sounded like a footstep and looked back. No one in sight. Probably just someone walking by, but still I hesitated. Slipped back along the walkway and peered out at the street.
Empty.
Too many nighttime confrontations had made me wary of things that go bump after dark. When you’ve been shot in the head and almost died…
I used the keys Caro’s brother Rob had given me, eased the door open and shut. A clock, which I hadn’t noticed before, ticked softly. The refrigerator hummed. I could hear the beat of my pulse, slow and steady.
Again I felt the sense of loneliness, unhappiness, and faint hope that I’d had before. I switched on a table lamp and went prowling, turning on other lamps as I went. New details struck me: a crack in a cut-glass vase; a faint stain that looked as if it might’ve once been orange on the wall next to the sofa; a loose section of baseboard…
No, McCone. The baseboard’s too obvious a hiding place, as obvious as the toilet tank.
Right. But I examined it anyway. The baseboard concealed nothing, looked as if it had been bashed by an overzealous person wielding a vacuum cleaner.
Nothing unusual here. Nothing that you wouldn’t expect to find in a lonely single person’s apartment.
But I still felt something was missing.
I locked up the apartment and went down the walkway. As I turned onto the sidewalk I spotted a dark figure, approximately the same size and shape as the one I thought I’d seen before, across the street. Abruptly the person turned and fled down an alley between two houses.
So I hadn’t been imagining things before. Somebody watching Mrs. Cleary’s house, perhaps with the idea of breaking in and finding something in Caro’s apartment? Somebody following me? Or maybe just your garden-variety Peeping Tom? In any case, he—I assumed he was male because of his size—had a good head start on me. It would be foolish to go chasing him in that dark, unfamiliar territory.
10:14 p.m.
The blue building on Sly Lane was dark and deserted, only security lights winking in the underground garage to show me the way to the elevator. For a moment I paused before getting out of my car, remembering my earlier edginess at Caro’s apartment and the night I’d been assaulted and shot at Pier 24½. Then I put the thoughts behind me: horrifying as many of my recollections were, I’d long ago made up my mind not to dwell on the past. I waited for the old, clanking elevator cage to reach garage level, then hit the button for the—grandly labeled—penthouse suite.
My office was cold. I turned up the thermostat, took the envelope of Xeroxed clippings from Caro Warrick from my bag, and retreated to my comfortable armchair. I reread the clips carefully, scanning for any detail I hadn’t noticed before. The timeline was the same, as was the cast of characters. Even though only three years had passed, the paper felt brittle, was browning. The events reported might have occurred decades in the past.
But there was an article from last December that I had somehow skimmed or overlooked the night Caro was attacked. One of those end-of-the-year where-are-they-now pieces that newspapers sometimes run about sensational crimes.
Carolyn Warrick, of course, was still living and working in the city then.
Elizabeth and Benjamin Warrick resided in Millbrae. That I knew.
Amelia Bettencourt’s mother, Iris, had died of a stroke the preceding August.
Bettencourt’s father, James, had served two years’ probation for assault with a deadly weapon and was currently living on the Monterey Peninsula.
Interesting. ADW is one of those crimes that lawyers call a “wobbler”—meaning it can be classified either as a misdemeanor or as a felony, depending upon various circumstances. The fact that James Bettencourt had received only two years’ probation indicated that the DA hadn’t considered the assault that Bettencourt had perpetrated too serious.
Jake Green lived in Atherton, an upscale suburb on the
Empty.
Too many nighttime confrontations had made me wary of things that go bump after dark. When you’ve been shot in the head and almost died…
I used the keys Caro’s brother Rob had given me, eased the door open and shut. A clock, which I hadn’t noticed before, ticked softly. The refrigerator hummed. I could hear the beat of my pulse, slow and steady.
Again I felt the sense of loneliness, unhappiness, and faint hope that I’d had before. I switched on a table lamp and went prowling, turning on other lamps as I went. New details struck me: a crack in a cut-glass vase; a faint stain that looked as if it might’ve once been orange on the wall next to the sofa; a loose section of baseboard…
No, McCone. The baseboard’s too obvious a hiding place, as obvious as the toilet tank.
Right. But I examined it anyway. The baseboard concealed nothing, looked as if it had been bashed by an overzealous person wielding a vacuum cleaner.
Nothing unusual here. Nothing that you wouldn’t expect to find in a lonely single person’s apartment.
But I still felt something was missing.
I locked up the apartment and went down the walkway. As I turned onto the sidewalk I spotted a dark figure, approximately the same size and shape as the one I thought I’d seen before, across the street. Abruptly the person turned and fled down an alley between two houses.
So I hadn’t been imagining things before. Somebody watching Mrs. Cleary’s house, perhaps with the idea of breaking in and finding something in Caro’s apartment? Somebody following me? Or maybe just your garden-variety Peeping Tom? In any case, he—I assumed he was male because of his size—had a good head start on me. It would be foolish to go chasing him in that dark, unfamiliar territory.
10:14 p.m.
The blue building on Sly Lane was dark and deserted, only security lights winking in the underground garage to show me the way to the elevator. For a moment I paused before getting out of my car, remembering my earlier edginess at Caro’s apartment and the night I’d been assaulted and shot at Pier 24½. Then I put the thoughts behind me: horrifying as many of my recollections were, I’d long ago made up my mind not to dwell on the past. I waited for the old, clanking elevator cage to reach garage level, then hit the button for the—grandly labeled—penthouse suite.
My office was cold. I turned up the thermostat, took the envelope of Xeroxed clippings from Caro Warrick from my bag, and retreated to my comfortable armchair. I reread the clips carefully, scanning for any detail I hadn’t noticed before. The timeline was the same, as was the cast of characters. Even though only three years had passed, the paper felt brittle, was browning. The events reported might have occurred decades in the past.
But there was an article from last December that I had somehow skimmed or overlooked the night Caro was attacked. One of those end-of-the-year where-are-they-now pieces that newspapers sometimes run about sensational crimes.
Carolyn Warrick, of course, was still living and working in the city then.
Elizabeth and Benjamin Warrick resided in Millbrae. That I knew.
Amelia Bettencourt’s mother, Iris, had died of a stroke the preceding August.
Bettencourt’s father, James, had served two years’ probation for assault with a deadly weapon and was currently living on the Monterey Peninsula.
Interesting. ADW is one of those crimes that lawyers call a “wobbler”—meaning it can be classified either as a misdemeanor or as a felony, depending upon various circumstances. The fact that James Bettencourt had received only two years’ probation indicated that the DA hadn’t considered the assault that Bettencourt had perpetrated too serious.
Jake Green lived in Atherton, an upscale suburb on the
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