“Both would be safe with me.”
“No, I mean, what about his marriage? Was he in the habit of sleeping with his campaign workers?”
She shrugged and smiled.
“So he slept around,” I said.
“You are easily shocked, Mr. Samson.”
“I am not,” I protested.
She gave me a very sexy smile. I was surprised. My first impression of her, at the benefit, was being tested. I had thought, by the way she had responded to Rosie, and by her generally rather muscular manner, that she might have had little interest in men.
“I would not really say he slept around, not that much,” she said carefully. “He simply seemed to be, how shall I say it, available.” She leaned toward me. “Would you like something to drink? I have juice. Orange, grapefruit and papaya.”
“Orange would be nice,” I said. Rosie asked for grapefruit. Gerda sprang to her feet and trotted up the stairs. I heard a refrigerator door open.
“I see why you thought we should talk to her,” I said to Rosie. Glasses clinked overhead. The refrigerator door closed. “We need to pin this down a little more.” She nodded. Gerda came down the stairs, balancing a tray with three glasses, which she set on the coffee table.
“Has he been available recently?” Rosie asked.
She shook her head, sadly. “He did not seem to be. Not for several months. There were rumors that he had settled on Pamela. All I know is that he was different.”
“And so you missed your chance,” I said. She laughed and nodded. “Gerda, I have to admit that my first impression of you was not…”
“Heterosexual? I am surprised that you would see only one side of me.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I got back to Joe Richmond. “Who were some of his lovers?”
“Mostly I heard rumors. I heard the rumor about Pamela, and I suppose now that it is true, but I am not sure and it does not matter. And rumors without names. But I am sure about Rebecca Gelber.”
I had to admit that one got me. That tall, dignified, beautiful woman… My first unworthy thought was that the man had eclectic taste. My second unworthy thought was that maybe our tastes were a lot the same. If they were, he definitely would have gone after Gerda. That blond exterior, that pale perfect skin— the more she talked about sex the more she radiated. And the warmer I got.
I had a third unworthy thought. Was I interested because she was German? There was something irresistible about the idea of this nice Jewish boy— who had gone about as far from his nice roots as it’s possible to go— with this handsome German woman. Reverse conquest? Hadn’t I been trained by a dozen liberated women not to think of sex as conquest? Wasn’t it time I got over World War II? I had, after all, once owned a Volkswagen.
“What are you thinking about?” Gerda asked warily. I cannot imagine what expression I had been wearing on my face.
“Cars. Sorry, my mind wandered. You’re sure that Joe Richmond had an affair with Rebecca Gelber?”
“I don’t know there was an affair, as you say. I heard only that they spent one night together.”
“When was that?”
“I think a year ago or so. At a meeting in Chicago.”
“You say you heard. Who told you?”
“Sandra.”
“Your roommate? Cassandra?”
“Yes.”
“And how did she find out?”
“She was in the room next to Rebecca’s at the hotel.”
“I think we probably need to talk to Sandra.”
“She might talk to you. She has been talking to men for three years now.”
“That’s good,” I said.
Gerda looked at her watch, a large, heavy, gold men’s job. “She will be home in half an hour, Mr. Samson.”
“I’d like you to call me Jake.”
She smiled again. “Very well, Jake, then. Would you two like another drink?” She looked directly at me. “Or perhaps I can get you something else?”
I allowed myself to let my eyes narrow just a bit, to give her the slightest hint of that old crooked smile. “I think I’ve had enough for now,” I said. Rosie said she was fine, too. “I did want to ask you, though, why you’re so sure he didn’t kill himself.”
“He was not that kind of man. I understand men”— she smiled again— “and women, too. I know he would not kill himself just as I know you want to make love with me.”
I did not look at Rosie. I didn’t dare.
“There was something else, too,” I said, realizing how silly that sounded in the context of this conversation. “The morning he died, there was a meeting, to talk about the benefit of the night before. Were you there?”
