“Oh?” I asked.
“The cute, young Miss Howard has a temper. She gets angry, you don’t know what she’s going to toss at you—her shoes, her dinner plate—I was lucky I just got a pillow in my face when I told her she couldn’t have her laptop.”
I had second thoughts as I deposited my purse on the shelf behind Drew (student-to-teacher privilege went only so far). I was now unarmed against an apparently all-too-possible assault by the prisoner.
One quick search of my person and one metal detector later I was walking down a dark, smelly hallway, wondering why I had given up my sunny morning to visit someone who might throw her chair at me.
I heard the prisoner before I saw her. Her voice pierced the damp walls of the corridor that led to the visiting area.
The nearest I could come to the exact words being shouted was, “That was her! That was her! Why doesn’t anyone believe me?” Then, “She’s the one, not me. Don’t let her get away.” These exclamations were punctuated with sounds of crashing, banging, and grunting. Except that Officer Lois was large and armed, I’d have turned back.
Officer Lois Rosen, whose thick face belied her sweet name, put her arm across my chest, hindering me from further travel down the hallway. I didn’t resist. We stood there for what seemed a life sentence until the clamor stopped.
We continued our journey and by the time my escort and I reached the small visiting room, Zoe had calmed down. I wondered if she’d had help from pharmaceuticals.
Zoe’s face, paler even than TV star Nan Browne’s, showed no signs of the temper tantrum that had assaulted my ears from a distance. She sat with her head in her hands at a small table. Officer Lois, who’d said nothing on our trip down the hallway, directed me to a chair opposite Zoe. She then took up a spot in a corner and folded her arms across her chest. I knew I would be discouraged from an outburst in the presence of such a force, and hoped Zoe would be also.
When she saw me, Zoe burst into tears, using the too-long sleeves of her green prison garb to absorb them.
“June said you’d come,” she wailed. She stood to reach out to me but the long arm of Officer Lois intervened. I could tell that Zoe wanted to throw herself into my arms, a measure of her desperateness, since we hardly knew each other. I wished I could accommodate her.
“I see any funny business, I’m over here quicker than you can say ‘gas chamber,’ ” Office Lois said.
I looked for a smile on the tall, unattractive police officer’s face, but saw none. Too old to have been my student (which was saying a lot), Lois looked like she’d come with the building. I felt very sorry for Zoe.
Unless, of course, she really was a murderer and/or was planning to whack me on the head as she’d done to at least one of her students.
With Officer Lois back against the wall, Zoe took deep breaths, her only visible struggle now adjusting the neck of her shirt, which was several sizes too big for her. “This is so horrible, Geraldine,” she said. “I didn’t do anything.”
I couldn’t bear to hit her immediately with “they have you on tape doing plenty.” “What do you think happened, Zoe?”
“Someone killed Brad—I just know it was his ex-wife—and they’re blaming me because we’ve been fighting lately.”
“Were the fights over his ex-wife?”
She nodded. “You know what? I hope they tape these visits because that woman, the one who just left here, threatened me.” Zoe’s voice rose with every word, causing Officer Lois to make slow movements toward us. Zoe looked in the corners of the room as if she were trying to spot a bug or a camera. “If I do get out on bail, she might really kill me.”
I must have heard wrong. The woman who just left? Was that what Zoe had been shouting about as I approached? “Your lawyer wants to kill you?” I asked, remembering the woman with the pointy chin who had given me the cold shoulder as she signed out.
“My lawyer? No, she claimed to be my lawyer because she knew I’d never have agreed to see her. That last visitor was Rhonda Edgerton—she still calls herself Rhonda Goodman.”
So much for my educated guess about running into a Lincoln Point lawyer whom I’d seen around the civic center. “That was Brad’s ex-wife? I thought she was in Chicago?”
