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

by Shelley Singer

  “Okay,” I said. “Forget it.” I got up to leave.

  “You already know, so why ask me?”

  I sat down again.

  “Who killed Margaret Bursky?”

  “I don’t know, really. I don’t know. But I think Eddie did it. Listen, I can’t talk to you. Frank would kill me.”

  “No one will ever know you told me anything. If you know too much, they may kill you anyway. If they’re caught, they won’t be able to.”

  “Maybe they followed you here.”

  “Nobody followed me here.” I was pretty sure of that. Beatings make me cautious.

  She shook her head. I couldn’t tell whether she was trying to clear it or whether she was denying something—my reliability, her safety, her willingness to go even further in implicating Cutter or the group.

  “Why do you think Cutter killed her?”

  “I can’t talk about this. I can’t get mixed up in it. I’d lose my job. You think they want someone who’s mixed up in something like this? They’d fire me if they knew I was in a political group, let alone involved in a murder.” Her panic about her job seemed a bit overdrawn, but I guessed it could be real. As real as her switch from protecting Cutter to accusing him of murder?

  “Are you still in a political group?” She shook her head. I tried a different angle. I would make statements, and she would confirm or deny. “So. You called the police and told them Cutter set the fire because he was involved with Margaret Bursky.”

  “No!”

  “You didn’t tell the police, but you think he killed her?”

  “That’s right. I don’t know who told them. Frank was so sure it was me, but it wasn’t.” Maybe she had and maybe she hadn’t. The other half of the question was more important. I repeated it.

  “Why do you think he killed her?”

  “Look, won’t you have some wine with me? I don’t want to keep drinking alone.”

  She was a miserable sight. The respectable young woman, the rising executive. The establishment baby. With her face all marked up. Involved with people who broke the law. And now she was drinking alone, too. I accepted some wine, even though I didn’t think I was up to drinking.

  She brought it to me and sat with me again.

  “Why do you want to know about what I think? Are you really just a writer?”

  “If you have proof he killed her, why haven’t you gone to the police?” I knew the answer but I wanted to push her to talk more.

  “I told you. How many times do I have to tell you?” Drink was pumping up her spirit. She was exasperated with me. “I can’t get mixed up in this. I just want to get out of this crummy mess with my job and my life.”

  “But you don’t want someone to get away with murder, do you?”

  She tried to sneer. It hurt her lip. “Why should I care?” She wasn’t convincing. She had hesitated, and there had been a different kind of pain in her eyes. I wondered if I had, as the therapy addicts say, “pushed a button.” A law-and-order button. Maybe she was a total innocent. Maybe she hadn’t joined that group only because of Cutter. Maybe she had believed that they represented American virtue. I looked at her sadly. She looked at the floor.

  I decided to follow the law-and-order line.

  “You don’t want to be involved, but you want the crime punished, isn’t that right, Debbi? Those people, CORPS, they’re just a bunch of criminals. Maybe they didn’t set the fire, as a group, but they’re protecting Cutter. Frank is, anyway.” I knew the fire had been a group idea, but I wanted to find out if she had anything to add to what I already knew. I waited for what seemed like a long time for her to say something. She didn’t. I went on. “That’s why Frank beat you up. If Eddie killed her, I’d bet Frank knows about it. That’s arson, assault, maybe even murder. You’re a responsible citizen, Debbi. You can’t just let it go.” She didn’t answer. She was still looking at the floor. “Tell me what you know, and I’ll do what I can to see that the right people are punished. Without involving you, if possible.” That made her raise her head.

  “I joined that group because I really believed…” She poured herself another drink. “I really did. I thought Eddie was like a soldier, some kind of soldier.”

  “Soldiers are for killing.”

  She looked at my still-full glass, probably hoping she could refill it. “He was there that day.”

  “The day she died? He was at her house?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He was supposed to meet me for an early lunch. He called to say he couldn’t make it, that he had to go see Margaret.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  “No, but I thought it had something to do with the fire.”

