He pointed at a cane chair on the far side of the bed, next to the drapes covering the sliding doors. You could see four indentations in the pile where the legs had stood for months; whoever replaced the chair hadn’t aligned it exactly.
I wanted to inspect the rest of the apartment, but Rivas was anxious not to be late for his meeting. I tried to get him to leave me his key, telling him the police would want to send in a forensic team, but Rivas didn’t want to be part of a police inquiry. If someone had been here with Mr. Taverner the night he died, had moved furniture, moved pillows, it would seem as though Rivas hadn’t looked after his gentleman carefully, even though Mr. Taverner always wanted to be left to go to bed alone. Besides, the new family would take it amiss to have Rivas involved in a police inquiry. The administrator would help with keys and entrance to the apartment, he said, if investigators needed to search Mr. Taverner’s apartment in greater detail.
I nodded my understanding. Following him down the hall and out the door, I took advantage of his anxiety about the time to depress the lip of the dead bolt so it wouldn’t fasten when we left. Rivas went to the elevators while I walked outside. As soon as he got into an elevator, I darted back down the hall, pushed Taverner’s door open and flipped the lights back on. A handsome old leather-topped desk stood in a corner on the far side of the sitting room. Nearer to me were the armchairs where Taverner and Whitby had presumably sat to have their conversation. I started toward the desk, then decided caution was the better part of valor. I returned to the kitchen, found some latex gloves under the sink, and put those on.
When I returned to the sitting room, I realized it was considerably colder than the kitchen and bedroom had been. I stopped on my way to the desk: a draft was seeping under the brocade drapes, which swayed with the air currents.
I crossed the room fast and flung the drapes open. Someone had broken the glass on the door to the patio and forced the lock from the inside. I pulled the heavy fabric away from the wall. A man was flattening himself into the corner. He swore and ran toward me bull-like, head lowered. I didn’t let go of the drapes fast enough. The man butted me in the stomach, shoved open the broken patio door and took off.
I doubled over, gasping and gagging, and tripped in the drapes. I fought free of the heavy fabric and staggered after the intruder across the patio, through a small garden. I could hear his feet pounding away from me, but I was too winded to move fast. I lost him on the winding paths.
Damn and double damn. I hadn’t gotten a good look at him, just a confused impression of a youngish white man with dark thick hair, in jeans and running shoes. A burglar who knew the place was standing empty, or someone after Taverner’s secret papers?
I found my way back to the assisted nursing compound and returned to Taverner’s apartment. It wasn’t so hard to find the locked drawer. Except the lock was broken and the drawer was empty.
Like Domingo Rivas, I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time with the police, especially not the suburban forces. I thought of driving back to Chicago and leaving this mess for the Anodyne Park management to sort out when they got the apartment ready to sell. I thought of the hollow in the pillow disarranged on the bed, the glass rinsed out. What if Taverner’s visitor Monday night had put something in his bourbon to make him drowsy, and then taken the pillow from the bed and held it against his face until-well, until, yes.
I couldn’t think of one thing about Olin Taverner that I didn’t despise. The careers he’d ruined through the blacklist, the homosexuals he’d hounded
in public life while remaining deeply closeted himself, the list could go on for days. Did it really matter if someone had hastened the end of an old HUAC hatchet man?
On the other hand, he’d died soon after showing Marc Whitby some secret papers. And Marc Whitby had died soon after seeing them. Who had Whitby discussed those papers with? His young assistant? But then, why hadn’t she mentioned them to me? Maybe she’d been more forthcoming with Harriet and Amy.
I rubbed my sore diaphragm. The man who’d butted me was either lucky or well trained. Maybe he’d murdered Whitby and Taverner and come back to search the premises. But that made no sense-he’d have had plenty of time to search when Taverner died. Unless he hadn’t known until later that Whitby had seen the documents?
I pulled out my cell phone and called Stephanie Protheroe, the sheriff’s deputy I’d been dealing with.
“Warshawski, isn’t your boyfriend jealous of the amount of time you’re spending with me? I’ve lent you clothes, I’ve lost and found documents for you. Now what?”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’ve been imposing. Maybe I should take this to the New Solway cops.”
She sighed. “Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?”