by Janet Dawson
“You remember Jeri,” Ruth said when they reached me. “You met her at Grandma’s house.”
“You’re late.” Wendy’s accusatory words were directed at her mother, but from the way she stared at me, I knew I was being held partly responsible. She frowned and pursed her mouth, looking like a worried little old lady. “I don’t like it when you’re late.”
Ruth knelt and put her arms around the child. “I know, honey. I’m sorry. I won’t be late again.”
“Can we have ice cream?” Wendy asked.
“Before dinner?” Ruth stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Oh, why not? You want to stop at Fenton’s, Jeri?”
“Sure,” I said. Ruth took Wendy’s hand and we retraced our steps toward Piedmont. “I’m going to have toasted almond ice cream, Wendy. What are you going to have? Strawberry?” She shook her head.
“Vanilla?” I asked the little girl. “Lemon? Rocky road? Butter Brickle? Peach?”
I recited the litany of flavors as we walked along, and Wendy shook her head firmly after each one. I started making up flavors, like broccoli ripple, artichoke marble, and lima bean surprise. Finally Wendy smiled. When I proposed hominy horror, she giggled, screwed up her pale little face and rewarded me with a heartfelt “Yuck!”
“I know what kind of ice cream you like,” I told her, taking her other hand. “It’s my favorite too. Let’s get a big, big bowl of...”
“Chocolate,” the three of us chorused in unison as we went through the door of Fenton’s.
Fourteen
THE PHONE JANGLED ME INTO CONSCIOUSNESS. I struggled out of the embrace of sheets, hand groping for the lamp on my bedside table. When my fingers were finally able to switch it on, the sudden glare of light hurt my eyes. I squinted at the clock radio as though I were staring into fog.
It was past one, too damn early Sunday morning. It had only been a few hours since Alex and I left Cassie’s place, where Eric had cooked a remarkable meal and we’d indulged in two bottles of wine, plus after-dinner brandy. Beside me Alex stirred, turned over, and shaded his eyes with his hand. I picked up the receiver and the ringing stopped.
It took me a few seconds to identify the frantic, nearly incoherent voice on the other end of the line as that of Lenore Franklin. Then the Admiral took the phone away from her. His terse words were all too understandable. They propelled my feet to the floor and brought me fully awake and stone-cold sober.
“I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.” I hung up the phone, stood and reached for the clothes I’d discarded when Alex and I went to bed earlier. “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” I told Alex. “Would you feed the cat before you leave?”
“Sure.” He propped himself up on one elbow and smiled sleepily. “So this is what it feels like when someone gets up in the middle of the night and leaves. Did somebody die?”
“Yes. Sam Raynor.”
When I turned onto Howe Street, I saw the pulsing red lights in front of Ruth Raynor’s apartment building a couple of blocks away. There were several Oakland police cruisers, as well as an ambulance. I parked my Toyota and continued on foot, threading my way through the crowd that had gathered like metal filings on a magnet.
I spotted three faces that held more than idle curiosity. Two I recognized. Were they here by happenstance or design? The third face loomed at me from the sidewalk near the vacant lot where I’d seen the homeless woman Friday afternoon, a face unknown to me. In the red light it held such a dark glowering look that I stared at it and filed its features in my mind for future reference.
I turned toward the police line, looking for Admiral Joseph Franklin. I spotted his tall spare figure standing alone near a patrol car. He looked like he’d thrown on his clothes as quickly as I had. He was puffing on a cigarette, drawing in smoke as though it were much-needed oxygen. When he saw me, he pitched the cigarette to the pavement and ground it out with his heel as he walked briskly toward me.
“They’ve arrested Ruth.” His thin-lipped mouth was grim.
“Start at the beginning.”
“The police called. They said Sam had been shot. They wanted us to come and get Wendy. That’s all they told us. When we got there, Ruth was in the back of a patrol car. They wouldn’t let me talk to her.” He scowled furiously and gestured in the direction of Kaiser Hospital. “They said she’d been injured, so they took her to the emergency room. From there they were going downtown, to police headquarters.”
“Injured? How badly? How did it happen?”
