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

by Janet Dawson

  Now our smiles were tinged with the bitter knowledge that drive-by shootings in the United States had nothing on civil war and cholera in Africa. He took another sip of coffee, then set the mug on my desk.

  “What motivated you to become a private investigator?” he asked.

  “I frequently ask myself the same question,” I said slowly. “I’m curious, about people, about what makes them tick. I have this overwhelming compulsion to poke my nose into other people’s business. My friend Cassie tells me I like tilting at windmills. That I want to fix the world or some of its people. Right wrongs. It’s certainly not to make money.”

  “Sounds like guerrilla medicine,” Kaz said. “I’ve been accused of being a trauma junkie. A crusader.”

  “Hell, somebody’s gotta do it.”

  We looked at each other over the surface of my desk. “What does your social calendar look like over the holidays?”

  “Why?” My voice must have sounded suddenly wary, as though I were expecting another attack from the Rat King.

  “I thought we might celebrate the season.” He stopped and peered at me, brows lifted over blue eyes full of concern. “Is anything wrong?”

  “Just don’t tell me you’ve got tickets to The Nutcracker.”

  “You don’t like ballet?” His mouth curved into a slow smile.

  “Yes, I do. In moderation. I go about two, three times a year. But I’m already way past my quota.”

  “Opera is what I had in mind. Ratto’s is doing a gig New Year’s Eve.”

  Now that sounded like fun. G. B. Ratto & Company, an international grocery and deli, combines dinner with opera and sometimes with jazz on Friday and Saturday evenings, featuring local singers with voices as spectacular as any you’d find over at the Opera House in San Francisco. On New Year’s Eve, dinner would be a far grander scale than their usual weekends, with champagne, noisemakers, and those silly damn hats. I’d seen the flyer the last time I’d had lunch at Ratto’s.

  “Opera?” I raised an inquiring eyebrow. “I didn’t see any Rossini mixed in with those Cole Porter CDs in your office.”

  “I keep the arias at home. How about it?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Great,” Kaz said, getting to his feet. “I don’t know what my schedule will be like that day, so it’s probably a good idea just to meet at the restaurant.”

  After he’d gone, I sat there with a silly smile on my face. A date for New Year’s Eve. I hadn’t had one of those in years, having gotten into the safe and sane and totally boring mode of staying home, off the roads, by myself. In fact, I’d spent last New Year’s Eve sprawled out on my sofa in a raggedy sweatsuit, with a bowl of popcorn on my lap, watching old movie musicals on cable. I barely managed to stay awake until midnight.

  The phone rang. Back to reality, I thought, reaching for the receiver. After I said hello, I heard Levi Zotowska’s voice boom over amplified jazz in the background.

  “Got a message for you, from some homeless guy. Skinny little dude, says his name is Denny. He says to get over here right away. He’ll meet you in front of the store.”

  Thirty-five

  DENNY WAS PACING A TRENCH IN THE SIDEWALK outside The Big Z, looking excited.

  “Did you find him?” I asked.

  Denny shook his head. “No, but I got a line on him. A good one.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I was over at the Methodist church just now, waiting in line to get a meal. I talked to this guy who hangs out at the Veterans Center downtown. He says Rio deals grass, which we already knew. He goes somewhere every few weeks to get supplies. Hitches a ride, with the same guy every time.”

  “Is this guy still over at the church?”

  “Might be.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was nearly six. It had taken me half an hour to get from downtown Oakland to Telegraph Avenue and find a parking place a block or so from Levi’s store. Were they still serving dinner at the church? We set off in the direction of Durant and Dana, Denny’s shorter legs moving at a faster pace to keep up with my stride. When we got to Trinity Methodist, the line of homeless men and women queued up for the “quarter meal” stretched out the door.

  “I don’t see him,” Denny said, squinting. “He might be inside the church already. I can’t jump the line, but you can.”

  “What does he look like? Does he have a name?”

  “Calls himself Joe Bell. Black guy with a silver beard, forty, forty-five. Got a brown corduroy cap and he’s wearing a blue jacket. Underneath it all he’s got on an Oakland Raiders sweatshirt.”

