The Dangerous Hour

by Marcia Muller

  “Sierra Nevada. Yes!” He uncapped two beers, unwrapped our sandwiches and garlic dills, opened the potato salad container. Clinked his bottle against mine and said, “To beautiful Saturdays.” As he sipped, however, his expression sobered. “Not that Jules is having much of one.”

  “You’ve heard, then.”

  “It was on the front page this morning. Poor kid. You been able to visit her?”

  I shook my head, swallowing pickle. “They’ve got her in the high-security lockup. No visitors but Glenn Solomon. She told him she didn’t steal Aguilar’s credit card, but . . .”

  Craig paused, sandwich halfway to his mouth. “Come on, Shar. You know Jules. She wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “You can’t think she’s guilty.”

  “There’s a lot of evidence. Packages from mail-order houses in her apartment’s storage bin. And one still in our mail room.”

  “There’s got to be a reasonable explanation. . . .”

  “I spent a sleepless night trying to think of one.”

  Craig hesitated. “Look, Shar, you’ve always stood squarely behind your employees. One hundred percent, you’ve been there, even when somebody screwed up and did something really stupid. How many times have I heard you say it? ‘If we can’t trust each other, who can we trust?’ And don’t give me any bullshit about Jules’s juvenile record, or that maybe she’s been conning us. She is a con woman, but she puts it to positive use—as in closing out her case files.”

  Craig was as cynical as they come, having blown off the FBI after years of dedicated and meritorious service. His faith in Julia both made me ashamed of my suspicions and gave me reason to hope.

  “Okay,” I said, “maybe you’re right. Maybe she is telling the truth. But if she is, we’ve got to find out what really went on. That’s where you can help.”

  “I’m with you. How?”

  “You’re politically informed. Tell me everything you know about Alex Aguilar.”

  Alex Aguilar, Craig said, had come up from Southern California in the early nineties. “Through volunteer work within the Hispanic community down there, he connected with a very bright USC grad—Scott Wagner—who had a talent for grant writing. When Wagner decided to relocate to San Francisco, he persuaded Aguilar to come along, and together they tapped into federal, state, and private money to establish their job-training program.”

  “Trabajo por Todos.”

  “Right. Things went well from the first. Wagner was a natural at administration, and Aguilar is good with people.”

  “Why the past tense with Wagner?”

  Craig took a pull at his beer. “He died last month—a hiking accident up in Marin County. Anyway, seven years ago Aguilar ran for the board of supes, was elected by an overwhelming majority of people in the Mission. He’s in his second term now.”

  “They say he’s got mayoral aspirations.”

  “Sure, but he’s looking years off and positioning himself slowly.”

  “You know anything about his personal life?”

  “It’s austere. He’s unmarried. Lives in the same Mission-district apartment he always has, drives an old Datsun, takes pride in wearing thrift-shop clothes, like his clients at the center.”

  “I noticed a certain shabbiness when he came to the agency. It made me wonder if he could afford us, but he didn’t flinch at the retainer and paid off promptly. Is he still involved with the center now that he’s on the board?”

  “Not as much as before. He’s hired a good hands-on man, Gene Santamaria, to interface with the clients and the public. I guess Santamaria’s an able fund-raiser, too. Aguilar’s smart enough to know he can’t juggle too many balls without one of them getting out of control.”

  “Too many balls? What else is he into?”

  “Has a business on the side—import-export, goods from Mexico and Central America. Clothing, mainly, that he sells to tourists out of a shop in Ghirardelli Square. He kicks back half of the profits to the job-training center. And, of course, he sits on the boards of any number of Hispanic organizations, including the Mexican Museum, over there in the Landmark Buildings.”

  “Anything else?”

  “That’s about it. Have I helped?”

  “Some. Now, I have an assignment for you: find out everything else you can about this guy. I want to know exactly where he came from, who his parents are, every detail of his life, from birth onward.”

  “Shar, my caseload—”

  “Shift it to someone else.”

