Out of Nowhere

by Susan Dunlap

  ‘But not his last name?’ This from Higgins. Like it was a rare and gauche exclusion. Already the woman was irritating me.

  I inhaled slowly, tried for compassion, compromised on just keeping my mouth shut. ‘Not his last name.’ Even that came out snide.

  ‘You’re Lott’s sister.’

  How long is the statute of limitations on revenge? Higgins wouldn’t screw up a case to spite me, but there’s a lot of possibility below that level.

  ‘He’s retired, right?’ By which she meant John, as in ‘unable to help you.’

  ‘Got hours of free time.’

  Higgins looked like she was balancing her animus against my potential nuisance. She turned to a patrol officer. ‘Take her out of here and get her statement.’ To me, she added, ‘Don’t go anywhere.’

  The patrol officer – Jameson – and I stepped into the living room. He scanned it for a clear spot where we wouldn’t be sideswiped by cops, medics, scene techs, medical examiner’s crew racing in and double-timing out. A circle of space with enough room between us for his notepad. He found it in the hall.

  ‘Full name?’

  ‘Darcy Lott.’

  ‘Two t’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Address?’

  While I gave him the standard rundown on living above the zendo, across the hall from the abbot but not ‘with’ the abbot, I was thinking of Wally. Why would he of all people be shot? He’d probably irritated everyone he’d met in the last half-century, but that wasn’t a capital crime. If curmudgeon-ism were a killing offense, the tech companies and realtors wouldn’t have to force out long-term tenants: buildings would be empty.

  And yet, there he was, shot in the face. In a small room. His killer couldn’t have been more than four feet from him. Shot more than once.

  His clothes, the same brown ensemble he’d been wearing in the kitchen this afternoon, weren’t ripped or wadded. Nothing about them or him suggested a struggle. I could be missing something, but I sure wasn’t about to ask my latest cop.

  ‘Phone? And I’ll need to see your driver’s license. Take it out of the holder … please.’

  I did. Why Wally? He’d sure made it sound as if there would be no financial advantage in erasing him. Still, a house near the park. It could be paid off.

  Or mortgaged to the chimney top.

  Or … Or … I swallowed hard.

  I wanted to cry out, ‘I’m sorry, Wally. I liked you.’ I just felt bad.

  I let myself stay there, feeling bad. Not thinking, just feeling the ‘bad.’

  The cop handed my license back. ‘Tell me in your own words how you came upon the deceased.’

  ‘I didn’t know it was him. I just figured I might be able to help. Any of the neighbors could have done the same.’

  ‘How is it then, Ms Lott, that you were the one to identify the deceased?’

  Truth? Not an option. ‘You’ll have to ask Officer Santadomingo.’

  ‘Santadomingo?’

  ‘You don’t know him? I thought all you guys knew each other?’ A cousin of mine from Willits up the coast said that to John at a Thanksgiving dinner years ago. John nearly choked on his drumstick. And then he launched a tedious and very long explanation which could have been condensed into: ‘SFPD’s a big department.’ To Jameson I said, ‘He’s downstairs. I’ll take you to him.’

  The stairs were rickety. Jameson, portly enough to make me wonder how he managed the physical, descended with care. He was a step behind me, his exhalations strafing the top of my head with each step. His attention was on the steps he could not see over the expanse of himself.

  Mine was on the gun in the lingerie in Mike’s apartment. Or not. Minimally, the police would be knocking on Mike’s door. As soon as they discovered that Boots, Heather and Tom had been in and out of both units, they’d expand the crime scene to cover the whole building. Once they found the gun, they’d be after Adrienne.

  Once they processed fingerprints or tracked her down, they’d be after Mike.

  Once they found Mike, who knew? Maybe they’d keep on looking for suspects. Odds were not favorable.

  If the gun was back in the lingerie drawer, that would surely narrow their suspects.

  For me to get into Mike’s apartment would take a miracle. And demonstrate, on my part, an equal mix of daring and stupidity.

  I had the key in my pocket. Easy to palm.

  Two more stair steps.

  I stepped down. Jameson stepped down. My right foot floated out to the right just a bit.

  Enough.

