THE SOUP CART VENDOR
THE NIECE ROLLED
the cat stroller into the second-floor mayor’s office suite, unaware that another member of the Ninja surveillance team had just arrived through City Hall’s subterranean service entrance.
A vendor cart laden with several gallon-sized metal vats squeaked along a dark basement hallway. Barely visible behind the heavy load, an elderly cook slowly pushed the cart down the corridor.
The cart carried eight different soups, each one prepared from scratch the previous evening. This being San Francisco, there needed to be at least three vegetarian options. Each serving came with a piece of fresh bread that was sliced to order on a wooden cutting board mounted to the cart’s front end.
Once the chef reached City Hall’s main floor, he would plug the cart’s electrical cord into a designated wall socket. Heating elements attached to the vats would then simmer the contents under low heat for the next several hours. By late morning, a tempting smell would filter up through the rotunda to the second-floor offices.
The Soup Vendor, as he was known throughout the Civic Center Plaza, had only serviced City Hall for a couple of months, but his hearty meals had quickly become a staple for the building’s office workers and the multitudes of tourists who stopped in to marvel at the ornate interior.
No one knew much about the grumpy old man behind the soup cart. He wore a cap pulled down over his eyes, and he rarely spoke to his hungry patrons. Each vat was clearly labeled; the price for a generous serving of soup was displayed on the cart’s front panels. There was little need for extraneous communication, and the vendor typically didn’t respond to casual chitchat.
For Uncle Oscar, the soup cart was the perfect cover for keeping a close watch over his niece—and the rest of City Hall.
He was convinced that this is where the Ninja would resurface.
It was only a matter of time.
He only hoped that he lived long enough to capture the killer.
—
OSCAR HAD LIVED
a long eventful life, full of fond memories of meals shared with his eclectic group of friends, his niece, and her two cats. The years he’d spent puttering around in his beloved antique shop had been some of his happiest. Overall, he was pleased with the way his life had turned out, tickled by its many twists and turns, satisfied with the end result.
But he knew he had reached his last days.
The cumulative effect of several illnesses had deteriorated his health, and his ailing heart struggled to perform its pumping duties. He’d only recently regained the strength to walk after the latest bout of illness in January. The soup cart was often a prop to aid in his balance. He kept a wooden cane tucked into the metal side railing to use when he needed to step away from the cart’s support.
Oscar had lived a shadowy existence for years. The time would soon come for him to fade into a permanent retirement. He was almost ready.
He had one last mission to complete. Then he would let his weary body rest.
—
WITH A GRUNT,
Oscar heaved the soup cart out of a service elevator and onto City Hall’s main level. Breathing heavily, he guided it across the marble floor to the edge of the rotunda. The soup vendor’s reserved electrical plug was located on a side wall, next to a street lamp–style light fixture.
Gripping the cart with one hand, an ache in his back with the other, he stared up at the dome. The soaring structure was shaped like the interior of an eggshell, studded with circular tiers of decorative detailing that culminated in a faux ceiling. A tiny round orifice in the roof led to a gilded cupola at the very top of the building.
After craning to squint up at the rotunda ceiling, Oscar’s gaze slowly drifted downward. His eyes paused on the windows that framed the upper walls beneath the dome. A section of stained glass had been mounted in the center of each wide pane. The decorative glass featured the outline of a dual-masted packet ship, the first European vessel to enter the San Francisco Bay.
He lingered only a moment on the image of the
San Carlos
before his line of sight dropped from the window to the second-floor platform at the upper end of the building’s central marble staircase.
The pained expression on Oscar’s face had nothing to do with his aching back. It was caused by the memory of the gory scene he had stumbled across a few months earlier.
As he focused on the spot where the Ninja’s last intern victim had been murdered, he recalled the moment he recognized the signature wound marks on the body—and realized that Mabel had become a serial killer.
—
THE SOUP CONTAINERS
began to warm, and the various mixtures of vegetables, broth, and meat started to release their flavors.
Oscar checked the cart’s heat settings. Lifting the metal lids, he gave the contents of each vat a thorough stirring. Then he stepped back and wiped his hands on the apron he had tied over his navy blue collared shirt and matching pants.
The cart and its cookers were safe to leave for a few minutes. He would make a quick pass through the building, his regular morning search for any sign of Mabel.
