Time of the Wolves

by Marcia Muller

  “He told me he referred you to a local private investigator, Dave Morrison, last April.”

  “So?”

  “Why didn’t you hire Morrison for this job?”

  “As I told you yesterday, my. . . .”

  “Sensitive position, yes.”

  Shoemaker scowled.

  Before he could comment, I asked: “What was the job last April?”

  “Nothing to do with this matter.”

  “Something to do with politics?”

  “In a way.”

  “Mister Shoemaker, hasn’t it occurred to you that a political enemy may be using the Carding case as a smoke screen? That a rival’s trying to throw you off balance before this special election?”

  “It did, and . . . well, it isn’t my opponent’s style. My God, we’re civilized people. But those notes . . . they’re the work of a lunatic.”

  I wasn’t so sure he was right—both about the notes being the work of a lunatic and politicians being civilized people—but I merely said: “OK, you keep working on Missus Shoemaker. At least persuade her to let me go to the Lost Coast with her. I’ll be in touch.” Then I headed for the public library.

  After a few hours of ruining my eyes at the microfilm machine, I knew little more than before. Newspaper accounts of the Carding accident, lawsuit, and murder-suicide didn’t differ substantially from what my client had told me. Their coverage of the Shoemakers’ activities was only marginally interesting.

  Normally I don’t do a great deal of background investigation on clients, but, as Sergeant Wolfe had said, in a case like this, where one or both of them was a target, a thorough look at careers and lifestyles was mandatory. The papers described Steve as a straightforward, effective assemblyman who took a hard, conservative stance on such issues as welfare and the environment. He was strongly pro-business, particularly the lumber industry. He and his “charming and talented wife” didn’t share many interests: Steve hunted and golfed; Andrea was a “generous supporter of the arts” and a “lavish party-giver”. An odd couple, I thought, and odd people to be friends of Jack Stuart, a liberal who’d chosen to dedicate his career to representing the underdog.

  Back at the motel, I put in a call to Jack. Why, I asked him, had he remained close to a man who was so clearly his opposite?

  Jack laughed. “You’re trying to say politely that you think he’s a pompous, conservative ass.”

  “Well. . . .”

  “OK, I admit it . . . he is. But back in college, he was a mentor to me. I doubt I would have gone into the law if it hadn’t been for Steve. And we shared some good times, too . . . one summer we took a motorcycle trip around the country, like something out of EASY RIDER without the tragedy. I guess we stay in touch because of a shared past.”

  I was trying to imagine Steve Shoemaker on a motorcycle; the picture wouldn’t materialize. “Was he always so conservative?” I asked.

  “No, not until he moved back to Eureka and went to work for that lumber company. Then . . . I don’t know. Everything changed. It was as if something happened that took all the fight out of him.”

  What had happened, I thought, was trading another man’s life for a prestigious job.

  Jack and I chatted for a moment longer, and then I asked him to transfer me to Rae. She hadn’t turned up anything on the Cardings yet, but was working on it. In the meantime, she added, she’d taken care of what correspondence had come in, dealt with seven phone calls, entered next week’s must-dos in the call-up file she’d created for me, and found a remedy for the blight that was affecting my rubber plant.

  With a pang, I realized that the office ran just as well—better, perhaps—when I wasn’t there. It would keep functioning smoothly without me for weeks, months, maybe years.

  Hell, it would probably keep functioning smoothly even if I were dead.

  In the morning I opened the Yellow Pages to “florists” and began calling each that was listed. While Shoemaker had been vague on the date his wife received the funeral arrangement, surely a customer who wanted one sent to a private home, rather than a mortuary, would stand out in the order-taker’s mind. The listing was long, covering a relatively wide area; it wasn’t until I reached the Rs and my watch showed nearly eleven o’clock that I got lucky.

  “I don’t remember any order like that in the past six weeks,” the clerk at Rainbow Florists said, “but we had one yesterday, was delivered this morning.”

  I gripped the receiver harder. “Will you pull the order, please?”

