Back in my office, I checked my email to see if I’d received the reports and videos that Rory promised to send. Not yet. Either she hadn’t sent them, or they were floating around the Internet and hadn’t found my in-box. If I hadn’t received them by tomorrow, I’d contact her again.
In the meantime, I answered emails and returned a couple of phone calls, then finalized a report for a client I was meeting later in the afternoon. The client, who had requested several background checks, was located in the same building where I’d attended the developers’ meeting the day before. I walked to my destination, the report in an envelope tucked into my shoulder bag, and entered the building with its blue-gray exterior walls and blue-tinted glass. My client was on the fourth floor, at the back of the building. I spent the better part of an hour going over the results of my investigation.
I left the building, walked up Grand Avenue and turned left, heading up Broadway. I dodged a guy on a scooter who was barreling down the sidewalk, weaving in and out of groups of pedestrians. I watched him zoom across the street against the light, marveling that he didn’t get nailed by a car.
It was midafternoon, and I could use coffee and a treat. And just a couple of blocks away was Sweet Bar, the café and bakery on the corner of Broadway and Twenty-fourth Street. Chocolate, I thought. Maybe a chocolate cupcake, though the carrot cake was worthy of consideration. I quickened my step, taste buds at the ready.
I had almost reached Twenty-third when I spotted Slade walking toward me.
I turned and stepped into the doorway of a restaurant that had closed. I faced the plate glass window as I peered inside, hand up and shading my face. In the reflection from the glass, I saw Slade pass me. I turned from the doorway and followed him. He was moving at a brisk pace, heading toward Grand Avenue.
Where was he going? To Byron’s office? He sidestepped a group of women and took a right onto Grand. I quickened my pace and when I reached the corner, I saw him half a block ahead of me. He stopped at the corner of Grand and Valley and took a cell phone from his pocket. Then he made a call, moving in a restless circle, one hand holding the phone to his ear, the other hand punctuating the air as he talked.
I moved a bit closer, filtering out street noise as I strained to hear.
“—come up to your damn office,” Slade said. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you.” He paused, as though listening to the person on the other end of the line. “Not good enough. Either you come down here or I’ll—”
His threat had the desired effect. Slade ended the call with an aggressive punch to the screen of his phone.
A few minutes later, Byron Patchett came out the double glass doors of the building. He didn’t look happy. “What do you want?”
Slade, who was a few inches taller than his stepfather, leaned forward, getting into Byron’s face. “I want you to stop interfering. What goes on between me and Mom is our business, not yours.”
“It’s my business if you’re bleeding her of money,” Byron snapped. Slade tried to interrupt, but Bryon wasn’t having any of it. “The same damn story, over and over. You can’t make a go of whatever you’re doing so you come to her. You’ve been bleeding her for years. Well, the bank is closed.”
I edged closer, wanting to hear more, wary of being seen. Their voices were loud enough to be heard over the cacophony of traffic at this busy intersection—and loud enough to attract the attention of passersby.
The argument went on in the same vein, with Slade making threats and Byron standing his ground, insisting that the time had come for Slade to stand on his own two feet financially. Finally Byron threw up his hands in disgust. “This conversation is over.” He turned and went back into the building.
Slade sputtered with anger, yelling an expletive loud enough to earn him a nasty look from an older woman who’d just come out of the building. He turned quickly, heading back in the direction he’d come from, stalking past me with his head down. He was furiously typing onto the screen of his phone, a text message, no doubt.
So Byron had put his foot down. Millicent had said as much when I spoke with her and Rosalie this morning at the shop. The question now was, what would Slade do about it?
Slade made a left off Grand onto Broadway, heading back in the direction from which he’d come. As he neared Twenty-fourth, he detoured into the very bakery I’d been planning to visit. I stopped outside and looked in as he walked past the counter to a vacant table. He sat down, back to the wall, glancing at the door. He was waiting for someone. Marsh, I would guess.
I went inside the bakery and lingered in front of the glass case, taking in the display of cookies, cakes and other delectables. I always had difficulty deciding which of them to purchase, and today, that would be my cover.
