It was the bourbon, he knew. In his better moments, he wasn’t a jumpy man. But he was tipsy tonight and he had a lot on his mind besides. What with Madame Lena and his cottage ghost and Kipper Lusk’s damn curse, his imagination was getting away from him these days. Old Grand-Dad and old wives’ tales made for a potent cocktail. The cold scrutiny of reason didn’t stand a chance. At least he’d have a good laugh at himself tomorrow. In the morning, he’d stir up a cup of weak instant coffee by the light of the hotel window, and he’d wince at the memory of the ridiculous eeriness he felt in his bones in this moment.
There was a faint yellow rectangle up ahead, on the far side of the street. A single lit window, set back in the darkness, on the otherwise lightless road. He saw it but thought nothing of it. It wasn’t yet midnight; even in Avalon, he couldn’t be the last person awake.
It was only when he was directly across the street, and the light from the window backlit the chained gate, that he realized he was on Tradewinds Lane. An upper window was lit in number 13. With a sense of foreboding, he stepped into the street and crossed. The front gate was still chained shut, but there was definitely a light in an upper window. He was sure it hadn’t been lit when he’d passed this way before.
He took the gate in his hands and shook it, but it was unbudging. He pressed his face to the damp wrought-iron bars and looked up at the window. From where he stood, it was just a gauzy rectangle up there on the third floor. He could see the ceiling and a short span of crown molding, and a large, unlit pendant lamp. Then he saw a shadow move, and a face came into view.
He let go of the gate and stepped back, like he’d been hit by a bolt of electricity. He looked again to be sure what he’d seen: the narrow shoulders, the widow’s peak, the hollowed cheeks. The face was gone before his foggy mind could put a name to it: Ida Fletcher. The light went out. In the new darkness, the mist off the ocean congealed around him, the silence of the street intensified. The house at number 13 was again as empty and lifeless as it had when he’d first set eyes on it.
More dead people than living, the cabbie had promised him. And Tommy the bartender had borne the assertion out.
Keegan took a few numb steps along the sidewalk and then picked up his pace like something might come after him. He fairly jogged back to the Beachcomber, his footfalls echoing along the empty streets. He rushed up the front steps, brushed through the dark lobby, and climbed the stairs to his room. With the light on, and the door latched behind him, he willed his heart to slow down.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, he felt like a fool when he stood outside the chained front gate of number 13 Tradewinds Lane on a bright, brisk morning, in the new month of November. The fog had burned off before he even woke up. Avalon now lay in the shadowless light of a high, hazy marine layer.
Nothing about the big, blockish house in front of him seemed the least bit sinister now. In his embarrassment, he glanced around, as if worried someone might be watching. A woman passed by on the opposite sidewalk pushing a baby in a stroller. Down at the bottom of the hill, a small group of tourists waited on the corner for the light to change. But what would they even see if they looked in his direction? Just an ordinary-looking man—one who perhaps needed a shave—in front of an ordinary building. The things that made him exceptional were all in his head.
He still had a bit of a headache from last night’s bourbon, but Old Grand-Dad’s other effects—the jumpiness, the racing heart, the rampant fancies—had fled him. He was sober now and sensible, if a bit hungover. And the big house in front of him, the one he had come here to search for any traces of Danny Church’s crime, was just so much concrete, glass, and girder.
He looked up at the high window where he’d imagined Ida Fletcher’s ghostly face. It was blank and blind as a daytime drive-in screen. The lack of eeriness was almost comical. Kipper Lusk could have his curse. Madame Lena could keep her tarot cards. The cabbie at Duke’s could trot out his ghostly yarns. Henceforth, Keegan would be the rational, levelheaded one.
The key to the padlock was on Keegan’s ring, and the front door deadbolt turned with the second key he tried. He pushed open the door to find a long entry hallway. Before he stepped inside, he reached for the hallway light switch. It worked. A row of wall lamps illuminated a plain white corridor that led to an open living area. Nothing hung on the entryway walls, though a row of brass fittings suggested that pictures once had. What had happened in old Ida Fletcher’s mind that she’d sworn off graven images? The family portrait banished. The houses scrubbed of every photograph. No one she left behind would likely ever know what she’d been thinking. At least her fevered soul was now at rest.
