To Play the Fool (10 page)

When the lab results were in, Al had Kate drive him across town to
the park. He stood within the fluttering yellow tapes marking the crime
scene and stared at the ground.

He said deliberately, "I think a man wearing a pair of those
expensive men's boots that make you two inches taller stood here
and talked with John, smoked a cigarette, walked around, picked up
something--baseball bat, tree branch, nightstick-- and hit
John with it as hard as he could. John collapsed but didn't die,
and the man dragged him away from the stump and under the bush so he
was invisible. He then stood behind that tree over there, smoking
cigarettes--which he pinched off and put in his pocket, except the
one he dropped--and watching John die. Cold-blooded, deliberate,
smoking and watching."

"I can't see this as a pleasure killing," objected Kate.

"No. Too casual, no ritual. And he didn't come in close
to watch,- it was more just waiting. He wanted John dead, didn't
mind if he suffered, but didn't want to be too close. Could have
been simply caution--he could get away more easily from over there
if someone came down the road, couldn't he?"

"You think he had a car along one of the streets outside the park?"

"Let's get some posters up, see if anyone noticed something. Funny, though, about the cigarettes."

"What about them?"

"Why did he pinch them all and take them?"

"To leave nothing behind. He watches too much television,
thinks we can find him from a fingerprint on paper. Or just
didn't want us to know he was here."

"Why not knock the ashes out into the cellophane wrapper,
then? I've done that myself, smoking on a tidy front porch. And
why didn't he worry about his footprints? They're at least
as distinctive as his smoking habit."

"Maybe the TV programs he watches only deal with fingerprints.
That could also be why he waited for the man to die instead of bashing
him again--he wasn't necessarily coldblooded, just afraid of
getting blood on his clothing. With the single hit, he was probably
clean, but multiple blows would increase the risk of
contamination."

"You have an answer for everything, Martinelli. How about this
one: What kind of man habitually pinches his cigarettes out rather than
smashing them?"

"You're the smoker, AI. You were, anyway. J don't
know. Someone showing macho? Like striking a match with your thumbnail
to show how tough you are. Someone about to put the butt in his pocket
and wanting to make sure it didn't light his pocket on
fire?"

"You're probably right," he said absently.

"Okay, AI. What kind of man would
you
say habitually pinches off his smokes? And why do you think it's habitual?"

"Because he went through at least six or eight of them without
once forgetting and putting it out against the tree or under his foot.
Pretty calculating for a guy standing there smoking nervously, waiting
for a friend to die."

"Friend?"

"Acquaintance at least. And you may be right about the reason
for the habit. Or it could be he's a man who doesn't mind a
bit of ash but doesn't want to toss a burning butt onto the
ground. Someone who works around flammable things, maybe. Or someone
concerned with the litter. Groundskeepers rarely toss away their
cigarettes, knowing they'll have to clean them up."

"So, we have a short, vain groundskeeper in expensive boots
who is friends with a homeless man who doesn't smoke, drink, or
do drugs, bashes him on the head, and stands around being tidy until
the homeless man dies."

"Yep, that's about it," said Hawkin.

"I like it." Kate nodded and followed Hawkin to the car.
"Sure, that is a doable theory. Let's give it to the DA and
just arrest every gardener in the city, starting with the park workers.
Get a bus and shovel them in."

"You'll take care of it, won't you?" asked Hawkin. "I have a date with Jani tonight."

"No problem. Drag 'em in, beat 'em up, get a confession, be home for dinner."

"I knew I could count on you, Martinelli."

The way to build a church is to build it.

Six days, seven days. Lee came up with some references and sent Jon
in several directions to pick them up and request more from the
university's interlibrary loan service. She began to read and
digest, in between physical therapy, a trip to the doctor's, the
lengthy preparation for and exhaustion following an appointment with
one of her two clients, and sleep. Dean Gardner phoned Kate every day,
even though Erasmus had been released, until finally, to get rid of
him, Kate gave him the same research assignment she'd given Lee:
Find me someone who knows what a Fool is.

