by Susan Dunlap
She recalled that Rosten’s flat had had a three-window bay like these. Occasionally, when she’d lost her key, she’d opted to go through the window on the far side of the bay, the one residents assumed was safe from burglars. In those days, knowing she was legit, she’d given no thought to the police—her only worry had been of falling, and years of gymnastic training had turned that into simple care not to misstep and humiliate herself.
The stairs here protruded beyond the bay. A glance at the catch on the nearest window showed it was locked. She leaned out to examine the second. Rain chafed the side of her face, and the backyard enclosure provided no protection. The second window was locked, too. But the top of the far window was down a couple of inches.
She leaned back under the stair roof, listening. The house to her left was only two stories high, too low to be a problem. It was the one to the right, next to Delaney’s apartment and a duplicate of this one that bore watching. The windows there were dark. All she needed was three minutes.
Her skin tingled, her breathing was shallow. She looked back at the windows, gauging her moves, running the tape through her mind as she’d done with gymnastic routines. The windows were wet, the sills slick. One of the first things she’d learned in gymnastics had been how to mount the uneven bars: grab the bottom one, catch a knee over it and swing up; then, using the momentum she’d gained, get both feet on that bar, balance, and grab for the top one. The only time she’d stopped midbalance had taught her the properties—and the pitfalls—of inertia.
She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans, climbed onto the railing, leaned out over the three-story drop, and placed her right foot on the middle windowsill. No stopping now. She pressed her hands against the moldings, brought her left foot onto the sill, pushed off and grabbed for the top of the far window. She pulled it down; it creaked, but gave. Hands poised on the top, she paused momentarily, savoring the thrill, then thrust herself through headfirst, hanging onto the top till her thighs were on it and she could bring her hands to the floor. She slid her legs down slowly till she could bend a knee and bring one foot down. Then she pushed the window back up.
Her heart beat faster, her skin tingled. She was aware of a tightness in all her muscles: arms, legs, chest, groin. She felt alone against the apartment and its hidden contents, against the ghost of Carlos Delaney, against the curiosity of neighbors, the ambush of noise, the police, the universe. She loved it.
She stood still, focusing her whole being on the flat. The windows rattled, rain played on the glass. The water heater rumbled on. The place smelled of crackers, old chocolate, stale sweat.
Her eyes had adjusted; the rooms were not dark so much as dim. She extricated a flashlight from her pack and walked carefully, stepping along the sides of the hallway rather than the middle. Couldn’t the man have bought rugs! At the end of the hallway was a living room, in the middle, a kitchen and bathroom, and in back the bedroom through which she had entered. Exits: living-room door, bedroom window, kitchen and bathroom windows on the narrow airshaft.
If the flat had not come furnished, then Delaney had spent some time at Busvan or the Salvation Army searching for threadbare pieces of a beige sectional. The living-room carpet was equally worn. A long, tall bookcase covered the outside wall. She moved closer to it and shone the light on the titles: legal works, novels, books on plumbing, travel, beginning electrical repair. Electrical repair! On the floor beside the coffee table was a pile of magazines—California Angler, Sports Fishing, Cruising World—magazines suited to the novice deckhand Zack had described Delaney as portraying.
Along the far wall was a piano, with sheet music open to a Scott Joplin rag. Not music for a beginner.
The kitchen revealed nothing but Delaney’s taste for chocolate. The sink held one dirty cup, stained not with coffee but with cocoa. The image of Delaney’s crab-gnawed head flashed through Kiernan’s mind. She shut her eyes to keep that image separate from the cozy picture of a man drinking one last cup of cocoa before going out to drown.
Moving toward the window, she listened for voices coming up the airshaft. No sound but the clatter of rain on the roof and water gurgling down the drainpipe.
She moved on to the bedroom. If there was anything to be found, it would be here. Even in the dim light, the bedroom had the look of a place left in a hurry: sheets and quilt in a tumble, dirty T-shirt, shorts, socks in a heap beside the Murphy bed.
The thickness of the dust made it clear that Delaney had lived here for a while. So why did he rent that sleazy room in the Tenderloin? Why the pose that he was just another deckhand who needed a place to live? Why the alias?
