Muller, Marcia - [McCone 04] Games to Keep the Dark Away (v.1,shtml) (8 page)

Another
unpleasant confrontation awaited me at All Souls.
As I came through the front door, I ran into Hank. His eyes, behind
his thick, hornrimmed glasses, went from my face to the still-bulging
briefcase in my hand.

"You didn't file those documents yet."

"Uh, no."

He looked at his watch. "It's nearly four-thirty. What have
you been doing all afternoon?"

In truth, I couldn't tell him. After I'd left Snelling's I'd
stopped at the McDonald's near City Hall for a hamburger to make up
for the one I hadn't eaten at lunch. I'd sat there on the upper deck
and watched the traffic on Van Ness Avenue, occasionally reminding
myself that I should be going about my business. But the mental
prodding had done no good and, after three cups of coffee and two
hours of meandering thoughts about Jane Anthony and Abe Snelling, I'd
packed it in and gone back to the office.

"I had some other business to attend to," I said lamely.

"Sharon, those documents are important."

"I know."

"So why didn't you take care of them?"

"Something came up."

"Sharon, this isn't like you."

"I'm sorry."

"That's all you have to say—you're sorry?"

I felt a flush of irritation. "What do you want me to do,
kneel and beg forgiveness?"

"You could at least explain—"

"Look, Hank, I've had a bad day." I started to push past
him. "The documents will be filed first thing tomorrow."

He blocked me. "It was important some of them be filed
today."

"Then why didn't you…" I stopped, realizing that
what I was about to say was unrealistic, to say nothing of petty.

"Then why didn't I what?"

I was silent, feeling sullen and totally in the wrong.

"Why didn't I file them myself? Is that what you were going
to say?" Hank's bony frame loomed over me. Usually my boss was
as mild-mannered as they come, but he couldn't tolerate people
shirking their responsibilities.

"Look, Hank, just forget it."

"Why didn't I file them myself? My God, Sharon, I'm a
lawyer
!"

The conversation was bordering on the absurd. "Don't lawyers
file documents?"

"Not when they have someone on salary to do it!" He
waved his hand wildly and almost poked me in the eye. "Not when
they pay someone else to handle it."

Why couldn't I have kept my mouth shut? Why had I made it worse?
"Drop it, Hank. Please drop it."

He glared down at me, then moved around me toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Hank never left the office before
six.

"Out."

"Yes, but where? I might need to talk to you before I go
home."

He paused, his hand on the doorknob. "You are not the only
one who has had a bad day. I am going down the street to the Remedy
Lounge, where I will have a couple of Scotches and contemplate my
problems in silence."

"No one has that hard a day. The Remedy Lounge is the
sleaziest bar in Bernal Heights, maybe in the entire city."

"Ah, but it has its advantages."

"Which are?"

"It is dark, nearly always deserted, and—best of
all—you are not likely to follow me there." He went out,
slamming the door for emphasis.

I sighed and went down the hall to my office. Hank was wrong;
whether it was sleazy or not, I planned to join him at the Remedy
Lounge in a very few minutes.

But before I did that, I wanted to call a friend at San Francisco
State, to see if Abe Snelling had ever given a lecture on photography
there.

My friend, Seamus Dunlap, was temporarily out of his office.
Tapping my fingers impatiently on the desk, I waited for him to call
back. He was a color photographer who did work for classy magazines
like
National Geographic
and, in fact, the person who had
interested me in photography when I'd been dating him years before.
If anyone would know about Abe Snelling, it was Seamus.

My phone buzzed and I answered it. "Sharon! How you doing?"
Seamus' deep voice seemed to fill my tiny office.

"Pretty good. You?"

"Can't complain."

"Seamus, I have a question for you."

"Shoot."

"To your knowledge, has Abe Snelling ever lectured at State?"

"Abe Snelling." He paused. "Not that I know of.
Why?"

I ignored his question. "If he had, within the past year, you
would know, right?"

"Does anything ever go on here that I don't know about?"

I chuckled. "Occasionally, as I recall." About a year
before I'd met him, Seamus' wife had run off with one of his
students. The photographer had been so caught up in his work that he
hadn't even noticed for a week.

"Come on, that was centuries ago. Speaking of centuries, when
are you and I going to get together?"

"Later this month, maybe." Seamus was attractive and
intelligent, but difficult to get along with for any length of time.
After Greg Marcus, another temperamental man was exactly what I
didn't need.

