Till The Old Men Die

by Janet Dawson

  “His name’s Neal. Neal Patterson.” Felice shrugged, twisting the topaz ring on her finger. “We still see each other now and then. He’s a navy flyer, a navigator. Right now he’s stationed at Moffett Field, over on the peninsula. But I think he’s got orders to San Diego very soon.”

  “How did you meet him? How long were you married?”

  “We met in Baguio four years ago. That’s a resort up in the mountains. I’d been working as a photographer in Manila. Lots of weddings and confirmations.” She rolled her eyes. “Boring, but it pays the bills. I went up to Baguio for a long weekend to shoot some mountain scenery and see if I could get some interesting pictures of the sort of people who go to Baguio. Neal was there on a few days’ leave from his duty station at Cubi Point, near Subic Naval Base. We hit it off, we dated for a while, and then we eloped. If you can call it that, with all the red tape involved when a Filipino national marries an American. Then Neal got orders to the Bay Area. We lived in Mountain View until we split up, about eighteen months ago.”

  “Why did you split up?”

  “A lot of reasons,” she said with a lopsided smile. “Maybe we shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place.”

  I could sympathize with that statement. I’d used it myself several times when Sid and I divorced. “Your father didn’t approve of your marriage.”

  “My father doesn’t approve of anything I do. When it comes to marriage, he believes like should marry like,” Felice said, staring at the dusty windows and not at me. “Maybe there’s some truth to that. At least he was polite about it.”

  Which meant someone else wasn’t. I hazarded a guess. “Neal’s parents?”

  “His father. He called me a Flip, a gook, right to my face.” She repeated the epithets calmly enough, but I knew they still had the power to hurt. Her voice turned weary. “Old men. Damn them all. They think they own the world.”

  She got up and walked to the kitchen, pouring herself another mug of coffee. I followed her, and she waved the coffeepot at me. “There’s another cup here. Want to finish it off?” I nodded and held out my mug. Felice poured the rest of the coffee into it. “I don’t know why I’m talking about all this,” she said, shaking her head as if to rid herself of the cobwebs. “We were going to talk about me taking pictures of you.”

  “I didn’t really come over here to discuss photography, Felice.” I watched her face over the rim of the cup as I took a sip of coffee. “I want to ask you some questions.”

  Felice’s eyebrows went up, and she smiled uncertainly. “You’ve been doing all right so far.”

  “It has to do with a case I’m working on.”

  “Of course,” she said. She dumped the spent coffee grounds into the garbage, unplugged the coffee maker, and rinsed the pot in the sink.” It must be a case. You’re a private investigator. Why else would you be asking all these questions? What does your case have to do with my family?”

  “I’m not sure. I have a lot of threads that seem to be tangled together, but I don’t know if they’re connected. I was doing some background work and I came across Kaibigan Inc. Rick is one of the principals, along with Hector Guzman and Salvador Agoncillo, Nina’s brother.”

  Felice stood in the middle of her kitchen, coffee mug held with both hands. “I don’t know anything about any corporation. I thought all my brother did was run the import business for my father. I’ve met Sal, of course, and Hector Guzman. I don’t like Guzman. He’s an odious old man with a fat middle and skinny arms and legs. He reminds me of a spider. He’s funneling a lot of money into Max’s campaign.”

  “How long have your brother and Nina Agoncillo been engaged?”

  Felice picked up her mug and stepped past me, returning to the flowered sofa on the back porch. “I didn’t know they were engaged until she showed up at the fiesta, flashing her big diamond. Rick’s been after her for a long time, ever since Sal introduced them. Nina and Alex were still together when Rick started pursuing her, but things hadn’t been good between them for a while. They separated last year, and Nina filed for divorce.” She didn’t say anything for a moment, then her dark eyes stared directly into mine. “How did you meet Alex? Is he one of those threads you were talking about?”

  “One of the threads is Alex’s uncle. Lito Manibusan. He was a history professor at Cal State. Did you ever meet him?”

