Mind-Altering Murder

by William Rabkin

  He thought this over as he bit into the doughnut. He didn't seem to notice the jelly squirting out over his graying beard. "It was a woman," he said finally. "Yeah, a pretty blonde."

  "Can you remember anything else about her?" O'Hara asked impatiently. This was the first lead she'd had in all the nights she'd spent down here.

  "She was maybe around thirty," he said. "Like I said, real pretty. I couldn't figure out why such a nice girl would be asking so many questions about such a dismal subject."

  "What kind of questions?" O'Hara said. Who was this woman and what could she have been looking for? Was somebody else trying to find the driver--or to see if anyone had spotted her leaving the scene?

  "She kept asking if I'd seen anything or if I'd talked to anyone else who might have seen something," Frank said. "And then she gave me a cookie."

  O'Hara felt any trace of excitement vanish. "That was me, Frank," she said.

  He squinted up at her, unsure. "It was?"

  "Oatmeal raisin, with a hint of cinnamon, right?" she said.

  He broke into a broad smile at the memory. "Could have done without the walnut pieces, personally, but on the whole a damn fine cookie," he said. "That was you, wasn't it?"

  She nodded wearily and held out the doughnut box again. At this rate she'd run out before she made it down one block, but she was having a hard time caring about that. She'd been down this street too many times, asked the same people the same questions and gotten the same non-answers over and over again. Maybe this was finally the sign she should stop.

  "I don't suppose you've remembered anything else since last night," she said without any real hope.

  "Not me," Frank said.

  "I didn't think so," she said. "Thanks for trying, anyway."

  "The other guy might have, though," Frank said.

  "The other guy?" This time she wouldn't let herself get her hopes up. "Do I know him?"

  "Don't think so." Frank chuckled to himself. "Takes off like a startled rat every time you come around here. I always tell him he should stick around, at least on brownie night. But he just takes off like a startled rat scurrying for the sewers."

  "You've never mentioned this man before, have you?" she said.

  "Haven't I?" Frank said. "I don't know."

  "And you think he saw the hit-and-run?" she said, fighting against the excitement that was building inside her.

  "Can't say for sure he did or didn't," Frank said. "All I know, when I mentioned there was a police officer asking questions about some car thing and paying for answers with treats, he ran away. And then whenever you started coming down this way he just took off like--"

  "A startled rat, right," she said. "Can you describe him for me?"

  "He's got beady little eyes, white whiskers sticking out this way from his face," Frank said, making sure she was writing all this down. "And don't forget about that long tail."

  She slapped her notebook shut, disappointed. "Frank, that's a description of the startled rat, isn't it?"

  He just chuckled in response.

  "There is no other man, is there?"

  "Oh, but there is," he said. "I was just having some fun with you. This guy's about six feet tall, maybe thirty years old. His hair's about your color, and he's got a month or two's worth of beard. Don't think he's been on the streets long."

  "Why's that?" she said. This was sounding promising, the first possible break they'd had in the case yet.

  "His face doesn't have these wrinkles you get from living out under the sun all day," Frank said, pointing to his own. "And his hands are too soft."

  "Do you know where he is now?" O'Hara asked, scanning the street for any sight of the new man. This could be the break she'd been searching for. At the very least he was a witness. But the way he was so terrified of being asked about the accident suggested he might be much more.

  "Hiding where any startled rat's going to hide," Frank said. "Someplace you're not going to be able to find him."

  That's what he thinks, O'Hara said to herself. There is nothing that's going to stop me from finding this guy if I have to talk the chief into putting every officer in the force on State Street every night for a week.

  "Do me a favor, Frank," she said. She wrote her name and cell phone number on the pink cardboard of the doughnut box and handed it to him. "When he comes back, give him these for me. Tell him to call me, day or night. There's a lot more than doughnuts waiting for him if he does."

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Gus had been to the Santa Barbara Yacht Club only once in his life, on a sales call to a plastic surgeon who was concerned the Feds were spying on his office and didn't want to take a chance on asking for a kickback where they might be listening. He hadn't made a sale that day, since the only bribes he was authorized to offer came in the form of T-shirts and tote bags with pharmaceutical logos on them and the doctor was hoping for someone who would at least pick up his moorage fees at the club. But that unpleasantness aside, he'd had a wonderful time sitting out in the sun, watching the waves lap against the dock as the rich and beautiful sailed their multimillion-dollar boats out for the day.

  When he saw on the invitation that Steve Ecclesine's memorial service was going to be held at the San Francisco Bay Yacht Club, he'd felt guilty for looking forward to it so much. He was remembering the Santa Barbara club and anticipating another lovely afternoon, sitting out on the water, knowing that he could safely zone out because nothing important was going to transpire. Which was the wrong way to approach what was, for all intents and purposes, a funeral. He should spend the ceremony contemplating the tragedy of a life cut short. Even if it was true that he hadn't particularly cared for Ecclesine, he should use the occasion to meditate on the nature and purpose of human existence. That was what you did at these things.

  But as he walked down Market toward the waterfront, he couldn't focus on the meaning of life or any other deep issues. He felt the warm sun and the cool bay breeze against his skin, and no matter how many times he reminded himself this was a solemn occasion, he couldn't stop feeling like school had just let out early on the first day of summer.

