Fatal

by John Lescroart

  “They weren’t alleged women, Beth. They were real women who were Peter’s alleged lovers.”

  “Spare me that unclear antecedent bullshit, Ike. You know what I meant. But Theresa says that didn’t happen—he wasn’t sleeping around. She was positive. Defensive, even, on the general topic of Peter’s connections with other women.”

  Ike was silent for a couple of seconds before saying, “Peter lied to Theresa.”

  “Or,” Beth said, “it was what she wanted to believe and never asked. One of those two or she was lying to me. I take door number one.”

  “Me, too. So why would he conceal messing around with other women?”

  “Because he and Theresa were having an affair, and he wanted her to believe that she was the only one. Which she dutifully does believe. Right up until last Monday night when she finds out that she’s actually not his one true love, but one of many, and it gives her all the motive we could want for her to shoot him. So I’m thinking you might have nailed it, Ike.”

  “It’s a modest talent,” Ike said. “How was she otherwise? Emotionally.”

  “A wreck.”

  “Because she loved him.”

  “That’s how I read it, too. This is not your average mourning over a dead boss, even if he was the best boss there’s ever been. She’s devastated.”

  “So what was she doing Monday night?”

  “I didn’t ask her. Not yet. I didn’t want to spook her because I’m still hoping she’ll pull those phone records for us. Whipping out the tape recorder was bad enough. So maybe next time. But let’s remember it’s not definitely Monday night, either. Could have been Tuesday morning, maybe Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, though, a couple of other things did come up.”

  “They must be good if they beat Theresa.”

  “They are. At least a tie, anyway.”

  “So hit me.”

  She did, starting with the most provocative: Geoff Cooke, Peter Ash’s best friend, owned a boat berthed at the marina that the two men frequently used; also, sometime between 4:30 and when he got shot, Peter Ash had changed out of his business suit and into the casual clothes he’d been wearing when they’d found him under the Cliff House—the most obvious conclusion from that being that he went home, although of course he could have gone to another place—Theresa’s apartment?—and changed there. Did he meet a sexual partner at whatever location he chose? Did he, in fact, have a sexual partner on Monday night?

  When she finished, Ike said, “You’ve had a productive morning.”

  “I’m not done yet.”

  “No,” Ike said. “I figured you weren’t.”

  20

  AT PETER ASH’S APARTMENT BUILDING on Grove Street, Beth went with the tried and true shortcut approach and pressed all six buttons under the mailboxes in the outside entryway. After about ten seconds, even though it was long after the waking hour for most people, a sleepy male voice came over the crackly speaker.

  “Yeah?”

  She identified herself as a cop, and without any more ado, he buzzed her in.

  She couldn’t help thinking: What if she was not a cop but rather a mass murderer armed to the teeth? Or a terrorist?

  Sure, don’t bother looking first, she thought. Don’t check any IDs, just buzz whoever it is right in.

  The trusting nature of human beings still blew her mind. But she pushed at the door, opening it, and was still holding the knob when another voice, this time female, came through the speaker. “Who is it?”

  “San Francisco Police with a few questions about Peter Ash.”

  “Just a second,” the voice said. “I’ll be right down.”

  No buzz this time, which was marginally better, Beth thought as she heard the footsteps descending the stairs. But still relatively stupid.

  She didn’t remember if she’d thought this way before the Ferry Building attack.

  A young African American woman bounced down the last few steps into the lobby and stopped, frowning. “How’d you get in already?”

  “One of your neighbors buzzed me first. But thanks for coming down.”

  “Jesus,” she said. “That was Ned, I bet. He’s up in six and doesn’t want to come all the way down, so all you need to do is ring his doorbell and it’s open sesame. Are you really with the police?”

  With a small smile, Beth said, “I am.” She held up her ID. “I’m investigating the death of Peter Ash. Did you know him?”

  “Sure. From around the building.”

  Beth reached into her breast pocket and flicked on her tape recorder. “Can I ask your name, please?”

