by Susan Dunlap
For a few moments he didn’t speak. Then he said, “I don’t know. Michelle’s dead. Dead is dead. I have the children to think of. I don’t want them to be in more turmoil than they have to be.”
“Do you want them to hear from their friends that their mother staggered drunk into a sewer?”
His no was almost inaudible.
“Either she was murdered or she was too drunk to avoid a sewer hole she was well aware was there.”
Craig stared at me, his face unnaturally pale.
“I don’t mean to be crass,” I said, “but time is important. Some of what I’m telling you is speculation, but I’m sure that Michelle’s death was no accident.” I was surprised how strong my conviction was. But then, I had seen her body lying in that hole; I wouldn’t forget that soon. “You did ask me to investigate.”
Craig was still facing me, but he seemed to be looking through me. Again he spoke slowly. “All right. What is it you want me to do?”
“I feel I should have your consent before I do anything else.”
“You do,” Vida said before Craig could open his mouth. He merely nodded.
“Then I’d like to ask you some questions.”
“Go ahead,” Vida said.
“Tell me about Thursday night, Craig.”
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know what you want to know. It was no different from any other Thursday I’m at the shop. Thursdays we work late. The nursery’s open till eight and then there are the week’s books to total—there’s never time on Fridays because we’re open later—and there are the plants to lay out for morning and plants to replace. A customer will pick up a six-pack of delphiniums, change his mind, and plop it down in the African violets. So we have to check each flat of plants. And there’s sweeping up, and then the night deposit to make.”
“Who works late?”
“Both Alison and me.”
“Do you go out for a beer afterwards? That would be the normal thing to do.”
“No time. The books and things take a while. If she thinks about it early enough, sometimes Alison goes to Thompson’s Grocery and brings back beer and sandwiches and we have them while we work.”
“So how late are you there usually?”
“Why are you asking me this? You’re not thinking—”
“She’s looking for a pattern, Craig,” Vida said. “She figures if you’re never home till twelve, anyone who wanted to would know that, right, Vejay?”
“Yes. So Craig, what time do you usually get home on Thursdays and what time did you come home last night?”
“Normally,” he said, “eleven or so. Last night maybe it was a little later, maybe eleven-thirty. The books didn’t balance and we had to go back over them again. I like to get home not too long after Michelle gets back.”
That could have been because Michelle didn’t like being alone. But I asked, “How did Michelle feel about you working late with Alison? How did she feel about Alison altogether?”
Again he hesitated. “Okay. She liked Alison okay.”
“Craig,” Vida said, “we’ve got to be straight with Vejay. We can’t be asking her to investigate Michelle’s death and then not tell her how things are, right?” She didn’t wait for a reply, but said to me, “Michelle resented Alison, right, Craig? I don’t think it had much to do with Alison herself. I don’t think they met more than a couple of times. Michelle would have resented any woman working there.”
“And the money,” Craig added.
“Alison’s salary?” I asked.
“Yes. Michelle seemed to think that I was giving Alison the money, money Michelle would rather have spent on clothes. To be honest, we had a few go-arounds about it. I tried to tell her that Alison is starting to carry her own weight. She’s really getting the gardening service established. It’s beginning to cover her salary. Even without that, just the publicity her canvassing brings us is worth a lot.”
I questioned the need for publicity: Davidson’s was the only nursery in town. But I asked, “How did Alison happen to apply at your shop?”
“She wanted nursery work. Where else would she apply?”
“Anywhere between here and Santa Cruz. She didn’t have to work in Henderson.”
“Well…”
“Craig!” Vida exclaimed.
“Well, actually, Alison knew me from the flower market,” Craig said. “She was working for a florist in San Rafael, and I met her at the market a couple of times when we were both early. That was eight or nine months ago.” He seemed to recognize my confusion, because he went on. “The flower market is south of San Francisco. All the growers bring in fresh flowers each morning. It opens at two A.M., or whenever the first grower arrives.”
