The Simeon Chamber (37 page)

Moving one arm laterally, he held the 469

oilcloth package out over the water. “What do you think the journal will be worth after it’s been saturated—that is, if you can find it again?”

“Drop the book and you’ll never see the girl alive.”

“That’s rich.” Sam’s voice was tinged with sarcasm.

For an instant Sam watched the barrel of the rifle drift. The gunman was visibly shaken by Sam’s cavalier attitude toward Jennifer’s safety. For Raymond Slade the advantage of a high-powered rifle had not been enough. Sam was now certain that Slade had banked on the added protection offered by a hostage, a margin of safety that Sam had now rendered ineffectual by his attitude.

As Bogardus stood with his arm outstretched, the oilcloth package poised over the brackish waters of the estuary, a distant sound wafted on the ocean winds—the shrill pitch of a siren—the ambulance arriving in the parking lot in response to Sam’s earlier telephone call.

Like the clanging of a fire bell in the night, the discordant tones of the siren changing pitches as it neared the beach unnerved the gunman at the marker.

His eyes diverted to the beach in the direction of the approaching sound. His stare suddenly turned cold as his finger cleared the safety on the rifle.

Swinging his outstretched arm like a windmill, Sam hurled the book at his assailant. The muzzle of the rifle lifted to catch the arc of the heavy package, the movement more an act of instinct than intent.

An instant later bits of paper sprayed the air like confetti at a ticker-tape parade as the brilliant flash and the ear-shattering explosion erupted with the synchronous reaction of lightning and thunder. The heavy package fell to the ground, its pages shredded by the exit of the high velocity round through its covers. The sound of the shot echoed off the steep bluffs surrounding the estuary, sending gulls screaming into the sky.

Sam dove into the tall grass at the edge of the estuary. He pulled the pistol from his pocket and looked up—straight into the tapered barrel of the rifle ten feet away. The gunman had closed on him with the first shot. Sam had overestimated the disability represented by the walking cane and now he lay prone on the ground, pistol at his side, staring death in the face. 1

Like a man before a firing squad Sam waited for the explosion of the shot. For a fleeting instant the inane question flashed in his mind—Is it true that a man never hears the shot that kills him? His body tensed for the impact of the bullet, his eyes fixed on the muzzle of the rifle.

But there was no recoil, no muzzle flash. Instead, the man’s head behind the scope exploded in a ball of crimson mist, and his body was suspended in the air for an instant, a comic form with no distinguishable head; then it crumpled to the ground like a marionette without strings.

The man’s body hit the ground like a sack of dirt as the sound of a distant shot rang out, reverberating off the bluffs above the marker.

A fusillade of gunfire erupted, the shots coming from the small beach surrounding the estuary.

Sam scurried on his knees toward a small dune and looked in the direction of the continuing gunfire.

The two women from the beach who had been walking with the dog lay prone on the sand, each holding a handgun and firing in rapid succession toward the estuary and the small aluminum fishing boat that had drifted within fifty yards of the marker. Bullets splashed in the water around the boat, some striking their mark and puncturing the thin metal of the boat with dull thuds. For the first time the small fat woman’s face was turned toward Sam. It was covered with a full growth of beard.

Nick Jorgensen reached up and pulled the bandanna off of his head, still firing the large revolver in his other hand. Next to him on the sand, Jake Carns emptied the clip of the forty-five automatic and quickly jammed another into the handle, pulling off five more shots before the small outboard on the boat pulled it beyond range and into the cover of tall reeds deep in the estuary. Nick and Jake lay motionless on the sand for several seconds. Sam’s eyes remained riveted on his two friends, his mind not fully comprehending what had just happened.

Sam and Jake stood looking down at the grotesque form of the body lying at their feet ten paces from the marker. What was left of the features of the man’s face were unrecognizable, deformed by the crushing impact of the bullet fired from the small boat.

Nick stood speechless over the 3

remains of the shredded package in the sand. He stooped, picked it up and looked at the neat round hole through the oilcloth in the topside of the package. Then he flipped it over. The cloth on the other side had disintegrated with the exit of the steel-jacketed round, as had the entire back cover and most of the book’s contents. He watched as the winds carried the frayed pieces of paper over the dunes and into the water.

