An Equal Opportunity Death

by Susan Dunlap

  When I looked up, zipper zipped, a battered black pickup was stopping in the lot. The horn blew a greeting and, before I could move, Chris Fortimiglio climbed out.

  “Vejay. You off today?” Chris, tall and muscular, was one of those blond Italians. He was younger than I, maybe twenty-five, but already he was running the fishing business that had been in his family for three generations. The Fortimiglios were pillars of the old river families, never making much, but always surviving, always with some relative on the city council, or selling tickets for the St. Agnes pancake breakfast. There had been a period when fishing, particularly salmon fishing, provided a good income—when the Fortimiglios had added two bedrooms and a family room to their house—but now the whole area was overfished. The Russian trawlers came in close a couple of years. There had been an oil spill. The Fortimiglios were still surviving, but I knew that they closed off those new bedrooms in the winter, and the family room was used for storage.

  “No. Listen, Chris, I’m sick. I’m supposed to be home. I should never have left the house. Don’t tell anyone you saw me here, okay?”

  “But why?” He moved closer, eyeing me diagnostically.

  “I called in sick to work. If they suspected I wasn’t really sick they could give me a bad time, even suspend me.”

  “Oh. Okay. But as long as you’re here, why don’t you come in and have something to drink?”

  “No.”

  “Wow! You mad?”

  “No.… Yes. I don’t know. I’m just annoyed with Frank. I suppose it will pass.”

  “Did you have an argument?” It sounded so soap-opera-ish as he said it that I could almost see him recategorizing Frank’s and my friendship. And I could see the entire Fortimiglio clan discussing it. And Sam Fortimiglio, Chris’s uncle, worked for PG&E.

  “No. It’s nothing,” I said. “But really, Chris, please don’t mention to anyone that you saw me here today. Promise?”

  “Sure.”

  “No one. Not even family.”

  “My family wouldn’t …”

  “No one.”

  He sighed. “Okay. It seems odd to me. But you city types do weird things. So, okay.”

  “Thanks, Chris.” I squeezed his arm and headed to my truck. As I settled in the seat, I could see Chris start up the steps, stop, as if thinking, then turn and walk back to his pickup.

  I hoped I didn’t make Chris think badly of Frank. And I hoped I didn’t make him ponder our whole conversation so much that he would find it impossible to resist discussing it.

  I watched Chris pull out of the parking lot, but I didn’t start my own engine. Instead I looked at the river rush over fallen branches, creating the beginnings of whirlpools. I could drive, but I knew I’d had enough to drink to make that legally questionable. All I needed now was to be stopped for drunk driving at 12:30, when I was supposed to be home sick. I had planned to take the day off, stay home, and luxuriate. My only stricture was to stay out of sight. I was certainly failing at that. So far my morning had been like “The Three Stooges Take a Sick Day.”

  My speculations were interrupted by the sound of an engine stopping. In the side parking lot, where Chris had been, I now saw the Chinese Laundry van, here to pick up Frank’s napkins and tablecloths from the dinner trade. Frank’s was mainly a bar, but he did have a few tables, and he served one entree per night—whatever Rosa Fortimiglio, Chris’s mother, delivered. Customers never knew in advance whether they would be served ravioli, fettucini, or Salmon Rosa. But, whichever, it was always good, cheap, and filling.

  The laundryman wouldn’t know me, but I didn’t want to be seen by another person, regardless. I eased my pickup around the far corner of the building and was pulling out onto the road before he had time to leave his truck.

  It was still the noon hour. Traffic on the main bridge would be heavy. Pedestrians would be rushing to and from lunch. In the rain, the traffic lights might go out at any time. It wouldn’t be wise for me to navigate through that. I didn’t want to be arrested, and I certainly didn’t want to hit anyone. So I turned west and drove away from town, to the bridge a few miles down river. The road was empty. Eucalyptus, fir trees, and redwoods crowded beside it, their wet branches hanging low, occasionally scraping the roof of the cab. The headlights seemed to bounce off the rain; it was like driving in a car wash.

