I showed him the badge. “I’m Detective Hastings. We’re investigating the death of Don Robertson. I understand you knew him.”
He blinked, then quickly took an involuntary step back into the room, as if to close the door.
“Would you like to come in?” He stepped aside, his raised arm falling stiffly to his side.
“Thanks.” I walked past him, into the littered room. Years ago, it had probably been a handsome, formal parlour. Now the oak parquet floors were stained and scarred; the plaster was chipped, the wallpaper peeling. The furniture was frowzy second hand, much as I’d seen in the Crushed Chrysanthemum. But, here, the disarray seemed frenzied, almost as if the room had been ransacked. I walked to the bedroom door. Blankets and sheets were twisted together; bureau drawers gaped open, trailing bits of clothing. In the small kitchen dirty dishes were stacked everywhere, and I caught the odour of garbage. I returned to the living room, removed a pile of magazines, and sat down in a lumpy armchair. I noticed that several of the magazines concerned powerboating; the others were Downbeat, the magazine of jazz.
“Are you a musician?” I pointed to the copies of Downbeat.
He shook his head as he sat opposite me. As he did, I noticed that one leg was stiffened at the knee. I watched him settle himself. A small muscle in his jaw was slightly twitching, spasmodically.
“Do you have a boat?”
He again shook his head, swallowed and finally said, “No. But I used to race them. A long time ago.”
“You did?” I was interested. Years ago. I’d done some amateur sportscar racing. I’d never forgotten the thrill of taking a powerful, responsive machine smoothly through a long, fast turn.
“Do you still race?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Why not?” The more I watched him, the more I wanted to discover the reason for his obvious uneasiness.
“Why don’t you race any more?” I repeated.
“Well, that—that was a few years ago. My uncle has a hydroplane, and he used to race it up at Tahoe. But he—” Harper frowned, then shook his head. “He finally gave it up. His wife—my aunt—she didn’t like it.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Twenty-four.”
“Who’s your uncle?”
He hesitated, still frowning. “His name is Randolph Harper. But I thought you were looking for information on Donny Robertson.”
I smiled at him and nodded, hopefully to keep him a little off balance. I’d given him two quick, sharp questions, like light left jabs. Now it was time to put him more at ease, watching him.
“That’s right, I’m looking for information on Donny Robertson. But I’m also looking for general information. Any information. Anything I can piece together, with anything else. For instance, I’m interested in the murder of Karen Forest. We think the two murders might be connected. Did you know Karen Forest?” I asked once more sharpening my voice—no longer smiling.
“Y—yes. I knew her.”
“She had a lot of money, I understand—and spread a lot of it around the Haight Ashbury. Is that your understanding?”
He nodded, slowly and cautiously. His pale blue eyes never left mine. The muscle at his jaw still twitched; his hands were tightly clutching the threadbare arms of his chair.
“Did you know Karen Forest well?”
“Well, she—I knew her, slightly, before she came down to the Haight. Or rather, I knew of her.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, she was a friend of my uncle’s and aunt’s.”
“Are your uncle and aunt well off, would you say?”
He seemed to think about it. “My uncle owns a fair-size real estate business, if that’s being well off.”
“I see.” I thought about it, deciding to say, “There seems to be quite a colony of your people down in Haight Ashbury—refugees from the privileged classes. Is that what you are, a refugee?”
He shrugged.
“How about Don Robertson? I gather that his parents must’ve been pretty well off.”
“I guess so. He never said.”
“How well did you know Don Robertson?”
“Not well. We talked a couple of times.” His answers were coming more smoothly now; he seemed more at his ease.
“What do you do for a living, Harper?”
Slightly his lips curled; his eyes slid away. “I run errands for my uncle. At the moment—this week—I’m repairing his boat. He bought a hopped-up Chris Craft. He keeps it down at the Marina.”
I nodded thoughtfully, studying him. “You keep talking about your uncle. Are your parents living?”
He smiled, flippantly mocking. “You might call it living.” His sarcasm obviously concealed a secret, bitter pain. To myself, I sighed. It seemed that everyone in Haight Ashbury was mistreated or misunderstood—and wallowing in it.
“What does your father do?”
“He’s a stockbroker. So-called.”
“What about your mother?”
“She lives in Beverly Hills.”
“Your parents are divorced, then?”
Affecting a bored indifference, he nodded.
“Is your mother remarried?”
Again he nodded. As he’d answered my last questions, especially those concerning his parents, the tone of his voice had become quietly embittered. His eyes were bolder, almost defiant now. I was probing where it hurt; he was trying to protect himself. It was the game every cop plays—his single most successful stock in trade. You search for some special, secret nerve. Then, when you find the nerve exposed, you keep picking at it—picking it raw, until the bravado, the bluff and sarcasm all dissolve into a twitching, soggy mess. Then it’s time to get your hat and go home, as Vannuchi had said.
“What did you do before you became your uncle’s errand boy, Harper?”
“I was a hero.”
“How do you mean?”
