A Wild & Lonely Place (v5) (epub)

by Marcia Muller

  What the hell was going on here? I wondered. Morland’s call had made Adah’s emotional condition sound so serious that I’d cut short my weekend with Hy and made my first long solo flight. Now I found my supposedly desperate and suicidal friend well on the road to recovery—and felt both defrauded and guilty for feeling that way. I’d better get some answers out of her, and damn quick.

  She came outside, a glass of wine in either hand. “I took the liberty of ordering from Mama Mia’s. I’m starved, and you must be, too. Meat combo with olives and mushrooms, anchovies on your side. Okay?”

  I took the wineglass, frowning.

  “What, you’re off anchovies?”

  “Anchovies are fine.”

  “Then what the hell’s wrong with you?”

  “Wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? You trashed your life, and you’re ordering pizza?”

  She sat down in a basket chair, tucking her long legs underneath her. “Ah, McCone, I did my breast-beating last night. All night, and if it wasn’t for this nifty herbal cream I’ve got, my eyes’d be swollen shut from crying. But then I got over that and started thinking of the possibilities— and they are absolutely infinite!”

  Still out of control, I thought, but on the other end of the spectrum. “Okay—what are they?”

  “Well, for one thing, you and I are going to nail the Diplo-bomber. And collect the million-buck reward.”

  Humor her. “Sounds good to me.”

  “You remember the other day, when I told you the shield had gotten kind of tarnished?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, the way I see it, disasters like yesterday are a sign that things’ve got to change.”

  “So you’re glad that you’ll probably be thrown off the task force and out of the department?”

  “I’m ecstatic. All my life, McCone, I’ve been going by the book. Probably a reaction to Barbara and Rupert, who don’t even know there is a book. Now’s my chance to fly.”

  “And do what?”

  “I’ll figure that out later. Right now we’ve got to get to work on the Diplo-bomber.”

  “Adah, we have been working on the case. And with very little success.”

  “Well, thanks to last night’s meeting, we’ve got one more piece of information. The detail that was leaked to the Techno Web? It was a second signature that appeared for the first time on the bomb that went off at the Azadi Consulate: the letters C.L. incised on its metal base.”

  “Initials?”

  “Looked like.”

  “C.L.” I reviewed the names of the people connected with the consulate. None matched. “The bomber’s?”

  “Could be.”

  I was silent, sipping wine.

  “Adah, this leak—do they think it might have come from a member of the task force?”

  “No.”

  “The bomber, then.”

  “Uh-huh. They’re trying to get a court order for a list of the Web’s subscribers. But even if they do—and given the privacy laws, it’s dicey—it’ll take an enormous amount of time and manpower to track him down.”

  “And you think we can? Especially now, when we no longer have access to task force files?”

  “Don’t we?”

  “Do we?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Leave that detail to me.”

  Morland, I thought. He cares about her, and she’s going to use that for all it’s worth.

  “By the way, McCone,” she added, “I’m sorry about how I acted on Friday.”

  “Apology accepted. I’ve got to tell you, though—I didn’t appreciate the barrage of phone calls, to say nothing of you camping out on my doorstep.”

  She moved her shoulders in a manner that was usually a prelude to a difficult admission.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s, uh, about Friday night.”

  I closed my eyes, waiting for the other shoe.

  “I was pissed to begin with, but when you didn’t come home, I got really pissed. So I used the spare key you gave me when I stayed at your house while this place was being painted last winter.”

  “And did what?”

  “Uh, you know that bottle of ninety-three Deer Hill Chardonnay that you were saving?”

  I opened my eyes and frowned at her.

  “I drank it.”

  “You what? That wine cost fifty-five dollars! I was saving it for my fortieth birthday!”

  “Yeah, I know. And that’s not everything. Afterwards I got into the hard stuff and passed out on your couch. I think I broke one of those nice crystal glasses your sister gave you.”

  “You think?”

  “Well, I did.”

