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

by Michaela Thompson

  I felt dirty. How could I possibly suspect Andrew? Surely he had done a thousand things that proved his innocence. But had he, really?

  I didn’t want to think about it any more. I had something else to do. An advantage of my fall in the grass was that whoever had shot at me probably thought I was dead or wounded, and had taken off. In that case, nobody would be watching the house. I could come and go as I pleased.

  I picked up the glove, put it in my purse, and went out. I got in the car and headed for Russian Hill to see Richard.

  Thirty-two

  Although his job required him to be an apostle of the new, Richard had always preferred the old when choosing his own residences. He was living in the Towers, an ever-so-elegant Russian Hill apartment building dating from the twenties, which was elaborately decorated with terra-cotta mermaids, dolphins, seashells, and varied picturesque flotsam. A uniformed man in the unobtrusively sumptuous lobby announced me on the telephone and told me to go up to apartment 3-A.

  In the silent, mirrored elevator with its polished brass fittings, I wondered if I’d been wrong, if I were putting myself in danger by coming here. I almost wished I could change my mind, believe Richard was trying to kill me. If I believed that, Andrew and I could be together again. I tried, but I couldn’t.

  Voices came from apartment 3-A, and before I rang the bell I stood listening. Richard’s part of the conversation was an indistinct monotone, but an agitated female exclamation, “Well, I won’t! I’m staying!” was clearly audible.

  My God. Was it possible that I had completely forgotten about the woman whose reputed charms I had brooded on for hours, whose existence had led me to constant tranquilizers and musings about suicide? I had come here without stopping to consider that the visit would probably bring me face to face with Diane, the law student Richard had left me for. A confrontation I had played in my mind thousands of times, always with myself in a wounded but dignified role, was about to take place. Not only was I unprepared for it, I wasn’t even interested in playing it through.

  When Richard opened the door I noticed the familiar lines of irritation around his eyes and mouth. But when I entered the room I realized that this time, for a change, the lines hadn’t been caused by vexation with me. The young woman standing by the fireplace with her hands on her hips, glaring at Richard, looked as exasperated as he did.

  “Maggie, this is Diane. Diane, Maggie,” said Richard. Under the circumstances he did it smoothly, I thought. Leaving off the last names was a good touch.

  “How do you do.” I could hear traces of temper in Diane’s voice. Richard’s attempt to exclude her from the conversation had apparently struck a nerve. I looked at her curiously. She was a slim, tanned, attractive woman in her twenties with very short taffy-blonde hair by Clairol, a freckle-sprinkled nose, and blue eyes. Tennis court looks. A certain determination about her mouth told me that when she played she liked to win. She wore gold hoop earrings, a yellow turtleneck, and gray tweed slacks— an outfit very much like the one I was wearing. She was a nice-looking girl, I thought with detachment, but she really had nothing to do with me.

  After returning her greeting, I turned to Richard and said, “I’m sorry for barging in, but I came to ask whether you still have the driving gloves Candace gave you Christmas before last.”

  He looked very surprised. “Why the hell would you ask that?”

  “Do you have them?”

  His mouth contorted. “As a matter of fact, I don’t. They were stolen out of the car yesterday afternoon. Just another rotten episode among many that have happened lately. Why?”

  I took the glove, still crumpled, out of my purse and showed it to him. He looked at it blankly, then back at me. “That was a good glove, for God’s sake,” he said. “Couldn’t you have managed not to wad it up?” His eyes narrowed. “Where’d you get it, anyway?”

  “It was dropped by somebody who shot at me tonight.”

  “Who did what?” Richard looked genuinely shocked as I launched into the story. Diane stood unmoving by the fireplace.

  When I finished, Richard shook his head. “You say this happened around six? Well, I was here then. I was already here. Wasn’t I, Diane?”

  “Yes, you were.” Her voice was firm, but I believed she would lie for him. I wondered how much she knew about Richard’s current problems, and whether she’d latched on to more than she’d bargained for when she got him.

