Muller, Marcia - [McCone 04] Games to Keep the Dark Away (v.1,shtml) (5 page)

I
had two hours before I could catch Don Del Boccio at the
radio station after his show. As I drove slowly down the
dusk-shrouded streets of Keller's subdivision, I thought about going
to my motel, then changed my mind and started north toward Salmon
Bay. Sylvia Anthony had said she didn't know Jane's whereabouts, but
I didn't believe her. Perhaps I could convince her to tell me or, at
the very least, deliver another message from Snelling to her
daughter. Possibly I could steer the conversation around to the
mysterious trouble at The Tidepools—an unanswered question that
was beginning to bother me in much the same way a hangnail does.

When I got to Hydrangea Lane, a light-colored compact was parked
in the driveway of the Anthony home. The house itself was dark. I
went up to the door, crushing a blue blossom that drooped over onto
the steps, and knocked. There was no sound from inside.

I turned and looked over at the car in the driveway, wondering if
it might be Jane's. Snelling had said she drove a white Toyota. This
was one of those boxy-looking Hondas, but he'd also said that all
cars except for VW's looked the same to him. I went down the steps
and tried its door. Locked. I peered inside, looking for something
that might identify the owner, but the front and backseat were empty.

Turning, I glanced up and down the narrow unpaved street. Lights
shone in the other houses and from one of them I could hear the howl
of sirens and blare of horns from a TV cop show. Otherwise it was
quiet: there were no dogs barking, no children calling, no music or
laughter. It was a desolate silence and it made me think fondly of
San Francisco's light-hearted vitality.

I left my MG where it was parked and walked through the lanes to
the road by the marina. Rose's Crab Shack, a weathered establishment
set on stilts over the water, was open, and I went inside. A counter
with stools ran along one wall and a couple of rickety tables
occupied the rest of the floor space. Hand-lettered signs advertised
beer, bait, and burgers.

The only customer was the bearded fisherman I'd spoken to that
morning at the boatyard. He glanced at me, then stood up, fumbled
some coins onto the counter, and left. A frail old man with shaggy
white hair was sitting on a folding chair next to the grill. He
raised his head from his newspaper and gave me a cursory look. I
ordered a cup of coffee. It was terrible, and I added two spoonsful
of sugar, hoping to kill the bitter taste.

I cleared my throat and said, "Interesting little town you've
got here." The words sounded ridiculous as soon as they were
out.

"No, it ain't."

"I'm sorry?"

"I said it ain't. About the most interesting thing hereabouts
is the new fall TV shows, now that we're over the summer reruns."

"Oh."

He picked up his newspaper again. "Of course, today the most
interesting thing hereabouts is you."

"What?" I stopped stirring the coffee and set the spoon
down.

"I don't know as we've ever had a private detective before.
Especially a woman private eye."

"How did you—"

"John Cala told me."

"John Cala?"

"Him, the one that just left."

The fisherman, of course. "But how did he know?"

"Sylvia Anthony. John lives next door."

"Does everybody here know everybody else's business?"

He shrugged. "Why not? Keeps us honest." Then he rustled
the paper and disappeared behind it.

I idled away ten minutes, barely touching my coffee. Then I
started back to Sylvia Anthony's house, feeling as if the eyes of
Salmon Bay were upon me. It was after seven-thirty; if Mrs. Anthony
was still out, I'd just go back to Port San Marco and talk to Don Del
Boccio.

I was at the corner of the side street that led to Hydrangea Lane
when I heard the sound of running footsteps. They were farther up the
road, coming toward me from the direction of the old pier. I stopped
and made out a bulky figure. As it came closer, I recognized the
fisherman, John Cala. I put out a hand to stop him.

"Hey!" I said. "What's going on?"

He pushed my hand away and kept running. As he passed me, I
glimpsed his face—it was twisted with fear. He turned into the
side street, probably heading for his house.

Now, what was that all about? When I'd talked with him that
morning, Cala hadn't seemed a man who would scare easily. But he was
plainly frightened. Frightened enough to make me want to know why.

