Coyote (4 page)

The little tree looked forlorn, as though wondering where all the sunshine had gone …

‘Look, sweetheart,' snapped Des into the receiver. ‘Don't tell me the electricity will be on tomorrow … because I can hear you're lying. What's going on?'

I leant against the doorjamb and watched Des do his thing.

He was a weather-beaten decade past middle age. He'd been an Australian cop for more years than I'd been alive, and a lot of that time he'd spent out of doors. Des was also a human lie detector. He'd been a detective in the New South Wales police force and worked up a natural talent into a respected career. Des could spot a lie before you even opened your mouth.

Most of the time.

I'd known Des most of my life — grown up with him. I'd been one of his police cases … He'd stuck around and a professional interest had turned into a different kind of bond. Des Carmichael was the closest thing to a father I'd ever had.

Over the years I'd learnt to slip a lie past him when needed. But it wasn't easy.

‘See that it is then!' Des dropped the heavy, old-style receiver back in its solid black cradle.

‘Well, Des, nice to see you still have that bad cop attitude nicely honed.'

‘I usually don't have to use it when you're around,' grunted Des.

‘Well, I can't wait until tomorrow for the electricity; everything's gotta be sorted today. Our
advertisements say the office opens tomorrow.' I paused, remembering. ‘Where's Mariel? At least we can send her out to buy some hurricane lamps.'

Des gave me another grimace. ‘She's not coming.'

‘What? You're joking!'

‘She didn't turn up, so I rang her. Said she'd found a job with better pay and in a safer part of SoMa.'

‘Great!' I muttered. Could this day get any worse? I began looking for our supply of emergency candles.

While I worked, Des finally noticed my black trench coat. ‘So where have you been, Kannon? You told me you'd go to that waste-of-time criminology conference and then be back to help —'

‘Don't start with me, Des,' I snapped. I found the candles and their holders, set them up on the desk in front of him and then scrounged around for the matches.

Des gave me his beady-eyed disapproval stare. It always reminded me of a kookaburra waiting for a recalcitrant blue tongue lizard to make a run for it.

I ignored it. I was too tired to go through the whole Portsmouth Square debacle in the pitch dark. And surely to God there had to be a way to make some coffee? My cells were screaming out for caffeine!

Des narrowed his eyes even further. ‘What happened, Kannon?'

‘Don't ask, Des … believe me, you don't want to know.'

He shook his head. ‘The things you'll do to get out of moving furniture!'

‘Yeah … that's right,' I agreed, distracted. If someone didn't hand me a bucket of caffeine soon, I couldn't be held legally responsible for my actions.

I'd just finished lighting the candles when a dark shadow loomed in the open door, cutting off the hall light.

‘This Rewind Investigations?'

I couldn't see his expression but the man's cultured voice echoed with a nasty mixture of disbelief and contempt.

I moved far enough forwards to search his face. He had dark hair and eyes, was medium height, and slim with a rich man's tan. Big money. While I evaluated his navy double-breasted suit, silvered silk tie and expensive briefcase, he was busy judging my still damp hair and make-up-bare face.

I answered his unspoken question. ‘Yes, I'm Kannon Dupree.'

That made matters worse. Big Money ran his eyes down my trench coat — it'd gaped open to show too much black lacy bra. ‘Really?'

I adjusted the coat. ‘It's moving day, the electricity isn't on yet and we're not open for business until
tomorrow.' I smiled, showing all of my teeth. ‘Can I help you?'

Big Money pursed his lips and looked at his Rolex. He was about to escape.

‘Please, come in.' I wanted to at least know who he was. I drew on what remnants of manners he had left after seeing me in all my less than professional glory, to suck him through the door. That and my blazing smile.

For some reason it worked.

‘This is my partner, Desmond Carmichael.' They shook hands. Des' eyes were alight at the thought of a quarry … I mean ‘client'.

This guy wasn't getting away if we could help it.

He hadn't introduced himself and was still casting around for a quick way out.

Des and I must've resembled two mangy cats watching a particularly well-fed rat.

‘Now who are you, sir, and how can we help you?' I smiled again for emphasis and waited.

He scanned the candle-lit chaos as though searching for an indication that the real detectives were tied up out the back, then reluctantly conceded, ‘I'm Seymour Kershaw.' And stopped. As though that by itself was enough.

Kershaw? Hmm. My eyes must have lit up like traffic lights. I knew why he was here. ‘You're related to Hector Kershaw, of course.'

Seymour's response was to pull a newspaper from his briefcase and slap it down on the desk. I leant over as Des moved the candle closer. It was a special edition of the local afternoon newspaper —
The San Francisco Herald
. The headlines screamed about the ‘Portsmouth Square Conflagration'.

But in the bottom right-hand corner, an article demanded an answer: ‘Did Hector Q. Kershaw really leave a diary that disproves all the history books?'

‘I believe, Miss Dupree, that you were present when that …' He paused delicately. ‘When that River person implicated my ancestor in his crazy claims.'

