No clue here to the woman’s identity.
At least now they had a way to find out who she was. If she came back to spend another night; if she did it soon. Hire a detective, have the house put under surveillance. It might be expensive and time-consuming, it meant more waiting, but it was all they could do. And it was something.
In the van they discussed doing the hiring immediately, trying to make arrangements in time for someone to be on watch tonight. Not feasible. He was fading, starting to feel tired and a little shaky — that was one reason. The other was that it took time to choose and hire a detective. You didn’t just pick a name out of the phone book and walk into an office unannounced and expect an experienced investigator to be available and willing to drop everything to do a job for you, the way it was done in books and films. You had to select the right person for the job, make an appointment, discuss the matter, settle financial arrangements — the same as with any other professional business dealing.
They drove straight home, to take care of the preliminaries from there.
Wednesday Afternoon
The San Francisco telephone directory contained two full pages of listings for private investigators — large and small agencies, individuals, numerous boxed ads outlining services. The first six they tried, picked at random, were wasted calls. Four said they didn’t do that sort of surveillance work; one told them he could handle it but not until next week, he was booked solid until then; the sixth was an answering service. Then Cassie pointed out that more than a few of the agencies were operated by women and suggested that a woman investigator might be better in their case. Hollis thought so, too.
The seventh call went to McCone Investigations at Pier 24½ on the Embarcadero. They spoke to the owner, Sharon McCone, who seemed both professional and amenable. If she agreed to take their case after meeting them in person and hearing all the particulars, she said, she could have one of her operatives on surveillance by tomorrow night. They set an appointment for one-thirty the next afternoon at her offices.
Wednesday Evening
An early dinner at the Mill with Angela and Kenny and Pierce. Angela’s idea; she seemed to need family closeness now more than ever, and for Cassie and him to accept Pierce as part of the unit again. “Drawing us around her like shields,” Cassie said. Hollis felt better after a nap, so how could they refuse her?
The dinner went all right, better than he’d expected. Pierce was on his best behavior, polite without being deferential; he actually seemed to be enjoying himself. If Angela had told him anything about Rakubian’s death, he didn’t let on. It was obvious that he genuinely cared for her and his son; you could see it in the way he looked at them, interacted with them. You could see, too, if you looked closely enough, the difference he’d made in both their lives already. When he and Angela were first together, and especially after Kenny was born, they hadn’t seemed quite comfortable with each other, with their roles as husband and wife, father and mother. Too young, too immature. The ease was there now, even after such a short time in this new relationship.
It had been there for a while, Hollis realized. He hadn’t seen it before tonight because he hadn’t wanted to see it — one of the many things he hadn’t seen or wanted to see until Cassie opened his eyes for him.
Thursday Morning
Tom Finchley and his helper were due at eight-thirty and arrived, unlike a lot of contractors, on time — one of the reasons he’d chosen Finchley for the renovation work. Neither he nor Cassie cared to be there while the living room was being shoveled out; they drove downtown separately, had coffee and croissants at a café on Main, and parted there afterward. They’d each work half a day, meet again at noon for the drive to the city and the appointment with Sharon McCone.
When he reached Mannix & Hollis, it was just nine-thirty. Surprise waiting: Gabe was there ahead of him. Talking to Gloria, who seemed a little flustered about something.
“What’s this?” he said. “In the office before noon? Don’t tell me you’ve found your work ethic again after all these years?”
Mannix didn’t smile. His mouth, Hollis saw then, was pinched at the corners. “Something like that. I was just about to call you.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Tell him what you just told me, Gloria.”
She said, “I feel kind of bad about this. I mean, I didn’t think you were having any more trouble...”
Hollis glanced at his partner, who shook his head. Mannix’s eyes said: I didn’t break your confidence. That’s not what this is about.
“Go ahead,” he told Gloria.
“Well, I went to the River House for lunch yesterday. You know how cold it was, right? That’s how come I noticed her, this woman. Sitting out on the patio all by herself, bundled up in a parka, drinking coffee and staring over here. Like she was watching this building, our office. There’s nothing else to see in this direction, not from where she was sitting — no other windows.”
Hollis felt himself tightening inside. “You get a good look at her?”
“Good enough to recognize her.”
“Somebody you know?”
“No, but I’ve seen her before. Twice.”
“Where?”
“Once last week, on the River House patio again. Sitting at the same table, looking over this way. I didn’t think anything about it then. Sunny that day, lots of folks having lunch outside.”
“The other time?”
“Sunday morning. At your house.”
“At my—”
“She was coming down the front steps when I drove up,” Gloria said. “About eleven-fifteen, when I dropped off the Dry Creek package. I thought maybe she was a friend of Cassie’s. She wasn’t doing anything, just walking down the steps — going away because nobody was home. That’s why I didn’t mention it before. But then there she was again yesterday, three times in less than a week, and the way she was sitting there in the cold staring... it just seemed funny, the more I thought about it. So I told Gabe when he came in and he said we’d better tell you right away.”
“What did this woman look like? Describe her.”
“Thirty-five or so. Skinny, not much in the titty department. Dark hair like mine, but cut short. Narrow face, big beak nose. Wears glasses with gold rims.”
“Christ!”
Mannix said, “You know her?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I know her.”
Rakubian’s paralegal, Valerie Burke.
22
Just like that.
You stumble around, speculate, make a glut of false assumptions, exist in a constant state of confusion and frustration — and the answer is right there all the time, obvious and yet not obvious at all until it’s dumped in your lap. Valerie Burke. Close to Rakubian, worked with him for five years, but you never considered her because he seemed always to keep his private life separate from his professional one; because she was older than he and unattractive compared to Angela. What you overlooked is that neither youth nor beauty was what attracted a man like Rakubian. It was vulnerability. He wanted a woman he could dominate, mold like warm plastic into his ideal mate. Only Valerie Burke hadn’t quite fit the bill, for whatever reason, and he dropped her in favor of Angela, and she’d never gotten over it...
Mannix was saying something to him. He blinked, focused again. “What’d you say?”
“I asked you who she is.”