The Sourdough Wars

by Smith, Julie

  “I know this is terribly hard on you,” I said. “I just can’t think—”

  I stopped myself, but Bob urged me on: “You can’t think what?”

  “I can’t imagine who’d want to kill her.”

  “Me for one.”

  “But you seem to be taking this nearly as hard as Bobby.”

  He shrugged. “Part of that is on Bobby’s account. I feel like what happens to that kid happens to me. You know what I mean?”

  I nodded.

  “But I used to think I wanted to kill her. If I’d known it would hurt this bad when she died—on my own account, I mean, not just Bobby’s—I’d have, I don’t know, gone to confession or something.”

  “Is it too late?”

  He laughed at my ignorance. “No. Maybe I’ll do it.”

  I left, feeling dirty and debased and defeated. I hoped I would think twice the next time I decided to try to pump a child who’d just lost his mother. But I couldn’t help thinking how odd it was, what Bob had said—it was almost exactly what Anita had said about Peter. Here were two families, it seemed, in which everyone thought he wanted to kill everyone else, but in some perverse way they all loved each other.

  Except the one who’d done a couple of them in.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Back in the Volvo, I found my thoughts returning to Clayton Thompson. After all, he wasn’t a member of the family. And he apparently had something to hide. A person with a secret is dangerous, particularly when there’s a lot at stake.

  I considered again the question of whether he could have known Peter before the Great Sourdough Starter Auction. Maybe he’d had other business trips to San Francisco and they’d met and been lovers. And maybe he’d killed Peter in some kind of ex-lover’s quarrel, and Sally’d found out about it, so he’d killed her.

  There was something wrong with it, though. Sally’d been killed with her own bread knife. If you drove all the way to Sonoma to kill someone, wouldn’t you take an appropriate weapon? And what about that little still life on her counter. Lighter Fluid, Matches, and Burned Doughball. What was that all about?

  I wanted to ask Thompson some more questions, but I wasn’t quite sure how to phrase them. “By the way, Clayton, did you happen to kill your lover or possibly ex-lover, and also Sally Devereaux?” That wasn’t going to get it. I needed an excuse—something I could use as a reason for my visit; then I could segue neatly into the matter of homosexual love and death.

  I went over our conversation that morning—was there something there I could use? There was. Indeed, there was. By the time I got to the Stanford Court, I’d half-convinced myself the answer was vital. Why hadn’t I asked about it that morning? It was Rob’s interview, not mine—that was why. But now Today’s Action Woman was going to get some answers. Maybe I could even say, “Look, Clayton, baby, I want answers and I want ’em now.” I could Bogart the whole phrase, maybe, twisting the old lip, and I could stand all casual with one hand in my pocket.

  But then I saw what was wrong with that picture; I’d turned Today’s Action Woman into a man. I looked lousy in a suit and tie. I pulled into the hotel’s porte-cochère, reminding myself to read more Sharon McCone mysteries so I could get my fantasies right.

  I asked for Thompson on the house phone. He wasn’t registered, but I was undaunted. I simply drove to “Rick and Mary’s”—his purported Castro friends’ apartment—and rang the doorbell. Someone inside pushed the buzzer that let me in. Upstairs, Clayton Thompson answered the door with a wide smile. Which faded as soon as he saw who’d come to call: “Rebecca. I was expecting someone else.”

  “May I come in?”

  “Of course.” He didn’t speak enthusiastically, but he stepped aside to let me in. If anyone named Mary lived there, my name was Susie Creamcheese. There wasn’t any lavender in the place, but there were a lot more antiques, fussy bric-a-brac, and copies of weightlifting magazines than a woman with a baby needed. Not to mention pictures of strapping young men on fishing trips, playing volleyball, clowning at parties, posing with arms around each others’ shoulders.

  I was sure Clayton shared my opinion of his friend’s taste. The look on his face confirmed it, but he seemed determined to bluff, maybe figuring I’d be too polite to suggest a decorating course for the kid. “Sit down.”

