She passed hotel guests, lounging in padded wicker chairs before the sweeping views of bluff and bay, and stepped into the dark, wood-paneled bar. A slender woman of thirty-eight, with green eyes, red hair that flowed to her shoulders, and a nose so straight and true it could make Angelina Jolie jealous. Today was her birthday, but the only card in the mail this morning had been an invitation from Tony Olsen to celebrate Rosemary Thomas in a memorial service. Jesus Christ. Why was he honoring Rosemary’s execution—not her birth? It seemed twisted, and the whole thing worried her.
She thought of Christopher Thomas and of all the promise that once came with being connected to him and of how none of it had panned out. Damn it, she’d played her part and played it well, helped him move the artworks he so carefully pilfered from the museum and sold overseas. She was supposed to have made real money, been living in splendor. Didn’t she deserve better than this?
Haile turned away from the bar and shut her eyes.
She’d fled after Christopher’s murder, had to lie low so she wouldn’t be connected to the thefts she’d helped broker.
And now here she was, up to her old tricks, trying to scratch out a living as a cheap pickpocket, or worse.
She took a deep breath, checked her watch. It was only four o’clock, a little early. As she had expected, few drinkers sat at the small tables and no one was at the bar. Good. She headed toward it, her destination in any case. Behind the crescent-shaped cherrywood bar stood the barkeep in tidy black trousers, a neat short-sleeved, white shirt, and a knowing grin. He had seen it all, but he liked what he saw, so he allowed the grin to stay and deepen into something real as she approached. He was of medium height, about five foot ten, and athletic looking. She watched the muscles on his forearms cord as he grabbed glasses on the bar and efficiently arranged them.
She smiled back and settled onto a barstool and ordered a drink. She needed to steady herself for what lay ahead.
She downed the drink, stood up, and walked lightly away, back to the lobby, through the carefree tourists crowd returning from golf and sailing and shopping in the galleries and antique shops of Half Moon Bay. Must breathe. Breathe.
She laser-locked on the bulge in the front pocket of a man’s pricey white tennis shirt, to her right. Pulling a copy of People magazine from her shoulder bag, she stumbled and fell into him, pressing the magazine flat against his fleshy chest with one hand while under it her other hand performed an expert dip.
“I’m so sorry!” She smiled sweetly, her hips pressed against him longer than necessary.
He grinned, enjoying it. “No problem…”
Still smiling, she let his wallet fall into her shoulder bag and moved on. She dipped a Rolex from an unzippered fanny pack, a stray iPhone from an end table, and another wallet, from a hip pocket. Not bad for a few minutes of work. But then, the scent of wealth was tactile here. The men’s eyes were avaricious. Once she would have reveled in all of this. She had not known any better, and that had given her tremendous power. But not now.
Haile was staying at the El Toro Motel, a two-story, red-tile-roof affair that looked more expensive than it was. She parked under a pepper tree and climbed the outdoor staircase—fake wrought iron that wobbled against the stucco building.
Sighing wearily, she unlocked the door to her room. She longed for a hot bath and her old jeans. Then she would decide what to do next. Cracking open the door, she watched the key-size receiver in her hand. It flashed hot red. She jerked up her head. Someone had been in her room. Maybe still was. Not the maid, because she had put a hold on housekeeping services. The flashing light was triggered by a pressure reader, thin as paper, the size of a dime, she had stuck low on the inside of the door where it would close against the jamb. The first time someone opened the door, there was no flash. There should be no flash now. So this was the second time, or third, or more.
Staying calm, she pocketed the reader and inched open the door, making no noise—she had oiled the hinges when she checked in. The long rays of the afternoon sun painted a golden rectangle into the room, leaving the rest in uneven shadows.
The closet was closest. A glass oval was in the door. She peered through. She had hung no clothes. The closet was empty. The door to the bathroom was closed.
14
ANDREW F. GULLI
I knew you were bound to turn up,” the voice of a man said.
