I stepped back to admire the chair again. “It’s like a piece of sculpture,” I said.
“‘Art at the service of utility’ is Maloof’s trademark. But you might relate better to these chairs.” He steered me to another corner of the workshop, where about a dozen tiny rocking chairs were lined up. All standard sizes for room boxes and dollhouses, all in different wood tones, all beautiful.
My breath caught. I bent over the worktable, my arms folded lest I break something.
Henry picked up a chair that was an exact replica of the life-size Maloof rocker. He handed it to me. “They’re not as delicate as they look.”
I ran my hand across the curved piece on the top back of the chair—as smooth a finish as I’d ever felt, fabric store visits included. “How did you do this?”
I meant the question as rhetorical, but Henry answered. “It’s a technique called ‘bent lamination.’ I cut thin, curved layers of wood using a band saw, and then laminate them back together.”
He showed me a form that he used to bind them. The assembly resembled a wood sandwich, with the forms as the bread and the rocker as the meat.
“Which one do you like best?”
I picked up a dark mahogany-stained half-inch-scale chair. “They’re all amazing, but I love the color of this one.”
He took the chair from my hand and wrapped it in a piece of newspaper. “Take it, please.”
I felt my face flush. “I couldn’t. Maybe I can buy it—”
He shook his head. “I’d be very pleased to see it in one of your dollhouses.”
Taylor, who’d been giving Maddie her own tour of the wonders in the garage, came up to us. “Grandpa’s always giving things away,” she said. “He says then he has an excuse to make more.”
I understood that theory very well, but I’d never given away anything as beautiful as the rocking chair being offered me now.
Henry’s grin was lopsided, in a charming way. “See? It’s nothing really. I hand them out all the time.”
“I don’t get things like this all the time. Thank you very much.”
I turned away. Someday I’d try to figure out why I found it so hard to accept gifts.
My gaze landed on a smaller workbench, filled with scraps and broken furniture. A chair missing its rungs, a table with only three legs, a lamp with a broken shade.
The collection took on the appearance of a trashed room. Or a trashed locker hallway. I remembered Rosie’s plight.
The mood was broken. The life-size world called.
Chapter 6
It seemed wasteful to drive a two-car convoy back to San Francisco, but like most Californians we’d built our lives around having independent transportation. Maddie and I made another stop at home and then took off for the Duns Scotus about four o’clock. We set a time to meet Henry and Taylor in the lobby so we could go into the banquet room together and be seated together.
When we got to our room, I took out the key I’d borrowed—stolen?—from Skip’s desk. I slid the key in the slot and waited for the green light. None. But in my experience with hotel key cards, they often didn’t work the first time. It had to do with the speed with which they were inserted, I thought. I tried again. No green light.
I pulled out the key card I’d received at registration and worked hard to pull off a switch without alerting Maddie. My own key card worked, of course. Skip’s key card must be for David’s room. Or for one of the other five hundred rooms in the hotel, I realized.
“I know we talked about doing something fun,” I told Maddie as we got resettled in our room. “But it’s already kind of late. The banquet is at six and I have a couple of things I have to do. Would you mind waiting until tomorrow for a real San Francisco experience?” Not one in a hotel where a murder victim recently worked.
She put her hands on her narrow hips. “Are you going to investigate?”
Maddie gave every syllable its due, with equal emphasis. “Investigate” and its many inflections had become one of her favorite words, once she understood how exciting it could be to help her Uncle Skip.
“I’m going to . . . uh . . . check things out in case we have our next crafts fair here.”
That was enough to provoke an outburst of giggles. “Here,” she said. “Instead of the Lincoln Point high school multipurpose room, like every year since I was born.” There was incredulity, but no question mark in her tone.
“Once, when you were about three, we had it in the city hall auditorium,” I said.
She blew out a raspberry—something I hadn’t seen from her since that time we had the crafts fair in the city hall.
Maddie let me go peacefully, saying she had a lot of computer work to do.
“Tell me about the project,” I said, though I was eager to go on my mission to the eleventh floor.
“Oh, it’s just gaming stuff. We’re learning how to make GUIs. That’s graphical user interfaces.” She said these words with great ease and familiarity. Was it that long ago that Maddie had a hard time pronouncing “Abraham Lincoln”?
“How interesting.”
“It’s okay, you can go, Grandma. I need to TM a few people in the class, too.”
I’d watched her nimble fingers all month, working the tiny pad on her cell phone, using abbreviations that were as new as the technology that spawned them. Besides the easily decipherable U8? I learned LSHMBH (laughing so hard my belly hurts), ?4U (I have a question for you), 1DR (I wonder), and GGN (gotta go now).
It took me a while to figure out why <3 represented “heart,” or “love,” as in “I <3 U,” until I realized that, looked at from a ninety-degree angle, the sequence was heart-shaped.
“Duh,” as Maddie would say.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” I said since she let me off the hook. “GNG.”
“It’s GGN, Grandma.”
I could hear laughter as I closed the door, pulling it several times to be safe.