  “I’m not sure I should. . . .”

  “Please. You could help save a woman’s life.”

  Quick intake of breath, then his voice filled with excitement; he’d become part of a real-life drama. “One minute. I’ll check.” When he came back on the line, he said: “Thirty-dollar standard condolence arrangement, delivered this morning to Mister Steven Shoemaker. . . .”

  “Mister? Not Missus or Miz?”

  “Mister, definitely. I took the order myself.” He read off the Shoemakers’ address.

  “Who placed it?”

  “A kid. Came in with cash and written instructions.”

  Standard ploy—hire a kid off the street so nobody can identify you. “Thanks very much.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me . . . ?”

  I hung up and dialed Shoemaker’s office. His secretary told me he was working at home today. I dialed the home number. Busy. I hung up, and the phone rang immediately. Rae, with information on the Cardings.

  She’d traced Sam Carding’s daughter and younger son. The daughter lived near Cleveland, Ohio, and Rae had spoken with her on the phone. John, his sister had told her, was a drifter and an addict; she hadn’t seen him in more than ten years. When Rae reached the younger brother at his office in L.A., he told her the same, adding that he assumed John had died years ago.

  I thanked Rae and told her to keep on it. Then I called Shoemaker’s number again. Still busy, time to go over there.

  Shoemaker’s Lincoln was parked in the drive of the Victorian, a dusty Honda motorcycle beside it. As I rang the doorbell, I again tried to picture a younger, free-spirited Steve bumming around the country on a bike with Jack, but the image simply wouldn’t come clear. It took Shoemaker a while to answer the door, and, when he saw me, his mouth pulled down in displeasure.

  “Come in, and be quick about it,” he told me. “I’m on an important conference call.”

  I was quick about it. He rushed down the hallway to what must be a study, and I went into the parlor where we’d talked the day before. Unlike his offices, it was exquisitely decorated, calling up images of the days of the lumber barons. Andrea’s work, probably. Had she also done his offices ? Perhaps their gaudy decor was her way of getting back at a husband who put his political life ahead of their marriage ?

  It was at least a half an hour before Shoemaker finished with his call. He appeared in the archway leading to the hall, somewhat disheveled, running his fingers through his hair. “Come with me,” he said. “I have something to show you.”

  He led me to a large kitchen at the back of the house. A floral arrangement sat on a granite-topped center island: white lilies with a single red rose. Shoemaker handed me the card. My sympathy on your wife’s passing. It was signed: John.

  “Where’s Missus Shoemaker?” I asked.

  “Apparently she went out to the coast last night. I haven’t seen her since she walked out on us at the noon hour.”

  “And you’ve been home the whole time?”

  He nodded. “Mainly on the phone.”

  “Why didn’t you call me when she didn’t come home?”

  “I didn’t realize she hadn’t until mid-morning. We have separate bedrooms, and Andrea comes and goes as she pleases. Then this arrangement arrived, and my conference call came through. . . .” He shrugged, spreading his hands helplessly.

  “All right,” I said. “I’m going out there whether she likes it or not. And I think you’d better clear up what
ever you’re doing here and follow. Maybe your showing up there will convince her you care about her safety, make her listen to reason.”

  As I spoke, Shoemaker had taken a fifth of Tanqueray gin and a jar of Del Prado Spanish olives from a Lucky sack that sat on the counter. He opened a cupboard, reached for a glass.

  “No,” I said. “This is no time to have a drink.”

  He hesitated, then replaced the glass, and began giving me directions to the cabin. His voice was flat, and his curious travelogue-like digressions made me feel as if I were listening to a tape of a National Geographic special. Reality, I thought, had finally sunk in, and it had turned him into an automaton.

