Pennines on a Dead Woman's Eyes

by Marcia Muller

  I realized he hadn’t heard a word of Adah’s and my conversation. “Stameroff, you mean?”

  He nodded.

  I glanced at Hank, who was wolfing down the last of his stew and greedily eyeing my untouched portion. “Bart, isn’t it time you explained the history between Stameroff and you?”

  He was silent, hands cupped around his glass.

  Hank now wore an expression worthy of a Famine Relief Fund poster boy. I sighed and traded my bowl for his empty one.

  Wallace echoed my sigh. “Story time, huh?” he said. “Do you think I should start it with ‘once upon a time.’ Once upon a time I had an older brother—Burton. Burt and Bart. Cute.” His tone was laced with bitterness.

  I waited.

  “Burt was in private security. He and another guy had their own firm. In ‘sixty-seven they got a contract to provide security for a rock festival at a big arena. Riot broke out, Burt was killed. Plenty of witnesses saw the kids who were responsible. I was only a rookie at the time, but Homicide let me review the file; plenty of evidence. But when the file went over to the D.A.’s office, they declined to prosecute.”

  Wallace raised his glass, took sip. “Lack of evidence, they said. Bullshit. What it was was our D.A. making a deal. One of the kids’ fathers was a big honcho in the aerospace industry down the Peninsula. Few months after that, Stameroff bought the house in Presidio Heights.”

  He was silent for a moment, then added, “One thing it did, it made me the cop I am today. Before Burt died, I was thinking of leaving the department, joining his firm. Afterward I decided to be the best damn cop I could, build cases that couldn’t be dismissed for lack of evidence. And I swore that one day I’d bring Stameroff down. Watching him in that courtroom this morning, though, I realized it’ll never happen.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said. “Stameroff looks good only because the defense hasn’t presented its case.”

  Wallace shrugged, drank some more. I knew he didn’t believe me. I wasn’t sure I believed me, either.

  “Sharon?” Joslyn stood by the table.

  I moved my chair to let her by. “Did you reach anybody?”

  She nodded. “You were right—the geezer in Cedar Rapids is Roger Woods. He’s been in a nursing home for a couple of years now, but I spoke with his wife. She didn’t sound too upset about Melissa, and she wouldn’t say much about Roger.”

  “Did you ask her why his FBI file is classified?”

  “She claims she didn’t know he had one.”

  “What about the rumor that he died on the Seattle docks in the fifties?”

  “That surprised her. And when I mentioned the possibility of a connection with the American Communist Party, she damn near threw a fit. Said they’ve always been ‘decent Republicans’ like everybody else around there.”

  “Interesting.” All sorts of odd twists there, and none that I could reconcile with what people had told me about the man.

  I glanced at my watch: approaching one-thirty, no time to think this through. “Thanks for checking, Adah,” I said. “I’ll keep you posted.” Then I hurried back to City Hall, sticking Hank with the tab for the buffalo stew he’d so cleverly made off with.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Nell Loomis sounded harried when I called her from one of the fourth-floor phone booths at City Hall. The artichoke-heart shots, she said, were all screwed up, and she hadn’t gotten to my prints yet, much less searched the files in the loft. When I pressed her, she promised to start on it within the hour. After all, she needed the money. I said I’d call back at three.

  The news from Cathy Potter was better. Keyes Development had gone for my proposal. “You were right about them thinking the publicity might attract a buyer,” Cathy added. “And I just hope I’m the one who brings him through.”

  I told her I’d get back with her later to finalize the details, and left her to dreams of an enormous commission. Then I hurried to the court room.

  Judy was on the stand again, and Jack was beginning his cross-examination. It went well. During the lunch recess both had recovered their customary poise, and from the smoothness of their performances, I assumed they’d rehearsed, in spit of frequent objections from Stameroff. Jack managed to establish reasonable doubt on several points of her direct testimony—points that the justice wasn’t able to undermine in redirect.

