San Francisco Night (24 page)

Nightingale lit a cigarette and stared down at the mutilated body. The fact that Dukas had been tortured suggested that they had wanted information from him? But what? The book, maybe? Had they also been after the Grimoire? The big question was, had Dukas given it to them? Or was it still in the house? There was one book on the desk, Les Oeuvres d’ Agrippa. Nightingale slipped it into his pocket. He figured that Wainwright would prefer the book to the cashier’s check.

He went back into the kitchen and found a pair of yellow Marigold gloves by the sink and put them on. He used a piece of kitchen roll to wipe clean the back door where he’d touched it, then went back to the study. He tried the desk drawers first, with no success. The drawers were full of everything from pencils and scissors to brandy and family photos, but no sign of the book he was looking for. He stayed with the obvious and tried the shelves next. No joy.

He went upstairs slowly but the only sound was the squeak of creaking wood. The first two doors he tried were bedrooms, the third was lined with book-filled shelves and smelled of old paper and leather. The library. He stepped inside and closed the door. The shelves didn’t seem to have been interfered with, never mind ransacked. But then the easiest way to search through the titles would have been to examine the spines and that was best done with the books in place.  Nightingale took a last thoughtful drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out in the sole of his shoe and put it in his raincoat pocket.

He sighed and began checking the titles, staring at the top left hand corner and working his way left to right. Most of the book had their titles clearly visible on their spines. When he reached one that didn’t, he pulled it out and examined the cover. He knew that whoever had killed Dukas had almost certainly done the same, but he had to make sure.

He was ten minutes into his search when he heard a dull whooshing sound downstairs. He frowned and walked towards the library door. He pressed his ear against it. He could hear a faint crackle but that was all. His frown deepened and he slowly opened the door. The bitter smell of smoke assailed his nostrils and the crackling sound was much louder. Fire. The hallway outside the door was already filling with smoke and Nightingale knew enough about fire to realize that it was the smoke that usually killed, not the flames.

He bent down to keep his head low as he moved along the hallway. The staircase was already alight and the hallway was a mass of flames. The fire had taken hold too quickly for it to have been an accident. He headed back the way he had come and opened the door to one of the bedrooms. It didn’t appear to have been used so he figured it was for guests. A door led to an ensuite shower-room and he grabbed a yellow bath sheet and stepped into the shower, pulling the lever to douse himself with cold water. He let the water play over his head and then held the towel under the stream until it was sopping wet.

When he opened the bedroom door again the flames had reached the top of the staircase and the air was filled with gray, choking smoke. He closed the door, flung the wet towel over his head and clasped it over his mouth after taking a deep breath, then opened the door again and dashed down the hallway, bent double.

He reached the top of the stairs and even through the rubber gloves he felt the searing heat of the fire. He kept the towel clasped to his face with his right hand and shoved his left into his raincoat pocket, then headed down the stairs, keeping close to the wall. The heat was intense and he couldn’t see where he was going but he could pretty much remember the layout of the hallway downstairs. The shortest way out would be through the front door so he turned left. His memory failed him and he stumbled over Conchita’s body. He banged into the wall and spun around before hitting the ground hard. The towel slipped from his grasp as he fell but as he lay on his back gasping for breath he realized that the air was clearer down low. He could still smell the smoke but the air he dragged into his aching lungs wasn’t burning him. He rolled over onto his stomach and turned his head to the side. The seat of the fire seemed to have been the sitting room but the whole building was now alight. He pushed himself to his knees and crawled the last few yards to the front door. As he staggered to his feet he remembered the gloves. He tore them off, tossed them towards the flames, then pulled open the front door and staggered down the steps towards the street.

There were two uniformed SFPD officers standing there. One of them was holding his gun with both hands, aiming it at Nightingale’s chest.

“Hands in the air, now!” shouted the officer with the gun.

Nightingale’s raincoat was smoldering and he took it off and dropped it on the sidewalk before stamping on it.

“Hands in the air!” repeated the officer, gesturing with his weapon.

“Mate, can’t you see I’m on fire here?” said Nightingale. The smoke had stopped rising from his coat and he bent down to pick it up.

The second officer pulled his gun from its holster and leveled it at Nightingale’s stomach. “Let go of the coat and put your hands in the air or I will shoot you!” he shouted.

Nightingale let the coat fall to the sidewalk. He straightened up and raised his hands. “Can we at least move away from the house?” he asked. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s on fire.”

Andrew phoned Abaddon as soon as Nightingale had been loaded into a SFPD cruiser and driven away. By that time Dukas’s fire-damaged house was a fully operational crime scene, sealed off by police tape and taken over by the full complement of arson investigators, firemen, a
CSI
team, a medical team and investigating detectives.

“That is very disappointing,” said Abaddon after she had been told that Nightingale was alive, well and in custody.

