by Susan Dunlap
Kiernan nodded. “But, Carl, there’s more to it than that, isn’t there? I mean, fishermen can test for water temperature themselves.”
“Sure they can, once they get there! But they can’t do it before they leave the dock, and if they make the wrong decision and go south of the Gate when the right Water’s north, their day is shot.”
“So why haven’t they all gotten these printouts?”
“Too shortsighted and too cheap.” His voice had an uneasy bravado to it.
How had Robin Matucci found this man, and where? Had she seen through his insecurity and chosen to nurture the defensive disdain beneath it? Kiernan could imagine his eyes widening with wonderful disbelief as Robin asked about his work. He would have been bowled over by a woman like that.
He turned back to the printouts, standing straighter now, wrapped in the aura of his expertise. “The thing is that the ordinary printouts aren’t worth a whole lot. They’re only good within a mile, and a whole degree. A mile’s a big place to troll back and forth across. And you have to remember that the printout reflects that mile of water as it was when the picture came off the satellite. You get a six A.M. printout and you don’t get out to the spot till ten …” He turned his hands palm upward. “Water moves.”
Kiernan stared at the printouts. Hartoonian seemed like a man Robin could count on, one she could turn to for help. What was behind the wall that divided the dome? Maybe Robin had called him, had come here. Since the accident. Maybe she was still here, on the other side of the wall. Was there a door to the outside back there?
“Anyone can get the charts from the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They’re free. You can get them over radio facsimile or even mailed to you.” He laughed comfortably. “But not these,” he said beaming at his work. “These are the highest resolution, done from satellite lasers that shoot light pulses over five hundred miles down to earth. On these, I can spot upwellings that bring up cold deep water full of nutrients. And I can tell you what was there yesterday, what was there an hour ago. I can tell you what the right spot is now, and if you call me in an hour, I’ll give you an update.”
“And Robin called you every hour or so for help?”
“If she needed to, I was there.” His smile was as intense as when he’d first started talking about the maps. And yet there seemed to be a flicker of fear in his expression. Fear or grief.
She had to know. She turned to face Hartoonian. “It must have been very hard for you hearing that Robin died.”
The question seemed to startle him. His eyes narrowed behind his thick glasses, and there was a catch in his voice as he said, “Yes, well, of course.”
“There was more to your relationship than just business, wasn’t there?”
He shook his head stiffly, and looked toward the door. Kiernan suspected his mouth was too dry to protest, or, as he clearly yearned to do, tell her to get out.
“What about Robin and Ben Pedersen?”
“There was nothing between them!” He sputtered with outrage. The outrage of a lover, or at least a wannabe.
Robin was used to being in radio contact with Hartoonian. She could have called him at the last moment before the Early Bird sank. Hartoonian surely would have dropped everything to help her. But there was no sign Robin had been in this main room. Whatever there was would be behind the wall. And Hartoonian was hardly going to let an investigator trot back there. When he got control of his breath, he would certainly tell her to leave.
Shifting to a less threatening subject, Kiernan said, “You’ve known Robin a long time, right?”
“Five years.”
“In Alaska?”
He nodded. “Met her at the California Tavern up there.” The expression in his eyes relaxed.
Kiernan waited a moment, letting the pleasant image comfort him. “The California Tavern? I’ve heard about that.” She decided embroidery couldn’t hurt.
“Great place, the ol’ C.T. …” He smiled, with the same not-quite-sure expression he had had talking about Robin. “No matter where you’re from, after you’ve spent a few dark, twenty-below months up there, California-anything sounds pretty good. Of course, to Californians it sounds good, right away, or at least they all stop in there.”
She eased toward the door to the back room. “All the transients? Like the guys who do temporary work on the oil-company cleaning crews?”
“Sure.”
“Carl, did you know an artist on the cleaning crew?” When he didn’t respond, she said, “Garrett Brant? Blond guy with brown eyebrows, about six feet tall? He was working on a series of paintings that represented the life of the people in various parts of Alaska through their landscapes.”
