by Janet Dawson
I walked the few blocks to the Alameda County Courthouse, a multistoried white building looming near the eastern shore of downtown Oakland’s Lake Merritt. Dolores Cruz — or Manibusan — was not doing business in Alameda County under either name. Nor was she registered to vote. Charles Randall was, as a Republican. Alejandro Tongco, Dr. Manibusan’s nephew, had chosen the Democrats, but the registration affidavit showed the address in Union City I already had, the one he’d apparently left. I went across the street to the county administration building to check the assessor’s records. Dolores Cruz didn’t own any property in Alameda County. Charles Randall owned a unit in a condominium complex called the Parkside Towers, at the Lakeside Avenue address on his DMV records.
The Union City house owned by Alejandro and Nina Tongco had been sold in February, the month after Dr. Manibusan’s murder. I wrote down the name of the current owner and transaction document number, then went back to the courthouse, this time to the recorder’s office. This is why they call it legwork, I told myself, waiting for the green light at the corner of Oak and Fourteenth. I found the real estate documents on microfilm. They provided no forwarding address, but they did contain the names of the real estate agents and title companies who had handled the transaction. Surely someone could tell me where to find Mr. Tongco.
As I unlocked the door to my office, my phone was ringing. It was Dan Greenlow, an attorney and a regular client. “Kyle didn’t show up for the deposition,” he said glumly.
I swore under my breath. Kyle was an affable, easygoing construction worker from Pinole. He had witnessed an auto accident involving Dan Greenlow’s client, the defendant in a personal injury case. At Dan’s request I had located and interviewed Kyle, whose information was favorable to the defendant. The plaintiff’s attorney wanted to depose Kyle, who evidently didn’t understand that failing to respond to a deposition subpoena means you’re in contempt. Now the plaintiff’s counsel could ask the court to issue a bench warrant for Kyle. More important, as far as Dan was concerned, the other attorney was threatening to ask that Kyle’s testimony be excluded from the trial. The deposition had been rescheduled. Now Dan pleaded with me to find Kyle one more time and explain the situation to him.
“I’ve already explained it to him. Words of one syllable, even. Maybe you ought to get a bench warrant. Spending the night in jail might get Kyle’s attention.”
“I don’t want to turn him into a hostile witness,” Dan said. “I need him to win this case. Just find him, Jeri. Escort him to the damned deposition if you have to. I’ll pay your usual, plus a bonus.”
Nothing like the promise of extra money to appeal to my baser needs, like paying rent. I set out in search of the reluctant witness. Kyle’s union local couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me where to find him, so I went to the construction site in Richmond where I had first located him. No luck there, so I tried his apartment in Pinole, farther north on Interstate 80. A neighbor told me she thought he’d mentioned a job on a commercial building in Antioch, out in eastern Contra Costa County. I drove inland on State Highway 4 and checked several construction sites. No Kyle, but I found someone who told me he was working in Tracy.
Halfway to Stockton, I grumbled to myself. Hell, more than halfway. I cut through the Delta region where the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers flow together toward San Francisco Bay, driving through rich cropland bisected by canals. After going through Brentwood I consulted my map and headed southeast on a country road until I hit Tracy, located at the north of a rough triangle formed where Interstates 5 and 580 meet in the central valley. Tracy and other towns out here were growing fast, due to the astronomical housing prices in the Bay Area. You could still buy a three-bedroom house at a reasonable cost in Tracy or Manteca or Modesto — if you were willing to accept a commute that kept you on the road two to three hours a day.
It was midafternoon when I finally ran Kyle to ground, east of Tracy, where tract houses were gobbling up acres of farmland. “I can’t take time off this job,” he protested as I backed him into a corner. After spending hours driving from construction site to construction site in my non-air-conditioned Toyota, I was not in a particularly forgiving mood. I explained the situation to him again, in words of one syllable, and told him he would be at the rescheduled deposition later this month or he’d answer to me as well as the lawyers. I hoped his testimony was worth it. I couldn’t imagine him being a good witness. He had the attention span of a rock.
