The Color of Light (4 page)

“The grand opening reception of the Matisse exhibit at the de Young Museum, isn't it?” she said. “Sounds very highbrow,” she said, feigning haughty airs. “Sponsored by a French chocolatier.”

I knew her source of information only too well. “How's Mom?”

“Fine, thanks. I just spoke with her this morning. She wants to talk to you about shipping her piano down.”

“I thought we had that all arranged,” I said. “She doesn't have room for it in her new apartment, so she's having it sent to my house.”

Gracie wagged a finger. “I won't say another word. Might spoil her fun.”

My mom had adjusted well to her new home, very well. But she sometimes felt lonely in the evenings. I called her every night at about the time she would be sitting down for dinner so that she would have company of a sort while she ate. Otherwise, she might just skip eating altogether. Seeing the gleam in Gracie's eyes I thought that Mom might just get an early call tonight.

The vegetables were put away in the crisper, herbs in small vases on the windowsill, tomatoes cushioned in a basket on the counter. Gracie dried her hands, leaned against the counter, and said, “Now, dear girl, what is the question you actually came over to ask me?”

I laughed: God bless Gracie. I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat.

“Gracie, on the morning that Mrs. Bartolini died, my dad was out following me around with his camera.”

She nodded, matter-of-fact. “Isabelle's mother called to warn him to be on the lookout; Isabelle had flown across the pond again.”

“Why did he film her?”

“He had a restraining order, you know. But she consistently violated it. He worried about what she might do; I think you were the only girl at your school with her very own stalker. Your Uncle Max told Al he should keep a record of every infraction in case she ever tried to claim custody. What he really wanted to do was get her barred from entering the country.”

“There might be something on that film that would have been useful to the investigators, but I don't think Dad ever showed it to them.”

“No, he didn't.” She pulled out a chair beside mine and sat. “Maggie, dear, when Tina was murdered, we were all sent into a tailspin. Your dad forgot he'd even shot the film for I don't know how long. By the time he sent it to the developer and got it back again, the police had someone in custody. Al just put the film away. Why wouldn't he?”

“Someone was in custody? I never heard that. Who was it?”

“A young man. What was his name?” She scratched her head. “I'll think of it. Anyway, the man broke into an apartment in the south campus area, raped a woman student—brutal, what he did to her—and was caught when he came back to the building a second time. He looked like a good candidate for the murder.”

“But?”

“The police couldn't tie him in any way to Tina's death so they had to drop that charge,” she said.

“You know that my Ben worked with the police from time to time,” she said. “Over cards one night at your house—it was some months later—he was telling your mom and dad and me about how frustrated the police were. They couldn't find any evidence that would tie the man in custody, or anyone else, to the murder. Somewhere during that discussion your dad remembered the film. He wondered if there might be something there.”

“Why didn't he take it to the police?”

“You know the answer,” she said sweetly.

“Because he didn't want the police to haul in Isabelle to ask what she might have seen.”

“Exactly. But we took a very careful look at the film and we didn't see anything that we thought might be important to the police,” she said. “We certainly didn't see that particular young man. We talked it over and decided Al should just hang on to the film for the time being.”

“If something were there, would Dad have turned the film over?”

“Of course, dear. But as there wasn't...” She held up her palms and smiled; no harm, no foul.

The edges of that decision were a bit squishy, I thought. But I understood why they made it. At the time, my parents and the Nussbaums saw nothing untoward in the film of their neighborhood on an ordinary morning. But an outsider might. The passage of time makes all of us outsiders to the past. I thought that if Gracie saw the film again something might pop out that she had missed before.

I took my laptop case from the counter where I parked it when we came inside, pulled out the computer and held it up to Gracie.

“Want to go to the movies with me, Gracie?”

“What do you have, dear?”

“The film.”

“Good lord, did you get the old projector working?”

“I couldn't find enough pieces of it,” I said as I booted the film. “So I had the film digitized. Tell me what you see.”

Gracie leaned toward the monitor, bobbing her head until she found the right lens of her trifocals to look through, and I hit Play.

“I don't recognize all you girls, but there's Tosh working on the Scotts' yard. And George Loper backing out of his driveway. The dry cleaner's van, hmm...” Her brow was furrowed when she looked up at me; I hit Pause. “I don't remember noticing before. What day of the week did Tosh do yards on your street?”

