One thing I did get out of the file cabinet: Philip C. Muncon was her therapist, all right. Had been for close to ten years. There was a thick file with his name on the tab — bills and cancelled checks dating back to the early eighties. That seemed a hell of a long time to be consulting one particular psychologist, but some people become dependent to the point of necessity — patients and doctors both. Muncon had been at the same address on Sacramento Street the entire ten years, which was a point in favor of his reputability. I copied the address and his phone number into my notebook.
Half-hidden by the answering machine was a Rolodex. I sat down in Nedra’s leather chair and thumbed through it. Lots of names and addresses, but nearly all of them appeared to be business-related. There were no cards for Victor Runyon or Dean Purchase or Lawrence April or Glen Grigsby or Walter Merchant; lovers past and present either weren’t acknowledged this way or were erased completely from her life after they stopped being a part of it. Under L was one marked Aunt Louise, no last name, with an address in Lubbock, Texas, and a telephone number. Only one other card bore a female name: Annette Olroyd, with a local phone but no address. The information for both Aunt Louise and Annette Olroyd also went into my notebook.
Now the answering machine tapes. I rewound and played back the one that was already in the machine. Only two messages, both from prospective clients. Neither of the filled tapes was marked; I picked one and put it in to play. It was the older, dating back to early May. Clients who grew progressively angrier at not hearing from her; a charity solicitation; a soft and somewhat jittery female voice that identified itself as Annette; a husky male voice that said he was Philip Muncon and wanted to know if everything was all right, since she’d missed her appointment and it wasn’t like her not to call. More business messages, the first dun call from a credit card company, another call from Annette — Annette Olroyd, I presumed — and a second from Dr. Muncon, both expressing concern because Nedra hadn’t gotten in touch with them. End of tape.
I switched it for the second full one. Philip Muncon had telephoned a third time, urging Nedra to call or visit him as soon as possible because he was “quite worried” about her. But that was the last message from him, left in early June; I knew the approximate date because a client who rang up afterward gave the date of his call as June 13th. Why nothing more from Muncon? And why no further messages from Annette Olroyd? Had Nedra contacted one or both of them, offered an explanation that put their minds at ease?
The last half of the tape had some interesting messages. Two were from Walter Merchant, who had told me about calling his ex-wife. Both were straightforward, businesslike, and didn’t say much other than that he’d appreciate hearing from her. Then—
“Hello, Nedra. You know who this is, baby?” The man must have assumed she did know, because he didn’t identify himself. He didn’t have to as far as I was concerned; Eddie Cahill’s voice was reasonably distinctive. “I’m back and I’m gonna be around for a long time now. I just wanted you to know I’ll be seeing you. Soon. Real soon. Bye for now.”
Cahill had called again, just how soon afterward I couldn’t tell; but it was the last message on the tape. His tone in the first had been smarmy; his tone in the second had an edge of anger. “I know all about you and Vic the architect. You better get rid of him, sweetheart. And you better not sic that lawyer on me again. I’m warning you on both counts.”
I rewound the tape, replaced it with the mostly blank one, and then got up for another look in the file cabinet. Her attorney’s name was James Keverne; I’d glanced through his file earlier. All the papers had seemed to pertain to her divorce, but I should have paid closer attention: At the rear was a handful of documents that dealt with Edward R. Cahill, including a copy of a restraining order issued by a San Francisco judge two years ago. Evidently Cahill had spent six weeks harassing Nedra Merchant with telephone calls, several of which she’d taped, in which he’d made “overt sexual advances and veiled threats”; and on two occasions he’d accosted her in public before witnesses, the second time “causing her to fall while attempting to flee, the result of this fall being minor injuries requiring medical attention.” Going by what Richard Rodriguez had told me, the restraining order had been issued around the time Cahill was arrested on the unrelated charge of felony assault that sent him to Lompoc.
James Keverne’s name, phone number, and Fremont Street address made a fourth notebook entry. After which I put everything back the way I’d found it and went to sift through the rest of the downstairs rooms.
I came up empty-handed there. But there was no disappointment in that. The leads I’d turned up in Nedra’s office had already exceeded my expectations.
Illustrative Image Designs, INC. was housed in a two-story brick building above a printing company on Third and Harrison. You went up two flights of stairs from the street and down a short hallway, to where two doors faced each other like a couple of old adversaries. A pair of converted lofts, I thought. The front one, facing Third, belonged to a combination art school and gallery that specialized in something called post-1900 Russian constructivism. The door to the back loft bore the name of Nedra Merchant’s company and yielded to the key I’d taken from her desk.
Nobody had been here in a long time. It smelled of dust and disuse, like a closed-up attic room; dust coated the furnishings, swam in wedges of sunlight that penetrated through a pair of mesh-screened skylights. She’d set the loft up to serve as a show-place as well as an office and workroom. Posters, two- and four-page brochures, magazine covers, and design layouts papered the walls, and there was a big artist’s file with long, flat drawers that contained a great many more samples of her handiwork. Also present were a computer, several drawing boards, a table loaded down with pens and brushes and paints and other tools of her trade. A cabinet held all of her business records: invoices, correspondence, preliminary plans and sketches for various projects. There wasn’t a whisper of her personal life in any of it. Nor in any other part of the loft. This place was strictly for business. And if there was any connection between Illustrative Image Designs and her disappearance, I couldn’t find it.
I locked up again and went over to the art school and gallery, where a young guy wearing a bushy beard and a ponytail gave me a big rush until he found out I wasn’t interested in buying post-1900 Russian constructivism or in taking lessons in how to create it. Then he lost interest. My questions about Nedra Merchant — I used the insurance background check dodge to explain myself — didn’t revive it much.
“I hardly know the woman,” he said with a faint, arrogant sneer. “We say hello when we run into each other, that’s all. We have little in common. I’m an artist and she... well, she’s very successful, I’m sure, with her commercial pap for the indiscriminate eye.”
Whereas his discriminate eye had not even noticed that she’d been absent and her office closed up tight for nearly four months. Real artists are so sensitive, so in touch with the world around them. Yes they are.