Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes

by Marcia Muller

  Outside I identified myself to the patrolmen and filled in the basic details. They asked me to wait in the black-and-white until Wallace and Joslyn arrived; I complied, sitting with the door open, my feet on the pavement. A backup unit pulled behind it; neighborhood residents began to wander into the alley. When Wallace’s unmarked car pulled in from the far end, I got out and waved.

  Joslyn hurried toward the building and spoke with one of the men in uniform. Wallace came over to me. “This the angle you were following up?” he asked, motioning the way Adah had gone.

  “Yes. Melissa Cardinal, one of the women who shared the North Beach flat with McKittridge.”

  He glanced around for his partner, who was now entering the buildings. “You have any ideas about this?”

  “One.” I explained about Wingfield possibly having hired Enrique Chavez to harass Benedict and me—maybe Melissa, too.

  “I’ll put out a pickup order on Chavez and Wingfield.”

  “While you’re at it, put one out on Tony Nueva. He’s wanted on a drug charge down south, and he may know more about the Chavez situation than he told me.”

  Bart took down the details about Neuva and went to join Joslyn in the building.

  I leaned against the patrol car, watching the all-too-familiar proceedings. Joslyn emerged from the building, conferred with one of the uniforms, disappeared again. The lab van arrived, and then the medical examiner’s people. After a while they left with the body bag.

  So that’s what it comes down to, I thought. A lifetime, and then they zip you into a sack like yesterday’s garbage.

  Wallace returned. “Adah wants to see you in the apartment.”

  I pushed away from the patrol car. “You coming?”

  “Uh-uh. I want to canvass the neighbors personally.”

  I went up to Melissa’s apartment.

  The lab team had already dusted for fingerprints there. Joslyn sat in the recliner, going through an address book. She was dressed in sweats—off duty and at home when I’d called in, unlike her workaholic partner. Holding the address book up, she said, “Mightly slim pickings. She had several doctors, a dentist, and a chiropractor. A vet for the cat”—she motioned at where it still cowered under the cabinet—”and a couple called Mary and Rod in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.”

  I sat down on the sofa. “They may be family and, if so, the closest relatives she had. I found out some fairly interesting details about the stepbrother.” I related what I’d been told about the life and death of Roger Woods.

  Joslyn looked thoughtful. “I’ll query Seattle on his murder.”

  “Did you recover any weapon here?”

  “No. From the wound, it looked to be a thin, sharp blade. Now tell me what else you know.”

  I filled her in on everything. When I finished she said, “You sound like you don’t think this Chavez killed Melissa.”

  “I see the guy as more of a street punk than a contract killer. I think the murderer was someone Melissa expected, possibly someone she hoped to gain from.”

  “The Wingfield woman? Melissa didn’t succeed at blackmailing her before.”

  “Maybe she tried again. And then there’s the man she met at the Haven. What about this: the killer called her, gave her the impression of giving in to her demands as an excuse to come over here.”

  “Could be.”

  “Let’s think about that extortion attempt on Wingfield for a minute,” I said. “It didn’t work, and one of the reasons is that Melissa had no proof. But with someone else, if she did have proof . . . “

  “Unless the proof was something that wouldn’t mean anything if Melissa wasn’t alive to explain it.” I motioned at the glass-fronted cabinet. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that collection is an expensive one for someone living on a small fixed income. This blackmailing could have been going on for some time.”

  “So why kill her now?”

  “Maybe her earlier demands were modest, but then she saw an opportunity to do large-scale damage to her victim and upped the ante. Lis Benedict’s release, the upcoming mock trial—either of those, or something else that we don’t know about, could have triggered it.”

  “But you said Cardinal was afraid. Wouldn’t talk about the McKittridge murder. What was it she told you? That she wasn’t suicidal?”

  I thought for a moment. “All right—how about this? She attempted to up the ante, and the person—the man at the Haven, Wingfield, whoever—threatened her. So she backed off. But then. . . take a look at that card of mine that’s tucked under the lamp. It’s well thumbed: maybe she was planning to call me, tell me what she knew about McKittridge in exchange for protection. The person found out and killed her.”

