I went back to the MG and decided to make another pass down the world’s second most crooked street.
I was rounding the hairpin turn above Vardon’s cottage when I saw a white BMW convertible pull into her driveway. Vardon was at the wheel, her head covered in a pale yellow scarf that the breeze whipped around at the nape of her neck. As the garage door rose, I pulled to the curb, got out, and hurried over there. Vardon glanced at me, registered irritated recognition, and drove inside. In a moment she came out, pulling off the scarf and stuffing it into her pocket.
“Well, Sharon McCone, supersleuth,” she said, in a tone laced with sarcasm, “to what do I owe this pleasure?”
Fortunately I’d polished my cover story on my way over here. “I need to talk with you about J.D. Smith.”
She frowned and tapped her foot impatiently on the pavement. “What about him?”
“Well, J.D. thought highly of you. In fact, he seemed … almost in awe. His landlady and I are organizing a memorial service, and I thought I might be able to persuade you to say a few words.”
“You did?”
“Just a short tribute.”
“And you say J.D. was ‘in awe’ of me.”
“That’s right. He was impressed by your talents. Especially impressed that you were taking on a big project like the Islais Creek Resort.”
“How did he know about that?”
“Well, he was a reporter.”
“Of course.” She jiggled her keys, glanced at her watch. “Do you make it a habit of paying calls at almost midnight to ask people to speak at funerals?”
I widened my eyes. “Oh, no! Is it that late? To tell the truth, I was upset after the planning session with J.D.’s landlady and drove around for a while. I didn’t notice the time.”
“That’s okay. I’ve been at a dinner party in Marin, and it’s got me so wired that I won’t sleep for hours. Let’s take this inside. It’s chilly out here.”
Vardon led me up the steps and into the house. Its decor surprised me: velvet draperies, oriental carpets, flowered wallpaper, delicate antique furnishings. Not at all what I’d have expected of her.
She saw me looking around and said, “I didn’t choose it. My former mother-in-law did. She died and left it to my ex-husband, who stuck me with it in the divorce settlement, while he kept the house on Maui that he inherited from his father.” She sank onto one of the chairs, propped her booted feet on a spindly inlaid coffee table. “Look, do you want some coffee or juice? I can’t offer you anything stronger; I don’t drink or keep booze in the house.”
I sat opposite her. “Nothing, thanks.”
“So when’s J.D.’s service?”
“Friday afternoon.” There had been a message from Jane Harris when I’d earlier accessed my home machine.
“Where?”
“On the Marin Headlands. I’ll let you know the exact spot later on.”
Vardon considered, eyes coldly calculating. “I guess I could say a few words. J.D. could be a major pain in the ass and a sneaky bastard, but he also had his good points. Don’t worry,” she added, noting my disapproval, “I’ll couch it in more flattering terms when the time comes. The two of you must’ve been good friends.”
“For a lot of years.”
“I guessed that. Otherwise you wouldn’t’ve helped him out when he tried to get the skinny on
InSite
.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, we both know J.D. wasn’t after some puff piece on a P.I. solving a silly little manufactured mystery.”
“… Maybe.”
“You can tell me about it.”
I shook my head. “Confidentiality.”
“Doesn’t apply.”
I made a show of reluctance before I said, “Okay, he suspected something was wrong at the magazine—something major that would make a good story. He was on to it when he went up to Oregon, but he didn’t put anything down on paper, so I haven’t a clue.”
“Hmmm.” Vardon looked skeptical. “Did it have to do with Tessa Remington disappearing?”
“Possibly. You’re an intelligent woman; what do you think?”
“I have no opinion.”
“About Ms. Remington?”
“About anything.”
“You must. Even Roger Nagasawa suspected something was wrong at the magazine.”
“Roger? What do you know about him?”
“For one thing, that you were involved with him.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, I was in high school! That was over years ago. You know, for someone who spent only a few hours on the premises you certainly know a lot about
InSite
personnel.”
“It was a very fruitful few hours. When I was talking with Kat Donovan she told me she did some research for you.”
Vardon frowned. “What of it? I often used Kat’s services. In this case I was considering making some investments and was interested in market trends, so she put a package together for me.”
