Rogue Wave (18 page)

Then the doorbell rang.

B
ENT OVER
D
ELANEY’S BOX
of files, Kiernan froze. The doorbell rang again.

A log of cases? Delaney should have one. She grabbed the loose sheets at the front of the box and stuffed them down her shirt.

The doorbell kept on ringing. She shoved the file box back, pushed the carton of sweaters in front to hide it, and stepped into the hallway, jamming the flashlight into her fanny pack.

“Police! Open up!”

Was it really the police? She could always insist Delaney had lent her the apartment.

“Police! You got thirty seconds, lady!”

Lady!
That skewed the odds. It was too late to brazen this one out.

“Twenty seconds and we’re coming in!”

We’re! Too risky to try the back stairs. Kiernan raced for the kitchen, yanked down the top window, climbed up on the sink, and slid through the opening, hanging by her knees in the narrow airshaft. Her heels brushed the bottom part of the window. So much for the erotic thrill of housebreaking. No wonder there’d never been a good word about coitus interruptus!

“Open this door! You want it smashed in?”

Light from the windows below and from the one opposite threw yellow smudges on the filthy stucco walls of the airshaft, highlighting the snails and slugs clinging to the sides. Tensing her abdominal muscles, she swung her arms up and grabbed for the edge of the roof.

Missed.

Her back hit the wall. She jammed her heels into the windowpane to keep from falling. From inside she heard someone pounding on the door. The voice yelled, “Okay, that’s it!”

Pushing off the side of the building, she swung up again. And missed again. Her head smacked the wall.

The front door crashed open.

She took a deep breath, swung, reached, and shoved her feet against the glass. The glass shattered. She heard men running in. Crabbing the gutter, she yanked herself up and braced one foot on the window. Someone grabbed for the other. She kicked, pulled the foot out, pushed down hard with both arms and hoisted herself over onto the roof.

She could hear men’s shouts from the airshaft. They wouldn’t follow her—the space was too narrow. They’d head for the fire escape. She glanced at the roof of the house to her left. Too low; too long a drop. The only way down was over the roofs to the right.

The voices inside were louder. Two men, three?

The roof was barely canted to the side. She moved near the front. No flashing red lights below. No double-parked patrol car. No back-up units wheeling in. These guys weren’t cops. Who the hell were they and what did they plan to get out of her? Who sent them? Who knew she’d be here?

No point in prolonging this. She shook the rain from her hair, and stomped back across the roof to the fire escape, squatted down, pulled out her flashlight, and waited.

The stench of dirt and tar clogged her nose as she stared down at the edge of the roof. Rain pelted her back. In the distance sirens shrieked. She could still hear voices coming up the airshaft. But they were softer. Then louder. It was a moment before she realized the back door had been opened.

“Up there,” a male voice shouted. “Move!”

She stood up.

The rain looked like a wall of water shielding endless black. A wall of water coming at him, was that the last thing Delaney had seen as he went over the side? Kiernan’s soaked sweatshirt clung to her back. Icy rain pelted her face, ran down her neck, down her back, mixing with the sweat of fear. What was taking them so long?

Feet hit metal. One of the men climbing the fire escape. She waited for the other to flash a light along the edge of the roof, but none came. The fire-escape ladder came just to the edge of the roof; from there it was a matter of scrambling over. She backed off a yard. A hand came over the edge, grabbed onto the gutter. She waited. Another hand appeared. Then the head.

She flicked the flashlight onto high and shone it in his eyes.

“Hey! What the—Turn off that light!” In the piercing light the man looked deathly pale. Meaty cheeks, dark, stringy-wet hair, blue eyes blinking furiously. A face she’d never seen before. “Turn that goddamned thing off!”

“Who sent you?” she demanded.

His eyes were nearly closed. His left hand swung around, grabbing blindly.

“It’s a long way down. It’d be real easy for me to shove you back. Now, who are you working for?”

He swung again.

Sirens cut the air, nearer now. Had the neighbors called the police? She had to get out of here. But not without an answer. She stamped on his hand.

He screamed, and let go of the gutter.

Bracing her feet, she seized his hair and yanked his throat against the edge of the gutter. He gagged.

“You’ve got one more hand. Little bones, real easy to crush. Now, who sent you here?”

