A Credible Threat

by Janet Dawson

  “And how would you know that?”

  “I paid him a visit yesterday. He lives on Regent Street, just over the line in Oakland. He has a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook on his bookshelf, right next to his high school annual. Turns out one of the housemates, Nelson Lathrop, went to the same school as Macauley. He was two years behind Ted, but he remembers Macauley’s predilection for things that go boom. It seems Macauley got suspended his senior year in high school for building a bomb at school.”

  “I take it he’s got your vote for the bomber,” Nguyen said.

  “He’s got the know-how, he’s got a grudge against Vicki and Emily, and I pissed him off. Though at the time his response seemed limited to calling me names and trying to intimidate me.”

  “You think he was pissed off enough to come over here a day later with a pipe bomb? That seems extreme. Or is there something else you want to tell me?”

  I sighed. There was no way to get around it. “While I was at Macauley’s apartment, Vicki’s father—my ex-husband—showed up. He had found out about Macauley following his daughter and he was angry about it. I had to get him out of there.”

  “Who is Ms. Vernon’s father?”

  “Sergeant Sid Vernon, Oakland Homicide.”

  Nguyen nodded slowly. “Did Sergeant Vernon threaten Macauley?”

  I answered reluctantly. “It was more along the lines of, stay away from my daughter. Vicki’s his only child. He was pretty upset. Macauley filed a harassment complaint against Sid this morning. I’m not certain how he knew Sid was a police officer, but he certainly knew where to hit back.”

  “Given what you’ve just told me, a bomb still seems like an extreme reaction,” Nguyen said.

  “Unless Macauley’s not playing with all his cards.”

  “Anything’s possible.” Nguyen shut his notebook. “In fact, you’ve given me quite an array of possibilities. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other witnesses to interview.”

  Twenty

  “LEAVE THE REST OF IT,” RACHEL SAID TIREDLY, as we finished nailing several lengths of plywood over the broken window in the living room. “We’ll clean it up tomorrow.”

  “I’d rather clean it up now.” Marisol’s mouth thinned into a determined line. “That way we won’t have to look at it in the morning.”

  She glanced at Emily for support, but her fellow housemate clutched a broom and didn’t say anything. Emily hadn’t said much the whole evening. Her silence concerned me, as did the frightened look that still glowed in her deep blue eyes.

  It was late, past ten o’clock. Sergeant Nguyen and the technicians had departed, after staying on the scene for more than four hours. After he’d finished interviewing the housemates, Nguyen had gone outside to talk with the neighbors, to see if anyone had seen anything. Now the house was enveloped in an uneasy silence. Those who were hungry had consumed a hasty meal thrown together with what was already cooked, augmented by whatever could be found in the refrigerator.

  “Marisol’s right,” Nelson said. “Let’s do it.”

  “I agree.” Vicki stepped away from the window, hammer in hand. She stowed that and a handful of nails in the toolbox that sat on the hardwood floor.

  Nelson hoisted his broom and dustpan, then looked at me. “There’s no need for you to stay, Jeri. You’ve done enough. Besides, I’d appreciate it if on your way home you would stop in at Marquessa and tell Ben what happened. He gets off about ten-thirty. I don’t want him to walk into this totally clueless.”

  “No problem.”

  I left the living room and went through the kitchen to Martin’s room. Sasha sat in a chair next to her son’s bed, exhaustion etching lines and shadows on her face. The little boy was in bed, curled into a fetal position as he slept, his thumb in his mouth.

  “He hasn’t sucked his thumb in ages,” Sasha said, her hand gently stroking Martin’s face. “Took me months to break him of it.”

  I took her other hand. “He’ll be okay.”

  “Will he? My poor sweet baby. He’ll have nightmares.”

  “I’ll find out who’s responsible.”

  “Good.” Her face hardened. “I won’t forgive whoever did this. My child could have been killed.”

  I left her sitting with Martin and went back out to the kitchen. Vicki was there, standing in front of the open door of the pantry, scanning the shelves. She spotted what she was looking for and reached for a box of oversize trash bags.

