I followed the deck as it skirted the house in a wide arc. On the far side, looking out over the city, the view seemed flat—two-dimensional instead of the diorama I’d admired by night. On the terrace below, the infinity pool was hidden under a tattered automated cover. There were no deck chairs, no side table, no heaters, no remnant of fine Chardonnay. Dead leaves were scattered across the surface of the deck, caught here and there where the wind had blown them up against the railing. I glanced down. There between the beveled planks of the decking, I saw a line of dull silver. I squatted and peered, then used my thumbnail to loosen and lift the object. I held it up with a long, slow smile. “First mistake,” I said aloud.
This was the paper clip Hallie had used to secure the copies of the newspaper articles she’d given me.
I did a full exterior search, checking two trash cans, which were empty. I’d hoped to find the Chardonnay bottle, but maybe she’d taken it back to the liquor store, hoping for the deposit. Pick away as I might with the sprung paper clip, I couldn’t jimmy any of the locks, so I had to be content with peering into assorted windows as I circled the house. If the house had been on the market for years, there must be some provision for local agents to get into the place to show prospective buyers.
I looked around with interest. Where would I put a lockbox if I were in charge? Not on the front or back doors. That would have been the same as an invitation for someone to break and enter, which is against the law. I went down the outside stairs to ground level and went around the house again—tough work on a hillside that steep. I’d just about reached my original point of departure when I found an old-fashioned lockbox attached to a hose bib and secured by a combination lock. I checked the lockbox, surprised the device wasn’t electronically controlled. Maybe no one had thought to replace it with one more sophisticated. In my perimeter search, I hadn’t come across evidence of an alarm system. If the place had been empty since the sixties, it was possible proper security had never been installed.
The lock was small and looked about as effective as the ones on rolling suitcases. There were four rotating wheels, numbered zero through nine. Even with my rudimentary math skills, I was looking at ten times ten times ten times ten, or ten thousand possibilities. I tapped an index finger against my lips, trying to determine how much time that would take. More than I could spare. I trudged a few steps up the hill to the woodpile, grabbed a handsome chunk of freshly split oak, returned to the lockbox, and hauled back in my best batter-up mode. I swung and whacked the lock so hard, it flew off into the brush, and then I picked up the key.
11
My tour of the interior was largely unproductive. Hallie Bettancourt had left nothing behind. Somehow she’d managed to furnish the place and then eliminate any trace of physical evidence. Except for the paper clip, of course, which was so ubiquitous as to be insignificant. The house had that odd smell that seems to emerge when human occupants have moved on. I wandered down the hall and peered into the powder room. I tried the wall switch. The power was on. I turned the faucet and discovered the water had been shut off. I moved on to the kitchen. While the residence was designed along sleek, contemporary lines, the bathroom and kitchen fixtures were fifty years old and looked every bit of it. What was top-of-the-line when the house was built was by now sadly outdated.
The walls had recently been painted white, but in the spots where two coats had failed to cover, I could see the original pea green hue. The counters and splashboards were tiled in white, three-by-six rectangles laid horizontally. Subway-style tiling is all the rage again, but here the look was curiously dated. Appliances had been removed, and the refrigerator-and stove-size gaps made the room seem stark and unfriendly. A breakfast nook at one end of the room sported a built-in table with a bench on either side. The padded seats were upholstered in a fabric I remembered from one of the trailers we’d lived in when I was growing up. The pattern bore a black background with violins, clarinets, and jaunty musical notes in lemon, lime, and tangerine. I couldn’t imagine why the seat fabric hadn’t been freshened, but maybe the vintage look was thought to contribute a note of authenticity. I slid into the bench seat and pretended I was a family member waiting for the maid to bring me my breakfast of cream of wheat, zwieback, canned orange juice, and Ovaltine.
In the center of the table, there was a stack of fliers detailing the number of bedrooms (six), the number of bathrooms (seven), and the pedigree of the house, which was on the National Register of Historic Places. I studied the particulars. According to the hype, the architect was indeed Ingrid Merchant, whose landmark work was coveted among home buyers in Montebello. A line in small print at the bottom read PRICE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST, meaning a sum so astronomical, the agent didn’t dare write it down. Someone had provided the floor plan, showing rooms that were surprisingly small and poorly laid out for a structure that appeared so grandiose from the outside.