by Janet Dawson
I called the Hyatt, but got no answer when the switchboard rang Philip Foster’s room. Then Cassie opened my office door. She had switched from heels to running shoes and she wore a black raincoat over her suit.
“Let’s walk down to Nan Yang,” she said. “I’ve just got to have some curried prawns.”
“How can anyone as skinny as you eat so much?” I reached for my coat.
“Genes. It’s all in the genes,” Cassie declared. “I come from a long line of skinny, hungry people.”
I’ve known Cassie a long time, since we were both secretaries at a law firm here in Oakland. I have a degree in history, just like my father, but teaching doesn’t appeal to me. After college I worked at a local repertory theater, acting and painting sets. When the company folded I worked as a security guard, a sales clerk in a bookstore, an office temp. It was as a temp that I figured out they always need someone who can type.
The temp agency sent me to Cassie’s firm on a job that was supposed to last a month. But another secretary quit so I stayed. Cassie and I shared an office for several years, then she went off to law school. I took a paralegal course and moved from typing legal briefs to researching them.
Six years ago I met Errol Seville. He was dapper and silver haired, as debonair as his name, and he seduced me away from the law library. Errol was a private investigator, one of the best in the Bay Area, with a clientele he’d built up over the years. Among his clients was the law firm that employed me.
I was aware of Errol watching me whenever he was in the office, a glint in his gray eyes, a hint of a smile on his foxy face. I felt sure he was going to make some sort of proposition, though I wasn’t sure just what. One day he offered to buy me a cup of coffee.
“I’ve had my eye on you,” he said, smiling over the rim of the cup.
“I noticed.”
“You’re too smart to spend your days slogging through West’s Annotated California Codes. I need a woman operative. I think you’d make a good investigator. What do you say?”
I thought about it for maybe three seconds. Then I grinned and said yes. I was getting stale at the law firm, considering a change. Or maybe I saw Bogie in The Maltese Falcon at an impressionable age. Me, a private investigator. I couldn’t resist.
I worked with Errol for five years, until a massive heart attack put him in the hospital, where his doctor gave him an ultimatum. The Seville Agency closed. Errol and his wife, Minna, retired to their weekend house in Carmel, the one Errol never had time to visit while he was working. Now Errol gardens. For amusement he reads detective fiction. When I call him he points out the mistakes the authors make.
After Errol, working for another agency would have been like driving a Ford when I was used to a Mercedes. So I went into business for myself. Being self-employed has disadvantages. You have to buy your own medical insurance and you don’t have a pension plan. All those safety nets can be attractive, if you’re into security. I’m not. Or at least I don’t think about it now. My mother worries that she’ll have to support me in her old age instead of the other way around.
At Nan Yang, a Burmese restaurant in Oakland’s Chinatown, Cassie and I grazed through platters of satay, Thai garlic noodles, and curried prawns, washed down with cold beer. We chattered like a couple of teenagers until Cassie stopped talking and looked over my shoulder at someone approaching our table. She composed her face and smiled briefly.
“Hello, Sid.”
I glanced up at my ex-husband and felt the prickle of flesh newly grown over an old wound. It had been eighteen months since I moved out of his apartment. The feelings didn’t go away just because the divorce was final. I wondered how my parents stayed friends after their divorce. Maybe it was because they had two grown children and so much history together. Maybe Sid and I hadn’t given it enough time. Maybe...
Maybe doesn’t count.
“Hello,” I said.
He leaned over our table, his golden cat’s eyes glinting above his mustache. I felt the same jolt of physical attraction I always had. Sid Vernon is a good-looking man, tall, with dark blond hair and broad shoulders tapering to slim hips. He walks like a tomcat, with an assured easy grace. The first time I saw him move I wondered how he’d be in bed, and made it my business to find out.
He grinned when Cassie asked him about Vicki, his only child, the daughter of his first marriage. “She graduates from high school this year. I guess you know how old that makes me feel.” He turned his gaze on me, one hand playing with the end of his mustache. “Found Foster’s wife yet?”
