A Credible Threat (The Jeri Howard Series Book 6)

by Janet Dawson

  “I’m always suspicious of people who claim to have a direct line to God,” Tate said. Then his voice took on a note of relief. “Here’s Rachel. I was afraid something had happened to her.”

  We turned and saw Rachel walking quickly toward us, dressed in blue jeans and a sweatshirt, a sturdy pair of walking shoes on her feet.

  “Sorry to be late. I had a little trouble with my car this morning. It’s that alternator again.” She looked at Tate. “Maybe you can take a look at it after we’re done here.”

  “Sure thing.” Tate handed her one of the coffee containers and nodded toward the clinic door. “The rest of us have already checked in.”

  Rachel took a swallow of coffee, then opened the door and went inside. She returned a moment later. “Have you talked with Vicki?” she asked. “About the call we got last night?”

  “No.” Vicki had left a message on my home answering machine saying they’d received another call, but leaving no details. I hadn’t called her back. “Was there something different about this one?”

  Rachel shrugged. “Vicki answered the phone this time. She thought she recognized the voice. That it was someone she’d heard before. Ted Macauley, I’ll bet. The worst part was, Vicki’s dad called right after. He asked why she sounded upset and she told him everything that’s been going on.”

  I grimaced, speculating as to my ex-husband’s reaction to the news. Ballistic, Vicki had predicted. “What about the tap on the phone line?”

  “Sasha talked with that Berkeley cop. He said the calls have been made from pay phones in Berkeley and Oakland.”

  So the caller was moving around. I had guessed as much.

  “Here they come,” Tate said, drawing us back to the current situation.

  A car and a van pulled up at the curb in front of the clinic. A group of about twenty people piled out of both vehicles, carrying signs. As Sarah had pointed out earlier, it seemed to be the men who were directing things, telling the mostly female protesters where to stand. I glanced past the group and saw an Oakland police cruiser drive slowly by on the opposite side of the street. The black and white parked at the curb, and the driver looked across the street at the assemblage.

  “Who have we got this morning?” Edna asked, peering at the cop.

  “Looks like Delgado,” Tate said. “He’s okay. He’s fairly quick about calling for reinforcements if things get out of hand.”

  Rachel took another swallow of coffee and touched my arm. “What we do, Jeri, is take up a position on the perimeter. We don’t talk to any of them. You can’t even say good morning without getting a sermon.”

  “Looks like a few of them have rosaries.” I scanned the group that had arrayed itself on the sidewalk in front of the clinic. The sentiments on the signs the protesters carried ran the gamut from reasoned to venomous.

  “They can keep their rosaries,” Rachel said, hands on her hips. “I’m Jewish. I don’t appreciate anyone saying prayers over me. Their religion doesn’t give them the right to confront sixteen-year-old girls and tell them how to live their lives. Just watch them. They’ll target any women near the clinic.”

  “What do you do if that happens?” I asked.

  Tate answered my question. “We deal only with what happens on clinic property. Our job is to help the clients get inside. If the protesters hassle people on the street, that’s Officer Delgado’s job.”

  Rachel’s words were borne out a few minutes later when a woman who looked about twenty-five appeared, walking down the street in the direction of the clinic. But she wasn’t planning on having an abortion that day. She had what looked like a bundle of clothing tucked under one arm and her destination appeared to be the dry-cleaning shop a few doors down. Two of the protesters swooped down on her and tried to hand her some literature. She stared at them in alarm and backed away. The cop got out of his cruiser and headed across the street toward the protesters, who backed off, only to circle again as a car pulled into the clinic’s lot.

  The escorts moved into position, flanking the young woman who got out of the passenger seat. She was about eighteen, I guessed, and the older woman who’d been driving looked like her mother. Tate and Rachel quickly shepherded the two women toward the clinic door, ignoring the voices of the pack behind them.

