Hellbox (Nameless Detective) (7 page)

Kerry was still missing.

6

PETE BALFOUR

Nothing ever seemed to go right for him, nothing important anyways. He had no damn luck at all. Sometimes it seemed like the gods or whoever had had it in for him even before he come squalling out of the old lady. Ugly face, head like moss growing on a fuckin’ rock, no decent woman, no money except for what he could scrounge up by using his brains along with his muscles. And to top it off, Verriker’s Mayor of Asshole Valley tag. Wasn’t fair, dammit. Neither was what’d happened today. You couldn’t get anymore unfair than that.

First the woman showing up where she had no business being, fooling around his pickup, and then calling him Mr. Balfour. Maybe he shouldn’t of cut loose and choked her the way he had, but he couldn’t just let her walk away knowing who he was. Yeah, and how the hell had she known? He’d never seen her before in his life.

And then, just as bad, finding out Verriker was still alive.

Oh, that bitch Alice had got hers, all right, but she didn’t matter half as much. Verriker had plenty of luck, that was for sure. Always quit work right at five-thirty, always got home before Alice did, but no, not tonight. Tonight of all nights, he’d had to get stuck working late at Builders Supply on account of a shipment of PVC pipe coming in delayed and needing to be unloaded. How could you plan against something like that happening? Something like the woman happening? You couldn’t, nobody could. Just plain lousy luck.

Such a sweet plan, too. He couldn’t of had it worked out any better.

He knew the Verriker place well enough because he’d done some repair work out there a couple of years ago. No other homes close by, the woods running up along the hill on one side, the old logging road that nobody hardly ever used in the daytime. And no worries about the house being empty in the afternoon. Verriker and Alice both worked in town, her in the beauty shop, which was a laugh with a horse face like hers. No kids, no live-in relatives.

Easy as pie getting down there with his toolkit, then getting inside through the side door under the carport. Door opened straight into the kitchen, a wall switch just inside that turned on the kitchen light. He’d rigged the switch first, so it’d be sure to arc, then exposed the wires in the ceiling light fixture for good measure. Then he’d loosened the gas line connection behind the stove just enough to let the gas bleed out slow. That was all there was to it. In and out in less than fifteen minutes. Figuring Verriker might hit the switch right away even though it’d still be daylight when he got home, but if he didn’t, well, him or Alice would do it once it got on toward dark. Figuring either way, Verriker would be dead before nightfall.

Figuring wrong.

He’d found out Verriker was still alive and why when he walked into the Buckhorn. He wasn’t supposed to be in there tonight, or anywhere near Six Pines when the house blew up. Supposed to be in Placerville. What he’d planned to do was drive down there after he rigged the Verrikers’ kitchen and buy a few things at Home Depot so he’d have a good excuse for the trip in case he needed one. Eat an early supper and afterward hunt up a bar he’d never been in before, where nobody’d know him and he wouldn’t have to listen to any of that mayor crap. Then drive back to Green Valley late, long after the house and Verriker and Alice blew sky high.

But the woman wandering around the woods had screwed that up. Screwed it up royal.

By the time Balfour got done with her, he was too shaky to do anything except go home and guzzle three boilermakers, fast, to calm himself down. The drinks put him about half in the bag, and that was why he hadn’t gone to Placerville—he didn’t want to risk getting stopped by a county cop or the highway patrol, couldn’t afford to do anything that might call attention to himself. So he’d stayed put. Hell, why not? Didn’t really make any difference if he was home alone when Verriker got his. Slow gas leak, an arcing light switch, nobody would think it was anything but a freak accident. Accidents happen all the time, right?

The Verriker place was a couple of miles from his, so he hadn’t heard the explosion. Just as well. If he’d known right when the house blew, he’d of had an urge to drive over there, try to get a squint at the wreckage with Verriker burning up inside, and that wouldn’t of been smart with all the liquor in him. But he’d heard the siren on the fire truck from the up-valley VFD garage as it shot past, and it’d told him enough to put a smile on his face and give him half a boner. He’d waited an hour or so, and then drove slow and careful into town. Thinking on the way that he’d pretend not to know who or what had blown up because he’d been busy working at home; act real surprised and solemn when he heard the news.

