The Baker Street Letters Read online

Page 12


  It was eight in the morning at the metropolitan jail.

  Reggie had been released after another interrogation from Mendoza—who threatened charges of obstruction, although Reggie knew he didn’t have enough to make it stick.

  Nigel, however, was under arrest.

  Reggie sat in the waiting area until the door from the inmates’ quarters opened and a guard appeared.

  And there was Nigel.

  Except for the tangerine jailhouse jumpsuit, Nigel appeared quite normal. No, more than normal for Nigel—he looked composed. Focused.

  He seated himself on the opposite side of the visitors’ window from Reggie.

  Reggie wasn’t sure why, but he found it vaguely annoying that Nigel did not look even a bit haggard.

  “What in bloody hell were you thinking?” said Reggie.

  He was referring to the dead-of-night meeting at the overpass—but Nigel seemed to give the question a broader interpretation. He leaned in close to the window partition, to avoid the guard overhearing—and then he spoke almost eagerly.

  “You were right,” said Nigel. “After you left my office the other evening, I thought it all through—and you were right. I don’t mean just about the letters. I mean about everything. About how it came to be that I was sitting in a clerical office in my brother’s firm at ten on a Friday evening with nothing better to do than respond to letters written to a character of fiction and obsess about what may or may not have been happening twenty years ago in the life of someone living five thousand miles way and whom I’ve never met.”

  Nigel paused. He was making so much sense that Reggie did not even try to interrupt.

  “I know I’ve been casting about in one direction and then another for years,” Nigel continued. “I know it, and it’s long past time for me to focus. After all—as you know—one can get by on charm and good looks for just so long.

  “So that night I resolved to just dispose of the letters and put them out of mind, no need to even read them, really. Just open-insert-seal, open-insert-seal. Then I dumped them all in the basket for the Monday pickup. It took no more than forty minutes when I did it like that; you were right, Ocher was right, it was nothing.

  “On Monday morning I came in very early, to get myself into properly humble form for the tribunal. The whole floor was still dark, which felt odd, but . . . well, truth is, I’ve never been the first one in before, so how would I know?”

  “Go on.”

  “I opened my office door and flipped the light switch—but my desk lamp didn’t come on. Figured I must have kicked the plug the night before. I opened the door further to get a little more of what light there was—and that’s when I saw.”

  Nigel’s demeanor as he said this was not what Reggie would have expected. “Saw what?” he asked.

  “Someone had forced open the lowest drawer of the filing cabinet,” responded Nigel. “The other drawers were open, too, but I knew immediately what was taken. The lowest drawer—which I had locked, and where I kept the letter—was broken open; the hanging file had been removed and was lying there on the desk, but it was empty. Both the letter and the documents that came with it were gone.”

  Nigel gave Reggie a look to make sure he understood the significance of that—and then he continued.

  “There was no time to waste. The hearing was out of the question. I wrote you a note, and—”

  “Wait a moment.”

  “Yes?”

  “That’s all you saw that was unusual?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” Nigel looked puzzled.

  “Just . . . continue,” said Reggie.

  “As I said, I saw that the letter and the enclosures were gone,” said Nigel. “And I knew what that meant. It meant that as right as you are about everything else, about that one thing, that letter, you were wrong. It was real, it was not something that could be ignored. And it couldn’t wait. I booked the next plane out. Sorry I couldn’t call, but you wouldn’t have understood, there was no helping the disciplinary hearing, I knew that, and if I’d told you, you would have just felt obligated to talk me out of it, or to do something about the hearing itself if you had to, and there was no point to it. I had to go, and that was all. So I went.”

  “And you just left your office at that point?”

  “Of course I left my office.”

  “Did you ever get the light on? Walk around the desk, assess the damage, and perhaps—try to pick things up at all?”

  “No, as a matter of fact,” said Nigel, getting a bit annoyed. “I know I’m not neat, but there are priorities. Why?”

  Reggie nodded. “Just go on.”

  Nigel looked at Reggie suspiciously, but he continued.

  “When I arrived in Los Angeles, I did not get reckless. I remembered what you said about possible liabilities—and aside from that, there’s this lease provision about not personally contacting—”

  “Yes,” said Reggie. “I know.”

  “So I didn’t even try to go to her directly,” said Nigel. “I just went to the café across from her building. I ordered their sandwich-and-coffee special and waited. Then I saw what they call coffee, and I asked for tea instead. The tea was . . . well, you can imagine. But I stuck it out. After a bit I see this bloke come out and start loitering around the entrance to the building, where all the flats have their post boxes. Then a young woman comes walking down the street. I pay attention; she’s the right age for our letter writer. And the neighbor is paying attention, too. When he sees her, he ducks up into the stairwell and then comes right back out again—as though he had just then decided to step out and check his correspondence. He tries to chat her up—but she’s clearly having none of it; in fact, she just looks annoyed, and she goes up the stairs.

  “He stays below, just standing there, deciding what to do. Then he walks over to the entrance for the side alley. First he looks about to see if anyone is watching—and then he goes into the alley. You understand? He just goes into the alley, for no good reason I can think of.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t like it; I need a better angle to see what he’s doing. So I leave the café and cross the street, using the parked cars for cover, and just when I’m thinking I’ll have to take the chance and go into the alley to see what’s going on—he comes out.

