Let Us Prey

by Blake Banner

  “Okay, this is his itemized bill for the week he was here.”

  “It’ll be on the day before last.”

  She scrolled to June 4 and ran her finger down the list till she came to the end. “Nothing.”

  “Damn! Try earlier days, then.”

  There was a knock at the door. I opened it and a waiter wheeled in a trolley with the coffee. I tipped him and he went away. I poured out two cups and gave one to Dehan. She sipped.

  She had gone back to the beginning, to the twenty-fourth, and we started going through the list, item by item. We finally found it on the fifth day. A Bentley for the evening of May 29, at six p.m.

  She stared at me. “May 29? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  I scratched my chin. “He hired her for the week from the twenty-eighth. This is her second day. So he didn’t hire her for the week to rehearse her part, but… why? What for?”

  “To do repeat performances?”

  “Does it say where the car went?”

  She shook her head. “But it does give the name of the company—Class Limos—and a reference number.”

  I made a note and drained my cup.

  “We need to go and talk to them, see if they have a record of where they went. Who knows, we might get lucky and the driver might remember Tammy.”

  She gave a grim smile. “Well, she sure seems to have been memorable. You never know.”

  She closed the file and did a Google search for Class Limos.

  “This looks like it—Mitten Road, right by the airport.”

  Class Limos was on an industrial estate south of the airport. We came off the freeway onto the Bayshore Highway and then turned in to Mitten Road. The office was located on a large parking lot. The two Bentleys, two Rolls Royces, three stretched Caddies, and four Jaguars made it hard to miss. We pulled in and strolled into the office.

  There was a middle-aged man with a blue blazer and well-practiced smile sitting behind the desk. Dehan moved right in.

  “I would like to talk to the manager.”

  “Then you are in luck, young lady. I am the manager.”

  She beamed and sat, and I pulled up a chair to watch.

  “Oh, that is wonderful,” she said. “We are planning a rather special night out, and my friend recommended you. In fact, she recommended one of your drivers, but I can’t for the life of me remember his name.”

  He looked concerned, as though he really was genuinely concerned. “Can you remember what car he drove?”

  “Why, yes! It was a Bentley!”

  He beamed. “That narrows it down considerably.”

  Dehan looked relieved. “Look, I wonder if I could be a real p… an awful bore. My friend said your driver was absolutely perfect. It was two years ago, but he took her to a rather exclusive party. I have the reference number…”

  “Oh, well, that will do just fine!” He gave a small laugh of relief. The day was saved. She told him the reference number, and he typed it into the computer.

  “Oh yes, that was Robert, a very reliable driver with a beautiful car. Guaranteed to turn heads!” He winked. I wondered if he was talking about the Bentley or Robert. “In fact, he is here right now. That’s him polishing his car, out there.”

  “May we just have a word with him? And then we’ll go right ahead and book the car.”

  He smiled happily at us, and we stepped outside.

  We crossed the lot, and as we approached Robert, he turned to look at us. I pointed at the beast.

  “Nice car.”

  He smiled and nodded. “But I bought it instead of a house. When the car pays for itself, I get to buy the house.”

  “You Robert?”

  “Yeah. What can I do for you?”

  I pulled out one of the pictures of Tammy that her agent had given us. I said, “It was a couple of years ago, but do you happen to remember this girl?”

  He looked surprised.

  “Sure, that’s Tammy. What’s this about?”

  “You knew her?”

  “Yeah. She used to do the occasional gig. Lots of actors do it to keep the wolves from the door. Whenever she could, she used me as her chauffeur. I wouldn’t say we were friends; we didn’t hang out or anything like that.” He gave an ironic laugh. “I should be so lucky! She was smoking. I tell you, the pictures don’t do her justice. Man, she was something.”

  Dehan brought him back on task. “But you were friendly.”

  “Yeah. We talked. She liked to open up to me. She was cool. Real nice personality.”

  “So do you remember the last gig you took her to?”

