“That’s a lot of money.”
“Yes, but my work will bring much more someday.”
No false modesty in her. Hell, no modesty of any kind. “Are the sculptures yours too?”
She made a snorting noise. “Good God, no. My husband’s. Peter thinks he’s a brilliant sculptor but he’s not—he’s not even mediocre. Self-delusion is just one of his faults.”
“Sounds like you don’t get along very well.”
“Sometimes we do. And sometimes he makes me so damn mad I could scream. Tonight, for instance. Calling me from some bar downtown, drunk, bragging about a woman he’d picked up. He knows that drives me crazy.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh, not the business with the woman. Another one of his lies, probably. It’s the drinking and the taunting that gets to me—his jealousy. He’s so damned jealous I swear his skin is developing a green tint.”
“Of your success, you mean?”
“That’s right.”
“Why do you stay married to him, if he has that effect on you?”
“Habit,” she said. “There’s not much love left, but I do still care for him. God knows why. And of course he stays because now there’s money, with plenty more in the offing . . . oh! Damn!” She’d made the mistake of trying to gesture with her wounded arm. “Where’re those paramedics?”
“They’ll be here pretty quick.”
“I need a drink. Or don’t you think I should have one?”
“I wouldn’t. They’ll give you something for the pain.”
“Well, they’d better hurry up. How about you? Do you want a drink?”
“No thanks.”
“Suit yourself. Go ahead and sit down if you want. I’m too restless.”
“I’ve been doing nothing but sitting most of the evening.”
“I’m going to pace,” she said. “I have to walk, keep moving, when I’m upset. I used to go into the park, walk for an hour or more, but with all the drug problems . . . and now a person isn’t even safe on the sidewalk—”
There was a rattling at the front door. Andrea Hull turned, scowling, in that direction. I heard the door open, bang closed; a male voice called, “Andrea?”
“In here, Peter.”
The man who came duck-waddling in from the hall was a couple of inches over six feet, fair-haired and pale except for red-blotched cheeks and forehead. Weak-chinned and nervous-eyed. He blinked at her, blinked at me, blinked at her again with his mouth falling open.
“My God, Andrea, what happened to you? That towel . . . there’s blood onit. . .”
“I was mugged a few minutes ago. He shot me.”
“Shot you? Who . . . ?”
“I told you, a mugger. I’m lucky to be alive.”
“The wound . . . it’s not serious . . .”
“No.” She winced. “What’s keeping those paramedics?”
He went to her, tried to wrap an arm around her shoulders. She pushed him away. “The man who did it,” he said, “did you get a good look at him?”
“No. He was masked. This man chased him off.”
Hull remembered me, turned and waddled over to where I was.
“Thank God you were nearby,” he said. He breathed on me, reaching for my hand. I let him have it but not for long. “But I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Do you live in the neighborhood?”
“He’s a private investigator,” Andrea Hull said. “He was serving a subpoena on somebody. His name is Orenzi.”
“No it isn’t,” I said. I told them what it was, not that either of them cared.
“I can never get Italian names right,” she said.
Her husband shifted his attention her way again. “Where did it happen? Down by the park, I’ll bet. You went out walking by the park again.”
“Don’t start in, Peter, I’m in no mood for it.”
“Didn’t I warn you something like this might happen? A hundred times I’ve warned you but you just won’t listen.”
“I said don’t start in. If you hadn’t called drunk from that bar, got me upset, I wouldn’t have gone out. It’s as much your fault as it is mine.”
“My fault? Oh sure, blame me. Twist everything around so you don’t have to take responsibility.”
Her arm was hurting her and the pain made her vicious. She bared her teeth at him. “What are you doing home, anyway? Where’s the bimbo you claimed you picked up?”
“I brushed her off. I kept thinking about what I said on the phone, what a jerk I was being. I wanted to apologize—”
“Sure, right. You were drunk, now you’re sober; if there was any brushing off, she’s the one who did it.”
“Andrea . . .”
“What’s the matter with your face? She give you some kind of rash?”
“My face? There’s nothing wrong with my face. . . .”
“It looks like a rash. I hope it isn’t contagious.”
“Damn you, Andrea—”
I’d had enough of this. The bickering, the hatred, the deception—everything about the two of them and their not-so-private little war. I said sharply, “All right, both of you shut up. I’m tired of listening to you.”
They gawked at me, the woman in disbelief. “How dare you. You can’t talk to me like that in my own home—”
“I can and I will. Keep your mouth closed and your ears open for five minutes and you’ll learn something. Your husband and I will do the talking.”
Hull said, “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Sure you do, Peter. You can start by telling me what you did with the gun.”
“Gun? I don’t—what gun?”
“The one you shot your wife with.”
Him: hissing intake of breath.
Her: strangled bleating noise.
“That’s right. No mugger, just you trying to take advantage of what’s happened to the park and the neighborhood, make it look like a street killing.”
Him: “That’s a lie, a damn lie!”
Her, to me in a ground-glass voice: “Peter? How can you know it was Peter? It was dark, the man wore a mask. . . .”
