Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

by Smith, Julie

  “Tanesha seems all right.”

  “Tanesha’s so terrified someone’s going to find out about her you’d think she was a Commie in the McCarthy era. You think she’s going to get up on the witness stand and say she was with me, trying to contact the ghost of Christmas past? More likely she’d say she’s never seen me before in her life. Ivan’s okay— in fact he’s really got the most interesting story of all— except that he got fired once for trying to do psychic healing on a patient. Just doing it wouldn’t have been so bad, but the patient hadn’t asked for it. He sees trouble spots on people’s bodies, and he just wants to go for them.”

  “I don’t see why that would come up in court.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “Ivan blurts stuff. He’s very young, I guess, I don’t know. No way I’d let him testify for me. You just couldn’t trust him. And then there’s Rosalie, who pretty much speaks her own language; and Moonblood’s name alone would make half the jury laugh and the other half throw up. Besides, Rebecca, here’s the thing— we were all in deep trance last night. If that came out, which it’s bound to, nobody’d believe a word any of us said.”

  I thought about the way Martinez and Curry would think; all they wanted was to make a case. She was right— the alibi she had was like none at all. And, assuming she got off, if being accused of murder didn’t wreck her career, becoming a known psychic— read flake— most assuredly would.

  I was defeated. “Okay. The odds are against us. Let’s talk strategy.”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about it. If they’re so sure I did it, they’re busy checking out my alibi, trying to find a motive, all that stuff, right? But of course you and I know they’re barking up the wrong tree. The real question is who did kill McKendrick.”

  “You’re psychic. You tell me.”

  She gave me a pained look. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  Well, why the hell didn’t it? I made up my mind to ask, eventually, but for now I couldn’t afford to get distracted.

  “Ladies,” said a voice from my past, “if I may make so bold, who killed McKendrick is only the first question.”

  Our heads swiveled to behold Mr. Rob Burns, my ex-boyfriend, who was standing at the end of our booth, where he’d apparently been eavesdropping on us.

  He put up a placating hand. “I only heard the tail end. Really. I just got here.”

  “To what do we owe the honor?” I asked as coldly as I could.

  “I just came from your office, where, incidentally, I observed Inspectors Curry and Martinez. I convinced Alan I could help, so he sent me over.”

  A million questions pushed to the forefront of my brain, but I hit him with the most immediate. “How do you know they didn’t follow you?”

  “You think Kruzick and I are amateurs?” He sat down across from me, nudging Chris toward the other end of the booth, suffering not a second’s conscience. Rob is a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. Chutzpah is a requirement for the job.

  The next question popped out: “How’d you find out what’s happening?”

  “I work for the Chronicle, remember? The same as Jason McKendrick did; he was a friend of mine.”

  “Oh, Rob, I’m sorry. I never knew that.”

  “Well, he wasn’t the kind of friend I saw outside the office. Or he wasn’t by the time I met you. Jason had a lot of enthusiasms— one after the other.”

  “He had fights with people?”

  “No, he just got tired of them— and it’s to his credit that he never seemed to make anybody mad. A very popular guy, Jason. Brilliant. Very complex. He was hard to know, but not at all hard to like. It wouldn’t be far off the mark to say that everybody loved him.”

  Nobody mentioned the obvious. “Did you know him, Chris?”

  Chris never looked so much like a racehorse— aristocratic and powerful, tightly wound, dangerous— as when she was angry. Her nostrils quivered. I half expected her to toss her head like Silky Sullivan. “Rob, you’re pissing me off.”

  He backed off— literally— turned toward her, and slid his butt toward the end of the booth. But he never lost eye contact. “You’re in trouble, Ms. Nicholson. Those idiots at the cop shop want to try to hang it on you. Would it interest you to learn the coroner found a piece of paper with your name and address on it in McKendrick’s shirt pocket?”

  “What!”