“Alternate Mondays,” I said.

She nodded. “We had him the opposite Mondays. The dry cleaner only made home deliveries to our neighborhood on Thursdays.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Did they ever make special deliveries?”

“Never. If you needed something special you had to go over to their place yourself.”

“Do you remember the deliveryman?”

She shook her head. “They came, they went. No one ever stayed long enough to know his route well. I think the pay was a pittance. Maybe it was a new driver and he was lost,” she offered.

“But wouldn't he have been lost on Thursday instead of Monday?” I asked.

“You would think so, wouldn't you?” Suddenly her face brightened and she said, “Ennis Jones.”

“He was the driver?”

“No, dear. That's the name of the man who was arrested, the rapist. Ennis Jones.”

Walking away from Gracie's,
I dialed Kevin's mobile phone.

“Detective Halloran,” he answered, though I knew my name came up on his caller I.D.

“You're busy,” I said.

“Go ahead,” was his cryptic response.

“Gracie Nussbaum picked out something interesting on the film I showed you,” I said. “I thought you should know.”

“What was it?” Someone in the room with him, a woman, wanted to know who he was talking to. He shushed her.

“It was the wrong day for the dry cleaner's van to be on our street.”

“That's a tough one,” he said. “But I'll check it out. Anything else?”

“Yes, but it can keep. Sounds like you're in a meeting.”

“This is as good a time as any.” The woman volubly disagreed. “Go ahead.”

“Do you remember Toshio Sato?”

“The gardener?”

“Yes,” I said. “He told me that he's caught Larry Nordquist hanging out in Mom's backyard a couple of times.”

“Larry? At your mom's house?” Again he shushed the woman when she demanded to know whose mom. “What was he doing there?”

“Hanging out, apparently,” I said. “Mr. Sato called the police last week. But Larry showed up again today.”

“Were you there?”

“I was.”

“What did he do?”

“Nothing, really. Mr. Sato shooed him away,” I said. “You told me Larry was out on parole. What did the police do with the call?”

“I'll check it out and get back to you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Sorry to interrupt.”

It was a beautiful day, and it was nice to be outdoors. Instead of going straight home, I walked across the western end of campus and went into town. I had missed breakfast and lunch, unless you count one rugelach. I was hungry, there was nothing at home except garden vegetables to eat, and I wanted to see Beto. Not to tell him about the film—I wasn't ready for that yet—but just to spend a few minutes with my old friend.

Bartolini's Deli and Italian Market on Shattuck Avenue was busy, as always. Located half a block from the BART station, about equidistant between the Civic Center and the massive Cal campus, even at two o'clock in the afternoon there were seven people ahead of me when I pulled a number tab from the machine on top of the refrigerated deli cases.

Beto was hard at work behind the counter, serving customers and supervising three young clerks, sending orders to the kitchen, overseeing plates coming out of the kitchen, slicing and wrapping meats and cheeses as ordered, dishing up take-out containers of salads and casseroles and precooked entrees. He was so busy that I gave up on any notion of having any sort of chat with him. But I was still hungry.

When he noticed me he flashed me his big smile and called out, “Hey, Maggie.”

“Hi, Beto.” I gave him a little wave, took a bottle of cold water out of a drinks cooler, and found a table near some freestanding metal racks filled with imported pastas and delicacies and waited for my number to come up on the board.

While I was waiting, Kevin called. Without preliminaries, he said, “Patrol officers responded to Mr. Sato's call. Larry was picked up and brought in. He was released to his probation officer, but it was Father John who picked him up.”

“Father John?” I said. “Our Father John? I thought he had gone off to Outer Upper Gadzookistan or somewhere.”

“He's back in the parish,” Kevin said, followed by “I have to go.”

I thanked him, wondering about his abrupt tone. Something was up with him.

“Yo, is that my favorite TV lady?” Old Bart Bartolini, Beto's dad, came out from the kitchen when he spotted me. He kissed me on both cheeks. “Beto said you was in town.” He lowered his chin. “Sorry to hear about your mother, honey. Betsy was one nice lady.”

“Mom is fine,” I said. “She moved down closer to me so you won't be seeing as much of her, but she's just fine.”

He furrowed his brow, seemed confused; we'd had exactly the same conversation two days earlier.

