Shooting Gallery (20 page)

“Hey, girlfriend, what's up?” she asked in perfect, unaccented English, though she had just been speaking in rapid-fire Spanish to two of the warehouse workers.

“Countertops for a client in the City,” I explained. “Something special.”

“The stone's thataway,” she said, handing some papers to the receptionist and pointing to a pair of double doors. “Let me know if you have any questions.”

Customers were not usually allowed into the warehouse unescorted—one false move around the heavy stone slabs could prove lethal—but those whom Gloria trusted were permitted to roam freely through the aisles of marble, granite, limestone, onyx, and slate. The stone slabs were four feet tall and six or seven feet long, one to three inches thick, and weighed many hundreds of pounds each. The warehouse workers moved them with forklifts and a system of specially fabricated pulleys and winches suspended from the steel I beams high overhead. Steel A-frame racks held the slabs upright, and each time I came here I prayed an earthquake would not send the slabs crashing into each other in a deadly game of dominoes.

I lingered for a few minutes admiring a piece of golden Pakistani onyx that had been cut and splayed to resemble a glistening butterfly, before breezing past the granites and making a beeline for the fabulous marbles. My eye was immediately caught by a slab of leafy green stone rife with feathery veins of gold, gray, and black minerals. I was calculating the odds of convincing my conservative client, John Steubing, that it would be perfect for his master bathroom when Gloria walked up.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” she asked.

“Stunning,” I agreed. “But I'm afraid it might be a little too much.”

“Yeah, it's pricey.”

“Cost isn't an issue on this job.”

“Now,
that's
a client worth keeping. So what's the problem?”

“Let me put it this way: The client wanted to know what was wrong with a nice piece of linoleum.” A successful entrepreneur, John Steubing was a complicated man with simple tastes. It had been a hard-won victory to wrench the Formica catalogue from his grasp.

“Yikes,” she said with a grimace. “Hey, guess who was here this morning?”

“Who?”

“Gabe Jennings,” she said excitedly. I must have looked blank, because she elaborated. “You know, the quarterback? For the Forty-Niners? The
San Francisco
Forty-Niners?”

“I live in Oakland. I guess that makes me a Raiders fan.”

Gloria rolled her eyes. “Babe,
everybody's
heard of Gabe Jennings. Where've you been?”

“Oakland?”

“Look,” she said, gesturing toward a large piece of stone. “His autograph.”

There, in the marble dust that covered everything in the warehouse, was the signature of Gabe Jennings, Quarterback.

“Cool,” I lied. “But how are you going to preserve it?”

“The guys and I were just talking about that,” Gloria said. “What do you think? Maybe spray it with a fixative like polyurethane?”

“Maybe,” I hedged. “You might want to get him to sign a piece of paper next time, though.” My fingers curled around the piece of marble from Pascal's studio, and I decided to get Gloria's opinion. “What is this?”

“That's a chunk of marble, Annie,” she said solemnly.

“I know
that
. What can you tell me about it?”

“Looks like travertine, nothing fancy. We've got some over here.” She pointed to a slab of similar stone.

“Is there any way to tell the age of something like this?”

“Of stone? Maybe a scientist could run a test or something. Why would you want to, though?”

“Just curious. Okay, well, thanks anyway.”

“I can tell you this much,” she continued, holding up the piece I had given her. “It was quarried after 1985.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the quarry this stone came from wasn't opened until 1985. Before then, this kind of travertine came from quarries in southern Italy and didn't have rust deposits. See the orangy-gold here?” She indicated a rust-colored vein in the marble.

So I was right. Pascal was sculpting a second
Head and Torso
using marble from the newer quarry. What I could not understand was why. “Gloria, you import stone for Robert Pascal, right?”

“We used to. I haven't heard from Pascal for a while. Frankly, he's a pain in the butt, so who cares if he goes to another supplier? Know what I mean?”

“And you imported for Seamus McGraw, as well? I saw you at Anthony Brazil's reception the other night.”

