“Do you want tomato sauce or cheese sauce on the pasta? We're completely out of hamburger. We'd better start getting a nest together for Sheena. How about one of those lower drawers in the dresser? You know how she likes to get into them every chance she gets. Kimmie Uchima didn't come to work that day, either.”
“I don't see how there could have been anyone else in the office besides Ron, from the time he came in at one-forty-five to the time he says he found the body. OK, but it's going to have to be one of your dresser drawers we sacrifice. How about cheese and tomato. Isn't that a standard Chinese recipe for sauce to go with pasta?”
Sid got up and carefully sat Sheena down by her dish, which Kay had just filled with half a can of cat food. “She can have the bottom left drawer. And from the way she feels, those kittens could show up anytime. All I keep in that drawer are old dungarees, anyway. How about the bathroom?”
“C'mon Sid, get with it. Reggie and Ron stayed in the office until the police arrived. Hank says the first patrolman checked every room, including the bathroom. Shall we have spaghetti or vermicelli?”
“Make it spaghetti, if we have enough. What keeps bugging me is Ron insisting he was in the office for at least fifteen minutes before Reggie walked in? I just can't see why he says that if he really did kill Dale. Why doesn't he lie and say he just walked in? Remember, she's eating for three or four, or maybe even five.”
“That's something for the jury to mull over. Reasonable doubt and all that. Did you buy any parmesan? Spaghetti isn't spaghetti without a final dusting of parmesan.”
Sid had sliced an onion and was browning it in a large cast-iron skillet. “I'm beginning to have some reasonable doubts myself. There are just enough differences in every version Ron gives us to convince me he's telling the truth. It's certainly no careful retelling of a carefully crafted scenario, carefully rehearsed. Try the very top shelf in the cupboard. I'm sure we have some left.”
“I just read the other day more Chinese eat wheat in one form or another than eat rice. How come you never told me that? And the only changes he makes are additions. That makes sense, since we keep prodding him for more and more information.”
“I don't believe it. My mother told me she didn't know what bread was until she started school. And she was born in Syracuse. There goes Sheena. Maybe I should get the drawer opened and ready for her right now.” As he spoke, Sid caught up with the cat, scooped her up in his arms and continued on toward the bedroom.
“I'll do it. I don't trust you. I'll get the clothes out and put some rags in there for her. And we can check on some of his additions. That business of Dale cutting himself when he slammed down the glass ashtray ought to be easy to check. Hank undoubtedly picked up the ashtray when he gathered the rest of the evidence.”
“Vegetables! You'd better get them on before I start the pasta. Let's go by and see Hank first thing in the morning. And it's time to find out what our wild-eyed prosecutor is going to come up with.”
Kay started for the bedroom carrying an armful of torn cloth with John Samuel following in her wake, while Sid waited for her with the purring Sheena cradled in his arms. “If we decide Ron's telling the truth,” Kay said, “then we have to explain something else. Did you turn down the sauce?”
“Yes. It will be that much better if it simmers for a while. Are you sure you have enough cloth there? What else?”
Sheena and John Samuel both stood on their hind legs and put their paws on the drawer's edge so they could watch the proceedings. Kay emptied the drawer of dungarees and replaced them with the torn cloth. “Fit for a princess. Dale never got mad at Ron before. Or, so Ron says. And I'm inclined to believe him. So why now? And why so angry? There hardly seems to be that much provocation. At least not if Ron's reporting the incident accurately.”
Sheena sniffed at the contents of the drawer, turned, sprang up on the bed and curled up in the middle of the dungarees Kay had just placed there. In the meantime, John Samuel had climbed into the drawer and had promptly gone to sleep.
“We need more cloth for her. You can use one of my pairs of dungarees for padding. What difference does it make why he was so angry?” Sid was following Kay back to the kitchen.
“I don't know. But I think if we find that out, it might tell us a lot more about why he was killed—and by whom—if Ron is really innocent. How about brussels sprouts, since it's the only fresh vegetable we've got?”
