Designer Crimes

by Lia Matera

  Ten minutes later, I watched Sandy lope across the parking lot toward the car. I’d been reading by the light of an open glove compartment.

  “Good.” His breathing was a little labored as he climbed in “Glad I left it open for you. Why is it your never go wrong planning for the worst-case scenario?”

  “What happened back there? Did they make you ride the Captain Hook ride till you got sick?”

  “I look that bad?” He ran his hand over his hair and shrugged his jacket back to a nondrunk fit. “No. More didn’t rat me out. She looked plenty surprised, but she didn’t let on she knew me. I just talked soused and promised to walk back to my motel.”

  He shifted in the seat to get a good look at me. “You’re all right? I didn’t know you could run that fast.”

  “He didn’t chase me far. I’ve been sitting here reading Man and His Symbols.” I held up the book I’d found beneath the seat.

  “You’d be surprised how useful it is in catching taggers—graffiti artists. Seems like a lot of images are hard-wired into us.” He sounded a little embarrassed to have been caught with Jung. He patted his pockets, extracting keys.

  “I’ll be glad to get home.”

  His grin was sheepish. “One more stop.”

  I tried not to groan. “I won’t have to elude security people again?”

  “Qué será será.” He started the car. “That Lovitz is too damn much, posturing and puffing about how they should check my ID and call the cops. The man could use a Valium mickey.”

  “Well, actually, you were lying.”

  “But I was doing it well.” He swung out of the parking lot, driving past the Boardwalk toward the wharf.

  We wound a few miles along a residential cliff drive. I cracked the window, enjoying the sea scent, the beat of surf against rock.

  Eventually we turned right, into a district of small warehouses and night-shift industries. Farther on, vacant lots began the segue from town to roadside dunes and farmland.

  “Here we are.” He pulled up beside an acre or two of weeds. There were empty lots to our left and right, small factories across the way. “That’s Super Prime right there.” He pointed to what looked like a big square shed with a Quonset roof. Light poured from frosted windows into a parking lot of company trucks. “See why I got jazzed when I heard Maryanne More was coming here for dinner? She’s two minutes from Lovitz’s arcade and less than ten from the factory Kinsley worried would get sabotaged.” He modulated his voice to mimic a radio announcer’s. “Coincidence or conspiracy?”

  “We’re just going to sit here and hope something happens?”

  He leaned close, surprising me with a kiss. “We could neck.”

  I was spared—and deprived of—schoolgirlish turmoil by a sudden blare of sirens.

  “Timing. Damn.” He pushed his car door open, calling over his shoulder. “Scram! Go!” He took off across the empty lot before I had a chance to get back on mental track.

  His keys were still in the ignition, so I slid behind the wheel and started the car. The alarm (Super Prime’s?) was deafening. Either it had gotten louder, or Sandy had temporarily addled me.

  I drove off. Several blocks away, police cars began passing me, heading toward the factory.

  I parked on the cliff drive, hoping I’d remember my way back. I’d have to outwait the police, but I didn’t want to waste any more time than I had to. Here at the northern tip of town, where bay met open sea, the wind and ocean chill would be hard on Sandy—assuming he lurked successfully and didn’t get arrested.

  I wondered what he was doing. It would be a neat trick, learning anything without being seen and becoming a suspect. But I didn’t doubt for a minute that he could do it.

  12

  Sandy was true to his word. We were on our way home by midnight. The alarm at Super Prime had been written off as false: nothing in the plant appeared broken or tampered with. The police had come and gone without spotting Sandy. And Sandy hadn’t spotted anyone, either. If sabotage had been the plan, the alarm must have aborted it.

  I was back in my office by late morning. I spent an hour on the phone. I called Brad Rommel, called the Sheriff’s Department, called the DA’s office. I satisfied myself there were no new developments there.

  I flipped through my phone messages. I’d been besieged by calls from reporters wanting to discuss Kinsley’s death, to add my voice to their breathless buzz. I tossed the message slips into the trash.

