Blind Vigil

by Matt Coyle

  She was right, of course. I’d broken protocol. There wasn’t a good explanation for why. I could tell her I was worried about her safety, but was that the real reason? Or did it have as much to do with my need to be relevant again? To show I was needed, an asset, because of the special talents I’d honed for the last nine months? All of it or the one simple truth those talents screamed at me tonight?

  “The Invisible Man.”

  “The what?”

  “I told you. I smelled the same guy I smelled today.”

  “You’ve given him a name?” Incredulous. “This man who probably doesn’t even exist.”

  “You asked why. I told you.” Moira would need more evidence to believe in the Invisible Man. I didn’t know how to get it for her. Until I did, I’d live in her reality. “I know I messed up with Turk. Now we have to deal with it. What are you going to tell him?”

  “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” A snap in her voice.

  My body suddenly shifted right, then pressed against the seatback. Moira had turned left up a hill.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Looks like they’re probably headed back to La Valencia.”

  “Roger.”

  “Now where’s he going?” Moira asked herself after a brief silence. “He drove past La Valencia and turned right onto Ivanhoe.”

  “He’s going to drop Shay off at her car in one of the bank parking lots on Cave Street.”

  “What?” Moira, a hint of annoyance. “Why do you think that?”

  “That’s where all the restaurant workers park at night.”

  “Damn,” Moira muttered under her breath.

  “He turned left onto Cave, didn’t he?”

  “Yep.”

  “Don’t follow him into the lot.”

  “When did you start thinking that I was stupid?” Emphasis on the p in stupid.

  I didn’t say anything, but thought back to this morning when I wished Moira would stop treating me with kid gloves. Sometimes wishes do come true. Unfortunately.

  The car pulled to the right and stopped. A faint click from the dash or steering wheel like Moira turned off the headlights. She let the engine run.

  “The Maybach just exited the parking lot.” A trace of excitement in Moira’s voice. “Probably headed back to La Valencia.”

  “Shay’s car is a five-minute walk from La Valencia. Why the ten-minute roundabout drive to drop her by her car? Maybe the drive along the coast was a postcoital celebration.”

  “Get down.” I heard Moira slide down in her seat. I ducked my head. The sound of a car passed by. “Okay,” Moira said. “She’s going down Ivanhoe towards Torrey Pines. I guess I’ll follow her.”

  She started the car and made what felt like a three-point turn.

  “Why you guess? Is there another option?”

  “I’d like to follow the Maybach to see if it’s going somewhere other than the La Valencia. We need to find out more about the Italian Suit.” She let go an audible breath. “But Shay is the target, so we stay with her.”

  If I could see, we’d be in two cars. One could follow the Maybach, the other, Shay. But that wasn’t an option anymore. All my ifs were followed by buts since I lost my eyesight.

  I felt a turn to the right as we got onto Torrey Pines Road heading south. The car quickly accelerated.

  “Gotta make the light to keep up with her.”

  We drove for another six or seven minutes before Moira broke the silence again.

  “Strange.”

  “What?”

  “She passed by the street that would take her to her apartment on La Jolla Hermosa.”

  “Shit. Not another late-night rendezvous.”

  A minute passed.

  “This rendezvous is with Gelson’s,” Moira said.

  “Expensive tastes.” Gelson’s was a high-end grocery chain from LA that had claimed turf in San Diego.

  “Let’s see what she buys.” The car made a quick left.

  “You sure you want to do that? You’ve already followed her on foot tonight. She may have caught a glimpse of you.” I rolled down my window knowing Moira wouldn’t take my advice. I wanted to be ready for the scent of the Invisible Man while I waited for Moira in the grocery store. If he showed, maybe I could get her that evidence she needed to believe me. I pulled out my phone, ready to take a picture of a man I couldn’t see.

  The car slowed and pulled to a stop. Moira turned off the ignition.

  “I’m a Girl Scout. Always prepared.” Her husky laugh. “I don’t want to miss it if she buys a pregnancy test or hair dye.”

