The Simeon Chamber (21 page)

“Where is it?”

“My secretary has some files that were scheduled for typing at her apartment. I had dictated a letter to you before I landed in the hospital. It must be there,” he lied.

“Maybe we can go over and pick it up.”

“It won’t do any good.”

“Why not?”

“She was going out today.” He stopped the pursuit with one last lie.

The Davies file was gone. It had vanished, and with it the photograph of Raymond Slade.

The thought sent a chill up Sam’s spine as his eyes nervously scanned the darkened recesses of the abandoned law office.

The blue Porsche purred at seventy miles per hour along the Bayshore Freeway. Sam had expected to spend most of the day trying to pick up the trail of Arthur Symington. Phillipe Lamonge hadn’t seen the man for more than thirty years. It was unlikely that anyone at the paper would remember him after all that time, much less know if he were alive and if so, where he could be found.

“How did you find this guy Symington so quickly?” Jennifer asked.

Sam had been lucky. After Jennifer called, saying she would be late, he 1

visited the first of the two newspapers in the city. He was armed with a thin cover story. Sam posed as Arthur Symington’s distant nephew out on the Coast for a quick business trip and interested in looking the old man up. But before he could even get into character, an aging security guard at the information desk said: “Oh, Art. Nope. He’s not with the paper anymore. Hasn’t been for years. Last I heard he was workin’ under a special contract or something. Livin’ down on the coast, someplace called Cambria.” Bogardus was almost embarrassed to take the note from the guard after the man confirmed the last known mailing address by phone with the personnel office upstairs. Sam thanked the guard profusely, turned and whispered as he walked away: “Quite a security system.”

“Let’s just hope the information is current.” Sam gripped the steering wheel with both hands and looked over his left shoulder as he swung out into the fast lane.

“Where’s Cambria?”

“About a hundred and fifty miles south, on the coast.”

“Wait a second. I don’t even have a change of clothes.”

“You wanted to be in on everything. Don’t complain, you’re in.”

“Will we be back tonight?”

“Not likely. Relax. You’re gonna love it. A small village, very quaint.”

Bogardus looked in the mirror and slid the Porsche back into the number two lane, around a slowly moving camper.

Jennifer settled into her seat for the long ride.

They sat in silence as the car purred down Highway 101 through the Silicon Valley and out into the countryside south of Salinas. The smooth whine of the rear engine droned in a monotone as the Porsche left the flat farmlands of the Salinas Valley and headed past King City. Sam wound up the engine another notch and Jennifer watched the speedometer go to eighty. Ninety minutes later he pulled off the highway in Paso Robles.

“Hungry?” Sam looked at her. It was nearly 2:00 P.M.

She was famished. “I can eat.”

For the last hour her mind had been preoccupied with thoughts of Arthur Symington, a man whose name she had not known two days before. Did he know her father? Had he ever met him? More 3

important, if the story Lamonge had told Sam was correct, Symington had met Raymond Slade and could identify him. All she would have to do is get him back to the city for a quick meeting and she would have the answer to the question that had gnawed at her for twenty years.

Sam pulled the Porsche into the parking lot of a large old Spanish Colonial building on the main street. The sign over the door read “Paso Robles Inn.”

Three minutes later they were seated at a table near a window looking out over a rustic courtyard.

“Well, what do you think?” Sam looked across at her.

“What do you mean?”

“You must have some questions for Symington when we find him?”

He was fishing. What did she really want to know? Given the ray of hope represented by the note on the parchments, why did she insist that her father was dead, murdered by Raymond Slade? And why was Slade’s picture so important?

“Symington’s yours. I’m just along for the ride, remember.”

“But you must have something that you’d like to ask him?”

“I’d like to know what the `Committee of Acquisition` is, for starters. And what it had to do with my father, if anything.” She paused for a second, then added, “I’d also like to know what he knows about Raymond Slade. When he saw the man last? If he can describe him?”

