by Susan Dunlap
“Bryn, a woman was shot. She was sitting in your car.”
“In my car?” She was shouting. “I can’t believe—”
“Inside!” My voice caught. I had to swallow, and when I spoke again, the words sounded like they were coming from a different person. “Come on. Come inside.”
She hesitated, then shrugged and started for her stoop. I glanced by Grayson, ignoring his silent What the hell is going on here? His mustache twitched—he was on the verge of telling me I couldn’t just trod over him—but something stopped him. I don’t know quite why he backed off—it wasn’t like Grayson—but I nodded a thanks and said, “Let me have Pereira or Leonard to take notes as soon as one of them is free.”
Bryn had already turned on the interior lights when I walked into the living room. She stood looking from one white sofa to the other and ended up staring at the confessional bench and the lusting Shiva. I would have expected her to settle on the couch as she had the other times, but she picked up the Shiva by his head and moved the statue to the central section of the bench. Then she sat on the right and pulled her legs up under her.
Just like Ellen had.
“Ellen?” she asked in a voice so small I almost missed it.
The stool Ellen had brought in for me when I was here before was next to the smaller sofa. I carried it across from Bryn and sat close to her. “We can’t be sure. We know that a woman was shot in the driver’s seat of your car. The only identification she had was your purse, your driver’s license. She was about your size and had hair like yours. But Ellen didn’t drive, she told me that, and you told me. And this woman was in the driver’s seat.”
The color washed from her face. “Omigod, Ellen! Why Ellen? Who would want … ? Ellen? God, she didn’t even know anyone, she’d barely moved in. How could anyone have … ? Why Ellen?”
I shook my head, shaking off that last feeble hope. Of course it was Ellen. Of course she could drive, even if she didn’t often choose to. Almost anyone can drive. “Why did you tell me Ellen didn’t drive?”
“She had no license. She never drove, not until tonight. She didn’t want to. But I couldn’t leave my car there at People’s Park, could I? She had to take it home.” Bryn’s voice was squeaky, her scrunched forehead and eyes pleading. “I gave her my license in case she got stopped, so she’d be safe,” she added desperately.
“Yeah, it saved me from thinking it was she who’d been shot. And if she needed blood, Bryn, maybe they gave her your blood type. Your gift could have killed her.”
Bryn just stared.
I should have felt guilt. But I felt nothing but the cold of the room. The smell of that bitter tea hung in the air like long dead leaves in the rain. My eyes clouded. It could have been Ellen sitting there. If only … I pushed the thought away. Ellen would have been pale, too, but at least she would have been sobbing out her horror and her sorrow. I would have reached out to comfort her, told her we’d pull out all stops to find the person who had done this to her cousin.
Bryn’s arms pressed hard against her side but she sat dead still. She looked like she had been abandoned in the most desolate place on earth. She sat that way for a full minute, her feet under her, bare ankles pressed against the hard wood penitent’s seat. When she spoke, her voice was barely controlled. “It’s not a question of who would kill Ellen, is it? My car, the car only I drive. Ellen didn’t drive; that’s what we told people. That’s what he’d have believed.” She paused, eyeing me for agreement. “He shot her because he thought she was me! He’s trying to kill me!”
“Who?”
“That bastard Johnson!” Color was creeping back onto her face, and the quaver in her voice was from anger. “I expected him to sabotage my press conference. But this … I never thought he’d do anything like this.” Her fists tightened into balls. “But damn it, I won’t let him get away with it. You’ve got evidence now, don’t you? I saw that cop crawling around by the car. You’ve got bullet casings and footprints. You must have footprints; the ground’s soggy as a pond. You don’t need to worry about me pressing charges; I’ll sign whatever you need. Damn it, I will not allow this.”
“The lab tech will find any evidence on the ground. What can you tell me that definitely ties Johnson to this scene, here, tonight? Give me facts.”
“Facts? Search his house, find his gun!”
