With an Extreme Burning (21 page)

Elliot?

Strange guy in some ways. Loner, chased women, had a high opinion of himself, held attitudes that were just a little off center. Could he have seduced Katy? Maybe. Glib, good-looking in a bearish way—the combination of intelligence and animal maleness might have appealed to her. Did he know Cecca? Yes, probably; it was Better Lands that was selling his house for him, wasn't it? Had he ever been inside her house? Could have been invited at some point, for some reason.

But none of that meant a damned thing without a motive. What possible reason could Elliot Messner have to want to murder people he knew only casually? It kept coming back to motive in
every
case, though. Owen, Tom, Elliot, all the men he knew … there was simply no imaginable motive for any of them. And yet it was happening, so there had to be one.

Just before noon he walked over to the cafeteria on the Commons. He felt he should eat, even though he wasn't hungry, but he would have been better off staying in his office. Four professors, two TAs, and one of his spring-semester honor students took the opportunity to flood him with condolences on the loss of his wife. He fled back to Guiterrez Hall with his roast beef platter barely touched.

Civil War and Reconstruction at one o'clock, an aimless tramp around campus, and then American Social History at three. Brief orientation lectures and early dismissal in each of those classes, too. And finally back to his office to gather his papers and briefcase before leaving. He felt wilted, headachey, as if he'd been teaching or writing intensively for hours without a break. He couldn't go on like this day after day. The strain would—

His telephone jangled. St. John, he thought; word on Louise Kanvitz, maybe. He lifted the receiver, spoke his name.

The filtered voice of the tormentor said, “You're next, Dix.”

The Agbergs, dressed as if they were on their way to a social event, showed up at Better Lands at nine-thirty that morning. Unexpectedly, surprising Cecca; she had all but written them off. They had checked and rechecked their finances, Mr. Agberg told her, weighed their present options against their future ones, and come to the conclusion that they could afford the Morrison property, that they liked Los Alegres better than Walnut Creek, and that he could commute to his job in San Francisco just as easily from here. They did want to look at the property one more time, though, before they made the final commitment to purchase. Just to make certain they hadn't forgotten or overlooked anything vital. “We're very methodical people,” Mrs. Agberg said with some pride.

Really? Cecca thought. I never would have guessed.

She took them up to the Ridge and endured an hour and a half of poking and prodding and rehashing of various aspects of the contractor's and termite inspector's reports. If they change their minds after all of this, she thought, I will probably lose it and tell them what I think of dull, plodding people who get dressed up to go buy a house. But they didn't change their minds. At Better Lands they spent another half-hour reexamining the disclosure statement and counteroffer sheet and satisfying themselves that the Morrisons' counteroffer was absolutely firm and that the Morrisons wouldn't renege on paying for all termite damage repairs and a couple of minor structural repairs; then, finally, they affixed their signatures and Mr. Agberg wrote a check to cover the full amount of the down payment. By the time Cecca had answered a dozen “final” questions about close of escrow and other matters, and the Agbergs went on their merry way, it was after one and she was hungry and all but out of patience.

She went out for a tasteless sandwich. Ten minutes after she returned, a family named Hagopian walked in: father and mother in their late twenties, a little boy about five, a little girl about two. They were from Kansas and they were relocating in the area—Mr. Hagopian had gotten a job with a small manufacturing company in Los Alegres—and they were interested in buying a house, “something nice with at least three bedrooms and a large yard, good neighborhood, close to schools, for around $250,000.” Better Lands had two possibles in that price range, one in an East Valley tract and the other Elliot Messner's house in Brookside Park. Cecca showed them the prospecti and photographs of both. They didn't care for the East Valley property; the well-landscaped Messner place elicited a much more positive response, even though it was listed at $279,000. Mrs. Hagopian said it looked “charming,” a word Cecca wouldn't have applied to any structure in Brookside Park, including those that made up the Balboa State campus.

So she drove them up to Brookside Park, taking a route that brought them past Parkside Elementary School. They liked the school and they liked Brookside Park; their faces would have told Cecca that even if they hadn't said so. The house was deserted: Elliot was still at the university, which was probably just as well. She wondered, not for the first time today, how Dix was bearing up on his first day of school. She got the key out of the lockbox and took the Hagopians in, after warning them that the owner was a divorced man living alone and inclined to be a poor housekeeper.

She needn't have bothered with the warning. The clutter didn't faze the Hagopians; they were far more decisive and imaginative people than the Agbergs and they saw the house not as it was but as it could be if they owned it. The living room was large and had all the right elements (“Look at that fireplace, honey, it's enormous”), the three bedrooms were large, and the master had a walk-in closet that Mrs. Hagopian exclaimed over, the kitchen was perfect (“I just love island stoves, don't you?”), and the backyard so excited the little boy that he ran around it twice, yelling his pleasure at the top of his voice.

The only problem with the place, according to Mr. Hagopian, was the price. “Two-seventy-nine is more than we can afford,” he said when the tour was finished. “Would the owner come down to two-fifty, do you think?”

“He might,” Cecca said. “You wouldn't insult him by offering at that price, I can tell you that.”

“Well, let us think about it overnight, to make sure it's the home we want. I'll be honest with you: We have an appointment to view another house tonight. It may not be what we're after, but we should look at it.”

“I understand. Take as much time as you like, Mr. Hagopian.”

But as they got back into the car she felt certain she would hear from them again tomorrow, and that they would make an offer right away. If Elliot was at all reasonable, and she thought he would be, they ought to have a firm deal by the end of the week. You got so you could gauge buyers, some buyers, with reasonable accuracy. Not the Agbergs variety, who waffled and argued over minute details and drove everybody crazy until they made up their minds; people like the Hagopians, who knew what they wanted and acted immediately when they saw it.

