Designer Crimes

by Lia Matera

  I felt strong fingers on my shoulders; thought for a wishful instant Sandy had come to protect me.

  It was Jay Bartoli. He helped me to my feet, looking over my shoulder at Connie Gold. With an intense glance at me, he edged me aside to take my place over her.

  The spot where I’d knelt was completely soaked with blood. The smell of burnt powder mingled with the office worker’s cheap scent.

  Bartoli seemed to be reaching beneath Gold, speaking quietly into her ear. I heard her murmur something, but I couldn’t make out the words.

  Gently Bartoli rolled her so she was on her side facing the back of the elevator. He hunched over her, bracing her body against his lap.

  He reached back a hand, saying, “Give me your jacket.”

  I slipped it off and handed it to him. He pressed it to Gold’s chest or shoulder.

  He leaned close to her ear and spoke again, whispering in soothing tones.

  I stood frozen among strangers, willing Gold to pull through. I watched her, knowing it could have been me, that he’d been aiming at me.

  It was true. Someone was trying to kill me. Someone had come very close three times now. Three times in nine days.

  I looked around, suddenly panicked. Where was the person with the ski mask?

  I edged beside a knot of gawkers who’d bled out of adjoining offices.

  I wrapped my arms around myself, cold without my jacket; frozen in my belated acceptance of the truth.

  Someone had killed Jocelyn Kinsley trying to kill me. Somebody had ripped the door from my car trying to run me over. Someone had shot Connie Gold trying to shoot me.

  And I had no idea why.

  28

  “I don’t know why. I’m just telling you what’s been happening.” I couldn’t keep the whine out of my voice. I felt battered, scared and aggrieved. The county sheriff, a rotund bald man who didn’t say much, and Jay Bartoli, who’d joined us midinterrogation, seemed unduly obtuse. “You can check all of it. It’s all on paper somewhere. I’m not inventing it.”

  “We never said that.” Bartoli glanced at his boss uncertainly.

  The sheriff remained stock-still, hands folded over his ample belly, his face as serene as the Buddha’s.

  Bartoli pressed on. “Of course we believe you. We already know about most of it. We just want your side, your thoughts. You know how these investigations are, the more we hear the more it ups our odds of figuring things out.”

  “What have you done so far?” It came out sounding like an accusation. “Brad Rommel is too scared to show his face. The mall went up in flames. Somebody with a gun can walk right into the county building—maybe right past your office—and start shooting. What have you figured out?”

  Bartoli sighed as if his patience were fraying. He glanced again at his boss.

  “Let’s stick to this morning,” he said evenly.

  “That’s where we started. We’ve been over it and over it. Let’s talk about the mall and the blood in my uncle’s yard.”

  “This morning,” he repeated. “What made you and Connie leave her office?”

  “You did.” My stomach churned, my eyes were on fire. I couldn’t handle this much longer. “You were late and we decided to fetch you.”

  “How long had you been waiting?”

  “Maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s not very long.”

  “It is if you don’t get along.” Damn. I’d meant to leave my feelings for Gold out of this.

  “Were you quarreling?” He was perched on a corner of his boss’s desk. He leaned closer.

  “No. We were impatient.”

  “What did you mean, it’s a long time if you don’t get along?”

  “That Gold didn’t want to start without you, and I didn’t see why not.”

  He folded his arms and raised his brows. “You had no idea why she wanted to wait for me?”

  “No.” I watched his face. Was he saying there was a reason? Something more than Gold’s stubbornness? “Are you keeping something from me?”

  “Let’s stick to the matter at hand.”

  “Is that it? Did you find out something she didn’t want me to know? Was she going to try to limit what you said?” DAs routinely made it laborious for defense counsel to gather information. But in this case, we’d had information to swap. It was in her interest to be cooperative. Or so I’d thought.

  “Who suggested leaving the office to look for me?”

