The Man in the Microwave Oven

by Susan Cox

  He made soothing sounds, explaining that he was capable of navigating the preliminaries and would bring a criminal attorney aboard if and when it became necessary.

  “Hurry,” I said. “God knows what’s happening to him. And he’s just a kid.”

  I left Lichlyter a vaguely threatening message about the proper treatment of juveniles in custody. I wasn’t all that surprised when she didn’t call me back.

  I got to the apartment Davie shared with his father in the Tenderloin as fast as I could—in an Uber this time. Maybe I needed to rethink my decision not to have a car in the city. I’d been there once before, in an unsuccessful attempt to have Mr. Rillera arrested for neglect and child abuse. At the time, fifteen-year-old Davie outweighed his father by about fifty pounds, which, added to the denials of both, weighted the scales of justice on his father’s behalf.

  The elevator still didn’t work, and I climbed three flights of rubbish-strewn, sharply aromatic stairs with flickering light fixtures behind metal cages giving a sinister liveliness to the graffiti on the walls. I rang the Rilleras’ doorbell, which I decided wasn’t working, since I couldn’t hear it even with my ear pressed to the cracked wood of the door. I knocked, but with no better result, even when I abandoned polite taps for a side-of-the-fist hammering. I began knocking on doors up and down the hallway. The woman in the apartment at the end of the hall reluctantly appeared after I’d answered her litany of questions to uncover if I was from the police or “the immigration.”

  “Please, it’s really important. It’s about his son.”

  The door opened a few more inches, pressing hard against three security chains, and I saw an eye and part of her nose. “Davie in an accident?” she said sharply. “His father’s a waste of skin, but Davie’s one of the best.”

  “I agree. No, not an accident, but he really needs his father right now.”

  Her eye flicked to the card I’d slipped through the gap and then brightened. “You’re the soap store girl. Yeah, Davie talks about you. I’ll tell his father if I see him. Knowing him, it’ll be late,” she added with a sniff.

  The only other person I roused came to the door in his boxers and an undershirt and didn’t know—or refused to say—when Mr. Rillera would return. “I got a shift tonight,” he grumbled. “Stop all th’ damn banging and hollering.”

  I gulped. “I’m really sorry but it’s an emergency. His son needs him.”

  “If his long shot came in at Golden Gate Fields, he’ll be on his first beer at the Venus in North Beach. He’s got a thing for one of the dancers. Just keep it down,” he said sourly, and shut his door

  I checked the time. It was ten minutes to five. There wasn’t anything else I could do. Unless Adolphus Pratt was able to work a miracle, Davie would spend the weekend with his friend at Juvenile Hall.

  While I was still on the bus heading home, my grandfather telephoned in answer to my frantic messages, and I told him about Davie being taken in for questioning.

  “They won’t question him without a parent or guardian ad litem present,” he said. “The boy needs an attorney—”

  “I’ve asked Adolphus to go down to see what he can do.”

  “Ah. Good, well done, Theophania. I’m sure he will telephone you after he’s spoken to the boy.”

  “He’d probably rather speak to you. He thinks I’m an airhead.”

  “I’m sure that isn’t true, Theophania,” he said, although he didn’t actually sound very certain. “Now I must speak to your Inspector Lichlyter. I will keep you informed. And Theophania?”

  “Yes?”

  “Instead of worrying, try thinking of something pleasant, like the white cliffs of Dover.”

  He hung up abruptly.

  Knowing my grandfather as I did, he was heading downtown to confess to owning the hoof pick and explaining how Davie’s fingerprint came to be on it. I was puzzled about that for a minute, until I remembered Davie saying something about the china bowl where my grandfather kept his keys. He’d obviously picked them up at some point.

  I took another Uber to Grandfather’s house and, multi-tasking like nobody’s business, I spoke to Adolphus while I took down The White Cliffs of Dover and found a telephone number written on the back in pencil.

