A Death Before Dying (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “Yes. This is Lieutenant Frank Hastings, with the San Francisco police department. May I speak to Mr. Blake, please?”

  A brief pause. Then, abruptly, the voice said, “Someone’s already called from your department.”

  “I know. Lieutenant Friedman called. This is something else.”

  “Just a moment.” The line clicked dead, followed by a long silence. Finally: “Yes. This is Gary Blake.” It was a brusque, abrasive voice—a cop hater’s voice. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Lieutenant Frank Hastings, Mr. Blake. I’d like to talk to you about your ex-wife—about her murder.”

  “I’ve already talked to someone. And I’m in a meeting. There’s nothing I can add to what I said. Nothing at all. You’ll have to talk to the other lieutenant. Friedman.”

  “I’ve talked to Friedman. I’ve got two questions that’ll take maybe sixty seconds to answer. Now, you can either answer them, or else I’ll call up the LAPD and have them send someone to talk to you at your office. That’ll take a lot longer than sixty seconds. But it’s your choice.”

  “A tough guy, huh?”

  “I’m afraid it goes with the territory, Mr. Blake. It’s a tough job.”

  “Hold on a minute.” Once more, abruptly, the line went dead. Then: “All right. Sixty seconds. Go.”

  “You and Meredith were divorced several years ago.”

  “Right.”

  “I want to know how much she got as her end of the divorce settlement.”

  “That’s not public information.”

  “I can get it, though. It’ll take more work—more calls, lawyers and judges, down there. But I can get what I need. Believe it.”

  “Oh, I believe it, all right. I certainly do believe it.”

  “Well?”

  A short silence. Then: “It came to about a hundred fifty thousand.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Two years. Maybe three. I’m trying to block it out, not remember it.”

  “Okay. Second question. Someone’s got to make burial arrangements. As nearly as I can determine, it’s either you or her father. There isn’t anyone else.”

  “Call her father. You want her buried, call her father. Anything else?”

  “Nothing else that’s official. Would you like to hear what I’m thinking? Unofficially thinking?”

  “Oh, sure. I can’t wait.”

  “I’m thinking that you have an attitude problem.”

  “You’re right. I don’t like cops. Your sixty seconds are up, Lieutenant.” The line clicked dead.

  3:45 P.M. Someone picked up the phone before it had finished its first ring.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d like to speak to John Powell, please.”

  “Powell. Hold on.” As if it had been hit, the phone transmitted a jarring clatter. Then Hastings heard voices raised in the background, one of them calling “Anyone seen Johnny?” A full minute passed, and another minute. Finally: “Hello?”

  “Is this John Powell?”

  “Yeah. Who’s this?”

  “This is Frank Hastings calling, Mr. Powell. I’m sure you don’t—”

  “Who?”

  “Frank Hastings. I—we knew each other a long time ago, in San Francisco. Kevin and I went to school together. And I knew—”

  “Kevin? You knew Kevin?” The question was blurred, asked in a roughened, fragmented voice. Was it alcohol? Age? Both?

  “We went to high school together, Mr. Powell. But that’s not why I’m—”

  “Kevin’s dead. He died a long time ago. Years.”

  “I know that. I found that out from Meredith, Mr. Powell. I saw her Tuesday—three days ago. And she told me about Kevin. And her mother, too. Meredith told me her mother died.”

  “You saw Meredith? Three days ago?”

  “Yes, I did. I’m a police officer, in San Francisco. And Meredith and I just happened to meet, by accident. We had lunch together and talked about old times, the old neighborhood. So now I’m—”

  “What’d you say your name was again?”

  “Hastings. Frank Hastings. My dad was in real estate. He—”

  “Oh, yeah. Good-looking guy. Always drove big cars and wore a tie. I remember him.”

  “That’s right. He—”

  “I remember you, too. Big kid, looked like your father. Didn’t you play football?”

  “Yes. I—”

  “Yeah, you made all-state, I remember. I used to follow football. Always thought I should’ve played. I’m big enough, you know. I was a big kid, too. Bigger’n you.”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. Powell, I’m not so sure I’d do it again. A long time after the newspaper clippings turn yellow, you’ve still got the sore knees.”

  “Hmmm. Yeah, I see what you mean.”