  Denny took a place at the end of the line as I moved toward the church’s side entrance, to the foyer where I’d talked with Nell Carlton last week. Midway toward the cafeteria I encountered a white-haired woman who looked like a retired school-marm. Her voice underscored my impression.

  “If you’re here for the meal, you’ll have to get in line just like everyone else,” she told me sternly.

  I looked down at my good jeans and the sweater I wore. I thought I looked a whole lot better than I had this morning in People’s Park when I was actively pretending to be homeless.

  “I need to see Nell Carlton. It’s important.”

  “Well, she’s on the serving line just now—” the woman began.

  I tossed a thank-you over my shoulder and headed into the cafeteria. The tables were full, the smell of wet wool and unwashed bodies mingling with a strong aroma of stew and hot bread. My eyes swept over the assemblage, men and women of all hues and ages, wolfing down what might be their only hot meal of the day. Which one of them was the man Denny called Joe Bell? I didn’t see anyone who matched the description.

  I spotted Nell, dishing up wedges of corn bread. I stepped between the people lined up with their trays and called her name.

  “Jeri,” she said, surprised to see me.

  “I’m looking for a man named Joe Bell,” I told her, giving her the description.

  She shook her head. “Don’t know the name, or the face.”

  “I do,” said a man standing next to me, a plate of stew on his tray as he waited for Nell to pass him some corn bread. “He’s been and gone. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling deflated. “Any idea where I can find him?”

  He shook his head. I turned from him to Nell. “I’ll explain later.” I retraced my steps out to the exterior of the church. Denny had moved up in line. “No luck,” I told him. “He’s gone.”

  Denny shifted his duffel from one shoulder to the other. “Okay. Your next move would be to show up at the Veterans Building tonight, around nine-thirty. That’s when the guys start lining up for beds. Maybe you’ll find Joe Bell there. But you be careful. Sometimes that’s a rough crowd over there.”

  I smiled at his concern. “Thanks, Denny. You got enough for your hotel room tonight?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  “What you want with Joe Bell?”

  The speaker was a white man, probably in his forties, though he could have been younger. He had lank dirty brown hair falling over the shoulders of his quilted jacket. He was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette that held tobacco, from the smell of the secondhand smoke that enveloped him and his companions.

  “That’s between him and me.”

  “Joe Bell’s not coming. Will I do?”

  The guy with the cigarette winked elaborately and licked his lips, his tongue lingering as he looked through my jacket. I imagined I could feel his eyes staring at my breasts and crotch. The other homeless men around him laughed at my discomfiture. The night wind whipped around the corners of the building. I was on Center Street in downtown Berkeley, with City Hall looming on the other side of Martin Luther King Jr. Way, illuminated by street lamps.

  I could see why Denny had told me to be careful. There was no denying I felt uncomfortable and a bit vulnerable standing on this sidewalk near the Veterans Building, among a dozen or so homeless men lined up for the
available beds at the Vets Center shelter. They looked rough and unkempt, and a couple of them appeared to be stoned. I could see others approaching from the park across the street. I hoped one of them was Joe Bell. So far I hadn’t seen anyone who resembled Denny’s description of the man. When I’d mentioned his name I got shrugs.

  And the come-on from the long-haired creep.

  “You got any money?” This from a tall black man in a gray parka, who leaned over me, close enough for me to smell the beer on his breath.

  “Not on me,” I fired back, eyes flickering around me, looking for an out in case I needed one.

  “Leave her alone.” A voice rumbled from a man in the shadow, whose features I couldn’t quite make out. He lifted one hand and pointed. “That’s Joe Bell crossing over from the park, lady. The one with the cap.”

  I followed the direction he was pointing and saw three men jaywalking across Center. Only one of them wore a cap. I met them at the curb. Denny’s description had been right on the mark. He was a black man in his mid-forties, grizzled silver in the beard, wearing a brown corduroy cap with a short bill. He had on a blue coat and he was carrying a small backpack.