  “That would logically be Jules.”

  “. . . Right. And everybody else is swamped. Tell you what, call Tamara Corbin, my friend Wolf’s partner. See if they can’t take on some of it. Otherwise, give it to me.”

  “Like you don’t have other things on your plate.”

  I took off my sunglasses, looked him in the eyes. “Craig, we’re talking about Julia’s future. And we may also be talking about the survival of our agency. We’ll service our current clients in whatever way we have to. But this cannot wait.”

  He nodded. “I’ll get on it right away.”

  After Craig left, I tossed the leavings from our lunch in a trash bin, reserving the bottles to recycle at home, and looked at my watch. After one, and the vet had said I shouldn’t pick up Ralph till four. Nothing to do at the office; I’d finished my paperwork last night. Nothing to do at home; I’d recently hired an every-other-week cleaning service, and the house was spotless. In the end I wandered around Fort Mason, and on one of my passes along the Landmark Buildings, as the former supply depots were called, I spotted the Mexican Museum. Craig had said Alex Aguilar was on its board.

  On impulse I climbed the steps to what used to be a loading dock, pushed through the glass door, and went inside.

  A wide central lobby. To my left was a gift shop with a Closed sign in its window. To my right was the museum proper, also closed, but the door stood slightly ajar. I stepped inside, found an unstaffed reception desk, heard a thump from somewhere within. A woman’s voice cursed in Spanish. Having been raised in San Diego, close to the Mexican border, I knew what cagada meant; most of the Spanish words or phrases I understood were obscene. I went over to an archway next to the desk and peered through it.

  A short, slender woman whose black hair was caught up in a ponytail stood amid several crates and a quartet of two-foot-tall ceramic figures, sucking on her left thumb. A hammer dangled from her right hand. When she saw me, she took the thumb from her mouth, wiped blood on her faded jeans, and said, “Sorry, we’re closed today.”

  I stepped into the room. The figures looked to be religious ones: a father offering up an infant to a solemn priest while the mother looked on. The expressions of joy on the trio’s faces were surprisingly lifelike.

  I said, “Actually, I’m not here to look at the exhibits. I was hoping to get some information about one of your board members.”

  The woman turned to a crate and began attacking it viciously with the claw end of the hammer. “Well, you’re talking to the wrong person. I don’t work here. I’m up from Santa Barbara for a temporary show.” Her voice had the gentle cadence of one equally fluent in Spanish and English.

  “Is anybody else here?”

  “Only me. The volunteers who were assigned to help all called in sick. Sick, my culo. They couldn’t be bothered while the sun’s shining.” She loosened a nail on the crate, then stuck her finger with a splinter and dropped the hammer to the floor, mouth twisting in pain.

  “Let me help you with that.” I picked up the hammer and began working at the nails. As the owner of an old home, I’d become adept at such basic tasks.

  “Thanks.” The woman sank onto the platform where the ceramic figures stood. She leaned foward, elbows on knees, massaging her shoulder muscles.

  “Used to be,” she said, “I could set up an exhibit in no time, but I’m out of practice. Normally my curator and his assistants handle it, but I wanted to come up here
for a visit, so I decided to take it on by myself. Overambitious, I guess. But what’s happened to my manners? I’m Elena Oliverez, director of the Museum of Mexican Arts in Santa Barbara.”

  “Sharon McCone, owner of McCone Investigations here in the city.”

  “And you’re investigating one of the board members?”

  “Just verifying facts. Alex Aguilar has been the victim of credit-card fraud, and I’m looking into it.”

  A frown drew down Oliverez’s thick eyebrows. “Aguilar? He’s the one on your board of supervisors?”

  “Right. Do you know him?”

  “No. I suppose he’ll be at the private reception for the exhibit tomorrow night—if I ever get these damned figures uncrated and set up.”

  “What are they, anyway?”