“If he killed someone, he wouldn’t leave the murder weapon over the mantel”—I’d have Leonard or Murakawa check on that—“and there’s no way we can track down all the places he could stash a gun. We can’t even search his house without probable cause. So, tell me about tonight.”
“How should I know what went on here?”
“Okay, so you weren’t here. Where have you been all evening?”
Her face tightened and eased warily. “Trying to salvage that shambles of a press conference. I spent half the night running down reporters and giving them the text of my talk and the corroborating information. For all the good it’ll do. They don’t care about facts like Sam Johnson ripping off his clients and ripping off the poor. All they want is pictures of naked butts. If you’d seen the eleven o’clock news you’d know that.” She leaned closer to me, blue eyes narrowed, head forward like a hawk’s. “It’s set me back … I don’t know. I’ll never get another press conference. At least not without them leading in with tales of the bare-assed runner. The whole thing’s been turned into a yuppie joke. That bastard Johnson—”
“How did you round up the reporters without your car?” I was amazed at how focused she was in her anger, how righteous she seemed. Had she already forgotten Ellen?
It took her a moment to shift gears. “Oh that. I had a colleague drive me.”
“A colleague who was at the rally?”
“No.”
“Her name?”
“Why do you want to—Oh shit. Herman Ott.”
“Herman Ott?” The words were out of my mouth before I could catch them. Herman Ott, seedy Avenue private eye, living relic of the sixties, was a spiritual brother of Sam Johnson. Herman Ott would disdain The Girls’ Team as a socially irresponsible yuppie indulgence. In Bryn Wiley’s book, I would have guessed, the best that might be said of the sallow, paunchy, carelessly dressed Ott was that he was not asking for spare change. “What on earth could make Herman Ott drive you around to distribute flyers for a fitness center?”
“He concurs on my point,” Bryn said matter-of-factly, as if there was no irony to be considered. “He knows Johnson is deceiving his club members and abusing the poor.”
It was then that I thought of the old building where Ott worked. Above the shops on the ground floor, offices from the postwar era (post-World War One) had been converted into housing. The conversion had been informal—and illegal—for years. But now that it had the blessing of the city, the tenants who remained were too poor to afford better than two tiny rooms with plumbing down the hall. The Heat Exchange perched on top of that building.
Conviction makes strange bedfellows.
So that’s what those messages from Herman Ott were about. Those messages I’d tossed. They might have told me something that would have kept me from standing here now.
And Ellen Waller might not be lying dead.
I swallowed hard and shut my eyes against the picture of her being carried into the ambulance. It just wasn’t right that she had been erased so easily. It was like her life meant nothing.
I turned back to Bryn. “This is going to be a big, complex investigation. Let’s start at the beginning and get everything clear.” I pulled out my pad.
Bryn’s response was instantaneous. “Oh no! I’m not dealing with a beat cop on this. I told you: You get a Homicide investigator in here.”
“You got one. I’ve worked Homicide for four years. Maybe later, your case will be transferred to one of the men in Homicide. But for the moment it’s you and me on this.”
“I don’t—”
I held out the flat of my hand. “Bryn, even you don
’t pick your investigator. But let me tell you, I am going to find Ellen’s killer, not because you’re kicking up a fuss, but because it’s my job. If this person aimed to kill you, then I’ll find your assailant, but not for you. For Ellen.”
I stood up, took a breath, and said, “You can help or you can get out of my way. Your choice.”
It was a moment before she said, “Okay, okay. But don’t think I don’t know you’re manipulating me.”
If she’d been Ellen, she would have said it with a grin.
I caught her eye and nodded. “Where was Ellen going when she left you this afternoon?”
“Joy riding, that’s what she said. She thought it was funny.” Her mouth quivered.
“So you don’t know where she went?”
“I’m sure she drove straight home. She didn’t want to drive. I had to insist …” Bryn swallowed, then hurried on. “She wouldn’t have driven a block more than she had to. Look, common sense—”
“Common sense says you don’t get shot.”
It was a moment before she admitted, “Okay, I don’t know.”
