“Oh, it’ll be fine in a couple of minutes,” I assured her and took very tiny sips of my water. Surely she wouldn’t throw me out until I’d finished my water. Her head had a distinct tilt to it, like she was listening for footsteps.
“Drew, Teri was at the funeral,” I lied.
Her perfectly sculpted eyebrows arched in automatic disdain. She didn’t see Teri as a threat. I was going to have to stick the knife in a little more.
“She told me something interesting,” I continued. “Brent’s got some sort of scam going on at the restaurant.” I twisted the knife. “I was sure if she knew, you’d know.”
“Why don’t you ask Brent?” Her voice was so cold I practically saw her breath.
“Well, I didn’t have a chance to talk with him,” which was true in a creepy way. “I’m afraid if the police question Teri, she’ll say something. I hoped you’d be able to fill me in. You know, with my ex being a cop, I’ve got lots of contacts in S.F.P.D. If it was something minor, I might be able to fix it.”
Drew’s porcelain perfect skin mottled into a sickly orange; she practically spat at me. “No, I don’t know anything about it.”
I began to believe her. She of the size five pants and size five feet had been left in the dust by someone with hair the color of carrots, size nine feet, and size fourteen pants. Drew was the girlfriend to show off to other people, a trophy on his arm, a walking vision in Armani. Teri was the one who listened to his fears and hopes.
But I needed to be sure. I pressed further. “Are you sure he didn’t say something about padding the invoices or anything like that?”
“No, goddammit. He didn’t tell me a thing,” she snapped, past being polite. To regain her equilibrium she starting taking stock. Her hands cupped the seventy-five-dollar haircut behind her ears. She checked to see if her pearl earrings were intact and gave her manicured nails a glance. Perfect, no chips, I almost heard her say to herself.
Having ascertained that all was right in the world, she looked up and seemed startled to see me still there. Her eyes narrowed into menacing slits.
“I see you’ve finished your water. Good night.” Walking over to me, she grabbed the nearly full glass out of my hand, splashing water all over the floor in the process. She ignored the mess and opened the door for me to exit.
I left without comment. She locked the door behind me and turned off the porch light. I guess she assumed Brent wasn’t coming, or she was going to punish him by making him stand in that dark entryway until she felt like opening the door to him.
Teri Baxter wouldn’t make him wait endlessly at the bottom of a long staircase. She’d be standing near the door, waiting for his footfall, not even giving him a chance to ring the doorbell before she opened it with arms flung wide. His excuses about being late wouldn’t faze her, she’d be grateful to him for just showing up. I know which one I’d want to come home to.
I walked slowly down Chestnut, past the chic restaurants that spelled out the demise of the old neighborhood, hit Lombard, and made my way back to the motel. The fog was beginning to spread its wispy fingers over Cow Hollow. Once inside my room, I threw my purse on the chair, washed out my underwear, undressed, and got into bed. As I went to turn off the table lamp, my hand knocked the receiver off the telephone. The dial tone screeched at me to make my call.
I remembered what I’d forgotten, what had nagged me when I left the police station. I’d forgotten to call O’Connor. The shit was going to hit the fan.
Chapter 15
I fished in my purse for O’Connor’s beeper number. He picked it up so fast it didn’t even ring. I let him yell for about five minutes without me saying anything. Despite feeling incredibly guilty, I was getting a vicarious thrill that someone was actually worried about me. Apart from my mother and Amos, no one cares about my comings and goings these days.
After a while he stopped for air and I butted in. “O’Connor, I’m really sorry, but I completely forgot about calling you. After my session downtown I was so tired I didn’t trust myself to drive across the bridge. I got in my car and drove to the first motel I found with a vacancy sign. I’m so sorry.”
“Where are you?” he demanded.
“The Seadrift Inn on Lombard. I’m fine. I chowed down a big dinner, just had a long hot shower, and now I’m ready to go to sleep. I’ll come out to your place in the morning and we can compare notes.”
“Get your ass in your car right now and come on over to my house,” he ordered. “Someone could have followed you from the station. You could be in danger. We’ll make up a bed for you.”