***
It wasn't easy talking to Reggie. He'd never been a favorite of mine, even before he told his story to the police. Now, he was sure a lot lower down the list, but he acted apologetic. And I guess I can't really blame him. If the situation had been reversed, I probably would have felt the same and would have been just as apologetic.
“I only told them what I heard, Ron. Dale was madder than I'd ever heard him. I couldn't make out much of what you were saying, but I sure felt sorry for you. I heard every word he said. Maybe I'd have been tempted to clobber him too if he'd talked to me that way.”
That got to me. “But I didn't,” I said, hearing my own voice rising. We were sitting in Reggie’s office. I'd gone in to see him, not too eagerly, following Kay's advice.
“I'm not saying you did. It's just that I heard that crash, and everything was dead quiet in there after you left. And I left right after you. I had a doctor's appointment at eleven-thirty. And you know as well as I do, you were holding his club and standing over his body when I came into the office.”
As I said, it wasn't easy talking to Reggie. And the deeper he dug my grave, the tougher it got to keep talking to him. I had to keep reminding myself my attorneys had warned me against pressuring him. But what saved me was the arrival of a young couple looking for a house. I ushered them into my office and tried thinking about business.
I must be a good salesman, because I made the sale without really thinking much about business at all.
***
She didn't hear any talk about Jon and her until her senior year, but she knew there must have been plenty of gossip going on long before she'd heard about it.
There were no secrets between them. She told him what she'd heard, the day she heard it.
He nodded. “I've heard the stories too, just this week, and so has the principal. He wants me to come around to see him. And I know why. It won't do me any good, or you either, if I tell him the truth. The minds of most people don't work that way. If I tell him I've not so much as brushed your hand since I've known you, he'll laugh in my face.”
Jon smiled. “And I'm going to give him that satisfaction. I'm going to tell him about how you've grown this past year. I'm going to tell him how proud I am of you, and how proud I am of myself for what I've done. And when he gets through laughing, I'm going to walk out of his office and out of the school.”
Lisa didn't cry. Indians don't cry. The universe started to crumble instead. That was once when some of her emotion must have shown in her face.
“No!” he said, catching her expression. “I'm walking out of the school, but not out of your life. I'm far too selfish. And I think I still have a lot to give you. I'll be moving to Seattle. I know some important people at the University of Washington, and they want students like you. Apply for a scholarship, and you'll receive it along with financial help. There are all sorts of minority programs designed expressly for that purpose, and a lot of those scholarships just go begging. I'll be waiting there for you. And, in the meantime, I'll write.”
Jon left on the Wednesday following. Two days later, the principal stopped Lisa in the hall and told her she was going to be the valedictorian of the graduating class. Lisa smiled. Her smiles came more naturally and more frequently since she had met Jon. “No, I'm not,” she said. His lack of protest and his evident relief at her refusal amused Lisa even more.
After the small, rural high school, the University of Washington seemed to be a megalopolis. And while she missed the brown hills of home, she found something new and strange and delightful on the crow
ded, busy campus. She was no longer Lisa Joseph, the smart Indian. She was just Lisa, lost in the rainbow population of Japanese and Blacks and Southeast Asians.
In a matter of days, she began to realize the majority of students were harkening to the sound of a drummer far different from hers. They were going to be dentists, or engineers or architects, and that's what they thought of. And, more often than not, the coeds were already talking about marriage to a dentist, or engineer, or architect. She and a few other students were caught up in the world of learning. She'd spent one entire morning simply walking down the long stacks in the college library, reaching out to touch a book now and then, taking one out occasionally and browsing.
Maybe, she thought, this is what the preacher in the Gospel Hall church I went to with mother was really trying to describe when he talked about heaven.
And Jon beamed. He'd found a job in a University District bookstore, and lived in an apartment four blocks north of the campus. These became the boundary of Lisa's existence. From dorm, to bookstore, to class, to library, to Jon's apartment and back again. When one o'clock in the morning rolled around, Jon would yawn and insist on accompanying her to her dorm rather than letting her walk alone through the dark streets and across the poorly lit campus.