  “I duck down behind an SUV; I see him looking around like someone who doesn’t want to be seen. And then he jumps into this car—a Porsche, mind you—nearest the alley and drives off.

  “But I got a good look at his car, and I saw a parking sticker—something called Paradigm Pictures.

  “Then I went into the alley. And it was just like I thought—she has a fire escape there, and he was casing it. I’m sure of it.”

  “Why?”

  “What else would he be doing?”

  “Is there a rubbish bin? Could he have just been throwing something away?”

  “There is, but he didn’t have anything in his hands when he went in. And I saw something odd on the ground near the fire escape. Some sort of caked dirt.”

  “You think it’s odd to find dirt in an American alley?”

  “This kind. It was clay, with flecks of something—gypsum? I’m not sure, but it wasn’t what you normally see on top of the ground, it was something you see dug up. But nothing’s being dug up in the alley.”

  “So you figured he tracked it in from somewhere?”

  “Someone did.”

  “Was it still fresh?”

  “Not sure,” said Nigel, looking a bit annoyed, as though Reggie had thought of something he had not. “Well, all right, then—it looked pretty dry. But it was odd for it to be there. And—”

  “What did you do next?” Reggie interrupted

  Nigel hesitated. Then he took a deep breath, looked Reggie directly in the eye, and said, “I went up to talk to the girl. I know I wasn’t supposed to, I know it’s a violation of your lease, should anyone find out—but no one should find out. And it was looking urgent.”

/>   “All right,” said Reggie, and there was not much more he could say. He himself had made the same decision. “What happened?”

  “She wouldn’t talk to me. Said she’d put the dog on me if I didn’t leave.”

  “Yes, I’m familiar with it. A huge hound.”

  “It’s not a hound. It’s a Saint Bernard.”

  “We’re agreed that it’s a very large dog, Nigel. Continue.”

  “I went back to the café and stayed there, watching, until they closed and kicked me out. At that point, since she wouldn’t talk to me, I thought the next best thing was to track her neighbor to see what he was about. I got his name from the flat he came out of—Lance Slaughter, if you can believe that. And I’d seen the Paradigm parking sticker. I went to the Roosevelt Arms, checked in, and got a cab to the Paradigm lot, thinking I’d look for his car. But they wouldn’t let me in.”

  “What about the excavation site? What were you doing there?”

  “That was the clay I was telling you about. I’d already seen it in the alley behind Mara’s flat. And when I left Paradigm, and the cabdriver took that last turn off of Lankershim, I saw it there, too—in the diggings from that huge excavation site. I got out and managed a look around before getting tossed by security—but the car wasn’t there.

  “So I went back to my hotel for the night. The next morning I rang every studio on the Paradigm lot, and asked about an actor named Lance Slaughter. Didn’t learn anything; it doesn’t work that way—they either wouldn’t talk to me at all or just didn’t keep that kind of information. So I figured out a plan to get onto the lot and search for his car.”

  “Pizza Premieres.”

  “Yes. I checked out of the Roosevelt Arms and bribed a driver to let me take his route. I spent half a day scouring the lot and delivering pizza—but I didn’t see any sign of Lance or his car. So now I was at a loss; I couldn’t think of anything else to do except keep watching her place. I went back to the café. But when they closed, I had to find another spot.”

  “And you chose the warehouse for that?”

  “It was the only possibility. I needed a sight line on the alley. The place stank, and I had to pay a vagrant to use his space—but I set up there that evening, and eventually I see the bloke return. In the dead of night. He goes to the alley entrance like he did before, and looks in. Then he takes out a mobile phone, calls somebody, talks for a minute—and only then, after all that, does he go into his own flat.

  “There’s no phone near the warehouse; just a late-night pharmacy with a fax machine three blocks west. I know, I should get a mobile. But if I had rung you at that point, you would have just told me to turn things over to the police. And I didn’t really have anything to give them yet. So I ran to the pharmacy and sent you the fax to meet me at the overpass, where we’d have a clear line of sight and I could keep an eye on Mara’s fire escape.

  “In the meantime, I waited and watched from the warehouse. I couldn’t see the fire escape clearly from there, but I could see the entrance to the alley—and I didn’t expect anything to happen before you and I had a chance to meet. But I was wrong. At half-past one in the morning, I saw him come out of the entrance to the flats and go round into that alley.

  “I was caught off guard. I got out of the warehouse as quickly as I could, but it takes a while, with all the rubbish and derelicts lying about—and I couldn’t see the alley while I was exiting. By the time I got a line of sight again . . . well, whatever happened had happened. I didn’t know someone would kill the neighbor and wheel his body up right where I had asked you to meet me.”

  “The police think it was you, Nigel. They think you’re an obsessed stalker and that you killed her neighbor out of jealousy.”

  “They’ll never make that stick.”

  “And on our own side of the pond, Wembley’s building a nice theory about how you bashed Ocher with your Remington.”

  Nigel seemed genuinely puzzled. “My Remington?” Then, “What do you mean, bashed Ocher?”