  Joslyn nodded. “It makes as much sense as anything else does. And if she had some sort of proof, it’s probably in this apartment. Let’s look for it.”

  Together we examined the two room and their contents, checking the obvious and the not-so-obvious places people hide things. The absence of personal items saddened me; there were no photographs, mementos, or letters to suggest that Melissa had a life beyond these walls. Nothing, in fact, except a small file of paid bills and canceled checks from which to reconstruct the life of the woman who had immured herself here.

  Finally the only thing that remained was the glass-fronted cabinet in the living room. I went over, tried its door, found it locked. Joslyn saw what I was doing and produced a key from the drawer of the table next to the recliner. As I fitted it into the lock, the white cat looked up at me, great blue eyes fearful and pleading. Oh, no, I won’t, I thought, then picked it up and deposited it in Joslyn’s arms.

  “Hey!”

  I opened the cabinet. The dust lay thick enough around an ivory polar bear to resemble a snowfield. The large jade rabbit’s footprints were—

  The rabbit, I now saw, was actually a vase, its upturned mouth an opening that would accommodate stems. A roll of paper had been pushed into it. I picked the rabbit up, probed with my fingernail, pulled the paper out. A photograph.

  It was signed with the same name as those on the wall of the gallery at the Institute—Loomis—and shoed the terrace behind the mansion in Seacliff. A cocktail party was in progress: in the foreground Lis and Vincent Benedict were talking with another couple whom I didn’t recognize; in the background Russell Eyestone held court, a circle of men surrounding him; at the far right were two young couples. I recognized Cordy from the photos I’d seen on microfilm; she was laughing, head tilted back, the setting sun sheening her blond hair. Leonard Eyestone stood at her elbow, entranced. Louise Wingfield looked plainly bored, and her companion—a tall, thin man with dark hair—smiled politely, but his eyes were intent on some point in the distance.

  So what? I thought and showed the photograph to Joslyn.

  “Must’ve meant something to Cardinal,” she said, “but what? And when was it taken?”

  I shrugged and looked around for a phone book: there was one on the lower shelf of the table next to the recliner. When I turned to the L’s I found a listing for Loomis Photography. I called the number, but got no answer.

  Joslyn looked questioningly at me, I said, “The photographer’s still in business. I’ll check with him tomorrow, see if he remembers anything.”

  She was sitting on the sofa, still holding the cat. Its head was tucked into the crook of her elbow, but it wasn’t struggling. “Aren’t you going to the mock trial?” she asked.

  The trial! Looked at my watch, saw it was after midnight. Jack would really be angry with me by now. “I hope to,” I replied. “You mind if I make another call?”

  “Be Melissa’s guest.”

  I ignored the graveyard humor, dialed All Souls. When I explained what had happened, Jack’s anger evaporated. “I’ll be up all night, anyway,” he told me. “Come by when you can.”

  Replacing the receiver, I asked Joslyn, “Can I keep the photo overnight?”

  “Go ahead,” she held it out to me. “I doubt it has any bearing on
my case.”

  I didn’t believe it for an instant. She was trusting me with it because she and her partner had already trusted me too much; all they could hope for now was that I’d deliver something.

  “Thanks.” I tucked it in my bag, then motioned at the cat. “What’re you going to do with it? Take it to the pound?”

  Joslyn’s hand paused in its petting motion; she looked down. The cat—wily creature—turned adoring eyes on her face. “Oh, hell,” she said, “maybe it’s time to trade in the tropical fish for something more companionable.”

  Her words took me back several years, to the apartment of another murdered woman, to a fat black-and-white spotted cat named Watney who had crouched growling under the sofa. I’d taken him home just for the night; last year he’d died of old age and was now resting under my rosebush.

  “You won’t regret it,” I told Adah.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Faint music drifted from Jed Mooney’s row house. When he opened the door, I recognized the sound of Charlie Parker’s alto sax. Mooney looked slightly drunk or stoned; after a moment his expression brightened.

