by Janet Dawson
“Right, but there’s a development that puts a different spin on that. This is for your ears only, Donna. I don’t want this broadcast all over the family grapevine.”
She frowned. “Absolutely. You have my word.”
“Sheila filed a missing persons report yesterday. Early this morning she got a phone call.” I told Donna that Brian’s MedicAlert bracelet had been found near the body on the burned boat. “So this morning we all met at the Sonoma County Coroner’s Office. I had to look at the body for a possible identification. But it wasn’t Brian.”
“Hell’s bells.” Donna had been demolishing the rest of her pie while I spoke. Now she put down her fork and reached for her coffee. “Brian’s bracelet was broken? I suppose it could have fallen off, somewhere, and this other man picked it up after the fact and stuffed it in his pocket.”
“I thought of that, but it looked to me like the bracelet had been caught on something and torn off.”
“A fight?”
“Could be,” I said. “Listen, Donna, do me a favor. Can you check around to see if Brian got a hiking permit or a campsite at any of the state parks in Sonoma County? I can give you the license plate number of his Jeep.”
“Sure, I’ll see what I can do.”
I pulled out my notebook, where I’d written Brian’s plate and vehicle identification numbers. She jotted them down in her own notebook.
“I’ll check around and call you.” A cell phone rang. “That’s mine.” She pulled her phone from a pocket and answered the call. “I’m in Petaluma, stopped for coffee. Sure, I can be there in...” She looked at her watch. “Half an hour, forty minutes tops.” She disconnected the call. “I’ve got to go. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”
After Donna left I finished the last bite of my apple pie, washing it down with coffee. Then I pulled out my own cell phone and made a call. It went straight to voice mail. “Hey, Rita, it’s Jeri Howard. I’m in Petaluma, heading back to Oakland. I’d like to see you, so I’ll stop in San Rafael.”
I walked back to where I’d parked my car and drove through Petaluma to U.S. 101, heading south through Novato. When I reached San Rafael, the Marin county seat, I took the Fourth Street exit for downtown. A few blocks west, I located a parking spot on the street and fed coins into the meter.
Rita Lydecker’s office was on the second floor of a building on D Street near downtown San Rafael. She hadn’t called me back so I wasn’t sure she’d be there, but as I approached I heard her loud, booming laugh echoing off the walls.
When I opened the door, Rita was on her cell phone, one hand running through her platinum blond hair as she leaned back in her office chair with her feet propped up on a cardboard box. Other boxes were piled here and there in the office. She motioned me to a chair that contained an empty box. I moved it to the floor and sat down. Rita had stopped smoking, but she still wore that jasmine cologne. Usually she dressed in silk with lots of gold jewelry, but today her barrel-shaped body was attired in a pair of khakis with a smudge at one knee and a T-shirt in an eye-popping shade of purple. Her hands were bare, no rings.
When she finished the call, she set the cell phone on the desk and grinned. “Jeri. Got your message. How are you?”
“Up and down.” I gestured at the boxes. “Are you moving?”
“Gonna give up the office.”
“You’re not retiring?” Rita was older than me, early sixties, I guessed. She’d worked as a prison guard and a bail bondsman before moving into another career as a private investigator.
“Cutting back,” she said. “I’m not getting any younger, girlfriend. I’ll be sixty-five later this year. Old enough for Medicare.”
“Really? I had no idea.”
“Yeah, well, sixty-five doesn’t seem that old the closer I get to it, but let’s face it, my joints ain’t as young as they used to be. Got arthritis in my knees and shoulder. Let me tell you, girlfriend, I know when it’s gonna rain. The minute the weather gets cold and damp, I start aching. Anyway, I got things I want to do. Like that trip to Europe I’ve been promising myself for years. So I’m giving up the office. I’ll operate out of my house. I’ve always been a solo operation. That’s the beauty of being self-employed. I can roll my own schedule. So what brings you to my neck of the woods? A case?”
