by Sue Grafton
Bass had a towel wrapped around his waist. I found myself checking out the body Daniel found preferable to mine. Bass was pale, narrow through the chest, but he carried himself with perfect composure as he brushed by me.
“Hello, Kinsey.” He paused at the ashtray and picked up the roach. He tilted his head, lighting it with a disposable Bic. He took a hit and held it out to Daniel, who declined with a slight shake of his head. The two men locked eyes, exchanging a look so filled with tenderness I had to drop my gaze.
Bass glanced over at me. “What brings you here?”
“Lyda Case is dead.”
“Who?”
“Come on, Bass. Don’t give me that shit. She was married to Hugh Case, who worked for Wood/Warren. Surely, you haven’t forgotten him so soon.”
Bass set the roach aside and moved to the bed. He stretched out, crossing his arms behind his head. The hair in his armpits was silky and black and I could see bite marks in the crook of his neck. When he spoke, his tone was mild and relaxed. “No need to get ugly. I haven’t been around for years. This has nothing to do with me,” he said. “You’re the one.”
“I am? That’s bullshit! I got backed into this business because of California Fidelity.”
“So I heard. The D.A.‘s office got in touch with Mother. You’re being charged with insurance fraud.”
“And you believe that,” I said flatly.
“Hey, I can understand it. Lance got his tit in a wringer and needed some cash. Burning the warehouse was better than a bank loan. All he needed was a little help from you.”
“Oh, really? You seem well informed for someone who’s been gone. Who fills you in?”
“What’s it to you?”
“You can’t believe everything you hear, Bass. Sometimes you can’t even believe your eyes. There’s something going on here, and none of us has been smart enough to figure out what it is.”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something. I understand you’re very good at what you do.”
I looked at Daniel. “How did you get sucked into this, or is that a bad choice of words?”
Daniel seemed uncertain how to reply so Bass answered for him. “We had to know what was going on. Obviously, you weren’t going to tell us so we had to take steps.” He paused to shrug. “We’ll be turning the tapes over to the D.A., of course.”
“Oh shit, yes. Of course. We who?”
“I’d rather not discuss that, in case you’re inclined to retaliate,” Bass said. “The point is, I knew Daniel and he knew you and it seemed like the logical way to gather information.”
“And Andy Motycka? How does he fit in?”
“I don’t know all the details on that. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Well, I don’t know the details either, Bass. My guess is that somebody pressured Andy into it. Maybe he got nervous when he found out that Darcy and I were onto him. Or maybe he got wind of Olive’s death and felt like it was more than he had bargained for. Anyway, it looks like he’s left town unless he’s been murdered, too. Doesn’t it bother you that Lyda Case died?”
“Why should it? I never knew the lady personally. Sure, I’m sorry she died, but I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“How do you know you aren’t next, Bass? Or maybe Daniel here? If you’re not concerned about Olive, at least give some thought to your own vulnerability. You’re dealing with someone who has less and less to lose.”
“What makes you think he knows who it is?” Daniel said.
“What makes you think he doesn’t?” I snapped.
Chapter 22
*
When I got home, I turned on all of Henry’s exterior lights, flooding his yard like a prison compound. I checked locks on all his doors and windows first and then secured my own. I cleaned and checked my little semiautomatic, loading eight cartridges into the magazine. It worried me that the sights were off. A gun is no protection if you can’t control what it does. I stuck it in my handbag. I was going to have to leave it at a gun shop in the morning. Grimly I wondered if a gunsmith supplied loaners.
I brushed my teeth and washed my face, then surveyed my various burns, bruises, and minor cuts. I felt like shit, but I decided it was better to bypass the pain medication. I was afraid of sleeping deeply on the off-chance that someone might have a go at me. I was afraid, too, that Lyda Case might appear in my dreams unannounced.
