The Dark Room(28)

“But they’re selling one online.”

“Used,” Chun said. “When they’re new, dresses like that, you get them made for you. So it’s not like you’re looking for a department store clerk who remembers taking the girl to a fitting room with a couple different sizes to try on.”

“Who am I looking for?” Grassley asked.

“I don’t know—there’d have been people who measured her for it. They might’ve sat down with her a couple times to look at fabrics, to go through style books. If she was a regular customer, they might’ve come out to her. Otherwise, she probably did it in Paris.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Vogue.”

Grassley looked at Cain.

“Maybe she should take the dress and I should canvas Berkeley.”

“I like it the way we have it,” Cain said.

He’d already decided that Angela Chun would do a better job in Berkeley, which was the more sensitive task. But he didn’t want to explain that to either of them.

“What’ll you be doing?” Grassley asked.

“What Dr. Levy said I should do—find some of the old guys and talk to them.”

“That’s why you wanted to meet here.”

Cain nodded. Even if there weren’t retired cops drinking in the bar, there’d be a few guys close enough to pulling the pin that they’d remember the ones Cain really wanted to see. All he needed was a name, and he could take it from there. He turned when he heard a swirl of noise from the kitchen. The waitress backed through the swinging door, pushing it open with her shoulders. She crossed to their booth and set down three plates.

“You’re Inspector Cain?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“And you’re parked outside, on Fillmore?”

“Is there a problem?”

“Somebody called the kitchen just now. They left a note on your windshield. They said you had to go get it right now, before someone comes along and takes it.”

“They?” Cain asked.

“He—it’s loud back there, and it was loud wherever he was. But it was a man.”

Cain looked at Grassley.

“Follow her to the kitchen and see if you can get the number.” He slid out of his seat and looked down at Chun. “Inspector, you come with me.”



At a run, they reached his car in less than a minute. The manila envelope was tucked under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side. The glass was beaded from an earlier rain, but the envelope was still dry.

“Hold up,” Cain said. “Let’s do this the right way.”

He used his key fob to pop the trunk, then unzipped his crime scene bag and put on a pair of latex gloves. He handed a plastic evidence bag to Chun. Then they went back to the front of the car and Cain slipped the envelope from beneath the arm of the windshield wiper.

“More photos?” Chun asked.

“It’s too light.”

The flap was held closed with a piece of red thread wrapped in a figure-eight around a pair of thin plastic buttons. He unwound it, then eased the envelope open and looked inside. There was just a single sheet of thin typewriter paper, folded in half. Cain took it out and opened it, holding it so Inspector Chun could read alongside him. In his pocket, his phone began to vibrate, but he ignored it.



Cain:





If he hasn’t called you already, then he’s hiding them. And if he’s hiding them, he must not like what he sees. Ask him what he did to her.





Maybe you should ask yourself some questions too. Like, why even look for me? He’s the one that did it; I’m just reminding him.





—A FRIEND





Cain turned the page over, but the back was blank. He tilted the open envelope up to the streetlight and looked inside again.

“Empty?” Chun asked.

He nodded, then put the note and envelope into Chun’s evidence bag. Now he pulled out his phone, checked the missed call, and tapped Grassley’s name to call him back.

“Buddy,” he said. “What’d you find?”

“The phone didn’t have caller ID, so I star-sixty-nined it and got the number.”

“Okay.”

“It’s a pay phone, in the Elite Café.”

Cain turned around, then stepped into the street. One block down, on the other side of the intersection with California, the Elite’s neon-traced sign flickered through the canopies of the Chinese banyans that lined this section of Fillmore.

“The waitress,” Cain said. He was scanning the sidewalks on both sides of the street. There were a lot of shadows here, the streetlights no match for the trees. “She’s sure it was a man?”

“She’s sure.”

“She took the call, not someone else?”

“It was her. Then she got our plates and came out,” Grassley said. “This is three minutes ago—max.”

“Thanks, Grassley.” He hung up and turned to Chun, then pointed at the café’s sign. “The guy called from up there.”

“The Elite?”

Cain nodded.

“Let’s go—watch this side of the street and I’ll take the other.”