  Adolphus said Davie would have to stay in custody until his father could be found. He’d already received a telephone call from my grandfather, who had walked into Inspector Lichlyter’s office to admit to ownership of the hoof pick and was, he said, assisting the police with their inquiries. It didn’t help his cause when he was asked his blood type, and it was the same as the blood found on Sergei’s ring.

  “I told him not to answer any further questions,” Adolphus said. He sounded irritable. “Anyone who watches television knows not to answer questions without a lawyer present.”

  “It was because of Davie,” I blurted. “He would want to make himself the object of the investigation; not Davie.”

  “It apparently didn’t occur to him that the police might think he had an accomplice,” he said, crossly.

  I drew in a breath. “Oh God—”

  “Please don’t worry. I’ve done everything I can. Until young Mr. Rillera’s father is found, and Clement is arraigned, and bail is set, our hands are tied. And visitors,” he added repressively, “are not permitted.”

  So I paced in my living room, with Lucy pacing beside me, and tried to tame my anxieties by listing them. This was a trick I’d tried before, and it never worked, but I didn’t know what else to do. Grandfather had been detained, on the strength of his ownership of the hoof pick and his blood type on Sergei’s ring. Davie might or might not be detained due to his fingerprint on the hoof pick but, as a minor, he could only be released into the custody of a parent or guardian. Davie’s father was MIA, and Grandfather’s bail hearing wasn’t until Monday. In the meantime, I wasn’t permitted to visit them. Nope. Still didn’t help.

  Lichlyter’s hints about Grandfather being protective of me aside, I was sure he hadn’t killed Katrina. He was much more likely to use Adolphus Pratt against an adversary than a handgun. He had given me my small revolver for Christmas a year ago since, as a woman living alone, I was apparently in need of one, but it hadn’t occurred to me until now to wonder if he owned one, too. He hadn’t killed Sergei. He told me so, and I tried to have faith that Lichlyter wouldn’t be able to prove that he had. I told myself he was a grown-up, capable of taking care of himself; he probably had handcuff keys and a metal file hidden in the heel of his shoe. Did they let you keep your shoes in jail? Oh God, would they make Grandfather wear an orange jumpsuit? Was he really arrested, or just being held for questioning, and what was the difference? And I was frantic about Davie. He’d sounded okay when we spoke, but I recognized bravado when I heard it.

  After telephoning Adolphus Pratt so often with questions that even he ran out of patience, I telephoned Honest Eddie’s Bail Bonds. I was expecting whoever answered the phone to sound like a character from Guys and Dolls, but he sounded more like an insurance agent.

  “If bail is granted—” he said smoothly.

  “If!”

  “It sounds as if your grandfather is being arraigned on a capital offense. The judge may decide he’s a flight risk—didn’t you say he was a foreigner?”

  “No. He’s English.”

  “Right. Foreign. So if he’s feeling generous, the judge will take his passport and set a high bail.”

  “How high?”

  “Could be a million; could be several.”

  “Dollars? Yes, of course dollars. So I would have to raise the money and turn it over to the court before he can be released?” Grandfather was wealthy, but I’m not sure he, or I, could raise multiple millions overnight.

  “That’s where I come in. You raise ten percent of the bail, and I lend you the rest. It means I’m on the hook to guarantee your grandfather’s appearances in court. When he shows up, if the charges are dropped or he’s tried and found innocent, you pay me back what
I loaned you, and I keep the ten percent as my fee. If he’s found guilty”—I made a noise I wasn’t proud of—“the same applies. I hope that’s clear?”

  I swallowed. “Yes. How quickly can this be arranged?”

  “As soon as bail is set, come to my office. If I think it’s a reasonable risk, I’ll pay the bond. It might take a day or two, but we’ll get your granddad out of jail, okay?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Grandfather’s last comment about the White Cliffs of Dover had been cryptic, but I can take a hint. The woman who answered when I called the telephone number had a harsh, husky voice, but wouldn’t give me her name or speak on the phone. I didn’t want to assume anything, but I did wonder if she was the friend Grandfather had been spending his nights with.

