“So you’re working with that McCone woman,” Kerry said. “She’s attractive, isn’t she.”
“So are you.”
“No fooling around?”
“Hell. She’s young enough to be my daughter.”
“So am I. That didn’t stop you with me.”
“Cut it out,” I said. “Desist. You can worry about my health, that’s okay. But you don’t have to worry about my virtue.”
“Mmm. Take care of yourself, will you?”
I said I would. Then I told her that I missed her, and told her some other things, and she said maybe she’d let me kiss her dog bite and make it better, after all. I was smiling when I rang off and I thought she probably was too.
It was after eight by then. I called the airline and canceled my one o’clock return flight and got an open reservation instead. While I had the directory out, I flipped open the Yellow Pages to “Investigators” to see if the Owens Detective Agency carried an ad. It did, a small one that said it opened for business “promptly at 9 a.m., Monday thru Friday.”
I had a quick cup of coffee in the coffee shop and then took my rental car across the Coronado Bridge and downtown. The building that housed the Owens Agency was on Sixth Avenue between Broadway and E Street, a block that just missed being shabby. It was flanked on one side by a transient hotel and on the other by an out-of-business Mexican café. The lobby was empty except for a couple of potted plants and a big sand-filled urn. The elevator was old and cranky and made grumbling noises to itself, but it got me to the third and top floor in under five minutes.
I went down a hallway past a door marked LAVATORY, another one marked DUTTON DESIGN & MANUFACTURING CO., a third that said K. M. ARDRY, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW — DIVORCE SPECIALIST. There didn’t seem to be much going on behind the last two doors. Most people probably hadn’t shown up for work yet.
The Owens Agency was at the far end. I tried the knob, half expecting to find it locked, but it turned under my hand and let me into an anteroom large enough for three cane-bottom chairs and two small tables. Nobody was in it. Opposite, bisecting the room, was a floor-to-ceiling partition made out of wallboard to waist level and old-fashioned pebbled glass the rest of the way up; a doorframe and a door were set in the middle of it, the door standing open, and on the other side I could see the rest of the office. I went over and poked my head through for a closer look. That part was empty too.
So maybe he’s down in the john, I thought. I backed up to one of the cane-bottom chairs and sat down to wait.
Ten minutes went by. There weren’t any magazines around; nothing at all on the tables except a lone ashtray. I sat there. But I don’t sit well without something to do with my hands or something to occupy my mind. I began to fidget, to cross and uncross my legs, to squirm my fanny around on the chair. I had quit smoking years ago and had no desire to start up again, but at times like this I found myself developing a vague hunger for a cigarette. At least smoking one would have been an activity.
From out in the hallway I heard footsteps, voices — but none of them came this far down. Other people arriving for work. And where the hell was Lauterbach? The air in the anteroom was warm and stuffy and smelled of stale cigarette smoke. You’d have thought the first thing anybody would do on a Monday morning would be to open a window, air the place out a little.
Well, maybe Lauterbach hadn’t come in yet. But then why was the door unlocked? Was he that careless — go off on Friday or Saturday and forget to secure his office? Could be. Lots of people are careless. And he might have been in a hurry, distracted — even drunk, given Lauterbach’s apparent taste for the sauce.
Another five minutes of just sitting was all I could take. I got up and tried to pace, but the anteroom was too small for that. All right, what the helclass="underline" I went through the open door into the back half of the office.
Old kneehole desk that looked as if it had come out of a cheap secondhand store. Windows behind it that looked out on Sixth Avenue and a parking lot across the street. Bank of file cabinets, the top drawer of one pulled open. A table with stacks of police-science brochures, F.B.I. flyers, electronics magazines, and bulletins from the National Society of Investigators. A smaller table containing a hot plate, a coffeepot, a jar of coffee, a jar of peanut butter, a package of crackers, a box of sugar, an almost empty fifth of Ten High bourbon, a dirty knife, a dirty coffee cup, a dirty glass with a cigarette butt lying on the bottom like a dead bug, and a sifting of crumbs. The walls were bare except for a framed photostat of Lauterbach’s California license and another of his Michigan license. And that was all there was to see. No electronic equipment, which struck me as a little odd, considering Lauterbach’s apparent fondness for the stuff. But then maybe he kept whatever he had in his trailer or locked in the trunk of his car.
I wandered over to the desk, letting myself feel annoyed at Lauterbach’s absence so I would have an excuse to snoop. The desktop was cluttered but not half as sloppy as the inside of his trailer, if it hadn’t been for the remains of his lunch or breakfast or whatever, the office would have been moderately neat. Telephone, pens and pencils, typing paper, a notepad, part of last Friday’s San Diego Union — that was all.
Two of the desk drawers were pulled out a little; I went around behind the desk with the idea of opening them a little more, so I could see what they contained. As I bent toward the lower one my foot snagged one leg of the chair, which was pushed up into the kneehole, and scraped the thing back a few inches. Inside the kneehole something fell over with a small plopping sound. I moved the chair the rest of the way out and bent down to peer under there. A briefcase. It had been propped against the inside of the kneehole — a sort of semi-hiding place, I supposed, where a man like Lauterbach would put something large that he didn’t want out in plain sight.
I didn’t move for a couple of seconds, looking at the briefcase and listening. There wasn’t anything to hear except muted traffic sounds from the street and the distant clacking of somebody’s typewriter. So then I dragged the case out and put it on the desk and opened it. The only item inside was a thick manila file folder with a typed name on the tag at its top.
NYLAND, HENRY I.
Well, well, I thought. Sometimes it pays to be as clumsy as I am: you stumble on the damnedest things.
I flipped open the folder with my forefinger. The first thing I saw was a 5” X 7” photograph, in color, clipped to a sheaf of papers. There were two people and a boat in the photo. The boat was the yacht variety, small and sleek with gleaming brightwork. The woman was Elaine Picard, wearing slacks and a tank top and a wind-blown look, smiling at the camera. The man, dressed in white ducks and a blue blazer and a yachting cap, was the same gray-haired military type I’d seen in the hotel parking lot on Friday night — Henry Nyland.
I unclipped the photo and turned it over. There wasn’t anything written on the reverse. I put it back and shuffled through the sheaf of papers. The first few were from the desk notepad or one like it, a lot of hen scratches and what I took to be a personal code; but the gist of it was clear enough: Henry Nyland had hired Lauterbach six weeks ago to investigate Elaine Picard. And he’d done it because he suspected there was another man in her life, and because he was afraid she was involved in “something bizarre.” If he had speculated about what that something might be, Lauterbach hadn’t written it down.
The rest of the papers were carbons of reports he’d sent to Nyland at an address on Coronado, and notes scribbled to himself at various points in his investigation. There wasn’t much in the reports. According to what Lauterbach had told Nyland, Elaine’s behavior had been normal and above reproach; as far as he’d been able to determine, she hadn’t had any clandestine dealings with men.