“I don’t remember exactly what business Larry was in,” I told Henry. “He’s retired now, isn’t he?”
“Refrigeration,” Henry said.
I gulped. “Refrigeration?”
“Uh-huh, good-size company, too. But he retired and now he works off and on for Callahan and Savage.”
“You don’t say.”
For a minute I reverted to Maddie-land and wondered, how many refrigerators does it take to cool a town?
***
Back in our room, packing to leave, I had a brainstorm. With Maddie distracted by last-minute computer work (a drag-and-drop interface, she called it), I went into the bathroom. I pulled all of the tissues from the box on the sink and unrolled a long strip of toilet paper. Together they made a wad I hoped was big enough to stop a toilet. Then I threw the wad into the bowl and flushed.
I was surprised that I got it on one try. The water rose to the rim and stayed there.
Oops. Time to call a plumber.
“We’re about to check out,” I told the woman who took my call. “But we still need to… you know.”
“Oh, of course. I’ll send someone right up.”
When the knock came less than five minutes later (something for the plus column on the Duns Scotus evaluation card), Maddie went to answer it. She knew enough to ask who it was and check for my approval first.
“He says he’s a plumber,” she called back.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I forgot to tell you the toilet is plugged up.”
Maddie opened the door. I was relieved to see that Mike the electrician didn’t double as a plumber. Rather, a gentle-looking Enrico introduced himself and entered the room with a large toolbox.
“Thanks for coming,” I said. “This just happened a few minutes ago.” I left out, “by my own hand.”
Enrico looked at the mess and produced an industrial-size plunger and a gallon of something apparently toxic enough to require a skull and crossbones on its container.
I suspected it wasn’t often that Enrico’s clients stood over his shoulder while he worked. “Such a shame, losing your boss yesterday,” I said. The concerned guest.
“Yes, yes, it’s a shame, very sad. A young man, Mr. Bridges.”
“I’m surprised at your quick response to my little problem this morning, since I also heard that someone quit yesterday?”
“Yes, yes, Ben, he walk out with no notice.”
“Was he a plumber, too?”
“No, Ben was what you call a supervisor.”
I laughed. “I’ll bet he didn’t work as hard as you do.”
I tried not to pay too much attention to the details of Enrico’s recovery program at our toilet, but I noticed that he never turned to me, nor did he lose his work rhythm as he talked.
“I wonder if Ben and Mr. Bridges got along. I guess that’s not unusual, though. For a boss and an employee to have disagreements.” No comment from Enrico. “You’re such a good worker, I’ll bet you get along with everyone.”
“I mind my business, you know? But Ben, he’s what you call ambitious.”
“Ah,” I said, with a small tsking sound. “And Mr. Bridges didn’t like that?”
“I mind my business,” Enrico said again. “All done here.” I had the feeling he was referring to more than the plumbing.
Thwarted.
It made sense that the electricians and plumbers of the Duns Scotus wouldn’t share company politics with guests. Too bad for me they all took their training to heart.
Enrico stood up and did a test flush. All went smoothly. Next time I’d have to create a bigger problem. All I’d gotten from this little exercise was news of Ben Dobson’s ambitious streak and his position as supervisor.
Enrico packed up his tools and glanced back at Maddie, still deep in the computer zone. “Gotta watch these kids, huh?”
I smiled and threw up my hands. “What are you going to do?”
I didn’t tell Maddie she’d been blamed for a problem she knew nothing about.
“You didn’t get to see my apartment building that Grandpa made me when you were in the shop last time, Mrs. Porter. You should come by and see it.”
That was Taylor, trying to prolong her departure from Maddie as we piled our two cars with duffels and garment bags.
I couldn’t believe we’d spent the better part of a weekend in San Francisco without seeing any of the sights outside the hotel. No Golden Gate Park, no Coit Tower, no Ghirardelli sundae, no ferry to the redwoods of Marin. Not even a cable car ride to the bay. Checking into things here and there, though not all that productive, had eaten up all the time I’d had in between reunion events. Not to mention having my personal space violated a couple of times.
