The Baker Street Letters (23 page)

But he wasn't. He was on the water side.

It stung on impact and was shockingly cold. And he was much heavier in the water than he should have been. Reggie struggled out of his raincoat—what a brilliant precaution that had been—and got to the surface.

He broke out of the water with a gasp. Still breathing deep and fast, he got his bearings.

He looked up at the top of the dam. He saw passersby looking back at him over the wall—the girl with the setter, a tall, bald man whose sunglasses glinted down at Reggie—but he didn't see either of the skaters.

The water was much too cold to hang about, and he began to swim—with difficulty, on his back mostly, using his legs and one arm for momentum and the other arm dragging the bloody raincoat as if he were rescuing it.

It was only fifty yards or so, and that was a good thing.

Reggie slogged ashore, stood, and tried to shake off the cold.

He was at the shoreline just before the dam. Above him was the access road from which he had just fallen. Next to him was a steep slope, thick with undergrowth.

He began to climb the slope, finding a path between the rocks, manzanita, and low-growth pine.

He stopped. A glimpse of bright clothing caught his eye. He paused to look.

Below and to his right, lying between patches of sagebrush near the base of the dam, was Anne.

Reggie began to scramble quickly back down the slope. His feet dislodged clumps of dry earth and small rocks, sending them tumbling down the slope ahead of him; he immediately adjusted the angle of his approach, afraid that the tumbling rocks would strike her and cause more injury.

But when he came closer and saw the angle of her body—and the stillness of her eyes—he knew the tumbling rocks did not matter.

She was already dead. He knew it even before he knelt beside her.

Her body was broken. The ground around her head was saturated. She had no pulse.

For an unbearable moment, there was nothing but silence. There was nothing and no one else around, there were no surroundings, there was just Reggie. Reggie and a young woman who was dead because—he was sure of it—she had done him a favor.

Now Reggie looked up. She could not have just fallen; the wall was too high for that.

The in-line skaters were nowhere in sight. And the onlookers who had watched Reggie swim to shore were gone now as well. But at the near end of the dam—standing at the beginning of the access road, behind a clump of scrub oak, as if he thought it provided concealment—was a smallish, white-haired man in a jogging suit.

Reggie stood up, staring.

The two middle-aged women joggers he had seen earlier were paused now as well, on the road above the slope, and they were looking down at Reggie—but he was reckless of what they might be thinking.

He was too focused on the white-haired man standing at the edge of the dam at the access road.

Rogers?

The not-quite-concealed man stared back. Reggie had forgotten to be subtle, and now the man knew he had been seen.

The man bolted suddenly, like a rabbit from a hedge, running across the access road toward the opposite end of the dam.

Reggie sprinted up the rough slope after. He had staggered before, but not now. His shock and grief, and his initial anger at himself, had found a better target, and the adrenaline of it pushed him up to the road in short order. He began running.

Rogers—if indeed it was Rogers—was only halfway across the dam; he had a lead of no more than 150 yards. That meant the result was not in doubt—the man was probably headed for the gate at the opposite end of the reservoir. That gate was more than a mile away. Reggie was capable of a six-minute mile, and the man was doing nowhere near that pace. He knew he would catch him.

But now there was a shout from behind Reggie.

“That's him!”

It came from the two women.

But they weren't pointing at the man getting away at the opposite end of the dam.

They were standing at the edge of the roadway, above the slope where Reggie had found the young woman—and they were pointing at Reggie.

Several male runners in USC tank tops came up alongside the women, paused, and looked.

“There!” screamed the women, still pointing at Reggie. “He's over there!”

Reggie turned and looked back at them. He gestured to the women and the contingent from the USC track team and then pointed at Rogers—or the man who might be Rogers—but he could not make himself understood.

And now, the tall, bald man in sunglasses joined them, and he too was pointing at Reggie:

“That's him!”

The USC runners took off toward Reggie in a heroic sprint.

