Paper Phoenix: A Mystery of San Francisco in the '70s (A Classic Cozy--with Romance!)

by Michaela Thompson

  “All right!” Richard threw down his napkin and got up so rapidly his chair fell backward, hitting the floor with a thump. “All right, if you don’t want to try to understand how it was. How could I expect a snot-nosed, self-righteous little bastard like you to comprehend anything about business?” He backed away from us. “Yes, I knew what was happening. But you won’t make me out to be a criminal. It wasn’t done in a— a criminal way.”

  Neither Andrew nor I said anything. I actually felt embarrassed for Richard. Did he believe that because a bribe had been offered and accepted over after-dinner brandy he was absolved of wrongdoing?

  Richard glared at us for a few moments, then sat on the sofa. “Now I want you to tell me something,” he said grimly. “Larry Hawkins didn’t broadcast the details of stories he was working on, but you’ve got details. How did you get them? Just how the hell did the two of you find out about this?”

  Twenty-three

  The atmosphere in the room seemed to vibrate. So far, we’d had only confirmation of what we already knew. Now it was time to explore uncharted territory, and it was my move.

  “The fact is, we found the story in a folder— the folder where Larry Hawkins kept his work in progress,” I said. A startled, uncomprehending frown appeared on Richard’s face. “And the way we got the folder is interesting. I found it in your safe, Richard. The wall safe in your office. We’d like to know how it happened to be there.”

  It took Richard a few moments to take in what I’d said. His face blanched whiter beneath the remains of his tan, giving him a jaundiced look. Then his color came flooding back and he said, “You bitch. You’ll never give up until you’ve nailed me to the wall, will you?”

  Andrew’s hand was on my arm. “Why don’t you just explain how you got the folder?” he said.

  Richard ignored him and raged at me, “Christ, Maggie, what would it take to get you off my back? You mean to tell me you had the sheer gall to go in my office and ransack my safe?”

  “I doubt it took more gall for me to do that than it took for you to get the folder from Larry,” I retorted. “He didn’t hand it to you for safekeeping, did he?”

  Richard stood up. “Why the hell should I tell you?” He moved toward the door.

  Andrew pushed his chair back and rose to face Richard. “Let me suggest why you should tell us. You should tell us because you’re in a very bad position. The folder disappeared the night Larry died, and it turned up in your safe. Don’t you think that needs explaining?”

  “Larry committed suicide. That has nothing to do with me.”

  We were back to Richard and me in the kitchen, the quince preserves, the telephone call. Sure, I agree Larry Hawkins is a pain in the ass. … “If it has nothing to do with you, how did you know he was going to do it?” I asked. “I heard you say on the telephone that he wouldn’t be bothering you much longer. I know you threatened him, too.”

  Richard looked at me blankly, his stare as fixed as that of a department-store mannequin. He didn’t seem to be moving or breathing. At last, he began shaking his head— almost like a shiver at first, then in wider arcs. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

  At that moment, the possibilities were infinite. He might attack me, burst into tears, lunge toward the door in an attempt to escape. He did none of those things. He kept looking at me and shaking his head, and finally he choked out, “Are you insane? Are you saying you think I killed Larry Hawkins?”

  “We’re saying the circumstances are suspicious,” Andrew said.

  Richard’s hands went to his face in an age-old gesture of horror. “You can’t believe that. It isn’t true.”

  “If there’s an explanation, we want to know what it is,” I said.

  Richard looked at the door, hesitated, then returned to the sofa and sat down. Andrew slid back into his chair. Richard’s face worked for a moment before he began to speak. “I took the folder from Larry’s office. I may as well admit it. I had known for several months that he was working on a story about me. The rumors were flying. In fact, at one point I called him up and demanded to know what was going on. Of course he wouldn’t tell me.” His voice rose. “He was so offensive I got angry, and told him I’d damn well better not run into him on the street, or I’d personally beat his ass to a pulp. Maybe those are the threats you’re talking about.”

