Blood Walk Part 15

"Yes, sir," Garreth replied, and obediently left.

Riding down in the elevator, however, he considered the problem of legally seeing the contents of the file. Could he ask Cohen or Kolb to look at it and pa.s.s on the information? They might expect him to say why he wanted to know. Worse, they might tell Serruto who asked them to look at it. Was there anywhere outside the file that he could find the same information?

He found the answer to that about the time he stepped out of the elevator onto the ground floor. Then he had to run for his car to reach the library before it closed.

"I need the October 1941 editions of theChronicle ," he told the librarian on duty in the microfilm section. He wished he remembered the exact date of that a.s.sault. It meant searching the entire month's newspapers.

He spun the film through the viewer as fast as he could and still read it. He felt closing time coming and sped up the viewer a bit more.

By concentrating so hard on small items, though, he almost missed what he wanted. Lane had earned herself two columns and a picture on the front page. There was no mistaking her, towering tall between the four police officers hauling her back from a woman who crouched with blood leaking through the fingers of the hand held over her left ear. "The Barbary Coast Still Lives," the headline proclaimed.

Garreth thanked Lady Luck for the lurid reporting of that day and pressed the b.u.t.ton for a printed copy of the page. Maybe he had something here. This Madelaine with her face contorted in fury was a far cry indeed from the Lane Barber who stood him up against a wall years later and coolly proceeded to drink his lifeblood, then go back to work.

He read the story in the dome light of his car, writing down all names and addresses in his notebook. He smiled as he read, amused at both the gossipy style of the story, laden with adjectives, and what he saw between the lines, knowing Lane to be what she was.

A woman named Claudia Darling, described as "a pert, pet.i.te, blue-eyed brunette," was accosted in the Red Onion on the evening of Friday, October 17, by "a Junoesque" red-haired singer named Mala Babra-Lane could fill a phone book with her aliases-employed by the club. An argument ensued over a naval officer both had met in the same club the evening before, Miss Babra claiming that Miss Darling had caused the serviceman to break a date made previously with Miss Babra.

Garreth smiled. He could just imagine Lane's frustration . . . supper all picked out and some other lady walking off with it.

When Miss Darling denied the allegation, the story went on, Miss Babra attacked. They had to be separated by police hastily summoned to the scene. Four officers were needed to subdue and hold Miss Babra. Miss Darling suffered severe bite wounds to one ear and scratches on the face, but"the popular habitue of the nightclub scene is reported to be in satisfactory condition at County General Hospital. "

Garreth eyed the last sentence, ticking his tongue against his teeth. He sensed a sly innuendo, something readers of the time had been meant to infer, but which he, a generation later, failed to understand. He studied the photograph: the four officers straining to hold Lane, obviously surprised by her strength; Lane ablaze with fury; and the Darling woman, showing what the photographer must have considered a highly satisfactory amount of leg as she crouched dazed and bleeding on the floor. The bare leg caught Garreth's attention, but the rest of the woman held it. Even with the differences in hairstyle and fas.h.i.+ons, he recognized what she wore as just a bit flas.h.i.+er, shorter, and tighter than the dresses on the women in the background. Now he understood the innuendo and chuckled. Even a generation removed, she clearly signaled her profession to him: hooker.

That was a break. If she was in the life, she had probably been busted a time or two, and that meant a record of her: names, addresses, companions. Tomorrow he would run her through R and I.

Humming, he switched off the dome light and started the car, heading out of the parking lot towrd home to pick up his thermos before hunting supper.

5

Danger!Even in the oblivion of vampire sleep Garreth sensed it. The heat of human warmth touched him, spiced by the scent of blood. Someone stood in the room with him . . . stood over him!Wake up, Garreth. As though floating somewhere apart, he saw the young Englishman pick up a spade and bring it down toward the man lying in the coffin.

Fear dragged Garreth up from darkness, spurring him to open his eyes and roll away from the slas.h.i.+ng spade, but sleep and daylight weighted him. His arms rose with painful slowness to ward off the blow.

"No, don't," he said.

A hand caught his arm and shook it. "Garreth, wake up. You're having a nightmare. It's all right."

The words reached his ears, but his brain made no immediate sense of them. His eyes, focusing, saw Lien's face above him and recognized that it did not belong to the spade-swinging man, but his mind spun in confusion, disoriented. Lien? Where was he? The pallet under him on the bed indicated that he must be home. So how- Panic flooded through him. He sat bolt upright. Lien! She had caught him in his unorthodox sleeping arrangement! And naked, too, beneath the single sheet over him, he remembered, clutching the sheet and pulling it up to his chin.

"Lien, what are you doing here? How did you get in? What time is it?"

