Luke looked at his watch. “I can be in the city in a couple of hours.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Ken said.
Luke hung up the phone and went back to shoveling French toast onto a plate. “That was Tanaka. He’s found something in Egan’s financials that looks interesting. Thinks it might involve Ryland Webb.”
Excitement lit her face. “Are we talking political scandal?”
“Maybe.”
“A scandal of suitable proportions could explain a murder.”
“Calm down.” He grated a little orange peel over the toast. “All we’ve got at the moment are some new dots. I’m going to drive into the city right after we eat. Want to come with me?”
“Yes.” She hesitated, obviously torn. “But I think I’ll let you deal with your friend. There’s something else that I want to do today. We’ll get more accomplished if we split up.”
Unease trickled through him. “What are you planning to do?”
“Don’t look so worried. I’m not going to find any bodies or burn down any houses. Actually, I had a minor brainstorm while I was getting dressed this morning. I was just about to tell you about it when the phone rang.”
“What was this brainstorm?” he asked, still wary.
“It involves that key I found in Pamela’s secret hiding place the night of the fire.” She looked at the plate of French toast, eyes widening with appreciation. “Boy, howdy, as Jason would say. Room service shows up at last.”
Thirty-five
The locksmith’s name was Herb Porter. He was in his seventies, and he had been in the business for nearly fifty years. He knew locks and keys, and he knew his own work.
“That’s one of mine, all right,” he announced, examining the key Irene had given him. “First-rate line. Expensive, too. I’m the only locksmith on the lake who handles it. See that little P followed by a number? That’s my code.”
Irene tried to calm her pounding pulse. She had been prepared for her plan to try to locate the locksmith who had made Pamela’s key to hit a dead end. Now that there was a glimmer of hope, adrenaline was spiking through her in heavy jolts.
“Do you remember the person who ordered it?” she asked, forcing herself to speak in a calm, casual tone.
“Sure. Senator Webb’s daughter.”
Irene clutched the edge of the counter. “She gave you her name?”
“Not at the time. Called herself Marjorie something-or-other and paid cash. I took her for summer people or a weekender. But later, after she killed herself, I recognized her from the picture in the paper.” He shook his head. “Real shame about that. She sure was pretty. Dressed nice, too. Looked like she could have been a model or something, you know?”
“Yes, I know.” Irene smiled at him, exerting every ounce of self-control that she possessed not to leap onto the glass counter, grab him by the lapels and shake more answers out of him.
Take it easy, she told herself. Don’t rush him. He might stop talking.
If Pamela had ordered the key from a locksmith located in one of the big towns or cities in the San Francisco Bay area, there would have been very little chance of identifying the shop. But it had occurred to her that there was a very real possibility that the key had been made locally. She had reasoned that if that were the case, it would probably be possible to find the locksmith who had made it. With luck, she might even discover what the key unlocked.
Shortly after nine o’clock, she had set out to drive around the north end of the lake toward Kirbyville, stopping at the two small locksmith shops she passed along the way. She had skipped Dunsley altogether on the theory that if Pamela had something to hide, she would not have taken her business to the town’s only full-service locksmith. Dean Crump, the owner of the shop, would have recognized a member of the Webb family immediately.
She had gotten lucky at Porter Lock & Key, located on a quiet, tree-shaded street in Kirbyville.
“When did Miss Webb come in here?” she asked, fighting not to reveal her exploding excitement.
“Let’s see.” Herb’s gaze went to the old-fashioned girlie calendar on the wall. He ruminated for a moment on the buxom redhead dressed in a halter top and short shorts and then nodded to himself. “Few days ago. She was in a real hurry. Said it was important. I scheduled the job for the next day. See? Circled the date in red.”
Irene followed his gaze to the calendar. Her pulse slammed into high gear. The date marked with a red pen was the day before Pamela had died.
“She paid you to rekey her house?” She frowned. “There must be some misunderstanding. Pamela didn’t install new locks. I used an old key to let myself into the Webb house just a few days ago.”
Herb squinted thoughtfully. “You’re talkin’ about the place over on the other side of the lake, right? The one that burned down the other night?”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t the house she hired me to rekey.”
Irene held her breath. “It wasn’t?”
“Nope. She hired me to redo a place on the other side of town. Located right on the lake. Told me it was a rental. That’s why I figured her for weekend or summer people.”
Confusion replaced the initial surge of disappointment. Why on earth had Pamela rented a house on the lake when she already had one?
“I don’t suppose you’d give me the address?” she asked, expecting Herb to refuse.
To her amazement, Herb shrugged and hauled out an aging cardboard file. “Don’t see any harm in it. Not exactly confidential information now that Miss Webb’s dead. No one living there, far as I know.” He rummaged through a pile of invoices and worksheets for a moment and then selected one. “Here we go. End of Pine Lane. No number. It’s the only house on the road.”
Irene felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. She had to swallow two or three times before she could speak.
“Pine Lane?” The words emerged in a high, creaky falsetto that she hardly recognized as her own voice. “Are you certain?”
