by Susan Dunlap
“One who wouldn’t deal with him because he was hot.”
“Right. I trained you well, my woman.”
“And then?”
“And then I reeled him in. But here’s the clincher, Jill. I set up the buy for Telegraph and Ashby. Then at the last minute I had my man change the location to Ashby and Roosevelt, and then again”—the corners of his mouth were tickling his earlobes; he could barely contain himself—“to Roosevelt and Acton.”
“A block from the station! Did you take a car, or just decide to walk him back?” I laughed.
Howard grinned and pushed open the door to Wally’s.
At eleven, only two customers were sitting at one of the Formica tables by the windows. The counter, which filled two thirds of the floor space, was empty. Behind it Wally perched, Raksen-like, on a short stepladder, leaning precariously over the grill while balancing a four-by-three blackboard framed in orange. Wally’s was to Wally what Paradise was to Mitch Biekma. Whereas Mitch spent his time charming the viewers of television talk shows, Wally devoted his free moments to redecorating and redefining. None of his dishes were so pedestrian as to be called “Two Eggs, Any Style.” On Wally’s menus, two eggs might be a “Pair of Specs”; two eggs with ham, a “Groucho”; a jelly donut, a “Gusher.” The names were rarely inspired, but it didn’t matter, because Wally changed them at least once a month. He replaced the menu boards nearly as often. One week he had had three different signs out front. I couldn’t imagine how the man turned a profit.
We walked in silently and sat at a table. But if we’d had any fear of startling Wally, we’d misjudged him. He was entranced with his blackboard.
“We could have driven in unnoticed,” I whispered.
“We could have called that health equipment company that tried to deliver to Paradise. They could have unloaded their whole truck in here without worrying about being interrupted.”
Howard picked up the salt cellar, assessed it, and set it down. Wally continued to shift the menu board. Howard moved the pepper shaker. His blue eyes sat deep in his head. Above them a wrinkle moved up from the bridge of his nose. There were wispy lines around his eyes I hadn’t noticed before—smile lines, but lines nevertheless. Had they etched themselves in during the last month? Howard asked, “Your trip back okay?” He sounded different, too formal for Howard.
I hesitated, recalling that sweaty landing. “Fine.”
“I’ve got your clothes in my Land Rover.”
“Great. All I’ve got with me are loud flowered shirts and white shorts.”
“You’d make quite a hit with the press. You do have good legs. And quite a tan.”
“I’ll give it some thought. I can use all the help with the press I can get now.” I felt like I was making conversation with a stranger. It would be a relief when Wally took our orders.
“That bad, huh? Look, Yankowski’s not someone who’d get lost in a crowd. If he stays in Berkeley you’ll get him.”
“That’s a big if. Yankowski’s no amateur who panicked and ran last night. He watched what he said to his neighbors at the Hillvue, which is not exactly a place where residents are dying to chat up the cops, anyway. His room was a roadblock to anyone looking for him. A dead end.”
Howard shoved his chair back and leaned his elbows on the table. “He must have done that before Mitch Biekma’s murder, right?”
“He hasn’t been back there since.”
“So he cleared everything out before. In preparation for hiding out after murdering Biekma?”
“The thing is, Howard, if Yankowski had planned to kill Mitch Biekma, he would have been prepared for the questioning that followed.” This was the same type of conversation we’d had at breakfast, at dinner, in our office, on the phone for years. At times when we weren’t sure where we stood with each other, we had slipped into the tell-me-about-your-case talks for security. But this time it wasn’t bridging the distance.
“But suppose he killed Biekma on the spur of the moment?”
“Possible,” I said slowly. “Yankowski didn’t strike me as a spur-of-the-moment guy. But even if the murder was unpremeditated, I don’t see him losing his cool in the middle of an interview. I wasn’t pressing him that hard.”
A bang came from behind the counter as Wally aimed the menu board for the two support nails. The hanging-from-nails look was too indecorous for Wally; Wally’s nails would be hidden behind the board. And it would take more luck than Wally had to find them.
Howard jumped up. “Let me give you a hand, Wally.”
