True-Life Adventure

by Julie Smith

  She offered her hand. “Paul,” she said, “I’ve read you for years. You’re my favorite writer who ever worked for the Chronicle.”

  That settled it. The woman was an undiscovered saint.

  Quickly we brought her up to date, and before we were done, I could tell she was a dead end because she didn’t interrupt to tell us why she’d lied to Birnbaum. She hadn’t, of course. Lindsay wasn’t undercover after all.

  “As a matter of fact,” said Susanna. “She’d just finished a story. Right before she disappeared.”

  “Was it an investigative story? Anything that could be dangerous to someone?”

  She shook her head. “No. In fact, we ran it after she left. It was just a story about alternative methods of treating cancer.”

  “Susanna,” said Sardis, “had she been depressed or anything lately? I didn’t see her for several weeks before she left.”

  “She seemed it, yes. She was very upset about her breakup with Mike Brissette— oh, God, and now he’s dead. It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

  I answered. “It looks like it, but—”

  “But maybe not?” She might look simple and straightforward, but she was a journalist. I hesitated.

  As if reading my mind, she said, “Look, Paul, if you think I’m interested in this thing as a story, forget it. In the first place, I haven’t got a show without Lindsay. In the second place, I could care less about the goddam story or the goddam show or the whole goddam station. Lindsay’s one of my closest friends.” Her eyes filled as she spoke.

  Sardis and I looked at each other and it was obvious we were of the same mind. I told Susanna all about the attempts on my life and the awful fate of my house and what we thought about Brissette. It didn’t exactly ease her mind on the Lindsay question. Her fear popped out of her: “She can’t be in danger! She couldn’t be!” It was practically a wail.

  I was horribly afraid she was— or worse— but I didn’t say so. I said, “You were telling us about her breakup with Brissette.”

  Susanna composed herself. “That was about eight months ago and she never quite seemed to snap out of it— her depression, I mean.”

  “Didn’t she have a new boyfriend?”

  “Pete Tillman. She started seeing him about a month ago— I mean, a month before she left. But you know— she just didn’t seem that interested in him. The only thing that seemed to perk her up was that cancer story she was working on— sometimes she got very exuberant when she was on a good yarn.”

  “It wasn’t that good a story, was it? I mean, it’s been done before.”

  “Lindsay isn’t the kind of reporter who only likes a story if it’s a potential prizewinner. If she was interested in something, she gave it everything. I mean, she does. God, I sound like she’s dead.”

  Sardis gasped at the sound of the word and I forged ahead quickly. “Think back, Susanna. Was she depressed before she broke up with Brissette?”

  “She was, yes. I had the impression they weren’t getting along.”

  “I don’t know how to phrase this, exactly, but— did she seem stable?”

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. For months she’d been depressed and withdrawing from me and, I gather, from Sardis and her other friends. Then one day she took Terry and disappeared. It doesn’t sound stable, does it? I wish I’d realized sooner.”

  I could tell this was a train of thought that wasn’t exactly new for Susanna and that she felt like hell about it. I kept talking, not wanting to give her time to dwell on it. “How about the week she disappeared— did she seem any different then?”

  Susanna brushed her hair behind her ear and paused, her hand over her mouth. “Yes,” she said at last. “I think she did. She was sort of high on that cancer story, but that wasn’t all. She was very hyper. I mean, she seemed to be working at top speed to finish it. As if she knew she wasn’t going to be able to finish it the next week. She was driving so hard one of the cameramen complained.”

  “And that wasn’t like her?”

  “No. It was the sort of story that takes two weeks and she did it in one week. It’s that simple. Also, she was very edgy that week. As if she had something on her mind. Friday afternoon she was a bear— she was determined to finish the story and she had to meet someone by seven.”

  “Who?”

  “You mean who was she meeting? I don’t know. I assumed it was Pete.”

  “Did she say where she was meeting this person?”

