The Sepia Siren Killer. Richard A. Lupoff
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got as far as, “Do you—” Then the lights flicked out.
Lindsey thought: I’ve really fallen into a movie.
He heard slow footsteps approaching.
He thought: Lionel Atwill. Dwight Frye. Conrad Veidt.
He heard fumbling, brushing, scraping noises from both sides. A light skittered across the room. He could see Ms. Wilbur swinging a beam in circles. She’d brought a flashlight in her purse. He thought: Why didn’t I think to ask her?
Ms. Wilbur’s light glinted off metal. Mr. MacReedy, all ninety years and ninety pounds of him, stood en garde. The metal was a thin, graceful blade, blue-black and deadly. The walking stick was a sword-cane. Whatever was coming for them, Mr. MacReedy was ready.
Ms. Wilbur swung her light away from MacReedy. She pointed through the cage-like room-divider. The light flashed across a face. Lindsey caught a glimpse of startled eyes. The suggestion of a wispy mustache. And something odd about the top of the head, as if the intruder was wearing a small hat cocked over one ear.
Then a second thin beam of light reflected from dust motes. Someone trotted away. Soft-soled shoes shushed up the staircase. A door slammed.
CHAPTER FIVE
Officer Mike Ng (“Pronounce it Eng, that’s all, like there’s an invisible E on the front”) seemed to control his anger with a major act of will. “Sir,” he said, “and Ma’am, what you did was very dangerous. Very irresponsible. I’m here to protect Mr. MacReedy. You thought it was clever to spirit him away when I was called away for a moment. And then you come scampering back like scared children.”
Lindsey said, “We were only looking at some things.” He felt like a schoolboy called onto the principal’s carpet. He’d be lucky to get off with a mere scolding.
Ms. Wilbur said, “Never mind that, Officer. There was a prowler down there in the cellar. He doused the lights down there and he was coming for us. It was just lucky that I had a flashlight and that Mr. MacReedy had a weapon. Who knows what might have happened if we hadn’t turned the tables.”
Ng was still short of breath from trying to chase down the intruder. The fugitive had got out the back exit of the Robeson Center, setting off an alarm as he went. From there he had proceeded on foot. There was no trail to follow, not in this environment. If he headed west, toward the Bay, he had reached Telegraph Avenue by now, and blended with the street people there. This is, if he hadn’t stopped first at People’s Park and disappeared among the homeless crazies, the drug dealers and common thugs who had driven out the flower children of an earlier age.
Mike Ng led them into the coffee lounge. Lindsey felt aged eyes tracking them across the lobby. In the lounge they took a table. Ng took out his notebook and said, “All right, he’s gone. We can’t seal off the rear of the center, that’s a fire regulation. I’ve called in and they’re going to assign a second officer.”
“For how long?” Lindsey wanted to know.
Ng shrugged. “You know we’re short of personnel. It’s all the budget. Mr. MacReedy, is there anyplace else you could go? Relatives, maybe? Somewhere you’d feel safe, sir?”
MacReedy sat silently. Beat, beat. Then, “I have nowhere else. No one else. I had Lola Mae and the Center. Now I have only the Center.”
Ng nodded. “I suppose we could take you into protective custody, but I don’t think that would be such a great idea.”
Mathilde Wilbur shook her head. “Not at his age, Mr. Ng. That would be a very bad idea.”
Ng said, “Now, let’s go over this once more.” He led them through the events in the cellar. After they described the contents of the wardrobe he asked what was in the trunk and the file cabinets.
Mr. MacReedy said, “Souvenirs. Just souvenirs. The wardrobe held our personal clothing. The trunk contained a few costumes and props. The file cabinets are old records, scripts, and stills.”
“Right.” Lindsey nodded. “Mathilde told me you used to be in movies.”
After the usual pause, MacReedy said, “I was, yes. But that was long ago. I am retired now. Lola and I had been retired for many years.”
“Yes, but before that you were in the industry.”
MacReedy’s face brightened slightly with a faraway smile, like a bright moon dimmed by layers of cloud. “We made films.”
Lindsey turned to Ng. “This has to be connected to the art museum case.”
Ng said nothing.
Lindsey said, “It was in the paper, I saw it in the Oakland Trib. At your party, Mathilde. It was on the desk under the flowers. It must have been on TV.”
Ng said, “I don’t know the case, sir.”
“That Italian girl was killed. That exchange student. Anna—Annabella Buonaventura, that’s her name.”
“That’s a homicide case, then.”
Lindsey managed to contain himself. “That’ s exactly what Iim saying. You have two fires. This woman is killed in one of them. There’ no apparent connection between the two, you’d think it was a coincidence. Nothing remarkable about that. Just two fires in the same town, a day or two apart So what, doesn’t mean a thing.”
Ng nodded. Ms. Wilbur watched. Mr. MacReedy had gone back into the past to be with his dead wife. His dead wife. There was something odd about his dead wife. Lindsey would have to remember that, try to figure out what was strange about MacReedy’s dead wife.
“Look,” Lindsey waved his hands, “the first fire, the Buonaventura fire, was at the University Art Museum. But it wasn’t at the main museum, it was at the Pacific Film Archive. That’s part of the museum, right? Or shares the building, whatever, right?”
Nobody disagreed.
“Then the second fire, Mr. MacReedy’s room is burned out, and then there’s an attempt on his belongings in the storage cellar. And why? Why? Because he’s a retired filmmaker.”
A second Berkeley police officer arrived. This one was a woman, taller than Ng and scrawny to the point of emaciation. The two officers spoke briefly, then the newcomer left the group. “She’s going to check out the premises, then post herself where she can see the cellar and the back door at all times.”
Lindsey said, “What if she has to go to the bathroom?”
Officer Ng said, “Necessity is necessity.” Then, without missing a beat, he resumed the prior conversation. “That’s pretty flimsy, Mr. Lindsey.”
Lindsey squirmed in his seat. “But it all adds up. How can you deny the connection?”
The coffee lounge was filling. Lindsey checked his watch. It was noon.
“We do not have separate dining facilities,” Mr. MacReedy said. “This is our dining room as well.?
Ng said, “I’ll stay with you during the meal, sir, if you don’t mind. And then what are your plans for the afternoon?”
Mr. MacReedy pondered for a while. Then he said, “I think I would like to take a little nap.”
* * * *
Lindsey talked Ms. Wilbur into going home for lunch. For himself he bought a sandwich at a fast-food joint, then drove back to Walnut Creek. He still had a desk in the International Surety office, and he wanted to tackle his accumulated paperwork.
A newcomer had settled in at Ms. Wilbur’s desk and was clicking away at her computer when Lindsey arrived. No, he told himself, not Ms. Wilbur’s any more. Just International Surety’s desk and computer, to be used by whomever the company assigned.
She was slim and tall, he could tell that even when she was sitting down. She looked away from the computer screen and said, “Yes, may I help you?”