“You have an option on the property, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s due to expire next month.”
“How much more d’you need?”
“A thousand bucks.” She smiled crookedly. “Doesn’t sound like a lot, but without my job, it might as well be a million. And then I can’t just let the house sit there; I’ve got to get the cash together for the renovations.”
“How about a bank loan?”
She shook her head. “No bank’s going to hand money to somebody with no job or prospects.”
“True. You’ve still got your job with us, though.”
“Shar, house-sitting for you—even when the cats were alive—isn’t very lucrative. And don’t you dare offer me a raise. I’m overpaid as it is.”
Proud, tough young woman. She had what it took to succeed, if only life would cut her a break. I wished I had a magical solution.
Now, as I stood in front of the pier, a temporary one occurred to me.
I called her on her cell. She answered listlessly.
“No prospects on the job market yet?” I asked.
“You kidding?”
“Chelle, are you eighteen?”
“Last week, Tuesday. Why?”
“Sorry I forgot your birthday.”
“No big deal.”
“So this means your driver’s license isn’t provisional anymore.” Meaning she could drive without a licensed adult in the car and, better yet, be paid to do so.
“Yep. Not that it matters; I don’t get much use of the family car. Besides, it’s a standard transmission, and I learned on an automatic.”
“Well, my car is a stick, but I know of an automatic I can borrow, and I have an idea that will benefit both of us.”
MICK SAVAGE
He was worried about Adah. She was like a sister—strange, because he had four of his own, and who needed one more? But he was upset: his morning’s searches had all come up negative. None of the towing companies had the white Prius; there were no rental records for Piper’s building; he’d found little more information on the dead husband, Ryan Middleton, and none at all on Melinda Knowles.
Mick didn’t know what to do now, so he went down the Embarcadero to Miranda’s, a favorite waterfront diner that had fallen on hard times but still claimed his loyalty, and wolfed down a giant cheeseburger and fries and two beers. As he paid the check, he belatedly remembered his dinner date with Alison Lawton that night. God, he hoped she didn’t intend on eating early!
He was also worried about Shar. She’d looked so down when the staff meeting broke up. And she hadn’t been in the office all morning. He called there, and Ted said she still hadn’t come in; he called her cell and got voice mail; same at her house. But he knew his aunt: she was either out and about, working hard on the investigation, or—as had too often been the case recently—licking her wounds in private. Since she couldn’t yet drive, that private place was most likely home.
He’d ride over there and check on her.
* * *
No one answered his ring at the house on Church Street. He pounded on the door, peered through the front windows, went around the back and looked through the glass doors off the deck. Nothing. Finally he checked out the garage.
Shar’s vintage red MG wasn’t there.
Why? She wouldn’t have gone out and driven someplace—or would she?
Under normal circumstances, no. She knew that breaking the prohibition on driving till July could result in permanent loss of her license. But the Shar that he’d dealt with recently was not the one he’d known all his life. She’d always been a risk taker, but she calculated the odds. Lately… well, some of her actions didn’t make much sense.
This thing about not asking for rides and taking buses everywhere—it was like that old David Janssen TV series Harry O, where the detective’s car was usually in the shop and he rode around San Diego on public transit—some neat trick, since the MTS was inefficient and expensive. Or Janssen’s other TV show, The Fugitive, his Richard Kimble had had better luck than his Harry O—there was always a bus coming along when he needed one, even on dark country lanes.
Well, like Harry O, Shar must’ve gotten tired of the whole stand-and-wait routine and decided to drive.
But to where? And for what purpose?
Suddenly Mick was afraid for her.
He decided to drop in at his dad’s house in Sea Cliff, ask him and Rae if they’d seen her.
“No,” Rae said. “Not this week. You?” she asked Ricky.
They were sitting on the overstuffed couch in front of the pit fireplace in the living room, their backs turned to the fog that was suddenly blowing past their house and through the Golden Gate to the north.
Ricky shook his head. “Shar doesn’t stop by as often as she used to. Of course, given her mania for using the Muni, it’s no wonder. She’d have to take the Geary bus, then walk for blocks.”
Mick took a sip from the glass of wine they’d given him. Rae looked good, her red curls falling to her shoulders. A little tired, maybe; she’d said she was working practically nonstop on her novel.
Her novel. She’d always wanted to write what she called “shop and fuck” books, but while she’d been trying to do that, she’d written a beautiful novel with crime elements called Blue Lonesome. Drawing on her investigative background, she’d gone on to write two more equally well received novels, and was on deadline for her fourth.
His dad, a country-and-western superstar, had given up performing except for charity appearances and was now content to issue the occasional album and manage his recording company. He was, Mick thought, as handsome as ever, especially now that he’d stopped trying to cover up the gray in his chestnut hair. Mick, who looked a lot like Ricky except that his hair was blond, hoped he’d age as well.
He hadn’t told them about Adah being missing. Confidential agency business. Anyway, he didn’t want to talk to anybody about it, didn’t even want to think about what might’ve happened to her. She’d be okay—he had to believe that, and it was enough for now.
“This mania for the Muni,” he said. “What do you guys think of it?”
