Farris was a broad-shouldered, slim-waisted sixty. His light brown $750 suit was perfectly tailored, lined with tiny blue and gold pin-stripes. The light yellow silk shirt was custom made; so was the tie. The alligator cowboy boots added an unnecessary two inches to his height.
Glitsky and Hardy sat on the hard yellow plastic couch in the visitor’s room of the morgue. John Strout had pulled up a folding chair and sat slouched, his long legs crossed.
Farris turned around, fighting himself, still somewhat pale. ‘Well, that was a wasted exercise.’
Strout reached into his pocket and extracted a small, plain cardboard box. ‘Maybe this will jog something.’ He held the box up and Farris came over and took it.
It was a jade ring — a snake biting its tail — with a filigreed surface. Hardy leaned forward for a better look; he’d only seen it on the hand. Farris held it awhile, then put it over the first knuckle of his ring finger.
‘This wouldn’t have fit Owen,’ he said. ‘He had bigger hands than me.’
‘The ring was on the pinky,’ Strout said.
Farris moved the ring over and slid it down onto his little finger. It was an easy fit. He removed it just as quickly. ‘Well, that still doesn’t make it Owen.’
‘No, sir, it doesn’t.’ Strout was agreeable, genial, professional. Hardy sat forward, arms resting on his knees.
Abe Glitsky sat back comfortably, watching, his legs crossed. He shifted slightly, enough to bring attention around to him. ‘You and Owen — Mr Nash — were close, is that right?’
‘Could we not say were just yet? He’s been missing before.’
‘Long enough for you to call the police?’
‘Once or twice, I suppose, but I didn’t.’
‘What made you do it this time?’
Farris shook his head. ‘I honestly don’t know. A feeling. Last time he ran off with no notice was maybe ten years ago. That much time, you figure a man’s habits have changed. I can’t fathom his just taking off anymore. Back then I could.’
‘Where did he go, that last time?’
Hardy spoke up. ‘What’s all this running away?’
Farris looked around the room, found another folding chair, and moved it over next to Strout’s. He put the ring in the box and handed it back to the coroner. Then he sat down heavily.
‘Good questions. You think he might have gone back to the same place?’ He shook his head. ‘No, no, I don’t think so. Once he went to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. But it turns out that time he took his daughter, Celine. So they were both gone, and we figured they’d taken off somewhere together. Back then, it was in character.’
‘But not now?’ Hardy asked.
‘He’s mellowed. Or I thought he’d mellowed. You know how it is.’
Glitsky was gentle. ‘Why don’t you tell us how you mean it?’
Farris sat back. He took a deep breath and blew out a stream of air. ‘Time was, used to be every six months or so Owen would do something to make you hate him, or hate yourself. He was like this, this force, where he’d get a notion to go do something and goddamn if anything was going to stop him — not his friends, not his family, not his responsibilities.
‘He had his devils, so I never got inclined to try and stop him. His wife, Eloise, died in a fire in their house back in the fifties. He couldn’t get back in to save her, barely pulled out their child.’ Farris paused, remembering. ‘So he had this guilt over that. From time to time he didn’t feel worthy of all his success and he’d duck out from under it, leave it all for me to run.
‘Other times, just the opposite, he’d figure, “Well, goddamn, here I am, the great Owen Nash, and if I want to go to Bali for a month, let the mortals handle it. They’ll appreciate me more when I get back.” ’
But Glitsky wanted to keep to his line of questioning. ‘So he went once to New Orleans, another time to Bali… ?’
‘But that’s just it. He didn’t have a favorite place, at least one that he ran to. We’ve got this place together outside Taos, no phones, no heat, that’s served us the last five or six years, but I was up there — flew up on Friday night — and he wasn’t.’
Strout pulled his long legs in under him and sat up straighter. “Scuse me,‘ he said quietly, ’but it seems the only thing tyin‘ this here hand to Owen Nash is the karate.’
Farris scanned the room. If he was looking for comfort, it was the wrong setting — the yellow vinyl couch, the institutional green walls. A near-dead plant and some artificial ones. ‘I don’t know if he ever broke a finger. I doubt he’d say if he had.’