  The conversation was easy to imagine. Richard overbearing, Larry taunting. “After a while, it occurred to me to fight fire with fire,” Richard went on. A hint of self-satisfaction was evident in his tone, and I could tell he still thought it had been a good idea. “I began investigating Larry. I have a few connections that made it fairly easy to look into the financial situation at the Times.” He looked pointedly at Andrew. “You know, Larry wasn’t particularly well liked in this town, so his privacy wasn’t universally respected.”

  “No kidding.” Andrew didn’t sound surprised.

  “Anyway, it didn’t take long before I realized there were irregularities. Money came in that was unaccounted for. I hope it won’t shock you to learn that your precious Larry’s hands weren’t especially clean. I figured knowing that would give me a fair bargaining position.”

  So Richard too had uncovered the Corelli blackmail. Larry’s number had obviously been up on that scheme. Richard went on, “Once I got on to that, I knew that if worse came to worst I could have a session with Larry and use my information to try to convince him not to publish. I held off, though, because it was my last card, and I didn’t want to play it too soon. I expect that’s when I said we wouldn’t have to worry about Larry much longer. I was probably talking to Jane Malone.”

  Andrew leaned forward. “What about the folder, Richard? What about the night Larry died?” he said.

  “I’m getting to that.” Richard hesitated a moment or two before going on. “The night of Larry’s death was the night I picked to have a showdown with him. The whole subject had been preying on my mind for weeks. I had worked late, and I went out for a few drinks and thought about it, and then, all of a sudden, I couldn’t stand it anymore. You know how that can be? One minute a situation is tolerable and the next minute it isn’t? So I decided to see if Larry was in his office. Right then. It must’ve been about eleven o’clock. I suppose I was a little drunk.

  “I drove to the Times. Maybe I didn’t really think he’d be there. When I went by, though, I saw a light on the seventh floor, so I thought I’d see if I could get into the building. I parked, and the door was unlocked, so I went in and took the elevator up. Nobody was around. I found the office with Larry’s name pasted on the door and went in. The light was on and the window was open, so I figured he’d just gone out to the can and I decided to wait. When I read the newspaper the next day— I swear that’s the first time I realized he must have gone out the window sometime before I got there.”

  I didn’t look at Andrew. The fact was that I was finding Richard’s story quite plausible. Yet what had I expected? That he would break down and confess to murder? Appearances had always been Richard’s strong point, and his talents in that direction hadn’t deserted him. Naturally, when his need was most desperate he’d call all his resources into play.

  “So you’re in Larry’s office,” Andrew said.

  Richard nodded. “I stood waiting for Larry to come back, wandering around looking at the books in the bookcase and so on. As I was passing the desk I saw the folder lying on top of a lot of other papers. I wouldn’t have looked twice at it, but it was open, and sticking out a little way was a piece of paper that looked like my letterhead. That’s what caught my attention.”

  When Richard didn’t continue Andrew prompted, “So you saw your letterhead.”

  Richard shifted in his seat. “You have to admit, the temptation was pretty irresistible,” he said in a belligerent tone. “It was all right there in front of me. Of course I looked at it.”

  “It shook you up?” Andrew said.

  “What the hell do you think? I never imagined he could have so much. I h
ad thought the story was going to be a serious nuisance, not a major disaster.” Richard ran his hands over his face, his long fingers pressing for a moment on his eyes. “Then I did a very stupid thing,” he continued, almost lightly. “I panicked. All I could think about was getting the information away from Larry. I didn’t stop to think that he could reconstruct it, that he’d probably suspect I took it— I didn’t consider anything at all. It was like— like being stripped naked in public, and the only way I could get my clothes back on was to take that folder. So I took it.”

  “And you put it in your safe,” I said.

  “I thought it wouldn’t be disturbed there.” Richard shot me a caustic look. “I read through the stuff that night, and it got worse and worse. Of course I realized how irrational it had been to take the folder in the first place, but it was too late. I thought Larry would’ve come back and missed it by then. I should’ve gotten rid of it right away, but I wanted to go over it once again and see if I could tighten up any loopholes, figure out how Larry had managed to ferret out his information.”

