Take a Number

by Janet Dawson

  So Harlan T for Tiger Pettibone was at Fenton’s on Piedmont Avenue at ten-thirty Saturday night, shortly before his friend and roommate Sam Raynor was shot to death two blocks away. Yet on my Monday morning visit to Treasure Island, Chief Duffy LeBard told me Harlan had been arrested Saturday night at the Naval Air Station enlisted club, for fighting with two Marines.

  Obviously Harlan had witnesses who could place him both at Fenton’s Ice Cream Parlor, then at the club. His flamboyant behavior made him noticeable, and provided him with a damned convenient alibi. Had he gone straight from one venue to the other? Or made a stop in between? I sure wanted to know when that fight at the club began. But Harlan was in the brig, out of my reach.

  Thirty-two

  WHEN I CALLED HIM EARLY FRIDAY MORNING, DUFFY LeBard told me Harlan Pettibone would be out of the brig on Tuesday of the following week. “He went to Captain’s Mast last Monday and the C.O. gave him seven days. But this coming Monday is Labor Day, so they won’t cut him loose till Tuesday.”

  “What time did Harlan get involved in that fight at the club? And who started it?” Duffy wanted to know the reason for my questions, so I told him. “Harlan was seen at Fenton’s Ice Cream Parlor on Piedmont at ten-thirty Saturday night That’s two blocks from the building where Sam Raynor was killed.”

  “Cool your jets,” Duffy drawled, and put me on hold. A few minutes later he came back on the line. “Don’t know exactly when the altercation started or who jumped who. But the manager of the club called the dispatcher at eleven-fifty.”

  “What time did Harlan get to the club?”

  “Hell if I know,” Duffy said. “Why is it important?”

  “I want to know if he made any stops between Fenton’s and the club. Or if he saw his roommate. Any chance I can talk with Harlan?”

  “While he’s in the brig? I don’t know, Jeri. If you were a cop, with official clout, maybe. But a private investigator? I might be able to talk my captain into it, but the fight happened over at the air station. Not my turf.”

  “Come on, Duffy. I have a feeling your turf extends anywhere you want it to. If I can’t talk to Harlan, I’ll take the club manager. Or the Marines involved in the fight.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Duffy said. “I’ll talk to a few people, but I’m not making any promises.”

  I hung up the phone and got up to freshen my cup of coffee. I updated my computer file with the information I’d obtained from last night’s interview with Claudia Yancy, then I called my contact at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The state of California has rules about giving out driver information to private investigators and other nosy people, but such details can be had if you talk to the right clerk. I had to be judicious about asking for favors, though, and not press my contact too hard or too often.

  I gave him the license plate number of the car Tiffany Collins struck last Saturday night, after she had left Sam Raynor in the parking lot behind Piedmont Avenue. “Any chance of getting a name and address today?” I asked, with the proper note of supplication in my voice. He grumbled at me, said he’d just helped me out with another case a couple of weeks ago, told me how busy he was, then informed me he was taking the next week off. “That makes it all the more important. This is a murder case. I can’t wait a week.”

  “All right,” he groused, “but you’re pushing your luck with me, Jeri.”

  I thanked him profusely and disconnected the call, then I waited for a dial tone and called Meriwell Hardware in Gilroy. It had been two days since Sam Raynor’s funeral and Tom Meriwell’s promise to contact his sister Denise. She hadn’t called me. I suspected she didn’t want to talk to me. When I had Tom on the line he confirmed this.

  He didn’t say anything at first. In the background I heard laughter and conversation and the noise of the cash register ringing up a sale. “I called Wednesday night. She said she’d think about it.”

  “It’s important.”

  “I told her that.” He sounded both glum and apologetic. “I laid it out for her, gave her your phone number, and she said she’d think about it. It’s up to her. I can’t force her to talk to you. Look, she’s been through a lot. I guess she just doesn’t want to dredge it all up again. Can’t say as I blame her. And Ruben was definitely against it.”

