Valley of Shadows

by Paul Buchanan

  When they were done, Mrs. Dodd straightened the envelopes on her desktop and slipped them back in the strongbox. She closed the lid, locked it, and handed Keegan the key.

  “Disappointed?” Keegan said.

  She shrugged. “A human head would have made a mess of my blotter,” she said. “So, what does the old girl want from you?”

  “I’m supposed to swing by the two houses every week and report back to her.” It wasn’t much of a job. He could do it in a few hours. It might even be a pleasant break from the office. He took another guilty look at the stacks of cash that still lay on the desk.

  Mrs. Dodd seemed to read his mind. “Look,” she said, “humor her for a few weeks, and see how it goes. Give her until Halloween. If it doesn’t feel right by the end of the month, you can hand in your resignation.”

  That seemed a reasonable compromise to Keegan, so he nodded. He started to gather up the stacks of hundred-dollar bills. “Guess we put it all in the safe for now.”

  Mrs. Dodd plopped her hand down on one of the stacks before he could pick it up. “I don’t want you to say you didn’t see this,” she said, looking Keegan evenly in the eye. She took the top hundred-dollar bill, held it up in front of him, and snapped it between her hands. She folded it neatly in half and slipped it into the pocket of her blouse. She kept her eyes on him, as if daring him to object.

  “What’s that for?” he asked her.

  “Necessities,” she said, as if that were any kind of answer.

  Keegan decided to let it go. They’d been scrimping and cutting corners for so long, he probably owed her more than that for the pens and the pads of paper and the other office supplies she kept bringing in from her husband’s dental practice. He put the rest of the money back in its envelope and set it on top of the strongbox. Four thousand, nine hundred dollars. It was more than he knew what to do with. He’d go by the bank tomorrow at lunch and deposit a few hundred in the checking account. Then he’d spend the afternoon catching up with his bills. For now, it was all going in the office safe.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE NEXT MORNING, around six-thirty, Keegan walked the dog to Kipper Lusk’s newsstand before he headed up to the office. The sun hadn’t risen above the downtown buildings, so Pershing Square was all blue shadows and silence. There was an October nip in the air, and the mist from the central fountain chilled Keegan’s face. He’d checked his wallet before he left home to make sure he had two twenties to pay Kipper Lusk the rest of what he owed for his World Series ticket.

  There weren’t many people in the park, but the streets around it were filling with cars and buses, everyone arriving, en masse, for the workday. Nora, on her leash, tugged him along, following some scent she’d found trailing along the walkway.

  Lusk was already inside the newsstand’s shack, loading one of the candy racks with Tootsie Rolls from a cardboard box. He glanced up when he saw Keegan approach and offered him a dour nod.

  “You got my ticket?” Keegan called.

  Lusk glared at him. He set down the box of candy and turned to face Keegan squarely. “If that’s meant to be a joke,” he said, “it’s in poor taste.” He moved the Tootsie Roll box somewhere out of sight in his plywood lair.

  “Joke?” Keegan said. “Did something happen?”

  Lusk looked Keegan over dolefully. “You really should keep better track of world events,” he said. He reached out from inside the shack and plucked a copy of the Los Angeles Times from the news rack. He turned it over and held it out, pointing to one of the front-page headlines below the fold: SERIES TICKET SALES NEARLY CAUSE RIOT.

  Keegan reached out to take the paper, but Lusk held it tight. “You got a dime for me?” he said. “If not, I’ll thank you not to smudge the ink.” Lusk made a show of flattening out the paper on the countertop and then slid it back into the rack.

  “What the hell happened?” Keegan asked.

  “Apparently, it was a nightmare,” Lusk said. “People been lined up since Monday, and suddenly—at sunup—the parking lot is swarming with new arrivals. They open the whole wall of ticket windows and all hell breaks loose. One of my guys broke his collarbone in the brawl. By the time the boys in blue arrived, every last ticket was gone.”

  “You didn’t get any?”

  “Not a single seat, my friend,” he said. “I’m out fifty bucks on the guys I hired—not counting a doctor’s bill for a broken bone, which apparently I’ve got to pay to keep the peace. And if I want to see a game myself, I have to pay some scalper through the nose.” He seemed deeply offended by that idea.

