Dead Midnight Read online

  “I only did what I had to. Do you know I met with Eddie earlier?”

  “He told me.”

  “He’s afraid his DNA contains a self-destructive gene.”

  “He mentioned that too. Thanks for reassuring him. He’s a strong kid and likely to hold the family together through this. That’s not what I want to discuss, however.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “A deputy from Tillamook County tracked me down at the Nagasawas’. You’d given my name as your client, and he was trying to locate you.”

  “Why?”

  “An overnight bag with your name on it was found in an undisclosed location up there this afternoon. According to the deputy, it contained ‘items that would tend to link Ms. McCone with the J.D. Smith murder.’ What can you tell me about it?”

  “The bag’s probably mine. I dropped it outside Houston’s cottage in Eagle Rock when I forced my way in. Later it was gone. I assumed Jody took it.”

  “You tell the sheriff’s department about it?”

  “… No. So much else had happened that I forgot.”

  “What was inside the bag?”

  “Standard overnight stuff, some notes on the case. Nothing that would make me out to be involved in the murder.”

  Glenn considered, sipping Scotch. “Well, something has them extremely interested in you. They wanted to fly a couple of investigators down here to question you tonight. I told them you were unavailable, but I’d have you in my office to talk with them at eleven tomorrow morning.”

  “Look, why don’t I just call them and—”

  Glenn made a staying motion with his hand. “No. I’ve spoken with a lot of law enforcement personnel over the course of my career, and I can tell perfunctory interest from the serious. These people are very serious, my friend. They have something major. Or are looking for something major. Besides, I don’t allow my clients to meet with officials without benefit of counsel.”

  I nodded. Glenn had helped me out of a jam or two before. I would trust him with my life.

  “In the meantime,” he added, “you’re to stay here. Do not go out, do not talk with anyone.”

  Instead of agreeing, I asked, “D’you think the press have gotten hold of this?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.” He reached for the remote, flicked the TV set on. The local news was over, however, the national report just winding up. “Check the late broadcasts,” he told me.

  I showed him to the door, assured him I’d be at his office on time tomorrow. Then I went back to the living room and proceeded, as I’d planned, to line up the evening’s activities.

  Lia Chen, InSite’s Haven Maven, agreed to meet with me at Kodiak Rick’s at seven. The billiards parlor-and-bar was on Third Street, in the shadow of the Central Skyway and near Moscone Convention Center. The large storefront had two smoky-glass windows facing the street, and each bore the neon outline of a wild-eyed, bushy-haired man in a fur parka and mukluks; a huge stuffed polar bear stood guard inside the door. When I entered the lounge—the walls of which were plastered with posters and signs for such places as Anchorage, Juneau, Barrow, and Skagway—I saw it was nearly deserted. In the silence I could hear the click of billiard balls in the adjoining room. Suzy Bivens, the bartender whom I’d interviewed last week about Roger, waved to me and pointed at a rear booth where Chen waited, nursing a beer.

  “I guess,” Chen said when I sat down, “you want to ask me why I was eavesdropping outside Max’s office on Friday. At least that’s what J.D. wanted to know when he came back into the building to get his raincoat. He sensed a story and was asking everybody questions, until Jorge chased him out of there.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  She shrugged. “All I know is what he asked me. I told him that the employees all did plenty of eavesdropping. You had to, in order to stay on top of the situation.”

  “What situation?”

  “Whether we’d have jobs from one day to the other. We all knew it was only a matter of time till the ’zine went under. And what I heard on Friday confirmed it.”

  “Jorge insisting on shutting down and Max resisting.”

  She nodded. “And now Jorge’s had his way. He called a staff meeting Friday afternoon and laid everybody off. They’re not even going the bankruptcy route, just liquidating everything and returning what they can to the investors. Frankly, I’m glad to be out of there. It was getting way too weird.”

  “How so?”

