Kate drove off for dinner.
She had never realized until the past few months the difficulties, the dispiriting awkwardness of dining alone in a good restaurant. Because of her profession she had had to be cautious, circumspect in her personal life, but there were a few close friends who had been fully supportive; there had been no lack of offers of companionship. But she had discovered that she was less and less able to be with women who brought back memories of Anne and herself together, and the recent months had been a time of gradually increasing isolation.
Patiently, she drove around Santa Monica searching for a place lacking formality but not a coffee shop or cafe, and finally stopped on the edge of Venice near the beach. Sea Spray lacked a liquor license but had bright curtains and hanging plants and white tablecloths. She settled herself gratefully in a small leather booth.
She liked Santa Monica, always had; but Anne had disliked the misty moodiness of oceanside towns. The rent control controversy had quieted somewhat, and maybe she should try to move here now, rent an apartment. Sell, get out of Glendale regardless of the uncertain Southern California housing market. Unlike Helen Parker, what did she want now with two bedrooms and a convertible den and two baths and three orange trees in the backyard? An excellent investment, the real estate agent had congratulated them eight years ago. A real home and a good neighborhood, Anne had exulted, brown eyes glowing…
She had not clung to other mementoes. Anne’s clothing, her jewelry, had gone immediately to her sister in Santa Barbara. Snapshots and other recorded memories of their lives had been packed in boxes, placed in storage. She had packed away certain dishes and books, odds and ends that had transfixed her with the agony of memory, until the day came when she could bear to look at everything again. Only Barney was still there, the collie they both had loved, who had protected Anne all the evenings and nights Kate was called away to protect and to serve others…Why should she continue to hold onto the house she was so unwilling to return to each night?
She opened her menu. Preferring a double scotch, she settled with little regret for half a carafe of wine. She read her notes of the Fergus Parker case and evaluated the newest pieces of the mosaic as she selected the crispest pieces of lettuce from her salad.
She had taken the file photos of Modern Office employees downstairs to the garage. The attendant, she had quickly discovered, could just as well have stayed home and collected his paycheck for all the care and attention he gave to his job. Every face in the photographs was familiar to him; he could not remember seeing anyone in particular that morning, had not seen anyone running in the garage. Nothing unusual at all—except for someone coughing.
“Man or woman?” she had asked.
“Man.”
“Where in the garage was it coming from?”
“I dunno, behind me somewhere.”
“Why did you notice?”
“Coughing his lungs out.”
“Why didn’t you investigate?”
“What the hell do I care about somebody coughing? Besides, cops were pulling in, they could do their own damn investigating.”
Taylor’s analysis of the guards’ ledger had not revealed any unusual pattern to off-hours activity at Modern Office. Fergus Parker had made no previous early morning visits this year, only four last year. Each of the managers had come in early from time to time, none recently.
At her request, the two guards had recreated their actions after Ellen O’Neil’s phone call. Rick Carlson had been on duty; Mike Sutherland had finished his final inspection and was in the guard station. When Ellen O’Neil’s call came, Carlson called the police, shouting for Sutherland who came out of the guard office, heard Carlson on the phone with the police, and immediately secured all four elevators, placing them out of service. Sutherland ran to the staircase and released the hydraulic mechanism that lowered the mesh gate on the garage level. Sutherland then refused to wait for the police, insisted that they go up together to check on the safety of Ellen O’Neil. The guards’ estimate of how long it had taken to fully close off the upper floors of the building after receiving the call from Ellen O’Neil: forty-five seconds to a minute, no more.
Using a stopwatch, Kate and Taylor had experimented, Taylor’s face comically unhappy at having to hurtle his two hundred and twenty pounds down sixteen flights of stairs. They took turns, Kate first; but she had stopped abruptly on the fifteenth floor and called for Taylor. Rolled up against a wall was a Carlton cigarette butt which had burned almost to the filter, a three-quarter length of ash. On the pale green wall was a small black smear: the cigarette had been flung, not merely discarded. Taylor collected the cigarette and ash in separate envelopes, and Kate began her run again. She made the garage in a minute and fifty-two seconds; Taylor’s time was two minutes, eight seconds. At Kate’s insistence they made the run one more time. Her time was a minute-fifty; Taylor, two minutes-fifteen.
The cleaning personnel, who arrived at five o’clock, had provided two pieces of information. The stairway was swabbed twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. And the portable bar in Fergus Parker’s office had been in its usual position away from the desk when the office was cleaned Monday night.
Kate’s veal chop arrrived; she put her notes away.
