by Lia Matera
I groaned. Kirsten. Of course she’d want to see me squirm. Of course she’d go to the cops like a good citizen and tell them about the little drama in my living room the night before.
“I could strangle that woman!” I hissed.
Sandy looked glum and disapproving. And my obnoxious cousin laughed.
15
At one o’clock, Sandy clicked on the car radio, fiddling with the dial until he found a local news broadcast.
The newscaster, his voice throbbing with excitement, announced: “Wallace Bean, who shot and killed two United States senators less than two years ago, was found shot to death himself in the predawn hours this morning, in an alley behind the Lucky Logger tavern on Pier Street. Police have so far refused to disclose whether the murder weapon has been found, or whether they have any suspects in custody.”
I turned to look at Sandy. He was squinting at the radio, tense with concentration.
The newscaster continued. “Bean was released from the state mental hospital at Talmadge exactly two weeks ago, when doctors there certified that he was not insane. Bean was involuntarily committed eleven months and three weeks ago, after a jury found him not guilty, by reason of insanity, of the tragic shooting deaths of Senators Harley Hansen and Garth Dzhura. In a landmark legal effort, Bean’s lawyer, Laura Di Palma, a former Hillsdale resident who is the niece of our mayor, convinced the five-man, seven-woman jury that Bean was brainwashed by watching too much violence on television. “
Sandy forestalled my usual protest with a placating, “I know, I know.”
“… recently opened a law office downtown. Police sources say they do not know whether Bean followed Miss Di Palma here, or whether he contacted, or meant to contact, her when he arrived. The police say they have no leads yet as to who shot Bean, or why. There has been some speculation in recent months that Bean risked being murdered by vigilantes once he got out of the mental hospital. Hospital administrators say he received numerous death threats from citizens outraged at the leniency of his punishment, and—”
“‘Numerous.’“ I repeated the understatement dryly. Death threats to me had been merely “numerous.” Bean’s had outnumbered mine by a factor of twenty.
Hal looked at me, and veered into the wrong lane. Sandy turned the volume up.
“… and tragedy also struck a well-respected local couple last night and this morning. Local public defender Gary Gleason was struck by a hit-and-run driver in front of his Clarke Street residence last night at approximately six-forty p.m. He suffered lacerations and cracked ribs, and is reported in good condition at County Hospital. The driver has not been identified. Gleason’s wife of ten years, Kirsten Strindberg—”
“Wife?” Why had Kirsten kept Lennart’s surname? And why hadn’t Sandy mentioned the marriage when he’d briefed me?
“… was found shot to death in their house—”
“What!”
“… by friends this morning. Police believe she had been dead less than two hours. KXTV News has reported that a twenty-two-caliber revolver was taken into evidence at the crime scene—”
“Think we just found your gun,” Sandy observed grimly.
“… decline to speculate whether this was the weapon used in the attack on Strindberg, or whether Strindberg’s murder is linked to Wallace Bean’s.”
Hal pulled over.
“Police have not yet determined whether any valuables were taken from the Strindberg-Gleason home, but say they have not ruled out—”
“My fingerprints are all over her vanity.” I felt Sandy stiffen, no doubt shocked at my self-absorption.
“… say they are also exploring the possibility that the same person who ran down Gleason also murdered Strindberg. “
The newscaster segued to a female colleague, who rehashed the news stories, giving them a gossipy, tabloid slant. Hal switched off the radio.
We sat in silence for a while. Hal spoke first. “Do we go to the police or not?”
My head ached, and it had grown stuffy in the car. The windows were steaming over. “I don’t know.”
“Could we talk about it over lunch?” Sandy suggested.
“We’d better make it my place, then.” Hal put the car in gear. “We won’t have a minute’s peace, out in public with the notorious Ms. Di Palma today.”
I told him I was touched by his concern.
16
We didn’t make it to Hal’s house. A police cruiser pulled us over as we sped out toward the jetty.
The officer peered into the car. “Laura Di Palma?”
