Muller, Marcia - [McCone 02] - Ask the Cards a Question 3S(v1)(html) (9 page)

Madame Anya answered my knock quickly, her eager, flushed face a contrast to the gun in her hand. At the sight of me, she shrank back in disappointment. It was several seconds before she recovered herself and put on a polite, professional smile.

“Good. You’ve come about the candles.”

“No. I need to talk to you about Molly.”

“Now? So late?”

I looked at my watch. “It’s not yet nine.”

“Isn’t it? Somehow it seems so much later.” It always did, if you were waiting for someone as I suspected Anya was for Jeffrey. “Please—this is important.”

She sighed heavily. “All right, but first let me put Hugo in his cage.” She turned, slipping the gun into the table drawer as she had last night, and shut the door briefly before admitting me.

The room was unchanged. The bird statues held their various poses: singing, cocking their little heads, roosting on wax nests. Anya herself was different, however. Clad in a long black dress and fringed silk shawl of red and gold poppies, she looked every bit her role of prophetess. Her hair was swept up on her head by an ornate silver comb, and her lips shone with crimson gloss. I wondered if she had dressed up for Jeffrey’s return—and if indeed there would be one.

She motioned me into a chair and asked with a touch of impatience, “Well, what is it, honey?”

“Anya, you and Molly were good friends, right?”

“The best.”

“She confided in you?”

“Naturally. She came to me for spiritual advice every week. She held nothing back.”

“And, since you were such good friends, you want to see her killer caught, don’t you?”

She frowned. “Of course. I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“Just this: The day she was killed, Molly came to you for her weekly consultation. I’m sure she told you about the things that were bothering her. What she said could lead me to her killer.”

Anya drew the shawl more closely around her shoulders. “You’re asking me to betray a professional confidence, honey. I told you last night, I can’t do that. It’s like asking a doctor to show you a patient’s case history. Or asking a lawyer what his client said to him in private.”

The overly grand comparisons irritated me, but I said, “It’s permissible to give out that kind of information to aid in a murder investigation. Even psychiatrists will do that.”

She sat up straighter. “I suppose you’re right. We professionals do have a duty…” A sudden thought seemed to hit her. “Wait, are you investigating the murder? For All Souls?”

“How do you know where I work?”

“From Molly. She often told me useful things…” Again she paused, flushing.

“Like the things about my friend Linnea that you probably used in her reading. And the things you used in mine last night.”

“We meant no harm. You’ve got to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“It’s hard to make a living in this business, honey. A little inside information makes the reading more convincing.”

“Look, I’m not here to question your ethics. I want to know what Molly told you.”

She was silent.

“Whatever it was, it’s been extremely useful to you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She tried to feign indignance, but the words came out flat.

“Yes, you do, Anya. Molly told you something, something that’s given you power over Jeffrey again. You’d been looking for that leverage for a long time.”

Stubbornly she shook her head.

“Do you deny you called Jeffrey at the Blind Center around eleven last night?”

“I didn’t!”

“I was there, Anya.”

“Well, doesn’t a wife have the right to call her husband? I needed to ask him some questions about… about our joint income tax return.”

“Whatever you said, I don’t think you went into your real business on the phone. You probably made an appointment with him—I’d say for early this afternoon.”

Her dark eyes glittered. “Why would I do that?”

“To issue an ultimatum. To tell him either he come home to you or you would go to the police with the thing Molly left with you for safekeeping. Whatever that thing is, it implicates Jeffrey in her death, doesn’t it?”

“No!” she exclaimed. “No! It certainly does not!”

“Then at least you admit Molly left something with you. What was it? Was it the thing Jeffrey couldn’t find when he searched her apartment the other night?”

“He didn’t!”

“Do you really want to coerce a murderer into living with you? Doesn’t that seem awfully risky?”

Anya bent her head. “He’s not a murderer,” she whispered.

Cruelly, I pressed on. “Oh, no? Do you know what Jeffrey told Herb Clemente this afternoon? He said he’d rather see you dead than come back to you. That doesn’t sound like a man I’d want in
my
house.”