  He tripped, tumbled on to me. I’ve done stair falls. I ducked my head and rolled, caught the bottom of the newel post, flung myself to the side to deflect his weight.

  ‘Omigod, are you OK? Officer?’

  He said something.

  ‘Hang on. I’ll get help. A medic. Don’t move.’

  I did. I ran out, grabbed a medic, pointed him into the house. ‘Hurry. Jameson’s down. Bottom of the stairs. Go!’

  He was inside before I shut my mouth.

  And I was alone.

  NINETEEN

  The flashers provided me an instant of cover, turning everything red. Turning my red hair into background. I scrunched down as much as reasonable and was easing toward the back of the crowd when I spotted the trio.

  Heather and Tom, his arm around her shoulder, her hand in his butt pocket. Boots next to Tom, holding forth like King Henry VIII to a shorter, thinner sycophant. Tom taking in the scene wide-eyed, following the trajectory of a uniformed officer moving from patrol car into the house. He started toward the house.

  Boots grabbed his shoulder, nailing him to the spot. He said something I couldn’t hear but knew I agreed with.

  Heather leaned into Tom. They looked so couple-on-a-midnight-stroll. So innocuous. So innocent.

  Which was dead opposite from how the cops would see me if they got me in an interview booth.

  How is it you happened to be in this building, Ms Lott?

  My response? Spur-of-the-moment lie? Bad choice.

  Or, I could go with the truth. Very bad choice.

  Or I could turn that innocent trio into a foursome. I slithered over. Boots was muttering something, his right arm extended as he made his point. Slipping under that arm I braced my own against his back. I felt like I could read the man’s mind through his back muscles: shock – surprise – pleasure – confusion – reassessment – eyes out for his next move.

  ‘What’s going on, guys?’

  ‘Tom had a meet.’

  Tom nodded.

  ‘Then we were at our hangout bar on Haight having a beer, hashing it over, and now we’re here. But you mean what’s going on up there, right?’ Heather summarized.

  Tom shook his head. Boots hung his arm over my shoulder as he had Heather’s a couple hours ago. He paused almost infinitesimally, alert for rejection, and finding none let the weight of his arm sink down. To him and anyone observing he’d sealed me into the two-couples-out-for-a-stroll.

  I’d bought some time, but not much. This was cover, not protection. As John had finger-wagged year after year, protection is a stone wall in front of you when a bullet comes. Cover is a car door you can hide behind and hope, until the bullet whips through it into your guts.

  Boots eyed the vehicles. ‘They must have every officer in town here. Check out the vans.’

  ‘What happened?’ Heather asked.

  ‘Wally,’ I said. ‘He’s been shot.’

  ‘Omigod! Really? Why? Shot? Why?’

  ‘You guys were living in there, what do you think?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘He was a pain, but, to be shot …’

  ‘The guy really was a pain. He never saw me without complaining about something. “Don’t leave coffee in your cup to spill, Button!” “Put your clothes on your bag, not all over the floor, Boob.” “Don’t—”’

  ‘Boob?’

  ‘Yeah. Never once got my name right. Did it on purpose; I could tell.’
<
br />   Tom grinned. ‘Yeah, Button, he was playing you.’

  ‘I knew that!’ But his arm on my shoulder quivered otherwise.

  ‘Anyway—’ Tom was giving him an out – ‘bitching 24/7’s not a capital crime.’

  ‘It’s not like you two didn’t have that coming,’ Heather said.

  Tom looked about to object, glanced down at Heather and eased that into a shrug. ‘I guess.’

  ‘Come on, you two have that place like a dumpster.’

  ‘Hey, it’s not that bad.’

  I watched, stunned at how quickly they eased the focus from their deceased landlord back to themselves. ‘Let’s talk about this away from here, OK?’

  ‘We can’t do that. The police are going to need to talk to us. I mean, we knew Wally.’

  Heather gave Tom a poke. ‘Everyone knows Wally.’

  ‘Yeah, but maybe we’ve seen something everybody hasn’t. Because we’re living with him.’

  ‘You’re going to tell the cops he bitches about towels on the bathroom floor?’

  ‘OK, OK. But it’s our duty.’

