by Jeff Taylor
There was simply no record of her anywhere. Not even the club owner had been able to tell them where she lived or if Donna was even her real name. She was a phantom that no one had seen since that night at the club. Yet she was still his number one suspect. She had access to the victim as well as knowledge of the club and all its patrons. Strinnger still wasn’t sure of her motive but he knew if he found her she would lead him to the killer. But with no trace of her at the other locations he’d searched, this house was his last resort. It was why he had hounded Drake’s FBI contacts and Seattle law enforcement for permission to get up to the Evergreen State. And it was why he now waited impatiently for this young doorman’s employer to make time for him.
Finally, to both his and the doorman’s relief, a man in a dark suit and slicked, blonde hair whisked toward them. Strinnger instantly recognized the man from the picture attached to the warrant file.
Nathaniel Kratin’s long legs carried him swiftly though the foyer toward the landing where the huddled Strinnger and his posse of local and federal law enforcement officers huddled inside escaping the cold autumn rain drizzling outside. In his haste, he practically leaped over the small landing until he was face to face with the officers. Mr. Kratin searched their faces, finally resting on Strinnger’s for some explanation.
“How can I help you gentlemen?” he asked politely, though not concealing the fact their presence wasn’t appreciated.
The doorman’s hand violently quaked as it handed the datapad to Nathaniel. “They have this, sir.” The freckle-faced boy’s voice cracked as he relinquished the pad to his employer.
Nathaniel took it and began to read.
In hopes of speeding up their search, Strinnger got to the point. “Mr. Kratin, my name is Detective Daeman Strinnger with the San Francisco PD. I am investigating the murder of Hanel Schulaz. That search warrant allows me to search his office and other living spaces for the items listed there.”
If Nathaniel had not been surprised before he certainly was now. Baffled he replied, “And what are you looking for?”
“This home belonged to the late Mr. Schulaz prior to his death, did it not?”
“Well, yes and no,” Nathaniel hesitated. “Yes, Mr. Schulaz did live here, but the home belongs to the company, specifically apportioned as the chief executive’s residence.”
“But he did live here?” Strinnger replied sharply.
The curt tone was completely unintended but reflected his irritation. Nathaniel’s expression softened and he took a friendlier tone in response.
“Yes, yes he did.” He glanced back at the warrant and read further. As he read, Strinnger glimpsed a large gold ring, set with a brilliant red stone with the gold outline of a firebird etched atop it on the man’s right hand.
“You are looking for his personal address files and ledgers,” Nathaniel read, interrupting Strinnger’s observation. “I believe we gathered all of those up and put them in a box somewhere when we moved in. My daughter Julia would know for sure. John,” he beckoned to the doorman. “Will you go and ask my daughter to join us here for a moment?”
Eagerly, John whisked away so quickly that Strinnger wasn’t sure if the breeze he felt came from outside or from the freckled young man’s wake. Strinnger exhaled irritably; more waiting. The delay was not long though. As John reemerged from the parlor, Strinnger nearly gasped. Following behind the nervous youth glided perhaps the most elegant creature Strinnger had ever seen. Robed in a soft, sky-blue gown and adorned with twinkling diamond jewels below her shimmering blonde hair, Julia Kratin strode confidently into the foyer. The woman glowed with femininity and made the grand décor of the home seem tattered and decrepit. She was a classical statue, so perfectly proportioned and shaped that she must have been crafted by some great master. The light blue dress accentuated her slender form and the mid-bicep white gloves gave her an elegant look, more nostalgic than anything contemporary Strinnger had seen. But as eye-catching her dress was, it was her delicate facial features that drew his attention the most
Forcing himself to look away, he turned his attention back to the matter at hand. But when she drew near to him and spoke, the sound sang in his ears like a thousand symphonies.
“Hello,” she beamed. “Is there something I can help you with?”
