Blood Walk Part 39

"I'm not tracking her on my own! I swear. I just stumbled across this possibility while I was talking to the hustler. If it had panned out, I would have told Harry, just like I told him about Holle. So." Garreth made his voice casual. "How and where did the guy die?"

"Not in the middle of the three-way," Centrello said. "The barkers gave us the hooker's name and we've talked to her. She swears Ricky left her and headed back to meet you. His roommate came home this morning and found him in the bathtub. His throat had been slashed and his neck broken. Coroner says he died between three and six."

The nervous system destroyed. Of course. That was the only permanent death. But how did the killer manage it? No human could overpower a vampire at night.

Maybe no human had. Violet eyes floated in the shadows of Garreth's mind.

"Where's the gray turtleneck you wore yesterday?" Serruto asked.

"At the house." Grimy with dust from the piers, but at least not splashed with blood, not even rat blood. He had been very careful about that. The knowledge did not stop the chill of fear biting into him. "Hey, you don't seriously think I had anything to do with it."

They all glanced at each other. Girimonte's eyes narrowed speculatively. Harry looked down. Serruto said, "At the moment, Mikaelian, you're all we've got."

Adrenaline surged through Garreth, icy hot. Could he really mean that? "This is crazy. It's a case with more holes than Swiss cheese and you know it! I was never near the hustler's apartment, wherever it is, and you won't find anyone who's seen me there." Centrello sighed. "Unfortunately no one we talked to in the building sawanyone. At that time of night they were all asleep."

"Then check my prints against the ones the lab-" Schneider rapped on the door. "Harry, phone call for you. A Mr. Leonard Holle. He sounds excited." Harry left to take it. Two minutes later he was back at a run with Fowler right behind him. "Barber's turned up! Holle went to check the apartment this afternoon and it's been cleaned out! He's waiting there for us."

A chorus of indrawn breath rolled around the interview room. Relieved breath, Garreth noted with relief of his own.

Harry smirked. "So we have someone else after all. Barber could have been in North Beach last night and heard Garreth's conversation with Maruska, then killed him to keep him quiet."

"Slitting his throat and breaking his neck are rather her style, aren't they?" Fowler asked. His eyes glittered.

Garreth bit his lip in dismay. Lord, what had he done? Screwed up royally. The department would be wasting its time and manpower hunting the wrong person.

On the other hand, did he really want them finding Irina?

Serruto scowled at Fowler. "It could be Barber." He glanced at Harry. "I expect if it is Barber, you're going to want a piece of this hustler case. Faye, Centrello, do you have any objections to giving it all to him?"

The two exchanged glances, then, grinning, shook their heads. Girimonte rolled her eyes and used a short, very unladylike word.

Serruto's mouth twitched at the corner. "Sorry, Girimonte. Okay, Takananda, you have it, but keep a tight leash on your ridealongs, both of them."

2

Violet eyes. Irina. Garreth chewed his lower lip. If Lane were alive, she would have had an excuse for killing the hustler, but what could Irina's motive be? Why wouldshe be so desperate to keep her whereabouts a secret? Could it relate to that mysterious matter mentioned but not discussed in her note to Lane? He frowned at Holle's back on the apartment hall stairs ahead of Harry and Girimonte. The man reeked of cologne today, too. Girimonte and Fowler grimaced at the heavily spiced air sinking back down the stairs around them, but Garreth welcomed its masking of blood scents; it let him concentrate on thinking. He had to talk to Holle. If only he could get the man alone.

"This is a surprise to you?" Harry asked.

"Absolutely, Sergeant," Holle said. "The mailbox hadn't been opened. I took one of those letters addressed to 'occupant' out of it before coming upstairs. Then when I opened the door . . ." He unlocked the door and swung it open. "See for yourself."

Garreth let the others go first and watched from the doorway while the others stared around.

"There's still furniture," Fowler said. He sounded disappointed.

Harry nodded in satisfaction, however. "But no books or pictures or other personal belongings." He peered into the kitchen.

"No dishes or pans, either. It's just the way she decamped from the Telegraph Hill apartment."

Girimonte frowned. "Do you suppose it's worth calling the lab boys to see if she left prints this time?"

Harry snorted. "Fat chance. With our luck with her, all we'd find would be the Bieber woman's prints again."

s.h.i.t.Garreth groaned inwardly.

Fowler's brows rose. "Ah, yes . . . the mystery woman in the case, even more elusive than your Miss Barber. Have you found any trace of her? I didn't see mention of it in the case file."

Harry grimaced. "None. It's like all that exists of her is fingerprints and that old arrest record."

"Peculiar, isn't it?" With a final twitch of brow at Garreth, Fowler turned away to run a finger along the edge of a bookshelf.

