Till The Old Men Die (The Jeri Howard Mystery Series Book 2)

by Janet Dawson

  “Who are you?” he asked. “And what’s this all about?”

  “I’m a private investigator,” I told him, handing him one of my cards. “My father, Dr. Timothy Howard, teaches history at Cal State in Hayward. He and your uncle were friends. He’s the one who found Dr. Manibusan’s body.”

  “Howard...” He examined my card, holding it with long, tapered fingers. “I remember. We met at Lito’s funeral.”

  “After your uncle died, you packed up all the files in his office. Are they in storage? I’d like to take a look at them.”

  Tongco smiled again, an ironic quirk of his mouth. He set my card on the counter and went into the kitchen, where he took a glass from a cabinet. Filling it from the faucet, he drank the water down, looking at me over the rim of the glass. “Why do you want to see my uncle’s files?”

  “Dr. Manibusan sent my father an envelope. Dad can’t find it. He thinks it may be with the things from your uncle’s office.”

  Tongco put the glass in the sink and rejoined me in the living room. I wanted to know the reason for the smile that played on his lips, but he was taking his own time letting me in on the joke.

  “You’re the second person this week,” he said finally, “who wants to look at my uncle’s files. Considering that Lito has been dead since January, I find this very interesting.”

  So did I. “Was it a woman?”

  “A man named Edward Villegas. He says he’s a writer who met my uncle last year, while Lito was working on an article.” Good cover, I thought. Difficult to verify. “Why did you ask if it was a woman?”

  “Several days ago a woman named Dolores Cruz showed up at Cal State Hayward. She claims she’s your uncle’s widow.”

  “Bullshit,” Alex Tongco said, his black eyebrows drawing together over his dark eyes.

  “She has what appears to be a marriage certificate. She says they were married in Manila last August.”

  “It’s still bullshit. Lito wouldn’t have married anyone after Sara died. If he did, why didn’t he tell the family? I’m the executor of his will. And the pension stuff from the university, he would have changed the beneficiaries. He took care of things like that.”

  “That’s what my father said.”

  “Did somebody hire you? Somebody at the university?”

  “I was hired to find you. Now that I have, I’d like to look through Dr. Manibusan’s files. Where are they?”

  “In storage.” He pulled the towel off his shoulder and twisted it in his hands. Perspiration still glistened on his smooth brown skin. “I’m going to take a shower. Then we can talk about it over dinner.”

  I thought about the leftovers in my refrigerator and the apple that served as my belated lunch. Dinner sounded good to me. Besides, the man was attractive — and not very forthcoming. He headed for the bedroom. A moment later I heard water running in the bathroom. With one ear focused on that sound, I gave Alex Tongco’s apartment a quick once-over.

  Everything looked new. Maybe his ex-wife got all the furniture in the recent divorce. The sofa and matching chair were oak with beige cushions, separated by an end table that matched the coffee table. They faced the wall opposite the front door, which was dominated by an entertainment center holding a large-screen television set, a VCR, and a high-tech stereo sound system. The bottom shelf of the center held an assortment of record albums, compact discs, and videotapes. I looked at some of the titles and smiled. Our tastes were similar — jazz and Humphrey Bogart.

  The door to the bedroom was open. I could still hear water running, so I peered in and saw a queen-size platform bed covered with a dark blue comforter. A rowing machine sat on the floor at the foot of the bed.

  I crossed the living room to the desk and bookshelf that stood next to the front door. The bookshelf held a mixed bag of titles, including military history and paperback copies of Herman Wouk’s novels. Tongco also had several books on the Philippines, including a hard-cover edition of In Our Image by Stanley Karnow. I pulled the Karnow book off the shelf and leafed through it. It looked new, with a bookmark from Black Oak Books in Berkeley stuck into a section dealing with the ongoing Communist insurgency in the Philippines, the New People’s Army.

