The Sleeping Lady

by Bonnie C. Monte

“So nothing unusual happened? No disturbance or anything?”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” I admitted. “But I was the one on the phone with her, and she saw something that surprised her. I was just wondering what it was.”

  “Sorry, Rae, can’t help you with that. The place was jumping. But like I said, she kept watching the window the whole time.” Another customer waved to him for a refill. I thanked him and left a big tip—probably not as big as Thalia had left, but sizable.

  “Brenda,” said the man sitting next to me.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You should talk to Brenda. She was working on Monday. Ask her if anything happened over there.” He nodded toward the counter and the stools along the front window.

  “Um, OK, thanks.”

  I took my glass of beer and intercepted Brenda on her way to place an order. She didn’t appreciate being waylaid, but when I told her I was a friend of the murdered woman, she took an interest. She spent a few seconds looking at Marcel’s photo, then shook her head.

  I posed my question about what Thalia might have seen. “Hmm. I don’t remember anything,” Brenda replied.

  “Ok, thanks.” Dead end.

  “You know,” she said, “you should talk to those guys.” She nodded at two fellows over by the pool table. “They come in almost every day after work. Maybe they saw something. I didn’t tell the police to talk to them. Them being here illegally and all. But you seem nice enough.”

  “OK, thanks for your help.” Still clutching my beer, I moseyed over to the pool table.

  “Hi,” I said, not sure how to break the ice. The two of them looked at me with interest. One had flaming red hair and a red beard. The other was dark-haired and wore a tweed cap.

  “Good evening,” said the red-haired fellow in a thick Irish brogue.

  “Brenda said you might be able to help me.” I explained that I was a friend of the murdered woman and was trying to get some information.

  “That lady who was killed in the park?” asked the one in the cap.

  “That’s right. I understand you’re in here most nights. Did either of you see her last Monday?” I showed Thalia’s photo. Neither recalled having seen her, although they recognized her face from the news coverage. Next I showed them Marcel’s photo. Nothing.

  “OK. One more question. Did anything unusual happen while you were here?”

  They both shrugged at each other. “No, just the usual.”

  “No fights, no incidents? Anything at all out of the ordinary?”

  “No,” said the redhead. But then he turned toward his pal, saying, “Wait, hold on. There was that one girl, the one who you bought a beer.”

  “Tell me about her,” I said to the other man.

  “She said some bloke had been chatting her up and got up to go to the john. Real sudden. Then she saw him come out of the john and dash out the door. She was plenty ticked off.”

  “What did the man look like?”

  “I never saw him. She came over to our table after he was gone. She was pretty drunk by then.”

  “Have you seen her in here again?”

  Neither of them had. “Well, if you do, could you ask her to call me? Here’s my card. Even better, try to get her phone number for me. That should be easy for two handsome fellows like you.”

  “There’s a reward, right?”

  “Yes, if your information leads to catching the murderer, there’s a big reward. You and this girl could split it. So make sure you call me.” They promised they would.

  CHAPTER 18

  I reopened for business the next day. Dozens of people from the neighboring shops on San Anselmo Avenue stopped by to offer condolences. Some brought flowers. The owner of the bagel store sent a huge tray of food, which I set out for customers.

  Good thing I had arranged for Susan to switch to full time. The high-profile case with glamorous Thalia plastered all over the front pages proved to be a big draw. Who knew murder would be so good for business? In fact, it was probably boosting traffic for the whole street, since many people confessed they had never been to (or even heard of) San Anselmo before. “What a quaint little town,” was a common refrain.

  Although most customers expressed sympathy, some came in simply to gawk—and offer up theories to one another. I heard whispered suggestions of a political hit, the victim’s lesbian lover, and even the Russian mafia.

  And then there was a designer-clad pair who appeared to be mother and daughter. “That’s her,” the older woman said in a loud nasal voice. “From the Barnaby & Sloane scandal. I knew it! It’s no wonder she changed her name.”

  “Can I help you find something?” I asked her.