  “Joe Bell?”

  He stopped and looked at me with brown eyes full of suspicion. His two companions kept walking. “Who’s asking?”

  “My name’s Jeri.”

  “I don’t know you. What do you want?”

  “Information. About a guy named Rio.”

  He pursed his mouth and shot a sidelong glance at a police car cruising by on Martin Luther King. “You some kind of narc?”

  I shook my head. “Not me. Just looking for a guy named Rio. Gotta talk with him.”

  He considered this for a moment. “You want to buy some stuff, I can steer you to a better connection than Rio. I know a guy can get anything you want. Coke, smack, you name it. Rio just does weed. Besides, he’s gone, weeks at a time.”

  “I need to know where he goes,” I said. “And how.”

  Joe Bell narrowed his eyes. “Skinny little guy this afternoon, over at the Methodist church. Be asking me questions about Rio. You two connected?”

  I guessed Denny and I were connected, at least for the past week. I nodded. “You told him Rio hitches a ride with the same person.”

  “Why you asking?”

  “It’s about a girl,” I said, “named Maureen. She had a baby.”

  Joe Bell frowned. “I don’t know anything about a baby. But I’ve seen Rio up on Telegraph with lots of young girls. I figured he was using them as mules. Or sleeping with them. Damn, I hate to see young kids on the streets. It’s bad enough, a worn-out old guy like me. The street just eats those kids alive. What happened to this girl?”

  “Somebody killed her.”

  He frowned. “Rio?”

  “I don’t know. But I’d like to find out.”

  “Damn,” he said again. “You watch your step. I don’t know the man, except by sight. But he looks like he could be rough.” He ran a hand through his beard. “You got any smokes?”

  “Sorry. I don’t. What can you tell me about Rio hitching rides?”

  Joe Bell sighed. “Rio goes somewhere now and again, pretty regular. I figure to get more stuff. It’s the same guy he rides with, every time. Picks him up at the same place. Corner of Shattuck and Bancroft. On that side of Shattuck.” He waved in that direction. It was downtown, between here and the campus. “I work that block regular myself. I’ve seen him pick Rio up three, maybe four times. Last time was around Thanksgiving.”

  “What kind of car is this guy driving?”

  “Brown.” He scratched his nose. “American, I think. Kinda boxy. Looks pretty much like any other sedan. Except it’s got something written on the side. That’s how come I noticed it.”

  I perked up. “Do you remember what it says?”

  “I got a real good look at it last time,” he said. “Let’s see. Industries. Something industries. Started with a C.”

  “Cavagnaro Industries?” I asked sharply. If Rio had access to a vehicle belonging to the developer building the house on the lot where Maureen’s body was found, that definitely moved him into the suspect column.

  “No.” Joe Bell shook his head and took off his cap, twisting it in his hands. “It was a thing.” He looked down at the cap, as though registering for the first time the material it was made of.

  “Corduroy. No. Cordovan. Shit, no. Cork.” He brightened as the penny dropped. “Corcoran, that’s it. Corcoran Industries.”

  Thirty-six

  I DIDN’T FIND CORCORAN INDUSTRIES LISTED IN ANY of the Bay Area phone directories I consulted the next morning. If the company was doing business in the state of California, the Secretary of State’s corporation status unit would have their particulars. But the unit no longer gave out information over the phone, and a written request would take time that I didn’t have.

  I left my third floor office and walked down the hall to see if my neighbor George, the computer consultant, was in. George keeps somewhat erratic hours so I was relieved to find him there, communing with his software.

  “Not for long,” he told me. “I’m heading for Tahoe to spend Christmas with some friends.”

  “Before you go, dial up one of your databases and get me some information on this company.”

  “You know, Jeri,” he said, fingers flying over his keyboard, “you ought to get yourself a modem. You could easily do this yourself.”

  “I have been thinking about it,” I admitted. “These days everyone seems to be on-line. Even the solo operations like mine.”