Like the flash of illumination from a bolt of lightning, Bogardus got the first glimpse of what it was that Jennifer Davies was not telling him. It was conveyed in the tense of her words, more than the content of her question. She believed that Raymond Slade was alive. Why else would his description be important? What did she know about Raymond Slade?

“You never told me why you were so interested in Slade’s photograph.”

“Just idle curiosity. It’s a name that I’ve heard since childhood. I suppose I just wanted to put a face with it. Maybe in my mind there’s a certain mystique about the man who was with my father on the day the blimp went down.”

It was a plausible answer, but not the one Sam was searching for. 5

“You never told me why you’re so certain that your father is dead.”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes. Don’t you remember? The day I dropped in at your law office.”

“Oh. I probably said a lot of things that day. I must admit I was more than a little embarrassed.”

Sam was uncertain about many things in life, and the events of the past week had shaken his confidence in those few that he had come to accept. But of one thing he was sure—he had yet to get the entire truth from Jennifer Davies.

Jasper Holmes leaned on the desk, drumming his fingers on the wooden surface and staring into the face of the flustered undergraduate. The student’s beet red face matched his bright crimson sweater.

“My dear boy, I don’t care what he told you. I want to know where I can find Professor Jorgensen, and I want to know now.”

“He hasn’t been in for two days,” said the student.

“Tell me something I don’t know. I’ve been camped at his office since Tuesday. Surely he must have checked with the department—

collected his messages?” Holmes cast his eyes at the class schedule posted on the chart behind the student. Jorgensen had now missed two lectures, and arrangements had been made to have a teaching assistant fill in. Holmes knew that no tenured professor would miss his classes without making arrangements for a substitute.

The student looked around nervously. He was not in the habit of refusing information to faculty members. Still, Professor Jorgensen had been explicit in his instructions. No one except the faculty dean was to be given the telephone number or address in Daly City.

“I’m sorry. I can’t give you that information.” The student braced himself for the onslaught. Instead Holmes merely raised up and directed an imperious glare at the young man for several seconds.

“Well. We shall see about this.” The Englishman turned on his heels and walked from the office, leaving the door open wide in his wake.

Holmes did not walk far. Twenty 257

yards down the corridor he spied a young coed, a salacious blonde in a short skirt whom he recognized from his lower-division literature lecture. “Well, Ms. Eckert. Lovely to see you again.” Jasper pumped up his best smile.

The girl was clearly surprised and a little embarrassed. The two students with whom she’d been talking wandered off, intimidated by the abrupt intrusion of the Englishman.

“I wonder if I might ask you to do me a favor, my dear?”

Sally Eckert stammered, and before she could reply, Jasper leaned over and whispered something in her ear.

Straightening up, he said: “I would be most grateful. I’m in a dreadful rush at the moment and I will need the car immediately after my next lecture.”

The young girl pointed tentatively toward the faculty office of the history department where the door remained open.

“Yes, that’s right. It’s parked in space 36

in the faculty lot. And do me a favor.

Don’t tell him it’s my car. It’s rather embarrassing. Besides, I think he’ll be more willing to assist if he thinks it belongs to you.” Jasper winked and put his arm around the girl’s shoulder, pushing her gently but firmly toward the office door.

Two minutes later he stood behind a group of undergraduates and watched Sally Eckert as she exited the faculty office. Following a half stride behind like an eager puppy dog, the young man in the crimson sweater struggled to keep pace, his eyes glued to the blonde. A wire coat hanger dangled from the boy’s fingers. Holmes waited until the two dropped down the stairs out of sight and then walked quickly toward the office.

He stepped inside, closed the door and locked it, then moved to the other side of the reception desk and rifled through the Rolodex under the letter J. It took him less than fifteen seconds to find what he wanted; a rough penciled notation on one of the index cards: “Prof. Jorgensen—127 Werner Avenue, Daly City.” A telephone number followed.

Ten minutes later Jasper stood at the curb in front of the administration 9

building. He leaned over and spoke through the half-open window into the passenger compartment of a black limousine.

