Double Take ft-11

by Catherine Coulter

  He found the alarm system quickly, recognized it as top of the line, just as he’d expected, and disabled it.

  He had little trouble with the lock on the back service door of the building. He slid silently out of the storage and receiving room into the small elegant foyer, with mailboxes and palm trees. He took the stairs, not the elevator, to the top floor. Six seconds only on that lock, and he gently eased open the Pallack front door. He stepped into the foyer, and the enormity of what he was doing hit him again. No, no more doubts, no more questions. It was time to act. He’d broken and now he’d entered. Dix immediately went to the windows and pulled down the shades, closed the curtains. Only then did he switch on his flashlight.

  The penthouse occupied the entire sixth floor, and covered at least four thousand square feet, on two levels. Dix started on the second level. He found the master bedroom and immediately went to Charlotte Pallack’s jewelry box, an antique French affair large enough to hold Liechtenstein’s crown jewels. He carefully searched through the various pouches and boxes. Lots of expensive stuff, but not what he was looking for.

  Either Charlotte was wearing the bracelet tonight, or, since Dix had nailed her with it, maybe Thomas Pallack hadn’t let her out of the house again with the bracelet on her wrist. Maybe Pallack had destroyed it. Or maybe it was in a safe.

  Dix methodically searched the large bedroom with its extravagant furnishings, the space completely dark except for his flashlight, the incredible views hidden behind the heavy closed drapes. He didn’t find a safe even after lifting each of the six modern paintings off the walls, carefully searching the large walk-in closet, even tapping the walls behind Pallack’s shirts. He opened the drapes before he left the bedroom and looked back. It looked the same as it had before he’d come in.

  He didn’t bother searching the remaining rooms on the second level, but went immediately downstairs to Pallack’s office. It probably looked somber and dark even in daylight with its burgundy leather furniture and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining three walls. It was his last hope, his best hope, really. Dix moved behind the big mahogany desk that smelled faintly of expensive cigars, and tried the top drawer. It was locked. It took him only a few seconds to pick it.

  Dix was pleased to see it was a master lock and all the other desk drawers opened with it. He searched all the drawers thoroughly. He was hoping to find bank statements, a checkbook, records of any kind that might link Pallack to Makepeace, or to David Caldicott, or Christie, but there were only invoices in ordered piles, newspaper clippings on Pallack and his fundraising, some correspondence with various bigwigs, and the usual odds and ends in desk drawers. He said a silent prayer and powered up Pallack’s computer.

  It was passworded, something he’d expected, and so he’d made up a list of likely words and numbers. He typed each one in, tried variations and additions, but none of them worked. He simply wasn’t good enough to hack in. He could have used Savich for that.

  He found the safe behind an original Picasso line drawing featuring weird forms that resembled no human he’d ever seen. It was a tumbler safe and there was no way he could get into it without the combination, or a blowtorch. He went back to Pallack’s desk, got down on his knees, and pulled out each drawer, looking at the undersides. There was no combination underneath any of them. Then he lifted the keyboard and there, taped under the g and h, was a set of three double numbers. For the first time since he’d left the Sherlock house, Dix smiled.

  A moment later, he pulled the safe handle open. It was about half full—mostly papers, separated with rubber bands, a big accordion-pleated folder, a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills, probably totaling five thousand, and underneath them, several velvet pouches. His heartbeat picked up as he pulled open the drawstrings of a dark burgundy velvet pouch and upended it. A magnificent diamond necklace and earrings filled his palm. He opened a dark blue velvet pouch—more diamonds, an emerald the size of his thumbnail, and a half dozen loose blood-red rubies, maybe ten carats each. Nothing else. No bracelet. He put the jewels back in their pouches and carefully replaced them by the pile of hundred-dollar bills. He pulled out a stack of papers, remembering how they were arranged, and methodically went through them. Pallack’s will, Charlotte’s will, half a dozen sets of partnership agreements, deeds to homes spread throughout the world, documents in French and Greek, insurance policies, business contracts he didn’t have time to read thoroughly but that had no immediate import to him.

