Tail of the Dragon

by Connie Di Marco

  “Look—” I started to speak but was interrupted.

  “I want to know who the hell you are and what you’re doing here. And who you’re working for. That’s what I’d like to know.”

  I bit back the urge to tell him to go to hell. His manner was arrogant and demanding and I could feel my temper rising. I took a deep breath. “You already know what I’m doing here. I’m filling in for Muriel. I worked for David, here at the firm, a couple of years ago. Why would you assume it was anything more sinister than that?”

  He stared me down and made no response.

  I refused to break off eye contact. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be on my way. Just call me if you have any more questions, okay?” I added sarcastically.

  “You’re David’s little spy, aren’t you? I might have known. Well, in case it’s information you’re after, why don’t you start with him?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I turned, my hand still on the doorknob.

  “Jack was planning to leave the firm.”

  “So?”

  “And take most of the bigger clients with him. That’s what David doesn’t want you to know. Why don’t you ask him if you don’t believe me?” Roger’s lips turned down in a sneer.

  “I still don’t see why this concerns me.” I was determined not to give away my surprise at his statement.

  “Because if you’re sniffing around for a motive as to who killed Jack, I don’t think you have to leave the office at the other end of the hall, that’s why.”

  My temper flared. “If you’re suggesting that David Meyers had anything to do with Jack’s death or Ira’s death, you’re out of your mind, Roger. Besides, I’m sure the police wouldn’t have to dig very deep to find a motive for you.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted being goaded and losing my cool. I could have bit my tongue. I had no real information other than the fact that Gale had suspected a whiff of scandal around Roger.

  But my remark hit home. His face grew pale. “What do you mean?” he said in a sibilant whisper.

  “Think about it, why don’t you?” I didn’t look back at him as I opened the door and slammed it shut behind me. Karen started shuffling papers at her desk, attempting to appear as if she hadn’t heard raised voices. Dani stared at me wide-eyed. I ignored her silent query. I took a deep breath to control my temper and stormed down the hall to David’s office. I was doing a slow burn by the time I reached my desk. Roger had made me furious. Granted, I trusted David. I considered him a friend, but Roger was his partner. How could he even imply something like that?

  David stuck his head out of his office. “I can’t get anything done today. I just called the Walstone house and left a message with their maid. I’m driving over to Walnut Creek to see her. Feel like keeping me company?”

  “Sure, I’m curious to meet her.” I took a deep breath to calm myself. I needed to get out of this building before I really lost my temper. “Let me get my coat.” David was ready to go and stood waiting for me. “I do need to be back in the city by eight o’clock, though. My grandmother’s birthday dinner is tonight.”

  “Shouldn’t be any problem, even with heavy traffic.” David hesitated. “Uh, I should warn you. I have no idea what we’ll run into when we get there.”

  “Well, speaking of unpleasantness, I just had an episode with Roger.”

  “Roger? What happened?”

  “He accused me of being, quote, your little spy, which I am, of course, and he more than hinted that you had a good motive for murdering Jack.”

  “Me?” David looked askance.

  “Apparently, according to Roger, Jack was planning to leave the firm and possibly take clients with him?”

  “He was?” David looked nonplussed. “Well, believe me, this is the first I’ve heard.” He stared at me. “Julia, you can’t possibly think I had a motive to kill Jack? And certainly not for that. Even if Jack was planning to leave and go elsewhere, and maybe some clients would have moved with him, on the whole it wouldn’t have hurt us. But Jack never gave any hint he intended to leave. He was full of himself sometimes, and he’d bluster about his own importance.” David shrugged. “Whatever the case, I honestly doubt we would have lost any really important clients.”

  I had the distinct impression David wasn’t telling the whole story and there might be more he didn’t want to share, but there was nothing to do at the moment but accept his explanation. He’d never given me any reason to distrust him, and I wasn’t about to start now.

  twenty-five

  We had a long drive ahead of us to Walnut Creek across the Bay. Talking to Rita Walstone seemed like one more exercise in futility but I knew David felt obligated and being a moral support was the only thing I could do right now. I was still bothered by Roger’s nasty implications about David, but I kept any more questions to myself for the moment.

