She closed the door and watched him through a clear segment of the leaded,
stained-glass oval window in the center of the door. He glanced back, saw her,
and waved. She stepped away from the window, into the gloomy hallway, and
watched him from a point at which she could not be seen.
Clearly, he hadn’t believed her. He knew the husband was a lie. She shouldn’t
have said she was married to a cop, for God’s sake; that was too obvious an
attempt to dissuade him. She should have said she was married to a plumber or
doctor, anything but a cop. Anyway, Art Streck was leaving. Though he knew she
was lying, he was leaving.
She did not feel safe until his van was out of sight.
Actually, even then, she did not feel safe.
2
After murdering Dr. Davis Weatherby, Vince Nasco had driven his gray Ford van to
a service station on Pacific Coast Highway. In the public phone booth, he
deposited coins and called a Los Angeles number that he had long ago committed
to memory.
A man answered by repeating the number Vince had dialed. It was one of the usual
three voices that responded to calls, the soft one with a deep timbre. Often,
there was another man with a hard sharp voice that grated on Vince.
Infrequently, a woman answered; she had a sexy voice, throaty and yet girlish.
Vince had never seen her, but he had often tried to imagine what she looked
like.
Now, when the soft-spoken man finished reciting the number, Vince said, ‘It’s
done. I really appreciate your calling me, and I’m always available if you have
another job.” He was confident that the guy on the other end of the line would
recognize his voice, too.
“I’m delighted to hear all went well. We’ve the highest regard for your
Workmanship. Now remember this,” the contact said. He recited a seven-digit
telephone number.
Surprised, Vince repeated it.
The contact said, “It’s one of the public phones at Fashion Island. In the
open-air promenade near Robinson’s Department Store. Can you be there in fifteen
minutes?”
“Sure,” Vince said. “Ten.”
“I’ll call in fifteen with the details.”
Vince hung up and walked back to the van, whistling. Being sent to another
public telephone to receive “the details” could mean only one thing: they had a
job for him already, two in one day!
3
Later, after the cake was baked and iced, Nora retreated to her bedroom at the
southwest corner of the second floor.
When Violet Devon had been alive, this had been Nora’s sanctuary in spite of the
lack of a lock on the door. Like all the rooms in the large house, it had been
crammed with heavy furniture, as if the place served as a warehouse instead of a
home. It had been dreary in all other details as well. Nevertheless, when
finished with her chores, or when dismissed after one of her aunt’s interminable
lectures, Nora had fled to her bedroom, where she escaped into books or vivid
daydreams.
Violet inevitably checked on her niece without warning, creeping soundlessly
along the hall, suddenly throwing open the unlockable door, entering with the
hope of catching Nora in a forbidden pastime or practice. These unannounced
inspections had been frequent during Nora’s childhood and adolescence, dwindling
in number thereafter, though they had continued through the final weeks of
Violet Devon’s life, when Nora had been a grown woman of twenty-nine. Because
Violet had favored dark dresses, had worn her hair in a tight bun, and had gone
without a trace of makeup on her pale, sharp-featured face, she had often looked
less like a woman than like a man, a stern monk in coarse penitential robes,
prowling the corridors of a bleak medieval retreat to police the behavior of
fellow monastics.
If caught daydreaming or napping, Nora was severely reprimanded and punished
with onerous chores. Her aunt did not condone laziness.
Books were permitted—if Violet had first approved of them—because, for one
thing, books were educational. Besides, as Violet often said, “Plain, homely
women like you and me will never lead a glamorous life, never go to exotic
places. So books have a special value to us. We can experience most everything