by Mary Daheim
Judith took the note and fingered each separate letter.
“You’re right. I suppose we shouldn’t be handling this thing, but I’m willing to bet that there aren’t any prints.”
“Rick and Rhoda might know who you are, just as you recognized him as the Gin Man from the amateur sleuth Web site,” Renie suggested.
“That’s true. They might want to get all the glory in case they figure out whodunit.” But Judith was dubious. “There’s something odd about that waiter. I remember seeing him at the party, and later he delivered Anemone’s taco salad. Now he shows up with breakfast.”
Renie’s expression was droll. “Gosh, coz, that’s what waiters do—they wait on people. Besides, the complete staff wasn’t on board last night. They probably haven’t come aboard this morning, since our sailing time may be delayed.”
“That’s so,” Judith admitted, standing up and slipping the note into her purse’s side pocket. “It could have been anyone in the kitchen—or even someone passing through. For all we know, it might have been the captain himself. Come on, you’d better get dressed. I’d like to get off of this ship.”
Judith didn’t add that she wanted to get off alive. It was overcast in San Francisco that Friday morning as the cousins took a taxi back to their hotel.
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“I’d like to find out how many of the guests are staying at the St. Francis besides us,” Judith said as they neared Union Square, where pigeons fought for space on the bronze victory column.
“None’s my guess,” Renie replied, watching through the window as the usual ragtag-and-bobtail crowd mingled with protesters and supporters of various causes. “Most of the party guests live here, right?”
“Do they?” Judith responded as the turbaned taxi driver double-parked in front of the hotel.
Renie already had her money out. “Keep the change,” she told the driver, handing him two bills and all but shoving Judith out the door.
“Hey, lady!” the driver shouted just as Renie put one foot on the street. “You big cheat! You give me two dollar!”
Renie jerked around to stare at the driver. “What?”
“Two dollar!” he cried, waving a one in each hand.
“Ride cost eleven dollar! I call cop, you go to prison!
Much torture!”
“Hold on to your hat,” Renie snapped. “I mean, turban.”
She dug into her overstuffed wallet. “I meant to give you a five and a ten. Sorry,” she added, tossing the bills into the front of the cab.
“Ah.” The driver smiled broadly. “Have nice day, lady.”
“Nice day, my butt,” Renie muttered, squeezing between two town cars to reach Judith on the sidewalk. “I should have put on my glasses.”
“I don’t know why,” Judith said, hurrying her step to avoid a very aggressive panhandler who was hurling verbal abuse in their direction. “The lenses are always so smudged and spotted that you can barely see through them.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Renie grumbled. She pointed to the bar just off the lobby. “Let’s have a drink before we go to the room.”
“At eleven-thirty in the morning?” Judith retorted. “Isn’t that a bit early?”
“Hey—yesterday I started at four A.M.,” Renie reminded
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Judith. “Besides, I didn’t say a cocktail. I’m considering lemonade. They serve lunch here in the Compass Rose lounge.”
Judith gazed at the bar area, which was raised a few steps up from the lobby itself. Several tables were already occupied. The place looked comfortable and quiet.
“Sure, let’s do it,” Judith agreed. “We can leave our carryons with the bellman.”
“We can take them with us,” Renie said, already climbing the carpeted stairs. “They’re carry-ons, remember?”
They had just gotten seated when they heard a piano playing softly behind them. Judith turned around to look. “I hope there’s no corpse in that one,” she said grimly. The cousins both ordered lemonades. Renie fingered the lunch menu. “We can eat here, too,” she said.
“We just did, barely more than an hour ago,” Judith pointed out.
“So?”
Judith didn’t argue. The server took their beverage order before she spoke again. “You’re probably right about the other party attendees. I assume the Cruzes live here as well.”
“They always did,” Renie replied, “though they maintained a pied-à-terre, a condo downtown, not far from Heraldsgate Hill. Paul Tanaka never lived in the Bay Area. He was over in the Eastside suburbs. I don’t know if he’s moved down here or not.”