  Apparently worried by my silence, Richard rushed in again. “Like I told you, they were stolen yesterday. I had stopped at the little wine importer in the Pacific Bakery Mall to pick up a few bottles of the Bordeaux Diane likes.” Did the look he shot Diane contain an element of blame? “Anyway, I was rushing because I had to meet you and Baffrey, and I had a great deal on my mind, and I must’ve forgotten to lock the car. I’m lucky the whole damn Porsche wasn’t stolen. Anyway, I thought I’d be just a minute, but they were having some kind of promotion and I had to fight my way through it. When I got back to the car, the gloves were gone.” He was defiant. “That’s what happened.”

  “I believe you,” I said.

  Richard’s face sagged in disbelief. “You do?”

  “Yes. I think someone’s trying to make it look as if you murdered Larry Hawkins.”

  “Oh God, Maggie, I…” Richard sat down on the couch, his eyes red. Diane moved swiftly and sat beside him, putting her arm around his shoulders. The scene embarrassed me, mostly because I thought Diane was playing it for my benefit. Richard was now hers to comfort, to protect, she was telling me. She was welcome to him.

  I looked away, studying the living room. What struck me was its similarity to my own. The carpets were rough-woven Peruvian instead of Oriental, and there were pre-Columbian figurines instead of Daumier etchings, but the essential feeling of careful good taste was the same. Richard had placed his imprint on his new home as surely as he had on his former one. I wondered if he would do that with his new woman, too— as thoroughly as he had with me.

  After a minute or two Richard spoke, hoarsely. “Who would try to frame me?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you’d have some suggestions.”

  “No. I can’t think.” He was silent. Then, his voice shot through with hope, he said, “Does this mean you won’t tell the police?”

  “I won’t say anything about Larry’s death in relation to you. You’ll still have to answer for the bribery. You’re on your own there.”

  “I see.” Richard looked worn out, enfeebled, like a very old man. In contrast, Diane was smooth, unlined, and self-possessed. For a moment, it seemed that Richard had invested all his former attributes in her. Then he regained his presence and said, almost normally, “Let’s have a drink. How about Scotch? Still a Scotch drinker?”

  “Scotch would be fine.”

  “I’ll get some ice.” He left the room, and Diane and I were alone. She looked at me directly, keenly. “This has been terribly upsetting for Richard,” she said.

  I was nettled. I didn’t want to discuss Richard as if I were his mother and she his first-grade teacher. “Richard ought to be delighted he’s not going to face questioning for murder.”

  “Yes, of course. But this bribery thing. It’s going to be hard on him.”

  “I expect it is.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, making sure he wasn’t coming back. “You don’t think— it wouldn’t be possible to—” She stopped, studying her gray tweed knees. “Couldn’t you just forget about it?” The words came out rapidly, and her scarlet face told me how difficult they had been to say.

  “No. I couldn’t.” Whether she had been trying to or not, she had made me feel sorry for her. “It isn’t up to me alone, anyway, but even if it were I’d have to say no.”

  “Oh.” Her voice trailed off in a long sigh.

  Richard came back, holding an ice bucket. “Sorry I took so long. Diane, the refrigerator is acting up again. The ice is hardly frozen.”

  I was sorry I’d agreed to a drin
k. Diane and Richard were making me feel claustrophobic. Whatever was happening between them, I wanted it to happen without me. I’d finish my drink fast and get out. As I took a swallow, I remembered Andrew’s news about the Corelli murder. I had never really understood what Richard’s relationship with Corelli had been. “I hear they have a lead in the Corelli killing,” I said.

  “Oh?” Richard sounded only minimally interested.

  “Yes.” I decided to ask. “What exactly did Corelli have to do with the Golden State Center, anyway?”

  Richard gulped his drink. “Corelli was the worst of the obstructionist bastards. He owned a corner of the site, and by God he was going to hang on to it. I argued with him till hell wouldn’t have it. Jane talked to him several times, and he still held out. Thought we could do better moneywise, so he had a whole battery of delaying tactics he was threatening us with. May Corelli rest in peace, and all that, but his getting killed didn’t hurt us a bit. His number-two man will take over, and we think he’ll be a lot more cooperative.”

