some of the “high-profile cases” the
The white facade of the Oaks Lodge was bathed in multicolored lights and the parking lot was jammed with cars. Obviously a popular place on Saturday night. I found a space near my room between two oversize SUVs, edged my rental between them. It was hot inside-I’d remembered to turn the air-conditioning off before I left that morning-so I decided to take a swim to cool off. I’d just changed into my suit when the phone rang. Probably Hy, confirming our plans for tomorrow. I was to fly down to San Diego, attend the reception at my mother’s with him, and then we’d spend the night at RKI’s condo in La Jolla.
“Ms. McCone?” an unfamiliar male voice said. “This is John at the front desk. We have a Federal Express package for you.”
“Will you have someone bring it up to my room, please?”
“Sorry, I can’t at the moment. We’re shorthanded tonight, and I can’t leave the desk.”
“All right, I’ll be down for it in a few minutes.” I threw on shorts and a tee over my suit, took a shortcut across the courtyard to the lobby. Music from a live band drifted from the bar, and a group of people waited at the restaurant’s hostess stand. A young Asian woman sat behind the desk, reading a magazine.
“I’m Sharon McCone,” I said to her. “John called about a FedEx package that’s arrived for me.”
“John went off duty an hour ago.”
I frowned. “Well, could you check for the package?”
She got up, looked under the counter. “There’s nothing here. I could see if he put it in the office.”
“No, don’t bother.”
There was no package. Someone had used it as a ruse to get me out of my room. Had the door automatically locked behind me? I couldn’t remember. I hurried out to the courtyard and took the path toward my wing. It led me across a bridge over the little stream that fed a koi pond, then into a grove of exotic plantings-
A sudden whining and thud close by. Sounds I knew all too well.
I was on the ground before the echo of the shot died out, heart pounding, facedown in a flowerbed. I inhaled damp soil, sucked a leaf into my mouth, and began coughing; rolled away from a spotlight that shone up on the branches of a nearby tree and crouched in the shadows.
There were no more shots. All I heard were doors opening and alarmed voices in the courtyard.
“What happened?”
“That was a shot!”
“Where’d it come from?”
“Stay back, folks. Please stay back!”
“What’s going on?”
“Is somebody hurt?”
“Go inside, people, please! Let us check this out.”
Hotel security, getting things under control. The shooter would be far away by now. Shakily I got to my feet and moved onto the path.
How close to me had that bullet passed? Not very. And it wasn’t all that dark out here-not dark enough for the shooter to miss accidentally. Whoever had lured me out of my room hadn’t intended to kill me, just scare me.
Footsteps came from the direction of the main wing, and then I spotted a guard coming toward me. A second guard followed him, sweeping the shrubbery with a flashlight.
I raised my hands so they could see I wasn’t armed. Called out, “Someone fired into the courtyard. It sounded like a handgun, small-caliber, and it came from over there.” I motioned to the right.
The first guard hurried up to me. “Are you all right, miss?”
“Just shaken up, that’s all.”
He turned to the other guard. “Better get the police over here. And you, miss, come with me. They’ll want to talk with you.”
Detective Rob Traverso of the PRPD was the officer who had given me access to the Greenwood files. A stocky man with curly brown hair and a neatly trimmed mustache, he had an air of calmness and deliberation. When he entered the manager’s office at the inn, he looked me over and said, “Well, Ms. McCone, what can you tell me about this shooting incident?”
I described what had happened, including the direction from which I thought the shot had come.
Traverso sat down on the corner of the desk and nodded thoughtfully. “We’ve got our people questioning the guests in all the wings. Not that anybody’s going to admit to discharging a weapon in a public place. You have any reason to think the shot was meant for you?”
“Well, there’s been some newspaper publicity on my investigation and someone may be trying to warn me off.”
“I saw the article in the
“It’s possible.”
“Who?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“Who have you interviewed?”
I named them.
Traverso smiled. “Well, I haven’t met Mr. Ziff or Mr. Lighthill, but the others I’ve known most of my life. I can question them if you’d like, but I very much doubt any of them is responsible. Maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s a bit of the frontier mentality in the countryside around here; it could’ve been some cowboy who’d had too much Saturday night in the bar.”
“I suppose so.” I was perfectly willing to let the matter drop. Both Ziff and Lighthill had seemed straightforward enough and, as Traverso said, he knew the others.
The detective handed me his card. “If there are any further incidents-”
“Of course.”
When I went out into the lobby, the first person I spotted was Jacob Ziff. He was standing by the entrance to the bar with a slight, handsome man whose long dark hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail. Ziff frowned when he saw me come around the front desk from the manager’s office, said something to his companion, and moved toward me.
“Sharon,” he asked, “what’s going on? I was standing at the bar when three squad cars came roaring up.”
“Somebody discharged a handgun in the courtyard. I almost got in the way.”
“My God!” The other man came up beside him, and Ziff repeated what I’d said.
The man said, “So that’s what it was. I was just getting out of my car when the police got here, and they wouldn’t tell me anything.”
Ziff said to me, “This is Kev Daniel. Kev, Sharon McCone, the private investigator I was telling you about.”
Daniel shook my hand. His was smooth and immaculately manicured. He wore a heavy turquoise-and-silver ring, and his silk shirt and well-tailored slacks looked expensive. I considered the conversation over and started to move away from the two.
“Why don’t you join us for a drink?” Daniel said.
Although I’d cleaned up some in the restroom while waiting for Detective Traverso, my shorts and tee were stained with dirt from the flowerbed. “I don’t think-”
“We can get a table on the patio,” Ziff said. “It’s quiet there, and no one will care how you’re dressed. You look like you could use a drink.”
I certainly could. I nodded and accompanied them through the crowded, noisy bar to a side door that led to a fenced patio; Daniel found us a table in a shadowy corner, while Ziff went to place our order.
When we were seated Daniel said, “Jacob was telling me about you after we finished going over the plans for my winery’s tasting room this afternoon. Little did we know when we arranged to meet for a drink later on that we’d find you here-and under such circumstances.”
“You’re a vintner?”
“Yes, but on the marketing end of things. My two partners take care of the winemaking. The winery’s called