I considered going after him, but decided he'd had too great a
head start. After all, I didn't know for certain that he was running
for home. Instead, I went on toward the pier. There was no place else
out here that he could have been coming from.

It loomed up in the dusk, leaning at an unsteady angle on its
pilings. Looking around, I saw no one. I stepped onto the planking
and tested it to see how it held my weight. In spite of its
appearance, the pier was remarkably sturdy. I started forward,
feeling with each step for loose or missing boards. The water sloshed
beneath, but otherwise I heard nothing. I got to the end and looked
down into the blackness. Here, in the bay, the tide was low. There
was nothing frightening down there that I could see. If anything, it
was a peaceful place. Far off in the channel I could see a ship's
lights. The horizon was a faint line of color, the pinks and reds of
the sky paling quickly to indigo. I watched for a moment and then, as
I was about to turn to go, I heard a small bumping sound.

I listened. It came again. From under the other end of the pier. I
reached into my bag for my small flashlight and started back, shining
it through the boards at my feet.

The shape below was pale colored, half in and half out of the
water. The part in the water bumped up against the pilings with the
motion of the waves. I went over and squatted down on the edge of the
planking, shining my light closer. It was a woman, dressed in jeans
and a bulky white sweater. She lay on her face on the bank, one arm
outflung, her body in the water from the waist down. I sucked in my
breath, ran down the rest of the pier, and scrambled over the rocky
bank to her.

Her flesh, when I touched her wrist, was cool but pliant. I felt
carefully, but could find no pulse. Brushing aside her long dark
hair, I touched the spot where the big artery should have throbbed.
Nothing. I grasped her shoulder, rolled her on her back.

And looked down into the lifeless face of Jane Anthony.

"No!" I said. The word sounded loud in the stillness.

How had it happened? I picked up my flash from where I'd dropped
it next to Jane's body and shone it on her. There was a red stain on
the front of the white sweater. She had not fallen from the pier and
broken her neck. She had been murdered. Stabbed, maybe. Or shot.

I looked around for a weapon or some other evidence, but saw
nothing. Standing up, I began breathing hard and for a moment was
afraid I'd hyperventilate. Police. I had to call the police.
Remembering a phone booth in front of the Shorebird Bar, I scrambled
back up the bank and started running.

Of course there was no 911 number. The operator, spurred by the
urgency in my voice, connected me with the Port San Marco Police. I
told them who and where I was, then left the booth. As I waited for
the police to arrive, I resisted a strong urge to go into the bar for
a drink.

It was ten minutes before I heard the sirens and, by the time the
cruiser pulled up, I had been joined by a crowd of weathered men in
work clothes who had been inside the bar. I climbed into the police
car and directed the officers to the old pier. The crowd followed on
foot.

I pointed out where Jane's body lay on the bank beneath the pier,
then returned to the cruiser. A plainclothes detective named Barrow
spoke briefly with me and said we would talk more later. An ambulance
arrived, and lab technicians. The crowd grew larger. After a while I
got out of the car and began to pace up and down beside it.

The compact in Sylvia Anthony's driveway must have been Jane's.
Yes, Jane had gone to see her mother again. But where was Mrs.
Anthony? And why had Jane come here, to the deserted pier? And what
about the fisherman I'd met running down the road? Had he found
Jane's body? Or had he…

The police had set up floodlights and now they illuminated the
ambulance attendants as they brought the body up the bank. The crowd
moved forward, as if it were one person. The lights' glare picked out
eager faces, eyes greedy for a glimpse of the body. Young and old,
male and female, they all wore expressions of undisguised
anticipation.

My anger rose as I watched them, and I was about to turn away when
my eyes met a pair of familiar dark ones. John Cala and I stared at
one another for several seconds before he stepped back and vanished
into the crowd.

As I
was leaving the Port San Marco police station at a
little after midnight, I saw a plainclothes detective bringing Sylvia
Anthony in. They had located her, Lieutenant Barrow had told me, at a
church bingo game, and by now she presumably had identified her
daughter's body. The police had not been so lucky in finding John
Cala. The fisherman was missing from his usual haunts. Barrow had run
a check on him, and it turned out he had a record, including a
conviction for assault.