  I crossed the bridge and drove back along North Bank Road. The river was maybe forty yards to the right now. Between it and the road were a few small shingle buildings. I had noticed them during the summer. They were ill-painted, casually kept; places that could be flooded with no great loss. One was an abandoned café. It had been a soda and coffee shop some years ago, but it had failed, or the city person with dreams of running a country business had moved on to other projects. It was in the same condition as the little houses.

  North Bank Road started to become crowded as I came into town. I turned left, bypassed the main area of town and cut down the block before my house, relieved to see no one out, and gratefully pulled into the garage.

  Back in the safety of my own house, I took a long hot shower, then, prodded by guilt over my wasted free day, I donned my slicker, grabbed two empty half-gallon wine bottles, and trudged along the muddy path that skirted the next two houses, to the spring that provided the only palatable drinking water. The stuff from the tap wouldn’t kill you, but it tasted too much like metal pipe. I carried the full bottles to the house. Ten more waited. I was beginning to get a headache. Picking up two more, I trudged back.

  And, when the entire dozen were full, and I could be free from this joy of the country for another two weeks, I stoked the fire, took out a book on the architecture of Eureka that I had been planning to read for months, and promptly fell asleep.

  It was four-thirty when I awoke, my mouth dry and cottony, my head aching, and the memory of my scene with Frank reminding me what an ass I had made of myself. So much for my luxuriant day.

  But at least I felt sober. And I could make a decision. Frank might not have left for San Francisco yet. If he were still there, I could explain—apologize, sort of—though I didn’t think I was entirely wrong. It just wasn’t worth being unfriendly over. To make up, I could (openly, since it would be after five and after my working hours) show Frank how to read his meter and see that he was allowing himself to be overcharged. At a saving of fifty dollars a month, he would be well-recompensed for a few minutes of inconvenience.

  After I had washed and dried my hair and spent a little time on my face and clothes, it was five-fifteen when I drove across the main bridge toward Frank’s Place.

  The side parking lot, where Chris had been, was full when I arrived. I had expected a couple of cars. Frank’s opened officially at four-thirty. I pulled in, stopped, and, as I looked around, I realized that the cars were official. County sheriff cars. And a van.

  I hurried up the steps to the bar. There was a young officer at the door. No one, he told me, could go in.

  “Is Frank okay?” I asked. “I’m a friend of his.”

  “Everyone’s a friend of Frank’s,” he said. “But I can’t let you in.”

  “What happened?”

  “Frank’s dead. Shot.”

  “What? But I was …”

  The kid, the deputy, looked as shocked as I felt. He paid no attention to my abandoned sentence.

  I stood, trying to decide what to do. It was hard, impossible, to imagine Frank dead—Frank, who was going to take me to a Japanese movie this evening. I needed to see Frank’s body to believe he was dead. I waited, standing against the building wall.

  The door opened. An older man stepped out. He nodded to the young officer, then looked at me.

  “Who’s she?” he said to the cop.

  “She says she’s a friend of Frank’s.”

  “They’re all friends of Frank’s,” he said, and it was apparent from his tone that the “they” he meant was female.

  “What’s your name?” he asked me.

  “Vejay
Haskell. Veronica Haskell.”

  “Haskell.” His face lightened. He almost smiled. “Good. I want to talk to you. You’re the one who was here at noon, the one who argued with Frank Goulet. I was going to send a squad car for you.”

  CHAPTER 3

  SHERIFF WESCOTT TOOK ME inside and sat me at one of the tables by the front window. I thought I needed to see Frank’s body to convince me he was dead, but when I saw the oblong form covered by two tablecloths, it was enough. Plenty.

  As I sat waiting for Sheriff Wescott, I thought how odd it was I was here, staring at Frank’s corpse, when I had imagined I’d be sitting at the bar with Frank, apologizing for behaving like a jerk. I felt a tear roll down my cheek. It was irrational, I knew, but I hated to think that the last time Frank Goulet saw me I was slamming out of his bar. I took a breath and reminded myself that someone had come here afterward and shot Frank. There had been more important things on Frank’s mind than my pique.

