Take a Number

by Janet Dawson

  Tiffany didn’t answer right away. For a moment the only sound was that of Gen chopping peppers, the knife making a dull whacking sound as it hit the wooden cutting board.

  “I asked Sam if he ever hit his wife.” Tiffany’s voice was quiet and her blue eyes stared at me. “The first time I asked was over dinner. He didn’t answer. I asked him again, in the parking lot. He just went off, talking about you and how his wife had hired you to spread lies about him. Then he started in on his wife, and what an awful bitch she is. I knew then you were right about him beating his wife. We were standing under a streetlight, and he got this terrible look on his face. He didn’t look like the same guy I’d been dating. He scared me. I kept thinking of that line from Shakespeare, about protesting too much. I was afraid he’d hit me. All I wanted to do was get out of there.”

  “What time did you leave the restaurant?” I asked her.

  “A little after ten. I didn’t look at my watch. We argued all the way to the parking lot, and then it was a couple of minutes before I got into Thumper. I steamed out of there and headed for home, but—” She stopped abruptly and ran both hands through her blond mane. “I had a fender bender. At the corner of Howe and MacArthur.”

  “I saw your fender. How did it happen?”

  “Wasn’t my fault.” Tiffany looked decidedly grumpy. “This sedan was making a left off MacArthur onto Howe. The light had just turned green for me, but she jumped the signal and cut the corner too close. She stopped and started to get out of her car, but I just waved her on. She was in such a hurry, I figured she must be on her way to the emergency room at Kaiser. And I just wanted to get home.”

  “Why didn’t you report it?”

  “After the business with the Mercedes getting stolen? Are you kidding? My insurance company would laugh in my face. I just figured it wasn’t worth the hassle. She didn’t hit me that hard and I’ve got a high deductible on Thumper. I’ll get Acey to hammer out the dent and paint the scratch.”

  Her brother was standing in the doorway that led to the back porch. She flashed him a crooked grin, and he muttered, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” He’d finished his beer and now he crumpled the can.

  “Too bad you didn’t report it,” I said. “I’d like to verify the time of the accident. Can you describe the car and driver?”

  “I can do both,” Tiffany declared. “I glanced at the clock in my car. It was ten thirty-one. I have this notepad stuck to the dash, right above the clock, and I wrote down the time and the license plate number of the other car, just in case.” Tiffany reached for her purse, which was sitting on the floor beside her chair. She rummaged through the contents and pulled out a slip of paper on which she’d scribbled the number.

  “It was a sedan, dark, California plates. I didn’t catch the make. The driver was a white woman and she was alone. I know I should have reported it, but Saturday night I just couldn’t deal with anything else. I went home, called my friend Kelly, and she said come on up. So I threw some clothes in an overnight case, and me and Mr. McGregor hit the road.”

  Tiffany added her friend’s telephone number to the slip and handed it to me. As I stood up to leave, Gen, who had worked her way through the green peppers and was now slicing tomatoes, asked if I wanted to stay for dinner. “Thanks, but I have a date,” I said, checking my watch. And if I went straight home from here, I’d have time to wash up and change clothes.

  “You always watch me,” Mark Willis said, “like a cat watching a mouse hole.”

  I blinked, startled by his observation. “Have I been staring at you?”

  A smile flickered across his saturnine face. He reached for the bottle of chardonnay and poured some into my wineglass. “Yes, you have. Why? Do I look different?”

  I tilted my head to one side and picked up my glass. Mark is a picture framer who lives in a little Gold Rush town called Cibola, up in the Sierra. We went to high school together over in Alameda, but that was a long time and another world ago. Our lives hadn’t reconnected until last March, when I was working on the same case that brought me into contact with Admiral Franklin and his family. There had been a strong attraction between Mark and me then. It was still there. I could feel it when I looked into his electric blue eyes, eyes that looked back at me, challenging, a bit amused.

  I examined him, a slender wiry body, a shock of dark hair. We were sitting at a table near the front window of Ti Bacio, a restaurant on College Avenue in North Oakland, our plates scraped free of the last morsels of linguine with clams. When we’d gone out before, months ago, he had smoked cigarettes, but Ti Bacio is smoke-free. Still, Mark wasn’t fidgeting like so many smokers I know, who require a nicotine fix after a meal, and I didn’t see a pack distorting his shirt pocket

  “You quit smoking,” I guessed.