  “I did.” As Bartoli and the sheriff already knew. “I’ve told you that a dozen times. I said I’d go get you, and she jumped up and said she was coming with me. She was acting like she didn’t trust me to talk to you alone.”

  He kept his arms folded, practicing his best poker face. The sheriff stifled a yawn.

  “You’ve known Connie how long now?”

  “I met her last year. When she was—or rather wasn’t—prosecuting Ted McGuin. When I ran into you again.” Before that, I hadn’t seen Jay Bartoli since the morning after our quickie tryst at age nineteen. I was beginning to wish I’d stayed away longer, stayed away forever.

  “But you’ve had a number of meetings with her since.”

  “Yes. Several since I took on Brad Rommel.” I knew her, if that’s what he was driving at. I knew how territorial and ego-driven she was. I might have guessed she’d insist on playing hall monitor rather than allow me a moment alone with Bartoli. “But if you’re asking whether I expected her to go with me out into the hall, no. I didn’t. In retrospect, I can see where she might. But at the time, I was just trying to speed things up, get the meeting going.”

  And now, in addition to more immediate concerns, god knew when I’d get the information I needed.

  “Is it fair to say you’ve had your differences with Connie?”

  “No, it’s not fair. I challenged her practice of selling film rights when she prosecutes. I believe that’s unethical. I wanted to make sure she didn’t do it in this case.”

  “Because you felt the portrayal of you would be negative.”

  I practically snorted. “Every portrayal of me is negative, Jay. I’ve gotten a lot of press, and it’s pretty much all been bad. I’m used to it.”

  He looked suddenly sympathetic. “It must be hard to get used to something like that.”

  “Not if it’s an indication you’re doing your job well.”

  “But you expect an unflattering portrayal from Gold, if she sells the film rights to this case.”

  “She’s not going to sell the film rights. The State Bar’s on her butt.”

  “It’s a gray area in terms of legal ethics, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you can’t really be sure the Bar will stop her. That they can stop her if she decides to go ahead.”

  “It’s not that simple, Jay. The State Bar has ways of making its displeasure felt. It’s kind of like having the IRS mad at you.”

  “You’ve bucked them in the past. Am I wrong? Haven’t you challenged the State Bar?”

  “Yes, I have.” It wasn’t common knowledge. I was surprised he knew. “And the result was a state assembly bill backed by the Bar. It made a defense I’d pioneered flat-out illegal.” My reputation was tarnished. My stock at White, Sayres & Speck went down. “That’s my point. It’s doesn’t make sense to tangle with State Bar unless your client’s life depends on it.” My client’s had. “Gold’s not in that position. She’s just after a buck.” I remembered her bleeding on the elevator floor. “I don’t mean to criticize. I’m saying, I was trying to do my job.”

  “Based on your stirring things up, two women are suing her now.” The victims of the rapist she’d prosecuted were feeling betrayed by Gold’s commercialization. “That sounds like personal animosity on your part.”

  “No. I want the fairest possible trial for Brad Rommel
. I won’t get it if Gold tailors her prosecution for a movie script. It’s not personal, it’s professional.”

  There was a tapping at the sheriff’s door. The sheriff came briefly to life, gesturing for Jay to get it.

  We watched each other for the moment it took Jay to open the door. What was he thinking, sitting there in flaccid silence?

  Behind me, Jay spoke to someone in quiet tones.

  When he returned to his perch on the desk edge, he had a zip-lock plastic bag in his hand. It contained a slip of paper.

  He handed the bag to me. “Don’t open it, just look at the contents.”

  It was a corner of a larger sheet of paper. It had a phone number scrawled across it. I didn’t recognize it or the handwriting.

  “I’ve never seen this before. I don’t know the number.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re aware that you’re under oath, and that anything you say can and will be used as evidence against you?”

  “Yes.” I knew the interrogation was “custodial”—that I couldn’t get up and walk out. “I signed your disclaimer to that effect.”

  Bartoli and the sheriff watched me frown down at the scrap of paper.