"Just as easy to pin down as ever, eh? But back to your
question: as far as I know, Snelling's never lectured here—or
anyplace else. Not that we wouldn't love to have him; but the guy's a
recluse."

That was what I'd expected. So why had Snelling lied to me?

"Thanks, Seamus," I said.

"Hey, why are you interested in Snelling?"

"I'll tell you when we get together."

"I'll call you." He probably would, too—a year
from now, when he remembered he was supposed to.

"Buy you a drink?"

I slipped onto the cracked vinyl stool next to Hank. He was
hunched over the bar, a glass that I knew contained Scotch and soda
in front of him. As usual, the Remedy Lounge was dark and empty. The
glasses on the back bar were spotted, the mirror fly-specked, and the
bartender had a large, nondescript stain across the front of his
apron.

Hank looked sidelong at me, then back at his glass. "That's
okay. I'll buy."

"But it's a peace offering."

"So's mine."

Since he'd insisted, I ordered bourbon and water. The bartender
plunked the glass down in front of me, and some of the drink slopped
over.

"I'm sorry about those documents," I said. "I was
preoccupied and time just got away from me. I'll file them first
thing in the morning."

He nodded.

"I seem to have a lot of trouble keeping on top of things
lately," I went on. "Maybe I need a vacation."

"Probably."

I leaned forward on the bar, laid my hand on a sticky place, and
pulled it back. "So I was thinking—could I have a few days
off? The tenants' dispute doesn't go to trial until next week and,
once I file that stack of documents, I really don't have anything
else pending."

Slowly Hank turned to look at me.

"With the weekend, I could get away for around five days. It
might do me some good."

"Where were you thinking of going?"

"Oh, I don't know." I sipped my drink. "Maybe back
to Port San Marco. I really enjoyed it there; I hadn't been there,
you know, for years and years. It's still warm enough to sit on the
beach and I could—"

"Uh-huh."

I ignored his skeptical look. "I could relax."

"Right."

"Well, I have to admit there's more to it."

"I guessed as much."

"I met a man there."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yes. His name's Don Del Boccio. He's a disc jockey, but he's
also a classical musician. He has the most wonderful apartment, and
this horrible metallic gold Jaguar and…" I let the words
drift off, realizing that Hank had seen through me for sure now. I
never discussed my private life with him if I could help it—which
was one reason why it fascinated him.

"Right," Hank said again.

"Well, I
did
meet such a person."

"I didn't think you could make someone like that up. But you
also stumbled onto a murder."

"True."

Hank signaled for another drink. "Shar, didn't Snelling say
the investigation was closed?"

"Yes, but—"

"You can't just go down there and snoop around without a
client."

"I'm not going to'snoop around.'"

"What
do
you call it?"

"Look, Hank, I've been straightforward with the Port San
Marco police. I've given them everything I know and they've
appreciated it. I wouldn't go back there without checking in with the
lieutenant in charge of the case."

"And what would you tell him?"

"That I was back in town and…"

"And what?"

"And that I was interested in hearing whatever they'd come up
with."

"Would you tell him Snelling was no longer employing you?"

"He probably wouldn't ask."

"So you'd imply you still had a client."

"I guess you can say that."

"Sharon, it's too risky. You've gotten in trouble with this
sort of thing in the past."

"That was before."

"Before what?"

I finished my drink. "I'm more sensible now."

"More sensible than you were last year?"

"Yes. I promise, I'll talk to Lieutenant Barrow first thing.
And I'll report anything I find out immediately. Please, Hank, let me
have the time off."

He stared down at his glass. "I don't suppose I can stop you.
You could always call in sick if I said no."

"Would I do that?"

"Yes." He looked at me, and then the laugh lines around
his eyes crinkled. "Ah, what the hell. Go. With my blessing.
Maybe you'll come back less of a grump."

"A grump?"

"In case you haven't noticed, you've been impossible the last
few weeks."

"Well, I told you I needed a vacation."

We finished our drinks in silence and then Hank said, "I've
got to get back to the house."

I stood up. "I'll come with you and pick up my briefcase. If
it's okay with you, I'll just file the documents and take off without
coming in tomorrow morning."

He slid off the barstool, looking uncomfortable.

"That is all right—just to file them and go—isn't
it?"

"Uh, sure."

"What's wrong then?"

He paused. "Nothing, really. Come on."