“The meeting was here. I was here. And as I told Rosie, Pamela was here, too.”
“And who else?”
She named her roommate and several people I had never heard of. I asked her to write down their names for me. She went to the electric typewriter and, laboriously, slowly, picked out the list of names. She was just finishing when the front door opened and Cassandra came in.
I remembered her from the benefit, the redhead, attractive in a distant kind of way. She worked in video. I stood up and she asked me to sit.
She said hi to Rosie and greeted me by name. That was nice.
Gerda pulled her list out of the typewriter and brought it to me.
“Sandra, Jake and Rosie want to hear about the night you saw Rebecca and Joe together.”
Cassandra looked at me appraisingly. “I don’t know if I want to tell you about that. Will you use it against Rebecca?”
“Only if she killed Joe Richmond.”
“Don’t be silly.” She sat down on the couch with the other two women. “Well, what can I say? They were together. It was a national organizational meeting in Chicago. My room was next to Rebecca’s. I got in late, and as I was walking down the hall, I saw Joe go into her room, carrying a bottle of wine. He was in there all night. I could hear them. Her bed was up against the same wall mine touched. I could hear them, and I could hear the bed. Just like a man. They can’t be trusted to be faithful.”
I did not say what should have been obvious: Rebecca was married, too.
“And when was this?”
“In November. I guess that’s about eight months ago, right?”
It was. Which would make it just about two months before Richmond started his relationship with Pam.
– 20 –
THE town of Benicia is about twenty minutes north of Oakland, just across the Carquinez Strait where the Sacramento River flows through a couple of smaller bays before it empties into the big one. A beautiful little town with quiet pretty streets, Victorian houses, a state recreation area, and a historical park.
A lot of artists have moved there in recent years because housing is relatively cheap— in Bay Area terms anyway— crime is low, and the surroundings look pretty and peaceful. An ideal town, in many ways, with a great future as an artist’s colony.
I’d consider moving there myself, if it weren’t for the refinery upriver and the toxic dump just outside of town. Kind of makes you stop and think.
The Gelber house was on one of the streets that looked like it was made of money. Big homes, big yards. Big-ticket cars. The house next to theirs had a new Mercedes in the driveway. The Gelbers lived more modestly, apparently, and tended toward Berkeleyism. They had a Volvo.
The house was a Victorian, painted the way Marietta Richmond’s place should have been— sky blue with two-color trim, white and dark red. Very nice. I parked the Chevy at the curb. It looked good there since it, too, is sky blue and white.
I checked my watch. Five minutes early. I glanced at Rosie’s face, which showed intense concentration. I guessed she was squeezing respect and admiration out of her mind so there’d be some room for suspicion and hard questions. Sometimes this is not an easy business. I winked at her as if to say, “No big deal, kiddo, we’ll all get over it.” Then we walked up the steps to the
fern-hung front porch and rang the bell. A cheery, two-note chime.
The man who came to the door was wearing Birkenstock sandals, running shorts with a beeper hooked onto the waistband, and a Sierra Club T-shirt. He was eating a carrot. He was thin, gaunt like a runner, with a lined face and white hair. When he smiled, the lines in his cheeks deepened to crevasses. He transferred the carrot to his left hand and extended his right, first to Rosie, then to me, saying, “Bruce Gelber. Rebecca’s husband. You must be Jake Samson and Rosie Vicente. Come on in.” His face was not familiar. I didn’t think I had seen him at the benefit and I was sure I had not seen him in Minneapolis.
We followed him into a narrow hallway that opened onto rooms on both sides and led to a kitchen at the back of the house. The hardwood floors looked like dark glass. The walls were bright white. The little hall table with the mirror above it looked like cherry wood that had been aging pleasantly in the homes of the comfortable for a hundred years.
