“Oh, I’d love to have a half million. Who wouldn’t? But I couldn’t’ve gotten at them if I’d wanted to. He guards them like the gold in Fort Knox.”
“Somebody got to them.”
“Did they? Who?”
“How about your sister?”
He laughed. “Angelina isn’t smart enough to plan a trip to the hairdresser’s, much less a theft from a locked library. She’s too busy cuckholding her husband.”
“She doesn’t speak highly of you, either,” I said.
“She’s a lush and a tramp and a liar, among other things.”
“Not exactly warm and fuzzy siblings, are you.”
“Brilliant deduction.”
“Why the antipathy?”
“Chalk it up to differences of opinion.”
“Before or after you moved in with her and Pollexfen?”
“That, my friend, is none of your business.”
I watched him pour more scotch into his glass, nuzzle a little of it. “So what do you think happened to the missing books?”
“Obvious, isn’t it? Greg spirited them away and hid them somewhere.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Why do you think?”
“The half million insurance? According to his financial records, he’s worth twenty times that much.”
“Most of which is tied up in one way or another,” Cullrane said. “Maybe he’s got a deal cooking that requires cash.”
“What kind of deal?”
“How should I know? The man’s been known to take a flyer now and then.”
“Like he did with you on the San Jose Auditorium show?”
A scowl turned Cullrane’s knobby face even uglier. “What do you know about that?”
“The deal fell through and you lost a bundle. Pollexfen’s money, wasn’t it?”
“What if it was?”
“He doesn’t like you and you don’t like him. How’d you talk him into investing a hundred thousand in one of your promotions?”
“It wasn’t all his goddamn money.” Down went the rest of the scotch; the bottle clinked on glass as he replaced it. “I lost some of mine, too. And it wasn’t my fault the deal went sour, no matter what anybody told you.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“How you managed to talk him into making the investment.”
“What makes you think I talked him into it?”
“He volunteered, then? Or was it his idea in the first place?”
“I didn’t say that, either.”
“You’re not being very cooperative, Mr. Cullrane.”
“Why the hell should I be?” he said. “My financial arrangements with Greg Pollexfen are my affair.”
“They are unless they have a bearing on the case I’m investigating.”
“Christ, man, I told you-Greg took the fucking books, nobody else. And you can bet he had a good reason. He never does anything without what he thinks is a damn good reason.”
“Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“But you don’t have a clue what the reason might be.”
“Also right. He’s a schemer, you’re a private eye. If you’re smarter than he is, you’ll figure it out like Mickey Spillane.”
Nicole Coyne heard that and found it amusing. Not because she knew Mickey Spillane had been a writer, not a private eye, but because she was tight. Her laugh was low and throaty. “My glass is empty, Jeremy,” she said.
He got up immediately with the scotch bottle. When he came back to the bar, he said to me, “You finished now? Nicole and I have an appointment for drinks at five o’clock.”
He didn’t seem to see the irony in that statement and I didn’t enlighten him. “For the time being,” I said.
“I’ve answered all the questions I’m going to,” he said. “You come around again, you’ll find me in my mime suit.”
The Coyne woman thought that was hilarious. She was still laughing when I let myself out.
F rustrating damn case. No matter who I talked to or what information I came up with, I couldn’t seem to move off square one. Some sort of crime had been or was being perpetrated here, but what kind? Theft? Insurance fraud? Filing a false police report for an unknown purpose?
Any of the three principals could be responsible. Pollexfen was reputedly devious, manipulative, and ruthless. Jeremy Cullrane and Angelina Pollexfen were money-grubbing alcoholics with secrets and manipulative behavior patterns of their own. None of the trio liked one another; accusations flew back and forth, none backed by solid evidence. Pollexfen had the means and opportunity to steal his own books, but no apparent motive. His wife and her brother had opportunity and motive, but no apparent means. Brenda Koehler? Opportunity, but no means and no apparent motive, given her spotless history and simple lifestyle. Julian Iverson? Neither means nor opportunity nor motive.
There was nothing to catch hold of, to follow through to a definite conclusion. One big confusing tangle of possibilities, half-truths, lies, secrets.
Where to go from here? The only option, unless Tamara uncovered something new, was for me to start over again: another visit to the Pollexfen house, to ask more questions, have another look around the library and maybe the rest of the place this time. If that didn’t produce a lead, then another crack at the wife and her brother and Brenda Koehler-push them, play a little bad cop. And if that failed… quit beating my head against the wall, admit defeat, and file a report that would effectively approve Pollexfen’s claim.
It would also prove Barney Rivera right and make him happy as hell, even if it cost Great Western Insurance the half-million-dollar bundle. The needle would come out, long and sharp, and he’d find ways to keep jabbing it into me for a long time afterward. The prospect was galling.
13
TAMARA
On the way home after work she detoured to Home Depot and bought some shelving, shelf paper, and a few other hardware items. The new crib on Connecticut on Potrero Hill had come furnished, but there were things that needed to be done to make it her own. She expected to be there awhile, and the small alterations she planned were the kind that would make any landlord smile.
The flat took up the second floor of a two-story Stick Victorian that’d been renovated and repainted four years ago. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, laundry room, high-ceilinged living room big enough to hold a dance party in. Good old San Francisco neighborhood, businesses and restaurants within walking distance-uphill from the flat so she could get plenty of exercise when she felt like it. Hefty rent, but not high enough to put a strain on the salary she drew from the agency. On the rental market just a few days when she looked at it. Pure luck no one else had snapped it up. She’d signed the lease on the spot.
The phone rang about two minutes after she let herself in. Probably Vonda. They hadn’t talked since the weekend before last, when Vonda and Ben helped her move her stuff from the old apartment on 27th Avenue. Meant to call her last night, brag a little on Lucas and the solving of her little problem, but one thing and another had kept her from doing it. Young ho stuff, anyhow, bragging on getting laid. Vonda was married and five months’ pregnant and all wrapped up in Ben and the baby. No more goodnatured competition between them like there had been in their badass days. All grown up and respectable now. More or less.
Still, she’d probably have thrown out some details if it were Vonda on the phone. Only it wasn’t. It was Lucas.
The sound of his voice put a smile on her mouth. When he left on Monday morning he’d said he would call, and she’d been hoping he would, that he wasn’t just talking the usual man talk after bed games. But hey, this soon? All right!
“Thought I’d see how you’re doing,” he said.
“Doing fine. How about you?”
“The same. Any plans for tonight?”
“Put up some shelves, that’s about all.”
“I could come over and give you a hand.”
Uh-huh. Give her a hand right into bed. The thought brought back memories of Sunday night and yesterday morning, and the prospect of a repeat performance or two made her tingle. “I wouldn’t mind,” she said.