I nodded. “A missing persons case. Only this one is personal.” I laid out the details for her, and she took notes, promising to do whatever she could to help me search for Brian. Between us we had a lot of contacts in the investigative community.
As I left Rita’s office I called a number in Oakland. “Hi, it’s Jeri. I’m in San Rafael, heading home. Okay if I drop by? Good, see you soon.”
Eleven
Forty minutes later, after threading my way through evening rush-hour traffic, I parked in front of a small Craftsman bungalow on Manila Avenue in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood, not far from busy Broadway. Sid Vernon, my ex, lived here, just a few blocks from Oakland Technical High School, his alma mater.
Sid bought the house after our divorce. Before and during our marriage, we’d shared an apartment in another neighborhood. The marriage itself had lasted only a few years. It wasn’t working for me, so I left him. He resented that. But time heals wounds, or some of them, anyway. In subsequent years we’d gone from prickly post-divorce hostility to a friendly relationship.
I was Sid’s second wife. His first lived in San Diego with her second husband. Sid’s daughter Vicki, whom I still considered my stepdaughter, had graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, and was now a grad student.
I climbed the steps to the front porch and rang the bell.
The woman who opened the front door was in the running to become wife number three. At least it was looking that way. They had been together for a couple of years now. Graciela Portillo was, like Sid, an Oakland police officer. Whether that would make a good marriage or a difficult one, I didn’t know. Grace and her son from a previous marriage had moved in with Sid last year.
“Hi, Jeri,” Grace said through the steel mesh of the security screen door. At her feet, a small black-and-brown mutt woofed at me. “Hush, Maggie.”
“Hi, Grace. How’s the patient?”
Grace rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”
“See for yourself.” Grace unlocked and opened the door. “He’s back in the family room.”
I entered the house and offered my hand, palm up, to Maggie the mutt. She sniffed my hand and my clothing, no doubt catching the scent of cat, and wagged her tail. I made my way through the living room and kitchen to the family room, which had been added on the back of the house. A big flat-screen TV sat on a low stand, a sound bar on the wall behind it and a shelf full of DVDs next to it. In front of the TV were a recliner, a love seat and a worn armchair.
Sid was a big man with a pair of blue eyes set in a craggy face and tawny blond hair that was now going gray. I will be thirty-six on my upcoming October birthday, and Sid was nearing fifty. He’d been a cop for more than twenty-five years and in the Marines before that.
He was stretched out in the recliner, wearing a flowered Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts on this late August afternoon. He didn’t get up, and the reason was illustrated by the scar on his left knee and the lightweight aluminum walker next to the chair.
I sat down on the love seat. “So how’s the knee replacement?”
He growled and grumbled. “Pain in the ass. Or the knee. Take your pick.”
“It had to be done,” Grace said, joining us in the family room, the dog at her heels.
“I know it did,” Sid said. “Got tired of the knee hurting all the time. The docs said the cartilage was worn down to the bone. I blew out this damn knee one time too many. First time was chasing some perp in West Oakland, ages ago. Injured it several times over the years, and then the arthritis kicked in. This time, hell, I was just out for a walk with Gracie, around Lake Merritt. Took a step and wound up in the ER at Kaiser.
”
“Jeri, I’ve got a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge,” Grace said. “Want some?”
“That would be great, thanks.”
She turned to Sid. “How about you?”
“Sure, thanks, babe,” Sid said. As Grace headed back to the kitchen he sighed. “Can’t even have a damn beer because of the painkillers I’m taking.”
On the table between the love seat and Sid’s recliner was an iPad and a framed photo of his daughter. “How’s Vicki?”
Sid’s smile transformed his face. “You know she got that fellowship to study at Oxford. She’s so excited about that. She stayed around for my surgery, then flew to London. I’m getting emails every day. She’s been to the Cotswolds and now she’s headed up to the Lake District.”
“Let’s see, the surgery was three weeks ago.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I was in the hospital a few days, then rehab for a week. Sure was glad to get home. So here I am, recuperating. I go to physical therapy several times a week.”