Kate didn't quite know why she was interested, though she did
know that it had more to do with the enigma that was Erasmus than with
the investigation into John's murder. She mentioned her by-proxy
academic investigations to Hawkin only in a passing way, he, in turn,
nodded and told her to let him know if anything came up.

Nine days after the murder, eight days after the cremation, the
first faint hairline crack appeared in the case, although Kate did not
at first recognize it as such. She was mostly annoyed.

"Dean Gardner, I do not have any news for you. I haven't
even seen Erasmus since--oh, he is? Of course, it's
Thursday." Erasmus had been told not to leave San Francisco, but
somehow she wasn't surprised that he was following his usual
rounds. "Is everything all right?"

"Oh yes, he seems in good spirits. The reason I called is that
I have some suggestions for that question you put to me. Do you have a
pencil?"

"Go ahead."

"The first name is Danny Yamaguchi. Danny is a woman, a
professor of Religious Studies at Stanford. Her specialty is cults, she
should know if there is a Fool's movement. Second is Rabbi Shlomo
Bauer. He's a GTU visiting professor this semester, his field is
Jewish/Christian relations in Russia from the seventeenth century to
the present. And third is a Dr. Whitlaw, who teaches at one of the
redbrick universities in England and is over here on a sabbatical. I
don't know her, but I was told that she's something of an
expert on modern religious movements." He then gave Kate
telephone numbers for Yamaguchi and Bauer, explaining, "Dr.
Whitlaw is staying with friends in San Francisco, but I couldn't
come up with her number. The only one I have at the moment seems to be
an answering machine.

I'm sure I'll have a number for you in a few days, and I
know she's coming to lecture here the end of next week, but do
you want the machine's number?"

"Might as well." She wrote it down, thanked him, and prepared to hang up, when he interrupted her.

"I also have that list of passages Erasmus was quoting. Shall I send it to you?"

Actually, Kate had forgotten about it. "That would be helpful. Just send it to the address I left with you."

"There was just one odd thing--it struck me when I was
thinking about that conversation. One of his passages was wrong.
That's never happened before, not that I've ever caught.
Remember when he was getting so worked up about something and cited
David's lament over his son Absalom? Before that he said,
"David made a covenant with Jonathan, because he loved him as his
own soul." I'm sure he said it in that order. In fact, I
was aware of it at the time because it's wrong. It's
Jonathan who makes the covenant with David."

"Does that matter?"

"I don't know. I mean, it would in the biblical context,
but I don't know if it was only a slip. I just wanted to mention
it, because it was unusual."

Kate thanked him, reassured him yet again that she would phone if
there was news, and firmly said good-bye. She dutifully wrote the
information down, then went out to pick up Al Hawkin so they could tie
up the interviews of the people who lived in houses facing Golden Gate
Park, on the slim chance they might have noticed, and remembered, the
booted man nine days before. The inquiries had to be made, but she was
not too surprised when the slim chance had faded into nothingness by
the end of the day.

That night she took out her notebook and phoned the three numbers.
At the first, a tremulous voice with limited English informed Kate that
her granddaughter was away until Tuesday and then hung up. There was no
answer at Rabbi Bauer's number. The number for Dr. Whitlaw was
indeed an answering machine, which rattled at her in a woman's
rushed voice: "You've reached the Drs. Franklin answering
service, please leave your name, number, and a brief description of
what you need and we'll try to get back to you." That last
qualified offer was none too encouraging, but Kate left her name,
without any identifying rank, her home number, and the message that she
needed to reach Dr. Whitlaw and would the recipients of the message
please phone back, whether or not they were able to pass the message on
to Dr. Whitlaw, thank you.

When she hung up, she found Lee looking at her, forehead wrinkled in
thought. "Was that something to do with your fool case?"

"A rather thin lead to finding an expert, yes. Nobody home."

"I just wondered, because a couple of the names sounded familiar--Yamaguchi and Whitlow."

"Whitlaw."

"Was it? It might not be the same person. Those were a couple
of the names I've come up with. Jon's requested a book for
me that was edited by a Whitlow or Whitlaw... on the Fools
movement of the twentieth century."