When we entered the big brown Victorian, I understood what had
made Hank hesitate. Greg Marcus sat on an edge of the front desk,
chatting with Ted. I supposed Greg and Hank had dinner plans; the two
of them had been friends years before I had entered their lives and I
couldn't expect that to change now.

When Greg saw me, there was a barely perceptible hardening in his
eyes and the lines of his jaw grew taut. Then his face smoothed and
he said, "Hi, papoose." To Hank, he added, "You're
late."

"I'll only be a minute." Hank hurried off down the hall
without so much as a glance at me.

Ted, craven coward that he was, got up and muttered something
about the men's room.

I turned to Greg. "So, how have you been?"

"Okay. How about you?"

"Busy. I've been hunting for a new apartment, but without
much luck."

"Hank tells me you found a body down near Port San Marco the
other night."

Now why had Hank done that? "Yes."

"Up to your old tricks?"

"What tricks?"

"Well, I hope you're cooperating with the police down there
better than you've cooperated with me in the past."

For a moment when I'd seen him sitting there, handsome in his blue
suit and striped tie, I'd felt a momentary softening. But now all the
reasons I'd ended our relationship came flooding back.

"Cooperation," I said, "has to be mutual if it's to
work properly." In the instant before I turned and started down
the hall, I saw him do a double take.

Greg, however, could not be humbled for long. "Always quick
with the snappy comeback, eh, papoose?"

I kept going, into my office. No wonder I had broken up with him!
No wonder. Besides, what kind of woman could remain in love with a
man who called her by such a ridiculous nickname?

I
was back in Port San Marco, in the same room at the
Mission Inn, by three the next afternoon. As soon as I'd unpacked, I
called Lieutenant Barrow at the police department. The investigation
of Jane's murder was going slowly, he told me, and they were now in
the process of interviewing her friends and former neighbors and
employers. John Cala had been released; he still insisted he'd merely
gone out on the pier for a stroll and, while Barrow didn't believe
him, the alibi I'd supplied for the fisherman had checked out.

"So that's where we stand at present," Barrow said.
"This one isn't going to be easy."

"You seem to be acting on the theory that the killer was
someone out of Jane's past."

"It stands to reason. She was killed in Salmon Bay, in a
place that few people from outside the area would know about."

"She could have arranged to meet an outsider there."

"Possibly." But he obviously didn't think much of the
idea because he changed the subject. "I take it you're back in
town?"

"Yes. I'd like to ask your permission to follow up on a few
leads. Of course, I'd report my findings immediately."

"What kind of leads?"

"Nothing earthshaking. I'd like to talk to Jane's mother
again, and possibly John Cala."

"If you can get anything out of either of them I'll be very
surprised. The people in that damned village are as close-mouthed as
they come."

"So I've noticed. But I'd like to try anyway. Also, I want to
talk to the people at The Tidepools. I suppose you investigated the
deaths there?"

There was a pause. "Yes, but I don't see any connection."

"Jane worked there at the time."

"I know that; we've already checked with their personnel
director, Ann Bates. But the deaths are a closed file, except for the
last one, where the husband apparently did the killing and then
disappeared."

"I'd still like to look into a possible connection."

"Go ahead, if you want. But I doubt you'll find one."

"But it's okay with you?"

"Sure. Just keep in touch."

As I'd expected, he hadn't asked me if Snelling was still my
client. I hung up, found the address of the public library in the
phone book, and set off to check their back issues of the Port San
Marco
Herald
.

* * *

At five-o'clock I rewound the last reel of microfilm and left the
redwood-and-glass building that housed the library, rubbing my eyes.
The first death at The Tidepools, of a seventy-eight-year-old patient
named Mary Sloan, had been perfunctorily reported as a suicide. With
the second, of an eighty-three-year-old woman named Amelia Canfield,
the reporter had indulged in speculation that the drug overdoses had
been connected. A small item appeared weeks later, stating that both
deaths had been ruled suicides. Two months later, Barbara Smith's
death had received front-page coverage.

Mrs. Smith had been in her early thirties, suffering from terminal
cancer. She had been at The Tidepools barely three weeks when she was
found dead, an apparent overdose like the others. What distinguished
her death from theirs, however—besides the obvious difference
in age—was that she hadn't been at the hospice long enough to
have saved up a lethal dose of the painkiller. In fact, she hadn't
been receiving the mixture for more than a few days. And, immediately
after her death, her husband, Andy, a medical technician with Port
San Marco General Hospital, had vanished.