At the same time, two counterclockwise runners, coming from the opposite direction, crossed paths with the white-haired man, who urged them on in Reggie's direction.

And close on their heels were two private security guards on bicycles.

Joggers, cyclists, and runners of all shapes and sizes were now converging on Reggie from both directions of the road. For a brief moment, he wondered whether he should remain in place and just try to explain.

But the white-haired man had already rounded a bend and vanished from sight; there was no hope now of getting past the throng to catch him.

“There!” shouted the first two women, pointing at Reggie again. “He killed her!”

This would not work.

Reggie abandoned the dam and ran back down the road to the near gate with all the six-minute-mile speed he could muster. He approached the final bend in the road, the last one before the gate, and he looked over his shoulder.

Behind him, all the recreational enthusiasts from either side of the lake—runners, bikers, skaters, dog walkers, and combinations thereof—were in his hot pursuit.

Thank God; his taxi was still there, just outside the gate.

He climbed quickly through the gap in the chain-link fence. He knew he'd have just seconds before the posse appeared behind him, and if the cabdriver saw them, all bets were off.

Gasping, wheezing, and pouring sweat, Reggie jumped into the cab.

“You run in those shoes?” said the driver.

“My best time in a week,” said Reggie. “You should try it.”

“You'll stink up my cab,” said the driver.

“Just drive, dammit,” said Reggie, pulling money out of his wallet. “The Pasadena Institute. I'll buy you all the air fresheners you need.”

The driver turned the cab around and headed down the hill, just an instant ahead of the pursuit.

It was night when Reggie arrived at the campus. In the foyer outside Rogers's office, the secretary was getting ready to lock up.

“Can I help you?”

“Rogers,” Reggie said tightly.

“I'm afraid he's not in.”

“Where is he?” said Reggie, walking past her. “Out for his evening run?”

“Sir, you can't—”

“Sorry,” said Reggie. He entered Rogers's office and shut the door behind him.

She had told the truth: Rogers wasn't there. Reggie heard her pound on the door, then quickly leave, undoubtedly to get security.

On the walls were Rogers's many diplomas, and plaques of recognition, and photos of him accepting awards. One in particular caught Reggie's eye.

It was a smallish photo in a modest frame, easy to overlook and forget among all the others—unless you were specifically looking for something that went back a few years.

This one went back a score or more, judging from the clothes and Rogers's buoyant hair.

Reggie took a closer look. He saw Rogers and another man—who looked a lot like the man in the old photo in Mara's
flat—both smiling and standing in front of a car that bore the name and logo of a surveying firm.

Reggie went to Rogers's desk and pushed papers about until he found one that had Rogers's signature. He carefully pulled a wet sheet of the map out of his pocket, unfolded it, and compared the faded signature with Rogers's.

It matched. At least to the extent visible.

Through the office window now, Reggie could see Rogers's secretary hurrying up the steps of the building with a uniformed security guard.

Reggie left the office, found a side exit, and got to his cab.

There were flashing red lights and sirens on the ride back to Los Angeles, but they were headed in the direction of the reservoir, not following Reggie.

Not yet.

He rang Laura at her hotel; she did not pick up.

He needed shelter. The Bonaventure was out of the question. Only one alternative came to mind.

“Take me to the Roosevelt Arms,” Reggie told the driver.

It took a long drive through heavy traffic, but finally Reggie reached the Roosevelt Arms. The clerk in the lobby of the Roosevelt Arms took a moment to look Reggie over. He seemed pleased for some reason.

“Hard times?”

“Just give me a bloody room.”

“You know, you just missed him,” said the clerk, taking Reggie's money for a day in advance.

“What? Who?”

“The other guy. From before.”

“Nigel?”

“I guess. That's what she called him.”

“She who?”

“The girl he was with. Latina, very pretty.”

“When did they leave?”

“A little over an hour ago. Just before those two guys showed up looking for 'em.”

