by Janet Dawson
“But Rob wasn’t gay?”
“I doubt it. Not that I would have cared one way or another. He only dated women, as far as I know. Leon just thinks anyone who isn’t a macho dickwad like him is homosexual. He’s always calling my kid brother sissy or pansy. And of course, since I don’t roll over every time he barks at me, there must be something wrong with me, too. I mean, gee, I could be a dyke.”
The more I heard about Leon, the less I liked him, and I’d barely met the guy.
“I know Rob didn’t commit suicide,” Robin said. “He wouldn’t do that to us. Somebody must have killed him. You gotta find out who. You gotta let me help. Tell me how.”
“I need information. That’s something you can give me. I didn’t know Rob at all. He was in my office for only half an hour. Tell me about him.”
“He was great. I loved him.” The tough look on the girl’s face gave way to vulnerability. “I was named for him. His name was Robin, too. Damn,” she said, scrubbing away the tears that sprang into her eyes. “I hate to think of him being dead.” She fought for control, her mouth working. “He was like a father... No, Rob was better than a father.”
I looked back at the house and wondered about her real father and the substitute her mother had provided. “Your parents are...”
“Useless,” Robin finished, her voice full of acid. I hated to see such disillusionment in one so young. “My old man left when I was in the fourth grade. He sends a birthday card once a year, if he remembers to, and some money now and then, if he hasn’t got something better he wants to do with his cash. And Mom...” She shook her head. “She tries, but if it wasn’t for me, nothing would get done. Sometimes I get so tired of being the grownup.”
“How old are you, Robin?”
“Seventeen. I just started my senior year in high school. Doug’s fourteen.”
“How long have your mother and Leon been together?”
She grimaced. “She’s been dating him for about a year. He moved in last spring.”
“You don’t like Leon.” It was a statement rather than a question.
“Don’t get me started,” Robin said, but of course, that’s exactly what I had in mind. “I hate him. He’s such an arrogant slob, thinks he’s a big shot, ’cause he’s a plant manager. He met Mom when Rob took us all to a Bates company picnic a year ago. Mom started going out with him, and then he moves in. He figures just because he sleeps with my mother, he can order us around. Everything I do, I get the third degree. Like who am I hanging out with, where did I go. We were doing just fine, the three of us, without him.”
It didn’t sound as though the Hartzells were doing fine at all, but sometimes teenagers aren’t known for their logic.
“How did Rob feel about Leon?”
“Rob didn’t like him much, either,” she said. “He and Leon were always arguing about something. He didn’t butt in, though. Not about Mom and Leon. But he did have an argument with Leon recently.”
I frowned. “An argument? When? What about?”
“I think it was a couple of weeks ago,” Robin said. “I don’t know what it was about. I’ll try to find out, though. Could have been politics, or about the environment. Rob and Leon didn’t agree on a lot of things, and Leon thinks no one’s entitled to an opinion but him.”
“You saw a lot of Rob?”
“Yeah. Once a week, sometimes twice. We talked on the phone all the time. He always had time for us. We did all kinds of things.” Her mouth moved, curving into a ghost of a smile. “He was a real Trekker. Last year he took Doug and me to a Star Trek convention in San Francisco. We didn’t dress up like space aliens, but we had a fabulous time.”
The picture of my client was starting to emerge as his niece talked. He sounded like a nice guy. I wished I’d had the chance to know him better.
“What else did he like to do?” I prompted. “Did he like a particular kind of music? Was he into art? Did he take you to movies? On picnics?”
“Oh, yeah. All of those,” Robin said. “He liked rock ‘n’ roll, not that heavy metal stuff Doug listens to. He liked to go to the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. I don’t much care for that kind of art, but to each his own. That’s what Rob used to say. He’d take us to all those slam-bang action adventure things Doug likes, but his favorites were foreign movies. You know, the ones with subtitles, that only play in Berkeley. Sometimes he’d take me with him.”