  There was so much information out there that was readily accessible, just a phone call and a few keystrokes away. Still, there would always be a need for legwork, even if it was just a stroll to the county clerk’s office. And sometimes a private investigator just needs to hang out on street corners and observe. I’d been doing a lot of that lately.

  “It’s not that I don’t love seeing your smiling face,” George told me. “But I’m not always here when you need something. Think about it. I can give you some basic instruction.”

  “Words of one syllable, no doubt. Maybe after the holidays.”

  “Here it is. Corcoran Industries. They’re down in Orange County.” George downloaded the report and printed a copy.

  “Thanks. Have a great Christmas.”

  “You too.”

  Back in my office I poured another cup of coffee and sat down at my desk to peruse the report. Corcoran Industries was located in Torrance and the firm sold building supplies. My guess was that the vehicle Joe Bell had seen Rio getting into was a company car used by a local sales rep. I reached for the phone. When I got an answer down in Southern California, I pretended to be calling from a hardware store in Sonoma County.

  The woman on the other end of the phone wasn’t sure of her Northern California geography. I had to tell her Sonoma County was north of San Francisco. At that she told me the company had two reps who worked the north state. One handled the area from Sacramento to Redding, and the other went up the north coast to places like Ukiah and Eureka. More importantly, she gave me names and phone numbers for both. The first sales rep lived in the 916 area code, probably Sacramento.

  The second was a man named Terry Lampert, and his number was a Berkeley exchange. I hauled out my crisscross directory and found an address on McGee Avenue in North Berkeley. Double-checking local phone listings, I discovered Lampert had two lines. If he worked from home and had a family, he probably needed them. I called the number Corcoran Industries had given me for Lampert and got an answering machine. A recording of a pleasant male voice urged me to leave my name and number.

  I tried the second number, the one for the Lampert residence. Another answering machine, this time with a recording of a female voice telling me that if I wanted to leave a message for Terry, Fern, Joshua, or Heather, to please wait for the beep. I didn’t bother.

  I headed for Berkeley instead. The McGee Avenue address was just off Ced
ar Street, in a neighborhood of tidy stucco bungalows built close together on deep lots. The Lampert house was in the middle of the block, beige stucco with brown trim, no doubt bigger than it looked from the front, with an upper level over the garage. I saw a Christmas tree framed by drapes in the front window and a frieze of lights around the eaves.

  The sedan Joe Bell had described was parked at the curb, a late model Ford the color of sherry, with CORCORAN INDUSTRIES in yellow block letters on each door. The car had a layer of rain-streaked grime on its surface, and when I peered inside I saw odd sheets of paper cluttering the backseats and some fast food wrappers bulging from a litter basket that had yet to be emptied.

  I stepped up onto the front porch. The postal carrier had been here. The mailbox next to the door was full of envelopes, red and green and white squares with Christmas stamps. I rang the bell. There was no answer, unless you counted the fierce get-the-hell-off-my-porch barks of a dog inside. It sounded like one of those little mutts that makes up for its diminutive size in the intensity and frequency of its yaps. The dog stood on the other side of the door and woofed in full voice until it got bored or decided that it had done its duty and scared away the invader.

  It didn’t appear that the Lamperts had gone away for Christmas. They hadn’t stopped the mail or boarded the dog. Of course, they could have arranged with a neighbor to take care of both tasks. I went down the steps and crossed the small, well-cared-for lawn to the house next door, not sure I’d find anyone home in the middle of the day. I didn’t, for the first three houses, and those who were home didn’t have much information to offer. Then an older woman who lived across the street from the Lamperts told me she was sure the family had gone over to the city to do some Christmas shopping. Mrs. Lampert had mentioned the outing a couple of days ago. They were planning to take BART over, she was sure of it, hit all the stores downtown, maybe even have dinner.

  I thanked her and headed for my car. At least I knew the Lamperts were home for the holidays. Though it was likely they wouldn’t be home from San Francisco until this evening. I pictured them trooping from store to store around Union Square, bundled up against today’s drizzle, arms full of packages as they jostled with the crowds downtown.