“No, the stockings mushed up their faces. Their hair was really black and their skin dark. You know, not black, but dark. When they were throwing all my plates against the wall, I heard those jerks laughing over the music,” she said bitterly.
“Can you tell me anything about their voices? High, deep, did both of them talk or did only one of them threaten you?”
“Only one of them threatened me. He had a deep voice. It sounded, you know, familiar to me.”
“Familiar?” O’Connor said sharply.
“Yeah, but maybe that’s only because he sounded like someone from the restaurant.”
I butted in, “What do you mean from the restaurant? Someone specific?”
“Yeah, maybe, I mean accent-wise, you know.”
“Ms. Baxter.” O’Connor wanted to be sure on this point. “Are you telling me that you recognized one of the men who made threats against you?”
“Well, sort of. I guess I mean they sounded like a lot of the guys I work with.”
“Ms. Baxter, did you or did you not recognize the men who trashed your apartment.”
O’Connor was getting impatient with her, I could tell from his voice.
“I don’t k…k…know.” She began to get weepy again. “They were Hispanic, okay? I just don’t know. Why is everyone getting so worked up over a few bottles of wine?”
My mouth dropped open. I was certain she’d never even hinted that the scam involved wine.
“Teri,” I demanded. “What wine?”
O’Connor kicked my shin. His subtle way of telling me to shut up.
Teri stopped crying and turned toward me. “You told me you knew. You lied to me,” she accused. “I thought you were my friend.”
For no reason, all of a sudden I felt horribly guilty. Like I was the one trying to manufacture alibis for my crooked boyfriend.
“Teri, I didn’t actually lie to you. I…I let you think I knew more than I did.”
My mother gave me a stern look, and O’Connor gave me another even bigger kick to keep quiet.
“Ms. Baxter, what do you remember Mr. Brown telling you about the wine?”
She didn’t have anything to add to the story. It was verbatim what she had told me, but with the little bit about the scam centering on wine sales. Once he was satisfied that she was clueless on the nature of the wine scam, he began drilling her about the night of Carlos’ murder. Was she with Chef Brown the night Carlos was killed? She didn’t answer him for the longest time, just sat there staring down at the placemat in front of her.
He tried again. “Ms. Baxter, did you hear me? Did you see Chef Brown between the hours of midnight and six a.m., the night of Mr. Perez’s murder?”
Still not making eye contact with any of us, she countered with, “Would that give Brent an alibi?”
My mother and I looked away toward the garden.
“Chef Brown doesn’t need an alibi for the night of the murder, Ms. Baxter. Now, for form’s sake, were you with him between the hours of midnight and six a.m. the night of Mr. Perez’s murder?”
“Well, I didn’t get off my shift until eleven-thirty. Brent was still there. I didn’t see him after that,” she conceded. “I guess that leaves me without an alibi, too. As if that matters,” she sighed. “He was suppose to come over yesterday. We had a date, but I guess with the funeral and everything, he couldn’t make it.”
Brent couldn’t make that date or any other date.
O’Connor gently led her through their conversation about the wine three or four more times, asking the same questions over and over again. She didn’t know anything more than that one stupid drunken comment by Brent, which had nearly gotten her killed.
O’Connor had questioned Teri for about two hours when finally he decided he’d gotten all he was going to get out of her. He snapped his laptop shut.
“I guess that pretty much wraps it up, Ms. Baxter. You can’t go back to your apartment just yet. Is there any place that you can stay in the meantime? Do you have family close by?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, my parents live in Ohio.”
My mother, bless her heart, chimed in, “She can stay here. We’ve got plenty of room.”
Teri gave her a small smile and nodded. I gave my mother an exasperated look. That was all very nice but where was I going to stay? I wasn’t going back to my place until it was cleaned up.
O’Connor gave my mother a grin of conspiratorial approval. “That’s very nice of you, Mrs. Grant. In a couple of hours I’ll send up a patrol car so Ms. Baxter can get some clothes. I’m sure she’ll be very comfortable here. Ms. Baxter, do you think you could come down to headquarters tomorrow morning?”