  “Paranoia. Infighting. Jorge paying the electric bill out of his own pocket but not really trying to rein in Max when he kept tapping the till for fancy food and drink. It was like Jorge didn’t care if the operation went to hell, but he couldn’t quite let go of it either.” She looked around the bar and shivered as if she’d felt a sudden chill.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “This place—it’s eerie. A year ago on a Monday night it would’ve been packed. Now there are—what?—five other people here, including Suzy. For the past six months I’ve been hearing about folks who used to hang here running back to Des Moines and Omaha and Indianapolis with their tails tucked between their legs. And I’d say, ‘Oh, no, not me. No way!’ But now I’m thinking of heading to Modesto, moving in with my folks till I can find a position there.”

  “What about your book on feng shui? Isn’t that bringing in some money?”

  She laughed bitterly. “No, and it’s no surprise. My target audience was the young and newly rich. But nowadays what laid-off dot-commer wants to shell out forty bucks for a coffee-table edition of something telling them how to arrange their surroundings to create greater harmony?”

  “I’m sorry things have turned out badly for you.”

  “Thanks. I’ve always had lousy timing.”

  “About J.D.—did he ask you anything else besides the reason we saw you eavesdropping?”

  “Well, he wanted to know about Kat Donovan, the head of our research department. Apparently she said something to him outside the office after the fire alarm went off on Friday that struck him as strange, then took off without coming back to see what condition her workstation was in. I told him she’d been weird all week.”

  “In what way?”

  “Distracted. Hyper. Normally Kat is calm and focused. She isn’t a talkative person, and she very seldom brags— which is unusual in an organization where most people wave their egos like flags. But last Thursday we had lunch together and she told me she was coming into a lot of money and would be leaving the magazine. I asked if it was an inheritance, and she said no, she’d done something very clever and was soon to be handsomely rewarded.”

  I thought of the e-mails between Donovan and Dinah Vardon. She’d done a private research job for the Web-Potentate, but that was back in February.

  “Did you ask Kat what this clever thing was?”

  “Sure, but she wouldn’t tell me. She just smiled coyly, shook her head, and finished her sandwich.”

  “You told J.D. about this conversation?”

  “Yes. He was very interested.”

  I’d have to have a talk with the woman who called herself Sherlock.

  The city of Alameda is actually an island southeast of Oakland, accessible by a tunnel running under the bay from Jack London Square. Formerly dominated by the largest military base in the Bay Area, the economy of its west end suffered when the naval air station was closed in 1997. But owing to San Francisco’s high housing costs and the conversion of most of the base to private enterprise, it is gradually reviving. Trendy coffeehouses and cafés peacefully coexist with the old bars and diners along Webster Street, the west end’s main shopping area; recreational facilities on the former military land attract residents from the more affluent east end, who in years past wouldn’t have deigned to cross the boundary. But, as in any area undergoing transition, there are still pockets harboring poverty, crime, and danger; I was surprised to find that the address I had for Kat Donovan was in one of those.

  The house
was one story of faded pink stucco with a ridiculously short turret over the door—a gremlin’s castle straight out of a Disney fairy tale. The front yard was surrounded by a chain-link fence and overgrown by high weeds. When I reached the gate I saw a FOR RENT sign in the front window.

  The house was dark, the gate padlocked. A hedge screened it from the neighbors to the left, but on the right only a strip of driveway separated it from the lighted windows of the adjacent dwelling. Not a good place for trespass and, besides, the house looked vacant. After a moment I went next door and rang the bell.

  The woman who peered through the screen was short, wearing a shapeless faded cotton dress and flip-flops. Her gray hair curled tightly, and her round face looked Southeast Asian. Filipino, I thought. My adoptive father had been a career NCO in the Navy, and from him I knew that many male citizens of the Philippines had joined up under the stewards’ program, which guaranteed them not only steady employment but the opportunity to apply for U.S. citizenship. When the Navy pulled out of Alameda, many Filipino families stayed on, considering the island home.

