Murder In Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  Drew waved his hand. “Aw, these forms can wait. Let me go back there for you.”

  “Thanks, Drew.”

  I gave Larry a thumbs-up as I walked back to my seat next to him.

  “Quite impressive,” he said. “Now I know why Rosie called you first and me only second when you weren’t answering. Thank you so much. If you ever need a new refrigerator, just give a call.”

  “Now that you mention it, Larry, I do need information on refrigerators.”

  Larry sat up, interested, as most people were when you indicated an interest in their business or anything they’d invested a lot of time in. “Oh?”

  “Henry Baker mentioned to me that you now work for Callahan and Savage.”

  “Good old Henry. I don’t see much of him since he retired. How is he?”

  I wished I knew. I gave Larry the short version of the friendship developing between Maddie and Taylor, and then moved on.

  I dragged out a variation of the line I used with Barry. “I’ve been looking into a couple of things, and I heard something about questionable business dealings between David Bridges at the Duns Scotus and Mellace Construction. Is it true that they’re acing out your company, Callahan and Savage?”

  Larry Esterman let out a small chuckle. “I guess my daughter was right. You are amazing, Geraldine. How in the world would you know that?”

  “I… uh… I’m just really persistent, I suppose.”

  “I should tell you, you’re not at the shallow end of the pool. You need to be careful.”

  I was never very good at sports metaphors. In fact, this had not been a good week for figures of speech in general. “So it’s true?” was my careful response.

  Larry bit his lip. I had a flash of memory of a younger Mr. Esterman next to my desk in my classroom at ALHS, his teenage daughter, Rosie, waiting in the hallway. Was I sure Rosie was working to her full potential? Could she do more to be sure she got into whatever college she wanted to? Was there a particular school I’d recommend for his motherless, talented child?

  He sat next to me now, in a police waiting area, while his beloved Rosie was being interrogated by the police. It was his turn to answer some questions for me if he had any hope of helping his grown-up daughter. He seemed to realize this.

  “I’m not as involved as I was when I had my own business, but I’ve been hearing rumblings about an internal investigation. You’re right-C and S is trying to find proof of unfair practices and bring a suit against Mellace and whoever is on the other end. You should know that it’s very, very hard to prove fraud. You need hard and fast testimonies, documents, an impeccable witness, or someone who’s willing to flip.”

  I thought of the folder someone left on the seat of my car, the folder now thrust into my tote. “What kind of documents?”

  “Bank records, internal memos, that kind of thing. But they play it close to the vest at Mellace. They have so many other businesses going all the way up past San Francisco to Marin County, and then down the other way to Monterey, that it’s easy for him to hide money.” Larry spread his hands, palms down. “I’m not saying that he does. I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about that part of it. That’s why I like semiretirement, strictly on a contract basis. I do my job when there is one and I don’t worry about the politics.”

  Rosie was a lot like her father, with a mild temperament and a voice that exuded trustworthiness and honesty, though I sensed the older Esterman was a little more worldly-wise than his daughter. I wondered again how Rosie ever became obsessed with someone like David Bridges. He must have had some charm that I wasn’t privy to, to have captured her heart as well as Cheryl’s, though I didn’t have uncontestable evidence of the latter.

  Drew emerged from a door behind the front desk. He met us halfway across the broad expanse of very old gray linoleum. “I rattled the cage back there and found out they’re just wrapping up the interview. Your daughter will be out in a couple of minutes, Mr. Esterman.”

  “When you say she’ll ‘be out’ do you mean…?”

  “She’ll be free to go,” Drew said, “but they’ll probably tell her she shouldn’t leave town.”

  The sighs of relief from the two of us were audible.

  I debated showing Larry the record I had in my tote. I wanted his opinion on whether the page left in my car would constitute the kind of proof he mentioned. He had enough on his mind with his daughter’s future as uncertain as it was, but if something on the mysterious sheet could help Rosie, by pointing to someone else with a strong motive to kill David, we’d all be better off in the long run.

