Not Exactly a Brahmin

by Susan Dunlap

  “Murder cases require a lot of legwork before any lines are clear.”

  “Don’t you get hunches? Don’t you come to sense who’s being honest with you and who’s trying to put you on?”

  I laughed. “No one is honest with the police. Not totally. Even people who are only remotely connected to the case are uneasy in the presence of a cop. They consider their answers. They fidget. They say too little or too much. They look guilty as hell. As a rule, the killer looks no more suspect than the rest.”

  He finished his drink and leaned back in his chair. “So how do you decide who to concentrate on? In the case you’re working on now for instance, you must have a few suspects. How do you narrow down the field?”

  “Actually, I don’t in this case. The problem is not too many suspects but too few.”

  The waiter arrived with our drinks.

  Cap fingered his glass. His hands were long, his fingers slender but surprisingly firm, as if they belonged to a sculptor. But unlike a sculptor’s hands, which would have shown the cuts and bruises of misaimed hits, Cap’s hands were smooth. They suited his patrician accent. They were hands his customers would approve of. They were hands that seemed capable of caressing and controlling.

  Aware that I was staring, I moved my gaze to the candle. Before I realized it, I had yawned.

  Cap laughed. “I told you I had to keep talking about my Society connections or you’d find me dull.”

  “It’s certainly not you,” I said quickly. “This is the most pleasant evening I’ve had in a while. It’s just that I was up till three this morning”—I couldn’t resist adding—“at the morgue.”

  “You’re going to tell me then you had to set your alarm for six?”

  “We have to be up before our prey.”

  “What time is that?” He took a swallow of his drink, making an effort to finish it.

  “Detectives’ Morning Meeting is at quarter to eight.”

  “That’s not too uncivilized.”

  “It wouldn’t be,” I said, picking up my own glass, “if it weren’t for the parking.”

  Perhaps it was the lack of food—I had eaten only the taco on my taco special plate this evening. Perhaps it was my embarrassment at yawning or maybe just the effect of Cap Danziger himself, but I felt distinctly uneasy, and in that unease I talked about the department’s parking problems. I talked about them as we left the bar, as we walked to the car, and by the time I was driving down the hill, I was telling Cap Danziger about my bet with Howard and my failure to discover his costume. Howard’s costume seemed to hold special interest for him, as if he were entering the game.

  “My best guess is he’ll come as de Gaulle.”

  “French restaurants,” he said.

  “What about them?”

  “Some have pretty fancy waiters. I wouldn’t put it past the more ornate ones to have a Grand Charles maitre d’.”

  “Really?”

  “Ludicrous as it sounds.”

  I sighed. “Halloween’s tomorrow. It would take me plenty longer than that to call every French restaurant in the Bay Area.” I slowed down.

  “I think I can help.”

  “You can?”

  “A friend of mine is a maitre d’. I can give him a call. He’d know where any de Gaulle is working.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Why don’t we stop at your place. I can call him now. This is a good time for him, the early rush will be over, the after-theater crowd won’t be in yet. Then I can walk home.”

  “It’s raining.”

  “Just a drizzle. I have a raincoat.”

  I tried to remember what shape I had left my apartment in. At the best of times I was not a good housekeeper. My cleaning standards matched my eating habits. Neither provided examples I would want to be seen by my mother, or by Cap Danziger. Only my lack of possessions saved the place from being a real shambles.

  I pulled up in front of the Kepple house. As I reached for the car door, I started to warn him that he wasn’t headed to a place he’d be likely to see in Architectural Digest. But he would find that out soon enough.

  I led him around the side of the Kepple house to my jalousied porch apartment. In summer the jalousies on three sides allowed the cool breeze to flow through. Sleeping there was like camping out. In winter it was definitely like camping. The aluminum walls beneath the windows and the aluminum siding that covered the rear wall of the house were icy. I opened the door and flicked on the light. To my right my sleeping bag lay in a heap where I’d tossed it. The green indoor-outdoor carpet had been vacuumed a week or so ago and wasn’t in too bad shape. Even the puddles under the jalousies had shrunk during the day and could be cleared in one step. If it hadn’t been for the white wicker table, the place would have been passable.

  All that was visible of the table top was a circle in front of the chair where I’d sat to drink coffee and eat croissants last Sunday while I had read—what? An issue from the two-foot-high pile of Sunday New York Times on the table, or daily Chronicles stacked next to them, or one of the New Yorkers that went back to July? Or perhaps I had glanced at a NOW newsletter, or one from Friends of the Sea Otter. Or maybe I’d checked the UC Theater listings, or a catalog from Cal Extension or L. L. Bean, or Early Winters, Pepperidge Farms, Community Kitchens, J. Crew, Eddie Bauer, Sporting Dog, or any of the twenty or so others strewn there. The table resembled nothing so much as a recycling bin. I was just relieved that the coffee cup had made it to the kitchen.

  There was nothing to do but ignore the mess. “The phone is next to the chaise lounge,” I said, indicating the far end of the room. The chaise lounge, another item more suitable to a campsite or at least the backyard, was plastic, but in deference to winter I had bought a flowered cushion to block out the drafts from the jalousies. When the lounge was empty, the cushion puffed up like an infected finger.

