by Janet Dawson
I limped back to my car before any of Karen’s neighbors called the cops. I drove back to Oakland, telling myself that the ache in my back would feel better after a hot bath. There were no customers in Granny’s Attic, and Vee Burke sat at her desk drinking tea, the old Yorkie in the basket at her feet.
“Jeri,” she said, smiling when she saw me. Wearing a high-necked ivory lace blouse and a long black skirt, she looked as comfortably rumpled as she had the first day I’d seen her. “Have you made any progress? Did you talk to Karen?”
“Not so far. And yes, I talked to Karen. Why didn’t you tell me what she does?”
“My niece the porn star?” Vee colored, then shook her head. “It’s not the sort of information one broadcasts. I keep hoping she’ll realize she’s being exploited by those sleaze merchants and get out. But I think she likes taking her clothes off in front of a camera.”
“She says it pays well.”
“That may be,” Vee said, “but Karen doesn’t hold on to money very long. She spends until she’s overextended. She’s always asking me for loans. She does pay me back, though, I’ll give her that. Did she say anything about Beth?”
“Karen says she hasn’t seen her sister in years. But she’s lying. I talked to someone else who told me Karen and Elizabeth visited each other frequently.”
“I don’t know,” Vee said. “Karen never talks about her relationship with Beth. Karen doesn’t talk much at all.”
“Did either Karen or Elizabeth know that Mark lives in Cibola?” I asked.
“I may have mentioned it,” Vee said. “Did you talk to him?”
“I went to Cibola and Stockton this weekend. Neither Mark nor Alice have seen Elizabeth.” I refused an offer of tea and stepped behind the counter, taking a seat on the old sofa. “Vee, I went down to Los Gatos today. I saw Philip and his mother. Philip’s mother wouldn’t let me see the little boy, except at a distance. I don’t know if Elizabeth actually hit him, or if it’s a story her in-laws cooked up.”
“Of course it’s a lie. It’s despicable,” she said, a frown tightening her mouth. “Can they hate her that much?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
She fingered a cameo brooch at the neck of her blouse as I gave her an account of my conversation with Helen Foster. Then I told her what Sandra Baines had told me.
“An affair? Is it true?”
“One of her co-workers verified it. Then I located the man.” I told Vee what Bellarus had said about his relationship with Elizabeth. “He says they fought and he left the next day for a vacation in Mexico. I believe him.”
“What about Philip?” Vee sat with her hands folded in her lap, looking past me at a quilt displayed on the wall.
“Philip knew about Elizabeth’s affair with Bellarus. He told me he put up with it because he didn’t want to lose his wife.”
Vee winced. She didn’t say anything for a moment, and I watched an array of emotions flow across her face. Then she composed herself and straightened in her chair. “I want you to keep looking. She’s in trouble. Her family is all she has left. Surely she’ll contact one of us.”
I was doubtful that Elizabeth would surface that easily, but I nodded. “I’ll do my best. Vee, tell me about their mother, your sister Franny.”
Vee looked startled, then troubled. “What do you want to know?”
“Other people I’ve talked to have told me things about her.”
“Lawrence Kinney, you mean.”
“You must know that when he took Mark’s case he looked into the possibility that your sister and brother-in-law had been abusing the children.”
“Lawrence had his theories,” Vee said. The look on her face told me the memory was as painful now as it had been fifteen years ago. “None of them held water.”
“Someone else told me your sister drank.”
“No more than anyone else I know. I never saw her drunk, if that’s what you mean.”
I didn’t think Vee would tell me if she had. “Did Franny and George have a good marriage?”
“They moved around so much, because George was in the Navy. I know that was hard on Franny. But she never said anything to me one way or the other.”
“Did you sense anything?” I said, probing further.
“I don’t like talking about such things.”
“I know you don’t. But I can’t help you unless you’re honest with me.”
“I am being honest with you. As honest as I know how. I can only tell you what I know, Jeri. In spite of Lawrence’s theories, I don’t believe that my sister would hurt her children, any more than I can believe Beth would strike hers.” Vee’s fingers tugged at the cameo brooch.
“Franny was impatient with the children sometimes. But I never saw her hit them. I know she had a busy social life that included a lot of parties. If she drank a bit more than she should have now and then, it wouldn’t surprise me. She always seemed to be in control.”
Vee stood up, ending the conversation. I didn’t think she was lying. She was telling me what she knew, colored by her own feelings and beliefs. I felt like a cop interviewing eyewitnesses to a car accident. Everyone had a different version of the truth.
Eighteen
WHEN I CAME OUT OF THE STAIRWELL, A MAN IN blue jeans, his hands stuck into the pockets of a leather jacket, was leaning against the wall outside my office. It was Mark Willis. I saw the corner of his mouth lift in a smile at my amazement.
“What are you doing here?”
“Someone tried to kill me last night. I thought you might be interested.”
I stared at him for a moment, digesting his words. Then I unlocked the door and motioned him inside. The answering machine’s light blinked red, reminding me I had messages. I switched it off.
“Tell me what happened.” I took off my coat and hung it on the rack. Mark remained standing, his fingers playing with the zipper tab of his leather jacket.
