by Susan Cox
When I’d known him better, Kurt had the emotional depth of a flounder and a chilly mien to go along with his pale good looks. I thought he’d behaved out of character by marrying Sabina while she was pregnant with another man’s child. I was still suspicious and always watched him carefully for signs of disenchantment, but to all outward appearances he’d entered his marriage and fatherhood with enthusiasm. Sabina had told me he was participating in parental duties wholeheartedly, although what that meant for either of them with a full-time nanny on hand, I wasn’t sure. Sabina was pregnant again at the recommendation of their family therapist (this is California, after all), who felt a baby who was wholly theirs would cement the family bonds. I was raised on the unfortunate dynamics of the stepfamilies in the Brothers Grimm tales, so it sounded a risky strategy to me, but so far seemed to be so good.
After the stories of Sebastian’s weight benchmarks reached and cleverness displayed, we all sat in silence for a couple of minutes, Kurt and I drinking our wine. They seemed very happy, and six months ago I would have bet money that Kurt wasn’t capable of the depth of warmth I saw in his cool, gray eyes every time he looked at Sabina. He looked like a man who couldn’t believe his good fortune. Sabina’s attitude was a little more … wry. But judging from the condition of their bed, she was happy enough, too.
I introduced Katrina into the conversation gingerly, and they both made regretful faces.
Sabina said, “We knew about the orphanage.”
“Katrina asked us for a donation, and I was happy to help,” Kurt said. “Seemed like a really worthwhile cause.” And yet they hadn’t gone to the memorial service.
“The Professor said Katrina being murdered wasn’t much of a surprise to him,” I said gingerly.
Sabina’s expression darkened. “He was worrying himself into a nervous breakdown. I’d have said anything to ease their minds a little, and I could have killed her myself for putting them through that. But Kurt came up with a better solution.”
Kurt had a golf tee in his left hand and he rolled it between his fingers like a magician preparing a sleight-of-hand trick. He tossed it upward, caught it, and took a deep breath. “When the condo plans fell through, and the buildings were still sitting there empty, Katrina and I put in an offer.”
My jaw may have dropped. “The condo plan fell through? When? Why? How long have you known, for god’s sake? No one told the neighborhood.” He shrugged. He had a great line in shrugs if you weren’t on the receiving end. “You don’t think life here would have gone a bit more smoothly if we’d known? Jesus, Kurt, the association meetings alone—and Katrina might still be alive.”
He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Suppose someone thought killing Katrina would stop the condo project?”
He snorted and put down his wine. “Are people really that dumb? She was only the lawyer, not the principal.”
“Some people thought of the project as life or death for the Gardens. That didn’t make them dumb,” I said stiffly. Although, yeah, it probably did.
“Katrina thought if everyone was still furious with Noble, we’d slip in under the radar without too much opposition.” As usual, Kurt had thought of himself first and to heck with how things affected other people. I bet he only gave a donation to the orphanage because he could deduct it off his taxes.
He went on. “I thought it would preserve the nature of the Gardens for the people who already lived here and owned property.” He darted a look at Sabina, who smiled and patted his hand. Okay, maybe he didn’t always think of himself first. Just mostly. He cleared his throat. “So we made an offer on the buildings, but—Theo, this is complicated; do you really want to hear about it?”
“Are you kidding? Of course I want to hear about it. Why was it complicated?”
“Noble was tired of all the protests and the city on his case for months. Two months ago he was looking for a way out, and Katrina found it for him. The title on one of the buildings wasn’t secure. He backed out of financing the purchase. Unfortunately, Angela was stuck with properties she didn’t want. I think it put her in financial hot water, too.”
“Angela?”
“Angela Lacerda. She’d purchased the buildings on his behalf originally. It isn’t that unusual,” he went on, at my surprised exclamation. “If people know there’s someone with deep pockets interested in their property, the price goes up. A developer has a front person do the purchasing so his name doesn’t come into it.”