‘You mean doing karate, breaking a board, something like that?’ Hardy asked.
Farris nodded. ‘That circus stuff, breaking boards, that’s Owen. If he was showing off for some woman… hell, for anybody, he could break his whole hand and never mention it. One of his conceits was he didn’t feel pain like the rest of us.’
Hardy sat forward at the change of tone. This guy might love Owen Nash, but that wasn’t all he felt.
‘The little finger on this hand has two obviously healed breaks,’ Strout said, ‘that were never set.’
‘That sounds more like Owen.’
Strout straightened up in his chair, laced his fingers and stuck his arms out until his knuckles cracked. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘this doesn’t move me any further along in the line of identification. We could run a DNA scan, but without a sample of what we know to be Mr Nash’s tissue, it wouldn’t prove anything.’
Everyone sat in silence, all but Strout back in their seats. Farris still sat forward, eyes turned inward, trying to come up with something to settle the question. There was a knock on the door, and Sixto poked his head in. ‘There’s a Celine Nash out here to see Mr Farris.’
* * * * *
The woman’s startling blue eyes were red and puffed, dark circles under them as if she hadn’t slept in several days. Her mascara had run over too much makeup. In a black suit, black nylons, black gloves — even black onyx earrings — she was elegantly turned out, but she’d run her hands through her ash-colored hair too often, and it straggled in uneven shanks to her shoulders.
She came forward and hugged Farris, choking back a sob, and he held her for half a minute, patting her back. ‘It’s okay, honey, it’s okay. We still don’t know.’
She pulled back slightly, took Farris’s pocket handkerchief out and dabbed at her eyes. She briefly held herself to him again. Hardy saw her close her eyes as though gathering her strength. Then she turned to the other men. ‘Is one of you the coroner?’
Strout stepped forward. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘I’m sorry, but I thought Ken said…’ She looked around as though lost. ‘I mean, when I heard coroner, I just assumed…’
‘No, ma’am, we just don’t know yet. You might see if you recognize this.’ Strout proffered the small ring box.
Celine stared at the ring for a moment. ‘What is this?’
‘It was on the hand,’ Strout said.
She took it from the box, looking at him quizzically. ‘But Daddy didn’t wear this ring. Ken, Daddy only wore Mom’s ring, didn’t he?’
‘I already told them that.’
The handkerchief went back to her eyes. She held it there a minute, applying some pressure. ‘Are you all right?’ Hardy asked. He moved forward.
Celine had gone a little pale. She gave Hardy a half-smile, but her eyes went back to Strout. ‘Well, then, this couldn’t be my father.’
Glitsky, in his softest voice, asked her when the last time was she had seen her father. Her eyes narrowed for an instant, and Hardy thought he saw a flash of resistance, perhaps even fear. ‘Why? I’m sorry, but who are you?’
Farris broke in and introduced everyone, after which Glitsky explained, ‘He may have gotten the ring after you’d seen him.’
She nodded, accepting that. ‘I don’t remember exactly. Two weeks ago, maybe. But he didn’t have this ring on then — he wouldn’t have worn it anyway. This j
ust isn’t him.’
Farris, up beside her, looked at it again and shrugged. ‘He wasn’t much of a jewelry person.’
‘All right,’ Strout said. ‘It was worth a try. Thank y’all for your time.’
After he’d escorted them to the door, Strout shambled back, hands in his pockets, to Hardy and Glitsky. ‘It might be Owen Nash,’ he said simply. ‘Off the record, of course, but it might be. I’ll keep y’all informed.’
9
The garage had Glitsky’s car repaired and ready to go for him, so Hardy found himself walking alone through the parking lot at 5:45, ready to head for the Little Shamrock, where he was meeting Frannie. The fog, which had clung to downtown all day, had lifted, or moved west with the breeze off the Bay; the sky overhead was a cloudless evening blue.
Most of the staff at the Hall of Justice had gotten off at five, and the lot was about half empty. Two rows down from where Hardy was parked, Ken Farris sat in the driver’s seat of a Chrysler LeBaron convertible with its top down. Hardy slowed down and finally stopped.
