The Art of Detection

by Laurie R. King

  “You have to wonder, if Rutland had the original in his hands and then Nicholson made that call, whether there might’ve been a second body in the battery.”

  “Third,” Kate corrected without thinking.

  “Martinelli—” Hawkin started, but Kate was already backtracking.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, Jack Raynor was fictional. But if Rutland killed Nicholson to shut him up, he’d have to take care of the people who knew about Gilbert’s purchase of the story as well, Magnolia Brook and Paul Kobata.”

  “Bodies right and left,” he said, and Kate had to agree, it seemed unlikely. “But that brings up another point: Why leave Gilbert at the gun emplacement? If it was Rutland, you’d think the Berkeley hills would feel more natural.”

  “He and Gilbert might have been in Marin anyway.”

  “With Gilbert in his dressing gown? And Rutland a much-married man? Of course, with three sets of alimony, maybe he decided men would be cheaper,” Hawkin grumbled, having had some experience with alimony himself.

  “Or else his choice of location was directly tied to what I was saying earlier, that Rutland looked to become an eminent Holmes authority on the back of Gilbert’s estate. Nothing would get that off to a bang like the publicity of Gilbert’s body and the story. He’d launch straight into the morning shows.”

  “Sounds pretty calculating.”

  “It doesn’t mean that he actually killed Gilbert. Maybe it was an accident after all—Gilbert hit his head and died, if not at home then somewhere else. The lawyer either found him, or someone called in a panic, and he had this brilliant idea of how to use Gilbert’s death to his own benefit.”

  “Not premeditation, but very fast thinking?”

  “He’s not a criminal lawyer, but the man lives and breathes the most convoluted, far-fetched detective stories—some of it would surely have rubbed off on him.”

  “You could be right.”

  “So what do you think about an interview?”

  “You want to know where I am?”

  “Why? Where are you?”

  “At my desk, in the Detail, with a copy of the Gilbert will in front of me.”

  “And…?”

  “And two minutes before you called, I left a message for Rutland, saying that we wanted to see him on Monday morning.” When she did not respond, he continued, “My next phone calls are to double-check on that alibi he gave us.”

  “Al, sometimes I don’t know whether to hate you or to love you.”

  “I am a force of nature, like Sherlock Holmes,” he said placidly.

  Kate made a rude noise into the receiver. “What time do you—hold on a second.” Kate rested the phone against her thigh to muffle the sound and said to the small person in the doorway, “You guys ready?”

  “Mamalee says two minutes and we’re drivin’ away without you, but I don’t want to leave you here, I want you to come. You promised.”

  “I’ll be there in one minute, sweetie. Have you used the potty?”

  The green eyes rolled. “Of course. And Mamalee already asked me.”

  “Well, a girl can’t pee too many times. Tell her just one minute. Sorry, Al,” she said into the receiver, “I’ve got to go. Do you want me to call you tonight?”

  “No, I want you to have a relaxing weekend. I’ll make a date with Rutland for Monday, and see you Monday morning.”

  Implacable as Lee, Al Hawkin hung up on his partner, abandoning her to the affections of her family.

  TWENTY

  Kate parked at the Hall of Justice well before eight o’clock on Monday, invigorated not only by the chance of getting her teeth into Thomas Rutland, who had annoyed her since the moment she had laid eyes on him, but also (she had to admit) by two days spent in the salt air with her family, during which she’d had no more urgent puzzles on her hands than the species of the bird sitting at the other end of the binoculars from her and what kind of pancakes to order for breakfast. As if to underscore that a holiday from work was a necessary part of clear thinking, as she walked toward the building, she felt one of those small clicks of synthesis in the back of her mind, and stopped dead, allowing it to develop.

  She had been mulling over the dinner party at Tony’s, nine disparate individuals brought together by their interest in a fictional English detective, and idly holding that up beside the weekend she had just spent with Lee and Nora, where interests and commonalities seemed to spring from their very pores.

