Paper Phoenix: A Mystery of San Francisco in the '70s (A Classic Cozy--with Romance!)

by Michaela Thompson

  “I think Larry’s point was that people in your position have to be careful,” Betsy said.

  “You do? Well, I think Larry’s point was to sell a few more copies of his miserable paper, and he didn’t care whose ass he had to trample to do it.” Ken got laboriously to his feet. “It’s no wonder the little rat bastard killed himself. He probably realized what a creep he really was.” He shoved his chest forward, fists clenched at his sides.

  Betsy didn’t respond. Under her steady gaze, his stance gradually lost its antagonism. When he next spoke, it was with more bravado than conviction. “I’ll be back. I’m going to talk to Baffrey about that retraction. You haven’t seen the last of me.”

  “Sure,” Betsy said. “Just give us a couple of days to get on our feet, OK?”

  “Right,” he said, apparently mollified. For the first time, it came to his attention that I was in the room. He looked at me with an inquiring stare.

  “That’s Maggie Wilson,” Betsy said.

  The change in him was instantaneous. Meeting a member of the public, he was the superstar television commentator once more. He flashed me a grin that had once been photogenic and held out his hand. “Kenneth MacDonald, Channel Eight. Pleased to meet you,” he said heartily. Before I could reply he dropped my hand and meandered from the room.

  Once he made it out the door Betsy turned to me. “Sorry about that.”

  “I see what you mean about the outpatient clinic.”

  “You don’t know the half. Poor Ken. He was way too much of a lightweight to hold his own with Larry.” She folded an airplane from one of the papers on her desk and sailed it toward the window, where it crashed against the glass. “What a drag, right? Was there anything else you needed for your story?”

  At last. I pretended to think for a moment. “The only other thing is, I thought it might add depth if I could say which stories Larry was working on at the time of his death. Give the feeling that his work must continue, and so on.”

  Betsy shook her head. “It’s not a bad idea, but you’re talking to the wrong person. Larry played close to the chest. Totally. It could be that nobody knew, because that’s the way he was. If anybody had an idea, it would be Andrew Baffrey, and he’s gone out.”

  I wilted. I had dragged myself down here, skipped my morning pill, sat through a tirade by a drunken former television commentator, only to run full tilt against failure. “Would he be willing to talk with me?” I could hear the tightness in my voice.

  “I doubt it,” said Betsy slowly. “He’s taking over the paper, and he’s also very upset about Larry’s death. He’s going to have a lot on his mind.”

  I told myself I had known it wasn’t going to work out, that it had been stupid ever to think it would. Ever to think anything would. I closed my notebook and stood up, leaden with disappointment. “Thanks anyway.”

  Betsy looked at me. “You’ve got to have that one detail?”

  “I just— just thought it would add the right finishing touch. I’d planned it that way, and I sort of described it to my professor…” My voice was heading into the upper registers. I prayed it wouldn’t actually crack as I gabbled through this pack of lies.

  I could see the decision on Betsy’s face before she said, “Oh rats. I’ve had enough emotional trauma in the past few days to last a lifetime. Come in tomorrow morning and I’ll try to shoehorn you in to see Andrew for a few minutes.”

  The rush of relief I felt almost overwhelmed me. I gushed my thanks and she accepted them nonchalantly, cautioning me only to leave my phone number so she could reach me if she had to reschedule.

  I was standing in the doorway thanking her once again when a woman pushed me aside to get into the room. Her long brown hair was windblown, her face a deep pink. She wore jeans, boots, and a heavy zip-fronted sweater with a pattern of gray llamas on it. She stood in the middle of the room and said, tremulously but carefully, enunciating each word, “Betsy, I cannot stand it any longer. People have got to get off my back. I cannot stand it—” She broke off and bowed her head. I heard her emit a little squeak.

  Betsy was beside her in a second, putting an arm around her and leading her to the couch. Before they reached it, the woman was sobbing convulsively.

  Whether or not Betsy had had enough emotional trauma, she was obviously going to have more. She sat next to the woman, saying, “What happened, Susanna? Did somebody do something to you?” but the woman only wailed louder, her face clenched like a child’s, stray hair clinging to the wetness of her cheeks and lips. Betsy said, “Maggie, there’s a water cooler back in the newsroom. Bring a cup, would you?”