She nodded and then O’Connor motioned my mother over to his side, whispered in her ear for a couple of minutes, and turned to hike a thumb in my direction. “You, in my car.”
Chapter 17
O’Connor saluted the two cops on watch and opened his car’s passenger door.
“In,” he ordered.
Once we were both seated, he plugged his laptop into the cigarette lighter and began reading off the screen.
“First of all, you’re cleared of Brent’s murder.”
“Murder,” I repeated, not a question.
“Yeah, Brown’s prints are the only ones on the gun, but the angle of the bullet doesn’t work for suicide. Looks like the poor bastard was executed, the gun wiped clean, and then Brown’s hand was manually placed on the grip. Pretty amateurish. Coroner did the prelim and says Brent was killed about two o’clock. The old man on your street says he saw Brent arrive at your place around one forty-five. Unfortunately, his meal wagon came just about then. He and the attendant began setting up his lunch, and he didn’t see anyone else. None of the other neighbors were home. Chang checked with Nordstrom. At noon you got a massage, at one-thirty a makeover, at two—” O’Connor clicked and scrolled—“a hair cut, and at three you got your nails done. Airtight.”
“Great.” I breathed an internal sigh of relief. Not so good for Gilberto. I hoped Rosa could give him an alibi. “Is that it? I want to arrange to have my place cleaned up. Is the crime-scene tape gone?” I made a move to exit the car.
“Not so fast, I’m not done. Are you sure you were alone at the restaurant on Thursday morning?” He had a self-satisfied look, like a cat who’d had several pawfuls of cream.
“Yeah. If anyone else had been there, wouldn’t they have been discovered when all the cops arrived? Why?”
“How well do you know Thom Woods?”
These questions weren’t making any sense. Why drag Thom into this?
“He’s worked at the restaurant for a couple of years. We don’t get along too well, but that’s just personal animosity on my part. Brent liked him, and even I’ve got to admit he’s good at his job. What’s going on?”
“A bum who sleeps in a doorway at the end of the alley was taking an early morning pee when he saw Woods coming out of the restaurant sometime after six. According to our records, you phoned in the murder at six twelve.”
“Is this George you talked to? Bald on top, broken nose he never got set so it curves to the right, wears a dirty blue pea coat?”
“Yeah, that’s him. You know the guy?”
“Not kissing cousins.” Now there’s a thought that made me immediately want to scour my mouth out with bleach. “Sometimes I give him leftover baked goods. The man’s tanked most of the time. He’s your witness?”
The homeless issue in San Francisco rages on with no winners. George is like hundreds of men, a Vietnam vet who came home to find himself an object of contempt. He needs to dry out and get some major psychiatric help, but the last time he tried the psychiatrist made him remember the war. The booze makes him forget.
O’Connor grimaced. “Not ideal, I agree. He recognized Woods. Twice last week Woods threatened to have him arrested when George got too close to his new car. Like most drunks he’s a creature of
habit. He sleeps in that doorway every night. When he wakes up he checks the Union 76 clock to see what time it is so he can go to St. Anthony’s and get some grub.”
“You mean the B of A clock,” I reminded him. Bank of America recently put their imprint on the giant digital clock that stands sentinel over the Fremont Street off-ramp. I still do a double take every time I see it.
“Whatever. Any idea how Woods could have hidden in the restaurant without you knowing it? Walter’s certain it was after six when he woke up. He’s not sure about the exact time, all he looks for is the digital six. That’s when St. Anthony’s opens up.”
I made a mental map of the restaurant, trying to envision where and how Thom might have hidden himself.
“He must have been upstairs. There’s no place to hide downstairs unless he was in the walk-in, which I doubt. It’s forty degrees in there.”
“How many outside phone lines do you have?”
“Five.” Bingo! “He was in the office!”
O’Connor smiled and nodded.
“When I phoned 911, he saw the light on the phone console and fled the restaurant. But why? He has a perfect right to be there.”
