Games to Keep the Dark Away

by Marcia Muller

  “At first Allen and Jane were pretty discreet. Hell, I didn’t even know about it for months, and I lived in the same apartment complex and still saw her regularly. They would meet at the marina over there.” He gestured at the window. The marina was well lit, the forest of boat masts white against the dark sky.

  “He has a boat there?” I asked.

  “A cabin cruiser. Arlene never liked it or the people at the marina, and they didn’t like her. It was a safe place for Allen and Jane to go. But then they decided they were in love and once they decided that they couldn’t keep it quiet. Jane broke off with me. She asked me not to tell anyone about Allen, and I didn’t. Allen began squirreling away assets, because of the community property laws. He didn’t want Arlene to have her share.”

  I remembered what Keller had said to me about having made the money and it being his.

  “That would have been okay,” Don went on, “but Allen also started taking Jane out in public. He made a lot of stupid moves, like renaming the boat Princess Jane. People started to talk. This is a small town, in spite of the way it’s grown in the past ten years. It wasn’t long before Arlene knew the whole story.”

  “And she filed for divorce?”

  “Yes. And because Arlene knew Allen had manipulated his finances when he split from his second wife, she hired detectives to trace their joint assets. They found he’d forged Arlene’s signature a couple of times, and she demanded a huge settlement in exchange for not prosecuting. I gather Keller had to liquidate a number of holdings in order to keep her from getting her hands on The Tidepools. Rumor has it he’s on the verge of bankruptcy.”

  I recalled the impression I’d had of Keller’s home as a house of cards. “What happened with him and Jane?”

  “She couldn’t take the heat of the scandal. Quit her job at The Tidepools and moved to San Francisco. But she still saw Keller—they were in here together last month—and I think they hoped it would work out for them once he got his financial affairs in shape. And it probably would have; the scandal would have eventually died down. People give up, you know, when there’s nothing fresh and juicy to chew over.”

  “You say you saw Keller with Jane last month?” If she had been with him then, she could also have been with him the past week.

  “I didn’t, but someone from the station did and, of course, she felt she had to mention it.”

  “Has anyone seen them together since then?”

  ‘Not that I know of.”

  I’d have to have a talk with Keller tomorrow, I decided. Suddenly tired, I drained my glass and looked at my watch.

  Don said, “Can I cook dinner for you one night this week? It would have to be after eight, of course. I’m happy having the show in a prime time slot, but it doesn’t allow for a normal social life.”

  “That’s okay; I‘ve never had one of those myself. And, yes, I’d love to have dinner.”

  He grinned, then motioned to the waiter for the check. Our departure from the restaurant was accompanied by the same waving and handshaking as Don’s arrival had been, and I realized he was something of a local celebrity. When I commented on the fact, however, he shrugged and said, “It’s a friendly town.” His offhandedness made me like him even more.

  We walked toward my car, Don’s hand resting lightly on my arm. As we came in sight of the MG, I spotted a figure in dark clothing leaning down next to it, as if trying to see through the window.

  “Hey!” I called.

  The figure moved back onto the sidewalk, behind a group of people who stood talking in front of a restaurant. I shook off Don’s hand and quickened my pace. The figure started to run, and I went after it.

  A tourist couple came out of the restaurant. They were both fat, and the man had his arm around the woman. I dodged to the left, but a kid on a skateboard came zooming by, barely missing me. The couple both seemed tipsy, when they tried to avoid me, they staggered and then stopped. The woman giggled and the man smiled apologetically. By the time I’d gotten around them, the dark figure had vanished.

  Don came up behind me. “What was that about?”

  “I don’t know.” I turned and hurried back to my car. Both doors were locked and the convertible top was intact, but I got out my keys, opened the passenger door and unlocked the glove box. The .38 Special I kept there had not been touched.

  I straightened up and turned to Don. His mouth was open and he was looking at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. “You’re for real, aren’t you?” he said.