“I’m afraid Rebecca is going to be a few minutes late,” Gelber said. “She’s meeting with some of our neighbors today. I don’t know if you’re aware of the ecological issues here in town…” As he spoke, he led us into a room that would have been one of the parlors back when Victoria was matronizing half the world. The room was done in mauve and taupe— is that brown?— and various blues and creams. He sat us down in a pair of comfortable chairs.
“I know you have some problems here,” I said tactfully.
He nodded sadly. Then he brightened artificially, like a bare light bulb. “Can I get you something? Tea? Coffee? Beer? Wine?” We both asked for beer.
I was glad that we would have some time alone with Rebecca Gelber’s husband; I wanted to know more about him, how he felt about the party and his wife’s place in it. And how he felt about Richmond. I wondered if he had any idea that his wife had been charmed by the possibly terminally charming Joe Richmond.
Gelber trotted out of the room and trotted back in seconds later with three beer bottles. German beer. He handed one to me and one to Rosie.
“So,” I said, when he had sat down on a mauve love seat, crossed his legs, and taken a sip of beer. “What do you think about all this?”
He looked uncertain for a moment, as well he might, but the confusion didn’t last long. “I was shocked about Joe. Horrified. I don’t know what to think. But you two are the detectives. Seems to me that the real question is, what do you think?”
“I try not to,” I replied, smiling cryptically. Rosie was sitting quietly, sipping her beer, watching Gelber in that analytical way she has that would scare me to death if I were the object. “Mostly I’m wondering what this is going to mean to your wife. And to the campaign. And for that matter, to you. I guess I’ve been curious to meet you. Husband of the candidate. What’s that like, anyway?” I was using my best man-to-man voice, and he responded.
“I’m very, very proud of her,” he intoned. “It’s not every man who has a chance to know a woman like Rebecca, let alone be married to her. I only hope that being a woman doesn’t limit how far she goes.”
That sounded like a prepared speech and could have been at least partly for Rosie’s benefit, so I pushed a little farther. “Yeah, but it probably will. Are you heavily involved in the party? I didn’t see you at the benefit— do you just stay out of it? I could see where you might…”
He gave me a thoughtful look. “I am involved in the party. At least as much as I can be. I’m a very busy man with a heavy schedule. Surgery. Surgical oncology. We’re a two-career family.”
And I can’t figure out whether you like it that way, I thought.
“I guess that’s why you didn’t make it to Richmond’s funeral.”
“I felt badly about him. He was a fine man. I would have liked to be part of that ritual. But my patients usually can’t wait. And of course he was Rebecca’s professional connection, not mine.”
I sipped my beer and squinted at him, trying to see if there was any hint of anger or irony in that last statement. I couldn’t spot a thing. Maybe Rosie had been able to.
“Do you think Richmond’s death puts your wife in front at the convention?” Rosie asked.
“It should, but I don’t know if it will. There’s Werner to be contended with.”
“What do you think of him?”
“He’s competent.”
Rosie pushed on. “Do you want her to be endorsed?”
He shook his gray head at her. “What I want is hardly the point. If the party endorses her, she’ll run.”
“But of course you don’t expect her to win,” I said.
“No. And that’s the pity of it. Not this time, anyway.”
“So you wouldn’t mind? About maybe becoming California’s first gentleman someday?” I said it, Rosie didn’t. I didn’t think she could have without gagging.
I might have liked the guy if he’d had the grace to laugh, but he didn’t.
“I wouldn’t put it that way, Jake. I don’t know where you’re coming from with a question like that, but the answer’s easy. I would love to see my wife— my partner— in the governor’s mansion. She deserves it.”
“And you’d be living there, too, of course. Not a bad place to be, right?”
He did smile at that, but he turned his face slightly away from me and his eyes rested on a spot somewhere to my left. “Possibly you are more power-oriented than I am, Jake. I assure you that medicine is more than enough for me.”
I guess Rosie decided it was time to change the subject, because she asked the alibi question. “I hope you don’t mind my asking this, Mr. Gelber, but you understand we have to know the whereabouts of everyone even distantly connected with Richmond on the morning of his death. Could you give us some idea of where you were, who you were with, that sort of thing?”