Mrs. Anthony's head was bowed and she clung to the plainclothes
detective's arm. She seemed frail and even older than she had that
morning. When I started over to her, she looked up. Her eyes were
red-rimmed but dry, and the bitter lines I'd seen before were deeply
set on her face.

She said, "Get away from me."

I stopped.

"Get away," she repeated. "If you hadn't come
snooping around here, my girl would still be alive."

The detective raised his eyebrows, shook his head at me, and
steered her across the lobby toward the squadroom. I watched them go,
then went out to my car. A fine mist hung around the lights in the
parking lot and the MG's windshield was covered with saltcake
moisture. I got in and turned on the defroster, then sat there
waiting for the glass to clear. There was nothing I could do now
except go back to my motel and call Snelling. My case was finished—or
was it? Maybe he would want me to follow up and see what the police
found out about Jane's murder.

When I entered my room I saw that the red message button on the
telephone was lit. A sleepy-sounding voice at the desk told me I
should call Hank Zahn. It was late, but I knew my boss habitually
stayed up until all hours, so instead I dialed Snelling's number. The
phone rang and rang, but there was no answer.

Odd, I thought. Where would the reclusive photographer be at
almost one in the morning? I dialed again, to make sure I'd called
the right number, but the result was the same. Very odd. I pondered
it for a moment, came to no conclusion, and called Hank.

He answered immediately, sounded as fresh as if it were nine in
the morning. Hank was a restless man whose lean, loose-jointed body
needed little fuel other than coffee and the horrible concoctions he
whipped up in the All Souls kitchen—and that the other
attorneys steadfastly refused to eat. His keen mind thrived on
massive doses of information collected from such wide-ranging sources
as the newspapers of several major cities, lectures by little-known
experts on esoteric disciplines, and advertisements on the backs of
cereal boxes. Neither his mind nor his body required much in the way
of sleep.

"I just called to see how the investigation's going," he
said.

"Not so good."

"How come?"

"The woman Snelling hired me to find is dead. Murdered."

There was a pause. "You do manage to get mixed up in this
stuff, don't you?"

"Yes." I'd been involved with six murders in the three
years I'd worked for All Souls. Jane Anthony's made it seven. "It's
depressing. The victim's mother claims if I hadn't been, as she puts
it, snooping around, it wouldn't have happened."

"Do you believe that?"

"No. It was just an emotional statement."

"You don't sound like you don't believe it."

I shrugged, then remembered Hank couldn't see me. "Intellectually,
I don't. Otherwise—who knows?"

Hank seemed to sense I didn't want to talk anymore. "Well,
I'm sorry it turned out that way. When will you be back?"

"Tomorrow, maybe. After I report to Snelling, I'll let you
know."

"Okay." Again he paused. "And, Shar…"

"Yes?"

"Try to get some sleep now."

"Sure. Take care." I hung up and sat on the bed a while,
staring at a crack in the beige wall. Then I got up, undressed, and
crawled between the sheets.

For a long time sleep wouldn't come. I shifted positions, bunching
up the pillows this way and that, trying to clear my mind of images
of Jane's lifeless body. When I finally did doze off, I was
half-conscious of tossing and turning, coming fully awake in the
midst of unclear but disturbing dreams to find myself tangled in the
covers, drenched in sweat. As gray light began to seep around the
edges of the curtains, I gave up and propped myself against the
headboard to think.

I'd certainly never intended my life to take the direction it had.
The job with the detective agency that I'd taken after leaving
college had been a stopgap measure for an out-of-work sociology
graduate who was waiting for her real opportunity to come along. But
the flexible hours and freedom from the confining walls of an office
suited me; and when the agency had fired me for my inability to bend
to authority, my old friend Hank had hired me on at All Souls. The
unconventional atmosphere there had suited me even better. I was good
at what I did, and proud of it.