  I heard a shuffle like she was taking off her coat.

  “Two-way jacket. White lining.” Another shuffle like she put the coat back on. “Don’t get freaked out, I’m going to put my hand on your seat and reach across you and get something out of the glove compartment. I’m not making a pass at you.”

  “Darn.”

  Moira got angry at me often. Luckily, the anger was usually short lived.

  The edge of my seat compressed slightly and the scent of Moira’s coconut shampoo grew stronger. Click of the glove compartment door. A rustle, another click, then retreat of smell. She’d undoubtedly pulled out the Padres cap with a blond wig sticking down and fake eyeglasses I’d seen her wear on a few cases we’d worked together.

  “Stay in the car this time.” Her door opened, slight shift of the car, then the door slammed shut.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MOIRA HAD BEEN inside the store for almost ten minutes. I took off my sunglasses to try to see how many cars were in the lot, but only saw bright auras of lights against a dark nothingness. I put my glasses back on and abandoned the effort. My other senses were more reliable.

  Car doors opened and closed six times, three cars left the parking lot and another two entered while I waited. The only scent I smelled was automobile exhaust. No Dove for Men. No Invisible Man. I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about that.

  Another car door opened and closed maybe twenty feet from Moira’s car. Ignition and the car left the lot. Five seconds later Moira’s driver door opened and a body slid into the seat. Car door slam. Coconut shampoo scent. Ignition. Movement.

  “Shay made a couple of interesting purchases,” Moira said.

  We backed up, made a couple turns and sped up, now on the street.

  “The suspense is killing me.”

  “She bought a mini bottle of champagne and a small chocolate cake.”

  “Sounds like a celebration,” I said.

  “Not a cheap one either. The champagne was Moet Chandon Imperial. What could she be celebrating?”

  “And who with? When’s her birthday?” I asked.

  “Not for three more months. If she’s celebrating with someone else, he must not have a big appetite. For cake or champagne.”

  “Maybe champagne and chocolate cake are her after work rewards. I used to eat a pint of Häagen-Dazs after I got home from Muldoon’s every night at two in the morning.”

  “You were younger then. You couldn’t get away with that now.”

  “Thanks for noticing.”

  “There she is.” Moira must have spotted Shay’s car again. “She turned right on La Jolla Boulevard. Must be headed home.”

  Moira’s car turned right a few seconds later.

  “I take it she didn’t buy any pregnancy tests or hair dye. Anything else of interest?”

  “No. Just some veggies and guava juice.”

  The car made a sharp right turn, a left turn, another right and came to a stop a few seconds later.

  “Where are we?”

  “La Jolla Hermosa, across the street from Shay’s apartment.”

  I knew the area. The Bird Rock section of La Jolla. La Jolla Hermosa had a slew of small, two-story hospital-green apartment buildings. The apartments may have had a retro ’50s vibe but they still sat on La Jolla dirt and were only a few streets from the ocean. A one bedroom had to go for close to a couple g
rand a month. A big monthly nut on a hostess salary.

  “Does Shay have a roommate?” I asked.

  “Nope. You’re thinking the same thing I am, aren’t you?”

  “Yep. Her apartment is probably two thousand a month. How can she afford it?”

  “Actually, $1,895 for a one-bedroom. I checked after Turk gave me her address. The math doesn’t add up. You used to manage a restaurant. How much does a hostess who works thirty hours a week make?”

  “Not enough to cover two grand a month, unless she doesn’t eat or use electricity.” Back in my day, hostesses made a bit above minimum wage plus a small percentage of the waiters’ tips. Couldn’t have changed that much since then. “She doesn’t have any family money, right?”

  “Nope. Maybe Turk helps her out with the rent. Is that something he’d do?”

  “It’s a possibility.” Turk treated money cavalierly when we worked together. His excesses, which I didn’t know about until too late, caused the fracture in our friendship. “But he never did that back when I knew him. He and Shay have been together for over a year. If he has to fork out money for her rent each month, why not have her move in with him?”

  “Every relationship has its own timetable.”

