“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Like what?”
“Like sketch pads.”
“I didn’t notice any of them carrying anything like that.”
Well, I thought that was that. Nothing more to be gained here. I stuck the bag back in the closet and closed the door.
Then I spent half an hour touring the rest of the house, looking at everything that was left of Margaret Bursky. A few more paintings, a few more letters and old photographs in the dresser she shared with Harley, even old shopping lists left in the hall table. When I thought I’d seen all there was to see, I thanked Harley for his time and prepared to go.
“You’re leaving?” he asked, following me to the front door. “That’s all you’re going to do?”
“Nothing more to do, for now,” I answered. He didn’t want me to leave. He was probably afraid someone would set fire to the house with him in it, and wanted to share the experience. I said I’d keep in touch and escaped to my car.
– 11 –
There was a small shopping center at the bottom of this particular set of hills. I pulled into the lot near a phone booth and took out the list I’d gotten from Iris Hughes. Not very likely that they’d all be at home in the middle of the afternoon, but I thought I’d give it a try.
The first name on the list was Debbi Lawton. That’s right, Debbi, spelled with an i. She would be young and probably silly in other ways besides the spelling of her name. I guessed she’d be at work. I dialed her number.
“Hello, this is Debbi speaking. I’m not able to come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave your name and number…” I waited patiently, listening to the spiel about how she’d really love to talk to me, until the recording talked itself out. Then I left my name and number.
The second name on the list was William Cavour. He was home. He lived in the upper Elmwood district of Berkeley—the kind of area where the neighborhood movie theater runs French and Russian films. Not movies, films.
Much to my surprise, the house wasn’t cedar shingle. It was stucco, freshly painted a dark blue with white trim. The front yard looked like it had been done with manicure scissors, and the house looked large. Little round bushes lined the flagstone walk. When I’d called, someone besides Cavour had answered the phone and asked the purpose of my call. I’d told him it was personal. He had put Cavour himself on the line. When he’d heard it was about Margaret Bursky, his voice had chilled noticeably, but he had been polite and had said he would see me.
I pressed the doorbell. Chimes played the first four notes of “Lara’s Theme” from Doctor Zhivago.
The man who came to the door was of medium height and muscular, with very short-cropped blond hair. He was dressed to show off his muscles. His pants and T-shirt were very tight. He asked for my credentials, and I showed him my letter from Probe magazine. Without another word, he led me down a hall and into a really beautiful room.
The ceilings were a good twelve feet high. No aluminum-framed, sliding-glass, cut-a-chunk-out-of-the-wall remodeling had been done here. The original French doors led out to what may well have been the original patio. I never did get a good look at the patio, so I couldn’t be sure. And not just the original doors, but the original oak finish. Oiled. On all the woodwork. The forest green walls and yellow oak were a backdrop for the furnishings. Whoever had done this room was not afraid to mix periods and had done it well. The rugs were Oriental and very thick. There were some early Victorian pieces—a large corner cabinet and a desk—that were really early Victorian, with clean lines, sturdy craftsmanship, and the look of well-worn age. Along with that were a couple of items that looked like good copies of medieval stuff: a straight-backed chair that served as side chair for the desk, upholstered in royal blue velvet, and a chest against the wall near the French doors.
Everything else was contemporary, and I knew where I’d seen it before. At a showing of hand-made, artist-designed furniture at the Oakland Museum. The colors were lush, the woods glowed, and the man standing with his back to the doors, silhouetted, walked toward me wearing a smoking jacket that might actually have been Edwardian. With it he wore jeans. His feet were bare.
“Mr. Samson.” He extended a firm right hand, looked carefully into my eyes, and invited me to sit on a chair made of brown leather hung from a framework of very hard gnarled wood I couldn’t recognize. It was comfortable. He pulled the side chair around to face me.
Cavour’s medium-long brown hair, brushed back over the tops of his ears, was just beginning to turn gray, as was his moustache. The lines around his eyes were not deep, but there was the slightest suggestion of crepe on the lids and on his throat above the burgundy ascot. He was somewhere around fifty, maybe older.