  Felice nodded. “Once. He was a delightful man, so courtly. He was interesting, too, knowledgeable about Filipino history, about lots of things. Alex was very fond of Lito and really upset over his death. It came at a bad time for him.”

  “You mean Alex’s divorce from Nina.”

  “Alex and I...” She stopped and stared across the room, out the dusty window. “We had a relationship.”

  “I know. I saw the way you looked at him at the fiesta. And Nina mentioned it.”

  She leaned down and picked up her coffee mug. “Nina blames me,” she said defensively, “but their marriage was over. She was already making eyes at Rick by the time I became involved with Alex. So, which came first, chicken or egg?” I didn’t respond. I had no answer. “Are there any other loose threads you want to ask me about?”

  “Do you know a woman named Dolores Cruz? She’s Filipina, in her thirties, and she has a scar on her chin, right here.” I traced the line on my own jaw.

  Felice looked at me with curiosity in her brown eyes. “Is this someone you’ve met recently?”

  “Yes. I’m trying to figure out who she is.”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know anyone named Cruz.”

  Fifteen

  DOLLY WAS AT HER DESK AT MABUHAY TRAVEL, though she didn’t appear to be laboring hard. The Oakland Tribune was spread out on the desk and her cigarettes and coffee were within reach. At the other desk Belinda sat with phone propped between chin and ear, both hands moving across her computer keyboard, eyes scanning a screen full of airline fare information. She glanced up as I walked in the front door and her eyes widened behind the big glasses.

  “Ready to book that flight to Manila?” Dolly asked pleasantly, closing the newspaper. She remembered me as last week’s customer who was interested in a trip to the Philippines. But things had moved well past that pose, and it was time to lay the cards on the table — in this case my business card. I took one from my purse and tossed it onto Dolly’s desk.

  “I’ve decided against it, Ms. Cruz. Or is it Mrs. Manibusan?”

  Dolly picked up the card, read it, and set it down quickly, as though it were hot to the touch. Her face turned wary and she hesitated before answering. Then she shook a cigarette from the pack at her elbow and flicked on her lighter.

  “A private investigator. The university hired you,” she said, her voice even. She tilted her head upward in a gesture of bravado and blew a stream of smoke at me. “Well, let them. I was married to Lito Manibusan. I can prove it.”

  “You’ll have to do more than wave a piece of paper under Dr. Kovaleski’s nose. That marriage certificate is bogus. I think you bought it from the same place you bought your green card. Besides, the rest of Dr. Manibusan’s family never heard of you.”

  “That’s not surprising.” Dolly blinked her long-lashed eyes and rearranged her face into a mask of sadness and regret. Her voice was reasonable, sincere. “Lito and I were sweethearts long ago, before he married Sara. We met again in Manila, last summer, while he was there doing research, and resumed our relationship. I know it was impulsive to get married. Not like Lito at all. But we were married. I have a marriage certificate.”

  How did she know the name of the professor’s late wife, and about his last trip to the Philippines? She sounded convincing, but I wasn’t convinced. Not after that attack on my father and the theft of the envelope.

  “So convenient that the professor is dead and can’t confirm your story,” I said, my voice harsh. “Odd that he didn’t list you as a beneficiary on his pension plan, or change his will. It makes me wonder whether you had something to do with his
murder.”

  She gasped. Her face flushed, and the thin scar stood out along her jawline. “Are you out of your mind? I didn’t kill him.”

  “Maybe you know who did.” That was purely guesswork on my part, but I watched Dolly’s eyes as she composed herself. I was sure that she knew who was responsible for the professor’s death.

  By now Dolly’s officemate had finished her phone conversation and was hanging on every word, without any pretense of minding her own business. The phone began to peal and Dolly skewered her coworker with a glare. “Why don’t you answer that, Belinda?”

  Belinda hissed something undiscernible as she reached for the phone. I fired another question at Dolly. “Where were you last night?”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “I understand you’re taking a class at Cal State. Although the university doesn’t have any record that you actually registered. For the sake of argument, let’s say you were there late yesterday afternoon. A professor was assaulted last night and his briefcase stolen. Last week his house was burglarized. And the week before, a woman matching your description was seen prowling around his office.”

