The Night Searchers (A Sharon McCone Mystery) (14 page)

4:51 p.m.

“Damned unproductive day,” I said to Rae. I was resting in a thick terry cloth robe on Mick’s lumpy futon, having showered to wash away the scent and feel of Cockroach Haven.

“So what do we do now?” she asked.

“Nothing yet.”

Rae was silent, considering possibilities. “Why don’t we round up everybody who’s free and have another conference—if they’re not all off attending to that gargantuan list of tasks you set for them.”

6:17 p.m.

Of course, nobody was available. I chafed at the delay, lying on Mick’s saggy futon. After a while I watched a movie on the Hulu channel; it was so mindless and forgettable that it had almost ended when I realized I’d seen it before. I dropped in on a soap opera that had amused me in college, but I didn’t recognize any of the characters and couldn’t figure out the plot.

And I desperately wished Hy were there.

In the beginning we’d worked so closely that we’d almost died in a mountain mine that had been wired with explosives. Later he’d disappeared and I’d thought he’d been murdered, but I’d found him alive in Mexico and rescued him. We’d nearly frozen to death in the northern Minnesota wilderness. There had been other brushes with danger—close and not so close, together and not together—but we’d survived them all.

So why did I feel this urgent need for him now? Well, I was worried about him—he’d been out of touch for longer than usual. I tried to comfort myself by remembering other dangerous situations I’d emerged from unscathed. Christ, I’d crashed a plane in the rough crags of the Imperial County desert and walked away from it—minutes before it blew up. Held off vicious people armed with baseball bats, guns, and knives. Fended off
coyotes
on the US/Mexican border. All on my own.

But maybe I didn’t want to be on my own any more.

I could rely on the strongest and most loyal team of operatives I’d ever hoped to assemble. But I still wanted Hy.

Was that feeling dependence? Trust? Weakness? Love?

Or something else that I hadn’t yet begun to understand?

When Mick returned from wherever he’d been and set up the conference, he intuited that I wasn’t up to leading the session, so he took over. “The Night Searchers canceled tonight’s game and are planning to play tomorrow night in honor of Grizeldy. I got that from their website. From the activity on the site I expect more than the usual number of players will turn out.”

“Like all of us,” Julia said.

“Well, yes. These games aren’t easy to pull off; they require a lot of preparation. Clues have to be decided on. Their placement—especially when there’re several paths of searching—can be difficult. Derek and I are working out a couple of schemata that seem viable. But we’re not ready to go into them yet.”

As the others clamored for details, I held up my hands. “Okay, tomorrow’s going to be a long day. Let’s break this up and go to sleep early.”

7:02 p.m.

Of course I didn’t take my own advice, but phoned my friend Lonnie Grey from Richman Labs and asked her for more detailed information on the chemicals she’d found in the cigarette lighter I’d asked Richman to analyze.

“Okay, let me check my notes.” After a moment she said, “Just what is it you’re looking for?”

“Butane is a normal lighter fluid, right?”

“Correct. In itself, butane is relatively harmless, unless inhaled in large amounts. But as I wrote in my report, when it’s mixed with certain common household chemicals as reactants and juiced up with a propellant, it can be deadly—or produce some unwelcome results, such as hysteria, paranoia, temporary memory loss, psychosis, or death by asphyxia.”

“And what were the reactants in the lighter?”

“Cocaine, phencyclidine—that’s commonly called PCP—and disulfiram—used to treat chronic alcoholism. Any of them in a larger-than-prescribed dosage can be problematic for the psyche. The combination of all three would really mess with a person’s mind and body.”

“And how would these get into a lighter?”

“You mix up a cocktail of them, funnel them in as you would ordinary fluid, and give them a little shake. Simple.”

“How many people d’you think are aware of this?”

“God knows. Chemists, if they thought about it. Doctors too. Anybody intelligent who has access to the Internet.”

“Pretty scary.”

“You bet.”

“None of the ingredients is difficult to procure, right?”

