The Devil Close Behind

by Janet Dawson

  He’d just gotten money from his mother, I thought, wondering how much Millicent had handed over.

  “My cousin Marsh is holding some cash for me,” Slade continued, standing up. “He lives in Oakland. After we get a place to stay and settle in, I’ll connect with him. Then we’ll do the tourist thing.”

  “At some point we need to do laundry. And I need to call my sister. She’ll definitely want to see us.”

  “Will she?” Slade’s mouth twisted. “I don’t think your sister likes me any better than your folks do.”

  Laurette’s voice took on a placating tone as she got up from the table. “Now, I can’t come all the way out to the West Coast without seeing my sister. Family’s important, you know.”

  He gave a derisive laugh. “So they tell me. That’s your family, not mine. Come on, let’s go.” He pulled the car keys from his pocket. Laurette tossed the coffee cup into a trash can. Then she and Slade walked to the Ford.

  I got to my feet and disposed of my coffee cup. My Toyota was across from the Ford. Slade got into the driver’s seat and Laurette the passenger seat. He backed out and headed for the exit. I followed. Slade got onto westbound Highway 24. Once through the Caldecott Tunnel, he headed for downtown Oakland, taking the exit for Telegraph Avenue. He turned left and drove south, turning left again, onto MacArthur Boulevard. There were several motels on this stretch of MacArthur. Slade turned into the parking lot of one of the motels. I followed suit, pulling into an empty parking space. I watched as Slade and Laurette went into the motel office. A few minutes later, they came out and got back into the Ford, moving it to the rear of the building. Slade backed the Ford into a parking spot. They both got out and Slade opened the rear hatch. He grabbed a guitar case and an amplifier, carrying them into the first-floor motel room they’d rented. I got out of my car and put on an A’s ballcap, all in the name of camouflage, in case Laurette remembered me from the coffee shop in Lafayette.

  I walked with my head down. The motel room door was open, and I took a sideways glance inside, where Laurette was checking out the room. “I’m so glad they have a coffeemaker and a fridge,” she said. “I like having my first cup before I get dressed. But I like milk in my coffee, so we need to get some.”

  I was past the door now. When I reached the soda machine at the end of the walkway, I stood there, pretending to look at the offerings, while Laurette and Slade ferried their possessions into the motel room. I fed some quarters into the machine and pressed the button that got me a can of ginger ale. When I turned away from the soda machine, I saw Laurette outside the room, maneuvering a wheeled suitcase. “As soon as we’re done,” she said, “I’m going to take a long, hot shower. And a nap.”

  Slade, standing in the doorway, nodded. “That’s cool. You grab your shower. I’ll go get a few things. Milk, beer, some snacks. What else do you want?”

  “I’ll make a list,” Laurette said, heading into the room.

  Slade unloaded the last of the stuff from the Ford and headed inside. The door shut and I figured that Laurette was having that shower she’d talked about. I walked past the room to my car, got in and sat for a moment. Slade came outside. There were a few markets in the neighborhood, the kind that had a few staples as well as liquor. One of those was nearby, walking distance from the motel, near the corner of Telegraph and MacArthur.

  But Slade wasn’t walking. He got into the Ford, cell phone held at the side of his face as he made a call. He ended the call and tossed the phone on the passenger seat, then started the car, and drove out of the motel lot, onto MacArthur Boulevard. He headed downtown, winding up at Lake Merritt, where Grand Avenue curved around the edge of Lakeside Park. He parked near Euclid Avenue. I did the same. Carrying a tote bag with some items for camouflage, I followed him as he headed into the park. On the path that bordered Lake Merritt, Slade stopped, his back to me. He was meeting someone.

  Cousin Marsh.

  I recognized Marshall Spencer from the music videos of the Flames that Antoine and I had watched on the Internet. He was a few inches shorter than Slade, with a wiry build, dressed in faded jeans, torn at the knees, and a green Oakland A’s T-shirt. His sandy brown hair curled at the nape of his neck and straggled untidily over his high forehead. Seeing him in person, this close, I could believe he was a drummer. He fidgeted, constantly in motion, moving his weight from one foot to the other and back again, as though dancing to his own internal rhythm. As I watched, his left hand went up and tugged at his earlobe, just as it had in the videos.

