The Baker Street Letters (20 page)

“Agreed on that,” said Reggie, but he knew she didn't hear him, because she was already driving away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was already twenty minutes of eight when Mara drove off, and Reggie finally had the chance to remember his brother's scheduled arraignment.

He found a cab and made it to the courthouse just two minutes before the hour.

Laura was sitting on the steps waiting for him, ignoring the second looks from the pin-striped attorneys going inside.

“You didn't sleep well, did you?” she said, assessing him.

“No,” said Reggie. “I think that must be the general rule over here.”

They went inside and took seats in the crowded courtroom. The detainees for the eight
A.M.
arraignment were just at that moment filing in.

Nigel was not among them.

The first arraignment took place. Then another. An armed robbery, a carjacking, and two felony drug possessions with intent to sell.

Nigel had still not appeared and his case had not been called.

“Is this right?” said Laura.

“No,” said Reggie.

They exited the courtroom and walked down the corridor to the court clerk's office.

“When is the arraignment for Nigel Heath?” Reggie asked.

The clerk pressed a couple of keys at her terminal. “That was yesterday. Night court.”

“What? It was scheduled for eight this morning.”

“What can I tell you? It was moved up.”

“Why was it moved up?”

“I don't know, light docket, maybe. I don't control these things.”

“Was a bail amount set?”

The clerk, annoyed now, pressed more keys. “Bail was set in the amount of one million dollars, and it was posted, and he was discharged an hour after the arraignment.”

This news was so astonishing that the woman was almost able to shut her window before Reggie could react.

“Who posted the bail?” he said quickly.

“I don't have that information, sir.”

“It should be part of the public record.”

“It hasn't been entered yet. Will that be all?”

It was all. The woman closed the window, and Reggie turned back to Laura.

“You're sure you had the time right?” said Laura.

“Of course I did,” said Reggie. It was unusual for Laura to question his reliability. “It was moved up.”

“Why would—”

“Might have been routine. Or someone with influence might have made it happen. But there's no way Nigel managed a one-million-dollar bail on his own.”

“Well, I didn't post it.”

“Nor I.”

“So who would have the kind of clout to get Nigel's arraignment moved up—and post a million-dollar bail?”

“I'm wondering that, too.”

They both stopped to ponder this on the courthouse steps.

“And he didn't contact you?” said Laura.

“No.”

“Then—where would he have gone?”

“The girl,” said Reggie, flagging down a cab. “He would go to see about the girl.”

The traffic was actually light as they approached Mara's block; the fire had been all over the news, and everyone who could do so and who didn't regard fires as spectator sport was avoiding the downtown.

They stopped in front of Mara's building.

Across the street, the little café had its brave
OPEN
sign in the window. The cook stood in front of the doorway, smoking a cigarette on the empty walkway, then went inside.

In the distance to the south, the barricades to the tunnel sight were visible. The smoke was gone, but the burnt smell lingered.

They went up the stairs to Mara's flat.

Reggie knocked.

They waited. No response.

“They could be here, you know,” said Laura. “Both of them. I mean, if Nigel got out early on bail, came here, and had a reason for not letting anyone know, he wouldn't just pop over to the door when anyone knocks.”

“You have a point,” said Reggie. “If you assume that she would have let Nigel in at all.”

“Perhaps she likes him better than she does you,” said Laura. And then, on Reggie's look: “Well, it's possible. And of course
the girl might not want to talk to any of us at all, so if she's in, and saw us from the window, she'd just be sitting tight.”

Reggie nodded. “So what do you suggest?”

“Better use your more annoying knock. Just in case Nigel is there.”

Reggie used his more annoying knock, not all knuckles at once but in staccato succession, and loudly, three times. It was obnoxious. He knew Nigel would recognize it.

Still no response.

“Now what?” said Laura.

“Whether Nigel is here or not,” said Reggie, “I still need the map. It's the only real lead we've got.”

“And we think it's in here?”

“If it's anywhere. She said she kept it in a safe place.”

“So . . .”

“So now one of us is going to commit a felony,” said Reggie.

“Brilliant,” said Laura, digging enthusiastically into her handbag for a charge card.

“Wait,” said Reggie. He placed his hand on the doorknob.

“Oh, surely not,” said Laura.

Reggie tried it. The handle turned.

“Unlocked?” said Laura. “Are they so trusting here?”

“No,” said Reggie. “They're not.”

He pushed the door open a crack. He called Mara's name. No response.

He pushed the door farther and then waited, just in case, for an onrush from the dog. But there was nothing.

They both stepped inside.

“This can't be good,” Reggie said softly. “Let me check first.”

He walked through the kitchen to the fire escape and looked out. No one. He checked quickly for anyone in the bedroom or bath, then returned to the front room, where Laura had already switched on the floor lamp to take it all in.

“The couch is wrong,” she said.

“You need to allow for American tastes. And I think she may be on a bit of a budget.”

