by Sue Grafton
When she reached the block they lived on she turned down the alleyway, searching for a parking spot. Most of the slots in the carport were empty. The apartment complex behind theirs had a constant turnover of tenants, which meant that parking spaces were available on a shifting basis as renters came and went. She caught sight of a blue Mustang parked in the fire lane at the end of the alley, tucked up along the side of the building.
She couldn’t believe her eyes. No one parked there. A sign had been posted saying it was a fire lane and had to be kept clear. Solana rolled on by, turning to stare at the vehicle. She knew whose it was. She’d seen it less than an hour before. What was Kinsey doing here? She could feel the ripples of panic rising in her chest. She made a small sound, somewhere between a gasp and a moan.
Tiny said, “What’s the matter,” leaving out most of the consonants and flattening the vowels.
She turned from the alleyway onto the street. “We’re not stopping here right now. I’ll take you to the Waffle House and buy you breakfast. You should quit smoking. It’s bad for you.”
25
At 11:10 Monday morning, I climbed the stairs to the second floor of the three-story apartment building where the Guffeys lived. I could hear a steady splatting of water and assumed the gardener or a maintenance man was hosing down the walks. I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting Grant Guffey, but his wife was hostile and I wasn’t looking forward to another pissing contest. Why had I agreed to do this? During the walk-through, even if I saw great gaping holes in the walls, they’d deny responsibility, swearing up and down that the holes had been there from day one. I didn’t have a copy of the inspection sheet they’d signed when they took the place. I knew Compton was meticulous about this phase of the rental process, which was what allowed him to be so tough on his tenants when they moved out. If there was visible damage and the Guffeys protested, we’d be reduced to a ridiculous “Did too! Did not!” argument.
I’d left my car in the alleyway below, parked close to the building at an angle where it wouldn’t be visible from their back window. Not that they’d know my car, but a touch of caution is never a bad thing. The spot was posted as a fire lane, but I hoped I wouldn’t be there long. If I heard sirens or smelled smoke, I’d run like a little bunny and retrieve my poor vehicle before it was crushed by a fire truck. This was the last time I was doing Compton’s dirty work. It wasn’t like I was doing it for free, but I had other business to take care of. The specter of Melvin Downs flickered across my mind, bringing with it a slow, heavy dread.
When I reached the top of the stairs I could see a widening pool of water pouring from under the door to Apartment 18. The flood was spilling over the edge of the second-floor walkway, hitting the concrete patio below, creating the illusion of rain I’d heard mere moments before. Oh joy. I waded to the front door, creating ripples as I went. The drapes had been pulled across the windows so I couldn’t see in, but when I knocked, the door swung inward on a creaking hinge. In movies, this is the moment when the audience wants to scream a warning: Don’t go in there, you twit! A door swinging open usually signifies a body on the floor, and the fearless detective will be blamed for the shooting after foolishly picking up the weapon to inspect it for gunpowder residue. I was too smart for that.
Gingerly, I peered in. The water was now flirting with the tops of my tennis shoes, thus soaking my socks. The place was not only empty, but thoroughly trashed. Water was gushing out of the bathroom from numerous ruptured plumbing fixtures: sink, shower, shattered toilet, and tub. The wall-to-wall carpet had been shredded with a sharp instrument, and the strands leaned away from the rush of water like long waving grass in a fast-moving stream. The kitchen cabinets had been ripped off the wall and left in a splintered pile in the middle of the floor.
If the place had come furnished, all the furniture had been stolen or sold, because aside from a few coat hangers, there was nothing else to be seen. At the rate the water was flowing, I thought it was a safe bet to anticipate a virtual rain forest in the apartment below. My tennis shoes made a squishing sound as I backed out the door.
A man said, “Hey.”
I looked up. A fellow was bending over the third-floor railing. I shaded my eyes to see him against the glare.
“Got a problem down there?” he asked.
“Can I use your phone? I need to call the police.”
“I figured as much so I called ’em myself. If that’s your car out back, you better move it or you’ll get ticketed.”
“Thanks. Do you have any idea where I can find the water shut-off valve?”
“Clueless.”
After moving my car, I spent the next hour with the county sheriff’s deputy who’d arrived ten minutes after the call went out. While I waited, I’d gone down to Apartment 10 and knocked but couldn’t rouse anyone. The tenants were probably off at work and wouldn’t learn of the watery disaster until five o’clock that day.
The deputy managed to get the water turned off, which brought out a second round of tenants, outraged and distressed by the interruption to their service. One woman emerged, wrapped in a terry-cloth bathrobe, her hair in a helmet of bubbling shampoo.
I borrowed the upstairs neighbor’s phone and called the Hyatt in San Francisco, swearing I’d leave him money for the long-distance charges. Miraculously, Richard Compton was in his hotel room. When I told him what was going on, he said, “Shit!”
He gnawed on the problem for a moment and then said, “Okay. I’ll take care of it. Sorry to put you through this.”
“You want me to call a restoration company about the water damage? They can at least get big fans and dehumidifiers out here. If you don’t get right on it, the floors will warp and you’ll have mold growing in the walls.”