The cane’s rubber tip squeaked against the marble floor as he lumbered toward the central staircase. The climb required strenuous effort, but the view from the elevated center provided a unique perspective and, in his opinion, was well worth the work.
Halfway up the steps, he noticed a man walking briskly toward the mayor’s office suite on the rotunda’s upper south side. The distinctive left-limp gait of reporter Hoxton Finn was easy to pick out. The hobble was the result of an injury Hox had incurred several years earlier during a visit to the Los Angeles Zoo. He and his estranged spouse had received a behind-the-scenes tour of a Komodo dragon exhibit. The session was abruptly terminated when the ungracious lizard nipped off the end of Hox’s left toe. The marriage followed a similar course, culminating in divorce shortly thereafter.
Hox didn’t let the amputated toe slow him down. If anything, the impairment only made him walk faster, as a means of compensation. The residual pain he dulled by smacking his notebook against his left leg, a popping sound that could routinely be heard throughout City Hall’s marble-filled interior.
The reporter’s relentless energy was more than a reflection of his professional work ethic. He had made the Ninja case his personal cause, devoting numerous columns to the ongoing investigation, the lingering questions, and the societal threat.
Hox, too, was on the hunt for the psychopathic secretary.
Oscar rubbed the scruff on his chin as Hox passed the elevator bank and turned for the reception entrance to the mayor’s suite. With so many watchful eyes focused on City Hall, surely Mabel would be identified the moment she ventured inside.
But then, he reflected with a disconcerted grunt, it had been far too easy for him to slip into the building using his soup vendor disguise.
There was nothing left to do but wait for the next clue.
He feared it would be a bloody one.
• • •
AS OSCAR STOOD
at the midpoint of the central staircase, pondering the possible ways Mabel might infiltrate City Hall, he was unaware of how accurate he’d been in his intuitions.
The Ninja had indeed returned to the building where she’d started her killing spree.
And she had made the connection between the surly soup vendor and the former antique dealer who had publicly connected her to the knifed knitting needles.
She hoped to find a few more interns on which to practice, but Oscar was now her main target.
THE DESK
THE NIECE PARKED
the cat-filled stroller inside the reception area for the mayor’s office suite, pulled shut the main door, and began to unpack for the day’s work session.
The first order of business was to immediately unzip the stroller to release the cats—or, at least, the female half of the pair.
Isabella was very particular about the proper order of the morning activities. Once they’d reached their destination, the cat’s patience with being cooped up inside the stroller came to an end. Any delay in her being freed from the passenger compartment was met with a low growl that could quickly escalate to an offended hiss.
“Here you go, Issy.”
The niece flipped open the cover and stepped out of the way.
A white blur leapt through the opening and landed delicately on the red carpet. Nose sniffing, ears and tail erect, Isabella set off on her daily tour of the office suite. She completed a brief inspection of the front reception and then slipped through the open door to Monty’s inner quarters.
The niece followed Isabella into the room, which was missing its mayor.
Monty had arrived earlier, having covered the distance from Jackson Square much quicker in the town car. The niece saw his raincoat hanging on a rack in the corner.
“He’s probably bopping around the building,” the niece mused. She turned to follow Isabella back to the reception area. “And talking to security guards about fried chicken donuts.”
The phrase elicited a sleepy grunt from the stroller. Rupert still snoozed in the carriage blankets, but certain words could penetrate his sleep.
Isabella assumed a watchful stance on a filing cabinet beside the niece’s desk. Looking down from her perch, she issued a confirming opinion as to Monty’s likely whereabouts.
“Mrao.”
—
THE NIECE KICKED
off her tennis shoes and socks, slipped off the running tights from beneath her skirt, and slid on a pair of flats she kept stored in a desk drawer. She pulled out her ponytail, smoothed her hair with her fingers, and retied it in a neater knot.
There
, she thought with a shrug,
I guess I look somewhat presentable
. That was the extent of her effort to clean herself up for the office—or anywhere else, for that matter. She took a natural, low-maintenance approach to her physical appearance. She’d never developed the hair and makeup skills that seemed to come so easily to other women.
What you see is what you get
, she added ruefully.
Returning to the stroller, she bent to scoop up Rupert. One furry eyelid cracked open as the niece carried the snoring lump to a wire cage set up in a corner of the room. The inside was outfitted with a cat bed and a travel-sized igloo-shaped litter box.
