The Dark Room

by Jonathan Moore

  Cain pulled out the chair across from Nagata and sat.

  “Who shot him—Chun or Grassley?”

  “We don’t know,” she said.

  “How is it possible you don’t know that?”

  “Because he took their weapons,” Nagata said. “There was one forty-caliber casing in the bedroom. So one of them got off a shot, but we don’t know which.”

  “You put out a notice to all the hospitals?”

  “Of course.”

  Fischer was looking at the blood below the wainscoting on the dining room wall. He must have stumbled into it. Judging from how high up the wall it was, the wound was above his knee. Maybe it had nicked his femoral artery and he’d hole up in someone’s backyard and bleed to death. That would be the best thing, even if it meant they couldn’t sit him down in a windowless room and ask him questions. Better that he die with his secrets than spend another hour on his feet with a pair of police-issue guns and nothing on his mind but murder.

  “We need a safe house,” Cain said to Fischer. “Somewhere Lucy and I can stay until this is over.”

  “I called as soon as I heard, and they’re setting them up,” she said. “Two apartments, side by side.”

  “We just need one.”

  “I’ll be next door,” Fischer said. “If they came for you, they could come for me.”

  He wasn’t thinking straight, and it was showing. Nagata hadn’t said anything about taking him off the case, but it might still be coming. She couldn’t pull him until she talked to the new mayor, and she didn’t have an open channel the way she used to. Now there was a chain of command to work through, and that gave him a day or two of leeway before anything changed. That could be enough, if he pushed hard enough. And if he stayed on track right now, she might not even go to the mayor.

  He turned to Nagata.

  “Lucy saw him, when he came in. Not his face, but his body. He’s tall, like the guy Chun and I chased. Caucasian. And he was here less than ten minutes ago.”

  In the kitchen, the china cabinet began to rattle, and overhead, the chandelier’s dangling crystals started to shiver. The CHP helicopter was hovering directly above the house. The pilot switched on his spotlight and suddenly the garden was lit up like home plate on a game night.

  “If he came in the front and left over the back fence, he might’ve ditched his car. Or someone else drove him here from Grassley’s place,” he said. “If that person was waiting—”

  But Nagata stopped him, shaking her head.

  “He didn’t get a ride—he came in Grassley’s car. It’s parked out front. Three spots down from yours. The driver’s seat is covered in blood.”

  “Then we’ll find him,” Frank Lee said. Above them, the helicopter veered off and began to sweep the backyards. The rattling stopped in the kitchen, but the chandelier was still moving, making the shadows dance. “He’s on foot, with a bullet in his leg.”

  “Ten minutes ago he was on foot,” Cain said. “But now he’s got two guns, a knife, and nothing to lose. He just killed a cop—two cops, as far as he knows. He’s got to have found a car to use, which means he’s either got a hostage or there’s another dead body.”

  Frank looked at the table, then nodded.

  “Lieutenant, you need to get on the radio,” Frank said. He slid a handheld unit across to her. “Throw up some roadblocks, lock up this neighborhood. And we’ve got to watch the bridges—these guys, once they get wheels, they always head for the bridges.”

  Half an hour passed and they hadn’t heard anything, and by then Cain knew they wouldn’t. The officers in the backyard followed the blood over the garden fence, and then through a series of yards. They called out each find over the radio, and Cain and Fischer leaned close to Nagata’s handheld unit on the dining table.

  Dark blood dribbled along a neighbor’s steppingstone path. In the white beams of the officers’ flashlights, the icy petals of chamomile flowers were spattered. Red streaks and shoeprints ran up the face of a mossy redwood fence and into the next yard. They hopped that fence and found more of the same, and they followed the trail until it brought them out between two houses on Cabrillo. They crossed the sidewalk, following blood between two parked cars at the curb. And then, in the middle of the street, as if their quarry had simply evaporated, there was nothing.

  Cain looked up from the radio. The tall kid had a car, and he was gone.

  28

  Karen Fischer’s people came in a line of three unmarked SUVs that picked their way through the parked patrol cars and stopped directly in front of the house. Cain carried Lucy’s suitcase down the steps as she walked alongside him. Including their trip to the courthouse for her testimony in the Ashbury Heights trial, it was only the second time they’d been outside the house together. They climbed into the back of the middle vehicle. Fischer took the front seat, next to the driver. When they were moving, going up the hill and through the SFPD roadblock at the top of Twenty-Second Avenue, she turned around.

  “The apartments are secure—nothing safer in the city, unless we stayed in Alcatraz,” she said. She waited until Lucy was looking at her. “You’re going to be just fine.”

  “What about Gavin? The man was looking for him, not me. The apartment’s safe, but he’s not going to be there the whole time, is he?”

  “We’ll be careful,” Fischer said. “We’ll work together, Gavin and me. Like partners. We’ll have each other’s backs.”

  Lucy reached over and took Cain’s hand but didn’t look at him. Her head was turned to the left. She was watching the helicopter carve a grid pattern through the sky north of Fulton. Its searchlight probed downward, lighting the tiny drops of windblown rain.