  He leaned against the car. “How could I forget? Not just because I never heard from her again, but what she told me in the car, and where I took her.”

  I smiled. “Okay, let’s take it one step at a time. Where did you take her?”

  He gave a lopsided grin. “No, you’re right. Let’s take it one step at a time. Who are you guys?”

  I reached in my pocket and pulled out my wallet. “We are police officers from New York. We’re outside our jurisdiction, but we are trying to find out what happened to Tammy. She disappeared a few days after that gig, in New York.” I pulled out a twenty and handed it to him. “We would really appreciate any help you can give us.”

  “Sure, no problem.” He took the money and slipped it in his pocket. “The gig was at Hugh Duffy’s house. You know? Pacific Heights, right on the Alta Plaza park there. It’s not a house. It’s a palace.” He noticed our blank expressions. “Hugh Duffy is like one of the richest men in the world. He’s not a millionaire, he’s a billionaire. Old money too. They made their stash in the gold rush. Then they invested smart, oil in Texas, silicon chips in the IT revolution…” He was nodding in a knowing way, with narrowed eyes and a sneaky smile. “Rich people interest me. They are my stock in trade…”

  Dehan interrupted him. “So she was doing this gig for Hugh Duffy?”

  He shook his head. “Not exactly. What she told me in the car—she used to ride up front with me, then when we were getting close to the destination, she’d climb in the back, so when we arrived I could do the whole chauffeur thing, getting out, opening the door for her. She was a scream.”

  I held up a hand. “What did she tell you in the car?”

  “Yeah, what she told me in the car was, this guy, she thought he was Spanish or Portuguese, something like that, was paying her a packet to go to a party at Hugh Duffy’s place. She said it was going to set her up for life. She was to play the part like her date had been delayed and she was waiting for him to arrive, but he never does. Meanwhile, she gets close to Duffy. Because Duffy is a widower, see? He is listed as the most eligible bachelor in San Francisco. Has been for a few years. But he never married again.”

  Dehan was shaking her head. “So this Spanish/Portuguese guy, he never went to the party?”

  “That’s what she said. She was supposed to make out like she was his plus one, but he was detained or something, and he never showed. So she could get close to Duffy.”

  “So it was a scam.”

  He looked at her with a sly grin. “Sure sounded that way to me.” He held up his hands, like Pontius Pilot waiting for a hand towel. “But I’m just the driver, know what I mean?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean. And you never heard from her again after that?”

  “Not a word.” He smiled fondly. “I look for her sometimes in the society papers, you know? To see if maybe she married some rich guy. I never saw her though.”

  I scratched my chin. “I can see why she would want to do that. But what was in it for this Portuguese guy?”

  He shrugged. “She never told me that.”

  We thanked him and walked back to the car. Dehan was already on her phone looking for Hugh Duffy’s number.

  NINE

  The phone was answered by a man who sounded like he’d got his dignity stuck up his ass and couldn’t bend at the waist to pull it out again.

  “The Duffy resi
dence.”

  “This is Detective John Stone of the New York Police Department. I need to speak to Mr. Duffy—urgently.”

  He informed me with his prolonged silence that urgent needs were unseemly, then said, “One moment, please.”

  It was more than one moment, and more than two, but he eventually returned and said, “Mr. Duffy will be free from twelve noon until half past twelve, if you would care to visit at that time.”

  I told him we would care to do that and hung up.

  Robert the chauffeur had not exaggerated. Duffy’s house was a palace. It looked like a medium-sized hotel. It wasn’t particularly elegant or beautiful, but it was big, and situated at the very top of Pierce Street, it had views directly onto the park. Its cash value must have been astronomical. We arrived at 11:50 and rang the bell. It was opened at 11:55 by a man for whom disdain was a way of life. He gazed down upon us, even though he was shorter than both of us, and waited.

  We showed him our badges.

  “Detectives Stone and Dehan to see Mr. Duffy.”

  “You are a little early.” He said it as he might have said, ‘You are a little dirty.’ “Please follow me.”

