Too Close to the Edge

by Susan Dunlap

  But there was one more place to check for Ott’s message. Leaving word with the dispatcher to have Pereira meet me at Ott’s office at eleven A.M., I signed out a car and headed for Liz Goldenstern’s phone machine.

  It was just after ten A.M. when I passed Liz’s flat. There was a blue van in the driveway by Laurence Mayer’s cottage, a patrol car in front of the triplex, and not another parking spot on the street. I could have left the black and white in the driveway, but I didn’t want to block in Mayer’s patient. I needed to question Mayer about Liz Goldenstern’s son, but I could do that after I had listened to her tape. I drove around the corner. A yellow Volvo was pulling out, which saved me from testing just how considerate I was willing to be. Even with the walk, there was ample time to deal with everything here and still meet Pereira before she got to Herman Ott’s office.

  In front of Liz’s triplex, Heling, a rookie, slumped against her patrol car seat, her eyes on Liz’s flat.

  “Anything new in there?” I asked.

  She raised her eyebrows and sighed deeply. “Nothing has changed since I got here”—she looked down at her watch—“two hours and twenty-six minutes ago. It’s been like staring at a photograph. If I had known police work would be this boring I’d have stayed in word processing.”

  “Which wasn’t boring?” When she didn’t answer, I said, “I expect to be in here for forty-five minutes. Why don’t you take a break?”

  “You don’t have to ask twice, Smith. See you then.”

  I walked up the ramp. The breeze that had blown the palm fronds early this morning had disappeared with the fog. In the stillness, the sweet smell of freesias drifted up from the box beneath the windows. I opened the door and stood as I had yesterday afternoon when I’d pushed Liz’s chair inside. Then Liz had dominated everything. But now, with her gone, I was struck by the emptiness of the room—not a spiritual vacancy, but a lack of furnishings. The room looked like it had been cleared, repainted, and was waiting for the furniture to be brought back in. All that stood on the green wall-to-wall carpet was four floor lamps, one by each wall, and the small table under the front windows that held the phone and answering machine. Across from the door was a beige-tiled fireplace with an empty mantel. The only chairs were pushed against the waist-high partition that divided this room from the next. It took me a moment to recall that Laurence Mayer had remodeled this flat to suit Liz.

  There was no furniture to maneuver around, no area rugs to get caught in her wheels, no chairs to come between her and the lamps she needed to turn on.

  As I walked in, I realized that the barrenness of decoration on the floor was balanced by the profusion of color on the one full wall, by the door. A two-by-three-foot weaving in thick red and gold wools hung next to water colors: one of a fishing troller with the sun tinting the ocean swells, the other of the fog lifting off the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. Beside them were posters of a Greek village at sunrise, Guadalajara on a cloudless day, and the Berkeley pier at dusk. None of the works looked valuable in itself, but their placement drew my eye from one to the next, following the warm golden lines and the clear blue of freedom. I swallowed, surveyed the room again, and moved on to the next room.

  Clearly, it had been intended to be a dining room. Most houses in the Berkeley flatlands had built-in china cabinets. They varied in size, and in tastefulness. Some were of the original stained wood, with leaded glass doors to stand guard over the good Dresden. Some had been painted over to blend with the walls. Others had been “updated,” the original wood yanked out and replaced with varnished pine. But it was a rare house that had none at all. When Liz had turned the dining room into an office she had left the china cabinet—one of the leaded glass ones—but she’d had the bottom doors removed and filled the shelves behind them with phone books, municipal directories, and annual reports of public agencies. Despite the leaded glass, there was nothing homey about this room. The walls were covered with bulletin boards, and those boards were laden with schedules of committee meetings, proposals from those committees, a calendar that listed nothing for last night but the meeting she had missed, and nothing for today at all.

  The only decoration, if it could be called such, was an artist’s sketch of Marina Vista. In it, the building could have passed for the Greek village. It stood a crisp white against the pale blue of the sky, the darker blue of the bay, and the fresh green of the imagined landscaping. The building looked to be six stories high, with the ramp both Brad Butz and Laurence Mayer had bragged about coiling around it. They had been right about that ramp; even in the sketch it gave the building a sense of community. I could picture the tenants joining friends on the flat portions, chatting as the sun set over the inlet. Looking at the sketch, I could see why Liz had pushed for it. I could see why she was willing to give up this desirable flat to move in there.

  The kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom were sparsely furnished. They were rooms in which Liz would rarely have to back up to turn. The bathroom had more empty floor space than Inspector Doyle’s office. It had been more than revamped. Berkeley houses didn’t have bathrooms that size; to create this, walls had to have been moved.

  I stood in the doorway of the office, trying to see it as Liz would have. It was a command post, with the spheres of her activities segregated into modules. Once she had stationed herself at one of these, there would have been nothing out of reach. There were even two phones—besides the ones in the living room and the bedroom—one on each work table. And the bulletin boards, hung low on the walls, made me feel Brobdingnagian.

  I walked back into the living room. Covering my finger with a tissue, I pressed the rewind button on the machine and then “play.”

