Liar

Told myself that until they came walking back toward me, Rachel a little ahead of him, and I saw how McCain watched her, saw the hunger with which he took in her way of moving, and saw her glance back at him and smile.

Show him a picture of Pete, I wanted to say, but didn’t. She must have read something on my face though, because she stopped smiling and said, “I guess you two have already met.”

“I guess you two have, too,” I said, hating the snide little note I heard in it.

“Well,” McCain said uncomfortably, bringing out a keychain with a St. Christopher medal on it. “Here are your aunt’s keys.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking them from him. Determined to redeem myself with Rachel, I added, “Listen, you two haven’t seen each other in a long time, and it’s bound to take me awhile to even figure out how I want to tackle this job, so maybe you’d like to grab a cup of coffee somewhere.”

“I’d love to do some catching up,” McCain said, “but why don’t you come with us?”

“Yeah, come along,” Rachel said meaningfully. “I’ll drive.”

“Okay,” McCain said. He went over to the patrol car, said something to the officer in it.

While McCain was out of earshot, I started to apologize to her, but she said, “Thanks for coming along. I know you’re anxious to get started on your aunt’s place.”

Nothing was further from the truth than this last, but I didn’t argue with her. I looked up to see the black-and-white driving off. McCain was walking back.

“You’re still a suspicious bastard, Mac,” Rachel said when he was nearer. “What the hell was that guy guarding? We’re here to take everything we can out of the place anyway.”

“As I recall, you’re good with a set of lock picks. Why risk damage to the door?”

“No damage. Like you said, I’m good with them.”

He didn’t answer, just started to ask her about people in Phoenix. She started asking about people in the LAPD. This continued even after we were at the coffee shop, Rachel and I on one side of a booth, McCain on the other. He tried to bring me into the conversation by talking about Frank’s time as a hostage, focusing on the efforts to free him. It was still difficult to talk about.

“That whole experience was awful,” Rachel said. “It’s still with all of us, Mac. It’s affected everybody who cares about Frank. Out on the job, I don’t think Pete can stand to go more than a couple of hours without knowing where Frank is. Drives Frank nuts.”

“That’s right,” McCain said. “I forgot he was Harriman’s partner.” He smiled a little and said to me, “I think your husband was kind of angry with me last night.”

Kind of angry? I decided I wouldn’t tell him all the choice things Frank had said about him on the drive home.

“In fact,” he went on, “I think he was seriously considering kicking my ass.

“Then you’re lucky he didn’t try,” Rachel said.

“Your husband as big as Harriman?” he asked.

“You don’t need to worry about whether my husband can kick your ass,” she said, leaning across the table.

“Why not?”

“Because we both know I can.”

He laughed until he was wiping tears from his face, but didn’t contradict her.

She dropped him off at his car, telling him she wanted his parking spot-which, of course, ensured that he had to drive off. He was no sooner out of sight than Rachel said, “Be careful around him. He suspects you-if not of murder, of-well, I don’t know what.”

“How can you tell that? He never talked about the case this morning.”

“I know him. He doesn’t trust anybody.”

This time, when we came up the porch steps, I could hear the noise of neighbors at home. The parrot in apartment one was calling out “Stick ‘em up!” The phone was ringing in apartment four, but this time it was answered after two rings. Briana’s apartment was silent.

I reached into my jeans pocket and took out the key ring; it had three keys and the medallion on it. I used the smallest key to open mailbox number four, the one with nothing but a sticky rectangle where “B. Maguire” ought to have been. The mailbox was empty. Now that we weren’t being watched by the LAPD, I took out my notebook and wrote down the other occupants’ names and their apartment numbers. Rachel watched me, but didn’t say anything.

“Is that a Christopher medal?” she asked, as I moved to the door of apartment number four.

“Yes. I was sad when Christopher got taken off the A-list. All the surfers used to wear the medals anyway.”

“I never did any surfing, but maybe he deserved to get ousted. He was supposed to protect travelers, right?”

“Right.”

“Your aunt couldn’t make it from here to the store.”

I shrugged and put the key in the lock.

Above us, a door opened and an elderly woman stepped out on the landing. She was wearing a thin housecoat and a pair of slippers; her white hair was in wild disarray. “Just hold it right there!” she called, coming down the stairs at such a fast clip, I feared for her safety.

She pointed a finger at me. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m Briana’s niece-”

“Hah!”

“She is!” Rachel protested.

“Let’s see some identification,” the woman said.

“All right, Mrs. Woolrich,” I said, using the name from the tag on the mailbox. I pulled out my wallet as she continued to eye me suspiciously.

I showed her my driver’s license. She pulled a pair of reading glasses out of the pocket of the housecoat and put them on. She looked between me and the license. “Irene Kelly… you’re Mary Kelly’s grandniece?”

“Yes. And this is my friend, Rachel Giocopazzi.”

“I’m Esther Woolrich. Miss Woolrich, by the way, which is something no mailbox can tell you,” she said with a wink. More solemnly, she said, “Mary told me she’d be sending you by for Briana’s things. I’m sorry for your loss, although from what Mary tells me…”

“Yes,” I said quickly. “Well, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

She didn’t move. “Sorry if I was a little brusque, but twice in the last few weeks, someone has tried to rob this apartment. Now that the cops are going away, we don’t want anyone to start trying to break in again.”

“Mary mentioned something about break-ins, but-only this apartment?”

“Yes. I’ve told the police about it, but they don’t do a thing.”

“You told the homicide detective?” Rachel asked.

“No, no. As I said, this was before we knew what had happened to poor Briana. Started not long before she died. I called the regular number, not homicide. They think I’m some old crackpot. You’d think I’d have to wait until the thieves actually broke in.”

“You came down those stairs thinking we were burglars?” Rachel asked. “Miss Woolrich, next time, it might be better to call the police. If we had been here to commit a burglary-”

“You probably would have run off. That’s what the others did.”

“What others?” I asked.

“First time, it was a man. Come right up to the front door, bold as brass. I’d seen him here before-parked out front. Casing the joint, that’s what he was up to then. That was before Briana died.”

“I’m confused-did he try to rob Briana’s apartment while she was still alive?”

“Yes. He parked out front and watched her leave, then came up and read the mailboxes, just like you did.”

“You couldn’t see that from your apartment,” I said.

She sighed, then startled us by calling out, “Open the door, Ruby.”

Behind us, the door to apartment number one opened a crack, and a short, stout woman who appeared to be near Esther Woolrich’s age peered out.

“Put the gun away and come out and meet Mary’s grandniece,” Esther said.

Rachel and I quickly exchanged horrified looks.

“Oh, don’t worry! She’s trained to use it,” Esther said.

We were not entirely reassured. Anyone with a parrot that had learned to say “Stick ‘em up” might be a little trigger-happy. But when Ruby stepped out into the hall, she greeted us warmly, with no sign of any intention of shooting us.