Grave Error

by Stephen Greenleaf

  “No. The problem is, I haven’t heard from Mr. Spring in almost a week.”

  “That’s not unusual in this business.”

  “But he told me on Monday he was very close to finding out what I wanted to know. And I still haven’t heard.”

  “Have you tried to reach him?”

  “Yes. His secretary just keeps saying he’s out of town and she’ll give him my message when he calls in.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Could you call him yourself and ask him to please get in touch with me? I need to know if he’s found out anything. It’s very important.”

  Her voice was pleading. I told her I could do what she wanted, at least if I could get hold of Harry myself.

  “And please, Mr. Tanner. Don’t tell Jackie or Roland that I’ve hired a detective.”

  I told her I wouldn’t.

  I didn’t know what to make of what I’d just learned. It seemed possible Claire shared her mother’s concern over Nelson’s recent behavior and had hired an investigator of her own. If so, Harry and I would be bumping into each other before long. Which was all right with me. I was starting to wish I’d never gotten involved with the Nelsons. I liked them all, one way or another, and they were almost certain to be hurt by whatever I dug up. That’s the way it happens. But at least with Harry on the case I could clear it up three times as fast.

  I wanted to know if I was right so I asked Claire if what Harry was doing had anything to do with her father. She seemed startled. “You mean Roland?” she asked. “No. It’s nothing to do with him. Why?”

  “I thought maybe he was in trouble and you were trying to help him out.”

  “That’s silly. How could Roland be in trouble?”

  That was what I wanted to know. “I’ll try to chase Harry down and tell him to spend a little more time on client relations,” I said. “One of us will get back to you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Tanner. I hate to bother you like this, but it’s just that I’m so anxious to know what Mr. Spring has learned that I can’t do anything else. You know?”

  I did, but it had been a long time since anything had been that important to me.

  Claire’s eyes were locked on the Starry Night and her knuckles had paled from gripping the little stuffed giraffe in her hands. The afghan had slipped from the bed to the floor and the steel braces lashed to her calves winked at me cruelly. I placed the shawl back over her and she thanked me. She must have had a lot of practice at thanking people. Now she wanted to handle it on her own.

  I asked Claire to tell her mother I had gone and I let myself out a side door. As I walked to my car I could still see Claire’s eyes looking at me as I put the shawl back over her legs. She had been waiting for me to show my disgust or revulsion, or to recoil in some other way from the sight of her dead limbs. I wondered how many times she had seen just that reaction and how long it would take until it didn’t matter to her anymore. Probably a lifetime.

  EIGHT

  San Francisco Bay University lies hidden away behind a hill on the back side of the city, as though someone were ashamed of it. Someone probably was. The school didn’t have much of a reputation for anything except student unrest.

  I was parked in a lot near the auditorium where Roland Nelson was delivering a speech to the Geopolitics Club. I had been there a long time. If things had started on schedule, Nelson had been speaking and answering questions for almost two hours.

  Long-term surveillance isn’t my favorite hobby. My back ached and my eyes burned and I was cold. I had given up trying to reread The Great Gatsby by the light from a street lamp and was almost ready to give up staying awake.

  The summer fog was well into its nightly invasion of the city, leaving everything wet and shining. Large globes of moisture had collected on my windshield, so I spent several minutes trying to guess which of them would be the first to break away and trickle down the glass. I guessed wrong. The droplet left a trail like a surgeon’s scar on the window. Right then I felt a sharp pain in my chest, but when I shrugged my shoulders it went away. Some day it wouldn’t.

  The weather made me think of old movies and old loves. For some reason my favorites of both have unhappy endings. I’m sure there’s a reason for that, but I don’t want to know it.

  I was thinking about a six-foot girl I had known in high school when the door to the auditorium opened and a crowd of people spilled into the parking lot. I slid down in my seat and watched for Nelson. In a few minutes I saw him, strolling slowly with ten or so students clustered in a phalanx around him. The students had short hair and clean clothes and pupils that reacted to light. Many people thought the social pendulum had broken during the turmoil of the sixties, but it was still swinging.