I headed back to the Bay Area on Interstate 580, my Toyota climbing the eastern slope of Altamont Pass, where energy-generating windmills lined the ridges on either side of the freeway, blades whirling in the constant wind. The rolling hills looked like old velvet fading from green to brown, a testament to the dry year.
At Pleasanton I took the Interstate 680 exit south toward Fremont and San Jose. As long as I was out this way, I might as well swing by the address in Union City where Dr. Manibusan’s nephew had lived. It had been only three months since Alejandro Tongco’s house was sold. Maybe the current owner or the neighbors would know where I could find him. I left the freeway at Niles Canyon Road, headed west. When I reached Mission Boulevard in Fremont I angled north toward Union City. The town was hemmed by the Bay and the hills to the east, one of a series of suburban communities between Oakland and San Jose, threading the shoreline like beads on a string. I located the house in a subdivision off DeCoto Road, one of many similar one-story stucco homes with picture windows and postage-stamp front porches. The name on the mailbox read Carroll. A young woman answered the door, blond hair caught back in a ponytail and a baby riding her hip.
“Mr. and Mrs. Tongco?” she said. “We didn’t have any dealings with them directly, just with the real estate people. They must have left a forwarding address with the post office, because we haven’t gotten any of their mail.”
She gave me the name of the realty company, which I already had from the documents at the courthouse. I thanked her and stepped off the front porch, assessing my chances of finding anyone in this neighborhood who remembered the Tongcos. It was past three in the afternoon. My stomach reminded me that it had been a long time since this morning’s cereal and coffee. I thought seriously about heading back to DeCoto Road to search for a fast-food joint where I could get a dose of grease and salt. Then I could hit the post office in search of Alejandro Tongco’s forwarding address and try to locate the real estate agent who sold the house.
“You look lost, hon,” a voice said, interrupting my reverie as I stood on the sidewalk. A large woman in bright purple slacks and a pink and green flowered shirt stood before me. I could have sworn she had blue hair, but maybe it was the sun playing tricks on my eyes. She held a red leather leash. At the other end of the leash was a brown and white barrel-shaped terrier who had detected the presence of cat hair on my blue slacks and was now giving me a thorough sniff-over.
“I’m looking for the Tongcos, but they’ve moved.”
“Why, shoot, hon, they split up sometime last year.” The terrier sneezed and sat down abruptly. The lady in the pink and green shirt put one hand on her hip and continued. “She went home to Mama and he stayed in the house till it was sold. I don’t know where he is now. I’ll bet his aunt does, though.”
“You know his aunt?” Hope glimmered as I asked the question.
“We’re both in the garden club. She lives right here in the neighborhood.” She waved her right hand in a direction that could have encompassed all points south and gave me more specific directions. “Couple of streets that way, and then turn left. The house is kind of an off-white color, in the middle of the block, on the right, with lots of flowers. She just does so well with her roses.”
“Thanks.” I blessed my luck and the blue-haired lady as she tugged on the leash. She and the terrier moved on down the sidewalk. Two blocks, then left, and I started looking for the house with lots of flowers. It was a cream stucco with brown trim, and it stood out from its neighbors. Despite the drought that threatened the
whole Bay Area, someone was giving the garden water and plenty of care. The sidewalk leading up to the porch was bordered with frothy white alyssum and red verbena. Ground-hugging purple and yellow pansies and a riot of petunias rimmed the front porch, which was decorated with ceramic pots filled with bright red geraniums. The roses in the beds along the house were indeed spectacular, in all colors ranging from lavender to yellow to deep red. Their hot, sweet scent carried on the warm air as bees buzzed around their velvety petals.
I stepped onto the low front porch and rang the bell. A moment later the door opened. A tiny brown woman looked out at me. “Yes?”
“I’m looking for Alejandro Tongco. I understand you’re his aunt.”
