Death in North Beach (32 page)

‘Where's your keeper?'

‘Errands,' Stern said, unrattled. ‘Nice day, don't you think?'

‘Was. Yes.'

‘Do you know why I don't like you?' Stern asked.

‘Because you think I'm shady, sleazy, and way too lucky.'

‘Oh,' Stern said. ‘You do know.'

‘Was that what you wanted?' Lang asked. ‘I'm going to be late for homeroom.'

‘The Chinese woman,' Stern said.

‘I didn't do it, Stern.'

‘Women die when you're around. Remember the woman at the pier?'

‘That was almost fifteen years ago.'

‘The Russian guy's wife?'

‘Yeah, I remember.'

‘Now the Chinese woman.'

‘I didn't kill anyone. I've never killed a woman.'

Stern smiled.

‘I don't see the point of this conversation,' Lang said.

‘It's a small matter, really. I just don't want you to think that you're going to skate through all of this. Time isn't on your side.'

‘Time isn't on anybody's side.'

‘I'm watching you,' Stern said.

‘You're not my favorite person either, Stern, but I'd wish you a better life than that. This makes me sad.'

‘Oh, I'm enjoying every moment of it.'

‘That makes me sadder. I think I'll get a muffin after all. See you tonight.'

Stern raised his coffee cup in a mock toast.

Lang would have walked down to the park and had his muffin amidst the morning dog walkers, baby strollers, homeless sleepers, and purposeful bicyclists, but Stern turned him against further public appearance. No rest for the stalked. Instead he took his coffee and plump muffin back to his place, where Buddha turned down, as he always did, a bite of Lang's breakfast.

Lang put on some ‘cool jazz', took his coffee, muffin and cellphone out to the back. He began making calls to the people on his list, inviting them to Alighieri's for free drinks and a special reading from the late Mr Whitney Warfield's last book.

No one expressed surprise. Ms DeWitt graciously accepted the invitation. Marlene Berensen, who had her wits about her, indicated in a gravelly, bored voice that she'd ‘think about it'. Sumaoang said he'd be there anyway and might check things out. When it was suggested that he was not only in the book but in the X-rated exhibition, he laughed and said he couldn't possibly miss it. Elena Warfield was noncommittal, and Ralph Chiu thanked Lang for the invitation but gave no indication he would be there. Hawkes feigned disinterest.

‘And I understand,' Lang told the painter, ‘you'll be there in the nude whether you show up or not.'

‘There's an exhibition?'

‘Of the photographs. You are naked but not dead, I'm told. Unlike Warfield who is both.'

‘How literary of you,' Hawkes said. ‘I don't approve. Perhaps I'll have it shut down.'

They would all be there, Lang was sure.

If the great ‘legend in his own mind' Whitney Warfield had his eternal soul's send-off at the magnificent cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in North Beach, it was fitting that Frank Wiley, a lesser personage, would have his farewell at the smaller, no less beautiful but less grandiose, St Francis of Assisi.

Those were Noah Lang's thoughts as he entered the understated little jewel of a church. North Beach was a Roman Catholic neighborhood to be sure – two of their top brand name houses of the Lord separated by a couple of blocks of roasted garlic, fresh oregano and basil, Tuscan wine and strong espresso. Inside organ music filled the spare, open space, but the services had not yet begun. Some people were seated, but others lingered, chatting. Some toured the space, taking in the beautiful murals and stained-glass windows.

Lang, who came after the affair was to begin, saw the players who would make the evening a genuine event. He hoped so, at least. It was up to Carly and her strategy. Elena Warfield was in the front pew. Across the aisle in the first pew was Marlene Berensen. Malone was there with his wife, as were Sumaoang and his girlfriend. Bart Brozynski sat in a pew near the rear, also near the exit. Samuel McFarland stood, talking with Ralph Chiu at the end of one of the pews. Whatever would a board supervisor and a developer have to talk about? The lovely and delicate Agnes DeWitt was also paired. Marshall Hawkes, wearing some sort of black mourning cape, sat beside her. The two of them chatted, hands over mouths, conspiratorially, it seemed.

