“Morro Bay. You?”
“El Centro.”
A desert town some seventy-five miles east of San Diego. RKI had a camp near there, where they trained their operatives in the techniques of executive protection. New employees did intensive classroom work, practiced evasionary techniques-otherwise known as car chases in clunkers-underwent rigorous practice on the firing range, engaged in paintball wars, simulated emergency field medical procedures, and held mock hostage negotiations. Since 9/11, executive protection had become one of the hottest commodities in the security field-and also the most dangerous. The possibility of death by bullet, knife, bomb, or hand-to-hand combat was a very real on-the-job hazard, and RKI made sure their operatives possessed optimal survival skills.
“Teaching a class?” I asked. Hy was RKI’s top hostage negotiator and often gave seminars at the desert facility.
“More like troubleshooting.” His tone precluded my asking anything more; the firm operated on a need-to-know basis, and unless they hired me as a subcontractor-which they twice had-their operations were none of my business.
I felt a prickle of unease, remembering Gage Renshaw’s words to me at the party at Touchstone:
“Looks like I’ll be here a couple of days,” Hy added, “so I thought I’d check in with you. I’m hoping to get up to the city over the weekend. How’s your case going?”
“It’s coming together.”
He didn’t press me either; certain aspects of my investigations were also confidential, and he knew he’d hear whatever I could tell him when we saw each other. We talked a few minutes more, tentatively deciding that if he wrapped up his work there and I wrapped up my work here, I’d fly to El Centro and pick him up on Friday. Then we ended the call, and I started the car and headed for Cayucos.
Jacob Ziff was home and seemed pleased to see me. He took me to the chairs by the big windows of his office and, as before, offered me coffee, which this time I declined. When we were seated, he asked, “Did the police find out who shot at you last weekend?”
“No.” I shook my head, let a silence build.
Ziff frowned. “They have no idea who did it?”
“None, but I have a couple of suspects in mind.”
“Oh?”
Again I made use of silence. Ziff shifted in his chair. I took a small notepad from my bag, paged through it. My last week’s grocery list, a reminder to make a dental appointment, a number of items to pick up at the hardware store, a list of supplies we needed at Touchstone, a note to add a friend’s new phone number to my address book, and a couple of pages of scribbling about a potential client an acquaintance had referred to me.
“Here it is,” I said. “On Saturday night, you told me that you were at the bar at the Oaks Lodge when the police arrived.”
“That’s right.”
“That’s right-that’s what you told me? Or that’s right-that’s where you were?”
“I don’t understand.” But he did; a flush was spreading up from the neck of his polo shirt.
“After you left, I spoke with the bartender. He said you weren’t there.”
“Maybe you spoke with a different bartender. The shifts change-”
“He’d been on duty since eight.”
“Well, then, he’s mistaken. I was there.”
“You were there two hours before the police arrived, but left. Where did you go?”
Ziff compressed his lips.
“Perhaps to the courtyard, to choose your vantage point? Or to the house phone to call me and pretend to be the desk clerk? Or to wait in the shadows with a handgun?”
“No! I had nothing to do with that!”
“I didn’t think you did.”
He blinked. “Then what-?”
“I just wanted to get your reaction, to make sure I hadn’t misjudged you. Where were you, Jacob?”
He got up, moved to the window wall, and pressed his hand to the glass, looking out at the sea. “It’s none of your business.”
“Maybe not mine, but if I mention your lie to Rob Traverso at the PRPD, he’ll make it
“All right!” Ziff turned, hands balling into fists. “I was in one of the guest rooms. With a woman friend. A married woman friend who has a great deal to lose if our relationship were made public.”
A simple explanation, most likely a true one. “Thank you. That information will remain confidential, but I do have a few additional questions.” I looked pointedly at the chair that he had vacated.
He relaxed somewhat, went back, and sat down. “I don’t know why I should continue to talk with with you,” he said, but his words lacked conviction.
“I think you do. Both you and I suspect who the shooter was.”
Ziff spread his hands on his thighs, looked down at them. “Kev Daniel,” he said after a moment. “He told me he arrived at the lodge at the same time the cops did, but I saw him go through the bar to the patio right before I went to meet my friend. And later, when I went back to the lobby, he came in from the direction of the far guest wing.”
“Where the shooter stood. Does Daniel own a handgun?”
“Maybe. He’s a hunter, has a number of rifles.”
“A marksman, then. When did you tell him about me?”
“… Shortly after you left here on Friday. He called to confirm our Saturday appointment, and I was jazzed at having met a real-life private investigator, so I talked about you.”
“What was his reaction?”
Ziff thought. “Quiet, at first. I thought he was focused on something else, maybe checking his calendar or his e-mail, but then he started asking a lot of questions.”
“Such as…?”
“What you’d asked me, what I’d told you. Where you were from, where you were staying-which you hadn’t told me. Then he got off the phone really fast, said he had another call.”
“That article in the San Luis paper about me reopening the Greenwood case-did you read it?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t it make you wonder who the anonymous source was?”
“It did. I thought about asking Mike Rosenfeld-I know him, he did a profile on me once-but I knew he wouldn’t tell me.”
I said, “Why don’t you call him now? Explain that I need to know and promise him that when the Greenwood case breaks, he’ll get an exclusive interview with me.”
After an initial hesitation, Mike Rosenfeld caved in to the offer of an exclusive and confirmed to Ziff that it was Kev Daniel who had told him about me. Ziff put me on the phone, and Rosenfeld repeated what he’d said.
I asked, “Did Daniel say why he was giving you the information?”
“Kev and I are drinking buddies. He feeds me a lot of gossip about the winemaking crowd; sometimes I can find a good story in it. This time-well, the Greenwood disappearance has always interested me; I’m a
“That’s all right, Mr. Rosenfeld. In a roundabout way, your story did help me. And I hope to be able to tell you how very soon.”