  “They’re called the Sanchez Sacraments. Executed by a famous Mexican sculptor, Adolfo Sanchez, who lived in the pottery-making center, Metepec. He willed them to my museum. The original collection represented five of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, one of which, sadly, was damaged beyond repair.” Oliverez suddenly looked melancholy.

  I studied the figures she’d already uncrated. The priest was long-haired but clean-shaven; his eyes were wise and kind. The parents looked young and beamed at their offspring. “These would be baptism.”

  “Right. You’re Catholic?”

  “Lapsed, I’m afraid. But I remember some of my catechism. You?”

  “Also lapsed, but since I had my little girl, I’ve felt a small stirring of faith.” Oliverez stared pensively at the statues. “This investigation—does Alex Aguilar know you’re looking into the fraud?”

  “No.”

  “I see. Well, then I have a proposition for you: I’ll gather whatever information I can from him and the people here at the museum, in exchange for you helping me uncrate the rest of the figures.”

  I glanced at my watch. Two-fifteen. “I can spare an hour and forty-five minutes. Will that do?”

  “Given your skill with a hammer, yes.”

  “Ralph has diabetes.”

  “Diabetes!”

  Joyce Otani, DVM, nodded solemnly, cradling the cat’s frail body against her white lab coat.

  “I didn’t know cats could get that,” I said.

  “Diabetes is as much on the rise in household pets as it is in the human population.”

  “Is it . . . fatal in cats?”

  “Oh, no, it’s easily treatable, if diagnosed in time. I’m assuming you will want to treat it, rather than have him put down?”

  Ralph’s yellow eyes were fixed trustingly on me: you’ve come to take me home.

  “Of course.”

  “Good.” Joyce nodded approvingly. “I’ll show you how to give him his insulin shots.” She set him on the stainless steel examining table. “Hold him, please.”

  Insulin? Shots?

  “He’s already eaten,” Joyce said, pulling on rubber gloves. “Unlike people, cats need food before they receive their dosage. Will you have difficulty getting him to eat on schedule?”

  “No.” Like the fifties TV character he was named after, Ralph had never passed up a meal.

  The cat was shedding—his typical nervous reaction. Hair stuck to my hands. I patted him reassuringly.

  Joyce held up a small bottle. “Insulin. I’ll fax a prescription to your usual pharmacy.” Then she began a series of instructions involving cotton swabs and hydrogen peroxide. When she pulled the guard from the end of the syringe, I closed my eyes.

  Needles. Gaaah!

  I opened one eye and saw her seize the nape of Ralph’s neck. The tiny needle glinted evilly as she slipped it under his skin.

  He didn’t even flinch.

  “See how simple?” she said, disposing of the syringe in a receptacle by the sink and snapping off her gloves. “You should have no trouble at all.”

  No trouble at all. Yeah, right.

  Forty-five minutes later I left Safeway’s parking lot in possession of an insulin prescription from their pharmacy made out to “Ralph McCone Cat,” a box of syringes, and a creature that, should his cries be translated into English, would have been heard to wail, “I hate this fuckin’ cage!”

  Even though he’d already eaten at the veterinary clinic, once home he headed straight for his food bowl. In recognition of his ordeal, I spooned out some of the disgusting, gluey stuff that passes for a catly feast, then put a bit more in Allie’s dish. Naturally, he started in on hers.

  I put the insulin in the fridge as the pharmacist had told me to and set the box of syringes on the counter. Contemplated them, then stuck them in the cabinet below. In case somebody came over, they might spot the box and think I was shooting myself up. They sure as hell would never believe I was shooting up the cat.

  The phone rang. Glenn. “Sorry for taking so long to call,” he said. “The paperwork on Julia took an unusually long time to process, and then I had an appointment that I couldn’t break.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “I saw the field arrest report. Nothing we didn’t already know. They ran her prints; no history in San Francisco, but, as we know, juvenile records are sealed. At least we can rest assured that she’s stayed out of trouble as an adult. I spoke with an inspector on Fraud who’s helped me out before. He said Alex Aguilar was alerted by the fraud department of his credit-card company to a large number of charges on a card he seldom used; what triggered their attention was an attempt to purchase a first-class airline ticket that was turned down because it was over his limit. An analysis of the charges showed that all purchases went to a third party: Julia, at your business address.”

