Amateur Night

by K. K. Beck

  “She was just a dull woman, a little too cheerful all the time. Transferred from her company's office in Spokane. She was an office manager for a company that sold something deadly dull. I forget what. Electrical wiring or something.

  “I never figured why she lived here. I like to think,” he said, “that my building attracts interesting people.”

  “Definitely,” said Jane. “It's an interesting building.”

  “I think she took it over from someone at her office. It wasn't quite her. And then, at first, because it was so big, she got roommates in here. Actually, I think she got roommates in here because she was lonely. She went through them like Kleenex.

  “Her roommates provided her with some social life. In fact, one of them told me that's why it didn't work out. Her roommate fell in love, and Jennifer was kind of clingy and jealous. She certainly never had any men of her own around.”

  He sat upright and his eyes widened. “Until last week.”

  “Oh?”

  “A very attractive man showed up at her apartment. Late thirties, nice thick hair, cleft chin. The works.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I was quite happy for her. Jesus, what if he strangled her? I ran into him in the lobby. I was grooming the plants. He was whistling, I remember, and he nodded at me and went over and knocked on her door, so I guess she'd buzzed him in.

  “I was dying to know if she'd found a boyfriend. She could have been attractive, you know. She just never did anything with herself. Wore these horribly matronly print shirtwaist dresses that added years to her. She was about thirty I guess, but honestly, it's the kind of thing my mother used to wear to play bridge in. And she kind of slouched around.”

  “Did you ask her about this guy?”

  “Well I hinted around, coyly. She just looked embarrassed and said he had something to do with insurance. I guess he was selling her a policy. But he didn't look like any insurance salesman I ever met.”

  “Oh,” said Jane.

  “She was one of those people,” said Arthur, leaning back and looking pensive, “who never quite fit in. If you showed any interest, she'd glom on to you. I'm afraid I always gave her kind of a wide berth. I wanted to be nice, but I didn't want her hanging around too much, you know. Anyway, when she had one of her roommate breakups, she was pretty upset. She came to me and wanted to talk about it. I should have listened to her.”

  “I understand, though,” said Jane. “You have to protect yourself sometimes.”

  “Well, that's just it. I'm here all day. I can't have the tenants coming and crying on my shoulder all the time. That's when I came up with my theory that she was really a dyke and hadn't admitted it to herself and was going all soft over Brenda. And I was impatient and thought to myself, 'Well if you aren't honest with yourself about your orientation, it's your problem.' But maybe she was just one of those asexual people—sort of an enviable way to be, really—and wanted a friend. God, life can be so pathetic.”

  He sighed. “I'll always feel guilty I wasn't nice to her that day. She looked as if she'd been crying. They'd had a big fight, she said. And she seemed to be feeling guilty about something. The trouble was, I was preoccupied myself. A dear friend of mine was flying to Key West that day, and there was a horrible plane crash in Florida, and I thought he might have been on it.”

  “That crash that killed seventy?” said Jane.

  “Exactly.” Arthur didn't notice that she knew the precise death toll. She remembered it from the newspaper she'd read at the library. The newspaper that had described the murder of Mrs. Cox. “Thank God he had taken an earlier flight.”

  “Thank God,” said Jane. So Jennifer had been upset on the day Mrs. Cox died. Guilty and upset. Somehow it had blown up into a fight with her roommate Brenda.

  “What was Brenda like?” said Jane.

  “Brenda was kind of hard,” said Arthur. “You had the feeling she was out for herself. But it was difficult not to like her.”

  Just then, they heard sirens outside. “About time,” said Arthur huffily. He turned to Jane. “The police will call her family, won't they? They won't expect me to, will they?”

  “I don't know,” she said. With the sirens, a feeling of nausea had come over her. The sirens reminded her of another time, another murder, another hopeless case.

  Chapter 12

  As it turned out, Jane didn't have to lie. Unwittingly, Arthur did it for her. “Yes, I'm the owner,” he said, “and this poor lady got involved entirely by accident.” He explained that Jennifer had been looking for a roommate.

  The policeman turned to Jane. He was a nice enough looking guy, florid and sleek. “So you never met Jennifer?” he said.

  “No, I just spoke to her on the phone,” said Jane.

  “The detectives will be coming shortly,” said the officer. “We're here to secure the scene. If you wouldn't mind waiting until they come-they'll probably have some questions.”

  Arthur handed over the apartment key, the police left for a while, and he made himself a second drink.

  “I wonder what he took from her desk?” said Jane. “And from the wall.”

  “You know, now that I think about it, I think that might have been a picture of Brenda,” he said. “She had one there, I know. At a party. Pathetic really. I can't imagine Brenda has a picture of her anywhere.”

  “You were telling me about Brenda,” prodded Jane gently.

  “Brenda was a Canadian,” said Arthur. “She went back there. Vancouver Island.”