“Was one of those investments the resort?”
“Yes, it was.”
“And you bought it when?”
She hesitated. “In March.”
Wrong. Barry Carver had been scheduled to start work on March first. Why would she lie about that?
“D’you plan to reopen it?”
“Good God, no! The restaurant business is the last thing I’d involve myself in. I plan to live in the building and operate a consulting firm out of it.” Vardon stood. “I think we’d better wrap this up now. I’ve got a long, difficult day tomorrow, clearing out my office and settling matters with Jorge and Max. To say nothing of polishing up my résumé.”
And my day promised to be difficult too—beginning with the interview with the detectives from Tillamook County. I told Vardon goodnight and headed across town to my temporary home.
Tuesday
Sleep wouldn’t claim me. I walked the floor through the early hours of the morning. My emotions, which had been burning at a white-hot pitch for two weeks, had cooled. I felt in control, levelheaded—and in the grips of obsession.
The object of my obsession was a familiar one: the truth.
I moved about the apartment slowly, taking in small details of the rooms, concentrating for minutes at a time on the weave of a drapery, the texture of the plaster, the pattern of the bricks of the fireplace.
Emotion, I thought, is fast and hot—and deadly to you. Obsession is slow and cold—and deadly to others.
I often felt this way when the facts began to dovetail with my theories. Today, I sensed, I would uncover the truth and recognize it for what it was.
The Tillamook County sheriff’s investigators were already at Glenn’s offices when I arrived shortly before eleven. Tom Scanlon and Dave Parsons. A matched pair in their forties who looked remarkably alike, their manner was polite and professional; their eyes sized me up shrewdly while Glenn made the introductions. We took seats around the table in his conference room, Scanlon set up a recorder, and we began.
Parsons produced my travel bag from under the table, and I identified it. He asked, “Will you tell us how it came to be out of your possession?”
I explained about dropping it outside Houston’s cottage on Friday night. Parsons then asked me about its contents, and I described them.
“You flew to Portland, Ms. McCone?”
“Yes, on the eight o’clock shuttle.”
“And rented a car?”
“From National.” Of course they would already have checked with the airline and rental-car company.
“When did you return to San Francisco?”
“Late Saturday afternoon, the four o’clock flight.”
Glenn said, “Gentlemen, may I ask why you’re questioning my client about her travel arrangements?”
Scanlon said, “We’re trying to establish a time line.”
“To prove what?”
I said, “Glenn, I don’t mind answering their questions.” He shot me an exasperated look, but didn’t say anything else.
Scanlon took over the questioning now. “There’s a four-hour period between the time our department finished taking your statement and when you caught your flight home. What did you do during that period?”
“An officer drove me from Tillamook to Eagle Rock, where I’d left my rental car. That took … well, you’d know better than I. Then I drove to Portland, which took over two and a half hours because of heavy traffic. I dropped off the car, arranged for my flight, and went straight to the gate.”
“No stops? Snack bar? Ladies’ room?”
Glenn said, “Detective Scanlon, is this necessary?”
I said, “No stops. I didn’t want to miss my flight.”
“Now”—Glenn’s voice overrode the beginning of Scan-lon’s next question—“Ms. McCone’s been forthcoming with you. It’s your turn to be forthcoming with us.”
The two exchanged glances. Parsons nodded. “Fair enough. This bag was recovered from a trash receptacle in one of the ladies’ rooms at the airport. According to the maintenance schedule, it was placed there sometime after noon and before midnight on Saturday.”
“And its contents?”
“As Ms. McCone describes them. Except there was a knife wrapped in a bloody pair of jeans and T-shirt. The blood on the clothing and the knife is a match for J.D. Smith’s.”
I shut my eyes, again saw the stains on his sweater, the jagged tear. It would have been difficult to pull the knife from his chest without getting covered in blood.
I asked, “What color were the jeans and tee?”
“The jeans were pale blue,” Parsons said, “the tee white.”
“Not mine. Was there also a pair of black jeans and a matching tee?”
“No.”
