Dead Midnight (v5) (epub)

by Marcia Muller

  The question was, whom did she intend to share it with? Amaya? Or Dinah Vardon?

  Before I left the boathouse I took out J.D.’s diagram for what seemed like the hundredth time and held it up to the light from my flash. Jody Houston’s name was heavily circled; he’d thought the answers lay with her, and maybe they did.

  I went over my contacts with Houston, considered what kind of person she was. Tried to think as she would.

  And realized where I might find her.

  No one answered my ring at Houston’s flat, but that didn’t surprise me. I let myself into the building with Roger’s keys, rode the elevator to Jody’s floor. Unlike him, she had only one lock on her door, and the key with the purple rubber band that I’d found in his kitchen opened it. The new alarm system panel was on the wall to my right; I overrode it as I had done the one at InSite’s offices.

  Once inside I saw a sliver of light shining from under a closed door at the rear of the flat. Dining area and kitchen, same as Roger’s, except the archway had been turned into a solid wall. I moved toward it, my footsteps muted on the thick carpet. No sound from within, but I felt a tension that tugged at my nerve endings. I opened the door.

  Paige Tallman gasped and shrank backward. “Oh, my God, how’d you get in here?”

  “Take it easy. I’m not here to make trouble for you.”

  She glanced down at my wet jeans and shoes, wrinkled her nose. “What’s happened to you?”

  “That’s not important. Why didn’t you answer when I rang?”

  “I thought that was just a warning ring.”

  “And that I was Jody.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “That’s who you thought I was. She’s been staying here, hasn’t she?”

  “Why d’you think that?”

  “Educated guess. Last time she ran she went someplace familiar. You told her you’d had the alarm installed, and she figured this was the last place the police—or anyone else— would look for her.”

  Tallman went over to a round oak table and sat down, propping her elbows on it and burying her face in her hands. “Well, you guessed right. She’s been hiding here since Sunday night.”

  “You let her? When she’s wanted for murder?”

  “Of course. Jody’s my friend. She said she didn’t kill that reporter, and I believe her.”

  “Who did, then?”

  She looked up, spread her hands. “If she knows, she won’t say. She came home and found him dead on the living room floor and panicked. Hid him in the closet till she could decide what to do. But before she did, you showed up.”

  “So she ran out and left me to deal with the situation.”

  “No, that’s not how it was. You convinced her you really wanted to help her. But when she went upstairs to get something to show to you, she looked out the window and saw the person she thought had killed the reporter.”

  “But she wouldn’t tell you who this person was.”

  “No.”

  “And what was this alleged person doing?”

  “Picking up a suitcase that was lying on the front walk. Then they ran away with it, got into a car that was parked down the street, and drove away.”

  “She describe the car?”

  “Dark-colored economy model. The same kind she’d rented at the airport.”

  Eagle Rock had certainly been infested with rental cars that night. “Then what?”

  “She just ran. Drove down the coast, ditched the car. Hitched here. It took a long time and when she got here she was dead tired. She slept most of Monday, and that night when we talked, she told me what I just told you.”

  “And today?”

  “She hung around here, really nervous. Pacing. Jumping at every little noise. Smoking a lot, even though she knows how I feel about secondhand smoke. I was working at home—I’m in insurance, had a package to put together for a big commercial account—and she really got on my nerves.” Tallman flushed. “I know that sounds awful: her in big trouble, and I’m complaining because she annoyed me.”

  “You can’t help how you feel. It’s a bad situation for you, too.”

  “Yeah, it is. I mean, she’s a fugitive, and not turning her over to the cops is a crime. But how could I do that, when she’s not guilty? Anyway, she did try when I complained about the smoke. Started hanging out the airshaft window to have a cigarette because she was afraid to stand by a window where she could be seen. I offered her some Valium, thinking that would help, but she said no, she had to keep a clear head so she could think.”

  “She give you any indication of what she was thinking?”

  “Well, when I knocked off work, we had a couple of glasses of wine, and she started talking about what she should do. She was afraid to turn herself in to the cops and take her chances. She couldn’t keep running; she didn’t want to live like that and, besides, she didn’t have any money. She couldn’t stay here indefinitely. Finally she said that if the person she saw up there in Oregon was the one who killed the reporter, she was in even more danger than before. It was a no-win situation, so she might as well risk everything.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. She got quiet after that, and a few minutes later she went into the bedroom to make a phone call. When she came out she told me she was going to meet with the person, strike a bargain. I said wasn’t that dangerous, and she said she’d told them she’d left an insurance policy just in case.”

  An insurance policy—the same phrase Roger had used in his last journal entry.

  “She left it here, with you?”

  “No, she said it wasn’t in the flat.”

  “But she hadn’t been out since she arrived on Sunday?”

  “No.”

  “So how were you supposed to do something with this policy, if you didn’t know what it was or where?”

  “I wasn’t supposed to do anything. I think she was going to use it as leverage with the person—give it to them in exchange for money and leaving her alone.”

  A dangerous and foolish course of action. “What time did she leave here?”

  “Around eight.”