Robin smiled, once again transforming her face. “He’d take us to Point Reyes and Muir Woods, and down to Half Moon Bay and Pescadero. Sometimes we’d go up in the Napa Valley and picnic on the grounds of one of the wineries. Or we’d have dinner at an Italian restaurant. Rob was crazy about Italian food. Once he took us up to Calistoga for mud baths, and we wound up having dinner at this fabulous restaurant in St. Helena, called Tra Vigne. It was great. He said it was his favorite.”
“It’s one of mine, too. Tell me about Diana Palmer, the woman he was engaged to marry. I’d like to talk with her. Do you know where she lives?”
Robin thought for a moment. “Oakland or Berkeley. I’m not sure. But I know where she works. At the Oakland Museum. Something to do with history. Does that help?”
I nodded. “I’ll find her. When did they break up? And was it his idea, or hers?”
“July. I’m not sure why.”
“Was Rob involved with anyone else since then?”
“I don’t think so,” Robin said. “At least, I don’t remember him talking about anyone special. Not like Diana.”
“Did your uncle talk about his job at all, when he was with you?”
Robin shook her head. “Not much. Mom, she always bitches about work. She’s never had a job she liked. But Rob left it at the office, if you know what I mean.”
“Where does your mother work?”
“She’s a receptionist at some place over in San Francisco, at the Embarcadero Center. I think the name of the place is R&W. I’ll find out more about it, if that’ll help.”
“It might, thanks.” I never knew when some scrap of information might be important. “When was the last time you saw Rob?”
“Labor Day weekend. Mom and Leon—” She said the man’s name as though it left a bad taste in her mouth. “—they went to Santa Cruz on Saturday and came back Monday. Rob came Sunday morning and took us to brunch.”
Her face looked happy as she remembered. Then she scowled as a vehicle rounded the corner, its wheels squealing. It was Leon’s van. She shrank back into the darkness as the van parked in front of the house, as though she didn’t want him to see her. She needn’t have worried. Leon got out of the van and walked quickly toward the house, without a glance in our direction.
Something else had been niggling at me. “You said your mother stayed home from work today.”
Robin nodded. “Yeah. She was still in bed when Doug and I went to school.”
“And when you came home from school, Leon was here, and your mother told you about Rob.”
“Right. The police had just left.”
“What time was that?”
“I got home from school about four-thirty,” she said, “and I guess Doug got here around then, too. I think the police were here about four, from what Mom said.”
“Was your mother’s phone number and address in Rob’s apartment?”
“Sure. He had one of those little Rolodexes, right on his desk.”
It shouldn’t have taken the Oakland Police Department all day to locate Rob’s next of kin. I remembered my conversation with Sid Friday morning. He’d said they were trying to locate Rob’s sister. If she wasn’t here, where was she?
Easy, Jeri, I told myself. You’re jumping to conclusions. The woman stayed home from work because she was ill. Maybe she’d gone to the doctor.
If I was curious about Carol Hartzell’s whereabouts today, I also needed to ask the next logical question. “Were your mother and Leon home last night?”
Robin shook her head. “No. They went out. And they di
dn’t get home till after midnight. I know because they woke me up when they came in. It sounded like they were arguing.”
How long after midnight? And where had they been when Rob went out that window?
I didn’t get the chance to voice my questions. A figure appeared at the door of the house, opened the screen door, and stepped onto the porch. I heard Carol Hartzel’s thin voice calling out to Robin.
“I better go,” she said. “But I’ve got your card. I can call you, right? If I remember anything important, or to see how you’re doing? I’ll call you, instead of you calling here. You never know who’s gonna answer the phone.”
“You can call me at the office. If I’m not there, leave a message. Just don’t say anything to anyone else, at least not right now.”
“Don’t worry,” Robin said, glancing toward the house. “I can keep a secret. I’ve had lots of practice.”
Seven
WHEN I GOT BACK TO MY APARTMENT, MY ANSWERING machine held yet another phone call from my real estate agent, asking me to call her at home. I sat down on one of the kitchen chairs, propped up my feet, and grabbed the cordless phone, punching in her number.