He didn’t waste any time. “What is it you want to know? And, incidentally, where did you get my name?” He crossed his legs and clasped his long-fingered hands over his denim-covered knee.
“I got your name from Margaret Bursky’s personal papers.”
He looked skeptical but didn’t argue with me. I gave him the story about the magazine piece. While I was talking, the phone rang in another room, twice before it was picked up.
“Very nice,” he said when I told him the article would be a positive one. “But I don’t see how I can help you with that. I despised the woman.”
I must have shown some shock.
He smiled. “Don’t look at me that way, Mr. Samson. You and I have both lived long enough to know that dying improves no one’s character. I believe in good manners but not to the point of being a hypocrite.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “I don’t communicate well in epigrams, Mr. Cavour.”
He laughed out loud, showing beautiful teeth that looked like his own. Then he relaxed. “What do you think? Was she really murdered?”
“Hard to say,” I replied. “Tell me why you hated her.”
“You’re thinking I wouldn’t like any woman, isn’t that right, Mr. Samson?”
“No. I don’t think in stereotypes either.”
“Good, because it isn’t true. Perhaps I don’t like them the way you do, but I pride myself on my feminism.” He said it simply, with no hint of oratory. I believed him. “I didn’t like Margaret Bursky because she didn’t like me. She did think in stereotypes. She was a judgmental, bigoted bitch.” He flashed his handsome smile again. “You can print that if you like.” The phone rang again. It was picked up after the first ring.
“So she didn’t approve of your sex life. Okay, what else?” I was thinking that if what this man said was true, Iris had a regrettable tendency to speak well of the dead.
Cavour quirked an eyebrow and stroked his moustache. “I don’t believe you’re a writer. Are you a policeman of some sort?” I shook my head. “Strong and silent, eh? Like a drink?”
As a matter of fact, I thought a drink would be a great idea. He got up and left the room, returning almost instantly.
Then the man who’d answered the door appeared, strode muscularly to the large cabinet in the corner, opened it and revealed a full bar, sink, tiny refrigerator and all. I accepted white wine. Cavour had a brandy in a gigantic snifter. The butler, or whatever he was, was interrupted once in his drink-pouring by the phone. He went immediately to answer it, was gone for only a minute or two, and returned to serve our drinks. I was getting curious about that telephone.
Cupping the snifter carefully, Cavour swirled the brandy. “What is it you’re really after?” he wanted to know.
“I want to know about her life. The people she associated with. I want to find out if she was getting back to her art or if she had abandoned it for good. If there’s any work of hers to be found, I’d like to find it. I want to get to the people who knew her best and form some sort of picture of the woman. How she lived. Why she died.”
He sniffed the brandy but didn’t drink any. “All I can tell you is what I learned about her in a group I’m sure you know we had in common, a therapy group. Of course, one is not supposed to tell those
secrets. But she’s dead, after all, and she seems, surprisingly enough, to have been some kind of public figure.” He sipped his brandy. I tasted my wine. It was icy cold and very good. “Let’s see… her art. She was beginning to work at it again. Once I even saw a sketchbook. Not what was inside it, of course.” He snorted. “We weren’t that close. But I saw the book itself. She was carrying that canvas bag of hers, and half of the book was sticking out the top.”
“Did she ever talk about her husband, her marriage?”
“Never. I didn’t even know she was married. She talked only about her past as an artist and her attempts to recapture her ability to work.” The phone was ringing again. This time it rang three times. I tossed him a questioning look. “Roger will get it,” he assured me. Roger did, in the middle of the fifth ring.
“What was her relationship like with the rest of the group? The two of you didn’t get along, but what about the others?”
“I won’t tell you by name,” he said, sipping again at his now-warmed brandy. I waited. I had finished my glass of wine. Roger reappeared and looked at our glasses. I nodded. He poured me some more wine. The phone rang again as he was leaving the room.
