Why did people do that? Why not plain level sidewalks for people who were no longer young or those who were handicapped? And why the gate? Who did the owner think that would keep out? Not a burglar, certainly. All it did was force the person they really did want to see to struggle with lifting a latch, which, thanks to Bay Area weather, was probably rusty and difficult to pry loose.
Fortunately, I managed to operate the latch but didn't relock the gate behind me. With luck, it would still be open when I needed to get through it on my way out.
Next, I devoted my attention to the rest of the walkway and saw the door of the house standing open. Whereas it had all been dark shortly before, light now poured out from the opening and made a square yellow patch on the small front stoop. Had Novotny heard my car and come to the door to greet me? Then where was he? I could see into the hallway, and no one stood there.
That earlier feeling returned and grew. A shiver waltzed up my legs and spread into my arms, freezing them against my body, while my heart tried to do a fandango in my chest. Yet my feet kept going forward, along the sidewalk and up another step. I told them not to be so stupid, reminded them that in movies, when foolish people went into open doors uninvited, they always found dead bodies or became dead bodies. But I couldn't stop.
Once inside the entry, I called, "Carl?" but no one answered.
To the right of the hallway I saw a rectangular living room, which held a grand piano, two long sofas, some chairs, and a fireplace in the opposite wall. Oh, yes, it also held a possibly dead body.
A scream formed in my throat but refused to come out. Instead, I felt hypnotized. Common sense told me to get away, but I couldn't. My legs apparently obeyed the same stubborn streak because, stiff as tree stumps, they never stopped moving toward the body on the floor. Fortunately, Carl, whom I now recognized, lay on his side, so I saw his face. I could never have turned him over if he'd been face down. Although, at the moment, he showed as many vital signs as a parking meter, I decided he wasn't dead.
He had a nasty wound on his head from which blood oozed, as if he'd been struck with another of those famous blunt objects. Not that I'd know the difference between that and a bullet hole, but I assumed a gunshot to the head would have been fatal. Although he seemed pale enough to be a corpse, his chest moved up and down, albeit almost imperceptibly. He was breathing.
Relieved to know he hadn't died from the blow, I felt my body begin to take orders from my brain again. I could handle this. I'd call 9-1-1, and they'd take care of it. Once more, I pulled out my cell phone and pushed the numbers. I gave the information requested and hung up. Then I tried Brad. He didn't answer at his apartment, and I wondered if his lunch with Amanda had evolved into dinner and maybe more. Finally, I heard voicemail.
I'd grown up with television, computers, and numerous electronics, but no one taught etiquette for announcing almost-dead bodies. I glanced at my watch and just plunged in.
"It's eleven-twenty. I'm at Carl Novotny's house, and he's lying on the floor unconscious. If you get home soon—"
Brad's voice came on the line at once. Loudly. "What did you say?"
"Carl Novotny is lying on the floor of his house with a gash in his head."
"He's alive?"
"So far. I called 9-1-1."
"Good. What's the address?"
I told him, and he said, "I'll be there in two minutes." Then the phone crashed in my ear, and the dial tone hummed.
I went back to Novotny, feeling like some kind of jinx. Stephen had died, Lamar turned out to be a soulless machine (although nicely dressed), and now Carl had been attacked. Did some lesser god have it in for the men in my life? I stared at Carl. Don't you dare die, I told him silently.
He continued to breathe, which I considered a good thing since I had no desire to practice mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with all that blood around. I perched on the edge of a chair and just watched him while I waited. I noticed the fireplace poker lay near the grate, but I didn't touch it or even go near it.
I hated it when movie plots had the innocent bystander pick up the murder weapon and get his fingerprints on it. Okay, Carl wasn't dead, but I knew enough not to do that.
Brad appeared, and I told him how I happened to be there, that Carl wanted to swap briefcases. I skipped the dinner and personal stuff but mentioned everything that happened since I arrived at Carl's house.
