As a Favor (7 page)

Behind the desk was a file shelf half the size of the one in the next room. It was marked “Closed files.”

It didn’t take me long to find Ermentine Brown’s folder and take down her address and the date her welfare grant had been discontinued because of—if my interpretation of the crabbed writing that could only have been Anne’s was correct—excess income.

A closed case—reason to resent Anne? Ermentine Brown could tell me herself.

O
N THE OFF CHANCE
that he might have detoured by the house on the way to his meeting, I called Nat there. He hadn’t.

Ravenous, I stopped at Wally’s Donut Shop and ordered eggs and sausage. Lowering the platter, Wally glanced from the eggs to the hash browns and sausage and up at me. “This is big time for you, isn’t it? I thought you only ate jelly donuts.”

“This is breakfast.”

“Good thing. Most important meal. Though”—he wiped a hand across his apron—“a lot of people eat breakfast in the morning.”

“Wally,” I said, I’m doing the best I can.”

He grinned. It was a variation on an old interchange. Wally’s was close to the station and many a break had been spent here, many a jelly donut consumed, and many a cup of coffee that should rightfully have been tossed out had washed down those donuts. I salted everything, poured ketchup over the eggs and hash browns, and forked off a piece of scrambled egg.

My thoughts were on the case. What did I know, so far? Anne Spaulding had been missing for a day and a half. Her apartment looked like it had been the scene of a fight So presumably, she had fought someone and…and lost. If she’d won she would have been home and I’d have been taking my complaint from her. So she’d lost.

Who was that someone? A psychotic killer who had chosen her at random, dumped her bloody clothes by the Bay and done…what?…with her nude body? A sex killing? If so, the killer would go on attacking women month after month or week after week until we could collect enough data to track him down. How many women would die before then?

I spread strawberry jam on my toast. Once, thoughts of murder had knotted my stomach, but now I could consider what would make a normal person retch and not miss a bite.

Suppose the killer were not psychotic, not random. Suppose it was someone she knew…a friend? So far that meant Nat or Alec Effield, the supervisor. Anne didn’t seem to put herself out to make friends, if Skip Weston and Fern Day were to be believed. And what of Nat’s pewter pen in Anne’s living room? I knew how much he valued that pen. I knew how careful Nat was. The pen wasn’t something he would mislay, unless…but I couldn’t picture him there while the blood was still fresh.

I’d have to get this issue of the pen cleared up soon. It could provide a wedge to force Nat to describe Anne’s life much more thoroughly than he apparently wanted. And I certainly had to have an explanation of Nat and the pen before Lt. Davis read about it in my initial report.

The only other lead was “Ermentine Brown 20,” the notation I had found in Anne’s wallet, the former welfare client whose case had been closed for excess income. I finished the hash browns, paid Wally, ignoring his reproof about the scarcely touched eggs, and headed for my car.

Ermentine Brown lived in public housing. Her unit was at the end of what appeared to be a giant stucco shoebox. Before it, the grass had been trampled and the hard clay soil shone through.

The shades of her apartment were drawn, but the unmistakable crescendos of a soap opera told me someone was home. I pushed the bell.

The door was opened by a small child. She had six pigtails and wore pink pajamas that had attached feet. As she looked at me, her face scrunched in displeasure.

“Momma, there’s a cop at the door.”

I could hear water running and the pans banging. In the living room two older children sat leaning against a threadbare brown couch, the light from the television shining on their motionless faces. A tissue box sat between them. October, and already it was flu season.

In a minute a black woman with a large Afro approached. Her hands went to her hips. “Yeah?”

“I’m Officer Smith, Berkeley Police. Are you Ermentine Brown?”

“Why you want to know?”

I repeated the question. The child moved behind her mother.

“Yeah, I’m Ermentine Brown. So?”

“Do you know Anne Spaulding?”

“Miss Spaulding from the welfare? Yeah, I sure as hell know her. Something bad happen to her?”

“She’s missing.”

Ermentine Brown’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t say!” Her tired face pushed into a smile.

Taking advantage of her mood, I said, “Do you mind if I come in?”

