The Art of Detection (45 page)

She consulted the file she had brought with her, found the combination to the safe, and looked inside: The ledger in the bluish folder had been entered into evidence, but the rest of the safe’s contents had been checked and left where they were. And as she thought, one upright folder held 118 pages of buff paper. In addition, three of the mailing envelopes lying flat on the safe’s floor held the story, addressed and ready for sending. One would go to Jeannine Cartfield, which Kate found interesting—why not Rutland? Or was the loose file copy for him? The other two envelopes bore names familiar to her from Nicholson’s list of expert Sherlockians, Peter Blau in Maryland, and Les Klinger in Los Angeles. She’d spoken with both men: Blau had not been in touch with Gilbert since November, when they had spoken about a rather beaten-up copy of a Conan Doyle novel that might or might not have the author’s signature, and Klinger had exchanged a series of e-mails with Gilbert in January regarding corrections to a book he was putting the final touches on, two volumes of annotations on the Sherlock Holmes stories. Both men had asked if she knew anything about a recently discovered short story.

Four copies here, one already given to Nicholson, although not noted on the ledger: Where was the last? Hawkin had proposed a scenario of theft and violent confrontation: Perhaps Gilbert had, after all, been killed right here. Not with the falcon statue, as it turned out, but with some other blunt object, his head bound up before it could bleed, the story snatched up by his murderer…for what purpose?

They had thought that the statue was missing, and based a scenario on that, only to have it crumble with a phone call from Goode’s Porcelain Repair. But what was she to make of the other missing objects: a seldom-used cell phone and a copy of the manuscript? Oh yes, and his pocket watch on a chain.

But the dump site was the key. Someone knew where to leave Gilbert’s body, someone who had seen the story. Nicholson was the obvious suspect for that, but Nicholson had left town on Saturday morning, and the Point Bonita Park ranger had considered it highly unlikely that the shattered padlock and the body behind it would have been simply overlooked on that sunny day. And Nicholson had indeed been on the road—a detailed receipt from his motel confirmed that he had checked in just before six o’clock (which was right, for having left San Francisco near noon and stopping for the meal he’d charged to his card in Red Bluff, along the way). Furthermore, he had logged on to the motel’s high-speed Internet connection for an hour and twelve minutes beginning at eleven-forty that night, then checked out the following morning well before seven, having eaten breakfast at the motel’s buffet. He had stopped briefly at his cousin’s house in Eugene on the way north, midday on Sunday, before arriving at his friends’ house in Seattle at the end of a long day.

There could have been a conspiracy, of course, among Gilbert’s acquaintances—one to murder, one to dump—but evidence supporting that had yet to appear, and in Kate’s experience, such organizational tendencies among amateurs were unlikely.

Which left her with a Mr. X. Someone who had been in the house when Gilbert was lounging in his pajamas, someone who had seen the story (either that night or previously) and grabbed at the chance of duplicating the body dump.

Too complicated. Much more likely to have been Mrs. Murray’s parolee brother, losing his temper at the parking situation.

But how would he have known where to take the body?

Circular thinking led nowhere. Kate retrieved her empty cup, closed up the safe and the house, and took the bag of scones and muffins home for her family’s breakfast. At a more reasonable hour, with the sounds of suitcase packing and calling voices all around her, she phoned Hawkin.

“Al, we really need to meet with Tom Rutland.”

“Okay. Any particular reason?”

“Basically, I just don’t trust helpful attorneys.”

“Reason enough for me.”

“No, I was thinking. I can’t remember the exact details of Gilbert’s will, and if I went to the Detail to check on them, Lee would divorce me, but as I recall, Rutland’s authority as executor of the estate is pretty much absolute. He can set up a museum and hire a curator, or he can dispose of what there is and buy other things—in other words, he controls the entire Gilbert estate, manuscript,
Beeton’s Annual,
Sherlock Holmes teapot, and the lot.”

“Mm.” The sound was noncommittal, but Kate took it as a sound of meditation, not disagreement.