I watched the digital clock flick its way through the night. Outside, the wind was hot and dry, teasing the palm fronds into rattling conspiracies. The air in my apartment seemed stifling, sounds muffled by the heat. Twice I got up and moved silently into the bathroom where I stood in the shadows of the bathtub, peering out of the window. The tree branches bucked in the wind. Leaves scuttled along the street. Dust was funneled up out of nowhere into whirling spirals. Once a car passed slowly, its headlights fanning up against my ceiling. I pictured Daniel sheltered in the protective curve of Bass’s body and I envied them their security. In the dead of night, personal safety seems more important than propriety.
I slept, finally, as the darkness was lifting to the soft gray of dawn. The wind had died and the ensuing silence was just as unsettling as the erratic creak of the live oak in my neighbor’s yard. I woke at 8:15 with a start, disoriented by the sense of the day gone all wrong. I wanted to talk to Ava at Wood/Warren as soon as the plant opened, which meant I’d have to skip my run. I was going to have to live with the brooding dread that was circulating through my bones. Exercise sweeps that away as nothing else can. Without the jog, I suspected the anxiety would accumulate. I dragged myself into the shower, then dressed and made a quick pot of coffee, double-strength, which I poured into a thermos and sipped as I drove the ten miles to Colgate.
Lance wasn’t expected until after 10:00, and Terry was on a leave of absence, but Ava was at her desk, looking dark and sour. She’d had her cracked nail repaired and the color had shifted from harsh red to a mauve, with a chevron of dark maroon painted on each fingertip. Her outfit was purple jersey with a cross-chest bandolier of red, altogether dazzling, I thought.
“I left my business card yesterday. I was hoping you’d call,” I said, taking a seat in the metal chair beside her desk.
“I’m sorry. We were swamped with work.” She focused a look on me. All the flint was gone and worry had taken its place. The lady was in a mood to talk. She said, “I heard about Lyda Case on the radio this morning. I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Did you know Lyda?”
“Not really. I’d only talked to her a couple of times on the phone, but I was married to a man who killed himself. I know how devastating that can be.”
“Especially when there was no way to have it verified,” I said. “You did know all his lab work disappeared within days.”
“Well, I heard that, but I wasn’t sure it was true. Suicide is sometimes hard to accept. People make things up without even meaning to. What happened to Lyda? The radio didn’t say much except that her body’d been found. I can’t tell you how shocked I was. It’s horrible.”
I told her the details, sparing little. Ordinarily I’d downplay the particulars, not wanting to pander to the public appetite for the gruesome specifics of violent death. With Ava, I felt the reality of the situation might loosen her tongue. She listened to me with distaste, her dark eyes filling with anxiety.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” she said.
“Not at all. Go ahead.”
She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out her handbag. Her hands were trembling as she shook a Winston from the pack and lit it. “I’ve been trying to quit, but I just can’t help myself. I stopped at the drugstore and picked up a pack on the way to work. I smoked two in the car.” She took a deep drag. One of the engineers peered around from his drafting table as the smoke drifted toward him. She had her back turned so she missed the look of annoyance that crossed his face.
“Let’s go back to Hugh’s death,” I said.
“I can’t help you much with that. I’d only been with the company a few weeks before he died, so I hardly knew the man.”
“Was there an office manager before you?”
Ava shook her head. “I was the first, which meant the office was a mess. Nobody did a thing. Filing alone was piled up to here. There was just one secretary. Heather was the receptionist, but all the day-to-day business was handled by Woody himself, or one of the engineers. It took me six months to get things squared away. Engineers may be obsessive, but not when it comes to paperwork.” She took another drag, then tapped the small accumulation of ash from the end of her cigarette.
“What was the atmosphere like at the time? Was it tense? Was anybody caught up in an office dispute? A feud of any kind?”
“Not that I ever heard. Woody bid on a government contract and we were trying to get organized for that.”
“Which entailed what?”
“Routine office procedure. Forms to be filled out, clearances, that kind of thing.”