"You don't have anything yet?"

"Do you want to go up and get the folders and I'll look?
It's on my desk next to the computer, a manila folder labeled
'Fools.""

It was there. Kate came back downstairs with it and handed it to
Lee, who opened it on her lap and started sorting through the pages.

"Oh, I meant to mention," she said without looking up
from the file, "Jon has a friend whose brother installs those
stairway lifts in peoples' houses,- he said he'd do it for
cost plus labor. The only problem would be that when we want to tear it
out, it'll leave marks on the woodwork. What do you think?"

It was fortunate that Lee was busy with her papers and did not look
up--fortunate, or deliberate. Kate felt her face stiffen in an
impossible mixture of shock and relief and despair: This was the first
time Lee had admitted that her time in the wheelchair might not be
brief. The first time, that is, since the early months of complete
paraplegia, when suicide had seemed to Lee a real option. Kate turned
and walked out of the room, looked about for an excuse, saw the coffee
machine, poured herself a second cup, although she hadn't drunk
her first yet, and took it back into the living room.

"Any idea what it would cost?" she said evenly.

"It would still be a lot, several thousand dollars, but
there's an extended-payment program, and they buy it back when
you're finished with it. I don't really mind going up and
down on my butt. Actually, it's good exercise, but it is slow. I
just thought it would save you and Jon a few hundred trips a week up
and down, fetching things for me."

Anything that could increase Lee's sense of independence was
to be snatched at, and Kate's face was firmly in line when Lee
looked up, a paper in her hand.

"Anyway, it's something to think about. Here's
that printout. D. Yamaguchi, Stanford, and E.
Whitlaw--you're right, it is Whitlaw--Nottingham,
England. You said she's here?"

"Dean Gardner thought she was visiting friends in the city.

"The titles of her articles and the one book look like what
you need. I should have some of them Monday or Tuesday, if you want to
look through them before you see her."

"Good idea. If she calls and I'm not here, see if you
can get a real phone number or an address from her. Want another
coffee?"

"No, this is fine. Could you stick that tape into the machine for me?"

Kate obediently fed the indicated videotape into the mouth of the
player, turned on the television, and, while she was waiting for the
sound to come up, looked at the box:
The Pirates of Penzance.

"Another heavy intellectual evening, I see," she said,
grinned at Lee's embarrassment, and went off to do the dishes.
Lee thought Gilbert and Sullivan hilarious,- Kate would have preferred
the Saturday-morning cartoons.

After a while, she heard Jon's voice above those of the
cavorting sailors. A minute later, he came into the kitchen, dressed in
his mauve velour dressing gown, and took two glasses and a squat bottle
out of the drinks cupboard.

"We really must have a crystal decanter," he complained,
pouring out a thick red-brown liquid. "Would you like a
glass?"

"What is it?"

"Port, my dear. I thought it might be fun to reintroduce gout as a fashionable disease."

"No thanks. Say, Jon? Just now Lee said something about
installing a lift on the stairs. Do you know anything about that?"

"Yes, well, I thought it might not be a bad idea."

"I agree. I suggested it three or four months ago and she nearly bit my head off."

"Did she? Well, times change. I admit I did bitch--a
small bitch, a gentle bitch--about the state of my knees on those
stairs. And, er, I also pointed out that she could probably deduct the
depreciated cost of it as a business expense, now she's working
again." Jon studied his fingernails for a moment and then looked
up through his eyelashes at her--difficult to do, as he was four
inches taller than she. Kate began reluctantly to grin, shaking her
head.

"By God, you're a sly one. And she fell for it.
I'd never have believed it." He laughed and whisked the
glasses off the counter. "Jon?" He turned in the doorway.
"Good work. Thanks." He nodded, then went to join Lee in
front of the television.

An hour later, Linda Ronstadt was bouncing around a moonlit garden
in her nightie, flirting with her pirate, when the phone rang. Kate
picked it up in the kitchen, where she had retreated with a stack of
unread newspapers.