“Not too well. Conflicting stories from Cahill, Kendra Nesbitt, and Fran Woodward. I’ll talk to the client again tomorrow, try to sort them out.”
“You thinking of seeing the Dellbrook woman tonight?”
“No. I want to compare her romance book to the one she claims Alice Cahill plagiarized before I talk to her.”
“Bet you’re looking forward to that.”
“Oh, yeah. You wouldn’t want to do the reading for me, would you?”
“Fat chance. Only thing I’m taking into my bath is a glass of vino.”
“Uh-huh. You turn up anything on her I should know?”
“One thing. She doesn’t own a car or have a driver’s license, just a state ID card.”
Usually that meant the person didn’t drive. But not necessarily that they didn’t know how to drive or hadn’t driven before, or wouldn’t again in a borrowed car if they considered it necessary. By itself the fact didn’t eliminate Grace Dellbrook as a suspect.
“Where does she live, work?”
“Lives alone in a studio apartment at 2930 Larkin, works as a teller at the Chase branch near Civic Center. Fifty-four, divorced, one grown daughter living in Michigan. No criminal record of any kind.”
“What about the accident victim, Sofia Hernandez?”
“Squeaky clean like Dellbrook and the rest. Nurse at a health-care facility for the elderly in Pleasant Hill. Still lives there. Divorced ten years; two grown kids, one in college, the other working for an electrical contractor. That one got into some trouble with the law when he was seventeen—swiped and vandalized a car—but that was before the accident. No law trouble since.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to her if nothing else turns up. But after the insurance settlement and four silent years, she doesn’t figure to be involved.” The cars ahead of me were moving along at slightly more than a snail’s pace now. Almost to the line of toll booths. “Couple of things you can do for me, but they can wait until tomorrow. Mrs. Nesbitt told me the Cahills have a hundred-thousand-dollar joint life insurance policy with Statewide Mutual. See if you can find out if the policy is still in force.”
“Will do,” Tamara said. “What else?”
“Cahill allegedly has a girlfriend, a woman named Megan Sprague who works with him at Streeter Manufacturing. Background on her, and anything you can pick up on the alleged affair.”
“Megan Sprague, Streeter Manufacturing. Right.”
Still inching. Come on, I thought, let me onto and across the damn bridge so I can come back and run the eight-mile gantlet twice more tomorrow.
Tamara said, “Oh, one thing before I let you go. I had a kind of funny call on the agency line a few minutes ago.”
“From?”
“Jake’s son, Joshua, wanting to talk to him.”
That raised an eyebrow. “You mean they’re back in touch after, what, more than three years? Jake didn’t say anything to me—”
“No, I don’t think so. He sounded … I don’t know, wired up tight, like he was upset about something. He wanted to know when Jake’d be back after I said he was away on business. Then he asked for Jake’s cell number—said he’d lost Jake’s card.”
“You give him the number?”
“No. I would have, but he wouldn’t tell me his name until right before he hung up. Before that he said never mind, he could wait until next week, Monday was soon enough. And don’t tell Jake he called.”
“Keeping it private between them,” I said, “direct contact only. Best if we stay out of it anyway. Jake’ll tell us if he wants us to know.”
Through the FasTrak in my lane, finally, and into the flow of traffic on the bridge. I ended the conversation with Tamara and concentrated on my driving.
* * *
My home life is good these days. For too long a time it had been unsettled, at times terrifying and extremely painful—Kerry’s breast cancer scare, the physical and psychological torment she had been subjected to in Green Valley, the death of her mother, Cybil. But Kerry had weathered and come to terms with it all, with Emily’s and my support, and the times of crises had brought the three of us even closer together.