Unless, of course, it was haunting Keegan.
He passed through to a broad high-ceilinged room. The furniture in it was hard-edged and modern. Here, again, the expansive walls were vacant. Another lifeless, empty house devoid of any hint of who might have once lived there. He took a deep breath of air, but it confided no tobacco scent. He went through the downstairs first—a living room, a dining room, and kitchen. His footsteps echoed in the big, empty spaces. He had to keep reminding himself that he was looking for the will, though he was searching places that would never hide it—pillowcases, ashtrays, backyard shrubs. What would Danny Church have done here, if he had fled to the house after killing his aunt? Would he have destroyed evidence here? Hidden something? Patched up a wound that Frank the Boxer had managed to inflict before he went overboard?
Keegan checked both fireplaces and the backyard barbecue for any signs the kid had used them to burn up bloody clothes. He ransacked trash cans for cigarette butts. He put his face deep into sinks to look for blood and hair. All he needed was a French shirt button among the ash in the grate or a whiskey glass left out on a counter that could be dusted for prints. For once, the kid seemed to have picked up after himself.
He climbed a broad, minimalistic staircase that protruded from the wall. It was just a rising flight of open, vertiginous steps and a bannister. It made him feel, as he climbed, as though he were defying some fundamental law of physics. On the upper floors, he entered room after empty room, scrutinizing them for any signs of disturbance.
If it had just been the will he was looking for, the search would have been easy; nothing hung on the walls that would conceal a safe. The kitchen cupboards and desk drawers were all empty. There weren’t too many other places where you might slip a document for safekeeping. What slowed him down was that he had no idea what else he was looking for. What miniscule clues might the nephew have left here if he had stayed the night? What might he have missed when he made his getaway back to the mainland?
On the third floor, Keegan found a bare room that looked as if it served as an office. There was a desk and a file cabinet. In the corner was a bookcase with a few boxes on the shelves and one lone row of books. The cabinet drawers were empty. He tried the desk next, pulling every oak drawer all the way out, to make sure nothing was behind them. There were only a few ballpoint refills, an old-fashioned paper knife, and a box of Swingline staples. The final drawer was locked. He tried every small key on the old lady’s key ring, but none would turn. No matter. The lock was more decoration than hindrance. He used the blade of the paper knife to shove the latch back, and it gave easily. When he pulled open the drawer, it was empty.
He went to the big front window and looked out on the descending sweep of roofs and the distant crescent of blue ocean. Yachts dotted the water in curved lines. A big ocean liner loomed like a backdrop behind them. He could see the ferry terminal at the bay’s south end.
He’d soon pack up his duffel and catch a ride back to the mainland empty-handed. He looked down at the front gate. He’d left the chain dangling and the latch open. It occurred to him that this must be the window through which he thought he’d seen Ida Fletcher’s ghost.
He turned and looked behind him at the room. There was nothing here that might have cast a shadow on the window, that might have created the
illusion he saw. It made no sense. What in this room was worthy of being haunted?
He went over to the bookcase. The only thing he hadn’t searched. The boxes on the shelves held mostly stationery—thank you cards, rolls of postage stamps, a box of lavender paper with Ida Fletcher’s name printed along the top. He looked at the single shelf of books, and one title caught his eye.
There it was: The Grapes of Wrath. It was a clothbound copy, still in its dust jacket. He smiled and pulled it off the shelf. The cover showed a blue-washed landscape, an old truck, a few downtrodden people. The book looked unread, almost new. He’d have something to read on the noon ferry back to San Pedro, after all.
He was about to push the other books together—a small gesture to cover up his theft—but something had fallen behind the row of books. He reached into the gap and pulled it free. It was a black-and-white photograph in a silver frame. It must have toppled from an upper shelf and slipped down behind.