  Hastings let a beat pass. Then: “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you, Mr. Powell. I—”

  “Bad news? What’d you mean?”

  “Well, it—it’s about Meredith.”

  “Meredith?”

  “Yes, sir. Meredith. She—Wednesday night, we think it was—there was a—a crime committed. And Meredith—”

  “A crime? What kind of a crime?”

  “Well, it—it was a homicide, Mr. Powell. And Meredith—well—she was the victim.”

  “Homicide.” A pause. “Th-that’s murder. Homicide is murder.”

  “Yes, sir.” He drew a deep, regretful breath. “It’s murder. She was murdered Wednesday night. She—her body wasn’t found until yesterday. And after that, it took us awhile to locate you. So we couldn’t—”

  “Meredith was murdered?”

  “Yes, sir, she was.”

  “B-but how? W-why?”

  “We don’t know, Mr. Powell. Not yet. But we’re working on it, believe me. We’re doing everything we can.”

  “Murdered …” A silence. In the background, Hastings could hear voices raised. Finally Powell muttered, “Someone wants to use the goddamn phone.”

  “Would you like to get to another phone and call me back? Collect?”

  “No,” Powell answered. “No, that’s all right. I’ll—I’ll just have to think about it, think about what happened. It—it’ll take time, that’s all.”

  “I know that’s true, Mr. Powell. And I’ll do anything I can, to help.”

  “Yeah. Well, thanks. Frank, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. Frank Hastings.”

  “Yeah, I remember. Didn’t Kevin break his arm one time, and a couple of you kids brought him home? Wasn’t that you?”

  The instant’s image returned: Kevin, sobbing, huddled in the wagon, holding his left wrist with his right hand, three of them propelling the wagon—yes, a little red wagon—up the Judah Street hill, two of them pushing, one of them pulling, taking turns. They couldn’t have been more than ten years old, any of them.

  “Yes, sir,” he answered, speaking softly. “Yes, that was me.”

  “Yeah …” The other man’s voice trailed off into a bleak silence.

  “Listen, Mr. Powell, I know this is a bad time. It’s always a bad time when something like this happens. But the thing is, you’re Meredith’s next of kin. And there’re—” He cleared his throat. “There’re arrangements to be made.”

  “Arrangements?”

  “Funeral arrangements, Mr. Powell. Burial arrangements.”

  “Yeah, but—” A short, bemused silence. “Yeah, but I—I haven’t seen her for years, I don’t know how many years. It’s—we—” The voice died, then came back. “She lived here, you know, in Los Angeles. She lived here when she was married. And we never saw each other, all that time. So I—I don’t see why—I don’t see how—” Once more the voice faded, died, remained silent.

  And in the silence, Hastings’s silent self flared: She didn’t want to see you because you raped her, you degenerate son of a bitch.

  “If it’s the money,” he said, his official self, “that won’t be a problem. She’s got assets, I’m sure. And
I can get you flown up here as a material witness—and put up at a hotel. It won’t cost you a thing.”

  “A material witness? What’s that?”

  “It’s just a technicality. But there’re papers that the next of kin has to sign. Otherwise, they’ll put her in a county grave, like she was a transient. And we don’t want that. Do we?”

  “Well, no. But—”

  “What I want you to do, Mr. Powell, is get ready to come up here. Tomorrow. I want you here tomorrow. Right?”

  “Y-yes, I suppose I could—”

  “I’ll get you an airline reservation, and I’ll meet you at the airport. I’ll take you to the hotel, on the city and county of San Francisco. I’ll also make arrangements with a funeral home. So all you’ll have to do is get on a plane and get up here. That’s all.”

  “But I—I don’t—”

  “Do it, Mr. Powell. Just do it. I’m going to have someone make the arrangements. Then he’ll call you. I don’t want her buried as a ward of the county. Do you understand? Do you hear what I’m telling you?”

  “Well, sure. Yeah. I—” The other man’s voice caught, strangled by a sudden sob. In the silence, Hastings’s silent self flared again: You cry now, you bastard. What’d you do twenty-five years ago, after you raped her? Did you cry then?

  Now Powell’s voice was muffled, tear-gurgled: “She was always so pretty. Even when she was little, she was pretty.”

