Deadfall

By Sarah Stegall

Private investigator Claire Turnbull meets the ghost of Old West lawman Wyatt Earp over a cooling corpse in San Francisco, and is dismayed to discover that only she can see or hear him. Reluctantly, she teams with the ghost to solve a murder mystery that threatens her own life: who killed a bigamous thief and stole a 150-year-old ship's log? Was it just another in a long string of cons, or is there really a hoard of gold hidden in San Francisco? The hunt takes Claire and Wyatt from the high rises of the modern city into a murky past buried under the city.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wavelength Books
• Release date: Nov 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9780984773800

Sarah Stegall

Researcher and co-author of the first three Official Guides to The X-Files. Wrote media tie-in guides, trivia, games and so forth for Fox and TV Guide Online for four years. I've been reviewing TV, books and film since 1994 both on my website and on SFScope.com.

Book preview

Deadfall

by Sarah Stegall

Copyright 2009 by Sarah Stegall

Published by Wavelength Books at Smashwords.com.

www.wavelengthbooks.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

eISBN 978-0-9847738-0-0

Chapter 1 -Gunpowder

I wasn’t supposed to be in that room, but then neither was the corpse. He lay face up, arms flung wide, brown eyes open and staring. Out of habit, I dropped to one knee (glad I hadn’t worn a skirt today) and felt for a pulse – nothing. I smelled burned gunpowder and expensive aftershave – an interesting combination. No question this was my quarry, though; I recognized him from the pictures. Thick, wavy brown hair, cleft chin, sculpted cheekbones, sensual mouth; it was easy to see why so many women found him attractive. His three wives had hired me to find him and bring back the stuff he’d stolen.

Right now, though, I wanted to make sure this wasn’t a party of three. I stood and pulled my Colt Defender out of my purse and checked the load. This very pricey suite of the St. Francis hotel was designed to make anyone with an income of less than six figures feel out of place. Large enough to play tennis in, furnished in fake Victorian antiques – camel-back sofas, a leather wingback chair, a rosewood secretary. Huge windows on the left hand wall framed the view out over San Francisco’s Union Square, twelve stories down.

It took me only a moment to see that no one was hiding behind the wet bar, and then I stepped to the open door to my right. A little light spilled from the door behind me. As I groped for the light switch with my left hand, I felt the hairs rise on my neck. It felt as if someone in the darkness was watching me. I froze, barely breathing, for a long moment. Hearing nothing, I snapped on the light. I saw no one.

The master bedroom was a blue and gold confection almost as large as the suite’s living room. I knelt to check under the bed – nothing but dust bunnies. I held my gun in both hands when I kicked open the closet doors – no bad guys jumped out. The bathroom would have impressed a Roman emperor, but it was empty. Nevertheless, I could not shake this jumpy feeling.

I pulled a tissue out of a box in the bathroom to guard against leaving prints, and searched the bedroom. I used my cell phone camera to take pictures from every angle. No papers, no missing jewelry, no large amounts of cash. Returning to the main room, I knelt by the corpse again. A quick pat-down confirmed that he didn’t have the stuff on him. Damn.

I’d delayed the inevitable long enough. Although my instincts were still ringing alarms in my head, I speed-dialed a number I knew well.

Homicide, said a clear voice. Inspector Melton speaking. Suzette Melton was my oldest friend.

Hi, Suzette, I said. It’s me, Claire Turnbull.

Oh, hi, hon. Listen, can I call you back? Not to be rude, but I’m busy, busy.

You’re about to be busier. I’m standing in the most expensive suite at the St. Francis Hotel. Just thought you guys in Homicide would like to know that there’s a dead man –

Maybe it was reflex, maybe it was instinct, but I glanced up and saw a man standing fifteen feet from me, next to the windows. Tall and broad-shouldered, he wore a wide-brimmed black hat, a black suit and white shirt set off with a black waistcoat. A knee-length coat and coal-black polished boots added to the Amish undertaker look. His eyes were an icy blue, and he was staring at me.

I sprang to my feet, pulling out my gun. Freeze!

He looked at me blankly. I pointed the gun at him.

