A Credible Threat (The Jeri Howard Series Book 6)

by Janet Dawson

  “Since right after the Christmas holidays, it appears. I’m trying to find out why. Sasha thought it might have something to do with the hate mail incident at Boalt.”

  Ben scowled over the rim of his coffee mug. “Yeah, that. Well, I’ve been called an affirmative action baby too, and worse. I’m here to tell you, black or not, I earned my way to U.C. And I’m working my butt off to stay.” That challenge delivered, he turned and set the mug down on the counter, then opened one of the lower cabinets and pulled out a box of cornflakes. He poured what looked like half the box into a big bowl and added sugar and milk, then sat down at the table and dug a spoon into his breakfast.

  “There’s no way to be sure Sasha’s the target,” I said. “It could be any of the women here in the main house. Emily, Vicki, Rachel, or Marisol.”

  “Marisol,” Ben said, shaking his head, a spoonful of cornflakes in midair. “That woman’s got a problem with men.”

  Based on what I’d seen and heard yesterday, I was more than willing to concede that point. But perhaps Marisol had good reason for her antipathy toward men.

  “Where is Marisol?” I asked. “And Rachel?”

  “Rachel went up to Calistoga for the weekend,” Emily said. “She’s got friends up there. And Marisol was gone when I got up. She may be at that counseling center where she volunteers. She spends a lot of time there.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  Emily shook her head. “Just that it’s in Oakland, in the Fruitvale district. Near East Fourteenth and the BART station.”

  “That’s her old neighborhood.” Ben spoke up from his end of the table, where he’d finished off his cornflakes. “I think she once said something about growing up in Jingletown.”

  I nodded. The area Ben referred to was a small community sandwiched between East Fourteenth and the Nimitz Freeway, with a large Hispanic population.

  I heard the front door slam shut, the report reverberating through the old house. Footsteps came through the living room toward the kitchen. Vicki Vernon walked quickly into the kitchen, a frown on her normally cheerful face. She was dressed casually in jeans and a heavy knit sweater over a blue chambray shirt, with a gray nylon pack on her back. So many Cal students used backpacks to carry books and other belongings that sometimes it seemed that everyone on Telegraph Avenue had sprouted a hump.

  “Jeri, I’m so glad you’re here.” Vicki set the pack on a chair and folded her arms across her chest, as though protecting herself. “Something happened over at the library.”

  The alarm in her voice set me on my guard.

  “That guy I told you about. The one who asked both me and Emily for dates. And when neither of us would go out with him, he called us dykes.”

  “Not him again,” Emily said, a shadow passing over her face.

  “When he saw me at the library, he started in on me again, asking where my girlfriend was. People kept shushing him, but he wouldn’t shut up. Finally I left.” Vicki gave a little shudder. “But he followed me. All the way to Sproul Plaza. I lost him on Telegraph and dodged over to Durant just in time to hop on a 51 bus.”

  “You want me to go pound this creep?” Ben offered.

  “That wouldn’t solve anything,” Emily said.

  “Yeah, but it sounds like he’s got it coming.” Ben got up and carried his bowl and spoon to the sink, where he rinsed them, then pulled open the dishwasher. “Looks like this baby’s full,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. He grabbed a box of dishwashing detergent from under the sink, filled the receptacles, and started the cycle.

  “Maybe Jeri should talk with him,” Vicki said over the hum of the appliance. She looked at me with troubled brown eyes, asking for help. “His name’s Ted Macauley.”

  I wanted to pound this Ted Macauley too, whether or not he was the one responsible for the phone calls and the destruction of the plants. Where the hell did he get off calling Vicki names simply because she chose not to go out with him? As I looked at the frown marring her young face, I didn’t like the effect his harassment was having on her. If I had to put a name on it, I guessed I was feeling motherly.

  Emily’s eyes were concerned too, but she was looking out the window, not at Vicki. She moved quickly to the back door and pulled it open.

  “Where’s Martin?” Her voice was suddenly shrill with alarm. “He’s not in the backyard. Where did he go?”

