Chocolate Quake (16 page)

“And now that we have broken bread together, of what help can I be to you in your search for the true murderer of my friend?”

“Did you see anyone that night who might have killed her?” Sam asked. “Who had something against her? Who shouldn’t have been there?”

Kebra folded long fingers on the plastic table—ours was a bilious green—and bowed her head in thought. Then she said, “I was in the office of the Battered Women’s Advocacy that night. It is on the second floor. A very bad man named Piñon came in and screamed at me many rude things in demand that I tell him in which shelter we had hidden his wife. Do you know him?”

“By reputation,” said Sam. “What did you do?”

“I told him to leave or I would call upon the police to remove him.”

“What did he do?”

“He left, of course. I pointed my weapon at him. No doubt, he was afraid of injury and humiliation, having been previously shot by another woman whom he attempted to frighten.”

To my astonishment, when she mentioned her weapon, she pulled a black metal, rather squared-off gun from the folds of her robe. Several customers at surrounding tables noticed and became agitated.

“Do not be alarmed,” she said to them. “I am authorized to carry this weapon by the city of San Francisco, because I am the proprietor of a business and because my former husband was a man of violence.” She smiled at the customers, then resumed her description of last Thursday night.

“Once Mr. Piñon had departed, I closed the office and went downstairs to the kitchen to speak to Bebe Takashima, who had just finished teaching an ethnic cuisine class. I wished her to take a class for me tomorrow night because we are having a family party here to celebrate the birth of a child. In the kitchen I saw a person I did not expect to see, Mr. Charles Desmond, who was flirting most outrageously with my friend Bebe.”

“He wasn’t on the sign-in list,” I remarked to Sam.

“Neither was this Bebe,” Sam replied. “So who’s Charles Desmond, Kebra?”

“He is the love of Myra Fox, who was once our accountant before she was afflicted with cancer of a female sort. How unkind of him to flirt with another woman when his love is in danger of dying and subjected to dreadful medical treatments. I felt very sorry for Myra, whom I know from before Denise replaced her in financial matters.

“I believe this Desmond could see my disapproval of his unfaithful conduct, even though he has not married Myra Fox, as would be proper. He hurried to tell me that he had come to the center to secure financial papers for Myra to work on at home because inactivity has caused her depression. He seemed angry that the center had replaced her, even temporarily, while she was sick and said it would be good if she were to come back to work and take over her old duties.

“I wondered, if he was on an errand for Myra, why he was in the Nutrition Central smiling with lascivious intent at Bebe Takashima. His conduct embarrassed me, and I left. And now I must return to my duties. Please give my regards to the mother of your husband, Mrs. Blue. Perhaps you would care to join us here in September for the celebration of Mesqel.”

“Thank you, but we’ll be back in Texas by then,” I replied and complimented her on a lovely lunch. Sam got the name of the company Ms. Takashima worked for.

“Two more people to see,” I remarked as we walked to his motorcycle. “I wonder if Mr. Desmond saw Denise that night before she was killed? Or saw the murderer?”

“Or was the murderer,” Sam suggested.

“It wasn’t as if Denise had taken Myra’s job for good,” I pointed out, “only until she was well enough to come back. Several people said Denise was anxious to return to the battered women, and the interim head is certainly anxious to have her back.”

“What if someone didn’t want Myra to get her old job back?”

“Ah, maybe the director, Mrs. Timberlite. Maybe they had to keep Denise in place so she’d head off the Women of Color protest against his project.”

“In that case Denise would still be alive, chickie. We’re getting our suspects mixed up here.”

“Well,
Sammie,
” I replied sarcastically. “What do you think we should do next?”

“Find Bebe and see what she says about Desmond.”

“Could we stop somewhere and get a glass of milk? My mouth is on fire.”

Sam grinned as he handed me a helmet. “Then you shouldn’t have eaten so much.”

24

Chat with a Window Dresser

 

B
ebe Takashima, a
designer of store windows, was setting one up for a shop on Union Street. The window contained interesting furniture, ornamental objects, and a young Japanese woman directing two men while a super-thin older woman looked on. Saying he had an interview to conduct himself, Sam promised to pick me up at the center, which was nearby, in an hour to an hour and a half. I agreed to that vague plan because if he wasn’t back promptly, I could pass on Vera’s message to one of the Working Women about Jesusita Gomez’s imminent arrival from jail.

