Muller, Marcia - [McCone 04] Games to Keep the Dark Away (v.1,shtml) (27 page)

The younger, less careworn face of Abe Snelling.

I
drove along the ridge above the Salinas Valley, ignoring
the speed limit but keeping an eye out for the highway patrol. The
air was hot and dry, and the needle on the MG's temperature gauge
rose dangerously toward the red zone. Every few minutes I would check
it, tell myself it would be fine, and then my eyes would drift back
to it again. King City, I thought, I'll stop in King City. And try to
phone Snelling again.

I'd called as soon as I left Susan Tellenberg's, planning to hang
up if the photographer answered and then rush to San Francisco. But
the phone had rung and rung, and finally I'd decided to risk making
the trip anyway. After all, it might only mean Snelling was in the
darkroom. Hadn't he said he unplugged the phone while working? But,
then, that might have been a lie—like all of Snelling's other
lies. Because the night he'd claimed to have worked late in the
darkroom—the night I'd kept calling to tell him of Jane's
death—he most certainly had been in Port San Marco. Right now
he might be hurrying for the airport or driving north, south, or east
to a new identity.

My eyes strayed to the gauge. The needle had dropped slightly.

But why would Snelling run? He had no suspicion that I was close
to uncovering his real identity. I hadn't told him I planned to see
Susan Tellenberg. Because of my manner on the phone earlier, he
probably felt more secure. Maybe he was in the darkroom right now,
printing more of his wonderful photos.

The photos. That was another tragedy. While it seemed certain that
Abe Snelling—or Andy Smith, whatever you wished to call him—was
a killer, he also had a rare talent that would cease to be used when
he was arrested. There would be no more of those portraits that
probed to the core of their subjects' being, no more expressions of
his unique understanding of human nature.

The needle on the temperature gauge rose again. Rapidly I
calculated; it was only ten miles to King City.

Well, now I had answers to a number of my questions. I knew why
Jane Anthony had gone to San Francisco, why Snelling had let her live
at his house, why he had lied to me about how he met her. And I
thought I knew why he had risked exposure by hiring me to find her.

I felt a certain responsibility for what had happened. Through me,
Snelling had found out Jane was in the Port San Marco area. That had
probably been enough to tell him how to locate her. He'd driven
south, met her at the old pier, and…

The sign for the King City exit loomed up, and I moved into the
right-hand lane.

What about John Cala? I was fairly sure he'd recognized Snelling
leaving the pier, gone out there to see what he was doing, and found
the body. Had he attempted to blackmail Snelling? I didn't think so.
After all, Don had said Cala wasn't too bright. Probably Snelling had
recognized him too and later lured him to the old amusement park with
a promise of money. They were both from the area, and the boarded-up
park was a likely place for a secret meeting at which cash was to
change hands. But instead of cash…

I pulled off the freeway and turned into the gas station where I'd
stopped earlier in the week. While the attendant filled my gas tank
and radiator, I went to the phone booth and called Snelling. Again,
the phone rang unanswered. I hurried to the car, paid with a credit
card, and was soon back on the freeway.

Salinas slipped by. Gilroy. Morgan Hill. It was rush hour in San
Jose. I fretted and cursed and my temperature rose, but at least the
car's gauge remained constant.

I should have the radiator fixed, I thought. No, I should buy a
new car. I had money in the bank, a fairly large reward from a
grateful shipping company for whom I'd recovered a stolen consignment
of cargo. It was more than enough for a new car. But then, it was
almost enough for the down payment on a house. A house would solve
the apartment problem…

Now I was through San Jose and speeding up the freeway, where
tract homes gave way to rolling hills and expensive estates. How many
times had I driven this route in the past week? One, two, three,
four. Lord, I was sick of the freeway!

One thing was certain: no one was going to be grateful and give me
a reward for solving
this
case. No one was even paying me.
So why was I doing this? Why was I rushing up here to face a
dangerous man, putting myself in jeopardy? Why didn't I just call the
police, tell them I'd located a fugitive, and let them handle it? I
knew the number for San Francisco Homicide, had called it often in my
year-and-a-half with Greg. I wouldn't have to talk to him; I knew
most of the men on the squad. So why not pull off this endless
freeway and make the call?

Was it because of the photos? Or because Susan Tellenberg had
called Andy Smith a nice coward, a gentle man? Or was it because
there were things that still
didn't
fit?