  “She didn’t want him to do it, right?”

  Debbi nodded. “You already know a lot, don’t you?”

  “Was she in that group?”

  “Kind of. She’d started coming to meetings. Of course, no one knew who she was. She would sit there and listen to our plans for picketing the political science department and go along with them completely. She loved it.”

  “But not the fire. She didn’t love the idea of the fire.” I didn’t ask how she herself had reconciled arson with law and order. Whatever her reasons had been, she didn’t seem to have them anymore.

  “No. But Eddie thought he could convince her because they’d been, well, lovers in a way. A one-week stand,” he added scornfully.

  “And he still didn’t know who she was?”

  She shook her head slowly, as though it hurt. She was far from sober and she was beginning to look pale.

  “When did he find out?”

  “When everyone else did. After she was dead. Excuse me.” She stood up abruptly and lurched to the bathroom. I could hear her being sick.

  I was remembering his notes. He had known before that. He hadn’t been able to understand why she cared, why she wouldn’t want to help with the fire. And he had gone on in a diatribe against infidelity. He had known she was Harley’s wife. But he hadn’t told anyone. Why had he kept her secret? Loyalty to her? After all, that bit of intelligence might have increased his standing with the group, and he was certainly interested in that. He had wanted to be left in charge.

  So he had been the dead woman’s lover, however briefly. She had broken it off. She had disagreed with the plan to set fire to her husband’s office. He was half crazy, judging by his written ravings. He had gone to see her the day she died. Pretty good case. On the other hand, he hadn’t told the group who she was. Also—and this seemed important to me—he may have been half crazy, but he hadn’t helped Frank beat me up. And it was Frank, not Eddie, who’d gotten to Debbi. Finally, I had only Debbi’s word that he had been on Virgo Street the day of Bursky’s death. How good was her word when she had reason enough of her own to want Bursky dead? And why would he tell her where he was going if he planned to kill the woman?

  What about the drawings? How had he gotten them? And was he crazy enough to kill someone and display her artwork on his apartment walls afterward? It dawned on me then that I had actually done the guy a favor by stealing everything in his apartment that connected him with Margaret Bursky. The police must have been there the next day to question him. If they’d gotten into his place, they could have seen for themselves that he knew her. Well, there was nothing I could do about any of it now. I didn’t even have the damned drawings anymore. Frank did.

  Debbi returned, looking a little better. I stood up, preparing to leave. Maybe I could get to Cutter before the police grabbed him again. I needed to find out if he’d told them about my burglary.

  Debbi looked scared. “You’re not going, are you?” She was pleading.

  “I have to, Debbi. I still have things to do tonight. Work,” I said lamely. It was after twelve. She didn’t believe me. Writers don’t work after twelve.

  “Please. Don’t go. I’m afraid to be alone.” She was all messed up, drunk, crying, scared half to death, but she sti
ll had some dignity. “He might come back. He might decide to kill me.” She had taken hold of my shoulders. If she had looked pathetic, I might have been able to go. But she didn’t. She looked like a frightened woman. Frightened for good cause and asking my help. I glanced with some misgivings at the couch. It didn’t look comfortable, and the way my body felt, that was a big consideration. She caught my look.

  “No, not there,” she said. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  I didn’t feel much like sleeping with her. I guess I didn’t seem too enthusiastic because she blushed and let go of my shoulders.

  “I don’t mean anything by it. I’m not asking you to do anything. I just want someone near. I couldn’t, anyway.”

  So I decided to go along with her. Maybe I wasn’t too eager to be alone myself that night. I would try getting to Cutter early in the morning, before the mail was delivered and the cops picked him up again.