  Almost two and a half hours ago. “On foot?”

  “Well, she didn’t call a cab.”

  “And that’s everything?”

  “Yeah. You think something’s happened to her, don’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “If it has, I’ll never forgive—”

  I shook my head, held up a hand to silence her. Outside a siren wailed a counterpoint to the words and phrases that echoed in my mind.

  Insurance policy … Eddie will look out for her … he’ll see she has an insurance policy at her fingertips … important that you show her the stuff I asked you to teach me … he asked if he could use my computer to send an e-mail, his server was down … not in the flat … at her fingertips …

  I asked, “Is Jody’s computer still here?”

  “Yeah, but it’s boxed up in the closet with the other stuff she left behind.”

  That wasn’t it, then. Damn!

  Not in the flat … she started hanging out …

  I looked around, asked Tallman, “Where’s the airshaft window?”

  “What’s that got to do—?”

  “Just show me.”

  “In the kitchen, next to the fridge. You can’t miss it.”

  I hurried over there. The pebbled glass pane was on the building’s side wall, where in Roger’s flat it had been covered by cabinetry. I released its latch and leaned out into a dim space that smelled of stale cooking odors and mold.

  Tallman came up behind me, asked what I was doing, but I ignored her. I felt around till my fingers touched a plastic bag taped to the frame. The tape came loose and I almost dropped the bag. That was all I’d have needed in my present state—to have to climb down the shaft after it like Spiderwoman.

  I moved back from the window and held the bag to the light. Inside was a disc, smaller than a CD.

  When I’d come in
I’d seen that the living room was set up as an office. “Do you have a Zip drive on your computer?” I asked Tallman.

  “Yes.”

  “Download this onto the desktop, would you?”

  She led me to the workstation, booted up, fed the disc into the drive.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You’d better go into the other room while I look at this.”

  “Hey, this is my—”

  “Remember what Jody told you? You’re better off not knowing.”

  She gave a grunt of displeasure, then her footsteps moved toward the dining area.

  The desktop icon for the disc had appeared. I clicked on it. The file came up on the screen, and I began scrolling through the words that Roger had typed on Jody’s machine and then deleted shortly before he killed himself. Not an e-mail because his server was down, as he’d claimed to her; he’d earlier sent his final messages to his brothers on his own machine. When Jody read his journal she’d figured that out and, using the method Eddie had taught them both, retrieved and stored the document on disc.

  I read on, Roger’s words confirming many of the things I’d already suspected.

  And telling me one thing I never would have guessed.

  Almost three hours now since Jody left the flat. She was in extreme danger, if not already dead. Call 911?

  No, no real evidence of where she’d gone, and it would take too long to explain my reasoning.

  Go now, by myself.

  But I needed an insurance policy too. I highlighted the entire document, added a message, and sent it as an e-mail to Adah Joslyn, both at her home and SFPD addresses.

  Once again I crouched behind the abandoned truck on Water Street studying the resort. The mist was thicker now, and moving inland, but I could make out faint light behind the masked first-story windows. Portions of Roger’s last message kept replaying in my mind.

  I never should have gone there, but by then I’d realized Dinah had been using me when she came on to me that afternoon, buying time so she could do something with the material Kat had given her. God, I was a fool to believe her when she said she still loved me. But with me, Dinah always knew what buttons to push.

  I’d gone by the pier for the .357 Magnum that I normally keep in the safe there. Now it was a comforting weight in the outside pocket of my bag. I have a curious love-hate relationship with firearms: love, because I’m a good marks-woman and they’ve saved my life on a number of occasions; hate, because I’ve seen—and three times been responsible for—the dreadful toll they exact on human beings.

  After a few minutes I left the shelter of the truck and retraced the route I’d taken earlier. The boathouse was still padlocked, and I didn’t see any other car.

  She said she was meeting with her contractor at five, but when I saw the cars I realized the appointment was actually with Tessa Remington. I supposed she planned to pass along whatever information Kat had turned up, and I wanted to know what it was, so I went inside. Second mistake.

  There was a plank walk on the bay side of the building. As I started along it, I saw a vehicle pulled close to the railing of the lower deck. The windows of the bar overlooked the walk, but they were also masked; still, I crouched down while passing them. Now I saw that the car was a red Pontiac Firebird, a sporty but relatively inexpensive model. The plates on it were the ones that earlier had been on the BMW. I tried its doors, but they were locked.

  The railing of the stairway to the upper deck seemed more wobbly than it had before. I moved slowly, testing each board with the toe of my shoe before I put any weight on it. I wasn’t sure what I’d do once I got up there. I’d take care of that when the time came.

  She called after eight and said she’d taken care of everything. I was to tell no one what happened, particularly you, Jody. She said that if I did, we’d both suffer the consequences. I didn’t have to ask what she meant by that.

  Once upstairs, I moved through the mist to the door. No lights inside the bar or the kitchen beyond. The padlock on the door, like the one on the boathouse, was a good one, would take a long time to pick. Time I didn’t have.