Gratelli stood with Carly off to the side. The two were engaged in conversation. Gratelli handed her some papers. Lang moved toward them, then looked back. Over the entrance to the church was the choir loft. It was from there that the haunting organ music emanated. There were a number of gold pipes in a small balcony. In front of the pipes, looking over the gathering, was a duo – Rose and Stern, scanning the nave.

Wiley was there too. In an ornate box in the front. Of all the deaths, for Lang, this one made the least sense. Lang looked around at the gathering. Wiley may not have been a shining star in the same way that Warfield was, but he had many friends. Even so, with what would follow after the service, this seemed to be some sort of perverse, darkly humorous pre-party.

Who was missing besides the dead? Only one. Lang looked around for William Blake. No sign of him.

‘You have these only because I asked you to consult with the police department,' Gratelli said. ‘These are not for public consumption.'

Behind him was Saint Rita of Cascia, Carly noticed. Schooled in these sorts of things she thought this might be more than a coincidence. She blushed as she considered the chaste saint while lusty images of last night wafted through her brain in some sort of divine, smartass justice. Catholic guilt. No matter how old you get, how removed from religion you think you are, there it is.

Carly shuffled through the papers in the manila folder. Bank statements for each of the folks on the list. She hoped her hunch was right. She also found phone bills for each.

‘Phone bills too?' she asked.

Gratelli grinned. ‘Your partner requested those. You didn't know?'

‘You see how complementary our actions are. I call that backup,' she said, knowing full well she wasn't fooling him at all.

‘Calls around the time of Whitney's death,' Gratelli continued. ‘I added some other dates as well. I also added Scotty Markham and Angel LeGard, or Angel Chang as she is sometimes called. I have the originals. Some interesting relationships, I think.' He shrugged. ‘We'll see what you can make of it.'

‘I appreciate this.'

‘Tonight's the night.'

‘It has to be.'

Lang left the services early and walked over to Grant Avenue, up a few blocks and then over toward Alighieri's. It was that awkward time on Grant. The businesses counting on day business were closed and the businesses that came alive at night were just now starting to perk up. A few folks were on the sidewalk on this narrow one-way street. He stopped in at Golden Boy and got a thick slice of pizza and a glass of red wine.

The bar area at Alighieri's was busy – the stools at the bar were full and the booths on the other side of the walkway were inhabited – no doubt because the back room was off limits. There was a sign on an easel in front of the entrance to the area: ‘Private Party'.

‘Party?' Lang said to himself. He glanced over, saw the bartender looking at him, poker-faced, but definitely looking. The devil posters seemed in keeping with the theme of the evening.

Inside the back room, he saw a dozen easels with each photograph covered by gray drapery. The tables were being moved about by a dark-haired, slender woman who, in her crisp pantsuit, managed to blend a sense of art with serious business. She looked up, smiled, introduced herself.

‘I'm Nadia, Carly's friend.'

‘I'm Noah Lang.'

‘I would have guessed.' She smiled. Her eyes flirted.

‘Looks like you have things under control,' Lang said.

‘I do this sort of thing – well, nearly this sort of thing – professionally. I'm not usually part of a murder investigation.'

‘It's an unusual approach for all of us.'

‘You know who did it?' she asked, as Noah helped slide a table in position. The plan was to make sure those sitting at the tables would have a good view of the photographs as they were exposed, the operative word being ‘exposed'.

‘This is Carly's show,' Lang said. ‘I'm here to help.'

‘Does she know?' Nadia asked, grinning. It wasn't really a question. She knew the answer. She wanted to know if Lang did. He knew the Nadias of the world very well. Life was a game. If you liked games, you'd like Nadia. And at one time, he would have enjoyed a good game. And Nadia.

Lang shrugged. ‘It should be a fun evening,' he said, letting her determine whether the remark was sarcastic or not. ‘So, are we drinking?'

‘I don't know about you, but I am. And the plan is to make sure everybody drinks this evening. And drinks, and drinks.'

