Fatal Shadows Read online

  I gathered up his scattered belongings. His coffee mug, which read, “Drink your coffee — people in Africa are sleeping.” A couple of CDs. The razor and toothbrush he left in the washroom for those morning-afters. Most of it I packed in a box for his father, who lived now in a Huntington Beach nursing home.

  I didn’t want to keep playing it over in my mind, imagining what Rob’s last moments must have been like. I bustled around facing books out, cutting strays out of the wrong shelves, pestering customers with offers of help and coffee. Over and over I asked myself the useless but inevitable Why? Why Robert? Why kill him? Robbery? Maybe some coked up junkie? The police said no. The police thought someone Robert knew had slain him. I heard again Detective Riordan’s sardonic, “prior acquaintance.” Did that mean Robert’s killer was someone I also knew? I remembered Claude’s anxious, “Did you tell them about me?” Was that the normal reaction of an innocent man?

  It was hard to imagine stabbing a person fourteen times. I couldn’t believe anyone I knew would be capable of that. Easier to believe it of a stranger, a hustler. Easier to believe Rob was the victim of a hate crime or random violence.

  The day dragged. A few friends called asking about Rob, offering condolences, expressions of horror and sympathy, speculation.

  About two o’clock, the silence got to me. I closed the shop and drove over to Claude’s.

  You can’t miss Café Noir. Outside it’s kitschy pink stucco, black grillwork and black shutters. Inside it’s too dark to tell what the hell the decor might be. The floors are like black ice and just about as dangerous; the feathery outline of potted trees was barely discernible in the gloom.

  Claude made clucking sounds when I walked in. He ushered me to one of the high back booths, promised to fix me something special and vanished. It was Monday and the café was officially closed, but Claude never seemed to leave the place.

  I tried to relax. Tilted my head back and closed my eyes. Overhead Piaf trilled, “Non, je ne regrette rien.” Easy for her to say.

  After a time Claude reappeared and set a plate of linguine before me. The sharp-sweet scent of garlic and basil wafted from the tangle of pasta. He opened a bottle of wine, filled two glasses, and sat across from me.

  “Have I ever told you, you look like Monty Clift?” he inquired in a deep, seductive voice.

  “Before or after the accident?”

  Claude tittered. Pushed my glass forward. “Red wine. Good for the heart.”

  “Thanks.” I inhaled. “This smells heavenly.”

  “You need someone to look after you, ma belle.” Claude wasn’t smiling. With his sad, brown-velvet eyes he watched me spear a soft-shell crab bathed in tomato and herb sauce.

  I took a bite. “I’m a born bachelor.”

  “Bah! You just need to meet Mr. Right.”

  This is one of Claude’s favorite themes. In fact, it’s a favorite theme with a lot of my friends. Gay and straight. Certain things are universal.

  “Are you proposing?” I batted my eyelashes.

  “Be serious,” Claude insisted. “It’s been how long since What’s-His-Name walked? You’ve been alone so long you think it’s normal. It’s not normal. Everybody needs somebody —”

  “Sometime?” I supplied helpfully. I twirled a forkful of linguine.

  Claude sighed. Propped his chin on his gigantic paw. He watched me eat with an artist’s satisfaction.

  “So what really happened between you and Rob?” I asked.

  “Quelle est la question? Fireworks then fizzle.”

  “So?” I took a sip of wine.

  “So that was between me and Robert. Nobody else. I don’t want cops fucking around in my life.”

  “That was — what? Six months ago? Why would the cops be more interested in you than anyone else?”

  Claude’s eyes slid away from mine. “I wrote him ... letters, poems. Some of it was kind of ... dark.”

  “No pun intended?”

  Claude playfully slapped my hand. “I don’t expect The Man to understand the creative mind.”

  “How dark were these poems and letters?”

  “Pitch.”

  “Swell. You think Robert kept that stuff?”

  Claude gnawed on his lower lip. “He could be sentimental. In the French sense.”

  What was the French sense? I rolled the wine over my tongue, savoring it, and considered Claude. “Who was Robert seeing after the two of you split up?”

  “You should know.”

  I shot him a quick look. “Rob and I were never lovers.”

  Claude shrugged. One of those speaking Continental gestures. He didn’t appear to be convinced. If Claude didn’t believe me, did that mean other people suspected Rob and I were involved? And were they likely to share that suspicion with the cops? Watching me twist another forkful of pasta, he whispered hurriedly, “You could get those letters back, Adrien.”

  The fork froze a few centimeters from my lips. “Say again?”

  “You’ve got a key to his place.”

  “Whoa, Nellie. Rob died in the alley behind that apartment building. It’s a crime scene. Or as good as. The cops could be watching.”

  “Listen, petit, you’re his best friend. Were. You’re his boss. You could come up with a legitimate excuse for going over there.”

  “No. No. No.”

  “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t —”

  “Read my lips. Non.”

  Claude fell silent, gazing at me reproachfully.

  I lowered my fork. “Is that why you asked me over here?”

  “Absolument pas! The idea!”

  “Yeah, right.”

  He bit his lip. I shook my head. His dimples showed.