“Well, she’s not.” Zoe’s voice rose a notch. “She was right here in the Lincoln Point lockup a minute ago and she threatened me outright, like, ‘I’ll kill you for what you did to my husband.’ I’m almost scared to leave here.” She buried her head in her hands for a moment, then jerked it up. “As if I could.”
“Wasn’t there an officer in the room at the time?”
“Yeah, but not this Amazon. And Rhonda kept a smile on her face the whole time she was whispering these threats to me. She’s a real piece of work. She writes letters and leaves messages on Brad’s phone saying, ‘From your loving wife, Rhonda.’ She calls me and tells me to leave her husband alone. She won’t take any money from selling the house they owned in Chicago because that would be acknowledging the divorce and she says they’re still married in the eyes of God. Brad had to get a special court paper, like some kind of a waiver for when people won’t sign what they’re supposed to.”
“And Brad is sympathetic toward her? Is that what you fought about?”
“Uh-huh. He was sympathetic toward her, and that’s why we fought.”
Too easy. I used my lie-detector training (that is, my experience searching the eyes of teenagers for twenty-seven years) and decided there was more to it.
I offered Zoe a much-needed tissue, then glanced over my shoulder, half expecting the one-woman SWAT team to come down on us, but Officer Lois kept a silent vigil.
It was time for a test. “June says you were with her all night.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If I remember correctly, you and June had some project you were doing together for work that night. Updating some software manual?”
“That’s right. We were doing a software project.”
I was sorry to hear this. Zoe flunked my test. I took a long breath and said good-bye to her alibi. While June had rehearsed “watching a bunch of Sex and the City reruns,” she’d neglected to train Zoe to stick to the story. I supposed it said something that Zoe wasn’t so hardened a criminal that she knew how to keep an alibi straight.
“Zoe, there are video surveillance tapes that show you in the building, destroying paintings. Didn’t the police tell you that?”
She sank back in the hard metal chair. I barely heard her “yes.” Then, “They’re doctored. They can do anything these days.” She banged on the table. I flinched, not too noticeably, I hoped. “Hey, I can do anything if you give me a tape and some decent software.”
I didn’t doubt that, but I did doubt that’s what had happened here.
“Think for a minute, Zoe. I’d like to help you, but I can’t if you don’t tell me the truth.”
I could hardly believe my ears. Where did I get the nerve to imply that I would be able to do something for her, if only she didn’t lie to me? Was I a cop now? Apparently I thought so, because I then used a trick I learned from Skip, from one of his many dinner-table anecdotes about interview techniques.
“I am telling you the truth.”
I stood up and straightened my coat sweater, preparing to leave. “Okay, then, I guess we don’t have anything more to talk about.”
Zoe looked panicked. “Wait, wait. Don’t go, Geraldine.” She got up, nearly tripping over the hems of her ugly green pants. Officer Lois was on her in a flash, pushed her back down onto the chair, and returned to her corner, looking confident that she’d made her point.
I hoped Zoe didn’t notice the look of amazement on my face (the mark of an amateur) that my little device worked.
“Yes?” My sternest “are-you-ready-to-tell-the-truth?” yes. A yes that had taken down many a freshman at Abraham Lincoln High School.
“I was mad, okay. And I wanted to talk some sense into him. So I went to the work area but he wasn’t the
re. I swear. Why would I cut up his paintings? Why would I kill Brad? I loved him and I wanted him back.”
“Back?”
“I just felt he was slipping away from me.”
“What made you think that?”
“Nothing. Just a feeling.”
I doubted it, but I took my seat again. Officer Lois coughed as I reached across to take Zoe’s hands. I pulled back, just in case.
“Tell me what happened that night.”
“I went to the building, okay? I’d gotten yet another phone call from Rhonda that afternoon telling me to back off or she’d make sure I never stole anyone else’s husband. I wanted to have it out with Brad. He needed to take a stand and tell her to stop or she never would. He wasn’t answering his cell, so I drove over.”