  Susanna? Susanna Hawkins, Larry’s widow. Heading in the direction Betsy indicated, I began the search for the water cooler.

  Four

  “Newsroom” seemed an extravagant term to apply to the collection of ramshackle desks, jerry-built tables, and dented filing cabinets I found down a short hall. The typewriters looked ancient enough to have been used for on-the-scene reports from the ‘06 quake. The atmosphere was subdued. A few of the desks were occupied by people reading or staring into space. Two men and a woman, all dressed in post-hippie style— much the same as hippie style, but without fringe or beads— were clustered around a filing cabinet, speaking in low tones. They glanced at me, their young, worried faces registering the fact that I looked expensively out of place, then turned back to their conversation. Here the pall left by Larry’s death was tangible.

  I spotted the water cooler in a corner, and filled a paper cup. “I don’t know,” a ponytailed young man in the filing-cabinet group was saying. “The way Andrew’s freaking out there’s no telling what’s going to happen.”

  “He’ll pull himself together. Give him half a chance,” the woman said, sounding unconvinced.

  “I don’t know,” the man said again, and they fell silent.

  When I returned to the outer office, Susanna’s sobs had reached the gasping, hiccuping stage. Betsy was still sitting beside her, patting her back, and when she saw me she said “Thanks,” and took the cup.

  Susanna’s face was more composed now, and I saw for the first time how lovely she was. Even brimming with tears, her eyes were a stunning violet blue, and her flushed skin seemed almost translucent. She didn’t look older than twenty-three or twenty-four, at least ten years younger than Larry had been. She watched me over the rim of the cup, and when she had drunk she said, “Who are you?”

  “This is Maggie Wilson,” Betsy said. “She’s a journalism student. She’s going to write a story about Larry.”

  The eyes I had been admiring animated instantly with dislike. “Oh, fabulous,” Susanna said. “Fantastic. I’ve made my entrance in full view of a reporter. I can’t believe it.”

  “I’m not really a reporter—” I began, but she cut me off.

  “I said people have to get off my back,” she snapped fretfully. “Can’t I even walk in here without a thousand hassles?”

  Betsy made a protesting gesture. “Susanna, Maggie isn’t—”

  “Look.” Susanna got up and began to pace. “I went to the coroner’s office, all right? And I got a million stupid questions, and sign this and sign that before they’ll give me Larry’s things. And then— then downstairs I get accosted by this idiot, this pimply-faced kid who said he worshipped Larry and wants to write some kind of memorial.”

  I was obviously in the wrong place. Susanna Hawkins was in no mood to put up with prying journalists, and that’s what she thought I was. I edged toward the door.

  “He wanted to know all this stuff,” Susanna rushed on. “Why did I think Mr. Hawkins did it? Didn’t I think he was a martyr, some kind of saint?” She giggled breathlessly. “And do you know what he wanted then?” She was looking at me, talking to me. “He wanted to see the note Larry left. Can you believe it? He said he’d consider it a privilege. You know what I should have done?” Her voice was rising. She went to the couch and fumbled in her handbag, pulling out a small piece of white paper. �
�I should have said, ‘Sure, kid. Take it. Read it. It’s yours!’”

  She flung the paper in my direction and turned around, sobbing once again, Betsy at her side. The paper made a couple of lazy loops and settled on the floor. I should leave it there, I told myself. I glanced at it. The writing was facing up. I heard inquiring voices. Susanna’s hysterics had aroused the newsroom. I picked up the paper. The note was short, written with a black felt-tipped pen. There was no salutation, and the writing was angular and positive: “Sorry to do this to you and the kids, but believe me, there’s no other way. Forgive me, baby.” The signature, a flourishing “Larry,” took up half the sheet.

  As I placed the note on the couch next to Susanna’s handbag, the newsroom’s inhabitants crowded in, asking what was going on. I walked out the door, down the hall, and leaned gratefully on the elevator button.