  * * * * *

  I unlocked the side door to the shop. Pushed it open against an unexpected weight.

  There were books everywhere: dumped in the aisles, scattered across the polished wood floor. A couple of shelves had been pulled over, the gramophone smashed to pieces beneath. The stack of Decca 78s had been sent flying like Frisbees. One had landed on top of a shelf. Another lay at my shoe tip like a black half-moon. I stooped to pick it up. Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters would never warble “Life Is So Peculiar” again.

  My heart began to thud in a slow heavy pulse beneath my breastbone; the funny thing was that it was more in anger than fear. I took in the counter swept bare of everything except the computerized register, which was bolted into the mahogany. It was unplugged, its drawer open and empty. A coherent thought finally appeared. I went behind the counter, found the phone and dialed 9-1-1.

  My call made, I put the phone back on the counter, took another look at the wreckage. I wanted to break something myself. That was when it occurred to me that whoever had broken in could still be hiding in the shop.

  I grabbed the poker from the fireplace and headed for my office.

  In the office the desk drawers had been pulled out and emptied, the file cabinet locks were broken, their contents dumped. My pills were crushed and sprinkled throughout the papers. Boxes of books, extra stock, now covered the wooden floor like crooked tiles of multicolored murder and mayhem. I slipped and slid my way across.

  Poker raised, holding my breath, I stuck my head in the bathroom.

  White tile, white porcelain, white paper towel dispenser — granted none of it as white as it could have been. The open window looked out on the alley behind the building.

  I yanked the door forward.

  No one lurked in the space between the door and the wall.

  I backed out of the office and headed upstairs. The door to my flat was locked. Maybe there hadn’t been time to pick the lock, but they had been up here. At the top of the stairs sat the grinning skull from the fireplace mantle below. Nice touch. A memento mori.

  I made it halfway down the stairs before my legs gave out. I was still sitting there taking slow careful breaths when Detectives Chan and Riordan showed up.

  Riordan stood surrounded by piles of books like
Atlas or some bloke of equally mythic proportions: long legs encased in Levi’s, powerful shoulders straining the seams of a surprisingly well-cut tweed jacket. He looked about himself dourly, all set to reject my application for the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

  Chan hiked up the stairs to me.

  “Are you all right, Mr. English?”

  “Fine.”

  “Coming back inside here was a bad idea, sir. You should have gone next door and called for help.”

  “Yeah, I realize that now.”

  “Can you tell us if anything appears to be missing?”

  “Money from the register.” I stared at the toppled shelves. Light flashed off the scattered pieces of glass from the broken mirror. Was that seven years of bad luck for my burglar or for me? I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t know.”

  Chan observed me without speaking then turned away.

  “They didn’t break in.” Riordan rejoined Chan at the foot of the stairs and they held a brief undervoiced conference.

  “They must have used Robert’s key,” I said, digesting this. I thought of the bathroom window, but it was too small and too narrow, unless the burglar was a pygmy or a monkey.

  Riordan glanced back. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  Chan intervened, always urbane, easy. “Why don’t you come downstairs where we can talk, Mr. English? Figure out if anything’s missing. Figure out who might have done this.”

  Riordan said, “Give me your keys, Adrien. I’ll check out upstairs. Make sure nobody’s hiding under the bed.”

  “Rob didn’t have a key to my apartment. And I’d have noticed if they’d kicked my door in.”

  “Let’s just make sure, okay?”

  I tossed my keys with more irritation than accuracy. Riordan caught them one-handed and stomped up the stairs past me. We heard him reach the landing. Heard the scrape of the key in the lock. Heard the creak of floorboards as he walked overhead.

  Chan took out a stick of gum and folded it into his mouth.

  In a few minutes Riordan was back with us. I saw him exchange one of those looks with Chan. He lifted a fake Chippendale chair to its feet, shoved it forward. I ignored the invitation.

  “You don’t look so hot, Adrien.”

  “Yeah, well I’m having a bad heart day.”

  His upper lip curled in a semblance of a smile. “Tell me about it.”

  I decided I would. “My best friend was murdered last night. My shop was burglarized today. This may be routine for you. It’s not for me.”

  “Well,” he drawled, “let’s talk about that. About Rob. You didn’t tell us everything this morning, did you?”

  There was something different in their faces, in their voices, in the way Riordan was calling me “Adrien” instead of “Mr. English.” It started the hairs on the back of my neck prickling.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Riordan smiled. Lots of perfect white teeth, like a shark who saw his dentist regularly. Chan said, “We were just over at the Blue Parrot, interviewing the bartender when your call came over the radio. We thought we’d clear up a couple of points with you.”

  “Such as why you lied.”

  My head jerked puppet-like toward Riordan. “Lied?” I echoed.

  “The bartender at The Blue Parrot said that you and the vic —” Chan corrected himself. “You and Mr. Hersey quarreled during your dinner, and that Mr. Hersey walked out and left you to pick up the check.”

  “I … invited Robert.”

  “I don’t think that’s the point, do you, Adrien?” Riordan inquired. He picked up a copy of China House, studied the two men embracing on the cover, snorted, and tossed it onto an empty shelf. “Why didn’t you tell us you had a fight with Robert?”

