“I’m perfectly able to read legal documents by myself.”
“Whatever.”
Silence. Pages being turned.
“This clause—it’s vaguely worded.” Janssen.
“Let me see.… Oh, yes, of course. Go ahead and insert clearer wording and initial it.”
“All right—you bitch.”
“Paul, do you have to be so unpleasant? Let’s have a drink—I have a bottle of good single malt.”
“I wouldn’t drink with you—”
“But you used to.”
“Much to my disadvantage.”
“You should learn to hold your liquor a lot better.”
“There are many things I should learn. You too, Amanda.”
“Meaning?”
“You think you’ve pulled off a big coup, but these people are dangerous. Consider what they did to Harvey.”
“You’re an alarmist, my dear. The document will remain safe with me, so long as you hold up your end of the bargain. Speaking
of that… ?”
“The transfer will take place Monday morning.”
“Good. Now sign the document.”
“Gladly. It may be your death warrant.”
“You know, Paul, you really ought to get some help for your paranoia. It’s beginning to cloud your judgment and make you unpleasant
to deal with.”
“I ought to tear this up and shove it up your ass!”
“Just sign it.”
A long pause and then, “Done.”
“How about that drink now?”
“I’d sooner drink with Hitler.”
“Whatever.”
A chair moved. Footsteps went toward the unit’s door.
Teller said, “In spite of your insults and acid tone, it’s been a pleasure.”
“Go to hell!”
Door opening and closing. Janssen returning to his room.
Teller was silent. Then Craig heard her laughing softly.
Something thudded into the wall between Janssen’s unit and his.
“Filthy bitch! Cunt! I hope to God you get yours!”
In her room, Teller was pouring a drink. Then she called a pizza delivery service. No sound except ice clinking and liquor
pouring from either unit until the pizza arrived. Then Janssen’s room went totally silent, and Teller switched on the TV to
a cop drama. Craig ate the deli sandwich he’d brought with him, continued to monitor both rooms, and when the TV went off
in Teller’s, he went to bed with the earpieces on.
He’d been up since seven on Friday morning, and he sank immediately into a deep sleep.
I
t was after midnight, but he couldn’t sleep. He wished he’d brought along a good book. TV was miserable at this hour.
He’d followed Craig to Big Sur on an impulse, and now he considered the foolishness of it. If Craig found out, he’d be pissed
and probably never let him assist in any of his lines of investigation. And he’d heard nothing from the next room but the
door opening and closing, a muted conversation, the door opening and closing again.
What a super sleuth he was. No good in the field. That was why Shar kept him chained to his desk.
Shar…
He had the Brandt Institute’s number on speed dial. He pressed the button and, when someone answered, asked about his aunt’s
condition. No change, but she’d had a few visitors and, while tired, had seemed to enjoy them. Was Mr. Ripinsky there? Mick
asked. No, he’d left a while ago.
No change. Would there ever be a change?
Had to be!
Mick booted up his laptop and began—obsessively, as he had ever since he’d been told of Shar’s diagnosis—to search sites about
locked-in syndrome. When that yielded nothing new, he put in a disc of a favorite film—
The X-Files: I Want to Believe
—hoping it would lull him to sleep.
* * *
Pop!
The sound brought him awake slowly, as if he were surfacing from the depths of a swimming pool.
Another pop, then silence. A door, the one to his unit’s left, swung closed on squeaky hinges. He was off the bed and fully
alert within fifteen seconds.
Outside it was still dark and a chill sea wind blew fog inland. At first Mick saw no one, then another door opened and a man
stepped out. Craig. His astonished eyes connected with Mick’s; he rushed over, grabbed him by the elbow, and shoved him back
into his room.
“What the hell’re
you
doing here?” Craig demanded.
“Same thing you are. What’s happened?”
“I don’t know. A popping sound in the next unit—could’ve been a gunshot.”
“I heard it, too.”
Craig peered through the partially opened door, his head swiveling from right to left. “Don’t think anybody else did. No lights,
no people anywhere.”
“Then let’s check it out.”
The door to the unit was unlocked. They pushed through, and Craig nudged the light switch on with his elbow.
