Free The Spook Lights Affair by Bill Pronzini, Marcia Muller Page B

she started toward her desk. “What’s that dreadful smell? Not your usual pipe tobacco, is it?”
    “No. A new blend.” He had resolved not to tell her about the lunatic’s unannounced and unwanted visit. It was of no importance and she had enough on her mind as it was.
    “Well, I hope you won’t—” She broke off, peering at him more closely now. “John, your face. What happened to you?”
    The concern in both her voice and her expression pleased him. “An accident of no consequence,” he lied. He had also resolved not to burden her, just yet, with last night’s misadventures on Telegraph Hill and along the waterfront. His wounded pride and dignity were still tender. When he did tell her, he would leave out some of the more embarrassing details.
    Sabina was not fooled, however. She said, “You’re a caution, John Quincannon. One of your nightly forays will be the death of you if you’re not careful.”
    “You needn’t worry about me, my dear. I’m well able to take care of myself.”
    “Are you? My husband said the same thing to me two nights before he was killed.”
    Sabina went to sit at her desk. A stray wisp of her high-coiled black hair come loose and was tickling her nose; she produced a hand mirror and proceeded to tuck and pin it back into place. Quincannon watched her avidly. As always, her dark blue eyes, high-cheekbone face, and comely figure quickened his pulses. He had never wanted for female companionship when he sought it, yet no woman had ever had quite the same effect on him as his partner. Part of it was unrequited passion, but his feelings for her ran deeper than simple desire. More deeply—and therefore more frustrating—with each passing day, it seemed.
    When she finished fixing her hair, he said, “What exactly did happen at the mayor’s soiree last night? The blasted newspaper account was somewhat sketchy on details. You had words with the St. Ives girl and followed her when she ran outside?”
    “She had the words, not I. I thought she might have rushed out to meet her forbidden young swain, Lucas Whiffing.”
    “But instead she was bent on taking her life.”
    “Evidently. She met no one on the way, and I saw no one else on the overlook. At least no one near where she had climbed up onto the parapet. The fog was quite thick.”
    “How clearly did you see her on the wall?”
    “Clearly enough. She had her back to me, facing the sea with her arms bent away from her body. A ghostlike figure in the mist.” Sabina paused, little wrinkle lines appearing in the smooth skin of her forehead. “There was something … odd about the way she was standing there. It didn’t strike me at the time, and yet when I think about it…”
    “Odd in what way?”
    “I can’t quite put my finger on it. It was the next second or two that she jumped.”
    “You’re certain she did jump, not slipped and fell?”
    “It certainly looked as though she threw herself forward off the parapet. I heard her scream, then the sounds of her body sliding through the ice plant below the wall and over the edge.”
    “Yet there was no sign of her body on the Great Highway.”
    “None. Except for the scarf she was wearing, caught on a torn cypress limb.”
    “Then the only possible explanation is that someone came along, found her, and spirited her away alive or dead. Was there enough time for that to have happened?”
    Sabina nodded. “Fifteen to twenty minutes had elapsed by the time I summoned the others and we started down to the highway. But it’s an unlikely explanation. There was very little traffic because of the fog, the mayor’s home is the only one in the immediate vicinity, and we met no one entering the grounds or driving on Point Lobos. If someone did happen along and picked up the body, where would it have been taken? Not to the nearest habitation south of the Heights, Dickey’s Road House; we inquired there. And what reason could anyone have had for transporting it any greater