Take a Number

by Janet Dawson

  I nodded. “In her late thirties, early forties.”

  “Interesting.” Sister Anne sipped her coffee. “I haven’t seen her in this shelter. I’d have noticed. I mean, look around you. Given Oakland’s demographics and this particular neighborhood, most of our clients are black, with a few Hispanics and Native Americans. We don’t get many white drop-ins.”

  “Inga’s white.” Emily lifted a piece of coffee cake to her mouth.

  “That’s right. She’s much older, though.” Sister Anne turned to me with a sigh. “Inga must be in her eighties. From Germany. She came over here during the Depression and worked as a domestic for a dollar a day. No social security, no pension, nothing.”

  “Now she lives on the streets?” The picture Sister Anne drew was horrifying, an elderly woman with no resources. That safety net suddenly became visible in my mind, a fine green mesh knit together with money and the faces of my family, with my Kaiser health insurance card tied on one corner.

  “She’s got a room somewhere downtown, no kitchen, has to walk down the hall to the bathroom. She eats lunch over at St. Vincent de Paul or the Salvation Army and comes here for coffee and dessert. If the weather’s good, she spends the day in the park at Lake Merritt.” Sister Anne sighed, then turned to the older woman who sat with us. “Emily, you’ve been to some of the other downtown shelters. Have you ever seen this woman with a rose on her hat?”

  Emily thought about it for a long moment. I was curious about her circumstances, but she had such an air of quiet dignity and resignation that I felt it would be presumptuous to ask.

  “I don’t think so,” Emily said finally. “If she always wears the hat, I would have noticed. I got some friends who take stuff to the recycling center. I’ll ask around.” Emily’s tired brown eyes sharpened. “Why you looking for her? She in some kinda trouble?”

  “There was a murder Saturday night, in an apartment building at Forty-first and Howe. It’s just a hunch, really, but I know this woman hangs out in the area. I saw her there Friday afternoon. If she was in the neighborhood Saturday, she may have seen something.”

  “If she did,” Emily said, “she’s scared. I would be. And I’d hide.”

  “You’re probably right, Emily. But even if she’s hiding, eventually she’ll come out.”

  Emily shrugged. “If I see her, I’ll get word to Sister.”

  I thanked Emily. Sister Anne walked me to the door of the shelter. “Thanks for bringing over that box of clothes and shoes last month, Jeri. Any time you clean out your closet we can certainly use the donation.”

  I looked around me, at the women sitting at tables. “It seems like such a drop in the bucket.”

  Sister Anne laughed. “Yes, but eventually all those little drops fill the bucket.”

  Twenty-four

  I STEPPED OFF THE SIDEWALK ONTO DIRT, WALKING toward a prefab building at the rear of the construction site at Forty-first and Howe. As I passed some rolls of heavy duty chain-link fencing, I was stopped by a middle-aged man in tan coveralls and a red hard hat. He was about my height, with a thick torso and heavily muscled forearms.

  “Sorry,” he said briskly. “This is a construction site. If you don’t have business here, please stay out of the area.”

  “I need to speak with the foreman.”

  “I’m the foreman. What can I do for you?”

  I took one of my business cards from my purse and handed it to him. “It’s about the murder that occurred in that apartment building last Saturday night,” I said, my thumb pointing over my shoulder at Ruth’s place.

  He examined me with his serious brown eyes, then tucked the card into the breast pocket of his coveralls. “Yeah, I read about that in the Trib. I can’t tell you anything, though. None of my crew was here that time of night.”

  “I know. I was here Friday afternoon. I noticed a homeless woman with a shopping cart. She headed for this lot, and I got the impression she was sleeping here. If that’s the case and she was here Saturday night, maybe she saw something.”