Two figures lay sprawled on the bed, naked. They were facing each other, and their heads were destroyed, blood and brain matter
splattered on the linens, headboard, and wall. The man held a gun in his limp hand, and the smell of cordite was strong in
the small room. No signs of a struggle, just two people… shot. Shot dead.
Mick reeled back, gagging, and left the room. Leaned against the railing of the walkway, his head down, breathing heavily.
Sweat chilled on his forehead, and he swallowed hard to keep the rising bile down.
God, now he knew why all those nightmares plagued Shar. That scene in the motel room would haunt him till the day he died.
Craig was still inside. After a few seconds he came out, obviously shaken, looked quickly around, and once again dragged Mick
into his room. “You okay?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“I know, guy, but we’ve got to move fast. That’s Amanda Teller and Paul Janssen in there. Supposed to look like a murder-suicide.”
“My God! The supervisor and the state representative?”
“Uh-huh. What I’ve been working on.” Craig’s mouth pulled down grimly. “The shit’s going to hit the fan in a big way when
their bodies’re discovered, and we don’t want to get splattered with it.”
Mick didn’t focus on what Craig had said. He asked, “Were they having an affair?”
“No. This was a business meeting. And I think they were murdered and placed like that to make it look like a suicide pact.
My damn surveillance tapes must’ve run out while I was sleeping. The pops we heard indicate the gun was equipped with a silencer,
but it’s gone now.”
“Man, we better call the police.”
Craig shook his head. “No, neither of us wants to be here when they’re found. And that won’t be for a few hours. Since nobody
but us heard the shots, it’s safe enough to take off, put some distance between this place and us. We’ll meet up at Monterey.
I know a diner there that’s always open.”
The thought of food made Mick’s stomach lurch and he grimaced.
“Hold on,” Craig said. “I know you want to puke, but you’ll be surprised how fast your appetite comes back. Besides, you gotta
eat. Now, here’s what you do: you’ve paid in advance?”
“Yes.”
“Registered under your own name?”
“No.”
“Good. Leave the key in the room, roll your bike out of here and up the highway a ways before you start it. The diner in Monterey
is called Lulu’s, on Munras Avenue. Wait there for me.”
“You’re not leaving yet?”
“Pretty quick. There’re a few things I’ve got to do.”
Mick stood still, numb. Craig gave him a nudge. “Go. Get your stuff and leave now!”
M
a arrived on Hy’s arm at ten in the morning. She was wearing a smart blue dress and carrying a bunch of yellow roses—my favorites.
But when she looked at me she started to cry and Hy, rolling his eyes, helped her into the chair and took the flowers.
“Can I touch her?” Ma asked him through her tears.
“Of course. She can see you and hear you. You can look into her eyes and ask her yes-or-no questions. One blink yes, two blinks
no.” He sounded weary, as if he’d repeated this to her many times. “I’m going to get a vase for the roses.”
He fled. Ma started to cry. She’d cried all through dinner with Hy last night, he’d told me. The hell of it was, I couldn’t
put out my arms to hold her, or say something funny that would soon jolly her out of it. The past thirteen days had defined
the word “impotence” in depth for me.
Hy came back, removed the dark red roses he’d brought me the day before, and replaced them with Ma’s. Their delicate yellow
petals reminded me of the ones he’d sent me weekly at the office for years until, as our relationship deepened, he’d changed
the standing order to a darker and darker red; they still came—in fact, some might be sitting on my desk at the pier right
now.
The pier… No, don’t think about that now. Bad enough to have these jumbled flashbacks.
Suddenly Ma gave a strangled cry and threw herself on my chest. Grabbed my head with both hands and stared into my eyes. “You
really are there, my precious baby! I know you are!”
I won’t be if you crush me!
Hy lifted her off and set her back in the chair. “Kay,” he said, “you’ve got to calm yourself. You’re upsetting Sharon.”
Sobs. “How can I upset her? She just lies there and… Oh!” A wail.
God, I wish I could get up and smack her!
And then, like a messenger of the deity whose name I’d just invoked, my other mother walked into the room. Saskia Blackhawk.
She smiled at Hy and me, but went straight to Ma.