  I had one stop to make before heading out to the coast, but it was right on my way. Morrison Investigations had its office in what looked to be a former motel on Highway 101, near the outskirts of the city. It was a neighborhood of fast-food restaurants and bars, thrift shops and marginal businesses. Besides the detective agency, the motel’s cinder-block units housed an insurance brokerage, a secretarial service, two accountants, and a palm reader. Dave Morrison, who was just arriving as I pulled into the parking area, was a bit of a surprise: in his mid-forties, wearing one small gold earring, and a short ponytail. I wondered what Steve Shoemaker had made of him.

  Morrison showed me into a two-room suite crowded with computer equipment and file cabinets and furniture that looked as if he might have hauled it down the street from the nearby Thrift Emporium. When he noticed me studying him, he grinned easily. “I know I don’t look like a former cop. I worked undercover Narcotics my last few years on the force. Afterwards, I realized I was comfortable with the uniform.” His gestures took in his lumberjack’s shirt, work-worn jeans, and boots.

  I smiled in return, and he cleared some files off a chair so I could sit.

  “So you’re working for Steve Shoemaker,” he said.

  “I understand you did, too.”

  He nodded. “Last April and again around the beginning of August.”

  “Did he approach you about another job after that?”

  He shook his head.

  “And the jobs you did for him were . . . ?”

  “You know better than to ask that.”

  “I was going to ask, were they completed to his satisfaction?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any idea why Shoemaker would go to the trouble of bringing me up from San Francisco when he had an investigator here whose work satisfied him?”

  Head shake.

  “Shoemaker told me the first job you did for him had to do with politics.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched “In a matter of speaking.” He paused, shrewd eyes assessing me. “How come you’re investigating your own client?”

  “It’s that kind of case. And something feels wrong. Did you get that sense about either of the jobs you took on for him?”

  “No.” Then he hesitated, frowning. “Well, maybe. Why don’t you just come out and ask what you want to? If I can, I’ll answer.”

  “OK . . . did either of the jobs have to do with a man named John Carding?”

  That surprised him. After a moment he asked a question of his own. “He’s still trying to trace Carding?”

  “Yes.

  Morrison got up and moved toward the window, stopped and drummed his fingers on top of a file cabinet. “Well, I can save you further trouble. John Carding is untraceable. I tried every way I know . . . and that’s every way there is. My guess is that he’s dead, years dead.”

  “And when was it you tried to trace him?”

  “Most of August.”

  Weeks before Andrea Shoemaker had begun to receive the notes from “John”. Unless the harassment had started earlier? No, I’d seen all the notes, examined their postmarks. Unless he’d thrown away the first ones, as she had the card that came with the funeral arrangement?

  “Shoemaker tell you why he wanted to find Carding?” I asked.

  “Uhn-uh.”

  “And your investigation last April had nothing to do with Carding?”

  At first I thought Morrison hadn’t heard the question. He was looking out the window, then he turned, expression thoughtful, and opened one of the drawers of the filing cabinet beside him. “Let me refresh my memory,” he said, taking out a couple of folders. I watched as he flipped through them, frowning.

  Finally he said: “I’m not gonna ask about your case. If something feels wrong, it could be because of what I turned up last spring . . . and that I don’t want on my conscience.” He closed one file, slipped it back in the cabinet, then glanced at his watch. “Damn! I just remembered I’ve got to make a call.” He crossed to the desk, set the open file on it. “I better do it from the other room. You stay here, find something to read.”

  I waited until he’d left, then went over and picked up the file. Read it with growing interest and began putting things together. Andrea had been discreet about her extramarital activities, but not so discreet that a competent investigator like Morrison couldn’t uncover them.

  When Morrison returned, I was ready to leave for the Lost Coast.

  “Hope you weren’t bored,” he said.

  “No. I’m easily amused. And, Mister Morrison, I owe you a dinner.”

  “You know where to find me. I’ll look forward to seeing you again.”

  And now that I’d reached the cabin, Andrea had disappeared. The victim of violence, all signs indicated. But the victim of whom? John Carding—a man no one had seen or heard from for over ten years? Another man named John, one of her cast-off lovers? Or . . . ?

  What mattered now was to find her.