“I was also thinking, Rutland is someone you might expect Gilbert to have shown the story to early on—not only his lawyer, but a fellow Sherlockian, a person who would immediately recognize the value of the manuscript, both in monetary terms and in the fame that would come with it. We know Gilbert talked to Rutland on Friday morning, although Rutland says it was to see if he would be free for a meeting the next week. Then Gilbert went out and bought the materials for making copies of the story. What if he gave Rutland a copy the following day, just didn’t mention that he’d given one to Nicholson as well?”

“Are you suggesting that Rutland intended to steal the manuscript outright?”

“That’s possible, I suppose.” She hadn’t thought the lawyer’s motivation quite so blatant, but she tried to work her way into that potential scenario. “If he’d thought the original was in Gilbert’s office safe, and if he believed Gilbert had told no one else about it, what was to stop him from claiming it as his own discovery?”

“But Gilbert had already been around, back in December, establishing the thing’s provenance.”

“Again, Rutland might not have known that. Or he could have intended to claim that Gilbert was doing it on his behalf. It would be Rutland’s word against that of a dead man, concerning a million-dollar hunk of paper that nobody knew Gilbert had. It might have looked like a stack of cash just lying there waiting for him.”

“But the original wasn’t in the safe, it was in the bank,” he pointed out, then asked, “When Nicholson revealed that he had the story at the dinner the other night, did Rutland show any reaction?”

“I wasn’t there when Nicholson told them, although when reference was made to it, he seemed to handle that without discomfort. But then, Nicholson had told him earlier in the day that he needed a few minutes that night to make an announcement. Rutland might well have guessed what it was about, and been prepared.”

“You have to wonder, if Rutland had the original in his hands and then Nicholson made that call, whether there might’ve been a second body in the battery.”

“Third,” Kate corrected without thinking.

“Martinelli—” Hawkin started, but Kate was already backtracking.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, Jack Raynor was fictional. But if Rutland killed Nicholson to shut him up, he’d have to take care of the people who knew about Gilbert’s purchase of the story as well, Magnolia Brook and Paul Kobata.”

“Bodies right and left,” he said, and Kate had to agree, it seemed unlikely. “But that brings up another point: Why leave Gilbert at the gun emplacement? If it was Rutland, you’d think the Berkeley hills would feel more natural.”

“He and Gilbert might have been in Marin anyway.”

“With Gilbert in his dressing gown? And Rutland a much-married man? Of course, with three sets of alimony, maybe he decided men would be cheaper,” Hawkin grumbled, having had some experience with alimony himself.

“Or else his choice of location was directly tied to what I was saying earlier, that Rutland looked to become an eminent Holmes authority on the back of Gilbert’s estate. Nothing would get that off to a bang like the publicity of Gilbert’s body and the story. He’d launch straight into the morning shows.”

“Sounds pretty calculating.”

“It doesn’t mean that he actually killed Gilbert. Maybe it was an accident after all—Gilbert hit his head and died, if not at home then somewhere else. The lawyer either found him, or someone called in a panic, and he had this brilliant idea of how to use Gilbert’s death to his own benefit.”

“Not premeditation, but very fast thinking?”

“He’s not a criminal lawyer, but the man lives and breathes the most convoluted, far-fetched detective stories—some of it would surely have rubbed off on him.”

“You could be right.”

“So what do you think about an interview?”

“You want to know where I am?”

“Why? Where are you?”

“At my desk, in the Detail, with a copy of the Gilbert will in front of me.”

“And…?”

“And two minutes before you called, I left a message for Rutland, saying that we wanted to see him on Monday morning.” When she did not respond, he continued, “My next phone calls are to double-check on that alibi he gave us.”

“Al, sometimes I don’t know whether to hate you or to love you.”

“I am a force of nature, like Sherlock Holmes,” he said placidly.

Kate made a rude noise into the receiver. “What time do you—hold on a second.” Kate rested the phone against her thigh to muffle the sound and said to the small person in the doorway, “You guys ready?”

“Mamalee says two minutes and we’re drivin’ away without you, but I don’t want to leave you here, I want you to come. You promised.”

“I’ll be there in one minute, sweetie. Have you used the potty?”

The green eyes rolled. “Of course. And Mamalee already asked me.”