  “I found his body in your office, Nigel.”

  Nigel took that in for a moment, looking as though he truly had no idea. And then he half stood out of his chair.

  “You’re saying someone killed Ocher?”

  “Yes.”

  “In my office?”

  “Yes. You didn’t know this when you ran out? Sit down, the guard is watching.”

  “Reggie, Ocher passed me in the corridor as I was leaving that morning. He checked his watch in that ‘amazed to see you here at this hour’ sort of way.”

  Reggie wanted to evaluate the implications this had for the order of events, but now Nigel suddenly leaned forward.

  “When can you get me out of here?” he said urgently.

  “After arraignment, assuming they allow bail,” said Reggie. “But that’s just for the wanker under the overpass. If Wembley has begun extradition proceedings—”

  “Then we can’t wait,” said Nigel. “If I can’t go to Mara, you must.”

  “Nigel, if the police find either of us hanging about—”

  “She is in danger now!”

  Nigel stood again as he said this, leaning forward with his hands pressed on the partition table between them, and Reggie saw that the guard was beginning to take notice.

  “Keep calm,” he said. “I’ll do it. Just sit down.”

  “Good,” said Nigel. He sat down, and then, after just an instant’s hesitation: “Good,” he said again.

  Reggie exited the jail, called for a cab from the steps, and then rang Laura at her New York hotel.

  Finally someone picked up.

  It was Buxton.

  “Heath! Good to hear from you!”

  When Reggie asked for Laura, she was on the phone immediately—close at hand, apparently; in the same room, if not on the same piece of furniture.

  “Catch you at a bad time?” said Reggie.

  “Of course not,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.”

  Reggie told her about finding Nigel. And there being a dead body under an overpass. And Nigel being arrested for it.

  Reggie heard an intake of breath and then a pause on the other end of the line. Then Laura said, “How do we get your brother out of jail?”

  “Arraignment is tomorrow morning,” said Reggie, “but bail is problematic.”

  “Why so?”

  “Nigel is a foreign national accused of a capital offense.”

  “Isn’t there someone you can ring?”

  Reggie didn’t answer immediately. The answer he was obliged to give was embarrassing.

  “No,” he said after a moment. “I don’t know anyone in such places here.”

  “Oh,” said Laura.

  There was another pause, and then she said, “Shall I ask Robert? Perhaps he might have more effect. I mean, he might know someone—”

  “No, don’t. I’ll manage it.”

  “Right, then.”

  There was an awkward pause.

  “I have to go,” said Reggie. “Nigel assigned me a task.”

  “Right, then,” Laura said again, with no apparent disappointment. “But ring. Let me know.”

  “Of course,” said Reggie.

  Reggie shut off his phone, waited for the cab to arrive, and then rode to Mara’s flat. He knocked on her door, waited, then knocked again.

  No one answered.

  But, significantly, there was no sound from Mookie, either. So she might just be out walking the dog again.

  Reggie crossed the street to Joe’s Deli and settled in to wait. He got a late breakfast—what passed for eggs and bangers, once he’d made himself understood.

  He sat at the table and watched her flat through the café window. An hour passed. Then another. More time went by, the coffee was eating a hole in his stomach, and still no sign of Mara.

  And now Reggie’s mobile beeped.

  It was Anne from the geological institute.

  “I have news,” she said. �
�But it’s sort of complicated. Can you come out?”

  “I may have to stay put for a bit. Can you give me a hint?”

  “Well . . . bottom line is, something’s not right. I can’t explain it clearly over the phone. I’ll need to show it to you in person. I’ve got a couple hours open until my evening seminar.”

  There was a tenor to her voice that made Reggie take notice.

  He looked across at Mara’s flat again. It was a weekday, still early in the afternoon, and she most probably was at work at the gallery she had mentioned. She might not be back for several hours more. And wherever she was, Nigel’s concerns notwithstanding, she had her 150-pound dog to protect her.

  “I’ll see you in one hour,” he said.

  It took somewhat longer than that. This city needed more cab ranks. And apparently it had a morning rush hour, and a lunch rush hour, and presumably another at the end of the workday.

  Or perhaps, like London, one long one from dawn till after midnight.

  Finally, Reggie reached the campus. Anne was in the lab, eating while she worked in front of a computer terminal.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” said Reggie.

  “Want half? Peanut butter.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “You won’t believe what I found for you. Or maybe you will—but I don’t.”

  “Did you find the page?”

  “No. And that’s a little spooky.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your fragment has a partial identifier—right here in the corner—that says it has to be somewhere in the L.A. or San Fernando basin. The other corner is missing, so we don’t know exactly where, but when you have enough data, it’s just like a fingerprint—all I have to do is enter the data you’ve already got and find the report in the database that has that exact same sequence of values.”

  “Right. So where is it?”

  “Bring that chair over, I’ll show you the problem.”

  Reggie did so, and he watched as she punched numbers into the terminal.

  “I’m entering the measurements from that fragment of yours, in sequence, and I’m searching for one exact match in all the recorded surveys for the area within the last twenty-five years. Look at what I get.”

 

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