“Yep. With or without a prescription.”

“And the proportions to achieve the desired effects are also on the Net?”

“Sure.” Keyboard noises. “I’m pulling up a site that lists various dosages, from ‘Sleepless Nights’ to ‘Kill.’”

“Jesus,” I said, “there has to be some way to regulate this kind of material.”

“It’s not going to happen until somebody figures out how to regulate the Net.”

“And that’s not going to be easy.” But as I spoke, I thought of Mick and Derek and others of their kind; they’d be the ones who’d do it, if anybody could.

9:52 p.m.

After I talked with Lonnie I actually dozed for a while. Mick’s condo might have been shabby, but it was a far cry from an eerily silent and cold motel at the edge of the even colder sea. Still, the cops and FBI had been here earlier, and I had no assurance that they wouldn’t bust in at any time with warrants. Already I’d been here too long.

Sure enough I heard footsteps in the hall, jumped up, and stepped behind the door. It swung back and smacked me on the nose.

“Shar?” Mick’s voice called out. “Are you here?”

I stepped out, rubbing my nose. “I’m here. But I really can’t stand any more facial disfiguration.”

He put his hand under my chin and studied my face. “No visible damage.”

“It
hurts
.”

“Sorry. But what were you doing back there?”

“I heard you coming and, well, you could’ve been anybody.”

“You can relax. I think some pressure’s come down from on high—maybe D.C.—to leave the places you frequent alone. I’d still keep a low profile, but listen to this: I made contact with Brother Timothy. The guy’s really whacked out.”

“That’s no surprise.”

“Thing is, he was in love with Grizeldy and thinks the other Searchers ‘did something’ to cause her death. He’s turned on them. Plus I paid him off handsomely.”

“With agency money.”

“Come on, Shar. You know we can afford it.”

“So what’d he tell you?”

Mick’s eyes shone: another investigative coup. “He’s assigned to plant the clues for tomorrow night’s search, and he’s offered to take us along. I brought him back on my bike, and he’s waiting in the company van.”

10:37 p.m.

Brother Timothy smelled: onions, garlic, sweat, tooth decay, and other noxious things. Even though he was seated in the back seat of the van, he polluted Mick’s and my environment in the front. The night was cold, but we cracked our windows anyway. Then Mick turned on the blowers and finally the air conditioning. It helped—some.

Timothy had a badly drawn map. He consulted it, then directed me to go southeast on Market Street, passing the dazzling view of lower San Francisco.

“We must take ourselves to the heights, the Lord sayeth,” he announced.

Mick and I exchanged glances.

“Turn, turn, turn—here!” he yelled, and I took a sharp right onto an obscure residential side street, the car behind nearly rear-ending us.

“Can you give me a little more advance notice?” I asked.

“All is in time with God.” He paused, then exclaimed, “There it is! That’s the house. Pull up.”

I pulled to the curb and cut the engine.

“Come on!” He bounded from the back seat, and I followed.

The house was dilapidated and looked in danger of sliding down on its neighbors below. It smelled of dry rot, animal droppings, and skunks.

“It’s abandoned,” Timothy whispered. “Can you imagine abandoning a place with these million-dollar views?”

“Maybe the owner couldn’t pay the mortgage or fix it up.”

“Anybody can fix things, unless they are the Children of Darkness.” He stopped on the front walk, stuffed one of the familiar envelopes under a cracked paving stone. “Let’s go.”

The strange mixture of the biblical phrases—which I wasn’t at all sure were exact quotes—and contemporary speech made me shake my head as if to clear it. It didn’t help.

Next stop: a closed-down convenience store on West Portal, near the Muni tunnel. The rest of the street looked lively, lights sparkling from restaurants, bars, and shops that stayed open late.

“Can you figure how God could let them go bust?” Timothy asked, meaning the convenience store. “Right here by the tunnel, when people’re coming home and remember the daily bread they forgot to pick up for dinner?”

The envelope went under a clay pot filled with dead flowers.

