Wolf in the Shadows (20 page)

“Never figured to see
you
in my office,” he said, motioning for me to sit. “You haven’t changed all that much. Still eat tons of chocolate?”

“Not like I used to.”

Viner patted the beginnings of a beer belly. “Just as well. You could really suck it up, be fat as a hog if you didn’t cut
back some. That’s what we were all waiting for, but you just stayed slim as ever. I take it you didn’t marry that bozo who
was captain of the swim team. What was his name?”

“Bobby Ellis.” As I said it, I felt an irrational flash of resentment. Bobby had taken my fragile early love and virginity,
then dumped me for someone more socially acceptable to his upwardly mobile parents. I realized now that I was
glad
I’d tossed his class ring off the Coronado ferry. “He married somebody with a lot of money, who proceeded to make his life
hell,” I added with some relish. “They’re divorced now.”

“Isn’t everybody? What’s Joey doing these days?”

“Living up in McMinnville, Oregon.”

“Doing what?”

I shrugged. “Working in a restaurant—at least that’s what he was doing last week.”

Viner shook his head. “Joey’s a good guy, but … You think he’ll ever find himself?”

“Joey doesn’t have the sense to know he’s lost.”

He smiled at that, then sobered. “So what can I do for you?”

I took out my identification and passed it across the desk to him. His eyes widened slightly as he examined it. “What do you
know? From cheerleader to private investigator. You have your own office or work for somebody else?”

“Somebody else, a San Francisco law firm.” I said it reflexively, then remembered it was no longer true. “I’m here on a routine
missing-person investigation, and I came across some information that might interest you. What do you know about a shooting
that occurred in a burned-out adobe on the mesa above Monument Road in San Ysidro Sunday night? Victim was a male Caucasian.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I heard about it from some Hispanics I was interviewing in the South Bay.”

“So you rushed up here to report it, like a good citizen.”

“No, I came up here because I think the victim may be the man I’m trying to locate.”

“His name?” He picked up a pen and drew a scratch pad closer.

“I can’t say. It’s a routine case, no crime involved, and the family doesn’t want publicity.” I felt uncomfortable lying so
badly, especially to an old friend of my brother, but this was a situation where I couldn’t be straightforward.

Viner sighed and tossed his pen on the desk, then turned to his computer terminal. He typed, stared at the screen, then brought
up some more information. “Male Caucasian. Six foot three, medium build, brown hair, no identifying marks. Shot in the gut
with a forty-four Magnum. Anonymous tip was phoned in to south station—in case you aren’t aware of it, San Ysidro’s part
of the city, which is why we’ve got jurisdiction—at two fifty-one Monday morning. Body’s in the morgue. No I.D. on him. We’re
trying to get a print match, but you know how that goes.”

At first I didn’t speak, afraid my voice would betray my agitation. The description could fit Hy—or Timothy Mourning. Finally
I asked, “Anything about a ring on the body?”

Viner stared at the screen, then shook his head. “Could’ve been stolen before we got to the scene. What the hell he was doing
down there at that time of night …” He sighed again. “Beaners, that’s who shot him, and odds’re we’ll never get the perp.
If they stuck up something like the Berlin Wall at the border, it’d make my job a hundred percent easier.”

I ignored that, merely said, “I’d be glad to try to make an I.D.”

“Okay, you go on up there to the county center. I’ll call and let them know you’re on the way. Report back to me afterward.”

I stood and started for the door.

“McCone,” he called after me.

“Yes?”

“Can you still turn a cartwheel?”

“What?”

“A cartwheel, like you girls did every time the team scored.” His smile was tinged with both nostalgia and lustfulness. “God,
I used to wait for those touchdowns! You wore the prettiest little bikini pants of anybody on the squad.”

Amazed, I just stared at him for a moment. Then I turned and headed for the county morgue.

*    *    *

The day had warmed fast, and the air conditioning at the severely functional County Operations Center up north near NAS Miramar
wasn’t working worth a damn. In spite of how cold such places usually feel, it was warm even in Building 14, which housed
the medical examiner’s office—formerly the coroner’s office, a sign on the street had told me as I’d turned off Overland
Avenue.