“What happened to the bid?”
“Nothing. The whole thing fell through Woody had a heart attack, and after he died, Lance let the matter drop.”
“What was it they were bidding on? I wonder if that ties in.”
“I don’t remember what it was. Hold on. I’ll ask.” Ava turned and scanned the room. John Salkowitz was passing through, blueprint in hand, apparently on his way to the rear of the plant. “John? Could I ask you about something over here?”
He detoured toward us, his expression clouding with concern when he caught sight of me. “What’s the story on Lyda Case? My wife just called and said she heard about her on the news.”
I gave him the shorthand version, putting it together with the question at hand. “I’m still trying to figure out how it ties into this business with Lance. There’s gotta be a connection somewhere.”
“He’s not seriously being accused of insurance fraud, is he?”
“Looks that way. Along with me, I might add.”
“Appalling,” he said. “Well. I don’t see how it could have any bearing on the contract we bid on, but I’ll fill you in. We get a little trade paper called Commerce Daily, published by the government. It was Hugh’s job to check it for any contract available for bid that might apply to us. He found one under heating equipment, requesting bids on a furnace for processing beryllium, which is used in the making of nuclear bombs and rocket fuel. It’s hazardous work. We’d have had to build in a whole new venting system to accommodate CALOSHA, but if we got it, we’d have been in a position to bid on future contracts. Woody felt it was worth the expense of retooling. Not all of us agreed with him, but he was a shrewd man and you had to trust his instincts. Anyway, that’s what we were going after.”
“What would it have been worth to the company?”
“Quarter million bucks. Half a million maybe. More, of course, in the long run, if we bid on future work.”
“What was the status of the bid when Hugh died?”
“I don’t know. I guess we were gearing up. I know he’d gone down to the Federal Building in Los Angeles to pick up all the paperwork. Since it was the Department of Defense, we were going to need a company clearance, plus individual clearances. Hugh’s death really didn’t have much effect, but when Woody died on top of that, we lost heart.”
“Could the company have handled the work with both men gone?”
“Probably, but of course Lance was just taking over, getting his feet wet. I guess we dropped the ball, but that’s all it amounted to. We weren’t out anything. We might not have been low bidder anyway, so it’s all speculative.”
“What about bids since?”
“That’s an aspect of the business we haven’t paid much attention to. We’re on overload half the time as it is.”
I looked at him, truly stumped. “And you don’t think it’s relevant?”
“If it is, I don’t see how.”
“Thanks for your time, at any rate. I may need to get back to you.”
“Sure thing,” he said.
Ava and I chatted a while longer, but the conversation seemed unproductive, except for one minor point. She mentioned, in passing, that Ebony had attended the memorial services for Hugh Case.
“I thought she was in Europe, married to some playboy named Julian.”
“She was, but they came back to the States to visit every six months or so.”
“How long had she been in town? Do you have any idea?”
Her look was blank. “Can’t help you there. I was too new myself to sort out what was normal in that family.”
“Maybe I can check it out,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”
Driving back into town, I was kicking myself. I’d falsely assumed that neither Ebony nor Bass could have been tied in to Hugh’s death as both of them were out of the picture at the time ��� Ebony in Europe, Bass in New York. Now I wasn’t sure. I stopped at a public phone booth and called the Woods’ house. The maid answered. I was willing to talk to just about any member of the family, but that turned out to be problematic. Mrs. Wood was resting and had asked not to be disturbed. Ebony and Ashley had gone to the Santa Teresa Monument Company to look at memorial tablets for Miss Olive’s gravesite. Bass was due back at any minute. Did I care to leave my name and number? I decided to hold off on that. I said I’d call again later and hung up without identifying myself. I hauled more change from my handbag and tried Darcy at the office. She had nothing new to report. I brought her up-to-date and we commiserated briefly on the blanks we were drawing. She said she’d leave word on my answering machine if anything developed. Fat chance, I thought.