  That’s how it went for the next hour or so. I hung around the edges, observing, trying to decide if any of these people had fixated on Rachel Steiner. It looked as though this group of protesters had been here before, since they were as organized as the escorts. I noted the license plates of the two vehicles, thinking that both sides could play this game. This got me a suspicious look from Officer Delgado, who had so far limited his activities to herding protesters away from passersby.

  Finally I heard someone saying Rachel’s name. It wasn’t Tate or any of the other escorts. I zeroed in on one of the protesters, a tall man in his mid-thirties, with brown hair, blue suit, and a tie. “Rachel, Rachel, Rachel,” he said in a monotone, his eyes on her as she and Tate escorted another client from the parking lot to the clinic. It wasn’t as overt as saying, “I know where you live.” But there was something menacing in the way he said it over and over, like a litany. I don’t think she heard him.

  I watched him for a while, watching his lips move as he said, “Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.” Then he saw me watching him and he faded back toward the van.

  “Know that guy?” I asked Edna, who was the only one of the escorts within range.

  “The face is certainly familiar. He’s been here before.”

  “I need a name.”

  I faded too, toward the side of the clinic. Then I circled, as I had earlier when I’d written down the license numbers. I had a feeling Officer Delgado was watching me, instead of the protesters, but he didn’t make a move toward me. Then I started walking toward the clinic, as though I had an appointment. The protesters circled me, first exhorting me not to kill my baby today, then damning me as a murderer because I didn’t break my stride. I got a good look at the tall man who’d used Rachel’s name. As I reached the sidewalk leading up to the clinic, Rachel and Tate moved into escort position and hurried me up the sidewalk.

  “What the hell was that about?” Rachel asked when we reached the front door.

  I took her arm and pulled her into the foyer. “That tall lanky guy in the blue suit. He’s the one who knows your name. Do you know his?”

  Rachel stared outside at the blue-suited man. “He’s a regular, one of the leaders. Bill or Bob. Don’t know his last name. Do you think—” She stopped.

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to check him out. I think I’ve seen enough for now. Is there a back door to this place?”

  Fourteen

  THE AUTO PARTS STORE WHERE PETER DACE worked was just off Guadalupe Parkway, close enough to San Jose International Airport that the roar of the jets taking off and landing at the nearby runways drowned out all other ambient sounds. After driving the forty-odd miles from Oakland Tuesday afternoon, I parked in the asphalt-covered lot and got out to have a look around. The retail outlet was to my right, selling everything from tires to air freshener promising “that new car smell.” To my left three oversize doorways punched through the concrete walls, leading from the lot into the mechanics’ bays of the garage.

  Finally I spotted Dace, based on the description Marisol had given me and helped by the fact that, like the other employees of the store, he wore a red and blue shirt with the store’s logo on the left front breast pocket and the name “Pete” on the right.

  Some women might find Peter Dace attractive. I didn’t. In fact, given what Marisol and Norman Gerrity had told me about him, he made my skin crawl.

  He was twenty-six now, medium height and build, with ruddy skin and shaggy blond hair. At the moment, my view was partially obscured because Dace was in the center bay of the garage, talking with the casually dressed older man who went with the late model American car parked there. Dace had the hood of the car up, leaning in as his hands probed th
e engine. I couldn’t tell what he was doing, but he kept up a constant line of chatter with the customer.

  Dace moved to this side of the car, leaned forward, and lifted a grease- and acid-stained battery from the car and set his burden on the concrete floor of the bay. He picked up a new battery, as yet pristine, and hoisted it into position. As he replaced the connection he turned his head toward the customer, and I heard both men laugh.

  When Dace had finished, he shut the hood and the customer backed his car out of the bay. Dace watched him go, then moved in my direction, with a preening, cock-of-the-walk stroll. Had he spotted me watching him? No, he was headed for the soda machine on the outer wall between the garage and the retail store. He dropped some coins into the slot and reached for the can that the machine thunked into the receptacle at the bottom. He walked back to the fence at the rear of the parking lot before popping the can open and swallowing several large gulps. Then he took out the pack of cigarettes that distended the breast pocket of his shirt, shook out a butt, and lit a match to the end. I watched him suck in the smoke.