  “Why, yes. The Hunan Restaurant. It’s around the corner, which meant she could work up until the last minute. It has a bar and lots of people from the station go there after work.”

  “Did anyone see her there that night?”

  “I don’t know. I could ask around.”

  “I think it might be important to know whom she was meeting. Can you see if anyone remembers?”

  “Of course. I’ll do anything I can to help.” She looked very sad, like somebody who’s lost a good friend. I hoped like hell she hadn’t.

  We thanked her and left, Sardis and I, feeling a bit under the weather. Susanna’s grief was catching.

  “I think,” I said, “that I’d better have a talk with Joan. And I think I’d better start flying solo.”

  If I’d thought that last was going to hurt Sardis’ feelings, I was mistaken. “Okay,” she said. “I’m feeling slightly guilty about calling in sick. I was thinking I might go to the office and play catch-up.” She fished in her purse and came up with a key to her apartment. “Here’s an extra in case you get home first. I think I might be pretty late.” It’s weird, but I was the one whose feelings were hurt. I’d sort of forgotten Sardis was a busy person with her own life and probably two or three boyfriends. I took the key and thanked her just as the elevator hit bottom.

  We walked out in silence and continued walking that way until Sardis screamed. It wasn’t a scream, really; just one of those funny syllables like aaaagh that people blurt out when they’re too surprised to think of a real word.

  When she finished blurting aaagh!, she said, “Look!” And she pointed to a newsstand with a brand-new Examiner in it. The Ex has a way of bannering the lead story so at first all I saw was some recession nonsense. And then I saw a picture of a man I didn’t know beside a headline that said: DEVELOPER COMMITS SUICIDE. The caption said the man was Peter Tillman.

  CHAPTER 11

  The story said Tillman was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his car, which was in his garage. It said he had left no note. It said his wife knew of no reason why he would want to kill himself. She was “shocked,” it said.

  Involuntarily, Sardis and I stared at each other. She had a lot of pain in her face, and worry. “I’ll call Joan,” she said. “She’ll be expecting you. Go right now. Quickly.”

  She gave me a quick but very tight hug and left to find a phone booth.

  I found my own phone booth and looked up the Women’s Bank of the Golden State. It was in the financial district, just a few blocks away, so I walked. It may not have been the fastest way to get there, but I figured Joan was safe as long as she was at work, and I needed time to think.

  At first, all I could think of was Philip MacDonald, yet another successful mystery writer with my surname. I was thinking of a book by Cousin Phil called The List of Adrian Messenger, in which everyone on Adrian’s list is found to have died under mysterious circumstances.

  I was also thinking about the list I had made of the people involved in the Koehler case. If I didn’t live out the day, I was wondering, would Blick find it and would its significance penetrate his thick skull? No, of course he wouldn’t. He couldn’t find it. It had burned up with everything else I owned.

  I made a new list in my head. On it were Jack Birnbaum, Paul Brissette, and Peter Tillman. Somebody wanted me on it. Maybe they wanted Joan, Susanna, and Sardis on it. Maybe Lindsay, too. Or maybe Lindsay was already dead. Or maybe she was the murderer.

  But I didn’t think so. She might be a bit
unstable, but I didn’t think she was systematically killing off all her friends. I thought there was something in those reports that was dangerous to someone else. Jacob and Marilyn had read them— did that mean they were in danger, too? Or were they suspects? That was too hard to figure, so I went back to the reports themselves— trying for the umpteenth time to imagine what tiny piece of information they contained that was worth killing three people. Four if you counted me. Were the damn things in code or something? But they couldn’t be. I’d written them myself.

  I shook my head to clear it. It didn’t work. I tried to start at the beginning.

