The Night Searchers (A Sharon McCone Mystery) (11 page)

“Hey!” I yelled and heard Rae shout something behind me.

The two men at the seawall froze for an instant, startled. Then they fled, going in different directions.

I reached the seawall and peered over. Hoffman was splashing around ineffectually, as if he couldn’t swim or the shock of the icy water had taken his breath away.

I toed off my shoes, dumped my night scope and parka, and, without thinking, boosted myself on top of the wall and plunged into the Bay.

Cold! Jesus Christ, how cold!

I surfaced, coughing and gagging on the dirty water, pawing at my eyes to clear my vision. Hoffman was about ten feet away. Already my hands and feet were numbed by the cold. Aware of the danger of hypothermia, I swam over to him, struggling to keep afloat. Got an arm around his neck in a lifesaving hold and started towing him toward the supports of the pier. Up above I heard Rae shouting for me.

When I reached the pier, I slung an elbow across a lower beam and hung on to the man till Rae had dragged him up and then returned to help me.

On the pier I knelt and threw up what seemed like a quart of bilious water. The Bay has us fooled: it looks beautiful, but it tastes not only of salt but of oil, creosote, and rotted fish—as well as other noxious substances.

Rae wrapped her coat around me while she called 911, and got me swaddled like an infant.

I asked her, “Is he alive?”

“You got to him in time. Van Hoffman, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.” I took Rae’s hand and struggled to my feet. Water sluiced off me as if I were a wet sponge somebody was wringing out. Hoffman lay on his side a few feet away, where Rae had dragged him. I stumbled over to him. His eyes were open and roaming about: conscious and alert.

I knelt to take a close look at him. “Help is on the way,” I told him.

“Who’re you?”

“Sharon McCone, an RI associate.”

“Oh.” He squeezed his eyes shut, miming unconsciousness.

I put my lips to his ear and said loudly, “Who were those men you were with?”

He kept his eyes shut, but I could see rapid movement behind the lids.

“Who
were
they?” I shouted.

His eyes opened. “Kidnappers.”

“Your kidnappers brought you down here, pushed you into the Bay?”

“No. Jumped to get away from them.”

“Who are they?”

“Don’t know.”

“Why did they bring you here?”

A cough. “Don’t know. Kill me, maybe.”

“Where were you being held the past few days?”

“Not now,” he said in a rasping voice. “Can’t talk any more.” He rolled his head back and forth on the cold concrete. In the distance I heard the wail of a siren.

“The EMTs are coming. They’ll make you comfortable.”

“Want to go home.” His head flopped to the right and he appeared to pass out.

So why did I think he was faking it? And why did I sense he’d been lying?

11:52 p.m.

I flat-out refused to go to the hospital. I’d seen enough of such places to last my lifetime. I wanted to go home; I wanted Hy; I wanted warmth and clarity and sanity…yeah. Instead I got to sit bundled in a blanket in the back seat of a police car while they loaded Hoffman into an ambulance. Then I got to sit there some more while the uniforms questioned Rae and me. Finally I sneezed a couple of times and they provided me with a heavier blanket and tissues.

Plainclothes inspectors arrived. I didn’t know any of them; my rapport with the SFPD had become strained over the past few years, since I’d lured Adah away from them and my old friend and lover, Greg Marcus, had retired.

I sneezed again—two, three, four times—and Rae took my lead and sneezed too. They moved us to their car and turned up the heat. I repeated my account of what had happened twice; it was easy because it was true. My husband’s company, RI, had an executive protection arrangement with the Global Policy Forum. They had been informed by Jane Hoffman that her husband was missing. Since Mr. Ripinsky had a crisis in South America to attend to, he had subcontracted the Hoffman case to me. Now Hoffman had been found and the rest of the story could be gotten from him. My operative, Ms. Kelleher, had photos of what had happened. End of my part.

Of course, it wasn’t the whole truth: I kept all mention of the Givenses, the vacant lot, strange rites, and infant sacrifices out of it. I didn’t want to spend the night locked up in the psych ward.

I asked if I could be taken back to my car, then couldn’t remember where I’d parked it, then realized we’d come here in Rae’s. Rae was still being questioned by the cops. We’d be able to leave together sooner or later.