  With little else to do, I stared out my office window. Traffic crept toward the freeway, shadowed by dingy buildings. Market Street cut me off from the financial district as dramatically as the Berlin wall. There were no sculptures below, no flower vendors, no cute espresso carts. From here, the city was a gray and charmless hive.

  I had expected Verhoeven to float me back uptown on a river of cash. Now what?

  My secretary, Gayle, buzzed me. “You have a visitor, Laura. Maryanne More.” Her voice was husky with excitement. She knew who More was. Everyone who read the papers knew. Everyone who watched unctuous news reports about “San Francisco’s latest lawyer slaying” knew.

  “Send her in.”

  I stood, checking my suit for lint, my stockings for runs. There was nothing I could do about the office, no art lying around to brighten it. My ingenuity, or maybe my enthusiasm, hadn’t stretched to disguising its cheapness, its serviceable newness. In fact the whole place stank of licked wounds and lukewarm commitment.

  I’d been nursing my grievances too long. I either had to do something about them, come to terms with where I was, or move on.

  I opened the door to Maryanne More, motioning her in and speaking the appropriate welcome. I would let her bring up last night. I would volunteer nothing, confirm nothing. That would be simplest, maybe safest.

  “I hope you don’t mind my dropping in.” Her tone was reluctant, as if circumstance had forced her into a conversation she’d rather skip.

  If so, that made two of us. “Please sit down. There’s a break in my schedule.” To say the least.

  She wore a deep green suit over a steel-gray blouse with a high collar. It made her look every bit as pale as she was. Her eyelids were swollen. The skin beneath her nose was chapped. It didn’t surprise me she was taking Kinsley’s murder hard.

  She sank into the vinyl chair beside my desk. She made a visible effort to sit straight, her handbag primly in her lap.

  “I wanted to talk to you about last night,” she said. Her fingers, long and delicate, seemed to play a slow piano tune on the purse. “I’ve thought about it all morning, and I can’t see any reason not to talk to you about it.”

  “Please go on.” I kept my tone neutral, friendly, as if I waited without prior knowledge.

  My response surprised her, I think. She pushed hard against the chair back. “Mr. Arkelett was following me. I think you were with him.”

  I pasted on a frown. “Following you where?”

  “Inquiries are being made of some of my clients,” she said quietly. Light from the window caught glimmers of copper in her tidy brown hair. “Clients I couldn’t help. It’s gotten back to me.”

  I waited. “You’re accusing Sandy?”

  She nodded. “He’s selected certain cases, certain clients to research. He followed me yesterday to meet a client whose case profile somewhat matches the others.” Her eyes, as gray as her shirt, held mine steadily. I had to give her credit: she’d discovered Sandy’s research quickly—and he wasn’t one to leave broken twigs on the trail. “I’ve tried to help you. I think you know that, I think Mr. Arkelett knows that. But I don’t understand this. He’s making some kind of assumption, and”—she shook her head in apparent puzzlement—“I don’t even understand his premise. Your premise.”

  “My premise?” My tone implied disclaimer, somewhat accurately. “Sandy does what he thinks best. He doesn’t ne
ed my permission. If anything, he has a tendency to bully me into going along with his agenda.”

  “But you do know what I’m talking about.”

  “I assume he’s gotten bulldoggish about investigating you and anyone or anything else that might bear on the shooting. But in terms of my involvement, his … intensity has pretty much spared me from having to think about it or deal with it.”

  “That may be true.” She smiled slightly. “As far as it goes. But he takes you along with him. He brought you to my office.”

  “Because he needed me there. He needed information from me.”

  “You’ve spoken to him today?”

  I hesitated. “You say he followed you yesterday? To a client meeting? Are you sure he wasn’t approaching the client to ask about Ms. Kinsley? That it wasn’t a coincidence that you happened to be there then?”

  Coincidence. Judging by the look on her face, More had as about much faith in it as Sandy.