I nodded. Sandy’s arm tightened around my waist.
“My orders are to stop your car and ask you to come to headquarters, Miss Di Palma.”
“Can we follow you?”
“No. My orders are to bring you in.” He turned his attention to Hal. “Driver’s license, please.”
“It expired.”
The policeman’s face, square and jowly, got that universal cop expression, a pale ghost of Clint Eastwood’s “Make my day” look. “Out of the car,” he ordered, standing back.
Hal obeyed.
The officer frisked him, pushing him up against the Mercedes with unnecessary violence. He informed my cousin that he’d have to wait at headquarters while they checked him for outstanding warrants. “Might take a few hours,” he drawled unpleasantly. “The computer’s got a lot on its mind today.”
Then the cop came around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door for me.
I slid off Sandy’s lap, saying, “Get some lunch, Arkelett, then pick us up at the courthouse. You can’t miss it; it’s the tallest building in the county.” Four stories. “If something comes up, I’ll meet you at Hal’s.” The cop waited with obvious impatience while I gave Sandy directions to my cousin’s hovel.
When we got to the police station, two officers led Hal away.
Captain Loftus himself escorted me to a pleasant, plant-filled office with a view of the old Rialto Theater. I saw from the marquee that it had been chopped into a four-theater complex and renamed UA Cinemas. I was outraged. I’d seen my first movie there. Snow White. Hal had thrown popcorn off the balcony.
“Sorry we had to stop your car.” The captain started to sink into the chair behind the desk, then stood back up and came around to hold out a chair for me. I noticed that his sideburns were unfashionably long and his silver waves a trifle wet, the way ladies in country bars like them. He probably turned a lot of hair-sprayed heads there.
“I heard the news on my radio.”
The captain crossed to the window. For a few seconds, he looked up at the steel-gray sky. Then he squared his shoulders and turned back to me. “Just a few little things we need to clear up.” His voice was weary but authoritative. “You said Wallace Bean came to your house last night, asked to sleep on your couch, got offended when you offered him money, and then went away.” He went back behind the desk, flicking a bit of loam off a philodendron leaf. “Is there anything you could add to that statement to help us?”
I knew the captain hadn’t gone to the trouble of getting my license plate number and ordering my car stopped just to ask for additional details. His men had found my fingerprints in Kirsten and Gary’s house, probably on the vanity, maybe on the twenty-two. Or Gary had passed along my statement that Kirsten had pointed a gun at me.
“When I talked to you this morning, I didn’t know that Wallace Bean was dead. My responsibility to him as a client prevented me from mentioning at that time”— Christ, I sounded like an affidavit—“that Bean was carrying a revolver when he came to my house.” I tried to loosen up for the first hurdle: “When you did finally tell me Bean was dead, I was so stunned I forgot about the gun.”
Captain Loftus put both hands on his desk top. I noticed a ridge of callus along his right index finger and thumb; chopping wood, I guessed. “Some
times the stress of being here with us makes people a little forgetful, Miss Di Palma. That’s why I asked you back this afternoon. You’ve had some time to relax and think about things.” He turned his palms upward. It was a gesture I frequently used in negotiations, to suggest that I posed no threat and had nothing to hide. I wondered if the captain, too, had studied body language. “Did you happen to notice the make of the gun?”
“Some kind of long-barreled revolver. That’s all I’m sure of. The only gun I’m familiar with is a forty-five automatic. Because of the Bean trial.” I thought I noticed a quick twitch of anger on his face. “It definitely wasn’t a forty-five.”
“Anybody else see the gun, by chance?” His tone remained friendly; maybe just polite with an Oklahoma accent.
I told him Hal and Kirsten had been with me. When I mentioned Kirsten’s name, Loftus’s face went studiously blank.
“Tell you what, Miss Di Palma, why don’t you just take your time and tell me what all happened.”
I wondered why he hadn’t asked me to do that five hours earlier.
I told him Bean had come to the door and forced Hal to let him in; that I’d chided Bean and taken the revolver away; that Bean had become upset when I’d refused to let him sleep on my couch; that Kirsten had panicked and sent Bean away at gunpoint.