She sat on the edge of the bed. "It's past two in the afternoon. I came because your mother called me after church. She's been trying to reach you since Friday. When I saw your car out front, I knew you had to be home, but I pounded on the door for five minutes without any response, so I used your spare key to let myself in."

As of today, the practice of hiding a key outside stopped. What if an enemy had stood over him, like Jonathan Harker in his nightmare? He would have been helpless to protect himself.

"Why did you unplug your phone?" Lien asked.

Unplug his phone? Oh, yes . . . he remembered now. He had done it Friday. He sighed. "I forgot I did it."

"I've reconnected it. Now you'd better call your mother before she has a heart attack." Lien started to get up, but paused in the act. "Why do you have that air mattress on top of the bed? And how can you sleep with only a sheet? It's freezing in here."

He avoided the question. "I'll call . . . if you'll let me get up and dress."

She headed toward the bedroom door. "Don't take too long."

He pulled on the first s.h.i.+rt and pair of pants he found, which turned out to be jeans and a ski sweater. The jeans, always snug before, hung on him. He added a belt, taken up four holes tighter than usual, and slipped his off-duty gun into an ankle holster.

He was hurriedly shaving when he heard Lien call, "Garreth, how old is this food in your refrigerator?"

He dropped the razor and ran for the kitchen.

Lien stood before the open refrigerator, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the top from his thermos. "I thought I'd fix you something to eat, but everything seems to be either moldy or mummified."

"Don't open that!" He s.n.a.t.c.hed the thermos away from her, then, as she stared open-mouthed at him, stammered, "It's . . . the liquid protein that's part of my diet. It . . . needs constant refrigeration." Carefully tightening the lid again, he returned the thermos to the refrigerator.

Lien frowned at him. "You don't mean to tell me that'sall you're eating?"

"Of course not," he lied. "It's just all I eat here at home."

He shut the refrigerator and herded her out of the kitchen, sweating. Had she seen too much? Would it make her suspicious?

He wished he could think, but his mind only churned, screaming at him to run.

"You should eat more," Lien said. "'Losing weight too fast isn't healthy, and you look positively gaunt."

As much as he adored her, he longed to throw her bodily out of the apartment. Her concern and solicitude terrified him.

"Thanks for coming by."

"I want to hear you call your mother before I leave."

He did not sigh; that might tell her how anxious he was to have her leave. Instead, he made himself smile and pick up the phone.

After all the fuss, his mother wanted nothing more than to see how he was. "Mother keeps insisting that you're dead," she said, "and you know how unnerving her Feelings can be for everyone else. Why don't you come home for a visit? Actually seeing you should rea.s.sure her."

"Maybe this weekend," he said, "if I have time."

"Judith needs to talk to you when you're here, too."

"Judith?" A new fear touched him. "Is something wrong with Brian?"

"He's fine. It's something else; she'll tell you."

"Do you know?"

She hedged and wandered off on a tangent, which told him she knew, all right.

"Tell me. Don't let her hit me cold with it."

"Well." He heard her take a breath. "She wants your permission to let Dennis adopt Brian."

That single sentence buried all his impatience to be rid of Lien and on his way to the office to check the Darling woman through R and I. "Shewhat! You can tell her-no, I'll tell her myself!"

He stabbed down the phone b.u.t.ton. Releasing it again, he punched Judith's phone number. No one answered. Punching for Information, he asked for Judith's parents' number. She often spent Sunday afternoons there.

"h.e.l.lo, Garreth," Judith said cautiously when her mother put her on the line. "How are you?"

"What do you mean, you want permission for your husband to adopt Brian? What the h.e.l.l makes you think I'll ever agree to that?"

Her breath caught. "So much for polite amenities. No, it's all right," she said to someone on the other end. "Just a minute, Garreth." He heard her moving and a door shutting, with a diminution of background sound. "Now. I thought maybe you'd agree because you love Brian and want what's best for him. Brian and Dennis are already good friends, and-"

"They can be friends, but I'm his father. I stay his father."

"He needs one full-time, Garreth, someone he can feel he belongs to. What are you? He's lucky if he sees you four or five times a year.""You were the one who insisted on moving back to Davis. My job doesn't give me enough time off to-"

"Your job is exactly what you choose to let it be." Her bitterness came clearly over the wire to him. "It wouldn't have to be twenty-four hours a day every day, but you wanted it that way. You chose that job over Brian and me."

Oh Lord here we go . . . two minutes of conversation and down into the same old rut."Judith, I don't want to start that again."

"With Brian adopted, you wouldn't have to pay child support anymore."

She thought she could buy Brian for her precious Dennis? "Forget it!" he said furiously. "Brian is my son and I'm not giving him to anyone else!"

He slammed down the receiver, shaking, and turned to find Lien regarding him with sympathy. All the anxiety related to her presence here returned in an icy flood.Don't let her think too much.