  “I thought so. You think Alan told me where you are because I want to help them? Trust me, okay?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure. I’d be a fool not to.” But she laughed. That was something she hadn’t done lately.

  “Listen, the Chronicle's pulling out all the stops on this one. Jason was one of our own. I’m assigned to the story, but it’s been made clear to me that it isn’t only a story— we’re out to get the bastard who did this.” Though we didn’t protest, he held up a placating hand. “A little conflict there, but we’re only human. Corporately human, I mean. When I found out you’re the number-one suspect, I made a deal with city desk. Someone else is covering the police story, and if you tell me anything that gives me the slightest bit of hope, I’m doing my own investigation. With the blessing of the powers that be, I might add.”

  Chris sat straight, and she was at least two inches taller than Rob. She spoke in staccato sentences, the way I’d seen her do in court: “I never met the man. I didn’t kill him. I appreciate your confidence.”

  “Good. Then let’s work together on this.”

  “Why should we?” I asked. “I don’t mean to be rude, but that’s a serious question. What’s in it for us, and what’s in it for you?”

  “I have access to things you need— that little piece of information I just gave you, for instance. And Jason McKendrick’s Rolodex, for another thing (Xeroxed, of course— the cops probably have the original by now.). Would you find that useful?”

  “We certainly would. And what can we do for you?”

  Chris blurted, “Am I in it?”

  Rob smiled. “If you had been, the cops wouldn’t have got the original.” He was a charmer, and he knew Chris well, but I didn’t quite believe it; I thought it more likely he didn’t suspect her because he hadn’t found her name there. He turned to me. “As for what you have that I want, it’s information, of course. You have the one piece I need.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked.

  “The name of the person or persons who’d most like to frame you.”

  “I can’t think of anybody,” said Chris disconsolately. “Everybody frickin’ loves me.”

  Rob mentioned the obvious: “Not exactly everybody. Look. Even if you don’t think you know, you know. We just have to be patient and let it surface.”

  “I don’t get this. Rosalie says I don’t have any enemies.”

  “Goddammit, Chris, how does this stuff work? How could she know that?”

  Rob looked confused.

  “I’m just letting off steam,” she said. “It’s not the most reliable thing in the world. Obviously I have an enemy.”

  “Where were you parked?” I asked.

  “A couple of blocks from Rosalie’s— I had trouble finding a space.”

  “So somebody must have followed you, stolen your car, and deliberately used it to kill McKendrick. Who they happened to know had your name and address in his pocket.”

  It was a truly malevolent thing to do, to plan so carefully, snare her so thoroughly. Somebody had it in for her in a big way. And it had to be someone who also wanted to kill McKendrick. Suddenly I had an idea: “I know. I’ve got it.”

  “You’ve got it?”

  “Look, he was a critic, right? It was probably somebody whose career he ruined— somebody who didn’t even know him.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because what have you and McKendrick got in common? You also get your name in the paper occasionally and also have a job that could be perceived as giving you the power to destroy people. Maybe it was someone you went up against in court who
wasn’t all that stable. So he decided to kill McKendrick and frame you for it.”

  Both Chris and Rob looked excited.

  “The down side is, it means you have to look at everything McKendrick ever wrote and see if you recognize any names.”

  “It beats being a convicted psychic.” She glanced at Rob uneasily, but he didn’t seem to be listening; he had other things on his mind.

  “So what do you think?” he said. “About working with me. Think of the money you’ll save.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You won’t have to hire an investigator.”

  I said: “Your call, Chris.”

  “He’s got conflicts right and left.”

  I assumed the lawyer role: “What about it, Rob?”

  He spread his hands, all innocence. “Well, technically I do, but who cares about technically? What I want is a story, and you two look like the quickest way to it. There’s no conflict there.”

  I knew Rob as well as I knew Chris, and six words he had just spoken summed up his whole personality, indeed his raison d’etre (and incidentally, the main reason we were no longer together): “What I want is a story.”

  Nothing could be truer. But would he sell us out to get it?