Most of the time, the cage was propped open so that Rupert and Isabella could lounge as they liked in the reception area or Monty’s office. Monty didn’t receive many visitors, and the suite’s main door generally remained shut. Plus, having spent several years hanging out in the Jackson Square antique shop, the cats were accustomed to occasional foot traffic.
Leaning into the cage, the niece rolled Rupert onto the cat bed. He stretched his body into a long arc and yawned contentedly.
She shook her head at the cat’s dreamy lip smack.
“I don’t have the heart to tell him there’s no such thing as fried chicken donuts.”
From the stroller’s various side pockets, the niece removed a small bag of cat food, a few cat toys, and the day’s reading material: a dog-eared text on the Europeans’ first foray into the San Francisco Bay that her uncle had mailed to her.
So far, her work duties had been pretty minimal. She fielded the occasional phone call, organized Monty’s few appointments, and reviewed his official mail.
The last category provided a regular source of humor. Monty was the type of public figure to attract bizarre constituent correspondence.
The letters included all manner of off-the-wall suggestions for improving the city, various critiques on Monty’s well-known cuff link collection, and, perhaps most disturbing, a number of elaborately drafted marriage proposals.
The last category, the niece flagged for City Hall security.
Even on a heavy mail day, the niece could generally complete her secretarial duties within the first hour. That left plenty of time for reading.
So far, she’d perused several chapters in the history book dedicated to the
San Carlos
, the first European vessel to pass through the Golden Gate, but it was slow going. Her uncle had marked up many of the pages, and she’d spent hours trying to decipher his cramped handwriting.
She was still puzzling over the comments he’d left in the margins, but she gathered he thought the writer had missed several important elements in the recounting.
—
AS FOR HER
primary purpose for taking the admin position—that is, keeping an eye out for Mabel or any valuable information she might have left behind—the niece had little to report.
She had explored every inch of the mayor’s office suite, but she’d found nothing of use. No evidence remained of the woman who had staffed the reception area for the last six years.
Mabel’s desk had been wiped clean, the filing cabinets purged of all but the most routine documentation. There were no trinkets or mementos, not even a stray bobby pin wedged into the corner of a drawer or a seam in the carpet.
The woman who had left her last murder weapon strapped beneath the center planking of the mayor’s desk had wiped the rest of the office space completely clean.
The niece had all but given up on her assigned mission. She was on the verge of suggesting that she return to the Green Vase and cede her position to the wretched Wanda—until she took her seat in the reception area that morning.
—
THE MOMENT THE
niece settled into her chair, her nose began to tickle. At first, there was just a faint trace of odor, difficult to identify.
But the scent quickly intensified, increasing in potency.
Soon, an aromatic cloud of lemony-sweet perfume swirled around the niece, clogging her sinuses.
“What is that smell?” she demanded, fighting off a sneeze. “And where is it coming from?” She pulled open each of the desk drawers and dug through the contents, to no avail. She was soon on her hands and knees, crawling beneath the center console, searching for the source.
Isabella glanced down from the filing cabinet. She blinked knowingly and then meted out a cryptic reply.
“Mrao.”
—
UNABLE TO FIND
any scent-emitting object within the desk or its immediate radius, the niece switched tactics. She dug into a sack of cleaning supplies from an office closet and began attacking the invading smell with a can of air freshener.
She sprayed the desk’s top surface and inside each of its drawers, but the aerosol’s application had no effect.
She was puzzling at the product description written on the canister when Hoxton Finn walked through the reception’s main door.
The reporter was one of the few regular visitors to the mayor’s office suite—despite being allergic to cats.
Hox looked sternly down at the wire cage as Rupert strutted out of the igloo-shaped litter box. He took a step back as the cat shook loose litter from his fur, sending a few sandy particles out onto the floor.
Isabella called out a warning to the niece, who was still fixated on the label for the apparently ineffective air cleaner.
Stifling a sneeze, the niece looked up.
Hox nodded to Isabella with a grudging half smile and then wrinkled his nose.
“She’s back, isn’t she?” he said dourly.
Frowning, the niece set the canister on her desk. “Who?”
With a grunt, Hox popped his notebook against his left leg. “I’ve only known one woman to wear that particular perfume.”
The niece cringed as he sniffed the air and scowled.
“Mabel.”