“I don’t know how he managed to get out,” said Andrew. “The whole ground floor was ablaze.”

“The man seems to have more lives than a cat,” said Abaddon. “Had he found the book?”

“I don’t think so.”

“That isn’t good enough,” said Abaddon tersely. “We need to know for sure. If he has the Grimoire then he might learn something that could cause us problems.”

“We didn’t find it, I don’t see how he could have,” said Andrew.

“Again, guesswork isn’t good enough. We must know for sure.”

“He had a coat with him. I suppose it could have been in his coat. But I’m not sure that Dukas had the book in the first place. If he had, surely he would have told Judas?”

“Judas is very persuasive, but Dukas was an Adept and as such he was capable of withstanding torture.”

“We looked everywhere,” said Andrew.

“You looked everywhere that you thought of looking. Maybe Nightingale knew somewhere else to look. We must know for sure.”

“The police have him now. I doubt he will be going anywhere for a while.”

“What about the Chinese detective? The one who went to see Peter and Thomas? Amy Chen? Was she there?”

“I didn’t see her,” said Andrew.

“Good. We shall be dealing with her later tonight.”

“What about Nightingale? What do we do?”

“You do nothing,” said Abaddon. “We have contacts within the SFPD. I shall get him released and then Judas can question him. Nightingale is not an Adept, he will not do well under torture. Where are you now?”

“Steiner Street.”

“You can leave now. You need to prepare yourself for tomorrow.”

“Satan be praised,” said Andrew.

“Satan be praised,” repeated Abaddon.

Nightingale was in a holding cell at the SFPD’s Southern station in Bryant Street. He paced up and down, clenching and unclenching his fists. He’d been arrested before, but this was his first time in America and he wasn’t enjoying the experience. He’d been there two hours and they’d not allowed him to smoke and they hadn’t offered him coffee, which he figured was the least they could have done after pointing their guns at him. He was just about to bang on the door and demand refreshment of some sort when a gray-haired uniformed officer opened it and took him along a drab gray corridor to an equally drab interview room. There was a table screwed to the floor and four plastic chairs, which weren’t. The officer waved for Nightingale to sit down and closed the door.

They had taken his raincoat and with it his phone. They had examined the penknife and one of the uniformed officers at the scene had asked him why he was carrying it.

“It’s a fruit knife,” Nightingale had said. “I eat a lot of fruit.”

“Fruit?” the officer had repeated as if hearing the word for the first time.

“Apples. Oranges. The occasional tomato.”

The officer had frowned. “Tomatoes are vegetables.”

“Nope. They’re a fruit. Trust me.”

Fruit or vegetable, they had taken the knife and put it in an evidence bag and taken it away with the coat, the phone and his wallet.

The door opened and two world-weary detectives walked in, the looks on their faces leaving him in no doubt that they felt they had better things to do with their time. They sat down opposite and stared at him without speaking for the best part of a minute. The silent treatment. Nightingale folded his arms, sat back in his chair, and waited them out. It was the older man who spoke first. “I’m Inspector Gil Rizzitello.” He looked at his younger companion.

“Inspector Randy Sullivan.”

Rizzitello looked about five years older than Nightingale, wore a gray suit and a blue shirt and tie. He had short white-blonde hair, and a neatly-trimmed gray mustache. He looked back at Nightingale and spoke again. “Can you give us your name and address for the record, please?”

Nightingale smiled as his mind raced. They had his wallet which mean that they had his Jack Keeley ID. “Jack Edward Keeley, I’m staying at the XZSDR Hotel.” Two lies and they had only just started.  Sullivan had taken out a notebook and he scribbled in it.

 “You have no permanent address in California?” asked Sullivan. He was a black man, probably around thirty, wearing black slacks and a dark blue jacket with white shirt and red tie.

“No, I live in Austin, Texas,” said Nightingale.

“Your address down there?”

Nightingale gave them the address of an apartment in Austin where he’d never been.

“So, what brings you to San Francisco?” It was Rizzitello’s turn again.

“I’m a reporter, I’m up here trying to work up a story on missing persons.”

“And why were you at the home of Mr. Dukas?”

That was a good question. And only another lie could answer it. “A relative of Mr. Dukas went missing a few years ago. I was using his case as background for my piece.” It was checkable, but not easily.

“What were you doing inside the house?”

Another good question. And another lie required.

“I had arranged to see Mr. Dukas at four o’clock. No one answered the door but the front door was open.”

“You went in through the front door?” asked Sullivan.

Nightingale looked him in the eye. “Sure.” He had no choice other than to lie. There was a risk that he had been seen going in the back way, but there would be no reasonable explanation for that so he had to stick with the front door story.

“And was he there?”

“I never got the chance to find out. The place was on fire. It was an inferno. I ran out and into the arms of your uniforms. And I have to say, they were pretty aggressive considering what I’d been through.”