  We followed him across a vast, domed hall with a checkerboard floor and marble columns, down a gallery with portraits of men with ruthless eyes and big moustaches, to a huge set of walnut doors. He tapped on them and opened them with a certain amount of reverence. Then he turned to us and said, “Mr. Duffy will see you.”

  We stepped into a library that would not have looked out of place at a respectable university. The carpet was burgundy, the furniture was all chesterfield, and the wood was all dark mahogany. Apart from a magnificent eighteenth-century fireplace and chimney breast, the walls were all lined with bookcases from floor to ceiling. A couple had glass doors protecting the volumes. There were also a couple of stands that held single books that I assumed were of exceptional value.

  Duffy was standing by the window and turned as we came in. He beamed like we were long-lost friends and strode toward us with his hand held out.

  “Detectives Stone and Dehan! In which order?” He grinned as though he had said something mischievous and glanced from me to Dehan and back again. I smiled.

  “I am Detective John Stone. This is my partner, Detective Carmen Dehan. We are from New York, so we are out of our jurisdiction.”

  “Oh, phooey! We don’t need to stand on formalities here! Come! Sit! What will you drink?” He shepherded us toward the chesterfields. We sat and he remained standing. “Some sherry before luncheon? A martini?”

  I smiled at Dehan. “Well, I guess we are out of our jurisdiction, so this is not official police business… I’ll have a martini, thank you.”

  Dehan blinked at me a few times, then said, “A beer, thank you.”

  The small man with the big dignity was still at the door, waiting. Duffy turned on him with overwhelming enthusiasm and said, “Parks, two martinis, dry, and a Waldhaus for the lady.”

  Parks left with his orders, and Duffy came and joined us as though he thought that was a really exciting thing to do.

  “Now, tell me. I am fascinated. What does the NYPD want with me?”

  I crossed my legs and studied his face for a moment.

  “I know it’s a while back now, Mr. Duffy, but on May 29, 2015, you threw a party…”

  “I’m certain I did. I throw a party on May 29 every year. You see, it’s the anniversary of my fiancée’s death.”

  I was surprised. “Oh, I am sorry to hear that.”

  “May 29, 2010. People wonder why I never married Sally Brown. She is the reason. I loved her to distraction. She was one of those women who, when they enter a room, the room lights up, as though the sun had emerged from behind clouds over a field of daffodils. She was radiant and had a personality to match. Always laughing, always smiling, never an angry word. Kind, compassionate… Need I go on?”

  “No.”

  I was about to continue, but Dehan was frowning and asked, “Forgive me for asking, Mr. Duffy, but you celebrate the anniversary of her death?”

  He laughed. “It may seem a little macabre, but it’s not, I assure you. It is what she would have wanted. It is a celebration of her life, her vitality. She did not believe in death, you see. She said death was an illusion, an impossibility. So I keep her memory alive by celebrating her life on the day that she… passed on.” He smiled. “A small act of defiance.”

  I nodded that I understood. “I wonder if you remember this particular party.”

  “What was the year again?”

  “2015.”

  He thought for a moment, and then his face seemed to light up. “Of course! How could I forget?”

  There was a tap at the door, and Parks came in with a trolley. On it was a bottle of beer, which he carefully decanted into a glass, with just the right amount of froth, and placed on the table beside Dehan’s chair, muttering, “Mod’m.” There was also a shaker with two martini glasses. He shook the shaker and poured out two martinis, in each of which he placed an olive. He handed us our drinks and left, leaving the trolley behind.

  Dehan sipped her beer and raised an eyebrow. The eyebrow said the beer was good.

  “What made that particular party especially memorable, Mr. Duffy?”

  He smiled. “That was where I met the only woman who was ever able to make me love again. The only woman who has ever made me believe I might be able to be happy.”

  I raised my glass to him. “Here’s to that. Who was this remarkable woman?”