  Decision made. I pulled out the folder and showed him the page. “Larry, can you make any sense out of this?”

  Larry changed his glasses and peered at the sheet. “Looks like a bank record all right.” He pointed to the row of numbers across the top. “This string tells me it’s an international account. I did a little overseas business in the old days and this is a familiar template.” He pointed to the numbers that had caught my eye the first time I looked at the sheet, the five-digit numbers that stood out in their column. “Are you thinking these large deposits are kickbacks of some kind?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Whose statement is this?”

  I smiled, embarrassed. “I have no idea.”

  I was grateful he didn’t ask how I came by the information, sparing me a third, “I have no idea.” I hoped Skip would be equally indifferent to my source.

  “I think I know-” Larry started, but we were happily interrupted.

  Rosie rushed up and hugged her father. I waited for my hug, but it didn’t come.

  “What’s the story, honey?” Larry asked.

  “I’m not arrested, but I can’t leave town.”

  “Was it Skip who interviewed you?” I asked.

  Rosie frowned at me. She worked her jaw and took deep breaths, but remained silent. I got the hint that she was upset with me, but I didn’t know why. Because I kept my phone off during a memorial service?

  “I think you should come and stay with me until all this blows over,” Larry told his daughter. He was already steering her toward the exit.

  “No, Dad. I’ll be fine, and I really want to get back to my own bed. Can you just take me home?”

  “Where’s your car?” I asked. “I can arrange to get it to your house.”

  No answer.

  I understood that Rosie wanted to cling to her father at that moment, but I had to clear the air. “Is something wrong?” I asked her, hoping she’d know I meant “between us?”

  She closed her eyes and bit her lip. “Maybe later, Gerry.”

  Larry shrugged his shoulders, but seemed equally eager to leave the police station. I couldn’t blame them.

  I collected my tote from the chair and headed back to Drew, this time to gain admission to my nephew’s office. I hoped all would go well there. I already had enough people whom I’d offended today.

  “Nothing new,” Skip said. “But you know that, if you saw Rosie downstairs on her way out.” Skip’s short-sleeved peach-colored shirt blended in with one of the faded partition walls, both clashing with his red hair. June must not have seen him leave this morning.

  “Rosie didn’t have much to say. She was anxious to get home.” I took a seat on a formerly peach-colored chair, now an undefined hue. “I wish you hadn’t picked her up before the service. When I told you-”

  “I know you feel guilty about alerting us to where she’d be, but believe me, we would have found out anyway. And wasn’t that better than interrupting the service?”

  “Not to Rosie.”

  “I’ll be honest with you, Aunt Gerry, I feel in my gut that she didn’t do it. She’s just the closest thing we have now for a suspect. The reunion classmates all checked out.”

  “Even Cheryl Mellace?”

  “Her husband says she was with him in their hotel room from midnight on.”

  “So they’re each other’s alibi. Is that legal?”
/>   Skip laughed. “Of course. Maybe not convincing, but legal, definitely.”

  “They could have been together all night, technically, but wasn’t David killed early in the morning?”

  “The ME is putting the time of death from about four in the morning to when the kids found him around seven thirty.” Not what I hoped-the fact that I could vouch for Rosie’s whereabouts at around seven was virtually meaningless.

  “And Ben Dobson?” I rubbed my arm where Ben had touched it, leaning on my driver-side window.

  “A couple of people at the party corroborate your story-”

  “Excuse me?” I folded my arms in mock offense.

  “Just an expression. The point is that, yes, it seems they did fight, but we talked to all the maintenance staff, too, and no one was particularly surprised, but neither could anyone think of a motive for murder. Dobson was at the highest level he could go and he got a decent salary.”

  “What about Barry Cannon?”

  “Class president, CPA, works as CFO for Mellace Construction.”

  “I know all that. What’s his alibi?”

  “The same as most people’s from four to seven in the morning. He was asleep in his hotel room.”