In the closet into which the bed was intended to fold was a fold-top desk. Locked. She pulled out a penknife and forced it.
The cubbyholes were stuffed with bills: P G and E, Sprint, Pacific Bell, Mastercard, Visa: all in the name of Devereaux. The bills went back over two years.
The drawers held nothing but clothes, clothes that suggested a better life than Delaney had on the dock. Another life.
She bent down and shone the light under the Murphy bed. Boxes crowded together to the edge. Twelve, maybe even sixteen of them. She moved to the end of the bed and shone the light across the floor in front of the boxes. More dust. At the far side, she found what she was looking for, the dust-marked trail of the box someone had pulled out. She yanked it out and pawed through. Sweaters. She pulled out the box behind it. Manila files. Files with case names and number on the left, with a log of transactions, and a billing log. Files like she had in her own office. Private investigator’s files!
Investigator’s files, a book on electrical repair, and a job on a boat on which the coast guard had found eavesdropping wires! Odds were then that Devereaux, a.k.a. Delaney, had been spying on Robin. What was he waiting to hear? How she found fish? No. Bright as Delaney might be, well prepared as his books suggested he was, he wouldn’t have spent six weeks listening to Robin and not come up with Hartoonian. Finding Hartoonian had taken Skip Olsen just a couple of hours. So what was a private investigator doing on Robin’s boat? Who was he working for?
The wind rattled against the windows. Kiernan jumped. She searched the box of files for “Matucci.” Not there. “Damn,” she muttered. Whatever Delaney was investigating, it must be listed under the client’s name, as indeed it should be. She started through the files again, more slowly this time.
Then the doorbell rang.
23
BENT OVER DELANEY’S BOX of files, Kiernan froze. The doorbell rang again.
A log of cases? Delaney should have one. She grabbed the loose sheets at the front of the box and stuffed them down her shirt.
The doorbell kept on ringing. She shoved the file box back, pushed the carton of sweaters in front to hide it, and stepped into the hallway, jamming the flashlight into her fanny pack.
“Police! Open up!”
Was it really the police? She could always insist Delaney had lent her the apartment.
“Police! You got thirty seconds, lady!”
Lady! That skewed the odds. It was too late to brazen this one out.
“Twenty seconds and we’re coming in!”
We’re! Too risky to try the back stairs. Kiernan raced for the kitchen, yanked down the top window, climbed up on the sink, and slid through the opening, hanging by her knees in the narrow airshaft. Her heels brushed the bottom part of the window. So much for the erotic thrill of housebreaking. No wonder there’d never been a good word about coitus interruptus!
“Open this door! You want it smashed in?”
Light from the windows below and from the one opposite threw yellow smudges on the filthy stucco walls of the airshaft, highlighting the snails and slugs clinging to the sides. Tensing her abdominal muscles, she swung her arms up and grabbed for the edge of the roof.
Missed.
Her back hit the wall. She jammed her heels into the windowpane to keep from falling. From inside she heard someone pounding on the door. The voice yelled
, “Okay, that’s it!”
Pushing off the side of the building, she swung up again. And missed again. Her head smacked the wall.
The front door crashed open.
She took a deep breath, swung, reached, and shoved her feet against the glass. The glass shattered. She heard men running in. Crabbing the gutter, she yanked herself up and braced one foot on the window. Someone grabbed for the other. She kicked, pulled the foot out, pushed down hard with both arms and hoisted herself over onto the roof.
She could hear men’s shouts from the airshaft. They wouldn’t follow her—the space was too narrow. They’d head for the fire escape. She glanced at the roof of the house to her left. Too low; too long a drop. The only way down was over the roofs to the right.
The voices inside were louder. Two men, three?
The roof was barely canted to the side. She moved near the front. No flashing red lights below. No double-parked patrol car. No back-up units wheeling in. These guys weren’t cops. Who the hell were they and what did they plan to get out of her? Who sent them? Who knew she’d be here?