  She wouldn’t meet me until the next morning, which meant another nearly sleepless night. At a few minutes past eleven, I was standing on a mat decorated with a line drawing of a “tipsy” martini glass and a stylized letter “B” at the doorway of a 1940s apartment block near Lake Merced. It was a pleasant neighborhood of trees and lawns close to the city’s southern edge, near San Francisco State and the golf course.

  I realized, as the light glinted on its lens, that the doorbell was also a camera. I’d heard of them but never seen one. Haruto told me they send a live feed to a smartphone or computer. She opened the door, slipping her phone into the pocket of her slacks.

  “Come in,” she said. She had high, wide cheekbones, hazel eyes, and thick, creamy hair, which she was wearing in a complicated chignon. She was in her late fifties or early sixties, I thought. She wore black suede shoes with a gold buckle across the front and the kind of heel often called “sensible;” fine, black wool slacks; and a white cable knit sweater with a red scarf tied jauntily around her neck.

  Her appearance was a surprise in more ways than one. I’d seen her in The Coffee, and she had jogged past me on one of my walks a few nights ago. I’d also seen her walking briskly along the Embarcadero more than once. So either she and I shared a penchant for early morning walks in the same parts of the city, or she was following me for some reason. I felt as if I were holding a kaleidoscope utterly still, before all the bits of colored glass moved and changed everything.

  She closed the door, after glancing outside in both directions, drawing a two-part metal crossbar lock across the width of the door. I’d only ever seen one like it in movies set in high crime areas of New York City. Her fingernails were bright red and sharply pointed.

  She led me into a light-filled room in the middle of the small apartment. Oddly, it had no windows, just a large skylight. Instead of a couch, she had a quartet of armchairs arranged around a low table. She went over to a metal-and-glass bar cart. “Please have a seat. Would you like a drink? I have sherry, or scotch, or I can make you a gin and tonic.” She smiled at me briefly. “No limes or lemons, I’m afraid.”

  It wasn’t even noon. What the hell. “Scotch, please,” I said.

  She poured a couple of inches into two heavy crystal glasses from a bottle I didn’t recognize, and downed hers in a single swallow as soon as she’d handed one to me. She didn’t cough or splutter, which was a feat I couldn’t have copied if my life depended on it. I took a wary sip. It tasted smoky and expensive. She refilled her glass and sat across from me, taking occasional sips of her refreshed drink.

  “Well, what can I do for you, Theophania, is it?” I nodded. “I’m Valentina. Valentina Kompanichenko.”

  “I was wondering,” I said awkwardly, “if you had heard from my grandfather.”

  “Ah?” She sat forward and put her glass on the table, then casually slipped her hand down between the arm of the chair and the cushion. “Is he missing?”

  Her expression had changed. The angles of her face were harder, her eyes more focused. I felt, suddenly and ridiculously, as if my life might depend on what I was about to say. “Nothing like that,” I said, and she relaxed slightly. “I wasn’t sure if you knew, and perhaps I’m overstepping here, but he’s not able to be in touch, and I thought he would want you to know that he’s been arrested for murder,” I said, and put down my own glass, making sure both my hands were in full view.

  “Pah! Ridiculous. I told the Lichlyter woman that he and I were together every night for the past three weeks.”

  “You were?” She shrugged gracefully, leaving me to guess whether she was telling the truth or not. “There’s a new situation, another murder, and he’s implicated. In a way. I mean, I know he didn’t do it, but there are—well, it’s a situation,” I said miserably, and not very coherently.

  “This second death is related in some way to the lawyer?”

  “I don’t know. His body was found in the same area, and it’s possible there’s a connection between them. I wanted you to know that Grandfather’s arraignment or bail hearing, I’m not sure of the difference, is on Monday, and we’re hoping he’ll be home that afternoon.”

  She relaxed back into her chair. “I see. Thank you for telling me.”

  I nodded, then hesitated.