  “Oh, you mean Rosie,” the foreman said, using the same monicker Ruth’s neighbor had. He rested one hand on his hip. The fingers of his other hand stroked his moustache, which was black flecked with gray. “I don’t know what her name is. Don’t know if she knows. We call her Rosie, on account of that straw hat. She wouldn’t be much help to you. She ain’t exactly playing with a full deck.”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  He shook his head, and when he spoke, his words contained a mixture of exasperation and sympathy. “You’re right, she does sleep here. Or did, until we started this job about a month ago. It’s been a real problem. She thinks this is her turf. We’ve been having a war of nerves. Hell, I don’t want to hurt some poor woman whose elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor. But I’ve got a job to do and a schedule to meet.”

  He gestured toward a row of bushes separating this lot from the parking lot behind the businesses on Piedmont Avenue. “She spreads her sleeping bag under those bushes over there. My guys clean it all out, but she comes back again. She lets us know how she feels about it.”

  “Vandalism?” I guessed.

  “If you want to put a name on it, yeah. Bags of cement ripped open, lumber strewn around. Of course, we’ve also had the local kids writing graffiti all over the place. I don’t know who’s doing what. But Rosie scratched her initial on the shed.”

  The foreman pointed at the door of his office. An R was scratched onto the metal surface, a crude spiky character with a long emphatic tail. “Last time we rousted her, I told her I’d call the cops,” he said. “I hate to do that, though. You shouldn’t lock somebody up for being homeless. So we’re putting up the fence. That’ll keep everybody off the site. Rosie won’t like that. Hope she doesn’t go after the cars again.”

  “She’s defaced some of your vehicles?”

  “Yeah. She gets real pissed off if someone blocks the curb cut.” He pointed to the shallow slope leading from sidewalk to street. “She can’t get her shopping cart up on the sidewalk. About two weeks ago one of my guys parked his car a little too close to the corner, and she scratched hell out of his hood. Now he’s gotta get a new paint job. Boy, was he steamed.”

  “Have you or any of your crew seen Rosie since Friday?”

  He shook his head. “Not since Thursday morning. That’s when I threatened her with the cops. Let me ask the other guys.” He quickly polled the members of his crew and returned with the same negative answer.

  “Any idea where I can find her?”

  “She hangs out in this neighborhood. I see her with that stick, digging in the Dumpsters and the trash cans for cans and bottles.”

  “If you see her, call me. My number’s on that card.”

  “Will do,” he said with a brief wave.

  I left the construction site, stopped on the corner and stared across the street to Ruth’s building, recalling the scene early Sunday morning when I had arrived. If Rosie had been here, she may have been frightened away by the commotion surrounding Sam Raynor’s murder. Police cars and flashing red lights would scare her away from the lot, particularly since the foreman had threatened her with the police.

  I walked over to Piedmont Avenue and visited several businesses, describing Rosie. One employee of a frozen yogurt shop told me she’d seen Rosie late Saturday afternoon, but that was the sole information my questions netted. Was I off on a wild goose chase? I didn’t know for certain that Rosie had been in the area Saturday night, or if she had, whether she’d seen anything important. All I knew was that finding her was going to be a time-consuming hassle, one that would have to wait for now.

  Lena Copeland’s Saturday night date, Maurice Hemphill, worked in one of the new high rises recently constructed in downtown Oakland, this one a steel and glass tower on Nineteenth between Alice and Harrison. There was a bank lobby on the first floor. The building entrance faced the corner, and when I arrived at a quarter to twelve, a steady stream o
f office workers flowed through the bank of glass doors, the stream widening and spreading along the downtown sidewalks, across Nineteenth to Snow Park, a city-block oasis of grass and trees. Across Lakeside Drive, Lake Merritt shimmered in the warm August sunshine, its perimeter already being circled by lunchtime joggers and walkers. Other office workers had purchased their sandwiches or salads and carried them to the park, to sit on the grass, while still others eschewed lunch to run errands or shop.

