“The groundskeeper went out looking when it got dark. He couldn’t account for the cart Larry had signed out,” Brennan said in clipped tones. “I’m not sure how this is relevant, frankly.”
“We had all gone our separate ways by then, so we didn’t realize there was a problem,” the dean said, pronouncing ‘realize’ in three distinct, southern-accented syllables.
Margoletti sounded genuinely sorrowful, but his eyes darted up to the ceiling past my shoulder. “We were saying earlier that we wished we had persuaded him to join us for another glass of wine in the bar.” Hadn’t I read that people do that upward thing with their eyes when they’re not telling the truth? Or was it downward?
The phone rang then and broke some undefined tension in the room. I said a quick goodbye and opened the office door. I could hear the president on the phone already asking his assistant to track down the police chief as I left. The dean was insisting in a shrill voice that the files should now revert to him. The people waiting on the couches looked me over again as I left, and I made sure I held in my sigh of relief at being released from the hot seat until I hit the sidewalk.
****
There were two police cars parked in the No Parking zone outside the president’s office. Passing students eyed them curiously and I wondered how far news of the administrator’s death had traveled on campus. I noticed that a few of the young women focused their stares on the dark-haired cop who leaned against the side of one patrol car, and no wonder. His short-sleeved shirt showed off muscled arms and a flat stomach. The square jaw, dark sunglasses and impassive expression on his face were right out of an action film. He clenched a toothpick in his mouth, which gave him a chance to bare his white teeth slightly. For me, the macho effect was diluted by the impression that he knew exactly how he looked.
A second uniformed policeman got out of the driver’s side of the car and came around to speak to Macho Cop, who turned his head slowly away from the passing parade of students to listen. He pushed himself off the car and sauntered off with his partner toward the building where the development office was located. It seemed like a lot of police attention for a drowning accident. Maybe President Brennan was right and there wasn’t much else going on in town to compete for the attention of the uniformed cops today.
I reminded myself I had a lot to do if I was going to head back to San Francisco sooner. The air was sweet and the breeze hardly more than a whisper, and I was wearing the right shoes for it, so I decided to walk the mile to my hotel. On the way, I used my cell phone to call Teeni Watson, my assistant, to tell her I planned to be in the office Thursday.
“You solved all their problems already? Damn, here I was thinking we’d have some party time before you rolled back in.”
“Easy, girl. Plenty of time to party when your Funk Art exhibit opens.” Teeni is a graduate student at the University of California’s Berkeley campus, whose doctoral dissertation is in the form of a project she’s curating for the Devor. I get heartburn thinking about what I’ll do after the exhibition, when some smart museum snatches her up. “Oh, before I forget, your cute cop called. I told him where you were. I hope that’s okay?”
“Sure. Did he say why he wanted to talk to me?” Like, maybe ask me out on the off chance he could actually keep a date? Charlie was sweet and desirable, but a lot of trouble as a romantic possibility. As half of a busy San Francisco Police Department homicide team, it felt as though he was on call all the time. The local TV reporters might say that murder rates were down in the city, but you couldn’t convince me of that. Gang fights, drug deals gone bad, innocent victims who opened their doors to the wrong people—I know the city isn’t worse than other places. However, from my angle of vision as someone who would enjoy finishing a Friday night dinner in peace, or watching a play past the first intermission without having her date glance at his pager and start making his excuses, the city was in a non-stop crime wave. It certainly hadn’t done anything for our love life. After months of dancing around it, we had finally spent a couple of late nights together and they were delicious, except for the time his pager would not stop buzzing even though he was theoretically off duty. He had finally apologized and snatched it up off the bedside table, explaining that on rare occasions—hah—it was all hands on deck.
“No, but he has your cell phone number, right?” Teeni said. “I figured he called you directly.”
“Not yet. Anything else I need to know before I get back?”
“You got a call from a guy named Burgess from a law firm in the Valley. Said you wouldn’t know him, but he’d like to talk to you when you have time.”
“Did you ask him if someone else could help him?”
“Yeah, but he said no. Said he’ll explain when you call him back.”
“Okay. I’ll deal with it later.”
“How are you enjoying being a big shot consultant among the preppy set?”
“The good old boys are making it clear my job is to rubber stamp their plan, and the guy who raised the red—well, the yellow—flag about the gift died before I could find out what was bothering him.”
There was silence for a long moment. “Hold it,” Teeni said, dropping her voice a half octave. “You’re telling me you’ve been in that town for two days and someone is dead already? Oh, girl, you’d better get on home. You are bad luck.”
“Not fair. I barely met the man. Anyway, it was an accident.”
The silence from the other end of the phone was as pointed as a sharp stick, but that’s not fair. I can’t help it that a few odd things have happened around me. They didn’t happen to me, or because of me, and anyone in my position who worked with rich, powerful, and sometimes eccentric people would have had the same experiences. At least, I like to think so. I have admitted to myself that once in a while I don’t leave well enough alone.
