Guardian of Lies

FOUR

At this moment Katia had but a single thought as she looked at Emerson across the green felt inlay of his desk. It was strewn with more than two dozen gold coins of different sizes and shapes. Some of them were clearly hammered and stamped by hand. There were gold escudos from the old Inca mines of Peru and double eagles from the SS Central America that had sunk off the East Coast of the U.S. in 1857. They glinted in the muted light of the large study.

In the morning he would go a few miles away to La Jolla to see his client. He would take Katia with him and make her sit in the car and wait. He had done this before. If she was lucky he might give her a few dollars and tell her to go shopping. But the cash he gave her was never enough to go far.

He had already loaded most of the coins he would take tomorrow into a small sample case on the floor near the desk. They were valuable just for their gold content. They were worth much more to collectors. She had heard Emerson talk about this. Other coins encased in two plastic sheets lay scattered, off to the side of the desk, near the phone and the needle-sharp letter opener that some might have mistaken for a replica of a Byzantine dagger. Katia knew better, because he had told her. The dagger was real, fashioned from the finest Damascus steel and dating to the fall of Constantinople in the fifteenth century. Emerson Pike had paid more than forty thousand dollars for the piece at a Christie’s auction three years ago. This was supposed to mean something to her, but it didn’t, other than the fact that Emerson Pike had more money than he could use.

“I’m sorry I was so angry,” she said. “I don’t know why. I think I am just tired.”

With the very suggestion he yawned. “Of course you are. Listen, I’m going to take a shower, try to wake myself up so that I can finish up here. Then I’m going to come to bed. Why don’t you go on ahead of me? I’ll be there in just a few minutes.”

He put his hands on Katia’s shoulders once more. This time she did not pull away. Now was not the time to provoke him. Let him continue to believe.

He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, called her “sweetie.”

She hated it when he called her that. It reminded her of Tweety, the stupid yellow bird in a cage in the cartoons. Still she gave him a smile, the full twinkle job. Two could play this game.

“You’re right,” she said. “I am tired. But first I want to get a glass of milk. Do you want anything more?”

“After that meal? You have to be kidding. I’m stuffed. Why, I’m falling asleep. But it was delicious. Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re not a good cook,” said Emerson.

“I won’t.”

He yawned once more, stood there, and smiled at her.

She could tell by the satisfied look on his face that Emerson believed she was back in the fold, at least for now. He would be fondling his ego in the shower, having won another battle. Emerson thought that at least there would be no need for separate bedrooms and the locked doors that could follow.

Katia turned and headed out of the study, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor until she reached the plush carpet of the hallway outside. Emerson followed her. Katia turned toward the top of the stairs that descended to the first floor. Emerson headed the other way, toward the master bedroom and the shower. “See you in a few minutes, sweetie.”

“Yes.” She could tell that the jaunty bounce was gone from his stride. Still, Katia was afraid that with the coffee and the shower Emerson would revive himself. It would be a long, uncertain night wondering if he was asleep, afraid each time she moved that he would wake. And by then the coins on his desk might be locked away.

She took two steps down the stairs, then suddenly stopped and turned. She waited as she watched Emerson disappear down the long hallway and into the master bedroom.

For a few seconds Liquida stood over the maid’s body, ten feet from the foot of the stairs. Straddling her, he carefully avoided the spreading pool of blood as he studied the situation. It presented complications, but nothing insurmountable, matters of adjustment to the original plan, little details. Still, they were important if the authorities were to believe what he wanted them to. He worked it out quickly in his head.

Then he heard footsteps coming from upstairs, a woman’s heels on wood and then silence. Only at the last second did he realize she had traversed from the wood to a carpeted surface and was still moving this way and at speed. She was above him, directly behind him in the hallway at the top of the stairs.

He slipped toward the shadows of the dining room, away from the foot of the stairs, and watched. If she saw the maid’s body before he could get to her on the stairs, everything would change. If he had to chase her up the stairs with the bloody knife, he could throw the plan out the window. He would have to torch the house, burn it to the ground to cover the physical evidence. If she screamed and the old man grabbed a gun, the coroner might be rolling his body and not theirs out to the hearse in the morning.