  As they made their way across the lot the students peeled off one by one until Nelson was left with only one girl. They walked on together and as they passed under the light I recognized her. It wasn’t a student; it was Sara Brooke.

  The two of them got into Nelson’s Gremlin and drove out of the lot and turned north. I let another car in between us, then followed them, staying as far back as I could.

  We stuttered our way down Nineteenth Avenue, wasting brakes and tires and gas and time. After ten minutes of that we turned east on Kennedy Drive and wound through Golden Gate Park. The park serves as a conduit for the evening fog, sucks it in from the ocean like a giant vacuum cleaner, and as I drove along the road the steamy clouds slipped reluctantly away from the hood of my car like the fingers of a drowning man.

  It was dark in the park, as dark as despair. There were people in there doing everything from making love to plotting murder. I turned on my heater and drove a little faster.

  Nelson turned again, this time north on Stanyan, past St. Mary’s Hospital and the University of San Francisco. The hospital had a luxurious new wing and the university had to strain to remain solvent. We spend more keeping people alive than teaching them what to do with the extra years.

  I kept on the trail. It led me through the Richmond district, past rows of damp stucco clinging like soggy Kleenex to the fronts of a thousand buildings, through the oasis of Jordan Park, then down California and over to Washington Street just off the Presidio wall.

  Suddenly Nelson slowed and made a quick U-turn. I put my hand to my face and hoped I hadn’t been recognized. In my mirror I saw the brake lights flash, then darkness. A door slammed, then Nelson and Sara hopped out and ran to the door of a large brown-shingled house. They both went inside. In another minute light filled two windows on the second floor.

  I double-parked down the block, killed my lights and my engine, and waited. They stayed inside long enough to do what Mrs. Nelson suspected them of doing. I wasn’t surprised, but I was more upset than I had a right to be and I knew why. There was a lot of room to spare in my life, and Sara Brooke would fit nicely. But only on a full-time basis.

  Nelson left Sara’s house about one. I followed him to his home, waited till the house got dark, then found my way home. I didn’t sleep very well.

  The next morning I went down to the city library early enough to get the first shot at a microfilm machine and ran a check on newspaper coverage of Roland Nelson. I didn’t really expect to find anything useful, and I didn’t. The consensus was that Roland Nelson could have been elected God if the position were open.

  There was no hint of shady dealing—with women or money or anything else. He reportedly drew a salary of fifty thousand, which was hefty but not exceptional: most of the businessmen who claimed Nelson was overpaid drew down five times that much. That was about it, except for coverage of Institute activity and the fallout it caused. Not much on Nelson’s background or his personal life was reported, which usually indicates they are normal and therefore unnewsworthy.

  By the time I had looked at twenty rolls of spinning microfilm I was half-nauseous and ready to call Mrs. Nelson and throw in the towel. I hadn’t uncovered the slightest hint that Roland Nelson was being blackmailed. If
he was fooling around with anyone, it was with Sara Brooke, and I couldn’t see her putting the arm on him. But I guess I was prejudiced.

  If there wasn’t any blackmail, then it was just a marital problem. Mrs. Nelson could have it out with her husband or with Sara, or both. I didn’t care. I just didn’t want to make that my business.

  But I was still in a bad mood from the night before, so I decided to wait a couple of days before telling Mrs. Nelson to get herself another gumshoe. In the meantime, since Harry Spring’s office was near the library, I decided to drop in and badger him a little about not keeping in touch with Claire Nelson.

  NINE

  Harry Spring ran his agency out of the apartment on Larkin near the Civic Center he shared with his wife Ruthie. Harry and Ruthie were as close as I had to friends. When I first opened my office I spent a lot of time talking with Harry about the detective business. He had been helpful and Ruthie had been motherly and I’d enjoyed the time I spent with them. They didn’t use me to witness their fights or cheer their feats or hear their confessions; they just tried to have some fun with enough left over for me to share.

