Samson's Deal: A Laid-Back Bay Area Mystery (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series)

by Shelley Singer

  “I’m not riding in that heap. We’ll take mine.” Cutter nodded, sullen but not really rebellious. We passed my car. There was a ticket on the windshield. One more item for the expense record.

  Frank’s car was big, new, and gaudy. He ordered Cutter to drive while he sat in the back seat with me. He took the gun out of his pocket again and held it on me.

  Cutter drove fast. We reached my house in ten minutes. With great relief I saw that Rosie’s pickup truck was not there. She was out. If I got rid of my two escorts fast enough, she would be safe.

  The cats came running down the drive. I didn’t want Tigris and Euphrates anywhere near Frank’s gun. Or his feet.

  “Shoo!” I hissed at them, stamping my feet. “Get out of this yard.” They skidded to a stop. I added, “Damned cats. People ought to keep their lousy pets in the house.” Then I clapped my hands and made threatening gestures. The cats were puzzled rather than frightened by my behavior, but I stopped them long enough to get to the house with my two friends and close the front door behind us.

  “I’ll just go and get the bag,” I said, heading for the back room I use as an office.

  “You hold on,” Frank said. “Eddie, go with him.” I was half a room ahead of Cutter and managed to kick a box file in front of the cat door before he caught up with me.

  I picked the bag of sketchbooks off the floor and handed it to him on my way out of the room.

  Frank waved his .38 at me. “Sit down and sit still while we have a look.” Cutter pulled the sketchbooks out of the bag and glanced through them. He nodded to Frank, who opened the front door, held it so Cutter would exit first, and turned back to me.

  “Don’t pull any shit, Samson. Don’t forget we know where you live.” I nodded, trying to look grateful for being allowed to live. I figured I would just have to get Frank before he got me.

  The first thing I did after they left was stay sitting down. I was having trouble deciding what to do with the next hour or two of my life.

  A few years ago everyone I knew attributed indecisiveness to something or other in Libra. Since I’m a Libra, that’s as good an excuse as anything, but in this case I guessed I could fall back on the fact that I’d been kicked in the head.

  I wanted to stay home. I wanted to talk to Rosie. I wanted my car. I wanted to see Iris Hughes and let her see me, battered but brave.

  I also wanted to go to the hospital.

  Cats, on the other hand, are single-minded. They wanted to get in the house. I moved the box file, and they bulled through the cat door looking huffy. I started to feed them. Then I noticed, for the first time, a note on the refrigerator from Rosie, saying she had taken care of them. I fed them anyway. I called a cab.

  The cab driver took a look at my face and said yeah, he thought going to the hospital was a good idea. He dropped me off at the emergency entrance and said he hoped I didn’t fall off any more ladders. A couple of X rays and a lot of poking and probing later, I emerged with a taped midsection and two stitches in my chin. A cracked rib, they said. I was lucky the fall I’d taken—the doctor eyed me suspiciously when he said “fall”—hadn’t done more than take a small chip off one of my canine teeth. My chin was one big bruise.

  The second cab driver, the one who took me to my car, didn’t even notice I was messed up. She chatted happily and nonstop about how she really didn’t have to do this for a living but that it amused her.

  I slipped the parking ticket out from under my windshield wiper and stuffed it in the dashboard compartment. Then I drove to a bar on Telegraph Avenue and had a couple of beers to clear my head. I didn’t feel like eating dinner. When my head was sufficiently cleared, I went to the phone booth and looked up Iris Hughes in the directory. No luck. The only listing was for her office.

  Next I called Harley to find out about his conversation with Hawkins, the detective I’d seen at the funeral. Hawkins had asked him if he knew someone named Edward Cutter. He said he didn’t. He was incensed because the police had done no more than question Cutter, a “perfectly good suspect,” and let him go.

  I had a cup of coffee and plotted my next steps. If Cutter hadn’t disappeared by the next day, the cops would probably go to see him then, too, when they got the diary pages in the mail.