  Cap didn’t comment on the room. He gave no indication of noticing anything untold. Was that, I wondered, what was meant by “good breeding”?

  He picked up the phone and dialed. Sitting on the lounge he waited, then asked for Ivan Henry.

  I started to take my jacket off, then remembered the salsa spot.

  “Cap Danziger,” he said, and then repeated my phone number. Replacing the receiver, he looked up at me. “Ivan’s on break. They’ll have him call as soon as he gets back. That shouldn’t be long. I’ve been there; they don’t give their employees a minute more off than the union requires.”

  “You might as well make yourself comfortable, then. Can I get you something? I’ve taken to having hot buttered rum on cold evenings.”

  “Sounds good,” he said.

  I could tell from experience with other guests that he was bemused at just how to go about getting comfortable. The only way to approach it was to crawl into the chaise lounge, lean against the back, and pull your feet up. Invariably that was an awkward thing for a guest to do. They felt ungracious leaving me to clear off a wicker chair.

  But Cap Danziger adjusted himself further onto the lounge, resting his elbows on the chair arms. In his light brown suit, against the paisley cushions and the jalousies, he looked as if he’d just wandered in from safari.

  When I returned with the drinks, I handed him his mug. “Take it by the handle; it’s hot.”

  He stared down at the mug before taking hold.

  “My ex-husband got the crystal,” I said by way of explanation. “He was going to be a college professor. We agreed professors are more likely to need crystal than cops.”

  He glanced around the room again, pursed his lips as if trying to restrain himself, and then said, “What did you get?”

  I laughed. He wasn’t the first to ask that. Both Howard and Pereira had surveyed this same bare room and been brought to the same inquiry.

  “Half the National Geographies, for one thing. But mainly the car.”

  Now he laughed. “At least you didn’t have much to fight over.”

  I said nothing. />
  “It would have been nice if you’d gotten the bed,” he added.

  “There was no bed. We slept on the floor.”

  “You mean he got the floor?”

  “Just about.”

  He shifted toward the head of the lounge in unspoken invitation for me to join him on it. I sat.

  “It’s a nice room,” he said, “like a basement recreation room where all the games are kept, where you can do whatever you want.”

  I smiled. He was the first one who had understood that.

  Still, I avoided his eyes, not sure whether I wanted to let myself fall under their mesmerizing gaze. I hadn’t planned to invite him in. Other than Howard, I hadn’t invited a man here at all. I’d wanted to keep control. But I hadn’t met a man as attractive before.

  He drew me toward him with the slightest of touches, took the glass from my hand. His lips were teasingly soft, more distant than close, beckoning me.

  The phone rang.

  “Damn,” he said, releasing me.

  I shook myself back to reality and reached for the phone. Involuntarily I glanced at my watch. It was nearly eleven, too late for any of my friends to call me on a work night.

  “Hello?”

  “Detective Smith?” The voice—a woman’s—was shaky.

  “Yes?”

  “Lois Palmerston. I … I called … before. No answer.”

  “Are you all right?” She sounded as if she was falling apart.

  “Yes … No … Look, I need … I don’t know. Can you come here?”

  “Now, Lois?”

  “Yes. Please, now.”

  I hesitated momentarily, avoiding Cap’s gaze. “Okay. Give me a few minutes. You know how long it takes me to get my car up the hill.”

  There was a small sound on the phone line—an inadvertent whine of fear. “Yes, but you will come, won’t you?”

  “I’m coming now. I’ll be right there.” I put down the receiver.

  Turning to Cap, I gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry, really. It’s business and I have to go now. The drawbacks of being a cop.”

  He kept hold of my hand. “Another time. Soon. After all, I need to call you when I find out about de Gaulle.”

  Grabbing my purse, I led him out the door and to the car. I dropped him on Shattuck and headed toward the hills.

  The Lois Palmerston I had talked to on the phone bore no resemblance to the cool, beautiful woman I had seen last night. What had happened to make her fall apart so quickly?

  CHAPTER 18

  THE PALMERSTON HOUSE WAS just as dark and empty-looking as it had been at seven when I had talked with Billy Kershon. I turned off the ignition and watched for movement inside, but there was none. Had Lois Palmerston been so distraught that she’d forgotten where she was when she called me?

  The light at the gate was off, but I had been here often enough to find the bell. I rang. The rain ran along my hair, into my collar, down the back of my jacket. I could, I thought, have been curled up on the chaise lounge with the most attractive man I’d met in years; instead I was standing in the rain outside the house of a woman who might not be home. Or worse, a woman who had been here twenty-five minutes ago and now was gone, or who was unable to get to the door.

  But the door opened a crack, and the gate buzzer sounded, and I pulled the gate open.

  “Have you been sitting with the light out all evening long?” I asked as I walked in the front door.

  In the dark, she seemed to be nodding.

  I felt for the light and turned it on.