“You drive two hours or more to get there every morning at that hour?” I asked, amazed.
“No, no. We have an arrangement among some of the owners in the area. It’s best if you can go yourself and choose what you want, but at that distance it’s impossible. We all know generally what everyone needs. The guy who drives gets the best, but that’s only fair. And it’s worth it to only have to go once a week.”
“Last night wasn’t one of those nights, was it?”
“No. My turn is Monday morning.”
“So for all intents and purposes you’re gone all night every Sunday. And if anyone…”
“Well, no. I tried that but it just wiped me out for most of the week after. I couldn’t be up all night and then be pleasant to customers all day too.”
“Then you don’t go?” I asked, more confused.
“Well—”
“Jenny McElvey does,” Vida said. “Being an artist, she’s good at choosing the flowers, right, Craig? She can use the money. And she doesn’t have to deal with customers at nine in the morning.”
I said, “This week she—”
“I know it’s a strain on her during Bohemian Week,” Craig said. “I know she’d rather not do it this week, but if she sets up her easel at one o’clock instead of noon no one cares. If she takes a break customers will come back. It’s okay for artists to do things like that. It’s not like owning a shop.”
“Why doesn’t Alison go to the flower market?”
Craig shrugged. “She didn’t want to. She had to go too often in her last job. And Jenny was already going. There was no reason to change.”
If Alison were the present Bohemian Connection, I could see why she wouldn’t want to take the time to drive to South San Francisco. “So you met Alison at the flower market when she did go there. Did she say she wanted to work for you then?”
“Not the first time we met. Probably a month or so after that. It’s been a good arrangement for me.”
“Couldn’t Michelle have canvassed or worked at the nursery?”
His face reddened. “No! I mean she could have worked in the store years ago. But then we had the children and it was reasonable that she should stay at home with them, and she didn’t want to work then anyway. We never thought of the gardening service until Alison started and then I couldn’t just tell Alison that it was nice that she had created this new side to the business but now I wanted my wife to do it. And besides, Michelle didn’t know about gardening and Alison did.”
“Do you know that log house by the cemetery?” I asked. “An old lady named Maria Keneally owns it. Does Alison garden there?”
Craig stood up. “Look, I told you the gardening is Alison’s thing. I don’t remember where—which houses—she goes to.”
I knew I was pushing Craig to the limits of his well-controlled anger, but I went on. “Today isn’t her day for canvassing, is it?”
“No. I don’t know. It’s her time. I don’t stand over her.”
“But you’d know—”
The doorbell rang. Before even Vida could get to the door Craig was there. He opened it to Sheriff Wescott.
CHAPTER 9
SHERIFF WESCOTT GREETED VIDA, gave me a resigned shake of the head, and took Craig into the kitchen to talk.
/>
“I wonder,” I said to Vida, “if the sheriff has something private to discuss with Craig or if he’s just annoyed to find me here.”
“I could go in and see,” she said.
“Can you find out later what the sheriff said and let me know, if it’s important? You seem to have a good working relationship with Craig.”
She laughed. It seemed like a long time since I had seen her laugh or even smile.
“You mean,” she said, “that it looks like I boss Craig around. Don’t let that fool you. People say Craig is a nice guy, and he is. Everyone likes Craig. Craig can be pleasant to the most irritating people. But he has his defenses too, like you saw. He’ll put up with a lot before he makes a move. He’s not like us, Michelle and me. We get mad and scream. Craig doesn’t say anything. He hates conflict. So he takes it and takes it, and then suddenly he explodes over something so minor that it’s hardly worth a grunt. Acquaintances don’t see that. His customers don’t. They just think he’s very easygoing. He and Michelle had been married over a year before I was aware he had a temper.” She glanced toward the kitchen. A low hum of male voices came from in there. “I’m not putting Craig down. I’m just saying that what’s visible is not the whole picture.”
