest chance in suggesting, if not directly accusing, Frank Chaleen of complicity in a crime. Now it was time for the capper.

“Chaleen gets around, doesn’t he,” I said. “One woman at a time’s not enough for him. Wives and mistresses, both fair game.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“What do you think it means, if he was involved in the original plan to frame Cory Beckett for theft? It’s common knowledge he’d been having an affair with your wife. Seems pretty clear the only thing that would make him switch his allegiance from her to Cory is that he’s sleeping with her, too — cuckolding you twice.”

A rush of blood put a wine-dark stain on Vorhees’ smooth-shaven cheeks. The veins in his neck bulged.

“Sorry,” I said, “but it stacks up that way, doesn’t it?”

He said between clenched teeth, “That son of a bitch! I’ll make him wish he was never born.”

Runyon and I let that pass without comment.

The sudden fury didn’t last long. Vorhees had not gotten where he was by letting his emotions run away with him. I watched him make a visible effort to control himself.

“You better not be lying to me about any of this,” he said at length.

I said, “We’re not in the habit of lying.”

He lowered himself into his chair, folded his hands together. All business again, except for the fact that the knuckles on both hands showed white. “I’ve got enough to deal with as it is without the media busting my chops again. What would it take for the two of you to keep all of this quiet?”

“Are you offering us a bribe, Mr. Vorhees?”

“Hell, no. A favor for a favor. I have a fair amount of influence in this city. I could do your agency some good—”

“No, you couldn’t. You can’t trade for or buy our silence. You already know that if you’ve checked us out and I’m sure you have. But we’ll give it to you for nothing. We didn’t intend to make trouble for your wife and we don’t intend to make trouble for you. That’s not why we’ve disclosed as much to you as we have.”

“No? Then why did you?”

“We don’t like to see a good kid like Kenneth Beckett facing a prison sentence for a crime he didn’t commit. Or a newly bereaved husband jerked around by lovers and former friends.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Believe what you like.” I got to my feet; Runyon followed suit. “We’ve said our piece — it’s in your hands now.”

He made a derisive noise. But his face was set, hard and brittle, like a ceramic sculpture fresh out of the kiln. He believed it, all right. And his simmering anger was not only directed at Chaleen but at his lying, conniving mistress.

Mission accomplished.

Boat rocked and holed and taking on water, fast.

The interview with Andrew Vorhees produced results more quickly than Runyon and Bill had anticipated. That same evening, Kenneth Beckett broke his silence with another call.

“Mrs. Vorhees is dead, Mr. Runyon, you know that,” the kid’s voice said without preamble. He wasn’t calling from home; multiple voices punctuated with laughter rose and fell in the background. “It wasn’t an accident. Chaleen did it. I told you, didn’t I? You said you wouldn’t let it happen.”

“I tried, but I got there too late.”

“It’s my fault. If I’d told you sooner...”

“Ken, listen to me. Where are you now?”

“A tavern down the block. Mr. Vorhees came to the apartment again tonight. He was mad, real mad — he knows about Cory fucking Chaleen. He kept yelling at her, calling her names, and she kept yelling back. They forgot about me so I sneaked out and came here.”

“What’s the name of the tavern?”

“... I don’t know.”

“Ask somebody. I’ll come there and we’ll talk. Decide what to do.”

“Can’t we just talk now? I don’t want to be away too long. They might... Cory might come looking for me.”

“I can barely hear you with all the background noise. Better if we talk in person anyway. Find out the name of the tavern, okay?”

There was a short silence. Then the bar sounds cut off — Beckett must have put his hand over the mouthpiece. After the better part of a minute, “It’s the Fox and Hounds. On Pine Street.”

“It shouldn’t take me more than half an hour to get there. Promise me you’ll wait.”