  “The client made a special trip to Santa Cruz from San Jose to meet me.” It was her turn to be less than forthcoming—Santa Cruz was hardly a halfway point. But though I waited, she didn’t mention Lovitz’s connection to the Boardwalk.

  “Maybe Sandy knew your client would be there.” The evasiveness was wearing on me. It’s always tricky, always tiring; always part of being a lawyer.

  More sighed audibly, staring at the now-still fingers on her handbag. “It’s been a very confusing few days,” she observed. “Capped by Mr. Arkelett’s perplexing interest in my failures.”

  Yes, she’d see her “lack of remedy” cases as failures … if she weren’t offering extralegal options.

  “Including last night’s client,” she continued quietly. “But one thing I’d like Mr. Arkelett to know? If you would?”

  “Yes?”

  “The man I saw last night first approached me as a client. In that regard, I wasn’t much help.” She colored suddenly. “But he’s a very attractive and intelligent person, Ms. Di Palma.”

  So she’d gone on a date with him? She’d driven all the way to Santa Cruz for a romantic dinner, days after her partner was slain? She couldn’t expect me to believe that.

  “He’s justifiably proud of his work, and he wanted to show it off. And I wanted to let him.” She sounded a little defiant. “Mr. Arkelett will do what he thinks necessary, I know.” Her voice was steady, her eyes met mine. Only the remaining heat in her cheeks betrayed her embarrassment. “And I don’t have anything to hide, although I’m made uncomfortable by his digging into my professional life. I guess if you’d let him know he’s entering my private life? I don’t know him well enough to assume that will make a difference, but I’d like to hope so.”

  I wondered why she wasn’t angrier. I knew from experience how it felt to live in the fishbowl of police and media scrutiny. Now Sandy had added the strain of a private investigation.

  “I’ll convey everything you’ve said,” I promised. “But I don’t pretend to have much influence over Sandy, not when he thinks he’s doing what he’s got to do.”

  “I’m a little disappointed.” She blinked at me, pale brows raised. “I hoped you’d be more forthcoming. This is difficult for me. Two days ago, you asked for my help. I hoped for your honesty in return.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, this is between you and Sandy.” More important, between Sandy and me. “You may be right. He may well owe you an explanation. Have you tried to reach him today?”

  She nodded. “He hasn’t returned my call yet.”

  “Then you don’t know that he can’t explain this to your satisfaction.”

  “I suppose,” she said wryly, “I was hoping you could do that. Or would do that.”

  She was laying it on so thick. Didn’t she get it? I wouldn’t speak for Sandy. “I’m sorry you’re disappointed. I’m sorry about everything you’ve been through. I can’t even pretend to know how it feels to have your partner killed that way. And then to have your privacy invaded. But I don’t know what to offer you except my sympathy. And you seem to expect more.”

  She rose, nodding. She looked down at me, nodding again. She seemed on the verge of saying something else, but a quick wrinkle of the nose suggested she thought it unnecessary or unworthy. She left without further comment.

  Not two minutes later, Gayle buzzed me. “Mr. Arkelett on the phone.”

  “Sandy, she was just here,” I told him. “Maryanne More.”

  “Don’t I know it.” His voice brimmed with excitement. “Listen.”

  There was a clicking on his end of the phone, the scouring sound of a tape starting. And then my voice: Sandy does what he thinks best. He doesn’t need my permission. If anything, he has a tendency to bully me into going along with his agenda.

  “Oh my god.” I spoke over my taped words. “I don’t believe it. She brought a bug in here with her.”

  “She sure did.” Sandy sounded jubilant. “Talk about chutzpah. Man oh man.”

  “You picked up our whole conversation?” I quickly reviewed it. It was a little disconcerting to know he’d listened to me talk about him.

  “Yes, ma’am. Ozzy did. We accessed it the exact same way. Knew she was heading over because the paralegal, Hester Marris, popped into her office and they talked about it. More must have had the bug in her briefcase.”

  “Handbag. She wasn’t carrying a briefcase.”