  “Keep an eye on Emily,” I said.

  “You noticed, huh?” Vicki hugged the box to her chest as she closed the pantry door. “She’s acting kind of spooky.”

  “Yes. This rattled her. She seemed to be really frightened. As though she knows something we don’t. Vicki, how well do you know Emily?”

  “Not as well as I know you.” Vicki’s fingers toyed with the protruding edge of one of the dark green trash bags. “I met her last fall when we both moved into the house. We hit it off. We’ve been friends ever since. I really like her. But I don’t know much about her. She doesn’t talk about herself. I never pushed it. I figured it was none of my business. After all, some people are just private.”

  “Or maybe there’s something Emily doesn’t want to talk about. If this harassment has something to do with Emily...”

  I was thinking out loud, remembering Emily’s reactions to the phone calls and particularly to Martin’s brief disappearance, last Saturday morning. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  “She should have told us,” Vicki finished. “Maybe she didn’t think it would get to this point.”

  “But it has. I’m going to have to talk with her again.”

  I gave Vicki a hug and left the house, heading for downtown Berkeley. Marquessa, the restaurant where Ben waited tables four nights a week, was on Oxford Street, near University Avenue. Oxford ran north and south, one block to the east of Berkeley’s main drag, Shattuck Avenue. Downtown the street briefly touched the western perimeter of the U.C. campus. I found a parking spot on the campus side of the street and stepped into the crosswalk.

  I’d seen several eating establishments live out their brief lives in this particular location, most recently an Indian restaurant. Now it had a new name and a new cuisine, Italian. The place closed at ten, and it was about five minutes after. The door was locked, but I saw a young man wielding a broom in between the tables, and a woman closing out the cash register.

  I knocked and she shook her head and pointed at the CLOSED sign. I knocked again, rattling the door. Looking annoyed, she stepped away from the register and walked toward me. “We’re closed,” she said loudly, her words muffled by the door.

  “Ben Winslow,” I told her, raising my voice so she could hear me. “I have to see Ben Winslow.”

  The woman looked exasperated, but she reached into her pocket and pulled out some keys. She unlocked the door and opened it just a crack. “I said we’re closed.”

  “Ben Winslow. I know he works here. It’s important that I talk with him.”

  “Well, you’re out of luck,” the woman said. “Ben’s not here tonight. He called in sick. You might try reaching him at home.”

  Funny, I thought. I was just there.

  “I’ll kill the son of a bitch,” Sid snarled.

  “Calm down,” I said, my voice both groggy and resigned.

  Sid’s phone call had roused me from a deep sleep. It must have been a deep sleep, since the cats hadn’t awakened me.

  Make that cat. Black Bart was usually content to snooze next to my feet until I moved them from the bed to the floor. But Abigail had firm ideas about when she liked to eat. The fat tabby cat had been known to use claws and teeth to persuade me to get up and feed her.

  When the phone rang I’d struggled to a sitting position, hand scrabbling for the receiver as both cats jumped off the bed and trotted toward the kitchen. Sid’s voice clamored in my ear as I squinted at the digital readout on my clock radio. It was after seven o’clock, past my usual getting-up time.

&nb
sp; “Calm down? Calm down? Some lowlife scumbag hassles my daughter, then he throws a bomb through her window. And he has the nerve to file a complaint against me? I’ll rip the bastard a new asshole.”

  He would too. To say that Vicki was the apple of his eye was understating the case. To say that he was angrier than he had been the other night at Macauley’s apartment was also an understatement.

  “Calm down,” I told him again, trying hard to be the voice of reason. Not that it was doing me any good. “We don’t know for sure that it was Macauley.” Of course, Ted had my vote, especially after what Nelson had told me about Ted building bombs in high school. But I didn’t need to go into that right now.

  “Bullshit.” Sid’s anger burned through the phone line, palpable, white-hot. Ted had his vote for sure. I just didn’t want him to do anything stupid.

  I ran a hand through my untidy hair. I needed a strong dose of caffeine before I could deal with this.