“Hi, Eva,” I said when she picked up the phone. “It’s Jeri Howard, returning your call.”
She got right down to business, in her usual staccato tones. “There’s this place in lower Rockridge you’ve got to see. It isn’t even listed yet, so we’ve got to move fast.”
“Condo or house?”
“House. It’s small, it’s a fixer. But you’ll like it. It has lots of possibilities.”
I really did want a house, a freestanding structure with a bit of ground, so I could have a garden, as well. But in the Bay Area’s overheated real estate market, most houses were out of my price range. That meant I’d have to settle for a condo. I didn’t like the idea of settling instead of buying what I wanted. Lately all Eva had been showing me were condos, and none of them had done anything for me but make me depressed. Since I’d started looking for a place to buy, several people had assured me that I’d know the right place as soon as I saw it. I hadn’t seen it yet.
I mulled for a moment, translating real estate talk. “Small” could mean “tiny.” I was already feeling cramped in this one-bedroom apartment, and I didn’t want even less square footage. “Fixer-upper” often euphemizes “serious structural problems,” both inside and out. I know my way around a hammer and a paintbrush, but when it comes to electrical work and plumbing problems, I’m at the mercy of the highly paid professional.
“Has lots of possibilities” usually means “requires lots of money,” which I didn’t have. Down payment and closing costs would probably clean out the housing budget.
“Okay,” I said. “My schedule’s clear. Where is it, and what time should I meet you?”
She gave me the address. “Eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“On a Saturday?” I protested. There went my hopes of sleeping in.
“Believe me, Jeri, this place will go fast. And I really think it’s what you’ve been looking for. We’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot, and all that.”
“Eight-thirty,” I bargained, and she agreed.
I disconnected the call, then glanced at the clock on the wall above the sideboard. It was nine-thirty. I took the chance that Sid might be home. I called his house in North Oakland, and he answered on the third ring.
“It’s late, and I’ve had a long day,” he grumbled when I identified myself.
“Not as late—or early—as it was when you called me this morning. Just give me something on this Rob Lawter thing. I talked with his sister, Carol Hartzell, and got the impression she thinks he jumped.”
“I didn’t tell her anything of the sort.”
“I didn’t think you had. What time did you notify her, by the way?”
“Late afternoon. I don’t know exactly what time. Couldn’t locate her till then.”
Interesting, I thought, Carol Hartzell had supposedly been at home today, having called her employer to say she was sick. The fact that she and Leon hadn’t been home at the time of Rob’s death only added to my list of questions.
“So there wasn’t a suicide note?” I asked. Sid growled a terse confirmation. “Did he fall? Or was he pushed?” When Sid didn’t reply, I pushed him. “Come on, Sid, the guy was my client. I already cashed his retainer check, so I owe him. Did Rob Lawter have some help going out that window?”
“He looked like somebody hit him a few times,” Sid said. “I’ll know more when I get the autopsy results. It’s possible he interrupted a burglary.”
“As a rule burglars don’t kill people.”
“I know a few smash-and-grab guys who’d kill you for a sawbuck,” he said.
“On the street,” I argued. “An apartment takes a little more planning. Particularly one on the fifth floor of a security building. Got any witnesses, other than the next-door neighbor who heard voices?”
“You’ve talked with the sister and the neighbor, too. You have been busy. No, we haven’t interviewed anyone who saw anything before Lawter went out the window.”
“What about the neighbor on the other side?” I asked, referring to Charlie, the one everyone said was a drunk.
“Haven’t been able to locate him.” He yawned in my ear. “I’m going to bed.”
“Why do you think it’s a burglary? Is something missing from the apartment?”
“The usual signs. Drawers rifled, jewelry box contents tossed onto the bed and picked over. The neighbor said he had a computer. That’s gone. So’s the CD player. Easy to grab, easy to get rid of.”
“What about the computer monitor and the printer?”
“Still there.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“At the moment I’m so tired it doesn’t strike me at all.”