Garreth blinked. What the h.e.l.l kind of game was the writer playing? He had read the file and seen Mada's name, yet obviously intended to say nothing of what he knew about Madelaine Bieber of Baumen, Kansas. Why? "Mr. Fowler, will you step-"

"I wonder what made Barber bolt," Girimonte said. She looked straight at Garreth. "How could she know that we knew about her new apartment? You didn't happen to mention it to that hustler, did you, Mikaelian?"

He frowned back. "Of course not."

Harry sighed. "Well, I don't see any point in hanging around here any longer. I'm not sure what good having the lab go over the place would be, even if Barber did leave prints. It'd only tell us she's been here. But keep it locked and don't disturb anything please, Mr. Holle. We might change our minds later."

"As you wish, Sergeant."

They locked up and left the house. Holle's car sat parked in a s.p.a.ce near the bottom of the block. He left the group to head down for it.

"Excuse me," Garreth said. "I'll be right back." He hurried after Holle. This was his chance at the man. Falling into step with him, Garreth said, "I have one question . . . about Irina Rodek."

Holle's start of dismay sent triumph through Garreth.Gotcha !A moment later, however, a mask slammed across the man's face. "I beg your pardon. Who?"

Holle wanted to play games? Garreth hissed inwardly in annoyance and cursed the glare of sunlight that kept him from pulling off his gla.s.ses and ending the nonsense by trapping Holle's gaze and using his hypnotic power on the man.

Very well, they would play it out straight. He let himself sigh. "Mr. Holle, you know very well that Irina Rodek wrote the note you left in Lane's apartment."

Holle started. "How could you get in-" He bit off the sentence.

To keep from revealing that he had recognized what Garreth was and that he knew Garreth should not have been able to enter the apartment? Garreth gave him a thin smile. "Get inside to see the note? I'm not barred from this apartment. Is Irina staying with you?"

Holle fought his face back into composure. He arched a brow. "Why should you think that?"

"I can't imagine that you and your housekeeper pour on the perfume because you like it. Isn't it to mask your blood scent for the comfort of guests such as Irina?"

The acid odor of nervous sweat cut through the spicy sweetness of Holle's cologne, but his voice went icy. "Officer-Mikaelian, isn't it?-you are obviously a man with a serious psychological problem. And since you have no authority to be questioning me, this conversation is finished." He spun away.

Garreth walked back up to the others. When he reached them, Harry said, "It looked like you hit a nerve. What did you say to him?"

Garreth shrugged. "Nothing really, just that I hope he isn't hiding anything because cops take it personally when other cops are attacked as Lane attacked me." This evening he would make some excuse to get out of the house and slip over for a look at Holle's while there was a chance Irina or traces of her still might be there.

"It took you a rather long time to say it," Fowler remarked.

Girimonte's eyes narrowed. "Yes, didn't it?"

Harry glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. "Lord, look at the time. We'd better get back to the office and do the day's reports. We don't dare be late tonight."

"Oh, yes. The party," Girimonte said, then grimaced. "d.a.m.n. I'm sorry, Harry."

Garreth started. "Party?"

Harry sighed. "It was supposed to be a surprise. We've invited most of Homicide and some of your other old friends in the department over for a little buffet tonight in your honor."

"Party. I don't know what to say." Yes he did:s.h.i.t. A cop party. There went his chance to go out for the evening. He would be lucky if it shut down before dawn.

Harry smiled at Fowler. "Why don't you come, too. I promise you'll hear all the war stories you can ever hope for."

Fowler beamed. "That would be lovely, Sergeant. Thank you very much."

"Just lovely," Garreth echoed.

3

As he antic.i.p.ated, between all the conversations and the liberal intake of liquor, the party's noise level rose steadily toward deafening. Lien nonetheless moved through the crowded dining and family rooms with the smiling serenity of the perfect hostess, a state of mind no doubt helped by the removal of everything remotely breakable from the rooms and a warning posted on the stairs that any intruders upstairs would be summarily shot. Fowler, too, was obviously enjoying himself, all smiles, eyes missing nothing.

Garreth could imagine a recorder whirling in the writer's head: making notes on dress and behavior, following Del Roth's drunken efforts to convince Corey Yonning's wife of the therapeutic value of adultery, capturing details of family and department gossip, hearing a debate on the Giants' chances at the pennant and World Series this year, and the war stories Harry had promised.

His own face ached with the effort of smiling. He hated himself for it. All these people had been his good friends. He should be as delighted to see them as they were to see him. Between the relief of darkness and the smells of food, liquor, and tobacco smoke overpowering the guests' blood scents, he felt physically comfortable. Yet he longed for everyone to leave so he could slip away to visit Holle's house.

You know you're widening the gap, don't you? You're throwing matches at the bridge.

The note Lien gave him as they came home burned in his trouser pocket, too.

"You forgot to pick up the message fromI Ching when you left earlier," she had said, handing him the sheet of memo paper.