Farris was staring into the distance, arms crossed over his chest, unmoving. He might have been a statue. He’d left Strout’s office with Celine Nash nearly forty-five minutes ago, and he was still in the parking lot? Maybe she had stayed and they had talked awhile. Still, Hardy found it odd. The man wasn’t even blinking. Maybe he was sitting up, dead.
Hardy crossed a couple of rows of parking places. He got to within ten feet of the LeBaron before Farris moved. It was a slight shift, but Hardy knew he was in view now.
‘I saw you sitting here so still,’ he said. ‘I wondered if you were all right.’
The mask gave way to a self-deprecating smile. ‘Relative term, “all right”. I guess I’m all right.’
Hardy gave him half a wave and had started to walk away, when Farris called his name. He came back to the car. ‘You know, Celine mentioned something. I don’t know. It might be relevant.’
Hardy cocked his head. ‘You wouldn’t be a lawyer, would you, Mr Farris?’
A flash of teeth. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Well, defining “all right” as a relative term. Something you might know as relevant. Those are lawyer words.’
Farris stuck out a hand. ‘Good hunch. Call me Ken, would you. Stanford, ’55. But I never practiced, other than being counsel for Owen.‘
‘Full-time job?’
‘And then some. Now I’m COO of Owen Industries. Owen’s CEO. Electronics, components, looking into HDTV.’
‘I don’t know what that is, HDTV.’
‘High-definition television. More dots on the screen. Better picture. The Japanese are miles ahead of us on it, but Owen liked it, so we’re moving ahead.’
‘So what’s your maybe-relevant information?’
‘Celine just mentioned it to me. Owen had told her he was going out on the Eloise . . .’
‘The Eloise?’
‘Owen’s sailboat. He was supposedly going out Saturday with May Shintaka — May Shinn she calls herself.’
‘His girlfriend?’
Farris made a face. ‘Something like that. More a mistress, I guess you’d say.’
‘He kept her, you mean? People really do that?’
Farris laughed without much humor. ‘Owen figured you paid for your women one way or the other. “Cost of doin’ bizness, Wheel” — he called me Wheel, like Ferris Wheel, spelled wrong of course — “cost of gettin‘ laid, same goddamn thing. Might as well pay for it up front. No bullshit.” ’
‘It’s an approach, I guess,’ Hardy said.
‘Mr Hardy…’
‘Dismas.’ Then, at the squinted question. ‘Dismas, the good thief on Calvary.’
‘Okay, Dismas. It’s not my approach, I’ve been married to my Betty twenty-five years. But Owen isn’t like me or anybody else I know. He loved Eloise, his wife, and after she died he knew he wasn’t going to love anybody else, so he wasn’t looking for love and wasn’t going to kid around about it. It might sound cold, but it was pretty honest.’
‘So this May Shinn…?’
‘He’s been pretty steady with her since January, February, around in there.’
‘Did she go out on Owen’s boat Saturday?’
‘Celine says he was planning on it. That’s all I know.’
‘If he did, our probabilities increase,’ Hardy said.
‘Why do you say that?… Oh, I see.’
‘Do you have a way to reach her, May Shinn? Find out right now.’
The shadows had lengthened, the breeze had died. Farris dug into his wallet and pulled out a square of white paper. ‘Emergency numbers. I don’t know why I never thought of May.’
Hardy walked back beside him as Farris punched numbers into his car phone. He squinted at the paper. Next to Shinn’s name, he had just enough light and distance to make out the numbers, just enough time to memorize them.
* * * * *
He thought he’d also have enough time to swing by the Marina on his way out to the Avenues. It wasn’t far out of the way. And if he could prove Owen had been on the ocean on Saturday, the day before a hand that might be his turned up inside a shark at the Steinhart, he thought he’d be on his way to having a case.
May Shintaka hadn’t been home — or she hadn’t answered her telephone. Ken Farris had gotten an answering machine and asked her to call him as soon as she could.