  Gus was feeling so good that he barely noticed where he was going until he had crossed the wide Embarcadero and found himself heading away from the new baseball stadium. The GPS on his phone told him he wanted to keep going past AT&T Park and continue for half a mile. But as he scanned the waterfront walk ahead of him all he saw were industrial piers and warehouses. The Santa Barbara Yacht Club had a rolling lawn in front of it; if the Bay Club had ever had any such thing it had already rolled into the water. More perplexing, given that his phone was telling him that he was within five hundred yards of the correct address, was the complete absence of anything that could be described as a yacht. There were a couple of vessels bobbing on the gray water, but even someone with as little nautical knowledge as Gus would have had a hard time describing these decaying houseboats as yachts.

  By the time the GPS had beeped to announce his arrival at his destination, Gus was ready to toss the phone into the bay. Clearly it had sent him to the wrong place. He was standing outside a small, shabby, whitewashed wood building. It looked like the kind of bar that did most of its business selling vodka to people who couldn't afford to be seen drinking during office hours.

  He was about to turn back in disgust when a burst of laughter from inside made him look up, and now he noticed the small sign over the door: SAN FRANCISCO BAY YACHT CLUB.

  Of course, Gus realized too late, this was San Francisco. There probably were real yacht clubs for the superrich, but for every one of them there would be a dozen of these ironically named establishments. Yacht clubs for the rest of us, they'd call them.

  Once again, Gus considered turning back to the office. His vision of a day spent playing hooky in the sun had vanished, and now he was facing the reality of spending who knew how many hours sitting in this dump, listening to people who'd never liked Ecclesine when
he was alive talking about how much they were going to miss him.

  But Gus knew that wasn't an option. He was an executive at Benson Pharmaceuticals. He was part of the company's public face. And if that meant putting on a mask every now and again to pretend he was something he wasn't--in this case, a grieving colleague--then that was part of being an adult. The days of skipping out on obligations simply because he felt like it were over.

  He pushed open the door. The space inside was divided into two rooms, but the divider had been pushed aside to make one large space. A long bar ran across the back wall; just beside it was a table heaped with salads and cold meats and breads. In between the bar and Gus was a solid mass of people packed in like the New Year's Eve crowd in Times Square.

  Great, Gus thought, I'm the last one here. And it did seem as if everybody else who worked in the San Francisco office of Benson Pharmaceuticals was already there. Gus spotted Ed Vollman standing by the bar, finishing up a martini as the bartender slipped him the next one in the sequence. Lena Hollis was leaning into a younger man, clearly her intended target for the evening. But he seemed to be interested only in a spot over her shoulder, and when Gus followed his gaze he understood why. Chanterelle had apparently decided that her usual minidress wasn't formal enough for such an occasion and had managed to find one that was even shorter. She was leaning into her father, who was whispering something in her ear. Gus was wondering if he was suggesting she might want to put on a slightly longer dress. Probably not, since she smiled and nodded when he finished.

  Gus scanned the crowd quickly, checking out the faces familiar and new. There was one face he was eager not to see, and his heart lightened greatly once he realized that Shawn wasn't there. It wasn't that Shawn couldn't be trusted to behave at funerals--although his picture was posted in the guard shacks at several of Santa Barbara's better cemeteries--so much as what his absence here would mean. Maybe Shawn had actually listened to him and decided to go back home, to go back to his own life and let Gus have his new one.

  He'd miss Shawn. He already did. But seeing him at work was too hard. Whenever he was with his old friend, all he wanted was to fall back into old patterns, old rhythms. He wanted to run and play and joke and bicker, and these were not behaviors that were appreciated in the adult world he'd moved into. As soon as he had some vacation time saved up, or maybe even at the next three-day weekend, he'd head back south and he and Shawn could spend all the time they wanted just hanging out. But for now balancing his old self and his new made him dizzy, and he knew everything would be immeasurably easier if he didn't have to run into Shawn whenever he popped into the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

  Gus took a step into the room and let the door swing shut behind him. It hit its frame with a bang, and every head swiveled to look at him. He gave them a little wave and moved away from the door.

  The entire crowd turned to follow him.

  This was weird. If this had been Gus' memorial service, it would have made perfect sense for the attendees to treat his appearance as worthy of note. But Gus was just one of hundreds of employees in the office. True, he was an executive, and one on the fast track at that, but all these people saw him at work every day and never found him quite so fascinating as this. He glanced over his shoulder to see if someone more interesting had slipped in behind him, but unless everyone in the company was desperate to buy the used sofa, bed, and dining table that were advertised on a flyer above the light switch, there was nothing that could garner such rapt attention.

  Gus looked back at the crowd. They were still staring at him. He glanced at Chanterelle and her gaze was exactly what it was when she entered his late-afternoon daydreams, asking if there was any way he might be willing to come to her apartment that evening. That would have been gratifying, if he wasn't getting exactly the same look from everyone else in the company. It looked a lot less appealing on the unshaven face of Fat Walter from accounting.

