Unloaded

by Eric Beetner

  I moved around to the opposite side of the desk and sat.

  Something in the man’s demeanor, an absence of any air of superiority, inspired me to go familiar.

  “So, Mr. Campbell—may I call you Henry?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. How can I help you, Henry?”

  “My daughter, Elizabeth, twenty-six, registered nurse at St. Mary’s, shares a flat with two other girls in the Upper Haight.”

  Campbell stopped there and turned his attention to his hands, which were neatly folded in his lap.

  I gave him a few moments.

  “Henry?”

  Campbell looked up at me—then slowly looked around the room as if trying to recall where he was and why he was there.

  “Someone has been using Elizabeth as a punching bag. It’s been going on for a while. I noticed small signs weeks ago, but she explained them away—a spill from her bicycle, a low tree branch. When the injuries became more serious, she offered no explanation at all. When she showed up at my house Friday night, she could hardly walk. I’m a widower, she’s my only child.”

  “Have you spoken to the police?”

  “She won’t tell me who is responsible and insists she will not talk to the police.”

  “Is it a boyfriend? Someone she’s protecting?”

  “It may have started that way but I think now she is frightened, afraid to talk. And I’m afraid if something isn’t done to stop it she will suffer permanent injury or worse. I need to find out who is hurting my girl.”

  “And if you do?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead,” Campbell said. “Try talking to the man, I suppose.”

  I shadowed Elizabeth Campbell for two days.

  Late Wednesday afternoon I tailed her from St. Mary’s to the Barrel Head Brewhouse on Fulton—a hop, skip and jump from the hospital.

  I waited ten minutes before following her into the pub.

  I spotted them sitting on adjoining stools at the bar and I took an empty seat at the far end.

  He was a good-looking man, early thirties, who seemed to have a smile for everyone. At first glance, they may have been seen as a handsome couple. On closer inspection, she physically cowered beside him. At one point, when Elizabeth began to rise from her seat, he roughly grabbed her wrist and sat her down.

  A bartender arrived. A nametag on her blue denim vest identified her as Annie. I ordered George Dickel—had to settle for Jack Daniels.

  “Casanova, at the other end of the bar,” I asked when she brought my drink. “Do you know his name?”

  She took a quick look as she set the whiskey down.

  “Never saw him before,” she said, and walked off.

  Twenty minutes later he literally dragged Elizabeth Campbell out of the place by her elbow. I thought about following but felt I still had a shot with Annie. I waved her over.

  “Another?” she asked.

  “I’m good,” I said, dropping a twenty on the bar. “Can you help me out?”

  “He’s not a nice man and he would not be happy with anyone dropping his name.”

  “What he doesn’t know can’t hurt you,” I said, sliding a hundred dollar bill her way.

  “Richard Connor,” Annie said. “Have a nice evening—somewhere else.”

  She quickly walked away and I left the pub.

  I climbed into my car and pulled out my cell phone.

  I was about to call my client, but decided I wanted to know a little more about Richard Connor before giving his name to Henry Campbell. I still had at least one favor coming from an SFPD Detective Sergeant. I called the Vallejo Street Station to see if Johnson was there.

  We sat in front of a computer at the sergeant’s desk in the police station.

  “I don’t suppose you are going to tell me why you are interested in this guy,” Johnson said.

  I treated it as a rhetorical question. He let it go.

  “There had been talk going around that Connor played rough with the ladies, but no one ever came forward with a complaint. Then a young woman managed to walk herself into the Emergency Room at St. Francis Hospital, badly battered, claiming Richard Connor beat her and threw her out of his car. Connor was brought in for questioning and denied everything. A preliminary hearing was scheduled but before the date arrived the woman retracted her statement.”

  “Scared off?”

  “Or bought off. This guy is literally Little Richie Rich. His old man is one of the most successful developers in the Bay Area. Lots of political clout, a ton of money, and very proficient at keeping junior on the street.”

  “So this maniac skates?”

  “Unless someone without my constraints cancels his skating permit.”

  Suddenly we spotted Lieutenant Laura Lopez moving across the room to Johnson’s desk. The sergeant killed the browser.

  “Jake Diamond,” she said, “why are you here?”

  Lopez was seldom pleased to see me.

  “I needed the sergeant’s advice.”

  “About?”

  “He’s looking for a reliable and honest automobile mechanic,” Johnson said.

  “Aren’t we all,” Lopez said.

  I thanked Johnson, said my goodbyes, and headed for my car.

  I called Henry Campbell.

  He said six words before ending the connection.

  St. Mary’s Hospital Intensive Care Unit.

  I found him in the ICU.

  He was standing beside the bed, looking down at his daughter. She was encased in a tangle of wires and tubes and bandages.

  “Will she be alright?”

  “Physically, eventually,” Henry Campbell said, “emotionally, hopefully.”

  “I know how you must feel,” I said, having no real idea. “If there is anything I can do.”

  “You can tell me who did this to my little girl.”

