Dead Midnight (27 page)

Car coming along Water Street.

I shut the BMW’s door, listened.

Coming here.

I looked around. Other than the BMW, the boatwell was the only place to hide.

Gravel crunched under the car’s tires as it stopped outside.

I rushed to the well, scrambled over its side, stifling a gasp as my feet went into the icy water. Grabbing hold of the exposed beams, I lowered myself till I was knee deep in the bay and clung there, my forehead pressed to the splintery wood.

The padlock and hasp rattled, then someone opened the door and came inside. I held my breath, hoped that the slapping of the water around me wouldn’t give me away. Footsteps crossed to the rear of the BMW. Something thumped on the planks, and after a few seconds I heard a whining sound.

Electric tool of some kind. Screwdriver?

Metal clanged, the tool whined again. The person went to the front of the car and repeated the process.

Changing the license plates.

Next the footsteps went to the passenger’s side of the car; its door opened. In seconds it slammed shut and the person left the boathouse, fastening the padlock. It was a few more minutes before the other car’s engine started up, then faded into the distance.

I pulled myself from the boatwell and lay on my stomach on the planks. My feet and calves were numb, my jeans and athletic shoes soaked. I smelled of brine and tar and some chemical whose identity I didn’t even want to speculate on. After a moment I sat up and wrung out the jeans as best I could without taking them off, rubbed my calves to restore the circulation. Took off my shoes and emptied the water from them, rubbed my feet.

After I’d put on the soggy shoes, I turned on my flash and went to take a look at the new plates on the BMW. 2 KCV 743. Tessa Remington’s. On the passenger’s seat lay a purse and briefcase that hadn’t been there earlier. The purse contained identification and credit cards in Remington’s name, as well as five hundred dollars in cash. The briefcase held files relating to the various funds managed by the Remington Group, an agenda for the February 14 board meeting of the Committee for Wireless Privacy, and a dossier on Jorge Amaya that disclosed many of the facts I already knew, plus a prior arrest for statutory rape in Los Angeles, charges subsequently dropped.

Had Remington been hiding here at the Last Resort for the past two months while she gradually transferred the funds from the Econium Measures accounts? Was she planning to make a move tonight? And if so, what was her relationship with Dinah Vardon?

The briefcase had another compartment that closed with a tiny lock—easy enough to pick. Inside was a clasp envelope. I took it out, found several sheets labeled TIMELINE. It was a schedule: of deposits into Econium Measures accounts; of transfers from same. There were no names or numbers for the accounts into which the funds had been moved. Interspersed with the deposits and transfers were various cryptic notations, among them “lose Lewis file,” “disable scanner,” “delete payroll,” “activate fire alarm.” The date for the latter was this past Friday.

The last notations were dated a week from tomorrow: final payment, Afton; final transfer, Econium.

An embezzlement scheme so elaborate and meticulously planned that Remington had felt the need to spell it out for herself. Well, no wonder: amounts were penciled in beside each financial transaction; the total of funds to be transferred—undoubtedly to a protected account outside the country—was close to a hundred million dollars.

The question was, whom did she intend to share it with? Amaya? Or Dinah Vardon?

Before I left the boathouse I took out J.D.’s diagram for what seemed like the hundredth time and held it up to the light from my flash. Jody Houston’s name was heavily circled; he’d thought the answers lay with her, and maybe they did.

I went over my contacts with Houston, considered what kind of person she was. Tried to think as she would.

And realized where I might find her.

No one answered my ring at Houston’s flat, but that didn’t surprise me. I let myself into the building with Roger’s keys, rode the elevator to Jody’s floor. Unlike him, she had only one lock on her door, and the key with the purple rubber band that I’d found in his kitchen opened it. The new alarm system panel was on the wall to my right; I overrode it as I had done the one at
InSite
’s offices.

Once inside I saw a sliver of light shining from under a closed door at the rear of the flat. Dining area and kitchen, same as Roger’s, except the archway had been turned into a solid wall. I moved toward it, my footsteps muted on the thick carpet. No sound from within, but I felt a tension that tugged at my nerve endings. I opened the door.