Slade looked up and past me, at the front door. In my peripheral vision, I saw Marsh walk to the table where his cousin sat.
The server behind the counter turned his attention to me, waiting for my order. I smiled and stepped back from the counter. “Give me a couple of minutes. I’m having trouble making up my mind.”
“Take your time.” Another customer moved up to take my place and the server leaned forward as he took the order.
I moved to my right, edging closer to the table where Slade sat with Marsh. As I examined the contents of the bakery case, I tuned out most of the voices around me, honing in on the conversation between the two cousins. Their voices were low and indistinct, and a woman at a nearby table was talking on her cell phone loudly. Still, I managed to hear a few words.
“—fix that son of a bitch,” Slade said.
Marsh laughed. Just then the woman ended her conversation and I heard Marsh say, “—get even. Be like old times. Got an idea.”
Just then, Marsh looked up from the table and saw me. He recognized me from yesterday.
As he leaned toward Slade, I waved at the server, who’d come my way again. “I’ll have a latte to go. And I’m going to get some cupcakes.”
Slade and Marsh got up from the table, stepping over to where I stood at the counter. “You’re Davina’s friend, right?” Slade’s eyes looked suspicious.
I glanced at him as though I didn’t recognize him, then said, “Davina? Oh, yes, I met you yesterday afternoon. You were with Davina’s sister. Your name is—” I stopped. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
“Eric,” he said.
“You work around here?” Marsh asked, putting his charm to work on me.
“Yeah, just down the street. Taking a break. I need a caffeine jolt to get me through the afternoon.” Close enough to the truth. I did like my coffee. But I preferred asking questions, not answering them, at least in this situation. I glanced at Slade. “You went to dinner last night at Angeline’s. Did you enjoy it?”
“It was okay,” Slade said, scowling.
The server had put my latte on top of the counter and was hovering, waiting for me to decide. “I’ll have, let’s see—” I smiled again, “Everything is so good here, I have trouble making up my mind. So I might as well get all three. One chocolate, one carrot and one of the lemon.” I took a sip of the latte as the server boxed up my cupcakes, then pulled out my wallet.
Another server looked over the counter at Slade and Marsh. “May I help you?”
Slade shook his head, turning to Marsh. “Let’s get out of here.” The two of them headed for the door. I saw them exit onto Broadway. Then they turned and walked up Twenty-fourth Street.
They’d seen me. And they recognized me. That was cause for concern. But I didn’t think they’d realized I was eavesdropping. At least I hoped not. Perhaps my ruse had worked.
I left the bakery, carrying my purchases. At the intersection, I looked up Twenty-fourth. No sign of them on the two blocks between Broadway and Telegraph. Then a vehicle pulled away from the curb, heading toward Telegraph. I couldn’t tell what color it was, but it was dark, and the shape looked a lot like the Nissan Pathfinder Marsh had been driving last night.
* *
When I reached my building, I headed for Cassie’s office. Her eyes lit up at the sight of the bakery box. I opened it and waved the cupcakes under her nose. “Help yourself. Of course, the chocolate is mine.”
“Somehow I knew that.” She reached into the bakery box and liberated the lemon cupcake. “Thanks, I could use a break from working on this brief.”
We talked for a few minutes, polishing off our midafternoon noshes. That should hold me till dinner. Of course, I hadn’t really had lunch, just an apple and a hunk of cheddar from my little refrigerator, while I worked on the client report.
After that, I went down the hall to my own office. I deposited the bakery box on my credenza and switched on the computer. This time, my in-box contained the reports and videos that Rory had sent. I opened the reports concerning the fire at Herkimer’s and sent them to my printer.
My computer setup, new since I’d moved into my new digs, featured a laptop hooked up to a big monitor, with two wireless peripherals, a keyboard and mouse, both ergonomic. This gave me the option of viewing two screens at once. I loaded the videos from the security cameras, one on each screen. My large monitor was bigger than the one on Rory’s computer, where I’d watched the videos earlier. As I viewed them again, I hoped I would see something I’d missed earlier.