  My steps slowed. I had my cell phone in my hand, the camera rolling, but my fingers playing on the screen as though I was typing a text message. Then I stopped a few feet from Slade and Marsh. I looked at my watch, then the path ahead, hoping that I looked like I was meeting someone who was late.

  Marsh glanced at me, then dismissed me. I strained, listening to see if I could pick up part of the conversation and hoping the microphone on the phone was doing the same.

  Slade’s voice was heated. “That’s not good enough, Marsh. I need that money, now.”

  Marsh raised both hands in a gesture of supplication. “I get that. But it’s not like I got that much cash with me. It’s in a safe deposit box. No way can I get to the bank and get the cash now.”

  A woman approached, pushing a stroller, a toddler at her side. The little boy emitted an excited cry and ran a few steps ahead and onto the grass, heading toward a pair of geese with a brace of fluffy yellow goslings. Mama and Papa Goose both hissed a warning, heads down as they moved to intercept the child. The goslings scuttled away. His mother caught up with him and grabbed him by the arm before the geese could go on the offensive.

  Slade took a few steps, heading away from me. He was saying something that I couldn’t quite make out. Marsh caught up with him, gesturing as he talked. But I couldn’t hear. I risked a few steps in their direction, though I couldn’t exactly hang over their shoulders and eavesdrop. I sidestepped a runner who was pelting along the path. The runner swerved to avoid Marsh and Slade, who were headed back this way. Now I could hear Marsh. He tugged on his earlobe again, his voice earnest. “Chill, man. I can get it tomorrow. Just tell me where to meet you.”

  Slade was coming toward me. “Chill? That’s a laugh. Things are too hot in New Orleans, and I’m not talking about the weather. That’s why I left. I had to get out of town.”

  “Why bring the girl with you?” Marsh asked. “She’s baggage, man. She’s slowing you down.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “So, what’re you gonna do?”

  As they passed, I stepped onto the grass, checking where I walked, because the geese that inhabited the park were notorious for their copious droppings. I had a paperback book in the tote bag and now I pulled it out, glancing at my watch again before opening to a random page.

  Slade mumbled something, then I heard, “She wants to see the coast. I want to go north, to Canada. She wants to go south, you know, Monterey and Big Sur, down to LA and San Diego. Then head back to New Orleans.”

  “But you’re not—” Marsh interrupted.

  “Going back. Hell, no. She doesn’t know that, though. I told you things are hot. I’m wondering if I should leave the country for a while. You know, get close to a border, whether it’s Canada or Mexico, and just go over. Lay low for a while. She can do what she wants. I’ve got the keys to the car. That’s all I need. That, and money. If I’m going to disappear, I need money to do that. You owe me, Marsh.”

  Marsh sidestepped the issue of the money. Obligation or not, he didn’t seem interested in parting with any cash. “What the hell did you do, man?”

  He glanced up and saw me, frowning, as though I’d gotten too close. I had my nose in the book, then I raised my phone to my ear, answering an imaginary call. “Where are you? You’re late. Ten minutes? Okay. I’ll be here.” I gave an exasperated sigh and walked a few feet down the path, away from Slade and Marsh. I’d heard enough.

  As it happened, the conver
sation between the two cousins was over. They walked together toward Grand Avenue. Slade headed for the Ford. Marsh crossed Grand at the light, heading up Euclid Avenue. He turned to the left and entered a three-story apartment building, one of many that lined the street. When I looked back, Slade was still sitting in the Ford. I quickly got to my car and followed him as he checked oncoming traffic, then pulled away from the curb. He cut over to Lakeshore Avenue, went under the freeway and turned right into the Trader Joe’s parking lot, ready to get those supplies on the list Laurette had given him.

