She rolled her eyes. “You have my permission. I was his friend, his close friend, and he entrusted me with a key. I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Can I at least have some dessert first?”
Kerry said, “When you come back.”
Cybil said, “I’ll get the key.”
Judging from the furnishings in his one-bedroom duplex. Captain Archie had lived something of a Spartan existance. The living room contained an old, deep, cracked-leather armchair, a small portable
TV on a stand, a rickety secretary desk that looked as if it might have had nautical origins, and a bookcase. In the kitchen there was a dinette table and two chairs. And in the bedroom there was a bed stripped down to mattress and box springs, one nightstand, and a dresser.
It would’ve been a pretty drab and impersonal place if it hadn’t been for the photographs. There were dozens of them on the walls in every room including the bathroom, all black-and-white posed and candid shots of ferryboats and their crews dating back to the 1800s. Holdouts from his collection, I supposed. The photos created a nostalgic atmosphere, but there was also a certain sadness in the overall effect — glimpses of times and a way of life long gone, and a reminder that the man who had gathered them and been part of those times and ways was gone, too.
I started my search in the bedroom. Poking through other people’s possessions is uneasy work, and when the owner is deceased the task has a ghoulish feel. Besides, I had nothing specific to hunt for. So I was not quite as methodical as I might’ve been in different circumstances.
The nightstand yielded a well-used Bible, a rosary, and a spare dental plate in a plastic box. The dresser was less than half filled with underwear, socks, laundered shirts — and facedown in the bottom drawer, a framed and washed-out color photo of a heavyset, attractive young woman with curly blond hair. An inscription at the bottom read “To Archie — Love, Delia.” It was at least fifty years old and the glass was cracked and webbed at the top, as if it had been smacked with something hard. According to Cybil. Captain Archie had never married. An unrequited love, and the glass broken in anger or frustration? Why keep the photo then, turned facedown in a bottom dresser drawer? One of those little pieces of a person’s life that stir your imagination. And that made me feel the sadness again.
No hidey holes in the bedroom. Nothing taped under drawers or behind dresser, nightstand, headboard. Nothing hidden between mattress and box springs. I moved on to the bathroom. In the medicine cabinet I found a half-full bottle of small orange pills. Archie
Todd’s heart medicine, prescribed by Dr. Johannsen. The only other thing I found out from the cabinet was that Captain Archie had shaved with an old-fashioned straight razor.
Nothing of interest in the kitchen. The living room bookcase contained a few dozen beat-up paperback Western and historical novels, and half as many nonfiction texts on ferryboating. One of the texts, Lore of the Ferrymen, looked pretty old; I plucked it out, opened it to the copyright page. Published in 1891. As I started to put it back, I noticed writing on a scrap of paper that had been used as a bookmark. I slipped the paper free.
One word, Inca or Inco — I couldn’t quite make out the last letter — and a telephone number, penned in a crabbed hand. The paper was white, with no signs of age; the phone prefix indicated it might be a San Francisco number. I tucked the scrap into my shirt pocket. Relevant or not, I would show it to Cybil as proof that I was every bit as thorough and sharp-eyed as Samuel Leatherman.
I’d saved the desk for last. The usual miscellany that accumulates in desk drawers; plain envelopes jammed with bill receipts marked Paid; bank envelopes bound together with a thick rubber band, each containing statements and a few cancelled checks written in the same crabbed hand. I found the three most recent statements and thumbed through the checks. Redwood Village, Dr. Johannsen, a local pharmacy, a supermarket, a credit card company. None were made out to individuals. I glanced at the statements. A deposit had been made on the first of each month in the amount of $2,500 — either a draw from his stock portfolio or a pension payment, because the amount was too large for a social security check. Most of the $2,500 went for rent; gracious retirement living in Redwood Village didn’t come cheap. The average balance was in the $1,500 range, slightly more than that as of the latest statement.
Nothing.
I rummaged through the rest of the drawers. No personal correspondence of any kind. No copy of his will. No address book or Rolodex; if he’d had one of either, it had probably been turned over to the attorney, Evan Patterson. The only odd note was the absence of any account statements of other mailings from Dunbar Asset Management. There ought to be a fairly large file, given the size of Captain Archie’s portfolio. Chances were they’d been turned over to Evan Patterson as well, though why he would want all but the most recent—
“You there!” a voice said behind me, so suddenly and with such forcefulness that I twisted around, banged my knee, and nearly knocked over the desk. “What do you think you’re doing?”
9
It was a woman, a big woman because she pretty much filled the open doorway. I hadn’t heard the door open; I must not have closed it tightly when I let myself in, the afternoon breeze had blown it open, and I’d been too intent on my search to notice. She was backlit by sunlight, so I couldn’t tell much about her at first except her size.
“I asked what you’re doing here.” Gravelly voice, the kind that brooks no nonsense.
When you get caught with your drawers down or your hand in a cookie jar, the smart thing to do is to play dumb and bluff it out. I pasted on a sheepish smile and said, “Doing a favor for my mother-in-law. I should’ve known better.”
“That’s right, you should have.” She came inside and a little to one side, so that I had a clearer look at her. Mid-forties, gray-streaked blond hair, a prominent nose. And big all over, more bone and muscle than fat — nearly six feet and a solid hundred and sixty pounds, with a chest that strained the front of her white blouse and probably required a D cup. “Just how did you get in?”
“She gave me a key. My mother-in-law.”
“That’s against the rules. If she has a key to Mr. Todd’s unit, she should have turned it in after he died. What’s her name?”
“Cybil Wade. The cottage across—”
“Oh, the writer. What’s your name?”
I told her. Only that, not my profession.
“I’m Jocelyn Dunn, one of the nurses here. What’re you looking for?”
I was ready for that. I said, “Two chapters of her new novel, the one she’s writing now. She can’t find them and she thinks she may have given them to Captain Archie to read before he died. That’s Cybil for you. Absentminded as all get out.”
“Did you find the chapters?”
“No. They’re not in the desk. Maybe the bedroom—”
“I’ll look. You wait outside. Then we’ll go over and talk to Mrs. Wade.”
I waited outside. Pretty soon Ms. Dunn came out and said, “No manuscript pages that I can see.” Then she said. “The key, please.”
“Well, it is Cybil’s...”
“No, it’s not. It’s the property of Redwood Village. The key, please. I’ll lock the door.”
I didn’t have much choice; I gave her the key. She locked up and tucked the key into her pocket, and we went across the street to Cybil’s duplex. I knocked on the door before I opened it, called out, “Company!” and did the ungentlemanly thing of going in first. Nurse Dunn didn’t wait for an invitation; she came right in after me.
Kerry and Cybil were on the couch, drinking coffee. I said, “Cybil, I didn’t find those two chapters from your manuscript. You must’ve misplaced them here somewhere.”