Take a Number

by Janet Dawson

  “Surely you don’t think Yancy killed Raynor?”

  “He was at the murder scene. He had a motive and an opportunity.” So did several others, but I wasn’t quite ready to dismiss Steve Yancy—or his wife.

  “Did you tell Lieutenant Bruinsma about this?” Alex asked.

  “No. I figured she’d find out on her own.”

  “Or the chief will tell her. She wants to talk with him, and right now he’s in a confessional mood. It’ll all wind up in her JAG report. Should make interesting reading as it goes up the chain.”

  “Alex, we’ll talk later,” I said, watching the clock. “I have to meet someone.”

  I locked my office and took the stairs down to street level, thinking about Alex Tongco. Even if there was no professional conflict between the Navy’s interests and mine in the Raynor investigation, it felt awkward as hell discussing the matter with Alex. I liked the man and enjoyed his company, though I didn’t think the relationship was going anywhere. But I also had a job to do and I couldn’t let my personal life get in the way.

  As I walked to Bill Stanley’s office I thought about the Raynor investigation, the original one. Find the money, a supposedly routine task that should have been easy to complete but wasn’t. Now that job had been overshadowed by Raynor’s death, which complicated lives all around me, like a rock dropped in water, creating a widening circle.

  The biggest complication was to Ruth Raynor, awaiting the District Attorney’s decision whether to charge her with murder. Arrayed against her was the evidence of her gun, her prints, and a damned good reason to want her husband dead. Too many people were willing to accept that and let Ruth take the blame.

  It was more convenient that way, especially for the killer.

  Twenty-five

  I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE HINT OF TROUBLE IN BILL Stanley’s phone message. When I arrived at his office shortly before two, he gave me the bad news. The Alameda County District Attorney had filed a complaint against Ruth that morning, charging her with the murder of Sam Raynor.

  “Sunday you told me the worst she could be charged with was voluntary manslaughter,” I reminded him. “The cops must have a better case than we thought.”

  Bill leaned back in his worn chair and laced his fingers together. He was wearing another flowered tie, this one a scattering of orange California poppies on a deep blue background, matching today’s rather sedate pair of blue and orange suspenders.

  “The cops have nothing,” he said. “Circumstantial at best. I’m counting on you to poke holes in their case. Ruth will be arraigned tomorrow. She’ll enter a plea and the judge will set a date for the preliminary examination.” Bill ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “Anywhere between ten and sixty days, depending on how much time we need to prepare.”

  “What about bail?” I asked, leaning back in my chair.

  “The assistant D.A. made some noise about the amount, but I told the judge she’s got ties to the community— parents, the kid. Ruth’s not gonna skip. Anyway, her old man put up a big hunk of cash. He took her home to Alameda.”

  “How is she?”

  Bill shrugged. “After two days in the lockup? Shaky, worried about Wendy.”

  “Why did the assistant D.A. quibble about dollars? I would think a low bail is appropriate for someone like Ruth.”

  “We drew Maloney. He’s the D.A.’s new hotshot, out to prove how tough he is on crime. I overheard him in the hall, making noise about how he’s tired of broads who blow the old man away, then claim spouse abuse.”

  “Great. That’s all we need. A Neanderthal for a prosecutor.” I got up from the chair and crossed to the window, where I looked down at the intersection as Bill continued.

  “The cops talked to Raynor’s divorce lawyer, Tolliver. He made a big deal about Ruth asking for the restraining order and what he described as restrictive and unreasonable visitation. He implied that Sam may have been going to see the kid.”

  “Oh, sure,” I said, hands on my hips. “He shoves his way into his estranged wife’s apartment at eleven o’clock at night just so he can visit his daughter? Come on. What else did Tolliver tell the cops?”

  “That Ruth was a greedy, grasping woman trying to wring every cent she could out of her poor, penniless sailor husband.” Bill thumped his hand on a legal-sized accordion folder that I assumed contained his case file. “Although I notice Tolliver stopped short of admitting that Raynor had salted away over a hundred thou so he wouldn’t have to split it in the divorce settlement. Tolliver brought up the subject of murder for financial gain. As far as I know, Raynor died intestate, which means Ruth and Wendy split the estate, assuming there is one. And since Wendy’s a minor, Ruth would administer her share.”