She led me through the small living room to a kitchen of approximately the same size. The walls were pinky beige, the furniture Goodwill, and the aroma, spaghetti sauce.

She moved to a half-empty coffee cup at the table.

I sat. “Was Anne Spaulding your eligibility worker?”

“Right.”

“Why did you choose to go off welfare?”

“Choose! Woman, I didn’t choose nothin’! That bitch, that Spaulding bitch, didn’t count my work expenses. She said I had too much income. From selling feather necklaces! Too goddamned much money from feathers!” She flung up her hands.

“You’re a street artist on Telegraph?”

“Yeah, I’d be up there now if it weren’t for all these sick kids.”

“So Anne Spaulding counted your income, and you weren’t eligible?”

Her chin jutted out. “No way.
She
said I wasn’t eligible. Any straight worker would have taken off for my supplies. Feathers are free only to birds. But that bitch Spaulding didn’t count nothin’.”

“Couldn’t you have appealed her decision?”

“Yeah, I could have if I wanted to wait six months for a verdict. If I had the time to go down to Legal Aid and wait around to see a free lawyer. If I had the time to go to the hearing. And if I’d got the paper in ten days. They only give you ten days to appeal those things. If the letter gets held up in the mail, too bad. You understand?”

“Ermentine Brown 20” became clearer now. “So you decided to bribe Anne Spaulding?”

“What? You foolin’ with me? You see those kids in there. You think I got extra money to give away? You think they don’t eat, huh?”

I waited for a moment before I said, “We’ve got a note in her writing. It was twenty dollars, wasn’t it?”

“No way.” Ermentine Brown grabbed a piece of paper and put down a big zero. “Now you got my note, see.”

“You’re forcing me to take you in and show you the proof.” When she didn’t reply I continued, “Look, Ms. Brown, I’m not interested in going after you for twenty dollars. I will if necessary, but what I really want is information. I think we can work something out.”

“Go ahead. I’m listening.”

A pigtail poked around the corner. I watched as the rest of the head inched after it. “We won’t be long,” I said to the child.

Ermentine Brown spun in her chair, ready to let her tension out, but the child darted back into the living room.

When the woman turned back to me, I said, “What made you think you could bribe Anne Spaulding?”

She hesitated. “The word’s out on the Avenue. She’s on the take.”

“Who else was she taking from?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know names.”

I pulled out my pad, flipping to the page on which I had listed the seventeen case names. I read them. “Any of these women?”

“No. I never heard of them.”

“They live right off Telegraph. They go to the same branch welfare office. And you’re telling me you’ve never heard of them?”

Ermentine stood up. “Look, woman, I lived up there for a month, in a hotel full of winos and whores. If I knew any of those names I’d tell you and let you go hang all over them.”

“Well, then, who else was bribing Anne Spaulding? Only you? Anne Spaulding is missing and I need to know what she was doing.”

“If there’s any way that bitch could get her ass kicked there’s no one would like to see it more than me. I told her the day she cut me off, my kids needed that money, I couldn’t put food in their mouths without it. And you think she cared? Shit.”

“The names.”

“I know some people who used to be into it, but not now. Look, why don’t you talk to Quentin Delehanty up on the Avenue? He’s a wise dude when he’s off the sauce.”

“When’s that?”

For the second time Ermentine Brown smiled.

“ ’Tween the time his eyes open and his hand reaches out.”

I laughed. “One more thing. Where were you last Monday from six o’clock on?”

I expected her to protest, but she didn’t. Instead she went to the living room and returned with a large plastic purse. Sitting down, she began rooting through the purse, pulling out envelopes stuffed with papers and stacking them in a line on the formica table. “I fed the kids and then I took them to see the Marx Brothers. I’m finding the stubs so you can be sure.”

“You saved the stubs!”

“Listen, once you been on the welfare, you save everything. You don’t never know what they’re going to ask for.” She looked up and caught me staring at the purse. “I call this my file cabinet. When you been on the welfare you keep your papers handy. You never know when you’re going to be in the office and they’ll have to have something right now! You learn to keep everything in it.” She patted the purse. “You check with anyone on the welfare. They all do it.”