“Kay, don’t cry. Sharon’s here with us. Just ask her if she is.”
Ma, her makeup ruined by tears, looked hesitantly at me. “You
are
with us, aren’t you, darling?”
I blinked yes.
Ma sank back into the chair, then gave me a tremulous smile.
“Kay,” Saskia said, “I noticed a pretty little atrium garden when I came in. Why don’t we go out there and talk about what
we’re going to do for our daughter?”
Ma nodded, clearly eager to be out of my presence. Hy watched them go, shook his head, and said, “Thank God Saskia’s plane
was on time. I don’t think either of us could’ve taken much more of that… caterwauling.”
I blinked.
“I have another surprise,” he added. “And a pleasant one.”
He turned to the door, and a man entered. Slender and stooped, with gray hair in a long ponytail. He held a cowboy hat in
his long artist’s fingers, and his dark eyes were calm and compassionate as they met mine.
Elwood Farmer, my birth father. The impossible had happened—he’d been lured off the rez in Montana.
S
unday morning. Normally she would’ve taken Tonio to the park and then come home to one of her sister’s big dinners. But now
she was at the pier, digging deeper into her files, as Shar’s intense gaze last night had commanded her to do.
Something always escapes your notice the first few times around. Usually a small thing that helps the big things make sense.
Over and over during her probationary period with the agency, her boss had told her that.
On a legal pad she printed Larry Peeples’s name. Linked it with an arrow pointed to Haven Dietz’s. Below Larry’s she drew
another arrow and linked it to Ben Gold, the boyfriend.
Julia paged through the file to the transcript of the initial interview that she’d held here at the pier with Gold. He and
Larry had been together two years, and Ben had had dinner with Larry the day before he disappeared. They’d met at work, the
Home Showcase in Union Square.
Julia scribbled down, “Reinterview Ben.”
Back to Dietz. She’d worked for WKP Associates, a money management firm. She’d been good at her job, monitoring the portfolios
of several high-profile clients, and was in line for a promotion at the time of the attack.
The attack had been a particularly vicious one, as indicated by the severity of Dietz’s injuries. The police had contacted
many of her friends and associates, but none of them could name anyone who held a grudge against her. Julia had reinterviewed
those she could reach, but many of them had left the area, and after a year memories had faded.
She picked up the phone and called Dietz to remind her of their appointment to continue their conversation tonight; she’d
tried to meet with her last night, but Dietz had refused—it was Saturday and she had plans.
Bullshit, Julia had thought. This from a woman who seldom left her apartment? Dietz was losing interest in the case, and maybe
it was a sign that she wanted to put the attack behind her and move on. But if the Dietz investigation had something to do
with Shar getting shot, she’d press on in spite of the client’s best interests.
Haven sounded surly and hungover when she answered the phone. Probably her plans for the night before had involved a bottle.
Yes, all right, Julia could come over that night, but not till after eight. A friend was coming for an early dinner.
Julia agreed, even if it meant another evening without being able to read to Tonio.
She ended the call, then sat back and stared at the thick files.
Not likely that Larry Peeples—with or without the cooperation of Ben Gold—had taken a branch of Home Showcase for 100,000
dollars in small bills. He’d worked in the stockroom, had no access to money. Ben worked the sales desk, but Julia knew from
Sophia’s experience as a clerk at Safeway that the cash drawer had to balance out to the penny every day. Besides, most people
paid by credit card.
She supposed Larry and Ben could’ve worked a computer scam to skim money, but that took smarts like Mick’s or Derek’s. Ben—a
model and wannabe actor on the side—didn’t have that kind of brainpower, and Larry had been described as kind of dim by Haven
Dietz. Even Larry’s parents seemed aware of his limitations.
So why had he hidden the money in the tack room? And possibly appeared last night to reclaim it?
Maybe he was afraid the bills had been marked, or the serial numbers noted. Maybe he’d left them there till he’d thought it
was safe to spend it. Maybe he’d disappeared because he was afraid of being found out. But wasn’t six months long enough?
Was the quiet, loving son his parents had described the kind of man who could do such a cruel thing to his folks and his lover?