The McCone Files

by Marcia Muller

  I rounded the spiral once again and came out on the top floor gallery, my heart beating wildly, my breath coming in pants. To my left were archways, black outlines filled with dark-gray sky. To my right was blackness. I went that way, hands out, feeling my way.

  My hands touched the rough wood of a door. I pushed, and it opened. As I passed through it, my shoulder bag caught on something; I yanked it loose and kept going. Beyond the door I heard Gottschalk curse loudly, the sound filled with surprise and pain; he must have fallen on the stairway. And that gave me a little more time.

  The tug at my shoulder bag had reminded me of the small flashlight I keep there. Flattening myself against the wall next to the door, I rummaged through the bag and brought out the flash. Its beam showed high walls and arching ceilings, plaster and lathe pulled away to expose dark bricks. I saw cubicles and cubbyholes opening into dead ends, but to my right was an arch. I made a small involuntary sound of relief, then thought, Quiet! Gottschalk’s footsteps started up the stairway again as I moved through the archway.

  The crumbling plaster walls beyond the archway were set at odd angles—an interlocking funhouse maze connected by small doors. I slipped through one and found an irregularly shaped room heaped with debris. There didn’t seem to be an exit, so I ducked back into the first room and moved toward the outside wall, where gray outlines indicated small high-placed windows. I couldn’t hear Gottschalk any more—couldn’t hear anything but the roar and clank form the bridge directly overhead.

  The front wall was brick and stone, and the windows had wide waist-high stills. I leaned across one, looked through the salt-caked glass, and saw the open sea. I was at the front of the fort, the part that faced beyond the Golden Gate; to my immediate right would be the unrestored portion. If I could slip over into that area, I might be able to hide until the other rangers came to work in the morning.

  But Gottschalk could be anywhere. I couldn’t hear his footsteps above the infernal noise from the bridge. He could be right here in the room with me, pinpointing me by the beam of my flashlight….

  Fighting down panic, I switched the light off and continued along the wall, my hands recoiling from its clammy stone surface. It was icy cold in the vast, echoing space, but my own flesh felt colder still. The air had a salt tang, underlaid by odors of rot and mildew. For a couple of minutes the darkness was unalleviated, but then I saw a lighter rectangular shape ahead of me.

  When I reached it I found it was some sort of embrasure, about four feet tall, but only a little over a foot wide. Beyond it I could see the edge of the gallery where it curved and stopped at the chain link fence that barred entrance to the other side of the fort. The fence wasn’t very high—only five feet or so. If I could get through this narrow opening, I could climb it and find refuge….

  The sudden noise behind me was like a firecracker popping. I whirled and saw a tall figure silhouetted against one of the seaward windows. He lurched forward, tripping over whatever he’d stepped on. Forcing back a cry, I hoisted myself up and began squeezing through the embrasure.

  Its sides were rough brick. They scraped my flesh clear through my clothing. Behind me I heard the slap of Gottschalk’s shoes on the wooden floor.

  My hips wouldn’t fit through the opening. I gasped, grunted, pulling with my arms on the outside walls. Then I turned on my side, sucking in my stomach. My bag caught again, and I let go of the wall long enough to rip its strap off my elbow. As my hips squeezed through the embrasure, I felt Gottschalk grab at my feet. I kicked out frantically, breaking his hold, and fell off the sill to the floor of the gallery.

  Fighting for breath, I pushed off the floor, threw myself at the fence, and began climbing. The metal bit into my fingers, rattled and clashed with my weight. At the top, the leg of my jeans got hung up on the spiked wire. I tore it loose and jumped down the other side.

  The door to the gallery burst open and Gottschalk came through it. I got up from a crouch and ran into the darkness ahead of me. The fence began to rattle as he started up it. I raced, half-stumbling, along the gallery, the open archways to my right. To my left was probably a warren of rooms similar to those on the east side. I could lose him in there….