“What about Captain Swafford and Émile Grenier?” Judith asked. “Oh, and Dixie Beales.”
Renie paused as a trio of Japanese businessmen seated themselves at the next table. The bar was beginning to fill up. “Since they’re all part of the crew,” she said, “I assume they were based out of the headquarters at home. It’s possible they’ve been put up at a hotel—not to mention Dr. Selig—though I doubt they’re staying anywhere as lavish as the St. Francis.”
The lemonades arrived. Renie informed the server that they’d be ordering food a bit later.
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“I’d like to know,” Judith said as four very chic matrons passed by, “what, if anything, Rick and Rhoda St. George have found out. We should compare notes. Do you think they’d be in the phone book?”
“Possibly,” Renie replied, wincing. “Unfortunately, here comes someone who could tell us.”
Judith looked around Renie to see Biff McDougal huffing up the short staircase. He looked as out of place in the Compass Rose as Saddam Hussein at a Baptist picnic.
“Hey, there,” Biff called out, making several well-coiffed heads turn. “I gotta talk to you two.”
Clumsily, Biff pulled up an empty chair from a nearby table and plopped himself down. He didn’t remove his hat, which evoked disapproving stares from the elegant matrons and the Japanese businessmen.
“Shoulda questioned you while you were still on the boat,” Biff said, talking around the ever-present toothpick.
“Too many witnesses, couldn’t catch up with ’em all.”
“But you’re making progress?” Judith asked innocently.
“Huh?” The toothpick dangled from Biff’s lower lip. “Oh, well, sure, but it’s only been . . . what? Twelve hours or so?”
Judith didn’t correct him. “Roughly,” she said, remembering Joe’s adage that if progress wasn’t made in the first twentyfour hours of a homicide case, the trail quickly turned cold. The server was moving toward Biff, but the detective waved him away. “Let’s start with you, Mrs. Jones, seeing as how I worked with your hubby awhile back.”
For an instant, Renie looked puzzled. “My . . . ? Oh!” she said with a little laugh, recalling the tall tale she’d given to Biff. “Yes, yes. I thought you said ‘Bubby.’ That’s my brother-in-law.”
“Yeah, right.” Biff rearranged the rumpled folds of his raincoat. “So how well did you know the vic?”
“The . . . ?” Again, Renie seemed briefly befuddled. “You mean, the victim, Magglio Cruz?”
“Har har.” Biff chuckled. “Who’dya think I mean, Barry Bonds?”
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Renie’s expression was arch. “No. I thought you meant his father, Bobby.”
Biff looked surprised. “You a baseball fan?”
Renie nodded. “You want stats or do you want to catch a killer?”
“Yeah, right,” Biff mumbled. “Where was I?”
“Back in Candlestick Park forty years ago,” Renie said drily. “You asked how well I knew Magglio Cruz. The answer is fairly well, but in a working relationship. I was the graphic-design artist for most of the cruise line’s publications.”
“Oh, yeah?” Biff tried to look as if he knew what Renie was talking about. “I heard you had a row with Cruz when he
moved the company down here. You made some threats, too.”
“Of a legal nature,” Renie replied, wearing the serious expression that Judith called her cousin’s “boardroom face.”
Biff rolled the toothpick around his mouth. “You patched things up?”
“Yes. We came to a satisfactory agreement.”
“Like a bribe, with this free cruise and fancy digs?” He waved a hand, presumably taking in the entire hotel.
“It wasn’t a bribe,” Renie declared. “It was compensation for any misunderstanding between us. I’m still a consultant to the Cruz line.”
“Oh?” Biff’s small eyes got even smaller. “You sure? Now that Cruz is a goner, I mean.”
“There’s hardly been time to discuss business,” Renie asserted in her haughtiest tone.
“Huh.” Biff paused. “So Cruz getting whacked wasn’t good news for you, right?”
“Of course not. Aside from the work connection, I liked him.”
The detective went silent again before turning to Judith.
