Kindred Crimes

by Janet Dawson

  He frowned and scratched his fresh growth of beard as he took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and uncapped it. Then he kicked off his leather sandals and sprawled on his brown-and-yellow sofa, one foot propped on the coffee table next to his unopened mail. He stared at the wooden shelves that held his television and sound system.

  “How did you meet her?” I asked.

  “At work. I’ve been with the same company for eleven years. She got a secretary’s job there, about six years ago.” He sighed. “There was this spark between us.”

  Renee would have been about twenty-three when she met Bellarus. His words filled in some of the gap between the time she lived as Elizabeth Willis with the musician in the Haight and her marriage to Philip Foster. Some of the gap, but not all.

  “What happened when you saw her Tuesday?”

  “Something was going on,” he said finally, after a long pull from the beer bottle. “I don’t know what.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She seemed really edgy.”

  “Why? Did she say anything about her relationship with Philip or her in-laws? Did she say anything about her baby?”

  “Oh, hell.” Bellarus put both feet on the floor and hunched forward, leaning his arms on his knees. “She said she’d had enough. Her marriage was down the tubes. She wanted to leave Philip. She wanted to blow this place and go someplace else.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I told her she was crazy. I’ve got a good job, a good life. I’m not going to screw it up for her.”

  “Why not?” I left the bar stool and crossed the living room to the glass doors that led to the balcony. “You must have felt something for her.”

  “Shit.” He set the beer bottle on the coffee table, got up and paced, his bearded face furrowed with a frown and his blue eyes refusing to meet mine. “You ever do cocaine? Renee’s like cocaine. Seductive. Exhilarating. When I’m with her I want her more and more. Sex was incredible. We’d spend a whole weekend in that bedroom, screwing and drinking.”

  “Does she drink a lot?” I asked, thinking of Franny Willis.

  “Sometimes,” Bellarus said reluctantly. “She isn’t an alcoholic or anything like that. She just likes to get high. Booze, mostly, maybe a little pot. We had some good times.”

  “But not all the time?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Coming down from the high was a bitch. Jekyll and Hyde. Manic-depressive. It’s been like that ever since I met her. When I first knew her, we’d break up, get back together, break up again. Once we had a screaming fight. I almost hit her. It was like she wanted me to. She was egging me on. I walked away from it, though.” He sighed heavily.

  “She said she never wanted to see me again. I started dating another lady. Next thing I know she’s flashing a wedding ring at me. That poor son-of-a-bitch Philip. I’ll bet he didn’t know what hit him.”

  He does now, I thought. “So marriage and motherhood didn’t work out. And she came back to you.”

  “About six, eight months ago,” Bellarus said. He stopped walking and reached for his beer. “I was between ladies. Renee showed up here one night after work. About three seconds later we were in bed. I tried, but I couldn’t get her out of my system.”

  “But you don’t want to run away with her.”

  “Stay with Renee on a permanent basis?” He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Are you kidding? I’d be burned out. She does that to people.”

  He sounded like the moth blaming the flame for the attraction that burns, unable to admit his own complicity in the relationship. I left the glass doors and stood in front of him.

  “Did Renee ever say anything about her family?”

  “As far as I know, she didn’t have any. She said something about her parents being dead.”

  “No sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles, cousins?”

  Bellarus shook his head. “None that I know of.”

  “How about friends?”

  He thought about it for a moment. I expected him to echo her husband’s words that first day I met him. Philip Foster told me then Renee didn’t have any friends. I thought I knew why. Everything I’d found out about her so far indicated that she viewed men as conquests and women as competitors. That kind of woman doesn’t have friends. But Bellarus surprised me.

  “Yeah. She had a friend. This lady in San Francisco. They talked on the phone a lot. Renee would go up and spend the weekend with her. This other lady came down here once, a few years ago. A tall, foxy blonde. Her name was Karen.”

  “Karen Willis?” I leaned forward.