  The section of Frank’s Place where I sat held only eight tables. Legal occupancy 44, a sign said. It was cold by the window; Frank would have put the heat on an hour ago to warm the early customers. In another hour he would have turned it off. There would have been ample heat by now. I would have apologized; Frank would have shrugged it off and given me another hot buttered rum. I could use that now.

  The sheriff sat in the chair opposite me. He was a neat, compact man about thirty-five with just the beginnings of age apparent on his face. His light, curly mustache was almost the same color as his skin. In ten years his hair would be dusted with gray and he would be described as “handsomely weathered.” Now his features merely looked un-smoothed, as if he needed one more run through the factory before he could be marked finished.

  “So you were here around noon, right?” he asked.

  “Yes, but how did you know?”

  “Tell me about that,” he said, paying no heed to my question. But I didn’t need his explanation. Coming out of the kitchen was Rosa Fortimiglio, Chris’s mother. Chris had promised me silence. He meant it then. But Chris was no match for his mother, and gossip was as integral to the Fortimiglio clan as fishing or pasta. Now Rosa Fortimiglio was carrying two large jars of salmon-colored sauce toward the door. So the “audit-trail” of gossip was clear: Chris had told Rosa, and Rosa, making her evening delivery for Frank, had mentioned my stop to the sheriff.

  As Rosa reached the door, she noticed me, stopped and, both arms full, nodded. There was no suggestion of embarrassment, no hint of a confidence broken. I knew that Rosa’s mention of my being here at noon was not intended to incriminate me, but was rather a vote of confidence. It hadn’t occurred to her that I might have been involved in Frank’s death, so there was no less reason for her to mention me than to mention Chris.

  “You were here at noon, Ms. Haskell,” the sheriff said, his voice growing testy. “You were the last person to see Frank Goulet alive.”

  “No. Someone killed him. That person saw him alive.”

  “Someone.” He let the word hang. “Tell me about your visit. How did you happen to be here on a Tuesday?”

  I leaned forward on my elbows, ignoring the police officers who bustled around the other part of the room. “I came to talk to Frank about his electric meter. I’m a meter reader for PG&E.”

  “So you were on your rounds?”

  “No. I had taken a sick day. I mean, I was sick. Nothing serious, but I was too sick to spend all day climbing up and down slippery stairways in the rain.”

  “You were too sick to go to work, but well enough to come here to a bar.”

  “There is a difference. You don’t get pneumonia in a well-heated bar.”

  He sat back a little. “Okay, we’ll skip any further medical diagnosis. You said you came here to talk about the electric meter. On your day off. Couldn’t you have done that during your regular work hours? Wouldn’t that have been more reasonable than dragging yourself out of your sick bed?”

  “My employer,” I said with exaggerated patience, “does not encourage us to make special trips to tell patrons they are paying too much. When a customer discovers he has been overcharged, he is not pleased to be informed; he is irate that he wasn’t told sooner. We have to send someone out to make sure that the meter itself was not running too fast. We might have to check the appliances or the wiring. In any case, it costs PG&E money. And it’s a hassle. So while we do inform customers, we don’t go out of our way. You understand?”

  “I understand.” His tone mimicked mine. “But you did go out of your way.”

  Sheriff Wescott had been suspicious when he started questioning me. Everything I said seemed to make it worse. He was right—I had gone out of my way. “Well, Frank was a friend. And I was bored, and my house was cold, and I couldn’t go anywhere else, because I was … sick.” And this certainly didn’t help.

  “So you were here on a social call?”

  “You could say that, but I did mention the meter.”

  “And how did Goulet react?”

  “About the meter? He said fifty dollars one way or the other was no big thing.”

  “What else did you talk about?”

  I tried to recall Frank and the bar at noon, when it had been so cozy and the rum had warmed me. “We talked about my being sick. He gave me a drink. We talked about San Francisco. Both of us lived in the city before coming here. Frank said he was going there late this afternoon, and he invited me to come.”