‘Reduce the inhibitions.'

‘Precisely,' she said.

Thirty-Three

By the time Carly arrived at Alighieri's, Nadia had the back room ready. Carly was confident that Nadia would set it up right – she had years of experience doing such things – but Nadia had exceeded all expectations. Sixteen individual spotlights targeted the drapery-veiled photographs. Tables had been arranged so that most chairs faced the line of easels. While the spots cast a silver-white light on the dark gray fabric, the light in the room was red, emanating softly from sconces with red bulbs, suggesting the influence of a 1920s Hades. The leather in the booths which lined the outer walls of the room was red. The floor was a checkerboard of red and black tile.

This was theater. And Nadia knew how to put on a show. She also knew how to promote herself. Among the crowd at the front bar, Carly noted, were a few key members of the media. This would not only ensure that all of this would be in the papers, on television and Twittered about, the buzz would make her formal exhibition of the photographs more popular than King Tut's arrival decades earlier.

Unfortunately for Carly, her performance was what counted. And she was not in the least sure the denouement would match the stagecraft. She pulled Lang from the bar and convinced him to go over to Café Puccini for a cup of coffee. She wanted to work with him on the bank balances and the phone logs. She had much of it together, and one surprise that she was absolutely sure of, but she'd be lying if she didn't admit there were a few missing pieces to the puzzle.

They sat outside at a table on the Columbus Avenue sidewalk. Neon signs blazed. Warm, gold light escaped restaurant windows. Taxis, autos and buses added flashes of headlights and celebratory trails of red tail lights to give Columbus a constant sense of buzzing, flickering electricity.

Carly was in no hurry. The program, such as it was, would be late. Participants, she hoped, would lubricate their boredom with spirits. With the help of a tiny flashlight on her key ring, Carly began to read the papers Gratelli had given her. Lang, always prepared to read in the dark, had a small penlight to do the same.

‘You see the pattern?' Carly said, pointing out numbers on the bank statements. ‘Time. Amount. Not a coincidence.' Looking at one statement meant nothing. Perhaps two. But putting them side by side told a story.

‘And here,' Lang said. ‘Look who made some late-night calling the night of Whitney's death.'

Lang caught the smile on Carly's face. She had already developed the concept. Before tonight, she had the outlines of the crimes. It was coming together, coming together enough for her to launch into the evening show.

‘Stage fright?' he asked as they walked slowly back to Alighieri's. It was well after ten. By this time the participants should have arrived and begun to salve their anxieties with drink.

‘A little,' she said. ‘It reminds me of what I did at Vogel Security. It's not that much different than presenting a complicated case to our staff or findings to our client. I did that at the old job; I would get people together, question them, push them, challenge them.'

‘You know the answer?'

‘Answers plural, I think. No, not every piece is in place. You have some of them.'

He did. The two agreed on the major points. Was there enough detail for a jury to convict? Not by a long shot.

Lang could tell by her voice that despite all the seeming frivolity of gathering the suspects together in one room, whatever might emerge this evening, she was aware of the fact that there would be a murderer or murderers in the room – that lives had been snuffed out and that soon lives would be changed forever. There was a little drizzle now and the lights from the neon signs softened and blurred. The little Italian village they walked through was portrayed in a watercolor rather than as a photograph.

At the entry to the block where Alighieri's small blue sign whispered its existence there were TV trucks and police cruisers. The bar was packed and the din loud. The events that would follow were not secret, it seemed.

‘Nadia's doing,' Carly tried to say, her lips grazing Lang's ear.

Stern had the door to the back room and smirked an OK to go in. The room itself wasn't that crowded. Tables were full. Lang's eyes took inventory. The suspects on the list who hadn't expired were there. So were Rose and Gratelli.

‘Let's get the show on the road,' Sumaoang shouted.

Lang noticed that the painter had been drinking. Was this also Nadia's doing?

‘We're getting there,' Carly said. ‘C'mon. No cover. The drinks are free. This may be your last day of freedom.'