There's Something in a Sunday

by Marcia Muller

“Feeble. Should be easy-that’s how I feel today. S…l…s…sapless.”

  “Sapless.” He ticked off the blocks with the tip of his pen.

  As I went toward the stairs to the second floor, he began filling in the word. “You’re welcome,” I said.

  “You know I hate it when you do that.”

  “Why else would I?” Halfway up the stairs I stopped. “Hey, Ted, would you buzz Rae and ask her to come up to my office.”

  “She’s not in yet.”

  Tardiness was one of my new assistant Rae Kelleher’s few faults, but a particularly vexing one. It bothered me all the more because I suspected most of her late arrivals could be directly attributed to the demands of her perpetual-student husband, Doug.

  Ted obviously held the same opinion, because he said, “Maybe she had to type a paper for Dougie, or prep him for an exam.”

  I grimaced and said, “When she comes in, tell her I want to see her.” Then I continued upstairs to my new office.

  When I stepped inside its door, I stopped-as I had nearly every day for the last four months-and admired my surroundings. The room-half of the original master bedroom-was at the front of the house, and its bay window afforded me a view. Not that it was one of the spectacular panoramas San Francisco is famous for; I couldn’t see the Bay or the Golden Gate Bridge or even the downtown skyscrapers. What I could see was the Outer Mission District: the rooftops were as patched and sagging as All Souls’, the buildings as shabby; the streets were flat and treeless, their gutters clogged with litter; the people who walked them were generally poorly dressed, their postures hunched and defensive. But it was a view, and the office was far larger than my former converted closet under the stairs. Besides, in a way, what I could see from my desk-which sat in the window bay-was perfectly fitting for the work I did there; this was my territory, and any one of those people might have been my client.

  The reason I had come to possess such sumptuous digs was that my boss, Hank Zahn, who had lived in this room since he founded the co-op shortly after graduating law school, had gotten married the previous spring to another of the attorneys, Anne-Marie Altman, and had moved to her flat over in Noe Valley. I guess I’d acted pretty mournful about him being so far away and no longer available at any hour of the day or night for counsel or companionship, because he’d bequeathed me the room for my office-disappointing several others who had been casting covetous looks at it. It didn’t really make up for the loss of long late-night talking-and-drinking sessions with Hank, nor for the fact that Anne-Marie, my best female friend at All Souls, was now a married lady who hurried home to have intimate dinners with her new husband. But once I’d outfitted it with a new Parsons table desk and an old oriental rug I’d found rolled up in the attic, and had hung some of my favorite photographs on the walls…well, I’d started thinking of myself as a career woman of substance, rather than an underpaid, unappreciated lackey.

  The event that had completed my metamorphosis into staff member of importance had occurred two months ago when Hank and the other partners had decided that I had too much serious investigating on my hands to continue with such important but time-consuming and essentially undemanding tasks as filing documents at City Hall and the routine interviewing of possible witnesses. Hire an assistant, they’d told me.

  I’d called around to other investigators and acquaintances at security firms, and one had finally recommended Rae Kelleher. Rae was twenty-five, a psychology graduate from my old alma mater at Berkeley, and the sole support of her Ph.D.-student husband. At that time she had been working as a security guard, as I had been after receiving my own highly useless degree. We’d met, and I’d liked her enthusiasm and easy good humor, had been impressed with her keen intelligence and willingness to do scutwork for low pay in exchange for learning the trade and eventually getting her investigator’s license. In the two months she’d worked for me she’d been amenable and uncomplaining and quick to pick up on what she needed to know. The only problem was that husband and his demands on time she should have been devoting to her duties.

  I turned my thoughts away from Rae, sat down at the desk, and began going over my notes on Frank Wilkonson. My eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep-I’d only managed two hours-and my head ached slightly. I reached for my purse to see if I had any aspirin; there was only one Tylenol in a dented tin at the bottom of the bag. I swallowed it dry and kept on studying the notes. When I finished, I had the essence of a report, but no conclusions and no clear-cut way to deal with the subject of Goldring’s lack of candor about Wilkonson. Finally I opted for typing up only what I had, then called his office.