  Traffic was relatively light on the lower span of the Bay Bridge heading east. Once we hit land on the far side, we followed the 80 and turned off to Walnut Creek, the traffic lighter as we progressed. The Walstone home occupied a rise on the outskirts of the suburb. It was a two-story pseudo-Colonial white house, arrived at by a semi-circular drive leading up to the front portico. David rang the bell and a small plump woman with dark and graying hair opened the front door.

  “Hello, Maria.” David nodded. “We’re here to see Mrs. Walstone.”

  The woman’s smile was friendly, but she shook her head and looked down as she opened the door to let us in. “Oh, Mr. David, I hope there is something you can do.”

  “What’s wrong, Maria?”

  “I take you up.”

  The foyer she led us through was brightly lit from a chandelier above the main entryway. A tall vase of white gladioli occupied the round table in the center of the room. An atmosphere of well-tended but impersonal elegance was apparent. The housekeeper’s plump legs encased in dark stockings made a swishing sound as she climbed the wide staircase. David and I filed up in silence behind her. She arrived at a doorway at the end of the hallway and knocked. Receiving no answer, she opened the door and ushered us in unannounced.

  Rita Walstone lay on a chaise lounge wrapped in a dark silk robe. A half-full liquor bottle lay on the floor next to her. She turned her head toward us and tried to rise from the lounge but failed.

  Maria bustled in and gathered the bottle up. “Mrs. Walstone, lie down now.”

  “Well, well, David. How nice to see you.” Rita slurred her words toward the end of her speech and fell back against the lounge. “And who have we here?” She peered myopically at me.

  “Maybe I should wait downstairs,” I whispered.

  David shook his head. “It’s okay, Julia.”

  “It’s okay,” Rita Walstone mimicked, barely able to hold her head up. She had once been a beautiful woman. That much was obvious, but the ravages of drinking had ruined her skin. Still, her dark hair and eyes and strong features must have been striking in her youth.

  “Rita, I’m so sorry. I just wanted to stop by and see you. Is there anything you need? Or anything we can do for you?”

  “Oh, I think you and your firm have helped me out plenty.” She spat the words.

  “Is there someone I can call for you?”

  “No … and don’t be sorry. He was a mean bastard anyway and it looks like someone put him out of his misery.” At this, she started to laugh and the laugh ended in a hiccup.

  I whispered in David’s ear, “She’ll kill herself if she goes on like this.”

  “I know,” he mumbled. “Rita, look, I think you’ve had enough to drink. I’m calling your doctor.” He turned to me. “Can you see if Maria has the number? We can’t leave her like this.”

  I returned down the stairway and, walking through the tiled foyer, located the door leading down a short hallway to the butler’s pantry and into the kitchen.<
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  “Maria, can you find Mrs. Walstone’s doctor’s number for me, please?”

  “Yes, miss. Thank you. I’ve been so upset, I didn’t know what to do.”

  The housekeeper turned toward a nook at the end of the kitchen, and retrieved a telephone book. “Her doctor’s name is Steiner.” I leafed through the book and finally located a Richard Steiner, MD. I picked up the phone and explained the problem to his receptionist. She told me to hold, and after a few minutes I was put through to the doctor himself. He agreed to stop by the house the next day and promised to arrange for a practical nurse from an agency right away. I thanked him and hung up.

  “Maria, does Mrs. Walstone have any family we could call?”

  “Yes, she has a sister. She’s coming tomorrow.”

  “That’s good. In the meantime, can you please search the bedroom and the house for any more alcohol and get rid of it? Check all her hiding places, and check the bathrooms and the toilet tanks too, everywhere, just to be on the safe side. The nurse should arrive in an hour or so, okay?