  I rang the bell and when the buzzer unlocked the door I shoved my way inside and took the stairs to the second floor. The door to the apartment was open so I went in.

  Harry had tried to convert the front room into an office, but Ruthie kept it looking more like a Paris salon. Pictures and plaques and medals and clippings and a hundred other mementos spread over every available surface. The lamp shades were fringed and the chairs were overstuffed and decorated with doilies as intricate as snowflakes. Ruthie took them off every night if just she and Harry were there and then put them back the next morning when the office opened for business.

  Harry’s desk and filing cabinet were the only functional things in the room, and they looked slightly embarrassed at ending up as curiosities. Harry usually looked the same way, at least when he sat at his desk.

  I settled into one of the chairs and watched Ruthie’s parakeet swing on his trapeze. His name was Ralph and he was a constant irritant to Harry. One night Harry had taken a shot at Ralph, but both of them were drunk so only the wall was wounded. Ruthie had covered the hole with a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt and had gone on trying to teach Ralph to talk. She’d been trying for three years, but Ralph still sounded more like a rusty hinge than anything human.

  Just as I lit a cigarette Ruthie Spring stormed into the room, shouted my name, and charged over to my chair. I stood up and we kissed.

  “I’ve been thinking about you, you dog,” she said after we separated.

  “Nothing you could put on a greeting card, I trust.”

  “No chance. My thoughts of you are strictly X-rated, sugar bear.”

  Ruthie went over and sat behind the desk. She was wearing blue Levis and a pink cowboy shirt and boots to match. She drew her legs up under her chin, clamped her arms around her shins, and peered at me over her knees.

  Ruthie had been an army nurse in Korea and then a deputy sheriff in charge of the women’s jail. Harry had been a deputy, too, for a while, and they met and married in three weeks. Against all odds, the marriage was one of the ones that keep you looking or make you sorry you stopped.

  “Where the hell you been keeping yourself, Marsh?” she asked brightly.

  “Here and there. Up and down. Mostly down.” It had been quite a while since I’d seen either Ruthie or Harry and I felt guilty about it.

  “Still bird-dogging those sweet young things who’re trying to get back at daddy by sticking dirty needles in their arms and dirtier pricks in their cunts?”

  Ruthie had grown up on the wrong side of town and had fought for everything she had. She’d seen a lot of people die while they were praying to live, and she didn’t have much sympathy for kids who were rotting their brains and their bodies with drugs and VD.

  “I don’t do much of that anymore,” I told her.

  “Good. Getting any?”

  “Only older.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Too much competition, I guess.”

  “Well, there’s a lot of real cute guys around, all right,” she said. “But they’re all as queer as a purple pissant.”

  “Now Ruthie.”

  “Don’t ‘now Ruthie’ me. You need a woman, Marsh. It’s not healthy to go too long without sex. Too much pressure builds up. Shit, I have a notion to rape you myself, for medicinal purposes.” Ruthie was the only woman I knew who talked like a longshoreman and collected cameo rings.

  “I wouldn’t press charges,” I said with a grin.

  “No, but you probably wouldn’t enjoy it, either. I don’t think you’d enjoy anything that came for free.”

  “Nothing comes for free, Ruthie.”

  “That’s exactly the kind of bullshit I mean. Seriously, Marsh. You need a woman. Now I know a beautiful little girl, really gorgeous, a free-lance. Half the pols down at city hall consult her on a regular basis. I know she’d be happy to pay you a visit. You know, no strings, no problems, just fun and games. Be good for what ails you, Marsh.”

  “Thanks, Ruthie. I’ll start saving up. Harry around?”

  She shook her head. “Out of town. Been gone for almost a week.” Ruthie frowned and rubbed her eyes.

  “Something wrong?”

  She dragged her smile back, but it took a while. “Nah.”

  “Hey.”

  “No. Really.”

  “Ruthie.”

