by Molly Greene
* * *
The next day they checked out of the hotel at four o’clock and left Carmel with nothing gained but a passel of shopping bags and a good time under their belts. But on the way out of town, Gen asked Livvie if he would stop at the viewpoint to see if Laura Ingburg was on the cliffs again that day.
The waves must have been good – or their timing was right – because a dozen young men had zipped themselves into their seal suits and were headed down to the beach. A handful bobbed in the swell and pointed to a decent set rolling toward them from deep water, way out in the bay.
Oliver snapped a few photos with his phone, then tossed an amused expression Gen’s way. “I think I’ll have to take up surfing.”
“There are sharks out there, you know.”
“Are you talking about the men or the fish?” He shaded his eyes and did his best Indian scout impression. “Me no see ’um fins.”
“That’s the problem, you don’t see ‘um until they take a bite out of you.”
Oliver cringed. “Good God, Genevieve, why so maudlin?” Disgusted, he waltzed away down the cliff trail and left her there to wonder what had compelled her to be mean. She followed him, still thinking, and caught up as he made the hairpin turn.
Laura was packing up her easel for the day.
As luck would have it, she was ready for a chat. “Hello again.” She gestured for them to join her.
“Hi,” Oliver said. “Did you ever get those clouds right?”
“You tell me.” Laura swiveled her easel toward them. Although the scene was nearly the same, it almost looked as though she’d started over, and now the cotton-ball clouds scudded blithely across the sky.
“Perfect,” Oliver said.
“Why, thank you so much.” Laura’s laugh billowed around them. For a moment she sounded like a young woman with a glorious secret. “And how about your stay in Carmel, was that perfect, too?”
“It was outstanding,” Gen replied. “You must love living in this place.”
“My life has been blessed geographically.” She capped the tubes of paint and stowed them. “Carmel is a wonder.”
“Francie told me you’ve been around for a long time,” Gen said.
“That’s right.” Laura winked. “I was a prodigy. I came out of the womb with a brush in my hand.”
“You must know where all the bodies are buried.”
“I do, oh, I do. The village isn’t as tiny as it used to be, but it’s still a small town with an active gossip mill.” Laura’s expression morphed to sad, though; whatever gossip she was considering wasn’t something she wanted to dredge up right then. “But I won’t be writing a tell-all anytime soon,” she added.
Oliver’s eyes went wide and he leaned in. “Oh, honey, do dish. What’ve you got?”
Laura whispered in his ear, then leaned back with her hands on her hips to gauge his reaction.
“Tippi Hedren? The tiger sanctuary lady?”
“That’s right. How do you like them apples?”
“Juicy stuff. What else?”
“Oh, no. That was just an appetizer.” Laura waved a hand at him. “I’ve changed my mind, I will write an exposé. You’ll have to wait for the book now.”
“Tease.”
“Well, of course,” Laura replied. “The best gossips don’t spill the beans, they listen and take notes. They tattle enough to build interest, but they save the best for paying customers.”
“They take it all in and file it away,” Gen said.
“You got that right.” Laura handed her canvas to Oliver and folded the easel. “Never know when you might need to blackmail someone.”
Gen picked up the paints and they headed for the car park. “Laura, Francie suggested I show you the reason we came to town. She says you’ve been around as long as anybody and you might recognize an artist I’m trying to locate.”
“Do you have a picture?”
“Even better,” Gen replied. “We’ve got the actual painting in the car.”
“Sure, lead on. Let’s have a look.”
Laura shadowed them to the back of the Rover and waited while Livvie opened the tailgate and unwrapped the frame. When he turned the canvas, an expression close to shock flickered across her face.
Laura fell back a step and looked aside, as if the scene had burned her eyes and she had to shield them. Three beats later she moved forward once again and raised a hand to brush the canvas with her fingers, like a lover stroking a beloved’s face. Her expression cycled between miserable and stoic.
She turned and walked toward the ocean.
“You know something,” Gen said.
But Laura dashed her hopes and ratcheted up the puzzle when she looked back at them and shook her head.
“No.” Her voice was steady. Her eyes were clear. Every vestige of her previous emotion had been stowed away. “It reminds me of my own work in the early years,” she said. “We’ve all changed.” She offered them both a hopeful smile and turned to go, then remembered her things and reached for her easel and paints.
“It’s time for me to go home,” she said.
Gen wasn’t about to give up.
She followed Laura to her car. “Are you sure there isn’t anything memorable about it? Even a passing thought about who might have done the work. My client just wants to find him so she can buy another, that’s all.”
“I can’t help you. I’ve seen so much by so many artists over the years. They come and go.” She wedged herself behind the wheel and shut the door, then smiled one last time and drove onto the highway.
Gen stood with her hands on her hips and watched Laura’s car.
“That was abrupt,” Liv said.
“I’ll say. She couldn’t wait to get away. Fascinating how it reminded her of her own work.”
Liv slammed the back hatch, then walked around to the driver’s side door and climbed in. Gen pulled herself in beside him and buckled up, and Oliver fired up the engine and pointed them toward home.
