“Friends? I wouldn’t say we were exactly that. I’m a buddy of her nephew Jim’s. We lived in the same apartment complex over in Lemon Grove, until the wife booted me out. When I moved over here, Jim suggested maybe Elaine could use someone to help around her new house. And she sure could—water heater, electrical, plumbing, you name it—everything went wrong. That lady sure knew how to pick them.”
“I guess you spent a lot of time over there, then. Did you ever meet any of her friends?”
He shook his head. “Elaine didn’t seem to have many. Oh, there was this blonde fox that came around sometimes, Karyn somebody-or-other. But no men, if that’s what you mean.”
“I see. Was Elaine close to your friend Jim?”
“Not really. I mean, he liked her and all, but he thought she was strange, the way she kept to herself. I doubt if he knew her any better than I did.”
“And you don’t know anyone else named Rich whom she might have been close to?”
“Sorry, I don’t—” There was a bubbling noise on the stove, and the spaghetti boiled over. “Damn!” Rich snatched the dishtowel from his belt and began mopping at the orange-colored mess.
“I’d better be going,” I said, setting my unopened beer on the counter. “It looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
“Yeah. Let me tell you, I never appreciated what my mother went through all those years. Thanks for telling me about Elaine. I’m sorry she’s dead. She was kind of strange, but she was a real nice lady.”
“I thought so too.” When he started to follow me to the door, I added, “Don’t bother, I can let myself out.”
As I passed through the shabby living room, the boys looked up in surprise, and after I’d gone outside, I heard one say, “She’s not staying. They always stay, don’t they?”
Again I shuddered at what might be in store for my brother’s kids. Much as I loved John, I knew he was as ill prepared for the role of single father as Rich James was.
The next address, for the Rick listed in Elaine’s red book, was downtown on Seventh Avenue, between Broadway and C Street. It was a fairly nice section, with a number of the new high-rise buildings that all seemed to contain banks, and smaller structures housing specialty shops that catered to the daytime population of office workers. The number I was looking for turned out to be a renovated brick storefront sandwiched between a delicatessen and a hairdressing salon. A stylistically lettered sign announced it to be the HOUSE OF SLENDERIZING AND MASSAGE.
Of course, I thought, remembering the stationary bicycle and set of weights in Elaine’s TV room. She hadn’t stayed in such good shape without a great deal of effort. Probably she’d come over here to work out. But why, I wondered, had she come all the way downtown, rather than to an establishment closer to the Casa del Rey or her home in Chula Vista? Surely they had health clubs there.
And, more important, who was Rick? A masseur? Her exercise instructor ? I supposed, from the description Wolf had given me, that the man in the bar at the Casa del Rey could have been either. But since the health club had a CLOSED sign in the window, I wasn’t going to get any answers to my questions tonight.
I waited at the curb in front of the place, hoping someone might be inside in spite of the sign, but couldn’t make out any lights. Then I took out the red book and looked up the address for my last prospect, Rich Woodall. He lived quite far out of town, north of El Cajon, near Lakeside, but I decided to check on him anyway.
The area near Lakeside was full of rocky, barren hills and tree-covered hillocks, all of which looked deserted and uninviting in the rapidly fading light. Woodall’s street, Lost Canyon Drive, was a winding, unpaved road that led up onto a heavily wooded hillside. I followed it for about a quarter of a mile before I spotted a Spanish-style stucco house surrounded by palm trees and partially screened by a big pyracantha hedge covered with red berries.
I parked close to the hedge and went up the walk, my hopes fading when I saw there were no lights on inside the house. In spite of that, I rang the bell, but it chimed emptily and there was no answer. Squinting at my watch, I saw that it was already nine. I was reluctant to give up and go home after coming all this way, but it seemed I had no choice. I’d have to return tomorrow.
Suddenly there was a loud rattling sound. It reminded me of those old-fashioned noisemakers we used to have at Halloween—tin cans that wound up on a handle and, when released, gave off a hollow clacking. The noise was repeated and then the night became still again.
