Since that time he seemed to have stayed out of trouble. About the most serious criticism anyone had leveled at him in recent times was the San Francisco Chronicle dropping his restaurants from their Top 100 list.

Ring liked his flashy cars, flashy clothes and flashy backstory, but reading between the lines, his wild man days were behind him. When interviewed, he invariably discussed food, cooking and his wife’s art. His language was peppered with biker slang like “big slab,” “caning it,” “skid lid” and “hammer down,” but he admitted in one article that he didn’t even own a “sled” anymore.

There was no indication whatsoever that he and Michaela had known each other before they met at her show at the McLoughlin Gallery on Geary Street. Ring claimed it had been love at first sight. Michaela? Michaela did not give interviews. No surprise there.

It looked to Griff as though Michaela had supplied the original funding for Ring’s first restaurant, but things had taken off from there.

Going by appearances, Ring seemed like a reformed man and a devoted husband. Devoted enough to ease his wife’s troubled conscience by coming up with a fake Brian? It wasn’t impossible, but it did seem unlikely. Even to an imagination as vivid as Griff’s.

He stretched, glanced at the time at the bottom of his laptop screen, surprised to find it was after midnight. He signed off, closed the lid and went upstairs to bed.

He woke much later to moonlight and the odd feeling someone was in the cottage. He sat up, listening.

The clock beside the bed ticktocked in peaceful rhythm. Outside, the rain shushed against the window. The climbing roses nestled against the glass.

No squeaking floorboards. Not even the settling of joints and beams. Nothing. There was not another sound in the house. Not another sound in all the world. And yet he had been sure someone had been talking to him. That he had heard music playing nearby.

He could still hear the echo of “Stranger on the Shore.”

Chapter Twenty

Judging by the turrets and witch’s hat roofs, the London Tower apartment building had started life as a fashionable turn of the century—last century—mansion. But those days were well in the past. The brown front lawn, the windows in need of a wash, and the handmade Rooms for Rent sign all spoke of hard times.

Griff followed a tattooed guy with a red ponytail and a twenty-four pack of Heineken in through the front door and down the dingy hall to the manager’s apartment. They passed another man, sandy-haired and wearing an Antiques Roadshow sweatshirt, repairing a bicycle tire.

“Dirk,” said the guy with the bicycle pump.

Dirk grunted hello and kept walking.

Griff stopped at the manager’s apartment and rang the buzzer.

After a time the door opened on an elderly man dressed in jeans and moccasins. He wore his gray hair in two thick braids. Strands of red-and-green beads hung around his neck.

Now there was a story. Another time, he’d have liked to hear what the old guy had to say for himself.

Before Griff was halfway through his introduction, the manager informed him that Leland Alvin was no longer a resident of that establishment.

“So he did live here?” Griff was surprised to find that Alvin had given his real, even if outdated address.

“Yes.”

“When did he move?”

“A couple of months ago. Maybe eight weeks.”

“Do you have a forwarding on him?”

“I do not.” The door began to close.

“No forwarding? None? Isn’t that kind of strange?” Griff asked quickly.

“Not when you’re running from creditors, it’s not.” The door relentlessly inched onward.

“Is there anything you can tell me about him? Anything at all?”

A black and baleful eye peered out at him from the remaining crack of entry. “He paid his rent on time. He lost his deposit when he painted that mural in the dining room.”

Griff’s heart jumped. “A mural? Could I see the mural?”

“It’s painted over now. I have new tenants in there.” The door swung shut and sank into its frame with finality.

Griff sighed in exasperation. He resisted the temptation to ring the buzzer again. What he didn’t want to do was bring undue attention to his inquiries.

So. Next move? He’d have to knock on some doors. And if that didn’t work, he’d let his fingers do the walking. Phoning Information was still a surprisingly effective way to find someone, especially if you had a first and last name or the name of a spouse. Though chances were Alvin had a cell phone and didn’t bother with a landline. That was okay because nobody stayed off the grid completely, which was why God—or maybe Al Gore—had created the internet.

The tenant repairing the tire of his bike looked up as Griff passed.

“I knew Lee,” he volunteered.

Griff lowered his phone and stopped walking. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Why are you looking for him?”

“He may have come into some money.”

The man laughed and set down the pump. “For real? Isn’t that the oldest story in the book?”

“This time it’s true. I’m working on behalf of the estate’s lawyer.” Griff dug around his pockets and offered Pierce’s card.

The man glanced at the card, but didn’t take it. He offered his hand. “Chad Kelvin. To be honest, I didn’t know Lee as well as Dirk did. Him and Dirk were pretty tight.”

He nodded down the hall to where the tattooed guy Griff had followed into the building was now piling trash bags that sounded mostly full of aluminum cans. “Isn’t that right, Dirk?” Chad called.

Dirk directed an impassive look Griff’s way. “Can’t help you, dude.” He planted the final black trash bag atop the mound and retreated back into his apartment. The door closed.

Chad snorted. “Sorry about that. He’s not exactly Mr. Sociable.”

“I guess I’d be suspicious too if someone came around asking questions about my friends,” Griff said. “What can you tell me about Lee?”

“He’s an artist. I know that much. He did different things. He was doing T-shirt designs for that shop on Main Street for a while. I forget what it’s called. Then he started getting more portraits. I think that’s what he really liked, but he said it was hard to earn a living at it. Which is too bad because he was pretty good.”

“Was he?”

“I’m not saying I’m any expert. Anyhow, he seemed okay. Had a habit of borrowing things and not returning them. You had to keep an eye on him.” Chad was smiling, so apparently it wasn’t too big a problem. “Like Mr. Hill said, he’s been gone about two months. A little more.”

“Do you have any idea where he went? This is the last address I have for him.”

“I do, yeah. As a matter of fact, I helped him move.”

Griff’s spirits lifted. “Would you have that address handy?”

“Sure. Hang on.”

Chad was back in less than a minute with an address scribbled on a piece of yellow legal paper.

Griff glanced at the paper, folded it, and shoved it in his back pocket. “Was Lee a popular guy? Did he have a lot of friends? A girlfriend?”

Chad looked thoughtful. “He has a girlfriend. Tall, dark-haired. Her name starts with a C. It was something kind of unusual. I want to say Chlorine. That can’t be right.”

“Chloe?” Griff suggested.

“Maybe.”

“And friends?”

“Not really. Not that I noticed. Like I said, he and Dirk were tight. He worked a lot.”

“Did he show his work anywhere?”

“You mean like a gallery? I don’t think so. I think I’d remember that.”

“What about clients?”

“Yeah. He had clients come by. People sitting for portraits. That kind of thing.”

“Would you have a name or...?”

“No. All I can tell you is he painted a lot of middle-aged ladies.” Chad winked at him. “The cougar club, if you know what I mean.”

“How did that pay?”

“Not that well, but the perks are good I hear.”