Dark Tide

by Josh Lanyon

  At last Karin walked out, and Emma reined in. They returned to the paddock. We followed, rejoining them as Emma swung down from the saddle.

  Karin raised her eyebrows in inquiry.

  I said, “Well, Em? What did you think?”

  Emma parroted, “He’s got lots of suspension, and presence and great reach.” Then any attempt at dispassion flew, and she hugged me. “Oh, Adrien. He’s wonderful. I know he’s the right one.”

  I thought with a pang that one day she would be telling me this about some unworthy asshole boy. At least she was probably right about Adagio.

  “Okay, but remember what I told you about show jumping. Adagio is a classic Arabian. Lots of spirit, lots of stamina. The best jumpers are heavier. They’ve got that solid bone structure to absorb the impact of landing on their front legs.”

  “I don’t care about show jumping. I love him.”

  I looked at Lisa, and she closed her eyes in pain.

  “Jumping aside, we’re not going to find a better horse for her.”

  “We haven’t even looked.”

  “Sometimes when you find the right one, you know it.” I said coaxingly, “If she’s not interested in show jumping, there’s less opportunity for her to break her little neck, right?”

  “How you can joke about that…”

  Emma and I waited while Lisa struggled inwardly. She said at last, “If I don’t do this, you’re simply going to go around me and buy this wretched animal yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” If I had to hock the bookstore to do it.

  She opened her eyes and pinned me with a blue look as fierce as the flame of natural gas. “Very well. I will do this,” she said tightly, “if you promise to attend every bloody session of your rehab. No more sloping off to play detective. You’re there every day, and you’re participating fully.”

  Emma clung to me, gazing up hopefully.

  “Deal.”

  Emma squealed in delight and ran to Adagio.

  My mother looked at me and shook her head.

  * * * * *

  When I got back to Cloak and Dagger, Natalie drew me into my office and informed me Ms. Pepper was unhappy with our business hours.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “She feels we should be opening earlier in the morning and staying open later in the evening.”

  “She’s probably right about that. We don’t have the coverage.”

  Natalie took a deep breath. “Ms. Pepper is happy — well, she didn’t actually say happy — but she’s agreed to work the extra hours.”

  “You mean she’d be here more often?”

  Natalie nodded.

  I swallowed. “Let me think about it.”

  “Don’t think about it too long.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Only…don’t antagonize her.”

  “Did you ask the agency if they’ve found anyone else yet?”

  Her hands fluttered in alarm. “Shhhh.”

  “Nat, I think we were better off before…her.”

  More hand fluttering. “The thing is, I’m afraid the agency sent her as a test for us.”

  “Come again?”

  “I think she’s a spy for the agency.”

  “I think you’ve been hitting the espionage shelves again.”

  “We have a terrible reputation with all the agencies in the city. They claim our employees don’t get their breaks and are frequently murdered.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Only one employee was ever murdered.”

  “I’m telling you what our reputation is.”

  “I don’t care about our reputation. We have to get rid of her.” I added hastily, “The usual way.”

  I left Natalie chickenheartedly filing in my office and went upstairs. A message was blinking on the answering machine. I checked the number. Jake. Instantly my spirits rose.

  I called him back. He didn’t pick up.

  “Come on, Riordan.”

  I contemplated ringing him again, but more than one message was going to look desperate. Hell, it might look like I wasn’t respecting the boundaries.

  I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. There was plenty of food there. My family was doing their best to keep me stocked in vegetables and fruits and lean meats. Somewhere around here was a cookbook. If all else failed, there was a copy of the Nancy Drew Cookbook downstairs. Even I could probably whip up Casserole Treasure or 99 Steps French Toast.

  Or I could open a can of salmon. I had the can opener in hand when the phone rang.

  I jumped for it — even Tomkins looked impressed with my spring. I saw the number flash up as I lifted the receiver.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.” Jake’s voice was neutral. “Talked to Newman.”

  “I thought I’d hear from you sooner.” I heard that and winced. “How did it go?”

  “Interesting.”

  “Good interesting or bad interesting?”

  “He’ll talk to you if you’re willing to pay for the privilege.”

  “Seriously? How much?”

  There was a pause. “For some reason I didn’t anticipate you being thrilled by this news.”

  “Why not? I want to talk to him.”

  He said delicately, “You’re usually more concerned with your cash outlay.”

  “Oh. Well.”

  “So here’s the deal. It’s five hundred bucks —”

  “Five hundred bucks?”

  “You heard right. Plus the price of lunch. He’ll meet us Friday afternoon at the Formosa Café. You can ask him whatever you like, and he’s promised to answer to the best of his ability.”

  Friday. Cardiac rehab. Shit. I’d given my word. I closed my eyes. “What time Friday?”

  “Up to you.”

  I opened my eyes. “How about two?”

  “Sure. I’ll set it up.”

  A crazy thought went through my mind, and I very nearly asked him if he’d go with me to cardiac rehab. He was guilty enough about my getting shot that I was pretty sure he’d agree, but talk about failure to respect the boundaries.

  Apparently I had all the steadfastness of an alcoholic making his New Year’s resolution.

