by Janet Dawson
“I’ll save you the trouble,” Mark said, his words stopping her in midstep. As he walked past us into the hall I saw that he was angry too, a cold hard anger that contrasted with the heat of Alice’s words. He went up the stairs and came back a moment later, an overnight bag in hand.
“I want you to stay,” Vee said, a quiver in her voice, as she and I joined Mark in the foyer. She glanced over at Alice but her older sister stood in front of the fireplace in the living room, her back to us.
“I can’t. It’ll just make it worse.”
“Where will you be?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not leaving town. Your ex-husband told me not to. I don’t want to antagonize him further. I’ll find a motel somewhere and leave word on your answering machine.” He turned and walked out the front door. I heard the engine of the Blazer come to life as he started it and drove away.
“All right, he’s gone.” Vee addressed Alice’s rigid back. “Are you satisfied?”
“That makes me the villain, doesn’t it?” Alice turned to face her sister. “For God’s sake, Vera, he killed his own parents. You act as though it never happened. You visited him in prison. When he got out, you set him up in business. And now you defend him, with Karen lying dead in the morgue.”
“I believe him when he says he didn’t kill her. As for as the rest,” Vee said, her round face somber, “I can forgive him. I’m sorry you can’t.”
Alice opened her mouth to retort but I stepped between the two sisters. “You can finish this quarrel later, if you really want to. Right now I’d like to talk to Mrs. Madison.”
“Good God, she can’t tell you anything,” Alice said, exasperated. “You saw her on Sunday. You talked to her then. She’s senile.”
“I’m not so sure. Something she said made me think she’s seen one or both of your nieces recently.”
“Time doesn’t mean anything to her. She could have been talking about something that happened ten years ago.”
“Maybe. Karen and Elizabeth both dyed their hair blond. How long has it been since they were brunettes?”
“Karen started coloring hers in high school,” Vee said thoughtfully. “Beth... I think it was when she worked in Sunnyvale.”
“I don’t follow you at all,” Alice said.
“It’s a long shot. Let me talk to your mother. Alone.”
Alice grumbled some more, but Vee led the way upstairs to the bedroom where they’d settled Grandma Madison. The old woman sat up in bed, drinking tea from the ceramic mug, wearing a plain black dress like the one she’d worn the day I first met her. She’d spilled tea on the bedclothes and the front of her dress. A tuneless song issued from her smiling mouth. One wrinkled hand reached for a vanilla wafer. She popped it into her mouth and hummed around it.
“Hello, Mama,” Vee said.
Mrs. Madison smiled, then spotted me and frowned. “Redheaded witch.”
Alice compressed her mouth in a matching frown. “Would you like some more tea?” Vee asked.
The old woman nodded and held out the mug. “More cookies,” she said, bits of vanilla wafer falling from her mouth to the front of her dress.
Vee took the mug and the bowl. “Let’s get Mama some more tea and cookies,” she told Alice. Alice shook her head, but she followed Vee out of the room, leaving me alone with Mrs. Madison.
“I’m Jeri, Mrs. Madison.” I took a seat on the edge of the bed and looked into the stubborn old face, hoping to find a glimmer of the here-and-now. She watched me like a cat watching a mouse hole. “I met you on Sunday. You thought I was one of the girls. You remember the girls, Karen and Elizabeth. You said, ‘Yellow-haired witch. Prying, pawing, sniffing around.’”
“She’s evil and the Lord will strike her down,” Mrs. Madison said, just as she had that afternoon.
“Right. Did you see one of the girls? Can you tell me which one, Mrs. Madison?”
She grinned at me, looking crafty, the change in her face enough to make me wonder if the senility was a pose. I was sure there was more going on behind the rheumy blue eyes than anyone suspected.
“Tea?” she asked.
“Vee’s bringing your tea. Let’s talk while we wait for her. Where’s Mr. Madison?”
“Gone to Jesus.” She looked sad. “Good man.”
