by Lee Killough
“Puzzling,” Fowler said, “because we had no dog. The inspector called for him to come out and surrender or we would be forced to send in the dog. The fugitive responded with a selection of profanity which roughly translated as ‘You bleeding coppers are effing liars’ and the next moment the most vicious snarling I ever heard erupted in my ear. I looked around to discover the sound coming from Inspector Girimonte!” He pointed chopsticks at her. “Brilliant!”
She shrugged. “The upshot is he came creeping out, revolver in hand, begging us to keep the dog away. Once we’d hooked him up and revealed I’d played him, he blew up.” She smiled a satisfied-cat smile. “Called me every foul epithet in the book for a female and went on to spew about the interfering sister and what a pleasure it had been killing her. We’d read him his rights as soon as we cuffed him, but you couldn’t shut up this mutt with lockjaw!”
“Good work,” Serruto said. “Now you just need someone who saw the killer with Knight and come up with an ID on your woman in Spreckels Lake.” He disappeared into this office again.
Harry pointed his chopsticks at the cartons. “There’s plenty, Mik-san. Help yourself.”
Garreth shook his head. “Thanks, but I ate on the way back from the apartment.”
Harry snorted. “Since when have you not had room for sweet and sour pork?”
“Let me tell you what I learned from Turner. It’s a little bit of a break.”
Girimonte frowned thoughtfully as Garreth gave them his story about the overheard phone conversation. Did she doubt him? Her gaze seemed to be measuring him.
Harry sighed. “A first name isn’t much to go on.”
On the far side of a pillar, Rob Cohen sniffed. “Unless you expect the phone book to magically open to the name like Mikaelian’s trying.”
Girimonte flicked a glance at the open white pages. “I suppose next you stick in a pin?”
“I shouldn’t be so quick to scoff, if I were you,” Fowler said.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you believe in that mumbo jumbo.”
He lifted a brow. “That would depend on the particular mumbo jumbo, but...in general, based on my encounters with the inexplicable in my peregrinations about the globe, I do not disbelieve.”
Girimonte sniffed.
Her phone rang.
She reached over for it...identified herself and said, “Yes, Mr. Turner.”
Breath stuck in Garreth’s lungs. Was he about to be caught out in his lie? Then Girimonte turned to stare at the phone book on Harry’s desk, and immediately looked away again.
Electricity ran through Garreth. They had a name. Somehow they had a name.
After a brief continuation of the conversation, consisting mostly of encouraging monosyllables on her end, Girimonte hung up. “Turner just had a phone call from our mystery man, who got all concerned when Turner told him about Mikaelian’s visit and asked him to please find out more if Mikaelian showed up again and then call him. So now we have a name and number” She paused. “The name is Leonard Holle...H-O-L-L-E.”
Fowler started to smile.
She cut him off with a glare. “Don’t start! It’s just coincidence. I doubt his name is on those particular phone book pages.”
But it was...almost leaping from the column at Garreth: Leonard E. Holle, with a Presidio Heights address. Garreth read it off.
Straight-faced, Fowler said, “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”
Girimonte ignored him and picked up her phone again. “Let’s see what more we can learn about Holle.”
Harry checked with Records...and found Holle clean. Girimonte’s call to a contact at the Chronicle produced a bio. Leonard Eugene Holle, born 1927, co-owner with his sister Elizabeth of Avalon Air, a charter air service, which they took over in 1968 on the retirement of their parents Wilfred and Nora Holle. Licensed pilot...private license at age fifteen, commercial license at age twenty-one. Flew for both commercial airlines and Avalon until moving up to management. Unmarried. For the last ten years served as president of the local
Chapter of the Philos Foundation, an international organization based in Geneva which maintained a database of individuals needing organ transplants and a network for locating possible organ donors. He had been honored by the American Medical Association for using Avalon planes for mercy flights, ferrying organs and transplant patients.
Assuming Philos was the organization referred to in Irina’s note, Garreth understood Lane’s disdain. The idea of any vampires being involved in something so humanitarian amazed him. How did that happen?