I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the Admiral’s gun sights. He balled his hands into fists and his gray eyes flared with fury. The red lights of the patrol car made him look like the Devil himself.
“That bastard forced his way into her apartment, put his filthy hands around her neck, and choked her.”
“What about Wendy?”
“The police had her in another patrol car, trying to calm her down. We couldn’t tell if she’d been hurt, but she couldn’t stop crying. Lenore and I took her down the street to Kaiser. We called you while the doctor was examining Wendy. Then Lenore took her home. I walked back up here.”
“You called Ruth’s attorney?”
He nodded. “Yes, right before we called you. She said she’d meet us downtown. She’s a divorce lawyer, damn it. She doesn’t have any experience in criminal matters.”
“We’ll deal with that later. Come on. My car’s this way.”
As we left the scene I looked up at Ruth’s building, recalling my visit Friday afternoon, and her face as she told me about her disastrous marriage. And Wendy. I’d felt triumphant when I finally got the child to laugh. That was less than thirty-six hours ago, and the whole situation had blown up in our faces, worse than I ever imagined when I took this case.
Now Sam was dead. Crime scene investigators were inside Ruth’s apartment, meticulously sifting through her brave new life, looking for evidence. And Ruth herself was down at Homicide, sitting in an interview room.
I unlocked my car and Franklin folded his tall body into the passenger seat. Since Lenore had taken their car, that meant I was stuck with him for the duration. There was still no love lost between us, but he was so distracted by his daughter’s predicament that he didn’t say anything on our drive downtown. I parked on Seventh Street near Washington. The Admiral and I crossed the street and entered the Oakland Police Administration Building.
At this hour the elevators were locked and so were the double glass doors leading to the second-floor Criminal Investigation Division. I rapped on the glass and peered into the hallway with its garish orange walls, but no one appeared. Then a uniformed officer I knew exited through a door immediately opposite the glass doors and let us into CID. I thanked him, turned right and led the way down the hall, Franklin at my heels as I pushed open the door to Homicide.
Death was having a busy night—or morning—in Oakland. Directly in front of me I saw a disheveled white man with a cut visible in the stubble on his chin. He slumped in a chair, stinking of beer and the street, his pale blue eyes flitting around the room, until a detective in shirtsleeves hauled him to his feet and steered him toward the door the Admiral and I had just entered.
To my left, in one of the interview rooms, I saw a middle-aged black woman sobbing into a handkerchief as though her heart was already broken. Younger family members circled her anxiously, with the sheen of tears on their cheeks, caught between their own sorrow and their inability to comfort her. I heard someone shouting, the words in another language, which could have been anything from Spanish to Chinese, punctuated by thuds as fists hit a wall. Cigarette smoke hovered near the ceiling, the aroma fighting with the smell of coffee from a nearby pot. Phones rang on the metal desks, receivers snatched up by the detectives, interrupting the tap of typewriter keys on paperwork.
I looked around for someone I knew and saw Sergeant Sid Vernon, my ex-husband. He stood at his desk, looming over his partner, Wayne Hobart. They look like Mutt and Jeff. Sid’s tall and wide at
the shoulders, his hair and moustache a dark gold, while Wayne is short, round-faced, and round-shouldered, with medium-brown hair and eyes, an average-looking guy who doesn’t say much. You don’t notice Wayne right away. He blends into the background, but that works to his advantage.
I crossed the dingy linoleum floor to Sid’s desk, the Admiral close behind. Sid saw me and narrowed his yellow cat’s eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“Who took the call on the Raynor homicide?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Ruth Raynor’s my client.”
An amused smile twisted Wayne’s mouth and I had my answer. Sid grimaced and raised his eyes heavenward, or more accurately, to the grimy ceiling.
“I might have known,” he growled. “It’s been that kind of a week.”
“This is Mrs. Raynor’s father, Admiral Joseph Franklin.”
“I want to see my daughter.” The Admiral’s voice rang with authority as he stood with back ramrod straight and hawk nose jutting into the air. But his Navy rank didn’t cut any ice here.
“Sir, that’s not possible now.” Wayne’s voice was mild, level, placating. “You and Ms. Howard will have to wait.”
