Read Online Paper Phoenix: A Mystery of San Francisco in the '70s (A Classic Cozy--with Romance!) by Michaela Thompson - Free Book Online

there if it’s anywhere. I hadn’t checked it out because— well, mainly because I didn’t have myself together enough to do it. Susanna had the only key. She’s been at the
Times
once since Larry died, but I didn’t get it from her then because I wasn’t there. She got hysterical and Betsy had to drive her home.”
    “I remember it well.” I told him about Susanna’s scene and her subsequent apology.
    “Poor Susanna. She hasn’t had an easy time.” He picked up the key, tossed it once, caught it. “What do you say? Do we go take a look?”
    I heard the voice on the telephone:
Stay away from the
People’s Times.
If you don’t, there could be trouble.
“Sure. Lead on.”
    He got up. “I’ll drive, and drop you back here afterward.”
    Folded into his Volkswagen, I shivered. The fog was rolling in, and it would be a damp, chilly night. I felt sad, cut off from everything that had been familiar and comfortable about my life. Other people were at home having a drink, eating dinner, watching the evening news. I was rattling through dark streets in a Volkswagen with an inadequate heating system, caught in a dim and threatening world of suicide, anonymous phone calls, locked cabinets. The glaring light from a gas station briefly illuminated Andrew’s face, and it seemed to me the face of the only friend I’d ever had. My nose was prickling. To keep myself from falling apart, I said, “How do you know Larry kept his private papers in the cabinet, if it was always locked? Maybe he kept drugs in there. Or— or pornography, or something.”
    “The pornography’s in a filing cabinet in the newsroom, and Larry had a strict rule about no drugs on the premises,” Andrew said. “Larry wasn’t much of a doper, and he didn’t want any dope hassles. In that cabinet he kept one of those dark red accordion-pleated folders. I’ve seen him lock it in there plenty of times. My impression was that it contained names, phone numbers, rough drafts, working notes, Xeroxes of documents, and stuff like that. He never left anything lying around.”
    I didn’t reply. A dark red folder stuffed with incriminating documents about Richard.
There could be trouble.
    ***
    The
Times
offices were oppressively quiet. Andrew switched on lights as we entered, and I trailed after him to Larry’s office. Inside, there was a desk with books and papers stacked on either side of a manual typewriter, shelves along one wall. Behind the desk, two large windows. I walked over to them and looked down. No screens. Below, the alley where Larry had died was lost in blackness.
    “Let’s see, now.” Andrew’s voice was subdued. The cabinet was built into the bookshelves, and was closed with a padlock. Andrew’s hands shook as he tried to fit the key into it. “Damnit,” he muttered, wiping his hands on his jeans. He tried again, and this time I heard the tiny click as the key turned. He removed the lock and opened the door. “What have we here?” he said, peering inside. He didn’t speak for a moment, then stepped back, an indecipherable look on his face. He waved his hand toward the cabinet.
    I leaned forward. The cabinet’s interior was shadowy, but there was no doubt that it was empty.

Nine
    “That’s it. It isn’t here.” Andrew, sitting in Larry’s desk chair, closed the bottom drawer of the desk.
    “I guess not.” I replaced a stack of
Editor and Publisher Year
books.
Nothing was on the shelves behind them but a few dust bunnies and a yellowing couple of pages about minority hiring in the Department of Public Works.
    In the half hour since we discovered the folder was gone, we had searched the office wordlessly. The door of the cabinet still stood ajar, like a mouth open in accusation. I sat down in the bottom-sprung armchair meant for Larry’s visitors. “You’re sure nobody has been in here since Larry died?”
    “The office hasn’t been locked. Anybody could’ve come in. But nobody would’ve been able to open the