  Outside, I sat in the car trying to catch my breath. My visit to the Times had proved considerably more exciting than a two-Campari-and-soda lunch and a charity fashion show. I must be exhausted, ready to go home and catch a nap.

  Reluctantly, I started the car. Sure. Mission accomplished for one day. Got to rest up for my encounter with Andrew Baffrey tomorrow. As I drove slowly out of the vacant lot, I realized that I was hungry. Although it was still a bit early, it could be reasonably construed as lunchtime, and of course it made no sense at all to go home until after I’d had some lunch.

  I wasn’t in the mood, though, to go to any of my former haunts, where I might be pitied and patronized, either by headwaiters or acquaintances who would gossip about Richard or urge me to take up Japanese flower arranging or primal scream therapy.

  I drove aimlessly around the neighborhood until I spotted a diner advertising CHINESE AMERICAN CUISINE and BREAKFAST ALL DAY. Sitting at the counter, I ordered pancakes, sausages, and coffee and eavesdropped on three khaki-clad men sitting a few stools down who were drinking coffee and arguing about what should be done to improve Candlestick Park. By the time they agreed that the goddamn thing should be bulldozed, I had devoured my food and was feeling surprisingly content.

  I hadn’t found out what I wanted to know at the Times, true. Still, I couldn’t help thinking the visit had been, in some sense, a success. Despite Susanna Hawkins’s frenzy, despite the unpleasantness of Ken MacDonald— or perhaps even because of those things— it had been a fascinating window into something new.

  On the other hand, I told myself, I can’t get distracted by side issues. If I don’t find out what Richard’s connection with Larry was, the whole thing will be meaningless. Don’t lose sight of the main question.

  As I paid the bill, it occurred to me that Richard had hardly entered my consciousness at all while I’d been at the Times. He had receded to a mathematical abstraction, a term I wanted to try in an equation. But now here he was, fully fleshed in my mind, where he had been awaiting his chance to grasp me again. As I walked down the gusty sidewalk, grit blowing in my eyes, I realized that I should have known he’d still be lurking there, that he wouldn’t go away and leave me in peace.

  Behind the wheel, I found myself still unwilling to go home. Now that I was out, it was almost as difficult to return as it had been to emerge. I drove, looking at the drab buildings, the trucks unloading, the newspapers blowing across the street, until it occurred to me that I was only a few blocks from the Civic Center, and the main branch of the public library. I could read some back issues of the Times. Richard had changed his subscription to his love nest on Russian Hill, and I hadn’t been particularly interested in city politics lately, my ignorance of Ken MacDonald’s problems proof of my inattention. Relieved to have a destination once again, I drove to the Civic Center and parked in the underground garage.

  In fifteen minutes, I was sinking into the somnolent atmosphere of the library’s newspaper reading room, the past six months’ issues of the Times in a stack in front of me. The only sounds were the crackling of newsprint, the occasional clicking of a microfilm machine, and the soft, purring snore of the grizzled old man sitting at the end of my table, the Christian Science Monitor open in front of him and his hands folded on his chest.

  I looked at the stack of papers. Twenty-five cents a copy. An untidy, dog-eared heap of newsprint representing Larry Hawkins’s life’s work. Larry hadn’t had much talent for design. The paper was the size of an advertising throwaway. The headline of the top issue trumpeted, MAYOR FUDGES ON DRUG REHAB PROGRAM. I picked it up and began to read.

  After an hour, I was almost numb from the barrage of accusatory prose. Larry’s sources had been numerous, his fund of anger apparently inexhaustible. His own byline appeared most frequently, but there were also stories by Andrew Baffrey, managing editor, in almost every issue. Baffrey, it seemed to me, was a more balanced reporter, his prose considerably less rabble-rousing than Larry’s and occasionally even humorous, humor being a sin Larry never committed.

  Turning a page, I found myself staring into the stalwart gaze of a promotional photograph of Ken MacDonald. His jawline was as square as I remembered it, his mouth as confident. The picture was captioned, “Channel Eight soothsayer Kenneth MacDonald. What was he doing at Tahoe at a developer’s expense?”