  I sat on one end of a peach velvet sofa, and he sat at the other end. “I’ve been thinking about what you said this morning—about Sally. It seemed so horrible—so sort of mundane and worthless—to live your life and then die wanting to go to the bathroom.”

  Thompson smiled a stingy smile. “It’s not so much the needin’ to. It’s the havin’ nothing else to say.”

  “Exactly. It bothered me.”

  He said nothing, just glanced toward the door.

  “It’s been nagging at me all day.”

  “What can I do for you, Rebecca?” His voice said his patience was fish-scale thin.

  “I need to know what she said.”

  “But I told you. I’m afraid I don’t get this at all.”

  “I mean exactly what she said. Verbatim.”

  “I told you. She said she wanted to go to the bathroom and she wanted a gun.”

  “I thought she mentioned Peter’s name as well.”

  “She did.” His voice was outright cold now. He wanted me to get out of there.

  “But what exactly did she say?”

  “She said Peter’s name. That’s all.”

  “Just Peter? Or Peter Martinelli?”

  “Just Peter.”

  “Ah. And did she say that first or last?”

  “I really don’t see what difference it makes.” The voice was high-pitched and strained, teetering on outrage.

  “Well, if she said it first, it might mean she’d mistaken you for Peter.”

  “Really, Rebecca. She knew Peter was dead.”

  “But she may have been out of her head.”

  “Then what difference could that possibly make?”

  Thank heaven he cut it off there. If he’d said, “What difference could it possibly make what she said?” thus supplying the third line of a rhyming triplet, I don’t think I could have stood it.

  I figured he was being such a putz because his friend was coming back any second and if I saw him, the game was up. “How long,” I said on impulse, “had you known Peter before he died?”

  “I beg your pardon?” He looked genuinely bewildered.

  “Forget it. Let’s go back to Sally.”

  “Very well.” Deep, resigned sigh. “She said ‘Peter’ first.”

  “I see. ‘Peter, I want to go to the bathroom’? Is that what she said?”

  He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a lot of things to do, Rebecca.”

  This time I said nothing. I tried to make my silence as stony as possible.

  He spoke at last. “She said ‘Peter.’ And then she paused. In a minute or two she asked for a gun.”

  “A minute or two?”

  “A few seconds, Counselor. Really, why don’t you try a rubber hose?”

  “So she really said, ‘Peter…’ pause, ‘give me a gun.’ ”

  “No, no, no. She said, ‘I need a gun. I need a gun.’ Need, Rebecca, need.”

  “I think I’m getting the message. She said it twice then?”

  “No, no. I said it twice. For emphasis.”

  “And did you ask her why she needed a gun?”

  “Of course.” He shrugged. “She didn’t seem to hear me. She paused again for a long time and that’s when she said she needed a bathroom. And then she died, Rebecca. ‘Bathroom’ was her last word. Are you happy now?”

  “Indeed I’m not, Clayton.” I got up, not even needing, as Sally might have said, to simulate a snit. “I could care less what consenting adults do in private. You have no cause to be rude to me.”

  I started to walk haughtily toward the door, thinking how much more effective three-inch heels would have been than Reeboks. But Thompson caught my w
rist as I tried to sail past him, seized it in a most ungentlemanly fashion. “As Southerners say,” I said, “unhand me, sir.”

  He looked at his right hand on my wrist as if it had just withered and turned black. “I’m sorry.” He croaked out the words. “So terribly sorry.” And then he did unhand me, uncurling the fingers slowly, giving the impression he’d just acquired them and they weren’t quite user-friendly. He sat down on the couch, looking pale. “My God, it’s come to this.”

  “You got a little excited and grabbed me. No big deal.”

  “I’ve never raised my hand to a woman before.”

  “Clayton, will you please lighten up? In the first place, you didn’t raise your hand to me, and in the second, you did raise your voice, and you’ve been consistently rude to me ever since I got here. I’d much rather hear you apologize for that.”

  “I am sorry, Rebecca. Deeply sorry. I’ve been… nervous lately.”

  I sat down, close enough to be comforting but still a respectful distance from him. I spoke softly: “You know, in San Francisco, it’s no big deal to be gay.”