  Mr. Goldring wasn’t in, the woman who answered the phone said. Did I care to leave a message?

  I identified myself and said I would drop by the office late that afternoon, around the same time I had last Friday. If that was inconvenient, Mr. Goldring should call me.

  When I hung up I looked at the case files on the desk. There were only four, and I intended to turn two of them over to Rae-provided she ever came to work. The others I would have to handle myself, since they involved tracking down a couple of hostile witnesses, and Rae had no experience with skip-tracing. Reluctantly I pulled the phone toward me, made a few calls, and came up empty-handed. It was close to noon when I went downstairs.

  Ted wasn’t at his desk; he’d probably gone to lunch. I poked my head into my former office under the stairs-which Rae had spruced up in a way I’d never thought possible-but found it vacant. Then I went down the hall to Hank’s office; he was in but on the phone. When he looked up at me, I saw his complexion was unusually pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes that his thick horn-rimmed glasses failed to hide. Was he coming down with something? I wondered. Or was this a symptom of something more serious than the onset of a cold or the flu? Come to think of it, neither he nor Anne-Marie had looked too good lately.

  I mouthed the word “lunch” at Hank. He shook his head and pointed at a stack of folders in front of him. I shrugged and went to a stack of city papers that Hank-who hoards newspapers and other periodicals-keeps in the corner of his office. I checked the date on the top one, found it was yesterday’s, and extracted the pink section. When I held it up questioningly, he nodded that it was okay for me to borrow it. Then he said into the phone, “Look, this is a nonnegotiable point-unless you’ve got something damned good to negotiate with.”

  I carried the entertainment section down the hall to the big kitchen at the rear of the house. A couple of the other attorneys were eating lunch at the round oak table in the dining area by the windows. I responded to their greetings and went to peer into the refrigerator. It was chock-full of healthy things-spinach, carrots, tofu, cottage cheese, yogurt. I sighed, remembering the good old days when Hank still lived here and there was always a pot of his leftover spaghetti or chili waiting to be warmed up. Finally I settled on only a cup of coffee and took it out to the combination living-and-waiting room.

  As I went out the door, one of the attorneys said, “McCone’s being antisocial again.”

  I bristled at the unfairness of the remark. I love the warm, friendly atmosphere at All Souls and genuinely enjoy the others’ company, but sometimes the enforced togetherness is more than I can handle. The co-op has its roots in the poverty law movement of the seventies; the word “poverty” seems to apply more to the employees and partners than to the clients, who are charged on a sliding fee scale according to their incomes. As a result, several people live in free rooms on the second floor. Most of the staff take the majority of their meals there. And those who live out seem to spend more time at the co-op than at home. No one minds the lack of privacy. If anything, they thrive on it-kicking around problems with clients and cases, sharing details of their personal lives, arranging endless social functions and outings. For someone like me, such a living situation would be unendurable.

  But at the same time, most of the folks at All Souls are my friends as well as co-workers. I can usually be enticed to their
parties, and when I need companionship, it’s the place I turn. The remark, good-natured as it was, hurt-all the more, I suspected, because it was the same kind of criticism of my need for solitude that Don had leveled at me toward the end of our relationship.

  It also made me wonder if people did indeed view me as prickly, independent and needing no one. If so, they were wrong; the empty place I’d carried inside me since my breakup with Don attested to that. I thought of Frank Wilkonson, and the fog to the newspaper stand had reminded me of Kristofferson’s song about lonely Sundays. Then I thought of how I’d wandered dispiritedly along the misty beach on another recent Sunday. No, I wasn’t the totally self-sufficient woman my friends and associates believed me to be. I needed someone-but it had to be someone who would let me be myself, give me room to breathe, not try to change me. And a person like that wasn’t easy to find.