Then a thread of current buzzed in him, recalling the yellow pages opening to Hospital Supplies. Organ donations could be considered hospital supplies...though that made sense only in hindsight. Ditto where the white pages opened...no more useful than pointing him to a haystack and saying Your needle’s in there.
“So,” Harry said, “how is this guy connected to the likes of Lane Barber?”
Girimonte smiled thinly. “Let’s go ask him.”
Chapter Fifteen
Sandwiched between Rococo and Italianate architecture, the two-story brick of Holle’s house and dormer windows of its mansard roof — actually Holle House according to a brass plaque on the wall between two wide garage doors and the deep front entryway — looked almost institutionally plain. Following Harry and Girimonte from crushing sunlight into the entryway’s shade, Garreth felt his gut tighten. Was he foolish coming here? He could be walking straight into the threatening danger...into an encounter with Irina. Still, he needed to hear Holle’s answers...and head off dangerous ones.
With fire licking at him, he hung as far back as possible and still remain in the shade while Girimonte rang the bell.
A fifty-something woman whose dark grey jacket and slacks made her look more like a personal assistant than a housekeeper opened the massive door, releasing a wave of scent that startled Garreth. New-mown hay? After studying Harry and Girimonte’s identification, she said, “I will see if Mr. Holle is available.” She disappeared for several minutes, while flames continued licking at Garreth, then returned. “He’ll see you. Please come in.”
The flames died.
The wide hallway inside had black and white tile and a broad staircase ahead of them leading up to an L of gallery above the hall.
“Wait in here.” She led them across the hall to a sitting room filled with afternoon sunlight slanting through the front windows, then started back for the stairs.
Garreth moved to a wall as far from the windows as possible.
Girimonte sniffed the air.
Harry raised a brow. “Something wrong?”
She frowned. “Not wrong, just...a really faint smell that seems...odd.”
“Alfalfa,” Garreth said.
Almost at the stairs, the woman whipped around to stare hard at Garreth.
His pulse jumped in alarm. Had he stepped on some verbal trip wire? Did he need to find an excuse for leaving?
The others stared at him, too...Girimonte skeptically. “You’re kidding, right? Who makes incense that smells like hay?”
He should have kept his mouth shut. Interestingly, the scent began changing to that of line-dried sheets. The others did not appear to notice.
The woman came back. “On second thought, Mr. Holle’s eyes are a bit light sensitive today, so he’ll prefer to see you in the library.”
She led them upstairs and around the gallery to a room at the front there. The door opened on darkness. When she switched on lamps, Garreth saw the reason...drapes so thick they blocked every trace of daylight. His pulse jumped again. She recognized what he was! Had admitting to a sharper-that-human sense of smell given him away? Then sense overrode the initial panic. She had not come at him with a stake but moved them from the bright sitting room to one shutting out daylight. If Holle befriended vampires, so might his staff. He had taken off his cap entering the house. Now he tucked his glasses in the
windbreaker’s pocket.
The house scent began changing again...to something floral.
Girimonte eyed the drapes. “The man must have really sensitive eyes...or he shows movies in this room, too.”
Fowler strolled along the bookshelves, head tilted to read titles. “Books need protection from sunlight or the covers will fade...and these books look like they’re valued. They actually appear to have been read, not bought by the meter to fill— ah!” He stopped short, staring at a shelf. “Definitely not bought by some decorator. He has what appears to be the entire Radio Boys series!” Taking one book from the shelf, he opened it carefully. “Fair condition but much read.”
“Over and over,” said a voice from the doorway.
They turned to see a man matching the description Lane’s neighbor gave of her visitor.
He waved them to leather easy chairs and sat down behind a mammoth desk, smiling cordially at them all as he peered at Harry and Girimonte’s ID...but eyes narrowing when he glanced at Garreth. Obviously the PA/housekeeper gave him a heads-up on what she invited in. “This is quite a delegation. What can I do for you? I take it you all aren’t police officers?”
