Dead Men's Tales (Olivia Grant Mysteries Book 2) (10 page)

"Simple. You weren't wearing a wedding ring."

"You noticed."

"I
looked
. Are you divorced or widowed?"

He shot encouraging signals across the table at me. It must have been that chemistry they talked about. I'd always felt funny when a man was coming on to me, like there were neutrons or something charging the air. I could feel them coming from his eyes. They were blue. I'd always liked blue eyes.

I decided to enjoy the moment. "Both. My first husband died in a car accident seven years ago. Then, two years ago, I married again, and we've been divorced almost a year."

"Yet, you kept his name?"

"My, you
are
observant. Yes, I got used to writing Olivia Grant and decided to keep the shorter name. My siblings are stuck with our father's name, and Samantha still groans about having to write Samantha Featherstone on everything. She tells me she won't get married until she finds a man whose last name is Oz."

He laughed, a nice hearty laugh, and I smiled some more. He refilled my wineglass and waved away the hovering waiter who wanted to hijack an empty plate. I used to think they did that because nobody ever taught them it's impolite to remove a plate while the other person is still eating, but then I learned they wanted to hustle you out of the restaurant so they could use the table again. Okay, so maybe their prices would have gone up if the turnover decreased, but let's face it, we didn't eat in restaurants to save money.

"Are you a native Californian?" Carl asked.

"I was born in Illinois, but my father came over from England as a young man. I was fourteen when my parents moved to California. How about you?"

"Florida originally. Then my college roommate told me about San Francisco. I did post-grad work at State."

"I went to UC Berkeley. My father wanted to send me to Stanford, but the times being what they were, I thought I'd find more radicals across the bay. I'd worn clothes from second-hand or charity stores and straightened my hair."

"You
straightened
your hair?"

"Curly hair was out. Long and straight was in."

He laughed again. "I'm glad you don't straighten it anymore. I like it this way."

I rattled on, trying to cover my discomfort at his compliment while making my feeble participation in the rebellious youth era sound more interesting than the reality. In truth, I could never completely eradicate my conservative genes. And he told me about his very
Leave It to Beaver
upbringing. Dessert and coffee came. He paid the bill, and still we sat and talked.

Finally, the appearance of the waiter, trying to fill our still-full water glasses for the fourth time, registered on me, and I reached for my coat. We talked some more on the sidewalk outside, said good-bye at last, and I got into my car. I'd driven halfway home before I realized we'd never made the briefcase swap at all. Now I'd have to see the man again. Oh, darn.

Since I hadn't been able to fit my cell phone in my evening purse—not with the more necessary items like read-the-menu glasses, skinny billfold, and car and house keys—I'd left it in the car. Now that I was in the car, I pulled it out and googled Carl's name. He was the only Carl Novotny who lived in San Ricardo, so I noted the address and pointed the car in the right direction. My watch indicated it was close to eleven, but he couldn't be in bed yet, probably hadn't even arrived home.

As I drove, I pondered the wisdom of my actions. Was it smart to go to the man's house this late at night? Would he consider it an invitation to something more intimate than our restaurant dinner? Of course, I had a legitimate reason for the trip. He'd said he needed the briefcase urgently the next morning. What if he invited me in for a nightcap and then made a move on me? I hadn't made up my mind about that when I began to wonder, as perhaps the police did, if he killed Harry. Did I want to start an affair with a possible murderer?

I remembered something he'd said about his soon-to-be ex-wife, that she found his income unacceptable. Would he have killed Harry so he could be promoted to vice president and keep her in Italian shoes? No. I believed him when he said he didn't want her back.

Yet, could he have killed Harry for some other reason? He admitted taking Hammond's briefcase. Perhaps evidence of some kind hid among the papers. Either Brad and I didn't recognize it, or Carl removed something incriminating between Saturday night and that morning. Again, I rejected the notion. Brad had discussed the contents with Amanda on the phone, and she hadn't said anything was missing. I decided to relax and just go with whatever flow appeared.

