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

by Janet Dawson

  “Which direction did they go?”

  “To the left, I think.”

  “The same direction as the professor,” I said. But the entrance to the St. Francis parking garage was located farther back in the hotel’s lobby, beyond the corridor where the professor had mailed the envelope. It was quite possible that Rick Navarro had waited in the lobby for Dr. Manibusan, waited to see what the professor’s next move would be, waited for Eddie the Knife so the two of them could eliminate the threat the professor posed to Max Navarro. “Was Dr. Manibusan still in the corridor?”

  “I have no idea. It was all jumbled up at the same time.”

  “Was Rick wearing his coat when he joined you at the party? Did you see Eddie Villegas again?”

  “No, Rick must have checked his coat. And no, I didn’t see Eddie.” She looked at her watch. “These are the most ludicrous questions. I don’t see what they have to do with anything. I must go now. Rick will be here any minute, and I haven’t done my hair.”

  “Did you know Dr. Manibusan was murdered that night?”

  “I didn’t find out until Rick and I got back from Hawaii. It was an impulse trip.” She smiled at the memory. “He called me the morning after the dinner and suggested we go to Maui, just like that. We stayed for a week.”

  “So you never told the police you’d seen Dr. Manibusan?”

  “Police? Why would I talk to the police?”

  I wanted to shake her. “They were looking for witnesses who might have seen the professor the night he was killed. Didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “I told Rick the night of the party,” she said, as if that explained everything. Perhaps it did. She had told Rick about the envelope as well. “It was a mugging, wasn’t it? Rick didn’t think my seeing Dr. Manibusan was important.”

  “I’ll bet he didn’t.”

  She made a move toward the door, but I halted her with a hand on her arm, shifting direction again, to a more immediate murder. “Were you out with the Navarros last Friday night?”

  “Yes. We went to Postrio.”

  “What time did you get home?”

  “Rick dropped me off early, just before nine, I think. I invited him in for coffee, but he said he had to get home.” She pulled away from me and looked out to the street, where Rick’s black Jaguar had pulled up to the curb. “There he is now,” she said, relief in her voice at the prospect of imminent rescue. “You’ll have to leave.”

  Rick Navarro looked less than pleased to see me standing on the Agoncillo front porch. He hurried up the sidewalk and steps, favoring Nina with a brief kiss before demanding, “What do you want?”

  I smiled pleasantly. “I got what I came for. By the way, Dolores Cruz was murdered Friday night. You remember Dolly, don’t you, Rick? The woman you told me you didn’t know.”

  Twenty-two

  MONDAY MORNING, FORTIFIED WITH COFFEE AND a bran muffin, I drove over the Bay Bridge to San Francisco and caught Roshan Singh at the cab company just as he was about to start his shift. He remembered picking up Efren Villegas outside Pacific Rim Imports last Monday, and told me he’d dropped off the old man at the corner of Twenty-fifth and Taraval in San Francisco, in the neighborhood known as the Sunset district.

  “I think he lived nearby,” Singh told me. “He said something like, ‘I can walk from here.’”

  “What did he do when he got out of the cab?”

  Singh stroked his beard and thought for a moment. “I was pulled up to the curb near a fireplug. He got out and he went into a little grocery near the corner. That’s all I remember.”

  Many of the little groceries in the City are owned by Arab-Americans, and the one on Taraval was no exception. The bespectacled man operating the register told me his name was Ibrahim. I described Efren Villegas as Ibrahim rang up an order for a Korean woman whose two boisterous offspring were threatening to topple a pyramid of oranges in the produce aisle.

  “Oh, yeah, Mr. Villegas,” he said as he took the woman’s money and bagged her groceries. I waited as he made change. The woman and her children departed, reducing the noise level in the store. Ibrahim pushed his glasses up his nose and took a sip from an oversize coffee mug with a lid. “He’s a regular, comes in for tobacco, bread, a quart of milk. Sometimes I deliver things to him when he’s sick and can’t go out. The address? Just around the corner, Santiago Street near Twenty-sixth.”

