Camouflage (Nameless Detective Mysteries)

by Bill Pronzini

  Judith LoPresti had a low, well-rounded voice—an intelligent voice. It was also a worried voice, with an undertone of scare in it. “Have you seen or heard from David since Tuesday?”

  “No, we haven’t. He was here about one o’clock to pick up our report and the Church papers.”

  “Yes, I know about that. The last time I talked to him, he told me you’d found Roxanne McManus.”

  “Well, there seems to be some question about that,” I said.

  “Question?”

  Tamara was still on the line. She said, “He called me later that afternoon, Ms. LoPresti, upset because he said the woman we located wasn’t his ex-wife.”

  “… I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do we. Everything we found out says that she is.”

  I said, “I left a couple of messages for him later that day, but he hasn’t returned the calls.”

  “He’s missing,” Judith LoPresti said.

  “Missing?”

  “Since sometime Tuesday. He didn’t show up to meet me that evening as we’d arranged. He hasn’t been to his office—he missed an important conference yesterday. He hasn’t been home, either. I went to his apartment last night—the mail and newspapers hadn’t been picked up.” The scare in her voice had become a little more pronounced. “It’s not like him to just go off somewhere without a word to me or anyone else. Frankly, I’m afraid something may have happened to him.”

  “Did you check the local hospitals?”

  “Every one in the city, on the Peninsula, here in the South Bay. He wasn’t in an accident or anything like that.”

  Not necessarily true, but I kept the thought to myself. “What kind of car does he drive?”

  “A black Porsche Cayman. I bought it for him for his birthday.”

  Some birthday present. More to the point, brand-new Porsches can be targets for carjackers and their drivers targets for violent muggers. Dogpatch’s crime rate wasn’t the worst in the city by any stretch, but there were other neighborhoods not far away that had more than their share of gangs and street thugs who didn’t always confine commission of felonies to their own turf.

  “Would you happen to know the license number?”

  “As a matter of fact I would. It’s a vanity plate—VRDNEXEC.”

  Short for “Virden Executive.” The man thought a lot of himself, all right.

  “Is the Porsche the only vehicle he owns?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you been to the police, Ms. LoPresti?”

  “Last night, after I left David’s apartment. But they said I’d have to wait until today to file a missing-person report … something about a mandatory seventy-two-hour waiting period. The officer I spoke to wasn’t very helpful; he seemed to think I was overreacting. I wasn’t and I’m not. If David was all right, he’d have contacted me by now.”

  “Since this is the last place he was seen, you might want to file a report with the San Francisco police.”

  “They must get dozens of missing-person reports. Will they do something right away to find David? I don’t believe they will.”

  I let that pass without comment. She was closer to being right than wrong.

  She said then, “Is there anything you can do?”

  “Well…”

  Tamara said, “We can try, if you’d like to hire us.”

  “Yes.” Immediate answer; Ms. LoPresti had already made that decision. “Yes, I would.”

  “We’ll need your signature on a contract, and a retainer check.”

  “I can leave now and be in the city in an hour and a half.”

  “Be expecting you.”

  End of conversation, without another word from me. So be it. Tamara was in charge now, and she’d never been bashful when it came to drumming up business. I don’t necessarily approve of the kind of direct approach she’d used on Judith LoPresti, but then the agency wasn’t half as successful when I was running it on solo power and antiquated methods. Once, years back, Tamara had called me a dinosaur. Right. Edging up on extinction like the rest of those lumbering creatures.

  She came into my office as I was taking a swig of some of the now lukewarm coffee. “R. L. McManus,” she said.

  “What about her?”

  “Turns out not to be Virden’s wife and now Virden’s gone missing. Pretty funny coincidence.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “He called you after he left Canine Customers.”

  “He could’ve gone back.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Try to find out who the woman really is.”

  “And then what? You think she did something to him?”

  “Criminals don’t want to get caught, right?”

  “If she’s a criminal,” I said. “And even if she is, it’s a big jump from thief to murderer.”

  “Not if they’re backed into a corner.”

  “Any number of other things could’ve happened to Virden. Mugging, carjacking. Even a planned disappearance.”

  “With all that LoPresti green waiting for him? And after all the trouble he went to to track down his ex-wives and get them to sign annulment papers?”

  “All right. Point taken.”

  “McManus was the last person he saw before he dropped off the radar.”

  “That we know about.”

  “I say we keep investigating her.”

  “Agreed. But check on the other possibilities first; see if anything turns up on Virden or that Porsche of his.”

  Nothing did. Virden’s name didn’t appear on any Bay Area police blotter, either as victim or complainant, and there was no record of a black Porsche Cayman with a VRDNEXEC license plate having been in an accident or found abandoned or towed and impounded in S.F. or any of the Peninsula cities.

  Tamara said when she was done running her checks, “Right back to McManus. Want me to talk to her, see what she has to say?”

  “No, I’ll do it.”

  “When?”

  I sighed, though not audibly enough for Tamara to hear. “As soon as we have the face-to-face with our new client.”

