by Susan Dunlap
“He said all that in the welfare office?”
She laughed. “Looks like you don’t spend much time there. Otherwise you’d know you hear people screamin’ and yellin’ and callin’ their workers plenty worse than cheat.”
“But he did call her a cheat, there?”
“Sure did.” She hesitated. “I couldn’t swear, you under stand.”
“I understand.” Flipping a page in my pad, I said, “Is there anything else you can tell me about Anne Spaulding?”
Yvonne waited, but the pretense of thought didn’t come across. “If she’s gone, I ain’t cryin’.” She leaned over and turned the radio up.
As I walked down the steep stairway, I thought what a disappointment Yvonne McIvor had been. Was she lying? Did she know nothing? Or was I on a wild goose chase with these cases of Anne’s?
I could have accused her of prostitution—could have seen what she’d say. But I’d decided to wait to hear from Sex Crimes. Yvonne McIvor would still be there.
Irritably, I got into the car and headed back toward the welfare office.
Chapter 14
DONN DAY’S STUDIO WAS in the arts complex that included Theater on Wheels, about a mile west of Yvonne McIvor’s apartment. I wanted to see it at a time when I wouldn’t be likely to run into Skip Weston, and if Weston was half as tired as I was, he’d still be in bed now.
I peered through the picture window that ran the width of the studio. Donn Day was present only in photographic image. Doubtless the original was rearranging the lighting at the gallery for his upcoming show.
Had he been here I might have found out what, if anything, was going on between him and Anne, and where he had been on Monday night. Now I satisfied myself with focusing on his wall, half of which held canvasses similar to the one above Fern’s desk. The other half of the wall, entitled “Donn Day at Work,” sported photos of a small man with carefully styled brown hair. His artfully disheveled clothes were splattered with paint. The photographer’s lights had been gentle, barely showing the deep squint lines around his eyes.
From what I had heard of Anne Spaulding, it was hard to imagine her with this bantam of a man. It was harder yet to picture him with Fern Day.
Pulling myself away, I checked my watch. It was after eleven. I had promised Alec Effield I would check back with him after I saw Yvonne McIvor. If I went to the office now I could catch him before lunch and I could have another go at Fern Day.
In contrast to the empty room I had seen before, the Telegraph branch welfare office was crowded. In the alcove-cum-waiting room, children clambered amongst feet; men in jeans and women in secondhand beaded blouses sat staring toward the interview booths. In spite of the signs prohibiting it, the air was heavy with smoke.
As I came around the doorway, I could hear a commotion. Inside one of the cubicles that housed half a fireplace, the low rumble of Nat’s voice interspersed with the muddled shouts of another man. The man’s outburst seemed to be centered on the word “bitch.” I moved closer, but proximity did nothing for clarity and I had just cleared the booth when the door burst open and a man in a white suit emerged, shaking his head.
“Sri Fallon,” I said. “What are you doing here? I thought you worked at the Bank of America.”
Inside the booth the argument continued, as if no one had left.
“I do. I took time off to come here with one of my followers, to try to help him contain his unfortunate temper. As you can see, or hear, I have failed.”
Thinking that it was a good thing to have Nat using up his anger in an argument with someone else, I said to Fallon, “I’m sure nothing terrible will happen.”
“Probably, but he told me he once attacked a social worker in Chicago. I don’t know. He could have been exaggerating. Who knows what goes on in the Chicago welfare department?” Sri Fallon leaned against Nat’s desk. “I guess I’ll just wait.”
In the booth Nat’s voice rose. The group in the waiting room inhaled in unison, and I had the impression they had returned their attention from the spectacle of a Sri and a woman cop back to the more volatile entertainment in the booth.
Sri Fallon glanced around the room, his face devoid of the calm confidence it had beamed forth when I’d seen him on his own ground.