  Efren Villegas lived in a stucco row house, beige with brown shutters, its exterior in need of a paint job. A short driveway led to a garage tucked under the rest of the house and steps climbed to a minuscule porch and the front door. I rang the bell. After a moment I heard a click as someone opened the security peephole and looked out. He took his time making up his mind. Then he opened the door, the old man I’d seen with Max Navarro the past Monday, black eyes squinting at me through the screen door. He wore a pair of baggy brown pants and an equally capacious white short-sleeve shirt open at the neck, and a pair of brown leather slippers on his sockless feet. He said nothing, waiting for me to speak.

  “Efren Villegas?” He nodded slowly. I smiled and hoped he didn’t remember my being at Pacific Rim Imports as I went into a spiel about being a graduate history student. One of my history professors had told me that Mr. Villegas was a wealth of information about World War II, since he had fought as a partisan against the Japanese. The old man must have been over this route many times before, because he kept nodding.

  “Which professor?” Villegas asked when I paused for breath. “From Berkeley or San Francisco State?”

  “Dr. Lito Manibusan, at California State University in Hayward. He talked to you last November.” I watched his face for any sign of alarm or wariness, but he merely nodded.

  “Oh, yes. Filipino like me.”

  “May I come in?”

  Villegas nodded and unlocked the screen door. I didn’t see any evidence of a Mrs. Villegas as I walked into the narrow living room. The sofa was brown tweed, the upholstery worn through in several places. Magazines and newspapers were stacked haphazardly on the coffee table, and the TV set with its oversize screen had a layer of dust on top. On a small bookshelf near an overstuffed chair and ottoman I spotted some family photographs, one showing a younger Mr. Villegas with a plump, round-faced woman. There were a lot of children and grandchildren pictures, but I didn’t see any of Eddie.

  Mr. Villegas had been having a cup of coffee and a cigarette with his San Francisco Chronicle. Cup, ashtray, and newspaper were arrayed on a round table in a dining area at the back. He offered me coffee and I accepted, watching as he went into the small kitchen to pour a cup. The back wall held a square, curtained window that looked down on a small backyard that was mostly vegetable garden. When my host returned with a cup and saucer, I got him talking about his garden first. He was loquacious on the subject of squash and tomatoes and seemed glad of my company and my interest. Having thus primed the pump, I moved the conversation in the direction I wanted.

  Villegas was also from Pampanga Province, near the town of Malolos. I listened and took notes as he transported both of us back in time, telling me that he’d been working as a cane cutter on a sugar plantation when the Japanese invaded in December 1941. He smoked cigarette after cigarette from the battered pack next to his ashtray, detailing the cruelties of the Japanese occupation, describing how he’d escaped into the countryside and joined the partisans. What he told me had the ring of truth. It made me wonder about Javier Manibusan’s more cynical view of the motivations of the guerrillas who fought the Japanese.

  “Dr. Manibusan said you talked about an incident near the town of San Ygnacio,” I said at a break in the conversation, “when some villagers were killed by Japanese stragglers.”

  At the mention of San Ygnacio, Villegas cocked his head to one side and looked at me steadily, without answering, as though he was suspicious of my motives in asking about the incident. He stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray, then he spoke. “Such things happened often. The Japanese treated us
Filipinos very badly.”

  “But your group was in San Ygnacio that day. That’s why the professor asked you about it.”

  “Yes,” Villegas said slowly, almost reluctantly. “We came upon the Japanese and chased them away, but we were too late to save those men. Three men, two of them dead already. We carried the third one into town, but he died.”

  “How many Japanese soldiers?”

  “I don’t remember. Six or seven, maybe.” Villegas waved his hand. “It happened very fast. We came on them suddenly, and it was dusk.”

  “Who else was with you?” He looked at me as though he didn’t understand my question. “Who commanded your group? Who was in charge of your unit?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for his cigarettes. I sighed inwardly. I’d had enough passive smoke for one day. “My cousin,” he began, reaching for his lighter. He didn’t have a chance to finish. I heard the rapid thud of steps on the back stairs. The back door swung open, and Eddie the Knife burst into the kitchen, carrying a brown paper sack cradled in his left arm.

  “Hey, Gramps, I brought you some groceries.” Eddie stopped as he saw me and dropped the sack onto the nearest counter. He crossed the threshold from kitchen to dining room and grabbed my arm, hauling me to my feet. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  The old man stood up and pulled Eddie’s hand away from me, admonishing Eduardo in Tagalog. Then he stopped talking and stared at me as Eddie fired back in the same language. The younger Villegas stuck his face about three inches from mine. I didn’t like the look in his eyes. “You got a lot of nerve coming here. You’re dead meat, bitch.”