  “Holly. Conley.” She spelled it out.

  Holly was both short of stature and slight of build. Medium-length dreadlocks. No makeup because her pretty face didn’t need it. She was wearing blue yoga pants, a tan fisherman’s sweater, and hiking boots. “I’m in three,” she continued, pointing vaguely behind her at the stairs. “Up one flight right across from Peter. I couldn’t believe when I heard about what happened. None of us could.”

  “It’s pretty much always a shock, someone getting killed.”

  “I mean, it makes you think . . . it could be you, me, anybody. And anywhere. He’s here one day and next thing you know, he’s gone.”

  “That’s often how it happens. Do you remember the last time you saw him?”

  “I think last weekend. I know he was around. He kept some pretty flexible hours. But Sunday morning, he was coming in when I was going out. We said hi on our landing.”

  “How about Monday?”

  After a beat, she shook her head. “I’ve got a full day of classes on Mondays and then a bio lab from six to however late it goes. I didn’t get back here ’til eleven and then I crashed.”

  “And you haven’t seen him since then?”

  “I don’t think so.” She considered another moment. “I’d have to say no.”

  “You didn’t hear him go out on Tuesday or Wednesday morning?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  Beth shrugged. “If you didn’t see him, you didn’t . . .”

  More footsteps on the stairway stopped her. A young man with long, blond, disheveled hair, barefoot in shorts and a ragged Bob Marley t-shirt, jumped down the last couple of steps to join them in the cramped vestibule. “Hey! Everything cool here? You good, Holls?”

  “Fine, Ned. Peachy. But you buzz people in, you might want to see if they’re who they say they are next time. Or every time even. Haven’t we talked about this before?”

  “Yeah, okay.” Ned pouted, but the expression didn’t hold. “But hey, I’m here now. And she rang me. I thought she’d be coming up to my place.” He pointed at Beth. “You are the cop, right?”

  With a tolerant look, she held up her ID. “That’s me.”

  Point made, Ned said, “There you go.”

  “She rang me, too,” Holly said.

  “I rang everybody,” Beth confessed. “And Holly’s right, you know, that probably the smarter thing would be to come down and check out who’s ringing your bell, Ned. I could have been anybody out there.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t live with all that paranoia. Life’s too short. Anybody wants to get inside bad enough, they can just kick the door in anyway, or blast it open. I’m not going to worry about it.”

  “You would if you weren’t a guy,” Holly said.

  Ned gave the two women a flat stare. “Okay. I get it. No more free buzzes. Scout’s honor. Meanwhile, how about we move along? This has got to be about Peter, huh? Poor guy.”

  Beth nodded. “We’ve been trying to get a handle on where he was Monday night. Specifically if anybody had seen him after he got home from work.”

  “Monday night?” Ned took another second, then nodded in certainty. “He was here.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. Positive.”

  “On Monday?” Beth repeated.

  “Unless they had Monday Night Football on another night.”

  “What? Did he watch
that with you?”

  “No. But he . . . he was around.”

  Suddenly, Beth recalled the first woman who lived here, whom she and Ike had talked to out on the sidewalk. Beth said, “He bought you beer for the game.”

  “I don’t want to get him in trouble,” Ned said. “Or anybody.”

  “Peter’s pretty well beyond trouble like that, Ned. And I’m a homicide cop. How people get their alcohol isn’t my concern. So you’re saying that Peter bought you beer on Monday before the game?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know what time this was?”

  “Not really. Exactly, anyway. Five thirty, six, somewhere in there.”

  “Right after he got home from work?”

  “I don’t know where he was coming from. Maybe. I was listening for him to come in because we needed the brew and he was usually good for it.”

  “Okay, so when you saw him, was he wearing a business suit?”

  Ned closed his eyes, gave it a second, then opened them. “Yeah,” he said.

  “So . . . did he watch the game with you?”

  “No. He didn’t even have a beer with us.”

