Nobody's Child (The Jeri Howard Series Book 5)

by Janet Dawson

  I walked up the stairs and found the apartment. Someone was home. I could hear music under the front door. I knocked. The music went down a notch and footsteps approached. The door opened and a pair of brown eyes widened in a round fair face.

  “Tell me, Kara,” I said conversationally. “How long did Maureen Smith live here?”

  Twenty-six

  “SHE DIDN’T LIVE HERE,” KARA JENNER SAID WHEN she managed to find her voice.

  “Don’t hand me that, Kara. You’ve been lying to me.”

  I walked past her into the apartment, which looked like typical college student living space, crowded with furniture that had been transported from parents’ homes. Only in this case Kara’s parents lived in Piedmont, so the quality was better. The ubiquitous TV/CD player/tape deck were arrayed against the wall opposite the sofa. The other walls held bookshelves and framed posters.

  A pair of windows covered with half-open white roll-up shades looked down on LeConte Avenue. Between them a low table displayed a little artificial Christmas tree with a few wrapped packages grouped around it. On my right was a small dining area with a square table holding a holiday centerpiece made of silver and gold balls, surrounded by three red-and-green-plaid place mats.

  Neither of Kara’s roommates seemed to be in evidence. Maybe they’d gone home for the holidays. But Emory Marland stood in the kitchen, his broad-shouldered frame clad in blue jeans and a sweatshirt. He filled the small space as he peered into the refrigerator. When he shut the door, turned, and saw me, I saw surprise on his square, blunt-featured face. As his eyes moved past me to Kara, still standing at the open door of the apartment, I felt some residue lingering in the air. Had Emory and Kara been arguing? Then he smoothed his face into bland unconcern as he popped the top on the can of soda in his hand.

  “Nice to finally meet you, Emory. Since I want to talk with both of you.”

  “Yeah? What about?” He moved the can to his mouth, tilted it, and gulped at its contents.

  “Maureen Smith.” I looked at him, then at Kara. Her peach-fuzz face reddened above the green flannel shirt she wore. “Your old friend from high school. The one Kara doesn’t want to discuss.”

  “She didn’t live here. She just stayed here for a couple of days, okay?”

  Kara sounded resentful as she slammed the front door shut, the sound reverberating in the stairwell of the old building. The movement set her loose blond braid in motion. She stalked away from me, toward the living room, legs moving in a pair of faded jeans. She wasn’t wearing shoes, just a pair of gray socks.

  “You could have told me that in the first place,” I said. “Instead you told me you hadn’t seen Maureen since she ran away from home three years ago. Then you told me you’d seen her panhandling over near Cody’s last summer. Now I find out that when Maureen moved out of her apartment last summer, she gave this address to her landlady. And Emory helped her move.”

  “I was just doing her a favor. Gave her a ride over here, that’s all.” Emory shrugged. He strolled into the living room and leaned against the arm of the sofa. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Did Kara tell you I was looking for information on Maureen and her daughter?”

  “Yeah. But I hadn’t seen Maureen since she ran away from home. I was surprised as hell when Kara told me Maureen was hanging out in Berkeley. Didn’t know anything about a kid, though.” He tilted the soda can again.

  I watched him. At first glance he seemed like a big friendly kid just out of adolescence, but there was something about him that gave me a prickly feeling. Again I felt the lingering aura of words that had been spoken before I entered this room.

  Emory set down the soda can and straightened. “I’ll catch you later, Kara. I gotta go to work.”

  “I thought you were a student here at U.C.,” I said. “Since I’ve seen you several times on Telegraph Avenue.” Of course, one didn’t preclude the other. I just wanted to see if I got a straight answer from Emory.

  He grinned at me. “Nah, I’m not the college type. My brother Stuart, he was the Big Man on Campus over here at Cal. Me, I guess I’m having trouble figuring out what I’m gonna be when I grow up. Right now I’m working as a stagehand. It’s real interesting.”

  “Sounds like it. Where do you work?”