  “What was she like, besides being kind of hard,” said Jane, who thought that if her picture had been taken, it was significant.

  “A dancer,” said Arthur. “She came here to study dance at Cornish, and she sort of worked part-time here and there. I don't know how much she worked or anything. In fact, I sometimes suspected she was leeching off Jennifer, but it wasn't my problem. The rent got paid. She was very pretty. White skin, black hair, blue eyes with thick lashes.”

  “Sounds Scottish or Irish,” said Jane. “What was her name?”

  “MacPherson,” said Arthur. “Brenda MacPherson. She had a lot of style. But she was short. She went out on a lot of auditions and she always said she didn't get the job because she was short. You know the type, one of those short, spunky girls. Actually pushy is more apt.”

  Jane turned to Arthur. “Do you think that insurance guy killed her? The one with a cleft chin?”

  “I don't know,” said Arthur. “To be honest, I hope it was someone she knew. Some stranger getting into the building is even more frightening. And besides, I hate to think of someone getting killed so randomly. But if poor Jennifer, through some foolishness, left herself vulnerable somehow...oh God, this sounds awful, I know. Not that I want to blame the victim or anything.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Jane, who spoke from personal experience, having dealt with two murders, one long ago, one in the recent past. “You want to think that life isn't completely random and cruel.”

  “That's it. That's it exactly,” said Arthur. “I know it sounds strange,” he said, “but I'm really glad you're here. I feel like I can talk to you, and this is such a horrible shock, I don't think I could have handled it alone.”

  But I came too late, thought Jane. She was turning over in her mind the horrible possibility that her search for Jennifer might have caused her death.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Jane was sitting cross-legged on the sofa in Calvin Mason's apartment. He was leaning forward in his armchair. “I can't believe you weren't straight with the police,” he said.

  “I was going to be,” she said. “But it never came up. They took my name and address, accepted Arthur's story, and let me go.”

  “You should have told them.”

  “I know. I meant to.” She let her head fall forward into her hands. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but I didn't want that nice Arthur to know I'd lied to him.”

  “That is ridiculous.”

  “It
's hard to explain. We had a nice rapport. He even took my name and address in case he had a vacancy. He said I belonged in the building.”

  “He does have a vacancy. You want to move into Jennifer's unit as soon as they vacuum up the fingerprint graphite?”

  “I didn't think this would happen,” said Jane, looking back up at him and pushing her hair back. “I was just trying to find out who was reading that magazine at the Cox Pharmacy. Don't you see? There's a chance that it's related. That somehow we've stumbled on to something.”

  “Your case. That's the real reason you weren't honest with the police,” said Calvin. He frowned. “The way I see it you should either talk to the police or forget the whole thing. Probably forget the whole thing.”

  “How can you say that? It's your client at stake.” She heard her voice sounding shrill. She told herself to relax.

  Calvin sounded peevish and irritable. “I don't want you to drag me into any mess, just so you can get your hands on all that money your uncle left.”

  “Calvin, you don't have to get involved. I'm going to look for her old roommate Brenda up in Canada.”

  “What? Why?” He pushed up his glasses.

  “Because of what Arthur told me. She might know what happened that day. It was the same day they had their big fight. I know that because of the newspaper headline I read at the library—Mrs. Cox died the same day of that crash in Florida that upset Arthur. Brenda might remember whether or not Jennifer picked up her prescription.”

  Calvin appeared to flinch. “I wish you hadn't told me so much. Don't tell me another thing, okay?”

  “I was working for you, remember? And the second reason I'm interested in Brenda is that her picture seems to be missing. Arthur thinks it is anyway.

  “I was thinking you could maybe check a few things out while I was away,” she continued. “Maybe you could find out if the police ever did question Jennifer Gilbert, and what she said.” She was thoughtful for a second. “And that dentist. He sounds a little like the guy Arthur saw hanging around. The so-called insurance guy.”

  Calvin leaned forward. “It doesn't make sense. If the dentist's kid is involved, and if the dentist knew it and if Jennifer Gilbert knew it, and if he knew she knew it,” he counted on his fingers, “that makes four jumbo ifs, well then why didn't he kill her before?”

  Calvin had a point. Jane didn't answer, and he asked another question. “Look, are you going to tell the police why you were there or not? This could come back to haunt us. Correction, haunt me. I should call them, tell them you were checking something out for me and because you were an amateur and had read too many Nancy Drews when you were a kid, you were evasive when they questioned you.”

  Jane knew, from his resigned tone, that he wouldn't do any such thing. “Maybe you can tell the police after I leave town,” said Jane. “I don't know how long it will take to find Brenda MacPherson. Vancouver Island is a big place.”

  “As big as Portugal,” said Calvin. “I remember reading that somewhere. Of course, I'm not really sure how big Portugal is.”

