One of the officers remembered the incident. Lent had put in a call when he had found the lock cut off, but nothing had seemed disturbed inside the complex. They thought the break-in had been an aborted attempt, that perhaps the burglar had run off when the watchman showed up, had never actually gotten inside.
"And then Mr. Brill happened along," Mr. Lent said. "Just after the officers left. He'd seen the police cars, and wondered if there was trouble.
"Well it was dark, and most of the stores were closed. I didn't know where I was going to get a lock for the night, and I didn't want to leave the place open. Mr. Brill had a lock in his car, a brand-new heavy-duty padlock. He said I could use it. I told him I'd return it, soon as I got a new one, but he said, no need. Said he'd bought it for his garage down in Santa Barbara but then he'd changed his mind, had decided to put in a remote door opener. More secure, he said. Said he was always losing keys." Lent laughed. "I know about losing keys. If I didn't keep 'em chained to my belt, I wouldn't have a key to my name.
"I had to argue with him before he'd let me pay him. But after all, the lock had never been used, it was still sealed in its plastic bubble, still in the hardware store bag with the receipt. So of course I paid him. Management reimbursed me later. Nice man, Mr. Brill, a real gentleman."
Lent's description of Brill was large, hunched, and rather owl-like in appearance but handsomely dressed, a fine camel hair sport coat, and a nice car, a red sports coupe of some kind.
"Maybe a rental," Joe said. This explained the bolt cutters in Mahl's closet. Explained nicely how, at three in the morning, Mahl was able to get into the complex. No problem, before ever he gave Lent the "new" lock, to carefully open the sealed package, have the key copied, then seal it up again with its keys.
The men stopped talking, the ladder rattled. The cats nipped back up the alley, they were crouched below the chain-link fence when they heard car doors slam, heard the first car start. One big leap and they were up, clinging to the wire. Scrambling over, within seconds they were headed home, Dulcie purring so loud she sounded like a sports car slipping down the street.
"I'm glad her paintings are safe. I told you we'd find them."
He brushed against her, licked her ear. "Without you, Mahl would have gotten away with it.
"And," he said, "Rob Lake might have burned for Janet's murder." And trotting along through the night, Joe grinned.
So Clyde thinks we don't have any business messing around with a murder case. So we ought to be chasing little mousies or playing with catnip toys. He could hardly wait to say a few words to Clyde.
25
Moreno's Bar and Grill was a small, secluded establishment tucked along one of the village's less decorative alleys, a narrow lane two blocks above the beach. The carved oak door was softly lit by a pair of stained-glass lanterns, the interior carpet was thick, plain, expensive. The music was nonthreatening, tasteful, and soft. A patron entering Moreno's felt the stress of the day begin to ease, could feel himself begin to slow, to relax, to recall with deeper appreciation the small and overlooked details of an otherwise unpleasant afternoon. Moreno's offered fine beers and ale on draft and a deep emotional restorative to soften the rough edges of life.
The interior of Moreno's was comfortably dim, the walls, paneled in golden oak, were hung with an assortment of etchings and reproductions highlighting the history of California, scenes dating from the time of the first Spanish settlements through the gold rush days. Max Harper sat alone in a booth at the back, sinking comfortably into the soft, quilted leather.
He was not in uniform but dressed in worn Levi's, plain Western boots, and a dull-colored Western shirt. The old, unpretentious clothes seemed to belong perfectly to Harper's long, lean frame and dry, weathered face. He smelled of clean, well-kept horses; he had spent a leisurely afternoon riding through the Molena Valley, giving both himself and his buckskin gelding some much needed exercise. He tried to ride twice a week, but that wasn't always possible. He was smoking his third cigarette and sipping a nonalcoholic O'Doul's when Clyde swung in through the carved front doors, stopped to speak to the bartender, then made his way to the back As he slid into the booth the waiter appeared behind him, carrying two menus and a Killian's Red draft.
Harper was not in a hurry to order. He accepted a menu and waved the waiter away with a brief jerk of his head. He had chosen the most secluded booth, and at this early hour there were only five other customers in Moreno's, three at the bar and a couple of tourists in a booth at the other end of the room. The dinner crowd would be moderate; the bar would begin to fill up around eight.
Clyde sat waiting, fingering his beer mug, watching Max. Despite the bar's soothing atmosphere, the police chief was wound tight, the lines which webbed his face drawn into a half scowl. His shoulders looked tight, and he kept fidgeting with his cigarette.
Harper eased deeper into the booth, glanced around the nearly empty room out of habit. Normally he wouldn't share this particular kind of unease with Clyde or with anyone. He sure wouldn't share this specific distress with another cop. He would have told Millie; they had shared everything. Two cops under one roof lived on shop talk, on angry complaints and on a crude humor geared to emotional survival. But Millie was dead. He didn't talk easily to anyone else.
He had told Clyde earlier in the day about finding Janet's paintings in the storage locker up near Highway One. Now he studied Clyde, trying to sort out several nagging thoughts. "I didn't tell you how we knew the paintings were in the locker."
Clyde settled back, sipping his beer. "Isn't there a watchman? Did he find them?"
"Watchman made the first call, asking for a patrol car. He'd heard a noise in one of the lockers, like something heavy fell.
"But it was after the two units arrived, that the second call came in, about the paintings. That call was made from a unit radio."
Clyde looked puzzled, sipped his beer.
Harper watched him with interest. "Caller told the dispatcher that there were some paintings I ought to see, that they had to do with Janet's murder. Said I might like to go on over there, take a look for myself. Said the evidence was crucial, that the locker had been rented by Kendrick Mahl."
He stubbed out his cigarette. "An anonymous call, from a unit radio. There is no way to identify which car the call was made from, dispatcher has no way to tell. I've been over this with every man on duty that night."
He fiddled with his half-empty cigarette pack, tearing off the cellophane. "No one in the department will admit to making the call, and no one left his unit unattended except my men up at the locker, and they were right there, not ten feet away, with the big locker door wide-open. Anyone moved out in the alley, they would have seen him."
"Sounds like one of your men is lying, that one of your own had to have made the call. Unless there's some sophisticated electronic tap on the police line?"
"Not likely, in a case like this. What would be the purpose?"
"Could the caretaker have slipped out to the squad cars, and lied about it? But why?"