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

by Janet Dawson

  “I’m so glad you called. I really do want to photograph you for my series. I have a woman cop and a woman firefighter, so a private investigator would be a great addition.”

  “I’d like to talk with you,” I said, not committing myself to anything but conversation. “What’s your schedule tomorrow morning?”

  We set up a ten A.M. appointment. As I hung up the phone, my stomach growled at me, reminding me that I’d had no lunch again today, and it was nearly seven. I put the notes into the Cal State Hayward folder and locked the filing cabinet. The phone rang and I reached for it.

  “Jeri,” my father crowed. “I found it. I found the envelope Lito sent me.”

  “Where? What’s in it?” I perched on the edge of my desk. Maybe now we’d get some answers.

  “It had fallen behind a filing cabinet in my office. We were moving some things this afternoon to make room for another bookcase, and there it was. Jeri, it’s postmarked San Francisco, the day after Lito was murdered. It’s got that note from Lito, some photocopies of documents, and a microcassette. I’ve got a recorder, but I haven’t listened to it yet. I wanted to wait until you were here.”

  “You’re at the university? I’ll be right down.”

  “No, wait. I’m about to go into my seven o’clock graduate seminar. I’ll be finished at nine. You’ve still got my extra key. Meet me at home. I should be there by nine-thirty.”

  I agreed, though I was eager to get my hands on that damned envelope. I closed up the office and headed for the Jade Villa and a meal of pot stickers and mu shu pork. Then I stopped at my apartment to feed Abigail. She greeted me with her tail up, hungry-cat meows at full volume. I sidestepped the yellow mouse, which she’d dropped in the middle of the living room floor, and headed for the kitchen to dish up cat food. At a quarter to nine I left for Castro Valley. Dad had a light on a timer, so the living room of his town house was bathed in light from a hanging lamp. I was pleased to see that he’d changed the locks on the sliding glass doors leading to the patio. Someone had given him some homemade chocolate chip cookies, so I helped myself to a couple and poured a glass of milk to go with them. I settled onto the sofa to wait for my father, using the remote to switch on the television and scan the channels. He hadn’t shown up by nine-thirty, but that didn’t surprise me. He was probably talking to some students after class. I hit the kitchen for another round of cookies.

  By the time the ten o’clock news started on Channel 2 I was getting concerned. My anxiety grew all the way through sports and weather. When the phone rang, I grabbed it before his answering machine could pick up the call. I heard Isabel Kovaleski’s voice on the other end of the wire.

  “Jeri,” she said, “your father’s hurt.”

  Fourteen

  “I WAS PUSHED,” DAD SAID.

  He sat on a bench just outside the emergency room at St. Rose Hospital, giving his statement to a couple of uniformed Hayward cops. I stood next to him, hands stuck into my pockets, the frown on my face mirrored by Isabel Kovaleski’s. Cal State security chief Elaine Martini waited on the opposite side of the corridor, looming like a bad habit one couldn’t quite break.

  “I parked my car in that small staff lot on the west side of Meiklejohn Hall, near the loading dock,” Dad said, rubbing his eyes. His glasses were broken. Without them his face looked old, tired, and vulnerable. “The lot is on the lower level. Ordinarily I would have taken the elevator down to the basement and gone out that door to the parking lot. But after class several of my students had questions, so I walked with them out the north door, the one facing the library. We talked for a few minutes, then split up. I turned to my left and walked down the wheelchair ramp toward the outdoor staircase leading down to that lower-level parking lot. I thought I heard footsteps behind me, but that’s not unusual. A lot of classes break at nine. Just as I reached the top step someone rushed at me, pulled my briefcase out of my hand, and shoved. I went flying. All I could think of was trying to cover my face and head.”

  He had tumbled down the long flight of stairs, flinging his arms up to protect his head from hitting the steps or the metal handrail. At the bottom he landed heavily on his left side, sprawled on the concrete walk, conscious but stunned. Dr. Kovaleski found him a few minutes later.