The one thing that still worried me, admittedly without any real justification, was Emily’s budding womanhood. She was fifteen now and una bellezza delle bellezze—a dark-haired, dark-eyed, sweet-faced beauty of beauties. Boys swarmed around her like flies to honey, not just those her age but the older, more testosterone-driven types as well. Kerry wasn’t concerned at all; she’d long since had The Talk with her and had every faith in Emily’s intelligence (smart as a whip, A student in all subjects) and in her promise not to let herself be taken advantage of (she’d never yet broken a promise). Besides which, Emily was fine with the rule we’d set that she was not allowed unsupervised dates until after her sixteenth birthday. And there was no one particular boy she was attracted to … yet.
Still, I worried. For a couple of reasons: I’d become an adoptive father late in life and was inclined to be overprotective as a result, and I was not too old to remember the power of raging teenage hormones. I had been a pretty clean-cut kid, in deference to my mother, a devout Catholic lady; she’d had a hard life, putting up with my drunken, abusive old man, and I felt protective toward her, too, hadn’t wanted to give her any more pain. Even so, my raging hormones had run wild on a couple of occasions, one of which almost made me an unwilling parent myself at age seventeen. That wouldn’t happen to Emily; of course it wouldn’t. But I could not help thinking of how many thousands of fathers had been unshakably and incorrectly convinced it wouldn’t happen to their daughters.…
Emily was in the midst of an impromptu concert, singing unaccompanied to an audience of one, Kerry, when I got home. I could hear Emily even before I unlocked the condo door, so I went in quiet, set the Alice Cahill–Grace Dellbrook e-mail file on the hallway table, and stood there listening. The song was one I hadn’t heard before, didn’t recognize, but it was an understandable choice given the sudden tragic loss of both her parents and the revelation of their hidden criminal past—a haunting piece about loneliness. She had a sweet, clear voice, the kind sometimes described as angelic, and justifiably so in her case. Her heart was set on a singing career—she sang in school productions and was taking private lessons from an established professional who encouraged her. That was another good reason why I should not have been concerned about her personal conduct. She would never do anything to jeopardize her future plans.
You know something, pal? I said to myself while I listened. You’re a damned old fuddy-duddy. What you should be fretting about is whether or not you’ll live long enough to hear your daughter perform onstage, on TV, somewhere in front of a large audience of people who won’t be one-tenth as proud of her as you.
When she finished her song, I went into the living room clapping lustily. Kerry joined in, and Emily beamed and bowed and then came over to give me a hug. Special little family moment. The song, it turned out, was one by Taylor Swift called “A Place in This World.” If Ms. Swift had heard Emily’s rendition, she surely would have applauded, too.
Kerry was in good spirits. She’d heard from the small-press publisher that was doing e-book and print-on-demand paperback editions of her mother’s collected works—three volumes of novelettes from various forties pulp magazines and the two full-length novels written more recently, Dead Eye and Black Eye, all of which featured private detective Max Ruffe. They had originally appeared under the pseudonym Samuel Leatherman, but the reissues would be published with the byline “Cybil Wade writing as Samuel Leatherman,” with introductory memoirs written by Kerry. A fitting tribute to a much-loved woman of considerable talent.
“They’ve gotten some very nice quotes from contemporary writers that should help with sales,” Kerry told me. When she was happy like this, there was a glow in her eyes and on her face that made her look ten years younger. Still and forever another bellezza delle bellezze, whether her hair was her natural auburn or turned gray or
pure white. “The books will be available next week. Copies of the paperback edition are on the way, should be here tomorrow or Monday. I can’t wait to see them.”
“Likewise. The pulp-style covers look great.”
“Cybil would’ve been pleased. Though she’d have insisted it was all a big fuss over nothing. She never did hold her work in very high regard.”
“No,” I said, “but I think maybe we convinced her she was a much better writer than she gave herself credit for.”
“Better than most of her male counterparts in the pulp era.”
“Ninety-eight percent of them. I must’ve read more than two thousand pulp stories over the years. If that doesn’t qualify me as an expert judge, I don’t know what would.”
“She was a wonderful writer,” Emily said. “I didn’t think I’d like reading her stories in those old magazines, but I did. Her novels, too.”