  “Oh, we’re just looking,” said her younger clone.

  “Actually, you’re doing more than looking,” I said icily. “You’re gossiping about me, which I don’t appreciate, especially since I just lost a very close friend.”

  They sputtered a bit, then turned and walked out the door. An elderly lady waiting to pay for her purchase said, “Good for you, dear. Some people just have no manners.”

  I worked all day without a break, barely having a spare minute to go to the bathroom. When it was finally closing time, I met Sonia around the corner for a taco. We sat at an outside table so that Jasper could lie next to us while we ate.

  “Have you met Detective Levine?” Sonia asked.

  “No. Who’s he?”

  “Another detective who’s working on the case. Hernandez and Warren were busy, so Levine interviewed me.”

  “Is he a jerk like Warren?”

  “No, not at all. He’s nice. And he’s cute. Well, not physically cute. He’s kind of nerdy looking, and he’s losing his hair. But he’s funny. And he knows stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff ?”

  “Everything. He reads a lot. He asked what kind of work I do, and we talked for a half hour about midcentury modern furniture design.”

  “So he’s gay?”

  “Definitely not,” Sonia said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know,” she said with certainty. “He almost asked me out. But of course he can’t while he’s working on the case. Once it’s over, maybe.”

  I couldn’t picture Sonia with a balding police officer. Her boyfriends were typically struggling artists and musicians. Someone with a steady paycheck would be a new experience for her.

  “By the way,” she said, “this salsa is almost as good as my grandma’s secret recipe. Almost. I’ll bring you back a jar next time I visit her in LA.”

  This was as good a time as any to drop my bombshell. “Peter wants to move to Arizona.”

  Sonia’s hand froze over the bowl of chips. “What!”

  “Yep. I’m ignoring the whole thing, hoping it will go away. He has property there that he needs to deal with. And he thinks it will be good for me.”

  “What are you, sixty-five years old? What does he mean, ‘good for you’?”

  “You know. A change.”

  “Allow me to remind you that you hate the desert,” Sonia said. “You love the ocean. The redwoods. And you don’t play golf, which I think is a legal requirement in Arizona,” she added snidely.

  “So you’re saying it’s a bad idea.”

  “Of course. You don’t know anyone there. And what about the shop?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I mused. “That was always Thalia’s thing, really. I’m kind of at loose ends. I have to admit, I am feeling like I need a change.”

  “Dye your hair,” she said, scooping up more salsa on a chip.

  “Sonia, I’m serious.”

  “So am I. It works wonders.”

  “There’s more to it.” I explained that Peter was in a bit of a financial bind, how his plan was to fix up some of the properties and sell them at a profit. I told her that the idea was for me to do the landscaping and him to do the remodeling. “We’d be in business together.”

  “Hmm.
Like Beyoncé and Jay Z.”

  I laughed. “Besides, it’s only temporary. We’d rent out the house in Fairfax with the intention of coming back.”

  She studied my face. “So if it’s such a great plan, why don’t you look happier?”

  Good question. “I guess I don’t feel like Peter and I are very much of a team these days. The fact that I had to find out about his financial troubles from the police—I just can’t forgive him for that.”

  Sonia nodded.

  “And . . . I don’t know . . . I just feel restless.”

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain handsome Frenchman, would it?”

  I could feel my face getting hot. “It’s not that. It’s . . . Things just haven’t been the same with Peter and me since Thalia died. He’s very sweet. He says all the right things. But I just feel . . . a distance between us.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t mean a thing,” Sonia responded. “It’s impossible to feel passionate about a man all the time. I mean, it might be feasible if they just tried, but they don’t understand the need for romance. They leave their dirty underwear on the floor and they fart and they watch stupid TV shows. It’s like they want you to stop being attracted to them.”

  “Peter doesn’t do that.”

  “Peter doesn’t fart?”

  “Not in front of me.”

  “Consider yourself extraordinarily lucky,” Sonia said.

