Pembroke made me wait.
I sat on a bench outside his office with a drunk who’d lost one shoe. He kept looking under the bench like it might turn up if he gave it another minute.
After a while, a young cop opened the door.
“Flint.”
I got up.
The drunk looked at me.
“Find my shoe, will ya?”
“I’m on another case.”
* * *
Pembroke was behind his desk. His jacket hung on the back of the chair. There was a cup of coffee by his elbow and a stack of papers he didn’t look pleased about.
“Close the door.”
I did.
“Sit.”
I sat.
He finished reading something, signed it, and pushed it aside.
“Now. What do you know about a safe?”
“Did you find one?”
“Behind a painting in the penthouse.”
“Open?”
“Not yet.”
“Who knows it’s there?”
“The men working the scene. The hotel manager. Whoever Musgrove told while he was alive.”
I took Heller’s sketch out of my coat.
“Add his jeweler.”
Pembroke unfolded it.
“What am I looking at?”
“Musgrove’s ring.”
“I can see that.”
“The face opens. There’s a key inside.”
He brought the paper closer.
“Where’s the ring?”
“That’s the part I’m working on.”
Pembroke put the sketch on his desk.
“How’d you know to ask about it?”
I took out the newspaper.
He watched me unfold it.
“Jerry.”
“Three rings on his right hand in the picture. Two when we saw him.”
“Where’d you get that paper?”
“End table.”
“In my crime scene.”
“Yea.”
He leaned back.
“I let you walk around up there because I know you.”
“I know.”
“You sure about that?”
I left the paper on his desk.
He looked at the photograph, then the sketch.
“Who made it?”
“Heller. On Mercer. Kirby sent me to him.”
“And Heller says this key opens Musgrove’s safe?”
“No. Says he made the ring around a key Musgrove brought him. Never saw the lock.”
“So it could open something else.”
“Could.”
Pembroke rubbed a hand over his face.
I let him look at the drawing.
“You find a gun?” I asked.
“On Musgrove?”
“On him. Near him. Anywhere he could’ve reached.”
“No.”
“Nothing in his jacket?”
“No gun. Why?”
I looked at the coffee on his desk.
“Your girl remembering things now?” he asked.
“Some.”
“How convenient.”
“She says there was another man upstairs.”
Pembroke stopped looking at the sketch.
“She tell you that before or after you hid her?”
“After.”
“Where is she?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“I didn’t ask how she was.”
“I’ll bring her in.”
“When?”
“I need to talk to her first.”
“No. You’ve talked to her. Now I need to.”
He stood and went to the door. Opened it.
“Coffee,” he called.
Then he shut it again and turned back to me.
“Last night, I asked you to come see me because I wanted to give you a chance to bring her in yourself. Before somebody finds her and drags her through the lobby downstairs.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Then start acting like it.”
He sat.
“Who was the other man?”
I looked at him for a moment.
“Her husband. Clark LeClaire.”
Pembroke put down his pen.
“LeClaire’s dead.”
“That’s what she thought.”
“There was a fire.”
“Two years ago.”
He watched me.
“She says she saw him?”
“Says she watched him shoot Musgrove.”
Neither of us said anything for a while.
Somewhere outside, the drunk started asking about his shoe again.
“There’s another name I want you to check,” I said. “Daniel Price. Pianist. Somebody killed him shortly before the fire.”
“What’s he got to do with this?”
“He worked with Evelyn. She mentioned the two deaths together.”
“That doesn’t connect them.”
“No. But one of them didn’t happen. I’d like to know about the other.”
Pembroke went to the door and called the young cop back. Asked him to find the Price file and the report on LeClaire’s fire.
He sat down and pulled a clean sheet of paper towards him.
“Tell me.”
So I did.
The arguing. The room already torn apart. Musgrove saying he’d tell her something Clark wouldn’t. The hand going inside the jacket.
One shot.
Clark taking the ring, then reaching inside Musgrove’s coat. Both of them leaving by the service stairs.
Pembroke wrote most of it down.
“What did he take out of the coat?”
“She couldn’t see.”
“Could’ve been a gun.”
“Could’ve.”
“And she never actually saw Musgrove holding one.”
“No.”
“But LeClaire told her he saved her.”
“Yea.”
Pembroke looked up.
“You believe her?”
“I believe she thinks he did.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“It’s the answer I’ve got.”
There was a knock. The young cop brought in another cup of coffee and set it in front of Pembroke.
I looked at him.
“Just the one?”
Pembroke waited until the door closed.
“Where’s LeClaire now?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“That what she says?”
“That’s what she says.”
“And the dead man in the fire?”
“I haven’t got that far.”
He put his pen down.
“You’ve got a woman admitting she lied to you, naming a dead man as the shooter, and you’re bringing me a picture of a ring.”
I leaned forward.
“He took something that opens a lock. He left six other rings on Musgrove’s hands.”
“If her story’s true.”
“If it’s true.”
I tapped Heller’s drawing.
“And you’ve got a safe upstairs nobody’s opened.”
Pembroke looked at it.
“When’s that happening?” I asked.
“Locksmith’s meeting us at eleven.”
I checked the clock.
“What?”
“If Clark wanted what’s inside, he might come back.”
“There’s a man outside the penthouse.”
“Good.”
“You think he’s going to walk past a uniform?”
“I think he might get worried when he finds out you’re opening it.”
Pembroke considered that.
Then he picked up the telephone.
“Get me the Tops.”
I sat back while he waited.
When somebody answered, he asked for the officer on the penthouse floor. Told him nobody went inside without his say-so. Hotel staff included.
He hung up.
“Evelyn comes in today.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“You’ll bring her. She tells me what you just told me, herself.”
“Alright.”
“And if she hears from LeClaire, I hear about it.”
“I’ll make sure she knows.”
He gathered the sketch and newspaper.
“Those stay with me.”
“Figured they might.”
He put them in a folder and reached for his jacket.
The young cop came back with two old files. Pembroke opened the thinner one, found a page, and laid it beside the other.
“Price was found dead in his rooms. LeClaire was down to be questioned.”
“Did they get to him?”
“No. The fire came first.”
He showed me the dates. Less than a week between them.
“I’ll have these gone through,” he said.
He copied the dates onto his sheet, folded it, and put it in his jacket.
I stood.
“You coming?” he asked.
“To the hotel?”
“No, Jerry. Dancing.”
I opened the door for him.
On the bench, the drunk had found his shoe. He was trying to get it onto the wrong foot.
Pembroke kept walking.
I followed him out.