  The diary connected him with more than the fire. It tied him to Margaret Bursky as well. It also tied all those mysterious initials to Margaret Bursky. If she had been closely involved with Frank and his crew, I could imagine a whole list of potential killers, including Frank himself. After all, the notes had hinted that perhaps Cutter had told Bursky—the other M—about the fire and M had “got all upset.” Frank certainly didn’t mind a little violence. I wondered how far CORPS would go in protecting itself from the law.

  But Bursky had been involved with a lot of people. There were still two members of the therapy group I hadn’t talked to. I had a lot more work to do. Anger and pain weren’t the only effects of the beating I’d taken. My adrenaline was racing. I wanted to keep going.

  I made another call. A woman answered and told me that, no, her husband wasn’t in, hadn’t been in for two weeks, and wasn’t expected in for yet another week. He was out of town on business. If that was all true, he didn’t have anything to do with anything and would be back too late to tell me anything he might know. Too bad. That left Jayne Doherty. I rang her number and told her my reporter story. She thought it was all very exciting and invited me to come right over.

  Jayne Doherty lived in a tiny cottage in back of a medium-sized house in the Temescal section of Oakland. The neighborhood is a little farther from the Berkeley line than my own, part of the same old Italian section that still had quite a few old Italians left in it, along with their well-kept yards and prolific vegetable gardens. It’s the kind of area where solar and wind energy are nothing new—everyone uses them to dry their clothes, and grandmother’s clothesline is passed on from one generation to the next. The influx from more expensive Berkeley, as well as from other parts of Oakland, has changed the character somewhat in recent years, adding a racial, sexual, and ideological mix that seems to work rather well.

  I went through the gate at the side of the house and was lunged at, fortunately from behind a closed window, by a large dog that had no discernible breed but lots of sharp-looking teeth. By the time I’d passed the house, Jayne Doherty, alerted by the mutt, was standing in the door of her cottage watching me approach.

  She was a big woman. About five ten or so and maybe a hundred and sixty pounds. Or more. Not fat for a woman that size, not if she knew how to use her body, not if she had some muscle under the softness. She knew how and she did have. I could tell by the way she moved that she could probably heave me right over her shoulder if she wanted to.

  She had shoulder-length light brown hair streaked with gray. It had just the slightest wave to it, so you couldn’t tell how much was her and how much was hairdresser’s art. She was wearing those off-white drawstring pants with a plaid cotton shirt tucked into the waist. She was nicely constructed. Medium-heavy breasts and a substantial belly with no spare tire. A warm smile that revealed a slight gap between her front teeth, freckles on her face and arms, and dark blue eyes. She was about my age, maybe a little older. She was pretty damned sexy.

  The first thing she said to me was “Jesus, what the hell happened to you?”

  I shrugged and smiled. “Car accident.”

  She shook her head sympathetically, waved airily at a comfortable-looking chair, and disappeared into the kitchen. It was easy to tell it was the kitchen, since the cottage had only three very small rooms, and you could see into both the others from the living room.

  She came back with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. The wine was too sweet and I made a mental note never to buy that kind.

  We were about two minutes into our conversation when the phone rang in the bedroom. She was gone a full five minutes, and from what I could overhear, she was talking pretty juicy stuff. This woman liked to chat about other
people’s private lives. If she knew anything at all, she’d be a valuable source. I sipped the sticky wine and waited.

  Then I heard the dog snarling and barking and crashing against the window frame again. In a few seconds someone knocked on the door.

  “Get it, will you, Jake?” she called from the bedroom. I opened the door to a boy of about sixteen years, a very pretty boy with an incipient beard and a couple of small adolescent pimples. He was of medium height and muscular build, and he had pale blond hair and dark brown eyes. He scowled at me.

  “Where’s Jayne?” he asked threateningly. Just then she emerged from the bedroom.

  “Denny, sweetheart!” She gave him a kiss. On the lips. “Go fix yourself a sandwich or something, will you, darling?” She smiled ravishingly at me. “He’s always so hungry.” The boy tossed me another scowl, muttered something, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Now, Jake.” She plunked herself down on a cushion on the floor with surprising grace. “Sorry for the delays.” She winked at me. “You know how it is.” I said yes, I knew how it was.