  I put the book back on the shelf and picked up the scarred black leather briefcase leaning against the leg of the desk. Shut tight, the case had a combination lock. The afternoon mail, junk and a couple of bills, had been left unopened at the base of the desk lamp. Underneath I found a copy of the Philippine News, published in South San Francisco, a weekly newspaper proclaiming itself as the largest Filipino-American newspaper. On the wall above the desk hung two framed certificates, the first a diploma from Auburn University in Alabama, granting Alejandro S. Tongco a degree in aeronautical engineering, the second commissioning him as an ensign in the United States Navy.

  I heard the water go off in the next room. By the time Alex walked out of the bedroom, dressed in a pair of gray slacks and a yellow pullover, I was standing on the balcony, looking out at the beach.

  “Mexican food?” he asked.

  “Love it.”

  He drove a bright red Mazda Miata convertible, a two-seater built so low to the ground that every time he went over a bump I could feel it in my tailbone. We went to Chevy’s at Mariner Square, on the Alameda side of the estuary, a loud, echoing place with a view of downtown Oakland and the waterfront.

  “Find out anything interesting?” Alex said after we’d ordered a platter of beef and chicken fajitas. His brown eyes looked amused as he poured a bottle of Corona beer into a tall, frosted mug.

  I picked up my margarita and sipped the icy concoction. “What do you mean?”

  “You tossed my living room, didn’t you? I would expect a private investigator to make use of the time I was in the shower.”

  “Tossed is an overstatement. I looked around.” I set down my drink and willed myself to ignore the basket of tortilla chips in the center of the table. I always eat too many of the damn things.

  “What can you tell me about myself?”

  “You have ten Humphrey Bogart movies on videotape and you listen to Miles Davis. You like to read Herman Wouk and John Toland. Judging by your age and the dates on your diploma and commissioning certificates, I’d say you’re a mustang, an ex-enlisted man who got his degree and went to Officer Candidate School.”

  “Very good,” Alex said with a laugh.

  “How did you end up at Auburn? That’s a long way from any oceans.”

  “I was commissioned through NESEP — the Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Program. The navy sent me to Auburn to get my degree and gave me some gold bars to go with it.”

  “How long have you been in the service?”

  “Eighteen years. I joined when I was twenty. I’d worked and had a year of college, but I wanted to do something else. I was an aviation machinist’s mate. Now I’m a lieutenant commander.” He fixed me with a mocking gaze. “Since I haven’t had the opportunity to check out your living room, you have to tell me about yourself. Where is your living room, by the way?”

  “In Oakland, over by Lake Merritt. I share it with a cat named Abigail.” The waitress brought our dinner. I took a fresh flour tortilla from the basket in the middle of the table and filled it with grilled chicken and salsa.

  “What did you study in college?” Alex asked, piling a tortilla with beef and beans.

  “History.” He looked up at me and grinned. “Don’t laugh. I can always teach.”

  “How did a history major get into the private-eye business?”

  “I was a legal assistant. Then I worked as an investigator with a man who had his own agency. When he retired, I went into business for myself.”

  “Investigating is a long way from history.”

  “Not really. I prefer to think of it as the study of late-twentieth-century human behavior. Tell me about your uncle.”

  “Ah, business intrudes.” Alex was quiet for a moment, concentrating on a mouthful of fajita. He took a swa
llow of beer and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “He was my favorite uncle.”

  “On your mother’s side, according to your aunt Josie and aunt Medy.”

  “So that’s how you found me,” Alex said with a smile, reaching for the basket of tortillas. As he talked, he built himself another fajita.

  He told me Lito was born in a town called San Ygnacio, in Pampanga Province, northeast of Manila on the island of Luzon. The professor’s father was a teacher who died at the end of World War II and the family moved to Manila shortly thereafter. Lito was educated at the University of the Philippines in Manila, where he met his wife, Sara. He obtained his doctorate in history at the University of California at Berkeley and returned to the Philippines to teach. Like many Filipinos, the Manibusans became increasingly disenchanted with the reign of Ferdinand and Imelda and took steps to immigrate to the United States, leaving the Philippines less than a year after Marcos declared martial law in 1972.