The last thirty miles went quickly. Route 280 rejoined 101 near
the Daly City line, and soon I was exiting at Army Street and scaling
the steep streets of Potrero Hill. It was after six; the demolition
had stopped. The shells of houses stood dark and silent. So did the
top story of Snelling's, but that didn't mean anything; the fence
obscured the first floor. He could be there, or downstairs on the
bedroom level.

I got my gun out of the glove box and stuck it in the outer
compartment of my shoulder bag, where I could reach it quickly if I
had to. Then I went up to Snelling's gate, keeping in the shadow of
the fence.

The first thing I noticed was that the gate was open.

I paused, listening, then pushed it with my fingertips. It swung
all the way back, revealing the overgrown yard.

No lights were on in the lower windows. I started down the path.

There was a rustling in the shrubbery to my left. I whirled, hand
poised over my gun. A cat jumped lightly to the fence and down onto
the other side. I relaxed, but only slightly, and kept going.

The front door was also open, the security chain hanging limp.

I stepped inside, waited until my eyes adjusted to the gloom, then
went down the hall. The living room was dark, the draperies open. I
could make out the photos on the wall, the chrome-and-leather
furniture, the stairway to the top story. Everything seemed as it
should be.

And then I noticed that the desk to the side of the fireplace had
been ransacked. Its drawers were pulled out and their contents lay
scattered on the desk itself, the chair in front of it, and the
floor. A trail of papers led from there to the stairway. I listened,
heard nothing, and decided to risk turning on a lamp.

Its soft glow filled the stark white room, and I could now see
that books had also been removed from some shelves by the stairway.
They were piled haphazardly on the floor, and a few were open, as if
someone had been riffling through their pages. There was still no
sound and, although I couldn't be sure, I felt the house was empty.
Slowly I went to the stairway and climbed to the studio.

There was nothing there but the stool in the center. I glanced up
at the skylights and saw a few wispy clouds highlighted against the
early-evening sky. The door to the darkroom was wide open and, taking
my gun out, I walked across the room.

It was pitch black. All I could hear was the bubbling of the print
washer. I reached inside the door, found a light switch, and flicked
it on. It was the switch for the safelight, and the room was bathed
in its red glow. It illuminated the enlarger and the stainless steel
tanks and the dryer and the light table. A couple of prints floated
face down in the washer. There was nothing amiss here.

Or was there? I found another switch and flicked it, this time
getting white light.

There was a strip of negatives in the enlarger's holder, and more
of them, in protective plastic, spread out on the light table. In one
corner, I spotted a file cabinet with its drawers open. Inside were
folders full of prints, some of which had been emptied out onto the
floor. Ransacked, just like downstairs.

But where on earth had Snelling been while this had been taking
place?

I put my gun into my purse and, leaving the light on, went back
downstairs to search the bottom floor. As I passed through the living
room, something caught my eye—a crumpled piece of photographic
paper, lying on top of a disordered pile of canceled checks. I
squatted down and reached for it. It was damp, as if it had recently
been pulled out of the print washer.

The picture was of The Tidepools. It must have been taken on a day
when it was going to storm, because there were dark clouds in the sky
and the trees looked bent from a strong wind. It was a haunting photo
and artistically I could appreciate it—but I couldn't for the
life of me figure out what it was doing here in the living room.

After studying it for a moment, I looked up at the stairway, then
went back to the darkroom.

The other prints in the washer were similar—all of The
Tidepools and all taken on the same storm-threatening day. They told
me nothing. Neither did the photos that were spilled out on the
floor. They were all of Snelling's clients, many of whom I recognized
as celebrities. Finally I went back to the door, shut it and put out
the lights, and then found the switch on the enlarger.

The image of the negative in the holder blazed up on the board
beneath the lens. It was out of focus and, after some fumbling, I
corrected it. Since the blacks and whites were reversed, it would
have been difficult for anyone who couldn't read negatives to
distinguish who the people were.

A bearded, dark-haired Abe Snelling—Andy Smith, as he had
been known then—stood with his arms around two women. One was
Susan Tellenberg; the other I had never seen before, but I guessed it
was Barbara Smith. She bore a close resemblance to her sister. In the
background, I could make out a cypress grove, probably one of those
on the grounds at The Tidepools.

So what did all of this tell me? That Snelling had been taking a
nostalgic look at his past?

I took the holder out of the enlarger and examined the other
negatives on the strip. They were variations of the same pose. I
wondered who had held the camera or if Snelling had used a timing
device and jumped into the picture at the last second. But did it
matter? The negatives told me nothing except what the dead woman had
looked like. I reached under the edge of the light table and felt for
a switch so I could see what else Snelling had been working on.

