I felt a little better since my mission had nothing to do with wholesale or retail cooling and freezing. I was sure the hulk in fine clothing would find the Callahan and Savage representative he was so concerned about—somewhere else.
On the other hand, it nagged at me that he’d known I’d been in David’s room. If David had recent (and contentious) business with the hulk or with Callahan and Savage, or both, maybe the police should know. If a company representative hoped to find something in David’s room, after it was public knowledge that David was dead, maybe whatever he was looking for had something to do with that death.
On the other (third) hand, if one of them were the killer, why wouldn’t he have just taken the item at the same time? Aha, I answered, because he killed David in Lincoln Point and the item was still in the Duns Scotus suite.
Too many possibilities. I made a mental note to seek Skip’s input on the matter, in such a way that my trespassing wouldn’t be part of the exchange.
I’d tried Rosie’s cell and her shop phone off and on throughout the day and left messages but had no response. I looked over at her twin bed, still made up. The maid had folded Maddie’s roll-away cot and pushed it against the wall. I had a feeling we wouldn’t be needing it tonight.
We had a few minutes before our scheduled meeting with Henry and Taylor in the lobby. Maddie decided to check her e-mail once more, in case a boy named Doug had answered a question she had about something called “flash animation.” She’d mentioned Doug a lot in the last weeks. He was her camp lab partner, she’d explained.
“You seem to like Doug,” I said.
“Yeah, I like him because he gets my jokes, but I don’t like like him,” she said.
Strangely, I knew what she meant. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready for the day when “like” became “like like” and the chance of hurt and disappointment hung inevitably in the air.
I’d taken the opportunity during Maddie’s shower for another look at the spiral-bound “yearbook” Rosie had produced for her reunion class. I hoped to be able to greet as many of my former students as possible by name, without looking at their badges.
Rosie had done an impressive job on the book, using fancy fonts and color graphics throughout. For each classmate, she’d juxtaposed a senior photo with a current one and added an updated biography, plus a space to “please share your funniest experience since high school.”
I flipped through the pages, stopping to read about students who no longer lived in Lincoln Point, which was a considerable percentage. Many entries brought a smile of recognition. The unfortunately named Mathis Berg, “Math Bird” to the C students, had survived the nerdy label and now taught math at a college in San Diego. Billy Anderson, who was the shortest guy in the class and suffered accordingly, now operated a chain of health clubs. Fran Collins, voted Girl Most Likely to Succeed, ran a travel agency, her funniest experience being the European cruise she organized for single people and their pets.
I paused at David Bridges’s page. Rosie had already told us most of what it contained, especially his management successes. David used his anecdote section to describe his first day on the job as hotel manager-on-duty. He’d had to deal with hundreds of geeks (his term) in alien costumes, at a science fiction convention. One night the geeks descended upon the hotel pool, all of them nude, and David had to round them up and send them home.
“Funniest thing I’ll ever see in my life,” David wrote. My eyes teared up at how true that was. He’d never see anything again.
Cheryl Carroll Mellace’s page was lacking in much text, but included a half-page photo of her in an ALHS maroon-and-gold cheerleading outfit. She had married young, into the family of the locally famous Mellace Construction Company. The Mellaces lived on a villa-like estate on the outskirts of town. This wasn’t Rosie’s description of their residence, but my own interpretation of their home, which Ken and I had visited on a benefit tour. I’d never had the occasion to see the couple around town, and I imagined they did their shopping elsewhere.
I learned that the Mellaces had three children and that Cheryl had never worked outside the home but devoted a lot of time to charity. Besides the open houses for children’s causes, they were active in all manner of good works, from organizing blood drives to paying for a bookmobile for shut-ins. There was something good to be found in everyone, I guessed.
It was hard to reconcile the two Cheryls, the one who shared her wealth so generously and the one who displayed low-class rudeness on the other. I looked at her photo again, arms waving pom-poms in exhilaration. I couldn’t help turning her lovely smile of thirty years ago, one I’d seen often when she sat in my class, into the twisted face that ousted Rosie from David’s doorstep last night.
