Rodger continued. “Seems the most likely scenario to me. Like I said, she had highs and lows, and she was definitely in a low spot—had been for months.”
“Doesn’t it seem odd, though, that the robbery and fire could be purely coincidental? Regardless of how Wendy died, what are the chances that a burglar chose a third-level apartment in a locked building that just happened to have a dead body in it, and, instead of just robbing the place and getting out of there, lit the body on fire and placed an anonymous call alerting the police about it?”
“The tip was from the burglar?”
“No,” Sadie said, worried she’d said too much. “I mean, the police don’t know who made the call, that’s just one way of looking at it—but it makes the assumptions about it all being coincidental feel far-fetched, don’t you think?”
“That kind of thing does happen, though. The drug culture is rampant all over the city. There are some neighborhoods where people would kill their own grandmothers if it meant ensuring another week’s worth of hits.”
“And they break into third-level apartments in locked buildings? Wouldn’t they go for an easier target?”
“I guess I hadn’t thought about that,” Rodger said. “I was under the impression that the police weren’t putting their money on foul play, so I’m surprised that you seem so convinced otherwise.”
Sadie worried she’d betrayed too much of her true motivation in talking to Rodger and focused her attention on her bowl of soup. “I’m just trying to consider all the angles. It was shocking to hear what happened to her and then realize how long she’d been dead before the fire was set. I’m trying to make sense of it in my own mind, if nothing else.”
“I can imagine this has been very difficult,” Rodger said sympathetically. “Wendy had drug issues in the past, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she had gotten back into that lifestyle. But I sure hope the police can confirm that her hard living had simply caught up with her, and then a seemingly empty apartment had attracted a burglar who panicked when he found her and tried to burn the place down.” He tore off a piece of his bread bowl. “I don’t think anyone had it out for Wendy.”
“She didn’t have many friends.”
Rodger shook his head in agreement. “No, she didn’t, but she wasn’t a bad person. Just not entirely well.”
Sadie took another bite of soup while determining how she wanted to address the next topic. Head-on or round about? She decided on the head-on approach; the clock was ticking on the time Rodger had allotted for them to visit. “I understand she was calling your office nearly every day in the months before she died.”
A flicker of guilt crossed his expression. “She needed someone to talk to. Like I said, I was about the only friend she had.”
“What did you talk about?”
“I don’t know—stuff. I was trying to get her to see a doctor; it seemed obvious that things were getting worse. But she didn’t want to go and so mostly we talked about day-to-day stuff.”
“What kind of day-to-day stuff?” Other than laundry service and grocery delivery, what day-to-day stuff did Wendy have going on?
He looked annoyed for the first time, and Sadie wondered if she was being too pushy. “Like telemarketers and TV shows and things we’d done together years earlier.” He paused for a breath. “Look, I was with her long enough to know that whatever was off balance in her brain was worse from about Christmastime until the spring. She was getting older and didn’t have people to support her through the bad times. She was too volatile for long-term relationships with most people, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Wendy and I truly wanted to help her. So, I told my secretary to put her through when she called. I talked to her about her day, commiserated about the hard things, and told her to hang in there. I was her friend—quite possibly the only one she had. We would talk for a few minutes and that seemed to be enough for her.”
“And when she stopped calling?” Sadie asked. “What did you think of that?”
“I was out of town the last two weeks of May. I had told her I was leaving, and she left me seven messages from the sixteenth through the twenty-second expressing her annoyance at my not being in town. When I got back, I thought she might start calling again but she didn’t. Then again, it was spring, and she usually improved in the spring. She wasn’t stable but she could be relatively predictable.” He looked at his watch and straightened. “I need to be getting back to the office. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Sadie’s mind whirred through the possibilities, hating that their conversation was ending. She’d thought he was hiding something when she’d spoken to him on the phone, but now she wondered if it was simply the complexities of his relationship with Wendy that had given her that impression. What else could she learn from him?