Teeni’s unspoken rebuke did its job and I promised myself I’d focus on Mr. Margoletti’s intentions and his enviable warehouse full of art for the remainder of my consulting gig. First, I had an errand to do. I walked past sidewalk planters filled with azaleas and ducked in a couple of stores in search of a present for my cat sitter. Since she doesn’t actually like cats, the scores of needlework cat pillows and framed cat sayings were out. Ditto red and green plaid stadium blankets, thick mittens (on sale at this time of year), and Grandma Moses prints, charming as they were. I left empty-handed and, without any further excuses, went back to my room to think about Vince Margoletti’s proposed gift and how to get it to go quickly.
I jumped when my cell phone rang, not in surprise, but in relief at the distraction. I was having trouble concentrating on the gift, and kept drifting into consideration of how someone could drown on a golf course. Who knew? From the viewing perspective of a TV set, I had always assumed the water was all shallow puddles.
It was Charlie and I was quick to dump my random thoughts on him. He didn’t think it sounded the least suspicious, which reassured me. “It could have been his heart. People have heart attacks everywhere. They’ll do an autopsy and that’ll answer a lot of questions. If anything at the scene hinted at violence, they’d already be talking to his golf partners and anyone else who had been around him that day.”
I told him a little about Margoletti, but Charlie had never heard of the guy. “Our circles don’t intersect, Dani. Wait ‘til he kills someone on my turf and then I’ll know.”
“Not likely,” I said, laughing at the idea. “He has everything anyone could want. He’s not going after someone’s sneakers or fancy car.”
“There’s always something that a person wants and doesn’t have,” he said, “and, sadly, some of them can’t figure any way to get it other than to take it violently. I know.”
“You see that side of life every day, don’t you?”
“Hey, I’m not the only one. Remember—”
I cut him off. I didn’t want a repeat of my conversation with Teeni. “Call me this weekend if you have some time off, okay? I’ll be ready for so
me distraction. For now, I have to go bury myself in paper.”
“Distraction? Is that all I am?”
“I didn’t mean…actually, yes, I did mean a distraction, the very best kind, a serious sort of distraction.”
He chuckled. “I guess I’ll have to accept your definition for now, and think of a way to prove it to you when you get home.”
Sweet. We were definitely getting somewhere in this relationship, even if it was slow going. I said a few nice things that seemed to please him, and we left it at that.
CHAPTER 7
I was happy to be back in my office. It was one of those rare, drizzly days in May, not quite rain falling or fog misting. I’m not a workaholic, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that paper multiplies like breeding rabbits when it sits in the in-box. In addition, it was almost time to submit next year’s budget, my least favorite task. Teeni, dressed in dangly earrings, and a red leather skirt that appeared to be poured onto her curvy frame, was distracted by details about the Funk Art project, and only put out her fist for a quick bump as we passed in the hall. “Hey,” she said, “back in fifteen.”
Deep into negative numbers, I jumped as a shriek from somewhere down the corridor interrupted my contemplation of the computer screen, causing me to drop the bagel I’d picked up in the downstairs café, cream cheese-side down, onto the printout on which I was trying to make revisions that would turn red ink into black.
Before I could get up to see who might have won the lottery or, more likely, scalded themselves with hot coffee, Teeni burst into my office.
“Hot damn,” she said, pumping an arm in the air. “I’m a finalist. I’m one of two. I know I’m going to get this job, Dani, I know it.”
To a stranger, it might seem odd that someone looking for a new job would share her excitement with her current boss, but everyone around here knows the story. Teeni is a woman of many talents, the least of which is being my super efficient aide. Her passion is art history, and museum outreach. She’s a budding museum curator and her retrospective of California Funk Art opens here in two months. It will get rave reviews, so Teeni’s days in the office down the hall are numbered. I’m trying to get used to the idea, but it’s not easy. Like everyone else, I relish Teeni’s company and count on her talents.
“Which one is this?” I said, wiping cream cheese off the page. “Dallas? They’re hot for you, I know.”
“They haven’t called yet,” she said. “This is the women’s college in Maryland I told you about, the one that received a humongous collection of American ‘outsider’ art. They want an American art specialist who can create a series of exhibitions, plus pull in new gifts of art and, of course, money.”
“They’re going after the right person,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “You know how to keep board members and staffs happy, look someone in the eye and ask for big bucks, and talk to artists. That’s what I’ll tell them when they call for a reference. Now, if only you could fix this damn budget for me.”
“Never fear. For that kind of recommendation, I’ll get the annual fund director to shave ten percent off his projected costs, and get the old copier working like new.” She winked and sailed out of the office, taking all the oxygen with her. The spreadsheets looked drearier, the computer screen more boring, and the bagel unappetizing. I tossed it into the wastebasket and stood up.
Being vice president of fundraising activities at the Devor had its high moments—parties, openings, dinner with society mucky-mucks, working with the brilliant museum director. This rainy day wasn’t one of them. My hair had gotten wet on the way to the office and was threatening to sort itself into corkscrew curls. The classic Calvin Klein slacks I had been so happy to fit into again after dieting back down to a size 12 had also gotten damp and were creased in all the wrong places. I paced the confines of my office for a few minutes, trying to fire up my brain cells and tamp down my urge for chocolate.