As near as I could tell, the sound came from behind the house. There was a driveway that ran alongside, and I followed it, reminding myself of what trouble I’d got into the last time I’d strayed into a backyard. Still, it had been a strange sound, and for all I knew something could be wrong back there.
The two-car garage was straight ahead, its door closed. To the left, where I assumed the yard should be, was total darkness. I reached into my purse and took out my small flashlight. Switching it on, I shined it around until it illuminated a stucco wall with pieces of jagged glass embedded in its top and a partially open gate. I went over and pushed on the gate.
It swung inward to blackness that was even thicker than in the driveway. I waited for my eyes to adjust, and finally made out several large rectangular shapes, perhaps the outline of a grape arbor like the one in my family’s yard. Stepping through the gate, I shined the light around again. Startled yellow eyes glared at me.
There was a swift snarling noise. I shrank back against the wall, almost dropping the flash. The snarling went on, and then the rattling noise began again. I heard a flapping, like wings, and then from my other side came a whining, feral and dangerous. I felt a prickling at the nape of my neck, and my heart began to race. Getting ready to run, I jerked the light over there.
The whiner had beady eyes and a big black nose. An animal that resembled a raccoon, but wasn’t, enclosed in a sturdy iron mesh cage. It froze when the light hit it.
I laughed weakly and swung the flash back to where the yellow eyes had been. They belonged to a cat—but one that hardly resembled the fat, docile housecat named Watney that graced my home. This one was sinewy and sleek and, from what I’d seen in zoos, probably full grown. Its cage—like the one that housed the thing that resembled a raccoon—looked sturdy.
The cat flattened in a crouch as I held the light on him, and kept growling. The rattling and flapping sounds increased. Wondering what else was here, I turned the light toward the source of the flapping sounds and found a cage of exotic-looking birds. I shook my head in amazement. Apparently I’d stumbled onto a miniaturized version of the San Diego Zoo.
Curious to see what other kinds of animals Woodall was harboring, I swept the light around the yard. There were a number of other cages, one containing more of the raccoonlike animals, another holding two more big cats. There were some lynxes—I recognized them by their lack of tails—and a bunch of foxes, white ones that looked as if they’d been bleached. Another cage held large snakes that I didn’t recognize. I shuddered, staring at their sleek, patterned coils.
Yes, I thought, it was a zoo, and not such a small one at that. But what was Woodall doing, keeping it here in his backyard? Weren’t there laws about what kinds of animals you could have in your backyard? As I recalled, even the ducks my parents had had—the ones the coyotes had eaten—had been illegal.
And why, for heaven’s sake, hadn’t the gate been locked? Big cats were dangerous beasts, and if these got loose there was no telling what kind of damage they might do.
I went over to the gate, fumbled around for the latch, and found a chain with a padlock attached to it. Shining the light on it, I saw that the chain had been broken forcibly. There were marks, as if someone had used a hacksaw on it.
Lights flashed suddenly in the driveway, illuminating the garage door. A motor purred, and a small car came into view. Before I could step back, the lights swept over me.
The car jerked to a stop, and a man sprang from the driver’
s seat. Then he was running toward me, yelling, “Hey! What the hell are you doing there?”
16 “WOLF”
I ate supper in the hotel coffee shop and then went up to my room and tried to call Kerry. No answer. So then I tried to call Eberhardt. No answer. So then I tried to call Charley Valdene, and he wasn’t home either. Feeling lonely and unwanted, I switched on the television and found something to watch—a 1943 film labeled an “Inner Sanctum Mystery” and carrying the sedate title of Calling Dr. Death.
The movie was pretty awful, but I managed to stick with it for close to an hour. Until J. Carroll Naish, playing a cop, said to Lon Chaney, Jr., playing a neurologist in one of the all-time great pieces of miscasting, “You’ve gone beyond life, doctor—into the brain!” At which point I got up and shut the thing off.
