The Simeon Chamber (31 page)

She stood silent for several seconds and then almost with an air of resignation said, “Why not?”

“Well I’m glad that’s settled.”

Nick’s tone conveyed an obtuse sense of relief and a total lack of comprehension. “I’m not going to bother to ask what it was about, since I’m sure neither of you would tell me anyway. But i do have a question. How are you going to get into the zoo?”

“Let me rephrase that,” said Sam. “The question properly put is how are
we going to get into the zoo?”

“That’s what I was afraid of. I know you were busy counting the books on the shelves when we were up there, but did you happen to notice those high fences, the ones with the barbed wire across the top and the electronic alarms on the gates, not 387

to mention the army of park rangers and hired security? And that’s only what I could see.

Now if that doesn’t give you cause for concern, you might consider my limited credentials as a cat burglar.”

“That’s the beauty of it. We don’t have to go anywhere near the house. You weren’t listening to the tape on the bus. The zoo’s on company land. It’s not part of the state monument.”

“But it’s a stone’s throw from the house.”

“Yes, it’s also outside the gates. If we leave at dusk, and move, we can be out before daybreak.”

Nick realized that any opposition was futile in the face of his friend’s blind enthusiasm. “What the hell, what’s a few more nights in jail?”

“Fine,” said Sam. “Then we go tonight. Nick and I will cross over the fence on the highway at dusk and make our way to the top of the hill across country, staying off the road as much as possible.”

“How far do you think it is to the top?” asked Jennifer.

“According to the guide it was five miles on the road. I’m guessing that we can cut the distance in half by going straight up.”

Nick tired of the conversation as he sat on a box of books, pulled off a shoe and began to rub one of his aching feet. The store clerk looked at him disapprovingly from behind the counter. Nick smiled and mumbled a profane greeting under his breath.

Sam turned his attention to logistics. “All right, first we get some supplies—flashlights, good shoes for hiking, a length of rope …”

“Why do we need rope?” Nick protested.

“Who knows? But if we get up there and we need it I don’t want to run back to town—do you?”

“Just checking.”

Jennifer had waited for an opening. This was as good as it was going to get. “You forgot one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“If you’re going, so am I.”

Sam had anticipated it. In fact he was surprised she hadn’t pressed the issue earlier. “No, we’re going to need somebody down here in case we get in trouble. If they pick us up we’ll need somebody to call the city for help and get money to bail us out …”

“Then I guess you’re staying. Because 389

if anybody goes up that hill I intend to be along.”

He paused briefly like a vendor entertaining the last offer of purchase.

“All right.” He headed for the door of the shop and stepped out into the parking lot with Jennifer a half step behind. “We’ll drop you at the inn, then Nick and I will get the stuff. We’ll be back to pick you up in an hour.”

She was insulted by the transparency of his plan.

“Sam.” Her voice froze him in mid-stride as he reached the passenger door of Nick’s rental car. “If you’re not back in an hour I’ll call the cops and tell them everything I know—including where you’ve gone.”

A frown spread over his face. “What size hiking shoes do you wear?”

“Six medium.”

“Damn it. It’ll turn over but it won’t start.”

“Can we use the radio?”

“What for?”

“To call the highway patrol or the county sheriff.”

“Hell, we don’t have any authority to be down here—we’re two hundred miles outside our jurisdiction.”

“If we lose those two and Fletcher finds out, we’re gonna wish we were a thousand miles away.”

Jack Mayhew was in a state of panic.

He pushed his partner out of the driver’s door, slid behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. He listened to the starter motor as it drained the life out of the battery. Mayhew watched as the sleek blue Porsche moved slowly down the main street of Cambria toward the highway.

“Don’t worry about it. They’re probably just going back to the room. We can catch up with them in five minutes once we get this thing started.”

Trailing behind the Porsche in the distance, a small white sedan moved past the unmarked police car with the two officers. The man at the wheel issued a sinister smile as he clutched the brass handle of the walking cane on the seat beside him. He watched the two detectives lift the hood and begin to work frantically on the 391

engine. It was a child’s prank, but effective.