“How about you, toots?”
“Toots?” Judith scowled at Biff. “Only my mother is permitted to call me toots. You may address me as Mrs. Flynn.”
Biff shrugged. “Sure, why not? Okay, Mrs. Flynn, how well did you know the stiff?”
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Fleetingly, Judith wondered if Joe had ever been so crass when dealing with a suspect. Maybe he had. The rough armor worn by cops was an occupational necessity.
“I’d never met him before in my life,” she stated.
“So how come you’re on this cruise?”
“Because my cousin, Mrs. Jones, invited me,” Judith explained. “Her husband wasn’t able to join her.”
“Hunh.” Biff studied both women as if he were trying to see behind what appeared to be innocent facades. “Let’s get back to the murder,” he finally said. “Notice anything suspicious?”
The question seemed to be directed at Renie. “You mean like a dead body?”
Before Biff could reply, Judith spoke up: “I only glimpsed the body when I went to find Dixie Beales’s evening bag. My cousin never saw it at all. Captain Swafford and his crew kept everyone away from the piano. It was Émile Grenier who found Mr. Cruz.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know that,” Biff retorted as a cell phone rang. “I’ve questioned most of the rest of that hoity-toity crowd.” The cell kept ringing. It sounded very close to the cousins. “Did either of you see anybody acting strange?”
“They’re all a little strange,” Renie replied as the phone rang again. “Say, is that your cell?” she asked Biff.
“My . . . ?” Biff looked around, perhaps expecting to see a phone floating in the air. “Oh!” He reached inside his raincoat. “You’re right.” Fumbling with the cell’s buttons, he shook his head. “Whatever happened to dials? I can’t stand these newfangled . . . McDougal here,” he said into the receiver.
Judith and Renie exchanged bemused glances.
“The note?” Judith mouthed, discreetly nodding at Biff.
“The one on the plate?” Renie whispered.
“Should I mention it?” Judith asked in a low voice as Biff jabbered into the phone.
“Your call,” Renie said.
Judith grew thoughtful. Anonymous notes connected to a
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murder were sinister, even when they only said Butt Out. On the other hand, she didn’t want to explain that the sender might know about her guise as FATSO. Biff, however, was clearly preoccupied.
“Holy cow!” he shouted, again drawing attention from the other customers. “Be right there!” He dropped the phone, groped under the table, shoved Judith’s carry-on bag out of the way, and grabbed Renie’s shoe.
“Hey!” Renie snapped. “Keep your hands to yourself!”
“Huh?” The detective looked up. “Oh—sorry.” He ducked under the table again.
Judith felt the phone next to her own foot. Gently, she moved it out onto the carpet. “It’s right there. See it?”
Biff spotted his prey and snatched it up. “Gotta run,” he said, almost knocking over his chair. “Big jewel heist!”
“Hold it!” Renie had slid down in her seat and put out a leg to block Biff’s progress. “Whose jewels?”
Red in the face and looking annoyed, Biff staggered around Renie’s outstretched leg. “The old Giddon broad. How crazy can this case get?”
Judith wondered, too.
NINE
“IT FIGURES,” RENIE said as notes from the Compass Rose piano filtered through the hotel’s civilized air. “Murder, jewel theft—when do we find out who’s being blackmailed?”
“That’s not impossible,” Judith said. “As far as Magglio Cruz’s death is concerned, we didn’t learn one thing from Biff McDougal.”
“Except that Biff’s incompetent?”
“He seems to be,” Judith allowed. “He reminds me of one of the cops who was involved in that case last spring. What was his name?”
“His nickname was Trash,” Renie recalled. “It suited him. He spent more time eating than working.”
“You’re not one to complain about that,” Judith said with a little smile. “Speaking of which, let’s not. Eat, I mean. I’m honestly not hungry and we, too, have work to do.”
Renie gazed at the menu as if she were bidding farewell to a long-lost love. “You’re right. I’ll sign the bill on our way out.”