I needed a new hobby.
Maddie took a turn at securing the four-way friendship. “My grandma has lots of crafts rooms, Mr. Baker. You should see the furniture she has.”
“We get it,” I said.
“And we like it,” Henry added.
I felt a twinge of pleasure. Because Henry might be able to help me figure out connections between Mellace Construction and the Callahan and Savage refrigeration business.
That was the only reason.
Chapter 10
We left the San Francisco skyline and the clanging cable cars behind and drove home to Lincoln Point, Maddie now happily old enough and heavy enough to sit in the front passenger seat and not relegated to the second-class, as she thought of it, backseat. My pangs of guilt intensified as the wharf and Ferry Building, along with Ghirardelli’s earthquake sundae receded. I resolved to take Maddie back for a fun-only weekend.
“I’m ready for an update,” Maddie said, her posture erect, eyes straight ahead.
“What’s that, sweetheart?” As if I hadn’t heard her.
She twisted to face me. “C’mon, Grandma. Do you think I don’t know why I was dropped in the water so many times?”
“You make it sound brutal. Like child abuse. I thought you liked the hotel pool. Wasn’t Taylor with you a lot of the time?”
“Yeah. But she’s a little young and I didn’t want to talk to her too much about the case.”
“Isn’t she the same age as you?”
Maddie grinned. “I’m four months older. I did most of the case stuff on my own.”
My granddaughter made a criminal investigation sound like child’s play, like making miniature furniture or wallpapering dollhouse rooms. “What kind of case stuff did you do?” I asked her, gritting my teeth. Images of her parents scolding me loomed before me.
“The Lincolnite is lame,” Maddie said, referring to our once-weekly newspaper. “They don’t even have their own website. They’re just online with a whole lot of other small newspapers so you only get a summary, not full stories, and you don’t get to see any archives. But I read a little about the case. I know the man’s body was found in the woods out past the high school, and he was beaten.”
I didn’t like hearing crime scene words from my granddaughter. I felt irresponsible that I didn’t monitor her computer use more carefully. Or at all. That I didn’t know a lot about how to do that was no excuse. Standing over her shoulder, instead of wandering around as if I had a PI license, would work.
“What else?” I prodded. At least I could find out after the fact what she already knew before being pressured to dole out bits of information of my own.
“Mostly, I worked on the computer while you were out snooping at night.”
“I was in the ballroom, dancing.”
Maddie coughed, pretending to be choking on that tidbit. “And drinking at the bar, too, right?”
We were in stop-and-go traffic on the 101, giving me a second to glance over at her. “You got me.”
“I found out all kinds of things about Callahan and Savage. The stories were in the big newspapers so you could actually read the articles online.”
I’d planned to search through Google again for more information on Callahan and Savage, and to talk to Henry
about them, but as expected, those who were born into the electronic age worked much more quickly.
There were worse sites that Maddie could have been browsing, I guessed, than the San Francisco and greater Bay Area newspapers. If Richard or Mary Lou looked back on Maddie’s history, I hoped it wouldn’t be obvious that their daughter had been searching for information on a murder case. I imagined having my grandparent visiting rights revoked until Maddie turned thirty.
“Did you find anything interesting?” I asked.
“Lots. Like, did you know that construction companies compete with each other for contracts to do buildings and stuff? I found a list of the contests, which ones they won and lost and who beat them.”
I couldn’t imagine more interesting reading outside of a Great Books class. “Did you save the information?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a vigorous nod. “I’m going to give it to Uncle Skip when he takes me on the tour of the police department after we get home.”
I checked to see if Maddie, the great negotiator, had her teasing grin on. Sort of.
“I’d like to see the list,” I said. “And I’m the one who’s going to get you home in the first place.” I could negotiate, too.
“And?”