“When was that?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Two weeks.” It was not quite two weeks since her husband’s death, but she was in the ballpark. Besides, Lester Madison had been in the hospital before he died. I took the photograph of Elizabeth I’d been carrying in my purse, now creased at the corners, and showed it to Mrs. Madison again.
“Have you seen Elizabeth since Mr. Madison left?”
She hummed a tune. I recognized the hymn “Shall We Gather at the River?” She didn’t even look at the photograph. Her eyes were closed as she hummed. In a quavery soprano she sang a few bars. “Where bright angel feet have trod...” Then she opened her eyes and said, quite clearly, “Came to the house.”
“Who came to the house? Was it Karen or Elizabeth?”
“Looked around. Pulled out drawers. Prying. Pawing through stuff.” Mrs. Madison brushed cookie crumbs from the damp bodice of her dress. “Asked me if I knew where she was.”
“Who looked around, Mrs. Madison? Who was she looking for?”
“One looking for the other.”
“Which one came to the house?” I asked, but didn’t get an answer. I cajoled and pressed, but the old woman ignored me. Her eyes sparkled and her wrinkled face creased in a sly smile. She started singing again, about the river that flowed past the throne of God. She sang hymns until her good humor passed, then she said I was a redheaded spawn of Satan and told me to go away. She lay down on her side, her back to me, and refused to say another word.
I went slowly down the stairs to the living room. One looking for the other implied two of a kind. Two sisters, I thought, Karen and Elizabeth. One did not know the other’s whereabouts and had gone looking at the house where they’d both grown up. When I talked to Karen last week, she said she knew Elizabeth lived in Los Gatos. But it was possible she didn’t know where. With the death of their grandfather, maybe she expected Elizabeth to show up in Stockton for the funeral. Or perhaps the sister Grandma Madison had seen was Elizabeth, looking for Karen. That would make sense, given Karen’s short tenancy in the Berkeley apartment.
Vee and Alice sat on the sofa, Mrs. Madison’s tea and cookies on the coffee table in front of them. “Well?” Vee asked.
“I asked her if she’d seen Karen or Elizabeth recently, after Mr. Madison died. She said one of them came to the house, looking for the other.”
“That’s absurd.” Alice shook her head. “You can’t believe anything she says. Besides, how could one of the girls come to the house without my knowing it? I’m with her all the time.”
“Not every minute,” Vee said. “Not right after Dad died. He died Friday morning and the funeral was Monday afternoon. We were at the mortuary and the church several times over the next few days, making arrangements for the funeral. We were gone several hours at a stretch. You had the next-door neighbor’s daughter keep an eye on Mama. But she didn’t exactly stay with her. Someone could have slipped into the house and talked to Mama.”
“All right, it’s possible.” Alice conceded the point grudgingly. “But just because Mama said it happened doesn’t mean it did. She says anything that comes into her head. The fact that you asked a question about the girls is enough to make her say she saw them.”
“I know she wouldn’t make a credible witness in a court of law,” I said. “But I have a hunch she’s telling the truth. Whoever came to the house looked around and pulled out drawers. Do you keep an address book, Mrs. Gray?”
“Yes. I have a desk in my room: The book’s in the top drawer.”
“Do you have a current address for Karen or Elizabeth in that book?”
“No.” Alice shot Vee a black look. “Neither of the girls bother to c
ommunicate with me. Vee’s the only one who knows where they live.”
“One looking for the other,” I said, almost to myself. “But which sister, and why?” One person might be able to answer that question, if I could find him.
Twenty-four
I HEADED FOR SAN FRANCISCO IN SEARCH OF SOME answers. The sunshine visible in the East Bay had not yet penetrated the city’s fog. At the South of Market studio I climbed the stairs to Lila’s domain.
She leaned over her worktable, a needle and thread in her hand, her short black hair standing up in spikes and silvery pink eye shadow surrounding her large brown eyes. Over her baggy plum-colored jumpsuit she wore a large green apron with pockets full of thread and sewing utensils. A gauzy red costume was spread out on the worktable, a three-cornered tear near the hem. Lila frowned with concentration as she repaired the tear with tiny stitches.
