by Susan Dunlap
Taking my eyes from him, I glanced at the trio next to me—two men and a woman. She wore a long cotton skirt and I dismissed her—too clumsy for a getaway. But either man could be the one. Their dress and appearances approximated the lone man across the room. Concentrating, I made out their conversation. They were speculating about tires—Howard’s tires? Radials? Steel belted? Glass belted?
Still listening, I glanced back at the solitary figure, then at the patrol car and at the alley across the street. The thief could be there, or in another shop, or around the corner on Telegraph. Or he could not be here at all.
“Officer Smith?”
“What?” I looked up. If the thief was listening it was too late now. “Sri Fallon, we seem to be running into each other a lot.”
“Ah, yes. I almost didn’t recognize you in civilian clothes.” He indicated a seat and when I nodded, sat down.
I shifted my chair so that I could stare past him out the window. Leaning forward, I glanced at the man across the room. If he was surprised by Sri Fallon’s announcement of my title, he wasn’t letting on. At the next table, conversations had stopped.
I tried to recall a picture of the thief as he’d outrun me Tuesday night—he was short, thin, fast, with long curly hair that could have been a wig. He could as easily have been short haired or bald. I remembered what Skip Weston had said about the effectiveness of make-up. The thief could even have been Sri Fallon.
“Is this your day off?” Sri Fallon asked.
“Huh? Oh, no. I’m on my dinner break.”
“And you’re only having coffee.”
“I had a big lunch,” I said, wondering how elaborate a story I was going to have to concoct. Outside, groups of students and street people strolled up Durant Avenue past Howard’s car. The night was warm, the sun falling low toward the Pacific. Shadows hung from Howard’s car.
“…unearthed some facts?”
“What?” I jerked my head toward Sri Fallon.
“I was asking if you’d found anything on my neighbor.” His face was calm, with no tight look or irritation at my ignoring him. It was as if the question had been asked by a third party.
“I’ve been checking into it, but I really haven’t found anything.”
“Do you think she’s dead?”
“Why do you ask?”
He grinned. “I feel like I should say in a suspicious voice, ‘Because I killed her and I want to know what you know.’ Actually, it’s because one of my devotees told me that she was disliked around here. When someone with that reputation disappears, death is always a possibility.”
“Who was this devotee?”
“I wouldn’t want to cause him any trouble.”
“Unless he’s done something you won’t.”
Fallon patted my arm. “I can’t help but believe that’s stretching the truth. Surely you’ll admit that innocent observers, when they aren’t pillars of Berkeley society, can be hassled.”
The man across the room headed for the door. Uncrossing my legs, I watched him go out, down the steps, and onto the streets.
“You’re giving it a lot of thought. Aren’t you supposed to discuss that type of thing?” Fallon’s tone was amused.
The man glanced at Howard’s car, his eyes resting on the grill. If he decided on something as complicated as that I could have him while he was assembling his tools.
“Yes,” I said to Sri Fallon, no longer remembering his question. The man glanced through the window, turned, and headed up the street.
“Are you waiting for someone?” Fallon asked.
“What? Yes. I don’t know if he’s really coming.” I took a sip of cold coffee.
“Who is it? I don’t mean to be nosy, but I do know most of the people around here. Between chanting and the Bank of America, you really get a cross section.”
“Surely people bank elsewhere, too.” A pair of Hare Krishnas, heads shaven, orange robes blowing in the evening breeze, stopped by the car, blocking my view. I pushed the chair to the right.
When I settled, Fallon said, “No. Almost everyone here uses my branch. Not only because of me.” He grinned—it was the same puckish expression he’d had when commenting on Anne Spaulding’s sun-drenched, nude body. “It’s just that it’s the most convenient bank—not in the sense of location—it’s the one off Telegraph—but it’s fast and has parking. Anne Spaulding used it for a while, a year ago. She didn’t recognize me, of course.” He fingered the lapel of his white suit. “Lots of people who work around here come in. So, to get back to my point, finally, I may have seen your friend.”
The Hare Krishnas moved closer to the car, looking through the window. I braced to move, waited, said to Fallon, “Not likely.” The Krishnas stayed put. “Sorry. I’m really distracted. I’m having personal problems, and I guess they’re clouding my mind.”
“If you’d like to talk about them—”
“No.…Thanks, though.”
“No, really, I don’t pretend to any esoteric knowledge and I won’t ask you to do three Hail Marys in chant, but I am a rather good listener.”
I started to protest, eyes still on the stationary Krishnas, but Fallon continued. “You know where I am. If you feel like it, drop by.”
“Thanks.” The Krishnas were conferring, moving back from the car, glancing about. “Your follower—the one who mentioned Anne—I’m going to have to know his name.”
“You never answered my question, you know—the one about hassling.”
The Krishnas moved off slowly, still looking back. I let my tensed legs relax, and spread my fingers apart and rested them on the table. “Hassling? Well, all I can tell you is that I’ll be fair. It’s information I want, and it’s usually easiest to get if you’re straight with a person.”
The shadows deepened. On the far side of the patrol car I thought I spotted a head at door level. Stretching up in my chair, I could make out a shoulder and hands.