“Well,” I said, I’ll just—”
“Who’s that?” Fallon was staring past at Mona Liebowitz. She sat back, feet tucked into an open desk drawer, another T-shirt displaying the ample outlines of her breasts. “Does she work here?” His eyes were wide with amazement.
“They don’t have dress codes any more. This isn’t the bank.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that. It’s that I’ve seen her before, at the bank. She was standing across from the bank just watching. I thought—well, I know this is going to sound silly—I thought she was casing the place.”
“Maybe she has an account.”
“No. I’d know. Hers is not a…a face you forget.”
I glanced over at Mona’s broad undistinguished features. Her face by itself was eminently forgettable. “Did she do anything then?”
“No. She just stood there watching. It happened twice—on the first of the month and a month after that.”
“And the bank hasn’t been robbed.”
“No, it’s just—”
A roar of indistinguishable words came from the booth. Fallon jumped up, pushed past me and grabbed the door. As he went in, I could make out a tangle of gray hair and a swath of brown jacket behind him, then his voice, loud but surprisingly calm. The other voice sounded again, but more quietly, then Fallon murmured something and Nat spoke. Now it seemed like a normal conversation.
I stood a moment, noting Fern Day’s vacant desk and the cardboard sign above it: “Ill.”
“What’s the matter with Fern?” I asked Mona.
She half-smiled. “Mental-health day.”
I wondered what had caused Fern’s need for a day off. Filing that away for future consideration, I headed to Effield’s office.
Effield looked up. “Have you seen Yvonne McIvor?”
“In the flesh.”
“And you’re satisfied?”
“I can’t deny she was there.”
“See,” he said, his lips curving up in a weak smile, “you should have trusted me.”
His smug passivity irritated me. “Police investigations can’t count much on trust, Mr. Effield. For instance, you never told me you were involved with Anne Spaulding romantically.”
His fingers rubbed against one another. He stared down at them. “Well, it wasn’t really romantic. We were both from New York, Anne and I. We knew each other. When Anne came out I spent time with her. She didn’t know other people.”
“You were more than friends.”
Effield fingered the cases, rubbing loose a gummed label. “In New York you couldn’t even say we were friends. I asked her out once. She said no. I didn’t ask again.”
“You must have had some kind of relationship, some almost-friendship, if you asked her out.”
“No. I asked her out to start a friendship. At first a lot of the men approached her. But she made it clear that the welfare department was a place she was working by necessity. It was beneath her. And she certainly wasn’t going to attach herself to any man who had to work there.”
“And then she came here…?” When Effield didn’t pick up my line of thought, I said, “But you were more than friends here, weren’t you?”
He stared down at the crumpled case label. “Yes and no. We went to bed a few times, over a year ago, but it was no great romance. It was just easy. I never had any illusions that it would go on.”
“But you would have liked it to?” I pressed.
“No. Maybe. I never considered the possibility. I still worked at the welfare department. And Anne might have changed some since New York, but not that much.”
I considered my next question.
But Effield seemed caught up in his explanation of Anne. “She wasn’t someon
e you’d get into a relationship with anyway. She was never satisfied with one man, or one place, or one interest. She always had things going. She liked adventure and new things. She liked being admired, flirting.” He paused, staring down at the crumpled sticker. “Anne wasn’t a person you would get into a deep relationship with, not after you knew her.”
Shoving over a manila folder, I settled on the desk. “Mr. Effield, you said Anne liked new places. Do you think instead of being killed, she just left?” As soon as the words were out I felt ridiculous. Was I asking if Anne had left nude, after cutting herself up to bloody her clothes?
But Effield responded to the question. “No.” His tone was definite. “Anne wasn’t irresponsible. She would never have left without notifying us. She would have notified me.” He paused; he seemed to be biting his cheek, holding in his emotions. “We weren’t lovers, but I am sorry Anne’s dead. No, don’t ask me how I know. I just feel it.”
“Then surely you want to help me. Something was going on in these cases. If you’d go through them with me—”
“No!” His eyes opened, as if he were startled by his own assertiveness. “I’m sorry. I have work to finish. It’s almost noon.” He headed toward the dining room door.