  Only I couldn’t. The door I tried was locked. I ran to the next one and hurled my body against its wooden panels. It didn’t give. I heard myself moan in fear and frustration.

  Gottschalk was over the fence now, coming toward me, limping. His breath came in erratic gasps, loud enough to hear over the noise from the bridge. I twisted around, looking for shelter, and saw a pile of lumber lying across one of the open archways.

  I dashed toward it and slipped behind, wedged between it and the pillar of the arch. The courtyard lay two dizzying stories below me. I grasped the end of the top two-by-four. It moved easily, as if on a fulcrum.

  Gottschalk had seen me. He came on steadily, his right leg dragging behind him. When he reached the pile of lumber and started over it towards me, I yanked on the two-by-four. The other end moved and struck him on the knee.

  He screamed and stumbled back. Then he came forward again, hands outstretched toward me. I pulled back further against the pillar. His clutching hands missed me, and when they did he lost balance and toppled onto the pile of lumber. And then the boards began to slide toward the open archway.

  He grabbed at the boards, yelling and flailing his arms. I tried to reach for him, but the lumber was moving like an avalanche now. Pitching over the side and crashing down into the courtyard two stories below. It carried Gottschalk’s thrashing body with it, and his screams echoed in its wake. For an awful few seconds the boards continued to crash down on him, and then everything was terribly still. Even the thrumming of the bridge traffic seemed muted.

  I straightened slowly and looked down into the courtyard. Gottschalk lay unmoving among the scattered pieces of lumber. For a moment I breathed deeply to control my vertigo; then I ran back to the chain link fence, climbed it, and rushed down the spiral staircase to the courtyard.

  When I got to the ranger’s body, I could hear him moaning. I said, “Lie still. I’ll call an ambulance.”

  He moaned louder as I ran across the courtyard and found a phone in the gift shop, but by the time I returned, he was silent. His breathing was so shallow that I thought he had passed out, but then I heard mumbled words coming from his lips. I bent closer to listen.

  “Vanessa,” he said. “Wouldn’t take me with her…”

  I said, “Take you where?”

  “Going away together. Left my car…over there so she could drive across the bridge. But when she…brought it here she said she was going alone….”

  So you argued, I thought. And you lost your head and slashed her to death.

  “Vanessa,” he said again. “Never planned to take me…tricked me…”

  I started to put a hand on his arm, but found I couldn’t touch him. “Don’t talk any more. The ambulance’ll be here soon.”

  “Vanessa,” he said. “Oh, God, what did you do to me?”

  I looked up at the bridge, rust red through the darkness and the mist. In the distance, I could hear the wail of a siren.

  Deceptions, I thought.

  Deceptions…

  CACHE AND CARRY

  A “Nameless Detective”/Sharon McCone Story (With Bill Pronzini)

  “HELLO?”

  “Wolf? It’s Sharon McCone.”

  “Well! Been a while, Sharon. How are you?”

  “I’ve been better. Are you busy?”

  “No, no, I just got home. What’s up?”

  “I’ve got a problem and I thought you might be able to help.”

  “If I can. Professional problem?”

  “The kind you’ve run into before.”

  “Oh?”

  “One of those things that seem impossible but that you know has to have a simple explanation.”

  “….”

  “Wolf, are you there?”

  “I’m here. The poor man’s Sir Henry Merri
vale.”

  “Never mind. Tell me your tale of woe.”

  “Well, one of All Souls’ clients is a small outfit in the Outer Mission called Neighborhood Check Cashing. You know, one of these places that cashes third-party or social-security checks for local residents who don’t have bank accounts of their own or easy access to a bank. We did some legal work for them a year or so ago, when they first opened for business.”

  “Somebody rip them off?”

  “Yes. For two thousand dollars.”

  “Uh-huh. When?”

  “Sometime this morning.”

  “Why did you and All Souls get called in on a police matter?”