  “When are you going to call Turk?” I asked.

  “I want to talk to him in person.” Sotto voce. “I need to see how he reacts.”

  “You talk to Dr. Donnelly over the phone?” Her son’s pediatrician turned murderer and the one case she wished she could get a second chance at.

  “No.” Quiet for a couple seconds. “I emailed him a report.”

  “Any P.I. would have done the same thing, Moira. You know that. Standard operating procedure.”

  “Not anymore. Not for me.”

  No movement in Shay Sommers’ apartment over the next hour. If she was celebrating with champagne and chocolate cake, she was doing it quietly and alone. Moira and I didn’t talk for the rest of our vigil. Both lost in our own thoughts. Moira was probably going over things she wished she’d done differently with Doctor Donnelly. She wasn’t one to second-guess herself and she’d done nothing wrong, but I could hear in her voice how it ate away at her when she talked about the Donnelly case. Something horrible happened and she’d taken it personally. I knew all too well the damage that could do.

  While Moira no doubt worried silently about how Turk would take the news she had to tell him, I sniffed the air, listened for footsteps, and pondered the existence of the Invisible Man. If he was still out there watching us tonight, he hadn’t ventured close. That, again, left me with no evidence to present to Moira to prove he existed.

  “The lights just went out in the apartment.” Moira broke the silence. “It’s 12:05. How late is Muldoon’s open tonight?”

  “One o’clock.”

  “Will Turk still be there if we drop by in the next fifteen minutes?”

  “Probably. After he got back on his feet, he went from occasionally stopping by the restaurant while I still ran the place to working sixty hours a week.” Even though Turk “fired” me a few days before he got shot saving my life, I worked the restaurant for one hundred-forty-nine straight days until he was able to return. “I can call him to make sure he’s still there.”

  “No. I want to walk in cold.”

  “With me? You, the eyes; me, the ears?”

  “Yep.”

  Moira found a parking space on Prospect Street a few spots down from where we parked earlier. This time I counted the steps to Muldoon’s. One hundred-thirty-seven to the staircase above the restaurant. The band in the bar was on a break when we entered. No hostess because the dining room was closed.

  “Wait here,” Moira said. She moved away from me to the left, heading down the hall to the bar. I waited and listened and sniffed the air. No evidence of the Invisible Man.

  Conversations paused when people walked by me on their way to the bathroom or outside for a quick smoke. I’d brought my cane with me and still wore the blackout sunglasses. I was noticed. My new reality.

  I felt heavy vibrations in the carpeted hallway. Someone large was coming my way. Old Spice deodorant. Three-legged gait. Turk.

  “Let’s go to my office.” His greeting.

  A hand on my back. Moira. I grabbed her arm and let her lead me instead of using my cane. We entered the dining room. The aroma of steaks, garlic, and butter still clung to the air. We turned left around the salad bar, another left around the server station, passed the grill, and entered the kitchen.

  “Watch your step.” Turk, step-thunk-dragging his way ahead of us.

  Ammonia floated up from the floor after the kitchen crew’s nightly scrubbing, and each step gave off a squish sound on the wet floor. Moira guided me effortlessly, a turn here and there and then the straight walk down the hall toward Turk’s office. She seemed schooled in the nuances of leading me as if she’d done it for years as opposed to one day. She led me inside the office door on the left at the end of the hallway, and I instinctively moved back to find the wall in the cramped space. Except it wasn’t there. I found it two whole steps back from where it used to be.

  “You expanded the office,” I said.

  “Yep. Too many long days and nights here not to spread out a little bit. Wish I would have done it a lot sooner. I moved the desk to the back wall. There are a couple chairs in front of it a few feet to your left.”

  I heard the cadence of his gait on the cement floor, a chair scrape, and then the release of air as he sat his bulk down behind the desk. I tapped my cane and found one of the chairs before Moira touched my arm. We both sat down.

  “Rick told me that you followed Shay to La Valencia tonight,” Turk said to Moira. Terse. Down to business. None of the hail fellow well met that made him so popular with his customers and employees. And women.