The white Plexiglas glowed softly. A magnifying loupe lay to one
side, and I picked it up so I could see the negatives more clearly.
In one of the protective plastic sheets there were more of The
Tidepools and more of Susan and Barbara. Snelling must have taken his
camera when he fled Port San Marco, with this roll of film inside it.
I turned to the other plastic holder. In it were scenes of San
Francisco. I leaned over them with interest, realizing one was the
negative of the photo that had made Snelling famous.

There, in reverse black-and-white, was the anguished face of the
restaurant proprietor's wife. And the still face of her husband.
There were twelve shots that must have been taken in rapid
succession, and I marveled at how Snelling had known exactly which
one to pick to give him that essential quality of pain and horror.

But there were more shots that had been taken that day. Shots
that, by the sequence of the numbers printed on the film, had been
taken before these. They showed the rest of the cafe, the striped
umbrellas, the little flowers in vases on the tables.

And they showed another face I recognized.

I stared down, gripping the edges of the light table. That face
was the reason Snelling had stopped at the Blue Owl that day and
inadvertently become famous.

I didn't have time to search Snelling's files for prints of these,
and I was fairly certain they wouldn't be there anyway. The person
who had ransacked the house would have taken them. But the negatives
lying on the light table hadn't meant anything to the ransaeker.
Someone unfamiliar with the photographic process wouldn't be able to
read them or realize they were there because Snelling had been going
over them, looking at them through the magnifying loupe, getting
ready to print them. Before…

Before what?

I whirled and ran from the darkroom and down two flights to the
lower level. I glanced into the first door off the hall and saw a
bedroom furnished in light-colored Danish modern. Snelling's,
probably. A couple of suitcases stood on the floor by the dresser,
and a third was open on a chair. It was partially packed. I went
inside and turned on a light. There was a thick film of dust—due
to the nearby demolition—around it. The suitcase had not been
packed today, and most likely Snelling had been taking things out
rather than putting them in.

So he'd been prepared to run. What had changed his mind?

I left the room and hurried down the hall to the bedroom Jane
Anthony had occupied. It was the same as when I had last seen it,
except the phone book was on the bed, open to the notations on its
front pages. I leaned over it, reading them more carefully than I had
the last time I'd come here.

It leaped out at me, the final fact that made everything come
clear. I would make a telephone call to confirm it.

But I was already certain I knew.

By
the time I got back to Salmon Bay, I was physically
exhausted. The tiredness I'd felt on the trip north was nothing to
the bone-weariness I felt now. My arms and shoulders ached from
steering; my right leg was stiff from pressing the accelerator; even
my eyes burned from peering into the darkness through the headlights'
glare.

But my mind was alert, primed by questions answered and suspicions
confirmed—and by fear.

A dark green VW was parked near the end of the semicircular
driveway at The Tidepools. I drove past and left the MG several yards
down the highway, then walked back and looked at the other car. It
was pulled in at an odd angle, its rear end sticking out and nearly
blocking the drive.

The Tidepools itself seemed unnaturally quiet now, at a little
after ten. The front wing, where the reception area and offices were,
was dark except for small security lights set at intervals under the
eaves. They did little more than illuminate the juniper shrubs that
screened the windows. Brighter light shone from the rear wings where
the patients presumably were, but even these were filtered through a
thin sea mist.

I hesitated, checking the gun in my purse, then went up the drive
to the VW. Its door was unlocked, the window on the driver's side
partly rolled down. In the glove compartment I found a registration
made out to Abe Snelling at his Potrero Hill address.

As I'd suspected, Snelling had come to the place that—as
indicated by the prints I'd found in his darkroom—had been very
much on his mind all afternoon. And I thought I knew why he'd come.
But where was he now? From the way he'd left the car, he'd taken no
pains to cover his presence. But, then, he didn't have to; the people
here had probably never heard of Abe Snelling. Even if they had, they
would never connect the car registration with Andy Smith. And I was
pretty sure Snelling had arrived in a hurry and not planned to stay
long.

But when had Snelling gotten here? He'd left his house early
enough for both the ransacker and me to search it thoroughly. And for
both of us to guess where he might be headed.

I looked around at the three other cars in the driveway. Two were
station wagons with the name of the hospice painted on their doors.
The other was a new-looking Jaguar XKE. All three cars had been in
the drive on my previous visits.