Sam roared off, and I tried to pat my hair into shape using a small hand mirror. The super-thin woman spotted me and beckoned me inside. “I saw you looking at the teak and rosewood cabinet. It’s stunning, isn’t it?”

I peered at the window from inside and agreed. The cabinet
was
stunning, the price tag even more so. “Actually, I’m here to see Bebe.”

“We mustn’t disturb her in midcreation. Why don’t you look around until she’s done?”

How long will that be?
I wondered. While looking, I spotted a wonderful black and white dress in an abstract print with the fitted body and flaring skirt of a flamenco costume. Now the
dress
was stunning! And probably very expensive. I needn’t have worried because the proprietor snatched it off the hanger. “Not for you, darling. Eight is the biggest size we carry in this one, and Bebe wants it for the window.”

My dress disappeared toward the front of the store, while I checked the size tags on the other two. Six and four. Were all the woman’s customers as skinny as she? And did she, like my mother-in-law, think that I wore a size sixteen? I took a peek into the window, but Bebe was now draping the dress over a very modern black chaise longue while the two men moved the $7,500 cabinet into another position, the skinny proprietor fussing at them as they grunted and heaved.

I moved off again and found a collection of bizarre stuffed animals from which I chose, as a present for my daughter Gwen, a lime-green and purple fish with puffed lips and crossed eyes. By the time I’d paid for the fish, Bebe had finished the window, hopped down onto the showroom floor, and flitted in my direction.

She was a tiny thing—the dresses here would fit her—wearing green sandals, tight green pants, and a huge green and white polka-dot shirt that reached almost to her knees. Long bangs and straight, black, shoulder-length hair completed the look. “So what’s up?” she asked. “Hedwig said you wanted to talk to me.” Then she looked at the clear plastic bag the clerk handed me and said, “
Cool
fish!”

“Thank you.” If she liked it, maybe Gwen would. “I just had lunch at Gondar—”

“And you’re looking for a bathroom,” Bebe interposed with a giggle. “If you ask nicely, Hedwig will let you use hers.”

“I’m fine,” I said, embarrassed. “I’m investigating the murder of Denise—”

“You’re a P.I.? That’s
so
cool.”

“No.” I sighed. “I’m Vera Blue’s daughter-in-law, and Kebra Zenawi mentioned that you were there that night and talking to a man named Charles Desmond, who is evidently Myra Fox’s . . . ah—”

“Right. They’re shacked up. So which one of us do you think murdered Denise? It wasn’t me. I headed on home as soon as Charlie took off.”

“In what direction did Mr. Desmond—”

“I don’t know, but he didn’t kill her. He’s a high-end techie type. They don’t kill people. They play with their computers and found companies that go bust. Not that he has a job just now. Wow, the
dot.com
blowout left half the people I know unemployed. There’s lofts here in town fixed up for dot.coms that never even got rented.”

“You think well of Mr. Desmond, then?”

“He’s not so bad. Except he comes on to anyone in a skirt, and after all, he’s got Myra. She’s supporting him. He ought to keep his big, smarmy smile where it belongs. Still, he was there for Myra’s sake, so I guess he’s OK.”

“Perhaps he went to Denise’s office after he left you?”

She thought a minute. “I don’t think so. He came in from the stairs. I think he was headed for the backdoor.”

“
That’s
open at night?” Good heavens, I’d never find everyone who’d been in the center last Thursday if anyone could get in anywhere.

“Hey you,” Miss Takashima yelled at one of the departing workmen. “You changed the line of that dress.” She sprinted toward the window with me behind, hoping for an answer to my question. While she rearranged the flamenco gown on the black chaise, I noticed the area rug on the floor. It was delightful, and I needed one, although of a bigger size, for my dining room.

“Does—ah—Hedwig sell these rugs?” I asked the window decorator.

“No, I brought it along. Why, you like it?”

“Very much, and I’m in the market for a rug that would go with a dark blue and silver color scheme.”