Nathaniel delicately took her by the elbow and gestured to the officers. “Yes, my dear. This is Detective Strinnger from San Francisco. He is looking for some ledgers or address files that Hanel kept in the personal office. You helped clean out that room. Do you remember seeing anything like that?”
Her brilliant blue eyes met his and Strinnger’s knees begged to buckle. Instinctively, his posture straightened and his chest surged upward. What am I doing? I’m an officer of the law. Act like it!
“I don’t remember any books or anything like that,” Julia commented thoughtfully, “but if you’d like I would be glad to escort them up to the office to have a look.”
I would like that very much. “That would be fine,” Strinnger replied. His eyes darted to the collection of guests making their way around the immaculately set table in the dining room. “I understand you are having some kind of gathering. We will be as discreet as possible.”
The newly-enshrined CEO nodded his appreciation and allowed Julia to lead them toward the massive staircase. Strinnger followed closely behind her as the other officers trailed after them.
Out of respect for her and for his new fiancé, the detective tried not to leer at the young woman as her long shapely legs ascended each step. He tried to avert his eyes by focusing his stare upwards, but that only drew him to the flawless skin of her soft, bare shoulders. Her perfume wafted over him in her wake, igniting within his senses an addictive craving he doubted he’d ever forget.
“Have you been to Seattle before, Detective?” she asked brightly.
After an awkward moment of silence Ferdinand Drake cleared his throat and Strinnger snapped back to his senses. “I beg your pardon,” he asked, embarrassed for being distracted. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Drake smirk.
She grinned as if she were happy to repeat herself. “I asked if you had ever been to Seattle before.”
“Um, yes,” he answered, keeping his eyes on the carpeted stairs. “Once. My brother lived here for a short time while he was going to school and I came to visit. Nice place,” he lied. He remembered complaining about the city the entire trip.
When they reached the top step, she led them down a long corridor. Strinnger whistled softly. The hallway was wide enough he could have driven his cruiser down the middle with ample room on either side. They halted in front of an artfully crafted wood door which slid into the wall at Julia’s approach.
“Here we are,” she said, gesturing toward the office as if she were presenting it on an advertisement.
Strinnger entered first and surveyed the room. Directly ahead of him was a large oak desk set prominently beneath the large stained-glass window, a billowy high-backed chair tucked underneath it. Sturdy bookshelves matching the scrollwork and design of the desk were arranged parallel along the sides of the room, crammed with assorted volumes of literature, knickknacks and photographs. By the collection of photos on the shelves, it was apparent the Kratins had not wasted any time moving in. There was no evidence the bachelor Schulaz had ever been there.
“Ms. Kratin, how much of this was here when you moved in?” Strinnger asked without looking at her.
Julia hesitated. “Well, none of the furniture is new. It was fixed to the floor and walls so we haven’t been able to replace any of it yet. Most everything else was shipped to the company. I put what was left in a box in the closet behind that bookcase over there.” She glided over to the nearest bookcase and swung it open, revealing a hidden closet with stacks of boxes piled upon one another. The box at the top was labeled “Schulaz” with black permanent marker.
Strinnger immediately nodded to Drake who understood he was to go through the box. Drake waived to a pair of FBI
men and the three began removing the boxes and laying them out on the floor
“Any other secret compartments or closets you’re aware of?” Strinnger asked Julia.
“Not that I’m aware of,” she replied
He motioned for the other two officers to inspect the bookcases. Anything even remotely resembling a data storage device that could hold an address file or ledger, or anything else they felt suspicious, was to be bagged immediately. They could sort out their findings later. While they worked, Strinnger paced slowly around the room.
“You said the furniture was all bolted down,” he said to Julia who remained near the door. “Do you know why that is?”
Her slight eyebrows furrowed as she thought. “No. I’ve never thought about it.”