She turned her attention back to the purse and in a minute came up with an envelope that contained the theater stubs. “Here, you can still see the date.”

I glanced at them and returned them to the envelope, which Ermentine Brown returned promptly to her purse. “Ms. Brown, can you think of anyone who would want to harm Anne Spaulding?”

Her eyes widened, her mouth opened, and she laughed. “Anyone she met, honey. Ain’t no one gonna be crying over her.”

I
GOT TO THE
station at twenty to three. In the past I’d been late for or even missed squad meetings and Lt. Davis, a stickler for time and accuracy, had wasted none of the former letting me know that no investigation excuses a patrol officer from basic responsibilities. I was going to have a hard enough time explaining this case to the lieutenant without adding lateness to my irregularities.

Pereira’s report was in. Spaulding’s neighbors had noticed nothing unusual or helpful. They could remember neither friends nor visitors. Mostly they used the opportunity to complain about the traffic and the noise from Sri Fallon’s apartment. Anne they classified as a nice quiet neighbor who kept to herself.

I arranged for Fern Day to view the clothes. Then I checked the microfilm index on which we kept the names of all those—felons and victims—known to the Department, together with the number of the Penal Code section identifying the crime each was connected with. There was no record for any of Anne’s twelve adult welfare clients or her five family cases.

And then I got the first good news in two days: Lt. Davis was at City Hall, meeting with the mayor.

Staff meeting was perfunctory: a memo on expense accounts was read, the hot-car list circulated, summaries of cases left over from Morning Watch presented. But the atmosphere was not the same. We were like a school class with a substitute teacher. Howard, who normally forced himself to be serious, leaned back in his chair, arms spreading out, unconsciously forcing the men on either side to give him room. The loss of a ’62 VW without bumpers, but with one red, one green, and two merely rusted fenders gave rise to speculation that would not have been so much as suppressed thoughts if the lieutenant had been present.

“Another day,” Howard said after the meeting. He flopped back in my desk chair, spreading his long legs across the aisle. “Thank God I don’t have to explain about my tail lights till tomorrow.”

“So what do you have planned for the thief today?” I settled atop the desk.

“Nothing. The pattern is no contact the day after a grab—and he had two tries yesterday. Today I’d guess he’s holed up somewhere slobbering over his latest trophy. What about your missing person?”

“Not much; except a general opinion that Anne Spaulding knew how to look out for Number One. And Number Two, if such existed, was a long way down the list. She had some welfare clients living in that building I chased your thief through. I’m going to go out and have a crack at them.” I pushed myself up. “Could you do me a favor and check by Anne’s apartment when you’re on beat? It’d be a little humiliating to have her just walk home without my knowing.”

“Sure. What does your husband—whoops, ex-husband—think happened?”

I was a few feet down the aisle. “I’ll tell you about that later, okay?”

It was not yet four o’clock. The sun still warmed Telegraph and there was no sign of fog yet. The Avenue was jammed with people; after the cold Bay Area summer, people exposed their bodies greedily to the warm October sun. In a few hours, when the fog rolled in, they’d be wrapped in sweaters or wool jackets, but now T-shirts and shorts prevailed.

I double-parked the car outside Quentin Delehanty’s hotel and made my way past the empty lobby. The smell of marijuana hung heavy; the bald rugs and thin curtains had been saturated with it. There was no sign of the hotel manager, no manager’s office. The manager, doubtless, was someone who came by only when the rent was due.

There were no mailboxes, though a few unclaimed letters lay on a table, and no list of tenants. No one was around to guide me. I knocked on the back door—Delehanty’s. From inside I could hear nothing. The blare of stereos from other rooms was louder than the television had been at Ermentine Brown’s.

I knocked again. Now I could make out stirrings.

“Open the door, Delehanty. It’s the police.”

Grunts.

It was several minutes and two more poundings before the door opened to reveal Delehanty in a wine-stained and very dirty white shirt and pajama bottoms. His long gray hair was matted around his face and he smelled of wine and sweat.

Taking a breath, I walked in. Delehanty watched me, his expression more amazed than angry.

I took out a list of Anne Spaulding’s clients, and read the names slowly. “Do you know any of these women?”