Forcing myself to look through the window once again, I recognized Max’s car, and sighed with relief. Wrenching open the door, I flung it wide, and stepped out into the damp, foggy night.
“Hey, Josie,” Max said, smiling, lowering his window. “Are you ready?”
“Max…” I took a step and stopped. I didn’t know what else to say. I couldn’t figure out how to begin. The look of weariness on Max’s face alerted me to the fact that asking my lawyer to accompany me on an evening venture threatened to cross the line between capitalizing on his dedication to duty and imposing on his good nature.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his smile fading slowly as he looked at me.
“Someone… I think someone was inside,” I said, sounding calmer than I felt.
He climbed out of his car, and I noted that he was still wearing his bow tie and jacket. “What?” he asked.
“I heard something. I saw a shadow.”
“My God,” he said, sounding aghast. “Are you all right?”
“I guess.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, walking toward me.
I looked away under his scrutiny. “I’m okay, just a little shaken up.”
“Did someone break in?”
“Maybe. No, I guess not. Probably they just came in. The door wasn’t locked.”
“When did it happen?”
“Now. Just now.”
“In the warehouse?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“You bet,” I answered, trying to smile. I didn’t want to upset him.
“Come on. Let’s go see.”
“Okay.”
He led the way, and I followed close behind, switching on lights. We stood together in the center of the warehouse, looking in all directions, listening.
“I thought the noise came from over there,” I said, pointing to the stacks of crates.
“I don’t see anything. Do you?”
“No. I must have imagined it,” I said.
“Maybe,” he answered. “Let’s take a look around, to be sure.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
We walked the length of the warehouse, peering down each row, looking through the open shelving and around corners, and climbed the staircase to my office. In the auction area and by the loading dock, Max tugged on the outside doors to ensure they were locked. As we confirmed each section was empty, I switched off the lights. We made our way back to the front door.
“Thanks, Max. I feel better.” I took my coat from the hook by the door. “Ready?”
He nodded toward the alarm box. “It wasn’t set?”
“No. The last person out for the night sets it.”
He nodded. “And you were alone in here?”
“Apparently,” I said, trying for a grin.
“Don’t joke about it, Josie,” he admonished. “Someone might have been inside and left before I got here.”
“How? I was here, watching and listening.”
“You said you climbed back up. It’s a spiral staircase so sometimes your back would be to the open area.” He shrugged. “The sound of your own footsteps might have covered theirs, no matter how quiet you tried to be.”
“I guess,” I said, anxiety returning.
“Lock up, okay?”
I nodded and punched the alarm code, saw the green light turn to red, and stepped outside. Max followed, pulled the door shut, and wiggled the knob to be certain it held fast.
He took my coat and draped it over my shoulders for the short walk to the passenger side of his car, cupping my elbow as if to support me, a service I didn’t need but a kindness that I appreciated. Old-fashioned courtesy unwomaned me even when my emotions were under control. Now, raw from worry and exhausted from stress, I wasn’t on even ground, and his gesture left me feeling irrationally cared for. I thought of an incident, years ago, when my father and I lived in the suburbs of Boston, before I left for Princeton. My father told me that if a man didn’t open the car door for me when he brought me home after a date, I should just tap on the horn and he, my father, would come right out of the house and escort me inside. I smiled at the memory. Oh, Dad.
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.
I passed by a dark green club chair and stood in front of the desk. Just as I recalled, it had a wide kneehole opening, large enough for a big man to sit comfortably. Seeking out the hidden cabinet was tricky. Max and Alverez switched on all of the lamps. There were two on the desk and four on nearby tables. Still, the room was dim.
“Here,” Alverez offered, handing me an oversized flashlight he’d taken from the back of his SUV.
“I think I’m okay,” I said.
Sitting on the floor, peering into corners, I used the mini-flashlight that always hung on my belt when I was working, and aimed the beam into the back crevices.
Finding the latch was easy, once I looked. A small, raised flower, carved out of wood and attached on the left side easily disguised a device used to open the door. My heart started pumping, adrenaline coursed through my veins, and I felt a burst of energy.
“I think I’ve got it,” I said, my excitement palpable.
Both men leaned over and watched as I worked, although in the shadowy darkness, it was unlikely they could see anything much.
I pulled on the rosette frieze. Nothing. I pushed it. No luck. Finally, I twisted it gently to the left as I repeated the rhyme my father had used to teach me about valves when I was a child. Righty tighty, lefty loosey. I felt the back panel nudge forward and slide like a wheeled vehicle on an oiled surface into a perfectly aligned slot. Okay, I said to myself, here we go.
“Okay,” I said aloud. “Are you ready?”
“Go,” said Alverez.
I took a deep breath, and used the flashlight to examine the entire inside area. Nothing. Empty. There was nothing there.
Overwrought, I started to cry. I’d been so sure we’d find the Renoir. I gulped and forced myself to quash my emotional melt-down. “Nothing,” I managed to say, embarrassed by my tears. My voice cracked as I spoke.
“Are you sure?” Alverez asked matter-of-factly.
I looked again. It was utterly empty. Could there be another hidden nook, I wondered? I leaned back on my heels and thought about it. I’d never heard about a nook within a nook. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t exist. I reached forward and tapped and used my light to examine the panels inside the cabinet. No luck.
Standing, I said, “It’s unlikely there’d be anything like that in the desk.” I swept my hand left and right, indicating I was referring to the entire room. “Look at this place. A secret area, if there is one, could be anywhere. Behind that panel,” I said, pointing to the back wall. “Or in a drawer of the desk. Or anywhere. All we know so far is that the Renoir isn’t in that cabinet.”
We’d only been inside ten minutes. That’s all it took to dash a world of hope.