  “Ah, but there is more,” she said shrewdly. “Are my intentions honorable, is that it?” Her hand was still tucked beside her seat cushion.

  “Not really.” I took a gulp of my scotch and tried to look harmless.

  She didn’t hazard another guess, just took a sip of her drink and looked at me calmly over the top of her glass.

  “I’ve noticed you in my neighborhood, and I was wondering if you’d, well, seen anything, or done anything, that could have a bearing on these murders. My grandfather is in real trouble, and I’m not sure how to get him out of it.”

  She frowned. “Are you saying you believe I had something to do with this man’s death? Hah! I can think of many reasons to kill a priest, but it was not I.”

  “Yes, he was a priest,” I said slowly. “So you knew about his death. He was a former colleague, I understood.”

  “He was no colleague of mine.” Her mouth drew into an uncompromising, hard line. “He was a devil who killed many harmless people in a village in Ukraine two and a half decades ago.” She was quietly biting off her words, as if they tasted bitter.

  “It was a mistake, apparently,” she added after a pause. Her eyes flashed and she showed her teeth in a grim smile. “It was a mistake which cost me my husband and my child, and other families their loved ones.” She refilled her glass.

  “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” The kaleidoscope shifted.

  She went on, as if she couldn’t help herself. “And then he undergoes a miraculous conversion, enters the priesthood, and is absolved of his many sins.” She took a gulp of her scotch. “This is not a sin that can be wiped away like that—” She snapped her fingers. “Reasonable people know there is no afterlife of reward or punishment, only this life. I would wish him to live a long life to consider how terrible were his sins and to suffer. So no, I did not kill him. Others, perhaps, might have a wish to kill him.” She emptied her glass, got up to pour another, and sat down again. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to see me gone, but it took me a while to think of any follow-up to the story I’d just heard.

  “Who do you know who might have had a wish to kill him?”

  “I know of four people,” she said. “His mistress, his son, a priest in Kiev…” She hesitated. “I lie, there are more than four people because I must add the family members of everyone who died because of his mistake.”

  “Can I assume that the mistress was from the time before he became a priest?”

  She shrugged.

  “And his son—where is he?”

  “He lives in Northern California, in a small town called Willits.”

  That was uncomfortably close to San Francisco.

  “How old is he? What is his name?”

  “His name is Pavel. I am not certain of his age.”

  “You know his name, but not his age?”

  She shrugged again. “The dead lawyer who was murdered?” I nodded. “She was his m
istress.”

  “She was—Katrina was Sergei’s mistress? But she was so much younger—”

  She shrugged. “War heightens the emotions, no? Age matters little at such times.”

  “War?”

  “How is it that young people know so little? Yes, war. It was a time of great upheaval and many people died.”

  “The priest in Kiev—”

  “A priest who risked his life to provide information which was—misused.”

  “He—if it’s the same priest—was killed in a hit-and-run accident earlier this year.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “The priest was Artem Ponomarenko. He was a very brave man, and the information he provided should have saved many lives.”

  “That’s the one; he died a few weeks ago.”

  She absorbed the news calmly. “I … see. And you know this how?”

  “Sergei told my grandfather he was here to do Father Ponomarenko a favor, or get justice for him or something. He wasn’t clear.” She frowned and said nothing. I labored on. “So Katrina and Sergei were … together. And Sergei’s son, Pavel—who was his mother?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “That is all I know. Now I am finished talking about it.”

  The doorbell rang, and she checked her phone. “Sit here. Do not move,” she said sternly. Nothing would have persuaded me to disobey her. She left the room and I heard her operating the lock on her door,and then a mumble of voices. She returned, leading what looked like a pack of spies coming in from the cold. Overcoats and scarves and hats were discarded and tossed onto a side chair. The pack resolved into three well-dressed, middle-aged people.

  “Anthony, Ruby, Joseph—this is Theophania, Clement’s granddaughter.” They nodded like mandarins and took seats around the coffee table. I nodded in return and didn’t dare to say or do anything.