I slept three hours at the nearest motel. When the alarm went off at midnight, I lay blinking at the unfamiliar surroundings. Why had I set the alarm when what I really needed was eight-no, make that ten-hours in a warm bed? It was too cold, I was too old, for nighttime derring-do. But when I rolled over and wriggled back under the blankets, I couldn’t get back to sleep.
Catherine had a key to Larchmont Hall. She was shielding someone inside the house. And Renee Bayard was too shrewd not to understand both these things. Renee would have the DuPage sheriff out there first thing in the morning and my chance of finding-Marcus Whitby’s murderer, say, or a possible witness to the murder-would evaporate.
“As if it’s your business.” I could hear Catherine Bayard say that, her narrow face pinched up in scorn, but I got out of bed anyway.
I put my jeans back on, but my socks and sweatshirt were wet and stank of rotted vegetation. The silk blouse I’d worn to see Julius Arnoff was in my trunk. I didn’t want to wear it for strenuous work, but one thing the suburbs have in abundance is all-night shopping. The motel itself was across the street from a twenty-four-hour behemoth. I put on my blouse and suit jacket and stuck the pocket organizer into my day pack before crossing the highway-I didn’t want to leave my precious booty alone for a minute.
Before falling into the bed, I’d tried to pry the organizer open, but dirt and wet weeds clogged it shut. I didn’t force it-if this was Marc Whitby’s, I didn’t want to destroy any notes or documents zipped inside. I’d get it to the forensic lab I use for this kind of problem.
The ring I rinsed off under the bathroom tap. A jeweler would have to clean it up properly, but as I’d thought, it was an expensive, garish piece of jewelry. A kind of beehive of stones was built up from a gold band-diamond and emerald chips banked around four good-sized rocks. A couple of the small chips were missing, but what remained could probably pay Mr. Contreras’s and my taxes for a couple of years.
Had it been Geraldine Graham’s? Her mother’s? I pictured a teenage Darraugh throwing his grandmother’s ring in the pond after they’d fought about his father-the father for whom he defiantly named his own son. Or perhaps Geraldine herself had thrown it away, out of disgust with her marriage. Or perhaps I was being melodramatic-maybe she or her mother, or even some guest, had lost it during one of those al fresco dinners Renee Bayard mentioned-the owner would be thrilled to see it again.
My fingers were swollen from the cold water, but at their normal shape the ring would have slid down over the knuckle. I held out my hand to study the ring in the bathroom mirror. Wedged against my knuckle, with my fingers showing a spider network of cuts, the piece looked even more grotesque. Definitely the possession of someone with more money than taste-although I guess a claim to superior taste is the weak comfort of the poor. I stuffed the ring into my jeans and went out to buy skulking clothes.
In the superstore across the road, I found aspirin, orange juice, socks, fresh batteries for the work lamp, work gloves with rubber palms and a hooded navy sweatshirt-all for twentythree dollars. I had an uneasy feeling that slaves in China or Burma had made these items. They never say that on the label: made for Megatherium Superstores by slave labor so you can have it cheap, but a sweatshirt, gloves and so on for twentythree dollars ought to tip you off. Ought to tip me off. I could have driven all the way home for gloves, sweatshirt, and so on, not to mention my gun, but I was an American-fast, cheap and easy, was my motto.
Back in the motel, I drank half the orange juice with two aspirins: that would do me as much good as another six hours in bed. The rest I put in
my day pack along with the small knife and the headlamp. I left a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door in case I wanted to use the room again, but I put all my stuff in the car: if my luck-and stamina-held, I wanted to drive straight home when I finished.
I was in one of the peaks of alertness that you sometimes reach when you’re basically exhausted. At the entrance to Coverdale Lane, I pulled the Mustang behind a bush. I wanted to approach Larchmont on foot-1 didn’t want the noise of my car to alert anyone who might be hanging around.
Five nights ago the trip had spooked me; the road had seemed endless, the night animals major menaces. Now I knew the area well enough that I jogged along. I was wearing my diver’s headlamp, but the moon outlined the road in enough ghostly light that I didn’t have to switch it on.
Movement loosened my muscles, helping the aspirin kick in. I stretched my arms. Some muscle between my shoulder blades gave me a stab of pain sharp enough that I winced. I hoped it was a muscle I wasn’t going to want again tonight.
