Die For Me

by Jack Lynch

  “Well thanks for the time and the drink and the flattery. I’m sure people from the sheriff’s office will be by to interview you properly when they can get around to it.”

  I got up and she walked me to the front door. “Can’t they just send you again, Bragg?”

  “No, I’m not official enough for them.”

  When I reached for the doorknob she put a hand over mine to stay me.

  “Those things I said to you, they were not all flattery, Bragg. And to think you knew Alex. And now you were involved with things that got Nancy killed, it is a coincidence too big to wink at. I am going to carry you around in my thoughts some. What do you think of that?”

  “Like I said, I’m flattered.”

  “Just flattered? Do I bore you?”

  “No, you don’t bore me. You puzzle me some, I’ll admit to that.”

  “How do I puzzle you? I am being very up to the front with you.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re setting me up for something. I just can’t figure out what it is.”

  She broke out in a vigorous laugh. I opened the door, gave her a little good-bye smile and nod of the head and got on out of there. She was still laughing when I closed the door behind me.

  SIXTEEN

  By the time I got to the parking garage the overcast that had been building up during the afternoon had become serious and it was beginning to drizzle again. I walked quickly up Market and let myself into the office. I shook out my jacket, hung it and dialed Barry Smith in Santa Rosa. Smith was still rooted to his desk. He told me they had removed the fourth body from the second burial site. They hoped that was the end of it. As with each of the victims found at the first burial site, these four all carried wallets or handbags with identification in them.

  “Shirley Paget was the name of the teenager,” Smith told me. “She was a sophomore at Berkeley High School, a well-liked kid. She babysat for a lot of people. Her parents run a bakery. The second victim…”

  “Hold it. Do you know if the Paget girl had boyfriends?”

  “No, her parents said she was a slow developer that way. She hadn’t really begun to run around with boys. Why?”

  “Just a thought I had. I’ll get back to it.”

  “Second victim was Suzanna York. She’s also the second victim who lived here in Santa Rosa. She was a gym instructor and taught health ed at a local high school. Lived alone. Age thirty. The last two were a Len Calione, fifty-two, who owned a bar up at Clear Lake, and Cyril Zeitlin, forty-three, a commercial fisherman from Eureka. And we have our first connection between victims.”

  “What is it?”

  “Calione and Dizzy Holmes knew each other. They’d had various business dealings over the years. Calione was indicted by the Feds some years back for mail fraud, but there was no conviction. How did it go with the Ellis woman?”

  “She said she didn’t recognize any of the names or photos.”

  “Too bad.”

  “It doesn’t mean all that much. She lies a lot.”

  “How so?”

  “About three seconds after setting eyes on me she came on as if I were the last man on earth and it was up to the two of us to save the species.”

  “Maybe she saw something the rest of us are missing.”

  “She’s an attractive woman in her early thirties. Her agency handles both female and male models. That means there are a lot of young hunks swinging in and out her door on a regular basis, and you can bet that any of them, including the gays, would be happy to please the boss lady who lines up the work for them if the boss lady showed the slightest interest. That’s too much competition to think she saw something special in me.”

  “What do you think’s behind it then?”

  “I don’t know. She said her late husband had mentioned me, and that she’d been curious about me ever since, but her husband and I weren’t exactly pals and that’s long ago business. I think there’s something more current behind it, and that probably means it has something to do with the dead Nancy Dobbs and all this present business we’re dealing with.”

  Smith was quiet for a moment. “Maybe she thinks you know more than you do.”

  “Maybe she does.”

  “Maybe I should take off my supervisor’s cap and go question her myself.”

  “Maybe instead you should send Rachel.”

  “Did she talk any about Nancy Dobbs?”

  “Not a whole lot. But what she did say is what made me ask you about the Berkeley girl’s boyfriends. Has it occurred to you that a number of the victims appear to have been sexually very active?”

  “I’ve thought about that some, but it hasn’t gotten me anywhere. What are you thinking, some religious nut out there?”

  “I’m not thinking anything just yet. I’m just remarking on an attribute common to more of these people than you would expect, on average.”

  “Maybe there’s just more of it going around these days. The ‘What, me worry?’ syndrome despite all. What did the Ellis woman have to say about Nancy Dobbs?”

  I briefly described Karen’s take on Nancy Dobbs, including her habit of cruising around topless and how that could have been what she was doing when she met whoever put her in the grave.

  “But that could, as I say, be all pure poppycock from the sweet lips of Karen Ellis. How were these last four people killed, by the way?”

  “All four were shot once in the head. A slug was recovered from one of the brain cavities. Probably a twenty-two caliber.”

  “How’s Harvey Draper holding up?”

  “He’s been keeping busy, like the rest of us. What do you mean, how is he holding up?”

  “I was up there yesterday just after they’d uncovered the Berkeley girl. It upset him some. Then I saw him again today for a few minutes. I’m not even going to tell you what we talked about. It was the sort of conversation you have when you’re trying to take your mind off things.”

  “The next time you and Harvey have one of those talks let me join in, okay?”