When I got out of the back seat, after promising to give a formal statement about the incident, one of the cops demanded their blankets back. I stood shivering and looking around for Rae among the few remaining people on the scene. When she finally appeared, she draped me in my thick down parka and handed me my shoes. The cops drove us to where she’d left her car, and I must have gone to sleep, because the next thing I remember is Ricky leaning in the doorway of Rae’s and his guest room.

“Trouble,” he said, “we’re gonna have to start charging you rent.”

6:10 a.m.

I
woke with a start, oriented myself—not here in Rae and Ricky’s guest room again!—and slipped out of bed. Rae had taken my sodden clothes away, and I had only the too-big bathrobe from the guest room closet, but my house wasn’t all that far away and nobody would notice what I was wearing in the car.

The car…

I went downstairs, looked out the kitchen window. There was the Mercedes, parked exactly where I’d left it in the driveway yesterday. Nobody else was up; I supposed Mrs. Wellcome was still off on her birthday adventure.

The coffeepot, set on a timer, was brewing. Either Rae or Ricky had anticipated my early departure. I sat down to wait till it was finished. Then I drank a cup, found my car keys in my purse, and left for home.

7:09 a.m.

The cats were starving. They wound around my legs and made frantic sounds, and dug in as soon as I’d put their chow down. Hy still wasn’t back, and they’d gotten into the food I’d left out for him and eaten it all.

“You guys are pigs,” I said.

They didn’t even look up.

“Yeah, you two—pigs.”

Jessie gave me a “So what?” expression. Alex kept eating.

I grabbed my cell and called Mick, who sounded tired and cross when he answered. “Rae filled me in on what happened last night. I’ll get the film from the infrared and have it developed.” There was a pounding sound in the background. “Hold on.” Voices muttered, and then he returned to the phone. “Cops,” he said, “looking for you.”

“Me? Why?”

“Didn’t say, but they asked where you were living. They’d already been to the agency; I suspect the Avila Street address hasn’t made it into their databases yet.”

“Why the hell are they after me?”

“You haven’t seen the early TV news?”

“You know I don’t watch news on the television.”

“Van Hoffman claimed to hospital staff and then to the police that he was kidnapped and held in an unknown location by you and other people who wanted him to give up confidential information and, after he did, you took him down to the Bay and threw him in. Then you dived in and tried to drown him. Fortunately an unknown Good Samaritan rescued him. He says he can’t give any reason for your actions.”

“What?
I
was the Good Samaritan!
I
saved the bastard’s life, and
this
is how he repays me?”

“Shar, take it easy. RI operatives are already all over him, demanding he tell the truth. He’s not responsive to them now…but when Hy gets back—”

My blood was at full boil now. “Why would he tell such an outrageous lie about someone who’s trying to protect him? What is he covering up?”

“I don’t know, but you’d better concentrate on protecting yourself now. It’s only a matter of time till the cops find out about the Avila Street address.”

“I think I’d better clear out of here.”

“And go where?”

“I don’t know. I’ll be in touch.”

I punched the Off button, fuming, then speed-dialed Glenn Solomon.

I took a perverse pleasure in rousting the attorney from his bed at an unsuitable hour for a Sunday. He moaned and groaned and made various unlawyerly noises before he came fully alert.

“What have you gotten yourself into now, my friend?” he asked.

I told him about Van Hoffman’s inexplicable assertions that I’d extracted matters of national security before trying to drown him.

“Did you?”

“Glenn!”

“First question I ask my clients is whether or not they’re guilty, and I don’t discriminate as to who the client is.”

“Well, I didn’t. I tried to save his life, and this is the thanks I get. I should’ve let him drown.”

“Ungrateful bastard.” He was silent for a moment. “Let me check to see if anybody’s taking this ridiculous story seriously. In the meantime, don’t answer the door or pick up your house phone. I imagine you’re calling on a secure line?”

“Very few people know the number.”

“Smart girl.” By way of apology he added, “At my age, any female under sixty is a girl.”

He got back to me in fifteen minutes. “Looks like a lot more than the local authorities want to talk with you,” he said grimly.

“Who, exactly?”

“The FBI. Homeland Security too. I’d advise you to cooperate with them.”

“Oh, yeah. And watch them laugh before they toss my ass into a cell. I think I should keep a low profile for a while.”