  “What?”

  He motioned at the glove box. “It’s one thing hearing you talk about an investigation, but seeing that...”

  I smiled. After dating a cop who took things like the .38 for granted, I’d forgotten how it could scare off potential boyfriends. “Don’t worry.” I put my hand on Don’s arm. “I’ve very rarely had to use it.”

  He covered my hand with his and squeezed it. “But you do know how.”

  “Yes. I wouldn’t own it if I didn’t.” The image of a man I’d once killed flashed into my mind, but I shook it off, as I always did. I certainly didn’t want to go into that with Don—not until I knew him a lot better.

  He smiled. “Well, just don’t bring the gun to dinner.”

  “I’ll bring wine instead.”

  We exchanged phone numbers—mine at the motel, his at home—and said goodnight there on the sidewalk. Intrigued as I was by the prospect of a budding romance with this attractive man, my thoughts were on the figure I’d seen by my car. It could have been nothing, but I’d do well to be more alert in the future. And the romance, I told myself as I drove back to the Mission Inn, would have to wait until I cleared up the business at hand.

  Chapter 13

  At ten the next morning I sat on one of the ornately carved chairs in the lobby of The Tidepools, waiting to talk to Ann Bates. I’d been there half an hour and the high-backed chair grew harder with each passing minute. Every time I shifted my position, the handsome dark-haired woman at the desk would look up, an anxious frown creasing her brow. When I finally stood up and went over to the glass wall that opened onto the patio, the woman jerked. I glanced curiously at her, but she lowered her eyes.

  The hospice seemed strangely hushed this morning. Except for the woman at the desk, I hadn’t seen a single soul, and the phone hadn’t rung once all the time I’d been waiting. Even the fountain was quiet, its water turned off, and not a breeze ruffled the fuchsia blossoms in their hanging baskets. It wasn’t a peaceful stillness, however.

  The receptionist’s tension had begun to affect me. When the carved front door opened, squeaking on its iron hinges, I jumped. A middle-aged couple, prosperous-looking in tweeds, came in. They conferred with the receptionist, then took seats on the far side of the lobby. Tired of waiting, I went over to the woman at the desk and asked how much longer Mrs. Bates would be.

  “Oh, I’m certain it won’t be more than a few minutes.” She did not meet my eyes.

  “Would you get her on the phone again and find out?”

  Her hand strayed toward the receiver then stopped. “She knows you’re here. I’m sure she’ll be out as soon as she’s free.” She looked up, and I saw that her eyes were almost pleading. Obviously Bates was the source of her jumpiness.

  I said, “Is she in a bad mood today?”

  A smile tugged at the corners of the woman’s mouth. “Today and yesterday. All week, in fact. I’d rather not bother her again—” Footsteps clicked on the titled floor behind us and the trace of a smile disappeared from the woman’s lips.

  I turned to face Mrs. Bates. Dressed in beige silk, she was as fashionable as the last time I’d seen her, but there were lines around her mouth that hadn’t been there before. “Ms. McCone,” she said, “what can I do for you?”

  “I take it you heard about Jane Anthony’s death?”

  “The police were here making inquiries. And of course it was in the papers.”

  “I’m cooperating with the local force in
the investigation, and there are some questions I need to ask you.”

  “I’ve already told the detectives from Homicide everything I know about Ms. Anthony. Perhaps you should talk to them.”

  “No, I’d rather talk to you.”

  Bates glanced at the couple on the other side of the lobby, and then at the receptionist. “Mary, who are—”

  “Relatives of a prospective patient. One of the volunteers is to give them a tour, but she hasn’t arrived yet.”

  Bates frowned. “Doesn’t she know enough to be on time, for God’s sake?”

  “They’re early.”

  “Well...oh, never mind.” Bates looked back at me, exasperation plain on her face. “Ms. McCone, I realize you are merely trying to do your job, but you are hindering me from doing mine. As I said before, I suggest you talk to the police.”