  He lifted out the single fat accordion folder, pulled away the rubber band. Inside were notebooks, maybe a dozen of them.

  What was this?

  There was a photo on top of them. Dix lifted out a five-by-seven color photo of David Caldicott standing next to—he became very still. Was it Christie? Charlotte? He couldn’t begin to explain it, but he knew to his soul he was looking at Christie, not Charlotte Pallack. David Caldicott had said he’d known Christie, said she’d admired his playing, that she’d come up and spoken to him. But they’d obviously known each other better than that. He could make out the familiar architecture of the Stanislaus buildings in the background. It was fall, with red, gold, and brown leaves mixed thick on the ground, tree branches nearly naked. Both David and Christie were smiling into the camera. Who’d taken the photo? He turned the photo over. There was a date scrawled but nothing else. Three years and four months ago.

  He slipped it into his jacket pocket. He looked at the stack of thin notebooks and realized he had indeed found August Ransom’s journals. But how did they get here? Three folded sheets of stationery stuck out from under the cover of the very first notebook. He opened the first one, and stared down at a note pasted together out of words cut from a newspaper. He read:

  Mr. Pallack, I have August’s journals. He told me all about you, and now I have proof. I want five hundred thousand dollars. Tomorrow noon leave the money in a carry-on bag on the foot of the statue in Washington Square.

  Dix quickly read the other two notes, none dated so he didn’t know how far apart they’d been sent. The demands totaled two million dollars. He stared thoughtfully at the second note, read the final line several times:

  We’ve had such a lovely thing going here, haven’t we? But August never believed I was greedy even when others said I was. You won’t hear from me again.

  But of course Pallack had heard from the blackmailer again. The third note was short, simply instructed Pallack to leave a million dollars in a briefcase by the first jewelry counter just inside the entrance of Neiman Marcus, again at noon. It wasn’t signed, but the blackmailer had written Hasta Luega, whatever that was supposed to mean. More blackmail notes to come? Or had it indeed been the last demand?

  Dix read them all once more, and realized that the tone, the implied intimacy of the words, bothered him. It hit him between the eyes—of course, it sounded like Julia Ransom had written them.

  It all fell into place. Pallack had hired Makepeace to kill Julia because he believed she was the blackmailer.

  But Dix believed her when she’d said she’d never even seen any journals, that she really didn’t think they’d even existed. So Pallack had been wrong.

  Who then? It took Dix only a moment to realize it must have been another of Pallack’s psychics, probably none other than Soldan Meissen.

  Meissen and August Ransom had known each other for a long time. Meissen must have known about the journals, even seen them. After August Ransom was murdered, he could have gotten into Julia’s house, stolen the journals, and discovered he had a gold mine. He’s started off with the blackmail, then lured Pallack in as a client.

  Dix wondered what Pallack had thought when he finally tumbled to the fact that Meissen was not only his blackmailer but had made Pallack believe he could communicate with his parents, convincing him by using conversation notes lifted from August Ransom’s journals. Dix remembered clearly on the tape recording Sherlock had made of their interview with Pallack, how he’d sensed he’d had similar conversations with his parents
before, a sort of deja vu.

  Did it all become clear to you the moment you voiced that understanding, Pallack? Did you realize then that Meissen had a lovely scam going on you? All that money you paid him and it wasn’t enough. He sucked you into being his client twice a week, made a fool of you.

  Dix wondered if Pallack had paid the last million before he’d killed Meissen or if he’d paid the money to Makepeace instead.

  The rage Pallack must have felt. He’d moved quickly, Dix thought, and Makepeace had moved quickly as well. How convenient that Pallack had his own private assassin close at hand.

  Dix thumbed through the first journal, sessions with Thomas Pallack, but he didn’t see anything incriminating, only reminiscences. He picked up the last journal, opened it to the last page, and read:

  Thomas is frightened of me. I’ve tried to speak to him about it, but he refuses. I sense he deeply regrets talking about that other woman. He spoke of her only because his mother kept asking him where she was, what he’d done to her, and then his mother laughed, such a laugh that my flesh crawled. And he told her he’d met a woman who was her twin and he loved her the first instant he saw her. But she wouldn’t have him. He’d had to—Thomas shook his head, shot a look at me, and didn’t say any more, but of course, he’d already said too much, and he knew he had.