Then we were speeding toward the beach. Mick offered to drive, but I told him no. I like the feeling of being in control in a moving vehicle.

Mantis directed me to one of the streets in the Avenues—in the Forties, because I could smell the sea. We stopped in front of a corner home with a turret that made it look like a dwelling out of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
. He dug into his stash of envelopes, handed one to me, and said, “You put it under the doormat.”

I took the envelope, went up the steps. The house had the same neglected feel as the last one. I bent down and lifted the doormat, pantomimed putting the envelope under it, but actually stuffed it into my jeans pocket. That’d screw the Night Searchers up, maybe give me time to find out what the mysterious prize was. We continued on to two more sites—one on Cabrillo on the other side of the park, the other on Clay Street, up the hill from Polk Gulch. There Mantis got out of the van and hurried away.

Mick pressed the buttons to open all the windows. “We’re gonna have to get this van fumigated,” he said.

11:48 p.m.

Team McCone, as they insisted on calling themselves, was assembled on the Internet. I filled them in on Mick’s and my evening, then said, “I stole one of the clues Timothy asked me to plant. That’ll confuse them.”

I took the envelope I’d been supposed to leave under the doormat in the Avenues and read it to them: “Where the wild things are.”

“The zoo?” Rae asked.

“Seal Rock?” Patrick.

Adah: “Golden Gate Park?”

“A popular nightclub?” Mick suggested.

Adah laughed. “Maybe it’s my mom and dad’s place.” As of then, her parents possessed three cats, two dogs, two rabbits, and a one-eyed guinea pig. At some point I expected to see an aardvark slink through their living room.

I yawned, fading fast.

“So what’re you going to do tomorrow?” Mick asked.

“Confront Glenn Solomon about his omissions. See if he can get the law to lay off of me. I want to go home. I want to see my cats. I’m tired of running.”

“We can always…”

But the rest of Adah’s words were lost to me. I was asleep.

9:10 a.m.

G
lenn Solomon was ducking my calls. I could tell from the evasive note in his receptionist’s voice. No, his secretary and paralegals weren’t available either. No, she didn’t know when any of them would be.

Gregor Deeds claimed he had no influence with local law enforcement—which was probably the truth. He was keeping tabs on Camilla Givens, who seemed to be putting down roots in the RI hospitality suite.

“She drinks wine—as much of it as we’ll allow—eats popcorn, and watches bad movies,” he told me. “According to Veronica Mann, she hasn’t said a word about her husband.”

“Well, just make sure she stays there.”

“I don’t think you could get her out with a crowbar.”

“Has Hy checked in yet?”

Gregor’s voice turned somber. “No, he hasn’t. Still deep into the hostage negotiation.”

“Yeah.”

Or dead.

No, don’t you dare think that way!

9:55 a.m.

Nothing out of the ordinary was going on at the agency, Ted told me, except for another invasive visit from guys in suits, and calls from reporters. Normally that would be good news, but now I needed to be busy, to keep my mind off of Hy.

I went down the list of people I should call and question, finally settled on Suzy Cushing, who was likely to be the most forthcoming and friendly of them all. She was my only entrée into the Hoffman household.

This time she answered her phone. When I identified myself, she said, “I was just about to call you. Everything all right?”

“So far.”

“Well, I have some news—Uncle Van checked out of the hospital this morning and came home. The FBI has him under surveillance, though.”

“How is he?”

“He’s gone into one of his silent states, won’t talk to anybody from the law or government and seems particularly angry with Aunt Jane. I heard him talking on the phone to someone named Pamela earlier—mentioning broken promises and betrayed trust. I think he may have been, as they say, disappointed in love.”

So it appeared to be over with the girlfriend.

“Suzy, has he ever mentioned an organization called the Night Searchers?”

“…No, I don’t think so.”

“Have you heard any of these names?” I read off my list, starting with Jay Givens.

“None is familiar except I remember him talking on the phone to somebody named Jill. It sounded as if he was trying to calm her down.”

