The Art of Detection (36 page)

“Why would he do that? I’d have thought, if he wanted to sell it, he’d have told everyone. The more publicity, the better.”

“Sure, but he’d have needed to control it. Wild and unsubstantiated rumor is never as good as a formal announcement.”

“He was intending to make an announcement, you think?”

“Yes, and I’d think fairly soon. He told me he’d made several copies, I think he was planning on sending them out within days. That’s probably why he gave me the thing in such a rush. Something may even have been forcing his hand. I haven’t picked up any talk about it, but if I do, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you. And if you can think of anyone Mr. Gilbert might have shown the story to, could you let me know?”

“I can ask around, if you like.”

“It would be better if you left the actual inquiries to me, if you don’t mind,” Kate said firmly.

“Fine, I’ll make you a list of likely candidates,” he said, seemingly unaware that his
candidates
would be Kate’s
suspects
. She gave him the Detail’s fax number, thanked him, and put the phone down, scrubbing her face with her hands for a while.

“Give me a nice drug-related shooting,” she said aloud into the room.

“I’ve got half a dozen, you could take your pick,” one of the other detectives offered generously.

“Thanks, I’ll stick to my fictional drag queens,” Kate told him, and looked up another number.

“Tessie’s Antiques,” said the familiar voice. Kate identified herself, allowed the talkative antiques seller to spill a few dozen words in her direction, then stepped into the flow.

“I had a question about that typewriter,” she said. “It’s going to take us a few days to take possession of it”—(particularly considering she hadn’t even written up a warrant application yet)—“but you could save me some time.”

“Yes, what can I tell you about it? Not much, I fear, I scarcely laid hands—”

“I just want to know what kind of machine it was. What make?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one. I never did get around to cleaning it, but I did shift it from one place to another a few times, and then again, the name was still bright and bold across the front of it. An Underwood,” she added, before Kate was driven to shouting at her. “Probably circa1910. In quite good condition, beneath the dust. Probably not used a whole lot before it went into its attic, though one of its keys was slightly wonky. The lowercase
a,
I think it was.”

“Thank you,” Kate said, and hung up on the woman’s voice.

Her next call was to the source of Lee’s article, the
Chronicle
columnist. Leah Garchik was out, so Kate left a message asking her to phone back. No sooner had she hung up when the phone rang to tell her that the two World War Two vets who’d found Gilbert’s body were there to give a statement.

They were a little confused about why they’d needed to give it twice, since they’d talked to the Park Police on Monday, but it was easier to tell them the tale of a bureaucratic mix-up than to go into the precise jurisdictional requirements of a case, and both accepted the story with cheerful resignation: One thing an Army vet knew was bureaucracy. By the time they signed their statements and left, arguing happily all the time, Kate was satisfied that they had nothing to do with Gilbert’s death or the disposal of his body.

She spent some time online, cruising through the references that came up at the phrase “Sherlock Holmes manuscript,” and found a lot of nonsense and a few very peculiar things. She was sitting back in her chair to read the printout of a London newspaper article concerning a dispute within the Conan Doyle family when the phone rang.

It was the English accent again, which started without a preliminary. “About that list of potential evaluators?”

“Yes, Mr. Nicholson?”

“I’ve got some names and numbers for you, but my fax machine seems to have a gremlin in it, and the repair guy isn’t coming until next week. It’s rather laborious to read this sort of thing over the phone, particularly the e-mail addresses—I don’t know about you, but I’m forever getting letters wrong when I have to write them down. Shall I pop it into the post tomorrow?”

“How ’bout I drop by and pick it up this afternoon?”

“Okay, but I may be in and out. Can we set a firm time, so I’m certain to be here for you?”

“What about one o’clock?”

“The stroke of one it is.”

She went back to her reading, made a dozen more phone calls, and at 12:58 rounded the corner of Nicholson’s apartment building, finding him not only at home, but on the street across from the entrance. He was talking to a young blond woman—the same young blue-eyed blonde whose photographs were on display inside—as the latter rested her shapely backside against a bright yellow Volkswagen convertible. Hespotted Kate’s car and reached past the girl to pull open the Volkswagen’s door. She laughed at something he said and got in; he leaned own to take the hand that she had left on the bottom edge of the opened window, pulled it to his lips and kissed it with an air of playfulness, then returned it inside to the wheel. The girl laughed again, started the car, and drove away, trailing her fingers out the window in a wave.

