The Man on the Washing Machine (25 page)

I took a minute or two to collect my scattered thoughts and began: “Charlie O'Brien had the bag's other handle, which connects him to the CD. For some reason he was afraid someone would find it or steal it, so he hid it in my chimney while the apartment was being renovated and basically empty for all those weeks and I was living in the studio downstairs. Maybe the workmen let him in for some reason; I don't think the lock was tampered with.”

Ben gestured agreeably. “Go on,” he said.

“Whatever's on it, it must be important. He came to retrieve it and it was just bad luck he chose the night after I moved back in. The bag was hung up on the damper so he couldn't get it out of the chimney. He heard Lucy and me coming up the stairs, panicked, and got as far as the utility room, which is where I found him. So far so good?”

“Hmmm. But where does it get us?”

“It ties together in the end, I think.” I chewed my lip thoughtfully. “Is it too much of a stretch to think Nicole was killed because of that rhino horn?”

He corrugated his forehead and said: “I'll grant you that for now.”

“We know Nicole was connected to the crates because her handwriting was on them. I found his lapel pin in the garage, so Charlie O'Brien is involved in the rhino horn smuggling with Nicole. And,” I added with a sudden inspiration, “since there's a connection between them, he could have had Nicole's locket for some reason, which is why the police found it in my utility room.”

Ben looked puzzled. “What locket?”

But I was unstoppable. “All of which means he could have been Nicole's cocaine connection, or at least fairly close to her, otherwise why would she give him her locket, and if he didn't kill Nicole, he probably knows who did because he and Nicole and their partners were all in the smuggling game together. And since he was involved with Nicole in the smuggling, maybe Tim Callahan found out so he killed him, too. That's a bit tangled,” I apologized, “but I think it hangs together.”

“What locket?”

I explained about the cocaine locket. Ben's face darkened. “The idiot!” He sounded unexpectedly savage. He visibly got a grip on himself and shook his head. “Why do you think he and Nicole had partners?”

“Charlie couldn't have moved those crates alone last night, no matter how much time he had. There had to be at least one other person.” As I realized what I was saying, I fell silent. Who among my friends and neighbors did I nominate?

Ben looked dissatisfied. “It's a long stretch from a lapel pin to involvement in a murder. Those shamrock pins are cheap; anyone could buy one.”

“Wait! Charlie O'Brien,” I said in wonder.

“What about him?”

“Charlie O'Brien!” I said excitedly. “The initials! C.O.B.”

Ben looked mystified. “C.O.B. what?”

“My grandfather used to breed Hunters and Welsh cobs. A cob is a kind of small horse,” I said exultantly.

“A small—”

“Remember? Sabina said—”

“My God. She said Nicole's uncle's nickname reminded her of horses.” He looked at me grimly. “The man on the washing machine is Nicole's uncle?”

“Has to be!”

“And he killed her?”

“I guess that doesn't sound right,” I said more uncertainly. “Except maybe they went into the smuggling together and had some sort of a falling-out. It's possible, isn't it?”

“Do you think he's the one who shot at you?”

“Who else do we have?”

“But why?” He looked dissatisfied again. “You said he didn't hurt you when you found him in here; he doesn't sound violent.”

“Maybe he didn't know where Nicole had hidden the rhino horn, but somehow figured out I'd found it and wanted to make sure I was silenced?” It didn't sound all that unreasonable, and Ben made a face in which I read reluctant agreement.

“And I had those crates while all this was happening, or at least they were in the group home.” He sounded mildly disgusted. “What about his partners? And what does that CD have to do with anything?”

“I'll know when I've taken a look at it, or Lichlyter has. Maybe I should be looking for someone around here with connections to Africa for the rhino smuggling. Or maybe it's simpler than that—maybe I should find out if anyone around here knows Charlie O'Brien. It needs a direct connection—” My phone buzzed like an angry hornet out in the kitchen. “—Blast! I'd better pick up in case it's Grandfather. I should have called him after the earthquake.”