Strinnger approached the monument-like desk, exploring every detail of its design and construction. It was made of a deep mahogany wood with beautiful scrollwork along the tabletop edge and the exterior of the pairs of drawers supporting it. A firm panel stretched across the front. The workmanship of the desk was very fine with even the underside being finished and polished, all the joints sealed tight. He circled around to the back of the wooden island. The rear was as intricate as the front. The face of each drawer was adorned with an antiqued brass handle. Strinnger opened each one, verified they were empty, then pushed the leather chair away and crouched onto his knees. He probed the underside with his hands, not sure of what he was expecting; nothing unusual was there that he could tell.
Frustrated, he remained on the floor and let his eyes wander over the surrounding bookcases. Each was divided in six three-foot wide sections, rising nearly eight feet in height and fixed to either its neighbor or the wall. The joints were nearly seamless. Newly bound volumes with gold-pressed lettering announced titles such as Plutarch’s Republic, An Analysis of the Napoleonic Code, and the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Political science, history, and mythology seemed to be Kratin’s interest, but that told Strinnger little about Schulaz.
Suddenly he caught sight of something. Tilting his head, he glanced back and forth from one side of the room to the other. He then rose to his feet and moved toward a section of books nearest the window. Gently caressing the inside of the case facing toward the window, his fingers landed on a small anomaly; a knot in the grain of the wood. No other piece of furniture he could see displayed any sign of imperfection. Every inch of the other cases was covered in a layer of plastic veneer, except for the inside of the one by the window. Its top shelf was uncovered but stained to match the rest. He was just about to touch it when Drake spoke up from the corner.
“Hey, Sherlock,” he called, using the nickname he’d given Strinnger after his promotion. “Check this out?”
In his hand Drake held a chrome cylinder, slightly smaller than a standard pen, with black tips on each end. Strinnger didn’t have to consider its purpose long. Julia eagerly answered for him.
“That’s a nano-reader,” she volunteered. “Dad got me one for my eighteenth birthday. Carsus Corp produced them for a short while. You can encode information onto the memory of a group of nano-robots then when you want to retrieve it you plug them into a display to read the files. The readers worked quite well until Medes International came up with a cheaper model and beat us out of the market. That one opens at the center there to access the interface port and 3-D imager.”
Drake twisted the device and sure enough it clicked open. A colored display along the lengthwise body of the reader declared “No Data.” Drake looked up at Strinnger who met his glance. The detective frowned; another dead end.
“Bag it but little good it’ll do us without anything to read on it.”
The computers and files at the corporate headquarters hadn’t given him anything helpful and now things were looking the same here. With nothing to lose, Strinnger strode back to the far bookcase and firmly pressed the exposed knot. Immediately, a high-pitched chirp warbled followed by a soft thump from the desk. The green padded desktop sunk inward then rolled forward toward the front of the desk. Everyone froze as a mist of vapor escaped the hidden compartment.
Julia was visibly surprised. Her small mouth hung open in amazement while her dazzling blue eyes darted between the desk and the bookcase. “How did you know to do that?” she asked.
Drake snorted. “He does stuff like that all the time. He gets these hunches. It’s really annoying, sometimes.”
Ignoring the comment, Strinnger peered into the secret panel. Cautiously, he waved the frigid air from the panel’s open hatch. The compartment was approximately two-by-three feet and four inches deep with a series of oblong cylinders, about two dozen of them, attached lengthwise to two spindles on either end. Each capsule was about the size of a tack with a luminescent purple gel visible through the transparent center of the capsule. Strinnger reached his hand in to retrieve one but quickly recoiled as the intense cold stung his skin. He removed his windbreaker and wrapped it around his hand then reached in and plucked a capsule from its chilly home.
“What is it?” asked Drake.
“No idea,” Strinnger replied, eyeing the capacitor-like device in his protected fingers.
Julia sidled up beside Strinnger and offered her opinion. “Oh! Well there you go. It’s a carrier tube for the nanobots synced to the reader you just found. They have to be kept cold otherwise the bots would overheat and lose all their data; another reason Carsus quit making them.”
With that information Strinnger instantly knew what to do. “Hand me the reader,” he demanded.