  Stameroff approached the actress playing Louise Wingfield, routinely leading her through testimony that was almost identical to that in the trial transcript. Jack’s questions on cross deviated markedly from those of Lis Benedict’s inept public defender.

  “The note summoning Cordelia McKittridge to the Institute’s Seacliff estate arrived when, Ms. Wingfield?”

  “June twenty-first, the day before the murder.”

  “And where did it arrive?”

  “At an apartment in North Beach that Cordy and I shared with several other women.” The actress gave the address.

  Stameroff looked up, his mouth tightening; it was obvious he knew about the apartment and didn’t like this line of questioning one bit.

  “Was this apartment a full-time residence of Ms. McKittridge?” Jack asked.

  “Objection. The question pertains to matters not covered—”

  “Your honor, the door to this line of inquiry has been opened by the prosecution. We will demonstrate relevancy.”

  “Overruled.”

  “Ms. Winfield?”

  The actress explained about the apartment and described the kind of activities that went on there. Voices murmured, and Judge Valle called for order.

  “So various men were frequent visitors at the apartment?” Jack asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Vincent Benedict?”

  “Yes.”

  “Leonard Eyestone, son of the Institute’s director?”

  “Yes.”

  I glanced at Eyestone, who sat in the fifth row. His face was unperturbed.

  “Did anyone else connected with the Institute for North American Studies visit there frequently?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “Let’s get back to the day the note arrived, Ms. Wingfield. Was there anyone at the apartment besides you and Ms. McKittridge?”

  “Melissa Cardinal was there. She saw the note.”

  “Was it your impression that she knew it was from Vincent Benedict?”

  “Objection. Calls for a conclusion from the witness.”

  “Sustained.”

  “Let me put it this way, Ms. Wingfield: Had Melissa Cardinal ever mentioned Vincent Benedict’s notes to you?”

  “Yes. She said—”

  “Objection. Hearsay.”

  “Sustained.”

  Smoothly Jack switched to another tack. “Now, Ms. Wingfield, you stated on direct examination that you knew the note was from Vincent Benedict because you recognized his handwriting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a friend of Mr. Benedict? Have you had occasion to received notes from him?”

  “Objection!”

  “I’ll allow it. Witness is directed to answer.”

  “I was a friend of Mr. Benedict.”

  “And you have received notes from him?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “For what reason.”

  The actress, one of several who frequently appeared before the Tribunal, did a stagy impression of a witness in distress. She wrung her hands, wet her lips, looked for a way out. Too many reruns of “Perry Mason,” I thought.

  “For what reason, Ms. Wingfield.”

  “To set up . . . assignations.”

  Jack drew back, feigning shock. We’d have to curtail his late night TV viewing, too. “Ms. Winfield,” he said, “are you admitting to having had an affair with Vincent Benedict?”

  The little ham hung her head, then told her—Louise’s—sorry tale. It made me glad that Wingfield wasn’t there to see her reputation soiled in such a careless way, no matter how little she claimed reputations mattered. Bu
t by the time the witness was dismissed, Jack had installed more doubt in the minds of the jurors.

  Stameroff had sunk into a moody silence during the latter part of the testimony, scarcely objecting to all, and then only in a routine fashion. When he called the man acting the part of Leonard Eyestone, however, he became more alert. I glanced back at the real Eyestone, saw he was leaning forward in his seat, interested and vaguely amused.

  During the direct examination, Stameroff tried to skirt any opening that would allow Jack to ask about Eyestone’s personal relationship with the murdered women. Nonetheless, Jack found a small one, and by the time he was through cross-examination, Eyestone looked as bad as Wingfield. In addition to bringing out the director’s affair with Cordy and the fact that he’d paid for her to abort the child, Jack also planted in the jurors’ minds the idea that it would have been impossible to account for the presence of every person attending the Dulles banquet and reception at all times during the evening. Stameroff, I thought, must be growing tired to have allowed that.