I waited in the viewing room for the unidentified man’s body to appear on the TV screen, glad that I didn’t need to look at
it up close in the cold room, my stomach knotted tight enough as it was, my breath coming shallow. Even at such a remove the
sight of the dead is unsettling, more so if the person is someone dear to you.

“Ready, Ms. McCone?” the attendant asked.

I nodded, realizing I held the arm of the chair in a steely grip.

The man appeared on the screen then: surreally bluish green, through some flaw in the transmission. He was tall, slender.
Had dark blond hair, a droopy mustache, razor-sharp features. In death he looked peaceful, almost serene.

He wasn’t Hy.

He wasn’t Timothy Mourning.

I’d never seen him before.

*    *    *

I used the attendant’s phone to call Gary Viner. “It’s not my clients’ son. I have no idea who he is.”

“You sure you’re not holding anything back, McCone?”

Only the killer’s name, a kidnapping, a botched two-million-dollar ransom payment, and a disappearance. “I’m sure. The people
I talked with misled me.”

“Beaners.” Viner sighed. “Fuckin’ stupid beaners. Well, thanks for trying.”

“
De nada
,” I said ironically, and hung up.

*    *    *

Back at my father’s house, I sat down at the little desk in the family room, where my mother used to pay the bills. Found
a scratch pad in the center drawer and began to doodle as I thought.

No ideas came, and my mind drifted to the previous night and my confrontation with Marty Salazar. Salazar had lied, of course,
giving me a description that was a composite of Hy and the man in the morgue. Which proved one thing: he’d gotten a good look
at both of them before committing the murder.

I wished I could feel certain Hy was alive, but I knew that wasn’t necessarily the case. Salazar might have killed him too,
disposed of his body but been prevented from removing the other man’s by the arrival of the police. Or Hy could have escaped
wounded and by now be dead or dying. In truth, the only thing my trip to the morgue had given me was a faint hope coupled
with a sense of extreme urgency. I had to move on this investigation, move fast.

My fingers were gripping the pencil I’d been doodling with; now it snapped in two. I threw the pieces into the wastebasket
so hard that one bounced out again. I was angry, and not just with Salazar. I was angry at myself for not heeding what Abrego
had said before we met with the man he quite rightfully described as slime.

“Part of it’ll be true, part’ll be lies. You keep what you can use, throw the rest away.” But I hadn’t done that. I’d kept
it all, failed to listen critically. I’d allowed my emotions to overrule my professionalism.

Well, my emotions were stabilized now, and it was time to proceed. From here on out, I’d rely on logic. Another indulgence
I wouldn’t permit myself was trying for a connection to Hy. My previous failures to achieve one meant absolutely nothing;
sometimes, for whatever reasons, the best of connections aren’t in service.

So get started. Start with a name—no, two names. Brockowitz and Ann Navarro.

Not much to go on with either. Navarro was a fairly common surname. Brockowitz wasn’t, but the person to whom it belonged
could be male or female. I dug out the phone directories for both city and county from the desk drawer and hunted through
them. No Brockowitzes. One A. C. Navarro. I called the number; the man who answered said nobody named Ann lived there. I checked
Information for new listings. None.

After eating a sandwich made from fixings I’d bought on the way back here, I drove back to the county center and spent several
tedious hours exploring their various records. I found a birth certificate for an Edward Brockowitz, but a further check revealed
a death certificate as well. An Analisa Navarro had been born at Balboa Naval Hospital in 1961, but the records contained
no further trace of her. No one of either name had ever registered to vote, filed a fictitious business name statement, applied
for a business license or other permit, or paid property taxes.

I left the center deeply discouraged. Navarro and Brockowitz didn’t have to be from San Diego County or even from California.
Normally I would have carried my line of inquiry to other counties, state agencies, federal agencies, but not in this case.
That process was slow, time-consuming, and guaranteed nothing.

I’d thought of one person who might be able to help me, but for safety’s sake I wanted to limit my contact with her to one
call. Tired as I was, I might forget to ask something, overlook the obvious question. My reactions were slowing; if I went
on this way, I’d be in danger of making a potentially fatal mistake. Even though it was only four in the afternoon, I decided
to go back to my father’s house and sleep on the problem. Maybe my ever overactive subconscious would provide a solution.

