Running on Empty (27 page)

'Wait. Ichiro paid the rent. I think according to tenant law or whatever, that means
he has the right to expect privacy.'

'Except he's dead.' AnnaLise grabbed the envelopes and read aloud, 'Resident, resident,
current resident.' She handed them back. 'Fat lot of good that'll do us.'

Tucker shrugged and pushed a button between two sets of double doors.

AnnaLise looked up and around the lobby. 'An elevator?'

'It is a four-story building,' Tucker pointed out.

'I suppose.' After a minute: 'But would it kill people to walk? Get a little exercise?'

'Wow, what made you Miss Crabby today?' The doors opened and Tucker stepped into the
car.

AnnaLise followed suit, torn between reacting to being called 'Miss Crabby' by someone
a decade younger or acting like an adult.

She chose the latter because, after all, Tucker was doing her a favor. 'Sorry. I hurt
my shoulder last night and didn't get much sleep.'

'What'd you do to it?'

The car stopped on the second floor. AnnaLise could have crawled up the stairs faster.
'Problem with my mother's garage door. Which is the condo Ichiro rented from your
father?'

AnnaLise hoped not to get into another discussion of tenants' rights.

'That one,' Tucker said, pointing at the sign on the door that spelled out the word
'Three' in scripted, individual brass letters. No plain-Jane, Arabic numerals for
the fabulous Hart's Landing, no siree.

AnnaLise knocked on the door.

'Who are you expecting?' Tucker asked, elbowing her aside and putting his key in the
lock. 'A ghost?'

'I don't know,' AnnaLise said. 'It just seemed polite. Like knocking on a bathroom
door when it's closed.'

'You knock on bathroom doors, too?' Tucker clicked open the deadbolt and stepped in.
'Or, close them in the first place?'

AnnaLise followed, thinking how glad she was that her life hadn't been burdened by
brothers.

A so-called 'great room' combination of living, dining and kitchen awaited them as
they stepped in. To the right was the living end, which had a planked floor and thick
area rug between the couch and the fieldstone fireplace, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling
windows.

'God,' AnnaLise said, gazing out across the lake toward Main Street. 'This place is
beautiful. Can I live here?'

'Sure. Just pay our condo fees, taxes, and a little profit, and it's yours on a long-term
lease.'

'Something tells me I can't afford any, much less all three.' Believing she was oriented,
AnnaLise turned toward the kitchen at the opposite end of the room. Slate tile floor,
beech cabinets, granite countertops and a breakfast nook looking north toward the
mountains.

It was like AnnaLise had died and gone to heaven. But also an uncomfortable reminder
of Ichiro, the dead man whose apartment she was coveting.

'This condo, my father's and mine are the only occupied units in the building — you
can do the math on the monthly maintenance.'

'Well, somebody has to pay for the elevator and highfalutin' brass numbers,' AnnaLise
said, catching sight of a desk tucked into a corner.

Tucker slid open the window over the table — the one Ichiro had talked to them through
just three days earlier. Beginning in September, the Carolina mountains provided their
own, natural air conditioning.

'Exactly what are we looking for?' the doctor's son asked, turning. 'The police have
probably already snapped up any smoking guns.'

'More like a smoking cane, in Ichiro's case,' AnnaLise said. 'But you're right, they
would have taken anything obviously connected to his death. What I'm trying to do
is link Ichiro to Dickens Hart and Rance Smoaks.'

'The trifecta: a Japanese guy, a rich guy and a drunk guy. That shouldn't be hard.'

'I sense sarcasm.' AnnaLise was sorting through a pile of maps and tourist information
on the top of the desk.

'I would have said facetiousness,' Tucker said, 'but I'll bow to your greater mind-span
as a wordsmith.'

'I just find facetiousness both kinder and gentler than sarcasm. But you're the one
speaking, so you're the best judge of intent.'

'Perhaps I was trying for... ironic?'

'I think not.' AnnaLise set aside the Chamber of Commerce propaganda and opened a
desk drawer.

'So you believe all three men were attacked by the same person? But two were shot
and one... well, clubbed. I thought most killers stuck with the same weapon?'

Tucker seemed to be warming to the task, though going through the refrigerator probably
wasn't going to help them much.

'On television,' said AnnaLise, 'but in real life? I don't know. Besides, we're not
talking about a serial killer here.'

'Two people dead and another shot? What constitutes "serial"?' Tucker had found a
Diet Coke and was sitting on the couch.

'You have a point,' AnnaLise admitted, pulling out a stack of rubber-banded letters.
'But I guess I think of a serial killer as being random in the choice of victims even
if consistent in the method. In this case, though, the attacker seems to take advantage
of whatever's convenient.'

Like a garage door, for instance.

'What do you have there?' Tucker asked, using a hinged photo frame he'd picked up
to gesture at the envelopes in her hand.

She waved the packet. 'Letters from home — in Japanese.'

'Go figure, him being Japanese and all.' He recited: 'Missives from Japan
To mountains one did carry
Til with leaves, he fell.'

'Beautiful, if sad,' AnnaLise said. 'That's haiku, right?' And this time rated PG,
in contrast to the one accompanied with bongos she'd witnessed upon arrival at Torch.

'It is,' Tucker said. 'I really enjoy the form, though I have to "blue" up the lines
to get any of our clientele to actually listen to the lyrics.'

'Take the blue out, and I'll listen anytime.' She held up the letters. 'I don't suppose
you can read Japanese?'

'Not yet,' he said.

AnnaLise wouldn't underestimate him. 'What's with the frame?'

He brought it to her. 'Trade you.'