Now that the fog had come in it was cold in my room. I bunched the covers around my neck. There was no way in hell I was going to get into wet underwear and drive out to the Richmond.
“O’Connor, come on. No one followed me. Everything’s okay. I’ll call you first thing when I wake up.”
“Look, Mary.” His voice was stern. “This isn’t an option on your part. As the detective on this case, I’m officially ordering you to leave that motel room right now.”
I just sort of heard the last part, as if one of my ears worked and the other one didn’t, because I saw the thin edge of a credit card trying to ease open the spring on my door. The person on the other side felt the mechanism slide back and began pushing the door open.
I dropped the phone, ran to the chair, and grabbed it, the contents of my purse spilling onto the cheap carpet. I wedged the chair under the door, holding it with my weight. I started screaming as loud and as long as I could. My assailant had wedged the door open a crack, but the chair held firm. I was strong—years of hauling around sixty-eight-pound blocks of butter build muscles—but I didn’t know how long I could keep this up. I kept screaming and screaming, but the tug of war continued. Jesus Christ, wasn’t anybody out there listening? I pushed the chair with every ounce of strength I possessed and the door closed.
I ran to the phone. No dial tone. Shit! As I frantically banged the buttons on the top of the cradle, I saw the credit card easing its way up the doorjamb again. Spying my Swiss Army knife on the floor, I lunged for it, fumbled with the sheath, and unfolded whatever blade came out first. I hacked at the card, trying to slice off the end so it wouldn’t be long enough to release the spring. Suddenly, the card disappeared. I collapsed against the wall near the door, crumpling down into an exhausted heap.
From the other side of the door voices began yelling at each other in Spanish, with lots of grunting and groaning, like a fight was going on. Police sirens began wailing in the distance. Next, I heard a high-pitched thin scream and then a mournful, “Madre de Dios,” and a thud against the door, as if someone had fallen against it, and then nothing.
I waited. A moment later, I heard several people shouting and then a bullhorn called my name. I looked up and saw a blue-red police light play on the walls and ceiling of the room. It took a while to get up, every muscle ached. I opened the door. The parking lot was filled with an ambulance, six police cars, and about ten police officers with their guns drawn. Nobody moved or said a word. They just blinked. I didn’t have any clothes on. Stumbling back into the room, I pulled the cheap throw off the bed, wrapped it around me, and reappeared to face yet another contingent of the S.F.P.D.
A couple of female cops came up to me and escorted me to a police car. I climbed in and huddled against the leather, cocooning myself in the bedspread. One of them asked if I wanted anything. I shook my head no. I blanked out for a few minutes until O’Connor showed up. Considering he lived in the Richmond and this was Cow Hollow, he didn’t do too badly.
When I’d dropped the phone to grab the chair, O’Connor heard me screaming on the other end. Why I couldn’t get a dial tone was because he was still on the line. When I dropped the phone the second time, he used his cell phone to issue a call for every police car in a two-mile radius to storm the motel. I was pretty much alone in my end of the motel. The patrons who did hear me scream thought it was a domes
tic spat and didn’t want to get involved.
“Eat something, then we’ll talk,” he ordered.
I was too tired to object. He brought me a greasy, hot, hamburger, swimming in mayonnaise, and a huge glass of milk from the coffee shop. I sat in the back of the police car and arranged the throw around me so I could eat. O’Connor stood next to the door, periodically checking to see how I was doing. All this was done in monosyllables like “eat” and “eat more.” Once I had finished the hamburger I felt a lot better. The food blunted the shock. I handed him the empty plate.
“I need to get dressed. I’m freezing in this thing.”
“In a minute.” He glanced in the direction of the ambulance. His voice was clipped and cold. What bug crawled up his butt?
I looked over to where the ambulance was parked, its lights flashing furiously. A bunch of technicians were bent over a body, strapping whoever it was onto a gurney. They hoisted the guy up into the cab of the ambulance and sped away, sirens blaring.
“Who’s in the ambulance? A cop get hurt trying to nab that pervert?” I hitched the bedspread around me even tighter. The fog was thick by now, enveloping the motel in its cold gray blanket.