Chapter Fifteen
The Marina District is on the northwest edge of San Francisco, between the Presidio to the west end and Fort Mason and the Wharf to the east, out where Fillmore t’s and drivers run out of street and have to turn right or left or risk running straight into the ocean. The neighborhood offers spectacular views of the bridge and the bay, and the best outdoor recreational opportunities in the city.
Fort Mason and the Presidio are no longer operated by the military. Now the fort houses Green’s, a popular, high-end vegetarian restaurant, and the pier acts as host to various plays and events.
Mack and Gen had arranged to meet at Crissy Field, one of the best venues for joggers in the entire Bay Area, and a place where Gen went often. She preferred to walk, though, and gladly stood aside and let the runners do their thing. Walkers could take it all in without tripping while they enjoyed the scenery.
Both of them were suited up in casual clothes and trainers, although for Mack that just meant ditching the flannel shirt he always wore. Gen was wearing yoga pants, ready for a hike along the water, and when she leaned over to tie her shoes she caught him doing a double-take at her reconditioned tush. She pretended not to notice.
Let him look. It was good for her ego.
He’d left a message with her service while she was gone. Interesting that he hadn’t called her cell. She wondered if it was him keeping his distance, taking another step away from their former familiarity. That would make a dozen steps, if she counted all the way back.
The pair of them had gotten close when they were working on the Elergene case, while she and Ryan were in the midst of parting ways. She’d needed time before she could dive in again. She kept her distance when the case was closed.
Back then he’d call her cell. Not anymore.
They began their ramble slowly, waiting to see how the other would measure up as far as stride, but soon fell into a rhythm that let them talk and get some exercise at the same time. The idea to come here was Gen’s, b
ut Mack seemed amiable enough.
This way she didn’t have to sit across a table from him and pretend indifference. Because the truth was, she still felt the attraction she’d felt almost half a year ago. And if he knew her like he seemed to think he did, sending him bogus signals would just set off his alarm. Beside each other was better. Swinging arms and negotiating sidewalks would cover up a lot.
“You’ve been working out.”
Gen shrugged. “Nothing intense, mostly doing what we’re doing today. Just walking.”
“Do you always come here?”
“No, I go all over the place. It keeps me from getting bored and helps me get in touch with the city. I drove it before, but I didn’t pay much attention. Now I wander around and look and think.”
Mack glanced at her. “Great idea.”
“Yeah, I thought so. I like to multi-task.” She sensed he might be smiling but didn’t peek. She was wrong, though. When he spoke his tone was concerned.
“Do you at least carry pepper spray?”
“No. Why?”
“I would think you’d have already taken steps to protect yourself, given the business you’re in. But now that you’re walking all over the city, you better do something about self-defense. This isn’t Oz, you know.”
“You think? I haven’t felt the need.”
“You would if you did a ride-along with the uniforms. It’d slay you to know what they see out here on the streets every day.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“Which, pepper spray or the ride-along?”
“Guess.” She grinned. “I appreciate that you worry about me, by the way. So what did you find?”
“I finally got ahold of the detective who caught the case in New York. He’s retired and living in the sticks in Maine. Fishing. But he remembered the situation, and pretty much how the investigation played out.”
“Did they share the file?”
“Not the whole thing. Sent me interview notes and pictures of the crime scene, but none of the original stuff. And before you ask, I can’t hand it off to you. Against regs.”
“Of course. Anybody ask why you were interested?”
“I said I had a snitch who mentioned an old murder. Made me curious.”
“And they went for it?”
“Sure.”
“So what did the guy tell you?”
“He said they figured maybe it was accidental. It looked like it wasn’t planned. From what they could tell, Shannon Keene wasn’t a friend of the murdered woman. They had no concrete prior connection. None that they could find, anyway. Might have just met up in a bar and started partying. A bartender ID’d them together. Guy said they were having what he called an intense conversation.
“Looks like they took the party home to the deceased’s house and let the good times roll. There was a struggle. The dead woman fell and hit her head, or she was pushed and struck a table. She had help going down, she didn’t die right away, and nobody called 911 to try to save her.”
That was a revelation. Gen forgot her no-look strategy and caught Mack’s attention. “No knives, no guns, no ligature marks, no drugs in her system?”
“Only booze, and plenty of it.” Mack broke eye contact and kept walking. “A glass with her fingerprints links Shannon to the scene. No witnesses saw her or the deceased go in. No roommates, no neighbors, no taxi driver. An undisclosed number of residents said they saw a blonde girl leave. Nobody could ID Shannon Keene.”
“Pretty thin.”
“Fingerprints are solid enough. It’s not like the dead woman would have stolen Shannon’s glass from the bar and dropped it in a plastic bag and taken it home, then killed herself in a one-sided brawl.”
“Well, when you put it that way,” Gen said.
“So Shannon went missing and they had the prints, and they made her for the murder. That’s how it went down.”
“Doesn’t really add up to a solid conviction,” Gen said.