On the phone, Suzette said, Claire?

Can you...can you see me? the guy rumbled. He ignored my gun, looking at me with an expression between puzzlement and shock. Who are you?

Never mind who I am. Put your hands where I can see them.

Claire, what’s going on? Suzette’s voice on the cell was sharp.

I cradled the cell phone against my shoulder, holding the gun out straight with both arms, as the Police Academy had taught me long ago. Suzette, I’m at the St. Francis on Union Square, in the State Suite. There’s a dead man on the floor, looks like he’s been shot once in the chest. Bring backup.

I’ll be there in ten. She hung up.

I pointed the camera at the man in the black hat and clicked off a couple of pictures. He paid no attention Put your hands on your head, I said.

He didn’t move, staring at me intensely. Good God. It sounded like a prayer, not an oath. You can hear me, too?

Nut job. Great. I tightened my grip on the gun. The only thing worse than a frightened perp was a calm one. Hands on your head, I said. I tried to sound firm and authoritative, but something about him sent shudders through me. Was it the eyes? The stillness about him? Something in the way he was standing, hands at his sides, focused. It felt like someone had aimed a spotlight at me.

I hear you fine, I said. Now put your hands up.

He slowly lifted his hands about shoulder high.

Now I want to know who you are and what you’re doing here, I said. And what you know about this. I jerked my head at the dead man.

That’s a lot of questions, the tall man said laconically. Reckon I better come back later. You stay here. I have to go find someone.

The hell you do! Stay right – hey!

He turned to his right and walked through the solid wall.

Astonishment paralyzed me for a moment. Then I ran to the bank of windows and looked down on Union Square, thronged with cars and tourists. There was no body sprawled on the sidewalk. There was no ledge, no fire escape, just a straight twelve-story drop. I looked up and saw only blue sky. The window was locked from the inside. My stomach tensed.

Where had he gone? And more importantly, how?

I heard the ding of the elevator down the hallway and figured my time was up. I put the Colt in my purse just as two uniformed members of San Francisco’s finest halted in the doorway. One of them was Jimmy Gilbert. I knew him from my days on the Force. I didn’t know his partner, a woman. They advanced with their hands on their guns.

Hi, Jimmy, I said.

Claire Turnbull? Uh, hi. He looked from me to the dead guy and back. What’s going on?

Came in and found him like this, I said. The rest had better wait for Inspector Melton.

Yeah, okay, he said uneasily. I had heard that tone before – something between camaraderie with a (former) fellow officer, and wariness with a possible suspect. It wasn’t a tone you forget easily.

I held out my purse. You’ll want to hold this until she gets here, I said. My gun’s in it. Where do you want me to wait?

He jerked his head and I went to stand against a wall. I heard more elevator dings, and the sound of voices. The circus was arriving.

Chapter 2 -The Circus Arrives

Detective Inspector Suzette Melton came through the door, her lean gray partner skulking behind her. Suzette stood about five feet nine and dressed better than the mayor, which is saying something in San Francisco. Her short brown hair was expensively cut, her poise perfect, her face a mask of stone. We had been friends for over ten years.

Vic Delorey, her partner, was tall, gaunt, mostly bald and looked like vinegar tastes.

When did this happen? Suzette asked me.

Good to see you, too, I said. I was looking for the late lamented here. Appears I missed all the excitement.

Jimmy came up. Gun here, Inspector, he said. He didn’t touch it, but held out my open purse.

She nodded. Make sure the crime scene techs log it into evidence. Now go show the EMTs where to come.

I need a receipt for my gun, I said. I was glad at least I’d kept my cell phone. And can I get my wallet, at least?

I have to see to the body, Claire, but when I’m done we’ll talk. It was not a request.

I watched Suzette directing a search of the premises, half hoping and half afraid they would find the man in the black hat hiding under a bed. But they came back from their search with no one.

All clear, Inspector, said Jimmy.

A commotion at the door announced the arrival of the EMTs and assorted entourage. The next few minutes were a bustle of scientists, paramedics, and official personnel. It took five people to confirm that yes, the guy on the floor was as dead as Julius Caesar. Then the crime scene guys began unloading vacuums and kits and brushes. Suzette spoke to them, and then looked at me. She gestured, and I followed her out into the hall.