I thought of Angela’s left hand, which used to be weighed down with a three-carat diamond engagement ring. No wonder she blamed Katrina for her troubles. “So, simplifying here, Angela bought the buildings for him, but Noble refused to reimburse her, and she was stuck with them. And it was Katrina’s fault.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Basically. After the title thing was cleared up, Katrina and I wrote her an offer, but Angela rejected it. She ripped Katrina a new one apparently, insisted there wasn’t anything wrong with the title, that the sale to Noble was being held up for no reason.”
“Was she right?”
He put his wineglass on the coffee table and avoided meeting my eyes. “The title issue was cleared up, that’s all I know.”
“So what happens now? Do the buildings stay empty?”
“With Katrina out of the picture, I couldn’t handle the purchase alone. I mended fences with Angela, told her if she decided to hold on to the buildings, and did a build-out to suit me, I’d be her first tenant. I offered her a year’s rent up front, and we’re guaranteeing her a ten-year lease. She’ll recoup her money and then some. It’s property in San Francisco. Money in the bank. Look, I’ll show you.”
He took up the bottle of wine, and Sabina and I followed him into the dining room, where he unrolled an architectural rendering and some technical drawings onto the table. He leaned across to anchor the top corners with the bottle and a potted orchid.
“The view from the Gardens side will look pretty much the same as now; she’ll put retail space with large windows on the street level, but most of the work will be interior. Upstairs, we’ll have plenty of consultation spaces, good space for the admin staff, natural light. Space like that downtown would cost us twenty-five dollars more a square foot. The permitting process was fast-tracked, demo has started, and it should be ready in six to eight months. And after that, my commute will be five minutes instead of twenty-five.” He and Sabina exchanged a smile. His surgeon’s hands were delicate and sure as he rolled up the drawings. “If I’m honest, I’m relieved it turned out this way. Katrina was—she hadn’t been completely—” He didn’t finish the thought. “If you’re interested, I’d offer to show you the space, but I’m doing a video consult with a surgeon in Australia, and if that somehow runs long it could be a while.”
“Would you like to see it, Theo?” Sabina asked. “We could walk over. It’s mostly just a construction site, but it’s kind of interesting to imagine the ‘after.’ Almost as good as HGTV. I was there a couple of days ago checking out the closets.” She snorted. “The plans call for eliminating some of the storage spaces, but I’m thinking we need to put them back into the design.” She shrugged. “Anyway, come on over with me and you can tell me what you think.”
Kurt checked his watch. “I have to change and get back to the office.” He hesitated. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble by keeping this all under wraps, Theo. Katrina wanted it kept on the down-low. We don’t need neighborhood association approval for the build-out, because nothing much will be different on the outside, but if you want to share it all with them, I’m fine with it. Maybe they’ll think I’m one of the good guys, for a change.”
If it weren’t for the fact that he’s an arrogant bastard I would have said he looked unsure of himself. I knew he wasn’t popular in the community, mostly because of that arrogance, and I certainly wasn’t a fan, but maybe he had some good points hidden under the façade after all.
Sabina pulled on a sweater. “Come
on, Theo—I’ll show you what the new space will look like. There’s already been some problem with the plumbing, and I imagine there’s a lot more of that kind of stuff to come.” She rolled her eyes.
I put down my wine glass. “What’s the plumbing problem? Is it anything to do with the stream under Polk Street?”
“There’s a stream?”
“Apparently.”
“The builders called yesterday and said some storm drain must have backed up, and it’s causing a stink. Luckily, not our problem. If we’d bought the buildings, on the other hand…”
Most of Sabina’s height was in her legs; her jacket fit me perfectly. I put it on as we left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I think the power is on,” Sabina said, clicking a switch. A sconce in the wall flickered on and then died. “Maybe we don’t need the light,” she said hastily and clicked the switch off again. She stepped over a small drift of fast-food bags, candy wrappers, paper napkins, and several coffee cups swept into a neat pile. I thought I caught a glint of gold and bent down to look.