Her heart skipped a beat—there was no turning back now. She stood for a moment between the bathroom and the closet.
“Come in, Haile,” the man’s voice went on.
She stepped inside and saw a man seated at the desk. It took her a while to recognize him—Jon Nunn, the detective who’d questioned her years ago about Christopher’s disappearance.
She was actually relieved. Nunn had gone off his rocker; he wasn’t a danger to anyone but himself. “What’re you doing in my room? I’m calling the police.”
Nunn laughed. “Yeah, you do that, sweetheart, and while you’re at it, you might want to tell them about that stolen Rolex in your handbag.”
How would he know? Her mind was working furiously.
“What do you want?” She tried to keep her voice calm.
“Sit down, make yourself comfortable.” He gestured to the bed.
She sat down and said nothing. She looked at his face and noticed how he’d aged since she’d seen him last. His eyes looked tired and puffy, and the lines between his eyebrows had grown deeper.
“I’ve been tracking you for a while,” Nunn said. “Larceny, confidence games, all that good stuff you’ve been up to.”
“What do you want with me?” Haile could hear her voice shaking.
“I still have some questions about your dead lover, Christopher Thomas.”
“Are you crazy, it’s been twelve years, that’s over and done with. He’s dead; she’s dead. You can’t resurrect ghosts, Nunn.” Her mouth was dry with fear.
“It’s not ghosts I’m trying to resurrect. Anyhow, if I were in your position, I’d humor any cop—even a discredited ex-cop—who had questions for me.”
She gestured with her hands for him to continue.
“Listen,” Nunn said. “Thomas was a womanizer, but he didn’t pick just any women. They were always of a certain type—classy, well-educated girls who he could be sure would never blackmail him. Pardon the barb, but you never fit that mold. So why would he get involved with a crooked little tramp like you?”
“Was that a statement or a question?” she asked, opening a bottle of water that had now gone warm in her bag.
“Drugs?”
She didn’t say a word.
“I know enough about you so that if you don’t cooperate with me, I’ll make sure you see prison, and by the time you get out, that pretty face of yours will look like a beaten-up old tire. I may be discredited, but I still have a few friends at the SFPD.”
She tried to calm herself down. He couldn’t do anything to her. He was a washout. The case was closed.
“You know, they probably have closed-circuit cameras at the Ritz…”
“What do want to know?”
15
J. A. JANCE
When Nunn left, Haile was standing in the middle of her room and looked up questioningly at her image reflected in a cheap mirror. She didn’t like what she saw. She had walked away from that long-ago life. She had done everything she could to put it behind her, but here was Nunn reopening all of it, using any compromising information he’d been able to glean about her to get her to cooperate with him. She still wasn’t sure how much he had managed to uncover about her life.
Had he been following her, watching what she did at the Ritz?
He must have. Anyhow, she couldn’t be in this room anymore. She knew that he might be waiting for her outside, but she had to get out again.
Shielding herself from view, shoulders up, head down, she hurried along the path until she reached her car.
Once she was settled in the front seat, she started the
engine and punched her foot down on the accelerator.
Hang on, she advised herself. She needed to concentrate on her driving as she raced through the neighborhood as if it were a Formula 1 course. She exited the immediate neighborhood with a series of maneuvers designed to smoke out and lose any tails. She couldn’t afford to be followed.
At the moment, she was giving an excellent imitation of someone who hadn’t a care in the world. She rolled down her window and let the damp, ocean-scented air wash through her long red hair, leaned back in her seat, and relaxed—or pretended to.
She thought, Rosemary Thomas was executed for murdering her husband ten years ago. And now all these years later that detective is trying to use me to uncover facts about Chris’s past, while Tony Olsen has invited me to this memorial even though I was never Rosemary’s friend and I was screwing her husband.
Why?
Haile stared at the road.
Who wins by opening all these old wounds?
