She smiled again. “Probably it was one of the real estate ladies. They’re very keen about getting the listing for the place.”
I said, “Okay, maybe that is it.”
“Did she want you to do some work for her?”
I blinked and realized that I looked pretty down at heel. “We were talking about it, but she had to leave. She was very pretty. About this tall.” I indicated Sierra’s height. “She had a ponytail with what do you say? Highlights? And she loved to run. Oh, and she had a baby stroller.”
My source shrugged. “She does sound like one of the real estate gals. One of them had a stroller with her. Not very professional if you ask me.”
“How long has she been coming to this—”
“Sorry, dear, but you’ll have to excuse me. My taxi’s here now. Oh, my name is Gloria Zeller. I live next door. Come and see me and give me your name next time. Some of my friends may have a few hours for you.” She eased herself into the cab and closed the door.
I watched her pull away and thought hard. Was this actually true? Or was the deceiver the woman who’d just let me down? The nightmarish aspect of this day continued on. I spoke to a man entering a house two doors down, but he knew nothing and no one and didn’t want to know me either.
I trudged down the hill a bit until I found a side passage that might let me get to the back of the Himmelfarb house, without appearing to be heading for it. Sure enough, some furtive scurrying through backyards got me to the rear of the house. I didn’t dare go back to Gram’s place until I had a better idea of what was going on. I needed to think and I needed a quiet place to do that. Sierra’s alleged house seemed as good a place as any. I glanced around to see if I was being observed and didn’t spot anyone. I waved elaborately to a nonexistent neighbor. And did what I thought was a very good pantomime of a person being invited into a home and accepting. I try not to break and enter, I want to be clear about that. I’m quite serious about living an honest and honorable life, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. This was one of those times. In fact, this entire day had been a series of those times.
The security was nonexistent. My bank card was all it took to open the door. I made a big production of pretending to offer the bag from the taco shop to the nonexistent person on the inside and then stepped in, locking the door behind myself. You can never be too careful, as I kept finding out.
On the inside, the house had that empty and echoing quality of an uninhabited home. So far it looked like my source, Gloria Zeller, had been right. From the style of the cupboards, backsplash and counter tops, the kitchen had been renovated not long ago with dark traditional cupboards and materials and appliances that matched the fine quality of the old house. It was spotless and the fridge was empty. Yes, I checked. The cupboards were quite empty too, although there were still dishes, pots, pans and utensils to give a sense of life to the place, I figured. There was no sign of an elderly man who’d lived alone for a few years. All that remained was the faint odor of a pet, probably also long gone.
The clock on the fairly new stainless steel microwave was working. Nearly four p.m.
I walked through the dining room and toward the living room, hugging the walls and making sure I wasn’t visible to anyone on the outside, not that many people in the area would care. I wasn’t worried about the neighbors, but I didn’t know whom I was worried about. Any respectable Hammett character would be taking no chances in this no-man’s-land. This house was very nice and beautifully preserved with some stained glass windows and mahogany floors and crown moldings. Everything looked original, something I value. It was considerably smaller than Gram’s rambling Victorian, so I figured I could check it out quickly enough.
I got down on all fours and scuttled over to the living room bay window with the lace curtains. Sure enough, there was a perfect view of Gram’s house and anyone coming and going from it. Now I knew what Sierra had been doing here. I just didn’t know why she’d been doing it. It didn’t look like I’d learn anything more about that either. Up close, there were no indications of anyone having been there. No stroller. No baby toys. Nothing.
I crawled backward to the hallway, turned and headed up the stairs. Upstairs, the front bedroom was a mirror of the living room with that matching bay window I’d admired. Still pressed against the walls, I edged over. For all I knew, someone in Gram’s house (Zoya? Gus and his boys?) was in touch with Sierra and whomever Sierra was working with or for.
This bedroom was crowded with antique mahogany furniture. Normally, I’d be very impressed with the heavy sleigh bed, the massive dressers and the two bedside tables with serious scale. But not today. A solid leather club chair was positioned by the window, and to judge by the darker spot on the carpet, where it had obviously been for years, it had been relocated. What a cozy spot to watch Gram’s house.
Apparently Himmelfarb had been liked, so perhaps he wouldn’t have minded. I did have goose bumps by this point. Over by the window, I had an even better view of the goings-on at Gram’s. From the gap in the curtain I watched as Smiley hurried up the street, took the stairs two at a time and opened the door. It looked as though Zoya did her best to stop him getting in, but that may have been my imagination. A minute later, I saw his shadow in the bay window of Gram’s new room upstairs. The shorter shadow must have been Gram herself.
Our watchers had ringside seats for sure. I glanced down at the window ledge and spotted the first sign of the spies, two Starbucks cups, off to the left, behind the heavy drapes. I bent down and took a look at the cups. One had a smear of glossy pale coral lipstick, easily recognizable as Sierra’s. The other had none. I’d never seen Sierra without full and glossy lip color. It was a safe bet that she had an accomplice, or maybe she was the accomplice. It was pretty brazen as it seemed they had no business being in this house.