Des' eyes bulged as he read the headlines about the fire in Portsmouth Square then scanned me up and down as if for singes. I shot him a look and he said nothing.

I said casually, ‘Yes, Mr Kershaw. I was there.'

Stuff Klaasen and Melnick, if I could just grab this case …

‘I need to know if there's any truth to River's claim. Whether my ancestor did, in fact, write a diary. And whether it still exists in the present time.'

‘I'm sure we could look at your case, Mr Kershaw … Find a way to fit it into my schedule.' I mentally rubbed my hands in glee. I could deal with a trip to nineteenth-century San Francisco. Just have to steer clear of the Barbary Coast and the Corsairs. ‘Now, if you'll just come through to my office we can sit down and go through everything.'

I grabbed a candle and raised it, revealing the full splendour of our office, ripped-open boxes, soggy towels and all.

Seymour scanned the dim room contemptuously. He shook his head. ‘No. I'm not sure it's such a good idea.' He shook his head again. ‘This just isn't good enough …'

‘Come back tomorrow,' said Des.

‘When everything's set up …' I chimed in.

‘No, Miss Dupree. I'm going back to town. One of the other Time Investigators has to have a way of fitting me into their tight schedules.'

Seymour Kershaw exited like an ambitious greyhound after his next bunny.

 

Des and I stood in my corner office watching the rain beat against the big bay windows. To the north we could see the lights of the city skyline shimmer through the watery veil. I'd just finished answering his questions about what'd gone down at Portsmouth Square.

That conversation hadn't cheered up either one of us. Too many people had died at the hands of what the San Francisco PD believed may have been the work of a crazed arsonist who'd recently escaped from a high-security prison. Apparently he'd sworn vengeance against the criminologist who'd testified against him. The criminologist had been due to give a paper at the national conference. He was still missing.

Depressed, Des slumped in my client's chair and tried to read the newspaper Seymour had abandoned. The candles didn't shed much light, so he stopped squinting and slapped the paper back on my desk in disgust.

‘Maybe it was a mistake to move in here,' I said glumly. How were we going to open for business tomorrow without electricity?

Des considered for a moment. ‘No, you were right, Kannon … This place is much classier than any of those dingy rat-holes we looked at.'

‘Cornelius Klaasen has the whole fifteenth floor of the Transamerica Pyramid,' I said with envy.

We both eyed the lights of the iconic building through the pouring rain. Our little slum was not that far from the Financial District, the richest and most powerful part of San Francisco. But it might as well have been on another planet.

The Transamerica Pyramid was the premier address in the Financial District and the building itself was famous throughout the world, almost as much a symbol of San Francisco as the Golden Gate Bridge. The light on the very top of the tall, sleek pyramid seemed to gaze down at us, mockingly.

‘Yeah, and I'll bet Klaasen has a team of researchers and detectives to back him up too.' Des frowned. He was going to run the Rewind office while I did the fieldwork through the portal.

‘Don't worry, Des, Klaasen won't know what hit him once we start taking his clients away,' I said gamely. ‘Him and Melnick. All we have to do is stay ahead of their crap and eventually they'll turn on each other like hyenas at mealtime.'

‘Yeah, sure,' muttered Des. He got up to start digging through one of the boxes in the corner. ‘Where'd you put that bottle of Glenfiddich, Kannon?'

‘Scotch?' I shot him a look. ‘You're still on your heart diet, Des.' He didn't listen to his doctor, so I'd taken up nagging him like it was a new hobby. But he just thought it was hilarious that I tried to give him tips about moderation.

‘What are you talking about, woman? I'm the healthiest I've been in years.' He thumped his chest with both hands. Then coughed.

‘Yeah, sure you are …' To distract him I said, ‘Come on, Des, let's talk tactics over dinner. Why don't we go downstairs and see what the bar and grill is like?'

Des grimaced. ‘I don't know if I've had all the shots I'd need to survive it.'

He wasn't wrong; the place looked pretty dilapidated from the outside.

‘If I can just find that scotch then we can use it to sterilise the food …' He bent over the boxes again.

‘Forget it, Des, we need to have clear heads to work out how to swing this one.'

Des shot me one of his ‘I know what you're doing' looks, but stopped rummaging anyway. He swiped Seymour's newspaper off my desk and stalked to the doorway.

I grinned.

‘Well … what are you waiting for — an engraved invitation?' he growled. ‘Are you coming or what?'

I followed him out the door, still grinning.

 

According to the sign over the door, the bar and grill was now known as Jake's Place — but originally it'd been the Zebulon Hotel's dining room. The real-estate agent said it was the best place to eat in our part of SoMa and that it'd become the local cool place to hang out, drawing in clientele from the surrounding, wealthier neighbourhoods.

The clinking of glasses and the click of cutlery meeting plates greeted our entrance.