She thought again about Chris. She was over him and had no reason to kill him. But of course, she had lied about that to the cops—and to herself—that she was over him, could so easily quit him.
She sighed.
It wasn’t as if she were still in love with Christopher Thomas after all these years, but she still wasn’t over what he had done to her. The man had taken something from her, and that loss had yet to be recouped.
But why celebrate Rosemary’s death? What’s the point of that?
She thought again about Nunn. Last she heard he was drinking himself to death and his wife had walked out on him and had married the Thomases’ financial guru.
Why couldn’t Nunn let it all die along with the Thomases? What if he didn’t keep his word and she did go to jail?
She pulled into a Burger King and stopped at the drive-in microphone. She was suddenly starving and needed time to think. She needed to go over everything she could remember about the people who were in any way involved in Chris Thomas’s death.
She ordered a number one without cheese and a Diet Coke. Ordering at Burger King made her feel even more as if she had fallen on hard times.
Chris Thomas’s murder and Rosemary’s subsequent execution had been a blight on the lives of any number of up-and-coming folks who were no longer so young or up-and-coming—including her. Especially her.
She parked on a side street and ate the burger, thinking about Christopher Thomas and the woman who she knew had come after her—Justine Olegard, his associate curator at the museum.
At least that bitch got a permanent job out of the deal, she thought bitterly.
What did I get?
Diary of Jon Nunn
ANDREW F. GULLI
Two days before the memorial, and I don’t have much to go on, but I feel close to finding out the truth. Don’t give a damn how I find it, all I know is that it won’t be in a court room, the press won’t be descending like vultures, and there won’t be an ambitious DA, talking about how the state has to protect itself from the likes of Rosemary Thomas.
Years ago when the pain used to become too much, I’d go down to the subway and stand on the edge of the platform, wondering if I had the courage to take that final step as the train approached. It’s the same reason I still go to bars. There’s one about a block from where I live. Drab place, dark, mostly empty, smells weird. A big, tattooed black guy is always at the bar shining glasses—never says anything. I order a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks, and take a whiff of that comfort brew and dare myself to take a drink. Before Tony rescued me, whenever I’d feel that emptiness that used to threaten to rip my soul apart, alcohol always helped numb me up.
Now, set against the shiny bar, moisture around the glass, the ice cubes glistening, it still looks good to me, but I won’t touch it. I just stare at the drink, knowing that draining that six-ounce glass will take me back down a hole from which I’ll never climb out.
Tonight I stared for a long time into the glass and saw a faint reflection of myself staring back. Usually the rest of the dancing ghosts join the show—all of them, Sarah, Rosemary, Tony, Chris Thomas—like actors taking their place on a stage.
Who would haunt me tonight?
You know whom I saw tonight? My dad. Saw him when he was my age, tired and on the roller coaster of addiction.
I got up, put my jacket on, and went out into the night.
When I got to my place, I walked past a bum and into the hallway that led to my tiny apartment. I never open windows, and as soon as I open the door, the stuffiness of times gone by is always there to greet me. I took off my shoes and lay on the sofa. The phone rang, I picked up.
“Jon Nunn?” I heard a tired voice say on the other end.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Hank Zacharius.”
I respected Zacharius, but I didn’t know him well. “I left the SFPD years ago, so if this late-night call is about a story, I can’t help you.”
“That’s not what it’s about. Look, I need to talk to you. I need help, and I think I can help you.”
“Are you drunk? Your voice sounds funny.”
“My mouth’s busted up, that’s why.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you.” He gave me his address.
I had nothing to lose. Better this than another endless night remembering the execution, the day Sarah walked out on me, every mistake, every regret. I took a cab to Zacharius’s place, a ramshackle, rent-controlled apartment that smelled like curry.
Zacharius wasn’t at the door waiting for me, but the door was unlocked and I went in. He sat hunched over on a wingback chair, his face cut, eyes swollen.
