Brush With Death

by Lind, Hailey

  “You’ve never heard of a Berkeley graduate student named Cindy Tanaka doing work on public mourning?”

  “I assure you, I have not.”

  “She was taking pictures of Louis Spencer’s crypt.”

  Helena’s lacquered pageboy swung as she shook her head.

  “But she had a key to the gates.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Look, Helena, I’m not making this up,” I said, frustrated. “I met Cindy here, in the cemetery, the night before last. And there was a, uh, incident.”

  “What kind of incident?”

  “A man in a green mask tried to remove a metal box from Louis Spencer’s sepulcher.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “This is terrible,” Helena said and stood up. “I’ll look into it immediately.”

  The head docent scurried out of the conference room. Unsure whether or not to follow, I lingered for a moment before retracing my steps, leaving my business card on the counter in the reception area and heading out to the street.

  As I emerged I saw Billy Mudd leaning against my truck. What fun.

  Chapter 6

  The vulgar will see nothing but chaos, disorder, and incorrectness.

  —James Ensor (1860-1949), Belgian painter

  The truly vulgar will see nothing but economic opportunity.

  —Georges LeFleur

  I had heard of love at first sight, though I remained skeptical. I had never heard of loathe at first sight, but thanks to Billy Mudd I believed in it wholeheartedly.

  With spiky hair bleached bone-white by the sun and skin bronzed to a precancerous ruddiness, Billy resembled the stereotypical California surfer dude. Blond brows and lashes highlighted his cobalt-blue eyes, which strafed the world with icy disdain. A few years older than I, Billy acted much younger, and was far buffer than I could ever hope to be. His relaxed aura, combined with the über-masculine air common to construction workers, was undeniably sexual, though in a way I found repellant. If the Aryan Brotherhood had a surfing and carpentry division, Billy would be its Führer.

  “Well, if it isn’t Annie Kincaid,” Billy sneered, his cold eyes sweeping over me. “I thought that was you slinking around.”

  “What’s up, Billy?” I said, tossing my things into the truck’s cab. “Plotting to raze something of historical or artistic import?”

  He laughed. “Roy tells me you’re doing some restoration work at the columbarium.”

  “Yup.”

  “No interest in the cemetery, then?”

  “What kind of interest?”

  “Word on the street is that you’ve been messing around the graves.”

  “What street would that be? Rue du Morgue?”

  He curled his lip, no doubt confused by the reference.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Billy,” I snapped. “I ate my lunch at the Locklear Memorial. I didn’t break any rules, did I?”

  “No need to get defensive.”

  “You started it.”

  Billy snickered. “Do yourself a favor, Kincaid. Keep your nosy nose out of the cemetery.”

  “My ‘nosy nose’? Did you make that up all by yourself, Billy?”

  “Don’t push me, toots.”

  “Let me ask you something, toots,” I said. “Are you cooking up some kind of development deal? Because I have it from a reliable source that the cemetery’s land can’t be sold.”

  “Why don’t you stick to mucking around with paints and brushes, and let me worry about real estate.” He glanced at the heavy Rolex encircling his wrist like a diamond-encrusted shackle. “Just remember, your buddy Aaron Garner won’t always be around to save your butt.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “See you later,” Billy said.

  “Not if I see you first.”

  Maturity isn’t my strong suit.

  I watched Billy’s shapely backside saunter over to the big Chevy truck parked across the street. As he climbed in and roared off, I realized with a jolt that in a weird way Evil Billy had been responsible for my meeting Aaron Garner in the first place, and for now being able to pay my bills.

  I hated that kind of karmic bitchiness.

  I sat in my truck for a few minutes, humming along to an old Temptations tune and wondering what the story was with Cindy Tanaka. Not only had she not called me about La Fornarina, but she had not informed the cemetery’s management of her research, nor had she turned over the metal box from Louis Spencer’s crypt. That seemed like bad form all around. I tapped the steering wheel, wondering what my next step should be. The cheap digital clock superglued to my cracked vinyl dashboard told me it was half past noon. I needed a few things from an art supply store in North Berkeley. Might as well combine that errand with a visit to Cindy’s thesis adviser.