  I shrugged off the gloomy thoughts and settled on the broken-down couch in the living-and-waiting room. The big front parlor is usually full of clients, but now, during the noon hour, it was deserted. Toys from the chest by the fireplace-provided for the children of clients who must bring their offspring while they consult with their attorneys-were strewn on the worn oriental rug. Chipped pottery mugs and dirty ashtrays stood on the coffee table; I had to clear a space in order to set my own cup down. Then I opened the pink section and paged through it.

  I dismissed such categories as “Nightlife” and “Movies,” focusing on the one labeled “Exhibits.” There it was-the plant sale at the Hall of Flowers. I went out to Ted’s desk and found his Yellow Pages. There were four columns and a number of large ads under “Nurseries-Retail.” This was probably the other page Wilkonson had had in his jacket pocket.

  As I replaced the phone book I tried to decide whether to go upstairs and work on the skip-traces or wander down to Mission Street and grab a burrito at my favorite tacqueria. Neither prospect intrigued me.

  The Goldring investigation had to do with the floral industry. But what? And why? And was it really any of my business anymore? I’d finished my report for Rudy Goldring; this afternoon I’d deliver it. If he merely accepted it and declared the case closed, that would be that. If he wanted more information, I could go around to the various nurseries Wilkonson had visited, try to find out what questions he’d asked the clerks. But before I’d go on working for Goldring, we’d have to clear the air about the things he hadn’t told me. I would need more information about Wilkonson himself. Perhaps it would be wise to set the wheels in motion before I went to my appointment with Goldring. I had Wilkonson’s license plate number; I could check him out through a friend at the DMV. Better yet, I could ask one of the people I knew on the SFPD to run a check through CJIS or CJIC-

  The front door opened, and Rae Kelleher came in.

  Rae is a small woman, around five foot two, with short curly auburn hair, a round, freckled face, and a compact athletic body. That afternoon she was wearing jeans, a mangy-looking brown coat of a style that I could have sworn went out in the early sixties, and a blue and gold-striped scarf like the one I used to wear to the Berkeley football games. She began unwinding it from her neck, then saw me, started, and made a guilty apologetic gesture with her free hand. I looked at my watch; it was quarter to one. Silently I waited for her explanations.

  She said, “I can’t explain.”

  “Terrific.”

  “I mean, I can, but it’s unacceptable.”

  “Try me.”

  The scarf slid to the floor and she began unbuttoning her coat. “I don’t think you want to hear this.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.”

  “Okay, Doug had-”

  “You’re right. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Sharon, he needed-”

  “Save it, Rae.”

  This was more or less what I’d expected, and I wasn’t mad at her, not really. But I was exasperated at how she was risking her own future by constantly giving in to Doug’s demands. Didn’t the woman realize that she, as well as her husband, had a way to make in the world? Didn’t she know that husbands might stay or go, but a profession that would make use of the talents she seemed to possess would stand her in good stead for a lifetime?

  Rae was watching my face. Hers was pinched now, and her freckles stood out against its pallor. I guessed she expected me to fire her.

  Finally I said, “Look, we need to talk.”

  “Well, I know that. Now?”

  I hesitated. I was tired and on edge. I didn’t want to enter into what would be a delicate conversation in my present condition. “No, not now. I need to turn over a couple of files to you, and then I’ve got work of my own, and an appointment around four.”

  A trace of relief touched her features. “After that, then?”

  “Yes. Tell you what: There’s an All Souls tradition that I haven’t introduced you to yet. At least, it’s a McCone-Zahn tradition. Why don’t you meet me at the Remedy Lounge around five-thirty?”

  “That sleazoid bar down the hill on Mission Street?”

  “Right.”

  Most people would have reacted with disgust-or at least reluctance-but once again Rae proved to be my kind of woman. Her face rounded out in a delighted grin, and she said, “Oh boy, I was wondering when one of you would invite me!”

  “Five-thirty, then. And no excuses-even if Doug calls and wants something.”

  “I promise.” Damned if she didn’t hold up the fingers of her right hand in the Girl Scout salute.

  I said, “Okay, pick up that scarf and dump your coat and come upstairs. I’ve got to brief you on those two cases.”