  Here he is still taking orders from a woman thirty years dead. Though I’m not his psychiatrist, I’ve told him this link with his mother is unhealthy, counseled him it’s time to leave the dead alone, and look to his own future. He was abusive.

  It was the last entry.

  Dix could barely breathe. Christie, he thought, you were that woman, and he wanted to weep with the knowledge of it. He’d known she was dead, but the proof of it was finally staring him in the face.

  Dix pulled out his cell phone, turned on the camera, and took pictures of the last pages in Ransom’s last journal. It wouldn’t serve as legal proof, but it was the hard truth nonetheless. He wished he had time to photograph everything, but when he looked at his watch, he realized he had to leave. He closed the journal, placed it at the bottom of the dozen or so others. He placed them back in the accordion file, pulled the rubber band around it, and slid it in the safe, exactly where he’d found it, closed the safe, and put the Picasso over it, and began to set everything back in place.

  Then he heard the front door open.

  CHAPTER 58

  Dix looked over Pallack’s desk, prayed he’d gotten everything back in the right order, and locked the drawer again. Pallack would never know—but what if Pallack or Charlotte went into the living room and wondered why their gorgeous view was gone?

  He heard the front door close, heard their voices and their footsteps. Dix looked at the long draperies on the far end of the study, a cliché, but there wasn’t any other good hiding place he could see. He quickly moved across the study and slipped in behind the thick dark green brocade curtains that dragged to the floor. There was a chair in front of the drapes. Hopefully that would be enough. He made a small opening in the seam of the drapes and looked out onto the study. The Pallacks walked nearly to the study doorway and stopped.

  Pallack said, his voice irritated, “Damned alarm system went off again, third time this month.”

  Charlotte’s voice sounded tired, on edge. “The neighbors have probably already called.”

  Pallack grunted. “It just pisses me off. Could you believe the talk about Barbara being too far to the left?”

  Charlotte’s voice sounded indifferent. “They might be right. I’m surprised you can actually remember anything anyone said tonight. Thank God you got us out of there. I thought I was going to scream if I had to listen to any more of that claptrap. Thomas, what are we going to do?”

  Dix heard annoyance in Pallack’s voice. “No need to get hysterical. It’s done, there are no more loose ends. Meissen is dead and we have the journals. It’s over. Once Makepeace leaves town, we can forget about everything. Give me a minute to call Berenger Security, find out why the hell the security’s out.”

  “But they know!”

  “Those ridiculous FBI agents? Julia Ransom? Who cares? Their beliefs will get them exactly nowhere.”

  Dix heard Pallack’s heavy footsteps, watched him step into the room and walk across the carpet to his desk phone.

  Charlotte followed him in, but not all the way to Pallack’s desk. She said in a weary voice, “I certainly hope you’re right about the FBI. But we can’t stop worrying about Makepeace— he’s out of control, you know that. When he brought you the journals earlier, all he could talk about was killing Julia.”

  Dix saw Pallack shrug. “It doesn’t matter. Julia’s not important. If Makepeace kills her, it’s on his own dime, not ours. That’s what I told him. Go to bed, Charlotte. I’ll be up soon.”

  He heard Charlotte’s heels lightly tapping the wooden hallway, then muffled by the thick Persian runner on the stairs.

  Pallack sat down behind his desk and pulled the phone close. Dix listened to him report the alarm failure to Berenger Security, nasty-bitch the individual on the other end of the line, and hang up. Then he booted up the computer, began to hum as he typed.

  What was he typing at midnight? The phone rang. Pallack said, “Yes?”

  Pallack listened for some time, said finally, “I don’t care if she is staying at the Sherlock house, there’s no reason to go after her now. Dammit, you shouldn’t be calling me here. A public phone? Still—look, now that I have August’s journals, our business is at an end. You should leave San Francisco as soon as possible.