“I have a few leads.” I took a swallow of beer, determined not to let him bait me. He stayed long enough to ask Cassie about her family, then left to join a group of fellow cops at a front table.
“You should see your face,” Cassie said. “Don’t let him get to you.”
“Sometimes he does.” I examined the check and took out my wallet. “Did I tell you he steered this new client my way? Probably because he thinks I can’t find the woman.”
“Maybe he meant it as a compliment.” I shot her a look and shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
We split the check and headed home through the rain. As I drove, my windshield wipers beat a slow pulse. The Necklace of Lights strung around Oakland’s Lake Merritt shimmered and reflected in the water. I live on Adams Street near the lake, in a U-shaped white stucco building with a red tile roof. My back corner unit has a lemon tree next to the porch and a camellia bush in front of the window. On hot days I sit on the steps and look at the flowers and the little fountain in the middle of the courtyard. Birds wash themselves in the fountain, tantalizing my cat, Abigail, who sits on the window ledge, her tail twitching as she dreams about catching them.
Abigail heard the key in the lock and came to greet me, meowing that she was hungry and would expire very soon unless I gave her something to eat. Considering how fat she is, starvation is unlikely. The vet tells me she needs to eat less and exercise more. I’ve cut her food intake, but how do you exercise a ten-year-old cat who sleeps most of the time? When I try to get her to chase a tennis ball, Abigail looks at me like I’ve slipped a cog and stalks off to sprawl on the dining-room table.
In the kitchen, cat underfoot, I spooned some tuna into her bowl and set it on the floor. I went to the bedroom and put on my favorite after-work attire, a cranberry-colored sweatsuit with a baggy seat and frayed elbows. Back in the living room I stretched out on the sofa, my feet up. Abigail jumped onto my lap and began washing herself. I stroked her silky brown-and-silver coat and she purred, a rumbling sound deep in her throat. Turning her over, I tickled her belly. She grabbed my hand between two paws, washed it with her rough pink tongue, then nipped it gently with her sharp teeth.
Outside, the wind stirred the brass chimes hanging above my front door. City sounds crept through the windows: a car engine, the hiss of tires on rain-washed pavement, a siren in the distance.
I reached for the remote control and switched on the television set. Channel Two was showing Key Largo, but I fell asleep in the middle and woke up when the news came on, with Abigail curled into a deadweight ball on my stomach. I got up and went to bed.
Sometime before dawn I woke up and remembered who Elizabeth Willis was.
Three
WHILE MY MORNING COFFEE DRIPPED THROUGH grounds and filter I opened the door of my hall closet. Toward the back were several cardboard cartons full of what historians call ephemera, things I periodically consider throwing away but can’t — theater programs, newspaper clippings, old letters. I sat cross-legged on the floor and sifted backward through the layers of my life until I reached high school. The binding of my senior yearbook crackled as I opened it and scanned the signatures of people I couldn’t remember unless I checked their names against their photographs.
I carried the yearbook to the dining-room table and leafed through it while I sipped coffee and nibbled toast. I found the face I sought, along with my own, in the senior class roster. His name was Mark Willis. A
nd he had a sister named Elizabeth. But that wasn’t the only reason the name pricked at my memory.
Sid answered his phone on the second ring. “The Willis case,” I said.
“What about the Willis case?”
“Fifteen years ago, in Alameda. Who was the investigating officer?”
“Hell if I know,” Sid said. “Call Ben Montoya. He’s the desk sergeant over there.”
Sergeant Montoya at the Alameda Police Department told me Lieutenant Rolf handled the Willis case. Rolf had retired last year, but I could probably find him at the Spinnaker Marina on the Alameda side of the estuary.
I washed my breakfast dishes and called the Hyatt, again receiving no answer when the switchboard rang Philip Foster’s room. Where was my client? In a bar? Wandering the streets? Considering his apparent state of worry when he hired me yesterday morning, I thought he’d be waiting for a report on the status of my investigation. As I left my apartment, yearbook in hand, I recalled Norman Gerrity’s words of the day before, about Foster Senior. Was Philip hiding from his father?