No point in prolonging this. She shook the rain from her hair, and stomped back across the roof to the fire escape, squatted down, pulled out her flashlight, and waited.
The stench of dirt and tar clogged her nose as she stared down at the edge of the roof. Rain pelted her back. In the distance sirens shrieked. She could still hear voices coming up the airshaft. But they were softer. Then louder. It was a moment before she realized the back door had been opened.
“Up there,” a male voice shouted. “Move!”
She stood up.
The rain looked like a wall of water shielding endless black. A wall of water coming at him, was that the last thing Delaney had seen as he went over the side? Kiernan’s soaked sweatshirt clung to her back. Icy rain pelted her face, ran down her neck, down her back, mixing with the sweat of fear. What was taking them so long?
Feet hit metal. One of the men climbing the fire escape. She waited for the other to flash a light along the edge of the roof, but none came. The fire-escape ladder came just to the edge of the roof; from there it was a matter of scrambling over. She backed off a yard. A hand came over the edge, grabbed onto the gutter. She waited. Another hand appeared. Then the head.
She flicked the flashlight onto high and shone it in his eyes.
“Hey! What the—Turn off that light!” In the piercing light the man looked deathly pale. Meaty cheeks, dark, stringy-wet hair, blue eyes blinking furiously. A face she’d never seen before. “Turn that goddamned thing off!”
“Who sent you?” she demanded.
His eyes were nearly closed. His left hand swung around, grabbing blindly.
“It’s a long way down. It’d be real easy for me to shove you back. Now, who are you working for?”
He swung again.
Sirens cut the air, nearer now. Had the neighbors called the police? She had to get out of here. But not without an answer. She stamped on his hand.
He screamed, and let go of the gutter.
Bracing her feet, she seized his hair and yanked his throat against the edge of the gutter. He gagged.
“You’ve got one more hand. Little bones, real easy to crush. Now, who sent you here?”
The siren was higher pitched, louder, closer. His hair was slick. He was taking too much time, thinking instead of blurting out the truth.
“Who?”
“Olsen,” he muttered.
“Don’t lie to me. Who?”
“Olsen!”
She jammed his throat into the metal gutter. “Prove it!”
The siren screeched to a stop.
“Olsen!” He snatched at her ankle.
She kicked, slamming her heel into the bridge of his nose. Screaming, he fell back. She heard him thud on the landing.
The siren stopped midshriek. A door slammed.
Kiernan turned and ran across the roof, feet slipping on the wet tar. She scrambled for balance and raced on, over the building’s edge onto the next roof, across it, to the next. Ahead were two more roofs this level, then a space, a shorter house. Don’t try the farthest one, that’s what they’ll expect.
She stopped, panting, then moved as quietly as possible to the rear edge of the next roof, and felt around for the fire escape. Her hand hit metal. She peered over. Damn! There was a light on inside. Couldn’t be helped. She swung her legs over the side and half climbed, half slid down to the back stairs.
Behind her an apartment door opened. She tore down the stairs to the second-story landing. A man upstairs was yelling. She reached the first landing, leapt over the railing to the yard. Footsteps clattered on the stairs behind her. She dashed under the house, through the passageway to the sidewalk.
Across the street she spotted a van parking. She ran toward it, unzipping her fanny pack. Crouching beside the van, she slipped on her slicker.
Voices shouted down the street. In front of Delaney’s building. Reacting to the clatter of her assailants.
Forcing herself to move slowly, she walked in the other direction. This was why Harry Scott decried housebreaking. It was, she thought, enough to promote a vow of chastity.
Once around the corner she broke into a run, splashing through puddles, racing as fast as she could. The Jeep was still where she had left it. She climbed in, turned the key and waited for the engine to warm. Now that she had stopped, the fear caught her; she sat shaking in the cold car. She clutched the gear knob tight, desperate to put the Jeep into first and drive to someplace safe. But where? Her motel? Would they know about that too? Olsen’s?
Olsen!
She hadn’t believed the guy when he’d come up with the name, but still … Could she go back to Olsen’s? Would he have returned by now, smugly content at having set her up?
