When Lichlyter let us go, I saw Sabina home and mobilized Sebastian’s nanny. Mariana didn’t speak much English but understood that there was a crisis and went into nurturing mode with warm blankets and cups of hot tea. Sabina had stopped weeping, but the EMT said she was in shock, and I could believe it. I tried to rub some warmth into her freezing cold hands, and we talked quietly until Kurt got home, taking the stairs two at a time, his Australian colleague abandoned after my call.
As soon as I felt I could leave, I made a beeline to Grandfather’s home on Telegraph Hill and rappelled down the stairs to his front door. The homes there are built on a series of small plateaus, accessible by steep flights of stairs, and the light is soft and filtered through a thick green canopy. It’s not the ideal place for a seventy-year-old man to live, in part because some of the homes could kindly be described as quirky, but Grandfather said he liked the trees. One of the first things he’d arranged, while he was still staying at the Ritz-Carlton on Cathedral Hill, was a lease on a Bechstein grand piano. (“It’s huge, Grandfather. Where will you put it?” “I don’t need a dining room, Theophania, but I do need room for a piano.”) The thing is nine feet long. Hauling it up the four hundred steps from Filbert Street must have been worth a hefty tip.
Neither he nor his housekeeper came when I rang the bell, so I pulled out my key and let myself in, jittery with nerves and wondering vaguely where he could be and why he hadn’t returned my call
His home was small but lovely, glowing with silver and fine, polished furniture, and comfortable, linen-covered chairs. Things looked normal, but it was unusually quiet. He often had music playing, or he was making his own at the piano, or his housekeeper, Mrs. Munn, was making small noises at the back of the house. Not today.
“Grandfather?” I took a cautious step inside. “Grandfather, are you home?”
Birds chattered and fluttered in the trees outside, but the house was silent. I went cautiously into each room and found his phone on a charger in the kitchen. I unplugged it, taking it with me and checking his voice mail. I have texts and voice mail messages on my phone going back to the day I bought it, but he always deleted his messages as soon as he’d listened to them. My message was still here, so he hadn’t heard it. I also checked under the beds and inside the closets. I’m not sure why, except Sergei had been found in a closet, and you never know.
Each room except one was completely orderly. An oil painting in the living room was on the floor, leaning against the wall. My father specialized in portraits, but this was one of his fairly rare landscapes, and Grandfather had included it among the items he’d shipped from England. As a reminder of our family tragedy, I would have thought he’d never want to see that particular painting ever again. Instead, it had pride of place. I tugged on the door of the small wall safe it usually disguised, to make sure it was still closed, then quickly replaced the painting and went on through the house. As I rifled in a drawer, trying to find some paper and a pen to leave a note, I heard a noise at the front door and spun around to see him, looking hale and hearty, if a little surprised to see me.
“Theophania? Is everything all right my dear?”
“I was about to ask you the same. I have something to tell—”
He gave a lightning quick glance at the wall safe painting. I wouldn’t have noticed, except I was staring at his face, which had a large graze and purple bruise on one cheekbone. “What happened? Did you fall? Do you have any peroxide?” The injury didn’t look fresh, but my mother had used peroxide for everything and it was almost the only first aid I knew.
His hand touched the bruise, and he winced slightly. “It’s nothing, my dear. My meeting with Sergei was a little more confrontational than I anticipated.”
I tried to capture his attention as he glanced through the window and frowned slightly. “Your friend Inspector Lichlyter is approaching,” he said.
I pushed his phone into his hand. “Oh God, before she gets here—Sergei’s dead, and he had your hoof pick in his neck!”
He gave a demonstration of the reason British aplomb is admired throughout the world by raising an eyebrow instead of bursting into horrified questions. “Ah? Then perhaps I’m about to be asked to assist the police with their enquiries.” He calmly put the phone in his pocket.
“I told her I didn’t recognize it,” I said quickly.
“Just so, my dear. Ah, good afternoon Inspector,” he said as he opened the front door. “Won’t you come in? How can I help you?”
She looked a little nonplussed, possibly by my presence, and refused his offer of tea or a glass of sherry after she took a seat on the sofa in the window. I thought that was a good sign; on Law & Order the police never sit down to do their interviews unless the perp is in handcuffs. She dropped her shoulder bag on the floor and bent over to rummage in it until she came up with her phone, and a notebook and pen. Grandfather fussed a little, adjusting the drapes, moving a small table where she could reach it. I thought he was laying it on a bit thick, myself.