I hesitated. If I took the cups and stuffed them into the plastic bag for the tacos, I might have a way to get them to Officer Martinez. She could keep them as evidence. Although I knew from talking to Smiley that the chain of evidence would be broken if I, not the police, produced it. The cops are picky about these details. I stuffed them into the bag. I could always return them later if I came up with a good plan.
I was desperate to call Smiley, but I could not remember his new cell number. I’d been relying on my phone a bit too much. Technology’s great except when it isn’t.
Since other people hadn’t been too careful, I took advantage of the quiet and comfort to eat my taco in peace. When I say eat, I mean wolf. I inhaled the first taco and then I gobbled the one I’d bought for Sierra too. I washed them down with a can of cola. I leaned back, feeling a bit better, and closed my eyes. I needed peace to try to figure out what to do next. Who was the enemy? Who was Sierra? Who was Michael? Was there a Michael? Was he one of the men at the hotel and in the home invasion? What did they want? How were they involved with me, with Gram, with Zoya, with Tyler? And why would Sierra have warned me about the home invasion? Had she wanted me to be caught by the masked men?
We’d come to San Francisco to have a wonderful vacation and it had turned into a nightmare. For all unknown reasons, I felt myself dragged down into a dangerous world that Hammett himself might have invented. Sure there weren’t “down and outers” and people with known criminal connections and there were a limited number of dark alleys, but we’d found villains willing to knock out Zoya, to threaten Gram with guns, to pose as a police officer in front of Gram’s house, to shoot up a hotel room, steal beloved dogs and take serious chances chasing me across the ninth-floor balconies, and to spy on us from an unoccupied house across the street. Whatever their reasons, they must have been powerful. And worst of all, there appeared to be so many of them.
I figured I’d have more information when I had a chance to look at the cameras we’d hidden in the hotel suite, unless the police found them as they sealed off the room as a crime scene, assuming that they�
��d done that. To be fair, the entire hotel was in an uproar, and it would have been very hard for the authorities to figure out what exactly had gone down and in what order.
I leaned back in the club chair and closed my eyes. It will sound weird, but for the first time in days, I actually felt relaxed. This house had a serenity about it, despite the gloom and the fact that at least two deceitful people had been spying on us from it. I felt grateful to Mr. Himmelfarb. I wished that I’d known him.
Never mind, it felt good to let my body relax and my mind stop whirring. I yawned and gave myself a little shake. No time for napping. I may not have had places to go, people to see, things to do, but I did have a lot of thinking to catch up with.
Wait a minute! My eyes snapped open. The seat of that chair had been warm when I sat on it. Warm! And yet the sun from the window didn’t reach there. Was there someone still in the house? My mouth went dry and goose bumps rose on my arms. As I heaved myself out of the chair, I noticed something else: a few brightly covered candy wrappers. Not that I wanted to be noticing things when I was in danger of being discovered by whomever it was that had been sitting there.
I was bending over to check the wrappers when I heard voices from the first floor and what sounded like a door closing. It was way past time to get moving. I picked up the wrappers, grabbed my taco bag and the bag with the other debris and tried to figure out where to hide. If it was Sierra and whoever her accomplice was—or even if she was the accomplice—this room would probably be where they’d head, if those coffee cups were anything to go by. I hesitated. Should I put them back? But too late for that. They were already in the bag. The voices were coming closer.
On the other hand, if it was a real estate person or a member of the family, they could go anywhere. In case it was the spies, I hightailed it out of the master bedroom and into the next room. There wasn’t much choice as I could hear footsteps on the stairs. What now? This room had a large four-poster bed, a bit more feminine with a blue bedspread, blue and white curtains and a lot of lace. This must have been Alice’s room. Perhaps in later years, they’d each had their own. There would be room for me under the bed, but my experience with hiding under beds had not been good in recent months.
That left the closet and behind the drapes. The blue and white drapes didn’t quite reach the floor and my desert boots would have been hard to miss if anyone checked out the room. I prayed that the closet hinges wouldn’t squeak.
The closet didn’t have the original heavy doors, but more modern louvered ones. I was glad because that allowed me to hear. I sank to the floor and wormed my way behind what I took to be a collection of long dressing gowns with a fading scent of lily of the valley. I supposed they were also to give a lived in look, or maybe the relatives hadn’t been able to clear things out. They took my mind off my hammering heart for a second, although you would think I’d have gotten used to scary situations by this time. The voices were coming closer. A man and a woman. I recognized Sierra, sounding a lot more in charge than when she’d been talking to me.
Was that who’d been sitting in the club chair? But if it was Sierra, why was she just arriving? How could that be? And more to the point, what did she have to do with what I’d noticed just before fleeing to the closet? I’d spotted a cluster of dog hair on the carpet in Alice’s room. Where there’s dog hair, there’s a dog. But why would there be a dog in an empty house? Especially a dog the same familiar color as our missing pug. It was a shade I knew well. There was no mistaking the signs of that little Asta. The answers would be on the other side of the closet door, so I wouldn’t be getting them instantly.