  * * *

  Judith LoPresti was true to her time estimate: she walked into the agency almost exactly an hour and a half later. Attractive woman; Virden’s interest in marrying her wasn’t strictly monetary. Thirty or so, long red hair, green eyes, a model’s slender figure. Regal bearing, too, enhanced by the expensively tailored off-white suit she wore. Around her neck on a chain was a small gold cross, testimony to her faith. Very calm and matter-of-fact—you had to look closely to see the worry lines and missed-sleep smudges beneath artfully applied makeup.

  We got the financial end out of the way first. Tamara had the standard agency contract ready; Ms. LoPresti gave it a hurried read-through, saying, “David was satisfied with it, I’m sure it’s fine,” signed it, and wrote a check to cover the retainer. Then we interviewed her in my office.

  She had questions of her own first. “On the phone you said David called you Tuesday afternoon, upset because the woman you found isn’t Roxanne McManus.”

  “That’s what he said, yes.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “We’re not sure yet. It’s one of the things we’ll be looking into.”

  Tamara said, “But we didn’t make a mistake. I double-checked our research—it’s accurate.”

  “I believe you. We researched detective agencies before we chose yours. You come highly recommended.”

  Vindicated, Tamara smiled and nodded. I wondered if she’d noticed Judith LoPresti’s use of the plural pronoun, indicating Virden wasn’t as much the alpha party in their relationship as he’d let on. Probably she had. She’s smarter than I am and she doesn’t miss much.

  “The report you gave David—I’d like a copy of it.”

  “I’ve already printed one out. I’ll get it for you when we’re done here.”

  Ms. LoPresti said, “David would certainly know a woman he was married to, even after eight years. She couldn�
��t have changed that much.”

  “Not likely.”

  “Well, then? Is this woman an impostor?”

  “It’s one possibility,” I said. Better to be noncommittal at this point.

  “Could she have had anything to do with David’s disappearance?”

  “He’d already left her home when he called here.”

  “But he could have gone back.”

  “Yes, he could have.”

  “Did he tell you where he was calling from?”

  “No. It might’ve been his car—faint background noises.”

  “Then why didn’t he call me with the news? My cell was on the entire day.”

  I kept quiet. So did Tamara. She knew better than to share her dire speculations with a client.

  Routine questions, then, me asking most of them by tacit agreement.

  “I take it your fiancé has never done anything like this before? Willfully disappeared for a short period without telling anyone?”

  “Not in the year I’ve known him. Never, I’m sure. He’s simply not that sort of person.”

  “Business problems of any kind that you know about?”

  “No. He has a very secure position with Hungerford and Son.”

  “Personal problems? Enemies?”

  “None. Everyone likes David.”

  I didn’t and Tamara didn’t and he’d been divorced three times, so the answer was ingenuous. So was her response to my next question.

  “Pardon me for asking this, but we need to know. Does he have a history of mental problems or alcohol or chemical abuse?”

  “Absolutely not. David is the most stable and sober man I’ve ever known.” The implication from her tone being that she wouldn’t have accepted his marriage proposal if he was anything but.

  “Does he have any friends in the city, anyone he might contact if he had a problem or an emergency?”

  “No. The only people he knows here are casual business acquaintances. We’ve driven up a few times for dinner, the symphony, a show. He would have introduced me to any friends he had here, or at least told me about them.”

  Not necessarily, but I let it go. “Is there anywhere you can think of that he might have gone voluntarily?”

  “No. And certainly not without notifying me or his office.”

  “Do you own a second home?”

  “My family has a house at Lake Tahoe, but David would never go there by himself. Besides, it’s closed up this time of year.”

  “Okay. One more thing. A photo, if you have one.”

  “Yes, but it’s wallet size.”

  “That’ll do.”

  It was a nicely framed head-and-shoulders snapshot, Virden smiling all over his handsome face, one eye half-closed as though he’d been snapped in the middle of a wink. She seemed reluctant to part with it. “It’s my favorite,” she said, “and I’m not sure I still have the negative. I’d like it back when you find David.”

  “Of course.”

  “You’ll start looking for him right away?”

  I said we would, and that we’d let her know as soon as we found out anything she should know.

  “Thank you. I hope…” She stopped, nibbled her lower lip, and substituted a wan smile for what she’d been about to say. Scared, all right, and trying not to show it. Her bearing remained regal, the wan smile fixed, as I showed her out.

  When I came back, Tamara said, “No nonsense and a lot of cool. I like her and I feel sorry for her.”

  “Same here.”

  “Just the opposite of Virden. I wonder what she sees in him.”

  “Something you and I don’t, evidently.”

  “Gonna get hurt, whether we find him or not. Women ought to have better sense than to fall in love with guys like him.”

  “Love doesn’t work that way, kiddo.”

  “Not telling me anything I don’t know. Look at my track record with men.”

  “You’ll meet the right one someday. And you’ll know it when you do.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “So how come every wrong dude I ever hooked up with seemed like Mr. Right at the time?”