  When Jack returned to the defense table, I leaned over the rail and said, “It’s all set for tonight. We just need to give Keyes Development’s security people a time.”

  “Good. Stameroff’s going to rest his case after testimony from the gardener—which I’m going to demolish with what you culled from the police report. I’ll have time to make my opening statement and my motion to view the crime scene.”

  “I’m sorry I’ll have to miss that, but I’ve got to leave now.” I handed him Cathy Potter’s business card. “Have Wald firm up the arrangements with her, will you? I’ll check in later.”

  As I hurried up the aisle, my gaze rested on Leonard Eyestone. He was staring at me, his eyes cold and analytical. I nodded, but he turned to the front of the courtroom. Finally, I thought, the mock trial had ceased to amuse him.

  From one of the pay phones by the elevators, I called Nell Loomis. It took her a long time to answer. Things, she said, were ‘coming along,’ but maybe I’d better not stop by until six, after her Fedex went off.

  “Did you check the files yet?”

  “That much I managed. There’s nothing, just order sheets with the number and size blanks filled him.”

  “What about my prints?”

  “Come by after six, okay?”

  I said I would, trying to keep annoyance out of my voice.

  Next I tried to reach Louise Wingfield at the various numbers for her foundation that were listed on her business card, but got only machines. Her home number turned out to be unlisted, so I left City Hall and headed for Russian Hill.

  Wingfield came to the door of her condominium looking haggard and smelling of gin. She admitted me silently, saying, “Thanks for setting the police after me last night.”

  “I had no choice. Can we talk?”

  She shrugged and led me to a living room full of good but well-used furniture that no decorator’s hand had touched. Without asking my preference, she set a martini in front of me, lit a cigarette and propped her Reebok-shod feet on the coffee table, and took a deep drink from her own cocktail glass.

  “I don’t usually drink this heavily or this early,” she said defensively, “but after last night everything came crashing down on me, and I’m badly in need.”

  “Everything?”

  “My whole rotten miserable past. I hadn’t realized what a hypocrite I am.”

  “In what ways?”

  She shrugged again, moodily sipped her drink.

  I took the photographs of her and Roger Woods from my bag and pushed it across the table. “Do you remember when this was taken?”

  She picked it up and studied it intently. “This must have been at one of the Insititue’s cocktail parties. Cordy was still with Leonard, I see, so it would have been when I was with—”

  I waited. When she didn’t go on, I said, “When you were with Vincent Benedict.”

  Her chin dipped in confrontation. She placed the picture on the table. “God, I hate to remember how foolish I was.”

  “Where does the man in this photo fit into things?”

  “He was just someone Cordy fixed me up with. A friend of Leonard. I don’t recall his name.”

  “Did Cordy do that often—fix you up?”

  “Now and then. I’m beginning to remember that evening.” She gestured at the photo. “Leonard has asked Cordy to get the fellow a date so he could attend the party without seeming like a third wheel. I had the impression he was looking to make contacts there, perhaps get on staff. He must have been, because he spent the entire evening wandering around meeting people and dropping in on their conversations. That picture was snapped at one of the few times we were actually together. I didn’t care: I’d only gone to be perverse.”

  “Why?”

  “Vincent and I had quarreled that afternoon. I wanted to go to the party and dangle myself in front of him, make him sorry he had to be with his wife instead of me. Or so I thought.” Her mouth twisted bitterly and she lit a second cigarette off the butt of the first.

  “Was he sorry?”

  “No. He was polite and distant. They both were, he and Lis. It was that night that I realized things weren’t . . . that he would never leave Lis for me.”

  “Are you sure you don’t remember your date’s name?”

  She picked up the photograph again and scrutinized the man’s face. “Sorry, no.”

  “Could it have been Roger Woods?”

  “Didn’t you ask me about that name before? Well, maybe it was Roger Woods. That was so very long ago.”