“Her taste is perfect, and so is the arrangement. Which makes it a bit odd for the angle of the couch to be just out of kilter.”

Reggie looked closely at the foot of the couch and saw the indentations in the thin carpet.

“And there's a bit of wicker broken off from the magazine basket,” continued Laura. “It wouldn't just be lying there. She's too tidy for that. There's not a speck of dust in the room.”

“Then the room's been searched,” said Reggie.

“Very popular item, this map.”

“She has a tin box on that mantel,” said Reggie. “Behind the photographs, and underneath the books.”

“Not any more she doesn't,” said Laura, lifting up the books.

“Bloody hell.”

“It's moot, though,” said Laura. “She told you she hid the originals when she was eight, and I think we can believe her on that. An eight-year-old girl doesn't hide things in a tin box. She doesn't have a tin box. At eight she has a little jewel case that her mother gave her, and she puts that, and anything that is too big for it, in a shoebox, and she hides the shoebox in the attic.”

“So where do we look? There is no attic.”

Laura didn't answer; she was busy examining the framed photos on display on the mantel.

“Is there a photo missing?” she said. “There should have been three. The two remaining are set up that way.”

Reggie stepped up beside her. There were just two framed photos displayed now on Mara's shelf. One was of Mara as an adolescent, somewhere indoors, holding a puppy that had to be Mookie. The other was a much younger Mara, sitting with her mother on the front porch of a yellow wood-frame house.

“You're right,” said Reggie, “there was another. A man, early thirties, perhaps. Standing somewhere outside in dry hills.”

“Her boyfriend?”

Reggie thought about it. “No, the photograph was too old for that.”

“Her father, then?”

“Perhaps.”

“And someone took that, too,” said Laura.

“Or she took it down.”

“Keep it there all these years and then take it down now?” said Laura.

“Yes,” said Reggie. “She could have a reason for that.”

“Let's check the other rooms. I'll try the bathroom cabinet. Why don't you see how the bedroom looks?”

Reggie did so. The bed was contemporary and inexpensive; she'd put her money into the big down pillows. The window was open by a couple of inches, just enough for the thin white curtains to move gently in the wind.

“Anything of interest?”

Laura had come up behind him unnoticed.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” said Reggie.

Laura walked to the foot of the bed. “She'll only keep this till she marries. Then she'll spend a tidy fortune on a hardwood suite that she fully expects will last forever.” She paused and then added, “Or perhaps she merely bought what was available. In any case, everything on the bed is just a little off-kilter as well.”

“So the room's been searched and restored,” said Reggie.

“I would say so.”

“What did you find in the loo?” he asked.

“Nigel may in fact have been here. Some man was, at any rate. He left the seat up.”

“Anything else?”

“There are some essentials missing from the cabinet. And I found her travel set in the hallway closet. Five-piece, but the rucksack is missing. So she left intentionally, but in a hurry, I would guess. Which I might do as well if I came home and found my place tossed.”

“Unless it was tossed after.”

Laura went back into the living room and stood looking at the paintings that Mara had on easels by the window. Reggie joined her there.

“She must be in her domestic phase,” said Laura. “And she's in a bit of a rut. She keeps painting a tree. This one's all made of rectangles, this one's less representational, and this one is background for a pretty yellow house—but they're all the same tree.”

Reggie went to the mantel, picked up one of the photographs, and brought it back.

“This yellow house?” he said.

Laura looked from the photograph to the paintings.

“Oh, what idiots we are,” she said. “We're looking in the wrong home, unless she grew up in this flat. She hid the map when she was eight, in the house where she lived then, and if they don't have accessible attics, then I bet she did the next best thing—she put it here.”

Laura was pointing at a painting, at the ground beneath the pepper tree.

“She buried it?” said Reggie.

“And when she grew older and moved away, she forgot about it. Or maybe they moved when she was still a child, and she thought she would leave a box of treasures for the next child to find. And there would be all manner of wonderful things, not just silly papers. It's there. That's her safe place to put things, right there.”

“I believe you.”

“So the question now is, where is the house she grew up in?” said Laura.

“That one's easy,” said Reggie. “I've already been there.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A short time later, Reggie and Laura stood on the brick red cement front porch of Mara's childhood home, waiting as a real estate agent struggled with the broker's access lock on the front door.

“I love your accents,” she said as she tried again to get the numbers right. “This lawn will be green as Ireland if you give it a little water.”

Finally the lock fell open. She eagerly shooed Laura and Reggie inside.

Laura stopped for a moment, just at the center of the front room, and Reggie watched her turn and appraise the structure as if she truly meant it.

Reggie just watched and said nothing. He had never seen a woman stand still—in a room or on a stage—as evocatively as Laura. Whether it was strength, or vulnerability, or designed seduction, or all of them together that she sought to convey, she
did so with the slightest upward tilt of her jaw, or adjustment of her lower lip, or what seemed an almost willful summoning of a rosy blush to her cheekbones.