  I said: “You have to promise you won’t withhold stuff.”

  “Done.”

  “I mean really, really promise, Rob. This is Chris’s life we’re talking about. You have to give us any information relating to the case exactly as if we were paying you.”

  “No problem. I swear to God, no problem. As long as you promise not to pass it to the Ex.” The Examiner.

  Chris nodded, looking pleased. “I think we’ve got a deal.”

  I’d loved Rob for a long time, and in some ways I was sure I’d love him the rest of my life. And I trusted him, sometimes. But I knew him too well to be completely happy. We needed the Rolodex, and certain other inside info I’d been planning to hit him for anyway— but now I couldn’t unless we made the deal. I wanted it, too— with one little refinement. “There’s just one thing. Whenever possible, we really work together— I go with you on interviews, all that sort of thing.”

  To my amazement, a look of pure delight started at his mouth and, as the notion sunk in, spread out over his features. “Sure,” he said. And for the first time I caught on that he might be motivated by something more than journalistic aggression.

  But on the surface, he was all business. “Chris, I’d like to take you to the Chron right away to look at clips. And I need to fill you both in on some things I know from the office.

  “First of all, McKendrick was a serious ladies’ man— by which I don’t mean a philanderer, though he may have been that too. What I mean is someone who spent a lot of time dating. Think about it— he had to go out nearly every night to review something, he always had free tickets, and he was kind of a famous guy, a man about town. It was a great way to get dates and he had plenty of them. Always with good-looking, sophisticated ladies.”

  “So maybe we should go and see some of them?”

  “Eventually, maybe. But first things first.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The woman he lived with. And thereby hangs a tale.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Couldn’t miss.”

  “His assistant is a young woman named Adrienne. Real young— twenty-two or -three, maybe. McKendrick was in his late thirties and pretty much dated women that age or older. Sophisticated women, as I said. Very slick articles. Adrienne is a punk in more than one way. Big on attitude. Stupid-looking hairdo, black clothes and eye makeup. Cute in a junior highish kind of way. But definitely not McKendrick’s type— in fact, it’s kind of weird he even hired her as his assistant. But that I can kind of see if I really stretch things— she gives the impression of hipness, which didn’t hurt his image any, and she’s got a mouth on her that had to be useful for getting rid of supplicants. Of whom there were hundreds, as you can imagine. Anyway, I thought I’d go talk to her outside the office, so I got her address from the payroll files, and guess what?”

  But he’d already given us the punchline. I said, “It was the same as McKendrick’s.”

  He nodded.

  “Okay, let’s catch her tonight. What about right after work?”

  He nodded again, looking so satisfied I don’t think the word “smug” would be amiss.

  Chapter Four

  There was nothing to do at that point but face Curry and Martinez. I phoned first and discovered that by that time there was only Curry, which sounded like a good sign and was. Rosalie had refused to give him the names of the three other Raiders without Chris’s permission, and so Curry was there to get it— not to read Chris her rights. I could have supplied the names, but did I? Ha. I made a big show of phoning Rosalie and telling her it was fine with us to give the nice police inspector their names and addresses— in fact, I said, we encouraged it. Fortunately, since she had the grace not to answer the phone, I delivered the information by mechanical means and could only hope she’d gone to spend a few days in the country.

  Kruzick, forced into uncharacteristic mildness with the heat on the premises, started doing little Columbo bits the second we were alone. If it weren’t for Nicholson and Schwartz, the term “unemployed actor” would have perfectly described Kruzick and— too bad for the rest of us— to him all the world was a stage. He didn’t communicate, he did bits. I would have fired him except that he was my sister Mickey’s boyfriend and my mom would have killed me. That day I went in my office and closed the door.

