“Maybe so. So nothing else taken from the house? Just little Max?”

“Besides a woman’s life? No, nothing, as far as we can tell. Oh-I should probably mention, on the night of the party, Katy’s mother gave her some diamonds, a necklace, I guess, a family heirloom of the Vanderveers. No sign of that, either.”

“Where would she have put them?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is there a safe in the house? I just can’t picture her mother giving her diamonds without being sure that she had a secure place to keep them.”

“You know why I like you, Conn? You think of questions most of my fellow detectives don’t think of. Fortunately, I thought of that one. There’s one in the closet.”

“Behind some of the clothes?”

“Right. We got the combination to it from Lillian Linworth herself. She says only she and her daughter knew the combination. Said that Katy had it changed just this week. He smiled. “Mrs. Linworth is something else. Warned me she’d be changing it again.”

“So why are you looking in a safe at a private residence? When Katy comes back…”

“Her mother can tell her she was curious to see if the diamonds were put away before Katy got aboard the yacht. When Mrs. Linworth opened the safe and the diamonds weren’t in there, she said she was sure her daughter did not return to the house after leaving the party-that Katy would have put the diamonds away as soon as she came home.”

“And did she discover anything else in it?”

“Papers. A deed to the only property Katy owned-a place up in Arrowhead that Lillian gave her when she turned eighteen.”

“Ah, yes. That’s where Katy was born. So even if she didn’t own this place, she had that one.”

“There was also a will. Made out on Friday afternoon.”

“A will? On Friday, you say? She spent the day before her twenty-first birthday getting a will made?”

“Interesting, isn’t it? Not many people who are that young think to make wills. And guess who she leaves all her worldly possessions to?”

“Her son-Maxwell.”

“Surprisingly, no. To one Jack Corrigan.”

“Jack?”

“So he never said anything to you about this?”

“No. Not a word. I don’t think he knows about it, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“So why would she leave everything to him? By the way, that’s including, should the need arise, guardianship of her son.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. Only that he’s been something like an uncle to her over the years. She calls him ‘Uncle Jack,’ in fact. She’s fond of him.”

“Nothing romantic?”

“Good God, no.”

“Hey, I gotta ask, right?”

“What did Lillian say?”

“Exactly what you did-he’s Uncle Jack. Seemed shaken up by it, though. I’m actually sorry we allowed Mrs. Linworth to open the safe, because now her daughter’s likely to be a little unhappy with me for letting her snoop through her papers.”

“Nothing less than you deserve,” O’Connor said absently.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Just worrying about the child, and Katy and the others. Wondering what I’ll tell Jack. And-Dan, why wouldn’t they have come back to shore as soon as the weather looked a little rough?”

“I can think of all sorts of reasons. Boats can’t always make it to shore right away for one reason or another. Fog early this morning, remember? They set out at midnight, fog started rolling in around two or so. Then this storm got here faster than the weatherman said it would. Maybe they were closer to the harbor at Avalon than the one here. Mrs. Linworth assures me the Ducanes are excellent sailors, but who can really say how well they know how to handle a new boat or navigate?”

O’Connor said nothing.

“Yeah,” Dan said, “worries me, too. Hell of a night. Why don’t you take me to see Warren Ducane?”

11

D AN NORTON GAVE SOME HURRIED INSTRUCTIONS TO MATT ARDEN AS they passed the barricade. O’Connor waited at the Nash. Much to Norton’s disgust, O’Connor had insisted they take his car.

He watched his mirror, until Norton said, “I’m not having you tailed, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Good. I’ll get us there a little faster, then.”

“Why are you being so mysterious?” Norton groused.

“You’ll be happy about that later.”

“Don’t tell me we’re going to some dame’s place, because I’ve been waking women up all night on account of this guy. The six ex-girlfriends all lost sleep when I came around looking for him.”

“Are you trying to convince me that you minded that? Warren’s only twenty, and I don’t think he’s dated an ugly girl yet.”

Norton laughed. “They were lookers.”

“To be fair, he’s better-looking than five or six of you or me.”

“You wouldn’t look half bad if you didn’t have a habit of finishing every barroom brawl Corrigan starts.”

“I wish I could have ended the fight he was just in.”

Norton sighed. “Me too.”

O’Connor drove up into the hills. When he turned onto a winding private road, Norton said, “Jesus Christ. He’s up at Auburn’s Stand?”

“Last I saw him. And he seemed to be there for the weekend.”

“Last you saw him?”

“I was invited to join the fun this weekend. One of our mutual friends is moving to Paris. Auburn gave him a send-off.”

“Oh, ho! Moving up in the world, are you?”

O’Connor shrugged. “Doubt that accounts for it.”

“Auburn Sheffield,” Dan mused. “Told his old man to go to hell, and built a bigger fortune than any of the rest of the Sheffield clan.”

“Yes. That’s how the place got its name. Auburn took a stand.”

“Quite a bit older than you or Warren, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but Auburn’s friends are a real mix. Some older, some younger, some straight-laced, some rebels. I admire him for that.”

“You consider him a friend?”

O’Connor nodded. “A good man, Auburn.”

“Any reason we shouldn’t have come here in my car?”

“As I say, he’s a friend who invited me to share in his hospitality. I won’t return that kindness by bringing five squad cars-”

“Me? In a squad car? Are you-”

“-led by a flashy T-Bird up the road to his home.”

Dan eyed him narrowly, then suddenly grinned. “But you didn’t call him from Katy Ducane’s house, either, or give him a warning.”

“You’re my friend, too. I wasn’t going to give Warren a chance to slip away. Besides, it might prove to be a little embarrassing for all concerned.”

“What the hell is going on up here, anyway?”

“Just a house party, but one or two of the married men have been friendly with women who don’t look much like their wives.”

“Conn-it’s a homicide investigation. You think I give a damn about some guy putting his noodle into someone else’s soup? You’ve got to be-”

“One of the married guys is the chief of police.”

“Shit,” Dan said. “Stop the car.”

O’Connor obeyed, then said, “Maybe you’d like to hear my plan.”

“Shit,” Dan said again, holding his head in his hands.

“It’ll be my Nash at the gate, not your T-Bird. You stay in the car, I’ll see if Warren is still here, and if so, I’ll try to get him to leave with me. That way, if I’m wrong about where he is, you haven’t ruffled any feathers.”

Norton agreed to it, then said, “Thanks.”

The guard at the gate of Auburn’s Stand stayed in his shelter, opening the gate with the press of a button, and waving O’Connor in without looking closely at his passenger, or objecting to guests arriving at one in the morning.

“Party’s still going on,” O’Connor said. “Although it looks as if it has thinned out a bit.”

“Thinned out?” Norton asked in disbelief, seeing the wide, sweeping concrete drive crowded with cars.

“Oh sure,” O’Connor said, nudging the Nash into a narrow space in a gravel overflow parking area. “If we had come here last night, we would have parked outside the gate.”