She pulled out. There was no reason why Olsen would set her up. What could thugs get out of her that she wouldn’t tell Olsen on her own? Nothing before tonight. Now, she knew, that would be different.
Olsen lived less than ten blocks from here. She drove north to 24th Street. Even in the rain the commercial street was crowded. Cars lined up to turn into the Bell Market parking lot, blocking the single-file traffic behind. She looked at her watch. No wonder. It was only nine-thirty. It seemed unbelievable that these people were out shopping after a leisurely dinner; it was as if they lived in a parallel reality, sitting calmly in their cars, strolling into the store, deciding between Riesling and zinfandel.
She parked at the bottom of the staircase and ran up the wooden steps of Dixie Alley, through the gate to Olsen’s porch.
The apartment was dark. She knocked on the glass. “Skip!” She shone the flashlight through the sliding door onto the dining table. Olsen’s mug sat on the stained table. “Damn you, Olsen,” she muttered.
She climbed back into the Jeep and drove a couple of blocks, watching for signs of a tail. If there was one, he was real good. She could go back to the motel. Instead she pulled up under a streetlight to look at the sheet of paper she’d taken from Delaney’s apartment.
She stared at the damp, curling page. It was a Xerox of a check for a thousand dollars, actually made out in Delaney’s real—presumably real—name, Charles Devereaux. In the lower left-hand corner was noted “retainer.” It was signed by Delaney’s employer: Harold Olsen. Skip Olsen!
“What in hell is going on here?” she muttered aloud. “He insists on hiring me, doesn’t tell me that he’s already hired a PI who’s bought the farm. And then the fucker Olsen disappears. Or was kidnapped. Or is lying next to Delaney in the Great Closed File in the sky.”
24
HE WAS CHOKING. HE couldn’t scream. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t even feel his damn hands. Skip Olsen groaned.
Suddenly more awake, he tensed. He was tied up. Gagged. Blindfolded. He was going to throw up. And, goddamn it, he needed to take a shit.
His eyelids strained against the tight cloth. He couldn’t throw up: he’d choke.
But the
sway. Christ, he was in the bottom of a boat. He always did get seasick. What a way to die. He could see the guys at the station, one of them toasting his memory, the rest of them doubled over, laughing their guts out.
Who had conked him? He remembered the hand touching him, but that was it. No memory of the blow. Par for the course, right? Victim never remembers the blow. Brain goes out before pictures hit the memory. Anyone who says he remembers is lying. He tripped more than one felon up on that.
But he’d found out something … about Jessica Leporek. The thought lurked in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t grab it.
Where was he? Was this a police launch? Coast guard? His feet tingled. Wait: they were propped up against the end of the boat. His head hit something hard. And the stench! He gagged, heard the noise, tried to stop, couldn’t. Pain smashed against his skull. His hips and legs were numb. He was grateful. Once he started to feel that bum leg, no amount of self-control would help; he’d choke for sure. He groaned; didn’t bother to stifle the noise this time.
Then he heard footsteps on the ladder. Rubber shoes. He smelled brine, beer, and old, rancid sweat before someone smashed his skull hard against the bulkhead.
25
MORNING SNEAKS IN TO San Francisco. The dark of night fades slowly to the dimness of fog. Fog, Kiernan grumbled as she hoisted herself out of bed, is supposed to be a summer phenomenon.
Eight o’clock might be too early to call Olsen. The thought pleased her. “Olsen Investigative Services—” She slammed the receiver down on the message. Dammit, why had the man hired Carlos Delaney and not told her? What else hadn’t he told her? There were probably things he hadn’t told Delaney, and now Delaney was crab delight.
She glanced at the dresser she’d shoved in front of the door and felt the draft from the bathroom window she’d left wide open in case she’d had nocturnal visitors and needed a fast exit.
Impatiently, she dialed Olsen again. Not there. Maybe he’d come in late and left early. If Skip did hire Delaney, it must have been to find out about Robin. And, instead, Robin had found out about him. Maybe they scuffled. Maybe both of them drowned. But not likely. She pulled on her slicker and walked to the coffee shop for Viennese blend and muffins.