Twenty minutes earlier the two cops had abandoned their car to follow Bogardus and his companion on foot. While they were gone the man had purchased a medium-sized potato from a small grocery store across from the parking lot, walked across to the unmarked police car and casually jammed the potato over the end of the car’s exhaust pipe. The spud effectively sealed off the exhaust, preventing the car from starting. It would be the last place the two would think to look.

Sam and Nick had one final stop to make. Bogardus wanted a large-scale topographic map of the castle area. There was only one place in town where he could get it and the shop was closed. As he reached the highway he swung south.

“Where are you going? The inn’s in the other direction.”

“I know. But I’m gonna have to go down to Los Osos to get the map.”

“Can’t we do without it?”

“No.” Sam shook his head. “Not at night. We’re liable to walk off a cliff. It’ll only take twenty minutes.”

“You heard what Jennifer said. If we aren’t back in an hour she’ll call the cops.”

“If we get late we’ll give her a call and tell her what’s holding us up.”

As Sam headed south down the highway the white sedan turned right and drove north on Highway 1 toward the inn.

There was a slight rap on the door. Jennifer wasn’t sure she heard it at first. The knock was so light she thought it might be someone in an adjoining room. She stopped and listened. There it was again.

“Just a second.”

With the two men gone she’d taken the opportunity for a quick shower. Haphazardly toweling herself dry she quickly slipped into the paisley dress she’d worn on the trip down from the city. Her head was draped in a towel, her hair dripping from the shower as she groped for the doorknob. Finding it, she opened the door a crack and quickly turned, skipping for the bathroom.

She planted herself in front of the mirror over the sink and rubbed the towel through her hair. 393

“I was beginning to think you guys weren’t coming back. But then I guess you didn’t have a lot of choice.” She couldn’t resist the dig. “Got my shoes?”

There was no sound from the other room. She stopped ruffling her hair with the towel and listened. “Sam? Did you get the stuff?”

There was no reply.

“Nick?”

Her pulse quickened. If they were playing some prank she would kill them both. She removed the towel from her head and looked into the mirror. She could see nothing in the outer room. Jennifer took two small steps toward the bathroom door.

Her bare feet made no sound on the cold, hard tile. The door to the room was half-open.

But there was no one there. She stood framed in the bathroom door for several seconds, looking around the room. Everything appeared normal. The books on San Simeon lay open on the table where Sam and Nick had left them. The jeans she’d purchased the day before hung from the hook of the hanger snared over the top of the closet door, which was slightly ajar.

“Hello? Is anybody there?”

There was no reply. The image of Arthur Symington’s bloody body writhing on the floor flashed in her mind. Her heart pounded.

“God, please let it be them.” The words were half-spoken under her breath.

With halting steps she placed one foot in front of the other and made her way toward the partially open door to the room.

“If you two are out there so help me I’ll tear your eyes out.”

She took hold of the door with both hands and braced herself to close it quickly. There was no movement apparent in the outside hallway. She closed the door and quickly fastened the security chain. Then carefully bracing her foot against the bottom of the door, she opened it a crack and peered out into the hall. She could see clearly in one direction. The long narrow corridor was well-lit, disappearing down a flight of steps at the end. There was no one there.

She shut the door again, turned the dead bolt and for several seconds stood silently just inches inside the closed door, listening for sounds, footsteps, laughter, anything that might reveal the presence of another soul in the hallway 395

outside of the room. There was nothing. Nearly a half minute passed with Jennifer standing motionless, her eyes cast down at the foot of the door, her ears straining for any noise. The pulse that pounded in her neck and head slowed to a more normal pace. For a moment her thoughts returned to her wet hair dripping onto the carpet around her feet. She walked back to the bathroom and picked up the towel. Standing in the bathroom door she rubbed the towel gently through her hair, her eyes fixed on the door to the hall.