“Well, a girl can’t pee too many times. Tell her just one minute. Sorry, Al,” she said into the receiver, “I’ve got to go. Do you want me to call you tonight?”

“No, I want you to have a relaxing weekend. I’ll make a date with Rutland for Monday, and see you Monday morning.”

Implacable as Lee, Al Hawkin hung up on his partner, abandoning her to the affections of her family.

TWENTY

K
ate parked at the Hall of Justice well before eight o’clock on Monday, invigorated not only by the chance of getting her teeth into Thomas Rutland, who had annoyed her since the moment she had laid eyes on him, but also (she had to admit) by two days spent in the salt air with her family, during which she’d had no more urgent puzzles on her hands than the species of the bird sitting at the other end of the binoculars from her and what kind of pancakes to order for breakfast. As if to underscore that a holiday from work was a necessary part of clear thinking, as she walked toward the building, she felt one of those small clicks of synthesis in the back of her mind, and stopped dead, allowing it to develop.

She had been mulling over the dinner party at Tony’s, nine disparate individuals brought together by their interest in a fictional English detective, and idly holding that up beside the weekend she had just spent with Lee and Nora, where interests and commonalities seemed to spring from their very pores.

As her mind skimmed over that night, she thought of Ian Nicholson’s charge against Gilbert, accusing him of
a casual abuse of friends
. Casual abuse happened all the time in a relationship; it might also be called
taking me for granted
. A weekend together, during which two people might rediscover themselves, was a necessary part of life, like air into the lungs.

It was then that another phrase floated into Kate’s mind:
Philip hated to break character.

And so she stopped walking, her head bent as she sought to trace that statement back to its source.

It had also been said at that dinner. And also by Nicholson.

Ian Nicholson had been making a passing comment on Gilbert’s idiosyncrasies, more fond than critical. And although it was by no means technical language, it struck Kate now as slightly off, as a phrase not everyone would use. Lee, for example, might comment on the psychology of role playing; a cop’s mind might chew on the similarity between Gilbert’s act and that of a person hiding from the law, or at least from his past.

Break character
was a thing an actor might say.

A friend mentioned they’d seen him in a restaurant somewhere, with an actor….

Gilbert and an actor, six or seven years ago.

And at that same dinner, someone had asked Ian if he’d thought Philip was acting.

She trotted up the steps and through security, impatiently jabbing the elevator button. In the Detail, she shed her things on her desk and sat down in front of the computer without taking off her coat. Hawkin greeted her, and she nodded absently.

I should’ve thought about this on Friday, Kate berated herself. After I talked with Gilbert’s ex-wife on Friday, the bells should have gone off. Of course, even if I’d known Friday, I couldn’t have done anything, time zones and office hours being what they are. All I lost was being preoccupied for two days at Point Reyes, and driving Lee nuts.

Hawkin said something, but she copied down a phone number before looking up at him. “Sorry?”

“I said, we need to leave if we’re going to catch Rutland today. He said he could give us half an hour, then he’s in court all day.”

“You go get the car, I’ll meet you out in front.”

He was waiting for her when she trotted down the front steps of the Hall, but he hadn’t been there for long.

“What was that about?” he asked as he turned onto Mission.

“I had to hunt down Ian Nicholson’s agent—ex-agent, I guess, since Ian hasn’t worked as an actor in years. The secretary said he might not be in until noon, New York time, but I gave her my cell number. If it rings, I’m going to leave you with Rutland and take it.” She told him about the small leap her mind had taken, although as she described the link, it sounded considerably more tenuous than it had at the time. Almost apologetically, she ended by saying, “I just thought it was something we should look into.”

“I agree,” Hawkin said, and they left it at that.

THOMAS Rutland lived in Berkeley, but his office was a short walk from the Oakland courthouse, in the upper floors of one of the new downtown high-rises. Despite the location, his practice was predominantly financial, and the building and the office décor reflected the expectations of monied executives, particularly young ones. The receptionist was as sleek as the furniture, and ushered them into Rutland’s office without delay. Probably, Rutland had not wished to advertise the presence of cops on the premises, and told her not to keep them waiting.