“Kerry, listen-”
“I really do have to go,” she said. “Talk to you later, okay?”
And she was gone and I sat there, holding the dead phone, listening to the after-echoes of her voice and to the dull, heavy beat of my heart.
CHAPTER 10
NOT KERRY, DAMN IT. Not Kerry!
I didn’t want to believe it… and yet she’d lied to me. She wasn’t a liar, hadn’t once told me an untruth in all the years we’d been together; I was sure of that. Our relationship was built on trust as well as love. So why should she lie to me now unless she had something to hide, something like an affair with another man?
Barney Rivera wasn’t a liar either. A bastard with a malicious streak, but not a liar. If he said he’d seen her with a man at Henry the Eighth’s at ten o’clock last night, then he’d seen her. If he said they’d been snuggling in a booth, drinking wine and gazing into each other’s eyes, then they had been. If he said Kerry had kissed the man on the mouth, then she had.
Trouble in paradise, paisan‘?
I slammed my fist down on the desk, did it again-hard blows that made things jump and run and tumble to the floor. The ceramic mug of Jimmy Carter that I kept my pens and pencils in shattered. My hand began to sting, to hurt all the way up to the elbow; I stared at the red mark along the edge of my palm.
And the anger went out of me as suddenly as it had come, was replaced by a dull anxiety.
Stupid, hitting the desk that way. What if I’d broken my damn hand along with Jimmy Carter? I got down on my knees and picked up the shards and the pens and pencils and other items I’d dislodged. Shards into the wastebasket, other stuff back on the desktop.
I was sweating.
I went down the hall to the bathroom cubicle and splashed cold water on my face. It made me feel better, helped to reshape my thinking. Jumping to conclusions… you ought to know better than that. Benefit of the doubt, innocent until proven guilty. Remember when you thought she was having an affair with one of her bosses? Nothing to the Jim Carpenter thing, was there? Big false alarm, right? Same thing here.
She didn’t lie and Barney didn’t lie: half-truths, exaggerations, misconceptions. She’d been at Henry the Eighth’s with a client, she’d kissed him on some impulse or other-that was all there was to it. Worked late, stopped for a drink, nothing wrong in that, but she hadn’t wanted to admit it because she felt guilty about neglecting me or didn’t want me to get the wrong idea. What was the sense in making myself crazy over a minor incident, an innocent misunderstanding?
Goddamn Barney and his frigging needle…
The telephone was ringing when I walked back into the office. Good-get my head back into business. James Keverne? No, a small surprise: Walter Merchant.
“I’ve been wondering,” he said, “how you’re making out with your investigation.”
“Yes? Why is that, Mr. Merchant?”
“Curiosity.”
“You told me yesterday that you’re over your ex-wife.”
“I am. But I do have a certain vested interest-those un-cashed alimony checks of mine. Have you found out yet why Nedra didn’t cash them?”
“She hasn’t been around to cash them,” I said. “She vanished three and a half months ago. Suddenly and without a trace.”
Silence.
“Early May,” I said. “Sometime around the ninth.”
“Jesus,” he said in a hushed voice.
“You have any idea what happened to her?”
“Me? Good God, how would I know? I told you, I haven’t seen Nedra in nearly a year.”
“You also told me you hadn’t been in touch with her in six months. But you called her house at least twice recently and left messages on her answering machine.”
“How did you-” He cut that off and I could hear him suck in a heavy breath. “Never mind that. All right, I called her. I wanted to find out why she hadn’t cashed those checks. Now I know the answer.”
“Why did you lie to me?”
“It didn’t seem like much of a lie. I suppose… well, I didn’t want to get involved in whatever mess she was in. Mess I thought she was in at the time-some kind of triangle situation. This… her disappearing… that’s a whole different can of worms.”
“Yes, it is. Any theories?”
“No. I wouldn’t want to speculate. I just hope-” Another heavy breath. “Three and a half months is a long time to be missing without a trace.”