Months of frustration, lean months in which she'd sold just two properties, and now, in what amounted to a single day, she was about to make a pair of fairly substantial sales. For a real estate agent, it was like winning the lottery. But there was no pleasure for her in the sudden turnaround. The irony, in fact, was bitter. What good was business success, a measure of financial security, when your life was in jeopardy?

“It looks like you were wrong about Louise Kanvitz, Mr. Mallory.”

“What the hell do you mean, wrong?”

“I spoke to her at length this afternoon. She denies any knowledge of your wife's lover. Says she didn't even know your wife might have been having an affair until Ms. Bellini brought up the subject last week.”

“She's lying. Of course she'd deny it at first.”

“She also denies any wrongdoing in the sale of your wife's last two paintings. And she has proof to back that up.”

“Proof? What proof?”

“She identified the person who bought them.”

“Who is he?”

“It isn't a ‘he.’ The buyer is a woman, an artist in Bodega Bay named Janet Rice.”

“Did you talk to this Janet Rice?”

“On the phone. She confirms it.”

“And you believe her.”

“She was pretty convincing.”

“I'll bet she was. You ask her why she paid so much for paintings by an unknown artist?”

“She agrees with Louise Kanvitz that they'll be worth a lot more someday.”

“My wife was an undiscovered genius, is that it?”

“You don't think that's possible?”

“No, I don't. She was good but not that good. Get an art expert in to look at her work, he'll tell you the same thing. Kanvitz and Rice are both lying.”

“Why would Ms. Rice lie?”

“Is Kanvitz a friend of hers?”

“Evidently. That was where she spent the weekend—at Ms. Rice's home in Bodega Bay.”

“Well, for Christ's sake, there you are. Kanvitz is lying to protect her blackmail scheme and Rice is lying to protect Kanvitz.”

“A conspiracy?”

“I'm not saying Rice is a blackmailer or knows that Kanvitz is one. I'm saying Kanvitz asked her to lie and she's doing it. Work on the two of them, break them down—one or the other will admit the truth.”

“How do you propose I do that without violating their constitutional rights?”

“Fuck their constitutional rights! What about
my
constitutional rights? What about my wife's and Francesca Bellini's constitutional rights?”

“Calm down, Mr. Mallory. Flying off the handle isn't going to accomplish anything.”

“All right. All right.”

“I'm not telling you I think you're wrong. It's entirely possible that Janet Rice
is
lying.”

“Then what are you telling me?”

“The same thing I told you yesterday. That I have to work within the boundaries of the law. I'm checking on Ms. Rice and I plan to talk to her again, in person. I've also ordered the increased patrols in your neighborhood and Ms. Bellini's, and I'll keep trying to convince Judge Canaday to issue a court order for the telephone wiretaps—”

“Keep trying? You mean you asked and he turned you down?”

“I'm afraid so. Insufficient cause.”

“Fine, terrific.”

“These things take time, like it or not.”

“Time we might not have.”

“I don't like suggesting this, but … have you and Ms. Bellini considered leaving town for a while?”

“Running away, hiding out? Oh, we've considered it. But we're not going to do it. Suppose he discovers where we've gone and follows us? Or you never identify him and he hunts us down or waits until we turn up again? We're not about to spend the rest of our lives hiding, living in fear. This thing has got to end soon, St. John, one way or another.”

“What does that mean, ‘one way or another’?”

“It doesn't
mean
anything. It was a statement of fact.”

“You're not considering something foolish, are you? Taking the law into your own hands?”

“How would I do that? I don't know who he is either, remember?”

“I'll warn you anyway, just in case. Don't do anything outside the law or you'll regret it. Let us handle this—it's the only way. Do you understand?”

“All too well, Lieutenant. All too goddamn well.”

When Cecca arrived home at five, there was a message from Eileen's brother waiting on the machine: Eileen was well enough to be moved and had been flown from Lakeport to Los Alegres Valley Hospital earlier in the afternoon. Thank God, she thought. Immediately she called the hospital and spoke to an admissions nurse.

“Yes, Mrs. Harrell is here,” the nurse said. “But she's not ready to have visitors.”

“When will she be ready? Tomorrow?”

“Perhaps. Call again in the morning.”

“How is she? Is she able to talk?”

“Her condition is stable.”

Cecca thought as she hung up: I wish I could say the same for mine.

SIXTEEN

The room was very white. Too white. White walls, white ceiling, white woodwork, white metal table and chairs and bedframe and sheets. Even the blind eye of the wall-mounted TV set seemed a pale gleaming white. Sterile. Familiar. One of the private rooms in Los Alegres Valley's intensive care unit: She'd know it anywhere, as often as she'd been in and out of this one and others like it over the years.

They really ought to put a little color into these rooms, Eileen thought. She'd brought it up more than once at staff meetings, but nobody would listen to her. Proper atmosphere, they kept saying, as if that meant anything. As if you couldn't maintain a proper hospital atmosphere by adding a little color to all that white. Not that there was anything wrong with white; white was very soothing and comforting. It was just that a little color here and there would make the rooms more cheerful. More hopeful, too. White was comforting, color was hopeful—couldn't you always find hope in bright colors? The curtains on the windows, for instance … yellow, or light blue. Or a wall decoration of some kind, a vivid painting of some kind, maybe a seascape or fruit in a bowl. Just a
little
color.

Of course there was color in this room now, but it wasn't permanent. Flowers. Let's see … roses, carnations, peonies, azaleas, African violets. Very pretty. Lots of different arrangements and plants, on the table and on the floor. Somebody was a very popular patient.

I shouldn't be lying here like this, she thought then. Why am I lying here? I should be up, making my rounds.