  When I had seen her this morning, Lois Palmerston had looked unstrung, but now she was a wreck. The combs had fallen out and her hair hung in stiff, reddish-blond clumps, some clumps swaying out to the side from where the combs had trained them, others hanging limp along her neck. There was a streak of ash across her cheek, and ground-in ash on her silk pants. She’d dribbled coffee on her blouse. She looked more like a chronic alcoholic than the woman I had seen last night.

  She pressed her thumb against her cheek to steady her hand as she moved a cigarette to her mouth. The house was thick with smoke. I took her arm and propelled her into the living room, then felt in the likely spot for the light switch and turned on the lights. She started.

  Sitting her down on the sofa, I said, “Now what is the matter? Tell me.”

  She drew in long on the cigarette. “They’re … they’re going to get me.”

  “Who?”

  “Just like they did to Ralph. It’ll be easier with me. They’ll just come.”

  “Who? Who is going to get you?”

  She looked over at me as if seeing me for the first time. “I can’t tell you.”

  “You can tell me,” I said in a calm voice.

  “No. They’d find out.”

  “I’m a police officer. I can protect you.”

  “No one can help me. They’re outside.”

  “Now?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Before. Before I called you. I heard them then.”

  “Were they trying to break into the garage?”

  “No, not the garage. I would have heard the door go up.”

  “Where, then? Where were they coming in?”

  “The front window.”

  I looked at the picture window, the lower half covered with wooden shutters. It didn’t open. But the one near it on the side of the house did. “I’m going to look around outside. You just stay here.”

  “No. Don’t go.”

  “I’ll only be right outside. You can see me through the windows.”

  She stared blankly at me. I took her by the hand and walked her to a spot where she could see out both windows. I considered asking her for a flashlight, but even that request seemed more than she could handle. Instead I ran to my car and extricated the one in the glove compartment.

  Through the rain I flashed the light along the window frame. There were no marks. But since this window didn’t open, there was no reason there would be. And in the state Lois Palmerston was in, it was questionable whether any menace had existed except in her own imagination. In front of the window were three or four small bushes that had grown together, forming a low hedge that reached just to the window. Three feet of grass separated the street and the hedge. I flashed the light on the bushes but they looked intact. Then I let the light fall to the grass.

  There were footprints on the grass. The ground was soft from the rain. The prints must have been fairly clear when they were made, but by now any identifying information had been washed away. From their general shape, particularly the squared-off heel, they looked like they had been made by running shoes.

  I followed the footprints to the corner of the front window. Again, I checked the window itself, but there were definitely no marks on the frame.

  Behind the wooden shutters Lois Palmerston stared at me, her hazel eyes wide in terror. They looked as if they’d drawn the life from the rest of her pallid face. I forced myself to smile at her and point to the side window. Then I aimed the flashlight down. The prints suggested the running-shoed figure had stepped back from the front window, perhaps when he realized it didn’t open, and moved around to the one at the side. The prints led right up beneath it.

  Because of the steep slope of the lot, the side window was a foot farther off the ground than the front one, so that entering here would not be a question of just stepping inside, as one might have from an open front window, but of hoisting up and climbing in. The attempt would have left visible marks on the window frame. I let the light fall on the bush beneath the window. Several small branches were broken. I moved the light up to the frame, ran it along the edges, up one side and down the other, and along the bottom twice. But there were no signs of attempted entry. There were no marks at all.

  I focused the light on the ground. The drop to the backyard was steep. The next window back was eight feet off the ground. If anyone were going to break in, it would be through the side window. And unless Lois had turned it off, the hous
e was protected by a burglar alarm system.

  Lois was staring down at me. I smiled again and shook my head. Then I aimed the light down. The footprints went no farther. They looked as if they had backed up the way they’d come. But the rain was getting heavier and it was no longer possible to discern which were the toe-heavy forward steps and which the more even backings away.

  Motioning to Lois, I moved back to the sidewalk. Without any expectations, I tried the garage door. It didn’t move. By the time I got back inside, the rain had soaked into my jacket again.

  Lois was standing at the door shivering. Now, in my wet jacket, I realized how cold it was in this house.

  “Haven’t you put the heat on?” I asked.

  “I never turn it on. Ralph always did that.”

  There were no floor heaters, as many California houses have. This one would have the more expensive central heating. I looked for the thermostat and turned it up to seventy-two. Then I took her by the arm and sat her down on a sofa. I felt as if I were shifting a mannequin.

  “You were right,” I said. “There was someone out there tonight. But there are no marks on the windows. So either they decided not to break in or they never intended to. Now, Mrs. Palmerston, who would have reason to be out there under your windows?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You said ‘they.’ Who are ‘they’?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must have some idea, some suspicion.”

  “No. I don’t know. I don’t know.” Her voice had the same pale, ethereal quality as her face. I couldn’t decide if she really didn’t know, or if she just couldn’t summon the energy to put her suspicions into words. She stabbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. A quick glance showed me that every ashtray in the room was overflowing. She’d been chain-smoking since I had left her last night. If she was going to be at all lucid, she needed food.

  “We’re going to the kitchen,” I said. “I’ll fix you something to eat.”

  “I can’t eat.”

  “Of course you can.” Taking her by the arm, I half pulled her up.