Rae shrugged. “An attempt at regaining her independence. All that time in a locked-in state, and then more in therapy. It must feel good to fend for herself, even if it’s inconvenient.”
“D’you think she’d do something stupid—like drive before her license is reinstated?” He explained about Shar and the MG being absent from her house.
“No,” they both said in unison.
“Maybe the MG’s being serviced,” Rae said. “Or in storage.”
“Or she’s gotten rid of it and is planning on buying a new car,” his dad added. “That vehicle is a dinosaur. And much too recognizable for someone in her line of work.”
Mick shook his head. “She loves it, though, and she’s kept it up beautifully. She’s had big-buck offers for it, but she’s turned them all down. I think she would’ve mentioned selling it.”
“Well, I hope she did. I wouldn’t want Red driving around in something that unreliable.”
Rae—Red, to Ricky—elbowed him. “For me, he buys a new car nearly every year. But him, he still drives around in that old Porsche with the COBWEBS license plate.”
Mick smiled. “Cobwebs in the Attic of My Mind” had been his dad’s first big hit. He’d bought the navy blue Porsche with some of the proceeds, and Mick had insisted Ricky get personalized plates in honor of the song.
His cell rang. Alison Lawton. “We still on for tonight?” she asked.
“Sure. What time and where?”
“You know the Millennium Tower, Beale and Mission?”
“Yes.” Of course he did: a sixty-story, blue-glass condo development near the Transbay Terminal. Its amenities included a five-star restaurant, state-of-the-art fitness center, and round-the-clock services.
“I’m on the twenty-fifth floor. The concierge will point the way.”
They agreed on the time�
�seven—and Mick hung up, feeling a little stunned. “She’s rich,” he said.
“What?” his dad asked.
“This woman I met last night. She lives in the Millennium Tower.”
Amusement sparked in his dad’s and Rae’s eyes. Mick had been born poor but raised rich and was about to become a millionaire in his own right.
“Okay,” he said. “I know what you’re thinking. But she didn’t seem rich—just nice and funny and interesting. That’s not a combination I run across every time I’m buying socks.”
Rae poured him some more wine and leaned forward. “So tell us about her—and the socks.”
TED SMALLEY
He wedged Shar’s old MG into the last empty parking space on Telegraph Hill’s Plum Alley. It didn’t fit as easily as his Smart car, but it wasn’t bad. No wonder she’d kept it all these years of living in the city, where space to tuck your vehicle was at a premium.
His building was an Art Deco classic that had been used as a location in the Bogart-Bacall film Dark Passage. Ted loved living in a place built in what he considered his favorite twentieth-century era. Maybe he should tap into the styles of that time for his next fashion statement—smoking jackets, hats, suits nipped in at the waist. No, his waist was testimony to Neal’s great cooking; it would never be nipped in again. Silk was the answer, and he’d already ordered two shirts from Op Cit, the place where Derek bought his.
The elevator in its glass-block enclosure took a long time coming down to the courtyard. While well maintained, it was old and required patience. “That’s my girl,” he said as he pushed the Up button. The grate closed promptly and smoothly, as if the elevator appreciated his affection.
His apartment—two stories with sweeping vistas—echoed with silence. Neal had left this morning for the Pacific Northwest to buy a small collection for his online book business. Thank God there was enough lasagna left over for dinner. Ted hated to cook for one. He went up the spiral staircase to the second floor and took the bridge over the living room to the master bedroom. Changed to sweats, went back down, and opened a bottle of chardonnay—Deer Hill, Shar’s favorite.
Then he sat down on the sofa. And fretted.
He was beginning to regret loaning the Smart car to his boss. She’d claimed she needed it because it was less conspicuous than the MG, but he knew that that wasn’t true. For one thing, like the MG, the car was red. And while there were now plenty of Smart cars in the Bay Area, they still drew attention for their small size and maneuverability.
It wasn’t until they’d exchanged keys and she left that he remembered she shouldn’t be driving at all.
He sipped wine, considered the day. Adah missing, and still no word on that except the prospects for her survival looked grim. When people disappeared, hope diminished after the first twenty-four hours, and she’d been gone almost that long before anybody realized.
Years ago when Ted had met Adah at a dinner at Shar’s house, they’d connected right away. And within months they’d bonded for life. Like her, he’d experienced prejudice. Like her, he’d known deprivation of the rights that were automatically granted to others. But unlike her, he hadn’t been picked out of the mob of minorities, elevated and lionized by the SFPD for what she was, not who she was. For years she’d joked about being their “poster girl,” but she was a damn good investigator and he knew how deeply the jibes from her fellow officers had cut.
Adah. Jesus, they couldn’t lose her.
So here he was, exalted Grand Poobah of McCone Investigations, but in reality a mere office manager who’d often fancied himself an armchair detective—even though most of their cases baffled the hell out of him. In recent years he’d given up the pipe dream, but there was no better reason than Adah’s disappearance to try again. He thought of Patrick’s flow charts: logical placement of the facts of an investigation into a timeline. Maybe if he made a list…
He fetched his laptop and began.
#1 Adah taken by a security firm hired by the same government agency that removed Piper Quinn for “reasons of national security.”