“I was a rifleman in Viet Nam. I was a sniper; I became very good at killing the fifteen-and sixteen-year-old boys in the Viet Cong. Then one morning before breakfast I got my kneecap shattered.” He looked down at his right knee, then said quietly, “You didn’t notice, because you were busy looking over my humble abode. But I limp. Badly. So, when I saw you poking around, I quickly got to a chair, so I wouldn’t have to limp while you were watching me. It gets to be a habit.”
I decided not to dwell with him on his misfortunes. Instead, crisply, I asked, “Before you went to Viet Nam, were you in college?”
“For a while. I went to Stanford, but flunked out, thereby becoming draft bait, like the less privileged classes. So the Army made me a rifleman. They offered me other jobs, because of my I.Q. But I wanted to be a rifleman.” Again his voice was bitter. And, again, he seemed to take some secret satisfaction from the pain.
“I understand,” I said, “that Don Robertson had considerable money just before he left town. Did you know that?”
For a long, silent moment he looked at me, calmly. Then, he said, “No, I didn’t know that.”
“You knew he left town, didn’t you?”
He seemed to think about it, finally nodding. “It was about a month ago, wasn’t it?”
“A little less,” I answered. “He left just after the murder of Karen Forest.”
Looking at me steadily, he didn’t reply.
I decided to ask, “Were you a special friend of Don Robertson’s, Harper?”
“We used to play chess together.”
“That’s all?”
His eyebrows arched, almost elegantly. “What else would there be, Sergeant?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me,” I muttered. I’d been aiming at a possible homosexual relationship, but decided that I couldn’t quite come out with it. Instead I asked, “What about Robertson? Could you imagine him murdering Karen Forest?”
I’d hoped to shock him but he seemed unaffected. “That’d probably depend,” he answered promptly, “on what he was high on.”
; “How do you mean?”
“Well, if he was on LSD, say, he was probably floating on a soft purple cloud somewhere. But if he was on speed, anything could happen. They say speed kills down here. And they’re right.”
“Speed is methedrine. STP. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
I took my notebook out of my pocket, and made a few notes, taking my time. Occasionally I glanced at him, silently. Then, frowning, I said, “I understand that you were questioned in the murder of Karen Forest. I also understand that you were arrested as a juvenile offender. Is that right?”
Slowly he exhaled, as if he’d been waiting for the question, and now felt relieved. Sometimes you could accomplish more by withholding an expected question than by asking it. A suspect—or a jumpy witness with guilty knowledge—constantly expects the worst. When it doesn’t come, he often goes looking for it.
“That’s right,” he said slowly, smiling with a peculiar eagerness. “That’s right, I was questioned. And I got into some trouble years ago. I was wondering if you knew.”
I decided to settle back, watching him. He wanted to make a game of it. In a half hour, I was supposed to meet Markham, I had plenty of time.
“Well, I said slowly, “as far as I know, no one downtown thinks you murdered Karen Forest. For one thing, I understand you had a pretty good alibi.”
Watching me with avid eyes, he nodded, almost breathless with some secret anticipation. His moods swung widely. Sometimes he seemed languid, almost indifferent to his surroundings. Sometimes he seemed co-operative, sometimes insolent and defiant. Now, subtly, he seemed to be taunting me, complacent with some special, secret knowledge. He was daring me to find out.
“Did you have a good alibi?” I asked finally. “I didn’t check it out.”
He smiled, coyly. “I was at the Crushed Chrysanthemum all evening, until two in the morning. I only left the room once—to go to the men’s room. Briefly.”
“What were you doing until two in the morning?”
“Breathlessly listening,” he said sardonically. “It’s required. If you don’t listen breathlessly—absolutely silently—you have to leave. At the Crushed Chrysanthemum, Friday nights are sacred. That’s why they call the session revival meetings. That Friday, for instance—the night Karen was murdered—they had a genuine Indian mystic. A real guru.”
“I understand,” I said slowly, “that everyone stays so quiet because they’re stoned out of their minds.”
Mockingly he nodded. “I’ve heard that too, Sergeant.”
“By the way, what were you doing Tuesday night?”
Suddenly he laughed. “Are you asking me what I was doing during the time Donny was murdered? Is that it?”
I flicked my cigarette into the dirty cup. “That’s it. What were you doing? Say between six P.M. and ten P.M.?”
“I was probably riding my bike. My Norton, that is. Uncle bought me a Norton six months ago. And I often go riding at night.”
“Where were you riding that night?”
“Mostly around the Golden Gate Park. I drove down the Great Highway for a while, too, down almost to Pacifica.”
“Did you stop anywhere?”
He seemed to think about it, then slowly shook his head. “No, I didn’t. Sorry.”
“When you ride your bike, do you ride fast?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“You said you’d raced speedboats. People who like speed in one form usually like it in another.”
He nodded his condescending approval of my reasoning. His manner was beginning to annoy me. His superciliousness was obviously a pose, yet he stuck to the role with a maddening consistency.
“I guess,” he was saying, “that I do ride the bike pretty fast.”
“Have you ever gotten a ticket?”
“Two.”
“In six months?”
He sighed, nodding.
“You didn’t get a ticket last night, did you?”
He smiled, as if I’d made a clumsy play in an intricate game. “No,” he said gently, “I didn’t get a ticket last night. Sorry.”