  Five

  MARTIN WASN’T ON THE DECK. HE WASN’T hiding in or around the garage apartment shared by Ben and Nelson. In fact, he didn’t appear to be in the backyard, or the front.

  “He can’t have gone far,” I told Emily as the four of us stood on the sidewalk near the front porch. “It hasn’t been that long since we saw him.”

  My words had little effect. Her blue eyes, usually calm and wary, were frightened. Her voice thinned like a tightly stretched wire. “We have to find him. Right now.”

  “We will.” I kept my voice calm. “Emily, you and Ben go up the street.” I pointed to my right, toward the Berkeley hills. “Vicki and I will go down toward College. Let’s split up, one person on each side of the street. Ask everyone you see. Go up driveways and look between houses. Call Martin’s name while you do it.”

  “Got it,” Ben said. “There’s a park up that way. Maybe he’s gone up there.”

  He grabbed Emily’s shoulder and gave it a supportive shake, then they set off, Emily on this side, Ben jogging across Garber Street to the opposite sidewalk. I nodded at Vicki and crossed to the other side. We were headed toward College Avenue, little more than a block west. Three or four blocks to the south, Ashby Avenue paralleled Garber. Both were busy thoroughfares, no place for a little boy on his own.

  Maybe it was different now, but when I was that age, my mother wouldn’t let me cross a busy street like that on my own. And that was in quiet, staid Alameda, not bustling Berkeley with its many charms and dangers. We now live in a world where strangers snatch children off front lawns, or even from their bedrooms, and the lost little faces look out at us from flyers plastering windows and papering walls.

  In that world, Emily’s reaction to Martin’s vanishing act was prudent and normal. But I was curious. Emily, the few times I’d met her, always seemed so calm and self-contained, despite the occasional hints of some inner turmoil. Now she was so upset she was vibrating. Was it because Sasha had entrusted Martin to her care and she’d lost sight of the little boy? Was something else going on? Had Martin wandered off before? Once again I wondered about Martin’s father. Was there some sort of custody dispute? Or was it the residue of some experience in Emily’s past that had her shaking with tension?

  I stopped to talk to a man who was edging a flower bed. No, he hadn’t noticed a little boy in red and blue. Nor had the woman a few doors down, washing the plate-glass window at the front of her house. I went up several driveways, calling Martin’s name, hearing that name echoed across the street as Vicki did the same thing.

  At the corner of Garber and Piedmont I stopped a young man with a backpack. He looked like another U.C. student. When I asked the question, he pointed back up Piedmont.

  “I saw a bunch of kids up there,” he told me. “Half a block or so. Playing in a driveway. I don’t know if one of them is the kid you’re looking for.”

  “Thanks.” I headed in the direction he’d pointed, scanning both sides of the street. I heard the children before I saw them. Then I spotted a boy standing on the hood of a car as four or five other boys, shouting and laughing, milled around the front end of the vehicle. The youngster on the hood jumped off, with the others hollering as he landed on something. Crossing the street and heading up the driveway, I saw a pair of blue pants and a red shirt. Martin lay on the gravel drive, the other boy on top of him. Martin’s orange spaceship lay about three feet to the left, smashed and broken.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Anger roughened my voice as I strode to Martin and turned to face the boys. There were six of them,
a mixed bag of colors and sizes, all bigger than Martin. Older too. Eight or nine, most of them, except the one on top of Martin. As he scrambled to his feet I guessed he was about ten. They stood in a semicircle around me, watching me with wild eyes as I knelt and pulled Martin to a sitting position. His clothing was covered with mud and he had a scrape on his chin.

  “You okay?” I asked him. He nodded, tears welling in his dark brown eyes.

  I helped him to his feet and surveyed his tormentors. “What’s your name?” I asked the oldest. He appeared to be the pack leader.

  He sneered at me. I fought down the urge to smack him. I wasn’t used to that kind of behavior from a ten-year-old, but I’m not around kids much, unless you count my niece and nephew. They’re younger, with better manners.

  “What’s your name?” I demanded again.

  “None of your damn business,” he shot back.

  I took Martin’s hand, walked around the house to the front door, and pounded on it. “Are any of these kids yours?” I asked the woman who answered. She was about my age, with tired eyes, a toddler whining crankily at her side.