“Like I told the police, I didn't really know him,” Gloria said, tight-lipped. “Listen, I'd better get back to my desk. Give a yell when you make up your mind.” She scurried down the aisle and disappeared into the front offices.

I watched her go, then turned my attention back to the task at hand, finally settling on a creamy St. Michele fossil stone for the master bath and the blue Brazilian granite for the kitchen countertop. I still wasn't sure about the veined green marble, so I decided to show John Steubing a sample. I hailed a strapping young man driving a forklift and asked him to chip me off a piece. He nodded and his light brown eyes, partially hidden by a curtain of straight, mousy brown hair, focused on my humble chest.

I stood up a little straighter. “Do you know a sculptor named Robert Pascal?”

“Dude's always in here,” he said, brushing his hair to one side with long white fingers. He had a sculptor's hands.

“Really? So you guys do all his importing?”

“Sure. We also ship a lot of stuff for him. This stone is so heavy you have to have the right equipment to crate it.” He neatly whacked a corner of the green marble with his hammer and handed me a small piece. “We also import sculptures for him to repair.”

“Thanks,” I said, rubbing my thumb over the slick surface of the polished marble. “Wait a minute. Repair? You mean, not just his own stuff?”

“Yeah, from Mexico, all over. I've done a little work for him myself.”

“You've done sculpting repairs for him? Do you know his other assistant, Evangeline?”

“Weird chick from New York? Yeah, I met her.”

“You don't happen to know where she lives, do you?” He shook his head. “How often does Pascal get these shipments?”

“Every six weeks or so. There's one due sometime this week, I think. Why?”

“Could you call me when it comes in?”

He looked at me curiously and brushed the hair from his forehead again.

“I'd consider it a personal favor,” I said, vamping a little. I rarely used feminine wiles to get what I wanted—partly out of principle but mostly because I wasn't very good at it—but once in a while they were the most obvious means to an end. “I've been working with Pascal on a project and want to take a look before he cleans everything up. You know how it is.”

“Okay, sure.” He shrugged. His pale fingers took the business card I handed him. “Annie, huh? My name's Derek. Maybe we could have a drink or something sometime, huh?”

Either the overalls were a good look for me, or I was registering off the charts on the pheromone-o-meter, because I'd received more masculine attention today than in the past six months. “Tell you what: You call me when Pascal's shipment arrives and I'll buy
you
a drink, 'kay?” I winked and headed for the front office. Gloria wasn't there, so I placed my stone order with the receptionist and left.

As I jockeyed for lane position on the Bayshore, I thought about what Derek had said. Why would a successful sculptor like Robert Pascal run a repair business? It was not unusual for artists to pick up jobs on the side—look at yours truly—but Pascal seemed to be operating on a large scale. How did he handle the volume of repair work he was taking on, plus create his own art, plus crank out cheap garden statues for the Mischievous Monkey Garden Supply? Even with an assistant or two, it would be a stretch.

Time to find out what Evangeline wanted to tell me.

Twenty minutes later I pulled up in front of Pascal's building. The door to the stairwell that had been open on Sunday was locked tight on Monday, so I went into the Internet company on the first floor and convinced the friendly receptionist to let me in. Kimmy explained as she did so that she had moved here from Tucson to “get in on the whole Internet thing.” Kimmy looked to be about twenty-one, said she drove a Mini Cooper, and probably made twice the money I did. Why had I never thought to “get in on the whole Internet thing”? It had never occurred to me, not once, and I
lived
here.

The memory of our party a few days ago could not dispel the gloom of the third-floor hallway. I banged on Pascal's door, waited, and banged again. Then I ducked out of sight of the peephole in case the old ploy worked again. No luck. I pressed my ear against the door but heard nothing. Finally, I began to shout. Loudly.

“Open the door, Pascal! You hear me?” I bellowed. “I want to talk with Evangeline! Evangeline!
Evangeline!
”

At last I heard shuffling inside the studio, and Pascal's voice yelled from behind the door, “Go away! Crazy bitch!”