Alameda occupies a long narrow island separated from Oakland by an estuary. An island in more than geography, it feels like a small town, with wide, tree-lined streets, picturesque Victorian homes, and a sandy beach on the bay, the sort of place where people think they’re safe from the urban problems that plague other towns in the Bay Area.
I grew up in Alameda. I was born in Berkeley while my father was in graduate school. Grandma Jerusha lived in Alameda, and my earliest memories include journeying from our little apartment near the campus to Grandma’s big Queen Anne on Chestnut Street, the site of Sunday dinners and holiday celebrations. When Dad started teaching at Cal State, with my brother Brian on the way, he and my mother bought a house in Alameda.
I spent my childhood and adolescence with my parents, my brother, and a succession of cats in a two-story Victorian on Bay Street, a pale blue house with dark blue-and-mauve gingerbread trim and a stained-glass fan window above the front door. I walked to school and piano lessons along those pleasant tree-lined streets, went to the beach at South Shore, took the bus to San Francisco when I wanted some excitement. Dad surrounded himself with books and Indian pottery. My mother gardened and cooked and grew restless.
I pushed those memories aside as I drove under the estuary through the Tube, headed for the Alameda waterfront. A woman in the office at the Spinnaker Marina told me Rolf was on his boat at slip twelve. The sun was out this morning, the sky a washed-clean blue, but with enough of a chill that I was glad I’d worn a sweater over my shirt and slacks. As I made my way down the swaying deck between a row of boats, a loaded barge glided by, blocking the Oakland skyline and leaving two sailboats dancing in its wake.
Slip twelve held a good-sized sailboat with “Ivy — Alameda” painted on its hull. A small black dog napping on the bow jumped to its feet and barked, button eyes partly obscured by its shaggy coat. A man stepped out of the galley. He was solidly built and sixtyish, with thinning gray hair and a paunch hanging over the waistband of his denim pants.
“Pipe down, Pepper,” he told the dog. He inspected me, eyes sharp in his jowly face. “Morning. You looking for me?”
“Yes, if you’re Bill Rolf.”
“I am. And you?”
“Jeri Howard. I’m a private investigator. I’d like to talk with you.”
“What about?”
“The Willis case.”
He frowned. “Got some I.D.?” I showed him my license. “Why do you want to know about the Willis case?”
“It relates to something I’m working on.”
“But you’re not gonna tell me about it, right?”
“Right.”
He grinned. “Come aboard. We’ll talk. I don’t get many female visitors these days. Guess I won’t be choosy.” He held out a hand as I stepped onto the deck of the sailboat. Pepper snuffled at my shoes and the hem of my slacks. “You want some coffee?” Rolf asked.
“Sure. I take it black.”
He disappeared into the galley and returned with two large steaming mugs. “Have a seat.” Rolf pointed to a cushion in the bow as he handed me a mug. He sat down opposite me.
“Good-looking boat,” I said, sipping the coffee.
“Thanks. Bought her last year when I retired. Ivy and me — Ivy’s my wife — we take her out almost every weekend when the weather’s good. Pepper goes with us, don’tcha, fella?” The dog jumped onto the cushion next to Rolf and barked, his tail wagging rapidly. Rolf scratched him behind the ears.
“It’s an expensive hobby.”
He laughed. “Don’t I know it. Like that old saying — a boat’s a hole in the water that you throw money into. It takes a lot of work, too. But what the hell? I got nothing better to do, and it keeps me out of Ivy’s hair.”
“Sounds like you wish you were still working.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I put in over thirty years. It’s time for me to work on boats.” He paused and gave me a measuring look. “How long have you been in the business?”
“Six years. I used to work for Errol Seville.”
“I’ve heard of him. What do you want to know about the Willis case?”
“Details, impressions. I plan to get a copy of the police report. But that’s just words on paper. You were the investigating officer. I want your perspective.”