“How are you getting to the appointments?” I asked. I knew Grace’s schedule was busy. She returned from the kitchen with a tray bearing three glasses. I took one. “Thanks.”
“I’m taking him when I’m off,” Grace said, setting a glass on the table next to Sid. Then she sat down on the armchair and sipped from her own glass. “My son’s not old enough to drive, so some of the guys in the department are helping out.”
“Wayne took me yesterday,” Sid said. Wayne Hobart had been Sid’s partner at various times when both of them worked Homicide.
“Let me know if you need a ride to physical therapy,” I said. “I can make time.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that. Gotta do what I can to get back up to speed. I’m tired of sitting on my ass. I want to get back to work.”
“I’ve got a job for you,” I said. “My brother’s missing.”
“Brian? What the hell?” Sid frowned, the creases in his face deepening as I told him the story. Grace leaned forward, listening. I wanted her input as well. When I’d first met her, she was working the missing persons detail at OPD. Since they were both police officers they had access to resources I couldn’t use. I was pulling out all the stops in my search for Brian.
I gave them what information I had. “The two Sonoma County detectives are Griffin and Harris. They’re not very forthcoming with information. Neither is the Petaluma detective who is working on the missing persons case. And I know why. They figure because Brian’s bracelet was found near the body, he’s a person of interest. Or even worse, a suspect.”
“I can’t see your kid brother shooting some guy,” Sid said. “He’s the classic family man, a schoolteacher, for crying out loud. I bet he’s never even had a traffic violation.”
“Oh, he has. He got picked up for speeding once, but that was back in college. Not much of a misspent youth that I recall. And to the best of my knowledge he hasn’t been in trouble since.” I didn’t share with Sid my sister-in-law’s suspicions that Brian might be having an affair.
“If he’s such a straight arrow,” Grace said, “how does his bracelet wind up on the boat?”
“That’s the big question mark,” I said. “The link looked broken, like it had been caught on something. All I can think of is, Brian was in an altercation with the man. The bracelet fell off, or was torn off. The man put the bracelet in his pocket.”
“That makes sense to me,” Sid said. “But where’s Brian?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve got to find him.”
“How can we help?” Grace asked.
“I need information, more than I’ve been able to pry out of Griffin or Harris. I can sense that they don’t want me involved, but I thought maybe you two could help.”
“Go around the back, you mean.” Sid nodded. “I don’t know anyone in the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. How about you, Grace?”
She looked thoughtful. “I met someone from the DA’s office a few months ago. I could call her.”
“There’s always Joe Kelso,” Sid added.
“Is he still the police chief up in Cloverdale?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Sid said. “I talked with Joe about a week ago.”
Joe had been Sid’s partner in Homicide, and best man at our wedding, which had taken place in the backyard of my parents’ house in Alameda. Mother and Dad had divorced after I married Sid, going their separate ways. Around the same time, Joe had retired from the Oakland Police Department, but not from law enforcement. He and his wife, Brenda, had moved to Cloverdale, the northernmost town in Sonoma County, where Joe headed up a small police department. With a population of less than nine thousand people, Cloverdale was a different beat than Oakland.
“I’ll call Joe,” Sid said. “See if he can nose around and get more information. You going back up to Sonoma County tomorrow?”
I nodded. “I have some work to do first, and an appointment, but yes, after that. You can reach me on my cell phone.”
——
My house is on Chabot Road, near College Avenue in Oakland’s Rockridge District. As I pulled my car into the driveway, Darcy Stefano was coming down the steps from her apartment above the garage. She’d been living in the studio ever since I bought the house, and the extra income helped pay the mortgage. She was an engineering student at Cal, due to graduate in a year or two.
“Thanks for the text letting me know you were back,” Darcy said. “You came home early. I thought you were staying at Lassen all week.”
“Something came up,” I told her. “An emergency.”
“A case, huh?” Darcy put her hands on her hips, clad in a pair of blue capri pants, and tossed her long dark hair off the shoulders of her white blouse. “You look tired.”