Carl lived on a tree-lined street not far from San Ricardo's downtown. Once more, I thanked the transportation gods that I didn't have to drive into San Francisco. Realistically though, it wouldn't make much sense for Carl to work at Hammond Jewelry headquarters in San Ricardo and live in the city. Even in gold-rush days, when the bankers and railroad barons thrived, they built their summer mansions in the suburbs to the south of the city for the warmer weather. I think Mark Twain once said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

I found the right house and wondered if I had in fact beaten Carl home. Darkness, except for some light coming from a first-floor window, lay everywhere on the building, especially the front entryway. A smidgen of fear traced its way up my spine. I was all alone, the hour was late, and I was a woman who knew no karate. I quickly reminded myself I'd gone into a quiet, homey neighborhood, not a garbage-strewn slum, and if Novotny wasn't there yet, he would be soon.

I steered my car into the driveway at the left side of the house, turned off the engine, and pressed the trunk-release button, then unfastened my seat belt. When I looked up, I saw something dart across the front lawn to the right, away from me. My heart thumped, but I waited a moment, staring at the shadows and shrubs where I thought I'd seen it. Still, nothing moved.

After a moment, I decided nervousness had triggered my imagination, nothing more. I got out of the car, rounded my front bumper, and took the sidewalk angling from the driveway toward the front door. Another obstacle blocked my way. Two shallow steps, followed by a wrought-iron gate with a latch on top. I groaned. It wasn't the first time I'd run into suburban houses that made visitors' lives miserable with stairs or gates to deal with. And this house had both.

Why did people do that? Why not plain level sidewalks for people who were no longer young or those who were handicapped? And why the gate? Who did the owner think that would keep out? Not a burglar, certainly. All it did was force the person they really did want to see to struggle with lifting a latch, which, thanks to Bay Area weather, was probably rusty and difficult to pry loose.

Fortunately, I managed to operate the latch but didn't relock the gate behind me. With luck, it would still be open when I needed to get through it on my way out.

Next, I devoted my attention to the rest of the walkway and saw the door of the house standing open. Whereas it had all been dark shortly before, light now poured out from the opening and made a square yellow patch on the small front stoop. Had Novotny heard my car and come to the door to greet me? Then where was he? I could see into the hallway, and no one stood there.

That earlier feeling returned and grew. A shiver waltzed up my legs and spread into my arms, freezing them against my body, while my heart tried to do a fandango in my chest. Yet my feet kept going forward, along the sidewalk and up another step. I told them not to be so stupid, reminded them that in movies, when foolish people went into open doors uninvited, they always found dead bodies or became dead bodies. But I couldn't stop.

Once inside the entry, I called, "Carl?" but no one answered.

To the right of the hallway I saw a rectangular living room, which held a grand piano, two long sofas, some chairs, and a fireplace in the opposite wall. Oh, yes, it also held a possibly dead body.

A scream formed in my throat but refused to come out. Instead, I felt hypnotized. Common sense told me to get away, but I couldn't. My legs apparently obeyed the same stubborn streak because, stiff as tree stumps, they never stopped moving toward the body on the floor. Fortunately, Carl, whom I now recognized, lay on his side, so I saw his face. I could never have turned him over if he'd been face down. Although, at the moment, he showed as many vital signs as a parking meter, I decided he wasn't dead.

He had a nasty wound on his head from which blood oozed, as if he'd been struck with another of those famous
blunt objects
. Not that I'd know the difference between that and a bullet hole, but I assumed a gunshot to the head would have been fatal. Although he seemed pale enough to be a corpse, his chest moved up and down, albeit almost imperceptibly. He was breathing.

Relieved to know he hadn't died from the blow, I felt my body begin to take orders from my brain again. I could handle this. I'd call 9-1-1, and they'd take care of it. Once more, I pulled out my cell phone and pushed the numbers. I gave the information requested and hung up. Then I tried Brad. He didn't answer at his apartment, and I wondered if his lunch with Amanda had evolved into dinner and maybe more. Finally, I heard voicemail.

I'd grown up with television, computers, and numerous electronics, but no one taught etiquette for announcing almost-dead bodies. I glanced at my watch and just plunged in.

"It's eleven-twenty. I'm at Carl Novotny's house, and he's lying on the floor unconscious. If you get home soon—"

Brad's voice came on the line at once. Loudly. "
What
did you say?"

"Carl Novotny is lying on the floor of his house with a gash in his head."

"He's alive?"

"So far. I called 9-1-1."

"Good. What's the address?"

I told him, and he said, "I'll be there in two minutes." Then the phone crashed in my ear, and the dial tone hummed.