With his foot, Sam rolled the body in the sand onto its back. He reached into the dead man’s inside coat pocket, finding a wallet, and removed a tattered driver’s license. He stared at it for several seconds, his expression distant. Then he dropped the wallet and license in the sand.

Seeing the look of abject loss registered on the face of his friend, Sam plucked the book from Nick’s hands, peeled the oilcloth from the front cover and turned it toward Jorgensen. Nick’s eyes swelled with relief as they locked on the title: _Cases and Materials on the Law of Real
Property.

Sam dropped the book in the sand.

“Where’s the journal?” asked Nick.

“Back in the trunk of my car.”

George Fletcher scurried along in the wake of three uniformed officers who ran down the beach toward the sounds of the gunfire like bloodhounds hot on the scent of a fox.

Two hundred yards away Sam saw their approach.

“Listen, Nick, I’ve got to get out of here.” He looked down at the body in the sand. “When the cops get here tell them the coroner’s toe tag should read `Raymond Slade.`”

“Where are you going?”

“I have to talk to James Spencer.”

Before Nick could say another word Sam was off at a dead run up the path to the top of the bluffs over the estuary.

As Sam drove under the wrought-iron sign and down the long gravel drive he saw a blue BMW parked in front of the house, its driver’s door open. He pulled up and parked next to the car. Its engine was running, and as he stepped out of the Porsche and moved around the other car Bogardus saw splotches of blood on the seat behind the wheel. He followed the drops from 475

the car, up the stairs of the house and through the open front door.

He felt for the pistol in his pocket, but something told him that he wouldn’t need it this time.

Sam walked through the entry hall and entered the great room that opened off of it.

On the couch in front of the fireplace lay an old man, his face flushed, his body propped against the far end of the plush white sofa.

The maid who had let Sam into the house earlier in the afternoon was on her knees, cradling Louis Davies’s head in her arms.

As she sensed Sam’s presence the woman looked up with pleading eyes. “Seńor, he won’t let me call an ambulance.”

“It’s all right, Marguerite.” The old man’s voice was strained. Dark blood stained the lining of his jacket. His eyes shifted to Bogardus.

“Is Jennifer all right?”

“Yes. I called the hospital from a pay phone on the way over here. Slade used some pretty potent stuff to keep her quiet before he dumped her into the trunk of his car, but the doctor says she’ll be fine in a day or two.”

Sam knelt next to the sofa, opened Davies’s coat and examined the wound. The shirt was saturated and dark blood pulsated from a wound in Davies’s left side.

“We should call an ambulance.”

“No, it’s over. I want it this way.

It’ll be easier for her.”

Davies looked at Sam with the benign smile of an aging grandfather. “When did you figure it out?”

“An hour ago,” said Sam. “On the beach, when I looked at the driver’s license and saw the name George Johnson. He’d used it once before—at Treasure Island. It took me a long time to figure out the pictures, why the photos of James Spencer were all missing.

Then it hit me. Spencer’s picture wasn’t missing at all. Slade had merely switched the names on the photographs and removed his own picture from the file. Why did he do it?”

James Spencer, alias Louis Davies, looked at Bogardus and spoke: “Toward the end, just before she hired you, I began to sense the direction that Jennifer’s suspicion was taking.

She supposed that I was Raymond 7

Slade and that her mother and I had become involved in a romantic cabal that resulted in the murder of her father years before. I made the mistake of telling Slade of her suspicions. He responded by manipulating the photographs. I guess it was his way of lending credence to her fears and submerging his own identity.”

The old man shook his head. “I warned him that if he didn’t leave Jennifer alone I’d kill him. I had him followed for a week by a private investigator. This afternoon the man called and told me about the message on the mirror at the hotel in Cambria. I knew he’d go to the estuary. The man had a positive flair for the dramatic. We’d met at that damn post a dozen times over the years. So I borrowed a friend’s boat. The rest you know.”

Sam lifted the bandanna from the maid’s head and pressed it to the wound under Louis Davies’s coat. The old man winced in pain and arched his back slowly, settling down onto the couch again.