Ellen worked her way through the airport traffic and back out onto Century Boulevard, thinking about the weekend Stephanie had proposed. They had had eight such weekends in their two years together—spiritual housecleanings, Stephanie had called them. Naked in bed, eating delicatessen food, smoking joints, drinking wine, exploring each other’s bodies and psyches, a weekend of loving, sleeping, talking. Hour after hour, warmed in the concentrated glow of Stephanie’s attention… Why was she not as eager as she had always been before?
Troubled, depressed, she parked and walked through the underground garage, cautiously watching the shadows as she always did since the rapist had come from behind a parked car a month ago and seized a woman who lived on the top floor.
The raspy voice of Bob Seger seeped into the upstairs hallway; the erratic guitar rhythms of Night Moves seemed aggressive, ominous. Her apartment was inky black, seemed possessed of a sinister silence. She walked quickly through the rooms turning on all the lights. She switched on the TV, searched through the stack of economics periodicals in the rack beside the sofa for the latest Time. But she stared at the curtain billowing over the slightly open balcony door, alert and uneasy.
Kate ate her meal with enjoyment, and continued to contemplate the pieces of evidence in the Fergus Parker case. So many aspects were puzzling. Why had Fergus Parker arrived early? Why had he—or someone else—pushed the portable bar close to his desk at seven o’clock in the morning? Most inexplicable of all, why was there no sign of struggle? Fergus Parker must have known well the specific enmity each individual in the company felt for him. How could a killer catch him so off-guard that he did not—or could not—defend himself?
And another problem—the killer was a coffee drinker, had finished nearly half a pot, according to Ellen O’Neil. Wouldn’t he or she bring coffee to Fergus Parker’s office? How could the killer run down sixteen flights with a container of coffee in hand? There were no signs of spilled liquid anywhere on the upper stairs—she had checked on hands and knees. Possibly the killer had carried an empty container. But that bespoke too much coolness. Amateur City, Taylor had called this homicide, and experience told her that premeditated or not, after the crime this amateur killer had reacted without thought to what circumstances had dictated.
Ellen O’Neil had responded instantly to sounds of flight and Fergus Parker’s death throes—but how long had she delayed in calling the guards? That was the other essential element to be added to the mosaic. If she had acted swiftly, the killer would have had precious few seconds to get down and out of the building before every escape route was cut off.
Kate finished her coffee, reflecting. Except for Luther Garrett, the outside sales group, and a computer operator who had been out since Friday with the flu, she had met or seen all current employees. Depending on the timing of Ellen O’Neil’s actions, she could at least place the killer’s physical condition within certain parameters.
She glanced at her watch, decided to call Ellen O’Neil.
Her scrupulous inner voice whispered, you don’t need to. You can wait until tomorrow. You just want to call her because she is like Anne and you want to hear her voice…
Someone came down the hall; footsteps paused outside Ellen’s apartment; something brushed against the door. For some moments she sat frozen; then she tiptoed to the door and peered through the peephole. There was no one visible. Chilled and frightened, she checked the lock, the security chain.
She leaped as the phone shrilled.
“Miss O’Neil? This is Detective Delafield.”
“Oh. Yes, how are you?” She was absurdly happy to hear the calm, authoritative voice.
“I have a few questions about the timing of some events this morning. Am I disturbing you? The questions could wait till tomorrow.”
“No, really, I’m—no, you’re not disturbing me at all.” Her own voice seemed high-pitched, foreign.
“Miss O’Neil, are you all right? You sound—”
“To tell you the truth—” She broke off, remembering the sarcastic response the last time she had used that phrase. “I’m alone tonight, I feel very nervous. I don’t know why. I’ve been alone many times before and it’s never bothered me, but I thought I heard someone just now…”
“It would be very strange if you weren’t strongly affected by what happened today. But isn’t there someone—” Kate cleared her throat. “Don’t you…usually have someone there with you?”
Ellen called herself a fool. Of course this detective in charge of a major investigation would know about Stephanie. Detective Taylor—any of the police officers on the scene—would have passed along the information that Stephanie had come this morning to be with her. Ellen said, “She left tonight for an economics seminar in Berkeley.”
“I see. Let me suggest this. Perhaps I can make you feel more assured about your safety. I’m in the area, I’ll be glad to come over and check things out where you live. Or perhaps you should call a friend, stay with someone tonight.”
“Would you come over?” she asked very softly. “I’d be very grateful.” She was not about to call Marcie and Janice. Stephanie would find out and she’d never hear the end of it, especially after what they had quarreled about tonight. “I can answer your questions, give you something to drink. Would that be all right?”
Kate Delafield was no more than five minutes away; Ellen gave her directions.