“I am tired. It’s been a long day.”
“Take it easy and get some sleep.” Darcy headed for her Volkswagen, parked at the curb.
I checked the mailbox and unlocked the front door. My cats met me on the other side, crying for food and attention. Abigail was an old brown-and-gray tabby. I’d had her since she was a kitten, choosing her from a litter right after she was born. Black Bart had chosen me. As a kitten, he’d shown up on the patio of the apartment where I lived before I bought my house. I fed him and then I caught him, bringing him inside.
I dished up cat food. Then I opened the refrigerator, surveying the contents—or lack of contents. Dinner at home didn’t look promising. There was, however, an open bottle of Chardonnay. I poured myself a glass and went to the living room, putting my feet up. I sipped wine and looked at the photographs arrayed on the top of a nearby bookshelf. As I studied the picture of my brother and his family, I felt tears prickle, threatening to flow. I’d been holding my emotions in since yesterday, keeping it together for the sake of my parents and Sheila so I could talk with law enforcement and figure out what had happened to my brother. But now, in this unguarded moment at home, the family hero felt like having a good cry.
The cats were good at picking up my moods. Abigail jumped up and arranged herself on my lap, rumbling with a reassuring purr, while Black Bart tucked himself next to me. I rubbed the tears from my eyes, stroked both cats, and finished my wine.
My cell phone rang. It was Dan. “Have you had dinner yet?”
“No. I got home a little while ago.”
“I’m on my way. We’ll head over to College Avenue and get something to eat.”
Dan Westbrook and I met in June while I was in Lee Vining, in the Eastern Sierra near Mono Lake. I had been working on another case, one that involved something that happened to my grandmother, Jerusha Layne, when she was working as a bit player in movies back in the 1940s. Grandma left Hollywood in 1942, to marry my grandfather before he went off to the Navy and the Pacific Theater in World War II. She died several years ago, so I went looking for one of her housemates, Pearl Bishop, who had also worked as a bit player.
Pearl, whose first marriage ended when her husband was killed at Guadalcanal, stayed in Hollywood, making a go
od living in movies and television until she retired and went to live with her son, Carl, and his wife, Loretta, in Lee Vining. Loretta was Native American, a Northern Paiute, part of the Mono Lake Indian Community, or Kutzadika’a, who had lived around the huge alkaline lake for hundreds of years. When Carl was growing up, he’d spent many summers with Pearl’s family in Lone Pine, another Eastern Sierra town. As a result, Carl loved the outdoors. He’d gone to work for the U.S. Forest Service, working all over the state. Now he was nearing retirement.
When I found Pearl, I met Carl and Loretta, whom I liked a great deal. I also met her grandson Dan, eldest of Carl and Loretta’s three children. He was there in Lee Vining that weekend, leading bird walks at the annual Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua. Like his father, Dan loves the outdoors and California’s natural beauty. He even makes a living at it, writing hiking and camping guidebooks.
Dan lives in North Berkeley, so it took him only twenty minutes or so to get to my house. He is tall, with a rangy, lean body and a head of curly dark hair, threaded with silver. He has laugh lines around his blue eyes and a smile that won me over the first time I saw him. Since that first meeting, we’d been spending a lot of time together. I liked him a lot and could sense that the feeling was mutual. In fact, this friendship had turned into romance.
When I opened the door, he put his arms around me and held me for a moment. I sighed and relaxed in his embrace.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Hanging in there. But I’m really worried.” I shut and locked the front door.
We walked down the steps. His green Subaru wagon was parked in the driveway behind my Toyota, but I live just a few blocks from College Avenue, so we walked down to that thoroughfare, holding hands and talking about where to have dinner.
We settled on a small café near the intersection of College and Claremont avenues. Once we were seated, we looked at the menu. I ordered one of the beers on tap and Dan did the same. The server returned with our beers and took our orders—salads, fish for Dan and pasta for me. While we ate, I brought Dan up to date.