I know a good cue when I hear one. “Speaking of novels,” I said, “how would you ladies like to help me with some literary detective work if you’re not busy tonight?”
“What sort of literary detective work, Dad?”
“Reading and comparing a couple of novels.”
“Mysteries?”
“No. Romance novels.”
Kerry said, “You don’t mean the fat, sexy kind?”
“No. The, ah, short, sappy kind.”
“You’re not kidding, are you.”
“Nope.” I hauled the paperbacks of What the Bride Found Out and The Convenient Bride out of my coat pocket, extended them one in each hand. “I’m no judge of this type of fiction—I doubt I could get through both of them by myself tonight—and I’d like the female perspective.”
“Why do you want them compared?”
I explained about the new client and his missing wife, the plagiarism accusation, the e-mails from Grace Dellbrook that outlined the alleged theft points. “Before I see the Dellbrook woman tomorrow, I need a better idea of whether or not there’s any validity to the claim. But if you’re both too busy with other things…”
“I’m not,” Emily said. “Mom? I’m a fast reader and so are you. It wouldn’t take all that long for each of us to read both.”
“And then compare our notes to the detailed similarities in the e-mails.” The idea appealed to Kerry, too. “All right,” she said to me, “but Emily and I don’t work for free. It’ll cost you a restaurant meal and a movie this weekend.”
“Deal.”
We had a light supper and then got to it, Emily curled up on the living room couch with Shameless the cat in her lap, Kerry and me in our Barcaloungers. While each of them read one of the novels, both turning pages at a rapid clip, I went over the e-mail exchanges again, then the background specifics on Grace Dellbrook Tamara had forwarded. Kerry and Emily finished reading at about the same time, then swapped books. This go-round took longer because they paused now and then to make notes. It was almost ten o’clock by the time they finished. The comparison of their notes, and then the notes with the e-mails, took another half hour.
Result: Complete agreement with Grace Dellbrook on the various points of similarity she’d raised, plus three additional points both Kerry and Emily had found and a fourth on Kerry’s list. Plot, character, scene setting, descriptive passages lifted from the clumsily written What the Bride Found Out and smoothly rewritten in The Convenient Bride.
“No doubt about it,” Kerry said. “Alice Cahill, alias Jennifer West, is a thief. How many books did you say she’d written?”
“A dozen or so, according to her husband,” I said.
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, how many of those might also have been stolen?”
10
Before I left the condo on Friday morning, I called the Van Ness Avenue branch of Chase Bank and asked to speak to Grace Dellbrook. She was there—it was shortly after their 9:00 A.M. opening—and when she came on the line I gave my name and profession, asked if I could meet with her to discuss an important matter.
Her response took some time coming. “What important matter? What does a detective want with me?”
“I’d prefer to discuss it in person, Ms. Dellbrook. Could we meet somewhere, a public place, during your lunch hour?”
More dead air. “No, not unless you give me some idea of what this is about.”
“It concerns Alice Cahill.”
I took the sound I heard on the line to be that of a quick-drawn breath. Then, “She hasn’t changed her mind, has she?”
“Changed her mind about what?”
“The money.”
“I know nothing about any money.”
“… Are you working for her?”
“No, ma’am, I’m not.”
“Who then? What’s this about?”
“Mrs. Cahill and the fact that she’s missing.”
“Missing? My God…”
“I really think we should talk, Ms. Dellbrook, as soon as possible. Is there someplace public we can meet during your lunch break?”
I waited through another period of dead air. “All right,” she said finally. “There’s a Starbucks not far from the bank.”
“Fine. What time?”
“I can be there a little after twelve. How will I know you?”
I described myself and the suit and tie I was wearing. Retirement age and hardly a menacing figure. She said, “All right,” again and broke the connection.
Next call: James Cahill’s home number. No answer, no machine pickup. I tried his cell and the call went straight to voice mail. So then I rang up Streeter Manufacturing. He was there, but in a meeting that was expected to last for some time. I left an ASAP callback message for him.