She frowned. Then she tossed a single word over her shoulder. “Medy!” For a long moment she scrutinized me with her bright black eyes. Then the door opened wider and a second pair of black eyes joined the first. Standing side by side, the two women looked like twins, both small and slender, streaks of gray in their short black hair, dressed in slacks, shirts, and sandals..
“Hinahanap niyasi Alejandro,” the first woman told the second. For a long moment they inspected me through the screen door. “What do you want with Alejandro?” the other woman said in accented English.
“My name is Jeri Howard. I’m a private investigator.” I took one of my business cards from my purse and held it out. “I need to talk to Mr. Tongco about his uncle, Dr. Lito Manibusan.”
The first woman unlatched the screen door and opened it, reaching for my card. They consulted each other in quick-fire Tagalog, then nodded to me. “You come in.”
I stepped into a living room with white walls and teak furniture. Asparagus ferns hung from the ceiling. African violets and coleus stood in ranks on plant stands and atop the shelves holding the television set and stereo. I felt as though I were in a tropical forest. I fingered a fern with envy. Why couldn’t I get my plants to thrive this well?
“Please sit down,” the first woman said. “I’m Josefa Luna. This is my sister, Medy Pangalinan.”
A yellow cat dozed on the floral print cushions of the sofa. Josefa Luna nudged it to the floor, where it wound itself through my legs before strolling toward the kitchen, I took one of the chairs grouped around the sofa. To my right I saw a high square table that held a crucifix carved from a dark, satiny wood, standing upright with a rosary draping its base. On the wall above the crucifix hung a small oil painting of a Madonna and Child. A rosary lay on the table’s surface.
“Are you also related to Dr. Manibusan?” I asked.
Mrs. Luna shook her head as she and Mrs. Pangalinan settled on the sofa. “No. My sister-in-law — Alejandro’s mother — was Lito’s sister. Why do you want to talk to Alejandro?”
“It’s a confidential matter. Where can I find him?”
“He and Nina got a divorce,” Medy Pangalinan said, radiating Catholic disapproval at her nephew’s marital breakup. “Alejandro went to a special school at North Island.”
“North Island? The navy base down in San Diego? So he’s in the military.”
“Lieutenant commander, U.S. Navy,” Josefa said proudly.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d give me his address and phone number in San Diego.”
“The school was only two months. He’s back at Alameda now.” Josefa got up and disappeared down a hallway, returning with a loose-leaf address book. She lay it on the coffee table and opened it to the T’s. Judging from the crossedout addresses, the navy had moved Alejandro Tongco around quite a bit. I saw addresses in the Bay Area, San Diego, Guam, the Philippines, Japan, and Hawaii. Two current addresses and phone numbers were listed, the operations office at the Naval Air Station, located on Alameda’s West End, and Tongco’s apartment on Shoreline Drive in the same city.
I copied the information and refused Mrs. Luna’s offer of tea. She and Mrs. Pangalinan were avidly curious about my visit, but I wasn’t about to be plied with hot liquids. I thanked the two ladies and left Union City for Oakland.
The Parkside Towers proved to be a high-rise building on Lakeside Avenue near Seventeenth Street, across from Lake Merritt in downtown Oakland. From my parking place on the opposite curb I counted ten stories, looking up at wide balconies and lots of glass. Expensive, I thought, getting out of my car for a closer look. Which unit belonged to Charles Randall?
A short, curved driveway ran past the front door. Through the plate glass windows I saw a counter staffed by a man wearing a khaki shirt and a name tag, no doubt a security guard. Directly behind him was a bank of mailboxes. I’d have to get inside, past the guard, to check the names on the mailboxes to see whether Dolores Cruz was in fact living there. Beyond the wall with the mailboxes I saw a short corridor with two elevators on the right and another door at the end, probably leading to the parking garage. To confirm this, I strolled up the two-lane drive that ran between the high-rise and its neighboring building. The garage appeared to take up most of the ground floor. Its only entrance consisted of side-by-side metal gates with a free-standing apparatus between them, the kind where the driver of a car inserts an electronic card to open the gate.
