“I can’t believe you actually said that. You’re the one who’s the stickler for proper procedure and not breaking the—”
It goes without saying that I had not flown across the USA with my set of treasured lockpicks in my luggage. There are rules. However, this lock was almost laughably easy. A quick slide with a credit card was all it would take.
“Use my card,” he said.
“Maybe you should avert your eyes.”
“I’m a cop. I know how locks get opened with cards. I’ve just never done it. Not part of my training.”
“Give me a little cover so the neighbors can’t see what I’m doing. I’ll pretend to bang on the door. When it opens, we both act like we’re being greeted. And let’s hope there isn’t a security system.”
A quick slide, a jiggle and we were in.
Of course there was no security system.
Smiley said, “I’ll make sure to remind her to get one. It was way too easy to get in here.”
“Let’s get going.” Despite my heritage, I really hate being in a house that I don’t belong in. Smiley had the confidence that cops have when they trespass. Maybe it’s an acquired skill.
I tried the main level and found no Gram anywhere. The little pug was yipping around my ankles throughout. Not a relaxing search.
I headed up the stairs after Smiley. He was methodically going from room to room, softly calling “Gram” before opening each door.
“I don’t want to frighten her.”
“I think the master bedrooms in this style of house should be in the front, where the turret window is.”
“I checked it.”
“Fine. She’ll have the best room, so maybe it looks down over the city in the back.” We moved toward the rear of the second floor and knocked on the last door. No response.
Slowly and still calling her name, Smiley opened the door. I was holding my breath.
A vast round bed filled one wall. The vivid fuchsia and pink peony pattern on the bedspread and the masses of matching throw cushions would take a little getting used to. This room had obviously been renovated and sat over the sunroom. In the floor-to-ceiling window a floral reclining chair commanded a spectacular view. No one was in the chair.
Smiley ran his hands through his hair. “Where is she? What has that woman done with her?”
Usually the simplest answer is the best.
“Maybe she hasn’t done anything with her,” I said, moving toward the bed. Sure enough, a small figure lay there, camouflaged by pillows.
Gram was in the bed.
She wasn’t moving.
Smiley bent over her, shouting, “Gram!”
He shook her. She moaned softly. He shook harder. I picked up the phone to dial 911 when her eyes popped open.
“What a nice surprise,” she said. “Twice in one day.”
Smiley slumped. “You gave me quite a scare. I thought you were—” He gave a little squeal. Her eyes had closed and she was lying back again, breathing shallowly.
“Drugs,” I said. “Pretty sure.”
The mirrored dressing table showed no signs of medication, just a glass of water. He checked her pulse and I picked up the glass using a tissue to keep my prints off it.
“Her pulse is . . . not bad.”
I know nothing of pulses, so I said, “Great.” I sniffed the glass. Then “Oh, that smells like—”
Smiley patted his grandmother’s pale cheek. “I’m calling 911.”
I said, “Maybe you should—”
A noise at the door caused the two of us to whirl like characters in a melodrama. It sort of felt like that too.
“Vat are you doing here?” Zoya said. “I vill call police.”
Smiley managed to stay calm.
“Not if we call them first,” I sputtered.
She grabbed the phone and made an attempt at 911. Her hand was shaking. “You vill not kill us and get avay vith it.”
By my calculation, she was short of one “1.”
“Kill you?”
“You think I am fool?”
Fool? I thought she was a bit of a villain. I supposed she might have been a fool too.
“I am not trying to kill my gram. We’ve just been reunited. We are family.”
“Sure, you say that.”
The telltale Dekker flush had rushed from Smiley’s collar to the roots of his hair. Perhaps it was a bit brighter than usual. It’s not every day someone accuses you of attempting to kill your grandmother.
“I do say that,” he said. “And you will stop saying anything else. I am a police officer. But I’m wondering what you’ll get out of it if Gram . . .” He mouthed the word dies.
Zoya gasped. We watched as she turned and loped from the room. I heard the clatter of heels on the hardwood stairs, then the slam of the door.
Gram’s eyes popped open wide, and with the twinkle turned on.
“When’s dinner?” she said.
Dekker folded her into a hug. “Are you all right?”
“Well, I’m starving and you almost broke my ribs, but aside from that, I’m right as rain.”
“Right as rain,” Smiley said. “You always said that.”
“And I’m still saying it. Where’s Zoya?”
“She, um, ran away.”
“Why would she run away?”
“She seemed to think I had tried to kill you, and then when she learned I was a police officer, she took off. Are you sure she’s—”
“Loyal as the day is long, although a bit high strung. But I’m happy with her. Don’t meddle, darling boy.” Gram reached over and pulled the long embroidered bell, like something out of Downton Abbey.
Smiley sat on the chair and leaned over his grandmother. “What happened, Gram?”
“Well, your parents were funny about everything, jealous of our relationship—”
“I mean what happened to you just now?”
“Nothing happened to me. I was having a nap and then there was all this commotion.”
“A nap?”
“Yes. I have one every afternoon. I’m a little old lady, pet. We need our rest.”
He picked up the glass. “Do you think that Zoya would have put something in it?”
“Just Beefeater.”
“What?”