She lifted her telephone, perhaps to show him a photograph of Sergei’s face, and then had second thoughts and dropped the phone back into her bag. “I’m sure Ms.… Bogart has told you about the unfortunate death of Mr. Wolf. I understand he was a friend of yours?”
Grandfather settled into an armchair, fussing at the pillow behind his back. “May I ask how you know that?”
“He had your name and telephone number on your card in his pocket.”
“Ah, yes, I see,” he said thoughtfully while I understood more clearly his habit of shredding even small slips of paper. “He was scarcely a friend,” Grandfather said. “In fact, I think it’s fair to say we barely recognized each other when we met again a few days ago.” He smiled. “I suppose the years make a difference to one’s appearance, even if we tell ourselves that we haven’t changed. I knew him twenty-five or thirty years ago, when we worked together briefly. Are you aware that he is—was—a member of the clergy?”
“No. I didn’t know,” she said shortly. I watched her absorbing the information.
“Well, we knew each other before he studied for the priesthood.”
“He was a Catholic priest?” I could almost see her adjusting Sergei’s status. “In the diocese here?” Now she was mentally running through all the protocols for calling the Bishop. I was unsettled by how familiar she’d become. So Sergei hadn’t been wearing his Roman collar. I tried to decide what that meant, if anything.
“He was on vacation. I believe he had recently lived in South America, but I’m afraid I don’t know specifically where he was—er—posted. Are you certain I can’t get you a glass of sherry?”
“No, thank you. How did you come to meet again?”
“He was here for a few days on business and contacted me to renew our acquaintance. I met him last Wednesday, I believe, we talked about old times, and after an hour or so, we parted.”
“What time did you meet?”
“We arranged to meet at four o’clock; he was a few minutes late.”
“How did he contact you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You gave him your telephone number during your meeting. How did the two of you connect before that?”
“Through a mutual friend,” Grandfather said, without hesitation. “We had been fellow members of a small social club. One of the other members in England gave me his telephone number, allowing me to choose, or not, to contact him.”
She wrote something in her notebook and looked up at him. “I’d like to contact him or her. Would you tell me their name and how to reach them?”
“Yes, of course.” He took the proffered notebook and wrote something down. “I believe she is traveling in India at the moment, but I’m sure a message left at that number will reach her eventually.” He smiled blandly and returned the notebook.
Lichlyter bit the inside of one cheek. “Where did you and Father Wolf meet?” I noted the automatic respectful address. Sergei was no longer simply a dead body; he was a dead priest. I could see that it made a difference.
“He said he hadn’t yet had an opportunity to see the murals at Coit Tower, so we met there and spent our time together strolling through the tower.”
“So just at the top of the stairs here, in fact?”
“Indeed. When we parted I gave him my telephone number.” He shrugged. “I didn’t anticipate hearing from him again, but I thought it was a friendly gesture.”
“He didn’t come to your home?”
“He had another appointment, and we parted at about five thirty,” which I thought was an admirable example of telling the truth without answering the question. I think Lichlyter noticed, too, but she didn’t follow up. “I believe—yes, I took a photograph.” He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his phone, and flicked through a few screens before finding what he was looking for.
Lichlyter glanced at a three-quarter photograph taken from the side, as Sergei—I couldn’t think of him as Father Wolf—bent to examine one of the murals in extreme close-up. A section of the WPA-era mural stretched into the middle distance.
“Any of the two of you together?”
“No. I thought I would send him this one as a souvenir of his visit.”
“Do you know who he was meeting after he left you?”
“I’m afraid not.” Grandfather frowned slightly, as if in thought. “He said he had originally planned to meet with another person he knew, but that it wasn’t possible. He hoped this other person could tell him something he needed to know. He told me he had been traveling recently as part of his work. Something to do with one of the churches here, I assume.”
“Did he give you any details?”
“He did say he was trying to solve a puzzle for a fellow priest, off the clock, as it were. I think he felt under an obligation to his friend, who had recently died.”
I raised my head sharply, and Lichlyter gave me an inquiring look. I gave her a casual shrug, and she turned her attention back to Grandfather, whose expression hadn’t changed.
“Do you know anything else about this obligation, or about his friend?”
“Only that he was killed in a hit-and-run accident.”
Lichlyter’s attention sharpened. “Where?”
“In Ukraine.”
That surprised her. “His friend died in Ukraine, but he was solving a puzzle on his behalf here in San Francisco?”
“So he said. He also said it was quite like old times,” Grandfather said.
Her eyes narrowed. “Why would it be like old times? What kind of work did he do?”