  “But, Kip,” Keegan said, “you were going to scalp the tickets yourself.”

  He shrugged, as if that were neither here nor there. He leaned on the counter. “It’s the curse,” he said. “It’s those damn mirrors I broke.”

  “So, a million Dodgers fans got screwed over because you happened to break some mirrors? That seems a little grandiose.”

  “Stop,” Lusk said. “You’re only making me feel worse.”

  “I’m just saying that this might not be about you, Kip,” Keegan said. “Don’t get a big head. You seem to think you’ve got more clout around here than Mayor Yorty.”

  Lusk shrugged. “Believe what you want, big shot,” he said. “I carry a lot of weight in this town.”

  Nora tugged at her leash. It was cold out, and she wanted to get moving.

  Keegan looked down along Fifth Street and then back at Lusk. In that momentary lull, it registered to Keegan how much he’d been looking forward to going to the game. It had been a small good thing to look forward to, a hopeful light on the far horizon. It was only a baseball game, he knew—and he could listen to it on the radio—but the profound disappointment he felt seemed all out of proportion. He looked at Lusk, hunkered there in the shadows of his shack. “What about my deposit?” he said. “I gave you ten bucks.”

  Lusk shot him a withering look. He shook his head grimly. “Insult to injury,” he said. He dug a couple of wilted fives out of his till and slapped them down on the counter. “Go buy yourself something nice,” he said. “And don’t worry about the little guy out here trying to scrape together a decent living.”

  “Don’t blame me,” Keegan said. “I didn’t break any mirrors.”

  MRS. DODD WAS already in the office when Keegan got there. There had been no new calls, no messages. It was a Friday, and there was no baseball game, so Keegan thought he might as well make the rounds for Ida Fletcher. It would get him out of the office for a good part of the day. He’d see the ocean. Maybe it would keep him from dwelling on the letdown. And he’d take the dog along for company. She always seemed to enjoy the sea air. He got the ring of keys from the strongbox in the office safe.

  Nora rode in the MG’s passenger seat with her forepaws up on the dashboard, eager to see where they were headed. They took the Harbor Freeway south to the Coast Highway and then headed down through Seal Beach and Huntington. They passed all the beachy diners and the surf shops and the age-old waterfront hotels that were slowly falling into ruin.

  The salt air was chilly, but it felt good coming in through the dashboard vents. At a stoplight, he reached across the passenger seat and rolled the window down a bit. When the light changed, Nora put her head out into the salty wind. KNX was on the radio—Bob Crane’s morning show—but he turned the volume down so low he could barely make out the comforting burble of human voices.

  Ida Fletcher’s Newport Beach house turned out to be on the landward side of the bay, facing Balboa and the peninsula. The map Keegan used to find it showed a spindly black line, Waverly Lane, running alongside the blue of the bay and quickly dead-ending. What the map didn’t show was a gated guardhouse at the top of the lane.

  Keegan coasted up to the red-and-white arm angled across the asphalt blocking his way. He cranked down his window. A face in the guardhouse window looked him over from behind a pair of dark sunglasses. The guard slid a window open and leaned out. Though he was clearly just hired secur
ity, he wore a full formal uniform shirt, powder blue and flawlessly ironed. A row of medals would not have looked out of place. The man looked to be in his thirties with a lean, tanned face and his blond hair in a crew cut. The tag above the pocket said his name was VOGEL. “Can I help you?” he asked Keegan doubtfully.

  At the sound of his voice, Nora hopped over to Keegan’s lap to get a look at him. She seemed to approve; her stubby tail wagged furiously, and she tried to scramble up on the car window’s sill.

  Keegan held the dog back by her collar. “The name’s Jim Keegan,” he said. “I’m here to look over the Fletcher place. I’m guessing she put me on the list.”

  The guard found a clipboard and flipped through the pages unhurriedly. “First time?”

  “Yeah,” Keegan told him. “I just got hired.”

  The other man looked up from his clipboard. “What happened to Donovan?”