  “Murder for financial gain?” I echoed. “That’s a special circumstance.” Which in California means a capital crime. “Bill, that’s ludicrous. If Ruth shot Sam at all, it was self-defense. And I don’t think for a minute that she shot him.”

  “You’re convinced somebody else pulled the trigger?”

  “I just can’t see Ruth as the shooter.” I shook my head. “If the gun went off when they struggled, if Sam’s body had been found in the apartment, maybe. But Sam was shot in the back, in the hall. That’s too cold-blooded for the Ruth I know.”

  “You don’t know her that well,” Bill pointed out.

  “Okay, I only met her two weeks ago. But I’m a good judge of character. I have to be, in my business. As far as your case is concerned, I can poke holes in Mrs. Parmenter’s statement. I told you that last night. I have another witness who lends some credence to my theory that someone was with Sam Raynor when he entered that building Saturday night.”

  Bill listened while I related the substance of my interview with Maurice Hemphill, punctuating my narrative with questions of his own. “Theories are fine,” he said when I finished, “but I need warm bodies I can bring into a courtroom.”

  “I take it the assistant D.A.’s tough-on-crime stance precludes a plea bargain.”

  “Ruth says she didn’t shoot Sam,” Bill said. “We’ve gone over her story time after time and it still comes up the same. The plea is not guilty. The cops did find the second slug, buried in the sofa. So Ruth’s telling the truth about the gun going off when she and Sam fought over it. But I’d like to blast the D.A.’s case out of the water. Another suspect might do it. Maybe you can rustle up something in Gilroy.”

  “Gilroy?” I’d been moving restlessly around Bill’s office. Now I stopped and stared at the attorney. “What’s in Gilroy—besides the Garlic Festival?”

  “Sam Raynor’s funeral. Autopsy was done Monday and the body was claimed early this morning by Raynor’s mother.”

  “Mother? Sam told Ruth his parents were dead.”

  Bill stuck a hand in the accordion folder and pulled out a single sheet torn from a yellow legal pad. “Well, according to Navy records, Sam Raynor’s next of kin is a Mrs. Alma Raynor, Gilroy, California. He was born and raised there.”

  “He told Ruth he was from San Jose,” I said, examining the sheet of paper Bill tossed my way. He’d scribbled notes all over it, in blue ink, and it was hard to make sense of what he’d written. “Makes me wonder what else he lied about.”

  “Probably everything,” Bill said. “I want you to go down there and find out. I called the mortuary that picked up the body. Funeral’s Wednesday morning at some church in Gilroy. The address is at the bottom of the sheet.”

  I walked back to my building and climbed the stairs to my third floor office. I discovered someone waiting for me outside the door. I was more than a little surprised to see who it was.

  “I was just about to leave you a note.” Admiral Franklin’s words were as crisp as his blue slacks and plaid shirt. He tucked a small notebook and pen back into his shirt pocket.

  “How’s Ruth?” I asked him, taking out my keys. He didn’t answer until we were inside. I took a seat at my desk and waved him to the chair opposite me.

  �
�As well as can be expected,” he said, looking more subdued than usual. His gray eyes rested for a moment on my face. “Glad to be out of that damned jail and home with Wendy and her mother.” He paused. I looked at the message light flashing on my answering machine as the silence stretched between us.

  “What did you want to talk about, Admiral?” I asked finally.

  “I’m very worried about Ruth.” He straightened and scowled at me. Then he stood up and began pacing, which is difficult to do in an office as narrow as mine.

  “Bill Stanley is one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the area,” I began, but he waved away my words.

  “I know that but— To sit in that courtroom this morning and hear my daughter charged with murder. She didn’t kill him, and Stanley’s attitude seems to be that maybe she did but he can get her off.”

  “Defense attorneys have a different way of looking at these situations,” I said, choosing my words carefully.