  What was going on here? Sure, he'd been a few minutes late, but he couldn't imagine that all his coworkers had decided he was some kind of superhero simply because he'd dared come last to a memorial service. He played with the idea that D-Bob had circulated a memo describing Gus' plan for tackling the issue of orphan drugs. Certainly some of them would have thought highly of him for doing that. But he noticed at least six people in the crowd who had fairly major profit sharing in their deals, and his plan was almost certain to depress the company's income for at least a couple of years. Even if they approved emotionally of what he was trying to do, there was no way they would be this thoroughly enamored of him.

  Most likely this was some kind of prank, a practical joke played on whoever was last to show up. But that would have been in dubious taste if this had been a staff meeting. They were at a memorial service. Who would hijack a funeral and turn it into an episode of Punk'd? Aside from the people who actually made the show, of course, and Gus was pretty sure they were all too busy counting their money to waste their time on him.

  Before Gus could figure out what to do there was a stirring at the back of the room, and for the first time since he'd come into the building people turned away from him to watch D-Bob climbing up on the bar and clinking two beer mugs together for attention.

  One by one the assembled employees of Benson Pharmaceuticals pulled their gazes away from Gus and toward their leader. He waited until he was sure he had everyone's attention before he started speaking.

  "Steve Ecclesine," he said thoughtfully. "What can I say about him? That he was a dear friend? A great humanitarian? A warm and loving man who cared about this company less because of the money it could bring in than for all the good it could do in the world?"

  Gus managed to catch his deep sigh before it escaped his throat. This was beginning to look like it was going to be a very long afternoon. He wished he'd brought some of his work with him.

  "It's true. I could say all those things about Steve," D-Bob said. "And you know why that is? Because I own this company, so I can say whatever I want. But the flip side of that is that I don't have to say anything I don't want to. And I'm pretty sure that none of you want me to take up your time lying about a man many of you despised and most of the rest loathed."

  Gus had been so busy going over a to-do list for the rest of the week that it took a moment for the words to sink in. Once they did, all thoughts of planning his agenda flew from his mind.

  "This is not to say that there is no one here who thought of Steve as a friend and who will miss him," D-Bob said. "That's one of the great truths of the human race--as my grandmother used to say, for every old sock, there is an old shoe. To those of you who are feeling the loss of a companion and a compatriot, I salute you."

  D-Bob bent down to the bar and picked up one of the beer mugs, which had now been filled with brown, foamy ale. He hoisted it in the air, held it there for a moment of tribute, then lowered it to his mouth and drained half of it in one gulp.

  "But for the rest of you, the ones who are here because you felt it was required, or because it was a day away from the office, who knew Steve as a bully and a brownnoser, or a sanctimonious hypocrite who talked about making the world a better place but really only cared about making a better place for himself, let me just say that I understand your feelings, and maybe even share them a little," he said.

  A ripple of assent ran through the crowded room. Gus expected some angry protests, maybe even a walkout or two, but no one spoke or moved. Maybe D-Bob had been overly kind when he suggested there was anyone in the company who actually cared that Ecclesine was dead.

  "Even for those of us who do not mourn the specific loss, the fact of Steve's death must come as a shock to us," D-Bob continued. "Because it can only remind us of our own mortality. It was the window in Ecclesine's office that happened to fall out, but who is to say that it couldn't have happened to any one of us lucky enough to have an office with a view? Or to any of our female employees that Steve might have called in for one of his standard se
ssions that never quite crossed over to the level of harassment?"

  This time the murmur in the crowd sounded a little angrier, as several women seemed to realize for the first time that their experience was not unique.

  "We are all going to die," D-Bob said. "And it is times like this that we must stop and face that fact. That is what this memorial service is for. We come not to bury Steve Ecclesine, not to mourn him, but to let his death serve this great purpose for all of us. We are going to die, ladies and gentlemen, and in acknowledgment of that sad fact, let us seize this moment to vow that until that blackness descends we will live our lives to the fullest. Let us seize every day, embrace every moment, and cherish all that has been given to us. My employees, my friends, this memorial service is for you!"

  He raised the beer glass again and saluted the crowd, who cheered loudly and raised their own glasses back to him.

  "We love you, D-Bob!" Gus craned his neck to see who had yelled out, but it could have been almost anyone. The assembled employees were all gazing up at him with such affection he might have been their guru or their sainted father.

  "I can tell you this death has affected me greatly," D-Bob said once the shouts and cheers had died down enough for him to be heard. "Following the other tragic losses at our company, it has forced me to deal with the fact that I won't be around forever to lead you."

  There were shouts of "No!" and "We love you" from the audience. He smiled and shook them off.

  "Don't worry. I've got no plans to go anywhere for a while," D-Bob said. "But even when I do it's not going to be a bad thing. A company needs new blood. And even though I like to think my ideas are every bit as fresh as they always have been, one man's mind can only work in certain ways. We need other voices to stay young. And that's why I've chosen this moment to announce a major change I'm going to be implementing at Benson Pharmaceuticals."

  The mass intake of breath from the crowd nearly sucked the light fixtures from the ceiling. Even Gus found that he was holding a lungful of air and he had to force himself to exhale.