If it had stopped there, it would have been fine. Or even if it
had stopped with the first murder case, it would have been all right.
But there were other deaths, and the older I got the more violence I
saw, the more I wondered if I could go on like this indefinitely. And
when I wondered that, I also wondered what I would do if I couldn't
go on. What on earth
could
a former private eye with a
useless sociology degree do for a living?

I got up, took three aspirin, and stepped into the shower. It
helped some. When I was dressed I picked up the phone and called
Snelling. As before, his phone rang eight, nine, ten times with no
answer.

What now? I asked myself. Go back to the city? But what if
Snelling—when I finally reached him—wanted me to follow
up here? I'd only have to turn around and drive south again. I
decided to get some breakfast and then see Don Del Boccio, as I'd
planned to before I'd found Jane's body.

The disc jockey was listed in the phone book. He lived in the old
section of town, near the harbor. The houses there were great
clapboard castles built by the families who had gotten rich during
the city's heyday as a fishing port. Now they were broken up into
apartments or converted into rooming houses.

I rang Del Boccio's bell and received an immediate answering buzz.
Inside was an entry way with scuffed parquet floors and a central
staircase. Since none of the doors of the entry opened, I went to the
stairs and looked up. A man with a lean, tanned face stared down at
me, a mass of black hair falling onto his forehead. When he saw me,
his mouth, beneath a shaggy moustache, curved into a wide grin.

"A pretty lady to see me! You've made my morning."

His smile was infectious, and I grinned back. "By saying
that, you've made mine."

"You
are
here to see me?"

"If you're Don Del Boccio."

"I sure am. Is this a social call?"

"I wish it were." I told him my name and that I worked
for All Souls in San Francisco.

He looked surprised but motioned for me to come up. I climbed to
the third floor landing where he stood in an open doorway. He was
about six feet tall, a little on the stocky side, and wore faded
jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. When I reached the top of the
stairs, he gave me a quick appraising look, his hazel eyes moving
appreciatively but not offensively over my body. Then he turned and
said, "Come on in."

We entered a large, sun-filled room. The far wall was all kitchen,
separated from the rest of the space by a bar with stools. An alcove
to the right was all bed. The rest of the long room contained a baby
grand piano, a set of drums, a stereo, hundreds of records, stacks of
books, and a huge blue rug. Large pillows were strewn on its thick
pile, but otherwise there was no furniture.

I stood looking around. In spite of the lack of furniture, it was
one of the homiest places I'd even seen. If only I could find
something half this nice in San Francisco! "This is a wonderful
apartment," I said.

"Thanks. Have a seat. I hope you don't mind the floor."
He dropped onto one of the pillows. "I just moved in last month,
and I'm delighted with the place. I've always dreamed of an apartment
where I could gather all the essentials of my life into one room. I
can leap from my bed to my piano to my kitchen to my stereo to my
drums… back and forth, any which way. All with the least
possible effort. I like to make the most of my leisure time."

Don Del Boccio was as much of a motor-mouth in person as on the
radio—although far more charming. "I know what you mean
about leisure time; when you get it, it's precious. And I guess you
keep unusual hours, what with your radio show."

He clapped a hand to his forehead in an extravagant gesture of
dismay. "Jesus, don't tell me you've heard that!"

"Well, I tuned in for a few minutes yesterday afternoon."

"A few minutes is long enough. It's a terrible show. I hate
rock and stupid commercials and teenage callers. I do the whole show
wearing earplugs."

"What?"

"Except for the part when I have to talk on the phone and
take requests. But as soon as that's over, in go the old plugs."

I laughed, shaking my head. Perhaps that accounted for Del
Boccio's noisy style. If he couldn't really hear himself…
"Good Lord, if you hate it so much, why do you do it at all?"

"Groceries. Rent. You see, I trained as a concert pianist."
He rippled his fingers, playing a scale in the air. "Unfortunately,
I'm not very good. And actually the job is fun. Nutty, but enjoyable
in an odd way."

I'd once had a boyfriend who was a pianist—but he'd ended up
a third-rate rock musician. The job market for serious pianists was
about as good as it was for sociology graduates. "Where did you
go to school?"