Rosie’s own page made no mention of her brief union with Ray Normano, a transient worker in the fields outside Lincoln Point whose principal method of communication was violence. The marriage was annulled, but she kept a shortened version of his name as her own. “I just want to keep some memory of him,” she’d said at the time.
I didn’t understand the logic of that decision, but now I saw it as a pattern of Rosie’s—to hold on to men who weren’t good to her. I hoped no licensed therapist ever heard me offer my diagnoses of my family and friends.
“Hey,” Maddie said, looking smashing in her new bright green pants and top. “What’s Callahan and Savage? Are you Googling without me?”
I’d forgotten that what you did on a computer, stayed on the computer.
“Nothing important, sweetheart. Just satisfying my curiosity about something.”
“And you didn’t ask me to do it?”
She made it sound adulterous.
The mood was subdued in the banquet hall. The only light touch was the favor at each place: a hard rubber Abraham Lincoln pencil topper, about one and a half inches long. I turned the likeness over and over in my hands. Lincoln’s signature black top hat sat on a bearded face, the whole affair cut off at the neck.
“You’re trying to figure out where you can use this in a room box, aren’t you?” Henry said.
He knew me well, already.
We’d started the evening with a moment of silence for David, during which the small band played a cheerless version of the class song. There was no word yet on the exact time and place for the memorial service, except that it would be in a few days, in Lincoln Point, where his parents still lived. President Barry Cannon had led the program and closed now with the hope that we’d all try to attend the service.
Once the banquet got under way our table was busy as Henry and I were flooded with compliments from our former students who stopped to visit. The ones who hadn’t liked us stayed away, we decided.
“My mom still has that end table you helped me make,” from Mark Forbes to Henry.
“I saved all my Steinbeck texts for my daughter who’s an English major at UC Berkeley,” from Catherine Jackson to me.
“I used to do my shop sketches in English class and read my crib notes for English in shop,” from John Rawlings to both of us.
“That makes it all worthwhile,” Henry said. I wondered if John caught the sarcasm, delivered so smoothly.
I looked in vain for Rosie. In case she changed her mind and came to the banquet, I didn’t want her to be without company. Other than that, plus planning a call to Skip with a heads-up on Callahan and Savage, worrying about how to return the key card I’d confiscated, wondering what to do with the miniature oval mirror, and questioning the motives of the hulk who accosted me in the hallway, I enjoyed the meal.
And deep down, I was grateful for the company of Henry and the girls.
“The only way to tolerate ‘You Light Up My Life’ is to dance to it,” Henry said, offering his hand.
He was right. It had been a while since I’d danced with anyone other than the men in my family and Maddie. I pushed away any comparisons and went with the music.
On the dance floor I spotted Cheryl Mellace, in cream-colored ch
iffon that set off her chestnut hair, dancing with Barry Cannon. As they came close I noticed Cheryl was still wearing an eye patch, this one also seeming to blend in with her outfit. I’d heard of women who had dozens of pairs of shoes, but a wardrobe of matching eye patches seemed excessive. Where would one even shop for them?
We were back at the table in time for dessert, cheesecake with blueberries. I enjoyed the taste of the scrumptious, creamy wedge. Until a shadow crossed my plate.
I looked up to see the hallway hulk.
My throat went dry as he hovered over the table. Was he part of the reunion class? He looked vaguely familiar, but I was certain he hadn’t been my student. He wasn’t wearing a name tag—maybe he’d crashed the party to find me. His thin smile did nothing to encourage me that I was safe. I surveyed the banquet room, about twelve tables with eight to ten people at each. Plus, there was a crew of waitpersons carrying heavy trays and coffee carafes, in case I needed a weapon.