“I’ll get the manager from another building started on that. He can call the company we use. Meantime, I’ll get in touch with my insurance agent and have him send someone out.”
“I guess the Guffeys won’t be getting their deposit back.”
He laughed, but not much.
After we’d hung up, I took a moment to assess the situation.
Between Melvin Downs’s disappearance and the Guffeys’ vandalism, I didn’t see how things could get worse. Which just goes to show how little I know about life.
The rest of Monday was uneventful. Tuesday morning, I took my metaphorical hat in hand and met with Lowell Effinger to deliver the news about Melvin Downs. I’d seen Effinger on two previous occasions and our dealings thereafter had been conducted on the phone. Sitting across the desk from him, I noticed how tired he looked, smoky gray pouches under his eyes. He was a man in his early sixties with a tangle of curly hair that had turned from salt and pepper to white since I’d seen him last. He had a strong chin and jaw, but his face looked as crumpled as a paper bag. I wondered if he had personal problems, but I didn’t know him well enough to ask. He spoke in a deep voice that rumbled up from his chest. “You know where he worked?”
“Not specifically. Probably near City College because that’s where he caught the bus. When the driver told me where he lived, I was so busy trying to connect with him there, I didn’t worry about where he worked.”
“If he moved out of his room, he probably quit his job, don’t you think?”
“Well, it’s worth pursuing in any event. I’ll go back over to the hotel and talk to Mrs. Von. I’ve seen her so often she might as well adopt me by now. She claims a policy of minding her own business, but I’ll bet she knows more than she’s told me so far. I can also talk to some of the other residents while I’m there.”
“Do what you can. If nothing turns up in the next few days, we’ll revisit the issue.”
“I wish I’d been quicker. When I talked to him Saturday, he gave no indication he was planning to leave. Of course, he’d just gone out and scored a couple of cardboard boxes, but it didn’t occur to me he’d be using them to pack.”
Thirty minutes later I found myself at the residence hotel for the umpt
y-ninth time. This round, I caught Mrs. Von coming out of the kitchen with a cup of tea in hand. She wore a sweater over her housedress, and I could see a peek of the tissue she’d tucked up her sleeve. “You again,” she said, but with no particular animosity.
“I’m afraid so. Do you have a minute?”
“If it’s in reference to Mr. Downs, I have all the time you want. He left without giving notice so that does it for me. This is my afternoon off so if you’d care to come into my apartment, we can talk.”
“Happy to,” I said.
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
“No, thanks.”
She opened a door at the rear of the office. “This was originally the servants’ quarters,” she remarked as she went in.
I trailed behind her, taking in the rooms at a glance.
“In my grandparents’ day, servants were expected to be invisible unless they were hard at work. This was their parlor and the anteroom where they took all their meals. The cook prepared food for them, but nothing like the meals that were served in the formal dining room. The servants’ bedrooms were in the attic, above the third floor.”
She was using the two rooms as a bedroom and sitting room, both done in pinks and mauves, with a surfeit of family photographs in silver-plated frames. Four Siamese cats lounged on the furniture, barely stirring from their morning naps. Two regarded me with interest, and one eventually got up, stretched, and crossed the room to take a little sniff of my hand.
“Don’t mind them. They’re my girls,” she said. “Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy. I’m Marmee,” she said. She took a seat on the sofa, setting her teacup to one side. “I assume your interest in Mr. Downs has to do with the lawsuit.”
“Exactly. You have any guesses about where he went? He must have family somewhere.”
“He has a daughter in town. I don’t know her married name, but I’m not sure it matters. The two are estranged and they have been for years. I don’t know the details, except that she refuses to let him see his grandsons.”
“Sounds meanspirited,” I said.
“I wouldn’t know. He only mentioned her the once. Naturally my ears pricked up.”
“Did you ever notice the tattoo on his right hand?”
“I did, though he seemed so self-conscious about it I tried not to look. What did you make of it?”
“I suspect he’d been in prison.”
“I wondered about that myself. I will say in the time he lived here, his behavior was exemplary. As far as I was concerned, as long as he kept his room neat and paid his rent on time, I saw no reason to pry. Most people have secrets.”
“So if you knew he’d been convicted of a crime, it wouldn’t have precluded your taking him as a tenant.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You know what kind of work he did?”
She thought about that briefly and then shook her head. “Nothing that required a degree. He said more than once how much he regretted not finishing high school. Wednesday nights, when he came in late, I thought he was attending night school. ‘Adult education,’ I believe they call it these days.”
“When he first showed up looking for a room, did he fill out an application?”
“He did, but after three years, I destroy them. I have enough paper cluttering my life. Truth is, I’m mighty careful about my tenants. If I’d thought he was a man of low character, I’d have turned him down, whether he’d been in prison or no. As I recall, he listed no personal references, which struck me as odd. On the other hand, he was clean and well spoken, clearly intelligent. He was also gentle by nature, and I never heard him swear.”
“I guess if he had something to hide, he’d be too smart to put it on an application.”
“That’d be my guess as well.”
“I understand he was chummy with a guy on the second floor. You mind if I talk to him?”