  A window similar to the ones downstairs flanked the door on either side. I spotted some loose shingles beside the left one, pried them off. Only tar paper behind them, old and brittle; I pulled it free. Most of the insulation between the stud and the window was gone; I removed what was left and went to work on the Sheetrock with my Swiss Army knife. In minutes I’d cut loose a big enough piece to stick my arm through and release the window’s latch. The rusted aluminum frame grated in protest as I eased it open.

  I waited to see if the noise had alerted anyone. Apparently not. After a minute I climbed up and through to the room beyond. As I recalled, a stairway led down from here to the lower level. I felt my way along the bar to the fire-door.

  Locked from the other side.

  From below I now heard a voice, harsh and insistent, but I couldn’t make out the words. It went on and on without interruption.

  You don’t know her. She’s a greedy, arrogant woman who thinks the rules don’t apply to her. She’ll probably try to intimidate you and find out how much you know. Don’t underestimate her.

  I put my ear to the door, straining to hear. Now a second voice was raised in protest. Again I couldn’t make out the words, but they were laced with fear. The other person interrupted with a scornful laugh.

  There had to be another way down there. Maybe through the kitchen—it served both floors. They must’ve been able to take food downstairs without carrying it through the bar area.

  I took out my flashlight and moved slowly, trying not to make noise. Cobwebs brushed at my face and hands; I knocked them away. When I pushed one of the bat-wing shutters, it nearly fell off the wall. I eased it free, laid it on top of the commercial cookstove.

  There was a door set into the wall beside the stove—another firedoor, perhaps. I tugged on its handle, was hit by a blast of icy air when it opened. Walk-in freezer. But why use costly energy running it when—

  A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature took hold of me. I stepped inside, not letting the door shut all the way behind me. Shone my light around—

  And moved slowly toward a stainless-steel table draped in a paint-stained canvas drop cloth under which was a conspicuous bulge. I raised the cloth, shone my flash down.

  Short blond hair, sparkly with ice crystals. Waxen, sculpted features that it was impossible to believe had once been poised, self-confident, animated. Bloody gash and discoloration at the right temple.

  So this was how she’d “taken care of everything.” Well, not quite. Tonight she planned to finish the task.

  When I went inside l heard voices yelling on the second floor. I ran up the stairs to the bar and saw they were fighting physically. Screaming at each other, something about Jorge. Tessa was getting the worst of it, and I knew firsthand how much damage Dinah could inflict, so l got between them and tried to stop them. Dinah was clawing at me, and Tessa was hanging on, using me like a shield. I turned and shoved her away and she fell and hit her head on the bar. The sound was horrifying, and I knew she was dead. So, like the true coward l am, I ran out of there, away from this terrible thing I had done.

  I replaced the drop cloth over Tessa Remington’s frozen face. In the kitchen I leaned against the wall, breathing hard. There it was, the evidence I needed. Call 911 and—

  “No!” The shout rose from downstairs, a truncated, terrified sound.

  I looked around for another door. None there. But across the kitchen was a dark, empty space. No, not empty—a wooden cage. Dumbwaiter, how they sent the food downstairs.

  I exchanged my flashlight for my gun. Though it was a large industrial-size cage, it would be a tight fit. If it was even operable. I located the Down button, squeezed in there—sitting down, my back to the rear, head lowered, knees bent. Pain stabbed my back in protest. I ignored it, pressed the button.

  The cage jerked and bounced. Began its descent, clanking an
d growling. I brought my feet up, ready to kick out, the .357 grasped firmly in both hands.

  The cage stopped abruptly, dealing a jarring blow to my spine. I rammed my feet at the wooden panel in front of me. It yielded, and I heard a cry of pain as it connected with flesh and bone.

  I struggled out of the cage, barely gaining my footing. Stumbled back against the wall beside it.

  “Watch out!” Jody Houston’s voice called.

  I saw the pool cue descending just in time to duck. It swished past my head. Dinah Vardon swung the cue again, and this time it connected with my shoulder. The gun slipped from my hands; I went to my knees reaching for it. Vardon whacked me across the ass.

  I scooted forward on my elbows under the pool table. My fingers touched the .357; I grasped it, rolled over, and brought it up. Vardon stood over me, the cue poised.

  “Drop it, Dinah!”

  She backed off but didn’t lower the cue.

  I edged out from under the table, got to my knees and then to my feet.

  “Drop it!”

  She flashed me a contemptuous look, let the cue fall to the floor. “Listen,” she said, “put the gun away and we’ll talk.”

  “No way.” I motioned to Houston, who sat in a straight-backed chair, her legs bound with duct tape, her arms trussed behind her. “Cut her loose.”

  Vardon ignored the order. “It doesn’t have to be this way, you know. I have money, a great deal of it. I’ll pay you—”

  “I don’t want your money. Cut her loose.”

  “You haven’t heard how much. I have twenty-two million dollars. More, when I sign Tessa’s name to the sale documents for InSite’s building and sell this property. Still more, if I can crack the codes on her offshore accounts.”

  “You’ll have plenty of time to work on that in jail—if they let you have your computer.”