  “What are you going to do, Eddie? Knife me right here in front of your grandfather?” My words were full of bravado, but at the moment Eddie didn’t look as though he was wrapped too tightly. People like that are dangerous. “I don’t think the Navarros would approve, especially Cousin Max.”

  At the mention of Max Navarro, I saw something flicker in Efren Villegas’s eyes. “You were about to tell me the name of your commander in the partisans. Was it your cousin, Max Navarro?”

  “Me?” the old man said, shrugging. “I’m just a retired tailor. How would I know such an influential man?”

  “I was at Pacific Rim Imports last Monday afternoon when you and Max Navarro returned from lunch. He gave you a white envelope before he introduced you to his new wife, Antonia, and sent you home in a cab. He said you were his cousin, that you fought together in the war.”

  Suddenly the old man looked frightened and confused as his eyes moved back and forth between me and his grandson. I almost felt sorry for him, and regret at having deceived him, but I had to get some answers. “What was in the envelope? Money? Is Max Navarro paying you for something? Your silence? Or that story you just told me?”

  “You talk too much, Gramps,” Eddie snarled. The knife came out of his back pocket so fast, I scarcely saw him move. I took a step back as the blade glittered, my eyes on Eddie, my hands reaching for something, anything, to block the expected thrust. But the old man moved quickly for one of his years, interjecting himself and a stream of Tagalog into the confrontation. Eddie hesitated. His grandfather spoke again, pushing away the hand that held the knife.

  “Get out,” Eddie snapped, his eyes raking over me, propelling me to the front door. “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”

  When I reached my car, I got in and locked the doors. It was hot with the windows rolled up, and my clothes reeked of cigarette smoke, but I felt chilled as I sat there for a moment, oblivious of the smell, my hands tight on the steering wheel, feeling protected by the glass and metal cage of my automobile.

  I found out something, I thought, looking up at the Villegas house. But not enough.

  Arthur Randall glared at me with undisguised hostility. “What are you, some kind of a ghoul, coming here and bothering us at a time like this?”

  A Randall offspring had opened the front door of the family home in Daly City, a teenage boy who had his father’s height and breadth along with his mother’s brown eyes and black hair. When I identified myself, his father took his place, fiercely barring the door against my intrusion. For the second time that day, I was an unwelcome visitor.

  “First you come prowling around our office,” Randall was saying, “then you bring Immigration down on our heads. Now the police think you killed my sister-in-law.”

  “I didn’t kill her, Mr. Randall. Are you interested in finding out who did?”

  Perlita Randall joined her husband at the door, a diminutive figure in a plain black dress, her eyes reddened and puffy from tears. She looked at me with those eyes for a moment. Then she looked up at her husband. “Let her in, Art.”

  He started to argue, but she snapped off a phrase in Tagalog and he closed his mouth, giving me a poisonous look as he stepped aside for me to enter. I walked into a tiled foyer with a hallway to my left and a staircase in front of me. I followed Perlita Randall into the spacious living room, my feet sinking into deep, rust-colored carpet. She sat down on a long sofa upholstered in a chintz print that picked up the color of the carpet and the pale green of the wallpaper. On the coffee table in front of her, its wooden surface protected by an oval lace doily, I saw a cup of tea in a saucer and what looked like an oversize album with a brown leather cover, fat with photographs.

  I looked around the living room for other pictures, and saw framed, enlarged snapshots on the fireplace mantel, Arthur and Perlita with a trio of teenage sons. All three of the boys, evidently kept home from school, poked their heads in through the kitchen doorway to stare at me. Their father barked a few words at them. The two younger siblings disappeared, but the kid who’d answered the door remained, catching my eye as though he wanted to tell me something. I returned his look, then turned my attention to his parents. Arthur had taken a protective position, standing over Perlita, who sat back on the sofa and put her hands in her lap, waiting for me to speak.

  “What was her real name?” I asked.