  “Henry, let the police handle this. They know about the guy, he has a history. There’s a Detective Sergeant who will do whatever it takes to drop a net over the animal. If your daughter will come forward, other victims may do the same. He would be put away for a very long time.”

  “You say he has done this before?”

  “Yes.”

  “He nearly killed her,” Campbell said, “this time. What is his name?”

  “His name is Richard Connor.”

  “I would like time alone with her now,” he said, finally looking up at me. “What do I owe you?”

  “Not a thing,” I said.

  And I left him standing at his daughter’s side.

  I’m not sure what brought me back to the Barrel Head, but there I was close to midnight draining my third drink.

  Annie the bartender recommended I go with straight Kentucky bourbon as a Dickel substitute this go-around.

  “Sorry if I was rude earlier,” she said, “and thanks for the C-note. I need brakes for my car. Do you know any reliable, honest auto mechanics?”

  “None,” I said.

  She poured another shot of Booker’s, insisting it was on the house.

  “He put her in the hospital.”

  “Who put who in the hospital?”

  “Richard Connor. The girl he dragged out of here. He put her in the hospital.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Annie said.

  “He nearly killed her.”

  “And you’re wondering if things might have gone differently if you had followed them out.”

  “Yes. And why he wasn’t locked up in a cage long ago.”

  “The answer to the first question is probably not. The answer to the second question is there’s no good reason. Have you had anything to eat lately?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  Annie picked up the shot she had poured for me and knocked it down herself. She filled a tall glass with water and placed it in front of me.

  “I’m done here in ten minutes,” she said. “Drink the water, a
ll of it. I’ll take you out for breakfast.”

  Darlene would be back at her post early, so I was in no real hurry to get down to the office on Friday morning.

  I sat in the large backyard of my house in the Presidio, drinking strong coffee, smoking a Camel non-filter, gazing at the Golden Gate Bridge partially obscured by clouds.

  My cell phone shouted out The Beatles’ Hello, Goodbye—something Darlene had arranged when she helped set up the voice mail.

  It was Sergeant Johnson.

  “Do you have time for breakfast?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Pat’s Café work for you?”

  “Sure, give me an hour.”

  I found Johnson at a small table near the front window looking out onto Taylor Street.

  I sat and he got right to it.

  “I thought you might be interested in knowing Richard Connor was killed late last night.”

  “Murdered?”

  “No. A traffic accident, but whoever hit him didn’t stick around—so we’re calling it a felony hit and run.”

  “Was Connor driving?”

  “He was walking, crossing Frederick toward his apartment. According to toxicology Connor was pretty drunk—he probably forgot to look both ways, and the impact knocked him into next week.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “It was after three in the morning. Two people saw it from a distance. It was a truck. Neither could make out a license plate or any markings. Both described it simply as a very large white truck. Funny.”

  “Funny?”

  “Ironic, then,” Johnson said. “Here’s a guy who may have killed someone eventually, kept dodging bullets, and he steps in front of a truck.”

  “Fate works in mysterious ways,” I said.

  A waitress arrived to pour coffee and take our order.

  “You should try the poached eggs with Hollandaise,” Johnson said.

  “The only way I can eat an egg is if it’s scrambled and burned.”

  When I walked into the office, Darlene was behind her desk. Her trusty canine, Tug McGraw, was curled up at her feet.

  “He missed me,” she said.

  “How was Las Vegas?”

  “I was sworn to secrecy. Did Henry get in touch with you?”

  “Henry?”

  “We were drinking iced tea and he spotted one of your business cards on the kitchen counter. He said he had been looking to hire an investigator, asked if you were any good. I said you were okay and gave him the card.”

  “And how did Henry come to be in your kitchen?”

  “Do you remember me telling you my refrigerator died?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “The only solution I could think of was to pop for a new one, so I did. Henry delivered the new box on Saturday.”

  “Did he drive a truck?”

  “A very large white truck.”

  “How’s the new refrigerator?”

  “Very cool.”

  Back to TOC

  STARK RAVING

  Patricia Abbott

  Less than year into her career as a mediator, Elsa Scotia saw the unfamiliar names of Mr. Edward and Miss Alice Starkey on the day planner. Mediating was a late-in-life career move that had played well so far to her talent for problem-solving. She assumed the Starkeys were coming in over a dispute about the disposition of a will, her area of specialty. Mediation of wills was often contentious, but since it was about possessions rather than people no swords had been drawn yet in her office. If words could kill, however, there’d been some near-misses.

  “Husband and wife?” Elsa asked her assistant.

  Doris fanned through the papers in the file. “Siblings. Their attorneys recommended mediation rather than using a court to settle their disagreement.”

  “A will is it then?”

  “Yep.” Doris said, coming up with the relevant page. “There seems to be only one area of contention. Financial matters, furniture, the house and cars—all that’s complete.”

  “So what bequest’s in question?”

  Doris paused, scanning the page. “Alma Starkey’s, collection of—Beanie Babies. Alma’s their deceased mother.”

  “Her collection of what?”

  “Beanie Babies.” Doris looked up. “Kids collected them in the nineties? My daughter had quite a…”

  “I know what they are. But aren’t the Starkeys adults?”