  12

  The Room for Rent sign was absent from the fence in front of the McManus house. No surprise there; it didn’t take long to find single tenants with modest needs in neighborhoods like Dogpatch that had easy public-transit access to downtown. The driveway was empty today, but the house wasn’t.

  Déjà vu when I thumbed the doorbell: the Hound of the Baskervilles started his furious barking, a woman’s commanding voice said, “Quiet, Thor!” to shut him up, and Jane Carson opened up wearing her toothy smile. One good look at me and the smile turned upside down.

  “Oh,” she said, “it’s you again.”

  “Me again. I’d like to speak to Ms. McManus.”

  “She’s not home.”

  “When do you expect her back?”

  “No specific time. She has a busy schedule.”

  “Me, too. Busy, busy.”

  As before, the dog sat on his haunches behind and to one side of the woman, watching me with his yellow eyes. Maybe he sensed her chilly attitude or maybe he just didn’t like me any more than I liked him; the eyes looked hot and his fangs were visible in what I took to be a silent growl.

  “What did you wish to see R.L. about?”

  I held up Virden’s photo. Carson looked at it, but only for a couple of seconds. “This man.”

  “I’ve never seen him before. Who is he?”

  “David Virden, Ms. McManus’s ex-husband. The man who came to see her Tuesday afternoon.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. I was away Tuesday afternoon.”

  “And she didn’t mention his visit?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Say anything about him after I was here on Monday?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me, Ms. Carson, just what is it you do here? Employee, tenant, companion?”

  “I don’t see where that’s any of your business.”

  “Simple question.”

  “All right, then, I’ll give you a simple answer. I work with the dogs.”

  “Been with Canine Customers long?”

  “Not long, no.” Very cold and crisp now. Thor’s ears pricked up; a little more of his fangs showed. “Is there anything else?”

  I got out one of my business cards, jotted a “please contact me ASAP” note on the back, and handed it to Carson—doing it all slowly with one eye on Thor. He sat still, but the yellow eyes followed every move I made. “Make sure she gets this, please. I’ll expect to—”

  That was as far as I got, because she shut the door in my face.

  * * *

  I made a fifteen-minute driving canvass over a radius of several blocks. There was no sign of Virden’s black Porsche Cayman—or any other model or color Porsche. Finding him or his vehicle wasn’t going to be that easy.

  McManus’s immediate neighbors were the next order of business. I didn’t make any effort to conceal my continued presence in the area; in fact, I parked across the street from Canine Customers and took my time walking around. If Carson was paying attention, I wanted her to see me and relay the information to McManus. It wouldn’t bother them much if they had nothing to hide. On the other hand, it might shake them up to know they were being investigated. Shake up people with something to hide and it can lead to mistakes and answers.

  House canvassing is not one of my favorite tasks. Most city residents are leery of strangers these days, no matter how well dressed, polite, and nonthreatening, and if I have to flash my ID, it turns some hostile and makes others close up like cactus flowers at sundown. These were the reactions I got from the first five neighbors who were home and took the trouble to answer their doorbells. Only two deigned to look at Virden’s photo and none of the five could or would own up to seeing him or his Porsche in the neighborhood on Tuesday afternoon.

  The sixth person I talked to, a woman in one of the houses on Minnesota Street caterco
rner to the McManus place, was the only one who had anything to tell me—of a sort. And not without some initial confusion and difficulty.

  She was in her late sixties, the owner of a pile of frizzy gray hair, a pair of beadily alert gray eyes, plump cheeks red stained with broken capillaries, and a set of false teeth that had been improperly fitted and gave her something of an overbite. She took one look at me and said in disgusted tones, “Oh, God, a new one.”

  “No, ma’am, I’m not selling—”

  “You’re pretty old, aren’t you?”

  “Old?”

  “To be chasing after young women. Laurie’s not even forty yet.”

  “I’m afraid you have me—”

  “Have you? Not me, mister. You or any other man, now that my husband’s gone to his reward.” She spoke with a slight lisp, the false teeth clicking now and then like little finger snaps. “My daughter’s got no morals, same like her father. Not much taste, either, I must say. You’re old enough to be her father … and married, too.”

  “I am, yes, but—”

  “Not even trying to hide it, wedding ring right there on your finger. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “The devil I don’t understand. I know all about men like you, I was married to a cheating old goat myself for thirty-seven years. Go away; go back to your wife. Laurie’s not here.”

  She started to close the door. I got a foot in the way, the photograph up between her face and mine, and said fast so she couldn’t interrupt, “I don’t know any woman named Laurie. I’m looking for a missing person, the man in this photo, he was in this neighborhood on Tuesday afternoon.”

  She batted her eyes, clicked her teeth, flushed a little, and said, “Oh my God,” in a subdued and mortified tone. “I thought you were screwing my daughter.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “I’m sorry. You must think I’m awful, talking to you the way I did.…”

  “No, ma’am,” I lied. I eased the photo a little closer. “Do you recognize this man?”

  She squinted, clicked, and lisped, “No. Never saw anybody looks like that.”

  “He was driving a new black Porsche.”