  Dace looked at me appraisingly as I approached him. His blue eyes raked over my body as he assessed my figure, my age, my attractiveness. Just as quickly, he dismissed me. According to Marisol, he liked young flesh. At thirty-four I was far too old to interest him.

  “You want something?” he asked, a challenge behind his disinterest If I were a customer I’d have a work requisition in my hands, but I didn’t. Besides, he was on his break, dosing himself with nicotine, sugar, and caffeine. He didn’t want to be bothered.

  “Are you Peter Dace?” I took a position a few feet in front of him, invading his space. He was a bit shorter than my five feet eight inches, so I drew myself up to my full height and looked intimidating.

  “Who wants to know?” He growled the words and glared at me with hostility.

  “I’m a friend of Marisol’s.” I took a step forward. I was making Dace feel uncomfortable, which was exactly what I wanted.

  “Marisol.” He frowned, then shrugged, all dismissive bravado. “That bitch. What about her?”

  “You used to beat her up.”

  “Who says?” He was all innocence. “Did she say that? She’s lying. I never beat on her.” I looked at him steadily, not buying it. “Yeah, well, Marisol had a mouth on her. So maybe I slapped her once or twice, when she got out of line.”

  “What about Cathy Mason? Does she have a mouth on her too?”

  His eyes flashed at me as though I fit into the category of mouthy female. His fingers twitched on the can, perhaps itching to slap me into line. Instead he gulped down the rest of his soda, then crushed the can with his strong grease-stained hand and hurled it in the direction of an overflowing garbage can. He missed. Zero points.

  “What is this?” His mouth tightened, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You a cop?”

  “I told you. I’m a friend of Marisol’s. Talked to her lately?”

  “Why would I do that?” He snorted, took another hit from his cigarette, then tossed the butt on the asphalt. “Not gonna waste my time on that little bitch.”

  “Do you call all the women you know bitches?” I asked, keeping my voice pleasant. “Even your mother?”

  “Hey, you leave my mother out of this.” He came away from the fence, looking for a fight or an exit. I didn’t give him either. “What do you want?” he snarled.

  I leaned toward him and spoke with icy calm. “I want to know if you’ve been hassling Marisol.”

  “Hassling her?” He laughed as though the idea was absurd. “Hassle Marisol? I haven’t seen her since she split. Four years ago.”

  “That’s not what she tells me.”

  “Oh, yeah? What did she tell you?”

  “That you wouldn’t leave her alone. You used to call the house. Maybe even followed her a time or two when she moved up to Berkeley.”

  “She’s dreaming,” he said derisively. “Why would I bother?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I’m not interested in telling you anything.” His voice filled with scorn. “If Marisol says I’ve been hassling her, she’s lying. I got other fish to fry. Now get out of my face.”

  He looked over my shoulder as a car pulled up, salvation in the purr of its engine and the music blasting from its radio. I moved so that I could keep an eye on Dace and check out the vehicle, which, as it turned out, contained the other fish.

  It was a flashy red Camaro. The little girl at the wheel didn’t look as though she was old enough to drive it. She looked no more than thirteen or fourteen, her heart-shaped face surrounded by a swirling cloud of black hair that had been streaked with different colors, fuchsia and green predominating. The blaring music stopped as she cut the engine, opened the door, and got out, teetering toward us on high spike heels. She wore a fuzzy short-sleeved sweater and skintight black leggings that showed off her childlike figure. When she reached Dace, she put her right arm around his waist and dangled the keys in front of him with her left hand. All the while her big brown eyes stared at me, wide with curiosity. She’d done a fairly good job of covering the purple bruise with makeup, but I knew a black eye when I saw one.

  Dace grabbed the keys. “Wait for me in the car,” he barked. His latest child-woman scuttled away and got into the Camaro’s passenger seat.

  “Hey, Pete!” The voice came from the garage, aimed at him by a beefy-looking man wearing coveralls. He had supervisor written all over him, waving a work requisition and jerking a thumb toward a station wagon parked in one of the bays. Dace stepped around me, glad of the chance to escape me and my questions.