  CHAPTER 19

  As I folded laundry later that evening, I ruminated. If Marcel had left Dr. Lee’s shop by five, what had he been doing between then and the time he arrived in a taxi at the hotel at 8:45? I wondered how I could find out where the taxi had picked him up. Something nagged at me, and then I remembered. I’d snatched two Yellow Cab receipts from Marcel’s hotel room. With luck, one of them would be for the ride on September 1. I hurried upstairs and extracted them from a pile of papers on my desk. Yep. A receipt from September 1, printed at 8:21 p.m.—complete with vehicle number!

  Armed with that information, I phoned Yellow Cab, claiming to have left my phone in the back seat on September 1. I described the time of the ride and gave him the car’s number.

  “You remember the number?” the dispatcher asked with surprise.

  “I have a receipt,” I explained. “My accountant tells me, always get a receipt.”

  “Hmm. Let me see. Cab eight-eight-nine, that’s Dominic Yovino. No, Dom didn’t turn in anything that day. It’s possible you lost it somewhere else.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, after a pause. “Maybe he didn’t see it.”

  “We clean the cabs every twenty-four hours, lady. If there was a phone back there, we’d find it.”

  “OK, well, thanks for your help.”

  At least I had a name. Maybe I could track down this Dominic Yovino and ask him if he remembered where he’d picked up Marcel. Short of breaking into Yellow Cab’s office and checking their records, I couldn’t think of any other solution.

  Maybe Sonia knew someone at Yellow Cab. She seemed to know people everywhere. I called her and explained my problem. “Nope, sorry, I have no inside connections in the taxi world,” she said. “Oh, wait, I have an idea. Why don’t we book a cab and ask for this Dominic guy to drive us?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ll do it,” she said with excitement. “I’ll say he’s our favorite and we want Dominic. The shop’s closed on Wednesday, right? We’ll do it then. Pack a carry-on bag. We’ll have him take us to the airport.”

  “The airport?” I protested, thinking of the cost of this excursion.

  “It has to be done,” she said firmly. “Yellow Cab won’t come to Marin, so we’ll need to get picked up in the city. And we can’t just go a few blocks. I need time to get the information out of him, right? With any luck, we’ll get stuck in traffic and have plenty of time to talk.”

  Frankly I was relieved that she was the one handling this. If anyone could get a man to open up, it was Sonia. The next few days passed quickly, with the shop demanding all of my attention. When Wednesday rolled around, Sonia picked me up bright and early. We drove to Liberty Street in the Castro neighborhood and pulled into the driveway of a Victorian cottage.

  “Why here?” I asked.

  “It’s a friend’s house. He’s at work already, so I can park in his driveway. Come on.” We waited out front, clutching our fake carry-ons. Sonia had even draped a foam travel pillow around her neck to look flight-ready. At ten minutes after nine, Yellow Cab number 889 pulled up.

  “Good morning, ladies,” said the driver, getting out to grab our bags. He was a small, wiry man with a mischievous smile. We climbed into the back seat. The radio was turned up loud, blaring a sports show. “SFO, right? Domestic terminal?”

  “Yep.”

  “I figured, since you have no suitcases. Where you headed?”

  “Phoenix,” Sonia answered without missing a beat. She was good at this. She waited until he’d zipped up San Jose Avenue and was merging onto the 280 freeway before she launched into her story. “We asked for you specifically, you know. A friend of ours hailed your cab the other night, and he said you were great. A fast driver.”

  “That’s me. Speedy.” As if to prove it, he changed lanes with a burst of acceleration, causing the car he’d cut off to honk loudly. I clutched the door handle.

  “I bet you remember him,” Sonia continued. “He was from France.”

  “I don’t know. We get a lot of tourists in the city.”

  “He went to the Jameson Hotel on Sacramento Street,” Sonia prompted.

  “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember that guy.” Dominic was so close to the car in front of us that I was sure we were going to plow into it. But getting the hint, the driver moved over a lane, allowing our cab to roar ahead. “He was in a hurry to get to a meeting with his boss,” Dominic continued. “Funny time of day for a meeting.” He was doing about eighty-five now, passing cars with abandon.