  “So that’s why you’re here now? You were expecting to meet him to go to the city?”

  “Well, no. You see, he changed his mind.”

  “Then you talked to him after that, after you were here at noon?”

  “No. He changed his mind while I was here.”

  “He invited you and, before you left, he told you not to come?” The exasperation in his voice was clear.

  “We chatted about the city.” I said deliberately.” He invited me to come, maybe to see a foreign movie. Then the phone rang, he talked, and when he came back he said he couldn’t take me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t you ask?”

  It seemed illogical that I hadn’t. “No. I had had two drinks. I was annoyed because I wanted to go with him. I figured Frank had talked to some girlfriend in the city and lined up something better than just an afternoon with a friend.”

  “Then why were you so angry?”

  “Because I wanted to go to the city. Because I’d had two hot buttered rums. Because the day, which would have been so nice, was turning out rotten. I didn’t discuss it with Frank. I just told him he was being inconsiderate, and I left.”

  He glanced down at a notepad. “‘Slammed the door coming out’ is how a witness described your departure.”

  “Dammit, that’s the type of thing you do when you’re angry. But Frank was alive when I left. Chris was here after me. I saw the laundry truck pull up. Talk to them.”

  The ambulance men were lifting Frank’s body onto a stretcher. The cloth covering his face caught on the rail of the bar. As they lifted him, it pulled back. His face was already gray. I could see the black of the gunpowder and the maroon of the dried blood on his forehead. I remembered Frank standing behind the steamy bar, his hand on my shoulder telling me that hot buttered rum was just the thing for a “sick lady.” I cried.

  When they carried Frank’s body out, I looked back at the sheriff. I expected him to go on questioning me. It was apparent that he didn’t believe me. But he only demanded an account of my time (not something that made me any less suspect, since I so carefully kept out of sight all day). And he told me not to leave the area.

  I must have still looked weepy as I headed for the door because Rosa Fortimiglio, coming back in, stopped, put an arm around my shoulder and informed me that I was coming to her house for dinner. “I got all this fettucini,” she said, nodding toward the kitchen, “that’s not going to be eaten here.”

  The Fortimiglio house was at t
he west end of town, nearer to the inlet and the fishing docks. In the summer, the entire extended family sat on the long porch. But now, in winter, they congregated in the oddly shaped living room that had resulted from the latest remodeling plan. The room was oblong, with a couple of unexplained nooks and an indentation around the stairs to the family room. At one end, by the kitchen, a brick fireplace occupied most of the wall. It provided more cheer than heat. Tonight an electric heater buzzed at the other end.

  It was only seven o’clock. Rosa and I had been out of Frank’s Place less than half an hour. Frank’s body had been discovered only at four-thirty when Rosa brought the fettucini, but the word had spread and people had come here as if beckoned by a church bell. Chris and his brothers-in-law were in the kitchen, beers in hand, cadging tastes of fettucini. Skip Bollo stood talking to the Fortimiglio daughters while their children scampered from them to their grandfather, in the kitchen. Chris’s father, Carlo, sat near the fire, his left leg propped up on the ottoman. He had injured it five years ago. No longer steady enough to stand all day on a fishing boat, he now drove his old truck around town, checking and bolstering the stilts under low-lying houses, carting summer people’s possessions to higher ground, or taking debris to the dump. A quiet man in any season, he seemed to save his few words for his family and now, after a long day of pre-flood work, even responding to his grandchildren seemed an effort.

  Rosa bustled to and from the kitchen, carrying plates to the card table, adjusting silver, piling up paper napkins. No one but Madge Oombs helped; we all knew the rules.

  I walked over to Paul and Patsy Fernandez. They stood by the steamed windows that looked out onto the porch. With their long, straight black hair and bright, blue eyes they resembled a set of matching dolls. They looked more like brother and sister than the married couple they were. In jeans, workshirts, and cowboy boots, they were even dressed alike.

  “It’s hard to believe Frank is dead,” Patsy said. “Killed. Shot. It’s so … gangland.”