Free Camouflage (Nameless Detective Mysteries) by Bill Pronzini

way.”
    *   *   *
    Nothing from Virden by close of business. I tried his cell one more time, got the same Out of Service message.
    “Still pissed and ducking us,” Tamara said.
    “Probably. I’ll make one more try tomorrow.”
    “What do we do if he’s blown us off?”
    “You know the answer to that. Mark the case closed and forget about it. There’s nothing else we can do.”

 
    9
    JAKE RUNYON
    Getting people to talk about their private lives was never easy, and a subject as delicate as child abuse made the job twice as difficult. If they were willing to talk at all, emotions flared up and got in the way: lies, evasions, exaggerations, angry recriminations, irrational outbursts like the one from Gwen Whalen. That was one common reaction; the other was the one he’d gotten from the other sister, Tracy, when he reached her by phone in Ojai. As soon as he mentioned Francine’s name, Tracy said in bitter tones, “I have nothing to say about her,” and hung up on him. Either way, a refusal to cooperate. The fact that Francine had two estranged sisters, one of whom had suffered severe emotional damage, was significant to him, but it wouldn’t be to Robert Darby. Lawyers were a breed apart. You had to practically hit them over the head with hard evidence, and even then they were liable to twist its interpretation to meet their own ends.
    Late Tuesday afternoon he went to see Francine’s ex-husband, Kevin Dinowski, at the California West Exchange Bank downtown. Dinowski had an impressive-sounding title, Regulatory Market Risk Representative, but judging from the size of his windowless office, it was neither a high-level nor a high-paying position. Runyon got in to see him by using the “personal matter” approach; few people were able to resist when a private investigator had that kind of interest in them—assuming they had nothing to hide.
    Dinowski was in his thirties, enthusiastic, and friendly enough until Runyon mentioned Francine’s name. Then he stiffened and pulled back. But he didn’t close off. Bitterness and something that might have been hatred for his ex-wife made him willing to talk about her. You could almost see the professional poise peeling away like layers of dead skin, to reveal the private scars and still-open wound underneath.
    “What’s she done now?” he said.
    “Now, Mr. Dinowski? She do something before?”
    “Soured me on marriage, for one thing.”
    “I understand you were married only a short time.”
    “I must’ve been out of my mind,” Dinowski said. “Blinded by sex, that’s my only excuse. It’s true what they say—you don’t really know someone until you live with them for a while.”
    When he didn’t go on, Runyon prompted him with, “We all make mistakes.”
    “Some bigger than others. I’ll never make one like Francine again.”
    “Another man is about to. She’s engaged to be married.”
    “Well, I feel sorry for the poor guy, whoever he is. Is that why you’re here? Checking up on her for her future husband?”
    “Something like that. He has a little boy, nine years old, from a previous marriage.”
    “Francine as a wife is bad enough, but as a mother? I pity that kid.”
    “Why?”
    “Because she’s crazy, that’s why. Ceritifiable.”
    “How is she crazy?”
    Dinowski looked away, not answering. A muscle fluttered along his jaw. The shape of his mouth was lipless, pinched.
    Runyon said, gambling, “Violent tendencies?”
    “Tendencies? She’s psychotic when something sets her off, and it doesn’t take much to set her off.” Dinowski shot the left sleeve of his suit coat, unbuttoned his shirt cuff, and drew that up. The skin along his forearm bore a long puckered scar. “See this? She threw a pot of boiling water at me one night. Just because of a mild criticism of what she was cooking. If I hadn’t ducked away in time, it’d be my face that’s scarred. That was the last straw. The next day I filed for divorce.”
    “There were