“You probably know her better than anybody. Is she the type to go off by herself, hole up somewhere for that length of time? For any reason?”
“No,” Merchant said. “Not Nedra. The only two things she cares about in this world are men and her work. She wouldn’t quit either one for four days, let alone nearly four months.”
“Would she give up her work here for a man? Go off with him, start fresh in another location?”
“No.”
“You’re positive? People change in five years.”
“Not Nedra.”
“Do you know a man named Eddie Cahill?”
“Cahill… no. Who’s he?”
“An ex-con who harassed her so badly two years ago she got a restraining order against him.”
“Not one of her lovers? I can’t imagine Nedra taking up with an ex-convict…”
“Probably not.” I described Cahill. “Familiar?”
“No. I don’t know him.”
“Nedra never told you about the harassment?”
“I wish she had.”
“Annette Olroyd. You know her?”
“Who?”
“Olroyd. Annette Olroyd.”
“The name’s not familiar.”
“How about Aunt Louise in Lubbock, Texas?”
“Nedra’s aunt, yes. But if you think Nedra went to see her, or she knows what happened to her, you’re wrong.”
“Why is that?”
“They aren’t close; they hadn’t seen each other in fifteen years when Nedra and I were married. They never even talked on the phone. Cards on birthdays and Christmas, that was all. The woman must be in her eighties now. Besides, Nedra hates Texas.” Sardonic little chuckle. “I think one of her less successful conquests was a Texan.”
“The abbreviation ‘Thorn.’-does that mean anything to you? First part of a word or name like Thornhill or Thornbridge, possibly.”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“She had a spare key hook in her desk marked T-h-o-r-n period. The key is missing too.”
“A man’s name?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“I can’t help you. It’s meaningless to me.”
“If anything occurs to you,” I said, “anything at all that might help me locate her, will you let me know?”
“Yes, of course. You are looking for Nedra, then? I mean, that’s why you were hired?”
“Not initially. Now… yes, I’m looking for her.”
“The police-have they been notified?”
“No. No one’s filed a missing persons report yet.”
“Good God, why not?”
“Only one person had any real knowledge that she’d disappeared until I found out last night, and he wasn’t in a position to report it. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Then I’ll do it,” he said grimly.
“You can if you like, Mr. Merchant. But you said yourself, three and a half months is a long time. The police aren’t going to be able to follow a cold trail any better than I can-and I’ve already got a running start.”
“If you find out anything definite, then what?”
“That depends on what I find out. If I think the police need to be brought in for any reason, I’ll notify them myself. Immediately.”
“And me? Will you notify me, too, as a favor?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Anything definite.”
“Yes.”
“All right. We’ll leave it that way for now.”
I held the disconnect bar down, the receiver tucked into the hollow between my neck and shoulder, and fished out my notebook and then tapped out Annette Olroyd’s number. A dozen rings, no answer. Aunt Louise in Texas? There didn’t seem to be much point in contacting her, after what Merchant had told me. Let it go for now.
I cradled the receiver and sat listening to the sounds of silence.
Kerry, I thought.
No, I thought-and got up and got moving.
***
DR. PHILIP MUNCON’S OFFICES were on the corner of Sacramento and Spruce streets in the Laurel Heights district. Upscale neighborhood, this, a mix of residences, small businesses-antiques shops, boutiques, trendy restaurants-and medical and professional services. Some of the various doctors were housed in the California Pacific Medical Center, others in converted Edwardians and Queen Anne row houses.
Muncon had the entire upper floor of his narrow Queen Anne. It was not exactly a posh layout, but you knew as soon as you walked in that his services would not come cheap. Wall-to-wall carpeting, comfortable furniture with an abundance of pillows, muted color scheme; at least a pair of consultation rooms and a private office, in addition to the reception area; and a smiley male receptionist with the most perfectly styled hair I’d seen on a person of either sex.
