An address for Anna Kovacs in the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova was easy enough to find. Tucker Devries was a different story. One of those individuals whose lives are scattered enough to keep them off the radar. No easily obtainable address or employment record, didn’t own property anywhere in the state, and his “episode,” whatever it was, hadn’t been of sufficient newsworthiness to make any of the papers with online files. Access to criminal records and DMV files was prohibited by law to private citizens, even those who worked for detective agencies, but Tamara had ways and means of getting the information. He e-mailed a request to her to pull up what she could on Devries.
In the car he started to call the number he’d gotten for Anna Kovacs, to set up an appointment for tomorrow. Changed his mind mid-dial. Better to interview her cold. People were more likely to answer questions about relatives face-to-face than to a stranger’s voice on the phone.
The one call he did make was to Cliff Henderson’s number in Los Alegres-checking in to make sure everything was all right there. Tracy Henderson answered, reported status quo. She wanted a progress report and he put her off because he didn’t know enough yet to be sure he was on the right track with Tucker Devries. She and the rest of the Hendersons had enough to deal with as it was.
Choice to make now. Three hours plus to San Francisco, but then he’d have to fight commute traffic on Highway 80 to Rancho Cordova in the morning. At least a four-hour run straight through to the Sacramento area. As much as he liked to drive, it had been a long and busy day and with the weather turning bad, four hours was pushing his limits.
All right, then. Cut the distance to Rancho Cordova in half tonight, then stop at a motel somewhere. Two hours on the road was manageable, and by then he’d be hungry enough to eat and tired enough to sleep.
18
JAKE RUNYON
Anna Kovacs had no use for her adopted nephew, “that crazy little shit,” and was reluctant to talk about him. Runyon had to do some fast talking, citing the seriousness of the situation with the Henderson brothers, to keep her from shutting the door of her downscale tract house in his face. At that, she wouldn’t let him inside; they had their brief conversation on the chipped concrete porch. And he had to work to keep it focused on Tucker Devries. Mostly what she was interested in was herself.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the one you’re looking for,” she said. Large woman in her late sixties, heavily lined face, little piglike eyes pouched in fat. Too much lipstick made her mouth look like a bleeding gash. “Crazy, like I said. Nothing but grief for that poor dumb sister of mine. I told Pauline not to adopt the kid after brother Tom’s girl was killed, but no, she had to be a mother. Well, she learned to regret it.”
“In what way?”
“Didn’t leave her house to him, like I was afraid she would. Left it to me, and rightfully so-I’m her only blood relative left. But up in the boonies like that, it won’t be easy to sell. Not a single offer so far.” She sighed and looked off down a street lined and cluttered with junk cars, pickups, stake beds, boats on trailers-metal-and-glass weeds in a decaying neighborhood. “My husband and me, we can sure use that money. He’s a semi-invalid since his stroke. Needs constant attention. A burden, some days. A real burden.”
“Where can I find Tucker, Mrs. Kovacs?”
She wasn’t listening. “Pauline didn’t have much in the bank, and her furniture and the rest didn’t sell for much. Well, she never had much to begin with, just that house Tom willed to her when he died. Thirty years now, Tom’s been gone. Construction accident. He would’ve raised Tucker if he’d been alive. Didn’t take any crap from anybody, Tom didn’t-he’d’ve raised that boy right, ironed out his kinks good and proper.”
“Kinks,” Runyon said. “I understand Tucker has been institutionalized.”
“What? Oh, the twitch bin. Sure, more than once. They should’ve kept him locked up the last time. Better for everybody if they had, Lord knows.”
“Why was he locked up?”
Disgusted snort. “Always taking pictures of people and not all of ’em clean and wholesome, I’ll tell you. They caught him in Sacramento taking sneak pictures of women naked in their bathrooms, not once but twice, and the second time he went nuts when the cops tried to arrest him. Bit one, broke another one’s arm. Another time he threatened some man, said he’d kill him if he didn’t stop following him. Only the man didn’t know Tucker from Adam’s right buttock.”
Tucker Devries: paranoid schizophrenic.
“All they done was lock him up for a while,” she said, “and then let him back out on the streets. But that don’t mean he ain’t dangerous. My husband and me, we won’t have him in the house.”
“Obsessive about cleanliness? Washes his hands often?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s another of his nut things. Says he can’t stand dirt.”
Paranoid schizophrenic with OCD-a bad combination.
“Last time I saw him,” Anna Kovacs said, “he washed his hands right over there with the hose. And he wasn’t here five minutes.”
“When was that?”
“Three weeks ago. Come to pick up the trunk.”
“Trunk?”
“That’s all Pauline left him, his mother’s trunk, and I wish she hadn’t done that much. I hauled it back here from Deer Run, thought maybe we could use it for storage, and then her lawyer told me she willed it to Tucker. What else could I do but let him have it? Not that I minded, once I had a good look at what was inside.”
“Which was what?”
“Clothes, books, photographs-Jenny’s crap. Pauline kept it all these years, up in her attic. Never told him she had it. He seemed real upset about that.”
“How upset?”
“Started yelling after he got the trunk loaded in his van and washed his damn hands, called Pauline a b-i-t-c- h. After all she did for him. Well, if that’s what she was, I told him, then you’re a son of a b-i-t-c-h. He said F-you and that’s the last I saw or ever want to see of the little shit.”
“Where does he live?”
“Vacaville. Up to last Christmas, anyway. Pauline had his address, probably wanted her to send him money.”
“You still have the address?”
“No. I threw it out.”
“What kind of work does he do?”
“Clerk in a camera store.”
“Name of the store?”
“How should I know? I could care less.”
“You said he drives a van. Make, model?”
“I can’t tell one from another. White van, old, beat-up.”
“Lettering on the sides or rear?”
“Just a crappy white van. Listen,” she said, “it’s cold out here, no sun again today, and I’m tired of talking about Tucker. You want him, you go find him. And when you do, do the world a favor and stick him back in the nuthouse where he belongs.”
V acaville. A little less than halfway between Sacramento and San Francisco, and some fifty miles from Los Alegres. Location of two prisons in the nearby hills: California Medical Facility, the state’s health care flagship, and California State Prison, Solano. The medical facility might be the reason Devries was living in Vacaville; if he’d been remanded for observation to the psychiatric unit there, he could’ve decided to stay in the area after his release. One town, one clerk’s job, was the same as another to a paranoid schizophrenic whose passion was photography. Vacaville’s population was around ninety thousand. There were bound to be more than a couple of camera stores in a city that size, but not too many to make a canvass difficult.
By the time Runyon reached Vacaville, Tamara had called with the DMV and other information he’d
