Leave a Message for Willie

by Marcia Muller

  When I came into the kitchen Don was reading at the table. He shut the book immediately and poured us glasses of wine. Then he said, “Look, I think we should talk.”

  I pulled the belt of my robe tighter and sat down across from him. “About what?”

  “About why you get so uptight every time I mention the job as KSUN. Is there some reason you don’t want me to move to San Francisco?”

  There. It was out in the open. “No. I’m happy for you…”

  “Is there somebody you’re seeing here, and you feel my living in town would interfere with that?”

  “Lord, no!”

  “What is it, then?”

  I looked down into my wine. Don waited.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you should try and figure it out.”

  “Maybe.” But I already had – the pictures that had drifted through my mind while I’d soaked in the tub had told me so.

  In the past two months, because they’d helped me move into this house, I’d helped two friends move out of theirs. Each had been breaking off with the man she’d lived with, and each moving day had been horrible. One man had pretended it didn’t matter and had bustled around the house, rearranging what furniture was staying, talking about getting on with his life. The other had tried to help us, but had to keep going off into another room to cry. I’d had plenty of time, while carting out boxes and taking pictures off the walls, to think about the death of relationships, the failure of love. To realize that hands that once touched you with tenderness could just as easily shove you away. To know that a voice once soft with passion could in time become edged with indifference or pain.

  It seemed to me that relationships between men and women didn’t last very long these days. And it also seemed that, the more you were together, the more you hastened that almost certain end.

  What I had with Don was very precious and new. I didn’t want to see it end –not ever. But what if being together more-as we would be if he lived here in town – caused it to turn into something less? What if…

  “Don,” I said, “I’m afraid—”

  The phone rang. I gave it what must have been a murderous look. It rang again. Don squeezed my hand and said, “You better answer it.”

  Willie Whelan’s voice came over the wire. “Sharon?”

  “Yes, Willie.” I glanced at Don. He was reaching for his book.

  “I tried your office, but they said you’d been out all day. Where were you?”

  “Getting shot at.”

  “What?”

  I explained about my talk with David Halpert and Ben Cohen, and the resultant trip to the Santa Cruz Mountains.

  “Jesus,” he said. “You better be careful. No telling what kinds of lunatics are running around. But listen, the reason I called, I’ve got something for you.”

  “You found the Torahs?”

  “No, but I know where they were.”

  “Where?”

  “In with the rolls for the player piano.”

  Of course. To the untutored eye, they wouldn’t look all that different. “How do you suppose they got there?”

  “Somebody must have thought it was a good hiding place. And it sure fooled me. What I don’t get, though, is who did it – or how he sneaked them in there.”

  “Does anyone have a key to your house?”

  “No, ma’am. In my business you got to be real careful about things like that.”

  “I guess so. Wait a minute – you said they were in with the rolls. What happened to them?”

  “It’s like this: I came home and was going to hunt for them, like Zahn said you wanted me to. But first I fixed myself a sandwich and took it and a beer to the front room. I was just sitting down when I heard the door to the passageway open.”

  “The passageway?”

  “You know that little door to the left of the garage door, as you’re facing the house?”

  I could picture it vaguely. “Yes.”

  “It opens into a passageway that leads to the backyard. There’re gas and electric meters in there, and a second door that goes into the garage, back where my desk is.”

  “Okay. Go on.”

  “The door opened; it’s never locked because the meter readers have to get in. I went to the window and looked down, but I didn’t see anybody. So then I went to the garage, to make sure the other door was locked. And it wasn’t.”

  “But no one was there?”

  “Right. What I heard must have been somebody leaving. If he was standing right in the doorway when I looked out the front window, I couldn’t have seen him.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “Looked around the garage to see if anything was missing. It was real obvious someone had been in those player piano rolls because they were all over the floor. I picked one up and looked at it, and then I realized there had been a lot more in the box before. And then I realized some of the others had been longer than this one and had those handles you described. I may be dumb, but not so dumb I couldn’t put it together.”

  It was the perfect hiding place. Too bad neither of us had thought about it before someone had broken in and taken the Torahs. “Willie,” I said, “I’m coming over there.”

  “Why? The Torahs are gone.”

  “Maybe he missed one. At any rate, I want to look over that passageway.”

  “Okay, I’m not doing anything but sitting around waiting for Alida to show up. She was supposed to be here a while ago, but for some reason she’s late.”

  “See you in fifteen minutes.” I replaced the receiver and started for the bedroom to change. Then I remembered Don. He hadn’t looked up from his book.

  I went over and put my hand on his shoulder. “I have to go out, but we’ll talk more when I get back.”

  He covered my hand with his. “Don’t worry, babe. I’ll keep.”

  “But I think I can explain it now, and I want to—”

  “We’ll talk. Go do what you have to, and then we’ll talk.”

  Again, it was so easy. Perhaps, when they were this simple and straightforward, some relationships could work. Perhaps.