Slipping into a grove of eucalyptus that bordered the right side
of the driveway, I studied the low-shingled building. It was cold,
and a strong wind blew off the ocean, raiding the dry leaves above my
head. I could hear the surf crashing on the reefs and when I looked
over there I saw whitecaps billowing. The tide was starting to come
in now; soon it would cover the narrow beach and batter at the
cliffs. I thought of the sea anemones in their dark, icy pools, and
shivered.

I stood very still and stared into the darkness, looking for a
telltale movement among the trees. Snelling had to be here some
place—but where? Perhaps I should have gone directly to the
police and let them find him. But what did I really have to tell
them? Only that I felt, because I'd read Snelling's negatives, it was
all going to end here, where it had begun?

No, it would have taken the police—skeptical as they were of
me now—all night to unravel my cat's cradle of suspicions. And
even then, I was afraid they would not take me seriously. Besides,
this was my investigation; I should be the one to wrap it up.

I began to circle the buildings counterclockwise, keeping under
the trees. The wind blew stronger and colder as I moved toward the
sea. Through the rustle of the leaves and the scraping of branches, I
could make out the strains of classical music. I followed them to a
brightly lit side window and looked in from my dark vantage point.
The window opened onto a large living room, full of comfortable,
overstuffed furniture. A string quartet—three men and a
woman—was playing on a raised platform at the front of the
room, and about ten people sat listening. I tried to think of what
the piece was. Mozart, maybe. Don would know. Don…

I stepped farther back into the shadows and continued circling. At
the rear of the complex was a series of ells with sliding glass doors
that reminded me of a motel. This was probably where the patients'
rooms were. There were a number of lights on and through one door I
saw a white-haired man sitting up in bed reading. Yes, these were the
living quarters.

What was left? I turned and surveyed the grounds. There was a
small shingled outbuilding closer to the cliff's edge. I started over
there, sprinting across an open stretch of lawn and into a clump of
wind-bent cypress. They were more thickly planted than the eucalyptus
and, before my eyes could adjust to the blackness, a low-hanging
branch caught me square in the face. I swatted at it and then felt my
cheek. It was scratched, but only superficially.

Stand still until you can see where you're going, dummy, I told
myself.

I waited there, listening to the roar of the surf, until I could
make out the shapes of the individual trees. Snelling, I thought.
Where the devil was Snelling?

A movement off to my right caught my eye. I whirled and looked
over, but it was only a curtain being pulled across one of the
sliding glass doors. Its light-colored panels fluttered into place
and became still.

I turned back and began scaling the rocky terrain under the
cypress to where it sloped down toward the cliff's edge. There the
ground dropped abruptly away to the jagged reefs. The tide was coming
in fast now, white water boiling around the dark outcroppings. The
wind blew steadily, and I gripped a tree trunk for support.

The outbuilding was some fifty feet away, across a strip of open
lawn. Once on the grass, I would be silhouetted against the horizon
and easily spotted from any of the hospice's wings. I debated
chancing it, decided not to, and instead peered over there, trying to
see what the building was. In the same architectural style as the
main building, it had a peaked roof and small high windows. Its doors
stood open.

A tool shed? These immaculate grounds would probably require the
full-time services of a gardener. No need to risk investigating it.
Although the grounds were not fenced and there didn't seem to be any
excessive concern with security, surely someone would come out here
if he spotted a figure prowling around a tool shed.

I went back through the cypress grove the way I had come, then
skirted the other side of the main building. Lights in the patients'
rooms were steadily winking out. I glanced at my watch but couldn't
make out the time. Either they went to bed early here—which
would be logical, since the place was a sort of hospital—or I'd
been moving through the trees for longer than I'd realized. I slipped
forward to the edge of the foliage, where the mist-shrouded moon
provided some illumination. The hands of my watch showed ten-twenty.

I'd been here nearly fifteen minutes and hadn't spotted Snelling.
Where was he?

In the closest room of the bedroom wing, about twenty feet away
from me, the glass door slid open. I stepped back. The tree branches
rustled.

"Over there," a man's voice said. "I could swear I
saw someone."

"Where?" The second voice was female.

"Under those trees. Someone was standing right at the edge,
watching the place."

"I don't see anyone."

"They moved back when I opened the door. You could see the
branches shake, couldn't you? Someone's hiding out there."

"Why would anyone do that?" The woman's voice was
patient and somehow patronizing. A nurse, I thought.

"How should I know? But I saw someone. For all we know,
they're casing the place."

