The Man on the Washing Machine (20 page)

Eventually I settled in the office staring mindlessly out into the shop and beyond to the yellow roses nodding over the front window.

“I've finished,” Davie said from the office doorway.

“Okay then,” I said, and got up to let him out.

“I could stay if you need me.”

“Not really,” I said thoughtlessly. His face fell and I had a sudden inspiration. “Why don't you see if Ben could use some help over at the group home?”

He chewed his thumbnail. “Will you ask?”

“Uh, okay.” I listened to the phone ringing, rehearsing what I'd say when they put me through, but he flummoxed me by picking up himself.

“This is Theo Bogart,” I said.

“I found your gift on my door.”

I'd forgotten about the bag of herbs. “Good will from the local chamber of commerce,” I said casually, hating myself for needing the pretense.

“Thanks anyway,” he said.

“Davie wondered if you needed any help over there. We'll be closed here for a couple of days and he's at a bit of a loose end.”

“He couldn't ask me himself?”

“He's shy, that's all.”

“Sure, I could use some help.” He paused. “How are you doing?”

“I spent the morning with Lichlyter.”

“Next time call me; I'll come with you,” he said gruffly, and went on in a different tone: “I wouldn't normally bother you about this, but—”

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything's fine. Except I promised the kids yesterday they could play in the attic here; I want to keep them away from outside, so I wondered if I could bring this stuff of yours over to get it out of here.”

My head felt packed with rags. “What stuff are you talking about?”

“The wooden crates marked with the name of your store. Everything else is gone; people came by on Saturday to get the things they had stored here.”

“Wooden crates?”

“Right. Crates. Made of wood,” he said slowly, as if to a deranged person. “You know—wooden crates.”

“Of course I know what wooden crates are, but—forget it. If they belong to the store, I'll come and get them.”

“They're too heavy to carry over. I'll bring them over in the van. Send Davie; he can help me load them.”

They came with AnaZee, and the four of us unloaded the crates into the garage. Ben handled the crates with strong, practiced movements as if he was accustomed to physical work. He filled out his jeans nicely, too, which I may have noticed before. Clearly he worked out. It was difficult for me to imagine him in a law office.

Davie dusted off his hands. “I'm going to inventory the housekeeping supplies over at the shelter,” he said proudly as he left.

I looked over at Ben as Davie left and said, “Thank you.” He made a sketch of a bow. He was wearing a small gold ring in his ear, like a pirate. I admired the fit of his jeans again as he gave one of the crates a shove with his foot.

I gave myself a mental shake and thanked AnaZee for her help. The tall black woman with the chocolate-cake hair said quietly: “You're welcome. I'm sorry about your friend; it's real terrible.”

And I had allowed myself to forget for a few minutes. She said she was about to begin her shift at the ecological center on the street level of the shelter.

She took a deep breath and glanced at Ben, who gave her an encouraging nod. “We thought of asking your association if they'd pay for, you know—sponsor—some new trash receptacles for outside the stores. We thought of a three-part container for glass, aluminum cans, and paper…” She trailed off a little uncertainly.

“You'll have a natural ally in one of our members, Tasmyn Choy,” I smiled. “Shall I have Tasmyn call you over at the shelter? You can work up a presentation for our meeting next month.” Maybe the project would forestall the usual argument over what to do with the proceeds from the Open Garden.

“I'd like that.” She nodded shyly and left.

Ben stayed, adjusting the position of the crates along the wall. Much of the wall space was already filled with neat stacks of cartons and rows of plastic gallon jugs. The three wooden crates were nearly five feet long and eighteen inches deep. They were discolored—as if they'd traveled a long distance. Indecipherable printing appeared on them at random. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered. I half expected the crates to disappear.

“I think there's been some sort of mistake,” I said.

“There's the name of the store along the side in black marker,” Ben said, brushing his hands on the seat of his jeans.

“Mmm. I see it. That looks like Nicole's writing. But no one ships our sort of merchandise in wooden crates—too expensive. They weigh more than the contents.”