“Oh, yes, there’s one last thing,” she said. “What about her son? Did you ever meet him?”
“Oh right,” Rodger said with a nod. “The police told me about him—crazy that she’d never once told me she had a son.”
Chapter 18
Sadie still had half a bowl of soup when Rodger stood to go back to the office. She thanked him for his time and then finished her soup while writing down everything she could remember from their conversation in the notebook she kept in her purse. The information he’d shared fit into the growing picture of Wendy as a mentally ill, manipulative, smart, and selfish woman. And yet there was something admirable in the fact that Rodger had loved Wendy despite those things. Even if Sadie didn’t understand why he did, she was grateful for it all the same.
The two hardest parts of the conversation had been learning what Wendy had said about Sadie’s parents and what she hadn’t said about Ji. It was unreal that Rodger hadn’t known about him until the police asked last week, yet Sadie could find no reason to doubt Rodger’s assertion of ignorance. At one point, she asked him why he thought Wendy wouldn’t tell him about her son, and he’d answered honestly: he’d never wanted children. He’d told Wendy that when they first began dating.
Sadie’s heart was heavy with that information, and she hoped that she could tell Ji about this meeting without having to divulge to him that Wendy had spent ten years with a man who never knew of Ji’s existence.
She finished her notes and took the last bites of her soup—cold but still good—before heading out of the restaurant. Her hotel was around the corner, and she’d seen lots of taxis pick up and drop off near the entrance, so it seemed a natural place to find one that would take her back to Wendy’s apartment.
Her phone chimed with a text message, and she moved closer to the building so she wouldn’t be in anyone else’s way. The sidewalks always seemed to be packed. In the process of trying to fish her phone from her purse, she dropped her notebook. She bent down to pick it up and caught sight of a man stepping quickly into a parking garage exit. Another woman on the street glanced toward where he disappeared, then continued walking toward Sadie, passing her without a smile or a greeting.
There was something familiar about the man—though Sadie had only seen a flash of him. And why had he jumped into the parking lot exit? He’d moved as though getting out of the way. Or hiding. She continued searching for her phone, keeping an eye on the area where the man had disappeared. Had she seen him before, or was her imagination running wild?
The text message was from Ji. He was needed at the restaurant and would call her later. He’d left the building keys with the man who lived in apartment two. Sadie typed her response slowly, asking if everything was okay, her attention still focused on the parking garage.
A few seconds later, the man stepped out from his hiding place. Sadie noted the hitch in his step that happened when he saw her still leaning against the building, but she didn’t acknowledge him. Instead, she pretended to send another text, forcing the man to do something—they couldn’t both just stand there.
He began walking in her direction but didn’t look at her. When he passed her, she casually fell into step b
ehind him, studying his back until recognition dawned. He was the man from the soup café—the only person, other than Rodger—who had been sitting alone when she entered. Mid-thirties in a green polo shirt. Was he following her? Not now, of course. She was the one doing the following now. But had he been following her from the restaurant?
He continued up Sutter Street with Sadie a couple of yards behind him. When they reached Powell—one of the roads that had a cable car track down the middle—he crossed at the light and entered a Walgreens. He didn’t glance toward her even though she was certain he knew she was there.
Sadie didn’t follow him inside, but turned and hurried back across Powell before the light changed, and then ducked into the Starbucks on the corner. She could watch the door of the Walgreens through the window. If Mr. Green Shirt was following her, he wouldn’t wait long to come out once he realized she was no longer behind him.
He didn’t disappoint, and when he came out onto the street and looked around, she stepped back to make sure he wouldn’t see her through the glass. After a few more seconds, he seemed to curse, then pulled a phone out of his pocket. He had been following her, and now he was calling whoever it was he was in league with to tell them he’d lost her.
She pulled out her phone and took a picture of him, ignoring the confused look of patrons in the coffee shop who had picked up on the fact that she wasn’t there to order anything. She enlarged the picture on her phone, but it made his face blurry.