“Well,
I
think you should cooperate fully. There’ll be an arrest warrant out on you if you don’t.”

“Not until I find out what’s behind these lies.”

“God, you’re a stubborn woman.” He sighed heavily. “Years ago I learned not to contradict your instincts. Where will you go? To that ranch up in Mono County or the seaside place?”

“Neither. I can’t continue to investigate from a distance. The Savage household, for all their security, is too obvious. As is RI’s suite. But RI recently bought another safe house. The deed of trust probably hasn’t even been recorded yet, and it’s as unlikely a place as anyone would ever imagine.” I tried not to think of the cockroaches and whatever else resided there. “So far it’s empty.”

“This is not a course of action I would recommend.”

“I’m not asking for a recommendation. Only a little help.”

“You don’t trust my judgment.”

“I trust it—ninety-eight percent of the time.”

“You and my wife. How did I get mixed up with such ornery women?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“Okay, that safe house is where you’ll go. Contrary to my upright image in the community I am not above a little chicanery in the interests of justice.”

9:47 a.m.

As I packed the bare necessities at home, I kept trying to find answers to Hoffman’s behavior. Why had he lied about my trying to drown him in the Bay? What could he possibly expect to gain? How did he even know about my investigation?

I was so damned pissed at this turn of events that I caught myself grumbling aloud as I grabbed one of my big, soft pillows, a new set of sheets, and a down comforter and shoved them down the stairwell. In the kitchen I packed food—mainly sandwich makings and chips and cheese puffs—and, of course, wine and a corkscrew.

The cats—Adah or Craig would take care of them. I made the necessary call—going out of town for a while.

10:32 a.m.

When Glenn picked me up it was a relief to get out of the house. The phone had been ringing nonstop: media people leaving messages, Mick calling me to announce that “government guys in suits” with search warrants were swarming all over our offices. I knew it was only a matter of time before they turned up at Avila Street.

After we’d talked at the old motel at the beach the other day, Hy had given me a master key that would trip no alarms. Now I wondered why he’d thought I might need it. My husband—always one step ahead of me.

I entered through the lobby door and asked Glenn to set my stuff on the reception desk. “You’d better go now,” I told him. “That town car of yours is sure to attract attention the longer it stays outside.”

After he’d gone I moved through the motel, checking it out thoroughly. The inner corridors smelled bad: mildew, musty carpet, and just plain dirt. The walls were a muddy brown that matched the worn carpeting. There were only twelve units, all of them barely habitable: crazily cracked mirrors; bureaus with scrapes and scratches and missing drawers; stains on the curtains and bare mattresses that I didn’t want to examine.

Home sweet home.

I went back to the manager’s suite and tried to make it seem comfortable. Nothing short of demolition and rebuilding could do that. Then I went to take a shower and found the water was turned off.

In frustration I grabbed my cell and tried to call Hy. The damned thing’s battery was dead—and in my haste that morning, I had forgotten to pack its charger. All the motel’s phones were disconnected, as was the electricity.

Well, what had I expected? Cable TV and room service?

For a moment I considered going out to a public phone, then discarded the idea. These days, with the proliferation of cellular technology, they were too few and far between. I’d be exposing myself unnecessarily.

Misery. Total misery. I went straight for the cheese puffs and wine. Together they would get me through—for a while.

1:14 p.m.

I hadn’t slept well in a long time, so I rolled myself up in the fluffy comforter and tried to nap. Instead I lay awake listening to every sound: the roiling waves on the beach across the highway; the revving of car engines in nearby parking lots; drunks quarreling on the street. Curiously, no one came near the red-headboard motel; perhaps word had spread that the new owner was armed and dangerous.

Except he wasn’t here. And I was—unarmed and uneasy.

5:08 p.m.

I had to get out of there or go crazy. By midafternoon I was thinking seriously—if melodramatically—about disguises.

My most successful one had been when I’d cut my hair to shoulder length. After nearly a lifetime of having a long, waist-length mane, I’d felt naked, but even some of my relatives wouldn’t have recognized me. Now I was happy with my hair and didn’t want to cut it any shorter, so my options were limited to altering speech, style of clothing, gait, and makeup. Or—of course! Injuries.