Ben followed me out to the kitchen carrying the soup bowls and kissed the back of my neck lightly as I picked up my phone. I almost forgot what I was doing.

He put the soup bowls in the sink and went back to the living room. I could hear him getting dressed. While someone in my ear told me to hold, I spent a few pleasant moments imagining the getting-dressed process and rinsing out the bowls. My heart sank a little when I realized who the call was from. “I'm sorry, Inspector, I didn't hear you; would you repeat that?”

“Mr. D'Allessio has been attacked. He's in intensive care at St. Francis Hospital.”

I felt the blood run out of my face. Ben landed another gentle kiss on my neck, whispered, “See you later,” and left through the back door before I could call him back or gather my wits.

“How did it happen?”

“His wife found him in the garden an hour ago. He was stabbed with a fine-pointed weapon of some kind. It barely missed his heart,” she said precisely.

I felt as if I couldn't stand for another second and slid down to sit on the floor.

“Oh my god,” I whispered. “They're about to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary.”

“I'm glad to find you at home. Can you tell me where you have been today?”

My stomach knotted. I tried to remember that she didn't suspect me, that she had confided in me. “I slept until about two hours ago; since then I've been—Mr. Turlough has been here.”

Her voice sharpened. “Is he there with you now?”

“No, he just left. And I—I've found something else.”

“Oh?” Her voice was a masterpiece of reservations.

“I found a gym bag with a CD inside. There's a handle missing. A red webbing handle. Remember?” I said anxiously as she remained silent. “I told you that Charlie O'Brien—”

“Was holding a red strap of some kind. Yes.”

“He has an Irish accent. And I found that shamrock lapel pin.”

“In your garage. Yes, I remember that, too,” she said. “I'm returning now to Fabian Gardens—half my life is spent in that damn place.” I heard her take a deep breath. “I'll come by and pick up this CD. Perhaps that will help.” She sounded doubtful.

I made a stupefied attempt to prevent her from hanging up before I'd told her everything. “I think he may be Nicole's uncle,” I blurted.

“Why do you think that?”

“Sabina said Nicole's uncle's nickname reminded her of horses. Charlie O'Brien's initials—”

“Ah. Cob. Yes, I see.”

Her composure was infuriating. “If you're so damn smart, why haven't you questioned him? He probably killed Tim Callahan and Nicole; maybe he stabbed Professor D'Allessio, too, and took that shot at me.”

There was a short pause in which I heard the crackle of papers being sorted. “We've done ballistics tests on the bullets in your mattress,” she said. “They definitely came from the gun your attacker dropped in your bedroom. Your gun.”

“Meaning what?” I said dangerously.

“Meaning only that. In any event, we'd like to question Mr. O'Brien, believe me, but we still can't find him.”

Super. Just great. I thought of Ruth D'Allessio and wondered what it would be like to love the same person for fifty years. I felt numb.

“There's one more thing,” Lichlyter said. “You said Mr. Turlough had gone to Los Angeles for the night?”

“Yes,” I said huskily. My voice was deserting me.

“We checked. He wasn't on any of the L.A. flights. A highway patrolman did stop to help a tourist in a rental car with a flat tire early this morning, south of Mendocino. The tourist had a passenger, a heavy-set, balding man about fifty years old—”

“What's this got to do with us?”

“The tourist had a Washington D.C. driver's license in the name of Bramwell Turlough. It's an unusual name. Unique, I'd say.”

I felt a wrench that was like physical pain. And then realized she had stopped talking. Mendocino is only a hundred and fifty miles—about three hours' drive—north of San Francisco. Los Angeles is seven hundred miles to the south.

“He told me he was going to L.A.,” I said. I tried frantically to think of a reason for Ben to lie. I needed some relief from the pain in my chest or I was going to die.

“I don't know if I have confederates falling out, one liar, or two,” she snapped. “But be careful, Ms. Bogart. If you're telling the truth, then he's lying to you.”

She hung up and my thoughts flew backward, like a vehicle veering into an unavoidable boulder. Ben had been alone in the living room.

