There were differences, of course. This room was twice the size and altogether brighter than Hardy’s. The floor was of the same red tile that had been in the lobby, partially covered by three Navajo throw rugs and a couch.
Hardy walked to the desk, felt the grain of the wood, moved to the bookshelves, then to the dartboard. He removed three of the darts and stepped back to the corner of the desk.
After throwing all six darts, Hardy sat on one of the stiff-back wooden chairs, crossed one knee over the other and waited. In under a minute the door opened.
‘Hardy. Dismas, how are you? Sorry to keep you waiting. Something came up.’ A somewhat forced smile in the handsome face. Again, impeccable clothes – a charcoal business suit – with the personal touch of cowboy boots. Hardy thought he looked exhausted. He went around his desk, arranged some papers and sat down. His eyes went around the room. ‘You’ve thrown my darts.’
‘That’s an impressive bit of observation.’
Farris brushed it off. ‘Party trick,’ he said, ‘like Owen breaking boards.’ He explained. ‘You’re around Owen, you better have something you can do better than he can. I got good at details.’ He seemed to slump, remembering something.
‘You all right?’ Hardy asked.
‘Yeah, I’ll live. This is a bitch of a blow, though. I’m not much good at pretending it isn’t.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘With you, okay. But out there’ – he motioned toward the door he’d just come through – ‘I set the tone. People out there see me panic, then it starts to spread, right? I just put the word out we’re closing up for today. Maybe things’ll look better on Monday.’
Hardy gave it a minute, then thought he might as well get down to it. He briefed him on Glitsky’s discoveries on the Eloise, which Farris took in without comment. Then he got the name, address and phone number of Mr Silicon – Austin Brucker in Los Altos Hills. Finally he got around to May Shinn.
‘I wanted to be clear on May, though. Wednesday when you called her, you left a message?’
Farris nodded. ‘That’s right. You were right there.’
‘Yeah, I know. I’m a little confused, though, because Sergeant Glitsky tried to call her this morning and no one answered.’
‘How’d he get her number?’
Details, Hardy thought, this guy is into details. He lifted his shoulders an inch. ‘Cops have access to unlisted numbers.’ He hoped.
Farris accepted that. ‘But the machine didn’t answer?’
‘Ten rings.’
‘No, it picked up after two, three for me.’ He thought a minute. ‘Maybe it got to the end of the tape.’
‘You’d still get her answering message, wouldn’t you?’
‘I think you would.’
The two men sat, putting it together. ‘She’s alive then,’ Farris said. ‘She unplugged it.’
‘Would she have had a reason to kill Owen?’
‘May?’
‘Somebody did.’
Farris shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know her. I wouldn’t know her if she walked in here.’
‘But did Mr Nash -?’
‘Owen liked her.’ He paused. ‘A lot. More than a lot.’
‘So how about if he stopped liking her?’
‘So what?’
‘So might she have gone off, something like that?’
Farris shook his head. ‘I just don’t have any idea. The last I knew, Owen liked her. But, I mean, the woman’s a prostitute, right? She kills a John over his dumping her? Even if it’s Owen, I don’t see it. And I don’t think he was dumping her.’
‘So where is she? Why hasn’t she returned your call?’
‘I don’t know. That’s a good question.’
Hardy finally had to let it go. ‘What are you doing about the body?’ he asked.
Celine was going by the coroner’s this afternoon to sign some papers. The autopsy was supposed to have been done this morning. So they planned to have the cremation Sunday morning, scattering his ashes over the Pacific that afternoon.
Farris looked hard out the window. He had a minimum view of the sun behind the low green buildings, some grass, a couple of pine trees. He put his hand to his eyes and pushed against them, then pinched the bridge of his nose.
Hardy stood and thanked him for his time. Farris got up from his chair, shook hands over the desk and apologized again. He wasn’t himself. Sorry. Thanks for coming by.
Hardy turned back at the door. Farris had sat back down in his chair behind the wide expanse of the oak desk. He was staring out again into the evening shadow cast over the lawns and pine trees, the shade now reaching to his no-view window – a statue of grief.
The flight was on Japan Airlines at eight-fifteen.
It was four-fifteen, far too early to leave, yet she had phoned for the cab. What was she thinking of? May knew she would go mad sitting out at the airport for three hours, worrying that someone would stop her, knowing that she had to leave here, that this place, maybe America itself, was over for her.
Her bags were by the front door. She had decided to pack the Lennons, and the foyer looked bare without them. The sun shone in through the turret windows, which she’d opened due to the heat. The heat made her feel as though in some ways she was leaving a place she’d never been.
She wore a dark blue linen suit with dark hose, not the perfect outfit for this weather, but she thought it made her look more businesslike. Her hair was in a tight bun, her most severe look. She didn’t want people coming up and talking to her.
When the doorbell rang, she was surprised. Normally, the drivers would honk out on the street. Nevertheless, she determined that she would tell the man she’d made a mistake; he could come back later if he wanted the fare.
Or maybe she wouldn’t. Through the peephole, his looks scared her – a light-skinned black man with a nasty-looking scar through his lips, top to bottom. On the other hand, she wanted someone who wouldn’t talk to her and this man looked like that type. She opened the door.
She was looking at a badge of some kind, the man identifying himself as Inspector Abe Glitsky of the San Francisco Police, Homicide. She stepped back as he asked if she was May Shintaka. ‘May I come in?’ He sounded polite enough.
‘Certainly.’
He stood in the foyer. There was nothing she could do to keep him from noting the newly empty walls, obviously where the Lennons had been taken down. ‘I’m here about Owen Nash.’
A nod. She turned and walked back into the living room. Now she was really hot and she took off her coat, draping it across the arm of the couch. She went to the turret window and heard the honk of the cab down below.
The sergeant took a few steps into the room, but stopped near the foyer. ‘Your shoes,’ she said. ‘Do you mind?’ She motioned to a long, polished and ridged board that began next to the door. Her own pair of dark-blue pumps were already resting over the ridge.
Abe stepped out of his wing tips and placed them on the board. ‘Were you planning on going somewhere?’ He motioned to the bags in the hallway.
She was coming back across the room. He seemed to fill up where he stood even more than Owen had, and Owen was a big man, had been a big man. ‘That’s my cab down there now,’ she said. ‘But it’s too early anyway. I should tell him.’
Abe was nervous about letting her go down, but she’d left her bags as well as the jacket of her suit. She didn’t take a purse. If she got in the cab, he’d be able to call the dispatcher and possibly stop her before she’d gone a mile.
The advantage was his now. She had invited him into her apartment. He hadn’t needed to show a warrant, which in any event he didn’t have.