  As I hung up the phone, I catalogued what I knew about Denise Meriwell. According to Mitch Burgett, she worked in a bank in Benicia and had married a man named Padilla. Tom had just provided me with his first name. I turned to the shelf behind my desk, which held an assortment of phone directories from all over northern California. There were a couple of Padillas in Benicia with no address listed, but calls to both numbers netted no answer. I rifled through the yellow pages and listed the addresses of all the financial institutions in and around Benicia, including banks, savings and loans, and credit unions. I didn’t know what Denise Padilla looked like, but I hoped there was some family resemblance to her brother. Besides, if she’d been involved with Sam Raynor, she had to be short and blond.

  I took Highway 24 east, through the Caldecott Tunnel to Contra Costa County. The hills on either side of the freeway were brown and gold, the oaks and evergreens providing patches of green. Everything looked parched and tinder-dry, the result of late summer heat and below normal rainfall. Off to the east Mount Diablo poked its summit into the hazy blue sky, its dun-colored slopes looking dry as that bone everyone always talks about.

  I crossed the toll bridge over the Carquinez Strait and exited the freeway at East Second Street. I started my rounds of the banks in the area, hitting the big ones first, like Bank of America and Wells Fargo, and hoping I wouldn’t have to go through the entire list. It took about an hour to find Denise Padilla, at a small bank on the corner of First and J Street in downtown Benicia. It was just past noon and the white tiled lobby was full of customers conducting business at the three teller windows. I looked around and saw two desks on a section of pale blue carpet, one with a sign that read: DENISE PADILLA, BANKING SERVICES REPRESENTATIVE. There was no one seated at the desk. Then a woman walked from one of the offices at the far side of the bank lobby and sat down at the desk.

  As I suspected, Denise was short in stature, and her hair was blond, a mass of curls that brushed the collar of the short-sleeved red-and-white-striped cotton dress she wore. In her round face I saw a hint of her brother, and, from what little I glimpsed of her before she sat down, she had his tendency to gain weight in the torso.

  I removed one of my business cards from my purse and walked across the carpet to Denise’s desk. She looked up at me and smiled. “Hello. How may I help you?”

  “Talk to me,” I said, handing her my business card.

  Her eyes were a clear blue-gray, and they widened with alarm as she read my business card. They flicked to either side, as though she were looking for help or an escape route. Then she looked directly at me. “Go away,” she whispered urgently. “Leave me alone.”

  “I can’t. It’s vital that I talk with you. Surely your brother told you that.”

  “I told him I’d think about it.”

  “Ruth Raynor’s been arraigned for Sam’s murder. I don’t have time for you to think about it.”

  She glanced at a large clock on the wall above the teller line and then down at my card. She took a deep breath. “All right. But not here.”

  She reached down and pulled open one of the desk drawers, removing a red shoulder bag that matched her low-heeled red pumps. She told the woman at the other desk she was going to lunch. Then she stood and walked toward the double glass doors leading out to First Street. The reason for her weight gain was now obvious. Denise Padilla was pregnant.

  “I have forty-five minutes for lunch,” she said grimly, as though she were going to the dentist.

  “Where shall we go?”

  “There’s a little place down the street.”

  I opened the door for her and we set off down the sidewalk in the direction of the shimmering water of the Strait. A co
uple of blocks farther down First Street was Mabel’s Cafe, its decor out of the fifties, bright with chrome, with leather-seated stools along a counter on one side of the narrow room and tables on the other. Someone had just vacated a table near the front window, and we took it. We scanned the menu without speaking. When the waitress came over, Denise ordered iced tea and a spinach salad. I asked for mineral water and decided to try the eggplant sandwich. After the waitress left, Denise stared past me toward the front window, as though the foot traffic on First Street was fascinating. The waitress brought our drinks. I poured mineral water over the ice in the glass and watched the bubbles. Denise seemed preoccupied by the lemon in her tea. She used the long spoon protruding from the glass to fish out the yellow wedge, then she squeezed out some juice and pulp. She dropped the lemon back into the tea and wiped her hands on a paper napkin.

