Retribution

Chapter Nine

Katherine waited outside the public library several minutes before its doors opened to the public; then she was inside searching for design books from which to gather inspiration for Pamela's beach house. The books didn't offer her much inspiration, and it wasn't long before she found herself idly looking through the morning paper some oldster had left behind. Katherine skimmed over the headlines blaring news about  some famous person or another. She turned to the classified section and started scanning the passages. Her eyes skimmed them all briefly at first, only returning to reread one when a familiar name registered; she ran her finger back up to it, her eyes following. Then, like a blind person, she ran her finger over the small type:

An auction will be held this afternoon for the possessions of recently deceased Professor William Drake. One o'clock at the university's art studio. Fulton Street, San Francisco. All profits go towards scholarships for the university's architecture students.

Thoughtfully laying the paper down on the wooden library table, Kate glanced at the clock. Noon. She mentally calculated her time. Checkout, lunch traffic. Yes, if she left right away, she should have just enough time to make it to the auction. Snatching up her blue handbag, she quickly looked down at the pile of architecture and design books she'd amassed.

Ignoring another dark look that the elderly gentleman sitting across from her gave her when she made a good amount of noise shifting the books, she selected a few which hadn't bored her quite to death to take with her. She headed down the stairs dreading the rendezvous with the cranky librarian who sat hunched in her chair, ruling over the checkout line like the patrons were her subjects and the books rare jewels to be handled with the slowest, gentlest care. Katherine tapped her foot impatiently. The disapproving eye of the middle-aged librarian landed on her with an unspoken command to stop. Kate fought off an urge to roll her eyes until she was at last free of the tyrant librarian and had reached the double entrance doors, one of which she threw open to reveal a not-so-quaint urban landscape. But she had no time to admire the casual scene played out before her today and rushed excitedly to her car.

Her hands fumbled with the car keys until she finally forced herself to let the key hang by its chain before again taking hold of it, slowly now, and inserting it first into the door, then into the ignition. Why wouldn't her heart stop beating so fast? You'd think she never had a decent walk in her life. It was, she realized, the thought that she had been the one to discover the professor's body, that somehow her involvement didn't end there. She had to know what had happened, had to find out more about the case.

And then she had found Fulton Street, right on the catty-corner from the library. She drove slowly, searching for the number she hastily scribbled down,  and asked herself why she hadn't been to this much older, and she thought mischievously, more interesting, part of campus. It appeared that the city hadn't been around to clean the streets for several years and the residential section across the street left something to be desired. Still, it was intriguing and when her eyes returned to the university side of the street, a sign proclaiming Art Department was staring at her like a cat's glowing eyes in the dark. She slammed on the breaks, succeeding in bringing the car to a sudden stop when she forgot to put the clutch in and killed the car smack dab in front of the shabby campus art building. She'd worry about the state of the car's clutch later, she decided, as she viewed the dingy entrance. Really? Couldn't the university have done better for one of their own? Drake had been one of their most esteemed professors!

A car honked impatiently behind her; she cranked the key in the engine, stepped on the gas, scanned for somewhere to park. Of course there were no spaces available in front of the building, so she was forced to parallel park on the curb directly beneath the old, dilapidated brick shell of an apartment building.