After opening it up, I shook my head, screwed it back together and handed it to Mira. “Nope. It’s clear. Now what’s this all about?”
Mira shuddered and breathed deeply in and then out. Her exhalation sent the sharp sour smell of alcohol wafting under my nose. “My daughter was kidnapped two days ago.”
Hairs rose on the back of my neck as my cop sense woke up with a surge of adrenaline. I had expected some kind of marital dispute, even a custody battle, not capital crimes for breakfast. And Mira had been so calm on the phone.
If it was my daughter I’d have been climbing the walls.
I wiped the leg of my jeans off where I’d brushed the Toyota in the close confines of the small garage. “Mira, let’s go inside. I’ll check for bugs in your house,” I said, pulling out the sniffer and holding it up, “and maybe I could trouble you for a bagel or something. I came right over after our call and I think better with some calories in me.”
“Of course, of course.” Mira retraced her steps, leading us through the back yard.
“Remember, don’t speak until I give you the all-clear.”
Once we’d made our way into the house, Mira poured mugs of coffee and dropped two bagels into the toaster, puttering around as if lost. The interior of the house showed off the latest look, the kitchen had high-end counters, cabinets and appliances, and the coffee dripped from a machine that probably cost more than a set of rally tires.
It smelled heavenly.
So Mira was comfortably off. I tried to figure how much I could charge and not feel guilty, reminding myself that “a workman is worthy of his wages.” Even after two years off the force it was hard to charge people money to help them, but I had a business to run and bills to pay.
While Mira puttered, I ran the sniffer over the kitchen and nook, then the living room, working outward.
Nothing.
A less thorough check of the three-bedroom upstairs made me reasonably sure that no microphones lurked. Someone might be wiretapping the phone line on the way out, or there might be one of any number of devices attached to the computer in the corner, but at least it seemed we didn’t have to worry about just talking.
I did see pictures of Mira and a girl, taken within the last ten years, in various settings. I recognized a couple of local landmarks—the carousel at Fisherman’s Wharf, the observation deck of Coit Tower, the Alcatraz dock. As I looked at the photos, nowhere did I see a man, or anybody else that might be family.
The father must be out of the picture, I thought with an internal smile at the wordplay. Gone, rather than dead. People didn’t excise the dear departed from their memorabilia, only those they didn’t like anymore.
Or I supposed he could have just been a donor. Unusual, but not unknown.
Just to be sure we were not overheard, I shut the drapes and turned on the stereo in the living room, hoping the two tactics would limit the ability of anyone to paint a windowpane with a laser pickup. Devices like that read the sound waves coming off the glass, but worked best with a quiet background.
Finally I sat down in the kitchen nook across from Mira and then buttered a bagel. “Okay, I think we’re clear. First,” I lifted a finger, “business. It’s a hundred an hour plus expenses, max a thousand a day, and I need five thousand up front as a retainer.” I’d charged more, and occasionally a lot less, but to a pharmacist that probably took down two hundred large a year, five should be doable.
Nor was I wrong. Mira nodded without flinching. “I’ll write you a check. Just help me, please.”
“Good. Now, tell me about this kidnapping. Start with why you haven’t called the cops.”
Mira gulped from her mug, her eyes bleak. “The people that took her said not to talk to police, but they didn’t say anything specifically about a...someone like you.”
My smile might have turned a bit strained, but I tried to ignore her words. The client was the client. “I used to be a cop, if that makes you feel better. So why did you wait two days to get in touch with me?” Or maybe she didn’t, I thought. The card could have been put into my drop box any time after Friday night.
“Cole Sage was the only person I knew that wasn’t police, that has...connections to...people like you...so I called him first and he referred me. I gave them what they wanted and thought I would get her back right away but it didn’t happen, and now it’s been more than an extra day and I’m about to lose my mind.” She lifted her mug, drank some more.
I fished the photocopy of the business card from a pocket, not letting Mira see the front as I unfolded it, glanced at it, then folded it over again. Something tugged at my cop sense, but wasn’t ready to surface. “Cole said to get in touch with me...how?”
“I put the card where he told me to, and he said you’d get it.”
Something about the way she said that seemed off, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it for a moment. Then I did. How did the card get to my office, if Mira was home all this time by her phone?
Cole Sage must have picked it up and dropped off. He did live in the City, just a couple of miles from the Mission District. It would be just like the journalist to do it that way.
While I was thinking, Mira finished her coffee, then went back to the machine for another fill-up. Her motions as she did it, the details hidden by her turned back, the stealthy clink of glass, triggered recognition in my brain.
“I’ll take some of that, if you don’t mind,” I said.
Slowly Mira turned, a half-filled bottle of expensive brandy clutched in her hand, and then she brought it and her coffee over to the table, setting the liquor in front of me. “I just...”
“You don’t have to make excuses. I’d be drinking too if I was in your position.” I splashed a bit into my cup for the sake of camaraderie, and maybe to help Mira talk. Fortunately I never had any trouble with alcohol abuse.
Adrenaline...that was another story.
Mira sighed. “I’m a pharmacist, you know.”
“Yes. It was on your card.”
“I don’t have enough money for anyone to make Talley a ransom target—that’s my daughter, Talley, she’s ten—but I am the assistant warehouse manager for the biggest distributor in the northern Bay Area. My building has a hundred million dollars worth of high-grade pharmaceuticals in it.”
“And they wanted you to, what, help them rob the place?”
“Yes. I gave them my keycard, my codes and they have my thumbprint on a silicone thingy, which I assume they were going to use on the scanner. They also have all my personal info like social, former addresses, family names...and they made me tell them what my security questions and responses were.”
“There’s a monitored alarm?”
Mira nodded, relaxing as the additional brandy hit her. “Yes. To open the warehouse you have to call them, identify yourself, give them a password, respond correctly to a security question, scan a keycard, put in a PIN code, and put your thumb on a scanner. Oh, and all of that is in front of a high-resolution camera with the monitoring center looking on. Otherwise they send a security team and call the cops.”
I sat back, taking a bite of bagel and sipping my slightly fortified coffee. It gave me time to think. “That’s a lot of security. They would have to have someone to double for you on camera. So right off the bat, we know there’s a Caucasian woman of about your age involved, maybe with dark hair. Of course, she could wear a wig. Did you see any of them?”
“No. Just a male voice, middle aged maybe, on the home phone. Blocked number.”
I took another bite and a sip while Mira fidgeted and then added more brandy to her mug. “But you say they haven’t pulled the heist?”
“I...I don’t think so. I had the grocery nearby bring me a prepaid phone along with a few other things—they do deliveries, costs an arm and a leg, but what can you do—and used it to call the security center and ask them for the exact time I’d been at the warehouse. I told them I needed it for my records, and they gave me the time. It was when I closed up Friday night. So they haven’t used my info yet. As far as I know.”