Then I came to the second hurdle. Whatever I said about the disappearance of the gun, Loftus might be asked to repeat at a state bar disciplinary proceeding. I didn’t dare admit that I’d been drunk and careless. “The gun was in my desk drawer; that’s where Kirsten put it after Bean left. The desk doesn’t lock, but I don’t have a safe or anything that can be secured. So I left the gun where it was, and I stayed in the living room all night. I slept on the couch, which is roughly opposite the desk—you have to walk by it to get to the desk. But when I woke up …”
The captain’s blue eyes regarded me with mingled curiosity and sympathy.
“The first thing I did was check the desk. The gun was gone.”
Loftus frowned and pursed his lips. “Had you locked your front door, Miss Di Palma?”
Drunk people don’t worry about their front doors. “I really don’t recall.” That was one I owed Richard Nixon.
“And Mr. Henry Di Palma, Junior, did he leave after Mrs. Strindberg?”
“No. Since I planned to sleep on the couch, my cousin went upstairs and used my bed. He left first thing this morning.”
The captain raised his grizzled gray brows. Who could have taken the gun more easily than someone already in the house, someone able to keep vigil and notice when I fell asleep? And if Loftus thought Hal was a made-to-order suspect now, wait until he met him. Hal had the kind of face only Charles Manson would trust.
I must have looked distressed. The captain offered a quiet homily. “I didn’t think Bean or Mrs. Strindberg suffered much, Miss Di Palma. It’s small comfort, I guess, but sometimes it’s small comfort or none at all.”
“Can you give me any details, Captain? The news said you found a gun—”
“A Buntline Scout—a great big old-fashioned Colt twenty-two. Funny.” He scratched a sideburn with his knuckle. “You don’t see those old guns too much anymore. I’m a collector myself, but I haven’t seen a Scout— They’re nowhere near as accurate as a rifle. And awful cumbersome for a handgun.”
A Buntline Scout. That’s what Hal had called Bean’s gun. The gun I’d lost. “Where did you find it?”
“Living room.” He nodded dreamily. “Real nice house. But I suppose you’ve been inside?”
No use denying it; I had almost certainly left fingerprints there. “Yes.”
“Oh? Mrs. Strindberg show you around?”
I’d have given anything to answer, Yes, she did. Kirsten was in no position to deny it. But Gary would tell the captain I hadn’t been inside his house before last night’s hit-and-run. Paramedics and neighbors would tell him I’d pulled up in my car right after the accident. Nurses would tell him Kirsten had arrived at the hospital with Gary and remained there until the wee hours—until she’d come to see me at my house, in fact. So if I told Captain Loftus I’d paid Kirsten a call, he would necessarily conclude I’d done so early this morning, when she was being murdered.
“No, she didn’t,” I admitted reluctantly. “When she went to the hospital with her husband, she left her front door open—not just unlocked, but ajar. I went over there to lock up for her.” I met his eye. I’m good at looking people in the eye; it’s a fine technique to use on mistrustful jurors. “You probably know that Gary and I were married once.”
He nodded.
“Well, I was curious.” I smiled apologetically. “I just wanted to take a peek, you know? I did tell Kirsten about it later, when she came to my house.”
“I see.” His forehead crinkled sympathetically. “And Mr. Gleason’s business office?”
“I’ve never been there.”
“Mmm-hm. I understand there’s a little matter of some papers?”
I was stunned. Who could have told the police about the letters? I couldn’t imagine Kirsten rousing Gary in the middle of the night to complain that I’d stolen them. Besides, when I’d phoned Gary this morning, he’d seemed perplexed by my reference to a gun. If Kirsten had called him, she would surely have mentioned the encounter with Bean. If Gary didn’t know about Bean, then he didn’t know about the letters, either.
And if Gary hadn’t told the police about the letters, no one had.