So what’s the story? She pulled out a small recorder and switched it on.

I leaned against the wall. "Three women came to see me last week. Turns out that each of them was married to the same guy. Each of them knew nothing of the other two until Hubby disappeared with cash, jewelry, and other expensive items a couple weeks ago.

The wives wanted him back, or failing that, the goods. They knew him by three different names, and I’m not sure any of them was his real name, so I ruled out a phone search.

Wait. You’re saying all three were married to him at the same time?

Yeah.

And none of them knew about the other wives?

So they claim. One wife found another one through cell phone records, and the two of them found a third.

Do you believe them?

I shrugged. They’re my clients. I don’t have to believe them. I just work for them.

How did you find the dead guy?

Sheer legwork. I interviewed all the family connections the wives could locate and came up empty. Since then, I’ve been canvassing the hotels on foot, seeing if anyone recognized his photo. About an hour ago, one of the clerks downstairs identified him, registered as one ‘Paul Delmonico’. She wouldn’t tell me which room he was in, but I slipped her a fifty for the floor number. I came up, knocked on doors, woke up a rich lady down the hall, and found the door to this place unlocked. Walked in and found my guy on the floor. Short enough for you?

The door was unlocked?

Did I mumble? I said it was, Suzette. This is an old hotel, with old locks. Not automatic.

Did you see anyone?

I was on the verge of telling her, but confusion – and maybe shame – stopped me. Had I really seen a guy in a black hat? Or had my imagination ambushed me? The more I thought about him, the less I believed in him. I knew – worse, Suzette knew – that there had been a time once when I saw all manner of things that weren’t there. Nope, I said. Nobody.

Either I’m not a great liar, or Suzette knew me pretty well – maybe both. She looked sympathetically at me. You been sleeping lately?

No worse than usual.

Taking your meds? You eating okay?

Yeah. I shifted from one foot to the other. I’m okay, Suze.

She nodded, tapping a nail on the little recorder. Okay. Just making sure you’re taking care of yourself, Claire.

Thanks. I’m all right. I didn’t want to talk about my problems.

You said the vic had some stolen goods you were looking for. You recover them?

I opened my eyes wide. I would never disturb a crime scene, Suzette.

She gave me one of her rare, lopsided smiles. Make sure to put that in your statement. I can’t wait to see the Captain’s face when he reads it. All right, then. We’re kind of crowded in here. Wait in the hallway, okay?

The hallway had been turned into an obstacle course. Two very bored paramedics loitered next to a big gurney and a defibrillator pack. A cop interviewed a maid in a torrent of liquid Spanish.

I found some wall and leaned against it, admiring the old woodwork. This part of the hotel dated from the Gilded Age, and sported narrow hardwood halls lined with elegant though faded Oriental carpet. The place had gone past shabby and come out on the other side as quaint. I looked at the old plaster carvings over the door, the antique mail chutes, the mirrors and the carved hall tables. It was a really nice hotel to die in, if that’s what you had to do.

Chapter 3 -Sleepless in San Francisco

After a while a crime scene tech came out and brushed me down. He did a quick gunshot residue test on my hands, shook his head, and went back inside. He hadn’t said a word to me, or me to him. Two professionals, passing in the night.

Down the hall, Vic was talking to the rich lady I’d rousted. Loudly. Vic is the kind of guy who figures that if you’re a foreigner, you automatically don’t speak English and he should talk louder. His victim was an Asian woman in her mid thirties, with a shock of black hair, wearing a very short kimono and lounging against the door jamb. She was smoking. Nobody seemed to care that her cigarette was in violation of the law. Her eyes met mine without expression. I nodded in a friendly way and she looked away, bored.

I puzzled some more over the man in the black hat. Come to think of it, that outfit had been a little outré even for San Francisco. And he hadn’t reacted to having a gun in his face like most people would. Damned odd, in fact. Which persuaded me even more that I had hallucinated him.