  “Damn! Glenn, let me ask you this: do you feel comfortable representing Julia?”

  “. . . Yes, I do. Remember what I said about my internal shit detector?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, I met with her after I reviewed the paperwork. And later, in the dentist’s chair—which was the appointment I couldn’t break—I gave long and serious thought to what my detector was telling me. Even knowing about the packages the police recovered, and the one in your mail room, I feel the same. She’s not lying, my friend.”

  First Craig, now Glenn. Maybe it was time for me to start believing in my formerly trusted employee.

  Monday

  JULY 14

  Monday morning I was in my office early, going over the résumés of the final candidates whom Mick had selected for the position of computer forensics specialist. The work of our new department consisted of retrieving messages and files that had been deleted by employees of our clients, often for unethical or dishonest reasons, and was highly complex—at least to me. All the résumés looked impressive.

  I realigned the papers, thinking back to my long, unproductive, and depressing Sunday. At nine a.m. both cats were happily eating from their food bowls. I arranged a syringe, a cotton ball, and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide on the kitchen counter, took the vial of insulin from the refrigerator, and rolled it between my palms to warm and mix the solution. Swabbed its top. Yanked the protective guard from the syringe’s plunger. Pulled the guard from the needle.

  And stabbed myself in the forefinger.

  “Damn it!”

  Ralph glanced at me, then went on eating. His more high-strung sister streaked for the back door. I set the syringe down, let her out, then returned and examined the contaminated needle. Would it infect the cat? No way to tell.

  I took out a second syringe and filled it, but as I was checking for air bubbles, my finger slipped and depressed the plunger. Insulin spurted all over the countertop.

  My confidence withered. It took me two more tries before the syringe was properly prepared. Then I couldn’t find the cat. He turned up behind the couch in the sitting room, and I had to drag him out. When I grabbed the nape of his neck, he wriggled so hard that I was afraid I’d yank off his fur suit.

  I held him down with my elbow and started to insert the needle. He jerked, squeaked, and got away from me.
I followed in hot pursuit, brandishing the syringe like a sinister character in a horror film. He led me on a merry chase down the hallway to the front door, where I trapped him and lowered him into a crouch.

  Then I stuck the needle clear through a fold of his skin so the insulin shot out the other side.

  “Oh, Jesus, Ralphie, I’m sorry!”

  He wasn’t accepting any apologies. As soon as I removed the needle, he streaked away and hid under the guest room bed.

  It was clearly time to call in a reinforcement.

  “Nothing to it,” Michelle Curley said. “I take care of a diabetic cat for this family over on Chenery Street all the time. Come on, I’ll show you.” The spiky-haired teenaged neighbor, who took care of my house and cats when I was away, led me to the kitchen and confidently set about loading a new syringe.

  “The deal,” she told me, “is not to panic.”

  “I didn’t panic,” I lied.

  “Attitude’s everything.” She led me to the guest room, got down on her stomach, and slid under the bed. “Hey, Ralphie, dude. What did your mama do to you? Yeah, I know, but ’Chelle’s here, and everything’s gonna be cool now. There ya go. Not so bad, huh?”

  She slid back out, Ralph in her arms. “I don’t know why you had so much trouble. He’s a pussycat in more ways than one.”

  “He must still be upset because I took him to the vet yesterday. That’s why he fought me.”

  “He doesn’t seem upset.” She handed him to me.

  Ralph was purring.

  “Well, I don’t know. He just wouldn’t cooperate.” I glanced at the syringe in her hand, then looked away.

  Michelle frowned, studying me. Then she grinned. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe what?”

  “Tough private investigator. Crack shot with a three fifty-seven Magnum. Airplane pilot. And you’re scared of a little needle.”

  “I’m not—”