  As I went to my office, I chided myself for sounding exactly like my mother. Well, not exactly-my mother would have told her to hang up the coat, and probably to comb her hair and wash her hands as well.

  FIVE

  The derelict doorman wasn’t on the steps at Rudy Goldring’s building, so I let myself in. When I found Goldring’s office empty too, I continued down the hallway, calling out his name. a gray-haired woman in a striped smock with straight pins stuck through its lapel came out of the back room.

  “You must be the one that called this morning,” she said. “He’s still not in. I’m Mrs. Halvorsen, his office manager. Can I help you?”

  “He hasn’t come in all day?”

  “Just this morning, for an hour or two, but he left before ten. Said he had an appointment.” She paused, frowning and fingering the pins. “And that’s odd-you’d think he’d have called. He missed a fitting for a new customer at one, and first fittings are important to Mr. Goldring. He likes to make an occasion of them.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t feeling well and went home.”

  “Home’s right upstairs, the second-story flat. He’d have stopped in first. Besides, I tried to call him up there when the new customer came. No answer, and he wasn’t down at the factory, either.”

  “Do you know who the appointment was with-or where?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, I’m sure he’ll turn up. When he does, would you ask him to call me?” I gave her one of my cards and went back down the hall.

  On the porch I hesitated, both annoyed and puzzled, looking at the door to the upstairs flat. Maybe Rudy Goldring had returned home by now; the woman had only mentioned trying to call him once, around three hours ago. I was about to step over there and ring the bell when the door flew open and a tall figure in a raincoat rushed through it and slammed into me.

  I stumbled backward and caught at the person to keep from toppling down the steps. It was a woman of about my age, with luxuriant chestnut hair piled high on her head. Her finely formed features-straight delicate nose, high cheekbones, generous mouth, and unusually large blue eyes-would have been beautiful, had they not been contorted with fright. She stared wildly at my face and down at where my hand was gripping her forearm, then tried to wrench away from me. I hung on.

  “What’s wrong?” I said. “What’s happened?”

&nbs
p; “Oh God!” Her teeth were chattering; she put a hand to her cheek as if to stop them.

  “What is it? Is it Mr. Goldring?”

  “Oh God!” Now she was gripping my arm, her fingers so tight they hurt. “You know him, you have to help him!”

  “Where is he? Show me.”

  She cast a panicky look at the street, and I braced myself to stop her if she tried to break away again. The she looked back at the open door to the flat. “Up…up there…in the kitchen.”

  “Take me to him.”

  Wordlessly she led me inside and up the steep staircase, her head bowed, shoulders hunched inside the raincoat.

  The upstairs flat was painted and carpeted in the same manner as the offices below. Toward the front was a living room that apparently had been created by removing the wall between two smaller rooms; its double-window bay was filled with hanging ferns. The woman turned the other way, past a bedroom and a bathroom, toward the back of the house. A kitchen opened off the end of the hall-one of the old-fashioned kind like All Souls’, with black-and-white-checkered linoleum, a sink with a drainboard, and a hulking black iron range.

  Rudy Goldring lay sprawled on his back in front of the range, arms flung wide. It looked as if he had fallen and hit his head on one of its curving legs.

  Alarm set my skin prickling; I rushed over to him and knelt down, fumbling for his wrist and trying to push up the sleeve of his shirt so I could take his pulse. The shirt had French cuffs secured by gold cufflinks. As I undid one, I looked at his drained white face, then saw that blood had oozed out from under his head onto the linoleum. It was mostly dry now. I got the cufflink out and grabbed his wrist. His flesh was cool, and his body beginning to stiffen; rigor mortis was setting in. Rudy Goldring had been dead a number of hours.

  I let go of his wrist and looked up at the woman. She had backed up against the old Frigidaire and was watching me, hands over her mouth, eyes darkened by horror. When she saw the expression on my face, she made a whimpering sound and her knees started to sag. Quickly I got up and went to her, turning her away from the body and moving her toward the door to the hallway. Her teeth were chattering again and tremors wracked her slender frame; she leaned heavily on me. I guided her down the hall, experiencing tremors of my own.