Now at full dusk, there was a traffic jam just outside the Marina Safeway. Hardy remembered. It was Wednesday, the night the Marina Safeway turned into a meat market, the yuppies picking up each other with clever lines about the freshness of the arugula or the relative merits of dried versus handmade pasta.
His Suzuki Samurai out of place in the row of Beemers and Miatas, Hardy waited in the line of traffic, feeling old — so much older than when he’d been a father the time before. He was really running late. He ought to call Frannie, or Moses, at the Shamrock. Let them know he was on his way.
Or else forget about stopping at the Marina. What did he expect to find on or around the Eloise that wouldn’t be there in the morning? Except that he was already here. He’d call the Shamrock from a pay phone. Frannie would be with her brother — it wouldn’t hurt the two of them to kill a little time together alone. He’d only be a minute or two looking at the boat.
The light changed and he got through it on the yellow, after which it was only two blocks to the Marina itself, two hundred craft along four long pontoons behind a jetty, the land side closed off with an eight-foot fence topped with barbed wire.
Hardy sometimes thought he must have been a sailor in an earlier life — he had a visceral reaction to anything nautical. He loved to fish, to scuba dive, to walk sharks —trying to will them to life as though he had a special bond with them.
Now the briny scent of the air pumped him up. Locke and Drysdale be damned — he felt in his bones he was onto something and he was going to pursue it.
The guardhouse was set in a manicured square of grass at the entrance to the boat area. Hardy knocked on the open door and walked in. The attendant was about nineteen, dressed in a green uniform with a name tag that read ‘Tom’. He stood up at his desk behind a low counter. ‘Help you?’
To Hardy’s right, he could see the boats through the picture window. Four strings of white Christmas lights glittered over the pontoons.
He showed the boy his D.A.‘s badge, which was not issued by the office and not officially condoned. Hardy had gotten his at a uniform store down the peninsula and knew it could come in handy, especially with people who perhaps couldn’t read but understood a badge. He asked the young man if they kept a log of boat departures.
‘We tried that,’ he said, ‘but most of the people here like to come and go as they please. Still, we generally have some idea who’s out.’
‘Is the Eloise here now?’
‘Sure.’ Tom looked out the window and pointed. ‘She’s that low forty-five-foot cruiser at the end of Two.’ In the fading lig
ht, the sailboat looked beautiful. ‘Last time she went out was Saturday.’
‘Saturday. Did Mr Nash take her out?’
Tom shrugged. ‘I suppose so, but I didn’t see him. She — the Eloise — was out when I came on.’
‘When was that?’
‘Around noon. I work twelve to eight.’
‘Does somebody else come on then, after eight?’
‘No. We close up till next morning at six. What’s all this about? Is Mr Nash in some trouble?’
Hardy gave him all he really had. ‘He’s missing. It’d be helpful to know who saw him last.’
Tom bit his cheek, thinking. ‘I don’t think you’ll have much luck here. José, the morning guy, said she was already out when he came on.’
‘At six in the morning?’
Tom shrugged, wanting to be helpful. Hardy could tell he was wrestling with something. ‘Sometimes José’ll be a little late,‘ he said finally. ’But when that happens, he always stays late and makes up the time.‘
Hardy fought down a shiver of frustration. ‘What time did he stay till on Saturday?’
Tom got a little evasive. ‘I don’t know exactly. Three, three-thirty, around there.’
‘So he wasn’t here until seven or seven-thirty?’ Another shrug. ‘I don’t know for sure. I wasn’t here, either.’ Hardy blew out a breath. ‘Okay, this isn’t about José anyway. Could I take a look on board the Eloise?
Grateful to abandon the discussion on José‘s tardiness, Tom bobbed his head. ’Sure. It’s pretty slow now anyway.‘
On their way out to the boat, Hardy learned that security wasn’t all it could be at the Marina. Though Tom had a ring of master keys for the boats and a key for the gate that opened through the fence, the reality was that people slipped through with other parties all the time and owners forgot to close the gate behind them, or even to lock their boats. Theft wasn’t rampant by any means, but neither was it unknown. But what could the attendants do? Tom and José tried, but they had no real authority. If the boat owners weren’t going to follow their own rules, whose fault was that?
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