A Wild & Lonely Place (v5) (epub)

by Marcia Muller

  “Hank? Oh, Christ, what am I saying? When?”

  “Three this afternoon. Both Hamids were there, and presumably killed. The only survivor that I know of is Kahlil Lateef, the trade attaché.”

  He was silent, and I knew he was thinking Habiba could have been there. “The guy’s got to be stopped, McCone.” “Yes. I have an idea that may help identify him, or at least narrow the range of suspects. Let me run this by you.” I detailed what I’d thought of at the restaurant with Craig Morland.

  Hy said, “What surprises me is that nobody’s thought of this before. Or maybe they did, but checked out the wrong group of people.”

  “I’m going to get hold of Mick and start him working on it right away.”

  “Why not use Charlotte Keim, too?”

  “I’d just as soon steer clear of RKI.”

  “Why?”

  “Renshaw and I are having a disagreement. I insisted he take all his information to the task force. He was willing to do it—with or without Malika Hamid’s consent—when the bombs were sent to the Azadi Embassy and U.N. delegation. Now he’s backpedaling—protecting the client’s interests, he claims, but he’s really protecting himself. He wouldn’t listen to the new information I have; all he wanted was for me to turn Habiba over to him.”

  “Sounds like it’s cover-Gage’s-ass time. What did you tell him about Habiba?”

  “I refused to hand her over. He accused me of being on a power trip.”

  “So?”

  “Ripinsky, I’m not. I just want to keep the kid safe.”

  “I know that, but don’t you think it’s possible you may also enjoy calling the shots where Gage is concerned?”

  “Well…”

  “Exactly. You can fault him in any number of ways, but not for pointing that out.”

  “But he said I have a twisted need for power!”

  Hy laughed. “The cad! You want me to duke it out with him?”

  “Ripinsky!”

  “Okay.” Serious now. “You know, I like calling the shots, too, and I own a good chunk of that company. Nothing to stop me from phoning Gage from my bed of pain and setting him straight.”

  The offer was tempting, but I had to fight my own battles with Renshaw. Besides, this was a time when I should be distancing myself from RKI. “Thanks, but Mick and I can handle things as far as the data search goes. And you’re in that bed of pain to recover from this malady, so please concentrate on that.”

  My nephew had come to the connecting doorway between our offices, freshly groomed and probably well fed. I said good-bye to Hy and set the receiver in its cradle, then swiveled toward Mick. “You look ready to go to work.”

  * * *

  “Shar, get in here!”

  “What?” I started at the urgency in Mick’s voice.

  “Now!”

  I pushed up from my worn oriental rug, where I’d been poring over the spread-out files on the people involved in the case. Mick sat at the computer, its screen glowing in the darkness of his tiny office. We’d been working together for several hours, narrowing our list to a small number of suspects.

  He pointed to the screen as I came in. “I took a break and checked the boards on the Web. Look at this. He’s signed it differently, but I’ll bet it’s him.”

  I leaned over his shoulder and read the line he indicated.

  I AM NOT FINISHED. I WILL POST MY DEMANDS SOON.

  The message was signed “Tied Hands.”

  “Of course!” I said. “Tied hands—the first signature on the bombs was a metal device that looked like praying hands tied at the wrists. It fits the motive perfectly. Dawud Hamid couldn’t legally be punished because the authorities’ hands were tied by his diplomatic immunity. As were the hands of the authorities in all the other cases.”

  “Fine, but why isn’t he finished? He blew Hamid to hell this afternoon.”

  “Did he?”

  Mick turned from the screen, and his pale eyes fixed on mine. In that instant I realized how alike we were, and felt a connection click into place between us that would hold firm for the rest of our lives.

  I asked, “You still have the number of that cab that picked up Hamid on Russian Hill?”

  But he was already digging a notebook from his shirt pocket and reaching for the phone. He punched in a number and gave the person who answered a name—Inspector A. Joslyn—and an SFPD shield number—also Adah’s. Asked his questions and sat back, tapping his pencil impatiently.

