father, would come right out of the house and escort me inside. I smiled at the memory.
Max reached down and raised the lever so the passenger seat lay all the way back. When I got in and leaned back, I was prone.
“You look exhausted,” Max said as I got settled. “Just rest on the drive over.”
“I was going to offer to drive,” I said. “You look tired, too.”
“I’m fine. Go ahead and shut your eyes.”
I started to protest out of a long-standing habit of pretending I was completely self-reliant, but stopped when I realized I was in Max’s capable hands. Instead of arguing, I said, “Okay, Doctor.” After a pause, I added, “Thank you, Max, for coming out. Tomorrow’s going to be a bear. It’ll be easier for me to get through the day tomorrow knowing that we’ve looked for the Renoir tonight.”
“You’re welcome. Rest, now.”
I heard nothing but the comforting hum of the engine until there was a small clicking sound. Opening my eyes, I saw Max ease the car onto 1-95 south as he entered numbers into his cell phone. He was calling Alverez. I closed my eyes again, but stayed alert.
“Josie thought she heard something in the warehouse. We looked around, but didn’t see anything out of the way.” Max said. “Okay… uh-huh… okay, I’ll tell her… We should be there in about ten minutes.”
The car was warm. I felt oddly removed from responsibility, disassociated, as if I were floating on a cloud. I was aware of utter fatigue, Max’s words, the even drone of the motor, and nothing else.
“Josie?” he asked quietly, maybe thinking I’d drifted off to sleep.
“Yeah?”
“Chief Alverez is going to have some technicians come over tomorrow and look around the place.”
“There’s no need,” I protested.
“Stop being so damn polite.”
I smiled, eyes still shut. “Okay.”
After a while, I sat up. Our headlights cut through the thickening fog. As we drove toward the ocean, I became increasingly somber. The frightening reality of tonight’s events was sinking in. Alverez’s saying he would send a technician obviously meant that he thought it was possible that someone had entered my domain.
“Max?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“Do you have any idea about what’s going on?”
“With what?”
“With everything? This whole situation?”
“No. Do you?”
“None. I’m completely mystified. I hate the feeling of not understanding what’s going on.”
“Just for the sake of argument, forget about Mr. Grant’s murder. Assuming the two events are unrelated… can you think of any reason why someone was in your place tonight?” Max asked.
I considered for a moment. Why would someone have entered my building? Had the person known I was there?
“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” I said, trying to think of alternatives. “You know, it could be just a garden-variety attempted robbery.”
“Maybe,” he responded, sounding unconvinced. He cleared his throat. “Hard to think so. Be a pretty spectacular coincidence.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Especially if we learn that nothing was taken.”
“So what other reason could there be for someone to break in?” Max asked.
“Maybe whoever it was wanted to prevent the sale of some item,” I mused. “But if that’s the case, why not just tell me? It happens fairly often.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Just last week a woman walked into the office and asked me to sell her a sterling-silver tea set that was scheduled for sale at auction. Turns out that it had been her great-grandmother’s and had ended up in a cousin’s used furniture store, of all places. When the store went out of business, the mortgage holder sent everything to me to be sold, including the tea set.”
“What happened?”
I shrugged. “I sold it to her.”
“How’d you price it?”
“We negotiated. I gave her the range I expected it to sell for at auction and she made me a lowball offer. I didn’t hold her up. We worked it out.”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“I don’t have any way of knowing. But I shouldn’t think so. I mean, the best stuff I have in-house is from the Wilson estate. There’s no family that I’m aware of who might want a certain item. The auction was ordered by Mrs. Wilson’s executor. She left everything to some charity, I forget which, and obviously they just want the proceeds.”
“Yeah. It doesn’t sound likely that’s the reason, does it? Okay, then, if it’s not a robbery or someone after a specific item, what could it be?”
“I have no idea,” I said, sounding frustrated.
“Take heart. Maybe Alverez will come up with something when he checks it out tomorrow.”
Max signaled and turned left onto Tunney Road. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind of dark thoughts that seemed to grow as time passed. It didn’t work. As we pulled up behind Alverez’s vehicle, I felt weary, angry, fearful, and alone.
We were in a dirt alley at the rear of the property. Standing beside Max’s car, I listened to the ocean, the sound of the waves unhurried and close. High tide on a quiet night. Despite the fog, there’d be no storm.
“Hey,” I greeted Alverez. He looked relaxed in jeans and a blue sweater.
“Hey,” he answered. “You okay?”
I shrugged. “A little spooked.”
He nodded. “I’ll meet you at the warehouse first thing in the morning and we’ll take a look at things.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
We pushed through a white picket gate framed into the hedge, and entered the grounds. I looked at the weathered clapboard house and counted four chimneys. Off to the right I saw parts of the wraparound porch. Alverez led the way down the winding, cracked concrete path lined on either side by thick, six-foot-tall lilac bushes not yet in bud. In May, the white and lilac blooms would hang low and heavy on the gnarled branches, giving off the aroma of old money.
Max and I stood off to the side of the freshly painted red door as Alverez used the silver-white moonlight to sort through a fat ring of keys. He held his selection like a knife and sliced through both yellow police tape that crisscrossed the entryway and an official-looking paper pasted across the doorjamb.
Opening the door, he reached in and flipped a switch. The overhead bulb was of low wattage and cast a shadowy dim light. Stepping into the house, we were in a kind of mud room. I felt a stab of sadness. There was an unpleasant, unlived-in feel to the place as if someone had recently died. Which was true.
I shivered.
With Alverez in front, we walked into an old-fashioned pantry, and through a swinging door into the kitchen. I followed him, and Max brought up the rear. As we tramped past the oversized sink, I noted the knife block. There was an empty slot where the knife I’d used to cut the Bundt cake had been.
I looked away.
“It’s in the study, right, Josie?” Alverez asked.
“Yeah. Next to the living room.”
We made our way through the vacant house to the woodpaneled room. The shelves were lined with leather- bound books. I hadn’t catalogued them individually, but I’d been unable to resist looking at some, including a book on witchcraft annotated by Dr. Samuel Johnson.
