by Janet Dawson
“You won’t have to. You didn’t kill Sam.”
“The police think I did. My lawyer thinks I did.”
“He didn’t say that.”
“No, he didn’t,” Ruth said. “Not to me, anyway. But I can tell. He’s very cynical, this Mr. Stanley. I guess if you defend criminals for a living, you get cynical about guilt and innocence. I’m sure the lines get blurred. Is there such a thing as innocence, Jeri? I wonder.”
“What do you mean, Ruth?”
“When Sam forced his way into the apartment, I was frightened. I was angry too. At the way he’d treated me in the past, at the way he was still treating me. When he threatened to take Wendy, I knew he could. He was physically strong, and what’s more, capable of doing it. When I got the gun, I felt so angry I was cold inside. At that moment I wanted to kill him. And I knew I could. Maybe I did. Maybe I pulled the trigger and I just don’t remember.”
“You pulled the trigger inside the apartment and the slug went into the sofa,” I said. “That was before he choked you and you lost consciousness. I believe you were angry and that you wanted to protect yourself and your child. God, yes, Ruth, we’re all capable of murder. But given what you’ve told me and my own look at the scene, I don’t believe you got up from the floor, followed him out into the hall, shot him in the back—and don’t remember any of it. I just don’t believe that. It would make my job a whole lot easier if you don’t believe it either.”
Ruth sighed and her mouth moved into a crooked little smile, but she didn’t say anything. “I talked to your neighbors,” I continued. “What I’ve heard makes me think there was someone with Sam that night. I want you to close your eyes and think hard. When the elevator door opened and Sam stepped out, did you see anyone else? Did you sense another person? And later, inside the apartment. Did Sam say or do anything that might indicate there was someone out in the hall?”
Obediently she shut her eyes and was quiet for a long moment. Then she covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook. “No,” she said, dropping her hands and staring out at the yard. “No. I told you at the police station. All I saw was Sam.”
I leaned back in the chair, frustrated. Then I moved in a different direction. “Mrs. Parmenter, the elderly woman who lives down the hall from you. She told me she poked her head outside right before the shooting and saw and heard you arguing with a man. Who was it?”
Now Ruth looked surprised. “That? That was Kevin. We weren’t arguing. We were discussing something.”
“Why would she think it was an argument? Did you raise your voices a little? What were you talking about?”
“It was private,” Ruth said, hesitating.
“Your business or his?” She didn’t answer. “Let me take a guess, then. Kevin’s business, and you disagreed about it.”
“I promised I wouldn’t say anything.” Her words were a soft plea.
“Ruth, you’ve got to be open and honest, with me and with Bill Stanley. I know Kevin didn’t come home until early Sunday morning, because I was here when he arrived. He says he spent the night with a friend. I think he’s lying.”
“You think he came back,” Ruth said, frowning. She got up from the chair and the book fell unnoticed at her feet. “And shot Sam? My big brother Kevin? Oh, Jeri, you’re wrong. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” I kept my voice neutral, not putting words to my suspicions as I stood. “I’ve been trying to ask him questions since Monday, and he’s avoiding me. Tell him I need to talk with him, Ruth.”
When I returned to my office, it was nearly four. The red light on my answering machine was blinking. As I reached for the playback button my office door opened and a man entered. For a moment I didn’t recognize him. His face held lines of fatigue, as though he’d trudged several miles in those scuffed thick-soled brown shoes on his feet. He wore shapeless khaki pants that looked a little worn at the knees, and a plain green shirt, open at the collar. His iron-gray hair even looked a bit windblown, which is difficult with hair as short as Joe Franklin’s.
“I’ve got some mineral water and sodas in the refrigerator,” I told Franklin, pointing toward the back of the office. “Help yourself. You look like you could use it.”
He nodded and moved past me, then returned a moment later with a can of soda. He sat down in the chair in front of my desk, opened it and took a long swallow.