“Fine.” I didn’t move.
Effield stopped. He opened his mouth, said nothing. He’d exhausted his assertiveness. After a moment, he nodded and left.
As soon as the door closed, I opened the folders he’d shut—Anne’s twelve cases. In each of them was a memo on NCR paper indicating the new address. The handwriting looked like Anne Spaulding’s. All three copies of the NCR paper were still in each folder. Apparently welfare workers wasted the NCR paper just as we did, using it not only to make carbonless copies, but just for notes.
How had I missed these before? All I recalled were the four legal-sized sheets in each case. I had been in a hurry. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Still, it was careless. It unnerved me.
I could hear Effield’s voice in the next room. There was no time to contemplate. I copied the addresses and was just closing the last folder when Effield returned.
“Officer, what are you doing? You know that’s against the law!”
Ignoring that, I said, “Where were these notes”—I held out a piece of NCR paper—“on Wednesday?”
“On Anne’s desk.”
“No. I checked that. They weren’t in the case folders either.”
“You looked at them before? Really, I must protest.”
“Where were they?”
“I must ask you to leave.”
“Mr. Effield, what’s going on with these cases?”
Effield swallowed, turned, and walked back through the dining room door.
I knew he was lying. He wasn’t likely to come back for a while. I could check through his desk, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. Again, I wished I had a better knowledge of the welfare system.
I’d have to go at it from the other end—from my own turf—Telegraph Avenue.
Chapter 15
I HAD CAUGHT LT. Davis before the meeting, told him I needed to see Donn Day, Fern Day, and Mona Liebowitz, and to check the new addresses for Anne’s clients. I could skip staff meeting, I suggested. But the lieutenant was not having that. Send Pereira, he said. I, as a beat officer, needed the information he was about to disseminate. Cost-effective, he added. I could see my argument of the previous night had not been so subtle as I’d thought.
So I sat in staff meeting listening to the lieutenant’s summary of his meeting with the mayor, to the animal control officer’s semi-annual plea for more help from us. I glanced at the hot-car list, at the list of things Night Watch wanted us to watch for. And I thought of Pereira banging on door after door asking for Anne Spaulding’s eleven remaining clients. There were worse things than staff meetings.
And afterwards I waited at my desk for Howard to show up and for Pereira to come back from Donn Day’s gallery. I sorted through my IN box, glancing at memos and tossing them out. Fern Day had been in and identified Anne’s clothes. I filed that report, and sent in a request to be notified about any unclaimed female bodies recovered from San Francisco Bay or found in surrounding county morgues. Halfway through the box, I came on the lab report; back in two days—not bad.
From the blood samples taken in Anne’s apartment, the lab had found two types—A positive and O positive. The blood on the clothes was A positive, and the two subgroups matched. So I could assume that one person’s blood—Anne’s—had stained both the dress and the apartment walls.
But the fingerprint report, the one that might have provided a lead, was a bust. The only clear prints in the apartment formed one set—doubtless Anne’s. There were smudges on the lamp, but only one whole print, a thumb, and it belonged to the set. Nat’s pen produced nothing telling—it was too slender to have captured a full print and even the partials were blurred.
I filed the reports and looked through the rest of the material in the IN box, and was just getting ready to dictate a note about Sri Fallon’s mention of having observed Mona Liebowitz at the bank, when Howard walked up.
“Pretty elusive ex-husband you have. Not at work, not at home.”
“It took you this long to track him down! Where’d the other workers say he was?”
“They didn’t. No one was there. I was tied up with the lieutenant, and by the time I got there they were closed.” He sat on my desk, pushing papers out of the way with his hand.
“What were you with the lieutenant for?”
“My thief, and the ever-diminishing supply of auto parts. Lieutenant Davis read me a list of everything that’s been stolen, with prices. What do you think that guy’s been doing with my stuff?”