The hulk had timed things perfectly, coming up to my chair while Henry was talking to the girls. “I’m sorry I strong-armed you that way in the hallway. Mrs. Porter, isn’t it? Barry pointed you out. I’d had a little too much pre-banquet refreshment, if you know what I mean, and I thought you were someone else.”
“Someone who found something in David Bridges’s room?” I asked. A poorly phrased question, asked in a near whisper, but I was in a state of high anxiety.
He laughed, his expression changing from relatively sweet to bordering on sour. “It’s not your problem, Mrs. Porter.” He reverted to sweet again. “I don’t even remember what I was babbling about in the hallway, but I’m definitely going to have to lay off the three-martini business meetings in the afternoon.”
I should have felt relieved. My mugger was just a poor soul who had a bad habit and failing eyesight when he drank too much. I could put the whole incident to rest now. No harm done.
I wished I believed it more firmly.
Henry, who must have heard part of the conversation (or else had a sixth sense for questionable characters), stretched his arm across the table. “Henry Baker, retired ALHS shop teacher,” he said, shaking hallway hulk’s hand. “And you are?”
Good move, Henry. Why hadn’t I thought of getting his name? I might need it for a police report.
“Walter Mellace,” he said.
“Mellace Construction?” Henry asked.
“Cheryl Mellace’s husband?” I asked.
“Guilty of both,” he said.
And what else? I wondered.
I couldn’t wait to get back to Google.
I did my best to pay attention for the rest of the evening at our table, my mind wandering off now and again to Cheryl’s eye patch and wondering what she was doing in David’s room if she was still married to Walter, who would always be the threatening hallway hulk to me. Had Walter found out where his wife spent the evening and used force to win her back?
No wonder the hulk had looked familiar. I’d never met him in person but he looked enough like the grainy newspaper photos I’d seen of him. I knew his interests extended far beyond our town and he wasn’t one to be strolling around Lincoln Point eating Willie’s bagels, or even greeting its citizens when he offered his home for a charity tour.
I hoped my immediate table partners weren’t aware that my thoughts were elsewhere. I did pick up on an enjoyable thread that included the girls and their hobbies, plus teasing about their names.
“Imagine a name like Taylor,” Henry said. “It’s an occupation. And her parents are my daughter, Kay, and my son-in-law, Bill.”
“And Madison is an avenue in Manhattan,” I said. “Her parents are my son, Richard, and my daughter-in-law, Mary Lou.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Maddie said. Taylor gave her an obliging smile and a thumbs-up.
Maddie had a new inventory of computer jokes, thanks to her e-mail correspondence with Doug. We limited her to one per twenty minutes, which she deemed unfair.
I almost hated to leave such pleasant company, but I had a couple more things to accomplish on what was probably my last night at the Duns Scotus. Unless the San Francisco Police Department, on the recommendation of the Lincoln Point Police Department, called me back for my expert advice.
As we broke up, Maddie gave us one more laugh. “What did the computer say as it was leaving the party?” she asked.
We shook our heads. “I’ll bite,” Henry, the good sport, said.
“Thanks for the memory,” she answered.
We rolled our eyes and said good night.
As I’d anticipated, Maddie got to use what should have been Rosie’s bed. On the writing desk was an unopened box of candy. I’d first noticed it this morning and assumed it was sent on Friday evening to Rosie by David or whoever might be pretending to be David. Like my Wednesday-night crafters, I’d had my doubts about the origin of the presents. After last night’s episode, I no longer had doubts, but simply a question about who had sent the gifts.
Other than the candy, there was no sign that Rosie had been my roommate. On a whim, I picked up the box and turned it over. The sticker on the bottom identified it as sold at the hotel gift shop. I stuffed the box in my tote for further consideration.
I felt I’d let Rosie down. She’d counted on me to support her in her reunion with David. I wasn’t sure what I could have done to make the weekend turn out differently, but I had that feeling nonetheless. I’d also been enjoying myself with Henry and the girls and former students who flattered me, while Rosie was probably depressed and frightened out of her mind somewhere. I wished I knew where.