  Her voice was louder now, and the prosperous-looking couple turned their heads. I raised my own voice. “You also must realize that by refusing to talk to me you’re obstructing my investigation of this murder.”

  The man sat up straighter and he and the woman exchanged looks.

  “Ms. McCone!” Bates glanced at them frantically.

  “Since you won’t talk with me, I can only assume that you—or someone else at The Tidepools—have something to hide.”

  Two spots of red appeared on Bates’ cheeks. She heaved a sigh and said to the receptionist, “Hold all my calls, Mary.” Then she glared at me. “Come this way, Ms. McCone.” In icy silence we went down a hallway to an office wing.

  Bates led me into a paneled office with a view of a cypress grove. It was furnished with a large, cluttered desk and banks of metal filing cabinets. She made a curt motion at a visitor’s chair in front of the desk, then went around and sat behind it.

  “Now that you have succeeded in making both me and The Tidepools look bad,” she said, “what do you want to ask me?”

  “I need to see Jane Anthony’s personnel file.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s confidential.”

  “The woman’s been murdered. Nothing about her is confidential anymore.”

  “The file is the property of The Tidepools.”

  “Did you refuse to show it to the police?”

  “They didn’t ask. They merely questioned me about what I recalled about Ms. Anthony.”

  “All the more reason I should see it.”

  She leaned forward on the desk, her eyes flashing. “No, Ms. McCone. All the more reason you should not. If the police don’t need to see the file, you don’t either.”

  This statement was going to be broken only by the introduction of a new element. “Why don’t we get Allen Keller in on this?”

  She blinked and took her elbows off the desk. “I thought Mary told you when you arrived that Dr. Keller isn’t in today.”

  “Has he been in at all since Jane Anthony was killed?”

  “That’s none of your business.” But the fire went out of her eyes and she bit her underlip.

  “I guess he’s taking it hard. It would be a shame to have to disturb him over something like this file.”

  “Yes, it would.”

  “On the other hand, if I have no choice...”

  “Ms. McCone, Allen—Dr. Keller has had a very difficult time this week. He told me how you hunted him down at home.”

  “Did he also tell you that he lied to me about how well he knew Jane?”

  “That’s only natural, given the havoc that woman wreaked upon his life. I don’t want you bothering him anymore.”

  “But I need to see that file.”

  She was silent, her hands gripping the arms of her chair. Her face, which had seemed invulnerable moments ago, was now deeply troubled. I thought of women I’d known who had fallen in love with bosses or co-workers. They might lose them to other women, but still they went on, keeping the office fires burning, waiting for some improbable future chance. Was Ann Bates...?

  A look of resolve spread over her features and she stood up, taking a key out of her desk drawer. “If I let you see the file, will you leave Dr. Keller alone?”

  “Would I have any other reason to contact him?”

  “Of course not.” Either she was not as bright as she appeared to be or she badly wanted to believe she was doing the right thing. She went to one of the file cabinets, opened it, and reached inside. Then her back straightened and she began to shuffle through the files. She closed the drawer, opened the one below it, and repeated the procedure. When she finally turned to me, her face was drained of color.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  She shook her head and shut the drawer. “I’m afraid I can’t show you the file after all.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, Ms. McCone, it is not there. And from what I can tell, a large number of our other files have vanished as well.”

  I left Ann Bates rummaging through her file cabinets, trying to figure out exactly what was missing, and drove to Allen Keller’s home. The maid who answered the door told me the doctor wasn’t in, but refused to say where he had gone. On my way back to the MG, I checked the garage; there was no car inside, so it was a good bet the maid was telling the truth. I thought for a minute and then remembered his boat, the Princess Jane, at the marina next to the Sand Dollar. It was worth a try. I drove over there and spotted the cruiser tied up at the far end of an outer slip. The location was reasonably private and the cruiser, which had to be at least thirty feet, was luxurious. I understood why Keller and Jane had chosen to meet there.