  “Have you gotten information that way before?” I whispered.

  “A time or two.”

  “Adah’ll have your ass for that.”

  “Not if we save hers.” He scribbled in his notebook, thanked the dispatcher, and broke the connection.

  “Hamid’s alive,” I said.

  “Right. He asked the cab driver to wait around the block in front of the consulate’s annex on Pacific. Showed up less than twenty minutes later.”

  “And went where?”

  Mick held the notebook out. “The trip log shows an address on Manzanita Lane in Brisbane. Mean anything to you?”

  It certainly did.

  Twenty-seven

  At eleven-ten the fog hung thick and motionless in the eucalyptus along Manzanita Lane, reminding me of the night I’d returned there after pulling Mavis Hamid’s body from the Bay.

  I drove past the plank bridge that led to Langley Newton’s bungalow, kept on to where the potholed pavement ended in a tangle of scrub vegetation, and U-turned. A stand of cypress blocked my view of the bridge now; I tucked the MG behind it and cut the lights. Then I reached for the car phone and called Mick.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “I checked with all the cab dispatchers on that part of the Peninsula. Nada. If Hamid left Newton’s place, it was by private car.”

  “You talk with Blanca?”

  “Reached her at the condo; more entertaining tonight. She overheard the three of them arguing this morning. Ronquillo picked up on some sexual tensions—woman-man things, Blanca calls them—between his lady and Hamid, and told him he had to leave. Hamid’s run short of cash, and Visa has started kicking back his card because he’s over his limit, so Leila called Langley Newton and asked him if Dawud could stay with him after he visited his mother.”

  “Why couldn’t he persuade her to let him stay at the consulate?”

  “Newton asked that, too; apparently he didn’t really want a visitor. Leila told him Malika had granted an audience of no more than twenty minutes, on the condition that Dawud take the first flight back to the Caribbean. But he’s determined to stay around till he can collect his daughter.”

  “So it’s safe to assume he’s still here at Newton’s.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “I know; I’d better make sure.” I looked glumly out the window at the thick, uninviting fog. “You making any headway on our list of suspects?”

  “Some. Blanca was able to answer a few of the questions I couldn’t find in any database, so I should have something for you within the hour.”

  “Then I’ll call you back after I take a look around here.”

  I set the receiver back in its cradle and took the .38 that I’d picked up at home from my tote bag. Slipped out of the car, locked it, and stood listening for a moment. Mutters came from a TV in one of the downhill dwellings; a dog barked monotonously on the ridge. I stuck the gun into the waistband of my jeans, pulled my jacket collar up against the chill, and slid down the incline to where the little creek trickled over moss-slick stones. As I moved along the creek bed I braced my hands against the slope. When I sighted the plank bridge I scrabbled to higher ground and struck out through the grove.

  Soon I sighted two rectangles of light: the front window of the bungalow and a smaller one toward the rear. I stopped at the edge of the trees and scrutinized them; both were like projection screens on which the film had yet to run. I waited for several minutes, smelling the distant sea under the more insistent cat-spray scent o
f the eucalyptus.

  The black Citroen was pulled up in front of the bungalow, and beyond it the junk on the porch was a shadowy mare’s-nest where anything or anyone might lurk. The dark hulks of the pickups didn’t look much more inviting, but they presented good vantage points for watching the windows. I glanced around, then sprinted toward the closest one and crouched in its shadow, studying the front window some more.

  Newton had told me he seldom used that room except when he had company.

  After about ten minutes an elongated shadow rippled from left to right across the pulled-down shade. It seemed to grow smaller, then lengthened again and rippled back the way it had come. The tang of woodsmoke drifted through the air.

  I looked up at the bungalow’s roof. There was a metal chimney above the spot where I recalled a woodstove standing, and it now emitted a plume of smoke. Someone had stirred the fire. Who? And what about that light in back?

  The other pickup was closer to the rear window. I ran to its shelter.