“Did his sister tell you she and her boyfriend were out late? Didn’t get home till after midnight, I understand.”
Sid didn’t say anything right away, and when he did he sounded more awake than he had been earlier. “She didn’t volunteer that information. Anything else you want to tell me?”
“When Rob Lawter was in my office on Wednesday, he gave me a copy of a threatening note he received at work.”
“I want a copy of that note,” he said.
“Done. In exchange for a copy of the autopsy report.”
He laughed. “I saw that coming. Okay, it’s a deal. Good night, Jeri.”
Sid hung up. I sat back in my chair, the phone still in my hand, and thought about one of my recent cases, in which the objective of a break-in had been the information contained on computer disks and on the device’s hard drive. It seemed clear that the voices Sally Morgan had heard in the apartment next door were real, and whoever they belonged to had some part in Rob Lawter’s death. If I wanted to steal a computer and a CD player, just to sell it for money, there were easier ways to do it. First-floor apartments, for example.
No, this crime was individual, aimed at Rob. I recalled the words in that note he’d received. Back off if you know what’s good for you. I doubted that Rob had backed away from whatever illegality he was planning to expose. He seemed to think that blowing the whistle was very important, certainly worth risking whatever consequences came with the whistle.
Now he was dead. I didn’t think he’d anticipated that.
Abigail raced through the dining room, faster than I’d seen the overweight and aging cat move in a long time. Black Bart was at her heels. Both cats thumped past me into the kitchen and went sliding across the linoleum on the woven throw rug that was usually positioned in front of the sink. I heard a thunk as they skidded into the cabinet doors on the far side of the kitchen.
Black Bart righted himself, wiggled his rear end, and brought forth a meowing sound that must have translated as “you’re it.” He turned and raced out of the kitchen with Abigail in hot pursuit. She was good in short spurts only, however. By the time they got to the livi
ng room, she stopped chasing him and plopped onto her side on the carpet, panting. Black Bart continued running until he’d streaked up the back of the sofa, where he sat looking smug and twitching his tail back and forth.
“You’re a pair,” I told them. “Of what, I’m not sure.”
Rockridge is the section of Oakland near the Berkeley border, and it’s a desirable neighborhood with housing prices to match. Upper Rockridge usually meant the hilly terrain above Broadway, while lower Rockridge encompassed that section along College Avenue between Broadway and Claremont Avenue. Midway down College, which was lined with shops and restaurants, both Highway 24 and the Rockridge BART crossed overhead.
I liked this part of town, but didn’t think I could afford to buy a house here. As I drove to my rendezvous with Eva Saturday morning, I wondered if there was any chance at all. The address she had given me was on Chabot Road, three blocks north of the BART station. Eva had instructed me to turn right off College, heading east on Chabot, toward the hills.
I located the house and parked my Toyota at the curb. As I walked toward the place, I cataloged its exterior faults. It was a small wood frame structure with peeling brown paint and a one-car garage on the right side, tucked under a set of windows. The garage had those old-fashioned doors that opened to the sides, and the driveway was gravel, not concrete. A path to the right led around to a gate and the backyard. There was hardly any front yard, and what there was featured more weeds than grass. On either side of the house, the fence, the part that wasn’t covered with ivy, looked as though it was falling down.
“This doesn’t look promising,” I told Eva, who had been waiting impatiently on a small front porch that had a definite list to starboard. “I mean, aside from the condition of the outside, it’s close to both the fire zone and the Hayward fault.”
“The fire didn’t get down this far,” she told me blithely, unlocking the big multiple listing holder that contained the key. We were both referring to the 1991 fire that destroyed lives and property in the East Bay Hills. “You’re close to the Hayward fault almost anywhere on this side of the Bay. Besides, wood frame structures do very well in earthquakes. And this house is bolted to the foundation.” I must not have looked convinced. She smiled and laid a hand on my arm. “I know it looks a little down at heels. But structurally, it’s quite sound. Just reserve judgment till you see the inside.”