Time to go beyond the brain, I thought, into something even greater and more desirable: the realm of sleep.
I went to bed.
17 McCONE
The glare of the headlights illuminated the man who was running up the driveway toward me. He had wavy brown hair like the man Wolf had described, and his handsome face was contorted in anger. He reached out to grab me, but I stepped back, deciding to take the offensive.
“What do you mean, going off and leaving this gate unlocked?” I said. “Don’t you know that’s dangerous?”
He stopped, momentarily taken aback.
“What if kids or somebody got in and let those big cats out? What would happen then?” I shined my flashlight on him.
He stood there, arms hanging at his sides, anger turning to wariness. I looked into his eyes, and confirmed that this was the man who had accosted Elaine in the Cantina Sin Nombre. Wolf had been right about those eyes: they were very, very odd. Something burned deep down in them, something changeable that I couldn’t quite make out.
Finally he said, “Are you a cop?”
“No, but I’ve conducted plenty of investigations in cooperation with them. And I know enough to realize that this menagerie is in violation of a whole bunch of ordinances. For one thing, it’s an attractive nuisance—”
Recognition had started up in his eyes when I’d mentioned investigations. Now he said, “Wait a minute—you’re from that convention at the Casa del Rey. I saw you in the bar with Elaine Picard.”
“Right”
“What are you doing in my backyard?”
“Originally I came looking for you. But then those birds started up, and I found myself in the middle of a zoo. Why wasn’t the gate padlocked?”
Woodall glanced at it, troubled. “That’s what I’d like to know.”
“What does that mean?”
“I came home an hour ago and found that somebody had sawed through the chain. None of the animals had been disturbed, as far as I could tell. I went right out to get a new chain, but you can imagine how hard it is to find a hardware store open on a Saturday night.”
He went back to the car and got a paper bag, then took out a chain and set about fastening it with the padlock. When he was done, he turned to me. “Are you here about Elaine?”
“You’ve heard she’s dead, then.”
“It was on the news.” He said it flatly, as if he were talking about a baseball score he’d heard. “But why are you coming to me about it?”
I hadn’t said Elaine was the reason I was here; why did he assume it? “Look, can we go inside and talk?”
He looked uncertain. “You haven’t told me your name.”
“Sharon McCone. I’m a friend of Elaine’s from San Francisco.”
He nodded. “Rich Woodall. But you must know that, since you came all the way out here.”
“Yes.”
“Well,” he said reluctantly. “I guess we might as well go inside.” Giving the padlock a final tug, he turned and led me down the driveway. After turning off his car’s headlights, he unlocked a side door to the house, reached inside, flicked on a light switch, and motioned me to enter.
I stepped into a large kitchen and dining area. At the far end was a round oak table in front of a two-sided brick fireplace that also opened into a formal living room. Woodall motioned at the table and went into the kitchen.
“I feel like having a glass of wine,” he said. “Will you join me?” His manner had changed subtly, and his voice modulated to a sort of soft slyness. As he spoke, he adjusted the hang of his well-tailored sport coat.
Much as it put me off, I decided to play along with his unpleasantly seductive manner. “Sure,” I said, smiling. “Thank you.”
He went to a cupboard, took out stemware, and busied himself with a corkscrew. “Red okay?”
“Perfect. Tell me, what are you doing with all those animals? Are they pets?”
“Not exactly. I’m a zoologist—in public relations with the zoo. Unfortunately, the job’s strictly administrative and doesn’t allow me much opportunity to keep my hand in at my specialty, so I’ve set up my own little zoo here at home.”
“But you’re aware it’s illegal—keeping those kinds of animals in your yard.”
He came toward me, carrying the glasses of wine. His odd eyes appraised me, and when he spoke it was teasingly. “Oh, come on, you wouldn’t tell on me, would you?”
I took the glass he extended. “I don’t know.”
“The poor animals aren’t hurting anybody.”
“They could.”
