Wolf in the Shadows by Marcia Muller Read Free Book Online

base of a huge tree, were the remains of a campfire. I shut
     the MG’s engine off, got out, and went over there.
    An odd place for a campfire, I thought, and a dangerous one. Dry eucalyptus ignite easily and can turn a spark into a conflagration
     in a matter of minutes—witness the tragic fire that destroyed twenty-five lives and hundreds of homes in the East Bay hills
     close to two years ago. But people seldom learn from such examples and will camp or picnic anywhere—gas stations, parking
     lots, the middle of shopping malls. This place, even though they’d be sucking up exhaust fumes with their hot dogs, was more
     scenic than most.
    I went up to the improvised fire ring and peered around into the deepening darkness. The picnickers—many groups of them—had
     been careless; trash covered the ground amid the boulders. I glanced down, saw that the circle of stones had been broken and
     scattered; there were tire tracks through the cinders and ashes.
    Ashes. I thought of the damaged rental car, the fine ashlike dust coating its exterior.
    The tracks pointed toward the boulders where the trash was strewn. I went that way, taking my small flashlight from my bag
     and shining its beam over the ground and rocks and tree trunks. One of the boulders had a prominent white scar some two feet
     off the ground. I shone the light closer and saw blue paint scrapings on the pale stone. Squatting down, I shone the flash
     on the ground. Broken glass that looked as if it might have come from a headlight lay scattered there.
    So this was where Hy had come—and where the car had gotten damaged. But why? And how?
    I felt in my bag for one of the envelopes I keep there, then scooped up some of the glass fragments and placed them inside.
     Took another out and used my Swiss Army knife to scrape some of the blue paint into it. Then I stuck the envelopes in the
     bag’s’flap pocket and stood, began going through the trash on the ground item by item.
    Potato-chip bags and fast-food containers; paper plates and plastic forks; used condoms and beer cans; candy wrappers and
     Styrofoam cups; pop bottles and soiled disposable diapers. God, people could be pigs! At least Hy, devoted environmentalist
     that he was, had tossed his cups on the floor of the rental car. If they
were
Hy’s …
    The accumulated garbage disgusted me, but I determinedly waded through it. Newspapers and plastic bags; gum wrappers and matchbooks
     and cigarette butts; assorted scraps of paper.
    Including one bearing Hy’s bold handwriting: “RKI mobile unit—777-3209.”
    Car phone. Whose? RKI. What—a person or a company? Mobile unit—it sounded more like a company.
    I kept searching, but found nothing more that I could link to Hy. Finally I gave up and went back to the car.
    So what had happened here? I wondered. Hy must have had good reason to search this place out. What? A meeting with someone?
     Perhaps. For sure something to do with RKI, whatever or whoever that was. Somehow he’d managed to drive the rental car through
     the fire ring and ram the boulder. How hard? Enough to injure himself? Maybe. Enough to kill himself? Doubtful. And why? I
     couldn’t begin to guess.
    It was full dark now. Vehicles, including a Highway Patrol car, sped past on 101, but none of their occupants seemed to notice
     me. A good meeting place, then, one where a parked car would attract minimal attention. Meeting place for what, though?
    Finally I started the MG, flipped on its headlights, and drove north toward San Francisco. But at the first opportunity I
     pulled off into a gas station and placed a call to Ron Chan, my contact at Pacific Bell. He was home, pleased to hear from
     me, and willing to check out the numbers Hy had called, provided I’d have lunch with him next week. I promised I would, and
     Chan said that he knew a night supervisor at the phone company who owed him a favor. He’d get back to me later tonight or
     first thing in the morning. Next I tried