*    *    *

An unidentifiable sound woke me. I sat upright on the family room sofa, saw it was full dark. The temperature had dropped
markedly; a cold breeze rustled the draperies next to the patio door. I got up and went over there, looked out and saw nothing.
Then I felt my way to the desk and peered at the clock. Nearly half past eleven. I’d slept over six hours.

The sound came again—somewhere out back. An animal creeping up from the canyon? Or a human creeping up on the house?

I moved to the door again and felt to make sure the screen was latched—not that it would present much of an obstacle for
someone determined to get inside. Then I stood very still, scarcely breathing, and studied the patterns of light and shadow.

Another sound, and now I saw some motion—far to the right, opposite the kitchen. Just a dark ripple against the foliage,
and then it went away. But not before I could tell it was a human figure. For five minutes more I waited there; then I slid
the inner glass door shut and moved the security bar into place. I’d check the kitchen door next—

The phone shrilled.

Don’t answer it, I thought. But what if it was important? No, that couldn’t be. John was the only person who knew I was here.
I’d let it ring to give whoever was outside the impression the house was unoccupied, then call him back.

After eight rings it stopped. I crossed to the desk and punched out John’s number. He answered immediately. “So you
are
there. You okay?”

“Yes. What’s up?”

“Your Mr. Renshaw just paid me a visit. He said—”

I cut him off. “Hang up. Get out of there and go to a pay phone. Call me back.”

Without a word he did as I told him. I locked the kitchen door, checked windows, waited. When the phone rang fifteen minutes
later, I snatched up the receiver.

John’s voice spoke over a babble of background music. “Okay, I’m at a place called Pinky’s. Somebody followed me, but they
haven’t come inside yet. I don’t see how they could’ve tapped my phone when Renshaw just—”

“We don’t know how long they’ve known about you; they could have been watching the house all day. We’d better talk fast. What
did Renshaw say?”

“Gave me a message for you. If you go in to their La Jolla office and turn over the money he paid you, plus whatever information
you’ve got on Ripinsky, they’ll call it a wash.”

Sure they would. “That’s all?”

“That’s all I let him say. I told him you and I haven’t spoken in years and threw him out.”

“Did he believe you?”

“Couldn’t tell. But I don’t think he knows about … where you are. Under his tough-guy act he seemed kind of desperate.”

That was good on one level, disconcerting on another. If the person I’d glimpsed outside wasn’t an RKI operative, who
could
he or she be? One of the kidnappers? One of Salazar’s “people”? Someone whose existence I wasn’t yet aware of?

“Shar,” John said, “if they can find me, they can find—”

“I know. I’m going to get out of here. I need a favor, though. I’ll put the key to my room at the Bali Kai in the mail to
you. Go there and collect the stuff I left. Leave the room key in the express checkout and then take the rental car—the key’s
in the room—back to the airport. Just keep my stuff at your house.”

“Will do.”

“Thanks. I’ll call you when this is over.”

There was a long pause. Then he said, “Okay, you bitch. You don’t want to meet me for a drink, screw you,” and hung up. The
tail had come close enough to overhear his end of the conversation.

For a moment I fretted, then reminded myself that my brother could take care of himself. Besides, Gage Renshaw knew that leaning
on John wouldn’t get them what they wanted—namely me.

I got up, took Pa’s .45 from the end table where I’d placed it before going to sleep that afternoon, and began to prowl through
the house, looking out the windows. From the empty, echoing living room I spotted a cat parked down the street that hadn’t
been there the past two nights—an old dark-colored Datsun, shabbier than what most of the neighbors drove. The license plate
was unreadable, and a big pepper tree cast confusing shadows. I crouched on the floor by the front window for quite some time
before I felt reasonably certain the car was unoccupied.

That didn’t reassure me much, though. After a few hours of tossing and turning, I gave up on further sleep. Got dressed and
packed my things, plus the clothing of Karen’s that I’d borrowed, in a bag I found in the closet of Charlene and Patsy’s old
room. Then I finished off the sandwich fixings and huddled in the quilts on the family room couch, waiting for the windows
to grow light, for the coo of mourning doves in the canyon, for the faint hum of freeway traffic that would tell me the exodus
of commuters from the neighborhood was about to begin.