  “Yeah. I think that was the name. Willis. Isn’t that the name you said earlier, downstairs by the car?”

  I ignored his question, my mind digesting this new piece of information. When I talked to Karen, she said she hadn’t seen her sister in years. She told me she didn’t know Elizabeth had changed her name to Renee.

  I wondered what else Karen hadn’t told me.

  Seventeen

  THE INSURANCE COMPANY WHERE PHILIP AND EDWARD Foster worked was located in a steel and concrete tower near Interstate 280, its mirrored glass windows reflecting the afternoon sun. I checked the directory near the elevators and caught the next car to the tenth floor. The reception area was a small rectangle with pale green carpet and several dark green chairs around a low mahogany table.

  A set of double glass doors led to the inner sanctum. They were guarded by a woman at an L-shaped counter, presiding over a large switchboard. A tiny headset with a microphone was perched on her impeccably coiffed gray hair, and she wore a green silk dress that matched the chairs. Though she was seated she managed to look down her nose at me.

  “Do you have an appointment?” Her eyes flicked over my khaki pants, red shirt, and low-heeled walking shoes. Her tone implied that Philip ordinarily got a better class of visitor.

  “Just tell him Jeri Howard is here.”

  She called Philip’s office, announced my presence, and listened while someone on the other end talked.

  “He’s in a meeting,” she said imperiously, expecting me to disappear.

  “I’ll wait.”

  A table to the receptionist’s left held a coffee urn and some cups. I poured a cupful and planted myself in a chair directly opposite the receptionist, so she wouldn’t forget I was there. Someone had left a copy of the San Jose Mercury-News on an end table. I picked it up and opened it, the pages rustling.

  The receptionist gazed at me with disapproval. A couple of middle-aged men in business suits walked into the reception area. She favored them with a warm, solicitous smile.

  When I finished reading the newspaper I asked the receptionist to call Philip’s office again. He was still in a meeting. I had some more coffee and waited another ten minutes.

  “He’s still unavailable,” the receptionist said after a whispered conversation with her headset.

  I leaned over the counter and she drew back as though I might bite. “Tell him I’m not leaving. You got that?”

  She got it. I half-expected to see the firm’s security staff appear to hustle the crazy woman out of the building. But Philip himself appeared, looking pale in his blue pin-striped suit, with deep shadows under his brown eyes. He held open one of the glass doors and motioned me into the hallway.

  “You have to sign in,” the receptionist called to my departing back. “You have to wear a visitor’s badge.”

  Philip didn’t say anything as he led me through a maze of offices, cubicles, and work stations to a conference room with a large oval table. He shut the door and turned to me.

  “My mother called. She said you’d been to the house. I thought you might show up. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “I thought you were in a meeting.”

  “I was. Whether you believe it or not.”

  “You’re back at work,” I said, a barb in the words. “Business as usual.”

  Philip winced. “What do you want?”

  “I w
ant to find Renee.”

  “You’re not working for me anymore.”

  “I have another client.”

  “Who is it?” I didn’t answer. “Why did you go see my mother?”

  “I wanted to find out if it’s true that your wife’s been hitting your kid. Your mother wouldn’t let me see him.”

  “Of course it’s true. Do you think my parents would make up a story like that?”

  “I think they’d do anything to break up your marriage. Including lie.” I folded my arms and leaned against the conference table. “I’m a professional skeptic, Philip. I need to see some hard physical evidence of abuse before I’ll believe it.”

  “And then what?”

  “I’ll keep looking for Renee.”

  He looked as though he were holding back tears. “Leave it alone. Leave me alone. It’s over.”

  “I can’t. I want to find her almost as much as you do.”

  “I don’t want to see her again,” he said tonelessly, but the longing in his eyes told another story. Elizabeth had the same addictive effect on Philip as she had on Dean Bellarus.

  “I think you do.”

  “No,” he said. Then quiet bitterness filled his voice. “Did you talk to her lover?”