  The shade back there was also taut, and the window was covered by a security grille. I watched, resting my eyes frequently when the shadows cast by the bars began to play tricks on me. Five minutes. Ten. Fourteen—

  Someone moved inside the room, had probably just come in. An indistinct shape passed the window. Passed once more, and a third time. Then another figure appeared—larger and to the left. The first shape pivoted, and I imagined an exchange of words. In less than a minute the light in the room went out.

  I glanced at the front of the bungalow. The parlor window still glowed. Bent over, I dashed toward the other pickup. Reached it in time to see the same tall shape pass the front window.

  One person going to bed, one sitting up late. Two people in residence, anyway.

  Quickly I retraced my path to the MG.

  * * *

  “Anything?” I asked Mick again.

  “Yeah, but I don’t think you’re gonna like it. This analysis isn’t working for us.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Okay, I used the variables you gave me: presence in San Francisco during nineteen eighty-nine; presence in D.C. from ninety through ninety-one; presence in New York City from ninety-one through ninety-two; and absence from the country from ninety-three to late ninety-four. Based on that I came up with only two names of men connected with the case.”

  “Who?”

  “One’s Langley Newton.”

  Newton, the bomber? Not too damn likely, given that he was currently playing host to the bomber’s primary target.

  “No, I don’t like that,” I told Mick, “but give me the details, anyway.”

  “Okay, he worked at Das Glücksspiel from the mid-eighties till it was sold in fall of eighty-nine. Remained in the city through the holidays, then took a job with a firm that manages food services on military installations. Was in the D.C. area till ninety-one, New Jersey from ninety-one through two. Then he left that company and went to work for a franchise that was setting up outlets in Europe. Was overseas where he couldn’t’ve mailed a bomb during ninety-three and the early part of ninety-four. It all fits.”

  “Except for the fact that Dawud Hamid is alive and well in his back room. Who’s the other possible?”

  “Kahlil Lateef, sole survivor of today’s bombing.”

  I liked that better, though not a lot. It did fit with my suspicion that the bombing might have been an inside job, though. Lateef would have known Dawud was coming to the consulate; he could easily have planted the bomb before he took his daily stroll to the Marina Green. But had he known Chloe Love? Very likely; Das Glücksspiel had been a diplomatic hangout.

  “Okay—the details?”

  “Assistant trade attaché at the San Francisco consulate, eighty-seven to November of eighty-nine. Personal aide to Ambassador Jalil, eighty-nine to June of ninety-one. Trade attaché, United Nations delegation, ninety-one through two. Returned to Azad due to family tragedy, ninety-three through October ninety-four, when he was reposted here.”

  So Lateef had been in San Francisco when Love was murdered and Hamid disappeared. Somehow he’d given me a different impression. I reviewed my luncheon conversation with the trade attaché; he’d been vague on the date of Dawud’s disappearance and said nothing about him being a suspect in the Love case. That was odd, for such a malicious gossip as Lateef. Unless he had a bad memory, or feared the consul general’s wrath too much to open that can of worms. Or unless he had something to hide.…

  “Shar?”

  “Nothing more on the Web?”

  “I haven’t checked in a while.”

  “Do, then. I’ll hold.”

  Both the suspects fit the physical profile of the bomber, such as it was. Both had been in the right places at the right time. Lateef had had access to the consulate this afternoon. And yet…

  Did either of them have it in him to coolly walk up to the door of the consulate and hand a bomb to a nine-year-old girl? Was either a sociopath who would taunt and toy with the authorities? Was either a thrill-seeker who got off on power?

  Who could tell? The bomber was a good actor; he’d proven as much time and again.

  “Shar? Nothing new on the boards.”

  “Well, keep monitoring them. I’m going to pay a call on Newton.”

  * * *

  Langley Newton’s eyes narrowed when he saw me standing in the circle of light from the overhead bulb on his porch. He wore the same threadbare bathrobe as the last time I visited, and a pair of half-glasses perched on the end of his nose. “Ms. McCone,” he said, removing the glasses, “what is it? Has something else happened?”

