Marcia Muller - McCone And Friends

There was a silence inside the studio, then Adrian screamed and cried some more. He’d hit her again, I guessed. Then he said, “I’m not going to ask you again, Adrian. Where’re the pictures?”

“There aren’ t any! Look, Kirby’s always bullshitting, he had me fooled. I was going to go to you about what he was doing at the plaza, until I saw you at the house with him, making a deal with that fence.”

That was what had made her run out of the Naples Street place so fast she’d left her backpack-made her run straight to Aunt June, the only person she’d told about the trouble she was in, the person who’d offered to take her side and shelter her. Well, June had tried. Now it was up to me.

I started moving around the building, duck-walking like my high-school phys ed teacher had made us do when we goofed off in gym. Inside, I heard Waterson say, “You never knew about a hidden camera at that place in the Outer Mission?”

“No.”

“Kirby never asked you to take pictures of me doing deals the fences?”

“Neither of us took any pictures. This story is just more of Kirby’s bullshit.”

Waterson laughed-an ugly sound. “Well,” he said, “it was Kirby’s last shovelful of bullshit. He’s dead.”

“What…?” Adrian’s question rose up into a shriek.

I stopped listening, concentrated on getting to the corner of the building. Then I peeked around it. On this side-the one facing the water-there was a window and a door. I duckwalked on, thanking god that I still had some muscles left in my thighs. At the window I poked my head up a little, but all saw were shadows-a big barrel-shaped one that had to be Waterson, and some warped, twisted ones that were downright weird the light shivered and flickered-probably from a candle or oil lamp.

The door was closed, but the wind was rattling it in its frame. It made me think of how the wind had torn the cottage door from my grasp. I stopped, pressed against the wall, and studied this door. From the placement of its hinges, I could tell it opened out. I scuttled around to the hinged side, paused and listened. Adrian was screaming and sobbing again. Christ, what was he doing to her?

Well, the sound would hide what I was about to do.

I stood, pressed flat as could be against the wall, then reached across the door to its knob and gave it a quick twist. The door opened, then slammed shut again.

“What the hell?” Waterson said.

Heavy footsteps came toward the door. I tensed, knife out and ready.

Don’t think about how it’ll be when you use it, Rae. Just do it-two lives are at stake here, and one’s your own.

The door opened. All I could see was a wide path of wavery light. Waterson said, “Fuckin’ wind,” and shut the door again. Well, hell.

I waited a few seconds until his footsteps went away, reached for the knob again, and really yanked on it this time. The wind caught the door, slammed it back, and it smashed into me, smacking my nose. I bit my lip to keep from yelling, felt tears spring to my eyes. I wiped them away with my left hand, gripped the knife till my right hand hurt.

The footsteps came back again, quicker now, and I grasped the knife with both hands-ready, not thinking about it, just ready to do it because I had to. When he stepped outside, I shoved the door as hard as I could with my whole body, slamming him against the frame. He shouted, staggered, reeled back inside.

I went after him, saw him stumbling among a bunch of weird, twisted shapes that were some sort of pottery sculptures-the things that had made the strange shadows I’d glimpsed through the window. Some were as tall as he was, others were shorter or stood on pedestals. He grabbed at one and brought it down as he tried to keep his balance and raise his gun.

The gun went off. The roar was deafening, but I hadn’t heard any whine, so his shot must have gone wide of me. Waterson stumbled back into a pedestal, flailing. I lunged at him, knife out in front of me. We both went down together. I heard the gun drop on the floor as I slashed out with the knife.

Waterson had hold of my arm now, slammed it against the floor. Pain shot up to my shoulder, my fingers went all prickly, and I dropped the knife. He pushed me away and started scrambling for the gun. I got up on my knees, grabbed at the base of the nearest sculpture, pushed. It hit his back and knocked him flat.

Waterson howled. I saw the gun about a foot from his hand and kicked out, sending it sliding across the floor. Then I stood all the way up, grabbed a strange many-spouted vase from a pedestal. And slammed it down on his head.

Waterson grunted and lay still.

I slumped against the pedestal, but only for a moment before I went to pick up the gun. The room was very quiet all of a sudden, except for sobbing coming from one corner. Adrian was trussed up there, dangling like a marionette from one of the support beams, her feet barely touching the plank floor.

She had the beginnings of a black eye and tears sheened her face, and she was jerking at her ropes like she was having some kind of attack. I located the knife, made what I hoped were reassuring noises as I went over there, and cut her down, she stumbled toward a mattress that lay under the window and curled up fetus-like, pulling the heavy blanket around her. I went over to Waterson and used the longer pieces of rope to truss him up.

Then I went back to Adrian. She was shivering violently, eyes unfocused, fingers gripping the edge of the blanket. I sat down on the mattress beside her, gently loosened her fingers, and cradled her like a baby.

“Sssh,” I said. “It’s over now, all over.”

I was lolling around All Soul’s living room on Friday night, waiting for Willie and planning how I’d relate my triumph in solving the Conway-Dalson case to him, when the call came from Inspector Adah Joslyn.

“I just back from Marin County,” she told me “Waterson’s finally confessed to the Simoom murder, but he denies killing Kirby Dalson.”

“Well, of course he would. Dalson was obviously premeditated, while the poker in Simoom’s hand could be taken to mean self-defense.”

“He’ll have to hire one hell of a lawyer to mount a defense like that, given what he did to the niece. But that’s not my problem. What is it that he’s got a verifiable alibi for the time of Dalson’s death.”

“ What ?”

“Uh-huh. Dalson didn’t leave his parents’ house until six-twenty that night. Six to seven, Waterson was in a meeting with several of the Ocean Park Plaza merchants, including Adrian Conway’s former boss.”

I remembered Sue Hanford saying Waterson had taken off the morning before Kirby was killed and hadn’t come back until six. I hadn’t thought to ask her how she knew that or if he’d stayed around afterwards. Damn! Maybe I wasn’t the hot shot I thought I was.

Adah asked, “You got any ideas on this?”

Unwilling to admit I didn’t, I said, “Maybe. Let me get back to you.” I hung up the phone on Ted’s desk, then took the stairs two at a time and went to Sharon’s office.

She wasn’t there. Most of the time the woman practically lived in the office, but now when I needed her, she was gone. I went back downstairs and looked for her mailbox tag. Missing. There was one resting on the corner of the desk, like she might have been talking with Ted and absentmindedly set it down there. I hurried along the hall to the kitchen, where five people hadn’t yet given up on the Friday happy hour, but Sharon wasn’t one of them. Our resident health freak, who was mixing up a batch of cranberry-juice-and-cider cocktails, said she’d gone home an hour ago.

I said, “If Willie shows up before I get back, will you ask him to wait for me?” and trotted out the door.