  I had two clients to see that afternoon and lots of paperwork to do, but none of that kept me from turning over and over in my mind what was for me the strangest part of the whole deal— Chris’s metaphysical confession. She had been so sad while she was speaking, and so focused, that she hadn’t once forgotten anyone’s name. Usually, she did that. She got over- exuberant and talked too fast and ended up saying “Pigball” or “Whizbang” rather than stop long enough to retrieve the name from her memory bank. The exuberant, excitable Chris hadn’t been there at all. True, she was in big, bad trouble, but I sensed it was more than that— she was worried about driving a wedge between us by telling all, maybe irreparably damaging the friendship.

  I couldn’t say it was in perfect shape. She had driven a wedge, though possibly by her secrecy rather than her confession. Yet I couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to get around. It would take me awhile to assimilate it— not only the feelings of betrayal, the changes in Chris, but the notion of “psychic” as something real rather than a close cousin to stage magic. I didn’t know it then, on that worried afternoon just trying to get through, but over the next few days my entire world view would change, would shift as a result of what I knew now, and would never return to “normal” again. It was like a loss of innocence.

  Rob picked me up at the office, having left just after Adrienne did. Our plan was to call on her immediately, before she had time to go out for the evening.

  “How’s Chris doing?” I asked. “Did she find anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  He had settled her in the library with miles of microfilm of Jason McKendrick’s reviews.

  Jason and Adrienne lived on California Street, a few blocks west of Nob Hill, in a neighborhood that didn’t thrill me. If the truth be told, it wasn’t that far from where Rosalie lived, and it was about as rundown. Adrienne spoke through the intercom: “Who is it?”

  “Rob Burns. I need to talk to you about Jason.”

  A sound that was probably a sob came out of her throat, and she buzzed us in.

  She must have had time to change after work because she wasn’t wearing black. She had pulled a bleached-out pink T-shirt over a pair of white pants that fit like skin and resembled nothing so much as thermal underwear. She hadn’t bothered with shoes, and her hairdo, which clearly owed its sassy panache to usually defiant spikes, had started to droop.

  The room itself was absol
utely astonishing— that is, if you considered that two adults lived there, one nearly forty and well established, the other making at least union wages. All four walls were lined with orange crates and bricks and boards containing books and records— many of them vinyl records, the real thing instead of CDs. There was a mattress on the floor with some rumpled sheets and a pancake of a pillow on it, and one ancient rocking chair with a broken cane seat. There was also an old but expensive stereo set and a CD player. An old crook-necked desk lamp had been plugged in near the mattress. Other than that, there was no furniture. The walls, what few patches you could see of them, had been painted black. It looked like the abode of college students— or possibly of someone Adrienne’s age who hadn’t grown up yet. But if it had been Adrienne’s apartment originally— rather than Jason’s— what was she doing with the old-fashioned records?

  Rob said, “Rebecca Schwartz, Adrienne Dunson.” But Adrienne ignored me. She stared at Rob, lower lip trembling. She wanted him to take her in his arms, and he didn’t want to. Finally, I gave him a nudge. He didn’t step forward, but he opened his arms, and she took the cue. Once she was enfolded, he did fine, patting and cooing as if he were the father of five. While no one was looking, I took a spin around the apartment.

  There was a dark, underfurnished kitchen, the walls thick with grime, dishes piled in the sink. Paint peeled from a small table pushed against a wall, but no one ever ate there, I was sure. It was piled a foot high with newspapers, catalogs, magazines, and unopened junk mail. Two chairs that didn’t match were drawn up to it.

  An inhospitable hall opened onto a bedroom and bath, the bath divided into water closet and shower, in the old San Francisco manner. Both were dirty and dim.

  The bedroom was shocking— a piece of fabric, a Cost Plus bedspread from the looks of it, had been tacked over the window to serve as a curtain, so that the room was plunged in perennial darkness. A perfectly plain double bed, unmade, the sheets redolent, was crowded into a corner, clothes littered the floor, and a chipped, white-painted chest of drawers stood against one wall. If I had to guess I would have said depressed people lived there. I’d been on the premises two minutes, and already I felt like eating my gun.