  I said, “Sorry to bother you so late, but there’s something I’d like to ask you to look at.”

  “No hour is too late for a woman such as you.” The courtliness of his deep bow was spoiled when he lurched into the doorframe. He righted himself, sighed, “You can see why I’ve never had much success with members of the fair sex.”

  I smiled and followed in his shambling footsteps to the living room. He turned Charlie Parker down and without asking poured me a glass of Chianti form a near-empty bottle that sat next to the wax-encrusted one on the low table. We resumed our earlier seat on the cushions.

  “You look pale and wan,” Mooney said. “Drink.”

  I took a small sip of the wine, felt spreading warmth, and mentally cautioned myself against drinking more. Dinner had been a couple of Hershey bars gobbled down in the car, and much too long ago.

  “What have you got to show me?” Mooney asked.

  I took the photograph I’d found in Cardinal’s rabbit vase from my bag and passed it to him. “Do you recognize these people?”

  He held it close to the candle, studying it intently. After about fifteen seconds he said, “That’s Cordy McKittridge, of course. And Roger Woods.” He pointed to the dark-haired man next to Wingfield.

  I’d hoped he would identify the man as the one he’d seen at the Unspeakable with Cordy; this was even more interesting. So Roger Woods, card-carrying Communist, had visited the right-wing, security-conscious Institute. By whose invitation? Louise Wingfield’s? It would appear so, but Wingfield claimed not to have known Melissa had a stepbrother.

  “Are you certain it’s Woods?” I asked Mooney.

  “Oh, yes.” He nodded. “He’s dressed considerably better than he did around my coffeehouse, but it’s definitely Roger.”

  “What about the other people in the picture? Did you ever see any of them at the Unspeakable?”

  “That I couldn’t say for sure. A few look familiar because they ran pictures of them in this evening’s Examiner, along with a story on the Historical Tribunal session this weekend. I wish you’d told m e that’s what you were working on when you came here earlier. I would have enjoyed knowing I was part of something . . . important.”

  His tone was so wistful that I said, “I apologize. To make up for that, I’ll arrange for you to have a pass to the preferred seating at the trial. We might even need you to testify to Roger Woods’s identity when the defense presents on Sunday.”

  Mooney’s face lit up. “Was Woods involved in the murder? No, he’d left town by then. What possible connection could he have with it?”

  “That remains to be seen.” I truly couldn’t hazard a guess, and now I felt my stress level mounting. The mock trail was slated to begin in eight hours; I had yet to meet with Jack and study the original press file, and I also needed to talk with the photographer, Loomis. I would have liked to go up against Louise Wingate once more, but common sense told me to leave her to the police. God, I hoped Jack had come up with some solid structure for his case rather than waiting for me to make sense of these bits and pieces of evidence!

  Jed Mooney was excited now. He wanted to talk about my case and how the mock trial would be conducted. He wanted me to drink wine, relax a while, and listen to Charlie Parker. I pleaded the need to confer to the defense attorney, and he immediately became apologetic. When I left, he was already fussing about what to wear to tomorrow’s proceedings.

  “Jesus, I don’t like any of the ways I can approach this case,” Jack said. He sat on a stool in the law library—disheveled, red-eyed, his gray-flecked hair furrowed where he’d clawed at it with his fingers. On the table lay his files on the case, the SFPD files—which he’d barely had time to glance at—and the remains of the sandwich I’d built from somebody’s leftovers when I’d arrived. It was now after two-thirty, and my head ached. My skin had that taut, tingling feel it gets when I pass far beyond exhaustion.

  “I thought you’d already structured it along the lines of reasonable doubt,” I said. “Most of the cases that go before the Tribunal can’t be tried on any other basis.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like it. I wanted to introduce new evidence.”

  “We’ve got plenty of that. Taken together, though, it doesn’t add up.” I yawned. “Judy’s still insisting on participating?”

  “Uh-huh. We’ve cleared it with James Wald and Rudy Valle. Stameroff’s waived meeting with her to brief her, which tells me he’s planning to proceed much as he did at the original trial.”