Twice, cars went past and I ducked into the shrubbery. I thought about cutting across the fields, but I’d make less noise on the tarmac. I was betting Renee Bayard would wait until morning to call the sheriff, but I couldn’t be sure of it-the Wabash Cannonball moved fast, and if she thought her granddaughter was sheltering a murderer, she’d act at once. I was also betting Catherine wouldn’t try to slide out past her grandmother again tonight, but I couldn’t be sure of that, either.
When I turned up the Larchmont carriageway, I slowed down, stopping periodically to listen to the night sounds. Jogging had warmed me up; now I could feel the late-winter air against my back. A wind had come up, rustling the leaves and dead grasses, making me stop more often-in my nervous state, every noise sounded like someone moving through the underbrush.
When I reached the house, I first made a tour of the outbuildings, looking for any signs of other people. I had uneasy visions of Renee Bayard or the DuPage sheriff leaping out at me, but I didn’t see anyone. A loud crashing near the pond sent me to the ground, my heart hammering, but it was only a couple of white-tailed deer, startled into flight by my approach.
At last I crossed the yard to the big house, to the main entrance on the
west side, where white columns supported a domed porch. Without giving myself time to think it over, I ran the last twenty feet, jumped and grabbed the crossbar between the column capitals. The sore muscle in my shoulder protested, but I moved fast, bending my arms, pulling my body up, hooking my legs around one of the columns so my thighs were bearing my weight. I stuck an arm up to the edge of the dome, found a stone knob that I could hang on to, and heaved myself up, landing like a dying fish on the curved surface.
When I’d caught my breath, I scooted backward until I was leaning against the wall. From my vantage point, I could see more of the grounds. The only movement I could make out, besides the wind rustling the dead grasses, was of the deer, returning to the pond. Through the bare tree branches I looked at the night sky. Wisps of clouds floated across the moon, but the stars were bright and crisp and close, the way they never are in the city. My burst of alert energy was fading; I started to doze off.
Get up and get your head in the game, Warshawski. I could hear my high school basketball coach’s deep bark almost as if she’d been standing next to me. I forced myself to my feet and looked at the window behind me. It led into an upper hallway, but it held the telltale markers of the security system. Which meant going up another layer. There was no easy access to the third story, no columns to shinny up, but gaps in the old mortar left finger-and toeholds here and there. I started up.
I’ve always thought wall climbing was a stupid sport. Fumbling about for purchase, testing each hole where I stuck my fingers, pulling myself up half a foot at a time with throbbing muscles and trembling legs, going cheek to cheek with rough bricks, so that when I slipped I had a raw spot from forehead to chin-none of that made me change my mind.
I was very aware of how clear a target my dark clothes presented against the whitewashed brick. And that if I lost my grip and fell, I’d bounce off the domed roof underneath and break… well, a lot of bones. And that anyone lurking inside would have enough advance warning of my approach to be waiting for me with lead. A bullet or a pipe, or maybe molten in a pot, the way they did it in the Middle Ages. By now I was sweating freely, and not merely from exertion: imagination is not a gift for a detective.
The third-floor windows had narrow ledges, not wide enough to kneel
on, barely wide enough for me to stand splay-legged like a graceless ballerina. I hung to the top of the frame, gasping for breath, soothing my raw face against the cool glass.
Before adding to my racket by breaking the glass, I tested whether the window was even locked. The sash was stiff, but it moved-the security system on the first two floors had made Julius Arnoff and the titleholder complacent. When I had a wide enough gap to stick my arm through, I pulled up on the inside sash to lift the bottom half. I had to move along the narrow ledge like an Egyptian figurine, but I managed to slide my right leg through the gap, to ease down to a sitting position, one leg inside, one dangling outside, and finally push the window far enough open to duck into the house.
I pulled the headlamp from my day pack and switched it on. I was in one of the thirteen bedrooms described in the 1903 newspaper. No one had thought it worth redecorating, or even cleaning, for years. Dust was thick on the floor. A water leak was sending brown fingers down the faded wallpaper.
I tiptoed through the dust and opened the door onto a long uncarpeted hall. I -moved as quietly as I could, opening each door, looking in closets, in bathrooms, not seeing anything. Stairs rose from the lower floor halfway along the hall. I peered down. This was the top end of the main staircaseon the floor below me, the bannisters grew large and elaborate; presumably, by the time they reached the ground, they would be equal to what I’d seen at the Bayards’ yesterday morning.
On the far side of the main staircase, tracks appeared in the dust. Catherine Bayard, I had to believe. I followed her steps to a door at the end of the hall. I opened it quickly, crouching low behind it in case someone started shooting. No lead came pouring down at me. Instead, a scared little voice called, “Catterine, it is you?”