Drake reflexively complied. Without any hesitation, Strinnger separated the two halves of the pen-like reader and deftly inserted the capsule into the upper half. He then set the assembled device on the desktop. A soft beam of light shot upward and then spread out into a fan shape. A bright blue list of text then scrolled along the beam’s path.
Scrutinizing the combinations of letters and numbers suspended before him, Strinnger examined each entry. There were two columns listed in the file. One column was a list of names while the other depicted a series of hyphenated numbers. All the monikers appeared to be female, each accompanied by a number of stars. Beneath the hyphenated numerals were what Strinnger assumed to be contact information; addresses and phone numbers for each of the women listed. The file scrolled up as he raised and lowered his hand in view of the reader’s scanner. Surprisingly, there were some names he recognized, but not for any reason worth mentioning. He slammed his fist on the desk then slumped into the tall leather chair.
“As cliché as it sounds, I think this is Schulaz’ personal directory, his ‘little black book.’ Look,” he said, his voice heavy with disappointment, “I must have arrested at least two of those girls a half-dozen times. He’s got names of women from all over the world. He even has them sorted by country and city.” He cursed to himself. He had been looking for a ledger, a list of clients or enemies; a smoking gun to give him reason to suspect foul play. Instead what he got was an old man’s sordid list of girlfriends.
“What are these other numbers,” Drake asked, pointing to the set of digits beside each name.
“I don’t know,” Strinnger said. “A ranking system, perhaps?”
“They’re measurements,” Julia stated over his shoulder. She pointed to one set of numbers and explained. “Dress size, height, weight, dimensions,” her face crumpled in disgust. “What a pig.”
The detective rubbed his temples. “All right,” he finally ordered, “pack it all up and let’s go.”
His junior officer wasn’t ready to leave just yet. Drake continued to scroll through the names and came across one they both would recognize.
“Uh, boss. You should take a look at this.”
Strinnger sat up and looked at the entry that Drake had highlighted. The name Donna Roncin was scrawled tantalizingly before his eyes. Adrenaline quickened his finger movements as they danced in the ether of the reader’s light. Removing all other names from the list, he selected her file. The summary magnifi
ed so they could read it more carefully. Below her home address was a file marked “Photos.” Strinnger waved his hand over the link and a collection of photographs appeared, all set in The Diana Club, and all depicting a certain dark-haired woman.
A loud slap startled the group. Strinnger’s hand came crashing down on the desktop in triumph. “Bingo!” He had her. “Thompson,” he shouted to one of the FBI agents, “go get that cooler out of our vehicle. We need to keep these things cool until I get back to Frisco.”
Collecting the carrier-tubes and its companion reader, he rounded the desk and made for the door. As he did so he ordered Drake and the remaining FBI agent to pack up all of Schulaz’ things and they would search through them back at the field office.
“I believe we have found what we came for, Miss Kratin,” he said turning to address her. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call.” He handed her his business card. “Hopefully, we won’t have to bother you again.”
The uniformed men followed the detective out the door and down the staircase. No one paid the posse any attention except for the more-than-anxious, freckled John who gladly opened the front door for them.
Strinnger was already on the phone with his lieutenant in San Francisco giving the address and contact number for Donna. “I want a warrant ready as soon as we land.”
Julia watched in silence from the top of the stairs as they left, the detective’s business card twirled in her fingers. Something he had said about the girl, Donna, disturbed her as if it were familiar to her. Gathering the hem of her gown, she spun around and determinedly walked toward the elevator hidden in the wall opposite the balcony over the foyer. The gilded, iron gate clanged shut at her urging and the bronze-capped lever brought the antique lift to life. Her foot tapped anxiously while she counted the numbers lighting up above her. She did not wait for the ping to announce she’d arrived at the fourth floor, flinging the gate open and briskly advanced down the hall toward a set of double doors. They flung apart as she entered her spacious bedroom.