  “Is that all? You didn’t throw up on something? Wreck the furniture? Terrorize my cats? Uproot my houseplants?”

  “What do you think I am?”

  “You don’t want me to answer that.”

  “I feel bad enough about this, McCone. Don’t make it any worse. I’ll pay you for the wine, I promise.”

  “Damned right you will!” Inside the apartment the door-bell chimed. “And you’re also paying for the pizza.”

  She stood. “It’s fourteen bucks. Two-buck tip makes it sixteen. Your share’s eight, so that’s fifty-five less eight. Forty-seven I owe you.”

  “What about the glass?”

  “You told me you never liked that pattern anyway.”

  I sighed and went to the kitchen to refill my wineglass before she decided to start charging me.

  When I went back outside with the wine and a handful of paper napkins, Adah was sitting beside a low table on the deck, ripping open the pizza box. As usual, Charley was sucking around for more food. I sank down across from her, reaching for a slice with anchovies.

  “Look, McCone,” she said, “don’t be mad about the wine. Let’s get serious about the Diplo-bomber.”

  I chewed, looking inquiringly at her.

  “I’m dead certain that the guy on the Techno Web was him. I had plenty of time to dope that out while I was hiding in bed from old Craig—who, incidentally, has a hot thing for me, in spite of his tepid appearance.”

  I’d been right about how she planned to get access to task force files. “Have you…?”

  “God, no! And he’s too worshipful to expect anything. But listen: according to the profiles, a lot of guys who mess with explosives are also computer geeks. Computers’re an impersonal way to relate to people; bombs’re an impersonal way to kill them. Get the correlation? So now we know this: the guy subscribes to the Web, or he knows a way to get other subscribers’ passwords. He’s playful. Confident, too. He’s toying with us.”

  I nodded, mouth full again.

  “And here’s something else that I haven’t told you: I was on duty at the Azadi Consulate when the mail came on Friday. I intercepted a note that was meant for Malika Hamid. Guess what it said.”

  Be forewarned, I thought. I kept silent, though; my contract with RKI bound me to say nothing about the earlier notes the Azadis had received.

  “Well, the lettering was the same as in the ones he sent after the other bombings. Same stationery stock, too. Mailed at the Lombard Street post office. But it didn’t say ‘Vengeance is mine.’ It said, ‘Warning Number One. Remember C.L.’”

  That was a departure. “Did you question the consular staff to see if it meant anything to any of them?”

  “Spoke with Mrs. Hamid. We’re only supposed to deal with her, and at the time I was still following orders. She claimed she hadn’t a clue, but that she’d question the staff and bring it to the attention of the security people.”

  “You believe her?”

  “No.”

  “You bring it to the attention of Renshaw or his people?”

  She shook her head. “Like I said, Hamid told me she’d take care of that and somebody would get back to us.”

  And, I was sure, she’d conveniently neglected to do anything.

  I looked at the fresh piece
of pizza I’d just picked up and set it back in the box, my appetite gone. “This is only the first in a series of bombing attempts—I’d stake my license on that.”

  Adah grimaced. “And I’d stake my career—if I had one.”

  I said, “I think I’d better get hold of Gage Renshaw.”

  Nine

  Renshaw had flown back to Southern California, but I couldn’t reach him at his home. I called RKI’s headquarters in La Jolla and used the emergency code number he’d had assigned to me on Friday to get the night operator to track Gage down. By the time he called back, Adah had been badgering me for close to half an hour to tell her what I knew about the Azadis.

  “Where are you?” I asked impatiently.

  “Orange County. What’s happening?”

  I explained about the note Adah had intercepted. “Hamid didn’t mention it to you, did she?”

  “No.” Renshaw hesitated. “Let me call you back. I want to order tighter security there.”

  I set down the cordless phone I’d fetched from Adah’s bedroom and looked sternly at her. “If you ask me one more question, I’ll take the phone and lock myself in the bathroom.”