“I just got back from Alameda,” I told him.
The Admiral grimaced. “Ruth’s not... she seems shellshocked. And Wendy... well, damnation. I just want this to be over.”
“I know. I had lunch at the Sandwiched Inn. I hear you’ve been doing a thorough job of combing Piedmont Avenue.”
“That was yesterday,” the Admiral said crisply. “Today I hit Howe Street.” He took another long swallow from his can of soda, then set it on my desk. “I haven’t found Rosie yet, but I’ve confirmed that she was in the area late Saturday afternoon. And she may have been in the vicinity Saturday night.”
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen. He flipped open the notebook, tapping the first page with his pen. “A clerk at the hardware store on Piedmont Avenue says she was in the alley behind his store about four o’clock. He took a break around that time, and went out back for a smoke. He got a good look at her, hat and all.” He took another sip and turned a page.
“A woman who works at the optical shop down the street says she closed her office at five-thirty that afternoon and walked to the Lucca Delicatessen at the corner of Fortieth and Piedmont to buy a few things for dinner. As she was leaving, she thinks she saw Rosie digging in the Dumpster behind the deli. But she’s not certain it was Rosie, just that it was a woman. Only saw the backside, not the face or the hat.”
“That’s close to the construction site,” I commented.
“Right. The parking lot at the rear of that block abuts the site.” Franklin shuffled through the pages of his notebook. “There seems to be a pattern to Rosie’s behavior. She’s something of a loner. I talked to another street person who digs in the Dumpsters on the avenue. He says Rosie doesn’t like people to get too close. So she doesn’t beg from people on the street. Instead she collects cans and bottles, usable clothing and whatever she can find to eat. The librarian at the branch on Forty-first told me if the weather’s bad, Rosie comes into the library to get warm. She never stays long, though. Rosie spooks the library patrons and the patrons spook Rosie. Apparently, enclosed spaces make her nervous. Also, she doesn’t like to get very far from her shopping cart. She appears to be territorial. Several merchants on both sides of Piedmont Avenue told me that Rosie has scratched her mark various places on their Dumpsters. I saw a couple of examples. The R you sketched for me. It’s very distinctive.”
“Good work,” I told him, and I meant it.
“Thanks,” he said, looking somewhat pleased with himself as he reached for his soda. “It hasn’t been easy. In fact, it’s been time-consuming and tedious. I don’t know how you do it all day long.”
If he thought talking to people was tedious, I ought to set him to work at the courthouse, looking up records on microfilm. “Finding a few grains of wheat in all that chaff makes the difference.”
“Agreed. I’m sure it helps if you’re committed to what you’re doing. This exercise has also been very instructive with regard to the homeless. I must say I didn’t realize until now how many folks either don’t notice homeless people or simply don’t want to. Rosie could very well have been in the area during the time in question, and the people I’m talking to just didn’t see her.”
“Or looked right through her,” I said, thinking of the times I had averted my own head or ignored the outstretched hand. “It’s not enough to place her near Forty-first and Howe in the afternoon. I want to know if she was there that night. And if people don’t see her during daylight hours, she must be practically invisible at night. But you said you had a line on that.”
“Gilbert and Ridgeway.” I reached for my map stash, on the shelf behind my desk, and opened an Oakland map on my desk surface. Franklin got up and joined me. “That’s two long blocks from Ruth’s apartment building,” I said, locating the intersection with my index finger.
“It gets better,” the Admiral said. He finished the soda in one long gulp and tossed the can into my own recycling box. “A woman who lives near the corner of Ridgeway and Montgomery thinks she saw Rosie pushing her shopping cart down Ridgeway toward Howe, about an hour later. She’s not sure of the time, or even that it was Rosie. Just a homeless person pushing a shopping cart.”
“If it was Rosie,” I speculated, “maybe she was headed for that construction site, to bed down for the night. Keep at it, Admiral. Sometimes you have to go back over the same turf, several times.”