  Richard sat back. “That’s what happened. I didn’t kill Larry. If you still think I did, you’re seriously wrong.”

  Andrew said, “Did anybody see you at the Times? Entering or leaving the building, I mean? Or did you see anybody?”

  Richard shook his head. “Nobody. Nobody at all.”

  I felt empty. I had insisted on hearing Richard’s story, and now, having heard it, I had learned nothing. Richard was a smooth man, and he had a smooth story. Whether or not he had pushed Larry out the window was as much a mystery to me as ever.

  After a short silence Andrew said, “Richard, Maggie and I discussed the situation this afternoon. She wanted to find out what you had to say before we took our information to the police. Now that we’ve talked—”

  “Just a minute,” Richard said, with fear in his voice. “You can’t take this to the police. You can’t. It would ruin me.”

  “You’re ruined already,” I said. “A bribery scandal won’t get you any medals.”

  “Christ, yes, that’s bad enough,” he said wildly. “But not a murder investigation! I did not kill Larry Hawkins. You have to believe me. Please!”

  Andrew shook his head. “You can’t expect us to ignore this. If you’ve been telling the truth, you won’t have to worry.”

  Richard made a beseeching gesture, his eyes staring. “No! For God’s sake!”

  He looked harassed, disheveled— and very small. In that instant, I saw that the compelling, cruel, demonic Richard I had been carrying around with me had shrunk into this craven, frightened, pitiful man. I realized that even if he had killed Larry Hawkins, it would have been from weakness rather than mystical, menacing strength. Richard no longer had a hold on me. It was a separation much more powerful and far-reaching than the physical one had been. At last, we were truly disconnected.

  Twenty-four

  I had released Richard, and he tumbled away from me, as light, brittle, and useless as a husk. My ears were filled with a sound like wind, and I listened to it and not to Richard and Andrew, whose lips moved in a pantomime of conversation.

  Then Richard held up his hand and the wind-sound in my ears cleared and I heard Richard say, “Wait. I’ve just remembered something.”

  “What is it?” Andrew asked.

  Richard spoke slowly. “You asked me if I saw anyone at the Times that night. Well, I did.”

  Andrew raised his eyebrows. “And it’s just come back to you now?”

  Richard disregarded Andrew’s unbelieving tone. “When I was driving past the building, looking up to see if the lights were on, somebody came out the door and walked down the street.”

  “Did you recognize this person?”

  “No. It was dark. And besides”— he chewed his lip for a moment— “whoever it was had on a jacket with a hood. A sheepskin jacket!” He looked at us triumphantly.

  “Incredible that you remembered,” Andrew said drily.

  “Yes, it is. I guess it’s because I was going over it so minutely in my mind. But that’s the way it happened. I saw a figure in a sheepskin jacket come out of the building and hurry down the street. That’s exactly how it was.”

  It was almost a shame. Richard had been carrying things off so well up to now, only to destroy his credibility with an absurd last-minute concoction. It was like watching an expert tightrope walker take an awkward spill. When neither Andrew nor I responded, he said, “I saw somebody in a sheepskin jacket. I did.”

  His presence was beginning to oppress me, and I wanted to get away. It seemed that I had been sitting for days in this little room with a plate of cold calamari in front of me, listening to explanations and accusations. The world outside— Giles, the diners who were probably enjoying dinner at Arturo’s, the city of San Francisco, the bay, the hills— seemed like an impossible fantasy created by someone whose world was bounded by a Champagne bucket and a red plush sofa. I stood up. “Let’s go,” I said to Andrew.

  “Wait a second,” Richard said. “What are you going to do?”

  I took my coat from the rack. “What we always intended to do.”

  He was close beside me. “You expect me to stand around with my hat in my hand while you and this kid decide my future?”

  “You decided your future. We just got sucked into helping you work it out.”