“Over here,” Wally said, without turning around. When it came to his first love, the identity of his proposed helper was secondary to the project.
Standing, I watched as Wally reached up trying to balance the menu board with the aid of Howard, who had to be nearly a foot taller. Howard could easily have done the job himself, but he didn’t. He eased the board back and forth across the elusive nails, the sun highlighting his green turtleneck and his jeans, the movement accenting his lean back, his long muscular legs, and his not-half-bad buns.
“There it is,” Wally exclaimed, releasing the board and stepping back with proprietary appreciation. “What do you think?”
“Looks good. Now how about a little service in this joint,” Howard said, turning toward me.
I jerked my gaze away from his derriere. Maybe I had been convalescing too long.
“Hey, you’re back,” Wally called to me. “Bet he’s glad to see you, huh?” he said, eyeing Howard. To him he said, “She looks pretty good, huh? All tan. A little thin, maybe.” Wally followed Howard out around the counter, his gaze steady on my face. “Tired, that’s what she looks. You been keeping her out too late?”
“We’ve got criminals for that,” Howard said, careful not to meet my gaze.
“What’ll you have?” Wally demanded. “We have two fine specials today.” Wally pointed to the menu board. On it was “Wally’s Daily Specials” in baby blue letters. Underneath were four lines, well smudged in the hanging-up process.
“Read them to us,” I said.
“You can’t see that? That’s what happens when you leave your vegetables on your plate, if you order them at all.”
I didn’t bother to acknowledge that. Wally didn’t expect me to. From him, chidings about my eating habits were akin to “Hi, how are you.”
“First up, we have the ‘Cow in the Pasture.’ That’s a third of a pound of beef mixed with lettuce, tomato, carrot, red cabbage, and cucumber. Your choice of dressing.”
Back before I left, Wally had offered it with Thousand Island dressing and called it “Mexicana Suprema Salud.”
“And the second?” Howard asked.
“ ‘Fox in the Hen House’—”
“Let me guess,” Howard said. “Egg salad.”
Wally’s face dropped. “With pimento.”
I kicked Howard under the table. “Give me the cow, with Thousand Island, and a Coke,” I said.
“Guacamoleburger, large order of fries, salad, and a Coke.”
“No pie?” Wally demanded, clearly insulted.
“Later.”
To me Howard said, “So Yankowski?”
I picked up the fork, fingering the points of the tines. “Yankowski. Maybe I pressed him harder than I thought. What was it I said to him just before he shoved me into the counter?” I hadn’t thought I was tired. I’d slept all last evening. But now, trying to recall that interchange with Yankowski, my mind flitted over the surface. I pressed the tines into my fingertips. “I told him we would check his background, question his friends, find out all about him.”
“Sounds like that was what he wanted to avoid.”
“Howard, if you want to avoid drawing attention to yourself, you don’t plan to kill a man.”
“So you’re saying it was spur of the moment?”
I pressed the tines harder. Why didn’t that seem right? “He didn’t strike me as the spontaneous type. And anyway, it’s hard to poison someone on
the spur of the moment. Even the best prepared of us don’t carry packets of aconite around just in case.”
Howard fingered the ketchup bottle, steering it between the metal cream pitcher and the salt and pepper. He nodded thoughtfully, his blue eyes half closed. I knew that look, it was the one he had when he got down to the issue. “So how’s your house-sitting working out?”
I felt myself tense, unsure about leaving the safety of shop talk. “Okay,” I said tentatively. “It’s just going to take me a while to figure how all the electric gadgets work. They’ve got every comfort electricity can provide.”
“You need help with all those stimuli?” His eyes had opened and his grin was the same one he’d had as he started to describe his sting. It was the old Howard grin.
“You angling for an invitation?”
Wally set down the drinks. “Entrees coming up pronto.”
Howard fingered his glass, the grin set. “I could—”
The door slammed. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be here.” Connie Pereira rushed in, grabbed a chair from the next table, and plopped down in it at ours. “I called the station. When you were both out I took a chance. Then, I was afraid you’d have come and gone, and I’d have to call the station again.”
