Marcia Muller - Locked In

Julia agreed, even if it meant another evening without being able to read to Tonio.

She ended the call, then sat back and stared at the thick files.

Not likely that Larry Peeples-with or without the cooperation of Ben Gold-had taken a branch of Home Showcase for 100,000 dollars in small bills. He’d worked in the stockroom, had no access to money. Ben worked the sales desk, but Julia knew from Sophia’s experience as a clerk at Safeway that the cash drawer had to balance out to the penny every day. Besides, most people paid by credit card.

She supposed Larry and Ben could’ve worked a computer scam to skim money, but that took smarts like Mick’s or Derek’s. Ben-a model and wannabe actor on the side-didn’t have that kind of brainpower, and Larry had been described as kind of dim by Haven Dietz. Even Larry’s parents seemed aware of his limitations.

So why had he hidden the money in the tack room? And possibly appeared last night to reclaim it?

Maybe he was afraid the bills had been marked, or the serial numbers noted. Maybe he’d left them there till he’d thought it was safe to spend it. Maybe he’d disappeared because he was afraid of being found out. But wasn’t six months long enough? Was the quiet, loving son his parents had described the kind of man who could do such a cruel thing to his folks and his lover?

She called Home Showcase and learned that Ben Gold was working the day shift. Then she set out for Union Square.

Angie Atkins, a prostitute found dead in an alley off Sixth Street three years ago. Angie’s friend Callie O’Leary, who had hooked up with a sleazy attorney and abandoned her fleabag hotel room. Rae might never find O’Leary. Sad fact, but women in the sex trade often disappeared or were randomly killed and their bodies never identified. Some simply moved on. Others-the lucky ones-retreated into lives of respectability.

So which kind was Callie?

Rae was sitting at the desk allotted to her in the office shared by Thelia Chen and Diane D’Angelo, Thelia’s assistant whom Shar had hired last December. Chen was superefficient, a former analyst at Bank of America, with a wide range of contacts within the city’s financial world; she was descended from an old, respected Chinatown family and could tell stories of the history of the Chinese in California in which her own people were personally involved.

D’Angelo, a CPA, was something of a puzzle: she was very reserved, didn’t speak of her life outside the office, and generally… well, didn’t fit with the agency culture. Rae had sneaked a look at her personnel file and found she was a member of a well-to-do Peninsula family, had gone to an exclusive Bay Area private school and to Yale, then worked three years for a major New York City accounting firm. Unspecified personal reasons were cited for her return to the Bay Area. From her address in fashionable Cow Hollow, Rae assumed she didn’t really have to work and was getting a kick out of playing at being a private investigator.

Of course, Rae couldn’t criticize her for that: she didn’t need to work either.

But need wasn’t relevant to her situation, or Ricky’s. They were both driven people. Poor most of their lives, once they’d found their respective niches they’d poured everything they had into their work. Being able to do the thing you loved was rare-a gift that shouldn’t be squandered.

Besides, work had gotten her out of the house on a Sunday when Ricky, two of his band members, four of the kids, and Charlene and her husband, Vic, were having a barbecue.

Talk about extended families…

Angie Atkins, on the other hand, had had no family of any kind, no history. Today’s throwaway woman with, probably, only a made-up name that had already faded in the SFPD’s files. Impossible to find her killer.

No, not impossible. She was going to close this one. And maybe find a link to Shar’s shooting.

He sat in a booth at Lulu’s Diner in Monterey, repeatedly turning his coffee cup in its saucer. In spite of what Craig had told him about one’s appetite returning quickly, the smell of bacon, eggs, toast, and pancakes made him queasy. Pictures of the dead man and woman-only flashes, but vivid-kept appearing in his mind.

He’d never venture out into the field again. A desk, a monitor, a keyboard-those were the things he needed to look at. Not bodies and bloodstains. Leave that stuff to the pros with the strong stomachs.

Traffic whizzed by on Munras Avenue, a long street on the edge of the downtown area that seemed mainly populated by motels and eateries. Low-budget tourist heaven. The fog was thick here-although not as thick as farther south-and people were bundled up and walking quickly along the sidewalk. Getaway weekend for a lot of people from the Bay Area, where today the sun was predicted to shine.

This location, Mick reflected, was uncomfortably close to the quaint seaside town of Carmel, where he and Sweet Charlotte had gone for a supposedly romantic winter vacation. They’d checked into a little bed-and-breakfast on a side street, had lunch at an expensive trattoria, window-shopped. He’d bought her a necklace she’d admired at a jewelry store-all the time thinking of how surprised she’d be at the diamond ring in his jacket pocket-and at sunset, on the white sand beach at the end of Ocean Avenue where wind-warped cypress grew, he’d proposed to her.

She’d said no. In fact she’d been planning to wait till the end of the weekend to tell him she’d be moving out of his condo next week. She needed some space, she said.

Mick never took the ring out of his pocket. They’d walked silently back to the B &B, collected their things, and driven straight back to the city. Next day, Charlotte had started packing her belongings; she’d already found a place on Potrero Hill. Mick returned the ring to Tiffany’s later that week.

And had vowed never again to set foot in Carmel.

Now he tried to blank out, lose himself in the flow of vehicles on Munras, but unpleasant images of both the crime scene and the abortive trip to Carmel persisted. He was grateful when he saw Craig’s SUV pull into the lot.

Craig came inside, looking like the ordinary tourist in search of breakfast. He raised a hand to Mick and came back to the booth. A waitress appeared quickly, and he ordered something called the Seaside Special, raised his eyebrows at Mick.

“Toast,” Mick said. “No, make that an English muffin. And a glass of milk.” When the server departed, he leaned toward Craig and asked, “Took you a long time.”

“Flat tire a few miles down the coast.”

Mick glanced around; nobody was paying any attention to their conversation. “What were those things you had to do in Big Sur?”

“Take another look at… the people. And search for a document she made him sign.”

“That… thing, you’re sure it wasn’t murder-suicide?”

“I’d stake my life on it. When I went back to the room I took a closer look at them. Needle marks on their necks, probably some kind of fast-acting sedative. Made it easier to move him to her room and set up the scene beforehand. Any good ME will spot them immediately.”

“So the shooter doesn’t care if it comes out that it was murder?”

“All he wanted was that document-he got it-and a clean getaway. The initial news reports will create a commotion that’ll overshadow what the autopsy reveals. And by that time the story’ll be off page one.”

Their food arrived. Mick took a sip of milk. Better.

He asked, “But how did the shooter get in? They wouldn’t’ve left their doors unlocked.”

“No dead bolts-remember? Those old snap locks are flimsy. Or he could’ve gotten hold of a passkey; that clerk who checked me in didn’t look as if she was above taking a bribe.”