One glance at the note knotted his gut. Hexagram forty-four, Coming To Meet. He did not have to look at the text Lien had jotted under the heading. He knew it by heart. Coming To Meet had been the hexagram she threw for him a few days before he first met Lane Barber.The maiden is powerful. One should not marry such a maiden. Meaning that he should not underestimate that which looked helpless and innocent. He had, of course. He consistently underestimated Lane. The mistake had destroyed and almost killed him. But there would be no such carelessness with Irina.

"What did you really say to Holle, Mikaelian?" a voice shouted at his elbow.

Garreth looked around at Vanessa Girimonte, who looked more pantherish than ever in a figure-hugging black jumpsuit. He sipped his gla.s.s of soda water. "I already told you."

"Bulls.h.i.t." She pulled one of her long cigars from the jumpsuit's breast pocket and lit it. "Harry will believe anything you say because you're his old partner and a subst.i.tute for the son he never had. Everyone else in the squad wants to believe you, too, even Serruto. But you're nothing to me; I don't know you. I'm not sure I even like you. You pick your words like someone on the bomb squad handling a suspicious package."

The memo sheet crackled in his pocket. Garreth gave Girimonte a thin smile. Here was another woman he had better not underestimate. "That's an interesting comparison."

"It's even more interesting that you don't protest it." She puffed her cigar. "I wonder why you're really out here. Not to be in on Barber's capture. If you cared anything about her, you'd show some anger when we talk about her, or at least satisfaction at the leads on her. You're just cat-nerved twitchy, especially around Fowler. I don't suppose you'd care to tell me why."

He met her gaze steadily. "There's nothing to tell."

She smiled. "Maybe we'll see." Her gaze focused past him. "h.e.l.lo, Mr. Fowler," she called. "Enjoying the party?"

Garreth made himself look around slowly.

The writer grinned. "It's marvelous. Tell me, though, are American parties always so loud?"

Girimonte dragged at her cigar. "Cop parties are."

"Yes, well . . . it ought to make good color for the book. Speaking of which," Fowler said to Garreth, "I wonder if I might have a word with you."

Yes, they did need to talk. Garreth glanced at Girimonte, who eyed them speculatively. "Somewhere . . . quieter." Somewhere private.

Fowler nodded. "Quite."

Garreth took him upstairs to the living room.

Fowler strolled over to the bay window and stood gazing out. "It's a lovely city. Simply lovely. I wonder how you could bear to leave it." After a few moments he turned. "Interesting coincidence, isn't it, your grandmother in Baumen having the same name as a woman here involved with the murderous Miss Barber?"

Garreth kicked off his shoes and sat down cross-legged on the couch. "Why didn't you mention it to Sergeant Takananda or Inspector Girimonte?"

Fowler came over to take the easy chair at right angles to the couch. "I thought I'd chat with you first. Seeing Mada's name in the case file makes sense of a lot of things that puzzled me before. See if I've got it right. There's only one Madelaine Bieber and she was never your grandmother. That's just a cover story. Somehow you tracked her down to Baumen. Since there's nothing in the case file, I'd say you stumbled across the lead after you resigned." He raised a questioning brow.

Garreth felt every cell of him freeze, waiting. "Go on."

"You settled in as Anna Bieber's great-grandson to wait for Mada, hoping that when she showed up again she would lead you to Barber . . . who is what, herreal grandchild?"

The sentence took a moment to sink in. When it did, it left Garreth weak with relief. Fowler had not stumbled onto the truth about Mada and Lane after all!Thank you, Lady Luck! Aloud he said, "A late born daughter, I think. They have to be closely related. The photograph in Mada's arrest record looks so much like Lane."

"Which explains the fingerprints in the apartment. Mada probably helped the girl move out. After all, no one on stakeout was expecting a middle-aged woman. It also explains Mada's disappearance. She wasn't kidnapped; she recognized you at her mother's house, and after she confirmed it talking to you, she bolted."

Garreth took up the lie happily. "Right. But I couldn't tell anyone because then it would come out that Mada was an accessory to murder and the mother of a murderess. I couldn't do that to Anna."

Fowler smiled. "She is rather an old dear." The smile faded into a thoughtful frown. "I wonder if both Mada and the girl are in some blood cult."

"Oh yes, I'm sure of it," Garreth said with a straight face.

The writer's eyes lighted. "You know, if you and I put our heads together, we might crack this case. Wouldn'tthat make an ending for the book?"

A h.e.l.l of an ending. Garreth said, "I told you, I'm not interested in being in a book." He stood up and started for the door.

Behind him, Fowler said casually, "Blackmail is such an ugly word, but let me remind you, old son, you've withheld evidence in this case. I don't think your Lieutenant Serruto would approve of that."

Garreth spun back. "I can't go hunting Lane on my own. The lieutenant would have my head for that, too."