Читать книгу The Sepia Siren Killer - Richard A. Lupoff - Страница 10

CHAPTER FOUR

Lindsey’s telephone wouldn’t stop burbling at him until he rolled over and picked it up. Things were better when telephones just rang at you. Nowadays they sounded like lovesick pigeons serenading their chosen sweethearts.

The voice on the telephone was Ms. Wilbur’s. “Now that you don’t have to punch a clock any more, what time do you roll out, Hobart?”

He rubbed his eyes and blinked at the clock. He sniffed. Mother had the coffee started, anyway. His mind flashed on the cold coffee at the Robeson Center. The cups were probably still on the table.

“What’s the matter? Ms. Wilbur, aren’t you retired?”

“How does that saying go? This is the first day of the rest of my life. Sure I’m retired. How’s your own calendar, Hobart?”

He rubbed his head. The blood was starting to flow again. “A ton of routine stuff. Why?”

“I’m at the Robeson Center. I’m still not satisfied with Mr. MacReedy’s situation.”

“KlameNet can handle it. You know that Mueller’s full of bullstuff.”

“Bullstuff, hey? I thought you were going to say a naughty word for once.”

Lindsey had his feet in his slippers. “What are you doing at the center? Is MacReedy all right?”

He could almost see her shaking her head in the characteristic way that meant, maybe-yes-and-maybe-no. He’d seen her do that often enough in all the years they’d worked together. She said, “I think you ought to come over to Berkeley again. We’ll talk about it when you get here.” She waited for his grunt of assent, then broke the connection.

He drank coffee and ate toast with Mother. After breakfast he dropped her at the bus stop, then drove back to Berkeley. It was definitely an advantage, having the freedom that went with his assignment to SPUDS, but at the same time it frequently left him at loose ends. Was he earning his salary? Was he contributing to the company? Was Desmond Richelieu watching, ready to pounce at Lindsey’s first misstep?

The commuter traffic was heavy. The news on the car radio was dominated by reports of an earthquake in Japan and a massacre in the Balkans. After a commercial for an investment broker, the station switched to a syndicated Hollywood update. Arturo Madrid, onetime matinee idol and latter-day character actor, was to receive a lifetime achievement award on the occasion of his eighty-fifth birthday and sixty-fifth anniversary in films. The ceremony would be carried live on cable and excerpted for network television.

Local news coverage was slim, consisting mainly of a sidebar to the Arturo Madrid story, playing up an Oakland angle. Surprisingly for Hollywood, the powers-that-be had decided to hold the climactic ceremonies of the Madrid honors at the Oakland Paramount. Local politicians were falling over each other to get onto the program with the great actor. Other than that, there was little out of the ordinary. Not a word about the fire at the Robeson Center. Well, there was little enough to be said about a minor incident involving no injuries. Not in a town where murders and political squabbles competed daily for the attention of the news media.

The morning was bright and in it the Robeson Center looked far better than it had the previous evening. For the first time Lindsey saw a carved oval plaque mounted above the main entrance. It was shaped like a giant cameo brooch. The face was heavy-boned, the lips broad, the nose flat. It was Paul Robeson, all right. He turned up occasionally on TV in movies made in the 1930s.

Ms. Wilbur and Mr. MacReedy were sitting beneath a Corinthian pillar on a round, cushioned seat. Ms. Wilbur wore a casual outfit. Her gray hair was pinned up. Mr. MacReedy wore a threadbare blue suit and a black tie, probably the same ones he’d worn the day before. Apparently he’d been able to borrow a fresh shirt, anyway.

Today a woman stood behind the reception desk. She sported a rectangular badge that identified her as LaVonda Hendry. Even at this distance, her wedding ring was conspicuous. Lindsey wondered if she and Oliver ever saw each other except when changing shifts.

A Berkeley police officer nodded to Lindsey. Well, police HQ on McKinley Avenue had taken Sgt. Stromback seriously, at least.

Ms. Wilbur stood up and drew Lindsey out of earshot of the others. “A little test, Bart. Why would somebody wait for Mr. MacReedy to leave, then burn out his room? Five points for the correct answer.”

Lindsey shook his head. “He has an enemy.”

Ms. Wilbur looked exasperated. “Two points for that. But why wait for him to leave? If somebody wanted to harm him, wouldn’t it make more sense to start the fire when he was in the room?”

“He would have called for help. He would have seen the arsonist. And maybe whoever it was didn’t have that much against him, didn’t want to risk his death in the fire. He just wanted to destroy MacReedy’s property.”

“You think there was some particular property the arsonist wanted to destroy?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

She rubbed her jaw. Come to think of it, Ms. Wilbur’s face was kind of long. Cruel writers of an earlier era might have called it equine. She said, “Suppose Mr. MacReedy had something, or the arsonist thought he had something, that the arsonist wanted destroyed. He might have stolen the…whatever, and destroyed it at his leisure. But then the theft would have been detected. Might have been detected. And that would draw attention to the object of the robbery—exactly what the criminal wanted to avoid. Do you follow me?”