  “Wherever,” he said vaguely. “I’ve worked all over. San Jose Center, Golden Gate Theatre over in the city, even worked the opera house a coupla times. Busy right now that it’s Christmas.” He glanced at his watch and moved toward the door.

  “It isn’t noon yet, Emory,” I told him. “A little early for a stagehand to be going to work.”

  “I gotta go by the union hall first,” he said, his hand on the doorknob. “Then I gotta get on the bridge. Catch you later, Kara.”

  I made no move to stop him. I heard his footsteps thumping down the stairs, then I moved to the window overlooking the street I saw Emory emerge and cross the street to a green Honda hatchback. He unlocked the driver’s side door and got in. When he’d driven away, I turned to Kara. “Where does Emory live?”

  “He’s got a place in Oakland, but he stays with his brother when he’s working in the city. Why are you so interested in Emory? He’s just a friend.”

  “First time I saw him, he was just a guy you knew in high school. He seems a little...” I was going to say “controlling,” but I had nothing to base that on except feelings and impressions. I shifted back to the reason I was here.

  “I’m interested in anyone who had contact with Maureen Smith during the past three years. Particularly during the last six months. So tell me the truth, Kara. When during the past year did you and Maureen connect again?”

  She sat down on the sofa and fingered one of the gold hoops she wore in her earlobes. “Last spring. I was out on a date. We stopped at the Bumblebee Café for something to eat. Maureen waited on us.”

  “And you saw her again?” I prompted.

  “Yes, a couple of times. Once at the café, and once at the little market around the corner on Ashby.” Kara stared at me resentfully, one hand fiddling with the end of her braid. “It’s not like we were long-lost friends or anything. She never told me about the baby.”

  “When did she tell you about losing her job?”

  “That was in July,” Kara said, pushing a strand of blond hair away from her face. “I saw her on Telegraph. She looked like she’d been crying. I asked her what was the matter, and she told me she’d been fired. She was really worried. She didn’t have enough money for her next month’s rent She said she got mugged one night while walking home from work. And now this.”

  She stopped and looked at me with a mixture of emotions vying on her face. “So on impulse I said, why don’t you just bag the apartment and come stay with me for a while.” Now she shook her head.

  “Big mistake. I thought it would be okay, just until Maureen got on her feet, but my roommates were really pissed at me. It’s crowded enough with three people in this dinky apartment. My roommates didn’t want her around. I told them she didn’t have any money for rent and that she’d lost her job. But all they’d agree to was that she could stay for just a couple of days. I felt so bad about it, I told Maureen she could use this address, that she could get her mail here.”

  “Did she ever get any mail?”

  “Not really. Just the check her landlady sent when she returned the deposit And the final utility bill.”

  “What about bank statements?” I asked, taking a long shot.

  Kara shrugged and shook her head at the same time. “I don’t remember seeing any.”

  I mulled this over for a moment, recalling what I’d heard earlier about human predators preying on street people. Surely if Maureen had any money, she’d stashed it somewhere safe.

  “So where was she living?”

  “She was sleeping in People’s Park. And panhandling on Telegraph. That much was true.” Kara’s voice turned dull, and she looked past me as though she were seeing someone else, perhaps Mau
reen standing in front of Cody’s, asking for spare change.

  “Where are Maureen’s things?” She looked confused at my question. “When Maureen moved out of that apartment she had a bag and a cardboard box. Did she take them with her when she left here?”

  “She took the bag,” Kara said, getting to her feet. “But I still have the box. I forgot about it.”

  I followed her down a hallway past two small bedrooms. Hers was on the other side of the passage, just past the bathroom. She went to a closet crammed with clothing and, kneeling, reached back past a stack of shoe boxes. She pulled out a medium-sized cardboard carton. It had once been secured with sealing tape, then cut open with something sharp, like a knife or a pair of scissors. Now the flaps had been tucked under to close it.

  “Have you looked inside?” I asked. I took the carton from her and set it on the double bed that took up most of the floor space in the bedroom.