  I took Telegraph Avenue north to Berkeley, the flagship of the mighty University of California system. After looping up and down Oxford, Hearst, and Bancroft streets, I snuck into a permit-only parking lot, gambling that my visit with Dr. Gossen would be over before the parking cops made their rounds.

  I was just wondering where the Anthropology Department was when Pink Man whizzed past and I asked him for directions. Named for his habit of wearing a bright pink leotard, hood, and cape, Pink Man zoomed about Berkeley on a unicycle, flapping his arms to get onlookers to laugh or to clap, or in some other way to acknowledge that life was absurd.

  It was a Zen thing. I thought. Or maybe he was just nuts.

  I followed Pink Man’s cape as he wove deftly through the hordes of book-toting students, across Sproul Plaza—the site of massive demonstrations during the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s—around the Barrows Building, past Hearst Memorial Gymnasium, and up the hill to Kroeber Hall. Waving good-bye to my colorful escort, I consulted the directory in the marble foyer and took the stairs to the second floor.

  My sophomore year in college I had briefly flirted with abandoning art for anthropology when the professor of a required course explained the importance of eating local cuisine. One of my special talents was the ability to eat just about anything, and in truly astonishing quantities, so I figured I was a natural for fieldwork. Fried grasshoppers and whale blubber? No problem. The secret was in the seasoning. The flirtation came to an abrupt halt with the unit on genealogical charts: patrilineal, matrilineal, affinal, fictive . . . I don’t do charts. I returned to art—my first love, my true love—and had never again strayed.

  Halfway down the long, windowless hall was a clutch of administrative offices and a door marked DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY—ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT. A crowded bulletin board advertised an upcoming graduate student colloquium, a presidential lecture series, and next semester’s course offerings. Intrigued, I read a call for proposals for grant monies to fund a year of fieldwork among the Maya near Chichén Itzá. I liked Mexico, especially the Yucatán Peninsula. No whale blubber there, and no one to accuse me of forgery.

  Too bad I had a business to run. Maybe in my next lifetime.

  A pear-shaped woman with short brown hair and large round glasses was playing a game of Minesweep in the main office. “Caught me!” she laughed, looking up from the computer.“I gave up smoking two weeks ago and whenever I feel the urge to go outside for a puff, I play this stupid game instead.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Let’s just say I’m the department Minesweeper champion, and if you know graduate students, you know that’s quite an accomplishment.”

  “I’ve never gotten past the intermediate level,” I confessed. “I keep blowing myself up.”

  “Beats emphysema or lung cancer. Two weeks smoke-free! So what can I do for you?”

  “I think we spoke on the phone. I’m trying to get in touch with Cindy Tanaka?”

  “Still haven’t seen her.” She craned her neck to peruse a bank of cubbyholes on the far wall. “Looks like she hasn’t picked up her mail or messages, either. That’s odd.”


  “Is she usually more reliable?”

  “We set our watches by her. Cindy lives and breathes anthropology. I keep telling her she should get out more, have some fun—which is unusual, come to think of it. Anthropologists are famous for socializing.”

  “But not Cindy?”

  “Not recently. She’s kept to herself a lot. I hope she’s not sick.”

  “You said her thesis adviser has office hours now?”

  “Randall Gossen. Down the hall, room 257.”

  Dr. Gossen—“Call me Randy,” he said jovially when I introduced myself—was a small man in his forties, with shaggy brown hair, a graying goatee, and thick tortoiseshell glasses. He wore the tenured male academic’s unofficial uniform of rumpled khakis, green-and-tan-checked cotton shirt, and brown corduroy sports jacket, none of which complemented his pasty complexion. Clearly the professor did not waste any time basking in California’s legendary sunshine.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said as I took a seat in a beige plastic chair in front of his messy gray desk. He shoved a stack of journals aside, placed his hands palms-down on the green blotter, and leaned toward me. “I was shocked when Ms. Tanaka didn’t show up for her talk at the department’s lunchtime colloquium yesterday. Absolutely gobsmacked. Have you heard from her?”