“I know. I knocked on plenty of doors where no one answered. I’ll get back on it tomorrow, and I’ll call in my reports. I just took the chance you. might be in your office this afternoon. I’m headed home now. Lenore’s been pushing herself too hard. I think we all need to go out to dinner.”
“Good idea. She did look a bit ragged.”
After my new associate left, I pushed the appropriate button on my answering machine and played back my messages. “Yo, Jeri,” Norman Gerrity said in his unmistakable voice. “I got something you’ll be interested in. Call me.”
I reached for the phone, hoping Norm was in his office. He answered on the second ring. “It’s Jeri. What have you got?”
“Sergeant Bruckner in Gilroy was right,” he said. “I talked to a buddy of mine on the San Jose force. He recognized Sam Raynor’s name. Told me the whole story. Raynor was a minor player in an auto theft ring and chop shop operating in San Jose. You know how it works—a car gets stolen and dismantled for the parts, or gets sold to someone who’s not choosy about where it came from. Or they buy junkers and pull a VIN switch. You know what that is?”
“Yes, the term has recently come to my attention,” I said, recalling Acey Collins’s description of how it was done.
“It was a big operation. The San Jose cops had been trying to bust it for about a year before they finally closed it down. That’s how Raynor was involved. He’d steal cars in Gilroy and Morgan Hill and deliver them to San Jose. One day he blew it. He got pulled over for speeding, driving a Mercedes that belonged to somebody else. The patrolmen took him downtown and turned him over to the guys who were working the auto theft racket. They had Raynor by the short hairs, so he covered his own ass.”
“He informed on his business associates.”
“You got it,” Norm said. “Cops busted the whole scam and arrested ten people, including the owner of the auto parts store where Raynor worked.”
“Did they know Raynor turned on them?”
“My source says yes. Raynor’s ex-boss figured it had to be him, since he wasn’t arrested and he dropped out of sight. The boss was the one saying if he ever caught up with Raynor, he was history. That must be the reason Raynor decided to get the hell out of Dodge.”
“That, and the fact that he beat his first wife bloody, around the same time.”
“Well, Raynor didn’t testify at any of the trials. By the time the cops went looking for him, he was in boot camp down in San Diego. They had a strong enough case without him, so they didn’t figure it was worth the trouble to bring him back up here.”
“Did all of the people who were arrested go to jail?”
“Yeah. Since that was eight years ago, they’re out.”
“Are any of them still plying their trade?”
“Probably. It’s all they know how to do.”
“You’ve increased my list of suspects, Norm.”
“How would they know Raynor was back in the area?” he asked.
“If the auto parts store owner is still in Gilroy, he may have found out from Tom Meriwell or a member of Raynor’s family. Besides, Raynor bought his latest girlfriend a shiny almost new Mercedes, which subsequently got stolen. My first question is whether the car was stolen when Raynor acquired it. I also have a hunch he engineered its disappearance. It’s one way for him to hide some cash, which is why I started this investigation in the first place.”
Thirty-one
DESPITE THE TANTALIZING PROSPECT THAT SAM Raynor was murdered by someone from his past, I was convinced the killer had to be someone from his present, someone in whose company he was comfortable enough to let his guard down, because that person accompanied him into Ruth’s apartment building. Still, Norm’s information about Sam and his involvement in the auto theft ring certainly added a new angle to my investigation, one worth considering in the light of the theft of Tiffany Collins’s Mercedes.
The Harley and the Plymouth were both in the driveway outside the Victorian. I parked on the street, in front of a dusty red Subaru. As I got out of my car, I noticed the Subaru had a long scrape and a dented left front fender. I walked toward the house and up the front steps, expecting to hear piano music or rock ‘n’ roll. Instead I heard a television set. The Collins boy answered my knock, looking through the screen door with his mother’s deep brown eyes. When I asked for his mother, he hollered “Mom” over his shoulder. A moment later Genevieve appeared.