I needed to get serious about this investigation and do better for my friend.
Friends, in fact, were the last thing Maddie talked about tonight.
Maddie always referred to Devyn, her classmate at her old school in Los Angeles, as her BFF, her “best friend forever.”
“I think Taylor could be my BFF, too,” she told me, her voice sleepy. “Do you think Henry could be yours?”
The light in the room was too dim for me to be able to tell from her expression whether she was serious, teasing, neutral, or talking in her sleep.
I thought back to Maddie’s shorthand lesson and pulled out an appropriate response.
“GGN,” I said.
What a terrific grandmother I was. I waited until Maddie was asleep, then slipped out of the room. I wished I had something like the pink-and-white baby monitor I used when she was little. Once again I tugged on the door handle three times to be sure the door was locked, hoping that would count as “good grandmother.”
I took the elevator to the lobby floor and walked through an elaborate junglelike area with a small tile footbridge across a stream that was generated by a waterfall. I hoped the system worked with recycled water in our drought-threatened state. On either side of the tile bridge were oversize houseplants and atrium-friendly trees. Large, leafy ficus and ferns lined the ends of the walkway and arched over the short stairway at the point nearest the front desk.
The registration desk had more clerks than customers at eleven o’clock on a Saturday night. I saw no sign that the hotel was any different for the loss of its chief engineer. In fact, many of the staff were gathered at the concierge’s desk enjoying a laugh. In the group were several uniformed men whom we used to call bellboys and two or three others in the gray uniform I’d seen on Ben last night at the cocktail party.
It never seemed the right time and place to call Skip, but I needed to know what if any of the facts of David Bridges’s death were known to the public. I moved to an alcove off the lobby, one that formerly held a bank of pay phones, and a place I had every right to occupy, so there’d be no hint of guilt in my voice. I leaned against the counter, took out my cell phone, and speed dialed Skip. It was late, but I reasoned that cops were always on the job, protecting and serving.
“Aunt Gerry,” said my nephew with caller ID. (At least that told me he chose to speak to me.)
“I hope I didn�
��t wake you, dear.” I used my “remember all the times I baked you cookies” voice.
“No, no, dear. I was just going to call you and give you an update on all my cases, as I do for my other fellow sworn police officers.”
“No need to be sarcastic.”
“Where are you?” Skip asked.
My dime, as we used to say. My questions. “I need to know what you’ve released about David Bridges’s death.”
“Are you still at the hotel?”
None of the old rules seemed to work anymore. “Yes, I’m still at the Duns Scotus with the reunion class and it’s very awkward not knowing how much information is public.”
“Aren’t all the festivities over?”
Good point. “There’s breakfast tomorrow.”
“Ha.”
After years of teaching adolescents, and raising one, I had a large inventory of tones of voice. I now brought up the rhythm that was the equivalent of stamping my foot. “I need to know, Skip.”
“Okay. I was going to call you first thing in the morning anyway. We’ve been holding off on releasing cause of death. I gave you that heads-up only because I thought Rosie Norman was with you at the groundbreaking.”
“So everyone now knows that David was murdered?” I’d lowered my voice so much that I had to repeat the question to Skip.
“They will by morning. It’ll be in all the papers, I’m assuming.”
“And it’s your case?”
“Mostly. We’re now certain the crime scene was here in Lincoln Point, but Bridges worked in San Francisco and spent his last night there, and he lived in South San Francisco, which is a whole other police department from SFPD. But yes, it’s our case.”
It sounded like a complicated problem of jurisdiction. I wasn’t sure why it mattered, except that if Lincoln Point had no responsibility to investigate, it would be harder to obtain information I needed to help clear Rosie. Skip was right; when a good friend was suspected of murder, I did have a twisted notion that I was part of the LPPD, with the associated right to enter a taped-off area, for example.
Mourning In Miniature Page 8