  “But he was Leonard’s friend?”

  “That’s what Cordy said when she fixed us up. But I don’t know—they didn’t act all that friendly.”

  “Was he a friend of Melissa’s by any chance?”

  “Well, when he came by the flat he seemed to know her. By the way, have they found out who killed her?”

  “Not yet. I think this picture may have something to do with her murder; it was hidden in her apartment. Can you think of any reason she’d have had it?”

  “No, I can’t. To my knowledge, Melissa never went to the Institute. I can’t imagine where she would have gotten this, unless she took it from the things Cordy kept at the apartment. Cordy was fond of keeping pictures as souvenirs.” Again Wingfield studied the photo, as if its time-frozen figures could give her an answer.

  “Can you pinpoint exactly when this was taken?” I asked.

  “Well, in the spring of ‘fifty-five, before Cordy took . . . before it ended with Vincent and me.”

  “Did you see the man again?”

  “Never.” She drained her glass and went to a bar cart for the martini pitcher. After she poured for herself, she glanced at my glass, saw it was still full, and set the pitcher down.

  I said, “Let’s talk about Rick Chavez now.”

  “I already told the police—”

  “I know what you told them, but there may be something they didn’t think to ask. Chavez was one of your clients?”

  “Yes, and not a particularly promising one. I liked him, though; he’d had a rough time—family problems and a girlfriend who died of an overdose—and would often come to me just to talk.”

  “Did you place him in a job?”

  “I sent him through our general maintenance—janitorial—training program; it’s run out of our Potrero Hill center. He was placed in a couple of positions; the first didn’t work out.”

  “But the second did?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe not. That might have been why he came by the day you were there. I hadn’t seen him in quite a while.”

  Or he might have come by, I thought, because he had a bigger problem than losing his job. He might have been worried about how much trouble he’d gotten into by taking money to harass an old woman. “Is there some way you can find out today if he was working, and for whom?”

  “I could go to the Potrero Hill center and check the files, I suppose.”

  “Would you?
It’s important.”

  “Then I will. I can have the information for you by this evening.”

  I watched her as she lit yet another cigarette and waved the match out, then asked, “How come you didn’t attend the mock trial?”

  “This morning I was angry with you because you told the police about my conversation with Rick Chavez. Then I got depressed.” She motioned at her cocktail glass. “I know, it’s a poor solution to one’s problems. I always caution my clients against it. But like most people, I seldom take my own advice.”

  “You might want to consider coming to Seacliff tonight.” I explained about the trial being moved to the crime scene.

  To my surprise, the news badly unnerved her: her mouth twitched and she leaned forward, elbows on knees, forehead pressed against the heels of her hands.

  “I can’t go,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t face the horror of it again.”

  “Louise, decades have passed. The house is empty, the dovecote’s gone—”

  “And the feelings are still there. You know it. You connected with them that night two weeks ago. I could tell; you were shaken. And I . . . connected too.”

  “What specifically did you connect with?”

  “Hatred. Rage. Pain. Terror. The sick pleasure that you feel at the death of a person whom you detest.”

  I bit my underlip. Took a small sip of the martini. It tasted as bitter as the residue of a thirty-six year old hatred, as sharp as the bite of an old, well-nurtured rage. I set my glass down and waited.

  Wingfield sighed deeply. Raised her head and straightened. “All right,” she said. “Truth time.”

  I continued to wait.

  “Melissa was right about me,” she said. “I hated Cordy. When she died, I was glad. And the pleasure I took in her death never went away.” She paused, sipped her drink, contemplated.

  “Over the years,” she went on, “I would take an emotional inventory whenever something particularly good happened. When my son was born, for instance, I told myself, ‘You now have someone whom you love totally, who will return that love. Isn’t it time you let go of this baggage?’ The answer was always no. Every few years I’d take that inventory, but the hatred and sick pleasure were still in stock.”