  “What’s the matter?” she said, looking past me.

  “These kids were beating up on Martin.” I glanced over my shoulder and saw a couple of the kids peel off, abandoning the field. The mouthy ten-year-old stood on the front lawn, still looking belligerent. “They broke his toy.”

  “They’re just playing,” she said distractedly as the toddler at her heels wailed. “Who are you? What do you care? He doesn’t look like he’s yours anyway.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether he’s mine or not,” I argued.

  She glared at me, then at the big kid behind me. “Get in here, Tommy.”

  Tommy wasn’t having any of it. He ran instead, up the street, shouting with derision as he ran, with his remaining cohorts for company. The woman gave a helpless shrug and shut the door in my face.

  “Come on, Martin.”

  I trudged back to the driveway, still holding Martin’s hand. The orange spaceship looked as though it had been stomped good and hard. Its shiny surface was pitted from the gravel on the drive, and the plastic was split and broken in a couple of places.

  I picked up the toy and looked down at the little boy. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We set off in the direction I’d come, with me slowing my steps to account for the child’s smaller stride. He didn’t say anything, but right before we got to the corner I heard what sounded like a choked sob. I looked down and saw tears trickling from Martin’s eyes, cutting a path through the dust on his face. I stopped and used the tail of my T-shirt to mop the flow. Then I stuck my hand into the pocket of my jeans, coming up with a tissue that looked unused.

  “Here, blow your nose.”

  He did as I directed. I spotted a low retaining wall in front of the house on the corner and sat down on the uneven stone, pulling Martin to sit next to me.

  “Those guys pick on you all the time?” I asked.

  “Yes.” It was the first word I’d heard him utter. “They go to my school.”

  “What do they do?”

  “Push me around on the playground. Trip me. Call me names.” He emitted a long forlorn sigh. “They take my stuff.”

  “Like today? They took your spaceship?”

  “Yeah. Brandon took it.” He sniffed and wiped his nose again. “He’s in second grade like me.” I’d been figuring Martin for a first grader, like my nephew Todd, but he must have been small for his age. “I was in front of our house and Brandon took my spaceship and ran away. I went after him,” Martin continued. “And Tommy and the other guys jumped on me.”

  “Ambush, huh?” He nodded. “Emily asked you to stay in the backyard.”

  “I know. But I was looking to see if my mom was home yet.”

  “Have you talked with your mother about these kids picking on you? Or your teacher?” Now he shook his head. “Maybe you should.”

  “Don’t want to tattle.”

  Only seven, I thought, and already the peer pressure exerted its strong pull. “I understand, but it’s not fair for them to gang up on you like that. Especially if they do it all the time. There’s six of them and one of you. Those are not good odds.”

  Particularly if one of the boys was that hooligan who’d sneered at me. He was a candidate for the California Youth Authority if I’d ever seen one. “You’ll have to decide for yourself whether you want to tell your mom or your teacher. But just between you and me,” I said, looking at the broken toy, “this seems to be pretty serious. I think your mom should know.”

  Martin gazed at me as though he were considering whether it was safe to confide in me further. “The crack in the window,” he whispered. “That was Tommy. They were throwing pinecones at the house.”

  That answered one question. Maybe it answered another. “Do you think those boys trashed the plants yesterday?”

  He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think so. That must have happened while we were in school. How could Tommy chop the lemon tree?”

  I was willing to bet that Tommy could lay his hands on an ax if he wanted to bad enough. Stomping the tulips to pulp was on a par with stomping Martin’s toy. On the other hand, I couldn’t escape the feeling that the decapitated tree and the phone calls were the work of a more adult malevolence.

  I heard someone calling my name and looked up to see Vicki jogging across Garber Street. “Oh, I’m so glad you found him. I looked all up and down College.” She sat down next to us on the retaining wall, running a hand through her blond hair. “Where’d you go, Martin? We were worried about you.” She peered at him and saw the evidence of his tears and the broken toy I held. “Uh-oh. What happened?”

  “It’s a kid thing,” I said. “You go find Ben and Emily. Martin and I will go back to the house. We might make a little detour first, though.” I nodded in the direction of College Avenue.