The reporter had talked to Barbara Smith's friends and relatives.
She had been in good spirits, they said, and was happy to have been
admitted to The Tidepools. Besides, she wasn't the type to kill
herself. I myself tended to discount their statements. If you believe
the friends and relatives, no one who commits suicide is the type to
do it. What I didn't discount was the fact that two months before her
death Barbara Smith had received an inheritance of more than forty
thousand dollars, which should have gone to pay for the cost of her
lengthy care at the hospice. Her husband had withdrawn the money in
cash from their joint savings account several days before she
died—and he left town in a hurry.

The story had continued to receive coverage for a week after
Barbara Smith's death but, when the police failed to locate her
husband, it had faded into obscurity. Probably Smith would never be
found; forty thousand dollars could buy of lot of anonymity.

I went back to my motel, put on my swimsuit, and went out to the
pool. Swimming was the one sport I really enjoyed—far more than
the tedious workouts I endured weekly at my neighborhood health
club—and it also relaxed me and helped me think. I was firmly
convinced there was some mysterious connection between water and the
creative process: I knew writers who wrote in the bathtub,
businessmen who plotted strategy in the shower, actors who worked on
their lines in the hot tub. As for myself, I puzzled out cases in
swimming pools.

I eased into the unheated water and began swimming. Up, down,
across, back, laps, lengths. Sidestroke, crawl, breaststroke,
butterfly. I was getting plenty of exercise, but after a while I
realized nothing else was happening. The facts of the case failed to
form any rational pattern.

Jane Anthony had been missing for a week and then someone had
stabbed her to death… She had been killed in an out-of-the-way
place few people except for residents of Salmon Bay would ever know
about… The man who first discovered her body had no good
reason for being in that place… Abe Snelling had panicked after
hearing of Jane's death, then called a halt to my investigation…
Snelling had also lied to me about how he met Jane… There had
been three deaths at The Tidepools while Jane had worked there, all
of them suspicious… Jane had been assigned to the medical team
that had worked with at least one of those patients…

I needed to find out why John Cala had gone to the old pier. I
needed to find out if Jane had been assigned to the other women who
had died of overdoses at The Tidepools. I needed to find out how Jane
really met Snelling.

I got out of the pool and went back to my room. While blow-drying
my hair, I planned a course of action. I would go to see Mrs. Anthony
and John Cala. And tomorrow I would convince either Ann Bates or
Allen Keller to let me look at The Tidepools' records on Jane.
Probably the police had already done so, but they hadn't been looking
for the same thing I was.

When I arrived in Salmon Bay, the Anthony home was dark. After
knocking and getting no response, I asked an old man who was mowing
his lawn which house was John Cala's. He pointed to the one to the
right of Sylvia Anthony's. It was small and box-like and had once
been painted a light green, but the color had faded and now the paint
was beginning to peel. Cypress trees hunched on either side of it,
their branches drooping onto its flat roof. The unfenced front yard
contained an assortment of junk: tires, lumber, plastic milk crates,
old mattresses, rolls of chicken wire, and a washing machine without
a lid. I'd noticed the place before, mainly because it presented such
a contrast to Mrs. Anthony's flower-filled yard. I decided it fit
with my impression of Cala. I made my way through the jumble to the
front door and knocked but got no answer. Either Cala and Sylvia
Anthony weren't home, or they weren't in the mood to welcome callers.

I went back to the MG and started it, uncertain of what to do
next. Glancing at my watch, I flipped the radio to KPSM Don Del
Boccio was dedicating a song from Sally to Larry and urging listeners
to call in on the Hot Hit Line. I drove to the Shorebird Bar, got out
a dime, and went into the phone booth.

"Hot Hit Line," Don's voice said. "What can I play
for you tonight?"

"I doubt you've got anything there I'd want to listen to.
It's Sharon McCone. Can I buy you a drink after your show?"

"You sure can. I was hoping you'd get in touch. How about
eight-fifteen at the Sand Dollar? It's on Beach Street, by the
marina."

I'd seen the place. "All right. See you then." I went
back to the car and started off toward Port San Marco, feeling much
more cheerful. As I turned up the radio, a tire commercial ended and
Del Boccio, in a softer voice than he usually employed, dedicated a
song to Sharon from Don. It was James Taylor's "You've Got a
Friend."