I returned to my car and sat there at the curb. I poured the rest of the hot coffee into the thermos lid, sipping it with care. I was getting closer to the truth. I could feel it in my bones. I felt like I was circling, the orbits getting tighter as I approached the central point. Sometimes all it took was one tiny nudge and everything fell into place. But the balance was delicate, and if I pushed too hard, I might barge right past the obvious.
I didn’t have that many trees to shake. I screwed the lid on the thermos and tossed it in the back seat. I started up the car and drove back into town again. Maybe Andy’s mistress had heard from him. That might help. Fifteen minutes later, I was standing at her door, knocking politely. I wasn’t sure if she worked or not. She was home, but when she opened the door, she didn’t seem that thrilled to see me.
“Hi,” said I. “I’m still looking for Andy and I wondered if you’d heard from him.”
She shook her head. Some people think they can lie to me that way, without forming the actual falsehood with their lips. It’s apparently part of an inner conviction that if they don’t speak the lie aloud, they won’t burn in hell.
“He never checked in to let you know he was okay?”
“I just said that, didn’t I?”
“Seems odd to me,” I remarked. “I half expected him to drop you a note, or make a quick phone call.”
“Sorry,” she said.
There was a tiny silence wherein she was hoping to close the door and be done with me.
“How’d he get that account anyway?” I asked.
“What account?”
“Wood/Warren. Did he know Lance pretty well or was it someone else in the family?”
“I have no idea. Anyway, he’s the claims manager. I don’t know that he sold the policy in the first place.”
“Oh. Somehow I thought he did. I thought I saw that somewhere on one of the forms we processed. Maybe it was his account before he got promoted to claims manager.”
“Are you through asking questions?” she said snappishly.
“Uh, well, actually I’m not. Did Andy know any of the Woods personally? I don’t think you told me that.”
“How do I know who he knew?”
“Just thought I’d take a flyer,” I said. “It puzzles me that you’re not worried about him. The man’s been gone, what, four days? I�
�d be frantic.”
“I guess that’s the difference between us,” she said.
“Maybe I’ll check out at his place again. You never know. He might have stopped back at the apartment to pick up his clothes and his mail.”
She just stared at me. There didn’t seem a lot left to say.
“Well, off I go,” I said, cheerfully. “You’ve really been a peach.”
Her goodbye was brief. Two words, one of which started with the letter “F.” Her mama apparently hadn’t taught her to be ladylike any more than mine had taught me. I decided to drive back out to Andy’s place because, frankly, I couldn’t think what else to do.
Chapter 23
*
I headed out to the condominium complex where Andy lived, thrilled that I wasn’t going to have to type up a report on the day’s events. The truth was, I had no plan afoot, no strategy whatever for wrapping this business up. I didn’t have a clue to what was going on. I was driving randomly from one side of the city to the other, hoping that I could shake something loose. I was also avoiding my apartment, picturing the gendarmes at my door with a warrant for my arrest. Andy represented one of the missing links. Someone had designed an elaborate scheme to discredit Lance and eliminate two key engineers at Wood/ Warren. Andy had facilitated the frame-up, but once Olive was blown to kingdom come, he must have decided to blow town himself. If I could pinpoint the connection between Andy Motycka and the person who’d suckered him into it, then maybe I could figure out what the payoff was. The electronic gates at The Copse stood open, and I passed through without attracting armed guards or vicious dogs. A tall, fair-haired woman in a jumpsuit was walking an apricot poodle, but she scarcely looked at me. I parked my car in the slot Andy had left in the wake of his departure. I trotted up to the second-floor landing and let myself in with the front-door key, which I knew from past experience he kept hidden on the cornice above the front door. I confess I sniffed the air apprehensively as I let myself in, mindful that Andy might have ended up in the same state as Lyda Case. The apartment smelled benign and the dust that had settled on the empty bookshelves attested to the fact that no one had been here for days.