“Sure I do.” Lindsey frowned. “I follow you right into some nutty old movie. You ever see the Hildegarde Withers pictures? The Penguin Pool Murder, Murder on a Honeymoon.…”

“You’re being nasty.”

“Look, Ms. Wilbur, I thought you were going to stay home and play housewife once you retired from International Surety. You never said you were going to become a sleuth.”

“I’m not. I’m just concerned about Mr. MacReedy and I’m concerned about this fire.”

“There are professionals working on the case. There’s a cop right over there,” Lindsey said.

“I talked to him.”

“And what did he tell you? Were the arson investigators here? Don’t you trust Sergeant Stromback?”

“I’m sure that Sergeant Stromback is doing a fine job, Bart. In fact, the officer didn’t want to tell me anything but I managed to worm a couple of facts out of him.”

“Such as what?”

“Such as, they found some scrapes in the lower hallway and several spots where the arsonist apparently spilled gasoline. That must be how he got in and out of the building, and he could have sent the whole place up in flames if he’d wanted to.”

“Good that he didn’t.”

“Don’t you see, that proves he targeted Mr. MacReedy. If there was ever any doubt about that, which I don’t think there was.”

Lindsey turned back toward MacReedy. The old man sat patiently on the round sofa, his hands folded in his lap. A few other residents drifted through the lobby. They were all old and they were all black. From time to time an ancient individual would stop and exchange a few words with MacReedy. They all touched him, all either shook his hand or kissed him on his cheek. He acknowledged each with a nod.

For the second time this morning, Lindsey asked Ms. Wilbur if she thought MacReedy was all right. She assured him that he was. Lindsey said, “Then let’s take a walk and talk about this thing.”

The heavy doors swung shut behind them. They descended the old steps from the portico. A wheelchair ramp had been added beside the steps. Canyon Road ran through the hills between the University of California campus and the old deaf and blind school, now taken over by the university as a conference center. Surely UC would love to pick up the strip of land that separated the two campuses. If the Anti-Imperialist Front was a catspaw of university schemers, and if the league had started the fire at the art museum, it might be equally interested in getting the Robeson Center to close down and make way for the university’s land acquisition program.

No, that was crazy. That was Berkeley paranoia. Lindsey was spending too much time on the western side of the Caldecott Tunnel. He belonged in Walnut Creek.

Lindsey and Ms. Wilbur were strolling on the Robeson Center’s unkempt lawn. They halted. Lindsey said, “Look, Ms. Wilbur—”

“You may call me Mathilde.”

The world never stayed in one place. “Mathilde, do you have anything solid to go on? Any evidence, any theory? Did Mr. MacReedy tell you anything you can use to figure this out? Because if not, I think the police are going to send you packing. You and me both. What are we doing here? Why are we playing cops-and-robbers? Or cops-and-arsonists?”

“Because Mr. Hendry told me something that your Sgt. Stromback was apparently too dense to think of, so he didn’t even ask.”

Lindsey drew a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. From the front lawn of the Robeson Center the whole city of Berkeley spread out. He could see the famous Campanile rising from the UC campus, and in the distance San Francisco Bay. This was really a beautiful town. If only it didn’t have so many ugly people in it.

“Well?” Ms. Wilbur dug a bony finger into Lindsey’s arm. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I found out?”

“All right,” he sighed, “what did you find out?”

“Mr. Hendry told me that there are storage rooms under the Robeson Center. The building was originally a mansion. It was built as a pied á terre by a millionaire vintner from Sonoma County. There are huge cellars dug into the rock, where the owner kept his private stock.”

“Which of course is long gone.”

“Of course. Once the old guy died, his heirs couldn’t wait to sell off his wine collection and invest in something more lucrative.”

“And?”

“And the Robeson people—they’ve operated the building as a retirement home for forty years. They divided the main cellar into storage areas. There are dividers, chain-link fences, and locks. Every resident has the use of a storage room. It’s too grim down there to use the cellar for anything else, and they don’t have the money to spruce it up. So they store their belongings down there to keep from getting the sleeping rooms too cluttered.”

“Swell,” Lindsey said. “Good detective work. And I suppose the ghost of the original owner lurks in the gloomy subterranean vaults and chops off the heads of unwary visitors. Or is it a beautiful woman in a white dress? I love ghost stories.”

Angrily, Ms. Wilbur said, “I warned you, don’t be nasty. This is serious business.”

Lindsey shrugged. “I still don’t see where you’re going with it.”

“Hobart, how in the world did I ever carry you through all those years at International Surety, and how are you ever going to get along without me?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she said, “Whatever the arsonist wanted to destroy—maybe he didn’t get it. Maybe it’s in Mr. MacReedy’s storage area in the cellar. And if the arsonist knows about the cellar—if that’s how he got in and out, of course he must know—he’s likely to come back. In any case, we need to get in there and find the thing first.”

Lindsey grimaced.

Mathilde Wilbur said, “Besides, have you noticed that Mr. MacReedy looks a little bit familiar?”

“No.”