Zoe wet her lips. I wished I could at least get her a bottled water, but I was sure that wasn’t allowed. Neither Drew nor Officer Lois had told me how long I’d be able to stay and I wanted to make the most of the time, so I filled in while she worked her jaw. “So you went to Rutledge Center to confront him?”
Zoe nodded. “I figured he was working late as usual and had shut off his cell. But I couldn’t get in through the door to the artists’ work area, so I drove around and finally saw the janitor come out the door to the TV studio. He propped the door open, so I sneaked in while he was emptying the trash.”
“So you walked inside the complex from the television studio to the work area? I didn’t think they were connected.”
She hesitated, then went on. “Yeah, they are if you know your way around. Brad wasn’t there, though. He wasn’t anywhere in the center that I could see, so I left.”
“You just turned around and left.”
“Yeah, I swear.”
“And what time was this?”
“About ten o’clock. I think.”
I couldn’t blame Zoe for her halting speech. Not only had she confessed to breaking and entering, but the small visiting room was suffocating. The walls seemed to oscillate, an optical illusion spawned by the lack of any decoration to break up their grayness. And Officer Lois seemed to grow fatter, until she became like a party balloon cop.
I gave Zoe a minute. I needed one myself, as I worked on the timeline and spatial relations in the artists’ work area. If Zoe wandered around the area looking for Brad but didn’t go near where the paintings were stacked, she wouldn’t have been caught on camera at ten o’clock. “You didn’t see his paintings and you didn’t slash them.”
“No, I swear. Sure, I was miffed, but I didn’t do anything about it, Gerry. I’m not that kind of person.”
There were rumors to the contrary, but I didn’t mention them.
“How do you account for the video that shows you cutting up Brad’s paintings?”
“I don’t know. They won’t even let me see it. Isn’t that illegal?”
“Probably they’ll let you see it once you have a lawyer.”
Zoe’s head was on the table by now. I didn’t think it was a great idea for her to have her skin make contact with the ugly stains, but that was the least of her worries.
I put my hand on her head, Officer Lois notwithstanding. “It’s okay,” I said, clueless about what that meant.
She looked at me, eyes teary and pleading. “I didn’t kill him, Geraldine. I never laid eyes on him that night. And now he’s gone and the last time I saw him, we fought.”
I was sure it was a terrible state, to have an argument with a loved one be your last encounter. But I had an uneasy feeling about a couple of things Zoe said. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what, but I felt sure she was still holding back. On the whole, though, I did believe she wasn’t a murderer.
In a way I wished I didn’t believe her. Then I could tell June I’d kept my promise. I’d explain how I’d visited Zoe and that I’d be around if June wanted me to bake cookies for her friend, but that would be it. Instead, I felt compelled to help Zoe get out of this dismal place. I also felt helpless to accomplish it.
“I’m sorry I was so hard on you,” I said.
“It’s okay. That was nothing compared to my last visitor. Isn’t there anything you can do, Geraldine?”
I can bake cookies. “Don’t worry, Zoe. I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”
By the time I left the room I could see that Zoe’s spirits were lifted.
Mine, on the other hand, had sunk.
I had a favor to ask Drew Blackstone to whom, I was sure, I’d given a high grade for his Dante paper.
“I was wondering if you could tell me the name of Zoe Howard’s last visitor?” I asked him as he retrieved my purse from a rusty metal rack behind him.
I wasn’t surprised that a head scratch preceded his answer. “Why not, Mrs. Porter? It’s not a state secret or anything.” Drew turned the logbook so I could read it. Maybe he thought he was keeping the letter of the law. This way, no one could accuse him of telling me out loud who the visitor was.
I read the elaborate signature: Rita E. Gold.
“Do you look at IDs of visitors?” I asked Drew.
“Yup. ’Course, not if I know them for sure, like you. Something wrong, Mrs. Porter?”
“No, just curious. I thought I recognized her from the high school, but the name is different. I guess my eyes are failing.”
