Double

by Bill Pronzini

  I ran through some shrubs, across a square of lawn, between a couple of palms. A few people on the beach had also seen the woman fall and were just starting to come out of their own frozen moment of shock. I plowed through a bunch of tropical flowers, and there she was, lying broken on her side on a section of cobblestone path. Dead—you could see from a distance that she was dead. Part of her skull had cracked open; there were streamers of bright blood already trailing away from it.

  Five paces from her I stopped, panting, feeling sick to my stomach. I had seen a guy who’d jumped from a fifteen-story window once, but it was no worse than this—and she’d only come down four stories. Several people were milling around behind me; somebody yelled, somebody else began to shriek. Overhead, more planes picked up the roar of the ones that had just gone by. All I could do was stand there staring, because I recognized the woman and that made it even worse.

  McCone’s friend, the Casa del Rey’s security chief—Elaine Picard.

  9 McCONE

  When he’d unhooked me from the polygraph, I thanked the salesman —whose name was Wally—for the demonstration, gave him my parents’ phone number so we could make a date later on, and started out toward the mezzanine. I didn’t feel guilty about planning to have dinner with him; after all, neither Don nor I was a particularly possessive individual. I liked to think that what we had together was too strong to be disrupted by jealousy.

  The movie must have ended, because the room was now crowded with people looking for someone to talk to. I chatted with a woman named Kinsey Millhone, who had her own agency in Santa Teresa, then tried once again to go outside. Halfway to the door, a fellow from New York named Miles Jacoby stopped me, pointing to the San Francisco on my name tag, and asked me if I knew Wolf. It turned out Jacoby was a big admirer of his and knew all about his pulp collection, so we talked about that for a while. Finally I made my way to the mezzanine, where the crowd was thinner.

  I went over to the railing and leaned on it, waiting for it to be time for Elaine’s panel and enjoying the comparatively smoke-free air. Out here I could hear the drone of planes taking off and landing at N.A.S. North Island, and a couple of them went over with a great roar that actually shook the hotel. It, as well as the del Coronado, had been built before the base and now was right in the flight path. I wondered how the guests managed to get any sleep with the patrol planes coming and going at all hours, and decided to ask Wolf about it.

  A couple of minutes later, I noticed a commotion down in the lobby. I had almost decided it was Japanese tourists rioting to see who would be first to get his picture taken with the rental-car counter, when I noticed that a lot of people were hurrying outside to the formal gardens.

  Because I am a very curious person and anything was better than killing time up here, I went around to the stairs and started down. A few of the other conventioneers fell in behind me, and I had the absurd feeling that we were participating in an impromptu field trip. In a line, like little ducks following their mother, we crossed the lobby and went through the big French doors to the garden.

  A good-sized crowd was gathered there, tourist types and some conventioneers, including a guy in a slouch hat and trench coat who looked like someone the hotel might have hired to publicize the convention. I spotted Wolf, standing to one side with Victor Ibarcena, the assistant manager. They both looked nervous and upset.

  Next to me, a young woman in a bikini said, “My God, what a horrible thing. Did you see it?”

  “No,” a man wearing a convention badge said. “I was in the lobby. Jesus.”

  “Could you hear her scream? She must have screamed.”

  “I didn’t hear anything. Couldn’t. Right about the time it must have happened, those bombers—or whatever they are—went over.”

  What had happened? I thought. Who had—or hadn’t—screamed? I scanned the garden and saw an open area everyone seemed to be avoiding, close to the foot of the east tower. On the cobblestone path lay a bundle of pink splashed with red....

  I stopped moving and the person behind me banged into me. My hand went to my mouth and cut off a gasp. Feeling a rush of apprehension, I started forward again.

  It was Elaine, lying there on her side, her arms spread out and her legs askew. Inside the pretty pink dress, her body looked broken and bloody. Lifeless. And her head . . .

  Sickened, I looked up at the east tower. She must have fallen from up there, I thought, to do that much physical damage.

  Quickly I started through the crowd toward Wolf, pushing around clumps of people who were conversing in low murmurs. He had his back to me and was staring at the ground. I grabbed his elbow. “Wolf, for God’s sake, what happened?”

  He looked around, his face stricken. “I don’t know. She fell from up there.”

  “By accident?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lloyd Beddoes came hurrying through the crowd and took Ibarcena by the arm, turning him away. They conferred for a time. The voices of the people around us rose as a couple of uniformed deputies entered. Beddoes went over and spoke to them, and then they took charge. I had no more chance to talk to Wolf, not then.

  A little while later, three white-coated men hurried out from the hotel lobby. County coroner’s men. They would be followed by lab technicians and homicide investigators from the San Diego County Sheriff Department. Since we were outside the city proper, the sheriff would have jurisdiction. And his homicide men came out on all violent deaths.

  This was the kind of scene I’d witnessed many times—far too many, even for a person in my profession. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I lowered my eyelids, forcing the tears back. Who was I crying for, anyway? Elaine? We hadn’t been close friends, not really. Maybe I was crying for myself. Poor Sharon; she has to go through this again.