  Poor Laurette, I thought. It sounded like Slade was planning to ditch her as soon as he got the money. It appeared he had engineered this so-called road trip to get back to California to collect money from Marsh. Laurette’s involvement had been the Ford, obviously. It had been purchased mostly with Laurette’s money, and the trade-in of her Honda. I wondered if he’d ever cared for her at all. Moving into her apartment had been his way of dealing with getting evicted from his own. Laurette was a means to an end and she was about to get hurt. I had to tread carefully. How best to warn her? More evidence that Slade was an opportunistic creep—and criminal?

  He was certainly trying to outrun his past, but I wasn’t going to let him.

  Further investigation of Cousin Marsh would help. I turned around and doubled back down Grand to Euclid. I was familiar with this neighborhood, called Adams Point, because I’d lived in an apartment here for many years before buying my house in another section of town. I checked out the apartment building I’d seen Marsh enter, finding the name spencer on the mailbox for a third-floor unit. Now that I had his address, I could do more research on Marshall Spencer when I got back to my office.

  In the meantime, I had a phone call to make. I punched up Davina’s number. When she answered, I said, “Laurette and Slade are in town.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Darren Luo was a thin, intense man in his late forties, with a few threads of gray in his black hair. He and his family had once lived next door to the Patchetts in Lafayette. After repairing the damage from the fire that consumed their garage, they’d put the house on the market, moving to nearby Walnut Creek, where Luo worked for an investment firm. I’d used property tax and real estate transaction records to trace him. When I called his office, which was on North California Boulevard near the Lesher Center for the Arts, Luo had agreed to meet me at a Starbucks just down the street. It was midmorning, a warm and sunny spring day, so we took our coffee outside and found a table. Luo unbent sufficiently to remove his suit jacket and loosen his tie.

  I asked him about the fire. “I understand it was no accident.”

  He scowled at me over his cappuccino. “Of course not. It was set.” He took a sip of the coffee, as though collecting his thoughts. “You know, my wife and I never felt welcome, living next door to the Patchetts.”

  I set my latte on the table. “Really? I haven’t met Byron but I spoke briefly with Millicent. She seems nice enough.”

  “It wasn’t them,” he said. “They’re all right, no better or worse than any of the other people on that street. It was Millicent’s son, Eric. He was a mess. Probably still is. Him and that cousin of his. Marsh something or other. What a pair. I’m surprised the two of them aren’t in jail. The things they said—”

  I leaned forward in my chair. “Such as?”

  He sighed. “Sometimes it felt like that particular neighborhood was a bit too white, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do, and I’m sorry to hear that.” The Luos were Chinese American. Though the Bay Area is quite diverse, there are some areas where that layer is quite thin. Racially motivated incidents happen, even here.

  “So what happened? Racial slurs?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Both Eric and his cousin. Directed at me, my wife, my kids. I kept my distance, as much as you can when you live next door to someone. I did mention it to Byron at one point and he said Eric was Millicent’s son and he’d certainly discuss it with her. It was like he was washing his hands of the whole thing. I got the impression there was no love lost between the two of them. There were other things, besides the nasty comments. Eric and his cousin were in some kind of band and they were always practicing, playing loud music. Then there was the issue of the pool. You see, our house had a swimming pool when we bought it. Later we put in a hot tub. Eric and his cousin would climb over the fence from the Patchetts’ backyard and they’d use our pool and hot tub. Not only that, they’d leave trash. Once they even took a dump in the hot tub.”

  I made a face. “Oh, no.”

  The look on Luo’s face mirrored my own. “Oh, yes, they did. I had to drain the tub and have it sanitized. I was sure it was them, but I didn’t have any proof. So I set up one of those motion-sensor cameras and caught them at it. I had videotape. I threatened to press charges for trespassing. I mean, they were both eighteen or older. Eric was about to graduate from high school, and the cousin, Marsh, he was older by a year or two. After that last incident, I had a serious talk with Millicent and Byron. I said if I caught Eric trespassing again, I’d call the police and let them deal with it.”

  “How did the Patchetts react?”