The Sand Dollar faced the water where the charter fishing boats
tied up. It was a brightly lit place with tables on levels separated
by shiny brass railings. Old-fashioned fans stirred the fronds of
giant ferns that hung nearby. This type of fern-bar modern decor
usually indicated a singles' bar, but the Sand Dollar had none of
that frantic, clutching atmosphere. I took a table on the top level,
from where I could see the lights of a ship in the channel, and
ordered a glass of wine.

Don came through the door promptly at eight-fifteen. He spotted me
and started across the room, waving to people on either side, giving
a thumbs-up signal to the bartender, shaking hands with one of the
waiters. He wore jeans and a rough cotton shirt that was unbuttoned
just enough to show a couple of inches of thickly haired chest. I
watched his easy progress with pleasure, smiling in response to his
obvious good cheer. To look at him, you'd never know he'd been
talking, yelling, and making strange honking noises for six hours.
When he arrived at the table, a waiter was right behind him with a
glass of red wine.

"I take it you're a regular here," I said.

He flopped into the chair, reaching for his wine. "Sort of.
When they see me coming, they know it's been a rough night and they
do their best to ease my pain." He raised his glass to me,
winked, and downed half the wine.

"And has tonight been a rough one?"

"You've heard the show, babe—they all are." But as
he said it, he grinned. I had the feeling that nothing was really all
that disagreeable to Don.

He leaned back in his chair, studying me over his wineglass. "So,
I take it you're investigating Jane's murder, since you're still
here. I've kept up on it through the people in our news department
and it doesn't sound like the police have found out much."

"Nothing too promising."

"I guess your client has more confidence in you than in them.
Who did you say he was?"

"A photographer named Abe Snelling, Jane's former roommate.
But he's not my client anymore."

Don frowned.

"He decided when she died that the case was closed. I went
back to San Francisco after I saw you last, but I couldn't get my
mind off the murder, so I came back down here on my own."

He set his glass down and ran a finger over his bushy moustache.
"Poor Jane. The guy doesn't even care who killed her. She never
did have much luck with men. Is this Abe Snelling a boyfriend, or
what?"

"Mostly what. He claims they were just friends, and not very
close at that. But a few days ago he was awfully anxious to find her,
and he lied to me about how they met. When you say Jane never had
much luck with men, what do you mean?"

"She kept making the wrong choices—guys who treated her
badly; guys who were weak and leaned too heavily on her; guys with
messy domestic situations."

"I take it you don't include yourself in those categories."

"Me?" He grinned and sat up straighten "I'm a fine
catch. A terrific cook, in the best of health, self-supporting, don't
leave my underwear on the floor, thoroughly domesticated. You could
do worse."

"I'm sure I could." The silence that fell between us was
not uncomfortable, merely speculative. Finally I said, "Well,
tomorrow I'm going to get answers to some of the questions about Jane
that have been bothering me."

"Such as?"

"Her connection with those deaths at The Tidepools. I'm going
up there and talk to Allen Keller—"

A look of intense dislike flickered in Don's hazel eyes and he
attempted to mask it by picking up his glass and motioning to the
waiter for refills. He'd reacted to Keller's name that way the first
time I talked to him.

"What is it with you and Keller?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You really don't like him. Why?"

He sighed. "It shows that much, does it?"

"Yes."

"Well, if we must talk about him, Keller was one of the guys
Jane got mixed up with, one of the ones with a messy domestic
situation. It was my misfortune to be the guy she dumped when old
Allen came along."

So Keller, like Snelling, had lied to me about Jane. "I see.
Keller told me he was getting divorced… What exactly was his
situation when Jane became involved with him?"

The waiter brought two fresh glasses of wine and Don waited until
he had left before speaking. "Keller was married to his third
wife, Arlene. He had a reputation as a womanizer—that's how he
ended up with wives number two and three—but Arlene kept him on
a tight leash, at least until Jane came along."

"And then?"

"At first Allen and Jane were pretty discreet. Hell,
I
didn't even know about it for months, and I lived in the same
apartment complex and still saw her regularly. They would meet at the
marina over there." He gestured at the window. The marina was
well lit, the forest of boat masts white against the dark sky.

"He has a boat there?" I asked.

"A cabin cruiser. Arlene never liked it or the people at the
marina, and they didn't like her. It was a safe place for Allen and
Jane to go. But then they decided they were in love and once they
decided that they couldn't keep it quiet. Jane broke off with me. She
asked me not to tell anyone about Allen, and I didn't. Allen began
squirreling away assets, because of the community property laws. He
didn't want Arlene to have her share."

I remembered what Keller had said to me about having made the
money and it being his.