  When I uttered the forbidden word, he seemed to shrink away from me, literally to move backward, though he really didn’t budge. It was as if his whole body somehow winced. I wanted to touch him, to reassure him, but touching didn’t seem to be what he wanted.

  “I was so afraid you’d come in here the other night… that you’d see Ricky. That’s why I pulled that thing about a gun. Listen, I want you to know somethin’. I paid for the smashed window at the bar, and I paid all the medical bills for the guy who got his jaw broken. That was a terrible, terrible thing I did.”

  “Chris and I would have been discreet. It’s no one’s business but yours.”

  “You won’t tell anyone?”

  “Of course not. But Rob already suspects, I guess. We both saw you with your friend the other day, and in this neck of the woods, two guys together usually means romance.”

  He sighed. “Ricky is my first—uh, man. I always knew I was different, but I never had the courage to act on it before. We were going to the Sonoma Mission Inn for the weekend—to celebrate our first week together.”

  “You mean you weren’t sent to check out Sally’s bread?”

  “Oh, that was true, all right. We were just combinin’ business with pleasure. I dropped Ricky off and went to see her. And found her dying.”

  “So you didn’t call the cops because of Ricky. You panicked and just wanted out.”

  He nodded. “I went back and picked him up and we high-tailed it. We did see you on the way in, so I dropped Ricky off and told him to call the police. I figured you’d spill the beans and I’d feel a damn sight better if I were alone when the highway patrol stopped me.”

  “That’s what we thought happened—Rob and me.” I got up again. “I am genuinely sorry to have bothered you, Clayton.”

  “Just one thing, Rebecca.”

  “Yes?”

  “Exactly what was your reason for droppin’ by?”

  For the second time that day, I felt like something from one of the least distinguished phyla. “I don’t really know, Clayton.”

  The blue eyes flashed. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I felt,” I said weakly, “that we needed to talk.”

  “I understand.” He nodded as if he did.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When I got home, Rob’s voice spoke to me from my trusty answering machine: “I’ve had it—let’s go camping, and I don’t mean on Castro Street.”

  I wasn’t in the mood for gay jokes, but there was nothing wrong with the basic idea. I called back. “I’ve got my jeans on.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  We could only go for one night, as we both had to work Monday morning, so we decided to drive to Samuel P. Taylor State Park, a secluded redwood retreat only fifteen miles west of San Rafael, where my parents live. Usually it’s pretty booked up, but we needed to get away so badly we figured we’d get lucky, and we did. Somebody with a sick kid had just abandoned a prime campsite.

  Camping is something all Californians do—in the Golden State, the smallest child can build a campfire. Rob is from the East, so I’d had to teach him the gentle art, but he was getting to be quite a woodsman, which is to say he could grill a mean steak on any campfire I could whip up. And eat the steaks he grilled was about all we did that weekend. That and hike a little. And think. Or at least I thought. I found walking through groves of redwoods and madrones quite conducive to thinking. The only problem was, I kept thinking about the murders.

  Motives were on my mind. Bob might have one, if Mickey were right, but if he’d killed Sally, he certainly put on a good bereaved ex-husband act. I couldn’t think of a motive for Tony, except the obvious one of getting the starter, but I didn’t see how doing Sally in was going to accomplish that. The same went for Anita.

  Clayton Thompson was something else again. He had lots of motives. Perhaps he’d once been Peter’s lover and they’d quarreled. Or maybe he’d actually offered to buy Sally’s starter and she either refused to sell it to him or held him up for more money than the company would pay, and he’d killed her to save his job. Or perhaps she knew about him and Peter, if indeed they’d been an item, because Peter and Sally certainly had, and lots of secrets come out in pillow talk. Maybe she tried to blackmail him and he figured what was one more corpse?

  All pretty fantastic, but Clayton Thompson stuck in my mind. He stayed there until I caught on to the reason for it. And once I got hold of that, I started to evolve a little theory. The only problem was, it had a few holes in it. But Rob might be able to close one.