  It wasn’t until they made the last turn to the safe house that Cain understood where they were going. They’d taken the bridge out of the city to the U.S. Coast Guard station on Yerba Buena Island.

  The apartments, which must really have been barracks, were in a low building that faced a small, puddle-strewn parading ground. Past that, and a jumble of rocks dumped long ago in a protective seawall, was the bay. He put Lucy’s suitcase on the bed and then stood next to her by the little window. The curtains had faded to the color of sand but might once have been orange. Lucy pushed them back, and they looked out together. The grounds below were dark, and no one was outside. They hadn’t seen anyone at all except the guards at the gate. There were no boats tied up along the quay, though there seemed to be enough docking space for several. Rain pooled on the empty concrete piers. Maybe all the guardsmen were on patrol.

  Across the bay, the port of Oakland blinked in and out of the fog. Four-legged cranes with their long necks, ships tied up underneath them as they gave up their loads of Chinese cargo.

  “I brought a couple of books,” Lucy said. “Thick ones.”

  “That was a good idea.”

  “You’ll be careful?”

  “I promise.”

  “Are you going back to the house?”

  “I’ll probably have to.”

  He might have to go for the investigation; he might have to go because he hadn’t thought to pack anything for himself. Not even a toothbrush.

  “The back of my calendar has a list of all my students. Their parents’ phone numbers.”

  “I’ll call them.”

  “But don’t say what happened,” Lucy said. “Or they’ll never come back.”

  He nodded and reminded himself to call Frank Lee. He’d seen the calendar on the music room floor, with blood on it. It probably wasn’t in the house anymore. But Frank could pull it from the evidence boxes and make the calls.

  The bed was just wide enough for the two of them if they slept on their sides, spooned together. That would be okay. There was a little desk, built into the wall. Next to it was a chest of drawers with a small TV on top of it, the kind with a bunny-ear antenna set on top. He wasn’t sure if it would work or not, but it didn’t matter. They wouldn’t turn it on.

  The sink in the bathroom w
as bolted straight to the wall, the pipes hanging down underneath. Rust showed in scratches at the bottom of the shallow bath. The walls were made of dark-paneled pressboard; the light came from a bare sixty-watt incandescent bulb.

  He came back and sat on the end of the little bed, next to Lucy.

  “What do you have to do now?” she asked.

  “Find him.”

  “But how?”

  He thought about that. He thought about Grassley, who was probably in the basement beneath 850 Bryant Street by now. Grassley hadn’t liked to be alone down there, but he would be tonight, until Dr. Levy’s assistants came in and moved him to the steel table. On the ride from the city, Nagata had called to update them on Chun’s status. She was out of surgery, but her brain was swelling. She’d been hit in the head with something. A hammer, a bat. The butt of her own gun, after it had been taken from her. They still didn’t know, and Chun was in no position to tell them. The last Nagata had heard, the doctors were debating whether or not to induce a coma.

  Cain had only just been getting to know both of them, was just figuring out what each of them had to offer. And he’d overlooked so much, even though it had been right there for him to see. He’d ascribed no significance to the way Grassley always waited for Chun, walked alongside her. It had been right there for him to pick up, but that was true for everything. All of the evidence was sitting in plain sight, waiting to be recognized.

  “Gavin?” Lucy said. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  There was a tap on the door. A pause, then two more taps.

  Cain got off the bed and walked to the door, then bent down to look through the peephole—Fischer. He let her in, then sat down on the bed again, gesturing for her to take the chair at the built-in desk.

  “I’ll knock tomorrow morning,” she said. “Six thirty. They’re bringing my car over, so we’ll use that.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll do this, Cain.”

  “Okay.”

  “Every day, we get a little closer. Tomorrow, even more.”

  “What about Lucy?” Cain asked. “She’ll need to eat, and there’s nothing here.”

  There was no kitchenette in the room, not even a mini fridge or a plastic cup in the bathroom. If she wanted water, she’d have to drink straight from the tap.

  “Downstairs, on the other side of the quad, there’s a cafeteria. There are signs pointing the way.”

  “It’ll be open?”

  “They do coffee and sandwiches all night—for dispatch, for the fast boat crews,” Fischer said. “Breakfast starts at seven.”

  “She can walk the grounds and no one will bother her?”

  “There’s no place safer.”

  “You’ve stayed here before.”

  “Twice,” she said. She looked at Lucy. “It’s not bad. If you go in the cafeteria, you’ll find people to talk to, if you want. But if you’d rather be left alone, they’ll do that.”

  “They know why I’m here?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s all they know about me?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay.”

  He swung his feet to the floor and sat looking around the unfamiliar room in the dark.

  It was only when he stood up and walked to the window, feeling the pilled carpet underfoot, that he remembered what this place was and why they were here. His skin was still damp with sweat from the dream that had woken him. He pulled back the curtains and let in the little bit of light that came across from Oakland. Then he turned around and looked at the room again. He saw the rising curve of Lucy’s hip, saw the way her hair spilled across the one pillow. There was a thin bar of greenish light coming from beneath the door, and he could hear the mercury-vapor lamp buzzing in the outdoor hallway.

  It was just after three in the morning.