  “I’m afraid not. I’m looking for her myself. She was supposed to be somewhere yesterday and never arrived.”

  “I don’t have to tell you I’m concerned,” Randy said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his long nose. “She’s not answering her phone, either. This isn’t like her, not like her at all. Have you been by her apartment?”

  “Actually, I was hoping to get Cindy’s address from you.”

  Gossen fixed me with a strange look. “I thought you said you were her friend.”

  “We met the other night. I wouldn’t say we’re friends so much as friendly.”

  He shook his disheveled head and the glasses slid back down his nose. “Can’t help you, then. I’ll tell you what I told that other guy. It’s against federal privacy laws to disclose students’ personal information. Sorry.”

  “What other guy?”

  “This is all highly irregular. . . .”

  “I understand,” I said, biting my tongue in frustration. Fortunately, my father was a professor so I knew how to get the breed talking. “Perhaps you could tell me about Cindy’s research? That’s not classified, is it?”

  “No, not at all. Her research focuses on the phenomenon of public grieving, with particular emphasis on the shrinelike constructions that emerge spontaneously at the sites of traffic accidents, drive-by shootings, natural disasters, that sort of thing. It’s quite a big suitcase of ideas to unpack, as we say around here. Lots of teddy bears and balloons, but they’re significant when you consider the larger picture of—”

  The telephone rang.

  “Excuse me,” the professor said and picked up the receiver. “Randy Gossen. Yes, I am. No, in fact a friend of hers is here right now, asking about her.” He glanced at me and I thought he might have paled slightly. “ ‘Annie Kincaid.’ You don’t? Brown hair and eyes, medium . . . ? I see. Yes, I certainly will.” He hung up and scowled.

  I smiled uncertainly.

  “How did you say you knew Cindy?” he demanded.

  “We met the other night, in the graveyard—”

  “What were you doing in a graveyard?”

  “Talking to Cindy. I was working nearby, and saw a light at the crypt, and—”

  “That was Ms. Tanaka’s roommate on the phone. She’s on a research trip and is worried because Cindy hasn’t answered the phone for the past few days. She also says Cindy’s been harassed by a person or persons unknown. I think perhaps I should call the authorities—” He leaned back in his chair, bumped a metal shelf behind him, and dislodged a globe. It fell to the floor and rolled over to my feet.

  I scooped it up. “Dr. Gossen, I assure you I haven’t been harassing Cindy Tanaka, or anyone else for that matter,” I said, deciding Frank DeBenton didn’t count. “I met Cindy at the cemetery the other night, she told me she was doing research on public grieving, and—”

  “May I have my world back, please?”

  He held out his hands and I passed him the globe. He cradled it against his thin chest and stuck out his goateed chin.

  “Dr. Gossen,” I persisted. “If I were harassing Cindy, why would I come to see you?”

  His mulish expression remained unchanged, but at least he did not reach for the phone.

  “One more question,” I said. “Does Cindy have any training in art, or art history?”

  “She’s an anthropologist.” Dr. Gossen frowned. “There’s some crossover in the realm of the funerary arts, but she’s not an art historian. That’s a whole other chestnut. Now, don’t contact me again and stay away from Cindy.”

  I grabbed my bag and beat a retreat before the professor changed his mind and brought the wrath of the campus cops down upon my head. The drab hallway was crowded with chatty students streaming into classrooms, and I searched in vain for Cindy’s face. Hearing no cries of “Stop that artist!” from Dr. Gossen, I decided to risk one last inquiry into the whereabouts of the mysterious Cindy Tanaka and ducked back into the main office.

  “Hello again,” I greeted the Minesweep player. “Dr. Gossen said to ask you for Cindy Tanaka’s address so I could mail her a fellowship application.” I lied with the ease of a maestro. It was one of the many disreputable things I did well.

  “Randy okay’d it?”

  “He’s in his office, we just spoke. Give him a call if you’d feel more comfortable.”

