I was as baffled as ever about what had happened, but if it had been so embarrassing that the SPD and the county court wanted to make it go away, maybe Ken had reason to hide himself in some psychic way. "All right. I'll assume it's of no interest to me.”
"Assume so. What's of interest to me is your impressions of these people.”
My automatic urge was to stonewall—he hadn't been of much help to me in return for my information so far—but as a cop investigating a homicide, he had legal recourse to pressure me and he wasn't asking for the files, only for my impressions—which weren't my client's property. And I'd said I would tell him what I knew. I'd have to edit a bit, though. I sucked in a breath and let it out in a gust, tapping my pencil on the blotter.
"Where do you want to start?" I asked. "This is a messed-up bunch of people.”
"Are they?”
"Have you interviewed any of them yet?" I asked.
"I have.”
"Who?”
"I won't tell you that.”
"All right," I conceded. "They seem like pretty normal people individually but as a group they have a lot of sexual tension and control conflicts, weird instabilities. I'm not sure that Tuckman didn't engineer that into the group dynamic deliberately.”
Solis grunted.
"None of them were completely honest with me," I continued, "but then, I'm not investigating a murder and that might make a difference.”
"Possibly. Mrs. Stahlqvist claims to be related to Bertha Landes.”
I found myself parroting the words of Bertha Landes when I'd met her in the theater. "It's not true. She's no relation.”
"How are you sure?”
"Standard background check.”
"I'd appreciate it if you could be specific as to why you are so certain.”
Well, I wasn't going to say a ghost told me so. And I'd had adequate confirmation elsewhere. "The membership secretary of the Rainier Club told me the Knight family Carolyn Knight-Stahlqvist is descended from moved to Seattle before Bertha Landes came here from Indiana.
Carolyn didn't seem to know this when she made up her story or she'd actually have had a better claim. But because she lied, Mrs. Stahlqvist didn't pass muster and the secretary didn't mind telling me so.”
Solis's quiet had a speculating quality. I could almost see the sleepy-eyed expression he got when the wheels were turning.
"Here's something you might like to chew on," I offered. "A few days ago Mrs. Stahlqvist told me she'd lost a brooch that belonged to Bertha Landes—an heirloom as spurious as her background. She eventually told me she thought she'd left it at Mark Lupoldi's the day he was killed. It turned up at a project session Sunday and Mrs. Stahlqvist accidentally cut her cheek on it.”
"Then she had not left it? Why would she say she had?”
"It appeared rather dramatically and Mrs. Stahlqvist claimed one of the other project members must have thrown it at her, which implies one of them stole it from Lupoldi's apartment. If she really did leave it there. Since she's a liar about her past, maybe she lied about that, too. Maybe she never left it at all, but used the story to try and cover her own presence at the scene or to cast suspicion on one of the other members of the group.”
"Hm. Very much like an Agatha Christie novel.”
"Yeah, it is, isn't it?”
"If she had left it behind and it was picked up by someone else…”
I grinned at the phone. "Makes an interesting puzzle, doesn't it?”
Silence. I should have been embarrassed at the amusement I took in his annoyance, but I wasn't. If it had been a Sherlock Holmes story it would have been titled "The Case of the Curious Brooch" and that amused me even more. And reminded me of Celia's kleptomaniac habits.
"Solis, was anything missing from Lupoldi's apartment?”
"It is difficult to say, since we don't know what he owned.”
"Would you even tell me?”
There was that down-draining silence again. Then he replied with great care, "If you asked after a specific item, I might have to say no.”
My mind raced. Solis was offering a hell of a favor. The brooch information must have piqued his interest enough to feel he owed me something in return, but being Solis, he could only bend himself so far and he'd already bent a lot with the information about Ken— paltry as it was. I would have to ask the right question—Solis might not even know it was important himself. There was something… I just knew it.
"Did you find his wallet?”
"We did.”
"Did it seem to be intact? Money and credit cards still in it?”
"Yes.”
"Car keys?”
"Mr. Lupoldi did not own or drive a car.”
"Bicycle keys? I know he had one of those U-locks with the cylinder keys. Did you find a key like that?”
"No keys.”
"Not even the apartment key?”
"No. I searched for them myself. Now that we're done with the scene, the landlord will have to use his master copy to lock up, since no apartment keys have been recovered.”
"You're releasing the scene?”
"We've taken all we can from it. The lab continues to analyze samples and fingerprints and to compare against any new ones I can supply.”
I had a feeling he'd be supplying more samples soon, but relying on few. A lot of the tests and analyses take a while, so most forensic evidence is more important at trial than during the investigation. Solis would proceed with the more readily available evidence of people and their tendency to talk. The case was already a week old and unsolved, so Solis would be under pressure soon to show some progress. I shouldn't have been surprised that he was picking my brain or willing to give up what might seem like worthless information in exchange.
Whoever had those keys was likely to be Mark's killer. Unless Celia had them. I'd have to find out if the poltergeist had been in Mark's apartment when he died.
I wished Solis luck and assured him I wouldn't mention the missing keys to anyone—by which I meant anyone who might be connected to the case—and broke the connection.
It wasn't quite dark yet. The overcast sky made it seem much later, but it would do me no good to go looking for Carlos until the sun was fully set.
I burned the last half hour of sunlight typing up a report for Tuck-man. I planned to tell him there was no saboteur at the next day's séance, but I'd have to have documents to prove it.
When I was done, I drove up to Adult Fantasies—the twenty-four-hour "home of live girls" and a half acre of exotic fetish wear and sex toys—to ferret out Carlos, who besides being Cameron's mentor also owned the place. If I appeared in person, he'd find it much harder to refuse my request. I hoped.
For the most part, I despise and avoid vampires—when I'm not revolted and in terror of them. They rarely needed my help as much as they wanted to command my obedience, and I didn't go in for that. I'd been pulled into their byzantine politics and personal wars once and had no desire to be pulled in again. They were unpleasant, manipulative, arrogant, and selfish, and their presence often made me physically ill, even when on their best behavior. I also owed part of my strange, irremediable connection to the Grey to one and I consider that grudge-worthy.
The employees in the shop had changed since my last visit. The current crop had a kind of Stepford generic-ness to them—as if Carlos had decided it was better to hire people easy to forget to work in a place most people tried not to remember. A man wearing a T-shirt with the words "I wasn't there and you can't prove it" on it told me Carlos was out and hadn't been coming in much lately. I guessed the new employees were also more trustworthy than the previous crop.
After I'd fenced with him for a while and given him my card, the T-shirt man made a phone call. His eyebrows went up as he listened; then he hung up and looked me over. Curiosity gleamed on his face like sweat.