“Hi,” she said, unlatching the screen door. “Tiff’s in the kitchen.”
Tiffany had come directly from work, wearing a light summer dress, yellow cotton splashed with red and pink hibiscus. She had removed her high heels, and her nylon-clad feet were propped up on one of the chairs that circled the round table. A can of Budweiser and a glass with an inch of amber liquid sat in front of her. “You.” Tiffany’s face crinkled with disgust at the sight of me standing in the doorway. She tossed her blond head, picked up the can and poured some more beer into the glass.
“You talk to her, damn it,” Acey said behind me. I turned and saw him coming out of the bathroom, drying his hands on a worn terry-cloth towel. He was stripped to the waist and a streak of soap still lingered on one shoulder. Gen took the towel from him and wiped away the lather.
Tiffany’s glare encompassed all three of us. “It’s not enough that Gen called you Saturday so you could come spy on us, but I’ve got Ms. Hotshot Detective here dogging my steps. I bet you got a spy over at NAS too. Who else told that damn Lieutenant Bruinsma about Sam and me? For all I know, you’ve been talking to my insurance company.”
She was on target, I thought ruefully. “I do know you called in sick Monday and Tuesday.”
“You think I shot Sam?” she challenged.
“You tell me.”
Suddenly Tiffany seemed quite interested in the foam that topped her beer. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. “I didn’t know he was dead until I got back to town and called Acey.”
“So where were you?”
“I went to see my girlfriend Kelly. She lives up in Citrus Heights. Me and Mr. McGregor drove up there early Sunday morning.”
“Mr. McGregor? Oh, the rabbit.”
“He goes where I go.” Tiffany squared her jaw. “I should stick with Mr. McGregor and forget men.” Acey gave his sister a quick sidelong glance as he walked to the refrigerator. She intercepted his look and shook a finger at him. “Don’t say it. Just don’t say it.”
Her brother sighed and opened the refrigerator door, fetching his own can of Budweiser. As he was about to shut the door, Gen held it open and pulled out a plastic contai
ner, checking its contents, a cut-up chicken marinating in a pungent brown liquid. She replaced the cover, stuck it back on the shelf, then crossed to the kitchen counter and reached for a knife, a scarred wooden cutting board, and a plastic colander full of green bell peppers. Acey watched us from the back door, taking occasional sips of beer from the can he held.
Tiffany looked up at me, her red lips twisting into a wry smile. “You were right. Sam was using me. To get over on his wife.”
“Is that what you argued about Saturday?” I pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Sam loaned me the money to buy the Mercedes.” Tiffany sighed and raised the glass of beer to her lips. “I knew I was gonna have to buy a new car soon. Thumper’s not in great shape.”
“Thumper?”
“My Subaru. So I was sort of looking at cars. I’ve always wanted a Mercedes, and that insurance money I got when Mom died was burning a hole in my pocket. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to spend it on a car. Better to save it for a down payment on a condo or something practical.” She made a face. “Sam caught me at a weak moment, with his brilliant idea. He loaned me the money, interest-free. The deal was, I’d pay him back every month, in cash.”
“No record of the loan or the payments,” I said. “Great way to launder money.”
“Yeah, that’s what finally dawned on me.” She shook her head. “I had this feeling he wanted to hide money from his wife. But I believed what he said about her. Then the Mercedes was stolen, and you showed up, telling me all this stuff about Sam. Now the insurance guy’s giving me problems. So I started to wonder, about everything.” Tiffany jerked her chin in her brother’s direction. “Acey thinks Sam had something to do with stealing the Mercedes. But he seemed as mad as I was when it disappeared.”
She looked around the room, at her brother, her sister-in-law, and me, and colored slightly. “I know, it sounds stupid. The more I think about it, the dumber I feel. But I believed what I wanted to believe. Until Saturday.”
I looked at her across the table. “What else did you and Sam argue about?”