  “And you accuse me?” Dolly turned haughty, exhaling a stream of smoke into my face. “First of murder, then these lesser crimes. You’re crazy. I think you’d better leave.”

  “For now,” I said as the front door opened and an older couple walked in. Belinda was still on the phone, so they approached Dolly’s desk. “You’re playing out of your league, Dolly. The time will come when you want to talk with me.”

  Skepticism veiled her eyes as she pounced on the customers, eager for any reason not to talk to me. I heard her go into her spiel as I left the travel agency. When I arrived at my own office, Dr. Manibusan’s file boxes greeted me, a silent wall of cardboard and paper reminding me of last night’s attack on Dad, its objective the professor’s envelope.

  There was only one message on my answering machine. Elaine Martini’s voice sounded dry and emotionless, telling me a custodian found Dad’s briefcase ditched in one of the stalls in a second floor women’s rest room at Meiklejohn Hall. Just as she had predicted, everything was there — except the envelope. She wanted me to call her. I tapped my notepad with the pencil. The women’s rest room. Dad’s assailant was a woman, I thought, wanting it to be Dolly. But it could just as easily have been a man who’d dodged into the first available refuge after attacking my father.

  I made myself a pot of coffee, hauled several boxes down from the stack, and set to work, sitting cross-legged on the floor as I pulled folders from cartons. That’s how I found Dr. Manibusan’s calendar about an hour later. It was stuck between two files. As I pulled them from a box, it fell to the floor, last year’s Sierra Club engagement calendar, six by nine inches, one page per week, spiral-bound with a photograph of wildflowers on the cover.

  My coffee was cold, so I replenished it before carrying the calendar to my desk. I sat down, opening it randomly to the third week in August. There, in Manibusan’s now-recognizable scrawl, was the time and number of his flight to Manila. I turned the pages forward to the first week in September and saw a similar notation for the return flight.

  Too bad I didn’t have this year’s calendar. Maybe I’d find enlightenment or the name of his killer written on that Friday in January where Dr. Manibusan was murdered. But things are never that easy.

  I turned to the front of last year’s calendar and leafed through the pages, scanning each week in turn. It reminded me of Dad’s own calendar, always open on his desk at Cal State. In a litany of the ordinary, Dr. Manibusan had recorded the routine of his life — dental appointments, student consultations, faculty meetings, reminders to pick up his cleaning and have his car serviced.

  On the page for the last week in July I found the name Cardiff written at the top, with the name Beddoes alongside it. A double-pointed arrow had been drawn between the two names. The professor had underscored the names twice, with such force that his ballpoint pen went through the page, making a mark on the next week’s calendar. Something else had been penciled in the top margin of that page, a list of telephone numbers and names. They were nursing registries in San Francisco and the East Bay.

  I got up and located the correspondence folder I’d found during my Sunday-night foray into Dr. Manibusan’s files, the one that contained Dr. Manibusan’s letters to and from the army inquiring about Lieutenant O. M. Cardiff, and the professor’s note to himself to check hospitals and associations. Evidently he had. I looked at the army’s letter, at the date of Cardiff’s discharge in 1946. An army nurse, circa World War II. Logical enough, I thought. Alex had told me that his uncle was particularly interested in World War II history, and in my search through his files I’d found an extensive array of information on the subject. Okay, so Dr. Manibusan had been researching an article. But there were lots of World War II veterans out there. What was so important about this particular nurse that the professor had made such an effort to locate Cardiff? Had he ever found her?

  I turned the calendar pages forward, scanning August, September, and October. A week before his departure for Manila, Dr. Manibusan had been busy. He’d covered the calendar page with his black scrawl, canceling his research trip to the central valley and his reservations in a Fresno motel, rescheduling interview appointments in farming communities like Madera and Turlock. After this flurry of activity there were no entries until after his return from the Philippines. Then the calendar pages detailed the start of fall-quarter classes at Cal State — meetings, conferences, working the History Department table at registration. September and October showed more routine, with weekend trips to the central valley for research interviews. I saw a note indicating that the professor took his nephew Alex to dinner for Alex’s birthday in October. So he’s a Scorpio, I thought. I might have known.