“What two guys?”

“I'm trying to remember.”

Reggie put two twenties on the counter.

“Hell, I dunno,” said the clerk, pocketing the money. “Looked like a couple suits on their casual day.”

“Suits as in police?”

“Naaw, too stylish. Police suits are more like those guys over there.”

The clerk was pointing one block up and across the street, where Mendoza and Reynolds were ordering at a take-away burger stand.

Their backs were turned. For the moment.

“Which room do you want?” said the clerk.

“Keep it,” said Reggie.

His taxi was still at the curb. Reggie exited the Roosevelt Arms, got into the cab, and ducked down low.

“Beverly Hilton,” he told the driver, and they pulled away just as the detectives turned with their sandwiches. In the mirror, it appeared that Mendoza gave the cab a second look, but it was hard to tell.

Reggie had the driver deliver him to the side entrance of the hotel; the lobby seemed a risk. He walked from there to the outdoor patio in back.

In places with weather like this, Laura preferred her evening meal outside. With luck, she was having a late dinner, and that would be why she was not answering the phone.

Reggie stood behind a palm tree next to the gate and looked in.

She was there, at a table just beyond the pool.

And, mercifully, she was alone.

Reggie came up behind her and put his hand lightly on her arm, and she turned.

“You don't look well at all,” she said.

“I'm not. Is that coffee?”

“They say so.”

Reggie took two quick gulps of Laura's coffee.

“The locals are looking for me; I need to get out of view.”

“All right,” she said.

“Sorry,” said Reggie, “not the lift. I don't want to go through the lobby.”

“Certainly,” said Laura. “It's only four flights.”

They found the stairs and Reggie told her about the lake as they climbed.

“I'm sorry,” said Laura as they entered her room. “It's one thing when it's an obnoxious clerk. Something else when it's someone nice.”

“We should close the drapes,” said Reggie. “Anyone who has anything to do with that map is winding up dead. Nigel is at risk. So is Mara.”

“What do we need to do?” she said.

“Rogers can't be in this alone. He had help at the dam. And someone behind this had enough resources to make Rogers want to sign that false report twenty years ago. And enough now to put up one million in cash to get Nigel out of jail and into the open.”

“Who are the candidates?”

“Someone who was rich then, rich now, and getting richer still from the Silver Line taking the route they chose.”

“That's a rather broad range, isn't it?”

“Yes. But there's another criterion. To bail him out, someone had to know almost as soon as we did that Nigel was in jail.
That means that someone is getting inside knowledge of our activities. And that narrows the list.”

“Considerably, I would think. Who is on it?”

Reggie hesitated. He knew what he was going to say next would get him in trouble.

But then his mobile rang.

“It's not for me,” said Laura.

Reggie picked up.

The voice he heard on the phone was male, raspy, middle-aged plus, and weathered.

“You're the British guy,” said the voice, “with the brother. Right?”

“Probably,” said Reggie.

“You want to clear him for killing that bastard under the freeway—you bring it to me.”

“Bring what?”

“The map, dammit. My map. You know what I'm talking about.”

“Bring it where?”

“Bring it to the North Lankershim dig. Right now. The station platform in Tunnel 110-Left. Don't be seen.”

“How—”

“Stay away from the main gate, that's where the security is. Go to the south gate, where they let the trucks in during the day. You'll know what to do when you get there.”

“Who—”

“Just get there. Now.”

The man hung up.

Laura was standing as close as possible to Reggie to listen.

“Where?” she said.

“I want you to get on the next plane back to New York. Or better, London.”

“I can't do that.”

“You can take Buxton with you if you like.”

“Not bloody likely, not while this is going on. In fact, I'm sticking to you like glue until we're all out of here.”

“You don't need to—”

“Of course I do. Nigel means as much to me as he does to you. Besides, clearly it's not being with you that's dangerous. It's being discovered by you. So I'll do the prudent thing. Where you go, I go.”