  “Dolores Monica Cruz.” Perlita said the name slowly, as though she were tolling a bell. She sighed, and her voice cracked a bit as she continued. “She was my baby sister. There were seven years between us. We were from Olongapo, near Subic, the naval base. My father had a store. My brothers and sisters and I worked there, stocking the shelves and running the cash register. The sailors would come in to buy things. That’s how I met my husband.” He put a hand on her shoulder. She reached up and patted it.

  I smiled and spoke in a quiet voice. “I don’t think your sister was content to work in a store.”

  Perlita shook her head. “No. Dolly liked to sing and dance. She wanted to be famous, to go to Manila and sing in the clubs there. She would sing in the clubs in Olongapo. My father didn’t like it. He was afraid of what would become of her.” She stopped and took a deep, ragged breath, reaching for her teacup before she continued. Her hand shook a bit and the china cup chinked against the spoon resting on the saucer.

  “Then Dolly met Jimmy Rios. He was well known in the Philippines since he made a couple of records. He came to Subic with a USO show that was visiting all the American bases. They needed backup singers, and Dolly went to audition. They hired her, and she went with them for the rest of the tour. When it was over, Dolly and Jimmy got married.” Perlita sighed. “So she got to Manila after all.”

  I pointed at the oversize book on the coffee table. “Pictures of Dolly’s career?”

  Without a word Perlita picked up the album and handed it to me. It was heavy. I put it on my lap and opened it. A much younger Dolores Cruz stared up at me from a black-and-white publicity still. She must have been eighteen or nineteen when the photograph was taken, a pretty girl, tossing back shoulder-length black hair, her smile fresh and eager. Next to it was a poster for a nightclub in Olongapo, with Dolly’s name midway down the list of acts,

  I turned the pages slowly. The yellowed newspaper clippings were mostly in Tagalog, but I was able to follow the pattern of
Dolly’s career by looking at the pictures and publicity handbills. She had done well after marrying Jimmy Rios, touring with him between gigs at clubs in Manila, singing backup vocals on his records. The marriage and partnership flourished for several years. Then, six years ago, Rios was killed in a car accident, and his wife’s career took a corresponding dive. She still worked the clubs in Manila, but evidently she wasn’t the draw Jimmy had been. Later photographs showed an increasingly sophisticated look in her clothes and makeup. Her face held a shadow of weariness, the weariness we all get when we realize that life doesn’t turn out exactly the way we think it should. Nowhere in the book did I see the Dolly Cruz I had encountered two weeks earlier at the university, the woman whose hard eyes held equal parts cunning and calculation as she tried to convince her audience that she was Lito Manibusan’s widow.

  I closed the cover on Perlita’s collection of memories and put it back on the coffee table. “How did she meet Max Navarro?”

  Perlita had been sipping her tea while I scanned the album, looking composed. Now she winced as she set the cup aside. “I’m not sure,” she said. “We weren’t as close, because of the age difference. When Art and I got married, she was still living at home and working in Papa’s store. Then the navy transferred us to Pearl Harbor. My mother would write with all the family news, and send me these pictures and things to put into the book. Papa died ten years ago and Mama died the year after Jimmy, so the link was broken.”

  “Still, you must know something about the time she spent with Navarro. How did she meet him?”

  Perlita didn’t like to talk about this period of her sister’s life; that much was plain. I let the silence stretch. Finally she spoke. “Dolly sang at a party. I think she met him there. They went out together several times. Next thing I heard was that he was paying all her bills, keeping her as his querida in a fancy apartment in Manila.”

  “How did he treat her?”

  “How does a rich old man with a dying wife treat a mistress?” Perlita asked bitterly, then answered her own question. “He kept her out of sight, but he bought her clothes and jewelry. She had a maid and her own car. She was tired and lonely after Jimmy died, having trouble with money. Navarro seduced her with his riches and his power. I think she believed he would marry her when his wife died. What a fool. She was just a shopkeeper’s daughter from Olongapo. People like Maximiliano Navarro don’t marry people like us. Besides, everyone knew Navarro had mistresses all the time he was married. His poor wife killed herself, but Navarro didn’t marry my sister. He just kept her until he was tired of her, then he threw her away. At the very end she knew their relationship was over. She was... resigned to it, accepting it. But I know it hurt her. She was very angry when he married that rich widow.”