by Jan Burke
She took us back to her office, and opened one of the file drawers. She pulled out a brown paper grocery sack, gave it to June.
JUNE DIDN’T OPEN the sack until we were back in the car. As we sat in the parking lot near the shelter, I watched her examine Lucas’s meager legacy.
At first, it appeared to contain nothing more than a few articles of clothing. She pulled each carefully folded item out of the bag and placed it on her lap.
A gray T-shirt.
Two pairs of white socks, one dark pair.
Three pairs of briefs. Perhaps someone else would have been embarrassed, or even thought it comical to see underwear pulled out of a bag. I only felt sad when I saw them. A T-shirt could have been worn by anyone. Not these most intimate items. Death with dignity. What a laugh. This kind of accounting of personal belongings is due to all of us some day, I suppose. Perhaps it’s best if it comes to us only after death.
June kept reaching into the bag. Next came a handful of AA tracts. I was looking through them when I heard her moan softly. In her hand was a little Bible.
“I gave this to him,” she said, and pressed it to her lips. She was crying as she handed it to me.
There was a piece of paper in the Bible, marking the Twenty-third Psalm. I was trying to make out something scrawled on the paper when June Monroe pulled out the last item in the bag.
22
“HIS THERMOS,” she said.
“His thermos? Why would a man with so few possessions need two thermos bottles?” I asked.
“No, there’s only one in here,” she said.
“There was also one in the hotel room. At the Angelus.”
“I don’t understand…”
“There was an open thermos bottle in the room where he died. But this thermos was here, at the shelter. So someone else must own this one… or someone else owned…”
“Why are you looking like that all of a sudden?” she asked. “Is there something I’m not understanding? You’re saying this Two Toes fellow who took Lucas’s ring left this thermos behind?”
“No. The homicide detective you talked to last night — now that I think about how he put it, he wasn’t very clear with you about this. Even though Lucas died of a heart attack, the coroner was puzzled, because Lucas seemed to have a healthy heart. That’s why the coroner is doing the toxicology studies.”
“Poison?”
“He thought it was a possibility. But the studies take weeks to complete.”
“You’re saying someone brought Lucas some kind of something in that other thermos?”
“I’m saying it’s very possible. A lot of things in the hotel room didn’t make sense — the missing ring, the pennies, the scrapes and bruises. But now we know that the thermos wasn’t Lucas’s. It explains how someone could have poisoned him.”
“Someone poisoned my boy…” She was looking at me in total disbelief.
“Maybe.”
“Who? Who would want to kill him?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe someone felt threatened by him.”
“Threatened? By a man who lived like this?” she asked, motioning toward the shelter. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Big tears rolled down her face. “Why wouldn’t he come home to me?” she whispered. “Why live in these places? On the streets of this city? I could have offered him a roof and meals. I would have taken care of him.”
I didn’t say anything.
She shook her head. “Pride. That devil’s pride in him. So hard in him, like a rock. Nothing could break it.”
I looked out across the parking lot, watching a group of men walking slowly toward the shelter door. “I’m not sure the people out here always know why they stay on the streets,” I said. “Maybe there aren’t any good reasons. But as for Lucas — how old was he when his father died?”
“About twelve, I guess. Why?”
“Old enough to be aware of his father’s drinking, and maybe what it cost you?”
She sighed. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“So maybe he just wanted you to be proud of him, and he wasn’t quite there yet. Like that money for the phone call.”
“What do you mean?”
“He probably knew you could afford the call he made to Las Piernas. Maybe he just needed to show you that he wanted to pay his own way.”
“But I would have cared for him better than these people did. He’d rather be here all alone, not a friend in the world.”
“He had friends here.”
“Who? That man in the kitchen? You?”
“I wasn’t much of a friend. I’ve admitted that to you. But Lucas made friends here. Even on the street. His friends helped me find him. They respected him. He protected some of the weak ones from the bullies.”
“That was his way,” she said. “Even as a kid.”
She pulled herself together, then began carefully replacing the contents of the grocery bag. She looked over at me, and I realized that I still had the Bible on my lap. I started to close it, saw the note again.
“Can you read this?” I asked, handing it to her.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” she began.
“Er, no, I meant the scrap of paper.”
“Oh.” She frowned over it, then said, “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“I couldn’t make it out either,” I sighed.
“Oh, I think I can make it out. It just doesn’t make any sense. It says, ‘She rubs.’”
She passed it back to me. I studied it again, now that I had a hint of how to proceed. “How did he get such good grades with such lousy handwriting?” I asked.
“Teachers are as good as pharmacists at reading bad handwriting. His teachers knew he was bright — and you wouldn’t believe how hard some of them worked with him on it. He printed lots of things — his printing wasn’t as bad as his handwriting. But mostly it was just that they knew he was trying. Might have had some kind of learning disability, I don’t know. In those days, they didn’t test for things the way they do now.”
“This is an s?” I asked, looking at the first mark on the paper.