  The ambulance summoned by the campus patrolmen brought Dad to the nearest hospital, where a battery of X rays revealed no broken bones. But he was scraped, bruised, had a sprained wrist, and favored his left ankle when he walked slowly to the bench where he now sat.

  “Contents of the briefcase?” one of the cops asked. “Keys? Money? Any valuables?”

  Dad looked at me. “An envelope containing some papers and a microcassette. A couple of books. And research papers I had just collected from my seminar students. I hope they kept copies.”

  The Hayward officers dutifully wrote down everything for their report, but I could tell that as far as they were concerned, the incident was just the latest in the series of assaults plaguing the campus this quarter. But I didn’t think so. Judging from the look on Dad’s face, neither did he. His assailant had been after Dr. Manibusan’s envelope. Someone must have overheard my father when he’d called to tell me he’d located the envelope. Right now the words replaying in my head were those of Belinda at the travel agency, telling me Dolores Cruz was taking a class at Cal State Hayward. That gave Dolly the opportunity as well as the motive. But she wasn’t the only player in this game. What about Eddie the Knife Villegas? He, too, wanted something from the late professor’s files. Surely it must be the envelope.

  Elaine Martini was watching me as though she’d caught the look that passed between my father and me when he mentioned the envelope and could now see wheels turning inside my skull. The police officers departed. Dad stood and attempted to put on his jacket. He winced at the effort and gave up. Isabel took his jacket, and we walked toward the door, but Chief Martini separated me from them as deftly as a sheep dog cutting a ewe out of the flock.

  “What’s so important about that envelope?” I didn’t answer right away. “I’ll bet we find Dr. Howard’s briefcase ditched on campus tomorrow,” she continued, folding her arms across her chest. “Everything will be in it — the books, the research papers — except that envelope your father mentioned. The one with the microcassette. Am I right?”

  “You don’t miss much.”

  “It’s my job not to miss much.”

  “Dr. Manibusan mailed the envelope to Dad. I have a feeling he mailed it right before he was murdered. Unfortunately Dad couldn’t find it until today. It had fallen behind a filing cabinet. He called me right before his seven o’clock class to tell me. Someone must have overheard him.”

  “So this is no random mugging,” she said, raising one black eyebrow. “Do you think the woman who’s claiming to be Dr. Manibusan’s widow is responsible?”

  “Maybe. According to one of her coworkers, she’s taking some classes at Cal State.”

  Elaine Martini shook her head. “She’s not registered under the name Dolores Cruz or Dolores Manibusan. Never has been. However, I did run a check on the license plate of that Thunderbird she’s driving. My people have ticketed it twice, the last time on the day the unidentified woman was spotted in your father’s office. What do you suppose is on that cassette?”

  “It could be anything, from notes on Dr. Manibusan’s latest research project to information on why he was killed — and who killed him.”

  She was silent for a moment while we speculated on the possibilities contained in the envelope. Then she frowned. “I’ve been trying to decide whether there’s a conflict of interest here.”

  “Not the way I look at it. We’re both working for the university.”

  “But your father is involved,” she pointed out, “through no fault of his own. Now he’s a target. Don’t let personal feelings get in the way of your judgment. It’s the worst mistake you could make.”

  She was right, I thought as I joined Dad and Dr. Kovaleski outside the
hospital. I’m always like a bloodhound when I catch the scent, never letting go until I solve whatever puzzle is before me. But it certainly felt different and dangerous to have my own father caught in the middle. First he’d gone through the shock of finding Dr. Manibusan’s body. Then his home had been violated, and now his person. All the way from Oakland to the hospital I had gripped the wheel of my car in fury. If I was going to solve this case, I had to douse that fury with the cold water of reason and think logically.

  I drove my father home, repeating Isabel’s admonition that he needn’t go to work tomorrow. I settled him into bed, phone and pain pills within reach, and headed back to Oakland, telling him I’d check in by phone the next morning. My sleep was restless, punctuated by dreams and by Abigail’s piercing cries as she stalked and killed the yellow yarn mouse. Thursday’s breakfast was interrupted as well, by a phone call.

  “Would you kindly explain what happened to your father?”