O’Connor got a satisfied look on his face. “Not if he planned on hauling Perez’s body out the door and dumping it in the water down at Pier 29. He saw the light flash on the phone, picked up the receiver, and heard you tell the dispatcher about Perez. He knew the game was up and ran out the door.”
I found myself in the dubious position of leaping to Thom’s defense.
“Thom the murderer? The guy gets faint every time he walks into the kitchen and we’re filleting salmon. I’m not saying he’s not capable of something illegal.” I thought about his new car. “But murder?”
“When Chang did his preliminary investigation of the office on the day of the murder, he noticed the sophistication of the hardware, especially the printer. Chang’s got a computer expert checking it out right now.”
I remembered Thom’s sweaty face the day after the murder and his insistent questions about the cops touching his computer. “Have you talked to him yet?”
“I was on my way to his place when you phoned me about the break-in at Teri Baxter’s studio. Woods is in the perfect position.” O’Connor began ticking off points with his fingers. “He has keys, comes and goes when he pleases, drives a new car, lives in Gramercy Towers….”
“No way,” I protested. How in the hell could Thom afford to live on Nob Hill?
“Yep,” said O’Connor smugly. “Moved in there six months ago. Still think he’s innocent?”
All the petty arguments Thom and I have had over the last two years flashed in my mind. His posturing, his ass-kissing, his impossible demands. But there was also the day the prep cook was chopping the wings off chickens to make stock. Thom walked by just as the cleaver went whack, severing the wing from the carcass. Thom ran from the kitchen in horror, and we heard him retching in the bathroom.
“He didn’t do it, O’Connor. I saw Carlos’ face. It was beaten to a pulp. Thom might be snide, bitchy, and petty, but he’s not violent. He routinely cups spiders in his hands and walks all the way from the office to the front door to let them free.”
O’Connor slammed down the lid of his laptop. “But he verbally terrorizes feeble drunks just because they’re pissing twenty feet from his car.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. You’re not listening. As usual. He might pitch a hissy fit at Walter or Carlos, but he’d never hit anyone.”
Any good will generated between us by the last three days’ events evaporated.
He put the laptop in the back of the car, put the key in the ignition, and turned to me. His lips were taut, his voice sarcastic.
“Speaking of listening, I told you to go straight to your mother’s house. What part of that sentence didn’t you understand?”
I felt anger rush through my body, simmering at my toes and sizzling out the top of the head. I started to pant, I was so mad.
“You can’t stand it when someone has the gall to challenge you. I say where I go and what I do. If I hadn’t stopped by Teri’s house, she’d still be cowering and whimpering in her bathroom. Or worse. They might have come back and finished her off. Take this investigation and shove it up your ass, O’Connor. You swagger around, silencing everyone in your wake with your overbearing, arrogant attitude. It doesn’t work with me.”
“Overbearing, arrogant?” he laughed. It was not a nice laugh. “You should know, sweetheart, you wrote the book. How Jim put up with your castra….”
Completely out of control, I raised my hand to smack his mouth, to stop him from finishing his sentence.
He was too fast for me. He cinched his fingers around my wrist like a vise. I tried to pull my arm free, he held fast.
Just as I was about to wrest my arm away from him in a final defiant gesture, our rage boiled over and metamorphosed into a mutual sexual longing so intense it threatened to melt the tires. I hadn’t felt a lust this raw since I was eighteen. We stared at each other, transfixed with desire. Our hot, labored breath steamed up the car windows in five seconds flat.
As O’Connor’s hand released my wrist with a slow caress, his thumb languidly stroked the inside of my palm. My cheeks flamed from desire and an involuntary moan escaped my lips. He brought his hand up again, cupped the back of my neck, and drew me to him. And, just like when I was eighteen, a medley of no-I-mustn’ts and yes-I-musts sang in my head. Six inches away, five inches away, the yes-I-musts were winning hands down, I couldn’t stop myself. It had been so long…
O’Connor’s cell phone rang. The high-pitched ring shattered the mood and restored sanity. O’Connor whipped his hand from my neck as if I had bubonic plague. As he fumbled to flip open his phone, I bolted from the car, tears of shame and frustration streaming down my cheeks.