He was still talking on the phone when the crosswalk signal flashed and, along with a dozen other people, he crossed Powell, heading back the way he’d come.
Sadie moved toward the front door and, after he passed, slipped out the door and hurried to catch up. One benefit of being in such a crowded city was that he didn’t seem to notice anything odd about the fact that someone was following close enough behind him to hear at least part of what he said.
“—see what I can find out, but I lost her after just a few blocks. . . . Older, not particularly attractive.”
Sadie tried to ignore her offense at what must be a description of her.
“I got some pictures. . . . Wasn’t spicy. . . . Okay . . .”
His legs were longer than Sadie’s, and she was jogging a couple of steps to keep up when he suddenly turned his head and saw her. She came to a stop as he startled and pulled his phone from his ear. Sadie wasn’t prepared to be discovered, but she had enough experience with lack of preparation to react quickly. She lifted her phone, which was still open to the camera, and snapped a picture of his shocked expression, then turned and headed up Sutter in a quick walk, dodging between people in hopes of losing him.
Several people were talking outside a small café, creating a kind of shield. Once she passed the group, she ducked behind them, through the front door of the café, and then stepped to the side of the door while Mr. Green Shirt hurried past. She wondered what his intention was if he caught up with her. Destroy the camera? Something worse?
“Hello?”
Sadie looked at a woman dressed in a starched white shirt with a name tag that said Naomi.
“Can I help you?”
“Um, yes, do you have a back door, Naomi?”
“Do you mean the patio? It’s a bit cool today—are you sure?”
Sadie smiled. “Yes, the patio would be perfect.”
The hostess showed her outside, and though Sadie had intended to use the patio as an escape, it was fully enclosed by surrounding buildings and wooden trellis meant to disguise the urban setting. Not wanting to run into the man who’d been following her, and unwilling to climb the trellis in order to find another way out, she sat down and accepted the menu Naomi handed her. It was too cool outside to be comfortable—the sun was covered in fog, again—but Sadie didn’t feel she had much of a choice except to wait this out.
“Our specials today are the bleu cheese mahi-mahi sandwich, the pumpkin and mushroom bisque, and our hot apple streusel cake. I’ll be right back with a water. Would you like anything else to drink?”
“Water will be fine,” Sadie said as she skimmed the menu and tried to calm her racing heart. What would happen if Mr. Green Shirt found her back here, alone and with no way out? She refused to give into the dramatic possibilities. If he’d known she’d entered the restaurant, he’d have followed her immediately, right?
The waitress arrived and asked for Sadie’s order. She wasn’t hungry but ordered the hot streusel cake all the same. She hadn’t had a dessert for two days and nothing else sounded good. Plus it was hot, which meant it might warm her up a bit. She didn’t want to go back onto the street until she was certain Mr. Green Shirt was gone.
Once her breathing had returned to normal, and the waitress had returned inside, she texted Pete the picture she’d taken and an explanation.
Her phone rang mere seconds after the text went through.
“What do you mean you were followed?”
Sadie filled him in on the details, waiting for him to express concern for her safety or insist that she stay put until he could come to her. But he didn’t. Instead he asked question after question. As the conversation progressed, rather than be hurt by his focus on the event and not her feelings, an unexpected sense of accomplishment settled over her. She kind of liked that he was more concerned about the implications of her being followed than the fear that she couldn’t take care of herself.
“If he was there before you arrived, was he with Rodger?” Pete asked.
“Maybe,” Sadie said. “Can the police identify the photo?”
“I’ll ask them about it when I get off the phone. Do you feel safe?”