  “No.” Kara looked appalled at the thought. “Why would I do that? It’s her stuff. It’s private.”

  I pulled at the flaps and gazed at the detritus of Maureen Smith’s life. The first items I removed from the box were a lacy white bonnet and a frilly white dress, both impossibly tiny and fragile, the kind of impractical but irresistible outfit a newborn outgrows in a matter of weeks. I wondered who had given it to Maureen so she could dress up her baby, and guessed it was Aditi, the woman who had delivered Dyese Smith.

  Beneath these was a small photo album, perhaps six inches square, covered in pink fabric and filled with snapshots. Here was Dyese dressed in the white dress and bonnet, as well as later pictures taken as the child grew. Several of the pictures showed both mother and daughter, and I could tell from the background that many of them had been taken in the large family room where Aditi and Viraj had told me about Maureen’s life with them.

  “Is that Maureen’s baby?” Kara asked, leaning closer. I handed her the photo album. “Oh, she’s black.”

  “More like café au lait,” I said, turning my attention to the box. There wasn’t much else that was useful. More baby clothes that Dyese had outgrown, as well as some of Maureen’s clothing. A bank book from a Sebastopol Savings and Loan, showing that Maureen had closed her account there, but nothing more current here in the East Bay. A little black and red lacquer box containing some jewelry. And a photograph of Naomi Smith, taken when my client was much younger, before the booze and cigarettes and her bitterness at the cards life had dealt her had etched so many hard lines on her face. She had her arm around a man I assumed was her long-dead husband Preston.

  “Is this Maureen’s father?” I asked Kara.

  “Yes.” She fingered the photograph in its cheap metal frame. “I never met him. But I saw pictures of him at their house. Mrs. Smith was pretty back then.”

  I didn’t comment. Instead I returned the contents to the box, shutting the flaps. “I’ll take this,” I said. “I’m sure Mrs. Smith would like to have these things.”

  Actually, I wasn’t at all sure she’d be interested. Kara Jenner made no objection as I carried the box back to the living room and set it on the sofa. “Tell me about your boyfriend.”

  “Stuart?” She blushed, a rosy hue suffusing her face. It didn’t match the suddenly wary look in her eyes. “Why do you ask about him?”

  I had been referring to Emory Marland, who seemed to be more than just a friend from high school, despite Kara’s denial. I’d been hoping to get some sort of rise out of Kara. Now that she’d brought Emory’s older brother Stuart into the conversation, I’d go along for the ride. “So he was a student here at U.C.?”

  Kara ducked her head in an abrupt nod. “He studied business. Now he works for some big accounting firm over in the city.”

  “How long have you and Stuart dated? Ever since high school?”

  “What has Stuart got to do with anything?” There was that guarded look again.

  “Just wondered,” I said, my tone placating. It seemed mentioning either of the Marland brothers did things to Kara’s comfort level. That warranted further investigation. “Since Emory seems to have a thing for you.”

  “Emory?” she repeated, her voice incredulous. “Emory’s just a guy I know. I’ve known him since I was a kid. Besides, Stuart and Emory are really close. Emory idealizes Stuart. He would never... Wow, are you off base.”

  I examined her face, the full lips turned down in a frown, the red flush still on her fair cheeks, and heard Professor Widener telling me that he thought Emory had had a crush on either Kara or Maureen. Or both. Did Kara not know? Or did she simply not want to acknowledge it?

  “When was the last time you saw Maureen? The truth this time.”

  “September,” Kara said, her voice petering out in a long sigh. “Late September. I’d seen her several times during the summer, panhandling on the avenue. A few weeks after the fall term started, I saw her near People’s Park. She was with a big scary-looking guy, one of the homeless men who hangs out there in the park.”

  From the description I could guess she meant Rio. “Did you speak with her?”

  “I asked her when she was going to come get her things.” Kara stared down at the box. “I didn’t mean to pressure her or anything, but I just wondered. She said soon. You know, she seemed cheerful, really upbeat She told me she had some money saved, and she was leaving the Bay Area, going up north to stay with some friends.”