I clicked to start the video on the large screen, the footage the security cameras had taken outside the club. Then my phone rang.
I paused the video and checked the caller ID. My mother, Marie Doyle, who had used her family’s name since her divorce from my father. I reached for the receiver.
Mother was something of a workaholic. She owned a restaurant, Café Marie, that was quite good. It consistently made the lists of the best restaurants on the Monterey Peninsula. When Dad and I had dinner the other night, he told me that Mother was heading this way, planning to spend a few days with my brother, Brian, and his family in Petaluma.
Now, Mother confirmed that she was driving up on Tuesday of the following week. Was I free for lunch?
Meals out with Mother, the chef and restaurant owner, were always interesting since she was predisposed to critique the establishment. I was forever looking for new places to take her. Well, what about the restaurant I’d just been to?
I consulted my calendar. I had a client meeting at ten o’clock that morning, but it was here in Oakland, so I should be available by noon. My next appointment wasn’t until three that afternoon. That was the good thing about being self-employed, with a schedule that had some flexibility in it.
“Yes, I am free for lunch, if we do it around one. There’s this restaurant I’ve been meaning to try, called Temescal. Why don’t you come to my new office first? You haven’t seen it yet.”
I gave Mother directions and told her there was parking available at the rear of the building. Parking had always been a problem in my previous location, in Oakland’s Chinatown. After hanging up the phone, I noted the appointment on my calendar.
Then I turned back to the computer and started the video again, watching the footage from the Herkimer’s security cameras. Once again, I saw two men in hooded sweatshirts entering the club through the side door. They left the club a few minutes later. Then two men in a car, presumably the same two men. It was reasonable to assume that these same two men had set the fire that broke out a short time later. But could I be sure based on these scraps of movement?
I reversed the video and replayed the segment that showed the car driving away. The night was dark and so was the vehicle. It could have been black, gray, dark blue. Or dark green, like the Nissan that Marsh Spencer drove.
I thought about what Tomás Calderón had told me. He’d thrown Slade and Marsh out of Herkimer’s on Open Mike Night, a week or two before the fire. They were my first choices as suspects. But I needed evidence, not feelings.
I watched the video again, this time looking at the grainy footage that showed the driver and the passenger. I stopped the action on the shot where the driver made a gesture with his left hand, coming in contact with the edge of the hood. Earlier I’d thought he was pulling at it. But the more I peered at the image, I thought he was reaching past the edge. Touching his face? Scratching his chin?
Tugging on his ear? The way Marsh did, when I’d seen him in person and on the music video of the Flames, the group he’d been in with Slade and Cam Gardner.
I switched my attention to the laptop, looking for the video I’d shot Tuesday afternoon when Slade met Marsh near Lake Merritt. As I watched it, I made note of the gesture. Marsh Spencer was definitely tugging on his earlobe, a nervous habit that was again visible on the next video I watched, which was the Flames, with Slade on lead guitar, Cam on bass and Marsh on drums. At the end of the song, Marsh reached up and tugged his ear. He’d made the same gesture when he showed up at Davina’s cottage on Wednesday.
Was it Marsh at the wheel of the car at the scene of the Herkimer’s fire, tugging on his ear as he drove away from the scene? Or was I reading too much into a simple gesture? Seeing things because I wanted to see them?
It was evidence, somewhat tenuous. Not enough, though. I needed something more.
I looked at the photos I’d snapped on Wednesday, of Marsh’s car. The license plate on the car at the fire scene had been covered up, obscured with mud or some other substance. But— I looked at the photo of the V-shaped scratch on Marsh’s bumper. The thin line on the dark green finish didn’t look new. It had been there a while.
What if it had been there last year?
I put the photo on the laptop screen and looked at its location in relation to the blurred license plate. Then I looked at the video again, pausing the action and increasing the size. Was there something on the bumper? Or was it my imagination?
Yes, there was a scratch on the car’s bumper. And it was V-shaped.
Marsh was driving the car. And I’d bet money the man in the passenger seat was Slade.
I was convinced. Would anyone else be?