“When was this?”

“A few weeks ago. Three, maybe?”

“Do you remember anything else about the conversation?”

“…No. But I’ll call you if I find out anything.”

10:54 a.m.

Mick phoned me shortly after I finished talking with Suzy. Jay Givens had called the office, saying he “desperately” needed to talk with me in person.

“Well, he can’t come here, not to your place. But it has to be someplace secure, with monitoring devices—”

“What about Cockroach Haven?”

“No. It’s a safe house. Nobody goes there except for RI insiders and clients.” I hesitated. “Are the feds still sniffing around the offices?”

“Ours, but not RI’s.”

“Tell him to come there. And pick me up in the van. I’ll sneak in the back way.”

12:03 p.m.

Jay Givens looked puzzled when RI’s receptionist ushered him in to Hy’s office, which I’d co-opted.

“What the hell is this place, and what are you doing here?” he asked.

“It belongs to an associate of mine.” I motioned for him to come inside.

Jay was dressed in an elegant gray suit with a blue shirt and tie. I knew from the fit and fabric of the suit that it was tailor-made and must have cost thousands—a confident power garment. But he wasn’t confident at all. He hesitated, then remained standing, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I haven’t had a report from you since we last spoke,” he said.

“I believe our contract says I only report when I
have
something to report.”

“Well, I have plenty to report to you. Camilla’s left me.”

I pretended innocence. “As of when?”

“Sunday. I was…out and returned to an empty condo. I thought she’d gone off on one of her little shopping sprees”—he sneered—“and it wasn’t until later that I realized she’d taken quite a few of her things.”

“How much later?”

“When I was getting ready for bed.”

“And what time was that?”

“Around midnight.”

“You thought she’d shopped until
midnight
?”

“I wasn’t thinking. About Camilla, I mean. I was thinking about a client’s tax problems and watching a TV movie.”

“Both at once?”

“Of course not! Look, I know you don’t like me, but I’m really concerned about Camilla. I called her friend Anita Glynn, and she hasn’t heard from her. And Camilla’s been doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Fantasizing. She called me three times this morning, starting at six o’clock. Wouldn’t tell me where she was. First thing she said was that she wanted a divorce. I think I talked her out of it. But then she told me she’d seen a gorilla scaling the Transamerica Pyramid, started crying and hung up. Next it was a man putting a woman’s body into a trunk in the opposite building. Finally she told me that there were vicious-looking birds on the wires outside her windows.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Ms. McCone,” Jay said, “the woman needs help. Real help, not just some therapist who will listen to her hysterical babbling for an hour and charge me an enormous sum.”

“You mean she needs to be institutionalized.”

“Yes. That’s why I need you to locate her quickly. I’ve already spoken with Dr. Edmond Leeds at Serenity Acres in Napa County, and they’re holding a place for her.”

“I see.” I saw a lot of things, and I didn’t like a one of them. “Well, I’ll do what I can to find her.”

“Just bring my wife back to me. That’s all I care about.”

After he left I said aloud, “He’s full of shit.”

Mick’s voice answered through one of the speakers, “Amen to that.”

I smiled; I’d known he wouldn’t be able to resist listening in.

“Keep on eavesdropping.” I phoned the RI hospitality suite and spoke with Veronica Mann; Gregor had confiscated Camilla’s cell phone when they arrived there, and she didn’t have access to any others. The calls from Camilla to Jay simply hadn’t happened.

“What about access to drugs?” I asked.

“There isn’t so much as an aspirin in the place. And I made sure she didn’t sneak any in.”

I took the lighter that Richman Labs had examined from my jeans pocket. Ran my fingers over its stippled surface. When I raised its lid, it gave off a faint odor of the noxious mixture that had filled it, and I lowered it quickly. “She smoking?”

“Not much. Once in a while she bums a cigarette off me or Gregor, but we insist on lighting it. No way are we allowing her access to fire.”