  He grinned. “A worthy accomplishment after so many years. No more nicotine stains on hands and teeth, no more hacking cough. Virginia’s been after me to live a healthier lifestyle. She’s a vegetarian, drinks herbal teas. I won’t give up coffee, though.” Virginia owns the bookstore next to Mark’s frame shop. She’s an attractive woman, our own age, and he’d mentioned her several times during the course of dinner. I wondered if there was something between them, and why it mattered to me.

  “Give up coffee? I couldn’t function without it.” The server cleared away the plates. “I’ll have a caffe latte. And this restaurant has the most decadent chocolate mousse cake with raspberry sauce. I’ll split it with you. Unless you want something else.”

  “Chocolate and coffee are the only appropriate way to end a meal,” he said, ordering a cappuccino. “You have something on your mind, Jeri.”

  “I’ve gotten involved in another murder case.” I gave Mark an edited account of what was happening to Ruth Franklin Raynor. When we were in high school fifteen years ago, the Franklins and the Willises had lived next door to one another. In fact, Mark’s father had gone to the Naval Academy with Joe Franklin, and the families had known each other for years. Still, I knew Mark didn’t like to talk about his family or the past, so I broached the subject carefully.

  “Kevin Franklin is holding something back,” I said. “He’s been evasive about where he was after he took Ruth home Saturday night. I didn’t know him well in school. We didn’t run with the same crowd. But you’ve known Kevin since you were kids.”

  Mark’s narrow face had turned somber. He said nothing until the coffee and dessert arrived. “Kevin Franklin was always a good kid. The golden boy, the perfect son. He was frequently held up to me in contrast to my own shortcomings.” He sipped his cappuccino. “We didn’t have much in common. The only thing I can tell you is that when Kevin lies, he lies badly. I’m a hell of a lot better at it.” He smiled and took a fork to one corner of the chocolate mousse cake.

  “Well, the good kid is lying to me,” I said. “And you’re right, he is lying badly. I intend to confront him about it, as soon as I can find him. He’s avoiding me.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” Mark grinned again, and the awkward moment passed. “You get very single-minded as you pursue answers. Sneaking up on me like that, during dinner.”

  “I’ll do penance by paying the check.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me. I’ll leave the tip. Of course, since you’ve obtained information during dinner, you can take it off your taxes—”

  “Mark!” I reached for his hand as he cut another wedge off our dessert. “Speaking of leaving something, you’d better leave me some cake.”

  “So quit talking business and pick up your fork,” he advised. “When it comes to chocolate, I can’t be counted on to restrain myself.”

  We parted on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, with a kiss and hug, friendly, but tinged with rekindled longings and unexplored possibilities. He didn’t suggest exploring them. As I watched him walk away, I wondered what I would have done if he had made the suggestion.

  It was past eight and I would have liked to go home, but I had another stop to make. Mark
was right. I was always working, always analyzing the case at hand, even during dinner. Once I got started on a job, I hated to stop until I was finished, like a plow horse with the bit between its teeth. Had I been investigating insurance fraud or interviewing witnesses in a civil lawsuit, I’d keep more regular hours. But murder put a sharper point on the tack.

  Dana Albertson answered my knock at the front door of the Victorian flat in Alameda, a tall, big-boned woman in her twenties, clad in mustard-colored sweatpants and a gray Navy T-shirt. Her long brown hair was curly, caught in an untidy ponytail. “Yeah, Claudia’s here,” she told me, one hand playing with the end of her hair as she stood in the doorway. “And your name is?”

  “Jeri Howard. Claudia and I have met before.”

  The door opened wider, pulled by Claudia’s hand. She wore shorts and a sleeveless shirt, and she stood there with one hand on the door, glaring at me, her face a mixture of hostility and resignation. “What the hell do you want?”

  “Answers. And information. Like, where were you Saturday night?”

  Claudia put both hands on her slender hips and tossed her straight blond hair. “Christ, do you think I shot him?”