  “You want to know all about Margaret Bursky. What can I tell you?” She thought for a moment. “She wasn’t exactly the most talkative member of our group, but heavens, she hardly had to talk at all. The dynamics in that group! I’ve dropped out, you know. Too many crazy people!” She laughed uproariously.

  I heard the refrigerator door slam, followed by the clashing of dishes and cutlery.

  “I’ve met a couple of members of the group,” I said, and waited for her to take it from there.

  “Have you met Eddie?” I nodded. “And Debbi?” I nodded again. “What a pair. With Bursky right in the middle.” She leaned toward me. “Was she really murdered?”

  I said I didn’t know and asked what she thought.

  She laughed again. “I think little Debbi would have been only too happy to give her a push.” At the tail end of that slanderous statement, Denny came out of the kitchen with a sandwich on a plate. “Are you hungry, Jake?” I shook my head. “Anyway, I guess I don’t really mean that. Debbi is so conventional. I can’t imagine her doing anything that imaginative.” She paused and turned to Denny, who had sat down beside her on her tuffet. “Mr. Samson is a reporter, Denny. He wants to know all about that Margaret Bursky. You know, the one who was killed?” The boy nodded, and his expression became slightly less hostile.

  “Well,” he said with a full mouth, “I was wondering what the hell he was doing here.”

  “Denny, dear.” She spoke dismissively, if affectionately, and turned to me again. “He tends to be jealous,” she said by way of explanation. I was glad he’d decided to eat first and beat me up later.

  “What exactly was Debbi’s relationship with Margaret Bursky?” I asked.

  “Yes. Let’s see. The group was about to break up the last time I went because of all the personal interaction, and Iris was going to move everyone into different groups. Maybe I could rejoin, come to think of it, if she’s going to do that.”

  I tried to get her back on the track. “What personal interaction?”

  “Well, Debbi and Eddie, of course—my God, doesn’t that combination of names bring back the fifties?” She erupted again in that body-shaking laugh. Denny finished his sandwich and turned hot eyes on her. “Debbi was very interested in Eddie. They belonged to that group together. That other group. I never did get it straight what kind of group it was, but Debbi joined a few weeks ago. Something political. I don’t know whether she joined because she meant it or because of Cutter. Love does such strange things.” She jabbed Denny in the ribs with her elbow and he giggled foolishly. “Anyway, Eddie was interested in Margaret. She seemed interested in him in some way, but I don’t know what it was exactly. Maybe they were lovers.”

  “Was Bursky involved in that other group, too?”

  “I don’t know. Wait a minute. I think I overheard something. Yes. She was going to a meeting or something. Maybe. Or she had. Or she was interested in it. Anyway, Debbi was just about ready to kill. I guess it’s not in such good taste to say that, but what the hell? Are you still hungry, Denny?” He shook his head. “I was really surprised to find out that Margaret was married. She certainly didn’t ever say anything about it. Just about painting. All the time. She was obsessed with it.”

  Doherty looked thoughtful. Denny put an arm around her shoulder. “I suppose that’s what you’re really interested in—the painting?”

  “I know she did some drawings, that she was beginning to get back into it. Did she ever give any drawings away, that you know of?”

  “Aha! I can certainly answer that. She wouldn’t even let anyone see them. I know Eddie said he wanted one once, and she said he couldn’t have any. That no one could because she wasn’t ready for that yet. Whatever that means.” Denny whispered in her ear and she gave him a lewd look. “Why don’t you go in the bedroom and watch television until I’m finished here,” she said with an unmistakable undertone. He gave me a suspicious look, mumbled “okay,” and went into the bedroom. He didn’t close the door, and we had to talk over the rumble of the late news.

  “So,” she said, with an air of wrapping things up, “what else can I tell you?”

  “Did you ever get the impression that Cutter might have been angry or upset with her?”

  She looked at me peculiarly. Maybe she thought that was an odd question for a reporter to ask. “No. I don’t think I ever saw him angry at all, at anything. Debbi was the angry one. Little bitch, actually.”