  When I spoke with him on the phone that morning, Hemphill told me he’d be wearing a flowered tie, evidently the prevailing sartorial style in neckwear. It seemed every man I saw had a florist’s shop hanging around his neck. I stood on the corner and scanned the crowd, then I caught sight of a tall, broad-shouldered man in his late twenties, with short black hair and bronze skin. He wore a loose-fitting, well-tailored suit in a pale silvery gray, and a silky shirt of the same color, managing to look cool even on this warm day. The tie was resplendent with peonies, pink and blue and purple, anchored with a pearl tie pin. I raised my eyes to his as he inquired, “Jeri Howard?”

  “Maurice Hemphill?” I held out my hand and he shook it firmly.

  “I have a short lunch hour,” he said, his voice crisp. “Mind if I grab a bite to eat while we talk?”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  As we waited for the light to change, Hemphill told me that he worked for the bank that took up several floors of the building on the corner. When the walk signal flashed on, we joined a parade of pedestrians crossing the street to a quick-lunch café filled with patrons. He asked if I wanted anything and I shook my head. I snagged one of the tiny round tables crowding the sidewalk, earning a grumpy look from two women who had designs on the same table. Hemphill queued up at the salad bar and joined me at the table about five minutes later, balancing a bottle of apple juice, a fork, napkins, and a loaded plate. He sat down, dwarfing the table, loosened his peony-splashed tie, then unfolded a paper napkin and carefully spread it on one knee.

  He uncapped his apple juice and I let him get a head start on his salad, recapping what I’d told him on the phone about interviewing people who had been in Ruth’s apartment building the night of the murder. Evidently Lena had filled him in on our conversation of the day before.

  “I don’t know whether I can help you,” he said as he speared cauliflower with his fork. “As I told Lena, I’m not sure I saw anything important.”

  “Just tell me about Saturday night and let me decide what’s important. What time did you and Lena get to her place Saturday night? And what time did you leave?”

  He didn’t answer right away, instead foraging through his salad for a chunk of avocado. “Can’t say exactly what time we got there, and I was in Lena’s apartment for a while before I left. I’m fairly certain I left right after eleven.”

  “What did you do? Let’s walk through it, in detail, from the minute you walked out Lena’s door.”

  “I kissed her good night, and left the building.”

  “Elevator or stairs?”

  “Stairs,” he said promptly. “The elevator was on another floor, and it’s pretty slow.”

  “Didn’t see anyone in the stairwell?”

  “No.” He shook his head and lifted another forkful of salad to his mouth.

  “The stairs exit into the building lobby. Did you see anyone there?”

  He shook his head again and touched the napkin to his lips. “I couldn’t see it, but I heard a ding and that sound the elevator doors make when they close. Kind of a whooshwhump, you know. My impression was that someone had just gotten onto the elevator, to go up, because I didn’t see anyone in the lobby. Of course, the elevator could have been empty. But it was on the ground floor. Well, I think it was. I didn’t actually see it. The stairs are behind the elevator shaft and when you come out the door in the lobby, the elevator is to the right and forward.”

  “And the front door is on the left,” I added. “Was the front door closed?”

  “Definitely closed,” he said, giving the last word emphasis. “Lena told me the manager’s been on her case. I assure you, that front door was closed until I opened it on my way out.”

  I was quiet while Hemphill finished his lunch, picturing the double glass doors that led to the lobby of the apartment building, with a handle on the outside, a crash bar on the inside, and pneumatic tubes at the top. “Once you push through a door like that,” I said, thinking out loud, “how long does it take for it to close? For the air to escape from that tube at the top, so that it latches?”

  Hemphill thought about it for a moment as he chased one last olive around his plate. “Don’t know. Never thought about it. Some take longer than others. You could time it, I suppose.”

  The possibility might be enough. “Okay, you’ve just stepped outside the door of the apartment building. What next?”

  He shrugged and waved his fork. “I turn right. My car’s parked on Forty-first, just around the corner.”

  “No, no, slow down.” I looked at him across the table. “You’re in slow motion. You’re in front of that door, standing on that pebbly sidewalk in front of the building, just before you turn to the right. Take another look, tell me what you see and hear.”