  When I hung up I thought for a moment about the next call I had to make, and decided to give myself a break. I got up from behind the desk and strolled out across the reception area and went into the suite of rooms occupied during the day by Sloe and Morrisey. I went to the portable bar and refrigerator along one wall of the legal eagle conference room and poured myself a stiff gin and tonic.

  I stood leaning against the bar for a moment, sipping the drink. Then I raised the gin bottle and topped it off before closing things up and wandering back over to my own side of the office.

  I tapped out the number I had to call. Bobbie answered the phone and I asked for Maribeth.

  “I want to speak to you after you’re through,” Bobbie told me quietly.

  “Sure.”

  “Not from here, though. I’ll go down to the pay phone in the lobby. Where are you calling from?”

  I gave her the office phone number and wondered, now what?

  When Maribeth came to the phone I brought her up to date with the identities of the newly unearthed and what other background information Barry Smith had given me. None of it meant anything to her. It was getting to the point where neither one of them really expected it to.

  “What have you been doing?” I asked her.

  “Reading. Watching television. Trying to keep my mind tame. Do you think this is the end of it then?”

  “The others seem to think so. The sergeant said they did quite a bit of scratching around out there after the last victim was recovered. They think it’s finished, for now at least.”

  I could have bitten my tongue as I said it. I knew what her reply would be.

  “That means it’s my turn, maybe.”

  “Maribeth, do you have an extra room I could flop in? Or would you like me to sleep on the sofa or something? Would it make you feel any better?”

  “No, I’m not worried about being here in my own apartment. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t wanted to leave it. Whatever might ha
ppen to me isn’t going to happen here. I was terribly uncomfortable last night, but I didn’t feel fear. God, Peter, I wish I could understand more.”

  “Maybe we all will before much longer. Learning that two of the male victims knew each other is the first real break the sheriff’s people have had. It’s like an opening wedge. They should be able to exploit that. A common thread is what they’ve been searching for all through this.”

  We chatted a few moments more before saying goodnight. I replaced the receiver and sat staring at it. Bobbie probably was on her way down to the apartment building lobby to phone me. What would she have to tell me that she didn’t want her aunt to hear?

  I got up and walked back through the reception area into the legal eagle conference room and fixed myself another stiff gin and tonic. The phone was ringing when I got back to the office.

  “Bragg.”

  “Hi,” Bobbie said. “I told Maribeth I was going around the block for a little fresh air. But she probably didn’t believe me. She thought it odd that I didn’t want to talk to you when she was finished.”

  “Why all the mystery?”

  “I shouldn’t have done what I did last night. I just wanted you to understand that even if you might, incredibly, get your head on straight, we couldn’t do anything like that. Not right now at least.”

  “Is this the prudish side of your nature?”

  “What prudish side? I just shouldn’t have spent the night away from my aunt. She had a wretched time of it. She seemed knocked out when I left, but apparently she didn’t stay that way. I don’t think she had more than a couple of hours sleep.”

  “She told me she had an uncomfortable night. Did you tell her where you had been?”

  “Yes, I told her. I didn’t tell her it didn’t amount to anything, but I told her where I was. I think she’s quite pleased about it, actually. But that’s all beside the point. It’s that I wasn’t with her, there in that apartment, that seemed to upset her. And when I asked why, the poor dear just screwed up her face and threw out her hands. She doesn’t know. That’s what the problem is. With her gift, as she calls it, she’s bombarded with twice the impressions most of us are exposed to. And so during the bad times it’s as if she has double the confusion and anxiety. She can’t put her finger on it. She suffers, deeply.”

  “What did you two decide about the interview that Welch wants to do?”

  “I’ll do it. But it would have to be during the day, and somewhere other than near the apartment building here.”

  “Okay, I’ll let him know.”

  When we hung up I phoned Cliff Welch to tell him Bobbie was willing to do the interview and talk about her aunt. The cameraman was out so I left the message on his machine.

  I put down the receiver, stared at the phone and thought about Allison France.

  The phone rang. It was Sharon Rapler, office chief. Proud Senegalese. Earth mother. Actually her family wasn’t from Senegal, they were from Oakland, California, but that’s what she had told me to tell people if they asked.

  “I was beginning to think you’d left the country,” she complained.

  “My days have been busy. I’ve been doing some phone work here nights. I figured if anything important came up you’d leave a note.”

  “You’re right, I would. How goes it, as if I couldn’t tell by reading the newspapers and watching television?”

  “It goes gruesomely. Professional people are beginning to show the strain. My psychic client is getting more anxious and depressed by the day. I think Allison is getting it on with somebody up in Barracks Cove. I’ve had two stiff drinks out of the counselors’ gin bottle and don’t feel a thing from them. I have not a thought in the world about who planted all those bodies, or from what direction it might spell danger for the psychic lady. I’m stumped and angry, but at least it keeps the veil of grief at arm’s length. I think if I really started to dwell on some of those people who have been killed, the boy and the girl teenager…”

  There was a moment’s silence between us. “Why don’t you tell me about it?” Sharon said finally.

  “You don’t know what you ask, Sharon, babe.”

