I could hear Cora and Dora arguing as I passed the stairs. They must have left their door open. I wanted to talk to Cora about what she might have seen the evening Harry was killed, but I knew the morning would be a better time. The later it was in the day, the less lucid she was likely to be.
I headed for the garden door, shutting off the outdoor lights before unlocking it, letting Dashiell out, then closing it without making a sound.
Once outside in the dark yard, I turned right, walking along the wall of the building until I came to the window of the office farthest from Venus’s, planning to try the window in the hope it wouldn’t be locked. With the high wall around the garden, the alley gate locked, and staff here around the clock, I was hoping that whoever used that office wasn’t paranoid about people sneaking in through the window after hours.
The air conditioner, set into the brick wall beneath the window, was off. And sensibly, someone had opened the window so that the room wouldn’t get too stuffy overnight.
I slid up the screen and opened the window the rest of the way, climbing into the dark room first, bumping my shin against what my hands told me too late was a chair, then feeling along the wall for the light. Once I had the light on, I told Dashiell, “Over,” and he sailed into the room, landing clear of the chair. He immediately began to check out the thick oriental rug for scents of the people who had been here recently, and perhaps even more interesting, of the dog who worked at Harbor View before he did.
I pulled the shade down and closed the curtain, hoping it would block out most of the light, not knowing if the night man, or anyone else, would be stepping out into the garden for a smoke or a breath of tepid air.
Turning around, I looked at the office—Harry’s, I was sure, not only because the middle door had been plastered with drawings that gave a user-friendly impression but because this place was clearly an executive’s office, a place where someone could shut the door and deal with the business of running an institution, not a place where the kids might come to talk, those who could or would.
I took two cushions off the butter-colored leather couch and laid them against the doorsill. The fact that I didn’t have the key to this office didn’t mean that no one else did, and I had no desire to attract company with light shining from under the door.
Working quickly and quietly, I pulled out the leather desk chair and sat, hearing only the sound of Dashiell’s nose, a flood of air exhaled every few minutes to make way for the new scents he needed to analyze. Then I began to open the drawers. I wasn’t checking for random items, anything at all that would tell me something about this man or this place. There was something specific I was after, the thing Venus had gone to the lawyer about this very afternoon—Harry Dietrich’s will. I hoped there’d be a copy in the desk or in the files.
I was in the office of a methodical man. In no time I saw the pattern in his files, found out where the personal things were, and had in my hand the copy of Harry’s will. Curious as I was, I thought it was risky to stay put to read it. Instead, I took out the staple that held the pages of the copy together and placed them in Harry’s fax machine, punching in my number and sending everything home.
I was about to leave, having found what I was after and not wanting to press my luck. After all, other people were in the building, people whose habits I did not know.
But I thought back to Venus’s first call, and so I took a chance on staying a few more minutes, enough time to pick up Harry’s phone, unscrew the mouthpiece, and find what I hoped I wouldn’t, sure now that I’d find the same thing in Venus’s phone, perhaps in Dr. Kagan’s too.
Venus had tried to protect herself the wrong way. Whispering doesn’t keep a conversation from being overheard when the phone you’re whispering into has been tapped. Whatever it was she’d wanted to hide was out.
And whoever it was she was hiding it from wasn’t being fooled by my cover.
How dangerous this was, I didn’t know. But suddenly Venus wasn’t the only one playing beat-the-clock. Her deadline was Friday. At least she knew.
Before leaving, I stapled the will back together and returned it to the file. I put the cushions back on the couch, looked around the room one more time, then picked up the picture that sat in a silver frame at the corner of Harry’s desk, a young woman in a halter top smiling at the camera.
I shut off the lights, pulled back the curtain, and released the shade, holding on so that it would roll up slowly. Telling Dashiell to wait, I went out first, swinging one leg over the windowsill, poking my head out next, feeling as twisted as a pretzel.
The night air was cool against my skin, a breeze moving my hair across my face so that for the moment I couldn’t make out anything in the yard, not even the shadow of the big tree someone had drawn over and over again. I leaned out carefully, holding on to the window with one hand, fishing around for the ground with the leg that was outside before pulling the other one through, still seeing nothing, my eyes not yet adjusted to the moonless night.
My toe was touching the brick flooring and I was ready to swing out when it happened—bony fingers, as strong and cold as steel, grabbing my ankle; the other hand, this one wet and sticky, as if covered in blood, encircling my wrist, then pulling in the direction I’d been going, out into the darkness of the yard. As I spilled out the window, completely off balance, my legs buckling under me, the powerful hands that held me propped me up, not letting me fall.
Not letting go, either.
It took all my willpower not to cry out and bring Molly or Samuel to catch me in the middle of a felony.
Or save my life.
But then, before my eyes became accustomed to the dim light in the garden, before anyone spoke, I heard Dashiell’s tail, banging against Harry’s desk.
And a moment later I too smelled something that allowed me to exhale.
“Thanks,” I said. “I might have fallen if you hadn’t caught me.”
The fingers holding my leg let go. The other hand released my wrist. When he stood up, he towered over me. Facing him and smiling, I whistled for Dashiell, heard his nails scrabbling on the wooden sill, heard him land on the bricks with a soft thud, and then felt the comforting heat of his body at my side.
Jackson bent to pick up the leash that had come untied and dropped to the ground when he’d nearly scared the life out of me. For a moment we just stood there, me looking at him, him looking at some point beyond me as the smell of paint dissipated in the cool night air.
“How did you get out?”
He didn’t answer me. Instead he walked away, Dashiell following him. Standing in the open space in the center of the garden, he lifted his arms above his head, wiggling his fingers in the breeze.
I wondered if I’d left the door to the garden unlocked when I came out here, but I was pretty sure all the doors locked automatically. After closing Harry’s window, not quite all the way, and pulling the screen back down, I walked over to the door and tried to open it, but it didn’t budge. So I whispered to Jackson. This time, instead of asking him how he’d come out into the garden alone, I asked him to help us back inside.
Jackson bent and clipped Dashiell’s leash onto his collar, walking him to the window on the far side of the door, lifting the window as high as it would go, climbing in, then whistling for Dashiell to follow him, the exact note I’d just used to call him out of Harry’s office.
I waited. A hand came out from inside. I took the hand—the sticky one—and let Jackson help me through the window. Then he closed it carefully, turned the lock, and did an even more surprising thing. He turned the garden lights back on, leaving a small dab of yellow paint on the light switch that matched the yellow paint on Dashiell’s leash and on my wrist.
When Jackson had handed me the leash and gone in the direction of the stairs, I wanted nothing more than to head home and read my fax. But there was something more important to do now. I wanted to see who stayed late, who Venus might have been afraid would overhear her call. So instead of heading for the front door, I waited for Jackson to disappear; then, with Dash trailing after me, I began to climb the stairs.