The Sentry - By Robert Crais Page 0,27

dump goat heads and blood in the man’s shop might not stop with vandalism. He put away his cell.

“You know where they live?”

Betsy Harmon brightened for the first time that morning.

“Yes, I do. They’re only a few blocks away.”

She had once helped Wilson and Dru bring home perishable food when the shop’s refrigerator failed. She didn’t remember the street address, but gave Pike directions and described a house on the Venice Canals. She also gave him the cell phone number she had for Wilson Smith.

When Pike turned to his Jeep, Betsy Harmon called after him.

“I saw you.”

Pike glanced back, and saw her smiling.

“You and Dru. I saw you kissing yesterday. She looked very happy.”

Pike nodded once, such a small nod she might not have seen, then climbed into his Jeep. Dru would have called. He didn’t understand why Dru hadn’t called.

11

The Venice Canals were the dream of a man named Abbot Kinney, a tobacco millionaire from back East who developed the area as a beachside resort. The canals were originally dug to drain marshy land, but Kinney reasoned that one Venice was as good as another, so he decided to re-create Venice, Italy, complete with gondola rides. Sixteen miles of canals were dug, but over time they were filled or shortened. The remaining six were laid out in a perfect square with four canals running side by side and the fifth and sixth canals laid across their tops and bottoms, cutting the land between the canals into three identical, rectangular islands. What began as an amusement park became weekend getaway housing in 1905 that eventually devolved into run-down bungalows on tiny lots in the fifties and sixties occupied by hippies, beachside denizens, and artists. But proximity to the beach and rising property values eventually elevated the area, and the shabby bungalows were replaced by expensive homes.

Pike followed Betsy Harmon’s directions into the grid of narrow alleys that lined the canals. He crossed an even more narrow arched bridge, then turned onto an alley lined by houses. According to Betsy Harmon, Wilson and Dru lived in the third house from the end on the left side, a redwood home hidden behind an ivy-covered fence. Pike found the house easily, and parked.

The lots along the canals were small, so the houses all had two or three stories and were built shoulder-to-shoulder out to the street, with their front yards facing the canals and their garages flush on the alleys. A carport was carved into Wilson’s house next to a wood gate, but the house and its entrance were hidden by the fence. The carport was empty. Pike was surprised by the house. This was an expensive address.

Pike went to the gate, but found it locked. He pressed a buzzer. A chime sounded inside the house, but no one answered. As he pushed the buzzer again, he noticed a thin young man with straggly black hair watching him from a second-story window at the house next door. The watcher turned away when Pike saw him.

Pike still got no answer, so he went into the carport and banged on the wall. If Wilson and Dru were going to leave, one of them might be inside packing while the other was shopping for last-minute necessities. Hence the missing car.

Pike pounded hard on the wall three times, got no response, and was pounding again when a woman came out of the house next door and called out to him.

“Excuse me!”

She was in her mid-forties with leathery skin, tight jeans, and a tighter T-shirt that highlighted her breasts. She had large breasts, and wanted them seen.

“Are you trying to knock down that house? I can hear you all the way over here.”

“Is this Wilson Smith’s house?”

“Hardly. They’re house-sitting. The owner is in London. He goes there a lot.”

She rubbed her thumb and fingers together.

“Made a load in television.”

This explained how they could live at such an expensive address. House-sitting.

“But Wilson and Dru live here now?”

“That’s right. Is something the matter?”

“There’s been some damage to his place of business. I need to speak with him about it.”

The woman came out into the alley far enough to peer into the empty carport.

“Well, their car isn’t here, so I don’t know what to tell you. I’ll let them know if I see them.”

The thin man came to the door. Close up, he looked like a teenager. He was eating a banana, and squinted as if the sun was overly bright. Pike read them for mother and son.

“S’up?”

“He’s looking for Wilson.”

He