The tentative smile, which had given the stiff lines of his cheeks and jaw softness and color, had left his face. Again, his eyes looked too large, too suspicious. “He might have been there, but I don’t remember. Look, I really do have to get back to work.”
“Okay.” Kiernan reached for the doorknob. “But let me see those fabulous computers of yours.”
“No!” He grabbed her arm. “They’re very sensitive.”
“I won’t touch.” She opened the door.
“Looking isn’t going to tell you anything,” he muttered as she strode through the door.
But Hartoonian was wrong; the room told her Robin Matucci was not there. It was full of computers, printers, phones; it could have been Olsen’s office. There were no closets or trunks, no place to hide anything, or anybody.
When she turned, she found Hartoonian smiling smugly. “Disappointed?” he asked.
When she nodded, his smile faded, and he looked a little taken aback. Whatever his relation to Robin, he seemed to be basically a nice man. A nice man she was going to use, as she suspected Robin had. “Carl, you knew Dwyer Cummings, didn’t you? At the California Tavern?”
“Yes, but, look I really—”
She walked to the front door and reached for her slicker.
Maybe he knew why Cummings had been exiled. Scandal, industrial spying, embezzling? She played the odds. “You remember the fuss before he left there, about the theft?” She poked her arm into the sleeve and waited.
Hartoonian didn’t reply.
She insisted: “He stole something.”
Hartoonian’s expression lightened. “No, you’ve got it all wrong. Dwyer Cummings had a problem with the bottle, and he didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, but he wasn’t a thief. He didn’t steal anything. He wasn’t the culprit, he was the victim.”
“What did they steal from him?”
“Nothing they could sell. It was just some memo that could have made him look bad.”
“What was it about?”
Hartoonian laughed. “Cummings could be indiscreet, but he wasn’t a fool. He never said.”
“Who took it?”
“I don’t know. No one ever found out. The memo just disappeared.”
21
SKIP OLSEN TRUDGED BACK across the wharf to his car, gritting his teeth against the pain. He refused to limp like some worn-out codger. No one cared how he walked, that’s what the physical therapist said, but he knew different. In this business, you look weak, you get zip. He smiled. He must have looked pretty damned strong. The Big Bench Presser of the trade. He grinned wider. The rain struck his face and the wind made his jaws ache, but Skip Olsen didn’t care.
O’Shaughnessy had told him not to come. He was too well known. He wouldn’t find out anything. Well, the first thing she’d find out was that she was wrong.
The second, when he chose to tell her, was a juicy little fact. A nautilus of a find. He liked that smile. Nautilus machine, the thing that transforms a small bit of force into a big muscle. A find like this was going to pump him right back in control of this case. A real nautilus, all right: Jessica Leporek was on the dock with Robin Matucci two days before Matucci went under. And the two of them were looking daggers at each other.
&n
bsp; It was a good find. Important. And just as important, it would give O’Shaughnessy a new route to follow, keep her from looking too closely at Delaney.
Olsen reached for the car door.
An arm wrapped around his shoulders. A hand slapped over his mouth. He tried to look up; couldn’t move. The hand slid off his mouth, grabbed him by the hair. The orange paint on the car was the last thing he saw as his head slammed into it.
22
IT WAS AFTER FOUR when Kiernan got back to the motel. The phone was ringing.
“Kiernan? It’s Maureen. I’m calling to check in. What have you found?” Maureen was panting.
“Just a minute. Why did you leave the store before I called this morning?”
“Oh, sorry, Kiernan. Garrett had been acting funny, and I just got nervous, and I couldn’t wait. I knew the call wasn’t a big thing with you.”
“You’re wrong, Maureen, it is a big thing. It’s important that you be there when you say you will, so I don’t have to wonder what happened and whether it’s something connected with this case that I should be concerned about.”