  Jake said, “Hello? Did you swoon away at the thought of spending all that money?”

  “Er, no. Do you think Newman’s really got anything to tell us?”

  “I think so, yes. From the few crumbs of information he doled out, I think he’s definitely got a story to tell. I don’t know if it’s worth five hundred bucks, and if you’d like, I could try negotiating with him.”

  “What kind of crumbs did he dole out?”

  “Nazi treasure.”

  For a few stunned seconds I couldn’t come up with an answer.

  “Did I lose you?” Jake inquired.

  “For a minute I thought I heard you say Nazi treasure.”

  “I did.”

  “No damn way.” I was totally disgusted. “That’s got to be one of the oldest scams in the book. The guy’s a con artist. If he doesn’t have anything better than that, tell him to forget it.”

  That surprised a laugh out of Jake. “Not the reaction I expected.”

  “It’s ridiculous.”

  “I don’t know. It’s not impossible.”

  “Yes, it is. Hidden Nazi treasure? Puhleaze. Newman saw us coming a mile away. I can’t believe you, of all people, are considering for one minute that this might have credence. The bastard’s playing us. Or trying to.”

  “He was looking for something in the bookstore.”

  That stopped me in my tracks. “So he does admit to trying to burglarize the bookstore?”

  “He does. He seems pretty forthright. I get the feeling he’s decided five C in hand is worth more than all the legends of Nazi treasure in the bush. Or hidden in the floorboards, in this case.”

  I considered. If Newman had confessed to burglary, maybe there was more to this than I thought. “Did you think he was credible?”
>
  “I did. Yeah.”

  “All right. Let’s do it.”

  “Okay. I’ll set it up.” Clearly about to sign off.

  I interjected quickly, “Jake?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you going up to Santa Barbara tomorrow for Hale’s funeral?”

  The hesitation was loud and clear. “Yes.”

  “Could I come along?” I heard the diffidence in my voice. Knew he heard it too.

  “If you want to.” He added in that same neutral tone, “You’re spending a lot of time traveling in cars this week. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  Obviously didn’t want me along or he’d have suggested it himself. Not even counting the argument on the way back from Santa Barbara, it had probably been a total pain in the ass having me along the last time. Besides the genius of having forgotten my meds, there was the fact that I couldn’t seem to stop picking over the bones of our failed romantic past.

  “Probably not.” I tried to sound good-humored about the whole thing, because I was damned if I was going to confirm his belief that my head was screwed on backward. “You’ll fill me in on everything?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good enough. I’ll talk to you…maybe tomorrow?”

  “Talk to you tomorrow.”

  He rang off, clearly too busy to sit around shooting the breeze with me.

  I replaced the receiver.

  Tomkins meowed at me.

  “No way,” I said. “I’m the one who set these boundaries to start with. This is exactly how I want it.”

  Really, what the hell was my problem? Maybe I’d been hanging around Emma too much. I seemed to have developed a mild case of little girl.

  The phone rang. I picked it up.

  Jake said, “I’ve got to leave at six in the morning to get up there in time for the funeral, which would mean picking you up at five forty-five. Can you manage that?”

  Inexplicably, I had to work to get that one word out. “Sure.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you then.”

  He disconnected before I could thank him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jake was, as always, on time.

  The car pulled up outside the bookstore Thursday morning at the crack of dawn, I slipped inside, and we glided away from the curb.

  “Morning.” His gaze was on the rearview. He was dressed for success — or a funeral — in a well-cut dark suit, a crisp white shirt, and a black and blue botanical silk tie. He looked great, and he smelled great. For the first time I noticed he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring anymore.

  “Morning.”

  Sparing me a glance, he commented, “Your nose is sunburned. Find someone to swim with?”

  “Lauren drove me out to the house yesterday.”

  “It turns out Argyle was right. Newman was hired by a college professor by the name of Louise Reynard to find Stevens after he disappeared.”

  “Is Reynard still alive?”

  “No.”

  “Shame.”

  Conversation languished. I admitted knowing that Jake didn’t particularly want me along had an inhibiting effect on my normally cheerful self. I resolved to annoy him as little as possible.

  We left Pasadena sleeping in the cool morning smog and merged onto the I-210 West, already busy even at this early hour.

  As the odometer racked up the miles, Jake threw me another quick glance, his dark brows knitting. “What’s the matter?”

  “Me? Nothing.”

  “You sure? You’ve barely said a dozen words since you got in the car.”

  “Still half asleep, I guess.”

  “Why don’t you put the seat back and sleep?”

  “I’m okay, thanks.”

  He let it go.

  * * * * *

  I hadn’t been to as many funerals as Jake, though I’d been to more than I liked. This was my first at eight o’clock in the morning. It seemed indecently early. The sun was barely over the yardarm, and the fog had yet to burn off as we stood in Santa Barbara Cemetery, overlooking the ocean.

  Politicos, war heroes, and Hollywood stars all kept each other company in those misty fifty- some acres of grass and trees and stone. John Ireland, who played many a hard-boiled bad guy in films, rested there — as did Vera Hrubá Ralston, who insulted Hitler after winning the silver in the 1936 Olympics. Ronald Colman and Laurence Harvey — Kenneth Rexroth, the poet and essayist who believed in transcendent love. Supposedly Rexroth’s was the only grave to face the ocean, which was the kind of trivial information my brain stored by the bushel.