“And get us pizza for dinner.”
“And?”
I wondered who taught her these skills.
“And if you cooperate, I won’t send you back to Palo Alto early before computer camp is over.”
“Technology camp. Okay, I’ll show you. I was going to anyway.”
I knew that.
I was still waffling about whether to talk to Linda and take a look at the Callahan and Savage data before seeing Skip. I came close to letting Maddie extract a promise to take her with me so that she could have her tour of the police station, but I was saved by a phone call.
“I’m home,” Beverly said. “We took a really early flight this morning. I’m exhausted, so I’m just sitting here getting reentered.” I pictured her with her long legs stretched out on the lounge chair by her pool, a glass of ice tea in her hand, a luxury she allowed herself only after a string of stressful days.
“How did everything go?” A silly question when asked of funeral services, but somehow obligatory.
“It went as well as it could have. You know, everyone was sad. Old Saint Nick, that’s what they called Nick’s grandfather, was ninety-seven years old.”
“That’s a lot of life to celebrate.”
Beverly and I knew each other so well that we were able to cover a lot of ground in a few minutes, from the family gathering in Seattle to the tragic death of David Bridges in Lincoln Point.
“Nick, my Nick, that is, was so glad I was with him, Gerry, but I’m sorry I couldn’t be here to take Maddie, especially after what happened.”
“You can make it up to me right away,” I said.
“It’s hot in here, isn’t it?” I asked Maddie once she’d had a snack. I was too full from brunch to think about another bite, but Maddie had apparently worked off her three desserts in the car on the way home. “Too bad the air conditioner isn’t working.”
“I’m going to Aunt Beverly’s pool, aren’t I?”
Such a bright child.
Only time with her Aunt Beverly could bring on such good spirits from Maddie when she knew she was being left out of the loop on an interesting project. (I hesitated to say “case” lest it seem, even to myself, that I was doing unsolicited police work.)
Once Beverly and Maddie went off together, I called Linda.
“Rosie’s still here,” she said. I could almost see her wringing the starched collar of her white uniform or twisting the ends of her hair. That seemed to me the only purpose of the long, stiff coils she arranged below the beehive on top of her head. “It’s pretty tense, Gerry.”
“I’m coming over,” I said.
I couldn’t take the chance that Rosie would go somewhere out of reach. Or that Linda would have a crisis of conscience and-dare I say it?-do the right thing and turn Rosie in before I got to talk to them.
I changed into hot-weather clothing and drove the short distance north of my neighborhood to the Mary Todd Home. I was very familiar with the residence facility, having taught seniors crafts classes there since it opened a few years ago.
I entered the ornate front lobby (too rococo for Lincoln Point, was architect Ken’s judgment), greeted Olara and Tim at the front desk, and asked for Linda. I knew where the guest wing was, where relatives of residents could stay for short periods, but preferred not to attract attention by walking back there myself.
Linda came to greet me in the lobby. With her level of nervousness over these relatively low-stakes circumstances (no global nuclear implications, that is), she’d never graduate from spy school.
“Gerry, let’s go have a chat. Just the two of us,” she said, her forced, louder-than-necessary communication causing raised eyebrows at the desk.
“You’re inviting suspicion, Linda,” I said, in a whisper that probably also did.
I had to admit I was no better than Linda at an undercover operation. Anyone listening would have wondered what we were up to. Fortunately the two at the front desk had gone back to paying more attention to each other than anything happening in the lobby.
Rosie had aged ten years. She was dressed in a nurse’s uniform, presumably Linda’s, a bad fit even though she and Linda were both on the chubby side. She’d exchanged her dressy black patent sandals for blue paper booties. The cocktail dress she’d worn on Friday night lay folded on a chair. I wasn’t proud of the fact that I wished I could surreptitiously check it for bloodstains.
A side table held several plastic containers that I was sure were from Linda’s cupboard. I was glad Rosie didn’t have to count on the vending machines for her nutrition.