“Hey, calm down,” Howard snapped. “We’re here.” He stared in amazement at Pereira. In three years I had seen Connie Pereira this agitated only a few times.
Ignoring him, she said to me, “When I looked at those books at Paradise, I could see there was something a little odd. Another time I might not have caught it so soon, but we’d just been talking, and I was thinking about the string of poisonings and why anyone would poison Rue Driscoll and Earth Man, and maybe those were just practice runs to see how much they’d need to kill Biekma. I mean, we don’t know if they used more in Earth Man’s food than in Rue Driscoll’s, do we?”
“No. I never considered that.”
“Well, I was thinking that if the killer did a couple of practice runs, he couldn’t have learned much, because Earth Man, at least, didn’t tell anyone how sick he was. So the killer probably figured, ‘Screw it,’ and tossed the rest of the poison in Biekma’s horseradish. I mean, if Biekma got too much, so what, right?”
I nodded.
“So it seemed like the best thing to do was to see what had happened around those dates. I mean, I was checking the books anyway.”
Wally set down the dishes. Howard’s guacamoleburger filled his plate. The fries covered another. His salad a third. It looked like a smorgasbord.
Wally eyed Pereira. She waved him away.
Picking up the burger, Howard said, “What did happen, Pereira?”
“Nothing. Then. But listen to this. Driscoll was poisoned the third of April. Earth Man, the fifth of May. On April eighteenth, the books indicate two free dinners, on May third two more. Then on May twentieth and twenty-first, two each. And six in June. And,” she said, picking up one of Howard’s fries, “those dinners are carried as a loss.”
“Free dinners for customers who’d had meals that weren’t up to Paradise’s standards?” Howard asked.
“Standards of nontoxicity,” Pereira explained.
I swallowed a mouthful of salad and asked, “How was Laura Biekma, Connie? Could you get anything out of her?”
“She was in bed. I don’t often feel bad about waking up a suspect, but she looked like she was the one who’d been poisoned—you know that jaundiced look you get when you’ve thrown up?”
“But you didn’t let your better instincts inhibit you, right?” Howard said, spearing olive, tomato, and lettuce.
Ignoring Howard’s jibe, she said, “I started in about Earth Man. Even half-asleep, she gave me the line that she and Mitch had given him dinner as a publicity gimmick, to counter the view that they were elitists.”
“But they didn’t publicize those meals,” I said.
“Earth Man didn’t exactly fit the image Mitch had had in mind when he concocted the idea. Mitch, it seems, had a few failings, like getting carried away with an idea and leaving the work involved to someone else. He wanted to be seen giving meals to the deserving poor. He just didn’t take time to check out his recipient.”
Howard laughed. “Afraid Earth Man would steal the show?”
I said to Pereira, “So Yankowski set up Mitch, huh?”
“Got it. How come, you may be asking? Well, it seems that Biekma was on this talk show with two nationally known chefs. Each of them had his cookbook out on the bookstore shelves—Biekma’s is only in the manuscript stage—and Biekma was hot to score over this big-time competition. So he pulls out all his best stories, and adds a few new ones, and one of those includes a description of their giant dishwasher with the twisted nose cowering in the kitchen.”
“Clear enough description for his ex-wife to recognize him?” I asked, forking a piece of cow. It tasted better as “Mexicana Suprema Salud.”
“Apparently Yankowski thought so.”
“And so,” Howard said, gleefully, “he gave Biekma Earth Man to get even!” This was right up Howard’s alley.
“Mitch couldn’t fire Yankowski because he was the most reliable dishwasher around,” I said.
“And not only did Biekma never get his publicity for being a good guy, but he couldn’t stop feeding Earth Man for fear Earth Man would complain to the press about him breaking his promise, right? It’s a masterwork,” Howard pronounced.
“But,” I said “even if there came a time when the threat of bad publicity wasn’t enough, Mitch couldn’t get rid of Earth Man, because Earth Man had the evidence of the poisoned food. I’ll bet it was Yankowski who told him to keep that food.”