Tucker accepted the letters as AnnaLise examined the photos. The one to the left was
of a gray-haired man — likely the grandfather — and a boy maybe ten or eleven, sporting
a distinct resemblance to Ichiro. The photograph in the right side of the gold frame
was older, its colors faded.

'Looks like an Asian June Cleaver,' Tucker said, cheating over AnnaLise's shoulder.

The classic TV buff was right. Despite the fact the pretty woman pictured appeared
to be Japanese, she was wearing the classic shirtwaist dress and string of pearls
popularized by Barbara Billingsley in
Leave it to Beaver
. The sitcom had run in the late fifties and early sixties, overlapping with another
Tucker favorite,
Dobie Gillis
.

This kid had to get out more.

'Probably Ichiro's mother,' AnnaLise said. 'Or maybe grandmother. It's hard to tell
her age from the photo.' She held it out to him. 'Anything else?'

'Not that I saw.' Tucker was looking out the window he'd opened.

With a sigh, AnnaLise put the framed photos down and resumed her search of Ichiro's
desk. Her head was halfway stuck in the lower file drawer when she heard a car door
slam.

'Uh-oh,' Tucker said, sliding the window closed quietly just as Ichiro had done on
Saturday, fearing he was 'overdropping.'

'Uh-oh, what? Who is it?' Digging through as rapidly as she could with one good arm,
AnnaLise found the folder she wanted and pulled it out, suffering a paper cut in the
process.

'Shit,' she said, as her blood dripped onto the other half dozen files in the cabinet.

'What?' Tucker asked.

'Manila folder-cut, damn it.' She sucked on her thumb to staunch the bleeding. 'But
I asked you first — who's out there?'

'Jim Duende.' Tucker pointed at the droplets in the drawer. 'Aren't you worried about
DNA?'

'I am, but not in the context you're talking about.'

'You mean you're not afraid they're going to... finger you?' He pointed at her paper
cut.

'Cute, but it's my thumb.'

'Still a finger.' Tucker said defensively.

'Sorry, but I consider it a digit. The thumb opposes the fingers.'

'Oooh, I'm impressed.' Tucker raised his eyebrows. 'Now
that's
sarcasm.'

'Agreed. But, did you say Jim Duende is downstairs? Sheree told me he'd disappeared.'

'Nah, the guy was just off on assignment.'

'Assignment?' AnnaLise had gingerly picked up the file folder to show Tucker and now
she stopped. 'He's a reporter?'

'More freelance writer. Hart wanted him to do his autobiography or some crap, but
then the big guy changed his mind.'

'And hired me,' AnnaLise said.

'Hart hired... you? Why would he do that?'

AnnaLise's turn at defensive. 'I'm a good writer.'

'Sure you are,' Tucker said. 'But Jim is a big-time ghostwriter. That's what "duende"
means in Spanish, by the way. Ghost.'

'I think the gist is more like "spirit".'

'Hey, Ms. Know-it-all, will you lay off? I took high school Spanish, too. And a whole
lot more recently than you did.'

AnnaLise couldn't argue with that. Or her being a pain in the ass, as Joy had put
it. 'It is clever, though. Do you know what books he's ghosted?'

'No, but lots of them. For a bunch of famous people.'

Abandoning any hope of getting specifics from Tucker, AnnaLise held up the folder.
'You were talking about DNA. Look what I found.'

'"Genome"?'

'It's the name of the project, but it boils down to DNA testing.'

'Ichiro was doing that? Cool.' Tucker looked around. 'Where's the equipment?'

'He wasn't doing the actual lab work,' AnnaLise said. 'He had his own DNA tested as
part of a worldwide project. Bobby Bradenham was doing the same.'

'And all that means...?' Tucker held out both hands, palms up.

'Well, I'm not sure,' AnnaLise said. 'I guess I'm hoping it'll tell us something.'

'What? You think they're related? Now
that
would be awesome. Maybe they're brothers and Bobby killed him so he wouldn't have
to share some inheritance.'

'From Hart?' Geez, did everyone know about the 'Little Dickens' rumor?

'Dickens Hart?' Tucker stared at AnnaLise, his eyes widening. 'Holy shit! Are you
saying Bobby Bradenham is his love child?'

Tucker started a little dance — half-strut, half-beatnik. 'And Ichiro, too? Wow, I
betcha Hart was in Japan. Hey, with all his money, why not? That is so cool. No, double
cool. Maybe even triple cool. That's―'

'No, no,' AnnaLise said, waving her arms — or, at least, the good one. 'I didn't mean...'

A knock at the door. Tucker and AnnaLise looked at each other.

'Uh-oh,' Tucker said.

'You said that before,' AnnaLise whispered. 'Duende?'

Tucker shrugged. 'Probably. I know he asked my dad if it was OK for him to come by
sometime and look around. I guess he wants to do an article.'

'An article?' AnnaLise squeaked. 'You mean for a magazine or newspaper?'

'Yeah, like I said, he freelances. Or else he's a stringer, now I'm not sure. For
the
Times
or something.'

'The
Times
?' AnnaLise repeated. The
New York Times
? 'The last thing we need is him to find us poking around...'

'Don't worry,' Tucker said. 'He can't get in without a key and this — ' he twirled
one — 'is it.'

'Then how did Duende get into the lobby downstairs?' AnnaLise demanded. 'Your father
would have more than one key.'

'So if the dude has a key, why would he knock?'

'He's being polite,' AnnaLise hissed. 'Like I was. And you're not. Is there another
way out of this apartment?'

'Sure. Off the bedroom.'