Nicholson watched the yellow car until it had disappeared around the corner; in turn, Kate watched him. Some portion of that final scene had to have been staged for her benefit, but then, men in their fifties were apt to show off a trophy like that one. Hell, a lesbian in her thirties would want to show off a trophy like that, and really, she had to give him credit, another man would have climbed down the girl’s throat with his tongue to demonstrate right of possession. Nicholson turned, still smiling, to join Kate. “I am impressed with your punctuality, Inspector.”

“To serve and protect,” she quoted, and put her hand out for the folded sheet he pulled from his shirt pocket.

The page contained twenty-three names, seventeen of which had e-mail addresses, and phone numbers with area codes ranging from Los Angeles to New York.

“These are people I know whom Philip has consulted in the past. I’ve worked with all but two of them, they’re highly reliable and utterly trustworthy.”

“This is very helpful, Mr. Nicholson. Thank you.”

“And how is the investigation into his death going?”

Kate glanced at him curiously, realizing that, in Nicholson’s mind, the investigation into the story was a separate, and probably more urgent, matter than the investigation into Gilbert’s death. Like academics, she thought, collectors were a race apart.

“It’s going ahead, Mr. Nicholson.”

“Well, if there’s anything else I can do for you, please let me know. And I know you can’t promise me anything, but if I could have a look at that manuscript sometime, I would be most grateful.”

“I will keep it in mind, Mr. Nicholson.”

“I happen to know that Tom is Philip’s executor, although I don’t think the other Diners do—anyway, I had a word with him, and told him that I’ll need a few minutes to make an announcement at the Diners’ meeting tonight. I thought I should tell them about the story. I wish I could actually give them each a copy, but Philip hadn’t made his intentions clear. I suppose Tom will have to sort that out.

“The point is, I meant to say that if you’d like to join us this evening, you’d be more than welcome. You’d have to put up with our questions, of course.” He smiled, as if to apologize for the group’s odd habits.

When Geraldine O’Malley had extended the same invitation two days before, Kate had put her off. Since then, however, she had read the story, and the need to know more about its background was pressing on her.

“You know, I might,” she told Nicholson.

His friendly face lit up. “Great. We’re meeting at Tony’s Grill—you know where that is?—at six for drinks and business, dinner at seven, dessert and coffee around eight, nuts and Port by half past. You’re welcome to join us for all or part.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she told him, thinking,
nuts and Port?

KATE was on her seventh call to people who hadn’t heard from Philip Gilbert in months, whose voices gave her no sense of avoidance or deceit, when Al Hawkin came in and pulled the preliminary autopsy results from the fax machine. He stood at his desk reading the pages, then sorted through his accumulated messages; when she hung up, Kate growled at him, “I hope you’re not going to tell me Philip Gilbert was killed by a poison unknown to science.”

He peered at her over the top of his reading glasses. “Had a bit too much of the detective story business, have we?”

“Bunch of loonies, all of them.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “An attitude I always find productive. Did you skip lunch today?”

“Christ, Al, what are you, my mother?”

“Did you?” he pressed.

“I don’t know. Yeah, I guess I did, I’ve been busy.”

“Martinelli, step away from the phone. Let’s go get a sandwich. And put on your coat, it’s beginning to rain.”

“I’m nearly done here, Al—”

“Well, I’m not, and low blood sugar makes you too irritable to talk to. Either we eat or I head home.”

“All right, I’m coming. Jeez, you’re bossier than Nora.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

In fact, Kate was ravenous, and tore into the first half of her ham on ciabatta like an unfed wolf. She slowed long enough to drink half the iced tea in her glass, folded a couple of French fries into her mouth, and felt her body relax.

“Okay,” she said. “You want to go first, or shall I?”

“Philip Gilbert died of a heart attack.”