“Just a bit of Beefeater and tonic.”
I laughed. No wonder it had smelled familiar. “I tried to tell you. It’s a G and T.” I’d made a million of those for my uncles.
She nodded. “Sure. It gives me a bit of a buzz and I’m out like a light.”
“You leave her alone! Step away!”
Zoya was back but not with dinner. She carried the metal-headed cane and I was betting she’d have a mean swing.
“You go now and don’t come back.”
“Don’t be a silly goose, Zoya. You know perfectly well that this is my grandson and his fiancée. They aren’t trying to harm me. They were worried. They suspected you of ulterior motives, drugging my water glass.” She managed a wheezy chuckle. At the end of it, a scarlet blush had spread from her neck to the top of her head as I could clearly see through her white waves.
“Drugged? Never!” Zoya’s pallid face was fishbelly white by now. She swayed, but hadn’t dropped the cane yet. I wondered if the swaying was just part of a dramatic performance. If so, it was a good one. Zoya was clearly very distressed. Her elegant hairstyle had become a bit undone.
Smiley obviously hadn’t attempted to harm Gram. Gram had confirmed this. If Zoya had indeed given Gram that snootful of gin, she must have realized that the elderly woman might be groggy and that anyone normal, say Smiley and myself, would be concerned. Was she trying to deflect attention from the fact that she hadn’t opened the door? Had she left Gram alone?
“Where were you, Zoya
, when we arrived?” Smiley turned to her, crossed his arms over his chest and used his cop voice. It’s one of the few things I don’t like about him—that cop voice. I’d had it turned on me not that long ago. Apparently, Zoya liked it even less.
“I do not answer! Is not of your business.” Again with the swaying.
We both glanced at Gram to see if she was about to chide her employee. But Gram was convulsed. I assumed she was having some kind of medical event and Smiley rushed to her side, but then I heard the wheezy chortle and understood she was merely having a good laugh. She was lucky one of us didn’t attempt CPR before we figured that out.
Gram gasped for breath. Smiley sank into the chair by the bed. I watched Zoya. She seemed to deflate, hard as that would be for a person so whippetlike.
“Do you think I don’t know you are watching soap operas while I have my little naps, Zoya?”
The chin went up. “Is nothing wrong, missus.”
“That’s right. There is nothing wrong, but all you had to do was say so. You’re entitled to a break.”
Smiley said, “You were taking a break and that’s why you didn’t answer the door.”
Zoya managed a sullen nod. “Missus was sleeping. No need to disturb.”
I exchanged glances with Smiley and slipped in a comment to Gram. “That’s a relief. You had us worried. You too, Zoya.”
I was staring at a strange appliance on Gram’s bedside table. “What is this?” I said, worrying as the words popped out that I might have asked an inappropriate question.
“Iss tabletop humidifier,” Zoya said haughtily. “Good for missus to breathe.”
Gram shrugged. “Sometimes I have a little problem.”
Tyler said, “Should we turn it on?”
“Not now. I have my radio plugged in and the lamp, and if I turn that on, it blows the fuse. Hardly worth being plunged into darkness while we find the fuse box.”
Tyler looked prepared to argue in favor of unplugging the radio and turning on the humidifier. “I think you should—”
“I think you should stop fussing. I got to this ripe old age and I’m not done yet,” Gram said.
I liked her even more. Smiley turned red, of course.
Gram said, “Now that’s all settled, I suppose a person could have a snack then?”
She leaned forward. “Don’t you worry pet, I’m in good hands with Zoya. She knows how to use that cane too.”
It took another twenty minutes for Smiley to be convinced that Gram was all right. While Zoya departed to get the overdue snack, he grilled his grandmother. “Where did you find her?”
“A story for another time,” she said, her blue eyes twinkling with excitement. “I find it absolutely charming that you are so concerned about me.”
It was a nice moment. The eyes kept twinkling and she pointed to the dresser in her room. Like the rest of the room, it was a study in frills and flowers in pink, rose and fuchsia and cream, fresh from the planet Chintz. It suited her, right down to the feminine shades on the crystal lamps. The only thing out of place was the large glass apothecary jar filled with marbles, none of them pink, rose, fuchsia or cream.
“Remember those, pet?”
Smiley stared at the jar. “My marbles. One for every time I visited you. Hundreds of visits.”
She beamed.
He said, with a catch in his throat, “You moved them all the way out here? You kept them.”
“It was only twenty years. Of course I kept them. But I bet you thought you’d lost your marbles,” she said with the wheezy chuckle. “I meant to get Zoya to bring them downstairs earlier, but I forgot. Losing my marbles.”
“In more than one way,” he said with a grin.
I resisted making any lame jokes, maybe because I found myself tearing up. Couldn’t have that. Kellys don’t tear up, and the Binghams wouldn’t have either, whoever they were.
“Kept them for you because I knew you’d be back.”
“You may have been hoping I was still a kid.”
“I figured you wouldn’t be too happy if your precious collection wasn’t still intact. Come here.”
He moved a little closer. She reached into the top drawer of her French Provincial bedside table and produced a deep purple aggie. It glinted gorgeously in the light. “Now you can add another one.”