  “How did you find out about me?” she asked finally. “Tom didn’t say.”

  “At the funeral. Mitch Burgett mentioned that he’d seen you, here in Benicia.”

  “Damn Mitch Burgett anyway.” Sudden passion flashed in her gray-blue eyes. “I asked him not to tell anyone he’d seen me. So of course he told his mother. Elva’s got the biggest mouth in Gilroy. That must be—” She stopped abruptly and reached for her glass, silencing herself by taking a drink.

  “How Sam found you?” I finished. Her silence and the flicker of something in her eyes confirmed my hunch. I voiced my speculation of how the chain of events occurred. “Mitch ran into you a couple of months ago. He said something to his mother. Elva told Alma, and Alma told Sam. Then Sam came to see you. What did he want?”

  “That bastard,” Denise said. Her eyes turned cold and angry. “He came into the bank, just like you did, walked right up to my desk and said he wanted to talk. Could he buy me a cup of coffee? ‘I’ll throw it in your face,’ I told him. ‘You got something to say, say it right here, in front of witnesses with a desk between us.’ I didn’t want to be alone with him. So he trots out this line about how he wants to reestablish a relationship with his son, now that he’s back in the Bay Area. I told him I’d see him in hell first. And he said, ‘I’ll just have to take you to court.’”

  “What happened then?”

  She shook her head, the short blond curls flying. “I’m not sure. I was so mad I couldn’t see straight. I think I told him to get out before I called the security guard and accused him of trying to rob the bank. He just laughed at me and strolled out like he didn’t have a care in the world. If I’d had a gun I would have—”

  She stopped suddenly, as if she’d just realized what she’d said and how it sounded. It had been less than a week since a gunshot ended Sam Raynor’s life. I thought her next words might be an assurance that she had not, in fact, murdered her ex-husband. But she didn’t say anything. The silence stretched on the table between us. She wrapped both hands around her glass of iced tea and stared past me at the street

  The waitress brought our lunches. I tasted my eggplant sandwich and judged it a good choice. Denise ignored her salad. “How long had it been since Sam Raynor saw Scott?”

  “Not since the night I walked out.” Denise’s eyes burned like those of a tigress protecting her cub. I’d seen the same fire in Ruth Raynor’s eyes when she’d described Sam’s threat to take Wendy. Maybe that protective instinct goes with the territory when you have a child. But not always. There are too many people who don’t give a damn about their children, and I was certain Sam Raynor was one such person. He used his children as weapons to bludgeon their mothers.

  “Scott wasn’t even a year old when I left,” Denise said. “Ever since I remarried, Scott thinks Ruben is his dad, and that’s just the way I want it. Reestablish a relationship with his son! What a load of bullshit! Sam Raynor never had a relationship with my son. He never had the slightest interest in that kid. He was only doing it to get back at me.” She picked up her fork and speared spinach leaves with sudden savagery.

  “Where is Scott now?”

  “In a safe place.” Her eyes narrowed and turned wary.

  “But not with you.”

  She finished a mouthful of salad before answering, considering whether or not she trusted me. “When I got home from work that day, Ruben and I took Scott to stay with Ruben’s family in Salinas.”

  “How safe is that?”

  She smiled briefly, wielding her fork again. “Ruben has a big family. Of course, now that Sam’s dead, it’s safe to bring Scott back. We’ll go down to get him this weekend.”

  “Did Sam contact you again?”

  “Yes. A couple of weeks after he showed up at the bank, he called the house. So I got an unlisted number.”

  “What is your phone number?” I asked. She hesitated. “Just in case I need to get in touch with you. It’s better that I call you at home rather than at work.”

  “All right.” She rattled off the number. I scribbled it in my notebook. “After that, one of our neighbors told me someone had been by the house, asking questions about Scott. The way she described him, I knew it was Sam. Who could miss that red hair? That really frightened me. I talked to the head of security and to my supervisor at work. They said I should contact the police. I hadn’t done that yet, but I was going to. Then Tom called to tell me Sam was dead. I never felt so relieved in my life.”