The guest room itself was cheerless, only a cut above descriptions I’d read of thirteenth-century monks’ cells, minus a cross over the bed. Instead, a stern Mary Todd Lincoln, her hair tightly braided, looked down on the twin bed outfitted with white-only linens. There was a small bath and shower off the room, probably more than the medieval nuns and priests could say, but my guess was that the administrators of the home didn’t want the nonpaying guests to get too comfortable.
Linda had done her best, it was clear, to house, feed, and clothe her friend, but she could do nothing about the depression that caused Rosie’s face to sag, her eyes to be rimmed with red.
When Rosie saw me she gasped, then rushed to embrace me and cried softly. I let her stay as long as she needed to. She smelled of stale makeup. When she relaxed a bit, she said, “Someone killed David, Gerry.”
Only then did I realize I hadn’t seen Rosie since David’s body was discovered. We’d left the Duns Scotus in separate cars on Saturday morning-me for the ALHS groundbreaking ceremony, Rosie for… here, apparently.
I found myself questioning the timeline. What was the time of death for David? What time did Rosie arrive at the Mary Todd? Could Rosie’s case be so easily resolved-that she was still in San Francisco when he was killed? Nice thought, but I was sure Skip had checked that out. More important, why in the world was I giving any credence to the possibility that Rosie was guilty of murder? I was falling into the bad habit homicide detectives had of gathering evidence and alibis before making a decision on a suspect.
I needed all the information I could get, just to keep even with my nephew.
“What else do you know about David’s murder, Rosie?” I asked.
Rosie pushed herself away from me. I barely kept my balance. “I didn’t do it. How can you think such a thing?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper, a sad croak. “You know how I felt about him.”
“I only meant, what other news have you heard?” realizing too late that my question sounded like an accusation. You’d think a former English teacher would be more careful with words.
I chose not to remind her that great love was often the source of a crime of passion. And I did think
that bludgeoning a man to death with his own trophy eminently qualified as a crime of passion and, if I weren’t such a highly moral person, as an example of poetic justice.
A pitcher of Linda’s special mix of ice tea and lemonade brought us a measure of refreshment. Just as we settled down to talk, Linda was called to a patient, which suited me very well. It saved me the trouble of finding a diplomatic way to get rid of Rosie’s protector and sole support.
“Let’s start from the beginning, Rosie,” I said, in the most comforting tone in my repertoire. “What did you do after you left David’s doorway?”
“I went down to the-”
“And please don’t tell me you stayed at the fitness center till two in the morning. They closed at midnight.” Not so comforting a tone, but I didn’t have a lot of time to waste. The police might be screaming down the street toward us with an arrest warrant, sirens blazing, right now. Or was that my vivid imagination after two nights on a busy street in San Francisco? And those sirens more likely came from fire engines, anyway.
“I’m so embarrassed to tell you, Gerry.”
We sat across from each other on uncomfortable straight-back chairs, making it easier for me to remain firm. “It won’t be as embarrassing as being carted off to jail, believe me.”
“You’re right.” Rosie took a long swallow of her lemony tea drink; I did the same. She worked the corner of a tissue around her eyes. I didn’t want to tell her it was a hopeless gesture if she meant to fix her makeup.
“Take your time,” I said, willing her to hurry. The small quarters were already beginning to close in on me. I wondered how Rosie had stood the cell-like room for a day and a half.
“I rode down to the lobby. I was going to go out, but I had on those uncomfortable heels and I wasn’t crazy about walking around the city alone. I’m sure it was safe, but I didn’t want to risk it. And anyway I wanted to see David. I went upstairs to eleven again and listened at David’s door. I could hear David and Cheryl. Not what they were saying or doing exactly, but I knew they were still together.” Another long swallow. “I figured since Cheryl had come to the reunion with her husband, sooner or later she’d have to leave and go back to her own room.”
Murder In Miniature Page 11