“California Carpet. You want me to go with you? I love to pick out rugs.”

“Do they ship?”

“Sure. Come on. We’ll hop in my truck and head down there.”

I glanced at my watch. Forty-five minutes before Sam returned. I accepted Bebe’s offer and soon found myself zipping through the streets in a blush-pink pickup truck. Bebe confided, as we ran yellow lights and even reds, that security at the center was a joke. There were open doors and windows everywhere, including the upper floors where you could climb a fire escape and wiggle in through a window. “Alexi’s always in the john, and his son, Vassily, who fills in for him and is a cute kid and very smart—he’s more interested in talking to the unwed mothers, as long as they’re pretty, than manning the security desk.”

Bebe hadn’t seen anyone suspicious that night, including Charlie Desmond, and she picked out a wonderful rug for me. After flipping through about three hundred, she said, “How about this one?” in reference to a cream-colored design with purple-blue outlined leaves and blocks of color. It was very subdued, and I loved it. She even waited while I arranged to have it shipped home, chatting about how much she loved shopping and various great shops in which to do it.

Her favorite was evidently a place called Recycled Chic that sold “adorable clothes” and was very near the center. “I got a pair of leather pants there for a song, and they are
so
cute. Everything’s secondhand but in very good condition. That’s what the name means. Recycled Chic. They don’t take anything frumpy.”

I put my rug receipts in my purse, and Bebe generously drove me back to Union Street, where I went straight to Working Women and told them about Jesusita and Vera’s idea for a Jail-to-Work department. Then I climbed from floor to floor checking for unlocked windows by fire escapes. Bebe had been right. Any would-be murderer who wanted to get in and stab someone would have had an easy job of it. Should I mention the security problem to the director? Would she get snippy and demand that I leave if I told her?

25

Police Station Gossip

 

T
he last I
saw of Carolyn was a glimpse of a lady trying to refurbish a hairdo flattened by a motorcycle helmet. Men have it easier than women, which is probably why we’re easier to get along with. Although I wouldn’t give Marcus Croker any prizes for geniality, which is why I wanted to ditch Carolyn before I went to see him. She ought to be safe enough interviewing a Japanese girl who decorated shop windows. Come to think of it, I’d have to tell Paul about that chest. He’d like it.

Croker and his partner work out of the North Station. If they weren’t in, I’d still find out something because cops love to gossip. The partner was there doing paperwork, probably because Croker stuck him with it. Arbus is a big black guy. Played ball in high school, but he wasn’t fast enough to get an athletic scholarship. Did a couple of years in junior college and went into the cops. He seems happy enough, and we get on OK. Share a beer now and then and talk sports.

He’s always asking me when the “next fuckin’ quake is comin’,” like I know any more than anyone else about it. I majored in geology at Stanford because it sounded pretty interesting, but it’s not like I figured on anything but going into the pros after college. You’re dumb at that age. Don’t think about not getting picked in the draft, or if you do, getting hurt, getting old. Happens to all of us. “Hey, Arbus, man, how ya doin’?”

“Sammie.” Arbus emerged from the squad room and shook my hand. “Say, the police athletic league’s lookin’ for a coach—football—for a middle school team. You interested? Them little suckers, they’d shit bricks they thought they was gettin’ a big-time pro for a coach.”

“Arbus, I remember what junior high school kids are like, an’ I’m not gettin’ near a whole team of ’em. Hey, is Marcus around?” Arbus said Croker wasn’t. “Well, maybe you can help me. Marcus say anything to you about the murder at the Union Street Center? He was there that night.”

“Nah, man, I heard about that, but Marcus an’ me was on patrol, an’ we didn’t take that call. Homicide got there before the uniforms.”

“So Marcus was with you the whole time? Four to midnight?”

Arbus Penn scratched his head, which was shaven as close as you could get and still have hair. Then he scratched his nose. Arbus is a slow thinker, but he gets there. “Well, he took an hour of personal time. Otherwise, he was with me. We took down a couple of dealers that night an’ hauled in some street girls who was tryin’ to hustle tourists. I ’member cause one a them girls was
sweet choc’late.
I wasn’t a married man, I wouldn’t mind bein’ hustled by that one. Know what I mean?”