“Oh. I’m really sorry, Kiernan. I guess I didn’t think—That doesn’t affect your decision, does it? I mean, you’re still on the case, aren’t you?” The beginnings of panic were clear in her voice.
“Yes, Maureen, I’m still on the case,” Kiernan reassured her. ‘There was enough of a question about Delaney’s body to make me wonder.”
“What did you find?”
“There was a horizontal bruise above his ear. The only significant mark on his head.”
“Like he could have been hit with a poker, or something like that? On a boat?”
“Or a karate chop. Seems Robin knew some karate.”
“Ah-hah! What else? Tell me everything.”
“Slow down. I’ll make a full report.” Kiernan laughed. She settled back on the newly made bed. “I found Harpoon, who turns out to be a scientist who used sophisticated satellite analysis to guide her to more fish than any other boat captain.”
“You don’t waste any time. What did you find out from this Harpoon?”
“Dwyer Cummings, Robin’s most faithful passenger, left Alaska under the shadow of a theft from his office. A memo. Hartoonian—that’s Harpoon’s real name—heard about it in the California Tavern up there. Ask Garrett if he remembers hearing anything.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
Kiernan laughed. “It’s a good thing I don’t waste time.”
“I didn’t mean to press you. It’s just that I’m so anxious. I didn’t realize how much I was counting on this investigation. I guess I couldn’t let myself think about it, not when it still wasn’t clear if you’d take the case. Look, I’ll call you later tonight.”
“No, not tonight.”
“You don’t have to worry about going out. I’ve got the number for your cellular phone.”
Tonight of all nights she did not want the car phone buzzing. “Call me in the morning, at ten. If we don’t connect then try me again at noon.”
“The store opens at eight.”
“I don’t.” She could hear Maureen’s quick gasp. “Look, Maureen, most investigator’s reports are made once a week. I know you’re anxious—”
“That’s okay. I won’t be a pest. I’ll wait till ten. Kiernan, I’m just so relieved you’re with me on this.”
Kiernan put down the phone, thinking not of Maureen and Garrett but of Carlos Delaney. Had Robin hired him and all his predecessors because she was so insecure that she needed to surround herself with deckhands as bland as the furniture in her apartment? Why had she chosen to take him out in the Pacific with storm warnings posted? What had she been using him for?
Rain streaked the motel window. Kiernan smiled; it was rain that would grow stronger as the night progressed. The kind of rain that provides a shield for housebreakers. Thinking of Delaney’s waiting apartment, she felt her body grow tense. She’d planned to wait till after midnight, but in this weather she could go earlier.
She called Skip Olsen and got his answering machine. “Skip, something’s come up tonight. I have to cancel dinner. Don’t call me. I’m going to take a nap. I’ll get back to you either later tonight or probably tomorrow morning.”
The world was swaying. Olsen couldn’t see. His eyes refused to open. Or maybe they were open, and it was night-black.
Where were his arms and legs? Couldn’t feel them. Couldn’t hear anything but a kind of swishing and thumping.
Slowly sensation returned. Cold. Damp. His head wedged between rope and metal. Barking outside.
His arm pricked numb. He still couldn’t feel his hands. His mouth was Sahara dry. Wedged open. Gagged. Pain swept down his leg. He shrieked; nothing came out but a shallow groan. And the sloshing of water against the sides of the boat, the crunch of footsteps above. Pain again, burning his leg. Move! Get off the leg!
He couldn’t move his feet, his legs, his arms. He rolled side to side with the boat. The boat! He was in a boat, just like Delaney. Oh shit, Delaney! God, he didn’t want to think about Delaney.
Pain. White-hot!
Blackness.
8:17. The hell with it. Kiernan got up, put on jeans and a green turtleneck, grabbed her slicker and headed for the Jeep.
Rain hit her face, blown at an angle by the strong wind off the Pacific.