  “Hello, Mother.” I masked a sigh as I reached for my coffee. “How did you find out?”

  “Your father called your brother, who called me.” Ah, the family grapevine, I thought. The news would be all over Monterey by now. “I hope you haven’t involved him in one of your cases,” Mother was saying, her voice radiating her usual disapproval of my choice of profession.

  It was more the other way around, but I didn’t elaborate. I managed to calm her concerns about my father, then I called Dad to see how he was feeling. Sore and bruised, he said. His ankle felt better, but the sprained wrist was giving him some pain. He’d canceled his classes for the day, but he hoped to go to work tomorrow.

  “There’s no need to play hero and tough it out,” I said. “They can run the university without you for a couple of days. You stay home and get some rest.”

  “You sound like your mother.” The irony was that he was right. I was a good deal like my mother, which was probably why we didn’t get along. Dad grumbled about the inactivity of taking it easy. I thought about calling Isabel Kovaleski and making an end run around him to get him to stay home for the rest of the week, but admitted to myself it was probably a lost cause. Dad was a grown-up. I couldn’t very well tie him to the bed if he wanted to go to work.

  Felice Navarro lived and worked in a tiny brown-shingled house on a side street just off College Avenue in the Rockridge area, where Oakland gave way to Berkeley. As I drove along College, I saw another car pulling away from the curb and quickly claimed the space. It was ten in the morning, and shops along the avenue were just opening. I smelled freshly ground coffee as I passed an espresso place, then my nose caught the pungent scent of onions from the bagel bakery farther down the street, and my mouth watered.

  Now I spotted a wooden sign on a post at the head of the walk, a painted square attached to an upside down L, reading NAVARRO PHOTOGRAPHY. Instead of grass, the postage-stamp-size front yard held ground cover, a mass of sweet-smelling jasmine, tiny white flowers dotting the dark green foliage that threatened to engulf the front walk. Bright orange California poppies flamed next to the house. I mounted the shallow steps of the front porch and rang the bell. A moment later Felice opened the door, wearing a red sweat suit so bright, it hurt my eyes. She carried a blue ceramic mug decorated with a pink duck.

  “Come in,” she said, saluting me with the duck. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  I followed her through the living room. It had been turned into a portrait studio, minimally furnished with a silvery backdrop spread in front of the wall to my right and portable lights on either side of the room’s centerpiece, a camera on a tripod. On my left as we walked toward the kitchen were framed color photographs, representative shots showing how Felice made her living. The largest was a portrait of a bride and groom in traditional church-wedding attire, gazing into each other’s eyes. It was flanked by portraits, one of a middleaged couple, the other a family consisting of husband and wife my own age surrounded by four small children, all grinning cheerfully at the camera.

  Felice’s kitchen was small, bright, and crowded, with cream-colored tile and pots of pink and purple African violets on the windowsills. A variety of mugs hung from a wooden rack on the wall next to the sink. Felice chose one with a black-and-white cow on it and filled it with coffee from a pot sitting next to her microwave oven. She handed me the mug and led the way out onto an enclosed back porch that ran the full length of the house.

  The porch served as her living and dining area, a small round table with two chairs at this end, a series of shelves with television and stereo at the other end. Morning sun spilled in the windows, sparkling the dust and streaks on the panes, caressing the velvety petals of another row of African violets. A back door opened out to a tiny yard with a redwood deck, shaded by a magnolia tree. A rattan sofa and a matching chair with bright floral cushions were grouped in the middle, an end table between them. The rectangular coffee table in front of the sofa was stacked haphazardly with photography books and magazines, all threatening to tumble to the floor.

  On this wall I saw the photographs taken by Felice the artist, stark black and white, in contrast to the portraits in the living-room-turned-studio. My eye was drawn to a shot taken on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, looking toward the university, the camera lens capturing students, panhandlers, and street merchants jostling for space on the crowded sidewalks. Another photo showed a homeless man peering warily from the cardboard box where he’d spent the night. And here was a juggler with her face painted like a clown, long hair tossed by a breeze, four balls suspended in midair.