  Behind them the scene was slowing. Cops not rushing up steps. Walking down. EMTs standing by their trucks talking. Onlookers easing back, heading out. Voices breaking through the mesh of noise, their words not yet clear.

  ‘Tom,’ I said, ‘investigators are combing through the apartments, particularly the upstairs. You have things up there?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. But they’re not after my clothes.’

  ‘Not clothes … Tom.’

  He gave his head a shake. ‘This is San Francisco! They’re dealing with a murder. They’re not hauling me in a little stash.’

  ‘They won’t bother with it. Unless … unless they need to pressure you. There’s a lot going on here. They’ll want to interview you, but it may not happen right away because, like I say, there’s a lot going on. They’ll need to get a statement from you. They can’t keep innocent witnesses on hold too long. But someone with a little something illegal … No rush; you’re not going anywhere.’

  Heather nodded and turned back to the house, watching the coming and going like a movie preview. She was the swing vote. Say Go and they’d be gone. Say Stay … No guy’s going to wimp out on a crime scene in front of his girlfriend – his new girlfriend.

  One of the patrolmen approached a group on the other side of the house. Pad out. Taking names. More than that. Addresses? Connections to the deceased? Santadomingo moved from one man to another, writing down answers. Moving toward us like a breaking wave.

  Tom dropped his arm off Heather’s shoulder and leapt back. ‘My notes are up there! For the solo pres! I’ve got to get them!’

  ‘Tom, honey, you know your stuff. You don’t need notes.’

  ‘I can’t blow this! I maxed my cards just to get here. I screw up and I’m back to sweeping up the lab for years. My notes are—’

  ‘Boots can get them for you, right, Boots?’

  ‘Hey, you think I have nothing in the corner of my duffle?’

  ‘Cops hold you, you call your aunt and uncle and they get a big-time lawyer by morning.’

  ‘Hey, what about—’

  I’d had enough. ‘Stand here any longer and neither of you will be making this decision. I’m outa here.’

  ‘She’s right, honey.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Go then. Call me when you get out. If I don’t hear from you by morning I’ll go to your pres.’

  ‘You?’ Tom and Boots said.

  ‘Hey, I’ve been hearing about this for two days straight. I know it better than you do.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Boots said half-laughing. ‘They get bored, hit ’em up for leads. Maybe this case will be cold enough for your app.’

  ‘What!’ Heather glared.

  It was a minute before Boots mumbled, ‘Insensitive, huh?’

  ‘You think?’ To Tom she said, ‘You’ll be OK. Trust me.’

  Tom didn’t. Anyone could tell that. But he kissed her and walked into the house, looking like he was climbing on to the gallows.

  When he reached the landing, I strolled off toward Haight, as if I’d seen enough hangings and had a sudden yen for a croissant.

  TWENTY

  When I rounded the corner I picked up my pace, turned right toward the park. Where was Mike? He’d left me in the park an hour and a half earlier. He was headed for the car parked across the street from his apartment.

  The car was still there, amidst the patrol cars and EMT vans.

  Mike had had time to reach the house before Wally was shot. Of course, he hadn’t shot him. Of course. He hadn’t called the police—

  Unless he had. On his new cell phone.

  Which meant I didn’t dare call that number.

  And Mike wouldn’t use it to call me.

  Which meant … I couldn’t find him. It meant I was standing in a dark and dangerous park in the middle of the night like a tourist with a pocket full of credit cards.

  What is the price of rice in Luling? I pictured the old Chinese master Qingyuan shaking his head. All this speculation! Useless! Useless!

  Mike was not a Buddhist.

  I was the Buddhist.

  Maybe I had let my mind jump to Luling. Maybe … the notations on the pad, made by the non-Buddhist, had nothing to do with the koan.

  Maybe Qingyuan whacked the monk with his stick and added, ‘Don’t assume!’

  Seren *5 Gaté. Maybe I had assumed too much.

  It was an hour before I unlocked the zendo door. When the next thing is getting home after the streetcars and buses have curled up for the night, it’s a long run. I had focused on running. After all the tension of the night it had felt good to just run, full out on some blocks, easy on others.