Like the rest of the Zebulon, the fixtures were original. The bar and grill had an ornately moulded once-white ceiling, wood panelling, and architraves everywhere you'd expect. In here the wall sconces were more risqué than in the lobby; the nymphs had been replaced by naked male discus throwers who suffered from an uncomfortable excess of crotch foliage.

Also like the rest of the Zebulon, and courtesy of the flaking paint, threadbare carpet and bare light bulbs dangling from the ceiling, the place had an air of decadent decay. But that was the end of the resemblance to the rest of the hotel. Whoever ran this
joint had their own very … er … particular taste in decoration.

Every spare inch of the walls was covered in nude women.

They were of the oil-painted variety and, if the anatomical aberrations were anything to go by, were from an artist who combined his personal interests with a love of Picasso's cubist technique. The woman hanging on the wall next to me was baring four perfect breasts and smiling with three sets of equally lush red lips.

I was guessing the artist believed that more was definitely better.

But the real-estate agent had been telling the truth. As dingy as it was, Jake's Place was crowded with better-dressed patrons than would normally trudge down our section of Prendergast Street: artsy types, computer geeks playing with their latest high-tech toys and designer-clad couples slumming it.

The waiters and waitresses looked more like they'd been drafted from the homeless shelter on the corner … They were cleaned up but distinctly frayed at the edges and their worn-down faces showed they'd spent a lot more time on the rougher side of life than the corn-fed people they were serving.

Des and I made for an empty table near the far wall. It was underneath a painting of a multi-armed woman who was either massaging moisturiser into her five nipples or doing something else entirely.

‘Maybe we should buy one of these for the office,' muttered Des, as he stared up at the well-endowed female. He peered at the price tag on the wall next to her. ‘It's only the cost of our next month's rent.'

‘Yeah, Des, that's a steal,' I replied. Never one to let an opportunity slide by, I added, ‘Promise me you'll
stay on your heart diet for the next year and I'll give her to you for your birthday.'

We both snorted at that — but for different reasons.

‘So you want to buy one of my paintings?' An apron-clad, middle-aged man wiped down the table and set out our cutlery and menus. He waited for an answer, but there was the hint of a twinkle in his eye.

I shot a look up at the painting. It was just signed ‘Jake'. ‘Yeah.' I pointed at Des. ‘It's his birthday soon.'

Then I noticed Des had that peculiar, overly alert look on his face. I hadn't seen it for a while.

And that Jake had a similarly intent expression.

They'd recognised each other … or something like that.

‘You're the detectives that just moved in upstairs, aren't you?' asked Jake. He was medium height with a receding hairline.

Des was still watching him.

‘That's right,' I said, now embarrassed at making fun of his artwork. He had an open, honest face. ‘I'm Kannon Dupree.' I stuck out my hand and we shook. ‘This my partner, Des Carmichael.'

They shook too, but it was awkward, forced.

‘Welcome to my humble abode. Most of the Zebulon eats here.' He nodded at a table down the aisle from us. ‘Those four guys run the computer software company on the floor directly below you.'

I perused them. All four looked bleary-eyed and rumpled — like they were wearing a cross between tracksuits and their pyjamas.

Jake read my expression and chuckled. ‘Yeah, they sleep in their office. They mainline coffee and I make 'em eat a meal every now and again … But if you want anything, I don't deliver. I'm open seven days
a week but not the same hours every day. Opening times are listed next to the cash register.' He nodded up at the painting above us. ‘Gotta schedule in time for the ladies.'

Des studied Jake's face. ‘What did you do?'

Jake, his expression suddenly frosty, studied Des in return. He decided to answer anyway. ‘I didn't do anything.'

It was like they were speaking in code.

Jake left us to read the menu. It was pretty standard fare for a bar and grill.

‘What's up with you?' I asked Des, after making my choice.

He was watching Jake tend to another table. ‘He's an ex-con.'

I glanced up at the sultry multi-nippled woman above us. ‘Well, that explains a few things … But remember you're not a cop any more, Des — so play nice.'

Jake came back and took our orders. I went for coffee and a burger and fries, and managed to blackmail Des into having orange juice and a chicken salad.

Jake gave Des another once-over then said, ‘I have nothing to be ashamed of in my past. I was charged with fraud. Financial fraud. Like I said, I didn't do it. Everyone in the Zebulon knows about it.' He shot a cynical look around at his patrons. ‘No, correction — everyone in San Francisco knows about me.'

Des studied him, then decided to play nice. He stuck out his hand. ‘Let me do it right this time, Jake.' They shook with feeling and Jake left to get our orders.

‘You're that sure he's telling the truth?' I said in mocking disbelief.

‘Oh yeah. He wasn't lying.' Des resented my question.

‘Really?' I teased.

‘Well, maybe he's telling the truth …' he said begrudgingly. ‘Of course, I'll check out his story. If I'm wrong I'll let you know.'

We both snorted again. This time for the same reason.

If Des was wrong I'd know about it all right. He'd come down here and interrogate Jake to within an inch of his life … until he was satisfied that the poor guy wasn't any kind of real threat to Rewind Investigations.