“These gentlemen are observers,” Girimonte said, and introduced them.
Fowler’s brought a polite: “Yes, I’ve seen the name on books.” but Holle started, smile freezing, at Garreth’s, and Garreth watched mental wheels spin and clash.
He saw Harry and Girimonte noting it, too, and before Holle regained his balance, Girimonte said, “We need to ask what your relationship is to Michaela Garrett.”
The wheels abruptly unstuck. “None. I’ve never even met her.” A brow rose. “If the similarity of her name to Mr. Mikaelian’s isn’t mere coincidence, he has more of a relationship that I do.”
Give Holle credit for a fast recovery...and a neat parry.
Without losing her neutral tone, Girimonte’s syllables turned crisper. “Yet you’ve been visiting her apartment.”
He nodded without hesitation. “As a favor for someone interested in contacting her.”
Was he going to mention Irina?
“A gentleman in Germany, Gert Steiner, wants her to sing in his club in Dusseldorf.”
So...no.
The floral scent gave way to that of wintergreen.
“Since he’s been unable to reach her through her agent, who’s stopped hearing from her, and her phone is disconnected, he went looking for someone living here who could physically visit with a message from him. Through a friend of a friend he reached me.”
Garreth had to admire the glibness of the lie. Except for Irina’s note, he might have believed it. Holle delivered it too smoothly to be off the cuff. As a friend of “our kind” did he have the story ready to protect Irina?
“May I ask what your interest in her is?”
“How much do you know about her?” Girimonte asked.
“Only what I’ve been told: that she is young, attractive, and a talented singer.”
“An unbelievable voice,” Harry said. “Why have you been asking her neighbor Mr. Turner if anyone else is also looking for Miss Garrett?”
Holle hesitated only a moment. “Because Steiner thinks a rival club owner wants to hire her, too.”
Another glib lie. The man was good.
“Now, please tell me why you’re here.”
Harry said, “In October of ‘81 a visiting businessman named Adair was found murdered in his hotel room. In August of ‘83 a visiting businessman named Mossman was found murdered in the bay. Then this Saturday night another man was murdered in the same manner as Adair. We have evidence linking the first two deaths to the woman you know as Michaela Garrett, and the manner of death makes her a suspect in the third one.”
Holle froze in his chair, his expression mixing disbelief and distress. “You’re sure it’s Miss Garrett?”
“She also attacked and tried to kill Mr. Mikaelian, who was a homicide inspector at the time.”
“They in fact thought she had...until he sat up in the morgue,” Fowler said.
Girimonte shot him an icy glare.
Holle closed his eyes...though not before Garreth caught horror, anger, and the ah-hah of answered questions in them.
“You don’t remember reading about Mossman’s murder in the papers?” Harry asked. “They ran her picture and the name she used at the time, Lane Barber.”
Holle opened his eyes again. “I was in Europe from that July until late September.” He paused. “So I presume you came hoping I am familiar enough with Miss Garrett to give you some idea where to look for her. I’m sorry...I can’t. Otherwise I’d have tried reaching her there myself. Since I’m unable to help...” He stood. “Is there anything else you need?”
“For now...no.” Harry gave him an inscrutable oriental smile. “But we’ll keep in touch...and if you do hear from Miss Garrett, we’d appreciate you not mentioning us.”
“Of course...and if I think of anything, I’ll call you.”
Smiling, he saw them downstairs. While pine scent floated around them.
As the front door closed behind them, Girimonte bared her teeth. “You bet we’ll keep in touch. He knows a hell of a lot more than he’s saying. ”
“Not about knowing where Lane is,” Garreth said, “or like he says, wouldn’t he be trying to contact her there?”
Harry nodded. “And I think he was genuinely shocked about the murders and Garreth’s attack.”
“Yeah...though we didn’t need Mr. Fowler putting in his melodramatic tuppence!”
Fowler winced. “I apologize. It just...popped out.”