  “Did you have a motive?”

  “We went to the movies,” Dana protested as I stepped from the foyer into the apartment. It was small, probably one bedroom, furnished with lots of color, frills, and plants. I guessed that Claudia was sleeping on the futon, a wood-framed piece of furniture that did double duty as sofa and extra bed, its padded striped cushion serving as a mattress. To my left, at the far end of the futon, was an old blue wing chair in need of new upholstery. Farther back, toward the kitchen, I saw a small round wooden dining table with four bentwood chairs.

  A large red plastic tray rested in the middle of the rattan chest that served as a coffee table, holding a matching red bowl full of popcorn and two glasses that looked as though they held lemonade. The two women had been watching television, and now Dana turned off the set. “We went to the movies,” she repeated. “At the Piedmont Cinema. We were home and in bed by midnight.”

  “I know you went to the movies.” I looked at Claudia. “Steve followed you there.”

  “He what? God damn it,” she snapped, her fair face now suffused with red. “Why did I ever marry him?”

  “I assume because you were on the rebound from Sam Raynor.”

  The color drained from Claudia’s face. She slumped into the wing chair, her head down as she stared at the hardwood floor. Dana perched uneasily on the edge of the futon, looking at Claudia with a frown. Then she turned to me. “I never liked the guy. Sam, I mean. ‘Course, he didn’t pay much attention to me.”

  “You’re not blond,” I told Dana. “That was his pattern, wasn’t it, Claudia? He liked women short and blond. Slender and delicate too. That made it easier for him to dominate them physically.”

  “You noticed that, did you?” Claudia snapped.

  “I certainly did. You, Tiffany Collins, Ruth. I haven’t met his first wife yet, but I’ll bet I know what she looks like.”

  “First wife?” Claudia’s head jerked up. “He was married before? That son of a bitch.”

  “He never mentioned his first wife?”

  “No.” Claudia’s glare would have withered a house plant. “I knew about that little twit over in Admin. He flaunted it. Did she know about me?”

  “She does now. Tell me about your relationship with Sam.” I picked up one of the bentwood chairs around the dining table, placed it on my side of the rattan chest and sat down.

  Claudia drew her legs up onto the chair cushion and wrapped her arms around her knees, huddling, making herself as small as possible. “I think he bewitched me,” she muttered.

  “I gather Sam Raynor had that effect on some people, especially women who’ve been involved with him. Then reality comes barreling down the track, usually like a fist. Be glad you never married him. He beat both his wives.”

  Dana shuddered. “What a scuzzbag.”

  “He wanted to get married.” Claudia’s mouth was set in a grim line. “We met six years ago. I was just out of boot camp and apprentice training, with orders to Pearl Harbor. I was thrilled. I’d spent my whole life in the Midwest, and here I was living in Hawaii. I met Sam at the Navy Exchange. I was looking at stereo equipment and I didn’t have a clue what kind to buy. So here’s this tall good-looking redheaded guy who started telling me about woofers and tweeters. Then he asked me to dinner.”

  She shook her head. “I should have run the other way. But Sam was so different from the other guys I’d been dating. He treated me like I was the only woman in the world. He was so goddamn romantic. Orchids and fancy dinners down in Waikiki. Picnics in tropical rain forests, complete with champagne and pâte.”

  “Midnight swims at the beach?” I asked, thinking of Ruth. “Like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity?”

  “How did you know?” Claudia demanded.

  “Just a wild guess. When did he start talking marriage?”

  “After a few months. He said he wanted to settle down, wanted me to be the mother of his children. But I’d just turned nineteen. I didn’t want to get married.” Claudia paused and reached for her glass of lemonade. After she’d drained half of it, she went on. “So I called off the romance. I guess I had a lucky escape. Only the escape wasn’t that complete.” She raised the glass to her face and rubbed its frosted surface across her forehead. I noticed she still wore her wedding ring, and on the other hand, the jade ring. She set the glass back on the tray.

  “I heard he got married. By then Hawaii had palled. When you get right down to it, islands are confining. Little ones, anyway.” Claudia sighed. “So when it came time for orders to my next duty station, I requested someplace bigger, exotic, exciting. Japan, Australia, Europe. And where does the Navy send me? Guam! Another dinky damn island! You think Oahu’s small, you ought to see Guam.”