Third and final call: Prime Medical Group in Walnut Creek, a consortium of doctors that included Paul Nesbitt. I did not expect to get through to him and I didn’t. If he was anything like his wife, he wouldn’t want anything to do with me, but I left a request for a callback anyway.
I drove down to South Park. The $2.8 million renovation project that had begun late in 2015 was complete now—thirty or so dead or dying trees removed and twenty-four new mature ones planted, an expanded children’s play area, new ADA accessible curb ramps at each of the park’s four entry points. Deconstruction and construction noise had been constant and intrusive for what seemed like an endless period of time, but what can you do when your offices are located in a building facing a prime-location park, the rent is still affordable even with recent increases, and office space elsewhere in the heart of the city is both hard to come by and exorbitantly expensive these days? You tolerate the inconvenience, naturally, and become so used to it after a while that you’re able to tune much of it out. The agency, now that all the renovation was done, seemed almost too quiet to Tamara. Not to me. There can’t be enough quiet to suit me in this racket-filled world.
Tamara has a number of different personas, depending on her mood and the state of things in her personal life. Practical. Playful. Grouchy. Pensive. Cool. Bawdy. Talkative. Withdrawn. Others, too. What I walked in on today was Pensive Tamara. That meant, according to past experience, that there was something weighing on her mind that she was trying to work out or come to terms with. Something to do with Horace Fields and their iffy relationship, probably. I knew better than to ask her. If she wanted to talk about it, she would. And today she didn’t.
One thing she was, always, was efficient, attentive, and sharp when it came to business. I told her what Kerry and Emily and I had determined about Alice Cahill, and the first thing she said paraphrased Kerry’s words of last night: “If she did it once, it probably wasn’t the only time. Serial book thief.”
“In which case she was bound to get caught sooner or later,” I said. “Grace Dellbrook was apparently the first victim to tumble. No other such correspondence in her files, or Cahill would have mentioned it.”
“Unless she didn’t keep a record of any other accusations, or did and destroyed the evidence.”
“Possible, but then why
keep the Dellbrook file?”
“Yeah. Not an honest person, in any case. Agoraphobia’s no excuse.”
“Agreed.”
“You think her husband knows?”
“I doubt it. She wouldn’t have told him, and she wasn’t worried about him snooping in her files. They had a privacy pact, and he’s the … deferential type.” I almost used Fran Woodward’s phrase: small-balls guy.
“You going to tell him?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Depends on if it has a bearing on her disappearance. I should have a better idea of whether or not Grace Dellbrook had anything to do with it after I talk to her.”
The ringtone on my cellular is supposedly the most nonintrusive and melodious, but to me it sounds like some sort of bird warbling. The call that came in just then was from a woman at Prime Medical Group in Walnut Creek, who said that she was calling on behalf of Dr. Nesbitt. Would I be able to come in at three o’clock this afternoon for a brief consultation? Nesbitt evidently didn’t share his wife’s open hostility toward James Cahill and was inclined to be cooperative, at least up to a point. It had to be at his convenience and in his bailiwick, however. Okay with me; I expected to head back to the East Bay again anyway after the meeting with Grace Dellbrook, for another face-to-face talk with the client. I said yes, Dr. Nesbitt could expect me at the appointed time.
Tamara finished up a background search that Jake Runyon had requested by e-mail from Eagle Lake, then pulled up the information I’d asked her for yesterday. James Cahill’s alleged girlfriend, Megan Sprague, was thirty-one and a graduate of Cal State Santa Cruz with a degree in business administration. Employed in the marketing department at Streeter Manufacturing for four years. Married five years, divorced three—divorce amicable, not messy. Joint custody with her ex-husband of a six-year-old daughter, the child mostly residing with her and her aunt in Concord. No police record of any kind. No hint of any scandalous behavior, sexual or otherwise.
“Nothing much there,” Tamara said. “If the client is sleeping with her, you think the relationship’s justified?”
“Not my place to make moral judgments.”
Endgame--A Nameless Detective Novel Page 8