She came into view on the landing above, started down two steps, and then suddenly stopped, as if she’d remembered something. The adrenaline pulsed through his veins. He was sure she saw the body. He gripped the knife. In his mind he was already flying up the stairs to take her until he realized-she wasn’t looking this way. Her attention was drawn to something behind her in the hallway upstairs. She stood there for two or three seconds and then, as suddenly as she’d appeared, she was gone, back up the steps and down the hall.

He waited almost twenty seconds, certain that whatever fleeting distraction caught her attention would soon be dealt with and that she would be likely to return. But she didn’t.

He listened intently. There was nothing but silence. Then he heard the sound of running water drumming on a hard surface somewhere toward the back of the house, a bathtub or a shower. Maybe they were settling in for the night. That would make it much easier.

He retreated silently back down the hall, toward the kitchen. He was dripping blood from the knife on the hall carpet, but it didn’t matter. As long as he didn’t step in it on the way back and track it upstairs everything would be fine.

Katia paused on the stairs, then turned around, headed back up, and entered one of the guest rooms along the hall. Working in the dark, she fished under the bed for the overnight bag, the one with her passport and visa. She ditched her heels, dropped them into the bag, changed her dress for a pair of hip-huggers and a blouse, and then put on a pair of running shoes and a jacket. It broke her heart to leave behind all of the clothes and some of the other things Emerson had bought for her, but there was no way to carry all of it. As it was, the small overnight bag was full.

By the time she was finished, the water from Emerson’s shower had been running full bore for almost five minutes. Without a sound, she crept into the master bedroom. She had carefully thought it all through. This had to be her first stop. He had gone to the ATM that afternoon. She had watched him count the bills before he put them away in his hip pocket. He had left his pants on the bed. She pulled his wallet from the back pocket and quickly counted the cash, two hundred and sixty dollars in twenties along with a few smaller bills. She breathed a sigh of relief. She knew from her search on the Internet that this would be enough, at least for the first part of her journey. She took it all and tossed the empty wallet back onto the bed.

She grabbed Emerson’s cell phone from his belt and, with the overnight bag over her shoulder, headed back down the hall, this time almost at a run. She ducked into the study and went directly to his desk. There she scooped into her bag every loose coin she could reach from the top of the desk. She took both of the plastic sheets with coins and stuffed them into the bag as well.

Then she grabbed a piece of paper, one of Emerson’s embossed letterhead. Her eyes scoured the top of the desk for a pen but there wasn’t one. Typical of Emerson, he had every trinket and toy imaginable on his antique desk except something to write with. She fished in her purse and found a pen and scrawled a quick note in Spanish. She knew that he would be able to read it. Whether he would comply was doubtful.

I am going back home to Costa Rica. I took some coins but only for airfare. Please do not try to follow me. I do not want to see you again. If you come near me, I will call the police.

She signed it with a large letter “K,” dropped the pen on top of the paper, and then grabbed the letter opener, the Byzantine dagger, off the desk and laid it across the top of the note as a paperweight.

He looked at the window over the sink, then checked his watch. He had no choice. He had to move and move quickly. He could not stay below the level of the windows and complete what he had to do. The way he was clad would cause anyone outside who happened to be looking to take immediate notice. He reached around the corner of the door and flipped off the lights in the kitchen. He quickly stepped up to the sink, washed the blood from the knife carefully, making sure that he got it all. Then without taking it off he rinsed the blood from the neoprene diving glove on his right hand as well as from the suit covering his forearm. The instant he was done he stepped away from the windows and back into the hall. He used a small dish towel to dry the gloves, the surface of the suit, and then the knife.

He started down the hall, headed for the unfinished business upstairs.

Zipping up the overnight bag, Katia ran out of the study and back down the long hallway toward the master bedroom and the back of the house. As she passed the door to the master bedroom, she realized suddenly that Emerson had turned off the water in the shower. He would be coming out any second.

She dashed toward the end of the hall, toward the door that led to the back stairs and to the garage below. There was only one more thing she needed. She held the door behind her so that it closed with a gentle click. Then she moved down the steps as quickly and silently as the rubber-soled tennis shoes would carry her.

Emerson would be donning his robe, running a brush through his hair and heading back into the bedroom any moment. Katia knew the routine. She had maybe two minutes, if that. By now she knew every move she had to make. She had thought it out carefully. This was her last chance.