The Art of Detection (2 page)

“No. Well, not since I was a kid.” She’d seen plenty of dramatizations on the television, her partner Lee being a serious addict of public television—come to think of it, that was probably where the gaslight wisdom had come from.

“But you know who Sherlock Holmes is.” Not waiting for a response, he went on. “There’s one story where Doctor Watson mentions that the detective had shot up the wallpaper with the initials of the queen—V. R. Wouldn’t you say that’s a V and an R?”

Kate stepped back, and indeed, the pockmarks could be interpreted as those letters, although lopsidedly so. “You mean the vic shot a bunch of holes in the wall? And the neighbors on the other side didn’t end up in the emergency room?”

With his face nearly brushing the flocking, Williams touched one of the holes, then shook his head. “I don’t think he really used a gun. These look too clean, and they’re not very deep. More like he punched them into the Sheetrock.”

“Plaster,” Kate corrected absently. After renovating two houses, there was not much she didn’t know about old walls. “So the vic was a Sherlock Holmes nut?”

“Looks like.”

“Down to the gas lights. And there’s the violin on the table over there.”

“Wonder how far he took it?”

“Why don’t we go see?”

The answer was, he took it very far indeed. A subject of Victoria Regina would have felt instantly at home with the furniture, the dusty houseplants (aspidistra? Kate’s mind provided), and the fountains of pampasgrass and peacock feathers. The kitchen refrigerator was an actual icebox, complete with near-melted stub of ice, and the single tap over the stone sink looked a hundred years old. By some chain of thought connected to the plumbing, Kate was struck by an awful idea.

“God, don’t tell me this maniac used an outdoor privy.” But upstairs was a vintage water closet, with a flowered porcelain pull-chain to flush its multiple gallons of water. Next to it was the bathroom with a cast-iron claw-foot tub, a peculiar copper device at one end that Kate thought might be an archaic in-line water heater, and a flowered sink with matching porcelain mug, toothbrush holder, and shaving brush with foam-encrusted mug. Looped beneath the nearby cabinet was a wide strap with hooks at the ends, an object that stirred faint childhood memories of her grandfather’s morning ritual. Sure enough, when Kate opened the cabinet, there lay the deadly artistry of a straight razor with an ivory handle.

She opened her mouth to call to Lo-Tec, then stopped: Philip Gilbert hadn’t died of a cut throat.

The other second-floor rooms included a spacious sitting room with a bow window, considerably brighter than the downstairs sitting room, a guest bedroom that looked as if it had never been used, and across the hallway from it, the owner’s bedroom. The ornate iron bedstead was painted white, its mattress so puffy it could only have been filled with feathers. The bedside table held an actual candlestick, the lamp over the bed was again gas, and the man’s down-at-heel leather slippers rested on a tufted rug with pink roses in the design. The floorboards were otherwise bare, but scrupulously clean, and two freestanding armoires held clothes that went with the house below: a couple of ornate robes, one silk, though slightly more subdued than the one the house’s owner had been wearing when he was found; the other of quilted velvet, such as Kate thought was called a smoking jacket. Half a dozen somber suits; a number of shirts with buttons instead of collars at the necks and holes on the cuffs for links; dignified silk objects that were more like cravats than neckties; wool trousers with cuffs and buttoned flies; and finally, six pieces of headgear, including two tweed caps, two fedoras, a hard bowler, and an actual, gleaming, honest-to-God black silk top hat.

The shoes to go with this sartorial splendor were arranged on shelves inside one of the cupboards, four examples of the cobbler’s art: one pair of brown heeled boots, worn but well maintained; a pair of polished black leather shoes, not particularly old-fashioned-looking (then again, Kate reflected, men’s classic shoes didn’t change a whole lot over the years); a pair of ornate Moroccan-style house slippers, far less run-down than those under the man’s bed; and last, glossy patent leather shoes suitable for evening wear.

It wasn’t until they approached the third floor that the twentieth, and even the twenty-first, centuries made their appearance: The light burning over the landing was an electric fixture, so bright it spilled down onto the stairs coming up from the first floor as well.