  I knew Sara Manibusan had succumbed to breast cancer two years ago. My father told me that his friend had been devastated by the loss, and I myself had seen the change her death wrought. Now Alex confirmed this. “They were married sixteen years,” he said. “No children. She had a couple of miscarriages. Lito was devoted to her. He took a leave of absence when she had the mastectomy and went through chemotherapy, just to be with her. When she died, he was inconsolable.”

  “So it doesn’t make sense that he’d suddenly marry again,” I said.

  Alex dismissed the idea with an abrupt wave of his hand. “Hell, after Sara died he was married to his work. He didn’t even go out with women. His social life was his university friends. And family, of course. He and I saw each other fairly often. Sara’s brother, Pete Pascal, lives in Daly City. He owns a stationery store.” He paused to finish his fajita. “You say this woman has a marriage certificate. It must be a forgery.

  “I didn’t get a good look at it. Nobody did. I suspect that was intentional on her part.” The waitress stopped by our table and Alex ordered another round of drinks. I filled another tortilla with chicken. “My father says Dr. Manibusan’s trip to the Philippines last summer was unexpected.”

  Alex nodded.” I thought he was going to do some research in the valley, down near Fresno and Madera. He was writing a book about Filipino immigrants. Then Lito called me a couple of days before he left and told me he had to go to Manila and San Fernando, the capital of Pampanga Province. And he said he might go to San Ygnacio.”

  “Do you still have relatives there?”

  Alex shrugged. “Some cousins. I remember visiting them when I was very young.”

  “Were you born in the Philippines?”

  “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

  “It’s an occupational trait.”

  “Yes. I was born in Cavite. It’s a province south of Manila. We moved to the States when I was fourteen.”

  “Tell me about the Manibusan family.”

  “I don’t know much about the Manibusans other than what I’ve already told you,” Alex said abruptly. “I can’t help you there.”

  I had a feeling he was lying. I looked at him across the table. His eyes turned opaque and his lean face became guarded as he picked up his beer mug. He stared over my shoulder at the estuary, where the reflected lights of downtown Oakland shimmered on the water.

  “Any idea why Dr. Manibusan was in San Francisco the night he was killed?” I asked.

  The tension on his face eased as he shook his head. “No, I knew he was going to that conference in Hawaii and he was supposed to have dinner with the Pascals in Daly City. He was flying out of San Francisco International. Pete Pascal called me late Friday night. He said Lito never showed up at his place and did I know where he was. Of course, by that time he was dead.” He stopped, grim-faced at the memory.

  “It doesn’t make sense that Lito would go to San Francisco first. From where he lived in Castro Valley he would have taken the San Mateo Bridge to the Peninsula, not the Bay Bridge. To get to Daly City he’d take 101 north, then 380 to 280. That way he’d be against the afternoon commute. I can’t see him going through San Francisco. He didn’t like that traffic. On a Friday rush hour it would have been worse than usual. Besides, he wasn’t supposed to be at Pete’s until eight, and your father saw him in the garage about six-thirty. So Lito must have gone to San Francisco for a reason. But I’m damned if I know what it was.” He shook his head. “Do you think this business of the files has something to do with Lito’s murder?”

  “I don’t know what to think at this point. I just want to check all the angles. This man who’s interested in your uncle’s files — Edward Villegas — when did he contact you?”

  “Monday, two days ago. He called me at my office. I told him I was busy and I’d get back to him. So far I haven’t.”

  “Do you still have his number?” Alex nodded and reached for his wallet, taking out a yellow message slip with Villegas’s name and number scrawled in black ink. I made a note of the number, planning to check the local criss-cross directories to see if I could obtain an address to go with it. “Are you up to playing a game of cat and mouse?” I asked.

  “With you,” Alex said, a smile playing at his mouth, “or with Edward Villegas?”

  I ignored the suggestion in his smile and kept my voice businesslike. “Call Villegas back. Set up a meeting as soon as possible. Lunch, at the Rusty Scupper on the Oakland Embarcadero. When you get there, ask for a table by the window. I can see the dining room clearly from the bar.”

  “So you don’t think he’s a writer?”

