The Dark Room(84)

“Let’s go to Union Square,” Cain said. “I’ve got an idea.”





31


THEY PARKED IN the garage buried beneath Union Square, then came up to the street level and crossed Stockton. They followed the sidewalk past a narrow brick building, the fa?ade of which carried the zigzag lattice of a fire escape, and then at the next door, they turned in to Britex Fabrics.

Grassley had been on his way here the last time Cain had spoken to him.

The door closed behind them, and they stood looking at bolts of silk and printed fabric stacked on racks and arranged on shelves. The store was deep, and occupied the entire four-story building. Cain thought there might be enough fabric in here to clothe every woman in the city. A salesperson came over. She looked past Cain at Fischer.

“May I help you find something?”

“Ask him,” Fischer said. “He’s the one looking.”

Cain already had out his phone. He gave it to the woman, and she looked at the photograph of Grassley. He was in his SFPD dress uniform, to the left of a U.S. flag. The woman handed the phone back.

“He was my partner,” Cain said. He put the phone in his pocket and then brought out his inspector’s star. “He came in here yesterday.”

“I remember him.”

“Did he talk to you?”

“He asked for the manager. I took him upstairs.”

“Is she up there now?”

“I’ll take you.”

They found the manager on the third floor. She was working with a younger woman to arrange a display of sewing notions.

“Susan?” the saleswoman said. “These officers are here to see you—I think it’s about yesterday.”

The woman stood up and turned around. She had salt-and-pepper hair and an easy smile. She shook Cain’s hand, then Fischer’s, and then took a pair of reading glasses from the pocket of her apron to look at the picture of Grassley.

“He came in yesterday,” she said. “He’d been talking to Martina Delaney, at the Academy of Art, and she sent him here.”

“What did he ask you?” Cain said.

“Is he in trouble? He said he was a policeman, and he showed me his badge.”

“He was my partner,” Cain said. “I talked to him before he came here, but I don’t know why he came.”

“You can’t ask him?”

Cain shook his head, and the woman’s easy smile disappeared.

“He asked me about a girl. He showed me a picture of her—you’ve seen it, I guess. The girl’s in a knockoff Jean Patou dress she made. She’s got her hands up in front of her, and she’s backed against a wall. She looks scared. It was a horrifying picture.”

“What did he ask you?”

“If I’d seen her before.”

“Had you?”

She nodded.

“This was my parents’ store. I’ve worked here for years. I remember her.”

“Do you remember all your customers?” Fischer asked.

“Of course not—that’d be impossible. But I remember her because she looked like Lauren Bacall, and she was very talented—one of the best I’d seen. And she had the loveliest accent.”

“What kind of accent?”

“English.”

“What did you know about her?” Cain asked.

“I didn’t know anything—I thought she was a housewife, or someone’s mistress. Maybe that sounds old fashioned now, but that’s what I thought. She didn’t have a wedding ring, I don’t think. Anyway, she was young, and must not have had anything to do but sew. She came in a lot for a little while—”

“You’re talking about 1985.”

“Somewhere in there—she came in a lot. She made four or five dresses. Some of them were couture copies. Some of them were her own designs. She’d show me sketches, and I’d help her pick out the right fabrics.”

“Did you know her name?”

“If I did, I’ve forgotten it.”

“And you figured she was a rich English girl, one with a lot of time on her hands?”

“I didn’t think she was rich, though your partner asked me the same thing.”

“What made you think she wasn’t wealthy?”

“She paid in cash and didn’t have a credit card. She’d pass up the best fabric and look for the sales. When she picked something for me to cut, she’d get exactly what she needed and not an inch more. No room for mistakes. Rich ladies who sew, they generally make a lot of mistakes.”

“Did you know where she lived, if she had a place in the city?”

“No idea.”

“Did she ever come in with anyone else?”

“Never.”

“What else did my partner ask you?”

“He said I should call him if I remembered anything else. He gave me his card, and I put it in my office.”

Cain took one of his own cards from behind his badge and handed it to her.

“Call this number instead.”



Fischer’s office, on the thirteenth floor of the Burton Building, looked across Golden Gate Avenue into the windows of the state office building. She had a narrow desk that was piled with paper. He didn’t know what kinds of cases she worked, what else she had going on aside from Castelli. He didn’t know if she was married or had a family, but he supposed she must have been alone, because she’d come alone to the safe house. He stood next to the window and looked at the potted jade plant she kept on the sill. She was in the rolling chair behind her desk, turning on her computer.