"New York. Rochester, specifically. The Eastman School of
Music. I never finished, though; it was so goddamn cold back there
that my fingers froze and I couldn't play. So I came back to sunny
California and the low-brow life of a deejay."

"But you keep up with your music." I motioned at the
piano.

"Yes, ma'am. It's my first love." He paused, studying my
face. "But what about you? You said you're a private
investigator. What can I help you with?"

I sobered instantly, realizing he probably hadn't heard about Jane
Anthony's murder. "I came down here on a missing person's case.
An old friend of yours—Jane Anthony."

His mouth twitched beneath the shaggy moustache. "Huh.
Janie?" Then his eyes moved from my face to a point beyond my
right shoulder. "Funny, I haven't thought about her in a long
time."

"You're not close anymore, then?"

"No. We're not exactly what you'd call friends either."

"Why not?"

He shook his head. "Sorry. My business."

"It may not be."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Your relationship with Jane may be police business. She's
dead."

He jerked his eyes back to mine. "Dead?"

"She was murdered last night, stabbed to death, at the old
pier in Salmon Bay."

He flinched. "That can't be."

"I'm sorry, it is."

"Jesus." His face was pained and he looked down at the
blue rug. Finally he said, "Who did it?"

"They don't know."

"God. Janie."

"Do you want to talk about her now?"

"There's nothing to talk about. We went together for a couple
of years. She was a bright woman, knew about music and art. Had a lot
of interests—photography, science fiction. She liked to sail.
She was a strong woman. Knew what she wanted in life."

I waited and when he didn't go on, I said, "What was that?"

He raised his eyes to mine. They were moist and sad. "Well,
it wasn't me. If it had been, she'd be here with me right now."

"It sounds like you cared a lot for her."

"I guess I loved her."

We sat in silence for a minute, and then I reached for my purse
and started to get up. Del Boccio put out a hand. "No, don't
go."

"I thought you'd want to be alone."

"No. I'd rather not be. How about if I give you breakfast?''

I'd only had coffee and toast before and, as with Allen Keller's
fried egg sandwich, I couldn't resist. Besides, Don Del Boccio might
tell me something that would broaden my picture of Jane, give me a
clue as to why someone would want to kill her. "All right,"
I said, "but nothing that's too much trouble."

He jumped up, obviously eager for activity. "You're looking
at one of the world's great cooks, lady. Nothing's too much trouble
for Del Boccio."

He went to the kitchen and began rumbling around, carrying on a
monologue about his favorite restaurants, both here and in San
Francisco. I wondered if he were the sort who felt a need to be on
stage all the time, or if this was just his way of diverting himself
from Jane's death. Talking nonstop didn't hamper his ability to cook,
however; in less than ten minutes he had produced a feast and spread
it on a large tray between us on the blue rug. I looked with growing
hunger at the scrambled eggs, bacon, bagels, cream cheese, and dry
white wine.

"No reason we can't be elegant, even if we are sitting on the
floor." He poured wine into delicate stemmed glasses and
motioned for me to help myself. Smearing a bagel with cream cheese,
he launched into another monologue, this time about Port San Marco.

"Do you like it here? I do, even though the town's changed a
lot since I was a kid. It used to be the home of a whole fishing
fleet. There were several generations of families who fished these
waters. This house was built by one. Those must have been the days, I
tell you. But of course, it all changed. Those families couldn't
compete with the big companies, and Port San Marco had to turn
elsewhere for its bread."

I was about to ask him where, but he went right on.

"Tourism. High-tech firms. The developments you see all over
the hills are a consequence of that. Those hills used to be covered
with trees and cows and horses—and now look at them. Of course,
they're expensive homes and in good taste for the most part. And Port
San Marco's never been in the best of taste anyway. The old amusement
park is boarded up now. Going to be torn down and replaced by a
performing arts center. I don't mind—I'll enjoy not having to
drive to San Francisco for concerts. But, still, I'm going to miss
that park. Pinball. Rides. Cotton candy. Saltwater taffy."