“I thought you retired,” I said, shifting the topic. “So why are you wearing that big apron?”

“Just helping out the boy,” he said, sitting down heavily in the chair beside mine, grimacing as if his feet hurt. “You know, only till Beto gets the hang of running the place.”

“Seems to me he's doing just fine.” No need to remind him that Beto had worked in the store for most of his life.

Mr. Bartolini beamed as he looked over at his son. He could behave like an old curmudgeon with his employees and with overly demanding customers, but where Beto was concerned, there was nothing but sweetness and light.

“What a kid, uh?” He pulled a towel off his apron string, picked up my sweating water bottle and wiped the table under it. “Always a good worker, that one. I just wish his mom...”

His eyes filled, just as they had two days earlier, when he'd said exactly the same thing.

Mr. Bartolini was somewhere in his eighties. When he moved to Berkeley about forty years ago and opened his deli, he was a retired navy cook with a much-younger Vietnamese bride and a baby boy. If Beto was the apple of his eye, his wife, Tina, was the entire apple orchard. I could only imagine the pain her death inflicted on him. On both of them.

When I lost my husband, Mike, to cancer a little over a year ago, it felt as if the San Andreas fault had opened up and swallowed me whole. I would have given anything for a little more time with him. But Mike decided for himself when he'd had enough, and left this world on his own terms at a time of his own choosing. As much as I missed him, I accepted his decision. But someone else, a stranger maybe, had made that decision for Tina Bartolini. And that was not fair.

Mr. B took a deep breath and looked up at me from under his thicket of eyebrows.

“Everyone's sure gonna miss your mom,” he said, patting my hand. “She was one of the finest ladies I ever knew. You know, when she first met my Tina, I thought there might be some, ya know, resentment, her being Vietnamese and your big brother dying over there.”

“My parents would never associate Mrs. B with what happened to my brother.”

“Yeah? Well some people did. Gave her a hard time.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I said.

“But not your mother. She helped Tina get registered in some English classes over at the JC. Then when the war over there went all to hell and refugees poured into this area, your mom hooked her up to the refugee assistance programs. You know, to help people coming in from Vietnam to get what they needed.” He began to choke up again. “That was real important to my wife. Being able to help out like that.”

During the entire conversation, Beto kept an eye on his father. When Mr. Bartolini reached a certain emotional state, Beto handed off the customer he was serving to one of his staff and joined us. He wrapped an arm around his father's shoulders and leaned down close.

“How you doing, Papa?”

“Good. Good.” Mr. Bartolini wiped his eyes with the backs of his big hands and gave his son a game smile. “I was telling Maggie how sorry we were to hear she lost her mother.”

Beto kissed his father on the forehead, gave me a watcha-gonna-do? look. I smiled. There was no point correcting Mr. Bartolini, again.

Mr. B turned to me. “You should try Beto's pastrami today. It's extra special.”

“My pastrami is always extra special, Papa.” Beto had been a sweet, round-cheeked little boy. He had become a sweet, round-all-over adult, very much like his dad, except with his mother's soft brown slanted eyes and none of Mr. B's curmudgeonly edges. “But you talked Maggie into having the pastrami day before yesterday. Today I have some really nice baked ziti with chicken, artichokes, some asparagus and good Greek olives. I think she'll like it.”

“Sounds more like puttanesca than baked ziti,” Mr. Bartolini said, winking at me. “But you're the boss, son. You're the boss.”

“Maggie, I think your number is up,” Beto said, pointing his chin toward the service area; my number was fifty-eight, the number on the call board was fifty-four. “Papa, stay put. Can I get you a coffee?”

Mr. Bartolini, who seemed fatigued, started to nod, but stopped himself. He turned and looked up at Beto, and as if scolding, he said, “I run this place for forty years. You think I don't know where to find the coffeepot?”

“Suit yourself.”

As I rose to follow Beto, I patted Mr. Bartolini on the shoulder. “Take care.”

“Try the pastrami,” he said. “Today it's extra special.”

Beto leaned his head close to mine as we walked toward the deli cases. “What do you think?”

“I think you're right, Beto,” I said. “He's getting a little fuzzy around the sides. But he seems to be okay.”

He nodded. “Some days are better than others, and today's not so good. If you asked him what happened this morning, he couldn't tell you. But ask about something ten, twenty, thirty years ago and he'll tell you every detail as if it happened yesterday.”