  “Are you at work?” I asked. He growled an affirmative. “I’ll call you back.” He started to argue. “Sid, I’m still in bed. I need coffee. I need to pee. I’ll call you back.”

  I hung up the phone and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. After my bathroom pit stop I walked to the kitchen, where Abigail and Black Bart waited patiently for me to fill up their matching cat bowls. That done, I started a pot of coffee and took a shower. Only when I was dressed, breakfasted, and on my second cup of coffee did I call the Oakland Police Department’s Homicide Section. Sid was on another call. I sighed, with more than a little relief, and asked for his partner, Wayne Hobart. The phlegmatic Wayne could usually be counted on to stay cool.

  “Has Sid calmed down?”

  “Not much,” Wayne said. “He’s on the horn now with Brad Nguyen over in Berkeley.”

  “I just don’t want him to do anything rash. Such as a repeat of his visit to Macauley’s apartment. It’s Berkeley’s case.”

  “He knows that. Logically.” Wayne paused. “I’m not sure about emotionally. You know how he is where Vicki’s concerned.”

  “Yeah, I know. Tell him I called. I’ll be here for a while longer, but I’m going over to Berkeley myself, to see if I can get some answers to a few questions.”

  I hung up the phone and sipped my coffee, leaning back in the dining room chair as I watched Abigail and Black Bart wash themselves before settling into sleep on my sofa. Questions, questions, I had a lot of them. Such as what Emily Austen wasn’t saying, and why Ben Winslow wasn’t at work last night.

  I headed for the Elmwood district. On Garber Street, I spotted a truck from an Oakland glass company. Sasha was on the lawn in front of the house, supervising the replacement of the front windows.

  “How’s Martin?” I asked.

  “Still sucking his thumb.” She gave me a lopsided smile. “We both played hooky from school today.”

  “Who else is home?”

  “Everyone’s in class, except Ben.”

  Since Ben worked at the restaurant four nights a week, he had arranged his schedule so that many of his classes were in the late morning or early afternoon. I left Sasha in conversation with the man who was installing the new windows and walked around the corner of the house to the garage apartment. The blinds were open and I saw Ben cross-legged on the sofa in the tiny living room. He had a book balanced on one jean-clad knee as he scribbled in a spiral notebook that rested on the other.

  I knocked. A moment later he answered the door, a smile on his round face. “Hey, Jeri.”

  “Good morning, Ben. You missed the excitement last night.”

  “Yeah. I got the tail end of it when I got home from work.”

  I gazed at his brown eyes. “Nelson asked me to go by the restaurant last night, about ten, to let you know what happened. You weren’t there. They said you’d called in sick.”

  He stared back. Then he dropped his eyes and his hand slipped off the doorknob. “Damn.”

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  Twenty-one

  “YOU DON’T THINK I HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS?”

  Ben’s voice was anguished as he shut the door behind us.

  I looked at his stocky torso in its white T-shirt, at his earnest young face. No, I didn’t really. But I wanted an explanation.

  “Just tell me where you were last night.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “I don’t know what to think, Ben. You lied to your employer about being sick. You weren’t at work, where you were supposed to be, when a bomb went off in the living room. Everyone is under the microscope now. You’d better talk to me. Because Sergeant Nguyen is going to talk with you soon. And he’ll want answers too.”

  “I wasn’t anywhere near here last night,” he said, tripping over the words in his haste to assure me that he was innocent of involvement. “I have witnesses. I was... I was at this study thing, at somebody’s apartment over on Fulton. It’s a tutoring session.”

  He looked ashamed. I didn’t understand why. “So you need a little help with your classes? Is that all? Ben, it’s okay to be a little behind in your classes.”

  “It’s not a little behind.” He slumped onto the sofa, his head in his hands, then looked up to where I stood near the door. “I’m way behind. I’m not doing well at all. I’m struggling to keep my head above water. I’m afraid I’m going to lose my scholarship.” He looked frightened at the prospect.