  “You know about Bellarus,” I said. “Who told you? Your friend Sandra?”

  “Renee told me.”

  His words said everything there was to know about Elizabeth’s relationship with her husband. The more I found out about her the less I liked her. But I didn’t want to stop looking. I was hooked just as badly as Philip and Bellarus.

  “How long have you known?” I asked Philip.

  “Months. We were having an argument. She blurted it out. I was hurt.” He took a deep shaky breath, looking like a man who’d been kicked in the stomach. “But I could deal with it. I put up with a lot from Renee. I’d do anything to keep her.”

  “Anything? So you looked the other way while she had an affair?”

  “I was afraid she’d leave,” he cried.

  “She left anyway.” What else had Philip ignored? If it was true that Renee had abused the child, had he tolerated that behavior too?

  “Did she run away with him?” Philip asked, the pain of his obsession in his eyes.

  “No. He hasn’t seen her.”

  “If you find her will you tell me where she is?”

  I shook my head. “You’re not my client anymore. You fired me, remember?”

  “I want her back.”

  “Why? So you can punish her for leaving?”

  “I want things the way they were before.”

  “Your wife was sleeping with another man and you want to resume the status quo?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right, I don’t.”

  “Oh, Christ,” he said, his voice ragged. He looked ragged too, a man skating on the edge of a cliff, ready to go over. He balled his fists and came at me, as though he wanted to hit someone and I was the closest target. I stepped out of his way. He walked to the conference-room window and leaned his head against the glass. Then he banged his fists against the window, again and again, until I was afraid he’d break the glass.

  “Stop it.” I grabbed his arms. He shook me off. I seized his wrists and dragged him away from the window. I pulled one of the chairs away from the conference table and shoved him into it.

  The conference-room door opened. I looked up and saw Edward Foster’s hard brown eyes in a face twisted with fury. Two men stood behind him. Building security, I thought. They had that look.

  “What are you doing here?” Edward demanded. Despite his rage his voice was even, businesslike.

  “I came to see your son.”

  “You also went to see my wife. I understand you have another client. Who is it?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “Oh, no.” Edward stepped into the room. “When you invade my home, my office, my privacy, when you harass my family, that’s my business. I want you out of here. I want you off this case.”

  I straightened and put my hands on my hips, giving him stare for store. “I don’t threaten easily, Mr. Foster. And I’m on this case until it’s finished.”

  “If you’re not out of this building in five minutes, I’ll have you arrested.” He jerked his head in the direction of the two men who accompanied him.

  I glanced at Philip, slumped in the chair, his elbows on the conference table, his head in his hands. “Goodbye,” I said. He didn’t respond. I walked past Edward to the door. One of the men stayed in front of me and the other at my rear as they escorted me out of the insurance-company offices.

  The South Bay sunshine didn’t last as I drove north on U.S. 101 toward San Francisco. Gray clouds scudded across the sky and it began to rain. My windshield wipers beat a slow whooshing pulse. Once I reached the city I got off the freeway and drove to the South of Market movie studio where I’d interviewed Karen Willis on Friday. Once inside I scoured the halls looking for Karen, but no one on or off the set had seen her. I retraced my steps to Wardrobe, where Lila stood over her worktable, dressed in a scarlet sweater and black denim jeans.

  “What do you want?” she barked, glancing at me.

  “My name’s Jeri Howard. I’m a private investigator. I was here Friday, talking to Karen Willis. Do you know where she is?”

  “I’m not her goddamn social secretary,” Lila said as she picked up a pair of scissors and attacked a length of peach-colored gauze. “Beyer fired her ass.”

  “Who’s Beyer? Why did he fire her?”

  “He’s the director and he’s pissed. Karen didn’t show up for work Saturday. He has to reshoot all her scenes with another girl.”

  Damn. She’s bolted. “What about her boyfriend?”