  As her mind skimmed over that night, she thought of Ian Nicholson’s charge against Gilbert, accusing him of a casual abuse of friends. Casual abuse happened all the time in a relationship; it might also be called taking me for granted. A weekend together, during which two people might rediscover themselves, was a necessary part of life, like air into the lungs.

  It was then that another phrase floated into Kate’s mind: Philip hated to break character.

  And so she stopped walking, her head bent as she sought to trace that statement back to its source.

  It had also been said at that dinner. And also by Nicholson.

  Ian Nicholson had been making a passing comment on Gilbert’s idiosyncrasies, more fond than critical. And although it was by no means technical language, it struck Kate now as slightly off, as a phrase not everyone would use. Lee, for example, might comment on the psychology of role playing; a cop’s mind might chew on the similarity between Gilbert’s act and that of a person hiding from the law, or at least from his past.

  Break character was a thing an actor might say.

  A friend mentioned they’d seen him in a restaurant somewhere, with an actor….

  Gilbert and an actor, six or seven years ago.

  And at that same dinner, someone had asked Ian if he’d thought Philip was acting.

  She trotted up the steps and through security, impatiently jabbing the elevator button. In the Detail, she shed her things on her desk and sat down in front of the computer without taking off her coat. Hawkin greeted her, and she nodded absently.

  I should’ve thought about this on Friday, Kate berated herself. After I talked with Gilbert’s ex-wife on Friday, the bells should have gone off. Of course, even if I’d known Friday, I couldn’t have done anything, time zones and office hours being what they are. All I lost was being preoccupied for two days at Point Reyes, and driving Lee nuts.

  Hawkin said something, but she copied down a phone number before looking up at him. “Sorry?”

  “I said, we need to leave if we’re going to catch Rutland today. He said he could give us half an hour, then he’s in court all day.”

  “You go get the car, I’ll meet you out in front.”

  He was waiting for her when she trotted down the front steps of the Hall, but he hadn’t been there for long.

  “What was that about?” he asked as he turned onto Mission.

  “I had to hunt down Ian Nicholson’s agent—ex-agent, I guess, since Ian hasn’t worked as an actor in years. The secretary said he might not be in until noon, New York time, but I gave her my cell number. If it rings, I’m going to leave you with Rutland and take it.” She told him about the small leap her mind had taken, although as she described the link, it sounded considerably more tenuous than it had at the time. Almost apologetically, she ended by saying, “I just thought it was something we should look into.”

  “I agree,” Hawkin said, and they left it at that.

  THOMAS Rutland lived in Berkeley, but his office was a short walk from the Oakland courthouse, in the upper floors of one of the new downtown high-rises. Despite the location, his practice was predominantly financial, and the building and the office décor reflected the expectations of monied executives, particularly young ones. The receptionist was as sleek as the furniture, and ushered them into Rutland’s office without delay. Probably, Rutland had not wished to advertise the presence of cops on the premises, and told her not to keep them waiting.

  He got out from behind his desk to welcome them, shook hands, offered coffee, and at
their refusal, settled them down and returned to his seat. He was wearing his lawyer’s uniform today, brilliant white shirt, slightly daring necktie, and suspenders, his jacket, draped over the back of his chair, dead black with just the faintest hint of a pinstripe in the fabric. On the lapel was a tiny spot of blue: the 221B pin.

  Kate and Al took their time sitting down, running their eyes over the view, the desk, the office. On the wall to the right of the desk were two framed pictures: one a lithograph that reminded Kate of those in Gilbert’s house, this one showing a man seated at a desk, talking to another man standing in front of him; the other was a large color photograph of Rutland in a room that again reminded her of Gilbert’s house. The lawyer was sitting in a chair, wearing a silk dressing gown, with a pipe in his hand and a violin held awkwardly across his lap: playing Holmes.