  “Do you want to tell the police I was working for you and that's why I was there?” said Jane.

  “If you'd told them that at first it would have been fine, but now how are you going to explain why you lied?”

  “Go ahead and tell them I was checking something out for you,” said Jane. “Tell them that Jennifer Gilbert might have been a witness to that homicide.”

  Calvin frowned. “Hell, they have all that in their files. They should have been able to figure it out themselves. Which they won't of course, unless the same guy is working the case and he's got a good memory. Or unless my source remembers my asking about the case. I was careful, though. I managed to see the notes without saying exactly what I was looking for.” He allowed himself a small smile of self-congratulation, which Jane found rather charming.

  “God, you're good,” she said in mock adulation.

  He stopped for a moment and looked thoughtful, narrowing his eyes. Jane could practically hear the wheels clicking away in his brain. “There's some way I can get screwed here, I just know it. After it happens about a million times, you develop an instinct for these things.”

  “I just want a chance to find Brenda.” Jane tried not to sound agitated. “If I talk to the police now, I won't be able to go do that right away. I feel responsible.” She shook her head. “I don't quite understand it all, but I might have tipped off Dorothy, and she might have talked to Sean...”

  “The unwed mother? By the way, did you get the impression they'd already hired an attorney on that paternity thing?”

  “You can chase ambulances after we figure this all out,” said Jane. “What's the best way to get to Vancouver Island?” She wanted to be doing something.

  “With a car or without a car?” he said.

  “With. I'll just have to come up with some budget motel money.”

  “I don't like it,” said Calvin Mason. “For one thing, if any of this is related to your messing around, you're dealing with a killer.”

  Jane stretched out on the sofa. “Maybe it's just a coincidence that the witness I'm looking for is killed just before I find her. But it's quite a coincidence.”

  “Which is why you should tell the police,” said Calvin. Jane knew he sounded perfectly sensible. She also knew that it was really his case she'd been investigating, and he had a perfect right to demand she tell the police and forget about going to Canada.

  “Listen,” she said. “This is your case. If Kevin didn't really kill

  Mrs. Cox-”

  “I'm ninety-nine percent sure he did,” interrupted Calvin.

  “Okay,” said Jane. “Probably you're right. But you don't even have a client anymore. Not really. Despite what he says, Kevin thinks he probably did it. His mother doesn't care. In fact, she sleeps better with him in the slammer. The only party interested in proving his innocence is me. And that's because—”

  Calvin interrupted again. “Because you want Uncle Harold's money,” he said.

  “All right. I'll agree to that. So why shouldn't I go, find this Brenda, and see if she remembered Jennifer saying anything about what happened the day she got that prescription filled at the Cox Pharmacy? If there's nothing there, we can all forget about it. If there is something there, well, then we go to the police.”

  “You have to stop saying you're acting on my behalf,” said Calvin. “Because as my agent, you're acting against my instructions in withholding information from the police.”

  “All, right,” said Jane, feeling a little forlorn.

  That said, Calvin made an abrupt about-face. “A good way for you to get there is to head up Interstate Five, cross the border at Blaine—there's about a million cars crossing there every day, so no one will remember you—then catch a British Columbia ferry from Tsawwassen and go over to Victoria. It's very simple. All you need is a driver's license, but they never even look at that. They'll just ask if you have a gun or mace, and if you're bringing anything in for anyone in Canada. You can be at the border in two and a half hours. And depending on when the next ferry leaves from Tsawwassen, you can be on Vancouver Island in another couple of hours. Keep in touch, will you?”

  “I will,” said Jane. She got up, suddenly anxious to leave. She hadn't been entirely truthful with Calvin, and that made her uncomfortable. She'd agreed with him when he'd said she was only in it for the money. But it wasn't just Uncle Harold's money that motivated her right now. It was also the horrifying thought that Jennifer Gilbert might still be alive if Jane hadn't stirred up the cold ashes of the old case.

  “How are you going to find Brenda?” said Calvin.

  “I'll see what I can do,” she said. The truth was, she knew she should start here, working the phones, but the sooner she left, the more she lessened her chances of having to get involved with the police investigating Jennifer Gilbert's death, telling them what she'd learned and turning over her precious hopeless case to them.

  Calv
in walked over to his desk. “Somewhere around here I have the name of a private investigator in Victoria. He called me once, wanted me to help him out with a case down here. Turns out I couldn't help him, but he seemed nice enough. Maybe he can do a quick check for you on Brenda MacPherson.” He scrawled a name and number from his dog-eared Rolodex on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “Gas up at the border. They want a fortune for gas up there, and it's in liters, so you never know really how bad it is without using higher math.”

  There was something quite heady about leaving all by herself early the next morning; not knowing what she would find, not telling anyone exactly what she was up to, not knowing herself.