  “The police were called first but they couldn’t come up with any answers. So Jack Harvey, Neighborhood’s owner and manager, contacted me. But I haven’t come up with any answers either.”

  “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “There’s no way anyone could have gotten the two thousand dollars out of Neighborhood’s office. And yet, if the money is still hidden somewhere on the premises, the police couldn’t find it and neither could I.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Only one of two people could have taken it—unless Jack Harvey himself is responsible, and I don’t believe that. If I knew which one, I might have an idea of what happened to the money. Or vice versa. But I don’t have a clue either way.”

  “Let’s have the details.”

  “Well, cash is delivered twice a week—Mondays and Thursdays—by armored car at the start of the day’s business. It’s usually five thousand dollars, unless Jack requests more or less. Today it was exactly five thousand.”

  “Not a big operation, then.”

  “No. Jack’s also an independent insurance broker; the employees help him out in that end of the business too.”

  “His employees are the two who could have stolen the money?”

  “Yes. Art DeWitt, the bookkeeper, and Maria Chavez, the cashier. DeWitt’s twenty-five, single, lives in Daly City. He’s studying business administration nights at City College. Chavez is nineteen, lives with her family in the Mission. She’s planning to get married next summer. They both seem to check out as solid citizens.”

  “But you say one of them has to be guilty. Why?”

  “Opportunity. Let me tell you what happened this morning. The cash was delivered as usual, and Maria Chavez entered the amount in her daily journal, then put half the money in the till and half in the safe. Business for the first hour and a half was light; only one person came in to cash a small check; Jack Harvey’s cousin, whom he vouches for.”

  “So Chavez couldn’t have passed the money to him or another accomplice.”

  “No. At about ten-thirty a local realtor showed up wanting to cash a fairly large check: thirty-five hundred dollars. Harvey usually doesn’t like to do that, because Neighborhood runs short before the next cash delivery. Besides, the fee for cashing a large check is the same as for a small one; he stands to lose on large transactions. But the realtor is a good friend, so he okayed it. When Chavez went in to cash the check, there was only five hundred dollars in the till.”

  “Did DeWitt also have access to the till?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any way either of them could have slipped out of the office for even a few seconds?”

  “No. Harvey’s desk is by the back door and he was sitting there the entire time.”

  “What about through the front?”

  “The office is separated from the customer area by one of those double Plexiglass security partitions and a locked security door. The door operates by means of a buzzer at Harvey’s desk. He didn’t buzz anybody in or out.”

  “Could the two thousand have been removed between the time the police searched and you were called in?”

  “No way. When the police couldn’t find it in the office, they body-searched DeWitt and had a matron do the same with Chavez. The money wasn’t on either of them. Then, after the cops left, Jack told his employees they couldn’t take anything away from the office except Chavez’s purse and DeWitt’s briefcase, both of which he searched again, personally.”

  “Do either DeWitt or Chavez have a key to the office?”

  “No.”

  “Which means the missing money is still there.”

  “Evidently. But where, Wolf?”

  “Describe the office to me.”

  “One room, with an attached lavatory that doubles as a supply closet. Table, with a desktop copier, postage scale, postage meter. A big Mosler safe; only Harvey has the combination. Three desks: Jack’s next to the back door; DeWitt’s in the middle; Chavez’s next to the counter behind the partition, where the till is. Desks have standard stuff on them—adding machines, a typewriter on Chavez’s, family photos, stack trays, staplers, pen sets. Everything you’d expect to find.”

  “Anything you wouldn’t expect to find?”

  “Not unless you count some lurid romance novels that Chavez likes to read on her lunch break.”

  “Did anything unusual happen this morning, before the shortage was discovered?”

  “Not really. The toilet backed up and ruined a bunch of supplies, but Jack says that’s happened three or four times before. Old plumbing.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You see why I’m frustrated? There just doesn’t seem to be any clever hidey-holes in that office. And Harvey’s already started to tear his hair. Chavez and DeWitt resent the atmosphere of suspicion; they’re nervous, too, and have both threatened to quit. Harvey doesn’t want to lose the one that isn’t guilty, anymore than he wants to lose his two thousand dollars.”