The siren was higher pitched, louder, closer. His hair was slick. He was taking too much time, thinking instead of blurting out the truth.

“Who?”

“Olsen,” he muttered.

“Don’t lie to me. Who?”

“Olsen!”

She jammed his throat into the metal gutter. “Prove it!”

The siren screeched to a stop.

“Olsen!” He snatched at her ankle.

She kicked, slamming her heel into the bridge of his nose. Screaming, he fell back. She heard him thud on the landing.

The siren stopped midshriek. A door slammed.

Kiernan turned and ran across the roof, feet slipping on the wet tar. She scrambled for balance and raced on, over the building’s edge onto the next roof, across it, to the next. Ahead were two more roofs this level, then a space, a shorter house.
Don’t try the farthest one, that’s what they’ll expect.

She stopped, panting, then moved as quietly as possible to the rear edge of the next roof, and felt around for the fire escape. Her hand hit metal. She peered over. Damn! There was a light on inside. Couldn’t be helped. She swung her legs over the side and half climbed, half slid down to the back stairs.

Behind her an apartment door opened. She tore down the stairs to the second-story landing. A man upstairs was yelling. She reached the first landing, leapt over the railing to the yard. Footsteps clattered on the stairs behind her. She dashed under the house, through the passageway to the sidewalk.

Across the street she spotted a van parking. She ran toward it, unzipping her fanny pack. Crouching beside the van, she slipped on her slicker.

Voices shouted down the street. In front of Delaney’s building. Reacting to the clatter of her assailants.

Forcing herself to move slowly, she walked in the other direction. This was why Harry Scott decried housebreaking. It was, she thought, enough to promote a vow of chastity.

Once around the corner she broke into a run, splashing through puddles, racing as fast as she could. The Jeep was still where she had left it. She climbed in, turned the key and waited for the engine to warm. Now that she had stopped, the fear caught her; she sat shaking in the cold car. She clutched the gear knob tight, desperate to put the Jeep into first and drive to someplace safe. But where? Her motel? Would they know about that too? Olsen’s?

Olsen!

She hadn’t believed the guy when he’d come up with the name, but still … Could she go back to Olsen’s? Would he have returned by now, smugly content at having set her up?

She pulled out. There was no reason why Olsen would set her up. What could thugs get out of her that she wouldn’t tell Olsen on her own? Nothing
before
tonight. Now, she knew, that would be different.

Olsen lived less than ten blocks from here. She drove north to 24th Street. Even in the rain the commercial street was crowded. Cars lined up to turn into the Bell Market parking lot, blocking the single-file traffic behind. She looked at her watch. No wonder. It was only nine-thirty. It seemed unbelievable that these people were out shopping after a leisurely dinner; it was as if they lived in a parallel reality, sitting calmly in their cars, strolling into the store, deciding between Riesling and zinfandel.

She parked at the bottom of the staircase and ran up the wooden steps of Dixie Alley, through the gate to Olsen’s porch.

The apartment was dark. She knocked on the glass. “Skip!” She shone the flashlight through the sliding door onto the dining table. Olsen’s mug sat on the stained table. “Damn you, Olsen,” she muttered.

She climbed back into the Jeep and drove a couple of blocks, watching for signs of a tail. If there was one, he was real good. She could go back to the motel. Instead she pulled up under a streetlight to look at the sheet of paper she’d taken from Delaney’s apartment.

She stared at the damp, curling page. It was a Xerox of a check for a thousand dollars, actually made out in Delaney’s real—presumably real—name, Charles Devereaux. In the lower left-hand corner was noted “retainer.” It was signed by Delaney’s employer: Harold Olsen. Skip Olsen!

“What in hell is going on here?” she muttered aloud. “He insists on hiring me, doesn’t tell me that he’s already hired a PI who’s bought the farm. And then the fucker Olsen disappears. Or was kidnapped. Or is lying next to Delaney in the Great Closed File in the sky.”

H
E WAS CHOKING.
H
E
couldn’t scream. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t even feel his damn hands. Skip Olsen groaned.

Suddenly more awake, he tensed. He was tied up. Gagged. Blindfolded. He was going to throw up. And, goddamn it, he needed to take a shit.

His eyelids strained against the tight cloth. He couldn’t throw up: he’d choke.