  “Got you.” Vicki stood up, dug a hand into her pocket, and pulled out her key ring, selecting a brass key. “Here’s the key to the front door. See you in a bit.”

  I watched her lope up Garber Street. Then I looked at Martin.

  “You like Nabolum’s Bakery?” I asked him. The bakery was only a block away, on Russell Street, just off College. He nodded. “So do I. Let’s go get us a nosh.”

  Six

  “MARTIN’S FATHER IS NOT AN ISSUE,” SASHA said.

  He also appeared to be a subject Sasha did not want to discuss. She sat very still on the green and blue flowered sofa set under the front window of her quarters, framed by the ivory damask drapes on either side.

  I looked at her steadily from the armchair where I sat. The afternoon sun played with the crack in the upper pane of the window above her, fingers of light making the fissure glitter. Most people are uncomfortable with silence. Too much of it makes them want to fill the void. But Sasha was training to be a lawyer. She was as well versed in the uses of silence as I was. Finally we came to a draw. Just as I opened my mouth to break the silence, Sasha did it for me.

  “We were never married. I don’t even know where he is.”

  “Is there a chance he might be in California?”

  She shrugged. “Possibly. Although I can’t imagine that seven years after the fact he would take any interest in me. Or my son. He certainly ran the other way when I announced I was pregnant.”

  “We both know what I’m driving at, Sasha. Is he a possible candidate for harasser?”

  She thought about it, fingering the beaded earrings she wore. “I don’t think so,” she said. “That would imply he cared enough to hate me.”

  I looked back on the events of the past couple of hours. Martin and I had made a run to Nabolum’s Bakery, where we’d wolfed down a couple of cookies in our newfound camaraderie. At my suggestion, he had picked out cookies to take home to each of the housemates. We walked back to the house on Garber Street, Martin carrying the white bakery sack and me with the broken toy, neither of us saying much.
Vicki, Emily, and Ben sat together on the front steps.

  “Martin, your chin,” Emily began, her blue eyes no less worried now that Martin had been located. I shot her a look that said, Don’t fuss, so she didn’t.

  “We brought stuff to eat,” Martin announced, brandishing his bakery sack.

  “Hey, I’m all for that.” Ben stood up. “Let’s see what you got in there, buddy.”

  Just as Ben opened the sack and began inspecting the contents, an old blue Volvo drove up Garber Street and pulled into the driveway. Sasha got out and pulled a battered soft leather briefcase from behind the seat. She headed for the front porch.

  “What is this, a block party?” She stopped on the sidewalk and looked at her son with a mother’s practiced eye, missing neither the scrape on his chin nor the residue of dried tears edging his eyes. “What happened?”

  Now we were in Sasha’s rooms, her half of the house’s lower floor. Martin had been fussed over, his abrasion doctored with antiseptic and his mother’s kiss. He appeared to have gotten over his bad experience. He was in the kitchen having lunch with the others. I could hear his high voice. I found that I could now distinguish the voices. Vicki’s was throaty, like her father’s. Ben had a rumbling chuckle, while Emily’s voice was quiet and mellow. The goofy laughter belonged to Nelson, who had shown up late in the drama carrying, as seemed to be his pattern, a fast-food sack containing takeout.

  Sasha’s quarters reminded me of a shotgun apartment. We were in the house’s original living room, which also served this purpose for Sasha and her son. It was crowded with furniture, some of the pieces expensive antiques. The back corner of the living room was Sasha’s office, with a big wooden desk, an ergonomie office chair, and several tall bookshelves. This room opened onto another, half the size of the first, square, with one window and built-in bookshelves on two walls. This had been the office used by Sasha’s father, the U.C. Berkeley professor. Now it was Sasha’s bedroom, with a double bed under the window and a dresser opposite. Another door led to a narrow hallway. Off this was the downstairs bath in which Sasha had installed a shower, then the small enclosed back porch where Martin slept in a brightly painted daybed. It had once been larger, but when Sasha changed her living arrangements, she had the room split into two, with the smaller area used for the washer and dryer as well as additional storage.