O’Connor didn’t look at me. “It’s Gilberto Perez.”
My arms went slack. I felt the bedspread snake its way down my torso.
“No way, O’Connor. No fucking way would he try to hurt me.”
“Cool your jets, Ryan. He wasn’t trying to hurt you. He tried to save you. We’ll have to wait to get his side of the story, but one of the residents poked his head out the door to see what you were screaming about. He saw Perez attack the guy trying to jimmy open your door. The other guy knifed him.”
“Is he going to make it?” I asked solemnly.
“It doesn’t look good, but he’s got a chance. When I called that code blue an ambulance was automatically sent to the scene. We got to him right away.”
The hamburger that had warmed my bones not five minutes ago was tearing my stomach lining to shreds. I leaned my head against the back seat of the police car and closed my eyes.
“Snap out of it, Mary. Get dressed. You’ve been holding out on me. I’m so mad at you I could wring your scrawny neck.”
I didn’t open my eyes, but continued to sit there, waiting for my stomach to settle. “You snap out of it, O’Connor. I did hold out on you and the only person it hurt was that poor kid. If he dies, I won’t be able to live with myself. I’ll tell you the whole story in the morning. Are you still offering me a bed?”
No response.
I opened my eyes. O’Connor sat on the other side of the bench seat. His hands clutched his knees with such fury that his knuckles gleamed white against the dark interior of the car.
I covered his hand with my thin one and squeezed hard.
“Gilberto didn’t do it on his own. You saved my life, too. Thanks.”
He slid away from my hand. As he scooted out the door he ordered, “Get dressed, Mary. Moira’s expecting us.”
A policewoman appeared with my clothes in hand, escorted me to another motel room (mine was being dusted for prints), and waited for me while I got dressed. I balled up my wet underwear and shoved it in my purse.
O’Connor arranged for someone to drive my car while I sat in the front seat with him. We didn’t speak one word to each other the entire drive. O’Connor’s wife, Moira, sat at the kitchen table waiting for us, clutching a cup of tea. Her knuckles were white, her shoulders hunched, yet her body had a settled curve to it; she was in a familiar pose—like praying. When we came through the back door, I actually saw the tension in her body ratchet down several notches.
Moira was nice, if limited. She delivered nine months to the day from her wedding night and had stayed home with her children. We had almost nothing in common, but muddled through our social encounters with as much grace as possible and over the years had come to a satisfactory relationship. She bragged about her kids and the Boy Scouts, and I regaled her with food-industry gossip.
“How are you doing, Mary?” she asked, a tired, tentative smile on her face. The last two years hadn’t been kind to her. Her hair, dyed a harsh yellow, made her look much older than she was. Or maybe it was the frown lines now firmly etched in her face. Of course, who was I to talk? I’d just spent two hundred dollars on a makeover that afternoon and then promptly washed it down my kitchen sink. My face still itched from the dish soap.
O’Connor cut me off before I could reply. “Moira, please show Mary to her room. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Moira outfitted me with a nightgown, extra toothbrush, and towels (she was the kind of woman who has that sort of thing “on hand”). Giving me a quick hug, she whispered, “Sleep well,” and quietly closed the door. She’d rustled their eleven-year-old out of his room to bunk with one of his brothers.
I slept like the dead and didn’t wake up until ten. I felt disoriented for a few minutes until I sorted out why I woke up in a room where the walls were virtually papered with posters of the Forty-Niner quarterback Steve Young. The house was quiet; the kids had already left for school. I lumbered out of the bedroom into the kitchen and stood squinting just inside the doorway.
It was sunny in the Richmond. In October, you have one month of beautiful sunrises, which in no way, shape, or form compensate for the damp, gray, suicide-promoting mornings the rest of the year. O’Connor’s kitchen faces east and the whole room was brilliant with sunlight. I closed my eyes and let the hot light warm my bones. O’Connor’s voice broke through my reverie.
“Working on your tan?” he asked sarcastically. He’d been sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me to wake up. The newspaper looked like it had been mauled by wild animals. From the tone of his voice it was obvious he was still furious with me.