  Okay. Someone had killed Birnbaum. Someone had tried to kill me. But maybe Brissette had really fallen down the stairs and Tillman had really committed suicide. I never was good at math, but I tried to figure the probabilities. I did it by counting up all my ex-girlfriends who had died violent deaths within a few hours of each other. The number was zero. All two hundred and eighty-odd of them were healthy as horses. I’ll bet nine out of ten people could say that, and the tenth would only have one dead lover. And nine out of ten of those who did have dead lovers could say with certainty that the deaths were from natural causes. So why should Lindsay be any different? No reason at all. Either Brissette or Tillman or both of them had been murdered. That was the only way it added up.

  Most people probably don’t figure probabilities that way, but it was good enough to throw a renewed scare into me. I was now approaching the Women’s Bank of the Golden State and hoping I’d find Joan in one piece.

  I went in. I don’t know what I expected, it being a women’s bank and all, but it was just like any other bank. There was some wood and some marble and some glass and some of the tellers were men and some were women and that went for the customers as well.

  Joan was in her office on the second floor. She had a finely molded face like Lindsay’s, but larger lips and much darker hair, which was frizzed but still managed to look neat. She had blue eyes and a tawny, almost orangy complexion. Her dress was a couple of shades lighter than her skin and it had blue stuff at the neck, sleeves, and hem that more or less matched her eyes. Intellectually, I knew the effect was a bit contrived, but given a choice of, say, one hundred fifty interesting things to look at and one of them was Joan in that dress, I’d have chosen Joan. Another thing about the dress— it sort of clung, and not only that, it sort of wrapped around, so that you always thought it would slip a bit and you’d get a glimpse of cleavage or leg, but it never did and you never did.

  I figured if I were some guy she was doing business with, I’d be so distracted I’d be helpless. But what the hell— men dress to intimidate; women have to have strategies, too. Whatever works, you know?

  “Sardis called about you,” said Joan. The hand she gave me was sweaty. “She said you work for the Chronicle but I should trust you anyway.”

  I sat down. “Have the police talked to you yet?”

  She nodded. “This morning.”

  “So you know about Birnbaum.”

  “Yes.” Her lips were very tight.

  “He tried to blackmail you, didn’t he?”

  “What are you trying to pull?” The gorgeous shoulders tensed under the clingy dress. Joan’s fingers closed around a letter opener, and the way her face looked, I figured she’d just as soon cut my liver out as not.

  “Whoa. Joan, whoa. I’m on your side.” I spoke softly, as softly as I knew how, but I didn’t see the shoulders untensing. The blue eyes were very, very scared.

  I tried speaking quickly: “I think Jack tried to blackmail a lot of people. It was his m.o., that’s all. I don’t want to know what he threatened you with— I mean what information he had, if he had any…” I was starting to stammer, but she was relaxing. “I just took a guess, because that was the way he was. I’m not trying to pull anything.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and now the eyes were filling with tears. “He was a horrid little sleazoid.”

  “He did threaten you?”

  “Yes.” She leaned way back in her chair and looked very sad now. “There is something in my past. Something that could lose my job for me. Or at least keep me from going anywhere from here. It would be the end of my career if anyone knew. Do you understand?”

  Since Sardis had filled me in, I understood perfectly. A lady who’d been in and out of loony bins was never going to make it big in banking. If anybody knew, that is. I nodded, to signify understanding.

  “Oh, God, I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” She was getting scared again, probably remembering that I worked for the Chronicle.

  “Look, Joan. Someone’s tried to kill me twice. They burned my house down last night. I’m not here to ruin your career. I’m here to warn you. They may want to kill you, too.”

  She laughed. I kid you not. She laughed. “Me? Who’d want to kill me?”

  “I don’t know that anyone would. But let me ask you something. Did Lindsay talk to you about her boyfriends?”

  “Some.”

  “Two of them have died in the last twenty-four hours. Jack Birnbaum had talked to them. He also talked to you.”

  She laughed again. “You think someone’s systematically killing everyone he talked to about Lindsay?”

  “No, I don’t think it’s that. I don’t know what to think, except that people who were close to Lindsay are getting killed.” I don’t know why I used the past tense. I didn’t even notice that I did.