I walked back toward Lakeside Avenue. In the small half-circle of grass between the sidewalk and the curved driveway I saw a hanging real estate sign listing a two-bedroom condo for sale. When I returned to my car I jotted down the real estate firm’s name and phone number. With a guard stationed at the entrance, posing as a condo buyer might be my best chance to get inside the building.
I sat outside the high-rise for a while, watching a BMW enter the garage and a Mercedes exit, counting the seconds the metal gates remained open. I didn’t see the white Thunderbird Dolores Cruz had been driving.
Back in my office I ate an apple to quell my rumbling stomach as I took the messages off my answering machine. I pitched the core into my wastebasket and picked up the phone. Dan Greenlow was relieved to hear that Kyle had been located and leaned on. I returned several phone calls, then I called Alejandro Tongco’s work number at the Naval Air Station in Alameda. The petty officer who answered the phone told me the lieutenant commander was out, so I left my name and number.
When I called the real estate company listed on the sign at the Parkside Towers and said I wanted to take a look at the condo that was for sale, the agent eagerly described such amenities as a Jacuzzi, fireplace, and formal dining room, and assured me the place was a steal at the astronomical price she quoted. And of course if I didn’t like this unit, she had some other properties in a similar price range. In between the gush she probed for information about my yearly income and how much cash I could come up with for a down payment. I put her off with some vague talk about investments and set up an appointment to look at the condo the following day.
A steal, I thought grimly, hanging up the phone and contemplating my future as a perpetual renter. Buying wasn’t an option, not in this lifetime, and certainly not for a self-employed private investigator.
Five
ALEJANDRO TONGCO HADN’T RETURNED MY CALL by the time I left my office at six. I tried his home number and got no answer, then drove to Alameda, the town where I grew up. It’s an elongated island located across the estuary from Oakland, a pleasant city with a small-town feel, with lots of wide, tree-lined streets and big Victorian houses. The area called South Shore has a long beach on San Francisco Bay, and Tongco’s Shoreline Drive address was an apartment building near the intersection where Willow Street ends at the beach. The path between the shore and the street was crowded with a changing stream of people — runners in shorts, walkers in sweat suits, and bicyclists in skintight spandex shorts and helmets. I saw clumps of kids wading in the chilly bay water as gentle waves lapped the sand where a few souls stretched, catching the late afternoon sun as it inched its way westward down a blue sky. In the distance the San Francisco skyline looked like the Emerald City.
I parked on Willow and walked back to Shoreline. The apartment building was a two-story L-shaped white stucco with open walkw
ays. Tongco’s apartment was on the second floor at the end of the L. As I climbed the stairs I heard rock music blaring from another apartment and smelled barbecue sauce burning on someone’s grill. At Tongco’s door I knocked and waited.
The man who opened the door had been out running. He wore a pair of skimpy blue shorts that displayed his sinewy thighs. A short gold T-shirt with U.S.N. in blue letters covered his upper chest but bared his flat stomach. He carried a white towel draped over his left shoulder, using one end to blot the sweat from his lean, dark face. Long-lashed brown eyes moved over my body, then rested on my face as he waited for me to speak.
“I’m looking for Alejandro Tongco.”
“You found him.” A smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Who are you?”
“Jeri Howard. I called your office earlier.”
“I wondered what that was about.”
“Your uncle. Lito Manibusan.”
The smile vanished, replaced by a narrow-eyed, assessing stare. “What about my uncle?”
“May I come in and talk with you, Mr. Tongco?”
“Only if you call me Alex.”
He held the door wide and motioned me into his living room. To my right, a set of sliding glass doors opened onto a balcony facing the beach. I saw a couple of white metal chairs on either side of a matching round table, and a small barbecue grill standing in one comer. The kitchen was to my left, separated from the living room by a counter. Beyond it I saw a dining alcove with a round table and four chairs.
Alex Tongco shut the door. He was about five ten, moving with easy grace in his Adidas running shoes. Late thirties, I guessed, noting the glint of silver in his close-cropped black hair. He walked to the counter and leaned against it, crossing his arms in front of him.