“Yep. I remember it was a mite hard to find. Took a couple of wrong turns before I got to it. Pine Lane is one of those private little gravel-tops that run down to the water off the main road. Dozens of them scattered around the lake. Half aren’t even marked.”
“Yes, I know,” Irene whispered.
He squinted at her, concerned. “Look here, if it’s important I can write it down for you.”
“No, thanks.” She plucked the key from his palm. “That won’t be necessary. I appreciate your time, Mr. Porter.”
“No problem.” Herb leaned his elbows on the grimy glass counter and shook his head sadly. “Just a real shame about Miss Webb. Why do you suppose a pretty lady like that would take her own life?”
“That,” Irene said, “is a very good question.”
It took a great deal of concentration, but somehow she made it outside without losing it. She managed to get behind the wheel of the compact and pull out of the tiny parking lot in front of Porter Lock & Key. She drove slowly through town.
When she was beyond the cluster of shops, restaurants and gas stations that made up the heart of Kirbyville, she turned into a small, secluded picnic area and parked. She got out and walked down to the water’s edge.
For a long time she simply stood there, gazing at the restless lake. Gradually the shaky sensation and the sick sense of dread began to subside.
When she could think clearly again, she forced herself to confront the question that was screaming and moaning in her brain like a demented ghost.
There was only one house on Pine Lane, at least there had been only one seventeen years earlier. It was the house in which she had been raised, the house in which she had found her parents dead on the kitchen floor.
Thirty-six
She took the long way back to Dunsley, following the narrow, two-lane road that wound around the rim of the south end of the lake. She told herself that she needed time to think. But she knew, deep inside, that what she was really tr
ying to buy was a little more time before she went back to Dunsley to face the house of blood and darkness that had haunted her dreams for seventeen years.
The big silver SUV with the heavily tinted windows appeared in her rearview mirror just as she started into the most isolated section of the old road. The vehicle came out of the last turn with unnerving speed.
The sight of the silver SUV so close behind her jolted her into a sudden awareness of how slowly she was moving. The absence of other traffic on the road combined with her dark musings had caused her to drift into another zone. She had been driving on autopilot. This was a twisty two-lane road that allowed very few places to pass slow-moving vehicles. Folks got mad when you drove it too slowly. Only tourists made that mistake.
She straightened hastily in the seat and put her foot down more firmly on the accelerator, sending the compact into the next series of turns at a brisk clip. But when she rechecked the mirror she saw that the SUV had not fallen back. It was closing fast.
Whoever he was, she had annoyed him, she thought. He was determined to punish her for the offense of slow driving by pushing her hard. Just what she needed, a short-tempered idiot with a royal case of road rage.
A little chill of fear flickered through her. The section of road on which she was traveling hugged the top of the cliffs. It could be dangerous. Her father had come home on more than one occasion, weary and grim, to report to her mother that one of the locals had gotten drunk and gone through the guardrail into the deep waters of the lake. Several years earlier in her endless, restless, obsessive research into the past, she had learned that Bob Thornhill had suffered his fatal heart attack and gone off the cliffs into the lake near here.
The SUV bore down on her. She tapped the brakes a couple of times in warning. But instead of dropping back, the vehicle accelerated.
Ice formed in her stomach. She was vaguely aware of her heart. It was thudding heavily in her chest. Fear flowed like acid in her veins. Every survival instinct she possessed was suddenly screaming. The driver of the SUV was trying to scare her, and he was succeeding.
She pressed harder on the accelerator. Her father had taught her to drive on Lakefront Road. Teens raised in urban environments learned to handle the hazards of city streets and freeway on-ramps, but those raised in rural areas learned other skills. It had been seventeen years since she’d driven this stretch, but she reminded herself that the skills you learned early stayed with you. She’d had an excellent teacher, she remembered. Her father had driven the way he did everything else, the Marine Corps way.
She had one big advantage. Her compact clung to the curves like a sports car. The SUV was, at heart, a truck. As it increased speed, it started to take the sharp nips and tucks in the road in an unwieldy fashion.
The problem was the sheer rate of speed at which they were traveling, Irene thought. Sooner or later one of them was going to make a mistake and end up in the lake. The waters were deep in this region. Going over the edge would be tantamount to a death sentence.
She searched her memory for a map of the local landscape. Somewhere up ahead was the entrance to a small, heavily wooded subdivision. Seventeen years ago the real estate venture had not been a roaring success. Only a handful of inexpensive summer homes had been built. With luck, Ventana Estates had been caught in the same time warp that gripped Dunsley.
She heard tires squeal but dared not take her eyes off the road. One miscalculation at this speed would send her straight through the paper-thin metal barrier.
She came out of another sharp turn and saw the faded sign for Ventana Estates. It looked as if no one had ever bothered to repaint it. That boded well for what she had in mind, she told herself.
She had to slow for the turn, but the last hairpin curve had bought her a few seconds of time. The SUV had fallen back in an attempt to regain control.