  “I hope you’re not lying about hassling Marisol,” I told him. “If you are, I’ll be talking to someone at the San Jose Police Department.”

  He froze in mid-step and I moved into his path, facing him once again. “About things like assault and battery,” I continued. “And statutory rape. You are familiar with the laws concerning statutory rape, aren’t you? If you’re not, you should be.”

  I shot a sidelong glance at his underage inamorata. In denial about the mouse under her eye, she waited patiently in the fiery red chariot, presumably for Prince Charming to take a break. Dace followed my eyes, and my drift. For once he didn’t have a tough-guy comeback.

  “Just so we understand each other, Peter.”

  Fifteen

  I HAD TO AGREE WITH MARISOL. WHY WOULD he bother her, after all these years?

  I headed back up Interstate 880 toward Oakland. Was Peter Dace hassling the residents of the house on Garber Street? The guy was a sleazeball, certainly, with his brain lodged firmly in his crotch, and his own sick need to wield power over the women in his life, with his fists, more often than not.

  True, he’d hassled Marisol after their breakup. But then he’d moved on to greener pastures. After the incident with Cathy Mason, no doubt there had been others, like Marisol and the baby-faced girl in the red Camaro. Why, after a time lapse of more than a year, would he track down Marisol and harass her and her housemates with anonymous phone calls? Whoever was making those calls had gone to the trouble to find out the new phone number after it had been changed. Somehow I didn’t think that person was Dace.

  That left Ted Macauley. I’d figured him as a good bet ever since Vicki and Emily described his unwanted attentions. He, at least, was a more current jerk. Had he made last night’s phone call? Vicki wasn’t sure. I talked with her after leaving the clinic, before driving to San Jose. All she could say was that the voice sounded familiar.

  It was slow going back to Oakland. The afternoon traffic rush seemed to start earlier these days. Or did it ever go away? The sky darkened and it began to rain. As my windshield wipers whisked back and forth, smearing drops into transient visibility, I reviewed what Vicki had told me about Macauley.

  She and Emily met him sometime in October. They had gone to a movie at the Pacific Film Archive, then stopped at a coffeehouse near the campus. There they encountered a group of students, some
of whom they knew from classes. Macauley was part of the group, one of several people clustered around a big table. They found out later he was a senior, studying chemistry. At the time, both women thought he was rather loud and brash. Each in her own way dismissed him.

  Then he turned up more often. They encountered him, sometimes separately and sometimes when they were together, as they walked to class or strolled through Sproul Plaza near the university’s South Gate. When they attended a concert at Zellerbach Hall, he was in the lobby at intermission. He was at a party given by a graduate student. No matter where they saw Macauley, he always paid a lot of attention to both young women. He came on strong, Vicki said, polite at first, then more aggressive. Emily’s version was that he was overbearing from the start.

  Macauley first asked Vicki for a date in November, around the time of midterm exams at the university. Vicki wasn’t interested. She told him no. He persisted, and she kept saying no. When Vicki mentioned this to Emily, with some irritation, she was surprised to learn that Macauley had been pulling the same routine on her friend, at the same time. They compared notes, decided the guy was more of a jerk than they already thought he was, and tried to ignore him.

  Macauley didn’t like being ignored. They weren’t sure how he got their phone number, but Vicki said he kept calling, ignoring polite brush-offs from Sasha and Rachel. Finally, one night Marisol answered the phone. She wasn’t one to mince words and had instead minced Macauley.

  But Macauley retaliated, a few days later. He encountered them on Telegraph Avenue on a Saturday afternoon as they meandered along, checking out the wares of the street merchants who crowded the sidewalks.

  All Vicki could remember was that Macauley suddenly appeared in front of them, a sneer on his face, and in a loud voice began to shower them with vituperative words. He called them bitches and dykes, saying they wouldn’t go out with him because they were obviously involved with each other.