Her head came up, and her mouth formed a little “o” before her hand covered it.

Sickened by the way I’d demolished her world, I forced myself to continue. “It’s true, Anya. I heard him.”

The crow moved restively in its cage. After a long moment, Anya lowered her hand and asked weakly, “He’s not coming home, is he?”

“No, he’s not. He doesn’t love you, and you’re better off without him. Now will you give me whatever Molly…”

“No!” She jumped to her feet, fists clenched in sudden panic. Frantically she turned this way and that, as if she were cornered. The gay scarf slipped from her shoulders to the floor, where she trampled it.

“I won’t let you do this to me!” she wailed. “You can’t spoil Jeffrey’s homecoming! Why, I dressed up for him. I made him a cake. I bought his favorite whiskey. He’s got to come. He will. You’ll see.”

Her breath came in pants, and her glistening eyes darted desperately from side to side. I had the frightening sensation that something deep inside of her had snapped. Suddenly she whirled on me, her face alight with insane hope.

“Look, I can prove it,” she announced. “I can prove he’s not a killer. I have something to show you. Go look, please.” She stretched out a shaking hand toward the archway at the rear of the room.

I went where she pointed. It was a closed door off the hallway.

“Open it,” Anya commanded from behind me.

It was an ordinary bathroom. “I don’t see what…”

As I turned, Anya came on in a rush. She pushed me into the room, and my hip slammed into the washbasin. The door began to close. I lunged for it, then shrank back. Anya thrust the crow inside.

In horror, I retreated to the far end of the narrow room.

The crow flapped about, looking for a place to light. Brushing me with frantic wings, it landed on the shower curtain rod. There it perched, screeching in distress.

I cringed against the wall, breathing hard.

Aloud, I said, “Sharon, it’s a ridiculous fear! Calm down. Don’t scare the thing. It might fly again.”

The crow was between me and the door. I looked for another exit. There was a window to my left, but it was nailed shut. Even if I got it open, I was three stories above the ground. Still…

My eye on the crow, I rummaged in my bag for a suitable implement. All I found was a corkscrew. It would have to do. I sidled over to the window and began to pry at the nails.

The crow took off. Its wings flapped wildly. I almost dropped the corkscrew. The bird landed on top of the medicine chest and screeched louder.

I watched it for a minute, aware of voices in the hall beyond the closed door. Anya had called in reinforcements. My palms felt clammy as I turned back to the window. The nails began to yield.

After what seemed like hours of feverish work, the nails gave way. I thrust the window open and crouched down, covering my head with my arms.

“Come on, Hugo. Nice Hugo,” I coaxed. “See the open window? There’s all that world outside.”

The bird ceased screeching. I hazarded a look. His head was cocked in curiosity. In seconds, he flapped over and perched on the sill. I crawled toward the door.

The bird’s head bobbed from side to side. Then his wings spread, and he was gone.

I stood up and looked for a weapon. The light metal towel rack was the kind that snapped onto brackets. I popped it off and hefted it. It was scarcely heavy enough to swat a fly, but, like the corkscrew, it would have to do.

Cautiously, I turned the knob and opened the door a crack. All was quiet. I opened it further. No voices. The towel bar upraised, I stepped into the hall and crept along to the archway.

Anya lay crumpled on the living room floor, like a rag doll a child had discarded after play.

I staggered and dropped the towel bar, then leaned in the archway, staring at her prone figure.

“This is too much,” I said aloud. “Two people killed in two days. It’s too much.”

No, maybe she’s not dead. Go over and see if she’s dead.

“I can’t. I can’t take any more.”

Go on. You’ve got to.

“I can’t!”

Go!

I knelt beside her, pushing back her hair where it had come loose from the comb and fallen over her face. Her blood-suffused eyes stared sightlessly. Her face was a mottled purple. The bruises on her throat told me all I needed to know.

I got up and backed away, stumbling over a chair. How long had I been imprisoned in the bathroom? Ten minutes? Fifteen? How long since I’d heard the voices? I’d lost all sense of time. I’d been so preoccupied with the goddamned bird that I hadn’t noticed a thing.