She hit the brakes hard, spun the steering wheel to the left and stomped on the accelerator. The first portion of road into the failed subdivision had been roughly paved in an attempt to create a more upscale impression on prospective buyers. But she was relieved to note that over the years no one had filled in the gaping potholes.
The SUV’s tires howled in protest behind her. The driver from hell was braking hard. The bastard was so mad he was going to pursue her into the subdivision.
Another wave of fear crashed through her. She had been praying that, having chased her off the roadway, the driver of the SUV would be content in his wretched little triumph and continue on along Lakefront Road.
So much for Plan A, as Pamela would have said. Time for Plan B.
She could feel cold sweat under her arms. Everything depended on whether or not the subdivision road had been paved beyond the entrance.
The paved section ended abruptly. The compact lurched and bounced as it made the transition from rough blacktop to even rougher dirt and gravel.
She took her foot off the accelerator and risked a quick glance into the mirror. Like some ravenous beast sensing that its intended prey is tiring, the SUV leaped onto the gravel road to pursue her.
She followed the looping road, letting the SUV get dangerously close. The behemoth filled her rearview mirror now. She envisioned steel jaws opening to devour the compact. The driver was intent on forcing her back onto Lakefront Road.
This was as good as it was going to get, she decided. She tromped hard on the accelerator.
The compact surged forward as though it sensed the fangs hovering close behind. Gravel, pebbles and clods of dirt spurted furiously from beneath the rear tires, creating a driving hailstorm of debris.
She did not have to check the mirrors to see how the SUV had taken the surprise assault. She could hear the heavy, unrelenting rain of hard pings and sharp thuds as the wave of small stones and gravel struck metal and glass. She knew the driver from hell was looking through a windshield that was being pelted by the small meteor shower churned up by the compact’s tires.
The SUV hesitated and then fell back. Irene drove faster, following the subdivision’s single road toward the exit at the far end.
A moment later the compact bounced and jolted back out onto Lakefront Road. She floored the accelerator. The compact’s suspension system was never going to be the same, she thought.
When she dared to glance into the rearview mirror she saw no sign of the SUV. It was still back in Ventana Estates, licking its wounds.
The only consolation was in knowing that the driver of the SUV was going to pay a price for that display of road rage. The windshield had to be a maze of chips and spiderwebs. In addition, the flying gravel would have caused a lot of damage to the shiny silver finish.
She eased her foot off the accelerator. It was probably not a good idea to drive too fast when you were shaking from head to foot, she thought.
Thirty-seven
He met with Ken Tanaka in a small café located on a narrow street off Union Square. Ken claimed that the little hole-in-the-wall served the best pastries and baked goods in San Francisco. After a couple of bites of the croissant he had ordered, Luke concluded that he was right.
Ken slathered butter on his own croissant and angled his head at the page of handwritten notes he had put in front of Luke.
“You see why I didn’t want an e-mail trail leading to either one of us?” he said.
“Sure do,” Luke agreed.
He contemplated Ken, who was sitting on the other side of the table. He had never consciously thought about what a private investigator was supposed to look like, but somehow Ken didn’t fit the profile. Then again, Tanaka didn’t look like a man with a degree in forensic accounting, either.
It was easy to underestimate Ken. His quiet, friendly, reassuring manner made people lower their guard. He had been very good at questioning civilians unlucky enough to be caught in a war zone. More than once he had obtained information from a small boy or a frightened woman that had prevented Luke and the rest of the team from walking into an ambush.
No doubt about
it, Ken was good at handling people. But his greatest talent was his almost preternatural instinct for following the money. His firm specialized in corporate security, but Luke knew that the feds came knocking when they wanted Tanaka’s expertise to help track drug and terrorist funds.
Luke looked at the notes. “Give me the short answer.”
Ken took a bite of the flaky croissant. “In the past four months there have been four large sums of money transferred into an offshore account that I traced back to Hoyt Egan.”
“How’d you do that?”
Ken raised one brow. “You don’t want to know.”
“Right. Go on.”
“In my humble opinion, either Egan is taking payoffs from an unknown source for an unknown reason, or he’s collecting blackmail. My gut tells me we’re looking at a series of extortion payments.”
“Big bucks here.” Luke drank some coffee. “He’s got something on the senator, doesn’t he?”
“I’d say that’s the most likely scenario under the circumstances. Guy running for president probably has things to hide. But there are other possibilities.”
“The fiancée? Alexa Douglass?”
Ken reached for the jam. “I checked around. She and Webb started dating about six months ago. From all accounts, Alexa Douglass is an ambitious woman who is determined to marry Webb. If Egan discovered something in her past that would cause Webb to call off the wedding, it’s conceivable that she might be paying him to keep quiet.”
“Egan is playing with matches and probably out of his league. Blackmail is a dangerous line of work.” Luke sat back in the booth. “Wonder where Pamela Webb fits into this thing.”
“Starting to think she really was murdered?”
“The dots are connecting.”
Ken applied more jam to the croissant. “You were always pretty good with dots. What now?”
“I’m going to have to think about that for a while. I need to talk to Irene. This is her mission. I’m just assisting.”