Camouflage (Nameless Detective Mysteries) by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online Page A

hit-and-run witness. And Alex Chavez was working a pro bono hate-crime case for a black family that was being victimized in Monterey Heights—one more example, as if anybody needed one, that racism was not only alive but running rampant like crap through a sewer.
    Fine with her, working alone. She liked being in charge, handling her end of the agency in her own efficient, organized way. Plenty to handle these days, too; business was booming, despite or maybe because of the tanked economy. Two other insurance-related cases, a missing-person investigation, a b.g. check for a rich dude in St. Francis Wood who believed his daughter’s brand-new fiancé was after the family fortune … plus client reports on closed and in-progress cases, invoices, bookkeeping, and, as a favor to Jake, a deep backgrounder on a woman he suspected of abusing his lady’s kid.
    All that was liable to keep her here long past five o’clock closing. Had the night before and probably would the rest of the week. Was a time when she’d’ve chafed at that much overtime because it cut into what little social life she had. Now, she welcomed it. After what’d happened a couple of weeks ago, being alone in the office was a lot more comfortable than holing up alone in her flat on Potrero Hill. The flat just didn’t feel the same as it had when she moved in. Maybe never would again. But she was stuck there for another ten months, like it or not; the lease was ironclad and she’d lose a bundle if she broke it. Besides, she was just too busy to go hunting for another place to live.
    Antoine Delman, aka Lucas Zeller. That son of a bitch. Nearly ruined her life … nearly took her life. Not enough time had passed for her to get over her outrage every time she thought about him and what he’d tried to do to her and a whole long list of other brothers and sisters. Happiest day coming up was the one she’d spend in court testifying against him and his freaky mama.
    Something else he’d done to her was sour her on men. The way she felt right now, she didn’t care if she ever had another relationship, ever even got laid again. Use it or lose it? Well, maybe it was better to lose it than risk losing everything else because of it.
    The morning went by quickly, with only one phone call to interrupt her work. Just after one o’clock the annulment client, David Virden, showed up to collect his envelope and the report she’d typed out for him. He didn’t look at the report, just asked her if his ex-wife’s current address was in it. Well, of course it was; what did he think they’d do, hide it from him? He didn’t look at the invoice, either. Demanded to know what he owed, wrote a check for the full amount, and stalked out without bothering to say thanks or good-bye. Mr. Personality. No wonder none of his first three marriages had lasted. Another of those slick dudes, like that bastard Antoine, who were all surface charm when they wanted something or somebody, but cut them open and what you’d find inside was a mess of dirty ice and a festering ego.
    Tamara had most of her priority client work caught up by two thirty. Which left reports and bookkeeping, neither of which she felt like tackling just yet. Instead she started in on the deep backgrounder for Jake. Child abuse was about as low a crime as there was; anything she could do to help put a stop to what was happening to Bryn’s son was a mandate.
    Francine Whalen. Jake had been fairly thorough in what he’d pulled up on the woman so far, but the Net was a vast storehouse of information, some of it distorted and useless, and what you had to do was get down into the nooks and crannies far below the surface and then start a careful sifting. Same principle as rummaging around in attics and sub-basements and dusty old buildings where the long-stored, valuable stuff was hidden away.
    Didn’t have much luck at first. The twenty-nine years of Whalen’s life to date seemed pretty clean, without any apparent