“Damn,” she said with feeling. Improper disposal of a body was nowhere near as serious a charge as murder, even manslaughter.

“However, in the coroner’s opinion, it would have been directly related to the blow on the head.”

“That’s in the report?”

“It will be. There’s a lot of technical language, but what it boils down to is, the shock of the blow killed him. Which, by the way, was from a blunt instrument that left no traces behind. And because whoever did it might have saved him by sticking one of his pills under his tongue, it’s probably good for a murder charge, not just manslaughter.”

Somewhat mollified that their efforts since Saturday hadn’t been entirely wasted, Kate ate another French fry and waited for Al to go on. When he had swallowed a bite of his hamburger, he did so.

“He was healthy enough, other than the weak ticker—that skinniness wasn’t AIDS or anything. Time of death confirmed as approximately six to seven days before he was found.”

“He was on his feet on Saturday morning, the twenty-fourth, phoning Ian Nicholson and then giving him the manuscript.”

“And the ranger thought the body would have been discovered if it had been there on Saturday.”

“He wasn’t absolutely certain. However, Sunday it was definitely raining and nobody went hiking around the headlands. So Gilbert could have been there as early as Saturday night.”

“Stomach contents indicated a heavy meal, something with meat and white beans in it, several hours before. And he might have had sex not long before he died, although the ME thinks he’d bathed afterwards. He took swabs, but there doesn’t seem to be much.”

Kate continued eating, long immune to any squeamishness at the contents of a dead man’s stomach or anus. “We haven’t found who he had dinner with. There was nothing of that sort in his refrigerator—either of his refrigerators—and it doesn’t sound like the kind of meal he’d cook for one.”

“Probably a restaurant, then?”

“I’d guess.”

“Sherlock Holmes would say that guessing was a habit shockingly bad to the rational facilities,” Al said placidly.

Kate dropped her sandwich and stared at him. “Oh Christ, Al, please tell me you haven’t become one of the loonies.”

He grinned at her. “Nope. I read the stories a very long time ago. Don’t worry, I’ll leave my deerstalker at home.”

“You wear a deerstalker, I’ll shoot it off your old gray head. What else did the autopsy come up with? Signs of that broken statue?”

“Oddly enough, no.”

Kate sat up sharply. “No?”

“Not in his scalp, not even in his clothing. Nothing.”

“How can that be? It was all over the floor.”

“Maybe it just broke into a few pieces, then got smashed further underfoot. You haven’t heard anything from the lab?”

“I’ll call and harass them some.”

“The ME did find some foreign matter in the scalp wound. Coarse fibers, like—”

Her head came up sharply. “Like from a towel?”

“How’d you guess? Er, know?”

She sighed, and at his raised eyebrow, explained how towel fibers in a scalp wound came into the story she had read.

“Maybe I’d better take a look at the thing, too,” Al said.

“I’ll make you a copy.”

“There were also indications that he was wrapped in something else for a while, either a sheet or a tarpaulin. Their lab will take a closer look at his clothes, see if they give anything, but I think it’s safe to say that he was well bundled before he was transported, so we’re not going to find any trunk fibers on him.”

That was too bad. Fibers from a car’s trunk carpeting could be both revealing and incriminating, first pointing them at a specific make of car, later nailing down a conviction. Trouble was, even the amateurs knew that, and worse, were firmly convinced that every lab did every conceivable test for any case under investigation, and did them all within twenty-four hours. The victims were even more troublesome, complaining when the lab didn’t vacuum and do DNA testing on hairs found at a burglary. “TV has a lot to answer for,” she grumbled.

“So, where are we?” Hawkin asked rhetorically. “We’ve got the autopsy results and the labs will process what they found at the two sites when they can.”

“Do we even know the blood on the chair was Gilbert’s?”

“Something else for you to harass them about. What about the vic’s history and contacts?”

“That’s what I’ve been working on. I got a list of the people he might have asked to look at this story of his, in addition to a list of known acquaintances the lawyer sent on Sunday. I’ve reached about half of them. Nobody so far says they talked to him in the days before he was killed—I think the latest anyone admitted to, other than Ian Nicholson, was Thursday.”