"Then why did you do it?"
"There's always that chance. Better to be the butt of a joke than miss something. We dug down seven feet to the metal pipe, then cut through the metal with an acetylene torch, kept the flame small as we could.
"Broke down into the pipe two feet above the skeleton of a dead cat."
Clyde wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"The cat had a collar around its neck with Janet Jeannot's name on it." Harper was very still, looking at Clyde. "Kendrick Mahl's watch was buckled to the collar."
Clyde shook his head, did his best to look amazed. He'd had to listen half the night to Joe bragging about the damned watch, and about the paintings.
"We photographed the watch and got it and the skeleton to the lab. Lab found Mahl's prints on the watch, underneath Janet's prints.
"We have photographs of Mahl wearing the watch a week before Janet was killed. And a shot of him the night of the museum opening wearing a different watch, a new Rolex.
"We found the store where he bought the Rolex, a place on the other side of San Francisco from the St. Francis, little hole in the wall. They sold it the day of the opening. The customer fit Mahl's description. He paid cash." Harper grew still as the waiter brought another round of beers, the round little man moving quietly, leaving quickly.
"After we arrested Mahl we searched his apartment. Found the bolt cutters he used to cut the lock off at the storage complex. Found the keys to Janet's studio and to her van, under the liner of his overnight bag. And he had a set of keys to Rob's Suburban. The way we see Mahl's moves, he had already brought the substitute paintings down to Molena Point, sometime before that weekend, and put them in the locker. On Saturday he checks into the St. Francis and puts his car in the underground parking.
"Saturday night he uses his parking ticket to take out Janet's van-he knew she was out to dinner with friends, probably had a good idea she'd make an early evening of it. He drives down to the village, gets the fake paintings, switches them for Janet's, rigs Janet's oxygen tank, and drops some aspirin in her coffeemaker. Stashes her paintings in the locker and hightails it back to the city before daylight.
"He puts Janet's van back in the parking garage, uses that entry ticket later to retrieve his own car. He'd have had to put the van back in the same slot. Probably he pulled his own car into her slot, to reserve it while he was gone. Counted on Janet's not coming down at some late hour; he knew she didn't like to party.
"Who knows when he missed his watch? We're guessing he didn't miss it until he was back in the city, and then it was too late to turn around and go back. He had to be seen at the St. Francis for breakfast, be seen around town that weekend, and, of course, at the opening Sunday night.
"But when he gets back to Molena Point after the opening late Sunday night he takes Rob's Suburban while Rob's asleep, goes to get his watch."
"But he's too late," Clyde said. "Janet's already up in the studio. And no one saw him switch the paintings, no one saw him around the locker?"
"Caretaker says there were two men nosing around outside the fence a couple of nights earlier. He didn't see them clearly, didn't see their car." Harper opened his menu, looked it over. "There were some pieces of sculpture in the locker with the paintings, probably he'd put them in some time before. Early work that, Sicily said, Janet hadn't liked much, that she'd left behind when she split from Mahl and moved out. Maybe Mahl thought they'd be worth something now."
He closed the menu. "Think I'll have the filet and fries."
Clyde grinned. This was Max's standard order, filet medium rare, fries crisp, no salad. "It's a weird story, Max. Don't know what to make of it."
Max shaped the wet label more carefully, its front paws tucked under, its long tail curved. "Informant sees a watch where it's impossible to see it. Night watchman hears voices, but no one there. Call comes over a unit radio, and no trace of the caller.
"But we've got a positive ID of the handwriting on the locker file card and lifted a nice set of Mahl's prints from it."
"Then you've wrapped up the case," Clyde said. "Mahl's in jail. You have solid evidence. And you told me Marritt is off the case and in a bad light with the mayor."
"You bet he is."
"And a new trial pending. Sounds like you're in good shape."
"That watchman can't have heard voices."
"So if no one was there, was the old man lying?"
"One theory is, he was nosing around the lockers for his own purposes, maybe stealing. That when he looked over the wall into K20-or maybe picked the lock to K20-he realized the paintings were Janet's and knew he'd better report it to avoid trouble, so he dreamed up the voices routine.
"Good theory."
"But I don't buy it. I've known old Mr. Lent for years. That old man wouldn't steal if he was starving. And he was really upset by what he thought was a break-in.
"And there's the vent," Harper said. "Vent screen above those lockers was torn."
"A vent screen?"
"Vent about four inches by eight inches."
"So what does that mean? He hears voices through the vent and thinks they're in a locker?" Clyde thought he was getting good at this, at playing dumb-it was little different than lying. Though he didn't much like that skill in himself.
"First thing the watchman heard was a thud, when he was making his rounds. Said it sounded as if something heavy fell. He'd gone around to where he heard it, was standing beneath the vent listening, when he heard the voices, couldn't quite make out what they were saying. A man and a woman, he said, talking real soft."
Harper frowned. "That vent-Lent says the screen wasn't torn when he inspected the buildings earlier that day. Said he always looks along the roofline under the eaves, checking for any signs of leaks."
He settled back sipping a fresh O'Doul's, watching Clyde. "There were hairs clinging to the torn screen. Dark gray hairs, very short. And some white hairs and some pale orange."
"Whose hair was it?"
"It was cat hair."
"Cat hair? I thought you were going to say you had a make on someone besides Mahl. Why would a cat go into a storage locker? Mice? Remind me not to store anything up there. And how could a cat-how high was the vent?"
The waiter brought their napkins and silverware, and the condiments, and a complimentary bowl of french friend onions, and took their order. When he had gone, the two men sat quietly, looking at each other.
Max said, "Millie told me once, a couple of years before she died, 'Don't fool around with the far-out stuff, Max. It can put you right around the bend.'"
Max's wife Millie had been a special investigator. She had spent much of her time checking out odd reports, saucer sightings, nutcases, relatives returned from the dead. Once in a while she'd get one that wouldn't add up, that didn't seem to be a nutcase, and that upset her.
"That stuff she worked on, it always did give me the creeps."
A police officer's training made it hard to deal with the unexplainable. Cops were trained to remember every fact, see and remember every small detail, trained to smell a scam a mile away. A cop was totally fact-oriented, a good officer didn't go for the crazy stuff. So when the facts added up to the impossible, that could really be upsetting.
Harper wiped beer rings from the table with a paper napkin, wiped away the misshapen O'Doul's label from the oak surface. "Now I know how she felt. How easy it could be, given certain circumstances, to wander right over the edge."