“Talk to anyone you like. If Mr. Downs had been honorable about giving notice, I’d have kept my observations to myself.” She paused to look at her watch. “Now unless you need something more, I’d best get on with my day.”
“What’s the name of the gentleman in room number five?”
“Mr. Waibel. Vernon.”
“Is he in?”
“Oh, yes. He lives on his disability checks and seldom goes out.”
26
Vernon Waibel was a bit more friendly than Melvin’s third-floor neighbor, who’d shut the door in my face. Like Downs, Waibel was in his fifties. He had dark brows and dark eyes. His gray hair was thinning and shaved close, as though to anticipate the baldness to come. Like someone facing chemotherapy, he preferred taking charge of the hair loss himself. His skin was tawny, his neck creased from exposure to the sun. He wore a multicolored cotton sweater in earth tones, chinos, and moccasins without socks. Even the tops of his feet were brown. I wondered how he managed to tan if he seldom went out. I saw no evidence of disability, but that wasn’t my concern.
I went through the usual, hi-how-are-you stuff. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Depends on what you want.”
“I understand Mr. Downs moved out. You have any idea where he went?”
“You a cop?”
“Private detective. He was supposed to be deposed as a witness to an automobile accident and I need to track him down. He’s not guilty of wrongdoing. We just need his help.”
“I got a little time to talk if you want to come in.”
I thought about Juanita Von’s rule about no women visitors in a tenant’s room with the door shut. She and I were such good friends by now I thought I’d risk her disapproval. “Sure.”
He stepped back and I passed in front of him. His room was not as large as Downs’s, but it was cleaner and it had a lived-in feel to it. The furnishings had been augmented with personal items: two plants, a sofa with throw pillows, and a quilt folded over the iron bedstead. He gestured toward the only upholstered chair in the room. “Take a seat.”
I sat down and he settled on a plain wooden chair nearby. “You the one put that flyer out about him?”
“You saw that?”
“Yes, ma’am. I did and so did he. Made him nervous, I’ll tell you that.”
“Is that why he left?”
“He was here and now he’s not. Draw your own conclusions.”
“I’d hate to think I was the one who scared him away.”
“I can’t speak to that, but if you’re here to ask questions, you might as well get to ’em.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Not well. We watched television together, but he never said much. Nothing personal, at any rate. We’re both fans of that channel that runs the old movie classics. Lassie, Old Yeller, The Yearling—things like that. Stories that broke your heart. That’s about all we had in common, but it was enough.”
“Did you know he was leaving?”
“He didn’t consult me, if that’s what you mean. Neither one of us was looking for a friend, just someone who wouldn’t hog the TV when we were hell-bent on hogging it ourselves. Shane was another movie he liked. Times we’d be sitting there bawling like babies. Pitiful, but there you have it. Feels good to have a reason to let it all hang out.”
“How long have you known him?”
“The five years since he moved in.”
“You must have learned something about the man.”
“Surface stuff. He was good with his hands. TV went on the blink, he’d tinker until he got it up and running again. He had a knack for anything mechanical.”
“For instance?”
He thought briefly. “The grandfather clock in the parlor quit running and Mrs. Von couldn’t find anyone to come take a look. She had a couple of numbers for clock-repair guys, but one was dead and the other had retired. Melvin said he wouldn’t mind having a go at it. Next thing you know he had it working again. I’m not sure he did us any favors. Middle of the night, I can hear it all the way up here. Times I can’t sleep, I count eve
ry chime. Four times an hour—it’s enough to drive me insane.”
“What’d he do for a living?”
“Beats me. He didn’t volunteer information of that type. I live on disability so maybe he thought I’d feel bad, him working and me not. He was paid in cash, I know that much, so it might have been something under the table.”
“Someone suggested yard work or maybe household repairs.”
“I’d say more skilled, though I couldn’t tell you what. Small appliances, electronics, something like that.”
“What about family?”
“He’d been married once upon a time because he mentioned his wife.”
“You know where he was from?”
“Nope. He did say he had some money saved and he had his eye on a truck.”
“I didn’t think he drove. Why else would he take the bus back and forth across town?”
“He had a license, but no vehicle. That’s why he was in the market for one.”
“Sounds like he meant to hit the road.”
“Might have.”
“What about the tattoo on his hand? What was that about?”
“He was an amateur ventriloquist.”
“I don’t get the connection.”
“He could throw his voice, like that Señor Wences guy on the old Ed Sullivan Show. He’d flatten his thumb along his index finger and make it move like a mouth. The red in the web between his index finger and his thumb were the lips and the two dots on the knuckle were the eyes. He made like she was a little pal of his named Tía—“Auntie” in Spanish—the two of them talking back and forth. I only saw him do it once, but it was funny. I found myself talking to her like she was real. I guess everybody’s got a talent of some kind, even if it’s an act you lifted from someone else.”
“Had he been in prison?”
“I asked him about that once. He admitted he served time, but he wouldn’t say what for.” He hesitated, easing a sly peek at his watch. “I don’t mean to cut you short, miss, but I got a program about to come on and if I don’t get down there, the other fellows on the floor will be all over the set.”