After spending the afternoon on the manslaughter case, I walked through the cold to the mansion, the sidewalks nearly as glazed as the running paths had been. It was just getting dark as Manolo opened the door for me. If he'd been out in the sun of San Diego much, he didn't show it. He was sweating heavily, the foyer like an oven. I took off my coat, Inés coming downstairs in a short-sleeved blouse and dark skirt.
"John, it is so good to see you."
"Same here. Have you had your furnace adjusted recently?"
"I am sorry?"
"It's pretty hot in here."
She smiled. "The professor is no longer used to the winter. It was eighty degrees Fahrenheit when she left California."
"She's upstairs?"
"Yes."
"Can I see her?"
"I will ask."
I watched Inés clop back up the stairs. Lithe and attractive when she didn't think about it.
I turned. Manolo, a long parka over his arm, was staring at me. He moved his mouth as if to spit, but just went out the front door, slamming it behind him.
"John, have you been sick?"
Andrus appeared weary, a pile of opened mail on the desk behind her.
"No, I've been running a little more. Probably dropped a few pounds."
"Good. For a… Alec told me that you and he talked."
"Last month, after I saw you at the Ritz. How is he?"
"I've spoken with him, and sometimes Del, from California. They seem buoyant. I'm going to see them after the lecture tonight."
Andrus massaged her eyes with the heels of her hands. I said, "Would you like me to wait downstairs?"
"Oh, no. It was just the flight."
"Bad?"
"Bumpy. Storms everywhere east of the Mississippi. I must concede that San Diego offers considerable meteorological charm, if it weren't for the fact that I'd probably never get anything done out there."
"Tuck come back with you?"
"Yes. He's off running errands." She indicated the pile of correspondence. "I'm left to wade through all this."
"Any surprises?"
"Any…? Oh, you mean notes. No, nothing."
"No incidents in San Diego either?"
"None. Tuck was with me most of the time, Manolo the balance. I must say, I believe my demented pen pal has lost interest."
"Yet you asked Inés to have me come over tonight."
"For two reasons. First, have you made any progress?"
I explained how I'd played out the string of people to see. "What's the second reason?"
Andrus frowned. "I'm mindful that the labeled book appeared after my last speaking appearance here."
I nodded. "What's your speech tonight?"
"The same one you heard at the Rabb debate, I'm afraid."
"Doesn't the audience notice that?"
Andrus shook her head. "Most of the people will be different. But even the faithful feel reinforced, hearing the same things."
"Where is the lecture?"
"Sanders Theater."
"In Cambridge?"
"Yes. Part of the Harvard Law School Forum."
"Harvard invites a professor from another law school to come talk?"
"Yes. Rather daring of them, but it's more a students' speaker series, really." She checked the digital clock on her desk. "Manolo ought to have gotten the Benz by now. Let me gather myself, and I'll see you downstairs."
"We going to wait for your husband?"
"No. Tuck said to go on without him."
In the foyer, Inés Roja and I made small talk until Maisy Andrus joined us. In a full-length fur with matching hat. Sensible against the cold, but I started to hope that there wouldn't be any animal rights folks at the speech.
I helped Roja into her coat, then pulled on mine. The secretary opened the front door, me moving across the threshold and out to the sidewalk. Cars were pushed up on the curb to park and yet allow a lane wide enough for traffic to pass. No sign of Manolo and the Mercedes.
As Roja closed the door behind the three of us, Andrus stepped by me, hugging herself against the night wind. Tugging on my gloves, I heard a flat crack and, just over my head, a sound like someone whistling in water.
Glass shattered as I tackled Andrus, shoving her behind the engine block of the closest car. Roja was already crawling behind me as another flat crack came from across the street and high. The mailbox next to the front door of the house clanged on its screws. The first bullet had gotten the imitation gas lamp over the doorway. Andrus pushed herself to her knees and said, "What the hell is…”
"Shut up and stay down."
Roja said shakily, "We are being shot."
The rooflines across the street seemed even and empty. No silhouette, no muzzle flash.
I took a quick look at Roja, but didn't see any blood. "Inés, are you all right?"
She shifted her weight, one leg on a snowbank, the other on the icy cement. "Yes. Can you see anything?"
"No."
Andrus said very quietly, "Are you going to shoot back?"
Looking down at the revolver in my bare right hand, I couldn't recall taking off my glove or drawing the gun. "Not from this angle. I might go through a window or throw one high and over to another street or building."
Andrus faced her house. "Shouldn't we call the police?"
Eight feet separated us from the locked door. "Not till I'm sure we'd get to the phone."
Five or six minutes passed. I was thinking about the shooter's aim when a powerful engine approached, charging hard. Brakes squealed on the other side of the parked cars. A door was flung open, creaking on its hinges, and Manolo squeezed himself between two bumpers.
I motioned for him to get down, but he was signing frantically to Inés Roja. When there were no more shots, I let out a breath. Manolo rushed over to Andrus, helped her up, and reverently brushed the snow off her coat.
Roja said to me, "Manolo was caught in traffic, behind a truck that stalled or something. He saw us from the corner" – she pointed behind her – "and was afraid for us."
I watched Manolo, who seemed awfully agitated. Almost theatrically so.
Then I moved toward the mailbox. My shoes crunched shards of glass from the light over the door. There was a perfectly round hole in the front of the box, off center but not by much. I put my right glove back on. Using a pen, I lifted the lid of the box and looked in.
Andrus said, "What are you doing?"
I coaxed out the folded white paper, undamaged from the shot. At the bottom of the box, bits of brick from the exit hole on the back wall lay around a flattened slug.
I unfolded the paper. Headline-sized words again, but twice as big as the snips from the earlier notes.
"ALL BAD THINGS COME TO AN END CU-NT."
I doubted Roja could read what it said, but she certainly could see what it was. The secretary began to cry.
24
"SO WHAT MADE YOU CHECK THE MAILBOX?”
Neely had a pad and pen on his lap, actually taking notes once in a while. Slouching on the parlor sofa of the Andrus mansion, he'd visited a new barber since I'd seen him last. The currycomb cut made him look like a lowland gorilla.
I said, "The shooter threw the second one high after the first slug already wrecked the lamp over the doorway. Seemed kind of coincidental that he'd happen to hit the mailbox after my client had been getting threatening notes."
Neely used the pen to scratch behind his ear, then swung it in an abrupt arc toward the staircase. "How's this Andrus taking it?"
"Pretty well. She made calls to cancel things out for tonight. The secretary who came to see you is pretty shaken up."
"Minute ago, you said the shooter was a 'him'?"
"Just an assumption. We're figuring the shooter was the guy sending the notes."
"So you didn't make him on the roof there."
"No."
"You been looking into these threats for what, about a month now?"
"More than two."
"Anybody handy with guns?"
I'd been giving it some thought. "The Spanish son, Ray Cuervo, mentioned hunting with his father in the old country. Louis Doleman, the guy whose daughter committed suicide, talked a little about hunting too. And Walter Strock has a bunch of marksmanship trophies in his office."