Chocolate Quake (4 page)

What a wonderful name. Perfect for a column. San Francisco had an Italian confectionery in 1849. Was Citizen Cake Italian? Or perhaps it would be like the confectionery shops in 1868 where wealthy women, elaborately dressed, stopped for a lunch of ice cream, cake, and gossip after a hard morning of shopping on Montgomery Street, San Francisco’s high-fashion boulevard.

“Just catch a cab to 399 Grove Street. I’ll see you there in fifteen minutes.”

“Thank you.” Would I be able to get there in time? When I finally found a cab three blocks away from the Hall of Justice, I promised the driver a good tip if he’d drive me to Citizen Cake as fast as possible.

“Get in, lady,” he said. “I can see you’re having a snack attack.” And off we went. It turned out to be a short trip, but he did drive fast, so I gave him what I thought was a generous tip (he evidently didn’t think so) and carefully wrote the cab fare into my tax deduction notebook. I fully intended to write about whatever I had to eat, unless it was awful. In that case, I’d have to erase the cab expense. Would I have to pay for the lawyer’s meal, too? Well, if so, Jason could ask his mother for a refund. Of course, she’d refuse.

The neighborhood was more industrial than high fashion, but the interior was tempting. I stood in the entrance to the right of the bar, looking for Mrs. Hanrahan and taking in the décor. Very modern. A pastry counter behind me full of luscious offerings. A long bar with high stools, bare wooden floors, large black pipes, raftered ceiling, rust-red walls, large windows looking out on greenery with occasional sheer white drapes combating sunlight, peculiar white plastic triangles hanging from the ceiling, and casually dressed employees. A tall girl in worn jeans was coming toward me when I heard, “Blue?” shouted in my direction.

The owner of the voice had risen from a table by the window, waving energetically. Margaret Hanrahan was a very large woman, tall, stout, and bolster-shaped, weighing well over two hundred pounds. I needn’t have bothered with my conservative pants suit for her sake; she wore a long, moss-green, fringed dress with beads, and her hair was pinned around her large head in a thick, gray braid. As I headed in her direction, I found myself hoping that she didn’t appear in court dressed like that.

Since Mrs. Hanrahan took the chair, I had to squeeze onto the bench seat behind the table and in front of a huge window. “Dessert first, business second,” she announced. Then she passed me the dessert menu, and ordered for herself: The “Mixed Berry Shortcake with Rosemary Ice Cream and Vanilla Syrup” and the “Seven Cookies.” The first was $8.50 and the second $7.00. I glanced over the menu and chose the “Hazelnut on Chocolate on Hazelnut on Chocolate.” It sounded wonderful, pot de crème, hazelnut ice cream, and espresso vinaigrette, $8.50.

“Oh, what the hell,” said Mrs. Hanrahan to our waitress. “I’ll have the ‘Exquisite Tropical Parfait,’ too.” I glanced back up the menu. Her third choice contained coconut tapioca, mango bavarois, ginger gelee, and caramel, $8.00. There were only two other items on the menu, and I hoped that she wouldn’t expect me to order those.

She didn’t. Instead, she asked if I wanted a sandwich since I’d only chosen one dessert. The waitress said they weren’t serving sandwiches yet. I asked if I could keep the menu. She looked at me askance but agreed. I asked if I could have a recipe for my newspaper column. She shrugged and said she’d consult with management.

While we were waiting to be served, Mrs. Hanrahan told me that Vera’s case was a real problem, not the least of which was Vera herself. “She’s not taking this seriously. She thinks the police are going to realize she didn’t kill Denise and let her go, and in the meantime she’s going to do good work among her fellow prisoners and the jail guards. She’s already set her sights on two new clients that need my aid, as if I don’t have enough grief thinking about her situation.

“Bad enough that someone killed Denise at the center, but to have our big-name consultant charged—well, it looks terrible. Bad publicity for us, bad for poor Denise who got killed, bad for me—maybe I’ll stick one of the rainmakers at my husband’s firm with Vera’s defense. That should make them sorry they never voted another woman after me into the partnership. They’re already ruing the day I quit.”

Mrs. Hanrahan had a laugh as ear-catching as her voice. When she let out a huge, delighted chortle over the pro bono complaints of her husband’s partners, heads turned all over Citizen Cake.

“And of course bad for Vera. If she doesn’t get a grip, she’s going to find herself in the state prison instead of the San Francisco jail. I’m not sure which would be worse from her point of view.”

“Have you ever tried a murder case, Mrs. Hanrahan?” I asked diffidently.

“Call me Margaret. Of course I have, but always women killing men—spousal abuse, battered-wife syndrome. I’m good at those. Never had one with a woman killing a woman. Not that I think Vera killed anyone, but the evidence does look bad.”

“What evidence?’