“I don’t think you would have had her in class. The lady showed me an Arizona license. I remember because it had those pretty red mesas in the background. I wish California had something special like that, don’t you?”
“I sure do.” Probably Drew was thinking of something different from what I had in mind: a row of San Francisco “Painted Lady” dollhouses, representing its Victorian houses.
I came back to Rita Gold. So much for Zoe’s screaming that Rhonda had visited her. I knew it wasn’t impossible to get fake IDs, but why would Rhonda bother? She wasn’t wanted for a crime and she had every right to visit California.
“Anything else, Mrs. Porter?”
“Not right now, Drew.” I turned the book back to face him and gave him a wide smile and a nod. A verbal “thank you” would have been acknowledging that he might have broken a rule for his old teacher.
Not five minutes later, on the way to my car, I realized why the nonlawyer, Rita E. Gold, looked familiar.
I retraced my steps and walked back toward the complex of buildings. The parking lot still had many Lincolns and Douglases, headed to or away from city hall, which stood at the center of Civic Drive. As I walked back toward the police building, I heard evidence of their rehearsing.
From a would-be Stephen Douglas, under his breath: “That I am not now nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.” I had a new understanding of the plight of actors who had to deliver an opinion with great passion, whether they believed it or not, even if they might find that sentiment odious in their real-life personas.
A Lincoln candidate had a better deal. A tall young man passed me, seeming unaware of my presence, delivering his lines to an imaginary audience: “I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence.”
Much better.
This time I entered the police department by the front steps and headed for Skip’s cubicle, toward the back of the great room. I tried to keep Rita E. Gold’s face at the front of my mind.
I could only hope that my nephew the cop would be as obliging as my former student the cop.
Chapter 10
I caught Skip in a typical pose, with his feet up on his desk, eating a thick sandwich.
“Hey, Aunt Gerry. What a surprise,” he said. Before I could respond, he added, in a deeper voice, “Not.”
A couple of years ago I might have been confused by this grammatical construction, but I’d gotten good at interpr
eting the shorthand of the next generation. “Can’t a loving aunt stop by and visit her nephew with no ulterior motive?”
“Not,” Skip repeated. A multipurpose word. He brought his chair forward and brushed crumbs off his lap.
I took a seat in his extra chair. “Nice weather,” I said. Not that anyone could tell in the windowless cubicle.
“I figure you’re here either to check up on how June and I are doing, or you want some inside info on the Goodman case so you can spring his girlfriend.”
What could I say? My nephew wasn’t the youngest homicide detective in Lincoln Point because he was a dullard. “Let’s get to it, then, starting with how are you and June doing? I see you still have her photos on your walls.”
“Walls” in this sense meant the fabric partitions between Skip’s cubicle and surrounding ones. I’d seen pictures of what the interior of the building looked like when it was first built. This first floor was one great hall with a marble floor, ornate paneled walls, and rows of heavy oak furniture. The décor had been compromised by the need to accommodate a modicum of privacy for the members of today’s much larger police force. With my miniaturist’s eye, I imagined someone lifting the roof off the building and inserting a grid of panels like the kind that separated glasses or mugs in a packing box, except that these were orange-and-blue nappy fabric instead of white cardboard. At least, that’s how I would do it, if I were constructing a model.
I noticed a new photo of June and Skip on his bulletin board, both in hiking clothes, on their recent weekend trip to Lake Tahoe. I was thankful for small favors—at least neither of them had slashed the image. Trying to live up to my protest that I was here merely for a visit, I reached over to finger a black bow tie hanging from a pushpin and gave Skip a questioning, interested look.
“From the Mary Todd Ball in December?” I asked.
“Guess I don’t clean that board up as often as I should.”
Since we were reviewing Skip’s world, I pointed to a postcard next to the tie, with a picture of a line of hula dancers. “We can’t say your mom doesn’t keep in touch,” I said.
Malice in Miniature Page 11