  I retraced my steps, turning up the hood of my sweater again as I went outside. Circled the cabin, peering through the lashing rain. I could make out a couple of other small structures back there: outhouse and shed. The outhouse was empty. I crossed to the shed. Its door was propped open with a log, as if she’d been getting fuel for the stove.

  Inside, next to a neatly stacked cord of wood, I found her.

  She lay face down on the hard-packed dirt floor, blue-jeaned legs splayed, plaid-jacketed arms flung above her head, chestnut hair cascading over her back. The little room was silent, the total silence that surrounds the dead. Even my own breath was stilled; when it came again, it sounded obscenely loud.

  I knelt beside her, forced myself to perform all the checks I’ve made more times than I could have imagined. No breath, no pulse, no warmth to the skin. And the rigidity. . . .

  On the average—although there’s a wide variance—rigor mortis sets in to the upper body five to six hours after death; the whole body is usually affected within eighteen hours. I backed up and felt the lower part of her body. Rigid—rigor was complete. I straightened, went to stand in the doorway. She’d probably been dead since midnight. And the cause? I couldn’t see any wounds, couldn’t further examine her without disturbing the scene. What I should be doing was getting in touch with the sheriffs department.

  Back to the cabin. Emotions tore at me: anger, regret, and—yes—guilt that I hadn’t prevented this. But I also sensed that I couldn’t have prevented it. I, or someone like me, had been an integral component from the first.

  In the front room I found some kitchen matches, and lit the oil lamp. Then I went around the table and looked down at where her revolver lay on the floor. More evidence—don’t touch it. The purse and its spilled contents rested near the edge of the stove. I inventoried the items visually: the usual make-up, brush, comb, spray perfume, wallet, keys, roll of postage stamps, daily planner that flopped open to show pockets for business cards and receipts. And a loose piece of paper. . . .

  Lucky Food Center, it said at the top. Perhaps she’d stopped to pick up supplies before leaving Eureka, the date and time on this receipt might indicate how long she’d remained in town before storming out on her husband and me.

  I picked it up. At the bottom I found yesterday’s date and the time of purchase: 9:14 p.m.

  KY
SERV DELI . . . CRABS . . . WINE . . . DEL PRADO OLIVE . . . LG RED DEL . . . ROUGE ET NOIR . . . BAKERY . . . TANQ GIN. . . .

  A sound outside. Footsteps slogging through the mud. I stuffed the receipt into my pocket.

  Steve Shoemaker came through the open door in a hurry, rain hat pulled low on his forehead, droplets sluicing down his chiseled nose. He stopped when he saw me, looked around. “Where’s Andrea?”

  I said: “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? Her Bronco’s outside. That’s her purse on the stove.”

  “And her bag’s on the bed, but she’s nowhere to be found.”

  Shoemaker arranged his face into lines of concern. “There’s been a struggle here.”

  “Appears that way.”

  “Come on, we’ll look for her. She may be in the outhouse or the shed. She may be hurt. . . .”

  “It won’t be necessary to look.” I had my gun out of my purse now, and I leveled it at him. “I know you killed your wife, Shoemaker.”

  “What?”

  “Her body’s where you left it last night. What time did you kill her? How?”

  His faked concern shaded into panic. “I didn’t. . . .”

  “You did.”

  No reply. His eyes moved from side to side—calculating, looking for a way out.

  I added: “You drove her here in the Bronco, with your motorcycle inside. Arranged things to simulate a struggle, put her in the shed, then drove back to town on the bike. You shouldn’t have left the bike outside the house where I could see it. It wasn’t muddy out here last night, but it sure was dusty.”

  “Where are these baseless accusations coming from? John Carding. . . .”

  “Is untraceable, probably dead, as you know from the check Dave Morrison ran.”

  “He told you. . . . What about the notes, the flowers, the dead things . . . ?”

  “Sent by you.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “To set the scene for getting rid of a chronically unfaithful wife who had potential to become a political embarrassment.”