I went back to Novotny, feeling like some kind of jinx. Stephen had died, Lamar turned out to be a soulless machine (although nicely dressed), and now Carl had been attacked. Did some lesser god have it in for the men in my life? I stared at Carl.
Don't you dare die
, I told him silently.

He continued to breathe, which I considered a good thing since I had no desire to practice mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with all that blood around. I perched on the edge of a chair and just watched him while I waited. I noticed the fireplace poker lay near the grate, but I didn't touch it or even go near it.

I hated it when movie plots had the innocent bystander pick up the murder weapon and get his fingerprints on it. Okay, Carl wasn't dead, but I knew enough not to do that.

Brad appeared, and I told him how I happened to be there, that Carl wanted to swap briefcases. I skipped the dinner and personal stuff but mentioned everything that happened since I arrived at Carl's house.

"You saw someone running away just before you came in?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe not. A shadow, a large dog, a bush moved by the wind."

"There's no wind tonight."

"Whatever. The more I think about it, the less certain I am that I saw anything. Perhaps it was only that unnecessary gate out front."

Black-and-white squad cars soon arrived to fill up the street, and the world outside became very noisy. Brad leaned close to me. "I'll do all the talking, but if they question you, tell them just what you told me."

An ambulance arrived, siren blaring, and a white-coat paramedic ordered me to move my car so they could park in the driveway. When I got back, three police officers were going through the house checking it out and another talked to Brad in the kitchen.

I perched on a chair again while the paramedics hovered over Novotny, doing their thing. They took a while. I had expected them to put him on a stretcher and haul him away immediately, but by the time they wheeled him out on a collapsible gurney, he had a plastic cone over his nose and mouth and a little hose, hooked up to something in a bottle, snaked up his arm.

Finally, they left, and I sat alone in the living room. Now that the worst had passed, my body shook from delayed reaction. I'd been calm until then, but I remembered how Carl and I had spent the evening and how much I liked the man. Then I realized Hammond had been killed and Novotny struck down. Tremors went through me. My mouth went dry. I might have been next. Hadn't I realized that this private detective business involved danger? I felt both hot and cold, and I hyperventilated.

I sat back and closed my eyes, trying to take shallow breaths. I sensed someone coming up to me, and I opened my eyes to see Brad and another man in plain clothes whom I took to be a detective. He asked a lot of questions and wrote down my answers in a small notebook. Eventually he got to the last, most important, one.

"Mr. Featherstone tells me you saw someone run out of the house just as you arrived."

I glanced at Brad, who looked surprised at the question. "I'm not sure what I saw," I told the detective. "It happened so fast, and it was dark, and I wasn't paying much attention. I sort of saw it out of the corner of my eye, you know?"

"But you thought you saw a person?"

"I did at first, but then I decided it might have been a dog. Or just bushes. Or shadows."

He gave up on that, probably thought it was the insane gibberish of someone who'd been off her meds too long. He took my address and phone number then said I could go.

Brad helped me to my feet, and I walked unsteadily to the door. "I'll drive you home."

The fresh air outside revived me considerably, so I told him I felt better and could do it myself.

"If you remember anything else, no matter how trivial, be sure to tell me."

I agreed and walked down the now-empty driveway toward my car. Lights shone out from windows and open doors of the houses nearby, and clusters of people stood across the street, watching us. I felt a little guilty about whatever I might, or might not, have seen, wondering if perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it to Brad at all.

As I drove home, I saw a blinking security light on my dashboard and realized my trunk lid wasn't closed all the way. I had no desire to stop, get out of the car, and latch it. Not until I reached the safety of my garage. I remembered that someone wanted certain people dead. My guilty feeling increased, too, because Harry's briefcase still sat in there, and I had failed to tell the detective that I went to Novotny's house to return it. I didn't leave that out intentionally. The officer never asked why I was there in the first place.

After a moment, I reassured myself that Brad had probably reported it anyway, so when I returned to the safety of my locked garage, I just slammed the trunk lid tightly closed and scampered into the house. I'd worry about what to do with the briefcase later.

Meanwhile, I relocked all the doors and windows, fixed myself a cup of hot peppermint tea, and climbed into bed, wishing I didn't live alone. I wondered if I should get a dog. A large dog, lean and mean, who'd sleep in my room and make a meal out of anyone who tried to hurt me. While I debated the various merits of German shepherds, Dobermans, or pit bulls, which were probably illegal in the city, I fell asleep.