  This is Liz Goldenstern. Leave a message. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Some recordings sound metallic and fake, but this one sounded just like Liz. I had the feeling that if I looked around she would be rolling in from the dining room, demanding to know what I was doing here.

  “This is John, at C.I.L. Call me.”

  This is Liz Goldenstern …

  “Liz, I can’t make it tonight. Can you get someone else to help you to bed? Sorry.” It was a woman’s voice, familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. I’d have to play that one again.

  This is Liz …

  “Call Dr. Green’s office to make an appointment for a prophylaxis.”

  This is Liz … I could see why she had chosen such a succinct message. How many times a day had she listened to her voice?

  “Liz, you were right; only they were up-to-date. My fee is dinner. Let me know when.”

  Herman Ott! I reached out to stop the tape, then decided to hear it through.

  This is Liz …

  “Liz, I’m at the meeting. Where are you?” A male voice, one I didn’t recognize, asked in a tone of exasperated concern.

  I ran the tape back and played Herman Ott’s message again. His voice sounded different. I wouldn’t have recognized it. I played it once more. It was not the voice I heard when Ott was telling me he didn’t deal with cops. It was the voice of a friend, inviting himself for dinner. It was a side of Herman Ott I wouldn’t have thought existed.

  But his message—who were they, and what were they up-to-date about?

  There was no point wasting my time trying to figure that out. I got out my pad to note the other messages.

  The front door opened.

  CHAPTER 14

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING here?” the woman demanded. She was a little taller than I, maybe five nine. Her well-worn jeans stretched across her stomach and hung loose over her thin legs. But her gray sweatshirt looked freshly washed. A violet bandanna covered her hair. As she stared at me, her deep-set eyes widened in horror.

  For an instant I wondered if she thought I was a burglar. Or perhaps she was. But as I looked at her sharp features, set so incongruously above her thick shoulders and full breasts, I recognized her as Aura Summerlight, the woman who had discovered Liz’s body. Without the bright Punjabi cape a
nd the light hair blowing in the night wind, she looked less like a creature of the sixties. In jeans and a sweatshirt, she was just another middle-aged woman lined from years of hard work at low pay.

  But she had no trouble recognizing me. I, of course, looked exactly as I had the previous night when I questioned her. I was still wearing the same clothes. “What are you doing here, Ms. Summerlight?”

  “I have a right. I work here. I’m Liz’s attendant. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Dr. Mayer.”

  “You knew Liz! Why didn’t you tell me that last night?” I demanded.

  “I have a right,” she insisted.

  “Sit down,” I said, indicating the two chairs in the living room. “I’m not questioning your taking care of Liz. After all, you do have a key.” I waited for her to relax at my reassurance. Any questions I had about that arrangement would be easy enough to check later. Right now, I needed her to be calm enough to deal with the important issue. “About last night. You found Liz’s body. Then you acted like you didn’t know her.”

  “That was Liz?” she said. But she wasn’t a good actress.

  “You just told me you were her attendant, right?”

  She nodded.

  “For how long?”

  “Almost three months.”

  “Then you recognized her.”

  “No. I didn’t. I told you her head was in the water.” The words tumbled out. Her voice had the same frantic quality it did last night. “I never saw her face. It was dark there.”

  “Don’t lie to me!”

  She stared down at her old purse, gripped the zipper, and yanked it half open, then let it drop. “You’re just badgering me because I live in Rainbow Village. You cops, you’re always on us.”

  I took a breath, planning my approach, trying to work out the proper balance between comfort and authority. “Discovering the body of someone you know is a great shock. But lying to the police isn’t going to make that go away. There is no way you could not have recognized Liz Goldenstern. We both know that.” I paused, letting my assurances sink in. I had dealt with people like her before, poor people whose only contact with the police had been at the wrong end of a gun or a nightstick, people who were so used to being scoffed at that they wove the anticipated disbelief into their explanations.

  She looked up from the purse. In the daylight, her dark eyes looked even more wary than they had at night. And her sharp features seemed pointier. She’d probably been awake all night, frantically watching the collage of fears, grief, regrets, and the hopeful glimmers of escape that then faded in the light of consideration.

  “Now tell me what really happened.”

  Her eyes darted toward the door, evaluating the distance.

  Softly, I said, “You said you got home late because you were waiting for a client who owed you fifty dollars.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Like I said, I stopped to get a pizza—the girl at the counter, the one who gave me a hard time, she’ll remember me. Then I missed my bus, and I got home late.” Dealing with the peripheral established facts seemed to calm her, as I hoped it would. Whether this part of her story was true or not I could decide later. For now I nodded.

  “Like I said, I wanted to be alone. It had been a shitty day. I walked down by the water, and”—she swallowed—“I saw the chair. It was like I knew it was her as soon as I saw the chair. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. It was like if I didn’t see her she wouldn’t be dead. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I don’t know how long I stood there. Maybe if I’d pulled her out instead of just standing there she wouldn’t be dead. But I froze. Like I told you, I’ve seen death before. I knew she was dead. I couldn’t make myself touch her.” She clutched her mouth, and for a moment I thought she was going to be sick.

  Steeling my face to cover my horror and fury, I said, “What did you do then?”

