Double

“The only friends of Ms. Picard’s I’m acquainted with,” he said stiffly, “are the members of the Professional Women’s Forum. Why are you asking all these questions? What right do you have to interfere in this matter?”

“I saw her die — remember?”

“Still, that doesn’t give you... For God’s sake, she either threw herself out of the tower or she fell accidentally. There’s nothing — sinister about it. It happened and now it’s finished, there’s isn’t any more to it.”

“Isn’t there, Mr. Beddoes? I wouldn’t be too sure about that if I were you.” I got on my feet. “Have a nice day.”

I left him sitting there looking a little pale around the gills. When I came out into the lobby I had a half-formed notion to head for the coffee shop instead of the hotel dining room. I had no appetite for breakfast now; all I wanted was a cup of coffee. But one of the people threading their way through a confusion of loaded luggage carts and departing guests was McCone, and that changed my mind. I detoured over to her, caught her arm.

“Wolf,” she said, “you’re just the person I wanted to see.”

“Ditto. Let’s go talk.”

“Where? The coffee shop?”

“No. Outside somewhere, away from any big ears.”

We went out through the side entrance, into the gardens. But there were a bunch of Japanese tourists there, taking photographs of the tropical flora and of each other, so I steered McCone down onto the beach. It was hot already, and there were people sprawled out on the sand and splashing around in the light surf. Out where the deep blue water met the paler blue of the sky, a couple of naval vessels moved like sluggish gray reminders that all this was illusion and the world wasn’t such a peaceful place after all.

McCone stopped and took off her sandals. As we started off again she said, “Okay, what’s up? You seem kind of grim this morning.”

“I feel kind of grim. I just had a talk with Lloyd Beddoes.” And I told her about that, and about the sudden switch in official hotel position on Nancy and Timmy Clark.

“Sounds fishy,” McCone said. “How do you figure it?”

“The same way you’re figuring it. Beddoes is running some kind of scam with the hotel as cover. Ibarcena’s probably in on it too. The desk clerk Scott too, maybe, but more likely he’s just doing what he’s told. Same with the maid.”

“What kind of scam?”

“I don’t know yet. But Beddoes and Ibarcena are scared to death the police will find it out. That’s what made them so nervous yesterday after Elaine’s death, and it must be why Ibarcena hustled the Clarks out of here so fast. Then you found that letter Elaine wrote to her lawyer and gave it to Knowles, and he must have gone after Beddoes right away, talked to him sometime last night. Beddoes covered up somehow — pleaded ignorance, or maybe tried to discredit Elaine as a paranoid and probable suicide — but that wouldn’t have made him feel much safer.”

“And then this morning,” McCone said, picking it up, “he came in and Scott told him you’d been asking questions about Bungalow Six. So Beddoes cooked up that story about the Clark family and told the clerk to pass it on to you as soon as he saw you.”

“Right.”

“But the thing I don’t get,” she said, “is what sort of illegal activity could involve a seven-year-old kid traveling with his mother.”

“Neither do I. Not yet.”

We walked along in silence for a few seconds. We were down close to the water, where the sand was wet and packed and the footing was better. Little wavelets rolled in and lapped at McCone’s bare feet; she didn’t pay any attention. I don’t like feet much — a foot fetish is one of those quirks I’ve never been able to figure out — but hers were small and well shaped. It made me feel a little silly to have noticed them and to be thinking about them. The human mind is a funny instrument sometimes.

She said, “I found the guy named Rich last night. And you were right — he’s strange.”

“How did you manage to track him down?”

She gave me one of her little smiles. “Detective work. I’m good at it too, you know.”

“Mmm. Who is he?”

“His last name’s Woodall and he’s a zoologist — does public relations for the San Diego Zoo. He also keeps a private zoo in his backyard.”

“A what?”

“A private zoo. Big cats, birds, foxes, snakes, some other things. Right before I got there, he found that someone had broken into his yard where the cages are — sawed through the chain. Can you imagine what might have happened if his menagerie had gotten loose?”

“If he lives here in the city, it could have been pretty bad.”

“Actually he’s in a secluded area north of El Cajon, near Lakeside. No close neighbors, and he tells me the area is unincorporated, so there aren’t any laws prohibiting what he’s doing. Still, he’d have been in trouble if his zoo had scattered. He was really upset about the break-in. He said if he’d caught the person who did it, he’d have blown him away.”

“That kind, huh?”

“Yes. He keeps a rack of guns in his living room. I can’t reconcile it — an animal lover also being a hunter. But maybe that’s just me.”