I spun around to look at the firewood basket. The gym bag lay on the hearth, not safely hidden under the logs. I skidded over to it, grabbed it, and pulled open the zipper. The CD was gone. I dug around frantically in the bag. It had to be there. Had to be. The telephone chirped again as I stood stupidly in the living room, staring at the empty bag in my hands. I answered it like a robot.

“What is the matter with your voice?” Grandfather said as soon as I said hello.

“I'm coming down with a cold,” I said, and sniffed miserably.

He made an impatient noise. “Tcha. Nonsense, Theophania. What is the matter? I assume you felt no ill effects from the earthquake?”

What earthquake? Oh, right. Probably because he didn't sound in the least sympathetic, I poured it all out about the gunshot and the cleaned-out garage. After an intake of breath and a second's silence, he only said: “You were lucky, Theophania. I have warned you not to be so impulsive.”

I barely heard him. “He lied. He wasn't in L.A. He could have been here in San Francisco last night when my garage was cleaned out.”

As I talked, I thought of something so damning that it took my breath away. I felt something go very still, deep inside me.

“Theophania?” Grandfather said sharply. “Are you still there?”

I felt physically ill. “I found a lapel pin in the garage,” I whispered. “I didn't say it was a shamrock, but Ben knew. How would he know?”

Grandfather remained quiet until I had talked myself into silence. When I began to repeat myself, he said austerely: “I am seldom wrong about people. Men, anyway,” he added, in a rare flash of insight. “The most direct solution to a difficulty is usually best. He might have had a good reason for changing his plans and not going to Los Angeles. It's possible that he has an explanation for all these things,” he added with more compassion. “Ask him, m'dear.”

Just because it was simple advice didn't mean it was a bad idea. But Ben wasn't at the shelter—where AnaZee told me they didn't have a computer—and he wasn't downstairs in the studio apartment.

Ben had disappeared.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I telephoned Ruth D'Allessio, still feeling like hell. Haruto answered their phone and told me that Ruth was at her husband's bedside at St. Francis. “I'm only here for a few minutes to pack her a bag and to field phone calls,” he said. He sounded as if he'd been crying.

“Give her my love when you talk to her, and let me know when he can have visitors. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Ruth said he told her he'd be home for lunch—he said he was going to talk to someone about—about the compost pile.” His voice cracked. “Ruth went out to find him when he was late for lunch. She thought he'd had a heart attack at first, until she noticed he was bleeding. The paramedics said he's lucky she found him so fast.”

“He hasn't been able to say who did it?”

“I guess we won't know until he comes out of his coma. If he does.”

“There's some doubt?”

“More than a little. It's serious, Theo.”

I hung up feeling even worse than before.

The meeting almost immediately afterward with Inspector Lichlyter gave me no time to recoup. It took place in the presence of a surly Basque locksmith in a black wool beret, who worked stolidly to replace my back-door lock and install a safety chain. He insisted on being paid in cash. I had to borrow five dollars from the inspector. She handed over the five dollars with an exasperated smile, but the depressed-looking lines in her face returned when I gave her the torn gym bag. She punctiliously folded it into a see-through evidence pouch, but I could tell that the absence of the CD was a sore point.

“This CD you say you found—”

“I did find it. Ben Turlough and I found it together,” I said through my teeth.

She took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. She looked at me with those odd eyes and the skepticism in her expression was indisputable.

“And where is Mr. Turlough now?” She replaced her chic glasses and her eyes rested briefly on Lucy, curled up and fast asleep on Grandfather's Oriental rug.

“I don't know.”

She drew her skirts aside, figuratively speaking, and left through the back door. I engaged the new door chain emphatically. And that was another thing—didn't anyone ever use front doors anymore? As if to prove that no, they didn't, there was a decisive knock on the back door. I opened the door the few inches the new chain allowed.

“Theo, let me in; it's me, Kurt.” He looked nervously down the stairs to where the top of Lichlyter's head was disappearing. A lock of his pale hair fell over one eye. For Kurt, always conscious that his wealthy patients preferred a doctor with dignity, it was the height of dissipation.