  What would Skip say if he knew Barry had been sending Rosie presents, in all probability setting her up to be humiliated at the hands of David? I needed one more shot at Barry before I brought this up to Skip. Barry’s reaction when I asked him about the presents told me he was indeed guilty-of present buying. Hardly a crime unless I could make a connection to David’s murder.

  That concluded my list of suspects, but I had one or two more loose ends. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Skip, how did you manage to get hold of the locker room scene that Rosie… altered?”

  “We got an anonymous call that we’d find it in the woods, near the crime scene.”

  “But it wasn’t at the crime scene when you found David’s body?”

  “No, the call came afterward, later in the morning.”

  “So isn’t it likely that someone planted it there?”

  “Not necessarily. Much as we’d like to think we’re perfect, the people at the scene don’t always pick up everything. The little room was off a ways and in some bushes.”

  “And the anonymous caller knew exactly where you could find it?”

  “Right.”

  “How would the person know you hadn’t already found it unless he or she put it there after you left?”

  Impeccable reasoning. But that’s not what it was all about.

  “This happens a lot, Aunt Gerry. Someone calls in a tip and the timing doesn’t always make sense-maybe the person just wanted to make sure we found it-and we just have to go with it. And the locker does exist, and it was Rosie Norman who wrote hate mail on it, that’s what’s important here.”

  I wished I could argue with him. Instead, all I could do was toss other suspects his way. “What about David’s son, Kevin Malden? Have you checked out where he was over the weekend?”

  Skip scratched his head. “I’m not even surprised that you know his new name. But, yeah, he checks out. He was showing some of his stuff to a few dozen other artists at some kind of fair. And his mother, Bridges’s ex, was in Europe. Bridges’s family is a dead end.”

  Police work was frustrating. I might have to think about retiring.

  Was this the time when I should tell Skip about Ben Dobson’s trek down the path to the crime scene in Joshua Speed Woods? And show him the bank record, which might have been left by Ben?

  The bank record was the only lead I had left, if it could even be called that, and Skip needed to see it. “I have something to show you,” I said. I reached back into my shoulder tote and found the folder by feel, my normal way of digging things out of the long-handled, oversize bag. I opened the folder and found… nothing. No sheet of paper with possibly incriminating bank records, just the blank neutral folder stock.

  I removed the bag from my shoulder and sorted through its contents, looking for the sheet, thinking it slipped out of its folder. I fingered a thick wad of scrap fabric, meant to be left at the Mary Todd for my crafts students; a new pair of scissors, still in its shrink-wrap package; and a paperback copy of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, for discussion at a book club I’d joined recently. I also saw my wallet, brush, and general purse items. No eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet of paper of any color.

  “Are you looking for cookies or something to do with the case?” Skip asked.

  “I had a piece of paper in this folder. I know I had it in the building because I showed it to Larry Esterman downstairs.”

  Skip picked up his cubicle phone and punched a button. “Hey, Drew, did my aunt Gerry leave a piece of paper or something down there?” Skip held the receiver to his chest. “He’s going to look.”

  I motioned to take the phone from Skip and waited until Drew came on the line again. I had another idea about the record.

  “Nothing here, Skip,” Drew said.

  “It’s Mrs. Porter, Drew. Did you by any chance see the folder I was showing to Mr. Esterman?”

  “Yeah, I saw you guys looking at it. You know, I think I saw him put something in his pocket, something white, like a sheet of paper. I figured you gave it to him. Shall I put out an APB?” Drew laughed, but I didn’t think it was such a bad idea.

  “Thanks, anyway,” I said.

  Larry Esterman didn’t have a briefcase or any other kind of container with him, nothing into which a sheet of paper could have fallen accidentally. There was no way he mistakenly walked off with it.

  Larry Esterman rushed his daughter out of the building for a reason-he’d confiscated my record. Easy come, easy go, I thought, remembering how the record had fallen into my lap, or one seat over.