“You know what to do now.” The voice came from beyond the shadows inside the vehicle. “We have a deal, Professor. You deliver on your end and when I’m finished it’s yours.” The passenger tapped the glass partition separating him from the driver with the tip of a walking cane and the car pulled away from the curb. Holmes took a long stride into the street and instantly pivoted like a trooper in a drill team heading in the opposite direction. He stepped behind a large oleander bush and listened as the two figures passed unseen toward the administration building.

“Listen, I don’t know any more than you do. All I know is what he told me. That his keys were locked inside the car.”

“Why did you tell me it was your car?”

“Because he told me to.”

Jasper stepped away from the bush and admired the long slender legs and provocative wiggle of the young blonde as she scaled the stairs toward the building. The young man scurrying along behind swung the mangled and twisted remains of the wire coat hanger from his right hand. Holmes wondered whose car was parked in space 36 of the faculty lot—and whether its doors would respond to the owner’s key at the end of the day. 8

He thumped a small tambourine and skipped in an odd rhythmic gait through the door and down the aisle of the shop. His white muslin gown ended in the grizzled hair of his calf just below the knee. The cloth was splotched with stains and bore the dirt and wrinkles of restless nights on cold pavement. The man’s shaven head was in stark contrast to the dark shadow of stubble that covered his face beneath glassy, vacant eyes.

“A flower, sister?” He reached down and held out a small plastic stem with a single red blossom, barely taking the time to remove the tag that had read “Disabled Veterans.” His face beamed a disingenuous smile as he continued to dance in place, the odor of his body, a mixture of incense and sweat, slowly pervading the area around the cash register.

Jeannette Lamonge ignored him as 261

she packaged the item for an old lady at the counter. The customer looked at the man’s filthy feet and without a word grabbed her purchase and walked quickly from the shop.

Jeannette fixed the tall Hare Krishna with a cold stare. Gingerly he withdrew the extended hand with the flower and skipped toward the back of the shop, fingering a dozen small wooden carvings on the way. Jeannette kept one eye on him as she waited on the last customer. It was two minutes after five. If she’d only been a few seconds quicker she could have bolted the door and barred the last visitor. She stapled the receipt to the top of the bag and handed the package to the young girl who cast a wary eye at the patron in the rear of the shop.

“Thank you,” said Jeannette, turning to deal with the Krishna.

“May I help you?” She stood several feet from the man and listened as the bell over the door rang with the departure of the girl.

“We need some incense,” said the man. “Perhaps you could bless us with a modest gift.”

“We have incense for sale, if that’s what you want. We do not give merchandise away.”

“You will be blessed manyfold in the next life for what you bestow on others in this world,” said the man.

“I’m certain of it. Now if you wish to make a purchase, please do so. Otherwise I will have to ask you to leave, as it’s time to close the shop.”

She noticed something strange about the man’s head. It was not exactly a lump, more of a slight bubble that protruded from the side of his skull just above the right ear.

The Krishna turned slowly and casually poked his head through the curtain separating the small workroom from the public part of the shop. When he turned to look at Jeannette again, the bubble over his ear had suddenly moved two inches to the back of his skull and his eyes had lost their glassy quality.

Suddenly, Jeannette felt a viselike grip on her arm as she was propelled down the aisle toward the front door to the shop.

“Lock it.” The man spoke through clenched teeth. “Where’s the old man? Is he upstairs?”

Wincing in pain from the pressure on her arm, Jeannette nodded. 263

Nick Jorgensen shook his head in desperation as he drew the tip of his red pen across the marred page of the blue book and scrawled a curt note in the margin—”Missed the point entirely.” His eyes were beginning to blur as he gazed down at the examination booklets scattered on the floor at his feet. He had gotten a total of two hours’ sleep the night before. Angie had wakened him at three in the morning to ask him if the word “pernicious” had ten letters or only nine. She’d wandered into the downstairs apartment and flipped on the light. Wearing a brightly colored Mexican dress with a large Spanish comb in her hair, she had looked like an aging and wilted version of Carmen Miranda. She was carrying a crossword puzzle book. The old lady never seemed to sleep. Now he heard her calling again.