  “That’s all right,” she said, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “Randy’s nice enough—you wouldn’t believe how pompous some of these professors can be—but he does get huffy when he’s working. Here you go.” She jotted Cindy’s address on a pink Post-it note and handed it to me.

  I thanked her, hurried out of the building, and made my way through the throngs of boisterous undergraduates taking advantage of a break in the rain to play Hacky Sack and toss Frisbees on the plaza. I presumed the graduate students were squirreled away in claustrophobic library carrels or working at their computers with fiendish devotion. All things considered, it was for the best that I hadn’t pursued a career in anthropology. Why spend your days in a library when you could spend your nights in a columbarium?

  Cindy Tanaka had struck me as a responsible scholar. But she had not picked up her mail or messages, had not called when she had said she would, and had not turned the box over to the cemetery management. Was she really being stalked and thus was keeping a low profile? Or had she opened the metal box and found something worth more than a PhD in anthropology? For all I knew she’d gotten sick of the grind and dropped out to go dance in the streets of Rio. So why did I think her disappearance had something to do with La Fornarina?

  The mournful chiming of the campus campanile reminded me of the hour. I dashed to my truck and hopped in just as a cute campus cop with a gleam in his eye pulled up in his putt-putt cart. Waving as I roared out of the lot, I ditched the errand to the art supply store and headed south on Martin Luther King Boulevard.

  According to the address on the pink Post-it, Cindy’s apartment was in Oakland, near the old Neldam’s Danish Bakery, in the shadow of the 980 overpass. This part of town was generously referred to as “transitional,” which meant it was a mix of upwardly mobile students, downwardly mobile retirees, and more or less stable working families. Folks in this neighborhood minded their own business and did their best to avoid the rampant drug dealing and petty street crime. I knew the area because a “green builder” I had worked for was rehabbing some run-down buildings with the idea of creating an urban commune, complete with solar and wind power.

  I took a right onto Thirtieth and pulled up in front of a two-story stucco 1940s duplex. Cheerful marigolds bordered a sun-parched lawn, and ancient rosebushes flanked the front steps. A cracked concrete path l
ed to the front door. I knocked. No response. I rang the doorbell. Still nothing.

  A little girl skidded up on a pink, long-handled bicycle. An old-fashioned wooden clothespin attached a playing card to the bike’s frame so that it rubbed against the spokes as the wheel turned, making a pleasant clicking sound. She wore red cotton shorts and a white T-shirt, and her hair was plaited into dozens of beaded braids that fell to her slim shoulders.

  “Hi,” the little girl said, her face serious.

  “Hi there.”

  “I’m Shawna. What are you doing?”

  “I’m looking for a friend of mine. Do you know the women who live here?”

  She nodded. “They go to school up to Berkeley.”

  “Have you seen them around today?”

  She shook her head. “Everybody just walk in. They leave the door open.”

  I gave the doorknob a tentative twist. It turned, so I stuck my head inside and called out, “Hellooooo?”

  The drab but clean foyer was crowded with a ten-speed bicycle and a shoe rack holding six pairs of sneakers and espadrilles. Straight ahead was a door with K. SMYERS printed on an index card. To the right a flight of carpeted stairs led to the second floor.

  “Jus’ go on up,” Shawna said. “I tol’ you, they don’ mind.”

  She rode off, her hair beads and the playing card clacking.

  I didn’t usually take etiquette advice from children, but since I was here I figured what the heck. “Cindy? Anybody home? Hello?”

  At the top of the stairs another door sported another card labeled B. NGUYEN/C. TANAKA. I knocked again, again no reply. I tried the knob.

  The door opened onto a bright living room furnished with a large television set, a CD player and speakers, a tall rack filled with CDs, a maroon futon sofa, a bamboo papasan chair, and a bookshelf crammed with texts. Beyond the living room was a combination kitchen/dining room with a light green Formica-topped table and four chairs. The living room walls were hung with inexpensive framed prints from local museum exhibitions. A neat stack of sky-blue bath towels were piled on the futon sofa next to a white plastic basket of clean clothes. The apartment was neat as a pin. It was also empty.