  Strange. Richard talked as if his entire house of cards wasn’t going to fall in on him. He obviously couldn’t accept the fact that he was going to face a bribery scandal. The thought made me even more anxious to leave. I finished my drink, said good-bye, and turned to go. Diane walked me to the door. I saw the strain in her pretty face. She knew what was in store, even if Richard wouldn’t admit it. “I hate to beg,” she whispered, “but I will if you make me.”

  I could only shake my head. I stepped across the threshold and the door closed behind me. I was out, and free.

  Thirty-three

  There was a window in an alcove at the end of the hall. Lightheaded, I walked to it, trying to regain my mental and physical balance in the wake of emotional overload, a too-strong drink, and no dinner. I looked out on light-spangled San Francisco. Burned down over and over, shaken by earthquakes hundreds of times and all but destroyed in 1906, it had grown again, prospered again, become new like the phoenix on the city and county seal. I rested my forehead on the glass. I shouldn’t have had that drink. I was getting sentimental about a town where political corruption was as common as low-lying fog. I was allowing myself to wonder whether my life, too, like San Francisco’s phoenix—

  I was saved from sentimental sloppiness by hearing the elevator open. Curious to see who was visiting Richard, I looked around the corner and saw two men walking toward his door. One of them I had never seen before. The other was Inspector Fred Bosworth of the San Francisco Police Department. I watched him ring Richard’s bell. When the door opened, he said, “We’re looking for Richard Longstreet,” and the two men stepped inside.

  I leaned against the windowsill, wondering what Bosworth wanted with Richard. Bosworth had been working on the Corelli case. Maybe he wanted to question Richard about Corelli. That must be it.

  Yet why would Bosworth show up to question Richard about Corelli tonight? He had had time to see Richard at his office, or to call and make an appointment to stop by. I was sure Richard hadn’t been expecting the police when he talked to me. I longed to listen at the door, but decided against it.

  The explanation came to me while I rode down in the elevator. Bosworth wasn’t talking to Richard about Corelli, he was talking about Larry. And why? Because Andrew had gone to the police himself. Andrew was, after all, over twenty-one, if just barely. He didn’t have to hold off because I said so. He had gone, he had accused Richard, and here was Inspector Bos-worth. Ironically, about the time I was assuring Richard he wouldn’t be questioned about Larry’s death, Andrew was arranging that he would. Richard probably thought I had betrayed him, but there was nothing I could do about that now.

  I walked to the car and started home. This was no time to be choosy about dinner, so I turned in at the first fast-food outlet I saw, which happened to be purveying fried chicken to go.

  The interior of the place was bathed in a pale neon glare that made the strawberry pies in the glass cabinet look as much like plastic as they probably tasted. The ambience wasn’t helped by a radio blaring rock music. There were three people ahead of me— two young men in tight jeans and T-shirts who were whispering to each other and laughing, and a woman with limp gray hair who was carrying a shopping bag containing, as far as I could tell, some articles of clothing and a picture of Jesus.

  The two men were having trouble deciding whether to get a regular or a jumbo bucket. I leaned against the counter and closed my eyes, numbed by the noise and glare. The frenetic radio announcer was bawling something about “news time.” No more music for a minute or two, anyway. The woman in front of me ordered a whole strawberry pie and a Coke. The thought made the inside of my mouth feel puffy.

  “What would you like, ma’am?” a stringy-haired girl in a paper hat asked me.

  “I’ll have—”

  “—Corelli, local restaurant owner,” said the radio.

  “What?” The girl leaned forward.

  I shook my head and made violent shushing motions with my hand.

  “— spokesman said that Fresno police are holding Nick Fulton, who has former convictions on robbery and assault charges, for murder. Fulton was apprehended in a Fresno motel late this afternoon. On the weather scene—”

  The girl leaned her elbows on the counter, making designs on the Formica with her finger. Obviously, she was prepared to wait through the weather and sports if necessary. My pulses were pounding. Nick Fulton was in custody. The blissful relief I felt made me realize how frightened I had been of him.