Abruptly I rose.
I stood looking down at him, then said, “I have the feeling, Harper, that you could help me a lot more than you are. I don’t know whether it’s just a game you find exciting, or whether you’re afraid—either of me, or someone else.” I took out a card and laid it on the arm of his chair. “But, if I were you, I’d give it a lot of thought. And if you think of anything that’ll help us, give me a call. Immediately, Got it?”
Mock-contritely, he nodded. “Got it.”
As I opened the door and got into the cruiser, Markham reached forward to turn down the radio.
“How’d you do?” I asked, lighting a cigarette and slowly stretching.
“Pretty good. I think.” He reached in the back and swung a small canvas overnight bag on to the seat between us. “Take a look. See what you think.”
I unzipped the bag and carefully emptied the contents on the seat. A lightweight plastic rain jacket, man’s medium, three white cotton tee shirts, size thirty-eight, two pairs of undershorts, size thirty-two, four small packets of Kleenex, a ballpoint pen, a pair of yellow wool socks, a paperback copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and another of Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and a heavy salmon-coloured expanding envelope of the type used for legal documents.
It contained a bank statement, a social security card and a draft card, all made out to Donald Robertson. The bank statement gave a New York address. I unfolded the statement, eagerly.
The account had been opened July 12th, with an entry of $1347.00. Withdrawals had been made every few days since, until the balance now stood at $482.87. The last withdrawal was the largest, $150 just six days previously. It was about the amount required to buy a plane ticket and allow for a couple of days’ food and lodging.
I re-checked the deposit column. Nothing. Nothing but the original entry for more than thirteen hundred dollars. I refolded the statement and replaced it in the envelope, together with the social security card and the draft card.
“What else’d you find? Of Angie Sawyer’s, I mean.”
“Nothing except a guitar, a few beads and a bunch of paintings. Apparently she paints.”
“What’d you find out about her from the other tenants?”
“Well—” Markham shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t really find out much. See, as soon as I found out where she lived, and saw that I could get in without any trouble, I decided that was the most important thing: to get inside and look around. But when I was leaving, there was Vannuchi, making a big speech in the hallway about civil rights and police brutality, with about a dozen hippies standing around throwing flowers at us. Honest to God, Frank, there’s something about those hippies, and especially Vannuchi, that I just can’t take. I had a damn good mind, in fact, to run Vannuchi in.”
“Oh, yeah? On what charge?”
He looked at me, snorted, and said nothing.
TEN
BY THE TIME WE got back downtown it was almost seven. The Captain had gone home with his cold, leaving instructions that he wasn’t to be disturbed unless it was an emergency. I’d have a quick dinner, I decided, then spend the evening trying to locate Sandy Tomilson—and Claudia. I was just leaving when a phone call came in for me. I took it at one of the empty reception desks.
“Is this Sergeant Hastings?”
The voice was muffled, disguised. The old, tired handkerchief trick.
“Yes, this is Sergeant Hastings. Can I help you?” Meanwhile, I was signalling Communications, for a line check.
“Cecile Franks,” the voice said, “was involved in the murder of Karen Forest.” Immediately the line went dead. I didn’t even bother to buzz Communications. Instead, I went to my desk, rolled the typewriter over, and wrote out a preliminary report on the tip, placing the report on Friedman’s desk. I told the duty man that I’d be questioning Cecile Franks. I decided not to mention Tomilson, even th
ough, as a potential cross-check witness to Harper’s story, Tomilson could be officially brought into the Robertson case.
But official notice was the last thing I wanted for Sandy Tomilson.
I found Cecile Franks sitting behind the same desk. She was eating a hamburger and a vanilla milkshake.
“Hello, Sergeant.” She pointed to a visitor’s chair. “Sit down.”
“Thanks.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee? Bronco’ll bring it in.”
“No, thanks. I don’t drink coffee in the evenings.”
“I don’t either. In fact, I’ve about decided to give it up altogether. Caffeine isn’t as dangerous as nicotine. But I figure that if nicotine takes eight years off your life, probably caffeine takes another year. Maybe two.”
“That’s very analytical, Miss Franks. You seem like someone who figures the odds very carefully.”
She shrugged, finished the last of the hamburger, then picked up the milkshake carton, invitingly extending it to me. I shook my head. She drank perhaps a third of the milkshake, watching me over the rim of the carton. She seemed more at ease, really, than she’d seemed earlier in the day.
“What can I do for you?” she finally asked.
I’d already decided how I wanted to begin. “We’ve had additional information on the murder of Karen Forest, Miss Franks. I wanted to talk to you about it.”
Her eyes remained steady. “All right. What do you want to know?”
“First, I’d like to know what dealings you had with Karen Forest.”
She looked at me thoughtfully. “Before I answer,” she said slowly, “I think I’d better know why you’re asking the question.”
“Less than an hour ago,” I said quietly, “we had a phone call. The caller stated that you were involved in the death of Karen Forest. It was an anonymous tip, so it’s certainly not evidence. On the other hand, we have to check out all tips, anonymous or not—crazy or not. I’m sure you can understand that.”
The Lonely Hunter (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 9