  “Yes, thank you, miss. I don’t want to be here now, but I was afraid to leave her like this.”

  I produced one of David’s cards from the firm and told Maria to call if she needed any further help. “How long has she been like this?”

  “Oh, miss, since a few days ago.”

  “Since Monday?”

  “Yes. Since Mr. Walstone call her from the office and tell her someone die there.”

  “I see. Has she done this before? Before Monday, I mean.”

  “Well …” Maria hesitated, unsure of her loyalty to her employer. “Sometimes yes. Sometimes she goes on a … uh …”

  “Yes, I get it.”

  “But, always here, never outside the house, and I make sure I hide the car keys, too. She is a very unhappy lady. To have so much and to be so unhappy.” Maria shook her head and returned the telephone book to its resting place. “But she is not always so bad, you know? This is the worst I see her and I was worried.”

  “I don’t blame you. You’re right to be worried.”

  I returned to the upstairs room. David had taken a chair next to Rita and was doing his best to engage her in conversation. “I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this, Rita, but is there any reason you can think of why anyone would want to kill him?”

  “I told the police all this … last night. No. No reason. He wasn’t likeable, but not interesting enough that anyone would want to murder him.” She peered through her disheveled hair. “You do mean Ira, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” She laughed. “For a second I thought you meant Jack. Now that would be a long list …” Her voice trailed off.

  David sighed, struggling to maintain his patience. “Did Ira tell you he had received death threats?”

  “Oh, yes.” She waved her hand airily, as if dismissing any danger.

  “Weren’t you surprised?”

  “Why? He was a lawyer, wasn’t he?” A slight trace of a Southern accent revealed itself in a way that made the word lawyer sound like liar. I wondered if it was intentional. “Doesn’t surprise me at all. Not at all. Guess he should have paid more attention, huh?” Rita leaned back on the lounge and reached for a glass of what looked like straight whiskey. “But he wasn’t worried about that,” she said. “Had it all figured out.”

  “Figured out? What do you mean?” I demanded.

  “He said he was going … tell you.” My ears perked up.

  David’s face was blank. “What was he going to tell me? Did he tell you anything? Can you remember?”

  “No … can’t remember … if he did.” The glass started to slip from Rita’s hand. David caught it before it fell to the floor. Rita leaned back against the cushions, her eyes closed. We waited a few moments, but it didn’t look as though she’d wake.

  I retrieved a large blanket from a shelf in the closet and covered her up, then rolled her onto her side. She didn’t stir. “Let’s go, David. There’s nothing more we can do here.” I picked up the glass and dumped the liquid in the bathroom sink. We returned downstairs and said goodbye to Maria. Ten minutes later we’d reached the main road that led to the freeway.

  “Maybe we’ve hit on the motive for Ira’s murder,” I said. “Maybe he wasn’t killed because it was the plan to kill him—maybe he was killed because he knew who was sending the threats or who killed Jack.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We still don’t even know if the threats are really connected to the murders.”

  “Oh, come on, David. It’s too big a coincidence. Let’s face it. A lot of people would have liked to see Jack Harding dead. Ira Walstone included, from rumors I’ve heard. Do you think it’s possible Ira could have killed Jack, and then he in turn was targeted by another person?”

  David shook his head but didn’t respond, driving silently onto the freeway. We sped across the Bay Bridge, touching ground as we entered the tunnel running under Yerba Buena Island, halfway to the city. Once we were on the upper span again, the city appeared, sparkling in the light. I spotted the Ferry Building, its tiny shape dwarfed against the cluster of taller buildings. In the distance the first hint of afternoon fog clung to the spires of the Golden Gate Bridge on the far side of the city.

  twenty-six

  David pulled into the parking garage and drove straight to my car. It was almost three o’clock. By now, everyone in the firm would be gone, and with the office closed, we had no reason to return. We said our goodbyes and I clambered into the Geo, pulled out of the building, and drove home, pushing all the problems of the day out of my mind. I entered an afternoon curtain of fog as I crossed Park Presidio. A few blocks later, I had to turn my windshield wipers on.