The doctor was with someone-the receptionist used the word “client”-but the session would be finished in another fifteen minutes. I sat and waited and wondered what it would be like, coming here one or more times a week for ten years to air your troubles and have them analyzed down to the minutest detail. I couldn’t imagine it. The whole concept of therapy was foreign to me. I could understand why some people might need short-term counseling, somebody to help them get at the root of a particular problem-but I was not one of them. Too self-aware, too in touch with my weaknesses and shortcomings. I either solved my problems on my own or devised compromises so I could live with them. A shrink might have said that that was a self-delusional attitude, but I was not about to pay one hundred dollars-plus an hour to hear him say it, so it was a moot point. Call me a benign agnostic where therapy was concerned. I might not believe in it for myself, but I respected the ones who sought help when they needed it. Too many of society’s ills could be laid at the feet of those who didn’t.
At the end of fifteen minutes a middle-aged woman in a chartreuse pants suit came out of one of the consultation rooms. She didn’t look happy; maybe Muncon had told her-rightly, if so-that chartreuse not only wasn’t her color, it made her look like one of the victims in a green-slime horror flick. The receptionist took my card and the reason for my visit in to the doctor. He was gone a long time; evidently Muncon was trying to decide whether or not to grant me an audience. The decision, when it finally came, was in my favor, though probably not by much.
Muncon’s private office was small, cluttered, and ripe with the scent of the tweedy cologne he used. Muncon himself was about fifty, distinguished-looking, with a heavy blue-black beard shadow and penetrating hazel eyes. The eyes didn’t blink while he was talking to you. The entire upper two thirds of his face remained motionless, in fact; only his mouth moved-wide and thin-lipped, so that it made me think of a clam opening and closing.
He was a clam in the informational department as well. The first thing he said to me was “You understand that client-doctor confidentiality forbids me to discuss my professional relationship with Ms. Merchant.”
“Yes, I do. I’m not going to ask you to reveal anything of a confidential nature.”
“Just what are you going to ask me?”
“To begin with, if you’re aware that Nedra Merchant is missing.”
“Missing?”
“For the past three and a half months. Since sometime around May ninth.”
The penetrating eyes were like surgical lasers. I looked away, looked back quickly to see if I could catch him blinking. No. Maybe he never blinked; maybe, like a bird, he had some physiological quirk that kept his eyeballs perpetually moist.
At length he said, “You’re mistaken.”
That made me blink. “I am? You mean she’s not missing?”
“Away from the city, yes. Missing, no.”
“You’ve seen her recently?”
“Not recently.”
“Since May ninth?”
“No, not since early April.”
“You’ve talked with her, then?”
“She has communicated with me,” Muncon said.
“By telephone? By letter?”
“By card.”
“What kind of card?”
“Postcard.”
“Just one, or more?”
“Two, as a matter of fact.”
“In her handwriting?”
“Certainly.”
“When did you receive the most recent one?”
“Late last month.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what they said.”
“No. But I will tell you that Ms. Merchant is healthy, in good spirits, and plans to return to San Francisco shortly.”
“How short is shortly?”
A faint, noncommittal smile.
“Why did she go away without telling anyone? Why hasn’t she communicated with her clients or the man she’d been having a relationship with?”
“She has her reasons,” Muncon said.
“Reasons that satisfy you?”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t satisfied when you called her home in May and June and left messages on her answering machine.”
“I hadn’t heard from her. I didn’t know the reasons.”
“Where were the postcards mailed?”
The faint smile again. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“At least give me a general geographical location.”
“I’m afraid not. Ms. Merchant specifically asked me not to reveal her whereabouts.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. He was starting to irritate me. Irrationally, maybe, but I have never reacted well to people with supercilious attitudes. And why the hell didn’t he blink? “Tell me this: Does the abbreviation ‘Thorn.’ mean anything to you? Short for Thornhill, Thorn wood, Thornbridge-something like that.”