I beat my chest three times. “Mea culpa for Christ’s sake.”
I sat down in a chair, faced the sun, and closed my eyes. “Stop being angry with me, O’Connor, or we’re not going to get anywhere. You know I can match you nasty remark for nasty remark. I suggest we carry on with our shaky truce.”
Silence for a couple of minutes, then, “You want some coffee, a latte, espresso?” I opened half an eye. He held up a white dishtowel and waved it like a flag. “Cease fire?”
“Cease fire accepted. A latte, heavy on the milk,” I yawned. An espresso would have fit the bill perfectly, but I wasn’t sure how together my stomach was going to be after last night. While listening to the comforting sounds of milk being steamed, I looked around.
“This is great,” I said, sweeping the room with my hand. They’d remodeled the kitchen since the last time I’d been there. Stainless steel countertops, industrial stove, terra-cotta tile floor, even a stainless steel-fronted refrigerator. Not the sort of kitchen Moira would have wanted. She’d have had the French Provincial tiles, bleached oak cabinets, the Sub-Zero fridge with front that matched the cabinets, Mexican pavers on the floor, and lace at the windows.
O’Connor put a latte in front of me. “How did you convince Moira to let you do this?”
“You know us. I screamed for ten minutes. Moira pouted for three weeks. Finally, I made a deal with her. I pointed out that since the rest of the house had become a living shrine to Martha Stewart, I had the right to do the kitchen my way. I do ninety percent of the cooking anyway. She could redo our bedroom, but the kitchen was mine. You wouldn’t believe what she spent in linens and curtains. Jesus Christ, the paint alone was fifty dollars a gallon.”
“It was precisely $45.39 a gallon. Pennies compared to that refrigerator you bought.” Moira came into the kitchen, her handbag slung over her shoulder. She paused in front of the door to the garage.
“Got to run, Mary. Hope you got some sleep. Sorry we didn’t get to talk.” She turned to O’Connor. “I’ve got a PTA meeting at the school.”
“I figured.”
“Johnny’s game is tonight. You going to make it?”
O�
��Connor jaw tightened. “I’m on a case, Moira.”
“I figured.” She walked out the door.
Embarrassed, I picked up the paper and pretended to read the front page. Funny, when you’re married these skirmishes don’t seem that serious, but to an onlooker, the alarm is ringing loud and clear.
“I called the hospital.”
I put down the paper.
“Perez is holding his own. He’s still in intensive care, but the doc thinks he can be moved to the floors later on today. She’ll know better after lunch.”
A tremendous weight lifted off my shoulders. I didn’t want that one on my conscience. “Thanks, O’Connor. I appreciate it.”
“You want a shower before you tell me what happened? And I mean everything,” he emphasized.
I thought for a moment and decided not. I smelled a little yeasty, but I wanted to finish my latte before the milk got cold. “Nah.”
“I want the dope on Perez first. Don’t leave anything out.”
I told him about seeing Gilberto in the paint store parking lot, the phone call, and our final encounter at Rosa’s house.
“Look, I know what you’re going to say. All this sounds suspicious, but he didn’t murder anybody. I’d stake my life on it.”
O’Connor picked up the white dishtowel and slapped the table, hard.
“It might come down to that. Mary, I can’t believe you were a cop’s wife. How do you know he didn’t have anything to do with Brent’s death?”
“Before you have a stroke, listen to me. Gilberto wasn’t afraid or remorseful. He sounded frustrated and angry. He and Rosa had a big fight while I was there. She asked me to snoop around and Gilberto went ballistic, warning me to stay away from the restaurant. Not what I’d call killer mentality.”
“Christ, Mary, you’re driving me nuts.” He balled up the towel and pitched it across the room. “You’re too smart to be this naïve. If his brother was involved in this scam, what makes you think Perez isn’t part of it too? He might have warned you away from the restaurant precisely because he’s mixed up in it. Doesn’t want you snooping around. Just because he tried to save your life doesn’t mean he’s not involved as well. Would you let me do my job?”
Beat Until Stiff Page 14