I got off on the eleventh floor and approached room eleven forty-three. The room was quite a distance from the elevator bank, down a long hallway, the carpet of which was a swirled pattern in shades of brown (dull, but, as even laypeople knew, the hallmark color of St. Francis). I passed the alcove that held the ice machine and a drink dispenser and another smaller nook with a table and a house phone. On the walls were many renderings of Duns Scotus and of St. Francis of Assisi himself, accompanied as always by birds and small wildlife.
I heard voices from several rooms as I all but tiptoed down the corridor. Otherwise, the hallway was quiet, the only sound that of a motor or generator doing I didn’t know what. The very busy Union Square with its shops and restaurants, just outside the door, might as well have been miles away.
As I rounded a corner I saw yellow-and-black tape, denoting a crime scene or construction (who was I fooling) across what had to be David’s room. I wondered if that meant he’d been murdered here in the hotel, or if the police were simply being thorough and checking where David spent his last night alive.
I closed the distance and stood in front of the door. I was surprised to see that the tape said simply Caution, not Crime Scene. Was it possible that the police hadn’t released the fact that David was murdered? This was the wrong place to be standing to ask Skip, so I deferred calling him until later.
If my possessing the key at all was questionable, entering the room crossed the line, so to speak. On the other hand, there was no officer guarding the room. For all the police knew, every guest who passed the room went inside for a look. I fingered the key card in my pants pocket. Probably not many other guests had the key, however. I took the key card out and oriented it for use. The face of the middle ages looked up at me. Was that disapproval I caught in Duns Scotus’s expression, or just the monk’s meditative state, full of gravitas?
I slipped the card in the slot.
Green light.
My heart skipped. Should I be doing this?
The green light went out.
I’d waited too long.<
br />
Another decision point. I could still turn around, pick up a San Francisco T-shirt for Maddie in the gift shop, and have committed only one transgression. I could always say that the key card must have gotten knocked off Skip’s desk and fallen into my pocket or my purse.
No one had entered or exited any room in the hallway since I arrived. There was no sign of housekeeping or maintenance personnel. I wouldn’t have minded running into a maid to get her scoop on Ben of jumpsuit fame, but I knew it was a long shot at this hour.
On the floor directly across from David’s room was a room service tray with a limp rose and two coffee mugs. A silver dome hid the remnants of what must have been late afternoon noshing.
I heard stirrings from the room service guests, as if they were about to leave. I had no choice now. I couldn’t be caught loitering.
Better to be trespassing. I inserted the key card. I’m not “breaking,” I told myself, just “entering.”
Green light.
I pushed down on the heavy metal handle, ducked under the loosely draped yellow tape, and entered the room.
I realized I hadn’t taken a breath in a while. I let out a long one. It dawned on me that the room might not be empty. Why hadn’t I thought of that a minute ago? What if someone else had the same idea I had? Someone like David’s killer.
I stood still in the dark entrance. The drapes were drawn across the large picture window. I noted again, as last night, that David’s accommodations were significantly more elaborate than ours. I thought of Maddie six floors below, unsuspecting of the risks her grandmother was taking. I couldn’t bear it if my actions were putting Maddie in danger. There could be a killer hiding in the closet of this suite, one who might go after my family after he finished me off.
I rocked back and forth, not moving my feet, turning my head in different directions, listening for signs of life. I sniffed the air for perfume or food smells.
Nothing.
I took a couple of steps, passing between the bathroom on the right and the closet on the left. If anyone were hiding, now would be the time he would jump out.
Nothing.
I wished I were anywhere but in David Bridges’s suite, the possible scene of the crime. I sniffed the air again, this time for the smell of blood.
Nothing.
The entry led to a large sitting area with a round table and chairs, a sectional sofa, and a television set. A doorway next to the television stand opened into a bedroom with two king-size beds. The drapes and comforters were more colorful than those in my room, but still unmistakably hotel décor. The bedroom drapes were open and I wished I had the time, and the right, to reflect on the magnificent view, looking northwest toward the Golden Gate Bridge.
I walked around, careful not to touch anything. There was no sign of life. Or death. The room was stripped bare, even the usual coffeemaker and basket of expensive snacks gone from the dresser.
I’d done something foolish, and indeed for nothing. I needed to get out as inconspicuously as I’d gotten in.
As I headed for the door, I saw a quick flash. A stream of light coming through a small opening in the otherwise closed drapes had hit a bright object. I traced the line of the reflection and found the object in the narrow space between the carpet and the wall in the entryway. I bent down and picked it up: a tiny oval mirror, about a half-inch long, with a thin gold rim.
A layperson might think of the item as a bauble loosened from a piece of jewelry, or a bit of broken glass. A miniaturist would know it was a mirror from a dollhouse dressing table set. A miniaturist in my crafts group would recognize it as a mirror from Rosie’s locker room.
I held the mirror by the gilt edges, between my thumb and index finger. It was impossible to see my reflection in the small area, but I knew my eyes looked weary, my face drawn, sad, and confused.