  “Was that unusual, I mean when he bought you beer?”

  “Sometimes,” Ned said. “He’d stay around or not. There wasn’t any usual.”

  “But that night he didn’t?”

  “Right.”

  “And did you see him after that? I mean that night?”

  Ned flashed a quick, disappearing, somewhat embarrassed grin. “Uh . . . no. Not really.”

  “What does ‘not really’ mean, Ned?” Beth asked with some exasperation. “It’s a yes-or-no question. Did you see him later or not?”

  “Not see him. No. But you know, I’m right above him.”

  “You heard him.”

  Ned nodded. “Everybody heard him. And he was having a better time than we were.”

  “He had someone with him?”

  “Mos def.”

  “A woman?”

  “Sounded like that.”

  “Do you know who she was?”

  “No. I never saw. But from the sound of it, it was pretty obviously what it was.”

  Beth hesitated. Then, “How many people were watching the game with you?”

  “Four other guys.”

  “Did any of them leave your apartment during the game, or maybe see Peter and whoever was with him when they were coming in? Did anybody say anything about it?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to want all their names.”

  Ned hesitated. “Umm.”

  “Relax, Ned. No one’s in any trouble here. I just want to ask if they saw or heard anything that can help. And while I’m at it,” Beth went on, “would either of you be able to get me the contact information on your landlord? I’m going to want to have a look at Peter’s apartment, see if it tells me anything.”

  Holly said, “They’re just down the street, on the next corner. I can give you their phone number.”

  “Thank you.” She came back to Ned. “Meanwhile, those names? Your guests for football?”

  “I don’t know about last names, but I’ve got all their emails.”

  * * *

  Carol Lukins was about Beth’s age and about her size—five foot six, a hundred and thirty pounds. Even dressed heavily against the cold—fleece and sweater, a woolen skirt, black leggings—she could not camouflage the likelihood that she kept to an exercise regimen. Her long hair, in a French braid, was pure white; her eyes a pale green flecked with yellow; the face was a bit overlong, reminiscent of a Modigliani model. The general effect was an aggressive, even harsh, beauty.

  She’d come down within five minutes of answering Beth’s call to her, and now, the key in her hand, she paused in front of the door to Peter’s apartment, number 4. “I have to tell you that I’m not comfortable doing this. It feels like I’m intruding on him.”

  “Look,” Beth said, “I don’t mean to be heavy-handed, but you’ve seen the search warrant. If you don’t open the door, I’ll just get somebody to force it open. You don’t have any choice in this, if it’s any help.”

  “I’m not sure it is. Any help, I mean.” In spite of the physical strength she seemed to exude, the landlady carried herself with a tentative air, as though something—the presence of the police?—spooked her. “Well,” she said to herself. With an almost palpable act of will, she huffed out a breath, inserted the key, and pushed at the door.

  After the dimness of the second-floor landing, the apartment itself seemed to bask in brightness. Beth poked her head into the kitchen, the first door off the hallway on the right. Another step or two down the short hall, and directly in front of the women, two large windows in the far wall let the early afternoon light into the spacious living room. On their left, in the bedroom, more light cascaded from three more windows. The double bed wasn’t formally made but did have its sheets and blankets pulled up, its two pillows unfluffed and piled against the headboard.

  Beth took a couple of steps into the room and stopped. Behind her, Carol said, “I’m sorry, but suddenly I’m not feeling very good. Do you mind if I wait outside?”

  Turning around, Beth saw that her already pale face had gone bloodless.

  “No, that’s fine,” she began. “Are you sure you . . . ?”

  As Beth watched, Carol’s eyes abruptly turned upward and almost before Beth knew what was happening, she found herself lunging across the space between them. She caught Carol under both arms as the landlady’s legs went out from under her. The weight of her as she went limp was too much for Beth’s own not-yet-full-strength legs, and both women fell to the floor.