“He was what I believe today would be called a forensic accountant, but that was a very long time ago. I don’t know what kind of work he did in recent years beyond what I assume were regular parish duties.”
“And you don’t know any specifics of this task he had undertaken?”
“I’m sorry to say not. I can’t imagine it would stray too far from his work for the Church. Perhaps something to do with one of the local parishes? He told me one or two stories of uncovering malfeasance, without mentioning any names, of course,” he added, raising a hand as if to forestall the question. “I’m sorry to hear of his death, and I don’t know of any reason that he would be killed.”
“Given his extreme lack of visual acuity, did it surprise you that he chose to spend time viewing artworks?”
Grandfather smiled. “That didn’t occur to me.”
“Can you tell me where you were yesterday between approximately ten p.m. and two a.m.?” That surprised me; I was fairly sure Sergei had been dead longer than that.
“I was with a friend and, if it’s satisfactory, I would like to let her know you might wish to speak to her, and why, of course. I’m certain she will corroborate my, er, alibi.”
I tried not to look as shocked as I felt. “Her” who? Did Grandfather have a-a lady friend I knew nothing about? Being together from late evening until early morning didn’t sound as if they were playing cribbage.
Lichlyter shared a shrewd look between the two of us and chewed the inside of her cheek. “How did you injure your face, sir?”
Grandfather touched it lightly and then winced. “I can only blame my advancing years. I tripped and fell.”
“It looks painful.”
“A little.”
“When did this happen, sir?”
“A couple of days ago.”
“I would have thought longer from the color of that bruise.”
She dropped her notebook into her shoulder bag and rose smoothly to her feet. “I think that’s all for now. Please call me later today with the name of your friend.”
Grandfather walked her to the front door, giving a masterful performance of an elderly man a little unsteady on his feet.
She stopped on the doorstep, thoughtfully inspecting the highly polished brass lock and handle on the dark green door. She turned back and spoke to me. “Would you mind coming into my office tomorrow afternoon? At about three, if that works for you.”
“Okay, I mean, of course. Three o’clock at your office. Um, where is your office?”
“The Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant.”
I nodded and she finally left.
“My fingerprints will be on my hoof pick, of course. The next thing she’ll want is a blood sample or a DNA swab,” Grandfather said thoughtfully as he watched Lichlyter leave. “Theophania, I gave Sergei my key on the hoof pick. He said he felt unsafe at his hotel. I thought he was being dramatic. He asked if he could stay here, and I had no real reason to refuse.” He raised a hand absently to the bruise on his cheek. “I explained that I didn’t spend every night at home, but that he was welcome to stay and to leave the keys as he left. He took me up on the offer for a night; that would be Wednesday night. Do you know how long he had been deceased?”
“Several days, by the look of him,” I said, and thought how odd my life had become when I could say that with some confidence. “Perhaps as long ago as Wednesday or Thursday. One thing, though.” I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Sabina told me that the closet where he was found was empty two days ago, and the smell was only noticed today.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “So he was killed somewhere else, and possibly stored there, before being moved yesterday night. It explains why the Inspector was so specific about the time frame.”
He disappeared into the back of the house and came back carrying a small, folded cloth. He opened the front door and rubbed it over the handle, knocker, and mail slot.
I watched in stunned silence as he came back inside and made his way through the sitting room, carefully wiping the hard surfaces.
He took down the painting again and wiped the safe, then placed his fingers on each key on the touch screen before replacing the painting and wiping the frame.
“Grandfather, what on earth—”
“Did you notice if the good Father was wearing a ring when he came to your shop?”
“He had a heavy gold signet ring on his right ring finger. Is that how—?” I nodded at the graze on his cheek.
“He took exception to a remark I made about Catholic charities.”
I goggled at him. “You made a—what did you say, for heaven’s sake?”
“He goaded me.” He looked a little shamefaced. “I said their bookkeeping left something to be desired.”
“That doesn’t sound very inflammatory.”
“Well, no.” He sighed. “A Roman collar is so often a prima facie case for integrity, which of course is why some people find them so useful. He had changed a good deal—he was slender, with a full head of hair the last time I’d seen him—but I knew the remark would bite if he was, er—the real McCoy, because it was the last thing I said to him when he left us to join the priesthood. He hit me then, too,” he said reflectively. “But then he’d been under a great strain for some time.”
“So you didn’t really part on good terms, then, all those years ago.”
“I’m afraid not. Which made his attempt to reach out to me all the more surprising.”
“Did he say anything about the problem he needed you to help him with?”
“He did, Theophania. He said he thought he knew why and by whom Katrina Dermody was murdered.”