  “Hey,” I asked, “you realize this whole thing could be cleared up if we knew who called Peter the night before he was murdered? How’re the cops doing with that?”

  He shrugged, “It was a bust. The call came from a public phone.”

  “In the city?”

  “Uh-huh. Lobby of the St. Francis.”

  “Clayton, maybe. Since he doesn’t live here.”

  “They thought of that. But nobody invited to the auction was checked in. Anyhow, you know that lobby. Anyone can walk in and make a call.”

  I decided to let my theory—holes and all—wait until Monday.

  Rob and I got back to the city early Sunday evening, and he dropped me off at my place. We usually didn’t spend Sunday night together, but I could have used him that night. I came home to yet another corpse—Durango’s. Sadly, I fished the little guy out of the aquarium, wrapped him in aluminum foil and gave him a decent burial down the garbage chute, vowing never to get another seahorse no matter what. They just took your love and broke your heart.

  I played the piano a long time to cheer myself up before I went to bed, but it didn’t work. I cried myself to sleep, and not only on Durango’s account. I was upset about that little theory of mine.

  But I had to know. The next morning I should have made three phone calls, but I only made one. To Rob, asking him to find something out from the Department of Motor Vehicles. He said he’d get back to me. That was just as well, as I had clients coming in all morning. By the time he called back, I had seen an accused dope dealer (my least favorite kind of client) and two alleged embezzlers. You meet some nice people in my business.

  Rob told me what I needed to know—Tony Tosi’s license number—and I took off for the Palermo Bakery, where I found Tony sitting in an office as carefully decorated as his brother’s was thrown together. All impersonal tans and blacks. Tony had on a suit to match, and for that matter so did I—my best black gabardine. If I didn’t get to I. Magnin soon, people would think I was in permanent mourning.

  “Ah, Rebecca,” said Palermo’s president. “Come for that tour?” He glanced at his Rolex. “I wish you’d called—I’ve got a two-thirty.”

  “It’s okay, Tony. I just dropped in for a minute.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll put him off.” And before I could stop him, he picked up his telephone and gave
orders.

  “Let’s start on this floor, shall we? It’s backwards in the process, but it’s more exciting because the best part’s upstairs.”

  If Tony’s office was a bit overdecorated, it was the only thing in the bakery that was. The place looked as if it hadn’t changed for fifty years, even though it was only eight or ten years old. Tony had bought up a lot of ancient machines and equipment and installed the whole operation in an old warehouse.

  We went out back first. “This is the loading dock. The trucks back up here ’round the clock to pick up merchandise.” We stepped back inside.

  “And this is our warehouse.” It was just a big room full of red plastic trays with bread on them, not arranged in neat military rows, just standing around willy-nilly. Overhead, rows and rows of wire racks used as coolers moved in a circle around the ceiling. “The coolers are for steak rolls and things that will go into poly bags. The sourdough loaves that go out to the stores and restaurants are bagged hot.”

  He took me into another room with two lazy Susans on it. Hot loaves were dropping onto the moving tables, and ladies in white uniforms were putting them in paper bags, then into cardboard boxes for loading onto the trucks.

  We went into another room, about the size of a whole city block, and walked all the way through it. At the far end, balls of dough were coming off “proofers,” conveyor belts that brought them down from the second floor, very slowly. “It takes them about fifteen, maybe eighteen minutes to get to the molders,” Tony explained. “They need the time so the dough will stretch easier. We call that one ‘the cage.’ ” He pointed to an ingenious vertical arrangement of conveyors.

  “It looks scary.”

  He shivered. “Wait’ll you see the mixer.” After being molded into loaves by the ancient machines, the bread was put on cotton cloths in racks called boxes, which in turn were rolled into “steam boxes” to “proof up,” or rise. Tony pulled back a metal door and we went into a steam box—I could see how it got its name.

  “It’s about a hundred degrees in here. Hey, Lorenzo.” A man in a white outfit entered the steam box, and Tony spoke to him in Italian. He turned to me. “I told him the loaves looked a little small. Anyway, it takes them several hours to proof up. Then we bake them.”