I knew my time alone with Vida was limited; I couldn’t ask her all the questions I needed answered. Starting at the top, I said, “You knew Michelle better than anyone. Tell me about her and Ross.”
She sat on the edge of her chair, her hands moving together and apart as if to corral her thoughts. “Ross was one of those boys who was bound to end up in trouble. He flirted with trouble all through school. It was amazing enough that he managed to graduate, but that was Ross. He always survived.” She leaned back. “I suppose, considering his family, he didn’t have much of a chance. You know about Leo Remson, don’t you?”
“That he drank and played around, you mean?”
“Yes. If Mrs. Remson had had any sense she would have thrown him out when the children were tiny. But who am I to talk? It’s hard to make a decision like that when you’ve never worked and you have small children. There were no day-care centers in those days. Anyway, she didn’t. She just suffered along. She was pretty unstable and who knows whether his behavior pushed her over the edge, or if her mental state was so rocky that she encouraged conflict. It’s like an osmotic balance: when there’s a lot of pressure inside it’s more comfortable if there’s pressure outside, too.”
“Was she actually hospitalized?”
“I’m not sure. There were rumors of it, but being sent to a mental institution isn’t something a person or their family talks about. Even if she wasn’t committed, she was definitely unhinged. There were days when you’d see her hanging the same clothes on the line time after time—hanging them up, taking them down, and bringing them back in the house. Then half an hour later she’d hang them back up. It was sad.”
“What eventually happened?”
“She drowned. Almost certainly suicide. She’d been in a bad way all summer. One August night she walked into the river. In the morning a man—thank God not a child—found her body stuck underwater on one of the summer dams by the beach. Ross was in high school then.”
“There was no question that she did it herself?”
“No.” Vida sighed. “But after the shock wore off and the guilt eased, it must have been a relief for the family. They could lead nearly normal lives then.”
“But Ross didn’t stay in Henderson,” I said.
“No. It was really too late for him here. He was almost a man then. At first he’d go away for months. Then he’d come back a while and work for his father in the realty company that Ward runs now. But that arrangement was doomed. You should never let grown children come back, Vejay, believe me. You think they’re still kids and they think they’re James Bond.” She smiled knowingly. “Leo Remson wasn’t the easiest man to get along with, but he thought the world of Ross. Maybe he was trying to make up to Ross for their miserable family life. But in his eyes Ross could do no wrong. That feeling wasn’t mutual. The work was too boring for Ross. He wanted excitement. One day he took off and didn’t show up again until the day his father died.”
“You don’t think—?”
“That Ross killed his father?” Vida said. “No, it wasn’t that bad a relationship, and besides, Ross hadn’t been here for a year, and he’d shown a real dislike of the things he would inherit—the business and the house.”
“I notice that you’re not saying Ross wouldn’t have done something like killing his father.”
Vida tapped a finger on the arm of the chair. “No, I’m not. I’m not saying Ross would have, either. He felt that the rules set down for the average person didn’t apply to him.”
“Above the law?”
“Or outside its realm. And that, Vejay, was his charm, particularly for Michelle. She wanted more than just being a former pompom leader in a little town. When she won the balance beam competition, she had visions of being a star, going all the way to the Olympics. But,” Vida sighed, “she was Italian.”
“So?”
“You’ve got to be flat to be a gymnast. You’ve got to be shaped like a little girl, not like Michelle. Right after that competition she started to develop. You’ve seen her picture.”
“She had a great figure.” I remembered Ward McElvey commenting on that figure.
“It was great for everything but gymnastics. And what that left Michelle with was a lot of hopes and no way to fulfill them. When Ross came along, he symbolized breaking out, getting even with the rules, with the laws.”
“You mean striking back at the law of nature that had kept her from being a gymnast?”
“I doubt Michelle realized that that was it, but it was. The thing is, though, Vejay”—Vida wagged a finger at me—“if Michelle had gotten Ross, she would have been very disappointed. She didn’t want him; she wanted her illusion of him.”