"Why?" This time there was an edge of annoyance to the
word.

"I don't know! Drugs, maybe. Someone looking to steal drugs."

"Well, it won't do him any good no matter how hard he
'cases.' The drugs are under lock and key and only the pharmacist can
open up. And I think now it's time you went to bed."

"I tell you, I saw someone."

"There's no one out there."

"Just you wait until you're sitting out there at the nurses'
station and some crazed hophead bursts in and pulls a gun on you and
tries to make you open up the pharmacy. Don't say I didn't warn—"
The door slammed shut.

I moved deeper into the grove of trees and waited a full five
minutes before I moved on. While the nurse claimed not to believe the
patient had seen someone, she might just have been allaying his
fears. If so, she would send someone out to check immediately.
Finally I decided no one was coming and made my way back toward the
front of the grounds and the office wing.

Snelling's car was still parked at the end of the drive, as were
the station wagons and Jaguar. I moved behind the juniper hedges so I
could see into the office windows. Just then the front door slammed
and high-heeled shoes tapped down the flagstone walk. I peered over
the hedge and saw Ann Bates getting into the Jaguar.

The personnel director was here very late. Was that part of her
regular duties or something to do with Snelling's presence?

Bates stopped, her hand on the door of the Jaguar. Then she turned
and went down the drive to Snelling's car. She looked it over without
trying its doors. Then she shrugged and went back to her sports car.

So much for the idea that Snelling had confronted Bates, I
thought. If the personnel director hadn't seen him, then where
was
he?

The Jaguar's engine roared and its lights flashed on. It swung up
the semicircle, beams sweeping over the facade of the building—and
over the bush in front of me. I ducked, unsure whether I'd moved in
time. The car continued down the drive, red brake lights flaring
briefly before it turned in the direction of Port San Marco. I
crouched in the bushes, my heart pounding.

Ann Bates must be doing well as part-owner of The Tidepools, I
thought. The Jaguar appeared to be a recent model and, even used,
they weren't cheap to buy or maintain. No wonder she had caused so
much tension at the hospice this past week; what with records
disappearing and police and private detectives asking questions, she
must be very worried that something would destroy her handsome
livelihood. Perhaps that accounted for her late hours.

The conversation I'd heard between the patient and the nurse about
a possible drug holdup had made me think about the hospice's security
system. It would stand to reason there must be some sort of alarm.
Even if the drugs were kept under lock and key, someone who didn't
know that might force his way in and demand them. I inched forward,
under the eaves, looking for an alarm box.

I found one, prominently marked with the security firm's name. A
large warning proclaimed that an alarm would also sound at the Port
San Marco police station. The wires running from the box were intact.
There was no way Snelling could have breached the system.
I
couldn't even do it without the proper tools—and I knew a fair
amount about burglar alarms from my days in security work.

The only place I hadn't checked was the tool shed. And come to
think of it, what was its door doing open anyway?

I hurried back through the trees, past the bedroom wing. Almost
all the lights were off there now.

Into the cypress grove, down toward the sea. This time I was
careful not to run into any branches.

The expanse of lawn looked as forbidding as before, but my
motivation for crossing it was stronger. I glanced back at the
hospice. The lights had been turned off in the living room. A soft
glow emanated from beyond, presumably in a hall. Everyone was
probably in bed but the night-time nursing staff, and I didn't think
any of them would be standing by a darkened window. I ran across the
lawn and flattened myself against the wall of the shed.

Breathing hard, I stared through the darkness at the hospice. No
lights came on. No doors or windows opened.

Then I heard a groan.

It came from inside the tool shed. I waited, but it was not
repeated. My hand on my gun, I inched along toward the door. Inside,
to the right, was a lawnmower. On the back wall I could make out a
row of rakes and hoes.

On the floor lay Abe Snelling.

He was on his back. The front of his light-colored shirt was
darkly stained. But he was still breathing, shallowly, in ragged
gusts.

I moved through the door, saying his name. He didn't respond. I
said his name louder. There was blood, a lot of blood. Almost as much
as when John Cala…

"Abe," I said, "dammit, Abe. Not you too."

I pushed my gun back into my bag and knelt beside him, started to
feel for his pulse. A rustling sound came from behind me. Before I
could straighten, something hit me from behind and I dropped the bag
and my gun. Someone grabbed me by the shoulders and I felt cold steel
against my neck.

"Don't scream," Liz Schaff's voice said. "Don't
scream—or I'll cut your throat."