“I had dinner with Virginia Newton,” he said, “the woman who owns the bookstore next to my shop. We went to Salty’s Café on Main Street. Then I walked her home. She lives up on the county road, where it intersects with the highway. It’s about a quarter mile north of town. We talked on her porch for a bit, then I left. When I stepped out into the road this car came out of nowhere, hauling ass and heading straight for me. I jumped out of the way. The car kept going, through the stop sign and north toward Jackson.”
“What kind of car?”
He shook his head. “Late model, I think. I’m not sure about the color. It was dark. Virginia’s porch light doesn’t reach out to the road.”
“Could it just have been a reckless driver?”
“It didn’t look like a reckless driver.” He frowned at me. “Don’t you believe me?”
“I didn’t say that. Did you report it?”
“Yes, to the town constable. He doesn’t believe me either.”
“Did Virginia see all of this? What does she say?”
“She thinks the driver must have been drunk.”
I leaned back in my chair and studied him. “It’s a long drive from Cibola. You could have called.”
“I wanted to see you. To see if you believe me.” He looked at me intently, his bright blue eyes boring into mine. “I know how it sounds. I don’t have any proof. Do you believe me?”
I couldn’t answer his question. Not now. “Who would want to kill you?”
“I have no idea.” He paced restlessly at the side of my desk. “I thought about it all the way down here. I came up blank.”
“Is there anyone in Cibola that you don’t get along with?”
He shook his head. “It’s a friendly little town. I get along with everyone.”
“What about San Quentin?”
“San Quentin.” Mark stopped pacing and his fingers went to the scar that marred the left side of his face. His eyes turned bleak. “I try to forget San Quentin. The things that happened there. The things I had to do to survive. Of course it’
s hard to forget, when I look in the mirror every morning and see this.”
“How did you get it?”
“One of the other inmates tried to rape me,” he said matter-of-factly. “I fought back. He pulled a shiv and cut me. I picked up a chair and knocked him cold.”
“Would he come after you? Would his friends?”
“That was seven years ago. He’s dead. Somebody else cut his throat. I’ve been out of prison for three years, Jeri. If somebody I knew in the joint wanted to kill me, why wait until now?”
“So it took a while to find you.”
“Maybe. But it doesn’t make any sense.” He slumped into one of the chairs in front of my desk.
“None of this does.”
I had an idea, plucking at the back of my mind like an ignored child. But I had to consider it further before I mentioned it to Mark.
“I want to talk to Virginia,” I said, picking up a pencil. “What’s her number?”
He gave me her home number as well as that of her shop. “Have dinner with me,” he said.
“I have work to do.”
“Please.”
I thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Meet me at seven at Ti Bacio on College Avenue.” I gave him the address. “Where are you staying tonight?”
“With Vee. I usually do.” He looked at my wall clock. It was nearly six. “Maybe I can catch her before she leaves her shop.” He reached for my hand and held it briefly. “I’ll see you at seven.”
When he had gone I picked up the phone and called Virginia Newton at her home in Cibola. I identified myself and told her why I was calling. She described the incident of the previous night much as Mark had.
“It surely wasn’t intentional,” she added. “The local kids hot-rod up and down that road all the time. Mark... well, sometimes Mark gets a little paranoid.”
I thanked her and broke the connection. I didn’t know whether to believe Mark either. Was this an attention-grabbing device? A means of deflecting my search for his sister? He already had my attention. He’d gotten it a long time ago, before I met him in Cibola, before he kissed me good night.
What if he was telling the truth? Something had happened last night in Cibola, coincidental accident or deliberate attempt, something that couldn’t be easily explained. I shook my head, trying to clear it and think about this case dispassionately, trying to strip away the emotion that was clouding my judgment. I sought order in work as I switched on the computer and updated the Foster file, adding another layer of paper to the sheets in the manila folder, another layer of impressions and opinions of this case that was going nowhere.
As the printer spat out words, I played back the messages on my answering machine. My theatrical friend had called. Elizabeth’s dance troupe had been named Invitation to the Dance, after a composition by Weber. She gave me names and phone numbers of two other members of the group, adding that she didn’t know whether the numbers were current. I picked up the phone. One number got me a disconnect recording and the other rang and rang but no one answered.
At a quarter to seven my stomach rumbled, reminding me of my dinner date with Mark. I locked my office and went downstairs. It had stopped raining and a cold damp mist had moved in off the bay, obscuring the neon lights of downtown Oakland, making my back ache from its awkward landing on the stairs at Karen’s apartment. I thought fondly of the hot bath I’d promised myself.
The proprietor of the little Vietnamese café on the corner stood smoking a cigarette in the doorway. I said hello, then crossed the street to the parking lot, keys in hand. I heard a siren and turned in the direction of the sound. That’s why I didn’t hear them come up behind me. One of them caught my shoulder and spun me around, shoving me back against a car.
There were two of them, one big and one little. The big one had done the spinning and now he stepped back, letting the smaller of the two move into position in front of me. He was short and black with the muscled frame of a bantamweight fighter, the angular, pointed face of a gremlin. His companion was white, with muddy brown hair and colorless eyes. He was over six feet tall, and bulky, a pair of massive shoulders straining the seams of his black knit shirt. From the way his nose was skewed in his moon face I guessed it had been broken more than once.