  The marina was almost deserted on this weekday morning. As I walked out toward Keller’s slip, all I heard were the cries of gulls and the creaks of the mooring hawsers. Then I heard another sound—the clink of a bottle against a glass.

  Keller sat on a folding chair on the afterdeck of the cruiser. He wore cutoff jeans and no shirt, and his stomach sagged over his belt. When I came alongside the boat, he was setting a gin bottle down on the table next to him. He looked up at me, squinting and shading his eyes from the sun, then said, “Go away.”

  I stepped on board anyway.

  “You do as you please, don’t you?” He picked up his glass and drank off half the clear liquid.

  “Most of the time.” I looked around and found another folding chair. Keller watched me set it up.

  “I could throw you off of here.” But his words held no menace.

  “You could, but you look like you might need some company.”

  He shrugged. I sat down in the chair.

  “How’d you know I was here?” he asked.

  “I guessed, since this was where you and Jane used to go.”

  He paused, glass halfway to his lips. “Somebody’s been talking. Who?”

  “Nobody you know.”

  “Not Ann Bates. She wouldn’t.”

  “No, not Ann. Let’s just say I heard some gossip.”

  “Yeah, sure. Everybody’s heard the gossip.” He drank, then added, “If you’re going to stay, at least have a drink.”

  If that was what it would take to get him talking, I would. Besides, it was hot there in the sun. “I’ll take a beer if you’ve got one.”

  “I think there are some in the fridge below.”

  “Do you want me to get it?”

  “No.” He stood up, went to the entrance to the cabin, and disappeared. In a minute or so he returned with a chilled Coors. He handed it to me and reached immediately for the gin bottle. From his speech and movements, Keller wasn’t drunk yet, but at this rate he soon would be.

  “So you heard the gossip and came to hold my hand.” His expression was sardonic, mouth pulled down on one side.

  “Her death was a bad shock, wasn’t it?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Why’d you lie to me about knowing her?”

  “Why should I have gone into it? She wasn’t really missing—I knew that, and you knew it too because you’d talked to her mother.
”

  “You knew it because she was staying with you.”

  He shook his head. “No. She wasn’t with me, at least not the whole week.”

  “Where was she?”

  His eyes left mine and flicked toward the bow. “She was elsewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now.”

  “It may.”

  “No.” He drank more gin. “Not now it doesn’t.”

  “Why wasn’t she with you?”

  “She needed privacy to do her research, and she didn’t want to involved me anyway.”

  “What research?”

  He made a motion with his hand, as if trying to erase his words.

  “What kind of research?”

  “Forget it.”

  A telephone that sat on the deck next to the companionway door began ringing. Keller got up and answered it, standing with his back to me.

  While he talked, I thought over my visit to his house. Keller probably was telling the truth about Jane not staying there, because he would not have admitted me so freely and let me stay so long if she were there or likely to return. But what about this “research?” What had she been—?

  “I said, don’t worry about it!” Keller’s voice was suddenly loud. “They’ll turn up...No, I’m not coming in today... I don’t know when—For God’s sake, Ann, just hold things together there. Is that too much to ask? I’ll be in when I can.” He slammed the receiver into its cradle and strode back to his chair, his face mottled with anger.

  “Ann Bates,” I said.

  He glared at me. “You seem to know a great deal about my friends and associates.”

  “I know Ann because I just came from The Tidepools. She was calling about the missing files, wasn’t she?”

  He sighed and leaned forward, elbows on knees, head in hands. “The files are not missing, they’ve merely been misplaced. She’s making a big deal out of nothing. Jesus, why did I get up today? What the fuck is happening to me? When did it all get so out of control?”

  I waited, but he just sat there, staring down at the desk. My beer can was empty, and the ice in his glass had melted. I stood up and said, “You can use a fresh drink; I’ll get some ice and another beer—”