  On the wall across from where he sat, next to the door, Rutland had hung a trio of photographs showing, in descending order: the lawyer in running shorts with a number on his chest, crossing the finish line with a pack of other runners of many colors; bent over the handlebars of a racing bicycle, spattered with mud; and emerging from the water in the midst of a crowd of other men, his eyes locked on some goal.

  “You do triathlons?” she asked him.

  He glanced at the photographs with just the right degree of modesty. “That’s the Iron Man.”

  “Impressive,” she said, and sat down.

  “I don’t have as much time to train as I used to,” he answered. “Mostly now I just do half-marathons. So, what can I do for the San Francisco Police Department today?”

  Hawkin said, “Can you tell us again what you were doing on the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of January?”

  “The twentieth—wasn’t that the weekend I went golfing in Palm Springs?”

  “So you said.”

  “Well, I went down with some friends in their private plane. Wheels up out of Oakland at four, forty-eight hours in the sun, and we came back Sunday afternoon around five or six.”

  “And you didn’t leave Palm Springs during that time?”

  “Not at all. Inspector, it sounds to me like you’re treating me like a suspect.”

  “A witness at this point, Mr. Rutland. But I will need the names of your friends and of the hotel where you stayed.”

  “We were in a private home.” He began to bristle. “And I don’t know that these are the kind of people I want bothered about this.”

  The kind of people, in other words, who wouldn’t be pleased that their upstart friend was being investigated by the police.

  “Still, we’re going to need those names.”

  “I think I should consult with one of my colleagues before we go any further, Inspector.”

  “You really think that’s necessary?” Hawkin asked. Without looking, Kate knew that he was raising one eyebrow, as if to say, Sir, I hadn’t really considered you a suspect until just this moment.

  “Before I give you those names, yes. Was there anything else you wanted?”

  Kate’s turn. She made a show out of opening the notebook in her hand, flipping the pages, comparing two sheets of completely unrelated scrawl, and finally looking up. “Mr. Rutland, in October of the year 2000, complaint was filed with the California Bar Association by the family of Mrs. Eugenia Baxter, accusing you of having manipulated your client Mrs. Baxter into writing you a remarkably generous settlement in her last will and testament. Similarly, in April of 2002, the family of Rosemarie Upfield—”

  “Those charges were dropped!” he snapped.

  “True, although I could find no record of an actual investigation by—”

  At that he slapped his hand on the desk and stood, so forcibly his chair crashed back into the wall behind him. “I think that’s enough for today, Inspectors.”

  As if he had neither moved nor spoken, Kate said, “In regards to the Gilbert estate, I would like to know if your role as executor was Mr. Gilbert’s idea, or something you suggested?”

  “I want you to leave.” His face was dark beneath the tan, his voice harsh.

  “It just seems so convenient, you being there and ready to step into the position.”

  He snatched up the phone, knuckles so white he might have been about to use the receiver as a weapon rather than a means of summoning help. “Yvonne, call building security.”

  Hawkin turned to Kate and said, “I don’t think Mr. Rutland wants to talk to us today.”

  “I get that impression, too,” she agreed, and stood up.

  They left the office riding on a wave of steam.

  In the elevator on the way down, Hawkin said, “That was the most fun I’ve had all week.”

  Kate had to agree. “It also showed that not only does Mr. Rutland have a quick temper, but that he’s almost as obsessed with the Sherlock Holmes thing as Gilbert was.”

  “And,” Hawkin added complacently, “our triathlete has plenty of muscles to be hauling unconscious bodies around.”

  BACK in the office, Hawkin got on the phone to see what his many and varied contacts could tell him about Thomas Rutland, while Kate searched for the missing details on the life of Ian Nicholson and waited for the agent to call her back.

  Ian Nicholson had been born in a western suburb of London in 1956. He came to the United States two weeks after his graduation from some English university Kate had never heard of, taking up residence with his deceased father’s younger brother in New York.