“They didn’t see you go into the house,” said Sullivan.

Nightingale shrugged but didn’t say anything.

“Which is strange, don’t you think. They saw you come out but they didn’t see you go in.”

Nightingale smiled thinly but didn’t say anything.

“How long were you inside?” asked Sullivan.

That was a good question. Why would anyone stay inside a burning house. “Not long.”

“It must have been some time or the officers would have seen you go in,” said Sullivan.

“A few minutes. Maybe.”

“You stayed for a few minutes in a burning house?” said Sullivan. “Why would you do that? Me, I would have turned and ran.”

“It wasn’t so much on fire as smoky,” said Nightingale.

“Smoky?”

“There was a lot of smoke. At first I thought maybe there was a problem in the kitchen. So I walked in the hallway.”

“Did you see anyone else there?” asked Sullivan.

“Like who?”

“There was a maid in the house. And Mr. Dukas was there.”

Nightingale shook his head. “I didn’t see anyone. I shouted but no one answered.”

“And you didn’t see the maid? In the hall?”

“Like I said, it was smoky. I went to the kitchen. But then I saw flames in one of the rooms.”

“Did you go into the study?”

Nightingale shook his head. “I stayed in the hall. As soon as I saw the fire I rushed out. That’s when your men saw me.”

Rizzitello leaned towards him. Nightingale could smell cigarettes on his breath. A fellow smoker. “And you didn’t see anything out of the ordinary? In the hall?”

“To be honest at that stage my eyes were watering so much I could barely see my hand in front of my face.”

“Did you go upstairs?”

“Upstairs?”

“In the house,” said Rizzitello patiently. “Did you go upstairs?”

Nightingale shook his head. “I went in, I went down the hallway, I got to the kitchen, I saw the flames, I ran out. A minute or two at most.”

“The flames were where?”

“In one of the downstairs rooms. I forget which.”

“So you walked past the room that was on fire to get to the kitchen?”

A very good question. Nightingale faked a confused frown as best he could. “I suppose I must have.”

“You see, that’s strange too. You went in to a burning house and you wandered right by a room that was in flames.” Rizzitello moved even further towards Nightingale. “You see, if it was me, I’d have been straight out of there as soon as I smelled the smoke. I’d have called the Fire Department, let the professionals do their job.”

“First I thought it was just a kitchen fire. A smoking pan, maybe. Then when I saw it was more than that, I thought there might be people trapped.”

“You’re not a trained firefighter, are you?” Rizzitello sat back and tapped the table as he stared at Nightingale.

“Of course not.”

“What was your plan? To rescue anyone inside?”

Nightingale shrugged. “I guess I hadn’t thought it through. I saw smoke, I though it might be a small thing, as soon as I realized it was a fire I left.”

“And you didn’t go upstairs?”

“I already said. No.”

“There is a library upstairs. It was pretty much destroyed by the fire.”

Nightingale shrugged. “So?”

“We found a book in your pocket. A French book.”

“Les Oeuvres d’ Agrippa,” said Nightingale. “It belongs to a friend of mine.”

“Do you speak French?” asked Rizzitello.

“Un peu.”

“What?”

“A little.”

“See now, we wondered perhaps if you had taken that book from the house,” said Rizzitello.

“Stolen it, you mean? No. I didn’t steal it.”

“Why did you try the door?” asked Sullivan.

“The door?”

“You had an appointment, you said? So did you ring the bell?”

“Yes.”

“And..?”

“There was no answer so I tried the door. It was open.”

“That’s…unusual.” Said Sullivan.

“Why do you say that?”

“Most people would try the bell. Then if there was no answer they would try again. If there was still no answer, well then I suppose most people would phone to see if there was a problem with the appointment.”

“I did that,” said Nightingale. “But Mr. Dukas didn’t answer.”

“So you tried the door?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I find strange. Well, that’s one of several things I find strange.”

“Do you know what started the fire?” asked Nightingale.

“That investigation is ongoing,” said Sullivan.

“Was it deliberately started?”

Sullivan frowned. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because it took hold very quickly. I suppose it could have been a gas explosion, but I didn’t hear any bangs or anything.”

“Well as I said, that investigation is ongoing,” said Sullivan.

The door opened and a uniformed officer appeared. From the way the two inspectors jumped to their feet, Nightingale gathered he was a more senior officer.  “You’re to let Mr. Keeley on his way,” said the officer gruffly.

“Sir, we’ve only just started questioning him.”

The officer silenced him by holding up his hand. “I’d like a word with you both outside. Now.”

He turned and went out. The two inspectors looked at each other, confused, then followed him out. After a few minutes, Sullivan returned. He left the door open and gestured at the corridor. “You can go.”

“Go where?”

“Anywhere. Seems like you’ve got friends in high places and unless we’ve got evidence linking you to a crime, you’re free to go.”