“What happened to you?” Looking closely, I realized his nose was broken and had been packed. “Who did this?”
Zacharius took a gulp of his drink. “I don’t know. He was wearing a mask.”
“Was it a mugging?”
“I wouldn’t call you if I’d been mugged, Nunn, I’d go directly to the police.” He was breathing from his mouth and kept reaching for his drink.
“Okay, Hank, why did you call me?” I sat down on the sofa. Above the gas fireplace that looked as if it hadn’t been used in years hung a large print portraying Che Guevara, and under that, a small Greek Orthodox cross. Zacharius took a moment to collect his thoughts.
“I got an invite to that memorial,” he said at last.
“And?”
“You know she was innocent.”
What else would Zacharius want to talk to me about? “I’m pretty sure she was—now.”
“Now? Now that it can’t help her? Why didn’t you cooperate with me?”
“The evidence pointed to her. That’s what I was called to testify about. That’s what I did. And then everything went in one direction after that. I tried to stop it but I couldn’t. I’m still paying for my mistake, Zacharius.”
He didn’t say anything.
“So what happened to you?” I asked.
“I’ve been asking questions again, about the case.” He tried to smile. “I found this guy used to work security at the McFall at about the same time Chris Thomas disappeared. He used to be a cop at one time—Artie Ruby.”
I’d heard of Ruby. He’d been kicked off the force for misconduct, but I hadn’t known he’d worked at the McFall. So much for my investigative skills. “So the McFall Art Museum hired an ex–crooked cop to provide security. Didn’t they do background checks back then?”
Zacharius shook his head. “Amazing, huh?”
“So who did this to you?”
“I don’t know. Ruby wasn’t happy with the questions I asked him, and about an hour later I was walking home and some guy wearing a mask beat the crap out of me.”
“You think this Ruby had something to do with it?”
“I don’t know.” Zacharius leaned back in his chair. “You know Chris had all sorts of connections. The rumors were true, I’m pretty sure of it. Problem was, Chris never understood you don’t fuck with th
ose guys. They have a way of dealing with deadbeats.”
“And Ruby’s connection to all this…?”
“That’s for you to uncover, Detective.”
My first instinct was to track down Artie, break an arm and a few ribs. I hate bullies, and I hate rogue cops. But there was more than one way to skin a cat.
I left a note in her hotel room and then drove to a Dunkin’ Donuts and waited. She showed up an hour later. Haile hadn’t changed too much in the last ten years, but her eyes were even more cynical than they were in her youth. She slid into the booth across from me.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Typical call gal,” I said with a smile. “Sorry about that note, but I thought it’d be better than sneaking up on you in your hotel room again. So how are you?”
“Tired of being blackmailed by a disgraced ex-cop whom the world has abandoned,” she said with a sigh. “Excuse me, but I have to get a doughnut. Those sour creams are incredible. Want one?”
I admired her pluck. She came back a couple of minutes later with a cup of coffee and a doughnut.
“I’ve done my homework, Haile, and if you were going to spend a couple of years in jail for what you did the other day, I’ve managed to find some more stuff that will keep you in for a long time—the mail-fraud scheme in New Mexico; the old, wealthy trucker in Montana who died of a heart attack just a month after you married him; then we have your dealings with Chris Thomas, fencing off stolen artwork. I can go on and on.”
She continued munching on the doughnut, then smiled and said, “You’re going to have a hard time proving it though.”
“Maybe I can’t prove it, but I can make life very complicated for you.” She didn’t say anything, so I went on, “I need some info, Haile, and you’re the only person I know who can get it for me. Unfortunately it’ll probably involve screwing an older, greasy guy called—”
“You don’t have to blackmail me to screw a smelly old shit.” She paused. “I will of course charge my standard rate.”
I dropped an envelope on the table that had $400 in it and said, “I come prepared.”
No Rest for the Dead Page 14