  “It’s not a situation. It’s my daughter.”

  Franklin’s words matched the frustration etched on his face. He was a hard-shelled old hypocrite, but I did feel a flash of sympathy for him. My own father once told me you never stop being a parent, no matter how old you or your offspring get.

  “I have to do something,” he said, smashing one fist into the open palm of his hand. Then he glared down at me as though I were the source of his problems. “I am not a man accustomed to inaction.”

  I’ll bet, I thought. He’d retired several years ago, after more than thirty years in the Navy, and his recent try for the state senate had gone belly up in the primary. The man could only play so much golf, and I was sure Lenore didn’t want him around the house all day, particularly now, when she was occupied with caring for Ruth and Wendy. I’d known this was coming, ever since my early morning visit to the Franklins’ house on Sunday.

  “There must be something I can do to assist,” Admiral Franklin said. “People I can interview. You know as well as I do that Raynor must have had someone with him that night, someone who used Ruth’s gun to shoot him. I assume you’ve talked to the other tenants in the building.”

  “On Monday.” What if I sent the Admiral to face off with that martinet building manager? Now that might be worth watching.

  “Miss Howard, I know that our previous encounters have been somewhat acrimonious.”

  “That’s an apt description,” I commented.

  His gray eyes flashed at me, then he went on. “But my wife likes you and so does my daughter. Furthermore, they both trust you. You’ve worked for Mr. Stanley before and I assume you would not have been in business as long as you have if you weren’t a competent investigator. So I’m asking you, please, put the past aside and let me help, in whatever way I can.”

  I thought about it for a long moment, wondering what task I could assign him where he would do the least harm. “All right,” I said with resignation. “There is something that needs doing. It’s likely to be time-consuming and I don’t have time to do it right now.”

  The Admiral fairly snapped to attention. “What is it?”

  “There’s a homeless woman who camps out across the street from Ruth’s apartment, in that lot where the building is going up. The people in the neighborhood call her Rosie, because she wears a straw hat with a pink cloth rose. She pushes a shopping cart filled with all her stuff, and she scavenges food, cans, and bottles from the Dumpsters of the businesses along Piedmont Avenue. I saw her on Forty-first Street Friday afternoon, the day before the murder. Someone else saw her in the area Saturday afternoon. If she was there Saturday night, she may have seen something.”

  “Is she lucid?” the Admiral asked, his nose twitching as though he suspected he was being dispatched on a snipe hunt.

  “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe she was there, maybe she wasn’t. But she hangs out in the vicinity, so that makes her a potential witness, just as much as the people who live around there.”

  I gave him a brief rundown of my conversations with the foreman and the yogurt shop employee. “She scratched her initial on the door of the shed at the construction site. The foreman showed me. It looks like this.” I picked up a pencil and sketched the spiky R with the long tail. “Maybe she puts her mark other places.”

  Admiral Franklin had pulled out his notebook and pen and was taking notes while I talked. “Good. I’ll question the merchants along Piedmont Avenue, then the people who live around Howe and Forty-first.”

  “You don’t question anyone,” I told him. “You talk. You converse. You schmooze.” He stared at me without comprehension. I decided to demonstrate. “Okay, pretend I’m a Piedmont Avenue shopkeeper and give me a sample.”

  He frowned, drew himself up to his full height, his posture ramrod straight, and barked questions at me. I interrupted him in mid-sentence. “No, no. You can’t interrogate people like that, not if you want information. You’re too damned intimidating.” I stood up, put my hands on my hips and looked him up and down with a critical eye. “I think what we need here is a little less military bearing.”

  “What do you mean?” He looked confused.

  “You always look like you’re wearing a uniform, even though you’ve retired. No wonder people still call you Admiral. But this isn’t the Navy. The people you’re talking to aren’t sailors who have to salute and obey. Forget you ever had all that gold braid on your sleeves. You’re not a cop. People don’t have to tell you anything. You have to persuade them. You’ve got to blend in with the crowd, be a regular guy, so people will be comfortable talking with you. Remember, you’re asking a favor of a person who’s busy running a cash register, keeping an eye out for shoplifters and answering questions from legitimate customers. You want to do it economically, but you also want to make it as easy as possible for them to respond to your questions. Here, pretend you’re a sales clerk in a bakery.”

