I closed the bottom drawer. Robert Paris was dead but someone had stolen the only evidence I had which linked him to the murder of his grandson. The apartment seemed suddenly very quiet. I felt as if I were in the presence of ghosts. As much to get out as to learn whether she’d seen or heard anything I went to my neighbor.
I pushed the doorbell beneath her name, Lisa Marsh. She came to the door in a bathrobe. This was not unusual, since she was a resident at the university medical school and worked odd hours. But her face was flushed, her hair disheveled and her eyes bright; it wasn’t the appearance of sleep.
“Hi,” I began, waiting for recognition to register with her.
She smiled.
“Sorry to get you out of bed but someone broke into my house this afternoon.”
She stepped back. “Oh, no. When?”
“I left at ten this morning and got back an hour ago.” I looked at my watch. It was about six. “I was wondering if you’d seen or heard anything.”
“You better come in,” she said. I did, closing the door behind me. All the curtains were drawn, but a lamp shone in a corner, revealing the remnants of a meal for two people laid out on a long coffee table. “Excuse me for a minute, Henry.”
She went into her bedroom, and I heard her talking to someone. A few minutes later she returned with a man who was stuffing his shirt tails into his jeans.
“I don’t think you’ve met Mark,” she said.
“Um, how do you do?” I said.
He smiled. “Fine.”
“I am really sorry to disturb you,” I said to both of them.
Lisa shrugged. “This is an emergency. Have you called the police?”
“No, not yet. I’m trying to figure out what happened first.”
We went into the living room and sat down. I told them about the dead-bolt, the neatness of the search and the fact that only one thing had been taken. They did not ask, and I did not tell them, exactly what that thing was.
“What I was thinking,” I concluded, “was that you may have heard something or seen someone.”
They looked at each other and then back to me.
“We had lunch at around noon,” Lisa said, “and were done by twelve-thirty. I’m afraid that after that we weren’t paying much attention.”
Mark frowned thoughtfully. “Wait. I heard a phone ringing next door. It woke me, and I looked over at the alarm clock thinking it might be the hospital — I work there, too. It was about three-thirty or a little before. Then I got up to use the bathroom and get a glass of water from the kitchen.”
“Did you hear anything else?”
He shook his head.
The three of us looked at each other. Lisa touched her finger to her lip.
“But I did,” she said. “The sound of silver rattling as someone opened a drawer. But I thought it was Mark.”
“No, I got a glass from the counter. I didn’t open any drawers.”
“All this happened around three-thirty?”
“I’m sure of it,” Mark said, “because I had to check in with the hospital at four.”
I got up to leave. It was five-thirty. The burglar had been in my apartment only two hours earlier.
“What did he take?” Lisa asked.
“Some letters.”
“Were they important?”
“The fact that they were stolen makes them important again,” I said, then thanked them for their help.
Back in my apartment I headed for the phone. I hadn’t noticed earlier that the answering machine had been shut off. I switched it back on. The recording dial was turned to erase. I moved the dial back to rewind, listening as the tape sped backwards. The message had not been rewound before my visitor attempted to erase it. Consequently, he had only succeeded in erasing blank tape. I turned the dial to play. There was the noise of someone trying to clear his throat and then the voice of a very drunk Aaron Gold.
“Henry… secretary said you called the other day… need to talk to you… s’important… s’about Hugh… Judge Paris.. you got it wrong. Remember, no cops. I’m at home.” The line went dead. I fast forwarded the tape to see if he’d called again. There were no other calls.
Mark said he heard the phone ringing at about three-thirty. A few minutes later, Lisa heard someone in my kitchen. Aaron’s call must have come in while the burglar was in the apartment. If he was in the kitchen, which was just a few feet from the phone, the burglar heard the message. In fact, he not only tried to erase the message but turned the machine off so that the red light wouldn’t immediately attract my attention. Shutting off the machine had also prevented any further messages from Aaron. Suddenly, I was very worried for him.
The phone rang at Aaron’s house three times before his answering machine clicked on. I waited for the message to finish knowing that Aaron often screened his calls, and hoping that he was doing that now.
“Aaron, this is Henry,” I said, practically shouting, “if you’re at home, pick up the phone.” The tape ran on. I tried calling his office but was told he hadn’t been in that day. I put the phone down, got my car keys and hurried out of the apartment.
Aaron lived in a small wooden house on Addison, set back from the road by a rather gloomy yard that was perpetually shaded by two massive oaks. There was a deep porch across the front of the house. The overhanging roof was supported by four squat and massive pillars completely out of proportion to the rest of the building. Gold and I referred to the place as Tara. The recollection of that mild joke dispelled some of my uneasiness as I opened the gate and stepped into the yard.
It was dusk and the shadows were at their deepest. Aaron’s brown BMW was parked, a little crookedly, in the driveway. There were lights on behind the drawn curtains but the house was still. I heard a noise, a movement on the side of the house in the narrow strip of yard between the building and the fence that bounded the property.
Abruptly I stopped, turned and sped toward the side yard, moving as quietly as I could. When I reached the edge of the building I stopped and listened. Another noise, fainter. Breathing? I slowed my own breath. Someone had been coming up the side yard when he heard me open the gate. Now he was standing still, wondering, as I had wondered, at the source of the noise. I crouched, walked to the very edge of the building, and then sprang.
For an instant no longer than a heartbeat we saw each other through the evening shadows. He raised his arm to his chest, holding something in his hand. I balled my hand into a fist and brought it down on his wrist as hard as I could. Startled, he dropped what I now saw was a gun. He gasped, turned, and started running. I stooped down, retrieved the gun and ran after him. He was scrambling over the redwood fence when I got to the back yard.
“Stop,” I shouted, training the gun at his back. I squeezed the trigger and then released it. It seemed suddenly darker as a burst of adrenalin rushed to my head. He was wearing — what? — dark pants, a dark shirt, taking the wall like an athlete. I knew that in another second it would be too late to stop him. I had to stop him. But shoot him? I was going to shoot a man? This wasn’t even remotely a situation of self-defense. I held on to the gun and ran for the fence. He was nearly over the top. With my free hand, I reached up and grabbed his ankle. He kicked free. In another second I heard him drop to the ground on the other side. I clambered up the fence, trying to get footholds on the rough wood. Reaching the top, I looked down at the alley, which ran the length of the street. He was gone. He had run to the end of the block or else had gone into someone’s back yard. I let myself drop back. Try to remember his face, I thought, as I made my way back to the house. The back door was ajar.
I entered the house through the kitchen.
“Aaron,” I said in a whisper.
There was no answer. I groped for a light switch, found it and turned it on. The fluorescent light blinked on, filling the room with a white electric glare. From the doorway of the kitchen I could see into the dining room and to the arched entrance that led into the living room. There was a light on in there. I stepped into the dining room and repeated Aaron’s name. There was no answer.