  Joan stopped laughing and her eyes filled up again. “You think Lindsay’s dead?”

  “I hope not.”

  “Why do you think that?” Joan spoke very harshly, almost screaming.

  “I didn’t say I did.”

  “She’s just gone away, that’s all.”

  “Where?”

  She looked completely stricken and then she started sobbing.

  “Joan, what’s wrong? What did I say?”

  She sobbed some more and didn’t answer. This was getting to be a habit— about this time yesterday I’d been with Brissette’s sobbing assistant, Janet.

  “You sound like him,” Joan said. “He kept asking me where she was.”

  “Who? Blick?”

  She shook her head.

  “Birnbaum!”

  “He said he’d ruin me if I didn’t tell him. I swear to God I’d have told him if I knew. I just didn’t know; that’s all there was to it. I don’t.”

  “I believe you. But Lindsay did call the Saturday she left, didn’t she? Were you surprised when she told you what she was doing?”

  Joan dried her eyes; she was calming down a bit. “No. She’d been talking about it for a long time.”

  “But why? Why would she do it?”

  “She wanted to be with Terry, that’s all.”

  “It seems out of character. Lindsay isn’t exactly the maternal type, from what I can gather.”

  “Have you talked with Jacob?”

  “A little, yes.”

  “Did he tell you anything about Terry?”

  “Nothing that impressed me, no. Sardis says she’s a smart little kid.”

  “She’s very exceptional. But that isn’t what I mean. Jacob didn’t happen to mention that she has about six months to live?”

  CHAPTER 12

  If that didn’t explain why Lindsay should get a sudden maternal urge, I didn’t know what would.

  “No,” I said when I’d caught my breath. “He didn’t mention it.”

  “She has leukemia.”

  “I don’t get it. Sardis and Susanna are her best friends and they don’t seem to know a thing about it.”

  “She couldn’t talk about it with them. She might have told Sardis, but— well, Sardis had her own problems. She was barely hanging on herself and Lindsay didn’t want to make things worse for her. She may not have told her anyway. Lindsay’s a very private person. She doesn’t like people feeling sorry for her. She likes to think she can work things out herself.”

  “Is that why she didn’t tell Su
sanna?”

  “Partly. But remember, Susanna is her boss. She didn’t want Susanna worrying about her and worrying what would happen to the show when Terry went into the hospital and things like that. Also, she always knew there was a possibility she would kidnap Terry and leave Susanna pretty well in the lurch. She’d been desperately trying to get Jacob to give her some time with Terry and she always planned to take it if that was the only way she could get it— if Jacob wouldn’t agree, I mean. She didn’t want to involve Susanna.”

  “Did she ever mention trying any ‘alternative’ treatments for Terry?”

  “You mean like Laetrile or something? God, no. Jacob would shit a brick.”

  I could just bet Jacob would. If there was one thing an establishment scientist would hate, it would be cancer quacks— especially within several thousand miles of his sick daughter.

  Here was what I imagined had happened: Lindsay had suggested the cancer quack show because, in her desperation, she hoped to find out about something that might help Terry. She did in fact see something she thought was worth trying. She put it to Jacob; he shat a brick; and she figured her last chance to save the daughter she hardly knew was to kidnap her and take her to the quack. All I had to do was figure out which quack it was.

  I asked Joan one more question: “Did you tell the police about Terry’s illness?”

  “No. They didn’t ask why Lindsay left, just where she went.”

  My lack of confidence in Blick remained unshaken.

  I said good-bye to Joan and walked back to Susanna’s station. I figured she might know which of the quacks Lindsay had liked. At least she could run the show for me and I could look over the candidates. As I walked, I turned things over in my head.

  Little Terry’s illness explained an awful lot. Why Lindsay’d been depressed lately, for openers, and why she’d been withdrawing from her friends. Why she did a bizarre thing like kidnap her own daughter and leave her job. And if my hunch was right, why she did it when she did it.