  “These are good,” I said. “I like them.”

  “Thanks.” Felice reached for the knob of the open door leading from the back porch to her bedroom, its small space taken up by an unmade double bed and a low dresser. She closed the door on the disarray. “The front bedroom’s even tinier. I turned it into my darkroom. And there’s hardly any closet space. But I really got a good deal on the house.”

  “With housing prices what they are these days, it’s an accomplishment for any single person to buy a house.” I sat down in the rattan chair. Felice pushed a couple of throw pillows to one side and sat cross-legged on the sofa.

  “My brother helped me with the down payment. He might as well — he’s got lots of money.” Her voice held the edge I had heard the first time I met her, the first time she mentioned her brother. I wondered about Felice’s relationship with Rick. She seemed at times to resent him, but maybe that sharp tone was indicative of the kind of rough, bantering affection I shared with my own brother.

  “Your father’s money. Aren’t you entitled to some of it as well?”

  The edge in her voice sharpened like the blade of a knife. “I don’t want anything from my father.” Felice must have been immune to her father’s charm, or at least less susceptible to it than the rest of the world.

  “I met him yesterday at Pacific Rim Imports.”

  “Max? Yes, he’s here on one of his periodic inspection tours. He comes every four months or so, to make sure Rick is running things properly. As though Rick needed anyone looking over his shoulder. He and my father are cut from the same bolt of cloth.”

  “Will you see your father while he’s here?”

  “If Max wants to make the trip to Oakland, I’ll see him,” she said, sipping her coffee. “But I won’t be summoned to the house in Pacific Heights to be quizzed and criticized.”

  “What have you done that warrants criticizing?”

  Felice laughed. “I’ve been disappointing my father since I was old enough to walk. Each time Max visits the Bay Area, he wants to know why I’m not married to the right sort of Filipino husband, having babies like a good Filipino wife.”

  “I thought Filipino women were more independent than women in other parte of Asia.”

  “Only up to a point. Then all that Catholic patriarchal stuff gets in the way. I got thrown out of several of the best convent schools in Manila by the time I was eighteen. So Max decided it
was time I got married. He selected the bridegroom, the son of some rich old man who owns gold mines in Benquet. Might as well extend the family fortune while marrying off the rebellious daughter. Of course I refused to go through with it. I finished school in Manila and went to the university instead. My father has been angry with me ever since. He wrote me off. I don’t exist to him, except as a disappointment. My brothers are doing what is expected of them. Jun lets the peasants grow his sugar cane on the plantation and he and his wife have produced lots of grandchildren. Rick runs the import business and he’ll probably take over the rest.”

  I pointed the conversation back toward Felice herself. “How did you end up here in the Bay Area?”

  A moment passed before she answered. When she did, her voice was subdued. “I got married after all. To an American.”

  That surprised me. She wore no wedding ring, just the chunky topaz on her right hand. “I thought you were single.”

  “I am now. Divorced last year. Damaged goods.”

  “Only if you believe it. Was your father upset because of your divorce?”

  “Oh, he’s a great believer in the sanctity of marriage,” she said bitterly. “Divorce is a disgrace, but he always had a little querida on the side, all the time my mother was ill, probably before. After Mama died, I thought he might even marry the last one. So did she. He kept her in a fancy apartment in Manila. But Max is going to run for president, so he needs the right kind of wife, not his mistress, who’s getting a little shopworn. Instead, he found someone with lots of social connections and plenty of political clout. Did you meet my new stepmother? Dear Antonia. She’s a senator’s widow, an ambassador’s daughter, and her brother is a general. Her family owns a lot of land in Nueva Ecija Province. She’ll look very presentable in Malacañang Palace.”

  Vitriol blackened Felice’s words each time she spoke of her father. I knew from reading Lito Manibusan’s file on Max Navarro that the first Mrs. Navarro had been an invalid for a long time, suffering from cancer before she committed suicide several years ago. That, combined with Max’s treatment of his daughter, was evidently a festering sore. I aimed the conversation away from Maximiliano Navarro, curious about Felice’s husband. This was the first I’d heard of him.