"You saw someone running away just before you came in?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe not. A shadow, a large dog, a bush moved by the wind."
"There's no wind tonight."
"Whatever. The more I think about it, the less certain I am that I saw anything. Perhaps it was only that unnecessary gate out front."
Black-and-white squad cars soon arrived to fill up the street, and the world outside became very noisy. Brad leaned close to me. "I'll do all the talking, but if they question you, tell them just what you told me."
An ambulance arrived, siren blaring, and a white-coat paramedic ordered me to move my car so they could park in the driveway. When I got back, three police officers were going through the house checking it out and another talked to Brad in the kitchen.
I perched on a chair again while the paramedics hovered over Novotny, doing their thing. They took a while. I had expected them to put him on a stretcher and haul him away immediately, but by the time they wheeled him out on a collapsible gurney, he had a plastic cone over his nose and mouth and a little hose, hooked up to something in a bottle, snaked up his arm.
Finally, they left, and I sat alone in the living room. Now that the worst had passed, my body shook from delayed reaction. I'd been calm until then, but I remembered how Carl and I had spent the evening and how much I liked the man. Then I realized Hammond had been killed and Novotny struck down. Tremors went through me. My mouth went dry. I might have been next. Hadn't I realized that this private detective business involved danger? I felt both hot and cold, and I hyperventilated.
I sat back and closed my eyes, trying to take shallow breaths. I sensed someone coming up to me, and I opened my eyes to see Brad and another man in plain clothes whom I took to be a detective. He asked a lot of questions and wrote down my answers in a small notebook. Eventually he got to the last, most important, one.
"Mr. Featherstone tells me you saw someone run out of the house just as you arrived."
I glanced at Brad, who looked surprised at the question. "I'm not sure what I saw," I told the detective. "It happened so fast, and it was dark, and I wasn't paying much attention. I sort of saw it out of the corner of my eye, you know?"
"But you thought you saw a person?"
"I did at first, but then I decided it might have been a dog. Or just bushes. Or shadows."
He gave up on that, probably thought it was the insane gibberish of someone who'd been off her meds too long. He took my address and phone number then said I could go.
Brad helped me to my feet, and I walked unsteadily to the door. "I'll drive you home."
The fresh air outside revived me considerably, so I told him I felt better and could do it myself.
"If you remember anything else, no matter how trivial, be sure to tell me."
I agreed and walked down the now-empty driveway toward my car. Lights shone out from windows and open doors of the houses nearby, and clusters of people stood across the street, watching us. I felt a little guilty about whatever I might, or might not, have seen, wondering if perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it to Brad at all.
As I drove home, I saw a blinking security light on my dashboard and realized my trunk lid wasn't closed all the way. I had no desire to stop, get out of the car, and latch it. Not until I reached the safety of my garage. I remembered that someone wanted certain people dead. My guilty feeling increased, too, because Harry's briefcase still sat in there, and I had failed to tell the detective that I went to Novotny's house to return it. I didn't leave that out intentionally. The officer never asked why I was there in the first place.
Aft
er a moment, I reassured myself that Brad had probably reported it anyway, so when I returned to the safety of my locked garage, I just slammed the trunk lid tightly closed and scampered into the house. I'd worry about what to do with the briefcase later.
Meanwhile, I relocked all the doors and windows, fixed myself a cup of hot peppermint tea, and climbed into bed, wishing I didn't live alone. I wondered if I should get a dog. A large dog, lean and mean, who'd sleep in my room and make a meal out of anyone who tried to hurt me. While I debated the various merits of German shepherds, Dobermans, or pit bulls, which were probably illegal in the city, I fell asleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next morning, I had another surprise. Brad was already in his office when I arrived. He looked unusually pale, and my concern instincts clicked in. "Are you okay?"