“How old is he?”

“He'll be eighty-four in August.” He glanced around, checked on his father, who hadn't moved from his seat. “For his age, he's doing all right. You know, I'd understand it if he wanted to go live in a happier time. But he seems to be stuck in a bad place. A very bad place.”

“He misses your mom.”

Beto gave my arm a squeeze, seemed to shrug off his mood as he went behind the counter where he had spent so much of his life, selling good food to hungry people. In one continuous flow, he grabbed a take-out container, asked one of his staff to serve his dad some coffee, and unpinned a card from the bulletin board next to a wall phone. He reached over the high counter and handed me the card.

“This is the number for the gal my wife told you about,” he said. “She did a real good job on the estate sale for her cousin.”

“Thank Zaida for me,” I said, slipping the card into my pocket.

“How's it going over there?” he asked, referring to Mom's house.

“Making some progress,” I said. “After my cousin and University Housing take a look around and tell me what they do or don't want, I'll be ready to call in someone to cart the rest off.”

“It's a big job. Let me know if I can help.” He had already piled enough ziti into the container for several meals before he added a last scoop and snapped on a lid. “But don't be in too big a hurry to finish over there; I'll miss you.”

“I'll be around,” I said.

“Hey, I heard Kevin knocked on your door.” He looked up, gave me his version of a leer. “Thinking of rekindling the old flame?”

“Beto!” I feigned shock. “He's a married man.”

“Tell
him
that.” A sardonic laugh. As he filled a second container, unbidden, with grilled peppers and sausage, he said, “So, are you bringing your new guy to the party Saturday?”

“I should know better, but I'll ask him. What else can I bring?”

“Bring? To
my
house?” He pointed a big spoon toward his chest. “You gotta be kidding. Between my dad, my mother-in-law, Auntie Quynh and me we're having an Italian-Mexican-Vietnamese feast.”

“Tums, then?”

He laughed. “Yeah. Bring some of those.”

There was a local branch of the bank I use down the street from the deli. After I said good-bye to Beto and Bart, I shouldered my shopping bag, its contents much heavier and more expensive than I had anticipated when I dropped in to say hello, and walked over to use the ATM to get cash for the weekend. The bank had stationed a uniformed guard out front, probably to shoo away the street people who sometimes aggressively panhandled bank customers coming out with their pockets full of fresh money.

When I got closer, I recognized the guard, Chuck Riley, a retired Berkeley detective who lived down on the corner of my parents' street, across from the Bartolinis'. I knew him to be a blowhard, with a quiet, put-upon wife and two notoriously wild daughters, one of whom, Lacy, was married to my friend, Detective Kevin Halloran. Dad always said that Chuck must have been a pretty good money manager to afford a house in that neighborhood on a cop's salary, unless he or his wife, Marva, had inherited a fair amount, though that didn't seem likely. Marva canvassed the neighborhood regularly, selling everything from Amway to Tupperware; Mom avoided her. The Rileys still lived in the same house; maybe Chuck needed this post-retirement job to maintain it.

Like many old acquaintances I had run into that week, I noticed how much he had aged since I last saw him; they all probably said the same about me. Probably in his late sixties or early seventies, he was still thin enough to be described as lanky, but now a bit stooped. Age aside, he looked sufficiently intimidating in his crisply pressed uniform with a gun holstered on his Sam Browne belt to do his job. He gave me a fish-eyed going-over as I used my card to gain access to the ATM lobby.

“Hello, Mr. Riley,” I said.

“It's been a while,” he said, smiling when he recognized me. He touched the shiny bill of his cap in a sort of military salute. When the lobby door lock clicked, he pulled it open and held it for me.

While I waited for a man who had finished his business inside to fumble his cash into his wallet before leaving, I asked, “How are you?”

“Good enough,” Chuck said, still holding the door. “How's your mother?”

“Mom's doing well. You know she moved?”

“George Loper mentioned that. You're in town closing up the house, I understand.”

“I am.” I shifted my shopping bag higher on my shoulder. “How's your family?”

“Hanging in.” His smile became closer to a sneer when he said, “But I suppose Kevin already filled you in on the details, eh?”

There were ugly undertones in that question. What sort of nasty spin was Karen Loper putting on Kevin's visit to my house that morning as she made her rounds?