She looked at it again. “I think so. Or maybe a c.”
“A c? Then it would make sense. Cherubs.”
She smiled a little. “Well, that’s a more sensible note to leave in a Bible.”
I drove her over to the rental car place, wondering if she was right. Maybe the Good Book wasn’t the inspiration for the note. After all, Lucas Monroe had died surrounded by angels.
GEOFF’S GREETING DIDN’T do anything to soothe my nerves as I entered the Wrigley Building. The old security guard shook his head slowly and said in funereal tones, “Mr. Walters is very happy.”
“Any idea what’s caused this monumental change in affect?”
“You mean, why is he so happy?”
I nodded.
“You.”
“Oh. Well, I’m sure it can’t be as bad as all that,” I said, heading for the stairs.
“And I thought I was an optimist,” I heard him mumble behind me.
I ignored the stares of coworkers, the drop-off in both conversation and keyboard clatter as I made my way across the newsroom. I had thought to stop by Lydia’s desk, but decided not to prolong my misery. I glanced over to see her catching the tip of her nose between two fingers, scissors-style — as if snipping it off. It was an old signal between us from our school days, one I hadn’t seen since the last time I got sent to the principal’s office. Better no nose than a brown nose, it meant, invented long ago as a response to Alicia Penderson’s shameless kissing up to the nuns. Alicia had been in serious danger of putting a new crease in the backside of Sister Vincent’s habit.
I smiled, returned the gesture, and knocked on the frame of John’s open office door. “Hello, John. You wanted to see me?”
My smile must have taken him aback, because he scowled briefly before saying, “Come in, Irene. And close the door.” Once the door was shut, he smiled again and said, “Have a seat.”
He then went back to looking at a computer monitor, where he was scrolling the wire — browsing through the long directory, looking over the lead paragraphs of stories filed on the wire service. I took a quick peek over his beefy shoulder to see what he was reading and noticed there was nothing urgent or local on the monitor. The faker.
Unfortunately for John, I recognized the trick as one that Sister Vincent herself had often used: stall and make them squirm. My immunity to this tactic built by experts, I leaned back in my chair and studied my fingernails as if they had the winning lotto numbers painted on them.
“How’s the story on Moffett coming?” he asked, not looking at me.
“Oh, just swimmingly.”
He turned to look at me, his scrutiny real this time.
“So tell me about it.
“I’ve met with Corbin Tyler and it looks like I’ll finally be able to interview Roland Hill. So I’m meeting with some people who worked very closely with him. I expect to have more by the end of the week…”
“Dammit, Kelly, you work for a newspaper, not a goddamned history journal! The man resigned on Thursday. Monday, I practically had to chain you to your chair. It’s now Tuesday and you’re strolling in here late. Maybe I should put someone else on to this. Someone who has time to be a reporter. Maybe Dorothy Bliss should be handling this one.”
That brought me to my feet. “You want a load of half-assed, meaningless bullshit on your front page, go right ahead. You’ll have a column full of conjecture and nothing to back it up. She puts more filler in her stories than a flat-chested girl could stuff into a bra on prom night!”
“At least this newspaper would appear to be looking into the matter of Moffett’s sudden resignation!”
“That’s all it would be, John. Appearance! Quotes from ten people who don’t know diddly, filled in with could-it-be crap. ‘Could it be that Mr. Moffett really needed more time to care for his ailing poodle?’ ‘Could it be that younger higher-ups were demanding more than the old commissioner could deliver?’”
“Kelly…”
“Maybe she’ll make it dramatic.” I put my hand over my heart and went into a Betty Boop voice, the closest I can come to imitating Dorothy. “‘There’s an empty office in city hall. Very, very empty. Outside, on the door of the office, an equally empty slot, a place where a narrow brass plaque bearing a very important name should be. Everyone here knows the missing name on the missing plaque. Could it be that these uneasy, silent coworkers know why it’s missing?’”
He started stabbing his blotter with a ballpoint pen. I went for broke.
“‘As this reporter looked at the sun-faded carpet, the little bitty indentations where the big oak desk used to sit, the really, really big oak desk that once had a really, really big leather chair behind it…’”
“That’s enough!”
“Oh, sure it is,” I said, dropping the act. “Give the story to Dorothy and you’ll get ten inches on the office decor alone, no sweat. Smoke and mirrors. But what the hell? You’re in a hurry. Go ahead and give it to her. Call me if you start to be curious about what really happened.” I started for the door.
“Sit down!”
I hesitated, decided to turn and face him. One look at his mottled red face convinced me I should sit down.
His eyes narrowed. “You are the most insolent, insubordinate—”
“This is so much better than what I expected.”
That stopped him for a moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You were in a good mood this morning. Scared the hell out of everyone in the building.”
He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “Haven’t seen enough of you around here lately, Kelly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I was irritated with you, that’s all. A suggestion was made, and I thought it might solve some of our current difficulties.”
“What suggestion?”
He shook his head. “I’ve changed my mind.”