He sipped coffee for a moment before he started talking. “It was pretty shocking, even for an old war-horse like me. The whole town was appalled. Alameda’s a small town, never mind the population figures. Things like that are supposed to happen in East Oakland, not the East End. But they do. People are always surprised when the evil turns up in their own backyard.”
“What happened?”
“They were a Navy family. George and Frances Willis. He was a commander, assigned to the air station.”
Bingo, I thought. Mrs. Dailey was correct in her recollection that Elizabeth’s father had been in the Navy.
“Everyone said they were a nice couple,” Rolf continued. “They lived on Gibbons Drive in the East End. They had three kids. The oldest was a boy, Mark. He’d just turned eighteen. There were two girls. Elizabeth was fourteen and Karen was nine. Karen wasn’t there that night. She was at a slumber party.”
“It was May, wasn’t it?”
Rolf nodded and began to speak, his words crisp and clipped, as though he were reciting his own police report. “Mark Willis was supposed to go to a party with some friends, but he never showed up. Shortly after nine P.M. a neighbor called the police. He said he heard something in the Willises’ backyard. Then he heard gunshots. A patrol car responded and radioed for backup. I got there about ten minutes later.” He stopped and took another swallow of coffee.
“When I entered the house I saw George Willis in the middle of the living room. Frances Willis was in the doorway leading to the kitchen. Both had been shot with a .38-caliber weapon registered to Commander Willis. The gun was on the floor between the bodies.”
“Where were Mark and Elizabeth?”
“The girl was up in her room. She was hysterical. The boy was downstairs. He opened the door and let the uniformed officers in. He was pretty calm, considering he’d just murdered his parents.”
“There was never any doubt?”
“He confessed,” Rolf said. “He looked me right in the eye and said, ‘I did it.’ Besides, his prints were all over the gun.”
“Did he ever say why?”
“No.” Rolf shook his head slowly. “Nobody knows, except Mark. Maybe he doesn’t either. I placed him under arrest and read him his rights, but he didn’t say much else. His aunt and uncle got him a high-powered lawyer and had a bunch of headshrinkers look him over, but he wouldn’t cooperate. He just said, ‘I did it,’ and took his medicine.”
“What happened to him?”
“Pled guilty to two counts of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life. Eighteen years old. They sent him to San Quentin.”
“
What happened to the girls, Elizabeth and Karen?”
“You’re looking for one of them, aren’t you?” I didn’t answer. “I think they went to live with their grandparents. George Willis was from somewhere back east. But his wife’s family was from California. I don’t remember where. The newspapers covered the case like a blanket. Check the back issues of the Oakland Tribune.”
I nodded and set the coffee mug down on the deck of the sailboat. “I’ve always heard you have a better chance of being murdered by a member of your own family than by a stranger.”
“Yeah,” Rolf said with a grim smile. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?”
“Thanks for the information.” I got to my feet and so did Rolf.
“Let me know if you find her.”
“Maybe I will.” I stepped from the boat to the floating deck. “How do I get a copy of that report?”
“Let me make a phone call.” Rolf and I walked up to the marina office, the dog trotting alongside. At the office Rolf used the phone. When he hung up he told me a copy of the Willis report was waiting for me at the Alameda Police Department.
“Thanks again,” I said, shaking Rolf’s hand. “Just one more question. Is Mark Willis still over at San Quentin?”
Bill Rolf laughed. “You should know more about the California criminal justice system. He was paroled three years ago.”
Why would an eighteen-year-old boy, with no apparent motivation, shoot and kill his own parents? I read the police report. It didn’t have any answers. Neither did the microfilmed copies of the Oakland Tribune. At the Oakland Public Library I rolled the film through the reader, locating the first story, front page of the Tribune, the day after the murders.
SON SLAYS PARENTS, screamed the headlines. Photographs of George and Frances Willis accompanied the story. George’s picture showed a fair-haired, stern-looking man in Navy service dress blues, the three gold stripes of a commander circling his sleeves. He looked foursquare, solid, and bland.