  It was fairly clear on my side of Twin Peaks, but when I reached the top of Seventeenth Street hill, the fog rose up to meet me. It thickened as I descended into the area near the Medical Center. The streets were near-deserted and the little stores and cafes seemed like a backlit stage set, unreal and indistinct. I turned left on Carl Street and followed the red taillights of an N-Judah streetcar along the tracks to where they turned at the top of Arguello.

  Rounding the corner, I began looking for a parking space, then slowed almost to a stop. On the other side of the intersection red and blue lights flashed, their beams highlighting the walls of crumbling old Kezar Stadium. There were three patrol cars, and ambulance, and a crowd of onlookers. I took my foot off the brake and coasted down the hill, past Willie’s house. The focus of the crowd’s attention appeared to be under the cypress trees, close to the stadium.

  I didn’t like to rubberneck, so I found a parking space between a motorcycle and fire hydrant. Then I got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, debating about going down. I had just decided there was no sense in adding one more body to the confusion, when a dark sedan pulled up and a familiar figure emerged – Leo McFate, adjusting the lapels of his three-piece suit.

  McFate’s presence meant a homicide – a second homicide in this vicinity in twenty-four hours. Coincidence? Maybe, but…

  I started down the sidewalk, crossed the intersection, and stopped on the edge of the crowd, next to a tall black man in a ski parka. “What’s happening?” I asked him.

  “Looks like some woman got mugged.”

  A man in the front of me turned and said, “It’s a bad place to be walking at night. People do it anyway, though – cut across here toward the park. Although why any sensible woman would want to go into the park at this hour…”

  I worked my way deeper into the crowd, toward the stadium. Normall
y it would have been pitch dark here under the thick cypress trees, no floodlights illuminated the high walls of Kezar.

  “God knows you won’t catch me going out alone at night anymore,” a woman beside me said to her male companion.

  “What happened?” I asked again.

  “I don’t know if it was a rape or mugging, but either way, she’s dead.”

  I pushed forward. The crowd was a large one, probably nearby apartment dwellers and pedestrians who had been going to or from the Med Center. While the nighttime activity was focused at the top of Arguello, where the parking garages and streetcar stop were, the lights from the squad cars would have drawn people down here before the police had had a chance to cordon off the area. Now they were starting to move the people back.

  I squeezed between two women and stepped into the front row of onlookers. The ambulance was pulled up near the ticket booth of the stadium and McFate stood next to it, talking to a patrolman. He held a fringed leather purse in his hand, and was taking a wallet from it.

  A couple of white-coated medics knelt over a figure on the ground, near the trunk of one of the trees. She wore jeans, boots, and a tan corduroy jacket. I stepped forward and saw her long blond hair.

  I started and put my hand to my mouth, then glanced back at McFate. He was reading the identification in the wallet. I took a couple more steps, close enough to see the woman’s face, and felt my stomach tighten. The woman was Alida Edwards.

  A patrolman blocked my way. “Stand back, ma’am. You can’t go any closer.”

  I looked around him at Alida’s body.

  “Ma’am, please move.”

  I did as he told me.

  Willie, I thought. I’ve got to tell Willie. He was up there at his house, waiting for both of us, and Alida was… I turned to go, but the people formed a solid mass behind me. A sudden motion in the crowd – some kind of scuffle – attracted my attention and I looked over to my right. As I did, my glance held on a face about twenty feet away.

  Willie. Pale in the garish light, his expression bleak and hopeless.

  I called his name. His head snapped around. Then his eyes narrowed and his jaw thrust out defiantly. He whirled and shouldered away through the crowd.

  “Willie!”

  I began pushing through the people behind me. They protested, some muttering obscenities, but I kept going. When I reached the intersection, Willie was halfway up the street, running toward his truck.

  “Willie! Wait!”

  He jumped in the truck without looking back. The engine roared, the headlights flashed, and he backed into the street. I ran uphill, still hoping to stop him. But it was too late. The tires squealed as he took off toward the Med Center and turned right on Irving.

  13.

  I stood on the sidewalk, staring after Willie’s truck. Why had he panicked and run off from me, of all people? Surely he hadn’t killed Alida.

  Or could he have? Just to pose an extremely hypothetical situation, what if Alida had gotten there right after he’d spoken with me? They might have quarreled, and he might have killed her…and then dragged her body down a well-traveled street, dumped it under the trees by Kezar, and stood around waiting for the police? Sure.

  What had she been doing down there anyway? I wondered. It wasn’t on the route she would have taken to Willie’s house to her apartment. If she was driving, she would have come up Irving and probably parked in front of Willie’s. If she was coming on the streetcar, she would have gotten off at the stop in front of the hospital parking garage. Even walking, she would not have approached his house from that direction.

  Okay, she might have been coming from somewhere besides her apartment. But where? There was nothing down there except the park. Alida had impressed me as a streetwise lady – she wouldn’t walk through Golden Gate Park alone at night.

  But the important thing now was to find Willie. The police already knew Alida’s identity; it would only be a matter of time before they connected the two of them. If Willie turned up missing when he was already out on bail for another murder charge, it would be rough for him.

  Where had he gone? The only place I could think of was the Oasis Bar and Grill.