“And I thought you were such a news junkie, Hobart. And a movie maven, too. There was a TV feature about MacReedy on the evening news a few months ago. He’s a retired movie director, and his wife was once a movie star. She was called the Sepia Siren. Made movies in the 1930s and ’40s. Some reporter discovered they were still around and they did a nice little story on them for the local station.”

“Nope.” Lindsey shook his head. “I missed that one. If it was just on the local news, it must have run while I was in Denver talking to Richelieu.”

“Oh yes, dear Ducky Richelieu. Well, it was a cute story. I recognized Mr. MacReedy. Must have been just a few weeks before poor Mrs. MacReedy died. So sad.” She squared her shoulders. “Well, to business. We still have those storage lockers to investigate.”

“You want to bypass the police and go searching in this cellar, right? For—for something.”

“Putting it bluntly, yes.”

“And putting it bluntly, we don’t know what we’re looking for.”

“That is correct.”

“Well, putting it bluntly, I think this is absolutely insane. Not to mention dangerous.”

“All right. Come along with me or don’t, as you choose. I am going down there and have a look-see.”

Lindsey ground his teeth. He thought, at least she doesn’t wear those dreadful hats that Hildegarde Withers did.

* * * *

Mr. MacReedy had a key to his personal storage area in the cellar. They led him away from his place on the circular couch, away from the friends who still came by to offer condolences. The Berkeley police officer had apparently taken a moment’s leave for a pit stop and Lindsey didn’t want to get into an extended dialog with him.

The cellar was reached by a staircase in the back of the Robeson Center. Lindsey fumbled for a light switch. The temperature dropped with each step as they descended into the old, carved rock.

The only lights were dim incandescent bulbs. If Lindsey had had more notice he would have brought a portable lantern or at least a couple of strong flashlights for them to use. But he hadn’t, and so the feeble bulbs would have to do.

Mr. MacReedy’s storage area was roughly fifty feet from the foot of the staircase. MacReedy handed his key to Lindsey, and Lindsey turned the key in a surprisingly heavy padlock. If a thief wanted to break into the storage room, he would do better to bring a pair of heavy wire-cutters and clip the metal links themselves.

The room contained two more file cabinets like the one that had been destroyed in MacReedy’s room upstairs. There was a trunk and a standing wardrobe. Lindsey ran his hand down the side of a file cabinet. Beneath a thick layer of dust, the burnished wood felt like silk. He’d seen reproductions of old wooden file cabinets selling for hundreds of dollars. These originals would be worth a fortune to an antique dealer. The wardrobe might bring even more.

He turned to MacReedy. “What’s in these?”

MacReedy stood silently for a long moment. “It’s been so long,” he said at last. “I haven’t been down here since—I think, since we moved into the center. Since Lola Mae and I—”

Lindsey examined the file cabinets, the wardrobe and the trunk. The cabinets were secured with locking rods, the locking rods with padlocks. But these, unlike the lock to the room, were combination locks. And the trunk was secured by straps and latches; they could be opened, but not without a struggle.

But the wardrobe had no lock. He decided to tackle that first. He asked MacReedy if it was all right to open the wardrobe. Again, MacReedy stood silently before answering. It was as if the old man slipped away into the past each time he was left to himself. It took him a moment to return to the present when he was called, but eventually he returned.

“Surely,” MacReedy said. “I would like to look at the old things once again, myself.”

Lindsey worked the wardrobe’s ornate handles. They were of cast metal; in the dim light it was hard to tell what kind of metal it was. Possibly brass, long since tarnished beyond recognition. The handles were stiff, but they yielded to pressure. The wardrobe’s hinges were equally stiff but they must have been oiled long ago, and with enough pressure they worked silently.

Inside the wardrobe were clothes that Lindsey hadn’t seen except as costumes in period pictures. On one side were rigid-looking men’s suits, an ancient broad-brimmed fedora, a heavy—it had to be heavy—bowler hat, even an ivory-headed ebony walking-stick. On the other, women’s clothing: flapper dresses, cloche hats, beaded purses.

Ms. Wilbur said, “But this is wonderful.”

Lindsey got as far as, “Do you—” Then the lights flicked out.

Lindsey thought: I’ve really fallen into a movie.

He heard slow footsteps approaching.

He thought: Lionel Atwill. Dwight Frye. Conrad Veidt.

He heard fumbling, brushing, scraping noises from both sides. A light skittered across the room. He could see Ms. Wilbur swinging a beam in circles. She’d brought a flashlight in her purse. He thought: Why didn’t I think to ask her?

Ms. Wilbur’s light glinted off metal. Mr. MacReedy, all ninety years and ninety pounds of him, stood en garde. The metal was a thin, graceful blade, blue-black and deadly. The walking stick was a sword-cane. Whatever was coming for them, Mr. MacReedy was ready.

Ms. Wilbur swung her light away from MacReedy. She pointed through the cage-like room-divider. The light flashed across a face. Lindsey caught a glimpse of startled eyes. The suggestion of a wispy mustache. And something odd about the top of the head, as if the intruder was wearing a small hat cocked over one ear.

Then a second thin beam of light reflected from dust motes. Someone trotted away. Soft-soled shoes shushed up the staircase. A door slammed.