  “That depends on what you mean by ‘else.’ The Azadi Consulate was blown up this afternoon, and all but one person are presumed dead.”

  “I know; I saw it on the TV news.” He glanced over his shoulder, then stepped out in his stockinged feet onto the porch and pulled the door shut behind him. “I’m sorry I can’t invite you in. I’ve a guest, someone who’s a light sleeper. I don’t want our voices to carry.”

  “Ah, you have a friend visiting.”

  After a slight hesitation he nodded, his low-slung halo of silver hair looking tarnished in the light from the bulb.

  “Or is he a friend of a friend?” I asked.

  “…I’m sorry?”

  “Perhaps your visitor is a friend of Leila Schechtmann?”

  Newton frowned, probably wondering if Leila had told me Hamid was there. He took a step to the side and leaned against the old wringer washing machine that sat next to the door, folding his arms across his chest.

  “Mr. Newton,” I said, “how long does Dawud Hamid plan to stay with you?”

  “Hamid?”

  “Come on, I know Leila sent him to you earlier today. I know he’s sleeping in your back room. For how long?”

  “…I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “Well, a day or two anyway.”

  “So he can try to get hold of his daughter.”

  Newton nodded slightly and shifted his weight, his gaze sliding away from mine. “Why are you interested in Hamid?”

  “Someone I know is looking for him. I want to put them in touch before Hamid leaves the country.”

  He scanned the darkness around us, as if he thought the person might be lurking in the trees. “You’re lying to me.”

  “About what?”

  “Nobody you know is looking for Hamid. The only person besides you who’s interested in him is the Diplobomber.”

  I hesitated, framing my reply, warning myself to proceed cautiously. “What do you know about the bomber?”

  “Only what I’ve seen on the news and what Hamid’s told me. I know about the woman Dawud killed, and about the bomber torturing the Azadis with messages every time he struck.”

  “Does Hamid know who he is?”

  He shook his head.

  “And he admitted to the murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you’re letting him stay here, even
though he killed your friend?”

  “My…?”

  He didn’t know. “The woman Dawud raped and strangled was Chloe Love.”

  “Chloe…Chloe’s dead?”

  “Yes, in January of eighty-nine. Hamid was the prime suspect, but he walked because of diplomatic immunity. Since he told you he killed a woman, that pretty much erases any last doubts about his guilt.”

  But Newton wasn’t listening; he seemed to have withdrawn, as though the news of Love’s murder had been too much for him to absorb.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  He moved his hand in a blind gesture, his eyes focused somewhere behind me.

  I said gently, “Why don’t you call the police, Mr. Newton? Turn Hamid over to them?”

  “Why? You said they couldn’t do anything to him when it happened.”

  “Times have changed. A case might be made otherwise. They’re starting to crack down on diplomatic crime; the D.A. brought charges against the Irish consul general last year when he injured all those people in that drunk-driving accident. And this is a far more serious crime.”

  Again he made the blind gesture. “A lawyer of the caliber Dawud can afford would surely get him off. Why should I start something that never can be finished?”

  It was the response I’d been hoping for. I wanted Hamid to stay safe and unsuspecting at Newton’s bungalow; he was my only bargaining chip with the bomber. With Kahlil Lateef, apparently.

  “Mr. Newton, can you keep Hamid here?”

  He shrugged. “Not if he doesn’t want to stay. He’s younger and stronger than I.”

  “What if you tell him that someone who has a lead on his daughter will contact him in the morning? Would that make him stay put?”

  “Probably, if I don’t give away…what you just told me. And that may be difficult.”

  “Please try. The bomber’s aware that Hamid wasn’t in the consulate this afternoon. He’s been posting on the Techno Web—do you know what that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s been posting that he’ll make his demands known soon. One of those is sure to be Hamid, in exchange for the policewoman he’s holding.”