“I’m fine.” The waitress brought the cake, and Sadie transferred her phone to the other ear so she could talk and eat at the same time. “I’m taking some time for him to disappear before I go back out. He knows I got his picture.” She took a bite—it was really good and deliciously warm. Could it have bananas in it? She couldn’t taste any but it would account for the smooth and moist texture. She’d have to see if she could find a similar recipe—or perhaps adapt the one in her Little Black Recipe Book and see how the banana affected the texture of her recipe, which was delicious but, in all honesty, a touch on the dry side.
“And what exactly did he say in the part of the phone call you overheard?”
Sadie hurried to swallow and stay tuned into the conversation. “Well, he, uh, commented on my looks.”
“What do you mean? Like comparing you to Wendy? Maybe someone’s watching her apartment.”
“How would they know where I was going and then beat me there?” She didn’t expound on the phone call because she didn’t want to admit to Mr. Green Shirt’s assessment.
“True,” Pete said thoughtfully. “If he was describing you, though, then it seems unlikely he’s connected to Rodger since you’d just sat across the table from him.”
“Good point,” Sadie said between bites. When she remembered her wedding dress, she ate slower.
“Well done, though,” Pete said. “You handled yourself perfectly.”
Sadie smiled at the sincere compliment. “Did you talk to the police about all the calls to Rodger’s business?”
“They said that he claimed she was having a difficult time, that she often struggled with depression in the winter months, and that he was just chatting with her as a friend.”
“That’s what he told me too,” Sadie said, almost disappointed but feeling uncharitable about it.
“Lopez is letting me read over official statements and other documentation in the file,” Pete said. “I haven’t found anything remarkable, but I’m still looking. I’ll be sure to read up on Rodger’s statement. More specific information is supposed to come through this afternoon regarding the synthetic kerosene—they’re hoping to determine the brand. I’m kind of hanging around in hopes of being here when that comes in. I want to stay in the thick of things.”
Pete was also going to lunch with Detective Lopez, so they said their good-by
es. After Sadie hung up, she remembered Ji’s text. She checked her phone but he hadn’t responded to her question about whether or not everything was okay. Did that mean things weren’t okay? When he’d arrived at Wendy’s apartment he’d said he had double coverage at Choy’s until 5:30. Was he planning to come back? She let the questions flow freely through her brain while she finished the cake—leaving a few bites on the plate though it was hard to do—before composing another text message for Ji.
Will you be coming back?
She was pulling cash out of her wallet to pay the bill when Ji’s response came in.
Ji: I’m not sure.
Sadie: What about the share house?
Ji: I moved most of the stuff to the main area.
What about me? Sadie wondered. Ji had been the one doing all the coordinating, and Shots was Chinese, right? Would she even be able to communicate with him?
It would be great if you could come back for that.
Ji didn’t respond in the time it took her to go back to the street, assure herself that Mr. Green Shirt wasn’t waiting for her, and wave down a taxi. She gave the cab driver the address of Wendy’s apartment building and settled back against the seat, only then considering the wisdom of her plan. If Mr. Green Shirt was linked to Wendy, wouldn’t he go there next? And yet Pete hadn’t expressed any concern about her returning to the apartment, and it was the middle of the day.
She opened her notebook in order to write down notes on her encounter with Mr. Green Shirt—maybe she could assess his threat level, which, off the top of her head, she didn’t feel was very high. He’d seemed to be simply observing her, not trying to hurt her or anything like that. He’d said “Nothing spicy,” on the phone, and in all honesty she’d thought of the soup first, but couldn’t it mean that the encounter Rodger had had with Sadie wasn’t romantic?
If “Nothing spicy” was related to the romance level and Sadie’s physical appearance was important to whomever Mr. Green Shirt had reported to, then perhaps it was Rodger who’d been followed, and Sadie had been a secondary target. The only person who would be jealous enough to send someone to spy on Rodger during lunch was either a girlfriend or a wife. Sadie had no idea which of those partnerships Rodger currently had as he hadn’t offered the information at lunch. Perhaps she should have asked.
Fortune Cookie (Culinary Mystery) Page 15