Which meant they’d played some part in Kirsten’s murder. Perhaps she’d been rereading them when the killer interrupted her. The letters mentioned me, of course: Gary’s referred to me guiltily, Lennart’s regretted being troubled with my love.
But I didn’t think the police knew the letters had ever been in my possession.
So I took a chance. It would have been too mortifying, admitting that I’d stolen my rival’s love letters. I said, “No. I don’t know what you mean. There might have been some papers on a desk or table when I walked through the house, but I was just getting an impression of my ex-husband’s life, Captain. Just being curious. I invaded his privacy, I know—but not to the extent of going through his documents, or anything like that.”
The captain nodded reassuringly. “Well, I suppose that’s it for right now, then.”
For a moment I just sat there, trying to hide my surprise. The casualness of his interrogation, his trust-me manner, his tardiness in asking me key questions … Maybe he was just a nice, inefficient, small-town cop.
Or maybe he was too smart to use techniques a criminal lawyer would recognize.
17
I was mobbed as soon as I stepped out into the afternoon wind. I’d hoped no one would notice me in my jeans and sweater; reporters were accustomed to seeing me in wool suits. But all it took was one excited, “There’s Bean’s lawyer!” and cameras began clicking and whirring.
The way I looked, I’d rather have faced a firing squad than a photographer. At the best of times, TV makes me look ten pounds heavier and makes me sound like Julia Child with a head cold.
I recognized a couple of news crews; they’d wasted no time racing up from San Francisco. I said hello to a handsome, well-dressed black reporter from KRON, “How are you?” to a skinny Chronicle reporter who as usual reeked of garlic, and “Still behind the camera?” to a high-heeled blonde on her way (she hoped) to becoming the KPIX weather person. A pudgy woman in polyester thrust herself forward, gushing, “Laura, remember me? Judy Britt? From high school?” She giggled that she was with the Hillsdale Union-Messenger now, and I felt a wave of horrified pity for her.
The KRON reporter expertly elbowed her aside, saying, “Can we have a statement, Miss Di Palma?”
“Wallace Bean was prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and this sort of vigilante justice is an insult to the legitimate judicial process,” I declared pompously. The state
ment lacked depth, but it would strike the right note on TV. I concluded with the mandatory, “I have no other comment, pending the results of the police investigation.”
Notwithstanding, I was barraged with questions: “Did Bean follow you here?” “Did he call you?” “Did you see him?” “Why did he come here?” “Did anyone come with him?” “Did you know Jeanne Dixon predicted the murder?” “What about this other murder?” “Wasn’t Kirsten Strindberg married to your ex-husband?” “Are you a suspect, Ms. Di Palma?” One woman shouted, “Was Bean in love with you?” and someone shouted even louder, “Do you feel morally responsible for his death?”
I tried to break through the throng, but the reporters weren’t budging. The garlic-eater from the Chronicle moaned, “Be a pal, Laura. What do you really think is going on here?”
I tried to push past him, but the aspiring weather person was right there, shoving her camera in my face. Once again, and from every side, it was, Did he call you? Did you see him? Did they show you his dead body? Do you regret getting him acquitted?
My cousin Hal saved the day (my day, anyway) by pushing his way through to me. He put his arm around me and bulldozed me out of the crowd, showing little regard for expensive camera equipment. He shepherded me to a waiting taxi, and when I protested that we were supposed to meet Sandy, he shouted over the cacophony of questions, “Get out of here. I’ll wait for him.” He slammed the door, glancing up at what was fast becoming a sky full of nimbus clouds.
The cab driver squinted at me curiously. “Are you on TV or something?”
“I’m Sophia Loren’s daughter.”
“Sure!” the driver exclaimed. “Hell, you look like her. Like she did in the movie about the fountain.”
Just what I needed, a blind cab driver. “Take me to County Hospital, would you?”
Getting in to see Gary was tricky. The nurse wanted the okay of a doctor who had apparently vanished from the face of the earth. I ended up handing her a slip of paper with seven randomly selected digits on it. “The doctor’s at this number. He says I can go in.”