  “How extensive was the search you and the police made?”

  “About as extensive as you can get.”

  “Desk gone over from top to bottom, drawers taken out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Underside of the legs checked?”

  “Yes.”

  “Same thing with all the chairs?”

  “To the point of removing cushions and seat backs.”

  “The toilet backing up—any chance that could be connected?”

  “I don’t see how. Harvey and I both looked it over pretty carefully. The sink and the rest of the plumbing, too.”

  “What about the toilet paper roll?”

  “I checked it. Negative.”

  “Chavez’s romance novels—between the pages?”

  “I thought of that. Negative.”

  “Personal belongings?”

  “All negative. Including Jack Harvey’s. I went through his on the idea that DeWitt or Chavez might have thought to use him as a carrier.”

  “The office equipment?”

  “Checked and rechecked. Copier, negative. Chavez’s typewriter, negative. Postage meter and scale, negative. Four adding machines, negative. Stack trays—”

  “Wait a minute, Sharon. Four adding machines?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why four, with only three people?”

  “DeWitt’s office machine jammed and he had to bring his own from home.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “It jammed two days ago. He brought his own yesterday.”

  “Suspicious coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “I did at first. But I checked both machines, inside and out. Negative.”

  “Did either DeWitt or Chavez bring anything else to the office in recent days that they haven’t brought before?”

  “Jack says no.”

  “Then we’re back to DeWitt’s home adding machine.”

  “Wolf, I told you—”

  “What kind is it? Computer type, or the old-fashioned kind that runs a tape?”

  “The old-fashioned kind.”

  “Did you run a tape on it? Or on the office machine that’s supposed to be jammed?”

  “…No. No, I didn’t.”

  “Maybe you should. Both machines are still in the office, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’
t you have another look at them? Run tapes on both, see if the office model really is jammed—or if maybe it’s DeWitt’s home model that doesn’t work the way it should.”

  “And if it’s the home model have it taken apart piece by piece.”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll call Harvey and have him meet me at Neighborhood right away.”

  “Let me know, huh? Either way?”

  “You bet I will.”

  “Wolf, hi. It’s Sharon.”

  “You sound chipper. Good news?”

  “Yes, thanks to you. You were right about the adding machines. I ran a tape on DeWitt’s office model and it worked fine. But the one he brought from home didn’t, for a damned good reason.”

  “Which is?”

  “Its tape roll was a dummy. Hollow, made of metal and wood with just enough paper tape to make it look like the real thing. So real neither the police nor I thought to remove and examine it before. The missing money was inside.”

  “So DeWitt must have been planning the theft for some time.”

  “That’s what he confessed to the police a few minutes ago. He made the dummy roll in his workshop at home; took him a couple of weeks. It was in his home machine when he brought that in yesterday. This morning he slipped the roll out and put it into his pocket. When Maria Chavez was in the lavatory and Jack Harvey was occupied on the phone, he lifted the money from the till and pocketed that too. He went into the john after Maria came out and hid the money in the dummy roll. Then, back at his desk, he put the fake roll into his own machine, which he intended to take home with him this evening. It was his bad luck—and Jack’s good luck—that the realtor came in with such a large check to cash.”

  “I suppose he intended to doctor the books to cover the theft.”

  “So he said. You know, Wolf, it’s too bad DeWitt didn’t apply his creative talents to some legitimate enterprise. His cache-and carry scheme was really pretty clever.”

  “What kind of scheme?”

  “Cache and carry. C-a-c-h-e.”

  “….”

  “Was that a groan I heard?”

  “McCone, if you’re turning into a rogue detective, call somebody else next time you come up against an impossible problem, Call Sir Henry Merrivale.”