Which made me a little sick at my stomach. I thought I had gotten past all that. What I have is more than just chronic insomnia, it’s a rare but genuine sleep disorder.

It started when I was about ten or so – waking too early in the morning, falling asleep too late at night. Then I would wake in the middle of the night, unable to return to sleep. My sleeping hours dwindled, shrank. I fell asleep at noon, at sunset, woke at midnight and mid-morning I napped indiscriminately, waking tired and unrefreshed. I began to go one night, two nights, even three without sleep.

Over the years, I tried every remedy. Doctors, booze and pills failed to help; indeed, the pills gave me vivid nightmares that had me waking with a scream in my throat. If I went long enough without sleep, though, I started to hallucinate. It was a no-win situation. I resigned myself to a life lived in catnaps, permanently out of sync with the rest of the world. It’s the main reason police and detective work had appealed to me – I could work when other people were asleep, and sleep when they were awake. That was the theory, anyway.

It didn’t work out that way. Other people could adjust to the new rhythm, but I had no rhythm to adjust. I just stopped sleeping, for days on end, and grew more and more strung out. I hid it from everyone on the force, except my husband and Suzette. When Jack was killed in the line of duty, I stopped sleeping altogether. I sleepwalked through my days, not sure whether what I was seeing was real or imaginary, culminating in an incident where my reaction time was too slow to save my partner from a bullet. He died, I was given a medical discharge, and took up private investigating. It left me many enemies on the force, including Vic Delorey, who’d been friends with my dead partner.

At least now that I was off the force, I could sleep when I got the rare chance, so hallucinations were rare. Until today. I worried that this sudden change harbored some further worsening of my disorder. Why was I suddenly seeing men in black?

Afternoon sunlight slanting through a window at the end of the hall cast a square of light that slowly climbed the wall. I bet myself that it would hit the top of the wainscoting before they released me. I was trying to figure out what I would pay myself if I won, when the conversation down the hall ended with a slammed door. Vic walked back to me, hands jammed in his coat pockets, steaming.

What are your clients’ names? he demanded without preamble.

I wasn’t about to tell Vic; he hated me so much I couldn’t trust him not to forget or distort the information. I’ll talk to Inspector Melton, I said as politely as I could.

He leaned close, sniffing. Are you drunk? High? I should haul you in for processing. I think you’re on drugs.

Nuts. You have no probable cause, I said, dropping the fake smile.

Your eyes are bloodshot.

I underslept a little.

I want you to take a drug test.

He could make me do it. He wanted to make me do it; I could see it in his eyes. I could ask Suzette to get me out of it, but that would mortify both of us, and threaten her status in the eyes of her colleagues. Vic would love to embarrass both of us with one strike.

No problem, I said. But if you want to cavity search me, you’re gonna have to buy me dinner first.

Vic gestured for a female tech to come over, and they murmured together while I seethed quietly. Over-officious prick, I thought. The tech gestured for me to follow.

Vic started to follow and I put a hand on his chest. You are not going to watch this, I said. Unless you think your technician here is not professional enough to do her job.

The tech looked from me to him. He opened his mouth to argue, but I turned my back on him. He did not follow us.

We went next door to the empty suite next to the murder scene, which the hotel management had made available. I peed into a cup in the dimly lit bathroom, and the tech took her sample. It took all of ten minutes, but it did nothing for my temper. I was back in the hallway minutes later, glaring a hole in Vic’s back.

And at that moment, the man in black stepped through the wall into the hallway ahead of Vic. He stopped, looking at me, and Vic walked right through him as if he wasn’t there.

I made a sound between a squeak and a yelp. Vic turned to squint at me. The tall man in black nodded to me and walked through the opposite hallway wall. I swallowed and tried to look non-nonchalant.

Suzette came out of the State Suite, stripping off latex gloves. She jerked her head at Vic and he stalked back inside. She glanced at my hands, which trembled slightly. Sorry. He on your case again?

Yeah. I was still disturbed by the ... vision? ... of the man in black. I fumbled to organize my thoughts. Uh. Vic asked for the names of my clients. Wife number one is Tiffany Bergquist, married her guy Bert ten years back, in Reno. I gave her Tiffany’s address out in the Richmond District. At the same time, a battle was raging in me: tell Suzette about the man in black? Of all people, she would understand.