“Maybe he’s building his own police car, bit by bit, in the basement.”
“Starting with the outside?”
“You don’t need an engine in the basement.”
Howard nodded. “Maybe so. Whatever, this is my last day. The lieutenant is fed up with the pettiness and with me. No thief, no car. If I don’t get him today, I’m on station duty indefinitely.”
“We’ll get him. What’s the plan?”
“Same as before. This time ending off the Avenue. I think—”
“Jill.” It was Pereira, hurrying down the aisle, her hair still in disarray from the wind outside. “I’ve been to the Day show, and it was quite some show.”
“Good,” Howard said, “I’m ready for some amusement.”
“Well, settle in, then.” Pereira could barely control her grin. Planting herself on the desk across the aisle, she said, “After a lengthy prologue about himself—rising artist, widely known, with growing following and invitations to teach—he offered me a glass of wine and his body.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Yes, indeed. It wasn’t quite that blunt, but it wasn’t done with velvet gloves either. I got the feeling,” she said, again controlling her expression with difficulty, “that he didn’t want to be too explicit for fear of being accused of offering a bribe.”
When the laughter stopped, I said, “Mr. Day’s sense of aesthetic evaluation must stop when he looks in the mirror.”
Howard put out a hand. “Let’s get to the serious stuff. Did you take him up on it?”
“I told him I’d consider it later.”
I laughed again, then felt a rush of pity, thinking of Fern Day. Was she ignorant of her husband’s profligate tendencies? Or did she choose not to see? Without Donn, Fern would be a priest without a church. I asked Pereira, “What did Donn say about the other night?”
“He was at the gallery till after midnight. I checked with the workmen. He kept them there, too. They were only too glad to tell me.”
“And he was never out of their sight?”
“Never went as far as the bathroom, and that’s a quote.” Pereira pushed herself up. “I’d like to tell you all the lurid details of the proposition, but I have eleven wandering welfare clients awaiting.”
“You sound like ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas,’ ” Howard said.
“By the time I finish they’ll probably be singing that. Wait till I get a beat and can dispatch some peon to do the shitwork.” She sauntered down the aisle, blond hair glistening in the afternoon sun.
Howard watched her go, then turned to me. “About the stake-out…”
“Yes?”
“Dusk?”
“Sounds good.” I looked at his drawn, freckled face. “We’ll get him this time, Howard.”
“We better.” He picked up his hat and headed for the stairs.
Checking the phone book, I dialed Fern Day’s home number. But if she was too sick to work, she was not sufficiently incapacitated to be housebound. After eight rings I replaced the receiver.
I dictated my morning’s interviews and checked out Anne’s clothing—dress, bra, pants, and a half slip. The blood had spotted the dress, concentrated on the shoulder and chest areas. I was still wondering about the clothes and about Fern’s phony alibi as I drove home, changed into jeans, and headed to Telegraph.
I got a large mug of café latte—it might have to last a while—and grabbed a seat by the front window of the Faded Rose Cafe just as Howard got out of his car and sauntered toward the Avenue. If he had followed our plan, he’d made his presence obvious, driving down Telegraph, double parking to get out and stretch his long legs, leaving the patrol car in front of the Faded Rose. Choosing the Faded Rose was a gamble. It was a spot that any Avenue regular passed ten times a day—half a block east of Telegraph, a block west of the University Museum, a block south of campus. Small specialty shops clustered around it, and the sidewalk in front was never empty. Odds were, the thief would bite, but the odds were also very good in favor of the thief’s disappearing into the crowd or the shops.
Had the thief spotted Howard, he might well be in here now, waiting.
I glanced around the room. The group at the table next to me was watching the car. Across the room a man sat alone, staring out the window. Making a show of opening the newspaper, I observed him. He was small, long haired, with that loose body that could be mistaken for a woman’s at a distance. And his clothes—old jeans and a flannel shirt—were the type the thief had worn.