The first quarter ended. She came up to Jon's apartment, flushed with pleasure, after finishing her last and most difficult examination. “How'd you do?” he asked.
She laughed and said, “By my standards, I did very well.”
Jon joined her laughter. “That's what I wanted to hear you say. So tonight we celebrate.”
It was dinner out, the first time ever with Jon. Eating out usually meant a plate of something, between her and an open book, at the Chinese restaurant on University Way. But tonight was different. There were no books. Instead, there were attentive waiters, and food Jon insisted she pay attention to. She knew she was glowing because she caught the reflection in Jon's face. She wanted him to have wine with his meal, since she knew he enjoyed it. He refused because she was still too young to join him in some. Both were intoxicated without it.
And that was the night she said “no” to Jon.
They had been sitting in his front room reading aloud from Juvenal's essay on women. Lisa giggled when Jon insisted Juvenal must have had a domineering mother. Catching him looking at his watch, she said, “No!”
“What was that for?”
“I'm spending the night with you—in bed with you.”
The protests went on until two, but the defenses finally collapsed.
They did nothing that night but hold each other. Before she went to sleep, she heard him whisper in her ear. “I love you more than books, and indolence, and flattery, and the deceitful wine that cheats me into a favorable impression of myself.”
She rubbed her nose on his chest, and asked sleepily, “Did you just make that up?”
“No. That was James Branch Cabell. He wrote that in a story about an old man who recaptured his lost youth because of his love for a beautiful young girl. Remind me to bring you a copy of it from the bookstore.”
***
I really don't understand lawyers. Or maybe I should say I don't understand the three who are working on my case. I didn't meet the third member of the firm until yesterday, when I dropped by the office to see if they'd come up with anything new. It's been a week now since the murder. And the only bright light is at least my attorneys seem to think I might not have done it.
That's what I don't understand. I'd talked to Sid and Kay until I was blue in the face, and they didn't seem a bit impressed. But after that hour's visit to Royal Elima Realty, they really seemed to be changing their minds.
Qual Smith, third one in the firm and senior partner, is the toughest one to figure out. Kay was talking to him about the Chronicle while I was there.
“That's two editorials in a week on how murderers are running loose in the community,” she was saying. “What's gotten into that editor?”
“Do you mean you haven't heard?” Qual asked. “The Ikeda family bought out the newspaper. Our prosecuting attorney now has a mouthpiece outside the courtroom to back what he says on the inside.”
Kay mumbled something about trial by newspaper, and I began complaining to Qual about the system. “Here I am, caught for something I didn't do. And I may end up being convicted for something I didn't do. Is that justice?” I asked him.
So he says, switching from his reading glasses to his bifocals, “Justice is only statistical. And you happen to be one of the statistics. If I tell you there's only one chance in a million of being struck by lightning, and you get struck, don't be surprised.”
“I'm not surprised,” I said, “I'm complaining.”
“But it's the best system we've got. Try to find one that works better. Justice, you know, requires two steps. One, the guilty person has to be discovered. Two, the guilty person has to be punished. Now, under some systems, you could undergo ordeal. The admisterer of justice would have you tied hand and foot and thrown into a river full of crocs. If you survive, you're innocent. If you don't, you're guilty. Both requirements are met in the latter instance, which is most instances. The guilty one has been discovered. The guilty one has been punished.”
“Thanks,” I said, “You make me feel so much better.”
He grinned. “I know you aren't happy at being a statistic. But, as I say, can you think of a better system? And we're improving all the time. Fingerprinting alone, when used in court cases, has probably prevented justice from going awry tens of thousands or maybe even hundreds of thousands of times.”