Underfoot, too, there came a marked change of era. In the lower portion of the house, the carpets had been either strips laid down the middle of the hallways and stairs or dark-colored Persian or Turkish rugs atop the polished boards. Here, as soon as one’s feet left the halfway landing and started up the last bend, they knew they were in a different place, one that was soft with foam underlay and covered wall to wall with an expensive and modern Berber-style carpet. It extended into some of the rooms, as well, such as the bedroom that lay immediately to the left of the stairs.

This third-floor bedroom was as modern as its carpeting, with box springs and a sophisticated brown-and-tan bedcovering that went nicely with the floor covering. It was a large room, at the back of which was a separate, walk-in closet, holding clothes that could have come from Macy’s yesterday: The trousers had zippers, the shirts possessed the normal collars and cuffs, half a dozen pairs of shoes covered the gamut of needs (except for athletic shoes—the Sherlock wannabe apparently hadn’t gone in for jogging), the neckties were unremarkable, and there was only one hat, a brown fedora. There were no gaps in the row of shoes, and all the bare wooden hangers were neatly clustered nearest the door.

Next on from the bedroom was a bathroom, tiled on the floor and halfway up the walls. No claw-foot tub here, but instead a glassed-in shower cubicle with chrome fittings. An electric razor stood on the counter next to the sink; the cupboard below held a hair dryer.

At the end of the hallway, the carpeting extended into a sitting room that overlooked the street. Unlike its two brothers below, this one was fitted with electric lights, a matching mocha-colored leather sofa and armchair, two walls of modern books with bright covers, and, behind a discreet cabinet, a combination tape and CD player with an extensive collection of music, most of it classical, with heavy emphasis on pieces for the violin.

Next back from the front, across the hallway from the tiled bathroom, Gilbert had inserted a closet-sized kitchen, considerably more user-friendly than the one on the ground floor. Here was his electric kettle, humming refrigerator, microwave oven, and small gas range. A built-in table would seat two, or four at a pinch.

The final room on the third floor was where the new millennium reigned supreme: Across from the bedroom, Gilbert’s study filled the rest of the space on the floor, its lock pad glowing green to show it was open. Kate turned the handle, and despite the contemporary fittings of this level of the house, it still came as something of a shock to see the blatant display of modernity. True, books covered one wall from floor to ceiling, most of them reference books or antique novels, but apart from the clothbound spines, the room was as modern as an electronics showroom: high-tech telephone with answering machine, desktop computer with scanner and printer tucked underneath, postage meter machine and combination fax/photocopier to one side. Modern halogen lights hung overhead, and a solid-looking safe was built into the wall over the computer. There was even a television set with cable and DVD player, in front of which was arranged a miniature island that might have been transported from the house below: A richly glowing Oriental rug sat on the light-colored hardwood floors; on top of it stood a deep maroon tufted leather chair, a matching sofa, and a low table with lion’s claw legs, old but beautifully polished. The glossy wood held a small stack of magazines and catalogues, a coaster of inlaid marble from India, a glass with a glaze of dried brown in the bottom, a heavy marble ashtray with ashes in it and a pipe, lighter, and tobacco pouch to one side, and a bare pad of paper with a silver retracting pencil resting on top; the red leather of the chair was worn along the arms and at the tufts of the headrest.

Only later, and then only because Kate told them to look for it, did Crime Scene find the blood among the leather folds.

ONE

E
arlier that morning, the call had come while Inspector Kate Martinelli of the San Francisco Police Department was in the middle of a highly volatile negotiation.

“I’ll hurt myself,” the person on the other side of the room threatened.

“Now, that’s no good.” Kate’s response employed the voice of patient reason that she had clung to for the last few minutes, as she desperately wished that the official negotiator would return and take command.

“Yes it is good.” Her opponent saw with crystal clarity that self-destruction was a powerful weapon against Kate.

“Now, think about it, sweetie. If you hurt yourself, it’s going to hurt.”

The mop of curly yellow hair went still as the green eyes narrowed in thought, and Kate’s soul contracted with the weird mixture of stifled laughter and heart-wrenching submission that had welled up inside ten thousand times over the past three years and ten months: The child was so like her mother—her looks, her intelligence, her innate sensitivity—she might have been a clone. Kate pushed the sensation away from her throat and said, still reasonable, “We’d all be
sad
if you were hurt, but you would be the one that was hurting. Now, if you let me lift you down from there, we’ll talk about whether you’re old enough and careful enough to play with those things.”