"As you can probably tell by my newly decorated leg, I've got a little problem." He swiveled his chair around so I could see the cast that adorned his foot. "It's only sprained, but it hurts like hell, and the doctor told me to stay off of it for a few days. After I send you on your way, I'm going to the drugstore to get a prescription filled."
"How did you manage to sprain it?"
"Just lucky, I guess. Or else that gate and the two steps in front of it I tripped over had it in for me."
I tapped myself on the chest. "I nearly did that too. I wish I could have warned you."
"Some people are idiots."
I only nodded. "Sending me? Where are you sending me?"
"Are you up for a trip to L.A.?"
Los Angeles? What could he want me to do down there? Of course, the reason came to me almost at once: to snoop into Harry Hammond's activities in La-La Land the previous week. But, wait a minute. Brad had said he was going to go to L.A. to do that.
"I thought you wanted to go."
While I removed my coat, he explained. "I need to talk to John Ziegler. Novotny seemed to think the man has ulterior motives, and within hours of telling me, Novotny's in the hospital."
"So, you think there's a connection? And Harry's murder might be linked to someone or something down there?"
"It's possible. In addition," he said, "I owe it to Rose to follow every lead."
"So, while you're questioning Ziegler again, I'm going to L.A. to sniff out other angles."
"Plus, that should be done before the trail—if there is one—gets too cold. I'd like to check it out myself, just in case it's tied in, but I can't be in two places at the same time. Even if I could hobble onto an airplane, I don't think I'd be very effective down there today."
"Well, in that case, why don't I go to Los Angeles for you?"
Brad grinned. "So, why don't you go to Los Angeles for me?"
"What a good idea," I said, sounding like I'd never heard of it before. That kind of sequence was another game we played occasionally. It's great to have a brother who catches on fast.
Brad grinned, then looked solemn. "However, I've been sitting here thinking perhaps I shouldn't send my own sister."
"Besides being a relative, I'm a modern woman. I live in my own home, manage my finances, and even do a little charity work. I don't require meals-on-wheels. I deliver them. And I'm younger than Sandra Bullock or Jennifer Aniston. Would you think they're too old?"
"Okay. Okay. But it could be dangerous. Didn't last night teach you this is no game for amateurs?"
"Amateurs? I know how to interview people. I did a lot of suspect-questioning in England recently. Besides, I've been working for you since I returned. You trust me. Anyway, this time I'll be talking to businessmen in their offices, not gangsters."
I hoped I conveyed my confidence to him. Although finding Carl's wounded body had shaken me a bit, morning brought my spirits up again. Sunshine did that to me. I smiled and made myself look taller, if not formidable. "What can happen?"
"Look what happened last night."
"It's daytime now." I'd been feeling guilty about not telling Brad that Carl and I had dinner together, so now I did, adding that I ended up bringing the briefcase to his house.
"What did you talk about at dinner? Anything important?"
"I found out where he picked up the briefcase." I filled him in on everything I'd learned but skipped our final conversation, the one in which Novotny found me attractive. I couldn't see how withholding that would impede the investigation.
"Then we forgot to swap the briefcases after all, so I drove to his house, which turned out to be a good thing, since I must have found him soon after he was attacked."
Brad thought for a while. "You okay now?"
"I'm fine."
"You didn't look very good last night."
"Well, just for a moment, I felt a little queasy. I'm recovered now. It's not like he was really dead."
"Yet, it sure looks like someone wanted Novotny out of the way." He shrugged, then reached into his desk drawer. "By the way, here's the list Amanda gave me of the people Hammond visited in L.A. Also the hotel he stayed at. You need anything else?"
"Well, there's the matter of getting people to talk to me. I need some official-looking ID."
"Right." He cleared his throat, checked a different desk drawer, and handed me a small stack of business cards. They all looked like his, but my name appeared in one corner. Plus, the word Associate. The result of a computer program and his watching The Rockford Files on television when he was a child. He also gave me a four-by-six photo of Harry. "I don't think you'll need this, but take it just in case."