  A sneaky move on the part of Rosie’s father.

  Larry Esterman was a man after my own heart.

  With nothing much to talk about and no desire to explain my day to Skip, I left the police station and headed for Rosie’s house. On the way I called Maddie, who’d been at Linda’s for the better part of an hour.

  “I just wanted you to know I’ll be there soon, sweetheart.”

  “Okay, Grandma. Don’t worry about me. Mrs. Reed let me help her make some leaves and now I’m doing my programming homework for tomorrow.”

  Huh? No nagging or whining about being left out of my errands?

  Not one to question my good fortune, I clicked off and pulled into Rosie’s driveway. I was reminded how close her home was to the Joshua Speed Woods. I felt a shiver through my body. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Ben Dobson strolling down the quiet street, but it was merely a gardener wearing the same color jumpsuit I’d first seen Ben wearing.

  I rang Rosie’s doorbell, listening for movement inside the small ranch-style home. I was fully aware that I might be waking Rosie up or interrupting a much-deserved bath. We had serious business, however, and any misunderstandings between us had to be cleared up immediately.

  I waited and rang again, waited and rang again. Still no action. I sat on the front steps, happily in the shade. One of the benefits of older Lincoln Point neighborhoods was their tree-lined streets, typically large silver maples interspersed with smaller Modesto ash. I didn’t think I could live where the trees looked more like miniatures, still tied to what looked like birthing posts.

  I didn’t have a plan for how long I’d wait in front of Rosie’s house, but for now, this was as good a place as any to mope about the case and about how different the weekend had turned out from what I’d expected.

  My stay in a luxury hotel had turned sour quickly, starting with David’s brush-off of Rosie at the cocktail party. Now one former student was dead and another was accused of his murder. I’d been accosted, robbed, and accosted again. I’d done my share of accosting, also. Of innocent people it seemed. I’d somehow lost Rosie’s confidence, abandoned my granddaughter, and made myself scarce to a potential new friend.

  I thought about
Henry Baker. Now that I’d been reconnected with Rosie’s father (resulting in a second robbery, I noted), I didn’t need Henry’s input on Callahan and Savage. It would have been nice to have his friendship, however, and I guessed he’d decided that I wasn’t worth the trouble.

  I looked at the enormous fruitless mulberry tree in Rosie’s side yard and suspected he was right.

  Chapter 17

  It wasn’t my style to mope for too long. Now at four o’clock on a hot afternoon, I felt my waiting time was up. The one positive, useful thing I could do was retrieve my granddaughter from Linda’s house. We could work on our room boxes at home, and I’d cook her a proper dinner, preferably including a glass of milk and something that wasn’t pizza. I got up, brushed tree droppings from my slacks, and started down the stairs.

  That seemed to be the cue for Rosie’s front door to open.

  “Gerry?”

  I turned to see Rosie, freshly showered it appeared, in a deep blue chenille bathrobe that added beads of perspiration to my forehead just looking at it. She held it close around her body and I suspected it was her spirit that was chilled in spite of the high-nineties temperature. We hugged, shoulder to shoulder since I stood one step below her. She smelled of something fresh and fruity, which told me she’d bothered to treat herself to a special soak or shower gel, a good sign.

  “I’m glad to see you, Rosie,” I said, as we pulled away and entered the air-conditioned house.

  Rosie wasn’t the neatest person-she claimed that you couldn’t really enjoy books if they were all lined up properly and dusted. I’d never seen her living room this disheveled, however. Her suitcases were spread on the floor, half empty, laundry in mesh bags sharing space with shoes and cosmetics. I wondered if there were an emerald and diamond bracelet buried in the wreckage.

  I moved a map of downtown San Francisco, with a photograph of the Transamerica building on the front, from an easy chair to a cluttered end table and sat down.

  Rosie settled on her couch, upholstered in a light beige leafy design. She was still wrapped in her robe. “I know you had good intentions, Gerry, but I was so mad that I had to miss the special service for David.”