“I haven’t seen her,” she said, clipping the thread with a pair of scissors.
“She’s dead. Murdered last night in Oakland.”
Lila looked at me as though she were trying to decide whether it mattered. “So,” she said finally. I couldn’t tell if it was a question or a comment. “Was it drugs?”
“Could have been. Was she into drugs?”
“She did some coke. Doesn’t everybody?” When I didn’t answer, she shrugged and reached for a hanger. She hung the costume on the rod with the others. “There’s a lot of drugs in this business.”
“Coke costs money,” I said. “Did Karen have that kind of money?”
“She made good money here. Enough to live well.” Lila’s mouth quirked. “That’s why we’re in this racket. The pay’s good.”
“Karen was twenty-four. She told me that was old for making skin flicks.”
Lila nodded. “That’s true. Karen had a great body and she knew how to use it. But in this business they like them young and dumb. Karen was neither.”
“The director, Beyer. Was he thinking about phasing her out? Using somebody else?”
“Hell if I know. Ask him. If he’ll talk to you.”
“I will.” I took Elizabeth’s picture from my purse and held it out to Lila. “Did you ever see this woman? Talking to Karen, or with Karen, any time in the past couple of weeks?”
Lila took the picture and studied it. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not that I remember, anyway. Who is she?”
“Karen’s sister, Elizabeth. Karen called her Lizzie.” Something crossed Lila’s face, just a flicker. “You’ve heard that name before. When?”
“I think it was a couple of weeks ago. Karen came up here to use the phone. She was always using my phone. It was a long-distance call. I remember because she dialed more than seven numbers. I bitched at her and she bitched back, like she always does... did. She told me to mind my own business and get out. Ordered me out of my own workroom.” She grimaced at the absurdity. “Of course I wouldn’t leave. She turned her back and talked real low, but I heard her call the other person on the line Lizzie.”
“What else did you hear?” I asked, leaning forward.
“They weren’t having a friendly conversation. Karen seemed to be threatening this other party. It had that tone about it, at least from her side.”
I wrote down the workroom phone number. If a check of the number’s records showed a call to the Philip Foster residence in Los Gatos that would confirm Lila’s story. But what did Karen know that was a threat to her sister? Was she planning to tell Philip about his wife’s past? Or something else?
“What do you know about Rick Petrakis, Karen’s friend?”
“He’s a grip. Or was.”
“How long has he been seeing Karen?”
“About a year. Of course I only see Karen when we’re working. She may have had other guys on her dance card. Or girls, for all I know.”
“How often do you work?”
“Beyer cranks out about six of these epics a year. Karen’s been working for him steadily for three or four years.” Lila shrugged. “She was okay, a cut above the rest of these bimbos. I never thought she’d wind up dead, at least not this way.”
“I need to talk to Rick,” I said.
Lila made a face. “You don’t think he had anything to do with it?”
“No. But maybe he can tell me where she was this weekend.” Lila was silent for a moment, her hands in the pocket of her green apron.
“After I talked to you I got Rick’s address from one of the guys on the crew.” She pulled a slip of paper from the pocket and handed it to me.
“Thanks, Lila.”
“Yeah, well...” She dismissed me with a wave. “I’ve got work to do. Go pester somebody else.”
My efforts to talk with Beyer, the director, came up against the closed steel doors that led to the set. He was shooting a scene. A surly underling told me I could wait, though it was no guarantee Beyer would talk to me. When I pressed him he started making noises about having me thrown out of the building. Not that he could do it himself. He was six inches shorter than me.
I was debating whether to wait or to simply sic Sid Vernon on Beyer when I glanced down the corridor and saw a dark-haired man wearing jeans and a denim jacket, carrying a motorcycle helmet. He took a step in my direction, then stopped when he saw me.
“Petrakis,” I said.
He turned and headed back the way he’d come. I followed, dodging people in the hallway. He disappeared through a doorway on the left. It was the men’s room, but that didn’t stop me. I pushed open the door, startling an older man who hastily buttoned the front of his coveralls and got the hell out of there.