I nodded. “That was four thirty or so. Witnesses remember the car here at five thirty. Another witness heard shots about eight thirty. Why would she be in the car then?”
“I don’t know. Look, there was a reason Ellen didn’t drive. No, don’t look so vulturous; I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was just that she was such a wretched driver. God knows, I wouldn’t be behind the wheel if I was as jumpy as she was.”
“And yet at eight thirty, four hours after she left you, she was sitting in the car, presumably coming back from somewhere or headed out.”
She stared at me, only for a moment, but long enough for me to see the flicker of desperation in her eyes. It was the same look Ellen had had, the one that had made their physical similarity so pronounced. Seeing it in Bryn shocked me—I almost wondered if I’d imagined it. When I checked her face again, there was nothing but anger. “What difference does it make whether Ellen was coming or going or just sitting in the driveway? The point is she never drove. I drove the car. Johnson saw it in the driveway, and of course, he assumed it was me driving. He shot to kill me. That’s what you need to concentrate on.”
The door rattled; Pereira walked in. I explained the procedure to Bryn and went over her statement, asking again for other suspects, she, insisting again that no one in the Bay Area but Sam Johnson had reason to kill her.
“You won’t be in any shape to do this tonight, but as soon as you are, I want you to think about everyone you’ve met in the last ten years. No, don’t protest. People go away and resurface; you forget about them but they’re still obsessing about you or some supposed wrong you did. Start from the present and think back. Think,” I said, “like your life depends on it.”
“Okay, okay.”
“I’ll need to have someone identify the body; you can do that tomorrow. And Ellen’s next of kin? Who should we contact?”
Something in her face changed, so fast I almost missed it. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know; I have to think. But if it’s just the courtesy of informing someone, you’ve informed me. No one else is going to care.”
She paused but I didn’t say anything. I wanted to scream at Ellen: How can you be dead? You hadn’t even found what you wanted to do in life; you were still marking time taking care of Bryn. How can you be dead before you’ve even found out why you’re living? And there isn’t even anyone to care.
I’d asked this question before, at other murder scenes, and I’d always reminded myself that the city doesn’t pay me to conduct existential investigations. But tonight, with Ellen Waller, that didn’t work.
“I’ll pay for burying her,” Bryn went on. “That’s what the county needs to know, isn’t it, so they won’t get stuck with the bill for a potter’s field. And what about me? He’s still wandering around out there, gunning for me.” Her arms pressed hard against her sides and her hands bunched into fists. “You better have guards here, day and night. I mean it. If my police force can’t be bothered protecting me, I’ll scream bloody murder. And you will be hearing from a lot of other people, too.”
I didn’t doubt it. Getting an okay for around-the-clock protection was another matter. We weren’t set up to give that kind of service, even to the mayor. “But first answer me this: When did you finish dealing with the media?”
“About seven. Why?”
“And then what did you do?”
“Ott got a pizza and we ate it in the car,” she said with an unreadable expression.
Another time I would have laughed. I knew Ott. In a dark car, sitting next to him with no direct view of his mouth was the least repellent way to dine with Ott. “He got the pizza?”
“Yeah. He’s got a special place that does double everything.” She cringed. “The cheese was oozing over the edge.”
“So no one saw you after seven o’clock.”
“I guess not. Look, why are you—”
“Because, Bryn, the press left here thinking you are dead. The killer thinks you’re dead. Let’s see what the consequences of that ‘death’ are.”
“I can tell you what they’ll be.”
“No! Let the killer do that.” I waited until she gave a small sign of agreement. “In the meantime, you can’t stay here.”
“But if I were dead, Ellen would still … Oh, okay, I’m not Ellen. Okay, so … what then? Where can I go”
“How well do you know Herman Ott?”
Her eyes widened.
Her look of horror told me she knew him well enough. Ott would be appalled, too. But Bryn Wiley had hesitated too long before answering some of my questions. There were things she’d mentally scurried to hide. And Herman Ott, for all his faults, would not overlook dissembling. He would be insulted by it. And by morning, I hoped, he would expose the truth.