As she waited for the engine to warm, she ran through the list of reasons not to break into Delaney’s apartment. None dissuaded her. A second list called “Why to wait till midnight” fared no better. Tchernak, she thought smiling, would have had plenty of good reasons for her. Harry Scott, the investigator she had worked for in San Diego, had insisted that a licensed private investigator had no business breaking the law. “It’s too dangerous. Takes too much time. And it makes us look sleazy.” All that warning without her even having mentioned the sexual rush she got from it! Lock-picking for the erotic woman! She laughed, shifted the Jeep into first, and pulled sharply into traffic, cutting off a Mercedes.
She drove slowly down 26th Street. Rain streaked down, blurring lights in windows. In Delaney’s six-plex lights shone in only the first-floor windows. On the third floor, Delaney’s windows were dark, as were those of the flat next to his. Perfect!
Now, she thought, for the hard part—finding a parking spot. Can’t make a fast getaway if your car’s been towed.
The spot she finally squeezed into was a full three blocks away. She thrust her arms into her slicker, hefted her fanny pack, and walked quickly down the gentle slope of 26th Street. The tarry smell of wet roofs filled the air.
She paused for a moment near Delaney’s building and shook her hair sharply, spraying water in all directions. She allowed herself a brief smile as she surveyed the building. The foreplay had begun.
Delaney’s staircase was empty. She walked quickly up to the first landing, past the side-by-side doors, climbed the seven stairs to the half-landing, then paused to check the second-floor door—she did not want to run into Delaney’s neighbor again. His front lights were off. With that cold he should be in bed. Probably in back of the apartment. So far, so good. She hurried on to the third floor, breathing faster.
There were no lights in the apartment across from Delaney’s, and no outside light. All the better. She pulled out what looked like a credit card, but wasn’t. A credit card might work in a lock, but the chances of opening a door were not half so great as snapping the card. This piece of celluloid was more flexible. Flexible but firm under pressure, always a good combination. She stood perfectly still, listening to the hiss of cars, the grind of low gears, the groaning of brakes, the slamming of car doors. Not a housebreaker’s paradise. But it heightened the tension. She liked that.
Despite the chill air, Kiernan’s face was still warm. Rain that had previously tapped gently on the windows now seemed to pound. But there were no footsteps on the stairs. As she pushed the card between tongue and striker plate, her fingertips tingled and the skin across her chee
ks felt taut. She could feel the touch of her nipples against the fabric of her bra. The edge of the card was against the tongue. She pushed, the tongue gave. Slowly, she turned the handle.
The door didn’t move. The deadbolt was on. Damn! The card felt limp in her hand.
She sighed. Lightless or not, this was no place to try anything fancier. No surprise Delaney had left the deadbolt on, any sensible city person would. But if this building was a standard San Francisco six-plex there would be a similar staircase and door arrangement at the back. Walking softly, she made her way down the stairs.
The walkway was beneath the first story, open to the sky only once in the middle, by way of the narrowest airshaft Kiernan had ever seen. But at least it was dry. She took off her slicker, folded it small and stuck it in her fanny pack, moving the pack around to her stomach. There was no rain in the backyard, either. It took her a moment to realize that wind-slanted rain couldn’t reach the ground here; the whole backyard was a larger version of the airshaft. In the pale trapezoids of light from the first-floor windows and the brighter one from the second story she could make out a yard no more than ten feet deep, ending at a three-story blank wall. The yard would be useless for growing anything more sun-hungry than ivy, but for a woman needing facile entrance to a flat, that arrangement could not have been better—except for the sick man in the bedroom under Delaney’s window.
She could wait. Go back to the motel, sleep, come here in the morning and try the “woman friend locked out on a cold, rainy morning” routine. Common sense … But it was too late. She was too far into the foreplay now.
She made her way up the stairs, walking to the sides to avoid squeaking steps, listening for sounds of TVs or stereos. Her breath came faster. The apartment below Delaney’s was silent: not even the honk of a nose blow. But the light was on. The guy had to be reading. Damn! She moved on, placing a foot, pausing, stepping up.