It was an impulse driven more by curiosity than caution. The knocking must have come from one of the other rooms down the hall. She walked to the door and slid the security chain off its runner. Then in a single movement Jennifer turned the bolt, threw the door open and stepped quickly out into the hall. It was empty. There was no one there. She listened for the sound of voices in the adjoining rooms, but there was nothing.

Jennifer took several steps down the hall, stopping frequently to listen. Nothing. With a sigh she turned and went back into the room, closing and bolting the door behind her, then fastening the chain. As she turned, her eyes traced a line from where she stood six or seven feet to the closet door.

It was now closed, and her jeans with their hanger lay in a heap on the floor in front of it.

Mustard dripped onto his tie as Fletcher devoured the oversized hot dog and downed the lukewarm coffee from the foam cup. It was becoming a routine, the third time in a week he’d had dinner behind the wheel of his car, chasing a lead on one of the burgeoning number of open files on his desk.

This time he sat on a well-lit boulevard in the Berkeley hills, staring at the upscale apartment house across the street. It was the kind of dwelling leased by faculty from the university. The average student could never afford the rent. He checked his notebook one more time, reassuring himself that the address supplied by the Department of Motor Vehicles was correct.

An hour earlier he’d stood in the living room of the Bogardus home in Daly City and listened as Angie described the visit of the Englishman who called himself an Australian.

She recounted in lurid detail the 7

man’s search of the downstairs apartment and his theft of a small silver key. Fletcher jotted rapidly in his notebook as the old lady supplied a detailed physical description of her visitor. After questioning her briefly he was satisfied she knew nothing of what her son might be up to.

Fletcher pocketed his notebook and was about to head for the door when the old woman surprised him. She handed him a scrap of paper with the license number of the vehicle the Englishman was driving. He snatched it up. God, I should fire Mayhew and hire her, thought Fletcher.

He milled about the entrance of the apartment building. The door had an electronic security lock that could be opened by the residents from their apartments. Fletcher checked the directory of tenants, which showed a separate name listed next to each button under the speaker mounted in the wall, until he found the name “Holmes, J.” a few moments later a young woman exited the front door behind a small dog on a leash. Fletcher pretended to study the listings on the directory. Before the door could close behind the woman he grabbed it and gracefully slipped inside the building. She looked at him questioningly for a moment from the other side of the glass, then shook the leash and walked off down the street.

Fletcher took the elevator to the second floor and walked down the long corridor to apartment 26. He knocked on the door and seconds later heard footsteps on the other side.

“Who is it?”

Fletcher had the right place. He could cut the accent with a knife.

“Mr. Holmes, I’m Lieutenant George Fletcher, San Francisco Homicide.” He held up his badge to the prism peephole in the door. Several seconds passed. Finally Fletcher heard the security chain slide from its railing and the door opened.

There was a serious expression in the eyes of the proper-looking Englishman. “Yes? What can I do for you?”

“I’m investigating a murder.” A ration of shock to cut through the veneer of British reserve.

“What murder?” 9

“May I come in?”

He had no apparent reason to bar the officer from his apartment. Still, the Englishman’s eyes were filled with objections.

“I’m very busy right now, Lieutenant …” Jasper moved grudgingly from the door.

“Fletcher.”

“Of course.”

The detective stepped into the apartment and Holmes closed the door behind him.

“What is this all about?” Jasper stood in the tiny entry area as if his feet were glued to the floor.

“I’m investigating the murder of one Susan Paterson.” Fletcher lifted the small notebook from the pocket of his sport coat and wandered casually toward the living room, leaving Holmes standing alone in the entry.

The front room was a jungle of disheveled textbooks and papers piled on every available flat surface including the floor. A small card table had been added like an annex to the dining table to handle the overflow of clutter.

“I don’t think I know the woman,” said Holmes, moving like a shadow in Fletcher’s wake.

“She was a lawyer in San Francisco. Maybe you know her partner, Mr. Samuel Bogardus.”

“No, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name either.”