Girimonte glanced back at the house. “One thing...now we’ve revealed our interest in Barber, shocked about her or not I don’t trust him to keep our visit confidential. He has that friends of friends thing going, if we want to believe that.”
“I believe it,” Fowler said. “He’s been a commercial pilot.”
She frowned at him. “What does that have to do with it?”
He smiled at her. “The airline employee subculture. Since they have free flight privileges, they’ll fly somewhere for a weekend...Oktoberfest, music festival in Glastonbury, Rio for Carnival.” He pronounced it Car-ni-VALL and swung into a little dance step...stopped when Girimonte’s frown deepened. “While there, they stay with friends. Except often it’s really a friend of a friend...and that individual may not even be home. It isn’t unusual to be lent a key, kip at the house, and leave without ever meeting the people who live there."
“And you know this how?”
He spread his hands. “Research for my book Fly By Night.”
“Whatever.” She raised her brows at Harry. “Which makes me think that before word reaches Barber, we need to get a warrant for her place and see if there’s a clue where she might be.”
Garreth’s gut lurched. There had been questions enough before why the only prints in the Telegraph Hill apartment matched those of a sixty-seven year old woman named Madelaine Bieber. Questions bound to be even more intense when they found Mada’s name in Lane’s books, and maybe even names, date, and location written on the back of the photograph Lane’s previous landlady described as being on the bookshelves: three little girls sitting on the running board of a car. But where the questions went unanswered before, now they had Fowler hanging around...who might not know the relationship between Lane and Mada, but could tell them who all about Mada and where she came from.
He needed to keep the items out of police hands.
The best means of doing so...removal. But how did he manage that before they executed a warrant? He could only sit at Harry’s desk with his gut knotted, watching Harry and Girimonte in Serruto’s office, hoping the lieutenant turned them down.
Fowler watched, too. Standing, he had a better view and delivered a running commentary. “I think it’s going well. The leftenant’s sitting there with his fingers tented, neutral expression but obviously listening. The inspectors look intent, but I don’t see posture indi
cating they are having to push their case. Ah...the leftenant is nodding.”
The last thing Garreth wanted to hear.
“If they obtain the warrant is it possible we’ll be allowed in the flat, too?”
“Probably not.” He hoped not. “We’d just be in the way.”
“There’s no harm in asking, though. Girimonte is almost smiling.”
Shit. Assuming Serruto signed off on the warrant, was there any way to delay it being written up and presented to a judge today? Maybe find something in their cases that needed more immediate attention?
The file he opened on Harry’s desk offered no help. The Jane Doe in Spreckels Lake looked straight-forward. She had a blood alcohol level of .13, so in lieu of any bruising or abrasions to indicate being thrown into the lake and held her under, it appeared to be a tragic alcohol related accident. She fell in, and the shock of the icy water caused her to suck in water and go under.
He reached across to Girimonte’s desk and grabbed the black three-ring binder that he assumed to be the Knight murder book. Since Lane had not killed the man, this might give him something to throw into the warrant works.
And he found it.
Harry and Girimonte came back bumping fists, interrupting reading the autopsy report.
“Do you want to do the warrant or the affidavit?” Harry said.
“Warrant.”
They sat down and started to roll forms into their typewriters.
Garreth held up the murder book. “I’m not convinced Lane killed this guy.”
They frowned up at him. Fowler’s brows arched.
“It’s her MO,” Girimonte said. “The same way she killed Adair in ‘81.”
“Similar method but a whole different kind of victim. Lane always picked up out-of-towners who wouldn’t be hanging around after she’d had her fun. Knight lives here. She chose older men with money and position — management, CEO’s — men used to giving orders and having what they wanted....so she could enjoyed taking power away from them. She liked making them beg for her favors, and when she wanted, loved exercising ultimate power by killing them. Knight was twenty-six and the pianist and singer at the piano bar Afterglow. Not anyone with position or power. Adair was killed in his hotel and the red in the water was Grenadine. This guy died at home and the water was red from actual blood.”