  “She was pretty when she died, Mr. Powell. Very pretty when she died.”

  4:10 P.M. For the fourth time in the last ten minutes, Hastings’s telephone warbled.

  “Lieutenant Hastings.”

  “This is Walters, Lieutenant. Reception. Downstairs.”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a TV crew here. They say Lieutenant Friedman called them, and that they should ask for you. They’ve got a deadline, they say.”

  “Okay. Tell them I’ll be right down.”

  4:14 P.M. Standing beside their KGBA van, each of them was dressed in the separate uniforms of their trades: the cameraman in jeans and a down jacket, the coordinator in khakis and a down jacket, the anchorperson in stylish boots, a calf-length tweed coat, and a long colorful scarf that trailed in the cold, raw wind. The anchorperson was Terry Tricomi. She was less than five feet, a smart, vivacious woman with dark, lively eyes and a clear, crisp, straightforward voice.

  “Hello, Lieutenant.” Smiling, she extended a small, muscular hand.

  He smiled down at her. “How about ‘Frank’?”

  “How about ‘Terry’?”

  “It’s a deal.” Still holding her hand, he slightly increased the pressure, smiling into her eyes. When thoughts of wayward sexual adventures beckoned, these eyes were sometimes a feature of his fantasy—her eyes, her vital, exciting body.

  The coordinator stepped forward. “Okay, you two. Time. We’ve got a three-minute slot on the six o’clock news, maybe four minutes. So let’s concentrate on doing something riveting, how about it?”

  They laughed together, took back their hands, turned together to face the coordinator, introduced as Bill Sigler.

  “What we were thinking,” Sigler said, “is that we’d go over to the entrance to the morgue.” He gestured across the large Hall of Justice parking lot. “We’d do about a minute on this woman—Meredith Powell, right?” He looked at Hastings for confirmation.

  Hastings nodded. “Right.”

  Turning now to the cameraman and to Terry Tricomi, using his hands, Sigler spoke swiftly: the tightly wound professional, doing his job. “We’ll start with how she died. We’ll come in close on the morgue sign while Terry does a voiceover, laying it all out. That’ll be one minute. Then we’ll go to the two of you—” He gestured to Hastings and Terry Tricomi. “It’ll be a straight interview, nothing fancy, no cutaways. Then I think we’ll go back to the sign for maybe a fifteen-second tag, voiceover. Something about life and death in the city, never mind whether you’re rich or poor, something like that. Right?” He looked at each of them, then turned toward the entrance to the morgue. As Sigler and the cameraman began walking ahead, Hastings fell into step with the woman.

  “Lieutenant Friedman called in about half of his markers on this one,” she said, “but he didn’t say why. Do you know why?”

  “She was a friend of mine,” Hastings answered. “I grew up with her.”

  “Ah—” Quickly, spontaneously compassionate, she turned toward him. “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you want to get into that?” she asked. “Your friendship?”

  “No, I don’t. Not at all. But we want to pull out all the other stops. Beautiful woman, beautiful Nob Hill condo, top-of-the-line Mercedes. Brutal murder. No real witnesses. Mostly it’s the witnesses we need. That’s why Friedman called you.”

  As they talked about it, making their plans while they walked side by side across the parking lot, Hastings was once more aware of her closeness, of her body, sometimes brushing his.

  4:40 P.M. Hastings lifted the phone from its cradle, at the same time drawing a notepad close.

  “This is Albert Price, Lieutenant.”

  For a moment the name failed to register. Then he remembered: Meredith’s psychiatrist.

  “Yes, Dr. Price. Thanks for calling.”

  Ignoring the pleasantry, Price said, “I’m between patients and don’t have much time, I’m afraid. But I wanted you to know that I’ve been thinking about Meredith Powell. According to my notes, she has only one living relative. Her father. There’s no—ah—current husband, no children. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s correct.”

  “And her father’s pretty much a derelict, a burned-out case.”

  “That’s my understanding.”

  “The reason I want to confirm all this,” Price said, “is that I didn’t want to reveal anything that would do damage to Meredith Powell’s reputation in the eyes of her family. That’s always our first consideration. Ethically—and also, let’s face it, legally—we have to be aware of the damage we can do. We don’t want lawyers, or lawsuits. Which is why we always try to tape our sessions. Do you follow?”