  “How did Margaret Bursky behave toward Debbi?”

  Again that curious look. “She ignored her.” Jayne Doherty’s answers were getting noticeably shorter, her eyes wandering toward the bedroom.

  “What were your feelings about Margaret Bursky? What did you think of her?”

  She shrugged. “Attractive. Kind of soulful. The mysterious artist type. I imagine that sort of thing turns young men on.” Her eyes wavered once again. Denny was laughing at some old movie. “Older men, too, I suppose. She was all right. But depressive. Very depressive. It depressed me to be around her. She probably killed herself.” Doherty stood up. I was getting my signal to get out of there and let her get on with her evening’s entertainment. My head was throbbing and my ribs were aching, and I thought I might as well leave.

  “If I come up with any other questions, may I call you again?”

  She looked at me vaguely. “Of course. Any time.” I put my glass down on the coffee table and took my leave.

  I must have been tired because I forgot about the dog and damn near jumped out of my skin when it went into its act.

  My conversation with Jayne Doherty had given me some gap-fillers and some questions. I’d known that Debbi was jealous of Bursky and Cutter and that she disliked the dead woman. Now I knew that Debbi was in Cutter’s political group and that Bursky, too, had gone to a meeting of CORPS.

  But all that Debbi and Eddie stuff was just so much confirmation of earlier information and guesswork. What was really interesting was Bursky’s refusal to let Eddie have any of her drawings. I had been assuming that she kept her stuff at Cutter’s so Harley wouldn’t see that she’d been drawing pictures of people who hated him. Now I knew that was unlikely. So how did he get them? And when?

  I looked at my watch. It was very late, but I called Debbi anyway. She sounded groggy, yet she denied that she’d been sleeping. I apologized for the lateness of the call. She said that was all right and why didn’t I come right over? I was surprised. She seemed awfully eager to get me over there. Maybe, I thought nervously, Frank had decided to kill me after all. Maybe he was there now, at Debbi’s, waiting. I dismissed the thought. I wanted to see her anyway.

  – 18 –

  Debbi was alone and she was in worse shape than I was. She looked like the loser in a badly matched heavyweight bout, with a bandage over one eyebrow, a black eye, a purple cheekbone, a grazed and swollen jaw, a cut lip, and a red nose. I figured the nose was red from crying, becaus
e it didn’t look damaged. She had a little trouble walking and held her left arm up against her rib cage.

  I was remembering three things. Debbi had been involved in CORPS, the person that Frank said he’d taken care of was a “she,” and Frank was partial to jaws and ribs.

  “So,” I said, “you’re the one Frank beat up.”

  She didn’t look surprised that I’d guessed what had happened to her. Her eyes were blank with the special blankness of exhausted fear. She didn’t answer me and she didn’t say anything about my own injuries. I followed her in and sat down.

  “How come you told the cops about Eddie Cutter?” I asked gently.

  She looked at me, one eye bright with tears, the other half closed, “I didn’t.”

  And I didn’t believe her any more than Frank had. “Because you’re in love with him?”

  “He’s a rotten bastard.” Somehow, coming out of Debbi’s mouth, the words were shocking.

  “Last time I talked to you, you told me you didn’t know what there was between Eddie and Margaret Bursky. That wasn’t true, was it? Were you protecting him?”

  She answered indirectly. “It didn’t last long enough to be called an affair.”

  “How long did it last?”

  “Just a week or so. Then she stopped it. She said it was wrong.”

  “How did he feel about that?”

  “He was a little angry, but I don’t think he really felt much of anything else. I don’t think he feels anything at all about anybody.” The tears spilled over, and she winced when she wiped them off her bruises.

  “When did Frank beat you up?”

  “Want some wine?”

  “No. Why does he think you called the police about Cutter?”

  “I want some wine.”

  I could see then that some of her unsteadiness had to do with alcohol. The bottle she poured from was three-quarters empty. She drank her wine in three gulps and poured more, then stayed behind the bar so it formed a barrier between us. She was scared and she wanted company, but she didn’t want to talk about Frank.