“But would she have gone off with him?”
“Any time.”
“Yesterday?”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
“And do you think Craig was aware of that?”
In the kitchen a chair scraped. The voices became louder but the words were still indistinct.
“I think,” Vida said slowly and softly, “that Craig was well aware he was her second choice. In the beginning he thought he’d scored a coup in marrying Michelle. But success pales with reality.”
“And now?”
“Things were rough the last year or two.”
“So Michelle probably was ready for something else?”
“Maybe.”
I could see Wescott’s back through the doorway. He was standing tentatively, as if ready to move.
“Would she have tried something illegal? An illegal job she got from Ross? Or maybe held for Ross?”
Wescott stepped back and Craig walked in.
I expected Wescott to warn me again, or at least ask what I was doing back here, but he didn’t. Nodding to us, he walked to the door.
I hesitated, tempted to wait and ask Craig what he had said, then decided I needed to talk to Sheriff Wescott himself. “I’m just leaving too,” I said, joining Wescott at the door. “I’ll be in touch, Vida.”
As soon as we were outside and the door had been shut behind us, I asked, “Does this visit mean you’ve changed your assessment of Michelle’s death?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Then why were you here?”
“Fortunately, the Sheriff’s Department isn’t required to report every move to you.”
“But you do see that it could be murder and by waiting you may be letting the suspect get away?”
We had reached the bottom of the stairs. He stopped and turned toward me. “It’s after eight o’clock. I should have been off duty an hour ago. I’m tired. I’m thirsty. If you really want to talk, give me time to change out of uniform and meet me at the bar in half an hour.”
CHAPTER 10
/> THE INVITATION WAS DEFINITELY not what I had been expecting from Sheriff Wescott, but it didn’t shock me either. It wasn’t in the same category that an invitation from Mr. Bobbs would have been. I knew Wescott found me a nuisance. His threats to arrest me were well within his power, but I didn’t expect him to do that. There was something about me that he liked. And that gave me a bit of leeway in how far I could push him. What I didn’t know was how much leeway. I’d know only when I’d exhausted it. Still, for the moment I was safe.
I realized as I stood in front of the mirror in my bathroom that I was applying eye shadow with more than usual care. I put on cleaner jeans and a warmer shirt, grabbed a sweater, and headed down the stairs.
Leaving my truck in the garage, I walked the few blocks to the bar.
The bar was officially titled Jim’s, but, since it was the only establishment of its kind in town, we all referred to it as “the bar.” It was a standard post-Depression watering hole, the type that could be found in any city across the country. To the left as I entered was a long mahogany bar with red stools and regular patrons on them. The floor space was filled with Formica-topped tables and plain wooden chairs. On the walls were pictures with waterfalls that lit up and seascapes that moved. The only concession Jim had made to the California locale was to add swinging doors. Jim himself was behind the bar.
Wescott beckoned from a table in the rear. Even in the dim light his appearance startled me. Before this I had seen him only in uniform. Now I realized how much the tan color of that uniform accentuated the unsmoothed lines of his nose and the wiry curl of his light brown hair and mustache. Normally his face looked like a sculpture awaiting its final sanding. But now, in a teal blue shirt, it was the blue of his eyes that stood out, and the rest of his face seemed softened around them.
“Beer?” he asked, motioning me to the seat across from him.
“Anchor Steam.”
“Is that one of your San Francisco habits?” He smiled, a disarming look. I recalled that smile from the time I had told him about my years in San Francisco, my marriage to another account executive in the public relations firm where I had worked, our two years together, and our divorce when we realized how little there was between us. Those years, the work, and the marriage had seemed all facade, and when I left and moved to Henderson, I had tried to change as much as I could, to turn my life inside out and deal with the internal, the real. I had told Wescott all about it in detail that later appalled me.