Paige Tallman gasped and shrank backward. “Oh, my God, how’d you get in here?”

“Take it easy. I’m not here to make trouble for you.”

She glanced down at my wet jeans and shoes, wrinkled her nose. “What’s happened to you?”

“That’s not important. Why didn’t you answer when I rang?”

“I thought that was just a warning ring.”

“And that I was Jody.”

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s who you thought I was. She’s been staying here, hasn’t she?”

“Why d’you think that?”

“Educated guess. Last time she ran she went someplace familiar. You told her you’d had the alarm installed, and she figured this was the last place the police—or anyone else— would look for her.”

Tallman went over to a round oak table and sat down, propping her elbows on it and burying her face in her hands. “Well, you guessed right. She’s been hiding here since Sunday night.”

“You let her? When she’s wanted for murder?”

“Of course. Jody’s my friend. She said she didn’t kill that reporter, and I believe her.”

“Who did, then?”

She looked up, spread her hands. “If she knows, she won’t say. She came home and found him dead on the living room floor and panicked. Hid him in the closet till she could decide what to do. But before she did, you showed up.”

“So she ran out and left me to deal with the situation.”

“No, that’s not how it was. You convinced her you really wanted to help her. But when she went upstairs to get something to show to you, she looked out the window and saw the person she thought had killed the reporter.”

“But she wouldn’t tell you who this person was.”

“No.”

“And what was this alleged person doing?”

“Picking up a suitcase that was lying on the front walk. Then they ran away with it, got into a car that was parked down the street, and drove away.”

“She describe the car?”

“Dark-colored economy model. The same kind she’d rented at the airport.”

Eagle Rock had certainly been infested with rental cars that night. “Then what?”

“She just ran. Drove down the coast, ditched the car. Hitched here. It took a long time and when she got here she was dead tired. She slept most of Monday, and that night when we talked, she told me what I just told you.”

“And today?”

“She hung around here, really nervous. Pacing. Jumping at every little noise. Smoking a lot, even though she knows how I feel about secondhand smoke. I was working at home—I’m in insurance, had a package to put together for a big commercial account—and she really got on my nerves.” Tallman flushed. “I know that sounds awful: her in big trouble, and I’m complaining because she annoyed me.”

“You can’t help how you feel. It’s a bad situation for you, too.”

“Yeah, it is. I mean, she’s a fugitive, and not turning her over to the cops is a crime. But how could I do that, when she’s not guilty? Anyway, she did try when I complained about the smoke. Started hanging out the airshaft window to have a cigarette because she was afraid to stand by a window where she could be seen. I offered her some Valium, thinking that would help, but she said no, she had to keep a clear head so she could think.”

“She give you any indication of what she was thinking?”

“Well, when I knocked off work, we had a couple of glasses of wine, and she started talking about what she should do. She was afraid to turn herself in to the cops and take her chances. She couldn’t keep running; she didn’t want to live like that and, besides, she didn’t have any money. She couldn’t stay here indefinitely. Finally she said that if the person she saw up there in Oregon was the one who killed the reporter, she was in even more danger than before. It was a no-win situation, so she might as well risk everything.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. She got quiet after that, and a few minutes later she went into the bedroom to make a phone call. When she came out she told me she was going to meet with the person, strike a bargain. I said wasn’t that dangerous, and she said she’d told them she’d left an insurance policy just in case.”

An insurance policy—the same phrase Roger had used in his last journal entry.

“She left it here, with you?”

“No, she said it wasn’t in the flat.”

“But she hadn’t been out since she arrived on Sunday?”

“No.”

“So how were you supposed to do something with this policy, if you didn’t know what it was or where?”

“I wasn’t supposed to do anything. I think she was going to use it as leverage with the person—give it to them in exchange for money and leaving her alone.”

A dangerous and foolish course of action. “What time did she leave here?”

“Around eight.”

Almost two and a half hours ago. “On foot?”

“Well, she didn’t call a cab.”

“And that’s everything?”

“Yeah. You think something’s happened to her, don’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“If it has, I’ll never forgive—”

I shook my head, held up a hand to silence her. Outside a siren wailed a counterpoint to the words and phrases that echoed in my mind.