I dropped the mirror into the same pants pocket that held the key card. Did such a tiny article count as evidence? The police had obviously left it there. If a tree falls in the forest . . .
I almost laughed out loud. But another sound kept me in check.
A rattle! The doorknob was moving. Someone was trying to get in. Someone who also had the right key card?
I held my breath. I didn’t dare walk the two steps to the door and check the peephole. I had no confidence that those things worked only one way.
Tap, tap. Not too loud. A woman’s knock?
No one is here, I wanted to shout.
Another rattle, another knock, and he or she was gone.
I stepped to the door and looked out the peephole. This action unnerved me; I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the nose of a gun pointed at me. Could a bullet penetrate a peephole lens? All was clear, however, except for the room service tray still in place across the hall, outside the door. No other person or thing filled the cone of view.
I wished the room were closer to the elevator so I could hear a ding that would tell me when or if the knocker had left the floor.
I waited until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I opened the door a crack and looked up and down the corridor.
No sign of movement.
I slipped under the tape and walked as fast as I could toward the elevator. I kept my head high, my walk confident, as if I’d just exited a room that was legitimately mine.
In my pants pocket were a life-size key card and a miniature locker room mirror that made my face flush at the thought of them.
I came to the corner. One more lap to the bank of elevators. I felt more than saw another presence. A wave of fear came over me as I passed one door after another, staying as close to the center of the hallway as possible, lest I be easily dragged into a room on one side or the other.
I had only two more rooms to go when a door behind me opened and closed. I stepped up my pace. A tall hulk of a man passed me on the right, then turned, stood, and faced me, stopping me in my tracks. If he hadn’t been so well groomed and dressed to the nines, I might have fainted, instead of just freezing in place.
“Did you find it?” he asked. His sharp dark suit spoke of wealth and power; his heavy whisper carried authority and threat.
My heart pounded; the tiny mirror in my pants pocket seemed to be rendering the fabric transparent so that my accoster could see its outline. “What—?”
“I know you were in Bridges’s room. Did you find it?”
My gaze followed his right arm down to where his hand was hidden in a bulging pocket.
“Excuse me,” I said, moving to the left to pass him.
I knew he’d block my way. I thought this might give me an excuse to scream. He hadn’t touched me, but I felt as though he had me in a choke hold.
“Look, I know you’re from Callahan and Savage,” he said. “Tell them we’re looking for it, too.”
Wonderful. I took a breath. It was simply a case of mistaken identity. I could clear this up in no time.
“I’ve never heard of them. You have me confused with someone else. I’m here with the reunion. The Abraham Lincoln—”
“Listen,” he said, closing the already small gap between us. He gripped my arm.
I opened my mouth to scream.
Ding, ding.
The elevator doors opened and a crowd of teenagers came out. The group was loud and loaded down with packages and shopping bags. I was relieved when they headed in our direction, taking over the hallway with their different-size purchases. I looked at the red logo souvenir bags and translated the slogan to “I <3 SF.” I was delirious.
When the kids started up a chorus of the song I nearly joined them. They sang out, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
The thought of my granddaughter and her <3 symbol gave me a burst of energy. I rushed past the hulking man to the elevators and slipped into the car with its doors still open to accommodate a straggler who had dropped her bundles. Frantic, I edged the teen away from the doorway, slammed in the CLOSE DOORS button, and pushed the button for the third floor. (I hadn’t sat through Jam
es Bond movies with Richard and Ken for nothing—when being pursued, never choose your actual floor on the elevator panel.)
I got off at three, found the stairwell, and ran up two flights. I arrived breathless at the door to my fifth-floor room. I knocked, said, “It’s Grandma,” and searched for my key card, all at the same time.
Maddie opened the door, the ever-present white earbud wires around her neck.
“You’re out of breath, Grandma.” She laughed, as she always did before one of her own jokes. “Was someone chasing you?”
“Very funny, sweetheart. Let’s get ready for dinner.”
Chapter 7
I hoped dressing Maddie and myself for a banquet would take my mind off the near mugging (albeit by a designer-clad attacker) on the eleventh floor. The image of the man’s threatening eyes stayed with me, however, as did the specter of his no-neck strength.
There was one thing I could do that might put the matter to rest.
When Maddie went into the bathroom, I pulled her laptop toward me. I was a Luddite in many ways, but I knew how to Google.
It took me a while to cut through Maddie’s technology camp software and get to a clean, white Google page. I entered “Callahan and Savage” and pushed Google Search.
The first link on the list was for Callahan & Savage wholesale refrigeration equipment. After that, there were links that had Callahan and/or Savage in the description but not together, such as “Mary Callahan wrote a savage attack on the latest novel by . . .” I didn’t bother with those links. I’d learned a lot from Maddie.
I sat back. Refrigeration equipment. Why would a refrigeration company send me on a mission? Did I look like I needed more than one fridge? We’d considered buying an upright freezer for the garage in the days when Richard and his friends could put away several pounds of meat and a few loaves of bread in one sitting. But that was the extent of my involvement with refrigeration, other than keeping the freezer compartment cold enough for ice cream.
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