Before she could answer, our desserts arrived. Mine was gorgeous, a tall, narrow tower of delicious-looking nuts and chocolate and whatnot. I was gazing at it with admiration when the plate gave a jump and the luscious tower toppled over. I experienced a moment of queasiness and glanced toward Margaret Hanrahan, who had started to consume, with gusto, the Exquisite Tropical Parfait. I noticed that her Mixed Berry Shortcake with Rosemary Ice Cream seemed to be put together somewhat haphazardly. “What happened?” I asked.

“You mean the murder?” Margaret helped herself to one of the Seven Cookies, the one that was resting on the table.

“The plates—jumped.”

“Maybe we had a tremor,” she replied nonchalantly, putting the half-eaten cookie back on the plate and scooping up more of the parfait. Noticing that I seemed fascinated by her dessert sampling, she added, “I’m saving the shortcake until last.”

“Tremor as in earthquake?” I asked, a tremor in my voice.

“Goodness, dear, it was nothing. We’ve had five hundred or more since the mid-nineteenth century.”

“I’m sitting by a big window. Isn’t that dangerous?”

Margaret waved vaguely toward the other customers. “You don’t see anyone taking notice, do you? Now eat your hazelnut thing. It looks wonderful.” Then she gave into temptation and tried the disheveled shortcake with a sigh of delight.

“What evidence?” I asked, trying not to look and feel terrified. The Hazelnut on Chocolate, etc., helped. Even in disarray, it was delicious. “She didn’t kill anyone, so there couldn’t be evidence that—”

“Well, she was covered with Denise’s blood. Not that I saw her. Pictures, of course. The cops took pictures. But I didn’t see the real thing. I was passing a kidney stone at the time, which is, believe me, worse than giving birth, and then you don’t have anything to show for it. But that’s the last one, believe you-me. They’re going to put me in a bathtub and blast my kidneys with a laser. New technique. Turns a kidney stone to powder.”

She’d finished off the parfait and two more of the cookies. “Besides the blood all over your mother-in-law, there was the argument. They had a humdinger—Denise and Vera—just that afternoon. Something about feminist books. Denise said there wasn’t enough money for a library of them. Vera got very shirty, as the English say. Lord, I could hear them all the way in my office, one section over and one floor up. And poor Denise. She doesn’t like to argue, and she only took over as the center’s accountant and fund-raiser because Myra Fox got breast cancer. Myra kept the books before she went under the knife, and Denise headed the Battered Women’s Advocacy.

“So there you are. Discovered at the scene of the crime with the victim’s blood all over her after a nasty argument just that day, and then Vera admitted to the police that they were back on the subject of books in the office that night.”

“No she didn’t,” I protested. “She told them Denise said the word
books
twice before she died. Vera didn’t say anything, except to call out for help when she saw that Denise had been attacked. Did they find the weapon?”

“Not that I know of. If they did, they’ll have to say so on discovery.”

“Well, how could Vera have used it, got covered with blood, hidden it, and then come back to help her victim? That’s both impossible and implausible.”

“Very good point, my dear. Something the cops should look into. They won’t, of course. They think they’ve got their murderer.”

“A small, elderly woman? That’s ridiculous. Couldn’t they tell from the angle of the wounds that someone taller did it? In fact, it had to be a man. What woman would kill another with multiple stab wounds?”

“And with a big knife, according to my sources at Homicide.”

“There. You see. Where would Vera get a big knife?”

“Beats me. The kitchen?”

“She’s not at all domestic.”

“Good point. What’s your first name, dear?”

“Carolyn.”

She had finished off the shortcake and the other cookies as we talked and was draining her coffee cup, which had been refilled twice at her request. “Well, I’ll tell you what I’d do, Carolyn. I’d get a good private detective to look into who might have killed Denise if it wasn’t Vera. Unfortunately, the center doesn’t have a detective. We’re lucky to have a rent-a-cop at the front door. So I can’t provide one, and Vera would probably refuse if I could. However, I’m sure the city is full of them. The famous detective William Burns, who eventually had his own agency, was hired to help clear out our crooked politicians after the 1906 quake. Sometimes it takes a good shaking up to set things to rights in this town.”

I hoped that she wasn’t wishing a major earthquake on the city, and I had to agree that my mother-in-law was unlikely to favor hiring a detective. However, I myself could ask questions at the center if the police weren’t willing to do so. In fact, I should probably talk to the police. Maybe I could convince them to investigate for me, which would leave me free to explore San Francisco, and its eating establishments.

Margaret and I split the bill. Her suggestion, which was-n’t at all fair since she’d had three desserts and three cups of coffee while I’d had only one of each. But I guess it was better than being expected to pay the whole bill because she was offering free legal advice to my mother-in-law.

6

Meeting Harry Yu

 

S
ince the drive
to Citizen Cake had seemed short, I walked back to the Hall of Justice, a mistake. However, I did arrive eventually and located the Homicide Division on the fourth floor, where my mother-in-law had said it was. Most of the cubicles were empty, but I spotted an Asian person and asked to speak to a detective.