  “No more than I think Dolores Cruz is your uncle’s widow. And I need to look at the professor’s files to see if I can find the envelope he sent my father.”

  “You’re welcome to them. I have no idea what’s there. I got rid of the furniture, but everything else in Lito’s office and house got tossed into boxes and hauled to the storage facility. Just say when, and I’ll meet you there.”

  “Tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Four o’clock,” Alex agreed. “It’s in San Leandro, on Doolittle Drive, between Davis and Marina. I’ll call Villegas first thing in the morning to see if I can arrange a meeting.”

  We both reached for the check and finally compromised by splitting it. Back at Alex’s apartment he invited me up for a nightcap, but I demurred. Alejandro Tongco was an interesting man, I thought as I drove back to Oakland. No, interesting didn’t cover it. He was charming, sexy — and still not very forthcoming. He was helpful up to a point, mainly because he was as curious as I was about Dolores Cruz, Edward Villegas, and their interest in his late uncle’s files. But Alex Tongco had closed up abruptly when I asked questions about the Manibusans, claiming he didn’t know much about that side of his family.

  I can’t help you there, he’d said. Can’t or won’t? Alejandro Tongco didn’t want to talk about his Manibusan relatives, which made me all the more curious to find out why.

  Six

  MARGARITAS ALWAYS LEAVE ME WITH A COTTON mouth and a dragged-through-a-knothole feeling. Not exactly hung over, just dicey. It was a quarter to six in the morning and the light coming through my bedroom window had a grayish cast to it. I lay sprawled on my back in my double bed, my body wanting more sleep. Business and Abigail made such a notion impossible.

  At least the margaritas had made me unaware of Abigail’s nocturnal peregrinations with the yellow mouse. That morning she’d left the mouse on the floor next to the bed and parked her solid tabby body on my stomach, where she sat staring down at my face, willing me to get up and feed her. I stared back at her and she stretched one paw forward to rest lightly on my cheek. If I ignored her too long, she would put her claws out and make the reminder more pointed.

  An hour later I was parked on Lakeside Avenue opposite the Parkside Towers, sipping coffee from a thermos and nibbling on a cheese Danish I’d picked up at the Merritt Bakery. The front section of that morning’s Oakland Tribune was spread out on the Toyota’s das
hboard. I glanced at it periodically, keeping one eye on the driveway leading to the building’s garage. The guard was at his post on the front door, but so far I hadn’t seen anyone enter or exit the building. To my right, down a grassy slope, was the asphalt path circling Lake Merritt, busy with early-morning joggers making the three-and-a-half-mile circuit. I tried not to let myself get distracted by the array of sculpted male rear ends and muscled legs, but when I’m on a stakeout, sometimes my attention wanders.

  Another hour crawled by. I finished reading the newspaper and consumed the second Danish. Several cars had pulled out of the Parkside Towers garage, none of them the white Thunderbird, none of them driven by Dolores Cruz. I’d been singing to myself and drinking coffee, hoping that the caffeine and Rodgers and Hammerstein would keep me awake In this fashion I had drained the thermos and worked my way through the score of South Pacific. The trouble with drinking coffee on a stakeout is that eventually I need to empty my bladder. Then it becomes a contest to see how long I can hold out.

  I reached into my paper sack of provisions and pulled out an orange. As I began peeling it, I cleared my throat and launched into an encore of “Some Enchanted Evening.” I was warbling “Once you have found her, never let her go,” when the white Thunderbird drove out of the garage across the street, Dolores Cruz at the wheel.

  I tossed the orange and a handful of peel onto the passenger seat and started my Toyota. My quarry made a running stop at the curb and turned left, pulling out into traffic. I edged into place two cars behind her. I followed her around the curve of Lake Merritt, where Lakeside Drive becomes Harrison Street. She cut to the right across two lanes and made the right turn onto Grand Avenue, accelerating as she hopped from lane to lane. I kept up with her and zoomed through a yellow light at MacArthur Boulevard so I wouldn’t lose her. Just past the intersection of Mandana Boulevard and Grand Avenue she took an abrupt right into a driveway. I pulled into a parking space a few yards back and waited.