  Now Kara shook her head. “I never saw her again.”

  Twenty-seven

  AFTER I’D LEFT KARA JENNER’S BERKELEY apartment Thursday morning, I went back to my office and consulted various phone directories. I found several Marlands listed, both in San Francisco and Oakland. While I was at it, I phoned accounting firms in the city until I found the one where Stuart Marland worked. My next call was to the International Association of Stage and Theatrical Employees in Oakland. Yes, Emory Marland was a member of the union, and he had worked all over the Bay Area, including the venues he’d mentioned during our chat earlier today, the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts and the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco. What Emory hadn’t mentioned was that this month he was working backstage at the Paramount in Oakland. Why the omission? And as he’d left Kara’s, he said something about getting on the bridge, implying he was on his way to San Francisco. A deliberate attempt to mislead me?

  I had too many questions and not enough answers. I still didn’t have a firm time of death. When had Maureen died? And what killed her? I needed to check in with Sid to find out if the autopsy had revealed a cause of death. And if it had, why was Sid being so reticent about it?

  I walked over to the Oakland Police Department. Sid and Wayne were upstairs in the Homicide Section, talking in low voices and looking grim.

  “What are you doing here?” Sid growled when he saw me.

  “And a Merry Christmas to you too.” I turned to his partner. “Hi, Wayne. Haven’t you been giving this guy enough caffeine? He gets grumpy without coffee.”

  Wayne smiled. “He’s had four cups already this morning. Maybe he needs some good stuff instead of this black oil we get here in the department” He looked at Sid and I saw some sort of communication between them, the mental telepathy that develops between two people who have been friends and partners for a long time.

  “I was in the neighborhood,” I said, trying to figure out what was going on. “Thought I’d see if the medical examiner had come up with a cause of death for Maureen Smith.”

  There was that look again, passing between them. “Looks like she was strangled,” Sid said. “But we can’t be sure.” He stood up, towering over the shorter Wayne. “Come on, Jeri. Let’s take a walk.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Up to Café 817,” he said, taking my arm. “So you can buy me some good coffee.”

  As we walked two blocks up Washington Street, Sid talked of holiday plans with his daughter and asked me if I was planning to get together with my brother. I told him about the coming weekend’s activities and
wondered when he was going to get to the point. We reached Café 817, which occupied a narrow space next to Ratio’s, near the corner of Ninth and Washington. It was late morning on a Thursday, and the intersection seemed barren without the tables of produce that would line the streets during tomorrow’s farmers’ market I bought us a couple of lattes and we took an empty round table near the front door.

  “What’s going on, Sid? There’s something you’re not telling me. Have you found the child’s body?”

  He shook his head. “As far as I know, the kid’s still alive—and missing. I take it you’re having no luck finding her.”

  “Not so far. What is it? Something about the cause of death?”

  “Related to it. Maybe.” He took a sip of his latte. “About the autopsy. The forensics guy analyzed some blood and tissue samples, what little there was left. To see if there was any indication of poison or disease.”

  “What did he find?”

  Sid stared at the froth of milk riding the surface of his coffee before he answered. “Maureen Smith was HIV-positive.”

  I gazed across the table at Sid while my mind roiled in a jumble of thoughts.

  The AIDS epidemic had already shortened the lives of friends, both gay men I’d known since college. A third friend had tested positive two years ago, but so far she hadn’t developed any symptoms of the disease. When she told me about it, I wrapped my arms around her and we both cried, hoping she would beat the odds, those statistics that said AIDS was now spreading rapidly in the heterosexual population.

  Always in the back of my mind was the thought of those years when I was younger, more reckless, not as circumspect about who I took into my bed, not thinking about who had sex with whom before coming to this immediate passion. I was more careful now, of course, monogamous during the years Sid and I had been together. Still, after my friend told me she was HIV-positive, I took the blood test myself, just to quiet my paranoia. And I kept a packet of condoms in the drawer of my bedside table for those occasions when I slept with someone besides my cat.