For what or how long he didn’t say.
The Admiral’s control slipped just a bit and his voice shook with urgency. “But the officer at the scene said she was injured. I have to know if she’s all right.”
“A doctor looked her over. She’s fine. We just have a few questions to ask her.” Wayne put his hand on the Admiral’s arm and steered him toward the door. At that moment Franklin looked his age.
I turned to Sid. “He said Ruth was taken away in a patrol car. You must have probable cause to arrest.” He didn’t answer. “All I know is Sam Raynor’s dead. Can’t you tell me anything else?”
Sid’s yellow eyes gazed at me for a long moment. “Not really. Except that Raynor took a slug in the back and we’re talking to witnesses.”
I had a bad feeling as I went back outside to wait with the Admiral. Sid had a look in his eye I’d seen many times before, during the three years we had been married, a look that said he and his partner were homing in on a suspect, ready to spring the trap. The evidence against Ruth Raynor must have been solid. Whether the District Attorney agreed that it was enough to charge her with murder was another matter.
In the hallway outside I stared at the walls. “I hate this orange paint,” I said, more to myself than to Admiral Franklin. “One of these days I’m going to come in here with a can of nice restful blue latex and paint this damn wall.”
He stared at me as though I’d taken leave of my senses. Then he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, disregarding the NO SMOKING signs posted in plain view. I don’t know how long we waited, but the Admiral smoked one cigarette down to the butt and used that to fire up another. Down the hallway a sharp knock rattled the double glass doors, and I walked to the end of the corridor to see who was there. It was Blair Castle, Ruth’s divorce attorney, her face pale and devoid of makeup, looking rumpled in tan slacks and an orange knit pullover that clashed with the paint on the walls.
Blair had someone with her, a tall loose-limbed lanky man whose brown hair looked like he’d combed it with his fingers. He wore dirty sneakers with no socks, faded jeans, and an Oakland A’s jersey. His hazel eyes were bleary, as though he’d just gotten out of a bed he hadn’t been in long. I felt an immediate kinship on that count alone.
“This is Bill Stanley,” Blair said, making the introductions as I let them into the corridor. “He’s a criminal defense attorney, one of the best.”
Stanley greeted Admiral Franklin first, in a raspy voice that smoothed out as he spoke. He extended his hand as he slipped effortlessly into his lawyer persona, radiating confidence, expertise, control. He did it so well he might have been wearing a three-piece suit instead of his current grungy attire. Then he turned to me.
“We’ve met,” I said.
Bill Stanley lifted one bushy brown eyebrow and cocked his head to one side. Up close I saw a lot of gray threaded in his brown hair. He was about ten years older than me. His eyes were a lot older.
“Jeri Howard. You worked for me on that Goldberg case. And another one, I forget the guy’s name, back when you were with the Seville Agency.”
I nodded. That was right before my mentor Errol Seville had a heart attack and retired. Aside from, my occasional jobs for Stanley, I knew him by reputation. He was good. A bit unorthodox, but good.
“Sorry to see Errol pull the plug,” Stanley said. “Hell of a guy. Okay, Blair filled me in when she phoned. Then I called Homicide, told ‘em I was on my way down and to put everything on ice until I talk to Ruth.” He stopped and rubbed his stubbly chin, looking past me at Joe Franklin. “I’m getting ahead of myself. Am I hired?”
The Admiral nodded vigorously. “Of course. Just get my daughter out of this mess.”
“Okay, I’m gonna need a retainer up front.” The defense attorney named a figure that raised my eyebrows, but Franklin was already reaching for his checkbook. He used the orange wall as a desk, quickly scribbling out the check. He signed his name with a jagged scrawl, tore the paper rectangle free and handed it to the lawyer.
“Were you able to find out anything?” Stanley asked me.
“Raynor was shot in the back. The cops are holding Ruth for questioning. They’re also talking to witnesses. The homicide detectives are Sid Vernon and Wayne Hobart. I should warn you that Sid and I were married once.”
“Yeah, I know.” Stanley didn’t say how he knew. He looked from me to Blair and the Admiral. “Where’d Ruth get the gun? Did the ex bring it with him? Or was it hers?”