  “Yes?” the woman said.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for Kat Donovan. She gave me the address next door, but there’s a For Rent sign in the window.”

  “Katty’s gone. Moved out this morning. Damn rental agent couldn’t wait to put up the sign.”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  “Home to visit her folks, she said, then someplace warm. Didn’t know where yet, told me she’d send a card when she got settled.”

  “You were friends, then?”

  “Good neighbors. You know—we’d talk over the fence, stuff like that.”

  “Did she say why she was moving?”

  “Got her notice from that magazine she worked for. They had a fire or some damn thing in their office Friday morning, and they decided to close down. What with the rotten job market here, Katty thought she’d do better someplace else.”

  “Do you know where her folks live?”

  The woman shook her head. “Like I said, we was neighbors, that’s all. I don’t think she’ll even bother to send me the postcard. That’s just the kinda thing people say when they’re leaving for good.”

  “Is there anyone in the neighborhood she was friends with?”

  The woman shook her head. “Katty didn’t have friends, not really. Took the bus in to the city, came home, and when she wasn’t sleeping she was watching TV or running her errands. No boyfriends, no girlfriends, nobody.” She hesitated, frowning. “Guess that’s why I was surprised to see the blonde in the fancy car there on Saturday.”

  “A blond woman?”

  “Uh-huh. Saturday night, she came in a fancy white sports car.”

  “What kind?”

  “Do I look like somebody who knows fancy from fancy?”

  “Can you describe the woman?”

  “Blond, is all. My eyesight’s pretty bad.”

  “What time did she arrive?”

  “Around six. I thought she was an overnight guest, on account of she went in carrying this little suitcase, but she came out maybe ten minutes later, and she didn’t have the case with her.”

  A blond woman in an expensive car delivering a small suitcase to another woman who was expecting to come into a lot of money. Most of the females involved in my investigation had dark hair.

  Except for one: Tessa Remington.

  Tessa Remington, who had disappeared and this weekend may have removed enough money from her company’s accounts to fill many suitcases.

  Dinah Vardon lived in a small cottage on Potrero Hill’s Vermont Street, otherwise known as “the second most crooked street in the world”—the first being the block of Lombard between Hyde and Leavenworth on Russian Hill. Although tourists flock to Lombard, few of them know about Vermont; tonight the series of steeply sloping switch-backs was deserted. I coasted along and parked close to a concrete retaining wall bordering the dark, wooded park on the downside of the hill. As I got out of the car I heard rustlings in the underbrush that were not necessarily animal, and farther below the sound of a siren approaching S.F. General Hospital.

  I crossed the pavement, climbed the steps of Vardon’s cottage, and rang the bell. No answer, no lights in any of the windows. I would have liked to draw out Vardon about the research Kat Donovan had done for her, as well as Donovan’s relationship with Tessa Remington, but that would have to wait for another time. And maybe it was just as well: I’d arrived here before coming up with a strategy that wouldn’t involve telling her about Roger’s “Project ’Zine.”

  Come to think of it, when had he retrieved the office e-mails in that file? The staff at the magazine worked long hours, and the tech department was always on call. As I’d seen last night, the process was not a quick or easy one. Roger would have needed access to the premises at times when no one was likely to be there, as well as a convincing excuse for his own presence.

  I reached into the zipper compartment of my bag, found the keys I’d taken from the crimson bowl in his kitchen. Yes, the larger of the two could be to the double doors at InSite’s building. There was also a security system requiring a code, but if Sue Hollister was at home, I had an excellent resource in that department. The magazine had suspended publication; the offices would be deserted tonight.

  At least till I arrived there.

  At nine-thirty Dogpatch slumbered under the white glow of the new moon. I parked my MG a couple of blocks away from InSite’s building, in front of an apartment house that was being torn down. The balconies of the small units had already been removed, and the interiors of what had once been people’s homes were nakedly exposed. The tenants must have fought their eviction, because someone had spray-painted on the facade, “Your time here is over. Move on!” I felt a sudden stab of sympathy for those with no place to go in an expensive and often inhospitable city.

