Bill Pronzini - Beyond the Grave

The phone rang, making me start and clutch the art book harder. Then I laughed at my jumpiness and set the book aside, going to answer eagerly. The voice on the other end of the line was Sam Ryder's-and he was very agitated.

“Elena,” he said, “Elena, I can't believe this has happened!”

“What's wrong?”

“The report-Quincannon's report-that you gave me this afternoon: It's gone!”

“Gone? How?”

“Someone broke into the house while I was down in Santa Ynez, doing my weekly shopping at Safeway. I've looked everywhere, but I can't find the report. It's the only thing missing.”

I felt a brief sinking at the loss of the documents I'd gone to such lengths to find, but then I said, “The only thing? Sam, you must have misplaced it. No one breaks into a house to steal a hundred-year-old detective's report-”

“Elena, the back door had been forced. And things had been moved around on my desk, as if someone had searched carefully.”

I was silent, picturing the messy desk and wondering how he could know that things had been moved.

As if he could read my thoughts, Sam said, “It may not look like it, but I know where every piece of paper on that desk is. They've been disturbed. But there's a jar of spare change that I keep right next to the pencil sharpener that wasn't touched, and whoever it was didn't bother with the TV or the stereo.”

I frowned. It did sound like a burglary with a specific purpose.

“Elena?” Sam said.

“I'm here. Did you call the sheriffs department?”

“Didn't seem much point in it. They've got more important crimes to worry about than the theft of an old document. But why would anybody take such a thing?”

“I don't know.”

“It just doesn't make sense.”

“No, it doesn't.” I was silent for a moment, then said, “Look, Sam, had you already read the papers?”

“Yes. I saved them until I'd finished my afternoon's stint of work.”

“Then, it doesn't really matter that they were taken.” It did; I hated to lose the documents, but it wouldn't help Sam for me to say so. “Why don't you just fix the lock on your door and try to relax? The thief got what he wanted, so there's not much chance he'll be back.”

“I wish there were. I'd fix the son-of-a-bitch-”

“Sam, just take it easy. Maybe we'll get the report back. And in the meantime, we've got another installment coming. I'll be up tomorrow as soon as it arrives.”

Sam sounded somewhat cheered by that, and after a few pleasantries he hung up, leaving me to my now-uneasy solitude.

I went to the sofa and sat down again, but made no attempt to go on reading. This latest development, I thought, would tend to prove that the menace I'd felt at the ruins of San Anselmo de las Lomas was real and that the watcher was no mere hiker or teenager. Someone was interested in my research into the Velasquez family-interested enough to follow and observe and, later, to break into Sam's house and steal the documents I'd brought him. Who? Why? What possible connection could there be between a nearly hundred-year-old mystery and present events in Las Lomas?

I could think of one thing: If Quincannon had not found the Velasquez treasure, perhaps someone else had, recently. Perhaps that person was now trying to keep the fact from becoming public, so he would not have to turn the artifacts over to Sofia Manuela, the heir. That was the logical explanation, but it didn't feel right to me.

Feelings. I smiled wryly, and I went about the house, turning out lights and preparing for bed. Mama was always having feelings. She'd give me a dark look-the kind that indicated there were horrors standing in the wings just waiting to go onstage-and say, “I have a feeling.…” And then she'd present the latest dire possibility. I'd scoff at her premonitions, but more often than not they'd be right. And now I was having feelings, too. Perhaps, I thought, I was more my mother's child than I realized.

The next morning I went to my office at the museum to wait for the Express Mail package from the San Francisco library. As soon as I got there I checked to see if the first installment of Quincannon's report was still in my desk drawer where I'd locked it two days before. There was no reason it shouldn't have been there, but I felt a quick sense of relief at the sight of its cracked leather cover.

It was now a little after nine, and around me I could hear the museum coming alive. We don't open to the public until ten, but already the staff was arriving, and preparations for the day were under way. Camilla, the volunteer who tends the gardens, was watering the azalea bushes in the little courtyard outside my office window. The phones had begun to ring, and I heard the voice of Susana Ibarra-who had volunteered to handle them in my secretary's absence-answering in cheerful tones. Doors slammed, voices called out greetings, and from the cart that sat outside my door came the smell of freshly brewing coffee. My stomach gave a hopeful growl, and I wondered if anyone had thought to buy doughnuts or sweetrolls this morning.

I was about to go out and investigate when Susana appeared in the doorway. She is an extremely pretty girl with black hair that flows nearly to her waist, and she habitually wears short, brightly colored dresses that accentuate her good legs and tiny waist. Susana, whose first job at the museum had been as my secretary, had turned into an excellent public relations director and all-around trouble-shooter. I alternately took pride in her newly developed skill at dealing diplomatically with people and became nervous at her ambitiousness. At one time, in fact, I'd suspected her of having designs on my job; as it turned out, they were only directed at my then-boyfriend, Carlos Bautista.

Today Susana's silk dress was a warm tangerine color, and a matching band held her hair back from her forehead. Her long fingernails also matched; I noticed that right away because she had her hands pressed to her breastbone in a peculiarly breathless gesture. I was about to ask her if she was in danger of choking and if so, should I summon someone who knew the Heimlich maneuver, when I saw the ring.

Such a ring would have been hard to miss even if Susana had not been so intent on displaying it. It was a diamond, one huge square-cut stone surrounded by at least a dozen smaller ones. Por Dios , I thought, she must feel as if she's carrying a baseball around! That stone has to be at least three carats.

Susana said, “It's three point seven-five carats.”

I said, “Oh.”

“Of course, the small diamonds bring the total to around five.”

“That's pretty impressive.”

Susana frowned, dropping her hands to her sides. “What's wrong, Elena?” she asked. “Aren't you glad for me?” There was no gloating or cattiness in her voice; when Susana was happy, she genuinely wanted everybody to share in it.

“Of course I am!” I got up, went around the desk, and hugged her, then examined and exclaimed over the ring. Susana beamed and blushed, and let loose one of her piercing giggles. Then she went to get coffee for us to drink while she told me about her wedding plans.

I sat down in my desk chair, still a little stunned. Rudy had forewarned me about the ring, but I certainly hadn't expected anything of that size, and seeing it gave Susana's engagement to Carlos an overwhelming reality. Was I jealous? I wondered. No, not of her winning Carlos. He was my own discarded suitor; in fact, my standing him up one night was what had thrown him into Susana's arms. No, I wasn't jealous. I just wished this had come at a better time, when I could listen to her plans secure in the knowledge that somebody loved me, too.

By the time Susana returned with the coffee, I had composed my face into what I hoped was a pleased, anticipatory expression. Susana, for all her youth and self-absorption, is not insensitive, however, and she fussed over me a little, setting the coffee carefully on a napkin and going back to get a better sweetroll because the one she'd brought me was missing some of its sugary topping. Her solicitude only made me more determined not to let her realize how low I felt.