  “Except here’s the kicker. Either More had a much bigger more powerful bug—we’re talking walkie-talkie sized—or somebody followed her. Somebody stuck fairly close outside your door with a receiver-transmitter. Some kind of relay link between the bug in the handbag and the receiver in the computer.”

  “I don’t remember More’s bag.” I recalled her fingers lightly tapping it. “But it must have been big enough to hold a walkie-talkie. She had both hands on it.”

  “Damn, I wish I’d headed her off when I heard she was coming over. Followed her.”

  “You guys eavesdropped on everything that happened in her office today?”

  “Well, yuh, I guess you could put it that way—not that it amounted to much.” He laughed. “But hot damn, huh? She came over there and bugged your office.”

  “She took the bug away with her, right? I’m not bugged now?” No way I’d let two overgrown boys use their new toys to listen to my every sneeze and phone call.

  “Yeah, she took it. We could hear her walk up the block outside your window. Then she either switched if off or got too far from the relay.” Sandy had a side-of-the-mouth conference with Osmil. I heard the latter say, “Yes, Captain.”

  “I’m glad you found out she brought a bug here. But Sandy, you know what? You can’t keep listening to her forever.”

  A brief silence. I could hear keyboard clatter in his office. “True.”

  “Isn’t there some way to tell Krisbaum and Edwards about it?” The two homicide detectives assigned to the Kinsley case.

  “Not without getting in a world of trouble.”

  “Can you do it anonymously?” Whether or not bugging your own offices was illegal—and we couldn’t prove anyone had been taped without consent, anyone but us—it would certainly interest the police.

  “Let me put it to you this way. What good would it do the cops to know this unless they knew the rest? About Kinsley’s memo that got erased.”

  “You could send them a copy of the memo, also anonymously.” This should be Homicide’s responsibility, not his, not ours.

  “I shouldn’t have called you,” he said tentatively. “You’re stressing out.”

  “I might be, yes.”

  “You did a good job of covering for me,” he offered. “Made me sound like a big dumb dog that knocks over the vases, and you can’t do a thing with him.”

  “If the shoe fits.”

  He laughed. He was happy. His electronic chase was more interest
ing and unexpected than he’d envisioned.

  “Do you want to go out for a drink, Sandy? Early dinner?”

  “Can’t. Data to process, reports to read. It’s going to be a late night.”

  “More told me—”

  “I heard. She’s made it to her office. I’ll call you later.” And with that, I was dismissed.

  Most people would be glad to be through with work by 4:30. But I envied Sandy his data and reports.

  13

  I parked my rental car, a Japanese sedan that smelled like cigarettes, in front of the Victorian. It was a tall house with plenty of gingerbread, not as spectacular as the four-color with the small dome across the street, but freshly-painted and well-maintained, flanked by furbelowed houses with tree-sized rhododendrons.

  My father’s cousin, my “Uncle” Henry, paid the gardener well, but you could tell he didn’t personally care about the plants. They were austerely pruned, not heavy with wet flowers like the neighbors’. This would be his last year as mayor of Hillsdale. I tried to imagine him developing some quiet hobby like gardening, but he didn’t seem the type. For thirty-two years, his life had been full of conflict and bonhomie, QT handshakes and meetings roaring with strife.

  I slid out of the car. At loose ends, I’d grabbed the one evening flight here. I didn’t have anything to do in San Francisco, and I needed to get going on Brad Rommel’s case.

  Seeing the light in the parlor window, I was glad I’d come. Uncle Henry and I had sorted through my father’s things, taken care of his wishes and his savings (spending it on this house, which the two men had lately shared). The hard part was over. Now we could sit comfortably together and grieve. And I could count on Uncle Henry to have some Stoli in the freezer for me. I could count on him for companionship without hassle.

  Leaving my Aunt Diana and renting this house with my father had been the smartest thing he’d ever done. He’d relaxed into a state of sloppy comfort unlike the appearances-first formality of his previous household. He’d turned out to be a much nicer, more perceptive person than I’d ever imagined, seeing him beside his frosty, tight-lipped wife.