Petrakis was at the window that led to the roof of the building next door, the helmet on the floor at his feet. The window was open about six inches, and he was trying to wrench the opening wider so he could get through. I crossed the soiled linoleum floor and grabbed his jacket, spinning him around, shoving him back against the wall. The helmet rolled against my feet and I kicked it away. Petrakis struggled, balling his fists.
“Karen’s dead, Rick.”
He froze and dropped his hands to his sides. “What?”
“Somebody cut her throat in the alley behind her aunt’s shop, when she was on her way to meet me.”
Petrakis sagged against the wall, fear and something else flickering over his face. He rubbed his hands over his eyes.
“She didn’t come back last night.” His words sounded disjointed. “I wondered what happened. I stewed about it all night. I knew she was going to meet you, so this morning I called your office and got the machine. Called her aunt’s shop. Nobody answered. So I thought I’d come over here, thinking maybe somebody heard something. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You’d better tell me what you know.”
“I don’t know anything,” he said, panic in his eyes.
“Sure you do, Rick. You and Karen left the hotel Friday night and neither of you showed up for work the next morning. Why? Where were you?”
“My place in El Cerrito,” he stammered. “Karen said we had to stay out of sight for a couple of days. The only time we left was that day we went over to Karen’s apartment to get some of her tilings. I didn’t mean to push you down the stairs. I was just trying to give Karen time to get to her car.”
“What about the weekend before last?”
He looked at me as though I was crazy. Maybe he had trouble remembering back further than a week. He frowned and shook his head, bewildered. “We worked. We were here all weekend.”
“Karen didn’t go to Stockton? For her grandfather’s funeral?”
“Hell, no. She didn’t say anything about a funeral. We were here. Just ask some of the crew.”
Rick’s words confirmed what I had suspected. It was Elizabeth who’d gone to Stockton, pawing through drawers, looking for Karen’s address. Elizabeth was the yellow-haired witch Grandma Madison had seen.
“You’re doing fine, Rick. Now let’s talk about the night you left the hotel.” I leaned toward him, my
eyes catching his and refusing to let go. “Why did Karen say she had to stay out of sight? Did it have something to do with my visit?”
“I don’t know,” Petrakis insisted.
“Then tell me what happened Friday night.”
“We left here about seven. We stopped by the hotel so Karen could change. Then we went up to Chinatown and had dinner.”
“Who’s we? Just you and Karen?”
“No. Some other people from the crew went with us.”
“What happened when you got back to the hotel?”
“We went up to our rooms,” he said, then he stopped.
“You remembered something.”
“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “There was this woman waiting in the lobby. She was sitting down when we walked in, but she stood up, walked over, and said hello to Karen.”
“Did Karen say anything?”
He thought about it for a moment. “She said something like, ‘I expected to hear from you sooner.’ Karen told me she wanted to talk, so I went up to my room. I don’t know what they talked about, but fifteen minutes later Karen knocked on my door and said we had to split. I argued with her, said Beyer would fire us if we didn’t show up for work. But she said we had to get out of there.”
“She didn’t say why?”
“No. She kept telling me she’d explain, but she didn’t.”
“Describe the woman,” I demanded. “Short or tall? Blonde, brunette, or redhead? You must have noticed something about her.”
Petrakis huddled inside his clothes as though he were making himself smaller, trying to get away from this crazy woman who had him backed against the wall in the men’s room. “She was shorter than Karen. And slender, like a dancer. Short hair, brown, I think. She had on a tan coat with a hat that matched.”
A woman in a tan raincoat with a matching hat over her cropped dark hair, moving with the gliding walk of a dancer. I’d seen her last night, outside Vee’s shop, peering in the window. And last week, walking along the street in front of Karen’s apartment. Elizabeth wasn’t dead. She was stalking me, and I’d led her straight to Karen.
A man pushed open the door of the men’s room, then backed out when he saw Petrakis and me.