“Why didn’t you just tell her you were her father?” asked Sam.

“How do you tell the daughter you love that you’re a deserter—a thief? All of this, the house, the vineyard, my business, found its seeds in the money that we took from the committee.” He coughed and spit up blood, then paused to catch his breath. “I knew about Slade’s black market activities long before that day. I kept telling myself I needed more evidence, more information to go to the authorities. But I knew that wasn’t it. In the end the plan to take the money was mine.” The statement was almost boastful. “Raymond Slade never had any initiative. He was nothing but a poorly paid errand boy. I had to prop him up every step of the way. He stayed at the machine-gun on board the blimp while I went down and grabbed the book and a million dollars in cash. We dumped helium out of the ship as we steered her back to shore and then set her down on the golf course just long enough to jump out. When I got home to my wife and told her what we’d done she wanted me to give the money back and turn myself in.” He smiled. “That’s the kind of woman she was. But it was too late. We put our lives together as Mr. and Mrs. Louis Davies and proceeded to live a lie.”

He paused for a second. “Funny thing is, it was easy—until Jennifer started 9

asking questions about her father.” Spencer coughed and grimaced with pain, a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

Sam rose and walked toward the fireplace, his back to the couch.

“Who sent her the parchments?” he asked. As he turned, Sam looked into the death trance on the face of James Spencer, his eyes open, his stare fixed for eternity.

Slowly Marguerite Pallone released her arm from Davies’s head and rose, stepping away from the couch. A single tear trickled down her right cheek. “She never wanted this to happen,” said the maid.

“What are you talking about?”

“Dorothy—Mrs. Davies. She had pleaded with him for years to tell Jennifer the truth. But he always refused. On her deathbed she begged him. He would have none of it.” She pulled a handkerchief from her sweater and brought it to her face, clearing the lone tear from her cheek.

“The parchments … I sent them to Jennifer. It was Dorothy’s last request of me before she died.”

Sam stood looking at the maid who, having shed the only tear she could muster for Louis Davies, turned and walked from the room.

Finally he had it all. The lies, the deceptions of a lifetime. And as Sam stood looking down at the lifeless body of James Spencer his mind suddenly turned a phrase from his youth: “And after all, what is a lie? ‘Tis but the truth in masquerade.” 14

A workman in bib overalls removed the brass plaque from under the arched doorway on Pier Nine. A new sign was raised into place. It bore the names “Bogardus and Davies.” Underneath, in raised brass letters were the words “Attorneys and Counselors-at-Law.” Sam couldn’t bring himself to delete Pat’s affectation—the designation “Counselors-at-Law” would remain a part of the firm’s inscription. Perhaps it was his parting tribute to the woman he could never forget, a final gesture of affection.

Upstairs in Pat’s old office Jennifer Davies sat at the desk filling in the 481

blanks of a printed form to be retyped later by Carol. At the top of the page in bold type were the words “Petition for Conservatorship.”

Jennifer couldn’t understand it. Certainly at times she was eccentric, but Sam was overreacting. She ran the pen down the form past the words: Conservatorship of the:

Person —

Estate —

and checked both boxes.

She returned to the top of the form and after the printed words “In re the Conservatorship of:”

she wrote the name “Angela Kathleen Bogardus.”

He had moved too quickly. Sam had put the old house in Colma up for sale. There was no talking to him. In two days it sold. Angie had been moved to a residence for senior citizens down the peninsula. It offered round-the-clock security and a level of care that was premature for a woman with Angie’s mental faculties. Jennifer hoped that in time he would come to realize that he’d made a mistake and that he would undo the terrible injustice to the old woman.

But there was something peculiar. Angie didn’t seem to object to the move. She blithely agreed to voice no opposition to the conservatorship when they appeared in court, and she took to her new surroundings at the home gleefully. On the few occasions when Jennifer visited with her, Angie didn’t complain, and she continued to speak of her son in glowing terms. Sam never discussed the situation. It was as if mother and son had entered into some private compact, an agreement for which only they knew the mutual consideration.