Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [88]
Which brought me to an unpleasant possibility that I thought I’d better face right now: the possibility that Hy had shot Brockowitz. According to Ann-Marie, there was bad history between Brockowitz and Hy. And Hy had been on the mesa that night. While he’d never said it in so many words, I knew he’d killed at least once. He, like me, had stepped over that line because there had been no other choice.
No other choice. That was the key. If Hy had shot Brockowitz, It was because he’d been placed in an untenable situation. His motive would have had to be stronger than an old antagonism. Stronger than retaining possession of a two-million-dollar letter of credit.
Letter of credit. Who had it now? Hy? Doubtful. I’d begun to suspect that somehow it had been taken from him and he hadn’t contacted RKI because he was attempting to recover it. Taken by whom? Salazar? Possibly, but if so, what did Salazar intend to do with it?
And then there was Gilbert Fontes. Fontes, whose estranged brother operated the firm the L.C. was drawn to. And Terramarine—that was the odd number in this equation. As was the apparent relationship between Fontes, Ann Navarro, and Diane Mourning. And there was Timothy Mourning, missing for twelve days now. If the body on the mesa had been Mourning’s or even a Terramarine member’s, this whole scenario would have made more sense….
Most of the other people on the beach had departed. The young mother called to her children, and they reluctantly straggled up from the surf. She bundled them in towels, put her arms around their shoulders as they walked to the stairway to one of the villas. Dusk was falling fast. The smell of cooking fires began to drift from the riverbed; voices, too, in musical counterpoint. A white-haired man walked past along the shoreline, his Irish setter leaping joyously through the waves. The man gave me an incurious nod; the dog paid me no mind at all.
The darkness deepened. Fires danced down in the riverbed; I smelled fish and tortillas frying, heard men and women laughing. I twisted around and saw that the villas on the hill were now ablaze with light; music and cocktail-time chatter drifted down, as did smoke from mesquite barbecues. My stomach growled forlornly. The temperature had dropped; it was still comfortable, but as the night wore on it would grow cold. I had no heavy jacket or sweater; those things remained in bungalow 7 at La Encantadora.
Well, I told myself, you’ve endured far worse ordeals than a cold night on a beach.
I turned all the way around and studied Fontes’s villa. The doors to the terrace stood open, and the white-jacketed waiter moved back and forth through them. No one else was out there; no one stood at any of the lighted windows. My eyes still on the house, I slipped down onto the sand, pulling my bag and the camera with me. There was an open space between the pongas, just large enough for the camera. I shoved it in there, found a piece of wood and used it as a shim to tilt the camera at a good angle. When it was full dark and no one moved on the beach, I lay down on my stomach, put my eye to the scope, and focused on the terrace.
The waiter was setting a plate of hors d’oeuvres on one of the tables. He distributed coasters, then arranged four cushioned chairs around it. After viewing his handiwork with apparent satisfaction, he went behind the bar and looked expectantly at the door. The lens’s focus was so fine that I could see the web of lines around his eyes deepen as he smiled at the first arrivals.
I moved the camera slightly and focused on Diane Mourning’s thin, humorless features. With her was the woman I’d identified as Ann Navarro. They got drinks, then carried them to the table and began a conversation. On Mourning’s side, it was intense; her brow was drawn into worried creases and she