  Debbi took a nightgown out of a drawer and disappeared into the bathroom. I stripped down to my shorts and climbed into the queen-sized waterbed. It felt good, like the womb. Warm, firm, and soft, like flesh. I wasn’t used to sleeping in my shorts. I wasn’t used to sleeping in anything. But I was drifting peacefully when she came back. The nightgown came to her knees. It had short sleeves and was buttoned up to her neck. She stumbled on a throw rug, caught herself, and got in beside me. The minute she lay down and relaxed, the tears came again. I could feel her shaking with sobs. I reached over and patted her shoulder. She came close and pressed against my side, crying on my upper arm. Then she lifted her right leg over my thigh. Just cuddling, I thought. I could feel the hem of her nightgown. It was moving up as her thigh slid over mine. It moved all the way up until I felt her pubic hair brushing against me. She was not crying anymore. She was biting my neck. Her grip tightened and her hips began to move. Then she reached down and touched me.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” she said, and she climbed on top of me.

  – 19 –

  When I awoke the next morning, Debbi was gone. I didn’t think she worked on Saturday, so I guessed she’d fled out of embarrassment. It was nine o’clock. I jumped out of bed and almost yelled. The cracked rib reminded me of its existence.

  Dressing quickly, I cursed myself for oversleeping. There was a good chance the police, like nearly everyone else, didn’t get their mail until late afternoon, and I comforted myself with that thought.

  Debbi had left a note on the dresser. I thought, wryly, that maybe she should have left a ten dollar bill, as well. The note said, “You’re a nice man. I don’t usually like nice men.” I’d been nice, all right. So nice I’d forgotten to ask her where she’d been the morning Margaret Bursky was killed.

  Cutter’s car was nowhere in sight when I got to his street. I rang the bell, banged on the door, and checked out his back window again. He wasn’t there. Sharp hunger pangs forced me to think about food, and I headed for a little restaurant down on Adeline, which was run by some friends of Rosie’s. They served a great breakfast, when you could get a place to sit down. I was in luck. There was an empty stool at the counter.

  “What’ll you have, Jake?” Marcy, a woman I’d met a couple of times with Rosie, eyed my bruises but didn’t say anything. I ordered, we joked around a little, then she left me to brood while she took care of business.

  Okay. What came next? I used the restaurant pay phone to put in a call to Hal at home. The cops hadn’t gotten to Cutter a second time. Not yet. He was still running around loose. That was all he knew.

  One question kept going around and around in my head. Not so much who killed Margaret Bursky as why Debbi was still alive. If Cutter or someone from CORPS had killed the artist for some transgression or other, why had they just knocked Debbi around a little?

  Once again I considered the possibilities. Bursky had been killed in the heat of someone’s passion—maybe Cutter’s, maybe Debbi’s, maybe Billy’s, maybe even the passion of some unknown person named X. Or her death had been an accident, a little error in timing or judgment by someone who was only trying to scare her, possibly Frank. Or she had torn out her own hair and jumped. She was dangerous to the group, and they had pushed her over the edge with picket signs. Any other possibilities? Probably an infinite number, but those were the only ones I could come up with before breakfast.

  The food came and I wolfed it down. Two pancakes with just a touch of cinnamon; two eggs, over medium, with sausage; orange juice and coffee. That made me feel better. I felt so much better that I called Iris Hughes and asked her to have lunch with me. She wouldn’t, but she was curious about what I’d been doing and invited me to her office during her free hour between eleven and twelve. Goody.

  I hadn’t been home for a long time, and it seemed like a good idea to check my answering machine and have a word or two with Tigris and Euphrates. Maybe even Rosie, if she was around.

  She wasn’t, but she’d left a note: “Where the hell have you been? I’m worried and pissed off. Why don’t you ever call your old mother? The cats have been fed and soothed again. Alice sends her regards.”

  There were some messages on my machine, too. One from Rosie, with a phone number where she could be reached. One from a man who left a number but no name, and whose voice didn’t sound at all familiar. One, heaven help me, from Sergeant Ralph Hawkins of homicide. One from John Harley. And one from, of all people, Eddie Cutter. Cutter said he couldn’t be reached by phone and would call me back. That left two important ones, Rosie and the cop. Rosie first. She was relieved to hear from me and sympathetic about my wounds. We made a date to have dinner together that night so I could fill her in. Then I called the number Hawkins had left. Unfortunately, he was at his desk.