  “Have you seen Rae? Did she find out anything further from TWA in Kansas City?”

  Jack shook his head. “They refused to give out any more information on Cardinal.”

  “And now she’s dead.”

  The phone buzzed, and I reached for it; as I’d expected it was Adah Joslyn, whom I’d called when I arrived over an hour ago. “Sorry it took so long to get back to you.” She sounded as ragged as Jack. “Bad news. Nueva and his girl are gone. He sold his car, TV, and stereo to a neighbor of theirs around seven, by now they could be anywhere. And we haven’t located Chavez.”

  “What about Louise Wingfield?”

  “She has an alibi for the evening, and we’ve already verified it. Admits to knowing Chavez, but only as a former client of Project Helping Hands. Says she doesn’t know why he showed up there that day you were in her office; but the time you left, he’d vanished and never came back.”

  “She was convincing, but who knows?”

  “Adah, that photograph from Cardinal’s apartment?”

  “Yes?” She spoke in a lower tone now.

  “I have an I.D. on the man with Wingfield, Eyestone and McKittridge. He’s Roger Woods.”

  “The Commie. Huh. Funny thing about him, Sharon: I queried Seattle, and they’ve got no record of him being killed in ‘fifty-five, or for at three-year period either side.”

  “So he might still be alive. And that might make the picture very important. Is it still okay if I keep it overnight?”

  There was silence. Then Joslyn said, “As far as I’m concerned, there is no picture.”

  “But if it’s evidence—”

  “We’ll rediscover it at Cardinal’s apartment.”

  “Aren’t you going out on a limb--”

  “Sorry, Sharon. Got to go.”

  Annoyed, I hung up the receiver. “Where were we?’ I asked Jack.

  “Reasonable doubt.”

  “Right. About that new evidence you want—how likely is it that Judy’ll remember anything else that might help us?”

  “I can’t tell what’s going on in her mind.” The words sounded bitter.

  “I take it the two of you still aren’t getting on.”

  He hesitated. “As a matter of fact, I feel damned angry at her. Right now I could give a fuck about going through with this trial, but I’m in it up to my nuts, and my reputatio
n is on the line. Those assholes at the Tribunal have been grabbing all the press they can; the whole legal community will be sitting back and watching me duke it out with Stameroff. I feel manipulated—by the Tribunal and by Judy. She’s been playing with my emotions the way you play with a rubber band—stretch them out, let them snap back. I’m just glad it’ll be over on Sunday, whatever the outcome.” He paused, then grinned ruefully. “Listen to me. Good old Smilin’ Jack, whining like you were Dear Abby.”

  “If I were Dear Abby, I’d just tell you to get counseling. As it is, I have a more concrete suggestion—about the trial, not our love life. Judy will be called as a witness for both the prosecution and the defense, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll be putting her on first?”

  “Right again.”

  “Okay, as I recall, during the Patty Hearst bank robbery trial, they all left the courtroom and went over to the apartment where the SLA held her to look at the closet where she was confined. Can you do something like that at this trial? Move it to the Seacliff estate for Judy’s testimony?”

  “I can make a motion to move the trial for viewing the crime scene. It’s done in cases where a point can’t be proven by photographs, diagrams, or direct descriptive testimony.”

  “I’d say this is such a case, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, there are subjective factors that would come across more clearly if we went to the scene. That’s generally why it’s done. But I’d have to back that up in giving the reasons for my motion, and then it would be up to the judge’s discretion.”

  “Do you think he’d go for it?”

  Jack rubbed his stubbled chin, thought for a moment. “Normally judges resist. They’re big on control, and they know that if they leave the courtroom they’ll lose a measure of it. On the other hand, this is only a mock trial; the proceedings are more in the interest of getting at the truth. I’d say there’s a good chance. But are you sure we can get access to the property?”

  “My real-estate broker’s still working on it. I’ll know early tomorrow.”

  Jack sat up straighter, looking more animated than I’d seen him in days. “Then I should approach Valle and Wald at the morning recess, alert them to the possibility. When should we plan on going out there?”