  “Rick Petrakis? He’s gone too. They left the hotel Friday night,” Lila said, referring to the place where the cast and crew were quartered. “No one’s seen them since.”

  “Where’s the hotel?”

  “The Cockroach Arms? Near Ninth and Folsom. If you plan to get anything out of the desk clerk, bring money.”

  “Do you know where Petrakis lives?”

  “What am I, Information?” Lila waved the scissors at me in exasperation. “He lives somewhere in the East Bay.”

  “I need to talk to Karen. If you see her —”

  “I’m not likely to,” Lila interrupted.

  “If you see her or find out where she is, call me.”

  I gave Lila my card. She muttered something I took to be grudging consent and stuck the card in her pocket. I left the studio and headed for the hotel. It took twenty bucks to pry open the desk clerk’s thin-lipped mouth. Karen Willis and Rick Petrakis had checked out late Friday night, and they were in a hurry.

  Now Karen had pulled a disappearing act. She’d lied to me about her relationship with Elizabeth. She must have known I’d locate Bellarus and learn she was lying. Why? What was she hiding?

  I got on the freeway again, now clogged with afternoon rush hour traffic, and headed across the Bay Bridge to Berkeley, contemplating a little illegal entry at Karen Willis’s apartment. The rain had stopped and the sun was playing peek-a-boo games with the clouds. I parked down the block from the apartment house and watched it for a few minutes before walking down the driveway to the back of the house. I took the stairs up to the deck. The door leading to the second-floor corridor was unlocked. I stepped inside. Music played in one of the first-floor apartments, but I didn’t hear anything from apartment D, Karen’s neighbor. I reached for the set of picks in my purse.

  A door opened and shut below me. I froze as I heard someone coming up the stairs. Then I went out the back door onto the deck just as Karen stepped into the hallway, followed by the dark-haired man I’d seen with her at the studio. She unlocked her apartment door and they both went inside.

  I was going to have the opportunity to talk to Karen after all. Back inside the building, I put my ear to the wall and listened. I heard Karen and her
boyfriend moving around, talking, though I couldn’t make out the words.

  I rapped sharply on the door of apartment C. Sound and movement ceased. I knocked again.

  “I know you’re in there, Karen.”

  The boyfriend opened the door. Over his shoulder I saw Karen, jamming clothes into a suitcase. She looked up, a strange, almost frightened look on her face. I couldn’t tell if she didn’t recognize me or if she was expecting someone else.

  “It’s you,” she said finally. “The private eye.” She zipped the suitcase shut.

  “You lied to me when you said you hadn’t seen Elizabeth in years. You knew she changed her name. Dean Bellarus says the two of you visited back and forth all the time.”

  A slow smile spread over Karen’s face. “So I left a few things out. Big deal.”

  “What else did you leave out, Karen? And where are you going?”

  “Look, Ms. Detective, Rick and I don’t have time to stand around here and chat with you. We’re supposed to be at work. I just came to get a few things.”

  She started for the door but I blocked her way, my hand on her arm.

  “I talked to Lila. She said Beyer fired you when you didn’t show up for work. Why did you leave the hotel?”

  “None of your damn business.” She pulled her arm away, dislodging my hand. “Why’d you come over here anyway? To pick my lock and search my apartment?” She jerked her chin at Rick. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I reached for her arm again. She swung the suitcase at me, then shoved me hard, out of the door of her apartment and against the wall. The obliging Rick shut the apartment door and blocked me, his knee connecting with my leg, his elbows pushing against my stomach.

  Over his shoulder I saw Karen at the back door. I struggled with Rick, who blocked me like a football player. He pushed me back toward the stairs until my foot hit air instead of floor. I fell, noisily and painfully, onto the landing halfway between floors. I scrambled to my feet and took the remaining stairs two at a time, ignoring my body’s protests and the startled occupants of the first-floor apartments who’d opened their doors to investigate. As I ran out the front door I saw Karen’s white BMW streak away from the curb.