It was important to stay cool now and figure out if the killer had gotten what Anya had been holding for Molly. Where would she have hidden it?

People hid things in strange and unsuitable places. Money in the mattress, marijuana in the Band-Aid box, jewelry in the cookie jar.

I began to search.

Anya had several dozen boxes of bird charms, like the ones she’d given Linnea and me, in the linen closet. The bathroom cabinet held enough toilet paper to supply a small army. She kept candy in the bedside table, extra handkerchiefs stuffed down beside the cushion of her chair, and an unusual number of her books were shelved upside down.

I moved stealthily, using pieces of Kleenex to avoid leaving fingerprints.

In the kitchen, I found the chocolate cake Anya had baked for Jeffrey. A bottle of Wild Turkey stood on the table beside it. Delicate plates, cut-crystal glasses and silver forks had been laid out.

What a pathetic fantasy the fortune teller had been enacting! After blackmailing Jeffrey into coming home, she had supposed they would have a festive little party and live happily ever after. I felt a rush of pity for her.

Anya’s cupboards were well-stocked with staples and cereals and canned goods. A few dishes stood clean in the drainer. Her appliances sparkled. The refrigerator contained milk and fresh vegetables and a bottle of good wine. The freezer held meat and TV dinners and a box of nylons.

Elated, I snatched it from the cold depths. There were three pair of a standard brand of knee-high stockings designed to be worn with pants.

This had to be it. But what on earth could it mean?

The telephone rang, shattering both the silence and my nerves. I stared at it, paralyzed, then jammed the nylons in my bag. I’d better get out of here fast. Hopefully I wouldn’t run into anyone on the stairs.

At Anya’s front door, however, I stopped. The drawer of the little table beside it was open. And empty. The killer had taken the fortune teller’s gun.

I went out and hurried downstairs, past my apartment, where the stereo once more blared. I’d report the murder anonymously from the phone booth on the corner, then be on my way. I should stick around, but I didn’t want to waste precious time explaining to the police what I was doing in the bathroom with a bird while Anya was getting murdered.

When I stepped out of the phone booth, the blue Blind Center van pulled up to the Albatross Superette. Neverman was at the wheel.

Just the man I wanted to see.

Mr. Moe came out of the store and fumbled with a set of keys. Neverman’s hand beat an impatient rhythm on the steering wheel.

I ran to where I’d parked my car before talking with Mr. Moe. Getting in, I twisted the rearview mirror until it showed the grocer climb into the van.

Neverman backed up, made a sweeping U-turn in the intersection, and drove past my parking space, headed south on Guerrero. I started up and followed.

At Army Street, the van turned left and led me toward the freeway. It went past the cluttered hump of Bernal Heights and swept under the interchange, ignoring the on-ramps. I tailed it along Army, deep into the industrial sector of the city, pulling back as traffic lightened.

At Third Street, the last major artery before the Bay, the van turned again. Here the traffic was nonexistent, and I had to drop back further. We were headed for the area known as India Basin, next to the old Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.

In spite of the distance I had to maintain, the taillights of the van were easy to spot. They disappeared to the left as the clumsy shapes of World War II housing on the hill above the shipyard came into view. I speeded up and cruised by in time to see the van drive down a lane between two gas storage tanks. I backed up and followed the lane to a dilapidated cyclone fence. My headlights picked out a brick guard post with smashed windows. Blackberry vines and weeds had taken over here, snaking up the walls of the little gatehouse and twining in the lattices of the fence. A sign leaned at a crazy angle among them, as if it had fallen there:

SAN FRANCISCO IRON WORKS,

INDIA BASIN DIVISION

PRIVATE PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING

The gate sagged open on broken hinges. Beyond it, a narrow road led between hulking factory buildings. Not a light showed. The van was nowhere in sight.

Quickly I pulled behind the guardhouse and cut off my motor. I unlocked the glovebox and took out my gun, slipping it into an outer compartment of my shoulderbag that acted as a holster.