  On the other hand, if he had been in Fresno this afternoon he couldn’t possibly be the person who’d shot at me.

  ***

  At home in my kitchen, gnawing through globs of greasy fried batter, I tried to collect my thoughts and assess what was going on.

  Since Nick Fulton had been arrested, probably the old man Andrew mentioned had been able to identify him. Fulton was the man in the blue car. Richard had said Corelli was causing problems for the Golden State Center. In Jane Malone’s lexicon, that was reason enough for violence— especially if Corelli’s number-two man was amenable to Basic Development’s plans. They had tried everything else— persuasion from Richard and Jane, and coercion. Suddenly I remembered the break-in at the Times. Richard had known that Larry was blackmailing Corelli. He had probably told Jane about it. If they could locate Larry’s information, they could have used it against Corelli themselves. The break-in had been an unsuccessful attempt to find the information Susanna had gotten from Larry’s safe-deposit box.

  Maybe Fulton knew I had discovered Corelli’s body, and that had given him extra motivation for wanting me out of the way. At first, though, he must have thought he wasn’t in danger. He’d stayed in town until the situation started to heat up. When he finally ran, he made it only as far as Fresno.

  I crumpled my cardboard box with its chicken bones and its little Styrofoam cup of runny coleslaw and threw it in the garbage can. I was sure Fulton had killed Corelli on Jane Malone’s orders, or at least with her tacit agreement. Of course it would come out that Fulton worked for her. Jane Malone’s dream was over, Richard’s career was in ruins, Nick Fulton was in jail, Corelli was dead, and Larry— what about Larry?

  I wandered into the living room. The little snifter that had held Andrew’s brandy sat on the coffee table. I carried it into the kitchen. I could go back to square one. Maybe Larry committed suicide after all. No. That wouldn’t work. Somebody had shot at me, and that meant somebody was afraid. Suicide wasn’t a reasonable explanation.

  My head was buzzing. I went back into the living room and sat on the couch. I had to face the suspicions of Andrew that, below the surface, had been tearing at me all evening. Once I decided to explore my misgivings about him, though, the case became elusive. He could’ve killed Larry and shot at me, I thought, but my mind kept returning to Andrew making me a salami sandwich, or pulling the pins out of my hair, or being with me in bed.

  He can’t be innocent just because you want hi
m to be, I reprimanded myself. Did you ever ask him where he was the night of the murder? Of course not. Richard says he saw a figure in a sheepskin jacket leaving the Times. You spent an entire night at Andrew’s place. Did it even occur to you to check in his closet to see if he has a sheepskin jacket? No. You had other things on your mind.

  Maybe another drink would help. Another drink, and then bed. Tomorrow everything would be clear, rationality would return, I would put my life in order and lead a clean, healthy, sensible existence to a ripe old age if I didn’t get shot first.

  I went to the liquor cabinet and took out the Scotch. As I set it down and reached for a glass, I knew who Larry’s murderer was.

  The knowledge immobilized me for some seconds. As I stood with my hand outstretched, I ran through it all in my head. The facts backed up my intuitive flash. Larry Hawkins had been murdered, and I knew who had done it. I let my arm drop. It would probably be best if I didn’t have another drink tonight.

  Thirty-four

  I couldn’t prove it, but I’d be able to soon. I sat at my desk and began to write.

  The whole story came to only a page and a half. I folded the scrawled sheets, put them in an envelope, wrote the address. I’d mail it on the way.

  Driving through the city, stopping to drop the envelope in a mailbox, I felt, at last, relaxed and competent. It had been only a few days— less than a week— since Larry Hawkins died, but I knew I would never be the same. I could no more return to pills and lamentations now than I could reactivate my membership in the Museum Guild and be a society divorcee instead of a society matron. Which posed a problem. I would have to figure out something to do.

  Musings about the future would have to wait, however. I had reached my destination. I parked, crossed the street, and pushed the bell.

  No answer. I rang again. I could see a dim light inside.