“She didn’t approve of one of the women, and the other she seemed to be indifferent to. Of the men, besides me—well, it was odd. She seemed close to this young boy. A student. A very peculiar type. He doesn’t like me either.”
“Not a very compatible group,” I remarked.
“You’re right.” He laughed. “But there was some interesting counterpoint.”
I tried a quick jab. “Just how much did you hate her, Mr. Cavour?”
“Oh, now, Mr. Samson.” He shook his head at me. “That’s what I thought you were after. As I said, I despised her. But not enough to kill her. I’m able to insulate myself quite well against people like Margaret Bursky, even when I choose to dip a toe in their mud. I like my life just the way it is. Can you imagine me in prison?”
I couldn’t. I finished my second glass of wine. I guessed I believed him. When I stuck out my hand, thanking him for his help, he clasped it warmly in both of his.
“Good luck, Mr. Samson. In whatever it is you’re doing.” He escorted me to the hall. We passed a room where Roger sat, talking on the telephone.
“Yes,” Roger was saying, “he has been given your phone number. I think you’ll like each other.”
I turned to Cavour. “Call boys?” The question was casual and, I thought, nonjudgmental, but he looked at me with distaste. I realized he wasn’t having any of that “we’re all sophisticates together” stuff. Not from me. He’d been through a war I’d never had to fight.
“Certainly not, Mr. Samson. I run a legitimate dating bureau. Relationship-oriented.”
“Seems to be doing well.”
He hadn’t forgiven me for my lapse of taste, but his manners remained impeccable. “Of course. Many of us prefer equal, non-paying relationships.” He opened the door and I went out, feeling like a clod.
I tried reaching the two others whose phone numbers were listed but had no luck. The fifth, someone named Edward Cutter, had no phone number, just an address. I decided to visit him and check him out.
Cutter lived in a run-down four-flat west of Grove Street in South Berkeley. The house was covered with crumbling gray imitation-shingle siding. The yard was trampled dirt with a few dusty and disheveled sections of what used to be a boxwood hedge. The sidewalk was cracked. The wooden steps leading up to the two doors were worn concave and smooth in the middle. There were two door bells next to each door. Three of them had names taped beside them, and none of the names was Cutter. I leaned on the nameless one. A window slid open above my head, and a male voice mumbled, “Who ya looking for?” I raised my eyes to a familiar face. I couldn’t tell whether he recognized me, so I played it like poker.
“I’m looking for Edward Cutter.”
“Yeah? Who wants him?” He didn’t sound hostile, just chilly.
“A friend of Margaret Bursky.”
He threw me a suspicious look. “Wait a minute,” he said, turning away from the window.
He was my friend from the campus fire. The young guy who’d been standing in the front row. The one who had known it was Harley’s office that was burning and hadn’t looked at all sad about it.
– 12 –
The door jerked open in front of me, but he didn’t step out of the way. He stood blocking the entry.
I detected a tiny shift in his regard, and then it was gone. He’d remembered me but he wasn’t going to admit it.
“I’m Cutter.”
“Can I come in and talk to you?”
“No. You can talk to me right here. What do you want?”
I gave him the stuff about the magazine article. If anything, he looked colder, more rock-faced. He was crossing the line into hate.
“Fucking leeches,” he muttered, challenging me in direct eye-to-eye confrontation.
I ignored his student demonstration. “I hear you were pretty close to her,” I said smoothly.
He was having a little trouble staying focused on my eyes, but he managed. He shook his head. “I don’t know who told you that. I didn’t hardly know the woman.”
I sighed for the days when people who’d gotten as far as college usually knew how to speak the language. “You did know her. Look, can I come in and talk to you? She deserves this article, the recognition—”
He grunted. “What the hell kind of difference is it gonna make to a dead woman? You want anything else?” I started to open my mouth. “You make me sick. I got nothing to say. I didn’t know her. Fucking leech.” And he slammed the door in my face.