  Maurice Hemphill folded his hands on the table and closed his eyes, giving in to my suggestion. He was silent for a long moment, then he opened his eyes and stared directly into mine. “A car horn honking,” he said, then paused. “Traffic on Piedmont Avenue. Music from somewhere, rap music. Loud, but only for a minute. Like a car went by with its windows open. Laughing and shouting. I think it’s a bunch of teenagers, over toward that parking lot across the street. I can hear people talking, but it’s closer, on this side of the street.”

  “Can you see the people who are talking?”

  “Yes. It’s an older couple, walking this way on Howe Street.”

  “How do you know they’re older?”

  “Just an impression,” he said with a shrug. “They stop and get into a car, just up the street, and I hear the car start.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “I look up, in the direction of those kids. There’s a man coming toward me. He’s stepped onto the sidewalk there at the corner and he’s coming toward the building.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Big white guy, not as tall as me. Red hair.”

  “Red hair,” I repeated, trying not to show my excitement. “Are you sure?”

  “He’s under the street lamp there on the corner,” Hemphill said, still in the present tense. “The light’s shining on his head. Sure looks red to me.”

  “Is he alone?”

  Hemphill didn’t answer immediately, still looking inward, trying to pluck things from his memory. My anxiety level heightened considerably. “There’s somebody a few steps behind him, following him.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Can’t tell,” he said, shaking his head in frustration. “The second person is on the sidewalk, by the planter. There’s a bush in the way. By this time I’m already walking toward my car, seeing this redheaded guy on my left, out of the corner of my eye, for just a second. Then he’s gone, behind me, I guess.” Hemphill sighed and looked at me, his brown eyes serious. “The redheaded guy could have reached the front door of the building before it closed. That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it? How he got in. He’s the one who got killed, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. But how he got in isn’t as important as who was with him.”

  “You think if his wife didn’t shoot him,” Hemphill said slowly, “this other person did. Damn, don’t know. I can’t even say that they were together. Just that I had an impression they were. I didn’t even get a good look at whoever it was. I wish I could help you.”

  “You already have. Quite a bit.”

  Maurice Hemphill and I parted on the corner, and I walked back toward my office on Franklin Street, moving against the crowds on the sidewalk, my head down as I mulled over Hemphill’s statement.
He’d seen more than he thought he had, enough to tantalize me with the possibility that Sam Raynor’s killer was someone who had followed him into the apartment building. That possibility certainly wasn’t enough to prove anything. Still, there was a chance Maurice Hemphill had seen Sam’s killer. If he had, maybe someone else had too. I’d just have to keep digging until I unearthed another witness. As it was, I felt as though I were piecing together a patchwork quilt and I didn’t have enough squares to finish the project.

  There were several messages on my answering machine, including one from Lieutenant Bruinsma saying she had some information for me. The last voice on the tape was that of Bill Stanley. “Jeri, it’s twelve-thirty. I’ll be in my office till two or thereabouts. We need to talk.” His words sounded terse, bitten off, requiring a face-to-face meeting rather than a phone call. I looked at my watch—one-thirty. If I hustled, I could catch Bill at his office. The phone rang and I reached for it.

  “You didn’t call me back yesterday,” Alex said.

  “I was busy all day.” I leaned against my desk, conscious of the second hand on my wall clock. “I can’t talk long. I was on my way out the door. What’s on your mind?”

  “Chief Yancy.” Alex sounded perturbed. “He was late to work this morning, missed a staff meeting. His division officer wanted to know why, so Yancy dumped the whole story. About Mrs. Yancy and Sam Raynor. Plus you, on Yancy’s doorstep this morning. Jeri, why didn’t you level with me about the chief?”

  “And tell you what? That the guy’s wife is sleeping with someone else?”

  “Not just someone. Raynor worked for him, and Mrs. Yancy’s at another command here on base. Adultery’s against Navy regulations,” Alex said glumly.

  “Adultery’s against a lot of people’s regulations, but that never stopped anyone from doing it. Anyway, I didn’t figure it was Navy business.”

  “It is if it interferes with the job.”

  “Or leads to murder,” I added.