  A moment later, Beth had gotten out from under her and propped her up against the wall. Carol had already opened her eyes, but they didn’t seem to be focused yet. Beth gently slapped the side of her face a few times, then left her, ran back into the kitchen, took a glass from the cupboard, and filled it with water. She also checked to make sure that her tape recorder was functioning and turned on.

  Getting back out into the hall, kneeling in front of the other woman, Beth met Carol’s eyes and saw that consciousness had returned. “Carol?”

  “What happened?”

  “You fainted.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She closed her eyes, let out a deep breath. “I’ve never fainted before. I don’t remember.”

  “That’s all right. Nothing to be sorry about.”

  “How did I get down here? Did I really fall?”

  “Yes, but I caught you, so no bruises or bumps on the head, which is the big thing you want to avoid.”

  “Thank you. But I don’t . . .” She started to push against the floor to get up.

  A hand on her shoulder, Beth held her back. “Let’s wait a sec, okay? Have a sip of this.” She handed her the glass.

  Lifting the water tentatively to her lips, Carol took a tiny drink, closed her eyes again, then opened them. “Wow,” she said in a wondering tone. “I really fainted?”

  “You really fainted.”

  “I still feel pretty light-headed.”

  “Right. That’s to be expected. You’re probably going to be unstable for a little while. Just sit back. Give it a minute.”

  She followed orders, taking another sip of the water, bringing her eyes back to Beth and then taking in the surroundings. She brought a hand up to her face. “Oh my God,” she said.

  “What?”

  She shook her head, took a long beat. “Nothing, I guess.”

  “That’s not a real enthusiastic ‘nothing,’ Carol. If you don’t mind my saying, it sounds more like a ‘something.’ ”

  She closed her eyes again.

  “Carol?”

  She opened her eyes, looked straight at Beth. “I don’t know what happened right then. Why I fainted. It’s just so surprising. That’s all.”

  “Okay.” Beth, down on one knee, leaned back and folded her arms over the other one. “You just had an unexpected emotional re
action. It’s not unusual. Did you know Peter well?”

  “No.” She cast a quick glance behind Beth, as though someone else might have been back there, listening. “I barely knew him at all.”

  “Really?”

  “Why do you ask that? Of course, really. Did somebody say I did?”

  “No. I was just asking.”

  “Well, I didn’t. Know him too well, I mean. He was just another tenant.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t you believe me?”

  “Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because I fainted.”

  “Maybe, if it seems slightly hard to believe that you didn’t have any feelings for him, that’s the reason for it,” Beth said in mild agreement. “People don’t usually faint for no reason. Maybe it’s just that you walked into this apartment with me a minute ago and suddenly, obviously, something upset you enough to make you faint.”

  “I just wasn’t expecting . . . I mean, he . . .” She threw Beth a glance, perhaps hopeful that she’d provide an answer for her.

  She didn’t. Instead, she said, “He’s dead.”

  Carol caught a breath in hesitation. Then, “Yes.”

  “Just the shock of realizing that he was walking around these rooms a week ago and now he’s gone. That could be terribly upsetting.”

  Carol nodded. “It is. I’m sure that’s what it was.”

  “Do you remember the last time you saw him?”

  “I don’t know why I would. He was basically just another tenant, that’s all. Maybe in the coming and going, sometime. But it doesn’t stand out.”

  “So. He was nothing special?”

  That characterization seemed to frustrate her. “No,” she said. “Not exactly that. He definitively had something more going on, this kind of vibe. Everybody would tell you he could be charming.”

  “That seems to be the consensus.”

  “I mean, of all the people—my tenants here—he was just so much more alive. So to come in here and realize that . . . that he’s just gone . . .”

  “He’s not just gone, Carol. Somebody murdered him. That’s why I asked when you’d seen him last. Ned, upstairs, told me he saw him early Monday evening—Peter bought him beer for the football game—but if anybody had seen him later than that, it might be super helpful. You’re sure you didn’t run into him or see him leaving the apartment or anything like that? This is just last Monday we’re talking about.”