The photo had been taken here on the island. Ida Fletcher, much younger, sat in a wooden beach chair, fully dressed and wrapped in a blanket. Her face was fuller, the widow’s peak jet black. In front of her was a lanky-looking boy. In her younger days, the old lady was nearly pretty—in a lean and angular kind of way.
With all the empty walls of her houses—and the missing family portrait—this might be the only image she left behind her. Keegan slipped the back off the frame and took out the photo. October 1950, someone had written on the back in fountain pen.
Keegan looked at the photo again, angling it to catch the light from the window. The kid who stood in front of Ida Fletcher looked about ten. His skinny chest was pale, and he posed awkwardly, with one shoulder higher than the other. He wore baggy swimming trunks and held a plastic beach spade at his side. Fletcher’s hand was on his shoulder. Both bore the threadbare smiles of people being asked to pose too long. Keegan stared at the kid’s young face a few seconds and then grinned.
It was Danny Church as a young boy, and he looked ludicrous—a gangly kid with a bad haircut and saggy trunks. Keegan’s heart warmed to see the old lady’s nephew, here stripped of his countless layers of affectation. It was humanizing. Keegan felt something like affection for Danny Church as he had once been: a gawky, graceless kid who perhaps still lurked somewhere beneath the grown man’s Italian suits and his Persol shades.
He slipped the photo between the pages of his new novel—it would be worth keeping, an accidental portrait of a killer and his victim. He tucked the book under his arm.
NORA SEEMED TO sense him outside Mrs. Dodd’s door even before he pressed the doorbell. He heard her whine, her nails clawing the weather strip, the jingle of her collar as she shook with excitement.
As soon as the door cracked open, the dog rocketed out onto the porch like a quarter horse from the gate. She jumped up on his legs and then tugged at the hem of his trousers with her teeth.
Mrs. Dodd stood in the open doorway in a housedress, holding the dog’s leash looped in her hand.
“I hope she wasn’t any trouble,” Keegan said.
“Not in the least,” Mrs. Dodd assured him.
Nora ran back inside, sprinted in a circle on the hallway tiles, and bolted outside to him again, jumping up on his leg.
“I think she missed you,” Mrs. Dodd said. She handed him the leash. “Anything happen over on Avalon?”
“Not a thing,” he said. “No sign of the nephew. Didn’t even stumble across the will.” He knew better than to tell Mrs. Dodd about the ghost he thought he’d seen. She’d be off and running with all her talk about premonitions and poltergeists. He bent and grabbed the squirming dog’s collar and clipped on the leash. When he straightened up, he glanced over his shoulder at the house across the driveway.
“Go on over,” she told him. “You’ll be fine. From what I hear, you made good. She told me you’ve got another date.”
“Dinner,” he said. “Tomorrow night.”
“If I were you, I’d show up this time.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Keegan said. “And thanks for looking after this one.”
“If I can’t have my grandson here, I want that dog.”
When Keegan crossed the gap between the two houses, the dog seemed to know where they were headed. She more or less pulled him across the strip of lawn, past the hedge, and up Helen’s porch steps.
Helen answered the door dressed in a slate skirt and white blouse—again, her teaching clothes, he guessed.
“Just wanted to make sure we’re still on for tomorrow night,” he said.
Helen smiled slyly. “Seems like I’m the one who should be checking with you.”
Keegan nodded and looked down at the ground. “I promise it won’t happen again,” he told her.
Nora had been tugging on her leash since Helen had opened the door, and now she tried to hop up over the lintel into the house. Keegan had to yank her back by the leash. “This is my dog, Nora.”
Helen looked down at the dog, smiling. “Oh, Nora and I are acquainted,” she said. She bent down and let the dog sniff the back of her hand. “Aren’t we, Nora?” She straightened up again and smiled at Keegan. “We went for a nice walk through the neighborhood last night, looking at all the trick-or-treaters. I think I won her over.”