Which agency?
Which security firm?
#2 Why national security?
Something to do with her dead husband?
Something she’d seen around her building that she wasn’t supposed to see?
What about that bullet hole Craig found in the second-floor apartment?
#3 Who was the woman in the apartment when Shar visited—the one who claimed to be Piper’s aunt? Searches showed she didn’t exist, but she had to, somewhere in some guise.
#4 Piper a drug user? McCone says unlikely, but how much does she really know about her?
#5 That security contractor. Need to ask Ripinsky if his contact has provided more info.
#6 Snatched by a stranger, a predator.
Why would a strong woman like Adah fall prey? More streetwise than that, unless taken completely off guard.
Why would a predator lurk around that particular building?
Why Adah, and not someone else?
#7 Off pursuing a lead.
Too considerate not to check in.
Unless a very compelling lead. No, would at least have called Craig.
#8 Voluntary disappearance.
Trouble in the relationship? Who knows?
Trouble on the job? She wasn’t getting the action she used to on the SFPD homicide detail, but she didn’t seem to mind. Born administrator.
#9 Dead or alive?
Don’t want to go there.
#10 Alien abduction.
Contact Fox Mulder, FBI X-Files, Washington, DC.
Comic relief, after the previous question, but it didn’t work. He deleted the point; he’d present the others to Shar tomorrow.
Odd, though: where had Shar gone after she left the pier this afternoon? She hadn’t been forthcoming about why she needed something less conspicuous than the MG. Was she working on something she hadn’t disclosed to the others?
Well, the agency files—except for very sensitive ones—were all open to him.
The armchair detective’s fingers moved nimbly across his keyboard.
CRAIG MORLAND
The woman from the coffee shop on Judah, Roxanne Cramer, couldn’t meet him with her sketch of the man who’d been inquiring about Piper until eight o’clock so, except for a trip home to feed the cats and grab a bite to eat, he spent the interim hours canvassing the buildings on the street behind Piper’s, as well as those where there had been no response earlier. People were definitely more welcoming at the end of the day, and he came away with bits and pieces of information.
A woman across the street had seen a man “casing” the building on Sunday. She couldn’t describe him accurately, except he was thin and bearded, wearing all black. Probably “one of those foreigners.” What foreigners? Craig had asked. “Well, one of those that go around blowing things up—you know.”
A man in the building directly behind Piper’s had thought he saw a light moving inside her apartment on Sunday night. No, not after midnight, around ten o’clock.
So maybe somebody had been there before Craig.
The woman next door to the man had been awakened after midnight by the sound of running footsteps on the dirt path between the lots. She hadn’t looked outside because “these days, the less you know, the better.”
A dark, rundown house down the block appeared to be occupied by squatters. Craig avoided it: crackheads and derelicts made poor witnesses.
Another neighbor on Tenth Avenue described a muscular woman in a jogging outfit coming and going for the past week or so; she wasn’t at all friendly and probably new to the neighborhood. No, the woman hadn’t been around since the previous Friday.
A teenaged boy across the street had known Piper to say hello to, and he’d seen lights in the second-story apartment a few times.
Several people said they’d heard what could have been gunshots late Monday night, but they couldn’t be sure. When Craig pressed them
, they all admitted they couldn’t tell the difference between a gunshot and a car backfiring.
The neighbors to the right of Piper’s building had just gotten back from a two-week vacation in Mexico; they knew nothing of what had been going on. The house to the left was occupied by a young woman who said she was only house tending for a friend and feeding the cats twice a day. She’d noticed nothing.
There were the usual suggestions of satanic rituals and alien abductions, and a self-proclaimed psychic offered to tell him for a hundred dollars about the bad vibes she’d felt in the neighborhood.
By quarter to eight, he was seated at the bar in the Little Shamrock, a venerable pub on Lincoln Avenue across from Golden Gate Park. Drinkers gathered at the bar shoulder to shoulder, or lounged on the comfortable old furnishings. A noisy darts game was going on at the rear.
A pint of Guinness cleared his head of the jumbled voices of the people he’d talked with all day, but did nothing to ease his anxiety—or had it now reached the level of despair?—over Adah. While canvassing he’d relied on strict professionalism, going through the motions as calmly as if he were on a routine case. Now he could feel himself crumbling around the edges, and if Roxanne Cramer didn’t show up with the promised sketch, he might lose it altogether.
And then she was there, touching him on the shoulder and motioning to the bartender. Carrying both their pints, he followed her to a sofa near the front windows where, surprisingly, it was relatively quiet. When he sat, he smelled dust from the ancient velvet upholstery.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t meet with you earlier,” she said. “I started your sketch this afternoon, but I had a few interruptions and I wanted to get it right.”
From her tote bag she took a sketch pad and flipped it open. “This is an honest-to-God likeness. I’d testify to it in court.” She tore it off, handed it to Craig.
He studied the sketch in the dim light of the overhanging fake Tiffany lamp. It was good, detailed down to the way the hairs curled in the man’s beard. The crescent-shaped scar on his cheek was small, but gave his entire face an evil cast.
Coming Back Page 8