  She shrugged sulkily and carried the remains of the pizza inside. The evening was still warm, warning that we might be headed into one of those heat waves with which San Francisco is ill equipped to cope. I moved back to the chaise longue; when Adah returned she pulled the basket chair over by the railing and sat with her feet propped on it.

  “I love this deck,” she said in a studiously conversational tone that told me she’d decided it was in her best interests to keep off the subject of the Azadis. “Times when I’m too wiped out to read and the TV programming is too gruesome, I come out here and people-watch. Sometimes I feel like the Jimmy Stewart character in Rear Window.”

  “Oh? See anything interesting?”

  “That apartment building across the fence? I’ve named all the tenants, just like Stewart did. There’s Mrs. Cookie Monster—big fat woman who sits in a BarcaLounger and does nothing but eat Oreos morning, noon, and night. Takes them apart and licks off the frosting first. Then there’s Mr. Duck. He drives down the alley in one of those funny European cars and parks it by the dumpster. Waddles in, stays a couple of hours, waddles out again, dropping off his trash as he leaves. Fascinates me: those apartments aren’t very big, and he’s not there often, but he sure makes a lot of trash. Fascinates Ms. Feather, too.”

  “Ms. Feather?” In spite of my anxiety about the situation at the consulate, I was interested in Adah’s ramblings—mainly because they revealed an imaginative side to her that I hadn’t glimpsed before.

  “Ms. Feather lives in the building, but she acts like a homeless lady, always going through people’s trash. She’s got a whole collection of fancy feathered hats, and she gets dressed up before she checks out the dumpsters. She seems to prefer Mr. Duck’s trash to anything else; someday I’m going to pick through it, just to see what’s so fascinating. And then there’s Mr.—”

  The phone rang. I picked up and Renshaw said, “It’s taken care of. You have anything else to report?”

  “No, but I’m wondering if you shouldn’t get the little girl out of there. Her mother, too.”

  “I just suggested that to Hamid. She refused.”

  “She’d rather jeopardize their lives then give up a little control? That’s insane!”

  “You and I know that, but she’s within her rights. The child’s a minor, and the mother’s in no condition to take care of her. I don’t know if they’re Azadi citizens, but technically they’re living on Azadi soil.”

  “Very technically; the principle of extraterritoriality of diplomatic missions hasn’t always been upheld by the courts. Besides, Hamid’s rights shouldn’t take precedence over their safety. Maybe somebody should lay some hard facts on her—such as how helpless Mavis is. Such as what nasty things a bomb can do to the body of a nine-year-old!”

  “Sharon, calm down. I’ll try to talk sense to her when I get back there. You making any progress at all on this?”

  I didn’t reply immediately; anger had made me tongue-tied. The situation at the consulate had become untenable. There had to be a way to persuade Hamid that Habiba and Mavis should be moved to a safe location; there had to be a way to persuade her to share the bomber’s earlier communications with the task force.

  “Sharon?” Renshaw was impatient.

  “I need to meet with you. When’re you coming back here?”

  “Not till Tuesday. I’m tied up in meetings with a major client in Irvine all day tomorrow.”

  “Tuesday might be too late.”

  “So come down here. There’s a seven A.M. flight from SFO that’ll put you into John Wayne at eight twenty-eight. I’ll buy you breakfast at the airport.”

  Awful hour. “Will do. Have my coffee waiting for me.”

  As I hung up, Adah said, “Well?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon we’ll talk some more. Where’re your Yellow Pages?”

  “Living room bookcase.”

  I went inside, paged through one, and called for an airline reservation. Then I dialed Mick.

  “It’s about time you got home,” he said. “I tried to call you at the cottage to warn you, and Hy said you’d left early. Where’ve you been?”

  “Warn me about what?”

  “Somebody got into your house while you were away. There was an empty wine bottle and an open bottle of bourbon on the table in the sitting room. A broken glass on the floor. And it looked like they slept on the couch.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I glanced at Adah, who had followed me in. “It was a benign burglar with alcoholic tendencies.”