“It does in a cop’s mind. Things are usually as they appear to be.”
“Did the dead girl have a boyfriend or a husband?”
“An ex in the boyfriend category. He was checked out and cleared.”
They’d been pacing each other pretty good all this time, but now Gen heard Mack’s breathing ramp up. He’d pulled off a remarkable job of speeding along without sounding winded, but he’d also done most of the talking. It was beginning to show.
She backed off the twenty questions and gave him a minute to recover. She heard him take in some air, deep, and congratulated herself.
But he turned the tables on her.
“Okay, your turn,” he said. “What did you find out in Carmel?”
“How did you know we went?”
“Your answering service.”
Of course. He hadn’t asked about the “we,” but she felt compelled to explain. “Livvie and I drove down and took the painting with us. We wanted to see what we could turn up.”
“And?”
“Zilch. We didn’t find out the painter’s name. Only one curious thing happened, and that was on our way out of town. An artist we met had a look at the painting. For some reason it knocked her back when she saw it, Liv and I could both tell. But she clammed up. Insisted she didn’t know anything, didn’t recognize it, nothing. Said it reminded her of her own work. I haven’t decided what to do next.”
Despite her attempts to talk and keep from puffing and maintain Mack’s long-legged stride, Gen felt a stitch in her side and was forced to slow down. “Uncle,” she said.
“What? You set the pace. I thought you wanted some exercise.”
Gen’s smile oozed sarcasm. She pointed to a bench. “I need to sit.”
Mack slouched down beside her.
Gen leaned back and pulled in a few deep breaths before she spoke again. “The woman was an artist named Laura Ingburg, a long-time Carmel local. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks she knows something. Like I said, she closed up as soon as she saw the painting.
“Before we showed it to her, none of the gallery owners I spoke with knew anything about anything, except for a guy named Herman Jacovich. He acted weird when he saw it, too. But he just blustered and said it was mediocre work and asked me why I was looking for whoever did it. Like that would be a waste of time. He offered to buy it to get it off the street.”
“So there might be more to this,” Mack said.
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Start digging. See what I can turn up about Jacovich and Laura Ingburg.”
“What do you think you’ll find?”
“Aww, who knows. With luck there’s a connection. I’ll do what I can from here, but I’ll probably need to take another trip in a while.”
“Not a bad place to hang out.”
Gen drummed her fingertips on the bench and kept her eyes forward. “Yeah? Since when have you been a connoisseur of fine art.”
“I told you a long time ago, I love San Francisco. I enjoy a lot of things. Wine, food. Theatre.” Mack pinned her with his gaze and brought reality crashing in. “I’ve been getting more involved in the art scene, and I met someone who was interested. We started dating.”
Their eyes locked. “Congratulations,” Gen said.
“It’s not like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you sound like you’re giving the groom a slap on the back.”
Gen looked away. “Whatever it is, I’m happy for you.”
Mack laughed, then put his hand on her thigh and squeezed.
“What was that for?”
“I’ve missed you.”
She felt a flurry of opposing emotions and stood. “Look, Mack, I’ve been busy. I have a business and clients and a mortgage and–” She strode briskly away down the sidewalk, pumping her arms, then threw a big windmill swing over her shoulder.
“Let’s go,” she cried.
Mack caught up and grabbed her bi
cep, then spun her around to face him. His expression was tight. She’d never seen him mad, but she thought this might be close to it.
“Look, Genny, all I said was I missed you. That’s it. Don’t read any more into it. I wasn’t implying that these last few months should have been anything other than what they were. Your life is your own.” He took in some air, but he wasn’t done with her yet.
“Friends should be able to tell friends they’re missed. End of story. If you feel guilty, it comes from inside you, not from me. I didn’t say my life wasn’t complete without your presence in it, all right? I like you a lot. I was disappointed when nothing happened between us, but I understand. Now get over yourself. You’re not all that.”
Gen’s jaw dropped. This is what shock and awe felt like. She could imagine her expression: a cross between devastated and impressed beyond words. Mack had a gift for telling it like it is, but today was the first time he’d aimed the cannon of truth at her.
And darned if he wasn’t right. She did feel awkward about letting their mutual attraction slip away. But even so, it had still been the proper thing to do back then, for both of them. And if she thought it was best, she needed to own it.
“I get it,” Gen replied. “I can see you’re okay with how we are. You’ve barely even looked at me today. Until now, of course.” She tried for funny. “Other than when you checked out my butt while I was tying my shoes.”
He didn’t take the bait. “That’s how you wanted it.”
“What, you ogling my tukhus?”
He gave her a look and she cut the crap. “How we are is friends, Genny. It is what it is.”
“I know,” she said. “The truth is, I’ve been confused–”
“Stop.” He let go of her arm and held up his palm like a barricade between them. “I don’t want to have this conversation. It’s nice to see you, that’s all. Let’s leave it and enjoy each other’s company.”
“Of course.”
He dropped his eyes and she watched as his face softened back into Mack-not-the-cop.