  “At least it’s warm,” Dana commented. “Try Adak, Alaska. It’s small—and cold.”

  “Where did you meet Steve?” I asked. The background was interesting but I wanted to move Claudia’s narrative forward.

  “Guam. I was assigned to the naval station, he was at the air station. Some guy invited me to a dance at the chiefs’ club and I met Steve there. He was separated from his first wife. After he got his divorce, he asked me to marry him. He’s a nice guy, steady, kind, the type my mother said I should marry. But I shouldn’t have. I thought I loved him, but I don’t. I got restless, started thinking about divorce. Then who should show up on Guam with a wife and kid but Sam Raynor.”

  “Let me speculate,” I said. “Sam told you his marriage was a mistake and he’d never quite gotten over you, because you were really the only woman in the world for him.”

  “And I bought it,” Claudia said, “every damn word. The same damn routine, with the flowers and romantic dinners. Only this time we had to sneak around, because we were both married to other people. We even managed to go away for a weekend, to a hotel on Saipan. I told Steve I was going with a girlfriend. I don’t know what Sam told Ruth.” With the fingers of her left hand she twisted the jade ring on her right. “Sam bought me this ring, when we were on Guam. He called it an engagement ring, because he was going to leave Ruth for me. But he didn’t. Here I am, still married to Steve—and you think I killed Sam.”

  Dana protested again that she and Claudia had been home and in bed by midnight. I raised a hand, shifting on the small chair. “Let Claudia tell me. Start with Friday, when you and Steve had a fight.”

  Claudia ran both hands through her hair. “Steve had been real quiet for a couple of days, like he was brooding. When he got home Friday night, he asked why I hadn’t fixed dinner. Well, he usually plays poker every other Friday night. He and a bunch of guys rotate between houses and they bring food. I got the Fridays mixed up. I told him I figured he was going to play cards that night. Then I said Dana and I were going to a movie Saturday night. Steve just went ba
llistic. He said I was lying, that someone he knew had seen me with Sam a couple of weeks ago. Steve hollered at me and hit the wall. I thought he was going to hit me. All of a sudden I yelled back. I was tired of lying. So I told him it was true. I told him all about Sam and me, and that I wanted a divorce. Then I packed some things and came over here to Dana’s.”

  “And Saturday?” I asked.

  “We went to the seven o’clock show at the Piedmont Cinema. It was a long movie. I think we left the theater around nine-thirty.” Claudia looked at her friend, and Dana nodded in agreement. “We walked down to Fenton’s for some ice cream. There was a line out the door, of course, there always is Saturday night, especially after the movie crowd shows up. I don’t know how long we had to wait for a table.”

  “Twenty minutes at least,” Dana chimed in.

  Claudia shrugged. “I didn’t notice the time. Dana and I just stood and talked and inched our way forward until we got inside the building.”

  “You didn’t see Steve?”

  “If I had, I’d’ve given him another piece of my mind. Following me like that.” Claudia shook her head. “Inside Fenton’s we took a table at the back. That must have been around ten o’clock. We shared a banana split, but we couldn’t finish the whole thing. I remember thinking, it’s late and if I eat all this ice cream I won’t be able to sleep.”

  “What time did you leave Fenton’s?” Claudia looked at Dana for help. They both guessed ten-thirty. “Did you see Sam Raynor at all that night?”

  “The last time I saw Sam was earlier in the week, on Wednesday. I didn’t see anybody I knew—” Claudia stopped. “Yes, I did. Harlan came in.”

  “Pettibone?” Now that caught my attention. “You’re sure? What time?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Harlan’s hard to miss. He always wears black and orange. Besides, he’s loud and obnoxious, and Saturday night wasn’t any different. He was with some of his bozo friends and he was acting like an idiot, as usual. He and his friends got a table just as Dana and I went to the cash register to pay the check at the same time.” Claudia illustrated their movements with her hands. I’ve had enough hot fudge sundaes at Fenton’s over the years to be intimately acquainted with the layout of the place. “I was hoping he wouldn’t see me.”