Nicole had jealously overseen the inventory, and I had seen no reason to interfere. I'd no idea why these crates were in the attic at number twenty-three. She did occasionally store stuff elsewhere when the garage was full for some reason, but there was plenty of space at the moment.

Ben cleared his throat. “About last night.”

I realized I had been silent for some minutes, perplexed by the enigma of the crates.

“Don't apologize,” I said awkwardly, when I realized he was referring to the kiss he had dropped on my hand.

He scowled. “I wasn't going to. I wanted to tell you—that I'd like to do something I might have to apologize for.”

“Oh!” He had my full attention again. We exchanged wary glances, like foxes standing on our hind legs and sniffing the air for spoor.

He gave one of the crates a needless extra push and looked at me sideways. “I've been married, but not for several years.” I tried to hear it as casual conversation, but I felt the warmth of awareness in my face. He touched my shoulder. A tremor went through me, followed by a tingling sense of profound surprise. Cautious by habit, I found I couldn't speak.

He withdrew his hand and flexed it, then frowned at it as if it annoyed him. “Do you want to look inside one of these crates?”

“What?” I felt dazed.

“If you've got a crowbar or something…” He bent down to inspect the fasteners holding the crate together, apparently fascinated by the problem of how to break it open. I collected my wits and found a claw hammer, which he used with unnecessary violence to pry the crate open, sending splinters flying all over the garage. Together we pulled the wooden lid apart, but all I could see inside was about an acre of wood shavings. I started to root around and dug out a tube nine or ten inches in diameter and over three feet long. It was very heavy. It had end caps with leather thongs wrapped around both ends and a single thong along the length of it, like a carrying strap. I shook it gently and it made a soft, slurry sound as whatever was inside fell through the tube.

“It's some sort of rattle,” I said, and handed it to Ben. I was more puzzled than ever.

“I've seen them in Africa,” he said unexpectedly.

“Africa?”

“Two years. Peace Corps,” he said briefly. I waited for him to go on, but he didn't.

“It must be something Nicole was planning to add to the store.” But even as I said it, I knew it didn't make sense.

Ben was making dull little
thwocks
on the tube with a tapping finger, then he tugged at one end of the rattle and it popped open. A shower of rice fell around our feet. He peered inside the tube and looked up at me with a startled expression. “Not unless you were planning to feature rhino horn,” he said.

“What!”

He tipped the rattle and something—looking undeniably like a hacked-off rhinoceros horn—fell into his hand. He put the tube on the floor and hefted the curved horn thoughtfully in both hands before handing it to me.

I stared at it incredulously. “Lichlyter asked—but isn't this illegal? Isn't there some sort of international agreement?”

“The CITES treaty,” he said absently. He broke open another crate and found another two rattles nestled side by side. I helped him lift them out of the crate and he pried off the end caps and looked inside.

“More of the same,” he said.

Oh, Nicole.

With one crate left to open we had a row of four amputated horns. Four animals had died in agony somewhere in Africa for these things to be lying on my garage floor in San Francisco. It was repulsive. From Ben's expression, he was also finding the experience less than wholesome.

“These aren't yours,” he said finally as we stood in what I assumed to be an atmosphere of identical disgust. I was glad he hadn't made it a question. He sounded furious. I shook my head. He made a neat pyramid of the rattles and the torn-off end caps. The rice and wood shavings would need to be swept into a pile. A breeze under the garage door was blowing tufts of it around already. It reminded me of something. I made a small choking noise. Ben turned around. “What's wrong?”

“The painter, Tim Callahan. There were wood shavings in his hand. These crates were in the attic room he fell from; he must have been looking in one of these when…”

“When the owner interrupted him?” There was something odd in his inflection.