  “Retired. Moved out to Phoenix for his health. I’m filling in for now.”

  The guard nodded. “Good man, that Donovan,” he said. “Tell him I said hello.”

  “Copy that,” Keegan said. If he ever talked to Donovan again—which seemed unlikely—there was no chance he’d remember Vogel’s greeting.

  The guard found the right name on his clipboard. “James P. Keegan?” the guard said.

  “The same.”

  The guard came out of his shack and stood behind Keegan’s car, writing down the license plate number. Keegan watched him in the rearview mirror. The man was in no rush. He came around Keegan’s side to the open car window. The dog strained at her collar, quivering with excitement. The guard bent down towards her.

  “He a puppy?” Vogel wanted to know. “Some kind of Airedale?”

  “She’s a Welsh Terrier,” Keegan said. “This is as big as she’ll get.”

  The guard nodded. “Got a couple of Westies at home,” he said. He reached out a hand to pet the dog but then seemed to think better of it. “She friendly?”

  “Friendlier than me,” Keegan allowed.

  The guard grinned and looked at the dog. “It’s just your old friend Vogel,” he told her. He rubbed the dog’s head and then stepped back. “You’ll want number 7,” he told Keegan. “It’s at the very end. The big one.” He went back into the shack and raised the boom gate.

  WAVERLY LANE WAS so narrow it seemed unlikely that two cars, moving in opposite directions, could hope to pass on it. Despite the sunny day, the lane was deep in shadow. To the left was a steep hillside. The right side was a line of towering, perfectly trimmed privacy hedges, worthy of the Chateau Marmont.

  Nora stood with her front paws on the dashboard again, keeping a keen eye on the windshield. As they edged slowly along, they passed an occasional imposing gate. Every now and again, a high dormer or a gable appeared fleetingly above the leafy ramparts. The lane curved right then left, following the contours of the hillside.

  It dead-ended at a stately double-swing gate that was about eight feet high. It was all wrought iron with ornate scrollwork and black fang-like finials studding the top edge. It would be hard to imagine a barrier more fortress-like, less welcoming. It had Ida Fletcher written all over it. In the center, holding the two sides of the gate together, was a tight-coiled chain and a brass padlock the size of a grilled cheese sandwich. Someone had hammered a red plastic sign, slightly askew, into the ground beside the gate: NO TRESPASSING. As a message, it struck Keegan as a little redundant.

  Keegan put his MG in neutral and set the parking brake. He had to slip out the door sideways to keep the dog from jumping out after him. The wind off the bay rippled Keegan’s shirt. The temperature seemed to have plummeted a good ten degrees since he’d left the highway.

  He took the old lady’s brass key ring from his trouser pocket and looked for one that might fit a padlock. He tried three before he found the one that matched. The lock sprang open with a jolt, and he unwound the chain from around the two wrought-iron spindles. Once it was free, he looked back along the narrow road and thought of Vogel in his guardhouse at the far end. There was no godly reason to lock the gate behind him when he went up to the house. He coiled the chain and set it, with the open lock, on the edge of the asphalt where he wouldn’t run over it when he drove back out. He pushed open one side of the gate, just far enough that he could slip the car through.

  Keegan got back in the car, put it in gear, and pulled through the gate onto a long drive. The gray gravel popped and shifted under his tires. The dog jumped back up to her lookout position, eager to see what was ahead. The driveway to the house arced between curved hedges that had grown rangy with neglect and the damp sea air. The house at the end of the drive was a broad Cape-Cod-style mansion, all white clapboard and shuttered windows. A row of dormers jutted from the steep slate roof. Keegan could imagine the Kennedy clan playing touch football on the sloping lawn, while old Joe watched from his wheelchair on the porch. Keegan parked the car in a patch of sunlight and got out.

  Nora followed him up the front steps to the big wraparound porch, her claws skittering on the painted wood. Keegan imagined that Ida Fletcher wouldn’t want a dog in her house, but really, how would she ever know? The dog was good company. She didn’t shed, and she was generally well behaved. There’d be no harm in it.