  “Edward is fifty-four; Alice, fifty-two.”

  “Edward?” Elsa said with a frown. “A grown man who cares about dolls?” She walked over to her computer and googled, “beanie babies.” She looked up. “They aren’t valuable anymore. Not since around 2000.”

  “Perhaps our siblings think differently,” Doris said.

  Elsa shrugged. “Should be fun meeting these two.”

  “Or not,” her clerk said.

  “Or not,” Elsa agreed.

  The brother and sister who walked into her office a few hours later could’ve been twins—and twins of the same sex. Both had seen significant declines in whatever is was that differentiated them earlier. They were short, nearly the same height, round, and wore bobbed hair the color of hay. Their features were soft, their eyes nearly colorless.

  Simultaneously, they thrust out right hands that could have been forged from the same cast. Without meaning to, Elsa pulled back, a bit repulsed. But the Starkeys seemed used to this reaction. They slipped into chairs at her table, waiting expectantly. Almost invariably any group entering Elsa’s office took seats as far from each other as possible, but Edward and Alice Starkey sat side by side. Obviously, their relationship had survived the issue of the ownership of the Beanie Babies.

  “The major portion of your mother’s estate was settled without dispute,” Elsa began.

  Alice nodded. “The rest was just things. We’ve always lived in the house, shared the car, sat on the same furniture: Edward in the club chair, me on the loveseat. We will simply go on as we always have. He in the blue bedroom, me in the yellow.”

  The lyric “same as it ever was” ran through Elsa’s head.

  “Our last argument over household matters was when I wanted to paint my room apricot,” Edward said. “Back in 1995, I think.”

  “It’s always been blue,” said his sister, “and still is.”

  Elsa took a cleansing breath as she imagined their life. “So what makes the Beanie Babies a particular source of friction?”

  The siblings looked at each other at length. Finally Edward said, “We have different plans for the Beanies.”

  Perhaps one of them wanted to pass them along to a charity and the other to younger family members, Elsa thought. Dispositions could be fractious.

  “I intend to play with them,” Alice said. “I want to cut those darn tags off and put the Beanies in chairs, beds, a dollhouse. I’ve made clothes for them over the years, collected appropriate furniture.” She paused. “The Beanies have been Mother’s prisoners for twenty years. I was never once allowed to handle one.”

  Edward bristled visibly. “And I plan to maintain them just as Mother did. With their swish and tush tags intact, with their fur completely blemishless. That’s what Mother expected when she left them to us. That’s what we promised,” Edward added, glaring at his sister.

  “It was a promise she extracted under duress,” Alice put in.

  “How many Beanie Babies are we talking about?” Elsa asked, reminding herself that they’d been adults even when the craze began. It was much like her experience with Barbie Dolls. Regrettably, she’d been a teenager when Mattel introduced them.

  “Over five hundred,” Alice said.” Every Beanie that Ty made. In triplicate at least.”

  “Ty was name of the manufacturer,” Edward said. “Mother has—had—five Garcia, the Bears, for instance. And ten Princesses. She was extremely intuitive about which ones would increase in value.”

  “Mother even collected the counterfei
t ones,” Alice said. “She had quite a thing for Tabasco the Bull.”

  “But they have no value now, right,” Elsa said. “None at all.”

  “Exactly right,” Alice said. “So why not play with them? I’ve been yearning to hold one in my hands for twenty years.”

  “Piffle,” her brother said. “You were far too old even then to play with toys.”

  “And you’re off the rails if you just mean to just stare at them forever. They’re worthless, Edward. Mother made the wrong decision in collecting them.” She looked at Elsa. “She did the same thing with Cabbage Patch Dolls. Her intuition, such as it was, was fallible in the long run.”

  “But if there’re five hundred, why can’t you both do what you want? Divide them in half.” It seemed obvious to Elsa.

  “They all want—or should want—to be played with,” Alice said. “How would we decide which ones to keep encased? Or should I say imprisoned.” She looked at Elsa. “The glass was even tinted. You could hardly get a decent look at them.”

  “Very few children were ever allowed to play with their Beanies. That’s why so many still have their tags and are pristine. Beanies would be nothing more than a pile of dirty fur otherwise.” Edward’s sniffed. “If playing was all you wanted, ordinary toys would suffice.”

  “Beanies are ordinary toys now. They always were.”

  “Things come back in vogue, Alice,” Edward said. “And why does a woman of your age want to play with stuffed animals?”

  “Or why does a man of your age want to stare through glass at them?”

  “Do you have any idea about how to settle this?” Elsa asked. It was suggested in her manual that she put this idea on the table. Let the contentious parties offer ideas.

  “Indeed, we have,” Edward said. “We want you to come to the house, build a bonfire, and burn every last one of them.”

  “It’s the only thing to do,” Alice said. “I can’t bear seeing them in those dreadful cases and Edward can’t bear seeing me handle them.”

  “I’m not sure Beanies will burn. Aren’t the beans in plastic sacks?” Her five minutes’ worth of googling had netted her this information.