The hands were on the rear-view mirror.
I muttered something to Sri Fallon and hurried to the door, outside, and down the steps.
The thief looked up, started, and took off up the street, away from Telegraph, shirttail flailing, sneakers splatting on the sidewalk. The long curly hair flowed back at me as I ran after, swerving around groups of strollers.
The thief passed the Ice Cream Shop, just as four cone-carriers emerged. Ignoring their cries of outrage, I pushed between them. The thief was half a block ahead. I was gaining. He crossed the street, darting in front of a pick-up.
I cut in behind a motorcycle, yelling, “Stop! Police!”
He kept moving, east across Bowditch. Howard would be waiting on Bowditch one block south. The thief glanced to the right and then left. He stopped, momentarily. He’d seen Howard. Would he cut north now? I could lose him that way.
Pressing my legs faster, I crossed the street just as he turned left into the gates of the University Museum. Pushing harder, I came up to the arch and stopped, panting. Would Howard realize he was in here, or would he go on?
I stared into the courtyard. No one was visible.
The courtyard was akin to a cement shoebox, with the east side formed by the darkened glass of the museum itself and the south end, where I stood, open only at the gate. It was dusky now and deep shadows hung off the west wall and the high cement divider that bisected the box halfway across, west to east. The grass rose in tiers to the west, and northward it climbed to a grassy mound next to the divider, then continued upward in steps to the exterior wall. Behind the divider, I knew, was a set of descending tiers, leading downward to a pair of cement benches by the base of the west wall.
Two yards ahead of me by the museum gate was a sculpture—a four-foot metal ball with a hole in the center. He could be behind that. To my left halfway to the divider was another metal sculpture. There were a hundred places to hide. And there was the museum itself. He could be in there.
Opting for the courtyard, I moved north, past the round sculpture, looking rig
ht and left into the grassy mound beside the divider. The whole courtyard was silent now, except for my footsteps slapping on the grass. I glanced down into the depression by the west wall. It was all in shadow, almost black. I couldn’t even make out the benches. I started down, stopped, waited. Nothing moved. I turned, ran back up the tiers to the north wall, leapt to the top and looked down into the emptiness on the far side.
From my vantage point I glanced down the tiers, turned to check the tinted glass of the museum. There were still plenty of places to hide. I moved back toward the entrance to cut off any escape, wishing I had my flashlight.
From behind me came steps.
Whirling, I got set to run.
It was Howard, abreast the south exterior wall. I sighed. Another miss. The best we could say was that the rear-view mirror was still on the car.
Starting toward Howard, I heard a noise behind me.
Howard took off, past me around the divider and out of sight. I followed. My sandals slipped on the wet grass. I fell, scrambled up, ran to the dark alcove. Grunts, pants came from the bottom. No one was visible. Forms became clearer. I jumped down. Howard howled. The thief had him down. The thief was on top of him. His hands were on Howard’s neck.
“Get off!” I leapt down, and stopped dead.
The thief was kissing Howard.
Chapter 16
“YOU’RE A WOMAN!” I PULLED the thief off Howard.
Howard scrambled up. When his face hit the light it was as red as his hair. He shook his head and kept shaking it as he stared at the young woman.
Now that the shock had passed I felt a grin taking hold. I turned away from the woman and whispered to Howard, “A new method of subduing a suspect? Is that in the Department manual?”
Ignoring that, Howard turned to the woman. She was young, probably not twenty, but there was an innocence to her expression that made her look younger still and very vulnerable, hardly the type one would expect for a thief.
“You’ve been stealing things from my car, haven’t you?” Howard demanded.
The girl smiled shyly at him. “Yes.”
“An aerial, a license plate, the tail-light reflectors, and whatever you were going after tonight. Right?”
She was still smiling. “Yes.”
“You still got the stuff?”
“Oh, yes. I wouldn’t give it away. It’s all in my room. Do you want to see it?” It was a come-on, junior-high-school style.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
She turned to me, surprised. She’d forgotten I was there. Her whole rapturous gaze had been aimed at Howard. But now that she looked directly at me, I realized I had seen her before. She’d been at Priester’s—the Miss Muffet who’d been staring at Howard.
“Daisy Arbutus.”
“What’s your real name, Daisy?”
She looked adoringly back at Howard. “I don’t have to tell you that, do I?”
“Yeah, you do.” Howard was getting the picture. He turned redder still.
“I always go by Daisy. A friend of mine, a man, he called me Daisy Arbutus. I don’t like my old name. It’s not me.”
I put a hand on her arm. “Show me some identification, Daisy. A driver’s license.”
“I don’t drive.”
“Library card.”
“I don’t read real good.”
“MediCal card?” It was a stab.
But she smiled, pleased to be able to produce something, and began digging through her pockets until she pulled out a card with rows of MediCal stickers on it. “Harriet Turner,” it said. Glancing back at her, I had to admit Daisy Arbutus fit her better.
“Where do you live, Daisy?”
“On Dana,” she said, pointing west of Telegraph.
“Okay. You’ll get to ride in Officer Howard’s car, or what remains of it.”
“With Seth?” she asked dreamily.
“With Seth Howard.”