  Maybe the early hour explained the lack of attendance. The only other fellow mourner was a woman in an expensive dark pantsuit, Audrey Hepburn sunglasses, and a dark hat. She stood across the freshly dug grave from us. It would be hard to say who was more curious: her or us.

  The service was generic and short. As the pastor read from Psalms, my attention wandered. It was probably one of the most beautiful graveyards I’d seen: acres of palm trees and ornate tombstones — and that spectacular view of the ocean with the silver and green morning tide rolling in.

  Unobtrusively, I studied the woman across from us. It was hard to tell what she looked like beneath the hat and the sunglasses. Despite her trim figure, she wasn’t young. Maybe midsixties.

  …As far as the east is from the west,

  So far has He put our transgressions from us.

  The Lord has established His throne in heaven,

  And His kingdom rules over all.

  Bless the Lord, all you His angels,

  You mighty in strength, who do His bidding.

  A pretty innocuous send-off for Dan Hale. In the back of my mind I kept hearing Martha Tilton singing, “We kiss and the angels sing and leave their music ringing in my heart…”

  When the pastor had finished his reading, he asked if any of us would like to share our personal memories of Dan Hale. We unanimously declined.

  That was pretty much it. The pastor offered up another prayer. Jake bent his head, his expression sober. He’d had a lot of practice at gravesides, and I knew he was taking as careful stock of the woman across from us as I was — only less obviously.

  The service ended, the woman placed a small bouquet of red roses on the casket, shook hands with the pastor, and walked away. Poised as a fashion model on the runway, she picked her way through the gravestones and wet grass.

  Jake started after her. I put a hand on his arm. “Jake, I think that’s Jinx Stevens.”

  He threw me a startled look, nodded. He caught up to her quickly.

  I heard him say, “Ms. Stevens?”

  She stumbled in the grass, and he reached to steady her. “I’m sorry?” Her face was unreadable behind the glasses. Her voice was alarmed.

  I joined them as he stated in that calm, authoritative way, “Excuse me, ma’am. You’re Jinx Stevens, aren’t you?”

  She opened her mouth. I was sure she was going to deny it. I think Jake’s cool certainty — the cop vibe — undid her. The strong, fierce line of her body seemed to soften. She seemed smaller, older.

  She answered in a husky contralto, “Stevens was my maiden name.” She didn’t offer her married name.

  Jake introduced himself and me.

  “You’re private investigators?” The alarm was back. “Who are you working for?”

  I said, “Actually, he’s the PI, and he’s working for me.”

  “Working for you?”

  Jake reiterated, “We just want to ask you a couple of questions, ma’am.”

  “About?”

  “Jay Stevens. Your brother.”

  There was another inward struggle. I wished she’d take off the damned glasses. “What about him?”

  I tried to break it gently, but her attitude was hard to read. “Did you know that Jay’s body was recently recovered?”

  The impenetrable black glasses faced me. She said at last, “English…you own the bookstore where they found him.”

  The busines
s owner in me felt obliged to clarify. “He wasn’t in the bookstore, but…yes.”

  Jake said, “So you did know his body had been recovered?”

  “I knew.”

  Yet she had made no attempt to claim his body. That seemed peculiar by any standard.

  “The police have been asking for anyone with information on Stevens to come forward.” Jake reverting to form.

  She said stiffly, “I don’t have any information on Jay’s death.”

  “But —”

  She cut me off. “I know what you think. Just take it for granted, you’re wrong.”

  Few people were able to take that for granted.

  Jinx added, “I loved my brother. I never loved anyone more. But my life now is complicated.”

  Oh. Complicated. I didn’t say it. I left it to Jake to say. “Okay. We can respect that. What can you tell us about Jay?”

  “I don’t understand?” The black shades turned his way. “Are you — Why do you want to know? Surely after all this time? Fifty years?”

  “There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

  “Murder.” She repeated the word, but not as though she was shocked or surprised by it. More…trying it on for size. “It was murder?”

  “You must have suspected that something bad had happened to him. You went to the police after he disappeared.”

  She nodded. “Yes. I knew Jay didn’t run out on us. That was never his style.” She considered us. “How is this your business? You’re not the police.”

  “No. But the police are giving me a hard time because your brother’s remains were found on my property. I hired Mr. Riordan to look into his death.”

  “What can you possibly hope to discover after all this time?”

  I shrugged.

  “How will it change anything?”

  “I don’t know if it will change anything.”

  “So it’s simply curiosity?”

  I didn’t have a real answer for her. Curiosity was part of it, but it wasn’t the only reason I wanted answers. Nor was I genuinely afraid of police harassment. I looked at Jake. He seemed to be waiting for my response too. “I guess I feel a responsibility to Jay.”

  “Why? Why should you?”

  “Because what happened to your brother was wrong. Because murder is wrong. And…I know about it. And knowing about it, it would be wrong to walk away.”