I had forced myself back into my chair when she buzzed me a half hour later. “It’s the most cheerful man in San Francisco for you,” she said.
“The boss?”
“Are you kidding? With third quarter reports on his desk this week? Trust me, you don’t want to run into Peter in the elevator right about now.”
“Oh. Then you must mean…?”
“Yes, I do,” she sang out. “And brimming over with good cheer.”
“Tell him I’m in a meeting, or that I don’t have time to talk.”
“He’s way ahead of you, Dani. He said if you tried that I should tell you he’ll send a basket of fruit, a very large basket with balloons attached, which he knows you would hate.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Okay, put him through but be prepared to hear the phone in this room slam down in about thirty seconds.”
“Be kind,” Teeni said. For some reason, she finds my ex-husband funny. She didn’t know him back in the day.
“Dickie, I just got back from Lynthorpe and I’m buried in paper. Can this wait for another time?”
“Hello to you too, Dani,” he said, using the hurt little boy voice that makes me want to strangle him. “You finished so fast? Bummer. I mean for the reunion.”
“Going to your reunion was a non-starter, Dickie. I have to believe you understood that.”
“Hmmm,” he said, and changed the subject. “I’ve got an idea that might be good for the Devor. Do you want to hear it?”
“Okay, okay,” I said, simultaneously rude and suspicious, even to my own ears.
“There’s a charity polo match in Palo Alto Sunday. I’m sure a few of the Devor’s biggest donors will be there for you to chat up. Champagne by the bucket, some South American players to keep up the level of the game, maybe even an incognito member of the royal family. What do you say?”
It was tempting. The international players I had seen were pretty hot, with flashing smiles, muscled limbs, elegant manners, and all the earmarks of extreme wealth. The British royal, if it was the same one attached to a famous player who graced the society matches every year, was only one through a former marriage and was a disappointment—scrawny, unhappy-looking, and a little drunk. The champagne would be good, however, and the atmosphere quite upscale. There’s not much that is more conducive to daydreaming about being an aristocrat than the tradition of strolling cross the grassy field in between chukkers, fluted glass in hand, pausing in the happy chatter to tap clots of uprooted turf back into place with the toe of one’s trendy shoe. Especially if the heel is flat or at least wide enough not to sink into the turf, which happened to me the first time I pretended to know what this polo business was all about.
“Thanks, Dickie. I appreciate the thought. Can I call you back when I have some idea of what else I need to get done this weekend?”
“Absolutely. Right up to the morning of.”
“Wait,” I said, suddenly having a horrible thought. “You’re not playing, are you?” I was remembering the last time he set out on borrowed ponies to relive his college experience, only to have a bad fall that resulted in a weeklong stay at Stanford Hospital, where his mother insisted on camping out in his room even though he and I were married at the time. Mrs. Richard Argetter II (I was Number Three) had argued that, having lost her husband a year earlier, she had no intention of losing her only child, which also might have been a reference to our marriage, an arrangement of which she did not approve and which she did all she could to undermine.
“No one’s going to let me near a pony. They’re happy to have me as a member of the club as long as I pay my dues and tip the grooms, but you know me. I’m much too lazy to do the practicing that would keep me in the saddle, and too old to bounce off the turf if I crash.”
“Good,” I said. “Not that you’re lazy, but that you’re staying out of the fray. Maybe Peter will want to go.” I knew from experience that if I stayed on the phone longer, or was too nice to him, Dickie would sense an opening and wind up inviting me to dinner or to Paris, which is about as likely to happe
n as me taking up spelunking.
****
It had been my intention to wait until Charlie Sugerman called me, but I only lasted until lunchtime Saturday.
“Hey, are you back in town already?” he said when I reached him.
“I had my cell phone with me,” I said. As in, you could have called me to check.
“Yeah, but it’s nicer to talk in person. I don’t suppose you’re free tonight?”
I’m in my thirties, past the vague “mid-thirties” and definitely past the time when girlish pride rules my behavior. In other words, I wasn’t going to play too hard to get. “Free as a bird. Are you asking me out?”
“Sure, er, well, maybe.”
Nice, very nice. Sound of romantic balloon bursting.
“Your best friend Andy Weiler and I offered to trade on-call status with the guys on another team, one of whom is about to become a father. If it stays quiet tonight, let’s do pizza in North Beach. Sound good?”
What could I say? It sounded somewhat good, but not like a sure thing given San Francisco’s murder rate and Homicide Inspector Weiler’s habit of jumping on every case that comes along. I long ago decided he had no personal life and that he was working to keep Charlie from developing the bad habit of having one. Seeing as I didn’t have a lot of other offers—none, in fact—and Charlie is special, if hard to pin down for any length of time, I said, “You’re on,” crossing my fingers.
****
My luck was holding and we were on the tiramisu and espressos when Charlie said,
“What do the cops say now about the guy who drowned?”
“It’s not clear. The police searched his office, and I did notice a couple of officers walking around campus. My impression is everyone at Lynthorpe thinks that the checking around is only a formality.”
“What does the coroner say?”
“Easy, Inspector. You’re talking to a complete outsider. I’m not sure they have a coroner in this little town.”
Mixed Up With Murder Page 5