Abruptly, his manner changed again. “Well, don’t worry about it, dearheart. The animals are well looked after—and even without the gate locked, those cages are plenty sturdy. Besides, it isn’t illegal—this is an unincorporated area.”
“Oh. Don’t your neighbors object, though?”
“The nearest house is half a mile away. The people around here like their privacy.” He sat next to me, uncomfortably close, and raised his glass in a brief toast. The wine was good—rich and full-flavored—and when I held it to the light, it seemed to burn with secret fires, like Rich Woodall’s eyes.
I decided not to let Woodall know I had heard about the scene in the Cantina Sin Nombre yesterday. I said, “Did you talk to Elaine after I left the bar?”
For a moment he looked blank.
“I mean yesterday afternoon, when you saw us together.”
“Oh. Oh, no.”
His first mistake. “I’m surprised. The two of you were pretty close, weren’t you?”
“Elaine and me?” His eyes moved from side to side, calculatingly. “Not really.”
“Oh, I thought ...”
“What did you think?”
“For some reason, I had the impression you were seeing one another.”
“How did you get that?”
I frowned. “Why, now that you mention it, I don’t know.”
“Did she say something about me?”
“I honestly don’t remember where I got the idea.”
He watched me for a moment, then said, “Actually, Elaine and I have had dinner a few times. She’s a member of our Adopt-an-Animal Program.”
“Your what?”
“It’s a P.R. and fund-raising device the zoo has. People are encouraged to make donations, and in return they become the adoptive parents of one of the animals.”
“Which one was Elaine mother to?”
“A gorilla. Named Fred.”
“Good Lord.” But it didn’t sound right. As I recalled, Elaine didn’t like animals, wouldn’t even have a cat in the house. “What does an adoptive parent do?”
“Some of them visit the animals regularly. Show them off to their friends.”
“I can just see Elaine telling her friends, ‘There’s my son the gorilla.’”
He smiled—in a restrained way, as befitted a person talking about a dead friend. “I don’t think she was that big on parenthood. But she was a strong supporter of the zoo. And, of course, it made a good tax deduction.”
I’d have to check with Elaine’s accountant, if I could locate him. “Of course, now the gorilla is motherless.”
&nbs
p; Woodall’s face became somber. I had the feeling that he always tried to come across with the appropriate response, in spite of what he really felt about a given situation. “Her death is a shame. A real tragedy. Elaine was a lovely woman.”
And that, I thought, was why you roughed her up in the bar yesterday. “So you only knew her through the zoo.”
“Yes.” He got up and went to fetch the wine bottle.
“Do you know any of her other friends?” I asked.
“Sorry, I don’t.”
“What about someone named Rick?”
“Rick?” An odd look passed over his face and he turned to refill our glasses. “Can’t say as I do.”
“He either belonged to or worked for the club.”
Woodall set the bottle down. “What club?”
“The health club downtown that she belonged to.”
“Oh, that. Elaine was very conscious of her body. Liked to keep in good shape.”
“But you don’t know Rick.”
“No.” There was an edge to his voice. “Look, I’m getting tired of all these questions about Elaine. I’ve had a hard day. I go into work on a Saturday to plan the spring promo, I get home expecting to relax the rest of the evening, only to find my gate has been tampered with and I have to rush out to find another chain...” He was complaining like a small, peevish boy.
“Yes, what about that? Who would want to break into your yard anyway?”
“I don’t know.” His mouth twisted. “But I’ll tell you, it’s lucky for him I wasn’t here, because if I had been, I wouldn’t have thought twice. I’d have blown him away.” He motioned toward the formal living room. Through the two-sided fireplace, I could see a rack of hunting rifles mounted on one wall.
“That’s strange,” I said.
“What is?”
“A man who loves animals being a hunter.”
Woodall. gave me a look that suggested women shouldn’t attempt to talk about such things. “You have to keep the herds thinned out,” he said. “But I’m not going to explain the balance of nature to you at this hour.”
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