They were talking about it in the Buckhorn, all right, Ramsey and Stivic and Alf the bartender, and Balfour cocked an ear and that was how he found out Verriker was still alive. Nobody said anything to him, not one word. They didn’t want nothing to do with him unless they could rag on him. It was like he was some goddamn stranger walked in off the street.

He didn’t have to act surprised. Hardest thing was trying not to show how frustrated and pissed off he was, not that it would of mattered if he’d clapped his hands and danced a jig. He had two more boilermakers because he needed them and because maybe it’d look funny if he rushed out without hoisting a couple. He was on his second when Ramsey said Verriker didn’t have insurance or much savings, why didn’t they take up a collection to help pay for poor Alice’s funeral. Alf got a jar and passed it around. Balfour had to kick in, too—two bucks, all he had in his wallet except for twenties. Lucchesi gave him a dirty look and somebody else muttered, “Cheap bastard.” Screw ’em all. He didn’t care what they thought as long as they didn’t start up with that mayor shit.

He was still pretty shook up when he got back to the house. More whiskey and beer didn’t help, all it did was make him fuzzy-headed. He turned on the TV, turned it off again, then just sat in his chair, drinking and trying to think what he was going to do about Verriker.

Couldn’t just back off, let him go on living and making Pete Balfour’s life miserable. Had to find some other way to fix him.

And the woman on the logging road … real problem there, too. She’d said something about a husband before he jumped her. Staying at the Murray place with her husband, that was it. Husband would report her missing if he hadn’t already. County cops’d be out looking for her sooner or later, combing the woods. Christ, what if they found her? No, they wouldn’t find her, not where he’d stashed her. But he couldn’t just leave her there. Had to find some permanent place to hide her body so they’d never be able to tie her to him. Body. Jesus. But what other choice did he have?

Maybe he should—

No, forget it. Deal with that tomorrow.

Verriker, too—tomorrow. Couldn’t think straight now, couldn’t plan.

He poured another drink, cracked another brew.

Why didn’t nothing ever work out easy for him?

7

The sheriff’s deputy in charge of the Six Pines substation was the fresh-faced young guy who’d come running up to me in the Verrikers’ driveway. His name was Broxmeyer. I waited half an hour for him; the only person in the station when I walked in just before dusk was a gray-haired woman who worked the desk and the radio dispatch unit, and she wasn’t in a position to help me. So I waited, alternately squirming on a wooden chair and pacing, sweating even though the air-conditioning was on, trying to adopt Jake Runyon’s method of blanking his mind during a downtime period. It didn’t work. All sorts of dark images kept spinning and sliding around inside my head, banging into one another. The knot that had formed in my stomach, cold and hard and acidic, kept funneling the sour taste of bile into the back of my throat.

Broxmeyer looked draggy and worn out when he finally showed. His uniform was rumpled and stained under the armpits; a smudge of something darkened one cheek. He smelled of smoke and sweat. So did I, probably; I hadn’t even thought about changing clothes.

The woman asked him if the fire at the Verriker place was completely out and contained yet. He said yes, but there was still some concern about a flare-up that would endanger the surrounding timber; one of the VFD trucks would remain on watch all night. I made some noise getting up off the chair to remind the woman that I was there. She said to me, “This is Deputy Broxmeyer,” and then to him, “Man’s been waiting to see you, Greg.”

Broxmeyer took a look at me. “You’re the man I talked to at the fire scene.”

“That’s right.” I told him my name.

“You’re not local. What were you doing there?”

“Looking for my wife. She’s missing. That’s why I’m here.”

“Missing? For how long?”

“Since sometime this afternoon. Six, seven hours.” I was making an effort to keep my voice even, unemotional, but some of the fear leaked through and made it break a little here and there. “She went for a walk, just a short walk, and she hasn’t come back. I can’t find her anywhere.”

Broxmeyer ruminated for a few seconds, chewing on a corner of his lower lip. Then he said, “Let’s talk in my office.”

He led me through a gate in the waist-high partition that cut the station into two uneven halves, then through another door into a glass-walled cubicle. He said, “Have a seat,” and sat heavily behind a modular gray desk strewn with papers. I stayed on my feet; I was too jittery to do any more sitting.