Back in their suite, Judith got out the phone book. “Ah. The St. Georges are listed. They live on Sacramento Street.” She wrote the number and address down on a
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piece of hotel notepaper and showed it to Renie, who was more familiar with the city.
“That’s a Nob Hill address,” Renie said. “It figures—
they’re rich, and housing there is sky-high in more ways than one.”
Dialing the number, Judith really didn’t expect that the St. Georges would be home. But Rhoda answered on the second ring.
“Judith—how nice to hear from you,” she said in that cultured yet nonchalant tone. “Did you make it back to the hotel without getting pistol-whipped?”
“Yes,” Judith replied with a thumbs-up sign for Renie.
“But as soon as we got here, Biff McDougal paid us a visit.”
“Biff.” Rhoda sounded amused. “Ricky likes him, probably because he’s such a suggestible kind of policeman. And he is discreet when it comes to publicity because he despises the media. Years ago, one of the newspapers—I can’t remember if it was the Chronicle or the Examiner—poked fun at him. They called him a ‘relic from the past,’ and implied that he was inept. But his closure rate is very good, especially with homicides.”
Judith wondered if that was partly due to Rick St. George’s help. Maybe Rick and Biff were a successful combination of brain and brawn. “Biff doesn’t work with a partner?” Judith inquired.
“Usually,” Rhoda answered, “but Willie—William Jackson—broke his leg skiing at Lake Tahoe last week. He won’t be back on the job until the end of April. Willie’s young, eager, and reasonably bright. I believe another rookie has been assigned as a temporary partner—Buzz Something-or-other—but he showed up late last night. By the way, how was Biff when you saw him?
Judith frowned. “How?”
Rhoda laughed. “I mean, was he in a hurry?”
“Let’s say he left in a rush,” Judith hedged. There was a momentary silence on the other end of the line. “I see. Why don’t you and your cousin come by for a 106
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drink? We’re only a few blocks up from the St. Francis. You can take a taxi or ride the cable car. I’ll give you directions.”
Judith made notes on the pad. “When?” she asked.
“How about right now?” Rhoda replied, her voice dropping a notch. “I’ve almost finished putting Asthma’s fur up in soup cans.”
“Beef n
oodle?”
“Right. See you soon?”
“You bet,” said Judith, and hung up.
The St. Georges lived only seven blocks from the hotel, but it was all uphill—even steeper than the Counterbalance at home. As the old-fashioned red, gold, and black cable car pulled around the corner by one of the numerous flower stands, the cousins could see that passengers were hanging from the side like sausages falling out of a wrapper. There were no friendly outstretched hands to help them this time. Renie grabbed Judith’s arm to haul her aboard. Clinging to a steel pole, they hung on for dear life as the venerable conveyance rattled and clanged its way to the top of the busy street.
They could hear the hum of the tracks after they got off at the crest of Powell Street. It was windy—even chilly—as Judith and Renie walked a block west, where they stopped to catch their collective breath by the hallowed and exclusive Pacific Union Club. They gazed around at the Mark Hopkins and Fairmont hotels, two other well-known San Francisco landmarks.
“You can smell money around here,” Renie noted. “It’s like Park Avenue in New York or Boston’s Back Bay.”
Judith pointed to the street sign. “This is Sacramento. The St. Georges must live in that condo across the street from the Mark Hopkins.”
The doorman tipped his hat before asking the cousins’
names and which resident they were visiting. A moment later, they entered the marble lobby with its lavish floral arrangement. Rick and Rhoda lived in the penthouse. A uni-
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formed elevator operator gave them a smooth ride to the top floor. The doors slid open onto what Judith and Renie assumed was the St. Georges’ foyer. If there was any doubt, the sound of clanking tin cans rang in their ears. Rhoda and Asthma came into view.
“Judith! Serena! How nice! Come, sit, stay, behave.”
Judith gave a start. “What?”
Rhoda laughed. “I was talking to the dog. He seems to be trying to cuddle Serena.”