I listened intently to footsteps reaching the top of the stairs and the slight sounds of squabbling about who should do what about something that I didn’t quite catch. The squabbling got louder. The man’s voice was not what I’d expected. I’d imagined Sierra’s husband—Michael?—as a business type, stylish in that hip San Francisco way, sophisticated and yet indulgent of his young wife and child. Instead he sounded like a peevish teenager.
I shook my head. The thing that was most surprising was that my “friend” was not at all who she said she was, or at least she didn’t live where she said she lived. You understand, I had nothing to do but speculate and listen. I could hear them bickering in the bedroom. What was going on?
It was possible that they were here for reasons that had nothing to do with us and with Gram’s house, but that was highly unlikely. Looking back, I realized that she had struck up a conversation with me and instigated the relationship. Why else would she do that unless she wanted to find out more about us or about the inhabitants of Gram’s house? I just hope that didn’t include finding me in the closet.
“What’s that smell?” Sierra snapped.
“What smell?”
“I’m asking you. It smells like Tex-Mex or something.”
“Oh yeah. Now I’m kind of hungry.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“Come on, Jessica, why do you always talk to me like that? A guy can be hungry.”
So Sierra’s real name was Jessica. Good to know.
She said, “A guy can do the job he’s supposed to and not be such a big baby all the time.”
Whoever they were, they didn’t sound like criminal masterminds.
“Tacos, for sure.”
“Did you bring tacos in here?”
“No. I didn’t bring in any food. You said that was a rule, but then you brought coffee in—”
“That was part of my cover, you dimwit. You know that and you shouldn’t have left the empty cups there. I don’t ask that much of you. We are so close to getting rid of them. They’re starting to panic. So let’s not screw up.”
Their voices dimmed as they entered the front bedroom. I strained to hear.
He said, “Well, they’re gone now anyways.”
“What do you mean, they’re gone?”
“They’re gone. Someone must have cleaned them up.”
“Oh, the cups. I thought you meant the so-called grandson and his nasty little girlfriend. That’s dumb even for you, Josh. Who the hell do you think breaks into a house and cleans it up? I don’t know what to do with you sometimes.”
I sat up straight. So-called grandson? Nasty little girlfriend? What a pair of jerks these two were.
“Blah blah. All I know is that the stupid cups are gone and I didn’t throw them out. Maybe the real estate people?”
“Let’s hope not. We don’t want them knowing we’re here. Especially when we’re getting close to success with the old lady.”
“Well, duh.”
Jessica and Josh. Who were these peevish creeps and how were they connected to the people who had attacked me so far? I couldn’t figure out any link at all, except me, Gram and Tyler—or possibly Zoya—and while they sounded like squabbling adolescents, I was under no illusion that they were innocent or harmless.
The closet was dusty, not surprising as Alice Himmelfarb had been dead for five years. My nose twitched and I pinched it to keep myself from sneezing.
What? Had I missed something? Voices were raised in the next room. “Oh my God!”
“What now? Do you have to be so hysterical about every little thing?”
“I am not hysterical about every little thing, but here’s a little thing to be hysterical over: Where’s the stupid dog?”
“What?”
“Not ‘what,’ Josh, you moron. Where! Where is it?”
“Well, it must be hiding.”
“Why would it be hiding?”
“Duh, because it hates you?”
“It doesn’t really hate me, Josh.”
“It does. And we have to find it. Right now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Nobody looks dangerous drinking fancy coffee.
—The Kelly Rules
“FINE. GO FIND the stup
id dog, Josh. Like anybody cares.”
I cared. I didn’t want to come nose to nose with Josh as I crouched in a closet I had no business being in. My heart was thundering as I considered what weapons were at my disposal among the clothing of a dead octogenarian. Dressing gowns to drop over someone’s head enough to get a head start? Hangers? Hatboxes? Nothing seemed promising. Shoes could make good emergency hammers, but they weren’t that good in a fight, especially if it was two to one. Where was Asta? Had they mistreated the little pooch? Or was Asta just so stressed that under a bed seemed like the best solution? We already knew she liked to keep a low profile, convenient or not.
But why would Josh open the closet door to search for the dog? That was just dopey. However, they both did appear to be perfectly dopey. I picked up a pair of shoes, one in each hand.
Josh said, “Maybe the real estate people took the dog.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because a dog left alone in a house would not make it easier to sell. You know that little sucker had some accidents.”
“It’s bad news if they found the dog. For one thing, they’ll watch the house to see how it got here, and for another, we need that stupid thing. What’s that?”
“What?”
“There’s someone coming!”
“Chill out.”
“I am chill.”
He said, “You’re not chill. You’re never chill. Stop screaming. No one knows we’re here unless they heard you.”
“The person who picked up those cups knows we were here. The person who stole the dog knows we’re here.”
“No. We stole the dog, remember? That person might know that someone was here, but most likely they won’t think anything of it.”
The Hammett Hex Page 21
