By contrast, there wasn’t much of interest in Dr. St. Croix’s roomy handbag. Bibi hoped to find it crammed full of evidence of criminal acts and nefarious intentions, all of it pointing to the whereabouts of Ashley Bell. But aside from the usual junk, there were only three items of interest.
The first was an envelope containing five thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. Chances were, this was either money that the professor had been paid under the table or a payment she was prepared to make to someone else. In either case, it was more likely to be related to some dirty business than to a legal transaction.
Bibi considered the moral implications for five seconds and then took the money. It didn’t feel like theft. It felt like wisdom. When she used her credit cards, she risked revealing her location. She had no way of knowing what cash she might need before she completed this task or died trying.
The second item was either a real wasp or a perfectly rendered little sculpture of one frozen in a lozenge of polished Lucite, its stinger curved in the strike position. Attached to the lozenge was a key chain holding a single electronic key. Not for a car. No company name or logo identified it. She had never seen one like it. The electronic key to St. Croix’s Mercedes was by itself on a second ring, and yet another ring held several conventional keys.
The third thing of interest was a paper napkin bearing the red logo of a restaurant chain celebrated for its hamburgers but also for the fact that it served breakfast all day. On the napkin was the name Mrs. Halina Berg, a phone number, and an address in the Old Town district of Tustin. The handwriting was bold, arguably that of a man. In any case, the good professor hadn’t written it; she was famous for the notes with which she decorated the manuscripts of students, all in precise printing of exquisite readability, some being brilliant and/or enigmatic writing advice, some withering criticism. Perhaps she ordered only water for her meal with Chubb Coy at Norm’s because she’d already eaten breakfast elsewhere.
Halina Berg.
Calling ahead seemed like a bad idea. Like asking to be met with guns and handcuffs. Besides, if another housebreaking was required, leaving a name beforehand would be foolish.
Although Bibi had driven through this neighborhood numerous times over the years, she didn’t know it well. So she was surprised when, without consulting the numbers painted on the curb or those on the houses, she knew the Berg residence the moment that she saw it. A two-story rambling Spanish Colonial Revival house of considerable charm, it was set well back from the street, shaded by tall and majestic live oaks crowned to perfection.
An elderly woman was sweeping the stoop. She did not look up as Bibi drove by and parked half a block away.
When Bibi returned on foot, the woman broomed clean the last of the stoop tiles and greeted her visitor with a smile that a loving nana might bestow upon a cherished grandchild. Although the sweeper appeared to be in her eighties, time had performed one of its rare kindnesses with her face, allowing a suggestion of her early beauty to remain, while plumping and gently folding her features into a pleasing fullness, applying the techniques of soft sculpture instead of its usual hammer and chisel.
“Would you be Mrs. Berg?” Bibi asked. “Halina Berg?”
“I would be, and I am,” the woman said, with the faint trace of an unspecifiable European accent echoing down the years of her voice.
The expression on the winsome face, the generous smile, and an intimation of quiet amusement in Mrs. Berg’s brandy-colored eyes all conspired to suggest that she knew who Bibi was and why she had come to pay a visit. Yet she seemed to harbor no hostility whatsoever, no hint of malevolent intent or capacity. If that was a misreading of the woman, well, there was always the Sig Sauer P226.
When Bibi identified herself, Mrs. Berg nodded pleasantly, as if to agree, Yes, that’s right, and when Bibi claimed that Dr. St. Croix had sent her, Mrs. Berg said, “Come in, come in, we’ll have a nice sit-down with tea and cookies.”
Bibi hesitated to follow the old woman across the threshold. But she could think of nowhere else to go. She had no other leads beyond this name and address. Anyway, if Hansel and Gretel had not risked being roasted for dinner by the wicked witch, they would not have found her trove of pearls and jewels.
The ground-floor hallway was lined floor-to-ceiling with books, and unlike the shelves in St. Croix’s office, no empty space remained on any of these. Mrs. Berg led her past archways to a living room and a dining room, the open door to a study; each of those spaces was furnished to its purpose, though they served also as extensions of the through-house library, with more bookshelves than bare walls.