  As I walked along the street, broken glass crunched under my feet and figures moved silently in the shadows. The area had been reclaimed by the night people, and they were carrying on all sorts of clandestine activities mere yards away, but as long as I didn’t bother them, they wouldn’t be interested in me. Still, I clutched my keys firmly, points out—a useful weapon in lieu of the .357 Magnum that for the most part I keep in my office safe.

  It was impossible to tell if anyone was inside the converted sewing factory; the only windows I’d noticed on Friday faced the rear alley and had been painted over. I slipped onto the loading dock and moved along slowly, shining my small flashlight at the logical places a system box would be located. Near the front entrance I spotted it; the installer’s sticker read BARBARY COAST SECURITY, a small local firm. I dug out my cell and called Sue, whom I had contacted before driving over here and who was expecting to hear from me.

  “It’s one of Barbary Coast’s installs,” I told her.

  “That makes it easy. I used to work for them. There should be a number on the box.”

  I peered up at it. “Nine-three-two-A.”

  “I use that model myself on some of my residential jobs. In fact, it’s what I installed on your friend Paige Tallman’s flat. But first let me ask you: is this a B and E?”

  “Not really. I have a key, but not the alarm code.”

  “And the key was given you by … ?”

  “An employee.” In a way.

  “With the employer’s authorization?”

  “… No.”

  “I’m not at all comfortable with this, Shar.”

  “Sue, it’s got to do with J.D.’s murder.”

  That gave her pause. She’d dated him for a few months after he did a piece on her for the Chron, dubbing her “the first lady of S.F. security.”

  “In that case, I’ll do it,” she said. “It didn’t work out with us, but we stayed friends. He was somebody you could count on. But promise me you’ll keep me out of it if you get caught.”

  “If course.”

  “Okay, the key is to … ?”

/>   “The front door.”

  “And the command panel is where?”

  “Directly inside. But there’s a second set of doors that you have to be buzzed through.”

  “Not if you’re entering with a key, you don’t. There’s one command to turn off the alarm, then the key will work the inside door lock. What you’re gonna do is override the system. I’m looking it up in my manual now, just to be sure. By the way, do you know you were mentioned on the six o’clock news?”

  “The attempted suicide out at McKittridge Park?”

  “Right. And there was also a teaser a while ago for the late broadcast—something about a suitcase linking you to J.D.’s murder.”

  “Dammit!”

  “I wouldn’t worry; it’s probably nothing. They exaggerate to boost their ratings. Ah, here’s what I’m looking for. You ready?”

  “Give me a few seconds.” I went to the edge of the loading dock and peered around. If anyone was watching me, it wouldn’t be an upstanding citizen who would hustle to a phone and call the police. I dropped down to the pavement, went to the entrance.

  “Okay,” I said to Sue, “I’m ready.”

  “What you’re gonna do is simple,” she told me. “Stay cool, go slow, follow my instructions. We don’t want you getting any more press than you already have.”

  “I’m in. Thanks, Sue.”

  “Don’t mention it—to anyone.”

  “Not to worry.” I broke the connection, stuffed the cell back into my bag, and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Small spotlights shone down from the vaulted ceiling above the work area, but they did little more than illuminate the girders. They were there for security reasons, but since people had come and gone at all hours, the building was probably not equipped with motion sensors that would trigger the alarm. I’d avoid passing through their beams, just to be on the safe side.

  The offices were otherwise dark and silent. The work area looked much as it had on Friday, except that many of the desks were bare and white stains from the fire-retardant chemicals in the sprinkler system covered everything. The room had the muggy feel of a swamp and smelled faintly of mildew. I located my raincoat where Engstrom had draped it over the chair on Friday morning; it too was stained and spotted with the beginnings of mold. The coat was old and I’d never much liked it anyway, so I left it there. Let the cleanup crews dispose of it.