“I’m careful,” the child insisted.

“You come down, and then we’ll talk about it,” Kate repeated. A good negotiator only retreated so far, then stood firm.

It worked. Nora’s chubby little arms went out and Kate moved quickly forward before her daughter tumbled off the high shelf. The arms clung to her fiercely, giving lie to the small person’s declaration of fearlessness; Kate’s arms clung just as hard.

Then she set the child firmly down and bent to look directly into those large, bright eyes, arranging her face so she would look very serious. “Nora, you must never do that again. It really would make me very, very sad if you hurt yourself falling down.”

“And Mamalee.”

“Yes, and Mama Lee, too.” In fact, Kate was wondering if it might even be possible to negotiate her way into an agreement with Nora that Lee not be told about this little episode, but voices in the hallway and the sounds of the front door, followed by the approach of Lee’s uneven footsteps, told her that it wasn’t going to happen.

And indeed, the moment Lee cleared the doorway Nora popped out from behind Kate and informed her mother, “I climbed up high and Mamakay said that if I comed down we’d talk about if I could play with the dollies.”

“I had to pee,” Kate explained guiltily. “Thirty seconds, and when I came out the little monkey was up on the sideboard.”

There ensued a protracted discussion as to the nature of trust, which was Lee’s current teaching concept, and Kate had to admit, the child seemed to follow most of what her PhD, psychotherapist mother had to say on the matter. After she’d put her two cents’ worth in, telling Lee about Nora’s willingness to harm herself if it got her the delicate Russian nesting dolls, the discussion turned to the evils of blackmail. That, however, seemed to exhaust the child’s patience, and she interrupted to demand that she be given the dolls.

“Not today,” Lee said firmly. And over the protest, she explained, “If you hadn’t climbed up high after them, if you’d just asked us about it, we might have said yes. But because you didn’t, you’re going to have to wait until tomorrow.”

It was scary, Kate reflected not for the first time, how reasonable the child was: She pouted for a count of five, then allowed Lee to take her hand and lead her to the kitchen for a discussion of the weekend itinerary. Kate watched the two blond heads, the two slim bodies, the two sets of unreliable legs—one pair made so by youth, the other by a bullet—as her partner and their daughter settled in to discuss the relative lunchtime merits of turkey versus peanut butter.

Only then did she remember the phone call that she’d been on her way to answer when she’d glanced up to see the little body clambering high above the hardwood floor. She went over and punched the playback on the machine, and heard the dispatcher ask for her to call back, then add that she was going to call Al Hawkin as well. Kate didn’t bother calling Ops, just hit Al’s number on the speed dial. From the sound of the background noise when he picked up, he was in the car.

“Hawkin.”

“Hey, Al,” she said. “What did the Ops center want?”

“There’s a body in the park—but it’s the other side of the bridge.”

“In Marin? So why call us?”

“Jurisdiction over there’s an absolute bitch, but the vic lives over here and it looks like the park’s just the dump site. So until we find the murder site, the Park Police investigator, and his supervisor, thought we should be brought in early, in case it ends up in our hands. They’ve already called our Crime Scene out for the site.”

“Marin’s going to have a fit.”

“Our side’s going to have the fit. I’d say, if you’re doing anything, don’t break up your Saturday.”

“No, I should come if you’re going, and I think Lee’s finished with her clients for the day. Let me just check with her.”

“Why don’t you call me if you
don’t
want me to come by? I’m about twenty minutes out.” Which meant he’d not been home when he got the call—he lived about an hour south of the city, but knowing Al, he had his full kit with him wherever he’d been, briefcase, forms, gun.

“Will do. Do you want anything to eat?”

“Jani and I had a big breakfast, so no thanks.”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Oh, and Kate? The guy said to wear sturdy shoes and a warm coat.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

Lee scowled at the news that Kate would be leaving, but she’d known that Kate was on call, and she’d been with Kate long enough to know that sometimes life came first, and sometimes death did.