Admiral Franklin sighed and cleared his throat. “I bought it for her.”
“Why?” I demanded, fighting down the impulse to shake him. Having a gun in the house is a lot like keeping a rattlesnake for a pet. Sooner or later the snake bites.
“For protection. She was living in Oakland.” His voice was tinged with the common perception that living anywhere in Oakland is like living in a war zone. Sometimes it is, most of the time it isn’t. You can say that about any city.
“I was afraid that bastard would make some move against her,” the Admiral continued, “in spite of the restraining order. So I bought her a snub-nosed thirty-eight and some ammunition. All perfectly legal and aboveboard. The gun’s registered to her.”
“Did Ruth know how to use it?” Blair asked. From the look of dismay on her thin face, I could tell she didn’t like the idea any better than I did.
“Of course.” The Admiral’s tone implied that everyone grew up knowing how to clean, load, and fire a gun. “I taught both Ruth and Kevin myself. I used to take them to the firing range with me.”
“If it’s her gun that was used to kill Sam,” I said, “her prints are all over it. That’s bad.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Bill Stanley rubbed his chin again.
I turned to him. “Sid’s got a look in his eye that says they’ve got a good case. They must have some strong evidence against Ruth or they wouldn’t have arrested her.”
Stanley laughed and narrowed his eyes, looking like a man who enjoyed a challenge, any kind of challenge. “They always want you to think that. First I need to talk to Ruth. Then we’ll shake up the cops and see what falls loose.”
We followed the attorney through the door into Homicide, where Sid and Wayne were still conferring at Sid’s desk. Bill Stanley greeted them as though he’d encountered them over at the Warehouse, a cop bar at the corner of Fourth and Webster.
“Who let you in?” Sid said with a grumpy snort, as though Bill Stanley’s presence lowered the ambience of the joint.
“I’m here to see my client, Ruth Raynor. I know you guys got her stashed somewhere. Probably right in there.” Stanley pointed one long finger at the closed door of an interview room.
“You’re her lawyer?” Wayne Hobart shook his head as though unable to believe that anyone c
ould be so foolish as to sign on Bill Stanley.
“Yeah, her old man just hired me.” Stanley grinned and pointed his thumb back over his shoulder at Admiral Franklin, who looked taken aback, perhaps at being called an old man or, more likely, at the bantering tone evident in this exchange between the attorney and the detectives. I’d seen this sort of interplay often enough to know it was all part of the ritual. “I called you half an hour ago, Wayne. You’ve had time to roll out the red carpet. Now I’m here. Quit stalling and let me see my client.”
Sid and Wayne exchanged glances in the kind of telepathy that exists between longstanding partners. “Tell Mrs. Raynor that it is in her best interest to talk with us, so we can clear up this situation.”
Stanley chuckled. “Sid, you gotta get yourself a new record. That one’s got too many scratches on it.”
Sid shrugged and moved toward the closed door that led to the small claustrophobic room where the Oakland cops interviewed suspects. He opened it and stepped aside.
Fifteen
I SAW RUTH RAYNOR HUDDLED IN AN ORANGE PLASTIC chair in the far corner of the windowless room, a small figure in a blue denim skirt, a pink blouse, and sandals. Her back was against the graffiti-scarred blue and white walls, and she clutched a wad of tissues. Her paper-white face contrasted with the purple bruises visible at her neck.
She stared at us without recognition, her eyes like those of an animal caught in a trap, waiting for rescue or death. Her father cried out and moved toward her. Bill Stanley restrained him.
“Not now,” Stanley ordered. “Just me and Jeri.”
“I’m hired?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah. You’re already in it, so everything you know is covered by attorney-client privilege. Come see me Monday morning and we’ll hammer out details. For now I want you to listen in. Let me do the talking.”
I nodded. Stanley and I stepped into the tiny room and he shut the door. Ruth looked up at us and she finally recognized me. “Jeri, is Wendy okay? She was crying. I couldn’t make her stop crying. The police took her away. They said they’d call Mom and Dad. I gave them the phone number. Is she okay?”