  I got myself under control and caught Wolf’s eye; he looked at me with an understanding expression. Then his gaze moved toward the lobby door, and mine followed, to a brown-haired man in a matching brown suit. Instantly I knew he was a detective; he had that look about him. Wary, braced for anything—they all get it after they’ve seen enough death. They’re expecting the worst, and most often they find it.

  The plainclothesman joined the coroner’s men by Elaine’s body. He looked around, spoke with them for a time, then went to where Beddoes was standing a few yards away. They talked and then joined Wolf and Ibarcena. I inched closer, heard the brown-haired man introduce himself as Lieutenant Tom Knowles of the San Diego County Sheriffs Department.

  “Which one of you found the body?” Knowles asked.

  Wolf said, “I did,” and introduced himself.

  “Will you describe what happened, please.”

  “I was walking in the gardens, back there.” He motioned behind him. “And I happened to glance up at the tower. There was movement up there, but I didn’t see anybody. Then she came flying over the railing. She must have died as soon as she hit those cobblestones.”

  Knowles nodded. “You say she came flying over the railing. She wasn’t standing at it, then.”

  “No. She must have been back behind the archway. She came out pretty fast, as if she’d taken a run at the railing....”

  As he spoke, Wolf looked up at the tower, and my eyes followed his gaze. Beyond the curving archways was a shadowy area, where shafts of light played. Involuntarily I shivered, thinking that this was the east tower, the one that was supposed to be haunted.

  “Was she alone up there?” Knowles asked Wolf.

  “Well ...” Wolf paused, his eyes still on the tower. A slight frown passed across his face. “I think so.”

  “You think so?”

  “I thought I saw movement after she fell, but I can’t be sure. And I didn’t see anyone.”

  Lloyd Beddoes, his face pale and beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, spoke for the first time. “Surely, Lieutenant, you don’t think Ms. Picard was pushed from the tower.”

  Knowles turned to him. “I don’t think anything y
et, Mr. Beddoes. I take it you were acquainted with Elaine Picard.”

  “She was our chief of security.”

  “I see. Do you have any idea what Ms. Picard might have been doing in the tower?”

  Beddoes glanced at Ibarcena, who shrugged. “None whatsoever. We had just completed a meeting in my office, and Ms. Picard was due to moderate a panel for the convention, in one of the meeting rooms off the mezzanine. When I last saw her, she was getting ready to go up there.”

  “The private investigators’ convention?”

  “Yes. The panel was on hotel security.”

  Knowles looked around the garden; his eyes rested on the man in the trench coat and slouch hat, and the corner of his mouth twitched derisively. He controlled it and turned his bland gray eyes back to Beddoes.

  “Where in the hotel can you gain access to that tower?”

  “There’s a stairway to each tower in each corner of the mezzanine.”

  “And they’re left open?”

  “Yes. The guests use them for looking at the view, picture-taking.”

  “Was there any official reason for Ms. Picard to have gone up there? A security problem, for instance?”

  “None that I know of. Perhaps something came up after I last spoke with her.”

  Knowles nodded as if he were filing that away in some mental folder. “Getting back to this meeting you had with Ms. Picard, how did she seem? Was she in good spirits?”

  “She was ...” Beddoes hesitated and glanced at Ibarcena again. “Lieutenant, are you implying that she killed herself?”

  “I’m not implying anything,” Knowles said patiently. “Please answer the question.”

  “She was ... well, she was distraught,” Beddoes said. “I had the feeling her mind was not on what we were discussing. Isn’t that so, Victor?”

  “Oh, yes.” Ibarcena nodded.

  “In fact,” Beddoes added, “she has been in quite a state for some time now.”

  “What kind of ‘state,’ Mr. Beddoes?” Knowles asked.

  “Distracted. Not herself. She seemed worried, depressed.”

  “Do you have any idea what might have caused this?”

  “None at all. Ms. Picard was not one to confide in her co-workers. Isn’t that so, Victor?”

  Ibarcena nodded again. “Ms. Picard kept very much to herself.”

  Knowles looked back to where the body lay. The medics and lab crew appeared to have finished and were obviously waiting for him. “I’ll need more detailed statements from the three of you,” he said, “but that can wait, until later. In the meantime, if you’ll stay close by and make yourselves available to us, I’d appreciate it.” He turned and walked over to the technicians.

  I glanced at Wolf. He was staring up at the tower again, a puzzled expression on his face.

  As I had before, I looked at the tower too, wondering why Elaine had gone up there. She’d been in a meeting, and her panel was due to start momentarily. Unless some security problem had arisen suddenly . . . But a security problem would have involved other people, and Wolf had said he hadn’t seen anyone, only movement. . . .

  I wanted to ask him about that, so I started over to him again. Beddoes and Ibarcena had moved away, and were conferring with one another near the French doors. After a moment, Ibarcena hurried off into the lobby.

  From Knowles’s questions, I knew the sheriff would treat this as either an accident or a suicide. And the surface facts definitely pointed that way. But I remembered Elaine from our days at Huston’s; she was as surefooted as they come. One time we’d had a saleswoman who’d just been fired threaten to commit suicide by hurling herself off the roof. Elaine had gone out there, walking on a ledge with precision balance, and talked the woman out of it. She was not the sort to slip and fall.