  I flipped the calendar pages to the next month. On a Wednesday in November, right before Thanksgiving, Dr. Manibusan had jotted the name “Potter.” Under it he’d written the names of two central California towns, Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo. The following week, on Tuesday, was the word “Sacramento,” circled and underscored. A trip to the state historical library? I wondered. My eye moved up to Sunday’s entry, and my interest quickened as I read the note. “E. Villegas, SF, 2 p.m.”

  Eduardo “Eddie the Knife” Villegas? Had Dr. Manibusan interviewed him for the article he had written about Asian immigrants and crime? It had been published in the winter edition of the history journal my father loaned me. But something about the date bothered me. History quarterlies often have long production deadlines. I made a mental note to contact the journal and find out when the professor had submitted his final copy.

  I turned back to the calendar page where the nursing registries were listed. Maybe if I backtracked the professor’s movements, I’d find out what he was working on that precipitated his sudden trip to Manila. I picked up the phone and punched in numbers, going down the list, and getting the same reaction at each place. The 1940s were a long time ago, literally a lifetime for people like me, born in the postwar era. Few people were willing to take the time away from current tasks to dig through the past. I found only one registry, in San Francisco, that had files going back further than the fifties. The woman who answered the phone told me the registry had been in operation since the thirties. There were some files in a storeroom, dusty and in need of purging. If I wanted to come to San Francisco, she said cheerfully, I was welcome to dig around the haystack in search of the needle. Just ask for Carrie or Bess.

  I wrote down the registry’s address and the hours of operation. As I hung up the phone, my office door opened and Alex Tongco walked in, wearing his well-tailored summer khaki uniform, a garrison cap tucked into his belt. Two gold oak leaves shone on each side of his collar, denoting the rank of lieutenant commander, and several rows of ribbons anchored his left breast pocket.

  “Had lunch?” he asked cheerfully.

  I looked at the clock, surpris
ed to find that it was nearly one. “No. Is that why you popped in?”

  “Not entirely. I found out something about Charles Randall. He’s navy, a chief warrant officer. He was stationed at port services, but he transferred to Yokosuka, Japan, a year ago. What has all this got to do with Uncle Lito?”

  “Probably nothing.” I leaned back in my chair, lacing my fingers behind my head. “I don’t think Charles Randall is involved in this at all. As I told you earlier, Dolores Cruz is living in his condo here in Oakland and driving his car. Charles Randall’s brother Arthur is married to Dolly’s sister. The Randalls own the travel agency where Dolly works. So it appears they’re taking care of a relative by giving her a job and a place to live. But that doesn’t explain where Dolly came from and what she’s after.”

  “Another dead end,” Alex said.

  “Tell me about Felice Navarro.”

  Alex’s face closed up. “Why do you want to know about Felice?”

  “You had an affair with her. Nina told me. And Felice confirmed it.”

  He stared at me with a tight-lipped frown. “What is this? An interrogation?”

  “Merely an inquiry.”

  “Why were you talking to Nina?”

  “I went to see Rick. I got a package deal that included Nina. And Max Navarro. Nina took the opportunity to mention your relationship with Felice.”

  Alex balled his hands into fists. “I’m sure she told you more than that,” he said, turning to look at me. “I was unfaithful. So was she. She started seeing Rick right after her brother introduced them.”

  “Did you know Nina and Rick were engaged?”

  “Not until we ran into them at the fiesta.” His mouth quirked into a humorless smile. “Well, Nina’s found what she wants — a rich husband who doesn’t move every two years.”

  “And what do you want? Revenge? Was Felice retaliation?”

  “Felice was a mistake,” he said curtly. “It was a fling. It didn’t mean anything.”