When I was in rehab after my locked-in episode, I’d noticed that others—even if they were visitors to patients with injuries more severe than mine—looked away from me as I breezed through the hallways in my motorized wheelchair and, later, on my crutches. They never looked at my face, only at whatever device was aiding me at the time. While I didn’t have the wheelchair any more, Adah had the crutches, which I’d loaned her after she had a skiing accident a couple of years before. A fake cast and sling protecting one arm would further distract. Or a few bandages would change the configuration of my face, and no one but Hy or members of my immediate family would recognize me.

I thought the plan over more thoroughly. Were the crutches and sling necessary? No—too cumbersome and confining. Facial bandages were the way to go. Such a disguise would allow me to go about my investigation without being recognized and taken into custody by agents of any of the organizations looking for a person in possession of national security secrets.

Glenn would have advised strongly against my plan; the last thing he’d said to me was, “Stay put.” But I knew Craig and Adah would help me out. Trouble was, how to get hold of either of them now that the phones were disconnected and I couldn’t have charged my cell even if I’d had the device? Again I considered chancing my safety by looking for a pay phone. Again I decided against it.

Then I remembered another device—the one Hy had removed from the phone jack in the end room where we’d talked the other day. He’d said it enabled a direct connection to RI’s panel of listeners, who monitored what was going on in the safe houses all over the world. If all the devices in this building were linked, the removal of one would black out every room. I didn’t recall either of us returning it to the jack.

Down the musty corridor I went. The room where Hy and I had been was at the end of this wing; fortunately for me, its door had been left open a crack. My memory had been accurate: the device Hy had removed from the jack still lay on the little table.

I plugged it in. Said, “Is anybody there?”

“Who’s that?” a man’s voice asked.

“Who are you?”

“Your name first. You’re trespassing on private property.”

“It happens to belong to me—community property.”

A note of relief infused the man’s next words. “Ms. McCone, it’s Steve Burry. The feds’re looking for you and sucking around our offices because they know Van Hoffman was an RI client.”

“They’re sucking around my offices too.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Steve. Has Hy called in?”

“Not recently. We’ve been trying to contact him, but he’s on a hush-hush job and incommunicado.”

“Keep trying. He needs to know what’s been going down.” I detailed the situation and added, “I’d appreciate it if you’d notify Gregor Deeds too. And there are some other things you can do for me. Keep monitoring this building—it’s fully live now.”

“You staying there?”

“For a while.”

“Should we post a guard?”

I considered. “No, that might attract attention. And I’m probably the only person who’s stayed here in years.”

“What else can we do?” Burry asked.

“I need some things that a couple of my operatives can provide.” I gave him Adah and Craig’s numbers. “My three-fifty-seven Magnum; it’s in the office safe, and they have the combination. My laptop—it’ll have to be charged to the max, since there’s no electricity here; a cell phone that’s also fully charged; and a stack of files that’re on the desk in my home office. A high-powered flashlight. And clothes from my agency’s prop room. Stuff I’d rather die than wear; Adah Joslyn will know what. Bandages and adhesive tape, the bigger the better.”

“You been hurt, Ms. McCone?”

“No, I’m fine. I’m just…not going to be me for a few days.”

Burry, who was used to intrigue, merely said, “Okay. I’ll get on with this. And I’ll keep the mikes in that place monitored.”

5:43 p.m.

At the tap on the motel room door, I peered out through a slit in the curtains and saw a tall, powerful-looking man with deep ebony skin and close-cropped black hair that was receding from his high forehead. Dressed in jeans, a leather jacket, and a 49ers sweat shirt, he could’ve been a linebacker rather than a security specialist.

“Gregor Deeds, Ms. McCone,” he said softly. I opened the door and he slipped in, arms full of bags and bundles, and looked around.

“Oh, shit!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah. RI’s gonna have to do some major work on this place before they start stashing deposed sheiks and candidates for the Witness Protection Program here.”

He deposited his burdens on the bed. “Well, nobody would suspect you’d stoop this low, so I guess you’re safe. Anything else you need?”

“Yes—the agency’s van, parked in an inconspicuous place. Reports on surveillances I’ve assigned to my operatives Patrick and Erica. Anything further that my nephew Mick’s got on…well, anything.”