  “It wasn’t a fight. It was a … disagreement.”

  “And eight hours later the garbage men find what’s left of the disagreeable Robert in a dumpster.”

  Distantly I wondered if I was going to pass out right there at their feet.

  Cold sweat was breaking out all over my body.

  “You think I killed Rob?”

  “There’s a thought. Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure!”

  “Just relax, Mr. English,” Detective Chan said. “These are routine questions, you know.”

  “What did you disagree about, you and Rob?”

  I scrutinized Riordan. His eyes were hazel, I realized.

  “About work,” I said. “I felt like Rob didn’t take it seriously. He was late, he left early. Sometimes he never showed at all. I’d give him stuff to do and he wouldn’t do it. Petty stuff. I regret it now.”

  “Regret what?” Chan asked alertly.

  “Regret arguing with him. Regret our last conversation being a fight over —” Tears itched down my cheeks. I wiped them away fast, knowing what these two would make of a grown man weeping.

  “The bartender says before he walked out, Hersey yelled, “If I’m a thief, fire me.” What did he mean by that?”

  I viewed them. Chan was chewing gum tempestuously, studying his notepad. He looked tired, but his pudgy lined face was kindly. Riordan on the other hand.... How old was he? Thirty-five? Forty-five? He looked like a guy who expected the worst of people and was rarely disappointed.

  “There was money missing from petty cash a couple of times.”

  “And you thought Hersey might have taken it?”

  “I just wanted to hear his answer.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Riordan laughed; a hard sound. “Why lie about that?” he asked. “If you lie about the little things, why should we believe you about the big things?”

  “He was my friend.”

  He lifted one shoulder. “People kill their friends. They kill their wives, their husbands, their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers. They murder their own children. You have to do better than that.”

  “The most I would have done is fire him, and I wouldn’t have fired him. Why the hell would I murder him? For pinching the petty cash? For being late? Jesus! And you’re supposed to be detectives?”

  Chan said soothingly, “Sure, you were friends a long time, you and Mr. Hersey. You were best man at his wedding, and when he came back to LA you gave him a job and helped him find a place to live. And became lovers. Again.”

  “We were never lovers.”

  “That’s not the way we hear it,” Riordan said. “We heard you and Rob were hump buddies from way back when Hersey used to cheat off your chemistry exams.”

  It occurred to me that I had it all wrong in my book. My cops were too abrasive. Riordan and Chan were courteous and careful. So when the contempt slipped out it was as shocking as a fist in the face.

  I said as calmly and quietly as I could, “Robert left before I did last night. He left to meet someone. Didn’t the bartender confirm that?”

  Chan snapped his gum. “Sure did. Robert left at 6:45 and you stayed and had a second Midori margarita. You left about 7:30. Fifteen minutes later Robert showed up again looking for you.”

  Chapter Three

  Tara called that night.

  “Tara,” I floundered, when I recognized the tight voice on the other end of the line. “I was going to call you.”

  Two months after Rob split, Tara had miscarried their third child. It made a painful situation worse. It also made for stiff conversations the few times I had been unlucky enough to field her calls.

  In my mind’s eye I could see her as clearly as if I were studying a page in my high school yearbook: tall and slender, pale blue eyes, long blonde hair. The girl who is always picked to play the Virgin Mary in the Christmas pageant.

  “You killed him.” Her voice was so low I almost couldn’t hear her. When I realized what she had said I felt my hair stand on end.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You killed him just as surely a
s if you’d stuck the knife in his chest.”

  “Look, Tara, I know you’re upset.”

  “You’re the reason he came back here.”

  “He came back here because his family’s here. Because he grew up here. Because his friends are here.”

  “Because you’re here, Adrien, you faggot. You pervert. Do you think I don’t know? Do you think Bob didn’t tell me about you?”

  The acid in her voice should have melted the phone line. I didn’t know what to say. What the hell had Rob told her? “We were friends, that’s all, Tara.”

  “Bullshit! Bullshit. We were happy, Adrien. Everything was going great for us. We had a great house. Great kids. A great life. Then you had to come along and screw it all up again.” She sounded like she was crying. Hell.

  “Tara, please believe me. Rob called me. I never — I sent a Christmas card every year. To both of you. That’s it. That’s the only contact I tried to make.”

  “LIAR!”

  I held the phone away listening to her scream, “You are a goddamn liar, Adrien. You’ve ruined my life and you’ve killed Bob, so I hope you’re happy. No, you know what I really hope, Adrien? I hope you die of AIDS. I hope you die with your body rotting and your brain eaten away….”

  * * * * *

  I shoved the sofa in front of the door, fixed a double brandy and fell asleep watching The Crimson Pirate with Burt Lancaster. But even the vision of Burt in his molded red and white striped breeches couldn’t cheer me.

  It’s never fun knowing another human hates your guts, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had wronged Tara. Not in the way she thought, but I felt guilty all the same.

  About three o’clock in the morning I woke from chaotic dreams to find the lights on and the TV blasting infomercials. I turned off the television and lights, and dragged myself to bed. But once I’d lain down my brain kicked into high gear, and I kept reliving that final scene with Rob.