  Like so many before (and after) him, young Nicholson wanted to act. His degree had been in art history, but his heart lay on the stage. Very fortunately, his uncle proved not only a responsible caretaker, but an intelligent one, and although young Ian did indeed land the occasional acting job, his uncle also helped steer him into a job cataloguing old books and letters for a large antiques dealer. After a few years he was working full-time at one of the bigger auction houses; it appeared that he was set on his road.

  However, the English lad with the interesting face did not want an auction house, he wanted the stage. After two years of full-time employment, in 1983 he quit the big-name house and joined another, smaller establishment that was pleased to employ him part-time, saving themselves the cost of insurance benefits while it allowed the young man to chase down acting jobs.

  Unfortunately, the jobs didn’t do much chasing back. At the time he packed up and moved to San Francisco, in 1999, he had not used his Equity card in nine and a half months.

  Nicholson’s ex-agent was a well-established figure, Saul Adler, who seemed to work with a younger partner and the secretary whose voice came on the phone at a quarter to noon, asking Kate to hold for Mr. Adler. Adler’s voice evoked a vivid image of well-chewed cigars, a straining waistband, and the Bowery. Kate figured that he was probably a svelte vegetarian born in the Midwest, but in any case, he knew Ian Nicholson.

  “Ian? Sure, he was with me for years. Far as I know, he’s not working anymore.”

  “That’s what I understand. Can you tell me why he quit?”

  “Came into a little money, inheritance or insurance, don’t remember exactly. Not that money would have made any difference if he’d really wanted to stay, but Ian was, what, forty-two, -three? Hadn’t worked in months—my kinda work, I mean, he had another job somewhere, selling antiques or something—and the money just let him admit it wasn’t gonna happen for him.”

  “Not much of an actor, then?”

  “Actually, the kid wasn’t bad, and he could play British or American, but Casting had a real problem with his face. He was made for supporting roles in a romantic comedy, and I could’ve built him a solid career, but he wanted drama, and he wanted the lead. I just couldn’t sell his face, especially after he hit forty—not handsome, not ugly enough to be a type, too distinctive to fade into the crowd. Add to that the problem with flying—you know about that?”

  “He told me, yes.”

  “Something to do with being locked up when he was a kid, I think. In an icebox or something, his wife talke
d about it once, just a little, to shut me up grousing about having to turn down a part. Anyway, it pretty much left out every job more than a couple hundred miles away. That was the capper. Ian thought about moving to LA and taking up television, but even then he’d have had to turn down anything on location.”

  “Was he badly disappointed?”

  “Nah, he’d heard it coming. Bright guy, you know?”

  “A lot of changes all at once, though.”

  “Changes? You mean the move?”

  “I was thinking about the divorce.”

  The noise that came down the phone line sounded as if the agent had swallowed his cigar stub, but when he kept talking, Kate figured it had been a laugh. “The divorce wouldn’t have troubled Ian. Wasn’t really a marriage in the first place. They were friends, sure, but she needed a man to show her nice Catholic family, he needed insurance—health insurance, you know? Her job gave him Blue Cross, and in exchange he showed up at Christmas and stuff.”

  “A show marriage, then?” Kate’s spine began to tingle, as it did when a suspect’s eyes suddenly dodged to one side during questioning.

  “I don’t know if that’s fair,” Adler replied. “It was at first, but he and Christy, they were fond of each other, you know? They never lived together, but he moved to the same building, right next door, so he saw a lot of the kid.”

  “The kid?” The tingle grew.

  “Daughter, what was her name? Cute little thing, I could’ve found her a ton of kid roles if they’d let me, but Ian put his foot down. Monica, that’s it. Monica the Moneymaker, I called her once. Those blond curls—man.”

  “Blond. And blue eyes?”

  “Like the Caribbean.”

  Or like the water at Cabo San Lucas?

  “Where does she live, do you know?”

  “Probably LA. I saw her not too long ago, a small part on a daytime soap. She’ll get more, I’d be willing to bet—twenty-two or -three now, and God, she’s a stunner.”