They smiled their identical gap-toothed smiles at each other. A beautiful moment. Smiley turned, walked to the dresser, lifted the lid of the apothecary jar and dropped in the marble.
Gram leaned back on her flowered pillow and yawned. Her eyes fluttered and slowly closed. Before we could get a scare, a ladylike snore reassured us.
Smiley perched on the side of the bed and watched her.
After a while, I signaled to Smiley that the beautiful moment was over and it was time to go. He stood up and beckoned me aside. “Do you mind if I stay here awhile?”
His grandmother issued another soft and ladylike snore.
He must have read my mind. “I know, but we got a scare and I realize I may not have that much time with her after being estranged all these years.”
“Sure thing. I’ll head back and give you some time together. I’ll be at the hotel.”
I combined the cable cars and walking for the trip back. It was still broad daylight and the city makes you want to walk. It’s also hard on the feet. I’d decided to put mine up as soon as I was back in my room, maybe with a glass of something refreshing on that great balcony. It was a vacation, after all, grandmotherly scares or not.
* * *
AS I REACHED to put my key in the hotel door, I noticed it was ajar. Had Smiley had a short visit and made better time than I did by taking a cab back to the hotel?
“Tyler?” I said as I pushed it all the way open.
My brain tried to make sense of what I was staring at.
A cyclone would have done less damage. Every article of my clothing had been flung from the closet. I would have collapsed in a chair, but they were both tipped over. The bedding was off the bed and the mattress had been slashed. The pillows too, which explained the feathers flying around the room. My suitcase lining was cut. The liners had also been torn out of my good shoes.
The phone had been ripped from the wall.
In the bathroom, my toiletries were scattered, some broken. The shower curtain was ripped from the rod. Glass littered the floor. The cracked mirror reflected my shocked face.
I felt overwhelmed by a sense of menace and evil.
Come on, now, Jordan. This is the work of a burglar, not some unnamed evil. My sensible side thought that while the rest of me screamed, But just in case, run!
I backed out of the bathroom and then out of the room and stood in the hallway, getting my breath. Perhaps the hallway wasn’t the safest place. What if the burglar was still making the rounds? I saw no hotel staff within sight. Where was our cheerful maid? I did have the second key to Smiley’s room. That door was still closed. I inserted the key card and pushed it open. At least I could call the desk from there, with the deadlock on behind me.
It took a couple of seconds to let the scene in his room register. Half the room was torn up as mine had been, except he had two beds and the mattress was actually tipped off one. The other was still intact. That meant the burglar was still at it. In the bathroom perhaps?
I bolted through the still open door, pulled it closed and raced along the corridor toward the exit, reaching out to bang on doors as I passed and screaming at the top of my lungs. “Fire!”
I knew if you yelled “Thief!” people might hide in their closets to avoid you, but “Fire!” might get them to the hallway. It’s an old trick from my uncles. It can also help to generate a crowd if you needed one to blend in with. I could have used a crowd, but the trick failed. No one came. As I reached the door to the exit stairs and pushed it open, I turned to
see if the burglar was in pursuit. Part of me said, For the most part, burglars are nonviolent. They want your stuff. Not your life. The other part said, Just in case this guy’s different, put up the best fight you can. I raised my fists, figured I could get a nose with one fist and a windpipe with the other. What the uncles called the old one-two when they were teaching a small child self-defense. But there was no time for that.
A bizarre spectral shape loomed over me. I couldn’t make sense of it. As I tried to grasp what was happening, I stumbled back on the metal landing. I felt rather than saw the thick bedspread drop over my head and shoulders. Unable to see, I felt myself begin a slow tumble. Slow and painful. Someone gave me a massive push sideways. I reached out to grab where I thought the railing was and just met cloth. I heard the muffled clatter of steps rushing past me and down. My back hit the wall, and I slid down and sat, stunned. I pushed against the cloth and tried to raise it. Three attempts and I finally got my head out. The clatter of feet was distant now. I crawled to the railing and stared down the stairwell. Nothing. No one. Of course, I could hardly see straight with my head whirling and the wail of . . . a fire alarm?
I leaned back and closed my eyes, took a couple of breaths and got to my feet. The door behind me opened and an older woman gasped. “Is there a fire?”
“That was me. Did I say ‘Fire’? I meant ‘Thief’! Can you call the desk? Tell them to send security, please.”
“What?”
An anxious chambermaid carrying towels rushed up behind her. “What is happening? Are you all right? Is there a fire?”
I shook my head. “Not at this moment. Call security, please.”
She pointed around me, “But what’s all this?”
“I believe it’s a bedspread.”
“I don’t understand,” the woman said. “Why would you take the bedspread from your room?”
“I didn’t. Someone else took it and dropped it over me so I couldn’t see him.”
“And did you see him?”
I shook my head.
“He tried to kill you!”
I gazed at her as my thoughts cleared. “I don’t think so.”
He, whoever he was, didn’t try to kill me, just get me out of commission. He’d tried to make sure I didn’t see him. He’d succeeded on both counts. One thing I knew, he’d taken care not to kill me. Or even to injure me seriously.
The Hammett Hex Page 7