  The burglar glared at me.

  I said to Mick, “Grab a pencil and paper, would you, and take down this list.” Turning my back to Adah and lowering my voice, I told him what information I wanted from the newspaper files; it was a long list, and I added items as I went. “First thing tomorrow I want you to call Charlotte Keim at RKI and get her working on this.”

  “Shar, why can’t I do it?”

  “We can’t let down our regular clients just because I’ve taken on too much. I’m counting on you to keep the agency running smoothly.”

  He gave me no further protest, just read the list back to me and said good night. I hung up and turned to Adah. She was looking sulky again, but agreed to give me a ride home. When she dropped me in front of my house, though, she couldn’t resist a parting shot: “McCone, if you can afford fifty-five buck bottles of wine, you really should start thinking about buying better bourbon.”

  I didn’t reply. She’d get her comeuppance soon enough when she got home and realized I’d taken her guns for safekeeping.

  * * *

  John Wayne Airport had palm trees in the center of its indoor concourse. A friend who lived in nearby Newport Beach had told me they were embalmed. Literally. Just how it was done, she didn’t know, but the trees looked fully lifelike, and it was eerie to know there wasn’t a single living cell among them.

  Another thing that was strange about the airport was that nobody would call it by its official name. The reservations people, the ticketing agent up north, and the locally based flight crew all referred to it as Santa Ana. I mulled that over as I looked for the restaurant, and decided that they must be resistant to the airport being named after a movie actor. As far as I was concerned, the attitude made no sense. After all, hadn’t the state twice elected a far worse actor as governor? And then hadn’t the entire country put same in the White House? At least the airport commission had honored Wayne after his death, rather than putting him in charge of the control tower.

  I spotted Renshaw in a booth toward the back of the restaurant, hunched over a cup of coffee. In his natural Southern California habitat he dressed casually in a sport shirt and slacks, but they looked as rumpled and shabby as the suit and tie he wore up north. Gage was reputed to be a millionaire many times over, and Hy had told me he displayed good tas
te in other areas. The clothing, I concluded now, was an affectation designed to soften the image of a very ruthless business.

  Dan Kessell had always kept in the background at RKI, allowing Renshaw to act as the firm’s front man with clients and the press. Frequently Gage gave newspaper and magazine interviews in which he essentially said, “Oh, gosh, we’re just this little company that teaches executives self-defense tactics and creates corporate security systems. Do we operate outside the law? Come on! Do I look like the kind of guy who would do something illegal?”

  But illegal activity had been a constant in Renshaw’s life, dating back to when he was with the DEA in Southeast Asia.

  A great deal of smuggling went on across the war-torn borders in those days, and while Gage’s job was to prevent drug trafficking, his sideline was to profit from moving commodities and people. As Hy had told me, “Kessell would get at least one referral a week from Gage. Along with his official work, he was out there hustling and making contacts. People wanted to move stuff fast—firearms, gold, jewelry, artifacts, uncut stones, currency. Drugs, too, although Gage pretended not to know about that. They wanted to move themselves and their families, and didn’t care what it cost. And it cost plenty, because before Kessell gouged them, Renshaw had his hand out for his finder’s fee.”

  Those were dangerous times, violent times. A lot of people got rich, and everybody else—including Hy—profited nicely. But, like my lover, many brought away more than the numbers of Swiss bank accounts: nightmares, tightly boxed demons, enough regrets to last ten lifetimes. As I approached Renshaw’s booth I wondered about the quality of his sleepless nights. If he was human—and the jury was still out on that—they must be nights of which I hoped never to experience the equal.

  Gage rose and motioned for me to sit across from him. I nodded to the waitress who had appeared with a coffeepot, then scanned the menu. As a consequence of getting up before five I was starving, so I ordered corned beef hash with poached eggs, an English muffin, and tomato juice. Renshaw looked astonished and faintly disgusted.

  He said, “Am I to assume you’ll be able to talk while you shovel all that in?”