  Andrew was standing next to the door. He opened it for me and followed me. Neither of us said good-bye to Richard. We left him standing next to the table, watching us go.

  ***

  “I could use a burger,” Andrew said on our way out, surely the first time those words had been uttered by a diner leaving Arturo’s.

  “Me too.” The wind was chilly. I thought I could smell the ocean. The neon signs on the street shone with exquisite colors.

  “Let’s get a couple and go to my place.”

  I followed him in my car and waited while he stopped at a modest-looking cafe called Burger Heaven, emerging with a bag that looked much too large for two hamburgers.

  I understood why when, with A. J. and me watching, he began unloading its contents on his kitchen table. “They do great fries and onion rings and I couldn’t decide, so I got both,” he said, reaching back into the sack. “Then some guy was eating the fried mushrooms and they looked good too, so—”

  “You own stock in deep fryers?”

  “It’s pure, all-American grease. Besides, anything we don’t eat A. J. will.” The last items in the bag were two cheeseburgers roughly the size of dinner plates, which were already soaking through their waxed-paper wrappers. I was almost finished with mine when I noticed Andrew smiling at me.

  “What is it?”

  He grinned more broadly. “It’s funny. The sight of you in your sophisticated black dress and your diamond pin, with your hair put up, sitting here with your elbows on my kitchen table eating a drippy burger and greasy fries.”

  “Glad to get them, too.”

  He swallowed his last bite and wiped his hands. “It’s a turn-on. The blending of opposites, or something.”

  “First time I ever heard of a burger fetish.”

  “Another thing.”

  “What?”

  “Your eyes. They’re exactly the color of A. J.’s.”

  Richard, I remembered dimly, had once said apple-green jade. A. J. was under Andrew’s chair, eating a French fry off a piece of waxed paper. When I bent toward him, he peered up at me. After a long look, I said, “That’s a fantastic compliment.”

  “Listen— it’s a compliment to him, too.”

  He came and stood behind me, nuzzling my ear, his beard feeling like a loofah sponge on my skin. “I sure hope you’ll stay over,” he murmured. “Consider yourself invited.”

  “I’d love to.” I nibbled on the last mushroom. “We haven’t even talked about Richard’s story.”

  “Oh yeah. Richard.” I felt his breath on my neck when he sighed, then felt him start to pull the pins out of my hair.
“I thought he handled himself pretty well, up until the point when he came out with that feeble tale about the mysterious figure in the sheepskin jacket.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. Silly of him to blow it all, right there at the end.”

  “My impression of Richard is that he’s a damn silly man.”

  “Not always. He can be extremely cagey. That’s what makes this so surprising.”

  My hair was down now. Andrew’s face was buried in it. “Hey, Maggie,” he said, his voice muffled.

  “What?”

  “Can we declare a moratorium on Richard until tomorrow morning? I’ve OD’d on him for right now.”

  “Let’s do that.” I stood and faced him. “Do you really want me to stay? I don’t have a nightgown. I don’t even have a toothbrush.”

  He put his arms around me. “You won’t need a nightgown. And you can use my toothbrush. I’ve got a special expensive one designed by Dr. Somebody. Your gums will never be the same.”

  I stayed. And being with Andrew was even better than before. It was almost enough to make me forget the horrors I had experienced and the troubles that were surely on their way.

  Twenty-five

  “We’re agreed, then,” Andrew said over coffee the next morning. “We’ll go to the police as soon as you tell Candace.”

  I nodded. The sky was lowering, preparing for more spring rain, and the wind was high. I was through with Richard and ready to be done with him, the Golden State Center, Larry Hawkins, Joseph Corelli, and the fear and frustration they had brought me. I had to talk with Candace, and I wasn’t looking forward to it, but after that it would be time to let someone else sort out the complications we had uncovered, if not unraveled.

  I used Andrew’s phone to call Candace. It took two accidental disconnections before I reached her at her dorm. When I said I wanted to drive down for a talk that afternoon, she sounded wary. “Sure, I guess it’s OK, Mother, but what for?”