Sabina looked back. “Have you found something?”
I sifted through the pile with my toe. “I thought maybe someone had dropped a gold charm, but it’s just a shiny logo printed on a napkin.” I pointed it out. “Have you ever been to the Venus de Milo Club?”
“God, Theo, why would I want to go there? It’s all naked women and bachelor parties.”
“Really? Huh. Never mind, then.”
“Come on up. I’ll show you where the buildings will be thrown together upstairs.” She wrinkled her nose. “I see what they mean about that smell. Sorry, Theo, I didn’t realize it was this bad. It should be better upstairs.”
Within minutes we were opening doors onto closets and bathrooms, trying to find the source of the stench and calling back and forth, stifling giggles and trying to come up with the most ridiculous ideas of what could be causing it, when Sabina suddenly went silent.
“Sabina? Have you found the pile of dead fish?” I turned a corner, and she was staring into a closet with one hand holding the door and the other hand over her mouth. She looked up at me, and tears spilled onto her cheeks.
I took a cautious look inside the closet, at the body partly wrapped in a padded blanket and duct tape. He’d been dead a while. His scarred face was gray-green and horribly distorted, his eyes distended behind his glasses. His swollen tongue was erupting from his mouth, forcing his lips away from his teeth. One of the teeth was gold, otherwise I might not have recognized him. Built-up gases had bloated his body so that his clothes were stretched and looked much too small for him. His scarf was digging into the flesh of his neck, covering his Roman collar, if he was still wearing it.
Feeling as if I knew far too much about what to do next, I took hold of Sabrina’s arm and guided her downstairs as I pulled out my phone. In the few minutes before the police arrived, I telephoned Grandfather and left an unsatisfactory message along the lines of our mutual friend has turned up dead—I couldn’t think of any creative, spy-like obfuscating language to disguise the news of Sergei’s death and the fact that I was freaking out.
“Tell me again, Ms.… Bogart, how you came to be in the empty building.” Inspector Lichlyter had looked resigned when she’d arrived to find me with Sabina, who was still weeping quietly under the care of an EMT.
“My friends Sabina and Kurt Talbot have been renovating the buildings, and Sabina brought me over to look at the work they’d done. We could smell something bad, and we were looking around to see if we could find the source of the smell, and we found … him.”
I looked over to where people in bunny suits and masks were photographing the corpse in situ. I envied them their masks. With the closet door open, the smell was indescribable.
“Do you recognize this, Ms.… Bogart?” Lichlyter held up a see-through plastic evidence bag, the inside smeared with blood.
I didn’t realize until that moment that hair actually did stand up on end. In fact, my hair seemed to be trying to crawl off my head. Recognize it? I’ve been familiar with that hoof pick since I was eleven years old and gave it to Grandfather for his birthday. He used it to hold his keys, which were still attached. It was a ring of heavy brass, a bit more than two inches across, with a sharp hook attached to one side with a hinge. The hook folded into the center and turned it into something that could be safely carried in the pocket of, say, a pair of jodhpurs, but easily extended to clean a horse’s hoof of hard-packed sand, or to remove a stone. The hook was extended and bloody.
“I don’t think so,” I lied. “What is it?” That struck the right note of polite curiosity, although she gave me a sharp look, and I reminded myself to be careful, that she was far from stupid.
“We think it’s the murder weapon.” As if the blood hadn’t given me my first clue. “The victim had it in stuck in his jugular.”
Which was sickening for more than one reason.
“His wallet has a driver’s license and some credit cards in the name of Sergei Wolf. Is the name familiar at all?”
“No,” I said, lying again automatically, and then, prompted by God knows what, blurted, “Did Father Martin from up at St. Christopher’s get in touch with you?”
“You think this is related to the hands in the coffee shop?” she said sharply.
“I don’t know,” I said hurriedly. “I just wondered.” I nodded toward the crime scene. “Are his hands … intact?”
