“What’s wrong?” Susan asked.
“Do you have a picture of Andy?”
“Yes, in the living room.”
“Can I see it?”
She frowned, but stood up, brushing dead leaves off her jeans. “All right.”
We went into the house, to an old-fashioned formal parlor. My hands were shaking as I took the framed portrait from Susan’s hands. The face in it was bearded and the hair brown rather than blond, but it was the one I’d expected to see.
The younger, less careworn face of Abe Snelling.
Chapter 18
I drove along the ridge above the Salinas Valley, ignoring the speed limit but keeping an eye out for the highway patrol. The air was hot and dry, and the needle on the MG’s temperature gauge rose dangerously toward the red zone. Every few minutes I would check it, tell myself it would be fine, and then my eyes would drift back to it again. King City, I thought, I’ll stop in King City. And try to phone Snelling again.
I’d called as soon as I left Susan Tellenberg’s, planning to hang up if the photographer answered and then rush to San Francisco. But the phone had rung and rung, and finally I’d decided to risk making the trip anyway. After all, it might only mean Snelling was in the darkroom. Hadn’t he said he unplugged the phone while working?
But, then, that might have been a lie-like all of Snelling’s other lies. Because the night he’d claimed to have worked late in the darkroom-the night I’d kept calling to tell him of Jane’s death-he most certainly had been in Port San Marco. Right now he might be hurrying for the airport or driving north, south, or east to a new identity.
My eyes strayed to the gauge. The needle had dropped slightly.
But why would Snelling run? He had no suspicion that I was close to uncovering his real identity. I hadn’t told him I planned to see Susan Tellenberg. Because of my manner on the phone earlier, he probably felt more secure. Maybe he was in the darkroom right now, printing more of his wonderful photos.
The photos. That was another tragedy. While it seemed certain that Abe Snelling-or Andy Smith, whatever you wished to call him-was a killer, he also had a rare talent that would cease to be used when he was arrested. There would be no more of those portraits that probed to the core of their subjects’ being, no more expressions of his unique understanding of human nature.
The needle on the temperature gauge rose again. Rapidly I calculated; it was only ten miles to King City.
Well, now I had answers to a number of my questions. I knew why Jane Anthony had gone to San Francisco, why Snelling had let her live at his house, why he had lied to me about how he met her. And I thought I knew why he had risked exposure by hiring me to find her.
I felt a certain responsibility for what had happened. Through me, Snelling had found out Jane was in the Port San Marco area. That had probably been enough to tell him how to locate her. He’d driven south, met her at the old pier, and…
The sign for the King City exit loomed up, and I moved into the right-hand lane.
What about John Cala? I was fairly sure he’d recognized Snelling leaving the pier, gone out there to see what he was doing, and found the body. Had he attempted to blackmail Snelling? I didn’t think so. After all, Don had said Cala wasn’t too bright. Probably Snelling had recognized him too and later lured him to the old amusement park with a promise of money. They were both from the area, and the boarded-up park was a likely place for a secret meeting at which cash was to change hands. But instead of cash…
I pulled off the freeway and turned into the gas station where I’d stopped earlier in the week. While the attendant filled my gas tank and radiator, I went to the phone booth and called Snelling. Again the phone rang unanswered. I hurried to the car, paid with a credit card, and was soon back on the freeway.
Salinas slipped by. Gilroy. Morgan Hill. It was rush hour in San Jose. I fretted and cursed and my temperature rose, but at least the car’s gauge remained constant.
I should have the radiator fixed, I thought. No, I should buy a new car. I had money in the bank, a fairly large reward from a grateful shipping company for whom I’d recovered a stolen consignment of cargo. It was more than enough for a new car. But then, it was almost enough for the down payment on a house. A house would solve the apartment problem…
Now I was through San Jose and speeding up the freeway, where tract homes gave way to rolling hills and expensive estates. How many times had I driven this route in the past week? One, two, three, four. Lord, I was sick of the freeway!
One thing was certain: no one was going to be grateful and give me a reward for solving this case. No one was even paying me. So why was I doing this? Why was I rushing up here to face a dangerous man, putting myself in jeopardy? Why didn’t I just call the police, tell them I’d located a fugitive, and let them handle it? I knew the number for San Francisco Homicide, had called it often in my year-and-a-half with Greg. I wouldn’t have to talk to him; I knew most of the men on the squad. So why not pull off this endless freeway and make the call?
Was it because of the photos? Or because Susan Tellenberg had called Andy Smith a nice coward, a gentle man? Or was it because there were things that still didn’t fit?
The last thirty miles went quickly. Route 280 rejoined 101 near the Daly City line, and soon I was exiting at Army Street and scaling the steep streets of Potrero Hill. It was after six; the demolition had stopped. The shells of houses stood dark and silent. So did the top story of Snelling’s, but that didn’t mean anything; the fence obscured the first floor. He could be there, or downstairs on the bedroom level.
I got my gun out of the glove box and stuck it in the outer compartment of my shoulder bag, where I could reach it quickly if I had to. Then I went up to Snelling’s gate, keeping in the shadow of the fence.
The first thing I noticed was that the gate was open.
I paused, listening, then pushed it with my fingertips. It swung all the way back, revealing the overgrown yard. No lights were on in the lower windows. I started down the path.
There was a rustling in the shrubbery to my left. I whirled, hand poised over my gun. A cat jumped lightly to the fence and down onto the other side. I relaxed, but only slightly, and kept going.
The front door was also open, the security chain hanging limp.
I stepped inside, waited until my eyes adjusted to the gloom, then went down the hall. The living room was dark, the draperies open. I could make out the photos on the wall, the chrome-and-leather furniture, the stairway to the top story. Everything seemed as it should be.
And then I noticed that the desk to the side of the fireplace had been ransacked. Its drawers were pulled out and their contents lay scattered on the desk itself, the chair in front of it, and the floor. A trail of papers led from there to the stairway. I listened, heard nothing, and decided to risk turning on a lamp.
Its soft glow filled the stark white room, and I could now see that books had also been removed from some shelves by the stairway. They were piled haphazardly on the floor, and a few were open, as if someone had been rifling through their pages. There was still no sound and, although I couldn’t be sure, I felt the house was empty. Slowly I went to the stairway and climbed to the studio.
There was nothing there but the stool in the center. I glanced up at the skylights and saw a few wispy clouds highlighted against the early-evening sky. The door to the darkroom was wide open and, taking my gun out, I walked across the room.
It was pitch black. All I could hear was the bubbling of the print washer. I reached inside the door, found a light switch, and flicked it on. It was the switch for the safelight, and the room was bathed in its red glow. It illuminated the enlarger and the stainless steel tanks and the dryer and the light table. A couple of prints floated face down in the washer. There was nothing amiss here.