  “Whose phone number is it, Jay? Did you find this in the hall?”

  He reached out a hand for it. “Tell us again what made you turn around and duck.”

  I told them again. I told them all morning and well into the afternoon.

  For all the good it did me.

  29

  The afternoon had grown dark with low clouds over damp gray streets. The air shivered with mist that soaked through clothing, raising gooseflesh and sinking to the bone.

  I parked a block from Uncle Henry’s Victorian. There were two vans in front, news vans ready to disgorge men with minicameras on their shoulders, women brandishing tape recorders and microphones. They already had the story of today’s shooting. I assumed they’d been quick to interview county office workers. But they didn’t have their sound-bite from me yet. They’d hover here until they did.

  I sat in my rented Toyota watching moisture coat the windshield and run off in snaking rivulets. Hillsdale seemed a cold and gloomy place to me today, a place to stay indoors nursing chip-on-the-shoulder provinciality. It seemed a town of hermits—I’d been one myself—lashing out at one another in the frustrating absence of other amusements. It no longer matched my fantasy of blessed freedom from convention. I longed to be back in San Francisco, warm in my apartment with Sandy beside me.

  The last thing I wanted was to be on television. I’d parked in front of a Queen Anne heavy on the gingerbread and rose bushes. There was no sign of movement behind its windows.

  I slid to the passenger side of the car and got out. I walked quickly through the Queen Anne’s side yard into its backyard. Though I might have to climb a few fences along the way, I should be able to trespass to the back of Uncle Henry’s.

  Determined to avoid the hassle of reporters, I didn’t care who or what I might encounter. I traipsed through four neighboring yards, two of them cyclone fenced. Had someone stepped out a back door, I’d have moved on without explanation. But no one stopped me. A corner of my consciousness noticed flowers and pagodas and covered spas, making note of ways to improve the Victorian.

  Our yard looked worse than usual, still strewn with greenery that cops had carried from the gully on their pants legs. The wet lawn had borne too much traffic and was pocked with muddy indentations.

  I climbed the back steps and twisted the old-fashioned key buzzer beside the back door. I wanted to give my uncle some warning before I let myself in. I was just inserting the key in the lock when he flung the door open. He was red-faced, his lips parted as if to read the riot act.

  He blinked a couple of times, readjusting his reaction.

  “Reporters been bothering you?” I guessed.

  He nodded, the flame fading from his cheeks. “I’ve been on the phone with Harrison”—Harrison Turitte, the sheriff—“getting updates. You’ve had a hell of a morning.”

  I gave him a quick squeeze on my way in, taking comfort in the familiar mingling of his aftershave and Johnnie Walker. “What’s his take on this? Why’d they keep me there so long?”

  “He’s being cagey. I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t trust it. They held me a lot longer than they needed to. And their questions …” I shook my head. “A lot of stuff about how much I dislike Connie Gold. How I must have expected her to come out into the hall with me. They seem to think I lured her out there, had a contract killer waiting.” It sounded preposterous, but there it was.

  He nodded grimly. There were bags under his eyes, a tired tic beneath one gray brow. He was dressed for company, in dark slacks and a flecked black cardigan. “I didn’t like what I heard. I’ve been worrying about you.”

  It did my heart good to hear him say so.

  “I guess you know Gold is okay—just nicked, really,” he continued. “But I hear she’s mad as a hornet, really putting the screws on Harrison. He doesn’t seem to know what to think about all this.” He reached for a tumbler of whiskey he’d left on a table by the back door.

  “What’s their big secret, Uncle Henry? Do you know? What didn’t Gold tell me this morning? What was she waiting for Bartoli for?”

  Uncle Henry didn’t ask what I meant, seemed up on the chronology. It was a tribute to his status that he’d gotten details from the sheriff.

  “The mall.” He looked deflated.

  I braced myself. The last time we’d discussed it, he’d been furious with me. “What did they find out?”