Pereira grabbed the biggest fry on Howard’s plate. “Wait. Here’s the clincher. If Earth Man had gone public, you know what would have come to light?”
I nodded. “All those dinners the Biekmas wrote off! The ones you found in their books.”
“Exactly,” she said triumphantly, scanning both our plates before helping herself to Howard’s pickle. “Seems people have been getting sick there every couple of weeks.”
I put down my fork. “So what did Laura say about that?”
“Said they were very upset, for one thing. Seems Mitch went wild trying to find the culprit. Fired the waiters, the salad chef, the sous-chef, the busboy, everyone but Yankowski and the cook—”
“Who he couldn’t fire because she owns a third of the place,” I said.
“So Mitch starts poking around trying to figure out who’s behind it,” Howard said.
To Pereira, I said, “We’ve got to get a list of which staff members were there the night of each poisoning.”
She grinned. “I’m way ahead of you. Mitch had the same idea. Here’s the rundown. Laura was there on and off. Ashoka Prem, last night’s sous-chef, helped out a few of those nights. There were three salad chefs and four waiters during that time. Yankowski was there all but one day. And Adrienne the cook was there every single night. And here’s another interesting thing,” she said, plopping the remainder of pickle in her mouth.
I waited while she chewed.
“I had a look at the partnership agreement. Not only do all three of the partners have right of first refusal if the others choose to sell, but each one has veto power over any prospective buyer.”
“So no one would get greedy and sell their share to a burger chain, huh?” Howard asked.
I took another bite of my salad, then put down the fork and pushed the bowl in front of Pereira. “I’d say it was time I had a talk with Adrienne.”
CHAPTER 18
“POISON!” ADRIENNE JENKS SHOUTED. She was a tiny woman with shoulder-length brown hair that stood out from her head in bursts of thick wiry curls. Even the net she would have to wear in the kitchen wouldn’t hold that mass down much; and wearing it, she would look like a saint whose halo had darkened with age. But now, a saint was the last thing she resembled. She glared at me with dark eyes, and in a startlingly deep and loud voice, dema
nded, “Poison? Are you crazy? I’m the chef. Food is my art. Do you understand what that means?”
“But you know about the food poisonings at Paradise,” I said. We were in her studio flat, a large room that had once been a partial basement of the house above. The Berkeley Hills, part of the Coast Range that run the length of the state, rise from the fault line gently in some places, abruptly in others. This house had been built at a corner, on a down-slope so steep that the front door was at street level; but here in the back, Adrienne had to climb down six steps from her converted basement to the yard. Unlike the “garden” that had been outside my old flat, one forever in the planning stage, Adrienne’s yard sported a bed of day lilies, two tall pines, and a four-foot-high hedge beside the sidewalk. A walkway bisected the hedge. “You do know about the food poisonings at Paradise,” I repeated.
“Know, of course I know. Everybody knows.”
“There was nothing in the papers.”
“Oh, that,” she said, dismissing the media with a wave of the hand. “Everyone in the business knows. It’s a disaster. They’re all talking about it. Our business is way down.”
“How far?”
She paused a moment. I had the feeling that figures and specifics were too pedestrian for her. Great flourishes of emotion seemed more natural. Lowering her voice, though there was no one around to hear, she said, “You could almost get in without a reservation.”
Like dinner at Wally’s, I restrained myself from commenting.
“It’s all people talk about,” she declared. She was wearing a red smock with huge purple flowers, and pipe-leg jeans. She looked like a Popsicle. Smacking each small foot against the floor, she began to pace briskly across the twenty-by-thirty room. It was not to be an easy journey. To one side of the doorway, where I was still standing, a red and purple print sofa and three stuffed chairs covered in sea blues and bright green were grouped around a low oak table. Straight ahead, a potted ficus the size of a family Christmas tree stood like a traffic cop. And to the left, a violet and green double-bed sized sleeping mat lay between the front wall and a large worktable—a board balanced on two two-drawer file cabinets. Strewn behind it were a padded office chair and two stools. To make it from one wall to the other required a couple of moves worthy of a wide receiver. “And you know what people are saying, don’t you?”