  “Yes. Certainly.”

  “However,” Price continued, his speech pompously lapsing into a professorial singsong, “however, from all I gather, her relationship with her father had deteriorated. Is that your understanding?”

  Deteriorated …

  Yes, definitely deteriorated, his silent self responded. Beginning twenty-five years ago, Doctor. Or didn’t you know?

  “Yes, sir, that’s my understanding.”

  “I gather that time is of the essence.”

  “Time is always of the essence in a murder investigation, Doctor. The more time goes by, the deeper the murderer crawls into his hole.”

  “Ah—” A dry, mirthless chuckle. “Very good.” Then the academic again: “I have patients until six, and I have notes to make after that. But there’s a bar—Cassiday’s—on Sutter Street near Powell. Are you familiar with it?”

  “I’ll find it.”

  “Shall we say six-thirty, at Cassiday’s?”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  6:15 P.M. On the TV screen the anonymous figures performed against a soundtrack of meaningless muddle, the medium’s sop to the masses, society’s great leveler, the local TV news: anchorpersons with blow-dried hair reciting the day’s cacophony of the cosmic and the trivial, ludicrously intermingled: yes, there’d been a drug raid, yes, there’d been a sell-off in the stock market, yes, the city had decided to build a domed baseball stadium, and, yes, a light plane had crashed.

  And, yes, in Brighton, England, an eighteen-year-old music student had proclaimed himself the messiah.

  Thus the day’s passage was recorded, with no knock on the door, no policemen mouthing stock policeman’s phrases, asking their proscribed policeman’s questions.

  The first time, Tina’s turn, policemen had come. Those moments had been magic: life focused by death,
banalities concealing the ecstasy of mortal danger roiling within.

  That morning, in the Sentinel, page five, at the top of the page, there’d been a story about Meredith. The police had asked for witnesses and given a phone number to call. He’d clipped the story. Then he’d burned the newspaper in the fireplace. If anyone found the newspaper, the cutout could be incriminating. The penalty: death.

  He’d taken the clipping to the chamber. He’d locked the door and reread the clipping. As he’d read, he’d felt the rush: forbidden fruit, so sweet to the palate. Then, yes, he’d played the videotape, the ultimate manifestation, himself supreme.

  Yet the tape could kill him.

  Therefore, the tape was both the focus and the fulcrum, knuckles rapping on the door, red lights flashing, onlookers gawking. The tape could—

  On the TV screen, the camera was close-focused on a sign: CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO MORGUE.

  He touched the remote control, brought up the sound as the camera shifted to the head and shoulders of a young, dark-haired woman dressed in a tweed coat, a colorful scarf thrown around her neck. She held a microphone. Her voice was somber.

  “Yesterday morning,” she was saying, “the body of a woman was found in Golden Gate Park. She’d been murdered, probably late Wednesday night or very early Thursday—yesterday. The nude body had been thrown in some bushes on the south side of the park’s riding stables. There was no identification.

  “With me,” she continued, “is Lieutenant Frank Hastings, who is co-commander of San Francisco’s Homicide Bureau.” As she spoke, the camera drew back to reveal her standing beside a big, dark-haired man. He wore a tweed sports jacket, a button-down shirt, striped tie. His clothes were faintly inspired by Brooks Brothers, but doubtless bought off the rack at Macy’s. His dark eyes were calm and self-possessed; the mouth complemented the eyes. It was a conventionally proportioned face, squared off, a serious, civil servant’s face. As the camera held on the two of them, the reporter spoke to the policeman.

  “You’re looking for cooperation on the crime, Lieutenant—cooperation from the public. Isn’t that so?”

  Like his face, the lieutenant’s voice was serious, his speech measured. “That’s correct. As you’ve said, she was found Thursday morning—yesterday morning—in Golden Gate Park. We think she was killed elsewhere and taken to the area behind the riding stables—the south side of the stables, as you said. There’s a dirt road that leads to the area. We think she was left there about midnight, maybe an hour or two later. We were able to identify her as Meredith Powell. Age, thirty-six. Residence, Hyde Street, between Greenwich and Filbert.”