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 chiffon 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 roomm
ate. 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.
“And Rosie?”
“You tell me.”
“I have no idea, Skip. Honestly.”
“I believe you, for some reason. I guess she’s in the wind.”
“That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Let’s just say the less cooperative she is, the more guilty she looks.”
“I have things to share with you,” I said, mentally trying to decide how much.
“Me, too.”
“Really? Are you going to be in your office tomorrow?” I asked.
“Tomorrow’s Sunday. In fact, it’s almost tomorrow now.”
“I’ll find you,” I said.
I hung up, wishing I were there now to hear what it was Skip had to share. I was frustrated about my own lack of progress. I’d hoped to learn something I could take to Skip that would exonerate Rosie. I thought of the tiny, gold-rimmed mirror, which I’d hidden under my nightgown in the drawer upstairs. So far, all I had for my trouble was a piece of evidence that made it seem likely that Rosie had gone back to David’s room later last night.
Not a good thing, but the night was young.
There was only one other person I knew would be up and ready to chat at this hour. I speed dialed my friend Linda Reed, who would be answering from the on-call nurse’s nook at the Mary Todd Home, a high-end assisted-living facility.
“Gerry, it’s been ages since I saw you. I had to miss crafts night last Wednesday because they called me in to substitute for someone here, and it’s extra money, which you know I can’t turn down since Jason has so many activities coming up his sophomore year.”
I knew better than to interrupt Linda’s flow too soon. She was by far the best crafter in the group, eschewing kits of any kind. She had the patience I didn’t have. I’d been known to ruin a piece because I didn’t wait long enough for glue or paint or a coat of varnish to dry. Linda, on the other hand, adopted the strategy of Abraham Lincoln: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
Over the din of my own mind, I heard Linda still offering details of Jason’s classes that I didn’t need. Time to cut in. My mission was to find out how far and wide the news had spread in Lincoln Point, if there was talk of suspects, if she’d seen Rosie, or any other juicy bit Linda might know. With her years of experience at every medical facility in Lincoln Point, and her current position at the Mary Todd senior residence, Linda was an indispensable source of information and a font of gossip that nearly always proved to be true.
“I’m glad Jason is doing so well this summer, Linda,” I said. “I’m still here in San Francisco at the ALHS reunion, by the way. You probably heard about the great tragedy, David Bridges’s death. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
Linda gasped. I pictured her eyes widening. “How did you know?” she asked.
“How did I know what?”
“Never mind,” she said, but the pause was too long and her voice too high-pitched.<
br />
“Linda.”
Linda was even more vulnerable than Skip was when it came to responding to my stern teacher voice. Only a few years younger than I was, she still afforded me a certain respect. I pictured her adjusting her beehive hairdo and nervously smoothing her uniform over her wide hips.
“That… that…”
“That what, Linda?”
I heard a deep exhale, then a whisper. “That Rosie Norman is here.”
Sometimes, when investigating, you get more than you bargained for. If it weren’t for Maddie sleeping peacefully upstairs, I’d have gone straight to the Duns Scotus garage and driven back to Lincoln Point.
Chapter 8
“Rosie Norman is at the Mary Todd?” I needed to hear it again to believe it.
Linda was a first-class resource, having intimate knowledge of everyone in Lincoln Point who needed medical care or had a relative who needed it. She was one of the least adventurous people I knew, however, and I never dreamed she’d harbor a fugitive.
“She’s technically not hiding from the law,” Linda said, as if I’d spoken out loud.
I felt I was hearing one of my own oft-given excuses to Skip, bending the truth, rationalizing, mentally reserving certain facts. Was I responsible for this personality change in Linda? Had I taught her the many uses of the word “technically”?
“The police need to talk to Rosie,” I said, lowering my voice as two young men in cargo pants entered the alcove and headed for the restroom.
“I didn’t know that. When she first came in, I had no idea why she was asking about our guest rooms. Her grandmother used to live here in the assisted living wing and we do offer that accommodation when relatives visit from a distance. Remember that time old Mr. Mooney’s niece from Kentucky came to see him?”
Murder In Miniature Page 8