  “Does anyone else here in the house know?”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t wanted to mention it. Nelson... I mean, Nelson, he acts like a goofball, but the guy is brilliant. And the others, all the women, every one of them, they’re all like these great overachievers.” His voice took on a note of longing. “I feel like I can’t keep up, like I’m the stepchild. I don’t know what’s wrong, Jeri. I was top of my class in high school. Everybody was so proud of me when I got this scholarship to U.C. I worked for it, and I don’t want anybody saying the only reason I got into this school is because I’m black. But I know people say that all the time, especially right now with all this anti-affirmative action talk that’s going around.”

  I sighed and studied him, feeling so much older than he was, remembering my college days, fifteen or more years ago. My role had suddenly shifted away from investigator and into counselor.

  “Maybe the job’s getting in the way, Ben,” I told him. “Four nights a week, five hours a night. That’s twenty hours away from your studies.”

  “I need this job.” His face looked bleak. “The scholarship covers tuition, and the loan is supposed to take care of everything else, but it doesn’t. My belt’s getting real tight, what with me trying to give my mom some extra.”

  “What’s she going to do if you get booted out of school because your grades are in the toilet? What are you going to do if that happens?” He didn’t answer. “What’s the priority here? That extra money, or you getting your education? You’re the only one who can decide.”

  I walked across the small living room and dropped a hand onto his shoulder. “I don’t for a minute think the only reason you got into Cal is because of your race. That’s a bunch of bullshit. Someone saw something in you that showed promise, Ben. Don’t let yourself down. Talk to Sasha about the rent. Talk to all of them about helping you out with your studies. I think you’ll find they’ll be happy to help you any way they can. Maybe it will take their minds off what’s going on.”

  He sighed. “Well, I’m relieved you don’t think I had anything to do with it.”

  My voice took on a bantering tone. “Hey, you’re a history major. You don’t know how to make a bomb, do you?”

  “No, I don’t,” he said soberly. “But history majors know how to do research. I’ll bet any one of us could figure out how to make one. I just wish we knew who was doing this. And why.”

  “Let me and the Berkeley cops worry about that.”

  The door of the garage apartment opened and Nelson came in carrying his usual sack of take-out food. He loo
ked surprised to see me. “Hey, Jeri. How’s it hanging?”

  “It’s not,” I told him.

  He looked confused and turned to Ben. “Yo, Ben,” he said. “Got lunch here.” He set the sack on the end table and started removing its contents. It looked like two fat burritos wrapped in aluminum foil and a couple of cans of soda. “Beef for you, chicken for me.” He grinned at me. “If I’d known you were here, Jeri, I’d have gotten another one. You want a bite?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve got places to go. Besides, I think you and Ben need to have a talk.”

  I left them in the living room of the garage apartment, for a little man-to-man over their burritos. As I went back outside, the March sky, which had started out blue that morning, had turned gray and it began to rain. I headed downtown, where the Berkeley Police Department occupied a two-story building on McKinley Avenue, near the corner of Allston Way.

  Sergeant Nguyen didn’t have to talk with me, a nosy P.I. from Oakland. On the other hand, my presence at the Garber Street house made me a witness, as well as a potential victim of the bomb. Nguyen didn’t say anything about having talked with Sid that morning. He took me back to his first-floor office and waited until I’d taken a chair next to his desk before he spoke.

  “Our analysis of the bomb debris jibes with what you told me last night,” he said, consulting the file before him. “Galvanized pipe, black powder. It was fairly simple, easy to build.”

  “Did the neighbors have anything to offer?” I asked.

  Nguyen shrugged. “It was suppertime. Everyone was in the kitchen, fixing dinner, or in the dining room, eating it. Perhaps our bomber was counting on that being the case at the Garber Street residence. We do have a report of a red car in the vicinity before the explosion. That doesn’t necessarily mean that particular car had anything to do with the bomb. I’m aware that Ms. Nichols and another neighbor reported a red car cruising the neighborhood earlier in the week. But in neither case do we have a make, license plate number, or description of the driver.”