He took off his cap, revealing a mop of lanky blond hair, and pinched at his eyelids with thumb and forefinger before he was ready to talk. “Your wife went for a walk, you said. From where to where?”

“The Murray place on Ridge Hill Road. She may have gone into the woods nearby … I don’t know for sure. I was away part of the day fishing.”

“And when you came back, she was gone?”

“Yes. She left me a note about the walk. I waited until I got worried enough and then went out looking for her. In the woods first, on foot. Then in the car. I was up on Skyview Drive when the house exploded. That’s the reason I was on the scene so quick.”

“Uh-huh. I wondered about that.”

“I talked to some of the neighbors before I came here, as many as were home. None of them had seen her.”

Broxmeyer nodded and then asked, “Has your wife ever done anything like this before? Gone off someplace and not returned when she was supposed to?”

“No.”

“Two of you have an argument, anything like that?”

“No.”

“Was she upset or worried about anything?”

“Not that I know about. No.”

“What was her frame of mind when you left her?”

“She was fine. Cheerful. We’re enjoying … were enjoying the stay. Like the area, were thinking about making an offer on the Murray property.”

“Retiring up here?”

“No. Second home.”

“Where’s your first home?”

“San Francisco.”

“Uh-huh,” Broxmeyer said. “Well. How long have you been here?”

“Since early Saturday.”

“No, I don’t mean Green Valley. I mean waiting here in the station.”

“Better than half an hour.”

“Could be your wife’s come back in the meantime.”

“She hasn’t,” I said. “I tried calling on my cell phone a couple of minutes before you came in.”

“She have a cellular, too?”

“Yes, but she didn’t take it with her. It’s in her purse at the house.”

Broxmeyer scrubbed at his face again, blew out his breath in a heavy sigh. “Well, I hate to say this, but there’s not much I can do for you right now. Officially, I mean. A person has to be missing forty-eight hours before I can make a report, mount any kind of organized search.”

“I know that. But at least you can put out a BOLO alert.”

“BOLO alert. You seem to know a lot about it.”

“I’m in the business myself.”

“Is that right?” He was more alert now. “Police officer?”

“I used to be. Licensed private investigator since I left the SFPD twenty-five years ago.”

I had my wallet out and opened it to the license photostat, laid it on the desk in front of Broxmeyer. He leaned forward to look at it, looked at me, looked at the license again before he shunted the wallet back across the desktop. Whatever he thought of my breed, he wasn’t letting me see it; his lean face was expressionless.

“About that BOLO,” I said.

“Sure,” he said, “I’ll do that for you. Least I can do. I’m married myself—I know how worried you must be.”

No, you don’t, I thought. You can’t imagine how worried I am. Or how much I love Kerry. Or that I’d cut off my right arm, give up my life in a nanosecond, to save her from harm. Nobody can possibly know how I feel right now but me.

Broxmeyer rummaged around on his desk for a pad of paper and a pen. “Your wife’s name?”

“Kerry. K-e-r-r-y. Kerry Wade. She kept her maiden name.”

“Description?”

I gave it to him, in detail. Age: 55, but after her facelift, she could easily pass for ten years younger. Height: 5'4". Weight: 120. Body type: slender, willowy. Hair color: auburn. Hairstyle: medium short, with a kind of underflip on the sides. No visible distinguishing marks.

“What was she wearing?”

“White shorts, light blue blouse, white Reeboks with blue trim. And probably a wide-brimmed straw hat. She wouldn’t go out in the bright sun without it.”

“Okay,” Broxmeyer said when he’d finished writing, “I’ll have Marge put it on the air right away.”

“Thank you.”

“One more thing. Contact phone numbers—the house, your cellular. Your wife’s, too, for the record.”

I recited the cell numbers from memory. “I don’t know the house number. Not even sure the phone’s connected.”

“Cellulars’ll do. I’ll call you, or somebody will, if there’s anything to report. Your wife comes home on her own, let us hear from you right away.”

I said okay.

He worked on his tired eyes some more. “Look,” he said, “this kind of thing happens a fair amount up here in the summer. People wander off into the woods, get themselves lost. Usually, they find their own way out.”

“Unless they have an accident—a bad fall so they can’t walk.”