But the sway. Christ, he was in the bottom of a boat. He always did get seasick. What a way to die. He could see the guys at the station, one of them toasting his memory, the rest of them doubled over, laughing their guts out.

Who had conked him? He remembered the hand touching him, but that was it. No memory of the blow. Par for the course, right? Victim never remembers the blow. Brain goes out before pictures hit the memory. Anyone who says he remembers is lying. He tripped more than one felon up on that.

But he’d found out something … about Jessica Leporek. The thought lurked in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t grab it.

Where was he? Was this a police launch? Coast guard? His feet tingled. Wait: they were propped up against the end of the boat. His head hit something hard. And the stench! He gagged, heard the noise, tried to stop, couldn’t. Pain smashed against his skull. His hips and legs were numb. He was grateful. Once he started to feel that bum leg, no amount of self-control would help; he’d choke for sure. He groaned; didn’t bother to stifle the noise this time.

Then he heard footsteps on the ladder. Rubber shoes. He smelled brine, beer, and old, rancid sweat before someone smashed his skull hard against the bulkhead.

M
ORNING SNEAKS IN TO
San Francisco. The dark of night fades slowly to the dimness of fog. Fog, Kiernan grumbled as she hoisted herself out of bed, is supposed to be a summer phenomenon.

Eight o’clock might be too early to call Olsen. The thought pleased her. “Olsen Investigative Services—” She slammed the receiver down on the message. Dammit, why had the man hired Carlos Delaney and not told her? What else hadn’t he told her? There were probably things he hadn’t told Delaney, and now Delaney was crab delight.

She glanced at the dresser she’d shoved in front of the door and felt the draft from the bathroom window she’d left wide open in case she’d had nocturnal visitors and needed a fast exit.

Impatiently, she dialed Olsen again. Not there. Maybe he’d come in late and left early. If Skip did hire Delaney, it must have been to find out about Robin. And, instead, Robin had found out about him. Maybe they scuffled. Maybe both of them drowned. But not likely. She pulled on her slicker and walked to the coffee shop for Viennese blend and muffins.

It wasn’t till she got back that she spotted the envelope on the Jeep’s window. A parking ticket! Dammit, why hadn’t she chosen a motel with an adequate parking lot? She stuffed the ticket in her pocket and stalked back to the room.

By ten she’d spoken to Olsen’s machine twice and her own once; called the Big Sur grocery twice. Where was Maureen Brant? Any other time, she’d be hanging on the phone. But now, when Kiernan had a vital question to ask her—did Olsen hire Delaney?—where was she? Angrily, Kiernan paced the floor. She should abandon the case. Principles—But it was too late now. She wasn’t working for Maureen, or even for Garrett, anymore. She was hooked by her own need to know. She left word at Barrow’s Grocery that she’d call Maureen at noon.

Now, at last, it was time for Jessica Leporek, who, just maybe, had been Robin’s friend. It would be interesting to get Leporek’s take on Cummings and the memo theft. And more interesting to get his. Later.

It was just eleven when she parked by a green curb on Market Street about a mile and a half down from Skip Olsen’s flat. The rain had retreated to a heavy mist that cloaked the city in drabness.

Proposition Thirty-Seven was housed in a narrow storefront. “Block Offshore Drilling!” demanded a huge sign in one window. Smaller posters filled the other: “Save California Shores,” showed a postcard-quality photograph of the rocky cliffs and dramatic breakers at Big Sur. The scene could have been five miles west of Maureen and Garrett Brant’s house. Kiernan stopped, staring; Garrett Brant would never see that beach again. “Protect Our Otters!” “Protect Our Seals!” bumper stickers insisted. “An Ounce of Prevention …” loomed over a poster-sized shot of Alaska: a snow-covered peak pierced the pale blue sky, dark green pines tufted with white crowded to the edge of the shore. But the beach was black. Tar-covered sand, rock, the corpses of birds and otters. Kiernan’s breath caught. The poster was trite and a bit dated; it pandered directly to sentiment. She knew that intellectually, but it didn’t lessen the effect.

It was a moment before she was aware of the cars and trucks rushing past her on Market Street, the bursts of chatter from couples in raincoats hurrying on their way to stock up at the giant Safeway, or to lunch at one of the radicchio-to-chanterelle cafés. Tchernak, she thought, would go wild over all the culinary possibilities on display here.