SATURDAY MORNING, KEEGAN waited at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and trying to read his stolen Steinbeck novel. It was a Saturday, and he knew he shouldn’t call the Lieutenant too early, especially at home. He finished a chapter of the book and checked his watch again. It was nearly eleven. Even if Lou Moore slept in, he couldn’t complain about a phone call this late in the morning. Keegan marked his place with Ida Fletcher’s old photo and dialed the phone.
“Sorry to call you on the weekend,” Keegan said when Moore came on the phone. “I’m just wondering if you’ve dug up anything new on Danny Church.”
“About that,” Moore said. “Looks like we’re hitting dead ends. I’m still waiting to hear from the Coast Guard about the wreckage, but I don’t think it’s going to give us anything.” He sounded tentative—like there was more he wanted to say—but then his tone brightened: “You know, I called your office yesterday. Nobody picked up.”
“Yeah,” Keegan said. “I took a trip over to Catalina, to look at the old lady’s house. We closed up for a couple of days.”
“Find anything?”
Keegan thought of the dead woman’s pale face in the window and the damp chill of the fog. It sent a shiver through him. “Not a thing,” he said.
“Well, I hate to say it, Jimmy, but we might just be stuck,” the Lieutenant said. “Unless something comes along, there isn’t anything I can do. It’s been a few weeks. Things are just going to get colder.”
Keegan didn’t like where this seemed to be heading. “So, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying we might have to just chalk up an L for this one and walk away,” he said. “We don’t have anything on the kid. Just a bunch of hints and coincidences. Nothing we could use in court.”
“Really?” Keegan said. “You’re just going to let it go?”
Moore was silent a few long seconds. “Maybe it’s time to move on,” he finally said.
It was too much for Keegan to stomach. The thought of that smug, oily nephew taking possession of everything Ida Fletcher owned made him queasy. The old lady was going to haunt him forever, if he let the kid go. “You had to be in the room,” Keegan said. “You should have seen the old lady’s face when she heard the nephew was in town. He’s behind all this, Lou. We can’t let him get away with it.”
“Listen, Jimmy,” Moore said. “You can’t let these things get under your skin.” His voice had taken on a gentle, coaxing tone, like he was trying to soothe a barking dog. Hush now. There’s nothing there. See? The chair is empty.
Keegan felt sick.
“Here’s the thing it took me years to learn once I made detective,” the Lieutenant went on. “Sometimes the mystery just doesn’t get solved. It’s hard
to swallow, but sometimes you never find out what happened. Sometimes you just have to live with that.”
FOR THEIR DINNER date, Helen picked a place called Brogino’s out in Eagle Rock. Keegan had to look it up in the phone book. It was on York Boulevard, just east of Forest Lawn, a neighborhood Keegan didn’t know well.
Out of an abundance of caution, he left the house before seven and got to the restaurant a half-hour early. He looked for Helen’s red Plymouth in the parking lot and was happy to see he had beaten her there. It would give him a chance to be waiting at their table with a glass of wine for her when she came in through the door. He parked the car—there was no valet, he was glad to see—and strode up to the entrance with plenty of time to spare. He could do this. He could at least make a good third impression.
Brogino’s wasn’t at all what Keegan had been expecting; he was the only one in the dining room wearing a jacket and tie. Middle-aged couples sat at tables here and there. What looked to be a Boy Scout troupe sat at one long table, with all their accompanying adults at a pair of tables nearby.
All the tables were draped with plastic checkered tablecloths. Some Rat Pack crooner played through the sound system. A few of the tables needed bussing, and the chairs were pushed out every which way. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, but—judging by the general disarray—the dinner rush had already ended.
There was no one in the entryway to seat Keegan, so he went up to the counter. A girl in a denim apron—she had braces on her teeth and couldn’t have been out of her teens—told him to just seat himself anywhere. She’d be right with him. He asked her for two menus, but she just nodded behind her at the big chalkboard up on the wall. This place was about as far from Jackson’s on Wilshire as you were likely to get.
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