  Looking at her, I was sure it would take more than Sam Raynor’s death to exorcise his demon. Two red spots burned on her cheeks, below the wide gray-blue eyes. “You know why I’m here,” I said.

  Denise hesitated. “According to my brother, you work for Ruth Raynor’s attorney. She didn’t kill him?”

  “I don’t think so, although the evidence is against her. There seem to be plenty of people with motives to kill Sam Raynor.”

  “Including me,” she said with a defiant lift of her chin.

  “Including you. And just about everyone who ever knew him. I’d really like to know how the two of you wound up married.”

  A wave of pain passed over her face. I realized that for all her bravado, Denise was as vulnerable as Ruth. She set her fork down on the table, suddenly devoid of appetite.

  “How do any of us wind up in a mess?” she asked, as though she’d thought about it a lot over the years and might have figured out some of the answers. “I don’t know. Well, maybe I do.”

  Denise took a deep breath. Despite her earlier reluctance to talk, words tumbled from her now, as though she was confessing her sins and I had the power to absolve her.

  “I was seventeen. I wanted—whatever it is that teenage girls want. Excitement, I guess. It got me a reputation.”

  “Alma Raynor had a few things to say about that, when your name came up at the funeral,” I said, recalling how Sam’s mother had described her former daughter-in-law.

  Her mouth twisted. “I’ll bet she did. That dried-up old hag. She thought I was a whore. Said as much to my face.” She shook her head, her eyes older than her face. “I was no virgin, I admit that. I went out with a lot of guys in high school and I slept with some of them. I wanted to be popular with the boys. I thought the way to do that was to offer them my body. Looking back, I don’t think I liked myself, or I wouldn’t have let them treat me like a piece of meat.”

  She gave a short bitter laugh. “I remember this one jock, a football player. I was so thrilled when he asked me out. Then he said he wouldn’t go out with me again because I was ugly, I had such big thighs. That sure as hell didn’t bother him the night before, when he was between them, pumping away.” She took a drink from her glass as though to wash away the bad taste. “When I started going out with Mitch, I couldn’t believe he was so nice to me. He’d kiss me good night on the front steps instead of trying to get into my pants. Then Sam came along and made this play for me and I got sucked in. And I got pregnant.”

  She shook her head. “It happened because I was stupid. Before Sam I was always careful to use those damn foams and gels, and make the guy wear a condom. But with Sam, it was, let�
�s be spontaneous and get carried away and do it right here in the grass. You know what he used to say when I asked him to wear a condom?” She lowered her voice and hissed the words in a mocking tone, her lips drawn away from her teeth in mockery. “‘Oh, honey, I want to come inside you. I want you to feel my love.’”

  Her face held such loathing, of herself and of Sam, that I reached across the table and touched her hand. She pulled it away as though my flesh scorched hers. “If it’s any consolation, it happened the same way with Ruth.”

  Denise’s eyes burned at me, then her lips curved in a wan smile. Her voice quavered, but her words held a flash of gallows humor. “We can form our own group. The Sam Raynor Survivors. We can compare scars. I’ve got plenty. I’ll bet she does too.” By now Denise had drained her glass of iced tea. She waved the waitress over to the table and ordered another, then picked up her fork and took another mouthful of salad. When the waitress brought the tea, Denise repeated her lemon wedge routine.

  “When did he start beating her?” she asked. “Did he wait until after her baby was born? Or did he slap her around while she was pregnant? That’s what he did to me. He forced me to have sex, late in the pregnancy. I was terrified Scott would be born too soon. His mother was no help. She figured if he was hitting me, I deserved it. Oh, he always apologized. Then it would start all over again.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I had a rough labor and delivery. After the baby was born, the doctor told me not to have sex for a while. But that didn’t stop Sam. He threw me on the bed and raped me.” Denise’s face was white and stark. Her hands gripped the edge of the table and it shook. “God damn him. I hate him. I hate him for what he did to me. I’m glad he’s dead. I hope he rots in hell.”