Her face closed down. “We’ll know more after the autopsy. What else can you tell me?”
“Nothing. No, really, nothing,” I said, and carefully didn’t look at the hoof pick in the plastic bag.
“Your friends Dr. and Mrs. Talbot, they own the building?
I shook my head. “The owner is another local; her name is Angela Lacerda.”
She wrote that down in her notebook, but within minutes Angela had arrived, flustered and appalled and disinclined to be helpful. “I’m not answering any questions,” she said brusquely when Lichlyter approached. “You can talk to my lawyers. What is going on here?” When she got her first whiff of the body, she gagged and covered her mouth and nose with her hand. “God! Let me out of here.” She turned and stumbled back outside. When I followed her out, she turned on me, her face red and tear-streaked. “What on earth is happening—are you involved in this?”
“No, of course not. I just found him.”
“It’s the second body you’ve found”—incredibly, she made air quotes with both hands—“I guess he who hides can find, right?”
“No, that’s not what—”
But she spun and strode away from me down the street, sobbing angrily. What she hadn’t done, I realized as she marched away, was ask anything about the murdered man.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When Lichlyter let us go, I saw Sabina home and mobilized Sebastian’s nanny. Mariana didn’t speak much English but understood that there was a crisis and went into nurturing mode with warm blankets and cups of hot tea. Sabina had stopped weeping, but the EMT said she was in shock, and I could believe it. I tried to rub some warmth into her freezing cold hands, and we talked quietly until Kurt got home, taking the stairs two at a time, his Australian colleague abandoned after my call.
As soon as I felt I could leave, I made a beeline to Grandfather’s home on Telegraph Hill and rappelled down the stairs to his front door. The homes there are built on a series of small plateaus, accessible by steep flights of stairs, and the light is soft and filtered through a thick green canopy. It’s not the ideal place for a seventy-year-old man to live, in part because some of the homes could kindly be described as quirky, but Grandfather said he liked the trees. One of the first things he’d arranged, while he was still staying at the Ritz-Carlton on Cathedral Hill, was a lease on a Bechstein grand piano. (“It’s huge, Grandfather. Where will you put it?” “I don’t need a dining room, Theophania, but I do need room for a piano.”) The thing is nine feet long. Hauling it up the four hundred
steps from Filbert Street must have been worth a hefty tip.
Neither he nor his housekeeper came when I rang the bell, so I pulled out my key and let myself in, jittery with nerves and wondering vaguely where he could be and why he hadn’t returned my call
His home was small but lovely, glowing with silver and fine, polished furniture, and comfortable, linen-covered chairs. Things looked normal, but it was unusually quiet. He often had music playing, or he was making his own at the piano, or his housekeeper, Mrs. Munn, was making small noises at the back of the house. Not today.
“Grandfather?” I took a cautious step inside. “Grandfather, are you home?”
Birds chattered and fluttered in the trees outside, but the house was silent. I went cautiously into each room and found his phone on a charger in the kitchen. I unplugged it, taking it with me and checking his voice mail. I have texts and voice mail messages on my phone going back to the day I bought it, but he always deleted his messages as soon as he’d listened to them. My message was still here, so he hadn’t heard it. I also checked under the beds and inside the closets. I’m not sure why, except Sergei had been found in a closet, and you never know.
Each room except one was completely orderly. An oil painting in the living room was on the floor, leaning against the wall. My father specialized in portraits, but this was one of his fairly rare landscapes, and Grandfather had included it among the items he’d shipped from England. As a reminder of our family tragedy, I would have thought he’d never want to see that particular painting ever again. Instead, it had pride of place. I tugged on the door of the small wall safe it usually disguised, to make sure it was still closed, then quickly replaced the painting and went on through the house. As I rifled in a drawer, trying to find some paper and a pen to leave a note, I heard a noise at the front door and spun around to see him, looking hale and hearty, if a little surprised to see me.