“You should learn to mind your own business,” Little said, his voice a sibilant high-pitched whisper. Big narrowed his eyes above his mashed nose and looked intimidating. His eyes had a vacant look, as though some of his muscle was between his ears.
“Who sent you?” I asked, keeping my voice steady. I felt cold, and it wasn’t the weather. Scenes were flashing through my head, scenes from a couple of years ago, that parking lot off San Pablo, the two men who’d worked me over and put me in the hospital.
Damn it, why hadn’t I seen them? For days I’d known, somewhere on the edge of my consciousness, that I was being watched. Now that a move was finally being made against me, I was unprepared.
I took a deep breath, forcing air into my tightening chest. Don’t panic, I told myself. Think, assess the situation, look for an out. My keys were in my right hand. I threaded a couple of fingers through the brass ring and maneuvered the keys so that several protruded between my knuckles.
“There you go, asking questions again.” Little did the talking. Big just stood there, breathing hard and making fists with his thick-fingered hands. “That kind of shit is what gets you in trouble.”
We were in the middle of the lot. My car was about twenty feet to my right, the street some thirty feet to my left. I could see the Vietnamese man through the window of his café, clearing the counter. Little stood so close to me that bolting didn’t seem to be an option. I considered screaming. It was about seven in the evening. Cars and people moved along Franklin Street. There had been people around the last time I confronted two thugs in a parking lot, but none of them had come to my aid then.
“I’m supposed to give you a message,” Little said, hissing like a snake. “Drop the case.”
“Which case?”
“You know which case. Lay off. Bag it. Stay out of things that don’t concern you.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You’re a smart girl. You should be able to figure out what happens if you don’t.” Little grinned, his mouth a rictus in his sharp-featured face. “We’ll give you a taste now, so you can think about the main dish.”
He drew back a fist but I struck first, scraping his face with my fistful of keys. He squeaked indignantly as his hand moved to the scratches. I kicked at his legs and dodged to the left, toward the street. Not fast enough, though. Big seized my right arm and shoulder and dragged me toward him, pinning my arms behind my back.
Little came at me. In the light from the streetlamp on the corner I saw several scratches on his face oozing blood. He pummelled his fists into my abdomen in rapid-fire succession, driving the air from my diaphragm. I gasped and would have doubled over, but Big held my arms, forcing me into an awkward upright stance.
I stamped on Big’s foot. He made a rumbling sound and tightened his grip. Little had moved back to watch his handiwork. Now he stepped in close again, the top of his head on a level with my nose. He took my chin delicately in his left hand and slapped me hard with his right. Then he backhanded me, the ring on his hand cutting the skin near my mouth. I felt something trickle slowly down my chin and tasted blood with my tongue.
When he stepped back again, I kicked out with my right leg, aiming for his groin. The blow must have landed somewhere in the vicinity, for he cried out in what I hoped was pain. Across the street I saw the Vietnamese man step out of the doorway of his café, a trash bag in his hand. I pulled air into my lungs and hollered. He looked up. Then he dropped the brash bag and shouted something in Vietnamese as he ran toward the parking lot.
Little hissed a command at Big, who dropped me into a heap on the asphalt. Little kicked me hard in the stomach. Tears sprang to my eyes and I fought to keep from vomiting as I lay shaking on the pavement
.
“Something to remember me by, bitch,” Little said. “I’ll be back.”
I heard their footsteps rush away. Two car doors slammed and an engine gunned as their car sped down Franklin Street. The Vietnamese man knelt beside me, his thin dark face full of concern, his hands on my shoulders. I pulled myself into a seated position.
“Police?” he asked.
I shook my head. I sat for a moment on the gritty surface of the parking lot, taking stock of my injuries. My stomach ached with a dull steady pain where Little had punched and kicked me, but I didn’t think any ribs were broken. My wrists felt hot and scuffed, as though I had rope burns. The cut oozed blood. I’d feel a lot worse in the morning, but I didn’t want to have to explain it all to the Oakland police.
But someone had already called them. As the café owner put a supporting arm around my back and helped me to my feet, a cruiser with pulsating red lights braked to a halt at the curb. Two uniformed men got out and hurried toward us. I didn’t recognize either of them.
“Who called you?” I asked one. The name on his tag was Conwell.
“I don’t know. We got it from the dispatcher a few minutes ago. Woman being attacked in the parking lot at the corner of Twelfth and Franklin. You need an ambulance?”
“No. I’ll be okay.”
“What happened?” the other officer asked.
I gave the officers an edited version — a mugging attempt in a dark parking lot — and a description of my assailants. I minimized the beating and left out the message the two thugs had delivered. I knew it was the Foster case I was supposed to drop and I had a good idea who sent them. But I couldn’t prove anything.
Another car pulled up to the curb. A tall man got out and walked quickly across the concrete surface of the parking lot. Conwell looked up, surprised. “Sergeant Vernon.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“I wanted to see if you were all right.”