  The Avenues, as they are now called, were originally considered uninhabitable. Miles of sand dunes over bedrock enveloped in fog. By the late 1930s, as the city’s population grew, development began in earnest, and now block after block all the way to the Pacific Ocean is densely inhabited. After the first year in my apartment, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. It’s the best part of the city as far as I’m concerned. I’m two blocks from the cliff that overlooks China Beach and the entrance to the straits. At night, I’m serenaded by the baritone voices of the foghorns.

  Years ago, one of the two horns on the Bridge died. The city discovered that replacement parts were nonexistent, so the Coast Guard’s solution was to replace both of the old compressed air horns with a one-tone electronic horn. It just wasn’t the same. Romantics of San Francisco arose and demanded the return of the two-tone horns which, during the foggy season, typically sound more than five hours a day. Right now, they were in full voice. I started up the stairs and jumped involuntarily when I saw Adam sitting on the cold granite stairs.

  “Adam! You scared me.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I hope you don’t mind that I stopped by. I figured if you didn’t show up soon, I’d leave a note in your mailbox.”

  “I don’t mind. Come on up and I can fill you in.”

  Upstairs, I peeked into my office and saw the light blinking on the machine but decided to listen to my messages later. I threw my coat and purse on the kitchen chair and washed my hands at the sink. Adam followed me into the kitchen. Wizard had been waiting patiently by his bowl, but when Adam entered, Wiz disappeared into the bedroom and didn’t come back when I called him. My cat is a jealous cat.

  Adam took a chair in the kitchen. “They told me downtown that you’d left with David.”

  I sighed. “He wanted to drive over to Walnut Creek to see Ira’s wife. She was in bad shape.”

  “Grief-stricken, I’m sure.”

  “Hardly.” I joined him at the table. “She’d been drinking … a lot. We contacted her doctor. If anything, she may be more grief-stricken over Jack’s death. Her housekeeper told me it started on Monday.”<
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  “Well, that’s interesting.”

  “Would you like a coffee?”

  “Absolutely. I could really use one right now.”

  “There’s another thing, actually, that I wanted to mention to you.” I filled the kettle with water and turned on the gas. “I thought there was something funny passing between Karen and the messenger guy who does the court runs. Billy.”

  “The biker guy?”

  “Yeah. I guess they live in the same residence hotel. Karen claims they’re friends. But it just seems like an unlikely friendship. He’s a young guy and she’s old enough to be his mother.”

  Adam shrugged. “Well, I checked both of them out. Karen was already home when Ira was killed. She watched television in the lounge from five o’clock till nine. Lots of people saw her. Billy was out with friends last night when Ira was killed. The police are checking on that, and he claims he stayed in his room all day on Sunday when Jack was killed. Sleeping, he says.”

  “I guess Karen doesn’t have a car but she could still get around,” I said. “She’s so close to work.”

  “Did she actually say she doesn’t have a car?”

  “Well … she told me she walks to work.” I cast my mind back to the conversation I’d had with the secretary. “Maybe I just assumed that because she doesn’t park in the building.” The water had boiled and I spooned espresso coffee into a filter and waited for it to slowly fill the mugs.

  “I can check on that.”

  I passed the steaming mug across the table to Adam. “Hang on. I have some half-and-half. Do you take sugar?”

  “Just half-and-half is fine.” Adam took a sip. “I was hoping you might be free for dinner tonight.” There was something in his expression that made my face grow warm.

  “Oh, I can’t. I have a dinner downtown. It’s my grandmother’s birthday tonight. Another time maybe.” I took a deep breath. “I just keep seeing body bags when I close my eyes, particularly when I think of Ira. Then my stomach starts doing cartwheels. One minute Ira wasn’t concerned with anything but reaching his car to head home, and a few minutes later he was dying on a concrete floor in a parking garage.”