  The Oasis was not nearly so crowded on this Monday night as it had been yesterday. I checked out the drinkers on the stools, then wandered toward the back. No Willie. The table where we’d sat beyond the potted palm was empty.

  When I got to the pay phone I dug out a dime and called Hank at All Souls. There was a long silence after I told him what had happened.

  Finally he said, “Damn him, anyway.”

  “Running like that was a pretty stupid move.”

  “Stupid? The man’s gone insane. How am I supposed to defend him when he acts like that?”

  “It won’t be easy, unless I find him before the cops connect him with Alida. Do you think he’d go to a friend, maybe? Someone he could talk to?”

  “Willie’s basically a loner. He doesn’t have many friends, except for Alida.”

  “You said the two of you were friends.”

  “That’s different; it’s based on something that happened long ago. But he’d never turn to me in a crisis – and even if he would, he’s had plenty of time to show up here if he was going to.”

  “Well, what about his acquaintances from the flea market? His runners? Would he go to them?”

  “I don’t know. I’m beginning to realize I don’t know Willie anymore. You might as well try those people if you can find them.”

  “Okay, I’ll check in later.”

  I hung up and took the phone book from the shelf. There were no listings for Roger Beck or Sam Thomas in San Francisco. Monty Adair, however, had an address in Pacific Heights. Mack Marchetti lived out in the Avenues, in the Sunset district. It wasn’t much, but it was a place to start.

  Monty Adair’s building was a highrise on upper Broadway. It had an elegant marble façade to match the elegant neighborhood, and most of its windows would command a panoramic view of the Bay. I was surprised at first that a flea market vendor could afford such a place, but when I saw the number of mailboxes in the foyer, I realized the building was merely a rabbit warren of studio apartments, designed for people with not much money who wanted a good address. Each studio probably rented for as much as an entire house in my neighborhood, but there are any number of people who prefer putting on a front to living in comfort. I rang Adair’s bell and he buzzed me in.

  He was on the sixth floor, next to the elevator. When I stepped out of the car, the door to his apartment was already open. Adair stood in front of it, wearing jeans and a turtleneck, a thick book in his hand. A fleeting expression of surprise passed over his sharp features when he recognized me.

  “Sharon, what can I do for you?” He made no move to invite me in.

  “I was wondering if you’d heard from Willie in the past hour.”

  “Willie?” He rested the book on his hip. It looked like a college text, and on the far wall of the apartment, visible through the open door, were shelves that overflowed with similar volumes. “I thought Willie was in jail.”

  “He’s out on bail.” I debated telling him about Alida’s murder, but decided it would take too much explaining and merely added, “I need to locate him, but he’s not at home. I thought he might be visiting you or one of this other friends.”

  “You’d never find him here.”

  “Oh?”

  “Willie and I aren’t friends. Business associates, yes. But not friends.”

  “I see. Do you know anyone he might visit?”

  “Alida, of course. Maybe Sam.”

  “He’s not with Alida. And I couldn’t find an address for Sam. Do you know it?”

  “No. He lives with a woman. Carolyn something. I can’t recall her last name.”

  “Oh.” I glanced down at the book he held, wondering if there was anything else I could ask him that might help me. The book was a history of World War II, and must have run at least eight hundred pages. �
��Heavy reading,” I said. “Are you a student?”

  “Not in the literal sense. I don’t go to school. But I read a lot of history and political science.”

  “That looks like more than I’d tackle for an evening’s entertainment.”

  “I guess most people would feel that way. But I look at it like this, Sharon: In order to get ahead in this world, you have to understand why it is the way it is. The best method of doing that is to understand the past.”

  “That’s very interesting.”

  “Yes. Perhaps it’s one reason Willie and I aren’t friends. He doesn’t attempt to understand or control things. He’s not going anywhere. All he does is exist from day to day.”

  “And you are going somewhere?”

  “Very definitely.”

  “Well, in the meantime, if you hear from Willie, would you tell him to call me?”

  Adair nodded, his white scalp showing through his clipped hair. “I’ll tell him.”

  “Thanks.”

  Adair’s door was closed before I could ring for the elevator. I paused, realizing I should have asked him where I could reach Roger Beck. The hell with it, I decided; I’d ask Mark Marchetti and, if the flea market vendor didn’t know, I’d call Adair later.

  Unlike Adair, Marchetti clearly did not believe in putting on a front. The yard of his small stucco house on Twenty-Seventh Avenue was weed-choked and sun-browned, and the house itself was badly in need of repair. Although a faint light shone behind the shade on the front room window, it was at least three minutes before Marchetti responded to my knock. When he did he just stood there, staring at me. He wore a plaid bathrobe and his irongray crewcut was wet and slicked down, as if he had just gotten out of the shower.

  “I’m Sharon McCone, Mr. Marchetti. One of Willie Whelan’s runners.”

  “Oh, yes. I saw you with him on Sunday. Somebody – Selena Gonzalez, I think – told me he had hired another person.”

  “I wonder if I could talk with you for a few minutes.”