The road on the other side of the fence was full of potholes. I walked far to one side, next to the wall of the factory. The buildings were ponderous brick structures with huge arching windows and doors. What moonlight filtered down into the chasm between them picked out jagged holes in the many-paned glass. Occasionally my feet crunched on shards of it as I made my way toward the open space at the other end.

There I paused. The moonlight provided better visibility here. It outlined heaps of rubble dotting a flat plain that ended at the shore of the Bay. A tortured wreck of a corrugated-iron building stretched its twisted beams toward the sky. From far to my left I heard a rhythmic clanking.

I peered around the building in the direction of the sound. The van was moving slowly onto a pier with a large warehouse at the end. The headlights bumped up and down with each clank. The pier must be an old one, resurfaced with metal slabs that had come loose.

Afraid to cross the open space where moonlight created a murky dusk, I kept to the wall of the old factory until I had no choice but to sprint toward the pier. There I hid behind an upright post. The van had stopped midway between me and the warehouse.

Mr. Moe’s slender figure emerged from the passenger side. He leaned back in, conferring with Neverman, then approached the warehouse. The lights of the van went out.

I slipped forward to the next post.

A small door in the warehouse opened. For an instant, a burly man was silhouetted against the light inside. He beckoned to Mr. Moe. The grocer entered, and the door shut. No light leaked from around its frame.

I kept creeping forward.

The faint orange tip of a cigarette glowed inside the van. Neverman’s head was outlined against the waters of the Bay. He had the radio tuned to a country and western station, and the monotonous thump of the guitars blended with the sloshing of the waves under the pier.

When I reached the post closest to the van, a sudden breeze brought me the acrid odor of marijuana smoke. It was a startling intrusion upon the smells of tar, creosote and stagnant sea water. I crouched behind the post, debating what to do next.

Neverman was obviously not at his most alert. Should I chance taking him by surprise?

No way, I decided. I didn’t know how many others were inside that warehouse.

Or what they were doing.

Or why Neverman hadn’t gone inside with Mr. Moe.

Restlessly, I moved my foot. It hit something light that tipped over and rolled onto the metal surface toward the center of the pier. It rattled along, making an incredible racket for what could be only a pop or beer can. I shrank back against the post, hoping Neverman was too stoned to notice.

“Who’s there?” His shout echoed up and down the pier.

I turned and ran.

“Hey! Come back here!”

My feet clanked along the metal slabs. I stumbled when I hit flat ground.

“Stop, you!”

Neverman’s footsteps staggered down the pier.

I dived behind a pile of bricks.

The warehouse door clanged open.

“What the hell’s going on out here?” a rough voice shouted.

I dodged from one heap of bricks to another, toward the ruined building I’d seen earlier.

“Neverman! Hold it!” Mr. Moe’s voice rang out.

I crawled into the half-demolished building on my hands and knees. Pieces of glass and metal cut into me. My pants ripped with a sickening sound.

I lay flat on the ground, under a tilted piece of corrugated iron, my gun out, waiting for them. My cheek pressed into the rubble, and I sucked in grit with every ragged breath.

Miraculously, no one came.

After a few minutes, I inched forward and hazarded a look. Four figures stood at the foot of the pier. Neverman and Mr. Moe and two larger men. They milled about, then walked back toward the warehouse. Mr. Moe and Neverman parted company with the others at the van. It started and backed down the pier, then bumped across the debris-filled field toward the old factory and the gate.

Obviously they didn’t want to attract attention by using their headlights to search for me.

I lay still, listening to the silence. From far off, a ship’s horn groaned. The faint bellow of foghorns answered it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had rain by morning.

After a while, I crawled from under the piece of iron. My clothes were a mess, and my rear end was definitely open to the night air. I slipped from rubbish heap to rubbish heap and plunged into the alley between the two factory buildings. In their ponderous silence they took on an evil, Dickensian air. I hurried along to my car.

It was where I’d left it, untouched and apparently unobserved. I started up and pulled away with a spray of gravel. After an adventure like this, the best place for me was home in bed. Given Linnea’s condition, however, that wasn’t possible. I’d have to settle for my office at All Souls.