  Her face was clammy. She stared down at her shaking hands. “It was awful. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. If I had just stayed in town longer, I wouldn’t …” Her eyes widened. She looked around frantically. “I can’t stand this. I’m not supposed to strain my nerves. The doctors all warn me. I need a pill.” She yanked at the purse zipper again. It stuck. “I shouldn’t get upset like this. The doctors always tell me that.” The zipper gave. She rooted down in the deep bag and extricated a small plastic bottle. “I need a glass of water.”

  “What is that?”

  “It’s phenobarb. It’s prescription. See?” She extended the bottle. “I’m epileptic. If I get too upset I’ll have a seizure. I need water to wash down my pill.”

  I kept the bottle and motioned her to the kitchen. I ran water in a glass and handed her one pill. She tossed it in her mouth and swallowed slowly, sipping at the water until the glass was empty. “I’ll be all right now,” she said. “I just may be a little out of it. I don’t like to take these things. They’re so strong. Sometimes I’m really out of it afterwards.”

  Handing her back the bottle, I walked back to the two chairs. “How serious is your epilepsy?” I asked as we sat back down.

  She shook her head. “Not bad. I haven’t had a seizure in six months. And then it wasn’t a big one. It really doesn’t keep me from doing anything. I know when they’re coming. I have time to stop whatever I’m doing, to put things down, to sit down if there’s a chair nearby. It’s been years since I fell out on the street.”

  I thought of her truck. It was a safe guess she’d lied to get a driver’s license, if she had one. “Did you come in contact with Liz because of your illness?”

  “I said it’s not that bad,” she snapped.

  I nodded.

  She sighed. “I never went to C.I.L. for services, but in a way you’re right. It’s because I’m an epileptic I can’t get a lot of jobs. Most jobs. There’s plenty of work I could do, but companies are afraid hiring me would raise their insurance rates. They’re afraid I would fall and injure myself, or break something. They’re not about to take the chance. I can’t even get a waitress job.”

  “Unless you lie?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Sure.” Her breath seemed calmer now. I wondered if the drug could have kicked in so soon. “Liz knew. She didn’t care. She said the chances of me having an attack when I was transferring her to her chair were as great as her having a spontaneous cure. She understood. But most people don’t.”

  “But if you lied, then you could get other jobs, right?” When she hesitated, I said, “I’m investigating a murder, not your employment history. I just want to clear up this discrepancy. If you could get a better job by concealing your illness, why were you working for Liz?”

  She sighed impatiently. “Because, for one thing, a lot of jobs require physicals. The pills work, but the doctors have to find the right balance—it changes from person to person. With me it took years. I thought they’d never get it right. I figured I’d never be able to do a lot of things and I didn’t get the training. I got married and figured I’d have a bunch of kids. And when I didn’t have kids, I figured I’d spend my time working the phones at the gym. My husband, my ex-husband, ran a gym in Santa Fe. By the time the business went belly-up—that’ll tell you something about him: it’s really hard these days to have a gym fail. Every third person, even in Santa Fe, wants to firm up. Anyway, when the business went, so did he. And by the time I realized I was going to have to make it on my own, I was forty-five and hadn’t done more than answer the phones and mop up the gym floor. But I did know something about the body after all those years. And I’m strong. You can’t do attendant work without a strong back, I’ll tell you. So I answered Liz’s ad.”

  “What did Liz pay you?”

  “Dr. Mayer paid me. Ten bucks an hour.”

  Ten dollars an hour was a fortune compared to the usual pay for attendants. “How come so much?”

  “She had strange hours. Like some mornings she wanted me here at seven because she had to get to an ea
rly meeting. But then if she had a late meeting, she might need me to come and put her to bed at eleven.”

  “Then why weren’t you here last night?”

  She nodded more slowly. The drug was beginning to take hold. There wouldn’t be much time for answers I could be sure of. “Sometimes there was someone at the meetings who came home with her and got her in bed. Yesterday morning she told me she would be late and she wouldn’t need me, and she wouldn’t be getting up till after ten.”

  “So normally she let you know just the day before?”

  “Right. That’s part of the reason she paid so much. I had two other jobs to shift around. Not everyone could do that. But I clean house for students. They don’t remember when you’re coming anyway. They don’t put away their clothes like normal people so that I can get to the beds or the rugs. With them I have to spend half my time just picking up before I can start cleaning.” She shrugged. “It’s their money.”

  “But yesterday Liz didn’t tell you she could do without you. You called her. You left a message that you weren’t coming.”

  “No, she—”

  “Ms. Summerlight,” I said in exasperation, “your message is on the tape.” It was no wonder this woman didn’t expect anyone to believe her. “Now tell me, when were you supposed to be here last night?”

  “Ten,” she said in a small voice. “I told you I got hung up. I called her while I was waiting for the bus, the one I missed.”

  “No, you didn’t. You called her in the afternoon. Did you kill Liz Goldenstern?”

  “No. No.” But her protest lacked fire. Her voice was mushy.

  “Then stop acting like you’re guilty. Tell me the truth. Why did you call Liz in the afternoon?”