  Joe Franklin stared at me in utter amazement as I went into my questioning routine, trying not to think about the absurdity of my giving private eye lessons to this man I disliked. Still, he was determined to do whatever he could to help his daughter, which meant I was doomed to have him underfoot. I might as well put him to work. And if he was going to do it, he had to be effective.

  The expression on Franklin’s face turned thoughtful. “I think I’ve got it,” he said. “I’ll have a go at Piedmont Avenue and report back to you tomorrow. What time do you get to work?”

  “I’ll be out of town most of the day. Bill wants me to go to Sam Raynor’s funeral. Just leave a message. Here’s the number.”

  I handed Admiral Franklin one of my business cards and watched him leave, eagerness now flashing in those gray eyes. I shook my head, wondering what sort of monster I had just unleashed on Piedmont Avenue.

  I hope I don’t regret this, I muttered, punching the playback button on my answering machine.

  Twenty-six

  GILROY MEANS GARLIC.

  If you roll down your window as you drive through on U.S. 101, you can smell the stuff for miles. Each July the citizens of Gilroy celebrate the stinking rose with a festival that draws crowds from all over the state to sample everything from garlic wine to garlic ice cream. I’m as fond of garlic as the next person, but I prefer mine on pasta.

  Sam Raynor’s funeral was scheduled for eleven o’clock Wednesday morning, at a Methodist church located, oddly enough, at the corner of Fourth and Church streets, west of downtown Gilroy. It was a pale brown stucco building with a red tile roof. The windows were arched, as was the doorway where a small group of people clustered on the shallow front steps, waiting for the service to begin. On the north side of the church I saw a parking lot where a long black hearse had pulled up to the building’s rear entrance, I parked on the opposite side of Church Street, behind a Chevy pickup. A man sat behind the wheel of the pickup, his right arm flung across the top of the seat.

  I opened the door of my Toyota and got out, feeling hot and wrinkled in my gray linen dress with little pearl buttons on the
bodice and cuffs. Linen doesn’t travel well, particularly on a hot day in a non-air-conditioned car. Still, the gray dress would have to do. I wasn’t a relative or a friend, but I wanted to look appropriately sober.

  As I passed the pickup I glanced through the open window. The man in the driver’s seat was not appropriately sober. In fact he seemed inappropriately jubilant, given the broad smile on his round fair face. Our eyes met. He saluted me with the bottle he held in his left hand, then raised it to his lips and took a swig. I stopped and examined the stocky figure, clad in khaki trousers and blue work shirt, open at the neck to reveal a white T-shirt underneath. He was about my age, early thirties, with short blond hair receding from a forehead beaded with perspiration.

  “Good morning,” I said, moving closer to the truck.

  “Beautiful morning.” His voice was cheerful and his blue eyes twinkled as he glanced at my gray dress. He waggled his bottle at me. “Want a bracer before you go into the church? You’ll probably need it.”

  “A bit early in the day for me. You’re not attending the Raynor funeral?”

  “Hell, I’m here to make sure the son of a bitch is dead.”

  He chuckled as he raised his bottle again. What I’d thought was booze turned out to be grapefruit juice. He wasn’t tipsy, just cheerful. He screwed the cap on the bottle and set it on the seat next to him, humming a song that sounded familiar. I finally identified it by the first line, a phrase that ran, “I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you.”

  “You don’t look like his type,” he said with a grin. “Curiosity seeker?”

  “Seeking information.” I took one of my business cards from my shoulder bag and handed it to him.

  “Private detective.” He put thumb and forefinger together and snapped the card. “Very interesting.” He chuckled again.

  “I’ll bet you can tell me a lot about Sam Raynor.”

  “Lady, you’d win that bet.” The words were sharp, his voice suddenly intense. His eyes narrowed and turned cagey. “Depends on who you’re working for.”