  “Dammit, Julia Ransom isn’t important. I don’t want to have to deal with any fallout from that. No, I don’t want to see you tonight.”

  Pallack’s fingers tapped impatiently on the desktop as he listened.

  “You’ve lost perspective, Xavier. Listen to me, go to Costa Rica, lie on the beach. Enjoy your money. It’s over, do you hear me?” Pallack jerked the phone away. Dix supposed he’d been hung up on. Pallack slowly put down the phone. Dix saw him stare at it, shaking his head.

  Through the slit in the drapes, Dix saw Charlotte walk back into the study, wearing a nightshirt that read across the front I Only Swing Left. The shirt ended at the top of her thighs. Those weren’t Christie’s legs, not the same shape at all. “Thomas, was that David?”

  Pallack said irritably, “No, it wasn’t David.”

  “I do wish he’d call. It’s been over two days now.”

  “Yes, I’m worried now as well. Maybe we should hire someone to look for him.” Pallack struck his fist on his desktop. “If only I could convince that psycho to simply leave San Francisco. But he’s fixated on Julia. Makepeace just called and wanted to meet to discuss it again, but I said no.”

  She started wringing her hands, pacing back and forth in front of his desk. “He won’t stop, you know he won’t. I don’t think he can.”

  “Look, as I told you, the police have only a whole lot of coincidences, bits and pieces, conjecture, but nothing to stick. If Makepeace kills Julia, he kills her. It won’t matter, not in the long run. They still won’t have anything on us.”

  She didn’t look like she believed him, but she stopped her pacing and crossed her arms over her breasts, hugging herself.

  “What about the alarm system?”

  “The guy at Berenger Security said they’d get the system up again, said they’d do a thorough investigation since it was most of the building this time. They got hold of three of our neighbors, two others weren’t home, but none of them had even noticed. They said they couldn’t understand how it happened.”

  “It’s going on midnight, Thomas. You’re tired, come to bed. There’s nothing more to be done tonight.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then Dix heard the computer click off.

  The lights went out. Their footsteps receded. Dix waited, listening, for another ten minutes. He’d heard enough, seen enough.

  Dix heard no sound at all. The Pallacks we
re upstairs in the bedroom. And he was alone downstairs.

  Dix eased out from behind the curtain and felt his way slowly around chairs, lamps, and a sofa until he got to the door. He looked out at empty darkness. He took several more steps, paused, listened intently again. He saw the red blink of the alarm system on the hallway wall. The security company had gotten the system running again. Thank the good Lord they didn’t suspect a burglar yet. Maybe they would, once they investigated. All he had to do was disarm it and leave. He stepped down the hallway. “Stop right there or I’ll shoot you!”

  Dix froze. Thomas Pallack stood not more than three feet behind him. Dix knew he couldn’t see him clearly, didn’t know who he was. He pictured Pallack, about four inches shorter than he was, pictured him holding the gun in his right hand, about chest high, straight out. It was either run like mad and pray he didn’t get shot in the back, or—

  Dix whirled around, kicked out with his right foot, and clipped the gun in Pallack’s hand. He heard it land hard on the oak floor and slide, until it finally hit the baseboard with a hard thud.

  Dix was on him in the next instant, one clean shot to his jaw and Pallack was out. He leaped up, and stared down at the shadowy form of the old man who’d murdered his wife, and was fiercely glad he hadn’t run. He heard Charlotte yell from the upstairs landing, “Thomas, what’s wrong?”

  An upstairs light came on. There was no time to deal with the alarm—Dix was out the door in a couple of seconds, the alarm ringing wildly in his ears. He knew that with the alarm system blaring, the cops would be there fast. He bolted down the stairs and out the front door.

  He ran, hugging the trees and shadows. He heard a cop car. Not more than two minutes had passed. Yep, the cops were fast to a 911 from an upscale neighborhood.

  He waited, listening to the doors of the cop car open and slam shut. He heard men’s voices, running feet. He waited another minute. Just as he was ready to run again to his car, he heard a deep voice say close to his ear, “I don’t think you want to move at all. I don’t know who you are, but I’ll find out soon enough, won’t I?”