There was no doubt now that Jay Givens was a damn liar. He should’ve been more imaginative about Camilla’s “hysterical babbling.” Those stories had come straight out of Hollywood:
King Kong
,
Rear Window
, and
The Birds
.

3:33 p.m.

After I went back to Cockroach Haven, I spent the day alternately making inquiries—or asking others to do so—and sleeping wrapped in my comforter. Neither my operatives nor I were coming up with anything on Jordan Turnbull, or Dr. Edmund Leeds at Serenity Acres in Napa County, or on any of the other names that had been dropped into the case.

And as each hour passed I became more and more edgy about Hy.

Camilla Givens, one of her keepers said, had been docile all day. She’d switched from popcorn to pistachio nuts, asked for a cheeseburger, and taken a long nap.

“Keep her sedated—with food, not booze.”

One blessing, at least.

9:17 p.m.

I wanted my house, my husband—when he finally resurfaced—and my cats. I wanted to reclaim my life. So I packed up my belongings, said goodbye to Cockroach Haven, and went home.

I was more and more determined to put this bizarre case behind me.

Then, maybe, Hy and I could take a vacation. Not a few days at the ranch or the coast, but a real one. Exotic climes, solitude, good love to make, good books to read, good food and drink. We’d never had a time quite like that…

The garage door opener didn’t work. I pressed it multiple times, tossed it onto the console in frustration, and cut the ignition. I’d have to open it from inside—

As I crossed to the front door, I heard a noise behind me. Just a whisper, but I turned—and something heavy collided with my forehead. Pain erupted and coursed down from my head to my entire body. My vision blurred, my balance vanished, and I fell backward, landing hard on the concrete; worse pain leaped up my spine, and my vision blanked entirely. But I didn’t lose consciousness.

I heard a sound close by, smelled something—what?—that was distinctively male…

“You want to leave this alone,” a guttural voice said close to my ear. “This ain’t got nothing to do with you. Just let the Night Searchers do their work. Leave ’em alone.”

And then
I
was alone, half blind and throbbing with pain. Tried to concentrate on the man’s voice but couldn’t.

I got my breathing under control and spent two or three quiet minutes taking in fresh air. Then I pushed up to a sitting position. Again my vision swam, and I closed my eyes, waiting for the spell to pass. Okay, that was all right, but the pain in my back was awful.

When we’d bought this house we’d reveled in the quiet and the low foot and auto traffic of Avila Street. Now I wished someone would come along and help me…

Sometime after 10 p.m.

The first person to come to my aid was Kirk Adderly, my neighbor to the right. I was still disoriented and struggling to get up when I heard him say, “Sharon? That you?”

“Me,” I managed to get out.

“Are you okay?”

“Not sure.”

“Let me get you up and into the house. What happened? Did you fall or—”

“Not important right now.”

Kirk squatted down beside me. “Should I call 911?”

“No. Not necessary.”

“Is Hy home?”

“Off someplace. Not sure where.”

After a couple more minutes I let Kirk help me up. I clung to him, and soon I was standing. I stifled a cry when the pain in my back intensified.

“Easy,” he said. “Wrap your arm around my neck while I get the door open.”

I handed him my keys and soon we were inside. “Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“Living room couch.”

In moments he had me lying there. “Blankets and a pillow,” he said. “Where?”

“Linen closet, top of the stairs.”

“Ice bags?”

“Freezer in the garage.”

“Be right back.”

Pain radiated from my neck and the small of my back; I felt as if I were being penetrated by dozens of thick red-hot needles as Kirk lifted me up to slide the ice bags and pillow beneath me. The ice gave me shivers, but the blanket helped some.

“You want something hot to drink? Coffee?” he asked.

“Nothing, thanks.”

“Anybody I can call?”

I thought for a few seconds, then gave him Rae’s number.

In spite of the pain I was fading fast. I felt a thump on the couch, and little cat whiskers touching my face. Jessie. I tried to put my hand out to pat her, but before we connected, I was out.