He nodded earnestly. “Of course. Let me get my book.” He got up and left the room.
“I don’t like him,” Rosie said softly.
“I hardly ever like doctors,” I said. Gelber had failed to convince me that he had no interest in political power. For one thing, he was the one who had brought up the word power. For another, I figured that a doctor who specialized in cancer surgery must feel pretty helpless sometimes. A little control over a large state could go a long way toward alleviating that troublesome feeling of impotence. I didn’t have long to think, though. I was just getting to the part of my thought process where I decide that everything I’ve thought up until then is wrong when Rebecca Gelber strode into the room looking magnificent and apologizing for being late.
Both of us leapt to our feet. I was struck again by the beauty of the woman. A classic kind of beauty, dignified and graceful and timeless as a Greek sculpture. An aging Athena. I had guessed when I’d first seen her, across a room, that she was in her late forties. Now I could see that mid-fifties was more like it. What I couldn’t figure out was what she was doing married to a guy like Gelber. I had to remind myself that I’d never spoken to her, and that some of the classiest-looking women I’d ever met had been pretty boring.
Besides, I could hardly ever figure out what anybody saw in anybody— or I could see it too well.
Just as she and Rosie were saying their hellos, and I was being introduced, Gelber slid back into the room carrying an appointment book, skidded to a halt, smiled blindingly, advanced, kissed his wife on the cheek and said, “I didn’t hear you come in, Rebecca. How did it go?”
“Fine. Everything’s fine. I told Howard that you’d call him about the petition.”
She sounded abrupt, or maybe just tired. Gelber caught the tone and nodded. “I’ll do that now and leave you alone to talk. Mr. Samson? You asked where I was the morning of the eleventh? I had brunch with my wife, then, at eleven, I went bicycling with a friend.”
“Could we have your friend’s name?” Rosie asked.
He looked annoyed. “Sure. Mack Frazier. Doctor. Do you want his phone number?”
“Yes, please.” I scribbled the name and number in
my notebook. “Thanks very much. Sorry to trouble you.”
“No trouble,” he said, still annoyed. “Pleasure meeting you both.” He didn’t mean it. He left the room.
Rebecca turned back to us. “Please sit down.” She glanced at my empty bottle and Rosie’s half-empty. “Would you like another beer?”
We declined and sat down again.
She started to sit on the love seat where her husband had sat, then changed her mind. “I think I’ll just have a glass of wine, if you don’t mind waiting for another second.” She was tired. Her smile lined her face and made her eyes look sad.
I watched her walk out of the room. She was wearing a white jacket and pants that looked tailored and expensive. Her walk was firm, shoulders back, with no trace of weariness. I guessed she could hide it everywhere but her face. I’ve noticed that starts happening somewhere around the age of forty. Years of faking it wear the face out first.
She came back, sat down, and started asking me questions.
“Why are you checking up on my husband?” she wanted to know. She spoke pleasantly, with mild curiosity. “Do you suspect him of something?”
“Not really,” I said blandly. “We just need a picture of what everyone was doing the day Richmond was killed.”
She laughed and sipped her wine. “Isn’t that the same thing? I’m afraid I don’t have an alibi beyond that brunch with my husband. I spent the rest of the day alone. I had a campaign dinner scheduled for that evening, but then I heard about Joe.”
“Who told you?” Rosie asked.
“One of my campaign people. He’d talked to Ron Lewis. You know Ron?” I nodded.
“And what time was it that you talked to him?” Rosie persisted, determined to find an alibi in there somewhere.
“Not until right before the dinner. About five.” She sat back, rubbed her neck, drank some more wine. “I suppose you’re wondering about my relationship with Joe? How I felt about running against him? What I thought of him as a candidate? Possibly you want to know how I felt about him personally?”
Suicide King (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series) Page 10