“For openers, you told me he was drunk when he called you earlier. He wasn’t, he was faking it. Nobody can sober up completely in an hour, not when he’s standing here now without the faintest smell of alcohol on his breath. He wasn’t downtown, either; he was somewhere close by. The call was designed to upset you so you’d do what you usually do when you’re upset—go out for a walk by the park.
“It may have been dark, but I still got a pretty good look at the shooter coming and going. Tall—and Peter’s tall. Walked and ran splayfooted, like a duck—and that’s how Peter walks. Then there are those blotches on his face. It’s not a rash; look at the marks closely, Mrs. Hull. He’s got the kind of skin that takes and retains imprints from fabric, right? Wakes up in the morning with pillow and blanket marks on his face? The ones he’s got now are exactly the kind the ribbing on a ski mask would leave.”
“You son of a bitch,” she said to him. “You dirty rotten son of a—!”
She went for him with nails flashing. I got in her way, grabbed hold of her; her injured arm stopped her from struggling with me. Then he tried to make a run for it. I let go of her and chased him and caught him at the front door. When he tried to kick me I knocked him on his skinny tail.
And with perfect timing, the doorbell rang. It wasn’t just the paramedics, either; the law had also arrived.
Peter Hull was an idiot. He had the gun, a .32 revolver, and the ski mask in the trunk of his car.
She pressed charges, of course. She would have cut his throat with a dull knife if they’d let her have one. She told him so, complete with expletives.
The Hulls and their private war were finished.
Down in Dolores Park—and in the other neighborhoods in the city, and in cities throughout the country—the other war, the big one, goes on. Armageddon? Maybe. And maybe the forces of evil are winning. Not in the long run, tho
ugh. In the long run the forces of good will triumph. Always have, always will.
If I didn’t believe that, I couldn’t work at my job. Neither could anybody else in law enforcement.
No matter how bad things seem, we can’t ever stop believing it.
LIA MATERA
Laura Di Palma is the creation of Lia Matera (1952– ), who has written several novels about the no-nonsense lawyer. Matera’s other Edgar- and Anthony-nominated series character is Willa Jansson, a California attorney whose approach to life is a little more laid back, as seen in the recent novel Last Chants. In whichever series Matera’s writing, there is always a refreshing sensibility about her characters, a sense that, even though everything may be crumbling around them, they will always persevere and find a way through the urban jungle. A former teaching fellow at Stanford University Law School, Matera lives in Santa Cruz, California.
Dead Drunk
My secretary, Jan, asked if I’d seen the newspaper: another homeless man had frozen to death. I frowned up at her from my desk. Her tone said, And you think you’ve got problems?
My secretary is a paragon. I would not have a law practice without her. I would have something resembling my apartment, which looks like a college crash pad. But I have to cut Jan a lot of slack. She’s got a big personality.
Not that she actually says anything. She doesn’t have to, any more than earthquakes bother saying “shake shake.”
“Froze?” I murmured. I shoved documents around the desk, knowing she wouldn’t take the hint.
“Froze to death. This is the fourth one. They find them in the parks, frozen.”
“It has been cold,” I agreed.
“You really haven’t been reading the papers!” Her eyes went on high-beam. “They’re wet, that’s why they freeze.”
She sounded mad at me. Line forms on the right, behind my creditors.
“Must be the tule fog?” I guessed. I’ve never been sure what tule fog is. I didn’t know if actual tules were required.
“You have been in your own little world lately. They’ve all been passed out drunk. Someone pours water on them while they lie there. It’s been so cold they end up frozen to death.”
I wondered if I could get away with, How terrible. Not that I didn’t think it was terrible. But Jan picks at what I say, looking for hidden sarcasm.
She leaned closer, as titillated as I’d ever seen her. “And here’s the kicker. They went and analyzed the water on the clothes. It’s got no chlorine in it—it’s not tap water. It’s bottled water! Imagine that, Perrier or Evian or something. Can you imagine? Somebody going out with expensive bottled water on purpose to pour it over passed-out homeless men.” Her long hair fell over her shoulders. With her big glasses and serious expression, she looked like the bread-baking natural foods mom that she was. “You know, it probably takes three or four bottles.”
“What a murder weapon.”
“It is murder.” She sounded defensive. “Being wet drops the body temperature so low it kills them. In this cold, within hours.”
“That’s what I said.”
“But you were . . . anyway, it is murder.”
“I wonder if it has to do with the ordinance.”
Our town had passed a no-camping ordinance that was supposed to chase the homeless out of town. If they couldn’t sleep here, the theory went, they couldn’t live here. But the city had too many parks to enforce the ban. What were cops supposed to do? Wake up everyone they encountered? Take them to jail and give them a warmer place to sleep?
“Of course it has to do with the ordinance! This is someone’s way of saying, if you sleep here, you die here.”
“Maybe it’s a temperance thing. You know, don’t drink.”
“I know what temperance means.” Jan could be touchy.
She could be a lot of things, including a fast typist willing to work cheap. “I just don’t believe the heartlessness of it, do you?”
I had to be careful; I did believe the heartlessness of it. “It’s uncondonable,” I agreed.