While Qual and I argued, Kay had been sitting there with that expressionless look on her face. “I'm not sure it always works that way, Qual. Fingerprinting is being challenged more and more. Which makes me think we depend too much on the improvements. We're like an airline pilot who figures the dials in front of him can't be wrong, even after he looks out the window and sees the earth above him and the sky below.”
I've noticed one thing in that office. When Kay talks about a case, everyone listens. And this time we all knew right away she was talking about my case.
“Where are we depending too much on the dials?” Qual asked. “Is it the time of death you're questioning?”
“I'm not sure,” she said, “but that seems the most obvious.”
“Forget it, then,” Qual said. “Hank just talked to Cal, and Cal says he checked the new pathologist's findings backwards and forwards. Death occurred within ten minutes of two o'clock, one side or the other. You aren't quarreling with Cal are you?”
Kay shook her head. “I'd feel better if I talked to Cal myself, which I will. I'd feel even better if he'd been the one at the scene and if he'd done the post mortem. An experienced pathologist can sometimes think of things that would never occur to someone who's new in the business.”
“See,” said Qual, “you're really not questioning the technology, you're just dubious about whoever happens to be running the machine. And I have to admit even fingerprints aren't any better than the people who take them and index them and compare them.”
“Fingerprints!” Kay said, suddenly. “I knew there was something I wanted to do. I have to get in touch with Hank or Corky and find out if they dusted the clubs in the bag for fingerprints.”
She picked up the phone as I asked, “What difference does it make whose fingerprints are on those clubs? They weren't used on Dale.”
“That's exactly why I want them tested for fingerprints,” she said, as she punched in the number of the station.
Chapter 7
Lieutenant Hank DeMello and Sergeant Corky Medeiros both commented the clinic hadn't changed much since they'd last been there.
“Ah,” said Cal, “but circumstances are bit happier now than when you were here on the Johns case.”
“Definitely,” said Hank. “But we're still here on business. Been meaning to come by sooner. How did the Matthias autopsy go?”
“Not to worry. Clyd
e followed book from start to finish. To begin with, he used Dawes Temperature-Morbidity Chart in preliminary examination on day of murder.” Cal swiveled around and produced a sheet of paper with temperatures along the horizontal scale and time of death along the vertical one. “Now if we assume your man took ambient temperature properly, and it's difficult to be far off in Napua in air-conditioned room, we have several plots to work with. Ambient temperature of 72 degrees. Body temperature at time of preliminary investigation of corpse which is 97.4 degrees. And Clyde did the proper measurements—rectal, body cavity, bladder contents, and so on–which means all we have to do is to follow 72 degree curve back in time until we come to normal body temperature, 98.6. Normal body temperature would have been at 2:02 with error of plus or minus ten minutes.”
Seeing their puzzled expressions, Cal continued. “May be easier if I read chart from front to back. Victim dies at 2:02, and if air temperature seventy-two degrees and stay that way, then by 2:50 when pathologist examine body, temperature should be 97.4. And that is what it is.”
“Might there be something abnormal about the body? Something that would make it cool off at a different rate?” Corky was frowning as she asked the questions.
“Easy to check for that, and Clyde did so. Temperature taken every half-hour after initial test to see rate of body cooling. No indication here of any abnormality making body cool at different rate.
“What about the other measures besides temperature?” Corky asked.
“Food digested in stomach some indication, but must know when ingested. According to your report, victim's wife says he ate no breakfast. So stomach empty except for small bit of sandwich. Since we do not know when bit of sandwich was ingested, we can only say eaten less than half-hour before death. Other signs of morbidity correspond with temperature-estimate time of death.” Cal checked the figures on a paper in front of him. “Rigor set in at 3:15. Livor mortis, discoloration of body parts where blood gravitates to, also reconcilable with temperature estimate. Not as accurate as temperature scale, since much larger margin of error. Perhaps some indication death may have occurred a bit earlier, but no post mortem shows all signs in agreement. Head trauma causes special difficulties since brain death may occur many minutes prior to heart death.”
No Time for Death: A Yoshinobu Mystery Page 4