  “Millicent was very defensive,” Luo said. “She didn’t believe me at first. I showed them the video. Byron believed me from the start. He said they’d have a talk with Eric and that it wouldn’t happen again.” He gave a derisive snort. “Three days later, my garage goes up in flames. Eric and his cousin torched it, I’m sure of it, in retaliation for me catching them in my pool, and for talking to the Patchetts.”

  “What did the investigators say?”

  “Oh, they’d made it look like an accident, of course,” Luo said. “My wife and I had picked up a sideboard at an antique store. I was refinishing it in the garage. The whole neighborhood knew that. I had the garage door open, for ventilation. So yes, I had turpentine and linseed oil and all that stuff out there. But that fire did not start by accident, or my carelessness. Eric knew I was working on that piece of furniture. He’d seen me in the garage and he knew I had all these supplies.”

  “What time did the fire start?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. We weren’t home. My wife and I were at some school function for the children. The fire started while we were gone. One of the neighbors saw smoke and flames and called 911. Then he called me. It was after eight. I left my wife at the school and drove home immediately. By that time the fire department was there.” He paused and downed the rest of his cappuccino. “It was a mess, as you can imagine. Dealing with the investigation and the cleanup and the insurance company. It took a while to get the payout, I can tell you that.”

  “So the official cause of the fire—up in the air?”

  “They ruled it accidental,” he said with another scowl. “But it was set, I’m sure of it. Eric and his cousin set that fire and made it look like an accident. The fact that I had all those refinishing supplies in the garage just made it easier for them to get away with it. The cops didn’t seem inclined to believe me, even when I told them about the past incidents, with the trespassing. Eric and his cousin had alibis, of course. They were out eating pizza when the fire started, or so the story went. But they could have used some sort of timing device.”

  It was possible, I thought. They could have waited until Luo and his wife left for the evening, kids in tow, then entered the garage. But there was no proof. And Luo was still angry about it nine years later.

  Luo checked his watch and pushed back his chair. “I’ve got to get back to work. If whatever you’re investigating involves Eric and his cousin, I hope you nail those two. A pair of criminals. One of these days both of them are going to wind up in jail. Or dead.”

  Before meeting Luo, I’d done some research on Marshall Spencer, using various online tools available to private investigators. Marsh was eighteen months older than his cousin Eric. After graduating from high school he had taken some classes at Diablo Valley College. His employment history was spotty. He lived i
n Oakland and from what I could find out, he wasn’t employed at the moment. He must be getting money from somewhere. I wondered if his mother was supporting him, the way Slade’s mother had been subsidizing him. Or was he getting his money under the table, from some dubious source? He had some financial resources, that was clear. And Slade had said Marsh was holding some funds for him.

  If Marsh had run afoul of the authorities as a juvenile, that would have been sealed. He had, however, been questioned by the police for several crimes, from breaking and entering to petty theft. In other words, he’d been caught a time or two. But he’d never wound up in jail. The worst thing I could find on his rap sheet was a fine and a spell of probation for a bar fight several years ago, when he was twenty-one. In other words, if he was walking on the criminal side of the street, he was slick.

  The one that made me sit up and take notice was the fact that Marsh had been questioned by the police in Oakland four years ago. A former girlfriend had filed a complaint against him. She had broken up with him and in retaliation, she said, he’d torched her car.

  Slade wasn’t the only one who liked to set fires.

  * *

  Carrie Redeker was in graduate school at the University of California, Los Angeles. The university had an online directory for faculty, staff and students. However, it came with a disclaimer stating that it only included those who chose to be listed. Further, the listings included only the information that people wished to make public. Hers was an unusual name, so when I typed in “Redeker, C,” Carrie was the only Redeker who came up. She’d chosen to list an email address, nothing else. I sent an email, explaining why I wanted to talk with her, and added my contact information.

  She responded quickly, asking me when it would be a good time to call. “How about now?” I wrote.

  The phone rang a few minutes later. “You said in your email you wanted to ask me some questions about Eric Slade,” Carrie said. “Is there something more specific I should know about? And this is strictly confidential, right?”