I glanced at Howard, waiting for him to do something, but he just looked awkward. He looked like an older brother at a thirteen-year-old’s pajama party.
“Daisy,” I said as we headed toward the car, “what about the Ranier Hotel, the one you ran through the other afternoon?”
“I don’t live there.”
“Why did you go through it?”
“It was easy.”
I waited.
“I used to get letters there.”
“Why?”
“Well, people do.”
“It’s a mail drop, isn’t it?” That didn’t surprise me. Mail drop was doubtless one of its more legitimate functions. I remembered noticing the hotel didn’t have individual mailboxes. It wasn’t that type of place. If you wanted to get your mail there you made sure you were waiting when the postman came—a time-consuming ritual, but time was one thing the Ranier’s tenants had in abundance. And with the manager who made himself scarce, it was the perfect set-up for a mail drop.
“I guess it’s a drop. But I didn’t do anything against the law. I mean I just got letters from my father there because it was easy. I was living around, you know. Like I couldn’t tell him an address.”
“Do a lot of people get mail there?”
“I think so. There’s a big table in the lobby and the mailman leaves the letters there. People wait for the mailman.”
Thinking of Anne’s cases with that address, I asked, “What kind of mail did people get?”
Daisy shook her long curls. “I didn’t look.”
“Are you sure?”
She stared at me, her brown eyes wide, puppy-like. “Oh, yes. I know it’s good to stay out of people’s business.”
We were at the car. Howard opened the back door and motioned Daisy in. Shutting it, he moved back a few steps.
No longer able to control my grin, I said. “A shrine to you in auto parts. I’ll bet she has your picture from the paper on top.”
“Shit. It’ll be the next century before I hear the end of this.”
I could envision the station, with the entire staff making cracks.
“Look on the bright side. You could be short and ugly, then no one would pay any attention at all.”
“Wonderful. You know, Jill, Lieutenant Davis isn’t going to be laughing. Particularly when this hits the papers, he won’t be laughing.”
It was true. Rarely had the lieutenant laughed about things connected with police work. And theft of any kind certainly would not move him to mirth.
“I’d give a lot to keep this quiet,” Howard said.
We stood silently, as Daisy looked through the wire mesh in the squad car, eyeing the radio, the log book, the odometer.
Glancing from her to the street, Howard said, “I’ll bet she has access to a lot of information.”
“You’re right, she probably does. I’d like to know more about that hotel, and about the welfare scene here, particularly as it relates to Anne Spaulding. Daisy could be a big help.”
The frown lines around Howard’s mouth disappeared. “She could return the aerial and stuff. She could say it was a prank—it was, sort of—and we could swap the information you get for dropping the theft charges. Okay?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Looking back at Daisy, who was now gazing up at him, Howard said, “I guess I’m the one to ask her.”
“I’m sure whatever information she has is yours.” Still grinning, I started for my own car. With luck I could change back into uniform and still have time to find Ermentine Brown. She had lived in one of the Avenue hotels. If the hotels were drops, Ermentine would know what went through them.
It was nearly dark, but it was also Thursday. Any weekend is a big sales time on the Avenue and Thursday nights are the start. Street artists still manned tables, their wares illuminated by the yellow glare from the streetlights and the harsher fluorescent lights flowing from the stores.
I hurried along, glancing at each table, hoping Ermentine Brown would be there.
I was nearly to campus when I s
potted her, sitting on a canvas chair behind her card table of feather necklaces. Her wide Afro wig sparkled in the light and her brown face had the illusion of softness.
Two young women glanced at the jewelry but Ermentine Brown didn’t look up.
“Ms. Brown,” I said.
“Huh?” It was a growl. And seeing me, her face tightened to match her voice.
“I’m Officer Smith, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. Come by later. I gotta take care of business.”
“This is business, too. You can get your neighbor to watch things for you.”
“You tellin’ me how to run my place?”
“Look, Ms. Brown, I have to talk to you—now. Make whatever arrangements you want. Or we can talk here.”
“Here? Yeah, that’s cool.” She settled back in the chair.
“You said you’d lived in a hotel off Telegraph. When was that?”
“Why you want to know?”
“I’m still checking on Spaulding.”
“Well, what the hell—”
“Just answer the question.”
She shrugged. “ ’Bout a year ago.”
“With your kids?”
Her jaw jutted out. “Look, you checkin’ for the welfare people? Are you trying to say I let my kids live in one of those places? Listen, woman, I wouldn’t let my kids in there if it was snowing outside. Those hotels are full of winos and junkies and whores.”
The fact that the clientele was not screened was hardly news to me. I’d had enough nuisance calls from the hotels to know what kind of people lived in them. I leaned gingerly on the edge of the card table. Ermentine Brown eyed my rump as it skirted her merchandise. Behind me, I could hear shoppers commenting on the necklaces, talking about coming back.
“You’re ruining my business,” Ermentine Brown complained. “I could have made ten dollars in this time. No one buys from a table with a cop on it.”
“I’ll be brief, if you’ll answer my questions. When you lived there, was the hotel a drop?”
Her hand went to her lip and poised there, then fell to her lap. “Yeah. Sure.”