  “Tamara Gunthersen. The only woman, after Sally, who was able to touch my heart. My goodness! What a remarkable woman. She had that quality that Sally had, only perhaps more so, of being able to walk into a room and illuminate it simply with her presence. When I first saw her, on that night, it was as though the sun had taken human form and walked into my home.” He gave a small laugh. “Yet it was so innocent. In spite of her enormous, magnetic presence, she was shy and uncertain. When we met, she looked like a lost child, yet with the beauty of a goddess.”

  I sipped my drink and frowned. “How did she come to be alone at your party, Mr. Duffy? A woman as remarkable as that…”

  “Ah!” He raised an index finger with the air of a master chef about to reveal his pièce de résistance. “Serendipity! I had invited a rather extraordinary man who had visited me a few times because we shared an interest in antique books. Anyway, the man was a crashing bore, but one has to be polite. So I invited him to my annual party and suggested he might like to bring a guest.

  “Well, as destiny would have it, the car picked her up, but he was detained. He sent her on with his excuses, saying he would be a little late, but he never showed up!”

  I smiled the smile of a man of the world and observed, “Life will do that sometimes.”

  He was thrilled by my insight and leaned forward eagerly. “Won’t it just, Detective! Well, naturally, as her host, I could hardly leave her stranded. I myself, naturally, in view of the very nature of the party, had no companion. It struck me that she and I were alone at the ball—her words, not mine—and we sort of sought refuge in each other. It was kismet.”

  “This is extremely good beer,” Dehan observed in an apparently irrelevant departure, then added, “What happened?”

  He heaved a huge sigh.

  “It sounds corny, but it was truly love at first sight. We hit it off instantly. We laughed at the same things, we loved and hated the same things. She was intelligent and, believe it or not, at her age, she was erudite. She knew her Shakespeare, her Shaw… She was remarkable. And, for some bizarre reason known only to herself and the gods, she fell for me. We saw each other every single day for a week, and by the end of that week, we were engaged to be married. We both agreed it was the obvious, simple, natural thing to do. We were in love!”

  I watched him a moment, frowning, putting the pieces together in my mind. “But…?”

  For some reason he looked at Dehan. “I am both immensely fortun
ate and deeply unlucky in love, Detective. I am fortunate because I have loved truly, with my whole self, not once, but twice in this life. But on both occasions, the gods have seen fit to take my loved one away.”

  He looked down at his drink with an expression of reluctance that masked a deeper pain.

  “She disappeared. I had suggested to her that she move in with me. She stayed most nights anyway. And she agreed. The last day I saw her, it must have been the fifth of June, she left the house intending to collect her most basic belongings and bring them home. She never came back. She never phoned, never wrote. She just vanished into thin air.”

  I looked at Dehan. She was frowning. She seemed entranced by his story. She said, “Did you try to find her?”

  He gave a small laugh. “Of course! I contacted all the hospitals, the police precincts. I even hired a private investigator, but to no avail. She had vanished without a trace.”

  We were quiet for a moment, each of us momentarily absorbed by our own thoughts. Then a sad smile of reluctant realization twisted his mouth.

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? It’s about Tammy.”

  I nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  He frowned. “New York? Is she dead?”

  I thought about my answer. Eventually, I said, “We have reason to believe she may have been killed, but we haven’t found a body. Mr. Duffy, would you have anything of hers that might contain her DNA? A hairbrush, for example…”

  He nodded. “Yes, I still preserve all her possessions. Would you like to take her hairbrush?”

  Dehan said, “That would be helpful.”

  “That’s fine.” He rang a bell. “Does this mean you have…” His face went gray. “Something that you can make a comparison with?”

  “There was a crime scene, Mr. Duffy, two years ago, on June 14. There was blood, but no body. We have reason to believe the blood belonged to Tamara Gunthersen.”

  Hope contracted on his face like a spasm. “No body?”

  “No.” I looked at my empty glass and sighed. “Mr. Duffy, forgive me for asking this, but you understand we have to. Did anything go missing from your house around the time that Tammy disappeared?”