“Ms. McCone,” Scanlon said, “do you own a set of kitchen knives?”
I did—a very good set of German manufacture. The last time I’d cooked they were all there, but that had been a while ago. If someone wanted to frame me for J.D.’s murder …
A coldness crept over me. I’d had a client who had been tried and convicted on weaker evidence than that.
Glenn said, “I’m instructing my client not to respond to that line of questioning, unless you’re prepared to charge her.”
With a show of reluctance, Scanlon backed down. “I would like to ask Ms. McCone to recap her statement about the investigation that took her to Oregon.”
“I’m sure you would, but you have her statement on file.”
“There’s additional information we need—”
“Sir, that was a confidential inquiry, conducted at my request. Ms. McCone is not only my client but my employee. I’ll have to ask you to limit any further questions to matters contained in her statement.”
Legal privilege. How many times I’d been frustrated by it. How fully I embraced it now.
“They don’t really suspect me of killing J.D., do they?” I asked Glenn.
He shook his head, biting into one of the deli sandwiches the office gofer had brought in after the detectives departed. “I know how these people think. From the remainder of their questions, I gather their theory is that Houston killed Smith, cleaned up before you arrived there. Hid the knife in her bloody clothing and took the bundle with her when she saw an opportunity to slip out of the house. She picked up your travel bag on the way, drove south. Abandoned her car where they located it down the coast in Newport, hitched a ride to the airport in Portland, dumped the bag, and flew to God-knows-where.”
“So why come all the way down here to talk with me?”
“That was a fishing expedition. And they don’t know you, so they have to cover all the bases. They must not have much evidence, though, if they’re clutching at straws like that.”
I took a bite of corned beef on rye, pushed the food aside. “So what did they hope to accomplish with me?”
“They’re aware you withheld details of your investigation when you made your statement, and feel one of them may contain a potential lead. They probably hoped they could intimidate you into giving everything up. Of course, they didn’t count on my forceful protection of your rights.”
“I admit it shook me at first when they asked if I owned a set of knives, but when you think about it, it’s not logical that I’d carry one around with me. Most likely the killer took the knife from Houston’s kitchen, but they haven’t been able to match it to any of the others that’re there.”
“You say ‘the killer,’ not Houston.”
“She claims she didn’t do it.”
“And you believe her?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Let me tell you, my friend, they always claim they didn’t do it. That was the reality I had the most difficulty dealing with when I was new to the profession: the clients were so damned guilty and such good liars.”
“And now?”
“I still have my sleepless nights.” He balled up the wrapper his sandwich had come in and lobbed it at the waste-basket. It missed by a good two feet. “No, I don’t think you have to worry about their question about the knife. I would, however, take an inventory of your set without delay.”
“And if one is missing?”
He flashed me his wolf look. “I can’t advise you on that, but I know what I’d do.”
Lawyers!
My brown-shingled house looked peaceful and sleepy in the afternoon sun; there wasn’t a press van or lurking reporter in sight. Still, I pulled the MG into the garage and glanced around as I hurried up the front steps. I expected the interior to feel stuffy on what had turned into a warm day, but instead a fresh breeze filtered down the hallway. Michelle Curley must’ve decided to air it out.
I hurried to the living room, where a tidy stack of mail and newspapers sat on the sofa. Through the archway to the kitchen I could see my knife rack; two were missing, and a loaf of sourdough that I didn’t remember buying sat on a board by the sink—
In the bathroom down the back hall the toilet flushed. Water ran in the sink. I stiffened, stepped back from the arch. Listened as heavy footsteps shuffled toward the kitchen. Not Michelle or her petite mother—a man. Hy, back from the Philippines? No, not yet. An intruder … ?
I peered around the archway. Ted entered, looking unkempt and dejected. He went to the sink, picked up a knife from the counter, and began slicing the bread.
Relief was quickly followed by a sense of violation. I stepped into the room, hands on my hips, and demanded, “What the hell’re you doing here?”
He started and turned. “Shar, you scared me!”
“Well, you scared me too, so we’re even. How come you’re here, and not at the office?”
“I didn’t feel well, so I took the afternoon off.”