We sat there in silence for a moment. John started tapping the pen again.
“Can we start over?” I asked.
He looked up at me.
“I mean, about the Moffett story,” I went on. “I need you to forget two things.”
“Namely?”
“First, forget that I ever knew Lucas Monroe.”
His scowl returned. “And?”
“And forget that Lucas was homeless.”
“That’s quite an attack of amnesia you’re asking for.”
“Stay with me for a minute. Ben Watterson, Allan Moffett, and a handful of other civic leaders were very heavily involved in redevelopment in the 1970s, right?”
“Lots of people got involved.”
“This group more than others. Think of how easy it would be for a group of investors to make money with the kind of inside information Allan Moffett could supply.”
“Give me your version.”
“A group of investors learns — very early on — that a certain area is going to be declared a redevelopment zone. They buy run-down buildings for a very low price. They pick up one seedy property after another. Just to stick with round numbers, let’s suppose we have two general partners who put in five thousand dollars each. They pick up a hotel for ten thousand.”
I saw him jot the numbers down on the back of a memo from Wrigley, more in the way of absent doodling than any serious preparation to do math. “Okay,” he said. “Go on.”
“Studies are done, and lo and behold, the city decides the hotel is within a redevelopment zone. The city might have reasonably decided this old hotel should be rehabilitated into low-cost housing, but the investors believe more money is to be made from office buildings. Another study is done, one that influences the Land Use Element, and somehow it reflects a need for office buildings.”
“And the tenants are evicted.”
“Maybe even beforehand. That might help to convince the city that this isn’t residential property. Now the investors get other benefits — low-cost loans, courtesy of the taxpayer; expedited permits and special construction variances; and so on. But for now, let’s just go back to our ten thousand. Their next move is to present a fancy brochure and prospectus to sell limited partnerships. Let’s say they sell one hundred shares at ten thousand dollars a share.”
“They’ve raised a million dollars,” he said. “Probably from people looking for tax shelters, maybe a group of doctors who don’t have any real estate experience.”
“Right about the real estate know-how, but these things attract teachers, firefighters, retirees — anyone with a nest egg. The general partners get ‘highest and best use’ studies and market surveys and all sorts of statistics together and dazzle the hell out of the investors. California real estate was booming then. Our general partners would work to convince everyone that the boom is permanent, that the downtown area will revive and that every lousy square foot of land in Las Piernas will be worth a fortune.”
“The downtown area has revived.”
“Some of it. Certainly not all. You know what the office vacancy rate is. And not all of the construction was first-rate. But let’s go back to our general partners. They pay themselves administrative fees. Let’s say they charge each limited partner a five percent fee.”
“That’s five hundred each. Fifty thousand all together.”
I shook my head. “Fifty thousand per year. And since the limited partners can’t make decisions about the construction or leasing, if the hotel project goes to hell, they have no recourse — they pay those annual fees anyway.”
“Or sell their shares.”
“Which may be worthless,” I said. “The limited partners are at the mercy of the general partners.”
“Which is what the greedy little limited partners get for trying to avoid taxes.”
“I disagree, but we’ll argue that another time. Besides, what I just presented is probably a worst-case scenario. Let’s suppose the general par
tners just sell their own shares in the hotel building for a big profit and get out. Or maybe they don’t even bother with the limited partnerships — they sell the building for a more modest profit. No matter what happens, they’ve probably made money — and made it because they had inside information.”
“Your point being?” he said, but he was leaning forward in his chair now.
“Redevelopment was one of three things that Allan Moffett and Ben Watterson had in common. They were part of a group of men who often worked together on these projects, even if some of them — like Allan — supposedly weren’t personally profiting from it.”
“And?”
“Second, they were longtime, active civic leaders who seemed unwilling — until very recently — to step aside from their roles. No one would have predicted that Ben would commit suicide or that Allan Moffett would resign. And yet they did so within a day of each other. What are the odds of that happening, John?”
“Go on.”
“The third thing they have in common is Lucas Monroe. At least twice in each of their lives.”
“Twice?”
“Remember those studies? The earliest statistics Allan needed to set the wheels in motion — to declare an area of the city a redevelopment zone — came from a study Lucas Monroe worked on in the 1970s.”
“And Monroe saw each of them recently.”
“Contacted them anyway.” I told him about the photocopy.
“Hmm. Too bad he’s dead.” It was said in an offhand manner, a newsman’s regret for the loss of a source. But seeing my face he added, “Aw, Kelly, for Godsakes—”
“Forget it. I’ve given up getting so much as an obit for him. I just want you to realize that trying to find out what he was up to is not just a personal project.” Thou doth protest too much, a little voice said. I ignored it. “I’ll know more about Moffett’s resignation if I can learn why Lucas went to see these people.”
“You think he was blackmailing them?”
I quelled an impulse to immediately deny it. “Maybe.”
After a long silence, he said, “Suppose you’re wrong. What if your friend wasn’t doing anything more than trying to find a job?”