Chapter 13
PERHAPS BERKELEY DOES NOT have an abnormal number of domestic deficients, but if there were a Poor Homekeeping magazine, it could feature a different resident for every cover story. Much of our local slovenliness is the result of youthful rebellion solidified into habit, and a reluctance to admit we’ve become middle-class enough to “exploit the poor” to muck out our tubs. There are, of course, plenty of devotees anxious to underwrite their meditative spiritual and physical practices by mucking at twelve bucks an hour. But it would take a truly enlightened being to cross Herman Ott’s portal, pail in hand. The room he lives in is not much more inviting than Karl Pironnen’s.
Herman Ott reminds me of a tatty old parrot, one of those birds you buy on a whim, and delight in teaching embarrassing phrases, before you realize just how many decades it will be around to annoy you. His particular perch overlooks Telegraph Avenue. Most of his clients are regulars there, but simple longevity has widened his nest of knowledge. By now no one dies in Berkeley without his knowing.
Ott has his code. He never discusses his clients, particularly with us.
Still, in the last two days he had called me twice. And now, with minimal fuss, he had agreed to come to the station to pick up Bryn Wiley.
Across the reception area I eyed Ott’s short, slouched frame. He was glaring at the five plastic stacking chairs lined up across from the unmanned reception window on the second-story walkway. From either side, staircases descended to what might have been a gracious entryway. Instead, a bare cement room reminded entrants that the police department was not a destination of choice. At two in the morning it was ill-lit and so empty that voices echoed. Ott surveyed the area. “No wonder everyone hates the cops, if this is the way you treat citizens who obey your laws.”
“I’ll take it up with the municipal decorator.” I cut to the chase. “Where is Sam Johnson?”
“Not in the Fraud Exchange, that’s for sure. He’s never set foot in that scam parlor since it opened.” Now Ott perched on a yellow plastic chair, wearing a gold beaked cap. His little round belly was covered by a mustard-tone polyester shirt and a cream
and tan argyle vest.
“Is The Heat Exchange doing much business?”
“Not enough to heat my office. Yeah, yeah, I know I wouldn’t qualify. But the people who do aren’t getting anything off their bills either. They’re barely making it, Smith. They’ve abandoned everything, escaped from wars and famines, and used every cent to get to this country so they have a chance. And then what happens? Johnson promises them help with their utilities. They spend what little they have on other luxuries—like food and clothes—and now they’re huddled together trying to keep warm. We’ve had the fire department out three times in the last month!”
“Why doesn’t the city—”
“Because Johnson keeps telling them it’s just a matter of time. And Smith, the city wants to believe. It’d be such an environmental feather in its cap.” He glared at me. “And the city’ll be such a laughingstock if this harebrained scheme fails.”
So Berkeley has become wary of environmental folly. The same city that spent half a million dollars to create a “slow street” with two to three speed bumps per block, three to four foliage islands jutting irregularly in some, and a white line that snakes between them like it was painted by a drunk.
“So what’s with Johnson, Ott? You’ve known him for years. For two decades Sam Johnson is the king of the anarchists. Now suddenly he’s a homeowner and entrepreneur. What happened? Does he think he’s going to make a killing on his exercycles? Use the money to speed up work on his house in the hills? Or does he really believe he’s harnessing the bourgeoisie for the benefit of the oppressed?”
Ott looked away, embarrassed. For a moment I thought his shame was for the fall of a former colleague. Then I realized it was because he couldn’t answer my question. And Ott prides himself on knowing everything about life on the Avenue. “One thing I’ll say, Smith. Sam knew that gym was never going to heat apartments.”
“So it was a scam from the beginning?”
“Yeah.”
“But why, Ott? Has Johnson sold out since he came into money?”
“Yeah, but not the way you think. Sam’s no fool. He knows he’ll be lucky to break even on that gym of his. He’s too dependent on Cal students and faculty. Their devotion to the poor won’t last beyond this semester. When they come back in the fall, they’ll trot right on back to the free university gyms.”