  When I climbed up the stairs to my room I knew what to do. It wasn’t magic, just common sense. I checked messages on the landline. Zip. It was 2.42 a.m. With luck I’d get four hours of sleep. I headed for the bathroom.

  Taped on the mirror was a note from Leo: Sleep In!

  Thursday

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Adrienne’s Ferente’s eyes were glued half shut. In a bathrobe that was a mix of pink flowers and wrinkles, she peered out through the barely opened doorway. Her chin-length hair, which had probably looked smart and stylish the night before, now stuck out stiff in divergent directions like one of those exotic fruits you don’t know where to start peeling. She could have posed for ‘morning after.’ It was 9:00 a.m. She looked like 6:00.

  I felt like 4:00. ‘Darcy Lott. Mike’s sister.’ I pushed my way into her flat.

  ‘Mike told you where I am?’

  Not hardly! But I wasn’t about to tell her that.

  The place was a basement of a cottage set behind an auto body shop in Berkeley. The gate beside the cottage, led to a cement path and around back. If the dented old car out front belonged to Adrienne, maybe she was hoping the body shop guys would pound it out by mistake. Dimples and pockmarks covered both front fenders and the passenger side rear, but the more serious gouges disfigured the front right. The passenger mirror had been knocked off, leaving only rusted holes. I bent closer. But, of course, time and wind had blown away traces of anything foreign.

  The house was off Sorrento Way between San Pablo and Kains Avenues in the Berkeley flatlands.

  Seren *5 Gate.

  Kains! Not koan!

  Sorrento, not Serenity.

  Not S5 or K5. Not the number 5 at all, but S.P! San Pablo, San Pablo Avenue. The long-time commercial route that parallels the freeway.

  Sorrento, between Kains and San Pablo. So short and obscure it was only that one block long. No arrow or street number indicating the basement unit. Visitors had to know to go through the gate.

  Through the gate. Not gaté, gaté, the ending line of chants. Gone, gone, gone beyond …

  The indentations on the pad were not a koan that made no sense, but an abbreviated address written in a hurry by a person who needed to find it. Talk about tunnel visi
on! When this was all over and we Lotts were all safe and sitting around the kitchen table, the rest of them would roast me! They’d say—

  But I’d have plenty of time to hear their snide-isms.

  Now, at least, I’d found the house.

  In the body shop, a machine roared. The walls here probably didn’t truly shake but it felt like they were in danger of crumbling. Her flat in San Francisco wasn’t large, but it had charm. The kitchen was like Wally’s with a built-in china cabinet. The stove was gas – a plus until the day before yesterday. The fridge had rounded corners and a blue light at the top, the kind of thing people have had chugging along in their vacation homes for decades. The living room had that bay window.

  And the bedroom had the gun. But I’d get to that later.

  This place wasn’t so much a room in a basement as a basement with a sofa too decrepit to be used upstairs and too heavy to haul to the curb. A faux-wood desk of the same vintage. The ‘kitchen’ was a gray basement sink, the kind you wash off grease in, the refrigerator an under-the-counter affair, the kind you keep beer in, and the stove a two-ring hot plate. The window looked out on garbage cans.

  ‘Couldn’t you have found something better?’

  ‘On two-day notice? Scoring this was a coup.’

  Something banged. Maybe a truck sliding off a hoist. Adrienne didn’t even look up. She ran her knuckles across her eyes and we both understood that only the slow reactions from a sleepless night had kept her from shutting the door when she first saw me.

  I said, ‘Wally’s dead.’

  ‘What?’ She blinked a few times to bring his demise into focus. ‘You woke me up to tell me that? How’d you even find me? No one knows I’m here. It’s just for a few days.’

  ‘I managed. Answer my questions and I’ll be history.’

  She pushed herself up. ‘I don’t have to—’

  ‘Your landlord was killed right above your apartment. You wanted to be elsewhere so bad that you chose to live here. Police might find that …’ I paused ‘… odd.’

  She leaned forward, opened her mouth to protest and then sighed and sat back.

  ‘How long have you rented from Wally?’

  ‘Ten years.’

  ‘Was he working back then?’