“Nicole? She wasn't a violent person.” Besides, I knew Nicole couldn't possibly have thrown Tim Callahan from that attic window. It took a man—or a woman—of considerably more strength than she possessed. Although, as I remembered Lichlyter's demonstration with the broom, maybe it hadn't taken much strength to knock him off balance. And he wouldn't have been on his guard with someone he knew. I looked around at the strange place my garage had become and at the crate remaining to be opened. I moved toward it, claw hammer in hand. I shoved it away from the wall to make the opening easier. The top was badly gouged.

“Someone's opened this one,” I said. “There are big splinters missing from the side.” I easily slid the top planks sideways.

This crate contained a bonus. In addition to two more rhino horns, we found a paintbrush, stiff and crusted with yellow paint.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

“I suppose I'd better call Lichlyter,” I said grimly.

“You don't sound too happy.”

“Oh? I'm overjoyed about implicating my dead partner in a—a rhinoceros horn smuggling gang. I can't believe this. It's ridiculous.” I slammed the back door of the garage.

“You don't have to tell her about the rhino horn,” he said abruptly as we made our way up the back stairs. “Possession isn't illegal; only importing it is. Once the stuff is here, there's nothing anyone can do. It has to be stopped at customs.”

“What kind of a protective treaty is that?”

“Over a hundred countries signed the CITES treaty. It's hard to get that many countries to agree on anything. The idea was to arrest the guys shipping it out of Africa and into Japan and Vietnam and wherever, to stop the trade at its source.”

“But what's it for?” I wailed. “Is there a hot market in San Francisco for Arab knife handles or something?”

“Like Lichlyter said, the horn is ground into powder and used in some Asian medicines. It's supposed to be good for fevers and arthritis and it's a heart tonic. The Vietnamese think it's a cancer cure.”

I unlocked the back door to my flat. “Why ship it whole? Wouldn't it be easier to ship as a powder and pretend it's spices or something?”

“Quacks have tried to pass off counterfeit powdered horn; people insist on seeing the horn so they know it's authentic.”

“You know a hell of a lot about this stuff,” I said sourly.

“I'm putting together a library for the ecological center; you wouldn't believe the things I know!” He sobered. “I know one more thing. At today's prices, those horns are worth about two hundred thousand dollars each.”

I thought of that row of dismal dead things, looking like detritus from a theatrical property department, and did some quick arithmetic. “That makes the entire haul worth more than a million dollars?”

Ben nodded, looking uncomfortable.

“Wow. Worth a phone call, anyway,” I said. “And she asked us about rhino horn! How did she know? And how in hell does this fit in with anything?”

But Inspector Lichlyter was out of the office. I asked if she could be reached, but the voice on the other end of the telephone wasn't encouraging. In the end, I left my name and number and a message and asked her to call. “Tell her I've found some rhino horns and a paintbrush,” I said. Then I had to do some fast talking to convince the cop that I wasn't a prankster.

“A few hours isn't going to make much difference,” I told Ben as I hung up.

“I hope you're right.” He looked uneasy.

“I'll grant you things are getting weird, fast.”

He took my hand in his and stroked the tips of my fingers thoughtfully. My stomach curled. God, this was getting complicated. I pulled my hand away with an effort.

“And maybe dangerous,” he agreed, as if nothing had happened. As if I hadn't stopped breathing. He looked unaffected, which was galling. “I wish I didn't have to be away tonight.”

I thought of saying that having him downstairs in the studio wasn't all that helpful anyway, or that I was accustomed to taking care of myself, but all I said was: “Away? Where are you going?”

“I'm flying to Los Angeles in”—he checked his wristwatch—“ninety-seven minutes. I have a morning meeting. I'll be back around lunchtime tomorrow.” He hesitated. “I wouldn't go, but—”

“Of course you have to go,” I said, and tried not to sound wistful.

“Isn't there someone you could stay with?” he said in sudden frustration. “Do you have to be here alone?”

“Being alone isn't what worries me,” I said.

But he refused to smile. “For God's sake, be careful,” he said. And then he was gone. I couldn't be used to having him around so I told myself I didn't feel abandoned, even though I did, a little.