  We’d also talked a good bit about suicide after the incident, and I’d found Elaine strongly opposed to it. She felt it was a reprehensible act, a nasty piece of emotional blackmail that only a coward would inflict on friends and family.

  And one thing I knew beyond a doubt: Elaine Picard had been no coward. She might have been worried, as I’d seen. She might even have been distraught, as Beddoes had claimed. But she had definitely not been afraid.

  10 “WOLF”

  When the sheriffs investigators decided they didn’t need me anymore, and the coroner’s assistants moved in with their body bag, McCone came up and caught my arm and said she wanted to talk to me. She had been hanging around the whole time, listening in on conversations, looking pretty upset.

  I suggested the Cantina Sin Nombre, because I needed something alcoholic and it looked as if she did too, and she agreed. We went there and got our drinks—beer for me, a bourbon for her—and sat near the terrace windows, at the same table she and Elaine Picard had occupied yesterday. There wasn’t anybody on the terrace now, and only a few people on the beach. The pleasure boats were still out, but the ocean had a hard brassy look under the noonday sun—not an inviting place to be right now.

  McCone took a slug of bourbon, ran a nervous hand over her black hair. “Did it really look to you like Elaine jumped?” she asked.

  “Well . . . she went over the railing in a kind of dive. People don’t fall that way if they trip accidentally.”

  “People do if they’ve been pushed.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I heard you tell Lieutenant Knowles you might’ve seen somebody else up there with her.”

  “I can’t be sure if I did or not. I wasn’t paying that much attention before she fell—and while she was falling . . . I didn’t want to but I was watching her.”

  “Did you look up at the tower again after she landed?”

  I nodded. “But I didn’t see anybody. No movement then at all.”

  McCone was silent for a time, her dark eyes fixed and unblinking—turned inward, I thought. At length she said, “Elaine didn’t kill herself, Wolf. It just isn’t possible; she wasn’t the suicidal type.”

  “Are you sure of that? How long had it been since you’d seen her?”

  “Years. But that doesn’t mean anything. People like Elaine don’t change.”

  Some people do change, lose some part of themselves for any one of a hundred reasons, lose their taste for living; but I wasn’t going to argue with her about it. I said, “Maybe there’ll be a note. Would that convince you?”

  “It might,” McCone said. “But I don’t think there’ll be a note. And if there is, it’ll probably be a fake. Dammit, Wolf, I think she was pushed. ”

  “By who? For what reason?”

  “I don’t know—yet. But something was bothering her, and I could see it getting worse in just the short time I’ve been here.”

  “You mean she seemed despondent?”

  “No. Very preoccupied about something. Upset. Worried, somehow.”

  I remembered seeing her leave the hotel last night; that was how she’d impressed me, too. I asked, “Do you know a friend—a former friend—of hers named Rich?”

  “Rich who?”

  “I didn’t get his last name. He might have been a boyfriend once, although he seemed younger than her by several years. Handsome guy, wavy brown hair, gray-blue eyes with a peculiar look to them.”

  “I’ve never met anyone like that,” McCone said. “And Elaine never mentioned him. How do you know about this Rich?”

  I told her about the little altercation here in the bar yesterday. McCone’s eyes narrowed; her mouth and jaw took on a determined set.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” she said. “Grabbing her arm, hurting her ... and she told you he’d done it before?”

  “Bothered her in public before, yes. She didn’t say if he was in the habit of putting his hands on her. She didn’t seem to think he was dangerous.”

  “What did you think?”

  “Well . . . maybe. I didn’t like those eyes of his.”

  “Did Elaine say he was an old boyfriend or what?”

  “No. I asked her if he wa
s and she denied it, but I got the impression she might not be telling the truth. And he said something to some customers on the way out, something about a little spat between lovers .”

  McCone did some more nibbling at her bourbon. “Did you tell Knowles all of this?”

  “Sure.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he’d look into it.”

  “Well, so will I. Just in case he doesn’t look very hard.”

  “Sharon . . .”

  “Elaine was my friend,” she said. “I’m just not going to sit by and let the sheriffs department treat her death as an accident or a suicide.”

  “If it was anything else, they’ll find it out. Don’t go messing around in it, stirring things up.”

  That made her angry. She said, “I hate it when people start lecturing me. I’m not a little girl, Wolf. I’m a grown woman and I know what I’m doing.”

  “I just don’t want you to get into trouble.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to get into trouble?”

  “Well, you’ve done it before, for personal reasons.”

  “And you haven’t, I suppose?”

  I didn’t say anything. She had me and she knew it. And I had been about to lecture her, like a father trying in his stumbling and bumbling way to explain the facts of life to his daughter. Why did I have to turn paternal with McCone every time I dealt with her? The last thing in the world I needed was a daughter who packed a .38, and the last thing in the world she needed was an old curmudgeon like me for a papa.

  She finished her drink. When she put the glass down, her anger was gone and the look she gave me was softer. “I’d better be going,” she said.

  “Going where?”

  “My business, okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  She reached over and patted my arm. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be all right. This is just something I have to do. You know how that is, if anybody does.”