  Again, Keegan had to try a few keys to find the one that fit the front door’s deadbolt. There were no other cars down on the gravel drive, and the house was obviously empty. Still, Keegan knocked the door smartly and waited a beat before he turned the knob and pushed it open. “Hello?” he called inside. “Anyone home?” There was, of course, no answer.

  The dog followed him inside, sniffing at the baseboards cautiously. The entryway was all white-painted woodwork with crown molding and a quarter-turn stairway leading up to the second-floor landing. A dusty phone sat on a hallway table. The dog stood, testing the air, ears pricked. Keegan tried a light switch next to the door, but nothing happened. Fletcher must have had the electricity shut off, since the house was not in use.

  The ways of the wealthy made little sense to Keegan. Here was a woman who’d pay him a small fortune to keep an eye on an empty house, yet she’d save a few pennies by having her assistant call PG&E to cut off the power. He left the front door wide, for the light it shone into the entryway, and went through a broad open threshold into a big front room. There wasn’t much furniture. What little there was was sheeted over—a congregation of bulky, misshapen ghosts lurking in the gloom. Keegan lifted the corners of a few sheets: a wingback chair; a Queen Anne end table; a towering mahogany grandfather clock, its pendulum dangling motionless. The white-painted walls were uniformly bare, though they were dotted here and there with nails where paintings or photos must have once hung. It was like someone had purged the place of every image, every memento.

  Keegan wandered from room to room. Everything about the place felt leaden and oppressive—the sluggish air, the creak of floorboards, the dust motes swirling in each sliver of light that seeped between the drawn curtains. The deeper he explored, the more a dismal sense of emptiness pervaded the house. All those big, abandoned rooms, devoid of any sign of life, were weirdly unsettling. Even the dog seemed wary. As they made their way through the big kitchen, she trotted so close beside him, her flank kept brushing his leg. “Good girl,” he told her, bending to scratch behind her ear. “You’re being very brave.” His voice, as he spoke, was swallowed up in the house’s disquieting hush.

  The dog shadowed him closely through a formal dining room. A sheeted table offered seating for ten beneath a cobwebbed chandelier. Keegan inscribed a line in the buffet table’s dust veneer with one finger as he passed. Next, he found himself back in the front entryway, though it was darker now. The door he’d left open had blown shut. He hadn’t heard it slam.

  Keegan started up the stairs, and Nora scurried behind him, her claws clacking up the oakwood runners. At the top of the staircase, he looked down the dark second-floor hallway. The bedroom doors stood open, offering dim patches of wha
t little light came in through the dormer windows. When he started down the passageway, the dog stayed put at the top of the stairs. He went to the first open doorway and looked back at her. She didn’t sit. She just stood watching him, head lowered. It was clear she wasn’t about to follow.

  “Nothing down here to worry about,” Keegan told her. “I don’t see a single elevator.” He slapped his thigh as an invitation to come to him.

  The dog barked twice, then sat down and whined. She wouldn’t budge from the spot.

  Keegan went into the first empty bedroom and saw only the bare essentials—a stripped mattress on a box spring, what looked like a dresser and chair beneath more white sheeting. It might have been a six-dollar motel room in the off season. Again, the walls were bare.

  What was Ida Fletcher’s worry? There was nothing in this house worth stealing, as far as Keegan could see, and any squatter would have to get past Vogel out there at the gatehouse with his starched shirt and clipboard. This was a fool’s errand, and Keegan was being immensely overpaid to play the part of the fool. He didn’t like it.

  The other bedrooms looked much like the first but with small variations—an empty bookshelf, a gaping steamer trunk, a bare music stand. The biggest bedroom, at the hall’s farthest end, had the most impressive view of the bay and a fireplace between the two big windows. It also seemed to be the room most recently used. A few dresses hung limply from the wardrobe’s wooden hangers. A desiccated philodendron sat, withered and brittle, in a pot on the window’s sill. Two books lay abandoned on the bedside table, topped with a dusty pair of half-rimmed reading glasses. He wondered who the glasses belonged to and whether they were needed—but then a woman as rich as Ida Fletcher might have prescription spectacles enough for every bedside and corner table in every house she owned.