  “Yes I do. I just passed it through brain control. Brain control reports back that you’ve got too much on your plate. It’s time to share. Not about Allison. I don’t want to hear about problems with your woman love. But the rest of it. All of it.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  I took a deep breath. “You know, Sharon, you’re probably the smartest person I have ever met, and I love you.”

  “I know.”

  “Okay, so I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Go get yourself another drink first.”

  “The bottle’s getting low.”

  “There’s more. Get yourself a drink.”

  So I walked over and poured another gin and tonic and carried it back to my office and told Sharon everything I could think to tell her about events of the past five days. When I had finished I felt as drained as the glass of gin and tonic and Sharon was quiet for several moments. She was thinking, she told me.

  “Maybe it’s a floppy,” she said finally.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like a photo negative that’s been flopped when it’s printed, so everything is backward. Man looks left in photo when he’s really looking right. Desk appears on one side of the room when it’s really on the other. An illusion.”

  “I’m too weak to follow you. Maybe it’s the last drink I had.”

  “I think somehow it’s all there, Peter. It’s just that none of us see it right. Murder, suicide, maximum grief. It’s almost as if somebody is putting on a tragic play. Think a minute about that anonymous phone call you had. If the story the caller told you was true and it was the killer he was talking to that night in the bar, then grief is a central theme here.”

  She lapsed into silence for several more moments.

  “Grief,” I said quietly. “It does seem to be slapping everybody in the face.”

  “That has to be it, Peter,” she said finally. “Follow the grief. Follow the grief and you’ll find the killer.”

  SEVENTEEN

  I had planned to start the next day at a relaxed pace. A couple of chores needed doing around the apartment but a couple of chores always needed doing. What I wanted to do was walk down the hill and across Bridgeway and find a place where I could just sit down and stare out across the water and think.

  I was out of the shower, had toweled off, climbed into shorts and old khaki pants and put on a pullover shirt that said “Phone Home” on the front of it when there was a pounding on the door. Nobody ever pounded on my door. I hustled out and stared through the small pane of glass at the grinning face of Sheriff’s Detective Rachel Goodwin. It wasn’t even 9:30 yet.

  “Surprise,” she told me when I opened the door. “Could a person get a cup of coffee, you think?”

  “I guess so, as long as you wipe your shoes off on the mat.”

  I crossed to the small kitchen while Rachel stood in the middle of the living room beyond the kitchen counter and wiggled her nose.

  “Smells as if this place could use an airing out.”

  “Leave the door open if you want.”

  She ignored the door but crossed to stare at one of the posters I had on a wall. It was probably a collector’s item by now, an early movie scene with Raquel Welch wearing animal skins and a frown. I had put water on the stove before going into the shower, and now poured it over a cone of coffee. When I turned again Rachel had come to the counter and put down her shoulder bag and settled on one of the padded bar stools. She rested her chin in her hands and watched me with a pleased smile on her face.

  “You look pretty self-satisfied,” I told her.

  “I’m feeling that way.”

  “My mother warned me to beware of self-satisfied women.”

  “Did she really?”

  “No. The truth is my mother really didn’t understand other women
very well. How did you find this place?”

  “Why? Is it a secret or something?”

  “Not a total one. But I don’t like to think that some of the people I’ve dealt with could find it when I’m not expecting them. There’s no address listed in the phone book, and Barry Smith never asked me, so how did you find it?”

  “I’m a cop. We got our ways.”

  “Seriously, I’d like to know. I’d hate to think just anybody could get in here.”

  “Is that how you think of me now? Just anybody?”

  I shook my head and poured coffee into a pair of Navy surplus mugs. “It’s going to be one of those day, huh?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “What do you take in your coffee?”

  “Cream and sugar.”

  “How about artificial sweetener and nonfat milk?”

  “If that’s the best you can manage.”

  “That’s it.” I put the coffee in front of her and the bowl of sweetener and carton of milk from the refrigerator next to it, then pulled over the stool I kept in the kitchen across the counter from where Rachel sat.

  Rachel sat and sipped her coffee, beaming at me over the lip of the mug. She was wearing a pair of tan slacks and a white blouse with red polka dots on it and a red scarf at her throat.

  “You’re looking very vibrant this morning,” I told her.

  “Thank you. I’m feeling that way. And it’s on account of you, and that is Reason Number One why I’m here.”

  I waited. She grinned at me.

  “Pershing made a very big mistake this morning. I think it’ll get him out of our hair altogether before long.”

  “What sort of mistake?”

  “He called me, to my face, a dyke.”

  I put down my coffee. “I can’t believe the man is that stupid.”

  “Oh, he is, he is. And you know, there was a time something like that would have absolutely crushed me? I come from a country background, Bragg. My family has lived and ranched up in Sonoma County for three generations. I know I’m a little rawboned and rather straightforward in my movements, and I talk a little bit like a hick part of the time, though that’s mostly play-acting. But the funniest thing, I have begun looking at myself in the mirror with a little more critical eye the past few days. And that’s because of what you said to me that day we met up at the state park. You said I was a pretty lady, remember?”