  “Oh, it’s probably nothing, Marsh. It’s just that he usually calls me every other day when he’s away. Checks in, you know? But it’s been five days and I haven’t heard a word.” She took a deep breath. “Hell, the bastard’s probably on a bender and shacked up with some broad with tits the size of volleyballs.” Ruthie’s mouth grinned at me but her eyes didn’t follow suit.

  “Where’d he go?” I asked.

  “Out in the valley someplace. I don’t know for sure.”

  “On a case?”

  “Now, Marsh. You know Harry doesn’t like me to talk about his cases, even to you. Actually, I don’t even know why he went or who he’s working for, but it wasn’t anything special. Something about checking hospital records, I think. I didn’t pay much attention.”

  “He’s probably coming home today and decided he didn’t need to call.”

  “Yeah. I’m getting old, Marsh. Worry all the damn time.” She sighed heavily and shook her head. “How about some coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  Ruthie went to the back of the apartment and began slamming cupboards open and closed. I decided to make a telephone call.

  LaVerne Blanc was an old newspaperman who had drunk his way out of a column in an East Bay daily down to his present status as publisher of a monthly scandal sheet that sold for a quarter in every smut shop in town. He printed every rumor he heard and some he didn’t and got sued for libel about five times a year. The juries always felt so sorry for LaVerne they never made him pay off. LaVerne still battled the DTs but he knew more dirt about people in the Bay Area than anyone else in town.

  After ten rings LaVerne answered the phone. “What the hell time is it, Tanner?” he said after I told him who it was.

  “One o’clock.”

  “Daytime?”

  “Correct.”

  “I’m not open yet. Call back after five.”

  “You’re as open as you ever get, LaVerne.”

  “Okay, Tanner. I owe you one for when you hauled that prick off me at Bardelli’s the other night.”

  “You never did tell me what you did to make him swing on you.”

  “I told him to take his wife home and give her a shower. Christ, did you smell her? Worse than a mink ranch after a rainstorm. If my pits smelled like hers I’d have them sandblasted.”

  “You’re just too sensitive, LaVerne.”

  “I guess that’s it. I do come from a long line of great noses. A Hapsburg, you know.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “True.
A direct descendant of Maria Theresa.”

  “I’m sure she’s delighted.”

  “Don’t get smart, Tanner. You’re not flying as high as you used to, either, you know.”

  “Depends on how you look at it, I guess.”

  “That’s what Einstein claimed. So what can I do for you?”

  “What can you tell me about Roland Nelson?”

  “You mean of an unsavory nature? Like does he do it with sheep, that kind of thing?”

  “That kind of thing.”

  “I don’t know from nothing. He’s Mr. Clean as far as I hear. My daughter should have such a reputation.”

  “How about his wife?”

  “The lovely Jacqueline. A very tasty morsel. One of our more illustrious councilmen made a heavy pass at her during the charity ball last fall.”

  “And?”

  “Well, she didn’t slug him but whatever she whispered in his ear could make her a fortune. I’ve never seen anyone sober up so fast. In fact, it’s the only time I’ve ever seen that son of a bitch sober, period.”

  “Does she fool around?”

  “Fool around? God, you’re quaint, Tanner. What’s the deal, you want to get in line?”

  “Come on, LaVerne.”

  “If she spreads them for anyone but Nelson she’s careful about it.”

  “And Nelson doesn’t play either?”

  “Nah. How can he? The bastard’s on TV twenty hours a day.”

  I hesitated a minute. “Of course there’s the daughter,” LaVerne went on.

  “The daughter? Claire?”

  “There’s only one, right? The one with the bum legs?”

  “Right.”

  “She should keep better company.”

  “Who do you mean?”

  “This guy Rodman she’s running around with. He’s a bum. Did a nickle’s worth at Folsom about fifteen years back. Extortion. One of Duckie Bollo’s boys. Haven’t heard much about him lately, though. Maybe he’s straight, but I doubt it. Had a rep as a real hard guy in the old days.”

  “What else you know about Rodman?”