  “That’s not what I said.” I wished I hadn’t said anything.

  “Close enough.” This to Moira. “What happened at La Valencia?”

  Moira told Turk about the Sky Suite, the man in the Italian suit, the drive along the ocean in the Mercedes Benz Maybach, Shay’s stop at Gelson’s, and lights out at her apartment at midnight.

  “How long was she in the suite at La Valencia?”

  “Roughly forty minutes.” Moira in clipped professional mode.

  “That’s long enough.” Turk’s voice a surrender.

  “We don’t know what happened up there.” Agitation slipped into my voice. Turk defeated pissed me off. Back when we were friends, he could always take a punch, literally and figuratively, and be ready for more. I didn’t like seeing, hearing, this side of him.

  “Did you find out who the man in the Italian suit is?” Turk asked.

  “No. Hotels won’t release the names of their guests. I’m hoping to get information on the owner of the Mercedes tomorrow.” A rustle of clothing told me Moira shifted in her chair. “But that might not get us the name of the man in the Italian suit.”

  “Why not?” Turk bit the words off hard.

  “Someone else was driving the Maybach. That person could be the owner or it could be a rental. Give it time.” Cool, calm. Moira slowed her usual rapid-fire delivery. “We can’t jump to conclusions. You gave me a check for a week’s worth of work. This is day one. Let us do the job you hired us to do. We’ll find the truth.”

  “But you have to admit, her secret meeting looks suspicious.”

  “I’ve done this job long enough not to make premature judgments. The truth will come out. You hired me because you heard I’m good at what I do. I am. So, let me do what you hired me to do.”

  I didn’t mind Moira dropping me from the equation and going from we to I when commenting about her abilities and promise to find the truth. I was a passenger on this trip and my exit from the ride could come at any time.

  “Okay, but I can’t wait forever.”

  “Understood.”

  “I have a question for you.” Moira maintained her reassuring voice. “Does Shay derive income fro
m a source other than her job at Eddie V’s?”

  “No.” Suspicious. “Why?”

  “I’m just trying to gather as much information as I can to help put all the pieces together. She’s living in an apartment where the rent is nineteen hundred a month. I’m wondering how she can afford it on a hostess salary.”

  “What’s this have to do with her meeting some guy down at La Valencia?” Agitation peeking through the confusion.

  “Probably nothing, but I need to know all I can about Shay’s everyday life. This is how I investigate. How can she afford the rent on La Jolla Hermosa?”

  An uncomfortable pause.

  “I help her out.” It sounded like a confession in a square white room. “She used to live in a rathole near the bar scene in Pacific Beach. I had to get her out of there. More women are raped in P. B. than anywhere else in San Diego.”

  “Why doesn’t she just move in with you?” I jumped in again. “Save you a bunch of money.”

  Something struck my left ankle. Moira’s foot. I’d crossed a line and broken her rhythm. The passenger is just supposed to shut up and look at the view. I’d get an earful back in the car. I didn’t care. I was tired of the kid gloves. Maybe this would force Turk to start to reevaluate his relationship with Shay. If he was paying part of her rent and he couldn’t trust her, was she worth all the angst and effort?

  “That’s none of your business, Rick!” The anger I remembered seeping out seven years ago on the roof of Muldoon’s when I confronted Turk about my investment in the restaurant. He flashed from anger to violence in a breath and we went to fists and blood. Our friendship ended that day. I didn’t expect the same reaction now, but my gut roiled over the memory.

  “One last thing.” Moira, cool soothing voice. “I know you’re dealing with a lot of uncertainty and you’re anxious to find out the truth about Shay and the man at La Valencia. I will find it for you. But, in the meantime, I need you to step back and take a breath. Are you planning on seeing Shay tonight?”

  A half a count pause. “No.”

  I didn’t know if the tiny pause meant he had to think about it or slipped in a lie. I hoped it was the former.

  “What about tomorrow morning?” Vibration and squeak of Moira pushing her chair back and standing up.