  “You picked him up near Golden Gate Park, right?” Sonia asked.

  “Nah. Nah, I don’t think so. Wait, let me think.” I didn’t want him thinking about anything other than his driving, but what could I do? “No, no, I picked him up on Geary. Yeah, I remember. Geary and Arguello. It was raining pretty hard.”

  I quickly calculated. That would be about a ten-minute drive. And if he’d started walking right after he killed Thalia, the timing would fit. Maybe he was going to walk back to the hotel, but it was taking too long, so he hailed a cab.

  We passed Candlestick Park, prompting a spirited discussion between Dominic and Sonia about the 49ers. She managed to sound like a diehard fan, despite having no interest in football that I was aware of. We made it to the airport in record time. “What airline, ladies?”

  “United,” I said at exactly the same time Sonia said, “American.”

  “Oh, that’s right, American,” I giggled, hoping to convince him that I was just scatterbrained, rather than lying. Dominic pulled up in front of the terminal and hopped out to get our bags. I paid the fare plus a nice tip. Sonia batted her eyelashes at him and thanked him profusely. I thought she was going to hug him. As he roared away, I told Sonia that I was not going to shell out another fifty-plus bucks for the ride back. We took the BART train and then a city bus back to Sonia’s car.

  CHAPTER 20

  I was sitting in the living room working on an order of French wine glasses for the shop when the phone rang. It was Sonia: “Good. You’re home. Go turn on Channel Four.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Just do it. Quick!”

  The evening news was on. Captain Ryken was once again on the steps of Park Station, facing the camera. He said, “It would be premature to announce an arrest in the murder of Thalia Holcombe. All I can say is that we have a suspect in custody for possession of stolen property. We haven’t made any further charges yet.” He smiled telegenically. “We expect to have more news for you in the next several days.” With that, he turned and walked into the building.
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br />   My thoughts were racing. Had they extradited Marcel from France? The camera cut to a reporter on the scene. “As you heard,” the woman said, “the police aren’t yet ready to link the man in custody to Thalia Holcombe’s murder. All we know at this point is that Fred Gibson has a prior arrest record and that he was found in possession of items that belonged to the victim. Back to you, John.”

  What? Who the hell was Fred Gibson? By now the news had switched to a robbery in Clayton, and I sat on the couch dumfounded. This made no sense. Was Fred Gibson an accomplice? I immediately dialed Hernandez’s number, stuttered out an incoherent message, and hung up without saying goodbye.

  I tried Garrett’s number at home. No answer. I dialed his cell and got voice mail. Peter came downstairs to find me cursing. He asked what was wrong.

  “Dammit. The police arrested someone for Thalia’s murder.”

  He looked astonished, then pleased. “That’s great news! Really great news. But why are you so angry?”

  “Because,” I said, “they’ve arrested someone named Fred Gibson!”

  Peter looked confused. “So? What’s wrong with that?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He didn’t even know Thalia!” I was furious at how dense my husband was being. “They have the wrong person,” I said fiercely.

  Peter rolled his eyes. “Look, why don’t you just let the police do their job? I’m sure they know what they’re doing. It’s not up to you to solve the crime.”

  “Apparently it is, since the police seem incapable.” I hurried upstairs to the bedroom, shaking with anger. “Thalia, I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry this is all going so wrong. But I’ll fix it, I promise.” The phone rang again downstairs, and I heard Peter answer it. In a few minutes he came up to the bedroom.

  “That was Garrett. The police told him the news. Fred Gibson was found trying to pawn Thalia’s diamond bracelet. He claimed to have stumbled on the body after she was already dead. He’s a homeless guy—lives in the park.”

  My fury at the police waned. It made perfect sense that they had arrested this Gibson guy. How could they do anything else, since he had Thalia’s bracelet in hand? But that didn’t mean he had killed her, I reminded myself. Maybe, as he claimed, he had just found her dead and helped himself to her jewelry.