“Hiya, Bobby,” I said, trying to peer in the peephole. “Let me talk to Evangeline and I'll go away.”

“Evangeline? Who the hell's Evangeline?”

That was a new approach.

“What do you mean, who's Evangeline? She's your assistant.”

“I told you, you stupid bitch, I don't work with assistants. Big pains in the ass, is what they are.”

“Okay, fine, whatever you want to call her. Your sister's kid, remember? And what about Derek from Marble World? He said he works for you, too.”

“You must be smokin' somethin', toots, 'cause I don't know what you're talking about,” Pascal yelled. “And I don't have a sister.”

“Whatever. Just let me talk to Evangeline and I'll go.”

“There's no one in here but me, buttercup. I don't know anyone named Evangeline or Derek, and I never have. Now go the hell away or I'll call the cops.”

My stomach clenched. I didn't know Evangeline's phone number, where she lived, or even her last name. If Pascal denied knowing her, where did that leave me? More to the point, where did that leave Evangeline?

“Listen, you miserable worm,” I growled through the door. “You better find Evangeline and fast, because I'm not going to drop this, you hear me?”

“Fuck off.”

I heard footsteps shuffle away and a pneumatic drill started to whine. Looked like our high-decibel chat was over. I stomped down the stairs and out to my truck, angry, frustrated, and worried. Try as I might, I could think of no reason why Pascal would deny knowing Evangeline.

Unless he had murdered her and disposed of her body.

I tried to push the thought away. Pascal was a gifted artist. True, he was a curmudgeon and a bit of a potty mouth. But that didn't make him a killer. He was pretty creepy, though. Maybe he'd started his sculpting career by digging up graves and carving human bones. . . .

Get a grip, Annie,
I chastised. But my unruly imagination did have a point—how much did I really know about Pascal? What had Evangeline wanted to tell me? Why oh why had she not just said what she wanted to say?

I hated it when that happened in the movies. “I absolutely
must
see you tonight, Reginald, for I, and I alone, know the identity of the ruthless murderer. But I must tell you in person, not over the telephone. Meet me in an abandoned warehouse down at the waterfront at midnight, but be sure to wait until the fog rolls in. In the meantime I will do nothing whatsoever to protect myself.” Lo and behold, they wound up dead every time. What was so wrong with saying the criminal's name on the phone? Would murder victims never learn?

I drove to the DeBenton Building, took the stairs two at a time—for the first half a flight, anyway—unlocked the door, tapped in the alarm code, and snatched up the telephone.

“Annie, is this in reference to a homicide?” Inspector Annette Crawford answered without preamble. I was guessing she had caller ID.

“Yes. No. Maybe,” I replied. “Honest.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Listen, Annette, I really think it might be. This sculptor guy I've been talking to, Robert Pascal? He has an assistant named Evangeline who tried to get in touch with me last night and now she's disappeared.”

“What do you mean, ‘disappeared?'”

“She's not at his studio.”

“Have you checked her residence?”

“I don't know where she lives.”

“So what makes you think she's not there?”

Okay. Good question. “Well, here's the weird thing. I just spoke to Pascal and he claims he doesn't know who I'm talking about.”

“Pascal doesn't know his own assistant?”

“Exactly! Doesn't that seem suspicious to you?”

“It's strange, but it's not homicide. Maybe she quit. Maybe he fired her. Maybe she ran off with Cirque du Soleil. Lots of possibilities. I have to go.”

“Annette, wait—I know I don't have much to go on, but I'm really worried. I can't help thinking that something might have happened to her. It just doesn't feel right.”

I heard a long-suffering sigh. “Annie, I can't launch a homicide investigation just because a woman you barely know didn't show up for work—”

“And her boss claims not to know her.”

“And her boss claims not to know her. Does anyone else know her? If someone files a missing person's report, we'll keep an eye out. Otherwise, it's not police business. Now, I
have
to go.” She hung up.