"I have to be going. I have stacks of paperwork," he said. "Thanks again for coming by. I appreciate your concern."

"You'll visit Harry sometime today, won't you?"

He picked up a ski jacket and hurried her out the door. "Of course. May I have my spare key back? Thank you." He clattered down the steps ahead of her and out onto the street, calling over his shoulder. "I'll come by this evening."

Pulling away from the curb, he saw Lien in the rearview mirror, staring after the car. He s.h.i.+vered. She had caught him asleep!

She had almost found the blood in the thermos. If he remained friends with Harry and her, sooner or later he would slip, would give away something fatal. He had to find Lane just as soon as possible, take care of her, and leave the city before he woke some morning to find someone standing over him with a pointed wooden stake.

6

According to R and I, Claudia Darling had been born Claudia Bologna. Her yellow sheet listed eight arrests for prost.i.tution in the years between 1940 and 1945. After that her only offenses were those of many good citizens: speeding citations. One had been issued in 1948, one in 1952 by which time her name had become Mrs. William Drum with a Twin Peaks address-and a final one in 1955.

He copied down the information and studied it as he rode up to Homicide.

Serruto's office sat empty, but otherwise the squad room looked like it looked any other day. Garreth felt almost like a civilian in his sweater, jeans, and ski jacket. He walked quickly to his desk, only nodding greetings to the detectives there. He felt better after he began the reports. They were easy . . . just typed from his notes and memory, no real involvement required, no emotion.

His fingers danced across the keys with almost selfvolition, translating the thoughts in his head to words on paper. The rhythm soothed, draining away tension and anxiety, even when the report dealt with a dead-end lead or Wink's screwed-up capture. He typed steadily most of the afternoon, oblivious to the other activity in the room, only occasionally pausing to greet someone or let another thought creep in.

While proofreading, though, his mind slipped back to his conversation with his ex-wife. He fumed just thinking of it. Let Dennis have Brian? No way! Yet he recognized that Judith had a valid argument. Maybe that was what he found so infuriating. He had to admit that he had not been much of a father . . . and what kind could he ever be now?Come on, son; let's go out for a bite. You have a hamburger and I'll take the waitress.

He tapped the reports into a neat stack and carried them into Serruto's office. That was enough for today. Now, to Miss Claudia Bologna Darling Drum. He closed the door of the office and sat down behind the desk with the phone book.

Three William Drums lived in San Francisco, none in the Twin Peaks area. Dialing the number of William C. Drum, he found a Mrs. Drum at the other end, but a young woman and not a Claudia. She had never heard of Claudia Drum.

No one answered William R. Drum's phone.

He dialed William R. Drum, Jr. A child answered. Hearing the high-pitched voice, Garreth grimaced. This did not sound promising. "May I speak to Mrs. Drum, please?"

"Who?"

Garreth tried another tack. "Is your mommie there?"

"Mommie?"

Garreth felt like an idiot, talking baby talk to make himself understood. But to his great relief, a woman's voice came on the line a few moments later.

"This is Inspector Mikaelian of the San Francisco police," he explained. "I'm attempting to locate a Mrs. Claudia Drum."

"I'm afraid I don't know anyone by that name."

"She's an older woman. Your mother-in-law isn't named Claudia?"

"No, Marianna. Wait a minute." Her voice became m.u.f.fled as she called to someone with her, "Bill, what's your mother's name?"Several voices murmured, unintelligible to Garreth, then the voice of an older man came on. "This is William Drum, Sr. You're looking for a woman named Claudia? I may know her. Can you describe her for me?"

"She's short, blue-eyed, brunette. Her maiden name was Bologna and in 1955 she lived in the Twin Peaks area."

"And you say you're with the police?"

Garreth gave Drum his phone number and invited him to call back. Drum did, then explained that Claudia Drum was his first wife. "We divorced in 1956."

"Do you know where she is now and what name she's using?"

Drum hesitated. "I'm curious, Inspector, what you want with her. If all you know is that name, this must concern something very old."

"We're looking for information on a woman who a.s.saulted her in 1941."

A long silence greeted that remark. Garreth pictured Drum staring nonplused at the receiver, wondering why the police cared about a forty-year-old a.s.sault. Finally, with a shrug and a dry note in his voice, Drum said, "Her name is Mrs. James Emerson Thouvenelle and she lives on the wall." He gave a Presidio Heights address and phone number.

Garreth wrote them down, impressed. Claudia had done well for herself, rising from hooker to the mansions overlooking the Presidio. He wondered if Drum's dry tone indicated that he knew he had been a mere stepping-stone to that mansion. Garreth made sure he thanked William R. Stepping-stone Drum warmly before hanging up and dialing the Thouvenelle number.