Chapter 18
“Mary?” my mother’s voice followed me down the hall as I raced past her to the bathroom. She and Teri were sitting in the living room.
“Be out in a minute.”
I locked the door and sat on the toilet. This is a small house and any crying I did needed to be silent. I grabbed a bath towel and shoved my face into it, hoping it would completely muffle my sobbing.
How could I even think of kissing him? Not to mention the more involved sexual acrobatics I’d had in mind. I was the lowest of the low. I remembered that tense exchange in the kitchen between O’Connor and Moira, the brassy hair, the frown lines around her mouth and eyes, unhappiness written large on her face. I wasn’t responsible for the state of the O’Connors’ marriage, but I felt like I’d administered the coup de grâce to a wounded animal.
All that roasting of pigs, baking of pies, and tasting of wines was really a covert sexual dance between the two of us that we carried on without jeopardizing our marriages. And the arguing. Another way of sublimating the sexual energy between us. What were the lyrics to that Chrissy Hinds song? “There’s a thin line between love and hate.” I prayed that this revelation was as new to him as it was to me. I recalled that scene the day before yesterday in my kitchen, popping those cherry tomatoes in his mouth. I sat on the toilet, writhing with embarrassment.
I don’t know how long I sat in there, berating myself over and over again.
A small knock, then, “Mary, are you all right?” came from the other side of the door.
I squeaked out a tremulous, “Fine, I need to wash my face.”
I turned on the taps and splashed cold water over my inflamed cheeks, burning from desire or the crying jag, I didn’t know which. Fortunately, I’d left my purse in the kitchen. Tiptoeing out of the bathroom into the breakfast nook, I grabbed my sunglasses to camouflage my raw, red eyes, and went into the living room.
It looked like a Norman Rockwell painting, my mother and Teri sitting side by side on the couch, Mom teaching Teri how to knit. I knew from the concerned pucker on my mother’s face and the embarrassed look on T
eri’s face that all my efforts to keep my crying to myself were wasted.
“I need to go home, Mom.” I left it at that. I gathered from all that whispering O’Connor and my mother had been doing earlier that she’d been put in charge of telling Teri about Brent’s murder. From the serene look on Teri’s face, I gathered that Mom hadn’t relayed the bad news yet.
My mother stopped mid-purl and said firmly, “You are not staying there until this case is solved. Sleep on our couch.”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Grant,” Teri protested. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Nobody’s sleeping on the couch. I just called Amos,” I lied. “I’m shacking up with him for a few days. I’m going to stop by my place and pick up some clothes.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” The unspoken part of that sentence said, “I know you were bawling in the bathroom, what’s going on?”
I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, NO! Like some sex-crazed adolescent, I almost screwed O’Connor right in front of your house and I feel as guilty as hell!
“Absolutely. I’ll call in a couple of hours when I’ve gotten settled.” I walked out the door, forestalling any further protests.
I nodded at the cops stationed in the driveway, hoping against hope that neither of them had looked in the rearview mirror and seen our sexcapades. I pasted a smile on my face and waved bye at my mother, who was watching me from the window, her face wrinkled with worry.
When I pulled into my driveway the crime-scene tape was still up. Damn it to hell, I had no clothes other than the clothes I borrowed from Moira, now soaked in sweat, and the linen suit I had worn to Carlos’ funeral, which was crumpled up into a ball in the back seat of my car.
Making good on my lie to my mother, I headed for the next freeway on-ramp and flipped open my cell phone.
“Amos, it’s Mary. Can I park my butt at your place for a couple of days?”
“Girl, what is going on with you? Are you some sort of dead body magnet or what?”
Normally Amos’s wicked sense of humor compliments my own. Today, however, it seemed a tad inappropriate.
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