25

Moreno's Bar and Grill was a small, secluded establishment tucked along one of the village's less decorative alleys, a narrow lane two blocks above the beach. The carved oak door was softly lit by a pair of stained-glass lanterns, the interior carpet was thick, plain, expensive. The music was nonthreatening, tasteful, and soft. A patron entering Moreno's felt the stress of the day begin to ease, could feel himself begin to slow, to relax, to recall with deeper appreciation the small and overlooked details of an otherwise unpleasant afternoon. Moreno's offered fine beers and ale on draft and a deep emotional restorative to soften the rough edges of life.

The interior of Moreno's was comfortably dim, the walls, paneled in golden oak, were hung with an assortment of etchings and reproductions highlighting the history of California, scenes dating from the time of the first Spanish settlements through the gold rush days. Max Harper sat alone in a booth at the back, sinking comfortably into the soft, quilted leather.

He was not in uniform but dressed in worn Levi's, plain Western boots, and a dull-colored Western shirt. The old, unpretentious clothes seemed to belong perfectly to Harper's long, lean frame and dry, weathered face. He smelled of clean, well-kept horses; he had spent a leisurely afternoon riding through the Molena Valley, giving both himself and his buckskin gelding some much needed exercise. He tried to ride twice a week, but that wasn't always possible. He was smoking his third cigarette and sipping a nonalcoholic O'Doul's when Clyde swung in through the carved front doors, stopped to speak to the bartender, then made his way to the back As he slid into the booth the waiter appeared behind him, carrying two menus and a Killian's Red draft.

Harper was not in a hurry to order. He accepted a menu and waved the waiter away with a brief jerk of his head. He had chosen the most secluded booth, and at this early hour there were only five other customers in Moreno's, three at the bar and a couple of tourists in a booth at the other end of the room. The dinner crowd would be moderate; the bar would begin to fill up around eight.

Clyde sat waiting, fingering his beer mug, watching Max. Despite the bar's soothing atmosphere, the police chief was wound tight, the lines which webbed his face drawn into a half scowl. His shoulders looked tight, and he kept fidgeting with his cigarette.

Harper eased deeper into the booth, glanced around the nearly empty room out of habit. Normally he wouldn't share this particular kind of unease with Clyde or with anyone. He sure wouldn't share this specific distress with another cop. He would have told Millie; they had shared everything. Two cops under one roof lived on shop talk, on angry complaints and on a crude humor geared to emotional survival. But Millie was dead. He didn't talk easily to anyone else.

He had told Clyde earlier in the day about finding Janet's paintings in the storage locker up near Highway One. Now he studied Clyde, trying to sort out several nagging thoughts. "I didn't tell you how we knew the paintings were in the locker."

Clyde settled back, sipping his beer. "Isn't there a watchman? Did he find them?"

"Watchman made the first call, asking for a patrol car. He'd heard a noise in one of the lockers, like something heavy fell.

"But it was after the two units arrived, that the second call came in, about the paintings. That call was made from a unit radio."

Clyde looked puzzled, sipped his beer.

Harper watched him with interest. "Caller told the dispatcher that there were some paintings I ought to see, that they had to do with Janet's murder. Said I might like to go on over there, take a look for myself. Said the evidence was crucial, that the locker had been rented by Kendrick Mahl."

He stubbed out his cigarette. "An anonymous call, from a unit radio. There is no way to identify which car the call was made from, dispatcher has no way to tell. I've been over this with every man on duty that night."

He fiddled with his half-empty cigarette pack, tearing off the cellophane. "No one in the department will admit to making the call, and no one left his unit unattended except my men up at the locker, and they were right there, not ten feet away, with the big locker door wide-open. Anyone moved out in the alley, they would have seen him."

"Sounds like one of your men is lying, that one of your own had to have made the call. Unless there's some sophisticated electronic tap on the police line?"

"Not likely, in a case like this. What would be the purpose?"

"Could the caretaker have slipped out to the squad cars, and lied about it? But why?"

"The caretaker didn't make the call. Only time he left my officers was when he went to get a ladder, and I told you, they were watching their cars." He crumpled the cellophane, dropped it in the ashtray. "After we impounded the paintings we searched the locker complex. Found no one, nothing disturbed."

He shook his head. "I trust my people; I don't believe there's one of them would lie to me. Except Marritt, and he's accounted for. And those paintings have blown Marritt's investigation, so why would he make the call?"

"Well," Clyde said, "whoever made the call did the department a good turn. And the paintings are safe in the locker?"

"We put new padlocks on the two doors and the gate, cordoned off that part of the complex, and left an officer on duty. It will leave us short, but we'll keep a guard there until the guard Sicily hired comes on duty, and until the canvases can be moved. Forty-six of Janet's paintings, worth…"

"Well over a million," Clyde said. "But weren't painting fragments found in the fire?"

"Lots of fragments-all with thumbtacks in the stretcher bars. We know, now, that Janet used staples. That's the kind of investigation we got out of Marritt. He had no clue that Mahl substituted some other artist's work. Sicily suggested Mahl might have used students' paintings, bought them cheap at art school sales."

"But wouldn't Mahl have known about the thumbtacks? He knew Janet's work too well to… "

Harper smiled. "When Janet and Mahl were married, Janet stretched her canvases with thumbtacks. It wasn't until after she left him, when her thumbs began to bother her from pressing in the tacks, that she started stapling her canvases." He fingered his menu, then laid it down. "But there's something else."

Clyde waited, trying to look relaxed, not to telegraph a twinge of unease.

"I told you we found Mahl's watch, and that it could be conclusive evidence," Harper said.

"That was when you said we needed to talk. I thought… What about the watch?"

Harper turned his O'Doul's bottle, making rings on the table. "The prosecuting attorney examined the new evidence this morning. Took a look at the paintings and talked to Sicily about them. Mahl's prints aren't on them, surely he used gloves. We sent his watch to the lab, and we've had two men searching out photographs of Mahl that show the watch."

Harper peeled the wet label from his beer bottle. "Late this afternoon, Judge Wesley dismissed charges against Lake." He spread the label on the table, smoothing it. "And it looks like we might get a confession from Mahl. He's lost some of his arrogance; he doesn't like being behind bars, and he's nervous. Shaky. If he does confess," Max said, "it'll be thanks to our informant."

Clyde kept his hands still, tried to keep his face bland.

"It's the informant that troubles me," Harper said. "We don't get many informants calling in cold, without previous contact. You know it takes time to develop a good snitch, and this woman-I don't know what to make of her."