  Of course there was no safe in this room. Before going to bed, he’d pulled the magazine from his gun and left the two pieces in separate desk drawers. He checked it now, his fingers on the cold metal in the dark. Then he stood close to the glass, inside the space of chilled air that had built up between the curtains and the pane. He told himself that when he stopped sweating, he’d go back to bed.

  “Gavin?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You were dreaming,” she said. “You can’t help that.”

  He got in next to her.

  “I thought you slept through them.”

  “Not always.” She put her arm across his chest. “You’ve only got a few hours. Three and a half. Not much time.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “Use it wisely.”

  She went back to sleep and he lay awake under the heat of her arm. She didn’t wear a watch, and there was no clock in the room. If she knew how much time was left until Fischer knocked, it was because her brain’s metronome went on clicking, even as she slept.

  He woke with just enough time to take a shower and dress before Fischer arrived. He was standing in front of the mirror, fixing the knot in his tie, when he heard Fischer in the walkway outside. He turned off the bathroom light, collected his gun, and went outside quietly so that Lucy could go on sleeping.

  The morning sky was purple and black. He thought it had been chilly inside the little Coast Guard apartment, but it was cold enough out here to see Fischer’s breath when she spoke.

  “We’ll check out the cafeteria, get some coffee. Then you’ll see it and know she’ll be okay here.”

  “I trust you,” he said. “We don’t have to check it just for me.”

  “Still,” Fischer said. She began to walk and he followed her. “The coffee’s not the worst. And it’s free.”

  They headed down a set of cement steps that he hardly remembered climbing last night, to a path that traversed the back end of the quad.

  “How’re you holding up?” she asked him.

  “Okay,” he said.

  He hadn’t known Grassley well, but he’d liked him. And if this hadn’t happened, they would have come to know each other like brothers. He’d been looking forward to that. Not just to arriving at the point of complete trust, but also to the long road they’d have walked to get there. The years of lunches at the Western; the late-night coffee in Mel’s or at Lori’s. All of it would have been worthwhile.

  They reached the cafeteria, and he held the door for Fischer.

  “The autopsy’s this morning,” he said. “It’s at nine, and I’d like to go.”

  “Of course.”

  They were up early, and there was enough time between their coffee and the autopsy to run one other errand. They walked to Fischer’s car, each of them carrying a paper cup, and Cain told her about the girl in the casket. He told her about Fonteroy’s video, and how he and Grassley had followed it to the grave in El Carmelo. He hadn’t meant to share this with her until he had more proof, but now he didn’t have a choice. As of last night, he had no partner.

  “You were standing next to the excavator when you got the call from Nagata?” Fischer asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “And you think the girl in the casket could be the girl in the pictures?”

  “We might find that out today, if Henry Newcomb did his job and got a lab.”

  “So the very moment you found the girl, but before you could open the casket, you got a call. You got reassigned to the blackmail case,” Fischer said. “We’re supposed to think that’s a coincidence?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course it’s not.”

  “That’s where I am,” Cain said. “But I can’t figure out what it means. Castelli asked Nagata for a name and got me. He wanted the best inspector in the department, and somehow that’s me.”

  “Who told him?”

  “Nagata.”

  They walked through the half-empty parking lot in silence until they reached Fischer’s car. Cain got into the passenger seat.

  “We’ll need to think about this,�
� Fischer said. “We’ll need to think about it very carefully.”

  “You think it was her.”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “Good,” Cain said. “Because Nagata wouldn’t be in on something like that. It makes no sense. If Castelli had stayed mayor forever, she would’ve been the chief of police. If he’d gone back to Washington, or become governor—no telling where she could’ve gone. But when he died, her star set. If Nagata picked me, it’s because I’ve got the most seniority in Homicide. That’s it.”

  “Which is why we need to think,” Fischer said. “Someone wanted SFPD on the blackmail case. That means someone knew that SFPD already had the casket.”

  “Maybe we’re looking at it the wrong way,” Cain said. “We’re asking: Why did they want me on the blackmail case? But what if that’s the wrong question?”

  “What’s the right one?”

  He chose his words carefully, articulating the question for the first time.

  “Why did they send the blackmail letter right after I got the exhumation order? Keep in mind, the court’s order was a public document. The minute I got it, anyone keeping an eye out would have known.”

  As Fischer drove past the guard booth, Cain leaned over to see if the man inside was awake. He was upright and alert, and his uniform was crisp. Cain tipped him a two-fingered wave, and then they were on the road that wound around the bluffs, snaking toward the west side of the island to reach the bridge on-ramp.

  “That’s brilliant,” Fischer said. “That’s the question.”

  “You think?”

  “They blackmailed Castelli after they knew the body was coming up—because, what if they knew something about the body was going to lead back to him?”

  “Then they’d only have a narrow window,” Cain said. “If they made it look like he shot himself right before all that came out—a girl in a casket, buried alive—who’d look twice?”

  “We nearly didn’t,” Fischer said. “It almost had us.”

  “They had to get the ball rolling before we arrested him, or else they wouldn’t be able to reach him. They weren’t blackmailing him at all. They meant to kill him, and the letter was just cover.”