Still she stooped over my desk. There was something else.
“The guy last night,” Jan said bitterly, “was laid off by Hinder. Years ago, but even so.”
Hinder was the corporation Jan had been fired from before I hired her.
She straightened. “I’m going to go give money to the guys outside.”
“Who’s outside?” Not my creditors?
“You are so oblivious, Linda! Homeless people, right downstairs. Regulars.”
She was looking at me like I should know their names. I tried to look apologetic.
Ten minutes later, she buzzed me to say there was someone in the reception area. “He wants to know if you can fit him in.”
That was our code for, He looks legit. We were not in the best neighborhood. We got our share of walk-ins with generalized grievances and a desire to vent at length and for free. For them, our code was, “I’ve told him you’re busy.”
“Okay.”
A moment later, a kid—well, maybe young man, maybe even twenty-five or so—walked in. He was good-looking, well dressed, but too trendy, which is why he’d looked so young. He had the latest hairstyle, razored in places and long in others. He had shoes that looked like inflatable pools.
He said, “I think I need a good lawyer.”
My glance strayed to my walls, where my diploma announced I’d gone to a night school. I had two years’ experience, some of it with no caseload. I resisted the urge to say, Let me refer you to one.
Instead, I asked, “What’s the nature of your problem?”
He sat on my client chair, checking it first. I guess it was clean enough.
“I think I’m going to be arrested.” He glanced at me a little sheepishly, a little boastfully. “I said something kind of stupid last night.”
If that were grounds, they’d arrest me, too.
“I was at the Club,” a fancy bar downtown. “I got a little tanked. A little loose.” He waggled his shoulders.
I waited. He sat forward. “Okay, I’ve got issues.” His face said, Who wouldn’t? “I work my butt off.”
I waited some more.
“Well, it burns me. I have to work for my money. I don’t get welfare, I don’t get free meals and free medicine and a free place to live.” He shifted on the chair. “I’m not saying kill them. But it’s unfair I have to pay for them.”
“For who?”
“The trolls, the bums.”
I was beginning to get it. “What did you say in the bar?”
“That I bought out Costco’s Perrier.” He flushed to the roots of his chichi hair. “That I wish I’d thought of using it.”
“On the four men?”
“I was high, okay?” He continued in a rush. “But then this morning, the cops come over.” Tears sprang to his eyes. “They scared my mom. She took them out to see the water in the garage.”
“You really did buy a lot of Perrier?”
“Just to drink! The police said they got a tip on their hot line. Someone at the bar told them about me. That’s got to be it.”
I nodded like I knew about the hot line.
“Now”—his voice quavered—“they’ve started talking to people where I work. Watch me get fired!”
Gee, buddy, then you’ll qualify for free medical. “What would you like me to do for you, Mr. . . .”
“Kyle Kelly.” He didn’t stick out his hand. “Are they going to arrest me or what? I think I need a lawyer.”
My private investigator was pissed off at me. My last two clients hadn’t paid me enough to cover his fees. It was my fault; I hadn’t asked for enough in advance. Afterward, they’d stiffed me.
Now the PI was taking a hard line: he wouldn’t work on this case until he got paid for the last two.
So I made a deal. I’d get his retainer from Kelly up front. I’d pay him for the investigation, but I’d do most of it myself. For every hour I investigated and he got paid, he’d knock an hour
off what I owed him.
I wouldn’t want the state bar to hear about the arrangement. But the parts that were on paper would look okay.
It meant I had a lot of work to do.
I started by driving to a park where two of the dead men were found. It was a chilly afternoon with the wind whipping off the plains, blowing dead leaves over footpaths and lawns.
I wandered, looking for the spots described in police reports. The trouble was, every half-bare bush near lawn and benches looked the same. And many were decorated with detritus: paper bags, liquor bottles, discarded clothing.
As I was leaving the park, I spotted two paramedics squatting beside an addled-looking man. His clothes were stiff with dirt, his face covered in thick gray stubble. He didn’t look wet. If anything, I was shivering more than him.
I watched the younger of the two paramedics shake his head, scowling, while the older talked at some length to the man. The man nodded, kept on nodding. The older medic showed him a piece of paper. The man nodded some more. The younger one strode to an ambulance parked on a nearby fire trail. It was red on white with “4–12” stenciled on the side.
I knew from police reports that paramedics had been called to pick up the frozen homeless men. Were they conducting an investigation of their own?
A minute later, the older medic joined his partner in the ambulance. It drove off.
The homeless man lay down, curling into a fetal position on the lawn, collar turned up against the wind.
I approached him cautiously. “Hi,” I said. “Are you sick?”
“No!” He sat up again. “What’s every damn body want to know if I’m sick for? ‘Man down.’ So what? What’s a man got to be up about?”
He looked bleary-eyed. He reeked of alcohol and urine and musk. He was so potent, I almost lost my breakfast.
“I saw medics here talking to you. I thought you might be sick.”
“Hassle, hassle.” He waved me away. When I didn’t leave, he rose. “Wake us up, make us sign papers.”
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