  The story was brief, the facts tightly nailed down. Ken had spent two weeks in a Lake Tahoe cabin which Larry’s checking had revealed to be owned by Jane Malone, executive vice president of Basic Development Corporation. Several weeks after his return, Ken had delivered an impassioned editorial in favor of the Golden State Center, one of Basic’s key projects, a high-rise development near the waterfront that had been anathema to San Francisco’s environmentalists. When questioned, he had claimed the cabin had been offered to him by a friend, and he hadn’t known who the actual owner was.

  “The citizens of San Francisco aren’t being given the news on Channel Eight, they’re hearing the gospel according to the high-rise,” Larry had written. “Now we know why. It’s the old story of one hand washing the other. We think, however, these revelations of his compromised objectivity should wash so-called ‘reporter’ Kenneth MacDonald right off the screen.” Two weeks later, in a column headed “Follow-Up,” Larry wrote, “Kudos to Channel Eight management for their prompt dumping of developers’ darling Kenneth MacDonald, who spent a vacation in a cabin owned by Basic Development and then came out foursquare behind Basic’s pet project, the Golden State Center (Times, Nov. 29).”

  There went Ken down the tubes. I looked through the rest of the papers, but found nothing further to interest me. While the Redevelopment Agency, and Richard as its director, had come in for a fair share of knocks and snide remarks, there had been no major expose. If there had been a strong connection between Richard and Larry, no intimation of it had crept into print. Yawning, I folded the last issue and handed the stack to the librarian. At last, I was ready to go home.

  Five

  When I arrived the next morning, the Times office showed signs of casting off the stagnation of the day before. Several scruffy-looking people, presumably staff members, were milling around in Betsy’s office reading mail or the morning paper, talking and drinking coffee. Betsy sat behind her desk looking the same as before, except today she was wearing a purple leotard with her overalls. When she saw me, she smiled.

  “I thought you might not come back at all after yesterday,” she said. “Susanna was really overwrought.”

  “She has reason to be upset.”

  “Yeah, but she was pretty hard on you. Only, it wasn’t you, if you know what I mean.” She got up. “I’ll see if Andrew’s free.”

  She was back shortly. “He only has a minute, but you can go in now. Straight through the newsroom, and it’s the door right in front of you.”

  The newsroom was also more populated than yesterday, with people tapping at typewriters, dialing phones, and generally looking productive. Evidently, Andrew Baffrey had managed to rally his troops. The door that must be his was closed. A piece of paper was taped to it on which was written, in blue pencil, Edi
tur at work. I knocked, and a hoarse voice beckoned me in.

  The office was the size of a broom closet. The young man standing at the window looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. The part of his face that wasn’t obscured by a brown beard was a pale, sickly yellow. His large brown eyes were red-rimmed and blurred with grief or exhaustion, and his hair stood away from his head as if he had spent a lot of time running his hands through it. He had the raw-boned body of a high-school basketball player who hasn’t quite filled out yet. I judged him to be about twenty-five years old.

  “Andrew Baffrey,” he said. I told him I was Maggie Wilson, and we shook hands. He had the knobbiest wrists I had ever seen, or perhaps that impression came from the fact that his sweater sleeves were too short. His palm was clammy, and I could feel a tremor in his fingers. He gestured to a folding chair for me and sat down behind his desk. “Betsy says you want to do a story on Larry. What for?” he asked.

  Accustomed to Betsy’s friendly cooperation, I found the question brusque. Slightly off balance, I launched into my journalism-student story, hoping I sounded confident. The truth was, I had once thought about entering the program for real, so I knew a bit about it. Andrew made no comment, and I felt myself losing conviction under his noncommittal gaze. I finished, lamely, “I want to write about what Larry Hawkins did on his final day, and intersperse that with flashbacks about the history of the Times.”

  “I see.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, watching them rise and fall. Finally, he looked back at me and said, “What do you want from me?”

  I was getting thoroughly unnerved. “I thought it would add to my article if I knew what stories he was working on at the time of his death. I mean, help me understand his motives and so forth.” I had never before realized how important the nods, smiles, and sympathetic sounds of normal conversation were. The silence was unbearable, so I chattered on. “The stories might provide clues to why he did it, I thought. From what I understand, suicide was very much out of character for him.”