“No. Should it?”
“Whatever or whoever ‘Thorn.’ is, she had a key with that name attached to it. The key is also gone.”
This time he shrugged and said nothing.
“Eddie Cahill,” I said.
“Yes?”
“Does that name ring any bells?”
The smile, the penetrating stare. Then, meaningfully, he looked at a thin gold watch on his left wrist. “I have a client coming at four,” he said. “It’s a quarter of now. I’m afraid I’ll have to terminate our conversation.”
“Sure thing,” I said. I got to my feet. “Just one more question. You wouldn’t happen to be one of Nedra’s lovers yourself, would you?”
It didn’t faze him. “In addition to my work here,” he said evenly, “I am involved in several programs to promote AIDS research. I live in the Castro and worked as a fund-raiser on Harry Britt’s last campaign for supervisor. My housemate’s name is Charles. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly clear.”
I went out feeling frustrated. And still irritated; the fact that Dr. Philip Muncon was gay didn’t make him any less supercilious and uncooperative. Or excuse the fact that he didn’t blink.
As of late last month, Nedra Merchant was healthy, in good spirits, and planning an imminent return to San Francisco? She had reasons for suddenly disappearing, for abandoning her work and her life-style for almost four months, that satisfied her shrink? Yes, it was possible. No, I didn’t doubt that Muncon had told me the truth as far as he knew it. Yes, Nedra Adams Merchant was a stranger to me-I had no idea of what motivated her or what might have driven her away from the city in early May.
But I wasn’t satisfied. Not at all.
Gut feeling: Something bad, very bad, had gone and maybe was still going down.
CH
APTER 11
DEAN PURCHASE WAS A BIG MAN physically as well as politically: a wide-body with beefy shoulders, thick waist, powerful legs and thighs, and not too much overlay of fat for a man of fifty-odd. Mane of silver-black hair that was more judicial than senatorial. He dressed conservatively except for his ties. Outlandish ties were his trademark; he’d been cultivating them so long that a local TV station had once done a feature on his collection and private citizens sent him the ugliest and most tasteless ones they could find. The one he had on today was a sort of robin’s-egg blue with bright red and yellow whorls and bright orange interlocking circles. Stare at it long enough and it might put you into a hypnotic trance. If it didn’t make you sick to your stomach first.
I walked into his offices at city hall at 3:40, and at exactly 3:45 he came out of his private sanctum, looked me over, smiled at me as if I were a campaign contributor, pumped my hand, and ushered me inside. I’d been wondering which of his public personas I’d get. He had several: Tammany Hall Jovial, Mr. Hard-Ass, Mr. Sincerity, Man-of-the-People, Hardline Liberal, It’s-a-Tough-Job-but-Somebody’s-Got-to-Do-It, The Humanitarian, The Fund-Raiser, The Comedian, The Confidant, The Bargainer. He could switch from one to another with the deceptive speed of a quick-change artist, as the situation called for; and watching him do it, you wondered if he had a real self left under all those public faces. Or if he-hell, most politicians these days-existed only as a public figure, in the eyes of his beholders. Was in effect just an animated hunk of clay in private, like a New Age state-of-the-art ventriloquist’s dummy waiting to be activated by the presence of an audience.
Purchase’s inner sanctum was big enough to have a cozy little sitting area at one end, complete with a couch and some leather chairs. He invited me to sit, offered me coffee “or something stronger,” and when I declined on both counts, poured himself a cup of coffee so dark it had the color of India ink. Then he plunked himself down companionably in the chair next to mine.
“New Orleans blend,” he said, indicating the cup. “Not too heavy on the chickory. Sure you won’t try it?”
“No, thanks.”
“Well,” he said, and sipped, and said, “Ah,” and smiled again. He did Tammany Hall Jovial well, but it was wearing thin on me; I hoped he would segue into one of the others pretty soon. Even Mr. Hard-Ass would be preferable.
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