"Do you think the police have already been down there talking to these people?"
"Tom says the cops are concentrating their attention up here, at least for now, so the answer is probably no. With too few detectives and even less time, they aren't keen to spread it out more than necessary. Good luck."
He made a big deal of getting out of his chair carefully and headed for the door. I could tell he was in pain and hoped the trip to the drugstore would take care of that.
Thank goodness he hadn't mentioned his briefcase, because it was still at Novotny's house, and Harry's lay in the trunk of my car. I knew if I told that to Brad, he'd have insisted on giving it to Amanda, even though that wouldn't get his own back. I still didn't want to do anything to help Amanda. Call me stubborn. Before falling asleep the night before, I got to wondering why Brad hadn't picked up his phone right away when I called from Carl's house, and I decided he and Amanda were making out or whatever they called it these days.
"I'll be back tonight. Harry's funeral is tomorrow, and I want to be here for that."
Brad gave me that universal, I'll-never-understand-some-people look. "Be sure that you are. I'll wait up for you."
I liked the idea that he worried about me, would sit up all night waiting, even though I knew his concern was unjustified.
"I'll take the recorder this time and get everything. I'll be fine." I gave him a high five and closed his door behind me as I left.
In the receptionist's office, I cancelled Brad's reservation and made my own on one of United's commuter flights. Then, I phoned the hospital and asked about Carl. They'd only say he was doing well, but I didn't necessarily believe them. I often read the front pages of the tabloids at the supermarket. According to their statistics, lots of people died from infections they got in hospitals, instead of the minor problem they came in with.
* * *
I had a friend who, every time she went to San Francisco, headed first for Union Square and from there to her destination. If she had two errands, she went back to Union Square in between them or she got lost. That was her point of reference.
We laughed about this, but I was the same way in Los Angeles. Except my point of reference was the airport. Imagine trying to get across that city if you had to go back and forth to LAX! So I didn't bother renting a car but simply took a taxi everywhere. After all, we were on an expense account, and as was pretty obvious by now, I didn't like driving anyway.
My interviews went according to plan. Brad had, of course,
telephoned ahead to the people Harry visited the previous week, cutting my waiting-in-lobbies time to a minimum. However, they didn't say anything the least bit suspicious. Their business with him had been straightforward, just about some new showroom furniture he intended to purchase, and they seemed genuinely shocked about his murder.
I struck pay dirt on my last stop. At least eventually. At the Commodore Plaza Hotel, the manager, a Mr. Clamper, who had hair so hard and stiff it could be a weapon, glanced at the business card I handed him and then told me Harry had checked out Friday, as scheduled, not Saturday. He got this information from a computer, but when I asked who had done the actual checking out, he frowned, and his face told me he didn't think he ought to give me that information. Nevertheless, he disappeared into a back room.
A young woman who identified herself as Wendy, the assistant manager, came out. She was young and slim, wore large, red-framed eyeglasses and didn't seem to know what I wanted. Apparently Clamper hadn't told her.
I held out one of the business cards Brad made up for me and intended to repeat my question when I had a flash of intuition. So I listened to that instead and put the card back in my purse.
"I'm Mrs. Harry Hammond," I told her. "My husband stayed in your hotel last week, and he's, er, disappeared." I'd done some acting in college plays, so I sounded distressed and on the verge of tears. I begged her to help me find out what happened to him.
Giving me a sympathetic look, she assured me she had no reason to doubt Harry took a taxi back to the airport on Friday to catch his flight to San Francisco. Since I knew he had not gone back on Friday, I asked to speak to the doorman who might have procured the taxi. He, too, was on duty, but even though I showed him Harry's picture, it didn't ring any bells with him. He said he couldn't remember one out of the dozens of people he ushered into cabs that day. It looked like a dead end.
Dead Men's Tales (Olivia Grant Mysteries Book 2) Page 8