  “It wasn’t firebombs or anything like that. The witness who claimed to see a plane, he melted away in the crowd and never came forward again. The police doubt the whole story.”

  “So it was arson? On-the-ground, garden-variety arson?”

  He shook his head. “The latest theory is an earthquake.”

  “I didn’t feel a quake.” But maybe I’d been on the airplane flying up or on the road, driving to town.

  “I didn’t either. But there was one, four point something. Epicenter not far south of the mall. Although it was a good hour before the fire started. I guess it can happen like that.” He paled, looking away.

  The mall’s location had been a bone of contention. Environmentalists had packed every planning session, complaining of the instability of the mudflats. Uncle Henry had taken up cudgels for a consortium of developers, stressing that no more suitable location had been offered.

  “Gas mains burst,” he said. “That’s what they’re saying now. Gas-fed fire. I was just”—he gulped, blinking back tears—“writing the council a letter stating I’ll retire at the end of the month. Leave before they chase me out of town.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense. How’s a smallish earthquake going to cause that kind of explosion? And an hour later, at that? Maybe someone used the quake as a cover, manually tampered with the gas lines.”

  “I’d like to believe that.” He took a long swallow from his glass. “But you know, either way, I’m out. Because it could have happened that way even if it didn’t.”

  “No, that’s not fair. You don’t know that. If someone smashed the gas lines, it’s arson, not a natural flaw, not something you glossed over, not something that’s your fault.” I dropped into a kitchen chair. “Whoever said he saw an airplane, maybe he’s the culprit. He was right there at the scene. He could have known a small plane was being flown to Brad Rommel’s house either to blow him up or get him arrested.”

  My uncle turned toward the window, bracing himself against the sink.

  “Earthquake, my butt,” I continued. “We have quakes that size all the time.”

  But culpability was too heavy a mantle to shed easily. Uncle Henry didn’t speak.

  “Think about it,
” I urged. “This whole business of someone spotting a plane, and a plane turning up at Brad’s—it means something. It’s part of the same thing.”

  To take advantage of the earthquake as a cover, the person had to recall the brouhaha about building on mudflats. That meant he’d lived here at least eight years. Either that or he’d been lucky enough to have his sabotage coincide with a quake.

  “Whoever said he spotted a plane, he’s the one who phoned Brad Rommel—or had Cathy Piatti do it. He screwed up the gas pipes. He flew the plane to Brad’s.”

  My uncle turned, his expression heartbreaking. “Who’d go to the trouble, Laura? Listen to yourself. Blow up a mall to frame somebody who’s already been arrested for murder? What’s the point?”

  “I don’t know.” I shivered in my damp clothes.

  Maybe it had to do with Uncle Henry. With him or with me. He and Hal were all the family I had left. He meant the world to me.

  “What else did the sheriff say? Anything?” The news about the mall would have made Gold cagey enough. The plane in Rommel’s driveway was beside the point if there was no firebomb.”

  “The blood in our yard.” Uncle Henry looked mystified. “They still don’t know whose it is. But they do know some of it was frozen and thawed out later.”

  “Meaning it could have been siphoned over a period of time. That it wasn’t necessarily a fatal amount.”

  He nodded.

  “Sandy’s right,” I said. “This whole thing’s as phony as a three-dollar bill. Rommel was charged with murdering Piatti, but according to him, she phoned him. Supposedly he blew up the mall and set the getaway plane on fire, but it wasn’t his plane and the mall didn’t get bombed anyway. And we end up with a bucketful of blood on our lawn, but it wasn’t really enough to kill anybody because it got drawn over a period of time.”

  I didn’t add, And someone tried to shoot me, run me over, and then shoot me again.

  “They’re going to put the mall thing to bed, Laura. Say the earthquake did it and quit worrying about it. And Rommel’s still on the hook for Piatti, no matter if they ever figure out this other bucket or not.” He’d put his drink down. He was squinting thoughtfully.