I was elated. Either this guy was just crazy or I’d gotten my first break. He was hiding something. And he certainly fitted Cavour’s description of a peculiar young man, a student, who seemed to be close to Margaret Bursky.
It was nearly five o’clock, and I realized I hadn’t had any lunch. I was hungry and energized and felt like eating, drinking, and celebrating. Iris? I thought it would be better strategy to take her at her word, at least for a while. There was Alana, but the thought of her made me uncomfortable, as though the strength of my reaction to Iris nullified the mild pleasure of Alana’s company. Sometimes it is not easy to be a combination of romantic and nice guy. Not only self-destructive and naive but also frustrating as hell. Could it be I was meant to marry and have babies?
I dialed Rosie’s number. No answer. Maybe Rebecca could tear herself away for an hour or so. I rang her office. She said I’d just caught her and that she’d be delighted to have a drink with me. Even dinner.
She was waiting at the restaurant when I got there, a hamburger and beer place, but a good one. She ordered wine. I went off my diet.
Rebecca looked weary and tense around the eyes, and the corners of her mouth were even more deeply cut.
“Relax,” I told her. “He lived through it, didn’t he?”
She shrugged dismally. “It’s all such a mess. You’d think that at least now we’d be able to”—she stopped short and glanced at me with just a touch of guilt—“you know what I mean.”
“Give it time,” I said meaninglessly, and took a big bite of my burger.
“You’re looking happy,” she accused me.
“Things are moving along.”
She leaned back in her chair, making a visible try at relaxation, and studied my face. “You’re making progress?”
“I think so.”
“Tell me.” She leaned forward, eager.
But I wasn’t ready to tell her. Telling her would be like reporting to Harley and I wanted more to go on. “Not yet.”
“Why not?” She was disappointed, maybe even angry.
“Because I don’t have anything definite yet. I’m just following some leads that may go somewhere. And of course there’s the fire. The police are going to think it’s a pretty strange coincidence, a man’s wife gets killed and next thing you know someone’s trying to cook him. Thi
s is going to stir them up a little for sure.”
Her mouth twisted in an ugly grimace. “The police. They would have been just as happy to snoop around a little and let it go at suicide. They’ve got enough to do. But now, oh, hell.” Suddenly there were tears in her eyes. I checked my hand for catsup and reached across the table to grasp her shoulder. The tears didn’t spill. She drained her wineglass and ordered more wine.
“Look,” I said, “it’s going to be okay. I’m going to clear this thing up, and you and Harley can ride off into the sunset. Hey, what are friends for?”
“Don’t you mean what is money for?” she shot back at me.
“Rebecca, I’m on your side.”
“Terrific. But are you sure you know what you’re doing?” She was close to tears again, but I didn’t touch her. Sure, she was upset, but I was beginning to feel a little cranky, too.
I let myself go. “Listen, bitch, you want to change your mind about my doing this job, you just let me know. But Harley owes me for the time I’ve already put in.”
She peered at me as though she’d just realized I was sitting across from her. “No. No, that’s not what I’m saying.” She slumped. “I’m sorry. Of course I want you. I guess I’m just angry with Harley and upset about the fire.” I looked unconvinced, so she added one more trouble for good measure. “I’m feeling a little crazy around business, too. It’s been rough lately. There’s a deal I’ve been trying to close, a contingency thing, I need the money, and it’s dragging on. If I seem irritable, that’s a big part of it.” She sighed, deep and long, and reached her hand across the table to mine. I realized then that the woman was close to the edge. It was all just too much for her. All that and business problems, too. And Harley, far from being a pillar of strength, was adding to the strain, helping to drain her of her stamina. She was trying to hold up both of them, and he wouldn’t even let her close enough to do it right.
I got the feeling that if I wasn’t careful I’d get the blood sucked right out of me. I wasn’t about to try to do this job with the pair of them wrapped around my neck. I finished my beer and told her I had to get going. She nodded absently.
Samson's Deal: A Laid-Back Bay Area Mystery (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series) Page 8