Insurance policy … Eddie will look out for her … he’ll see she has an insurance policy at her fingertips … important that you show her the stuff I asked you to teach me … he asked if he could use my computer to send an e-mail, his server was down … not in the flat … at her fingertips …

I asked, “Is Jody’s computer still here?”

“Yeah, but it’s boxed up in the closet with the other stuff she left behind.”

That wasn’t it, then. Damn!

Not in the flat … she started hanging out …

I looked around, asked Tallman, “Where’s the airshaft window?”

“What’s that got to do—?”

“Just show me.”

“In the kitchen, next to the fridge. You can’t miss it.”

I hurried over there. The pebbled glass pane was on the building’s side wall, where in Roger’s flat it had been covered by cabinetry. I released its latch and leaned out into a dim space that smelled of stale cooking odors and mold.

Tallman came up behind me, asked what I was doing, but I ignored her. I felt around till my fingers touched a plastic bag taped to the frame. The tape came loose and I almost dropped the bag. That was all I’d have needed in my present state—to have to climb down the shaft after it like Spiderwoman.

I moved back from the window and held the bag to the light. Inside was a disc, smaller than a CD.

When I’d come in I’d seen that the living room was set up as an office. “Do you have a Zip drive on your computer?” I asked Tallman.

“Yes.”

“Download this onto the desktop, would you?”

She led me to the workstation, booted up, fed the disc into the drive.

“Thanks,” I said. “You’d better go into the other room while I look at this.”

“Hey, this is my—”

“Remember what Jody told you? You’re better off not knowing.”

She gave a grunt of displeasure, then her footsteps moved toward the dining area.

The desktop icon for the disc had appeared. I clicked on it. The file came up on the screen, and I began scrolling through the words that Roger had typed on Jody’s machine and then deleted shortly before he killed himself. Not an e-mail because his server was down, as he’d claimed to her; he’d earlier sent his final messages to his brothers on his own machine. When Jody read his journal she’d figured that out and, using the method Eddie had taught them both, retrieved and stored the document on disc.

I read on, Roger’s words confirming many of the things I’d already suspected.

And telling me one thing I never would have guessed.

Almost three hours now since Jody left the flat. She was in extreme danger, if not already dead. Call 911?

No, no real evidence of where she’d gone, and it would take too long to explain my reasoning.

Go now, by myself.

But I needed an insurance policy too. I highlighted the entire document, added a message, and sent it as an e-mail to Adah Joslyn, both at her home and SFPD addresses.

Once again I crouched behind the abandoned truck on Water Street studying the resort. The mist was thicker now, and moving inland, but I could make out faint light behind the masked first-story windows. Portions of Roger’s last message kept replaying in my mind.

I never should have gone there, but by then I’d realized Dinah had been using me when she came on to me that afternoon, buying time so she could do something with the material Kat had given her. God, I was a fool to believe her when she said she still loved me. But with me, Dinah always knew what buttons to push.

I’d gone by the pier for the .357 Magnum that I normally keep in the safe there. Now it was a comforting weight in the outside pocket of my bag. I have a curious love-hate relationship with firearms: love, because I’m a good marks-woman and they’ve saved my life on a number of occasions; hate, because I’ve seen—and three times been responsible for—the dreadful toll they exact on human beings.

After a few minutes I left the shelter of the truck and retraced the route I’d taken earlier. The boathouse was still padlocked, and I didn’t see any other car.

She said she was meeting with her contractor at five, but when I saw the cars I realized the appointment was actually with Tessa Remington. I supposed she planned to pass along whatever information Kat had turned up, and I wanted to know what it was, so I went inside. Second mistake.

There was a plank walk on the bay side of the building. As I started along it, I saw a vehicle pulled close to the railing of the lower deck. The windows of the bar overlooked the walk, but they were also masked; still, I crouched down while passing them. Now I saw that the car was a red Pontiac Firebird, a sporty but relatively inexpensive model. The plates on it were the ones that earlier had been on the BMW. I tried its doors, but they were locked.