Wife number two is Olivia Staveley. He married her four years ago under the name Walter Elliot Fontaine. She kept her name when she married. Here’s her business card. Last year he married wife number three, Brigit Haffner, nee Donn, on Maui. You can reach her through her trustees.

Her eyes opened a little wider. Donn?

I nodded. The sole heiress to the Donn Trust, which controls more than half the shipping out of the West Coast. The name he used to marry her was William Arthur Haffner.

You call any of them to let them know where Hubby was?

Not yet, I said.

Hell of a thing, Claire, she said, pushing a hand through her hair. She slumped against the wall next to me. You know I should take you downtown, get your statement.

I nodded. I know. But I hope you won’t.

She turned her head to face me, her blue-gray eyes meeting mine. Can you come down tomorrow?

She was extending me an extraordinary courtesy, one that might get her in trouble with her boss, and she knew it. And I knew it. And we both knew I knew it, and that it would put me in her debt. I didn’t want to be in her debt, but I also didn’t want to spend the rest of the day downtown, under the scrutiny of so many cops with bad memories of me.

My conscience was bothering me. I should tell Suzette about the man in black. But he had walked through walls. I had no idea if he was related to this case, or was just a manifestation of my own personal demons. In the end, I opted for silence.

I shrugged. Sure. Thanks.

See you tomorrow then. Take care, and try to get some sleep. She pushed off from the wall, and went back inside. The EMTs with the gurney followed.

Chapter 4 -A Reverse Hold

I hung around for another half hour, watching the detectives. Finally, I took the elevator straight to the lobby. I stepped off into the middle of a swirl of color and noise. The matinee crowd had just gotten out down on Geary. The marble foyer was full of people trying to shove their way into the hotel’s bar. I smelled perfume and cigar smoke; laughter echoed off the high ceiling overhead. Someone was singing a snatch of Phantom of the Opera off-key.

Pushing my way through the mass, I felt a prickle at the back of my neck. I looked around, and caught sight of a tall figure in black on the edge of the crowd. He stood very still, oblivious to the crowd surging past. Even at this distance his unblinking gaze unnerved me. He nodded at me once, slowly, and then two laughing men walked between us and he was gone. I stood on tiptoe looking over the crowd, but could not see him. Who was he? Had he really been in that room? Was he the killer? Was I losing it?

I passed through the doors into the night. The sidewalk was as crowded as the lobby had been, but the makeup was totally different. Off-duty hotel workers in service uniforms filled the sidewalk, carrying signs and shouting. I’d forgotten about the two-week-old hotel strike.

Fair wages for fair work! a man yelled into my face. Someone behind him was shouting in Spanish.

I stepped back, caromed into another sign-carrying striker, ducked sideways, searching for some place to stand where I wouldn’t be run over. Lights flared in my face, blinding me – a news videographer.

Hey! I put a hand up to shield my face and stumbled backwards. My foot came down on something that wasn’t sidewalk.

Ow! said a voice in my ear. At the same time, a hand grabbed my right arm.

I thought of the man with the black coat, and fear made me fast. I slapped my left hand down on the hand on my arm, pinning it, and whirled to my right, pivoting on the ball of my right foot. At the same time, I dropped my right arm out from under the hand. Freed, I twisted the hand up and back towards the owner’s arm, and heard a grunt of pain.

I looked up, and saw that it wasn’t the stranger in black at all. This guy was tall and wide-shouldered, yes, but the clear hazel eyes and brown hair above a straight nose and wide mouth did not belong to the man from the hotel suite. I let go. He stepped back, rubbing his wrist, and looked me up and down. He wore a very well-cut suit in dark blue silk, with a handsome gold tie. I was suddenly very conscious of my quite ordinary T-shirt under a nondescript blazer.

Sorry, I said. You startled me.

You stepped on me, he said in a light baritone. "That was a very quick reverse. Were you going for an ikkyo hold?"

I raised both eyebrows. "Yes. You study aikido?"