  He told me to stay put and that he’d be at my house in half an hour. He had some questions to ask me.

  I made a pot of coffee and called the no name whose voice hadn’t sounded familiar. He said his name was Jared.

  “Last or first?” I asked pleasantly. There had been, I recalled, a very important J in Cutter’s notebook.

  “Either,” he said cryptically, “and both.” Sure, I thought. Just what I needed this morning before some cop dragged me off to jail. A mystery man. He said he wanted to see me, and I told him he’d have to wait his turn.

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what you want to talk to me about?” I asked politely. Hell, maybe he was just a prospective client, offering me five thousand to find his striped tie in his underwear drawer.

  He came on like Sydney Greenstreet. “We have,” he said in a fruity voice, “mutual acquaintances. You seem to be involved in a matter which concerns me, and I think we’d better discuss our mutual interests before you come up against some real trouble.”

  A threat. Terrific. I had thought I’d be dealing with one nice harmless murderer, and I seemed to be meeting a whole flock of vicious birds. Well, wasn’t that just the way of it?

  I told him I could make a tentative appointment to see him at three that afternoon, and I gave him the name of a bar that always had customers at that time of day.

  Then I called Iris and told her I couldn’t make it at eleven. I didn’t tell her it was because I’d be talking to the law. Hell, I could be mysterious, too. I told her I’d be free to have a drink with her later that evening. She agreed to have Sunday brunch with me the next day. A small victory but a victory nonetheless. I took a badly needed shower to celebrate.

  Hawkins was even more impressive close up than he’d been from across the room at the funeral. He looked even taller standing in my doorway. The bones of his face were clearly outlined, his skin a yellowish olive, his brown eyes tired. He was wearing brown denim pants, a brown-and-yellow-checkered flannel shirt, and a baggy lightweight safari jacket, which he didn’t take off. He eyed my battered chin with something that looked like disgust. When he introduced himself, he included his rank.

  I offered him coffee; he accepted and sat down in my most comfortable chair. Euphrates joined him instan
tly. He patted the cat absently on its head, the way one pats a dog. Fortunately, Euphrates likes dogs and enjoys being treated like one. He settled down, purring, in Hawkins’s lap. When I came back from the kitchen, the man’s fingers were resting lightly on the cat’s shoulders.

  He thanked me politely for his coffee, set the cup down on the end table beside him, scratched Euphrates’ neck, and turned a glittering hard look on me.

  “Okay, Samson, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” The look and the question were all the more startling because his body seemed so completely relaxed.

  “Don’t give me that innocent look. You’ve been running around questioning people, saying you’re a writer—let’s see your credentials, okay?” He didn’t get up. I did and I handed him the letter from Probe. “We’ll check on this, you know,” he said darkly. I nodded, secure in my cover. How could anyone prove I wasn’t working on an article? If it didn’t get printed, it could always be because it wasn’t good enough. “I’ve been tripping over you for days, Samson. When are you going to have everything you need and get the hell out of my way?”

  “I didn’t know I was getting in your way, Sergeant.”

  He glared at me. “That’s a pile of shit, pal.”

  I frowned thoughtfully back at him.

  “Come on, why don’t you just tell me what you’re doing and why? We don’t want any civilians getting hurt, you know.” He sneered, but that was just part of his act. I figured he was trying to get me mad enough either to say something stupid or do something even stupider. He was dying to put me somewhere out of the way for a while. He didn’t care whether I was working on an article. He didn’t care what I was doing as long as I stopped.

  “Who did that to you?” He dropped his eyelids halfway and focused on my chin. I started to answer, but he cut me off. “You fell, right?” I nodded. “Last night,” he added. He was trying to impress me with his omniscience so I’d give up and talk to him. I wasn’t too impressed. If he’d talked to someone who saw me before the beating and someone who saw me after—like Jayne Doherty—he’d have before and after pictures of my face.