Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series) (3 page)

“These things smell great,” she said. “Like melon, although I don’t know if that’s where the name comes from. We’ll get an aquarist to take one out for you one day—they look like a little pile of Jell-O when you put them on your palm.”

I was impatient. “Let’s go see the kelp tank.”

We stepped into the exhibit area.

* * *

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is very different indeed from other aquariums, which are basically collections of fish from around the world, especially the tropics. This one shows you what you’d see if you were a hermit crab living in the bay, which itself is not just any bay. As anyone knows who’s read
Cannery Row
, it teems with darting, swirling, multicolored, many-shaped life. Even when you know that, it’s quite a bit more than you could possibly imagine it is, standing on the shore and looking out. Underneath it, stretching sixty miles out to sea, and two miles down at its seaward end, is Monterey Canyon, as large and deep as the Grand Canyon.

So that’s the bay. Its many habitats, from the deep reefs to the wharf, are recreated within the aquarium, in panoramic vistas that make your breath catch—far, far, from the old-fashioned window-in-the-wall approach. The most famous of the exhibits is the towering kelp forest, three stories high, sixty-six feet long, containing 335,000 gallons of water, its seven-inch-think acrylic walls made in Japan by a secret process and assembled on Cannery Row by experts who forbade aquarium officials to watch. It is the tallest aquarium exhibit in the world, and arguably the most spectacular.

“Damn!”

“What is it?”

“The lights are off.”

The kelp forest was dark.

“The lights are on the roof. They usually have them on for night parties,” said Marty. “I forgot they might be off. Tell you what we’ll do—we’ll call the control room and get them turned on. The surge machine, too.”

We walked down the stairs to the first floor, where there’s a little gallery in front of the kelp forest. Here the floor is carpeted, and there are a few stair-step benches where you can sit in case you become mesmerized and unable to move.

Marty left me and went to the information desk to use the phone. In a moment, the lights lit the tank, as if the house lights had gone up on a stage. A big gold garibaldi darted away, startled. A sea cucumber, spiny and, to tell you the truth, somewhat revolting, had pasted itself to the far wall. Leopard sharks glided by, and thin, black-tailed senoritas. A rockfish, looking baleful, flapped its pectoral fins like wings. I was staring back at it, wondering if it was trying to make friends (and knowing better), when the surge machine went on.

The kelp, twenty-eight feet tall, as impressive in its own way as a stand of redwoods, began to sway. Water swirled as if a wave had hit, which is what the surge simulates, and an object caught in the forest worked its way loose. It looked like a gray jacket, windbreaker-style, with a red splatter on it. Another foreign object floated gracefully toward the bottom—a woman’s high heel. Automatically, I looked up.

The body of a woman floated on top of the kelp canopy. She was wearing a black business suit, which looked as if it was made of linen. I stared, transfixed, at a leopard shark shaking its body, its teeth caught in the woman’s pantyhose. Silver sardines swam under the body. Suddenly something yellow darted into the water, and one of the sardines flowed red.

The body changed position and surged downward for a moment so that I could see its face, black hair wreathing it eerily, like Medusa’s. Something nasty was sticking out of the woman’s eye; it looked like the ivory handle of a fancy knife.

Again, fast as a cat’s paw, a pair of yellow pincers, now at the woman’s neck, plunged toward a fish, this time missing. And another, at the waist. They were beaks.

I realized, knees starting to shake, that there were gulls standing on top of the body, fishing.

“Marty!”

But she’d already seen it. She was making little noises like someone having a dream, trying to wake up. Her body was shaking. I took her shoulders and spoke softly. “It’s okay, Marty. You’re okay, we’ll call security. Here—I’ll help you sit down.”

I pushed gently on her shoulders, trying to get her to sit on one of the benches, but she resisted. “It’s Sadie,” she whispered.

“Sadie Swedlow,” I said, to show I understood.

She nodded.

“Okay. It’s not you—it’s not me. It’s Sadie Swedlow.”

“Rebecca!” Her teeth were chattering. “Look at that thing! That thing in her eye—”

“Yes. Someone stabbed her. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“Look at it!”

“Marty. We’ve got to call security.” I spoke brusquely. I was through being soothing; it wasn’t working anyway. She rallied enough to give me the number.

When I got back from the information desk, Marty had finally sat down, but she was still shivering. I took off my linen blazer and tried to tuck it around her. “My jacket,” she said.

“Yes. You can have it for now.”

She raised her hands, maybe meaning to point, but not succeeding. Her hands fluttered and circled helplessly. And then she pulled herself up from the bottom of her spine, took a deep breath, and spoke coherently. “That’s my jacket in there.”

“The gray one? Floating?”

Two guards came. One helped me to get Marty to lie down with her feet elevated, and the other called the police. The young officer who arrived first looked twenty-five and reacted about like Marty. But a few minutes later, the place was crowded—and not only with Monterey’s finest. The night staff crawled out of the woodwork—cleaning workers, late-working aquarists, another guard, and some people in business clothes, maybe from accounting or education. Firemen and paramedics arrived.

“Rebecca …” She was whispering again.

“Yes?”

'“Did you see that thing in her eye?”

I nodded, wondering what else I could do to calm her—so far as I could see, no one had a pocket flask.

“I mean, did you get a really good look at it?”

“No. I looked away. I guess you did, too.”

“I think it’s my letter opener.”

My mind went into gear, finally. Her jacket. And now her letter opener. And Sadie had just made off with her husband. I talked fast.

“Marty, I’m your lawyer. For right now, anyway. You can call someone else when they give you a chance, but—”

“No. I want you.”

“Okay. Now, listen. Don’t say a word to the police. Nothing. Except that I’m your lawyer and I’ve advised you not to talk. Not a word. Understand?”

She nodded, looking dazed, and I went to make a phone call I wished I’d already made.

I returned to Marty and knelt, about to reiterate the importance of clamming up. “Excuse me,” said someone behind us. “I’m Paula Jacobson from the police department. This is Lloyd Tillman, Detective Lloyd Tillman, I should say. We understand you’re the two who called security.”

I stood up. “Rebecca Schwartz.”

Slowly, Marty got up as well. “Marty Whitehead. Is she dead, Officer?”

Jacobson smiled. “It’s ‘Sergeant,’ technically. But why don’t you call me Paula? Maybe we could talk a few minutes while Detective Tillman and Ms. Schwartz—”

I broke the news. “I’m Ms. Whitehead’s attorney and I’ve advised her not to talk to you. Could we have a few minutes alone, please?”

Jacobson raised an inquisitive eyebrow. She was tall and striking, someone who wanted to be noticed. But right now she was dressed carelessly in jeans, T-shirt, and white cotton blazer, as if she’d been home doing dishes when she got the call and had rushed out, grabbing the jacket on the fly.

“All right.” But there was an angry edge to her voice. She was probably in her early thirties. She had longish white-blond hair, split on the ends, black roots showing, olive skin, a long face, and eyebrows plucked to a thin line. A sad look in her dark eyes went with the longish face. Her thighs were mighty; I hadn’t seen it yet, but I was willing to bet her backside matched. A strapping female, and I didn’t trust that sad look she had. Depressed people can turn aggressive.

Tillman didn’t look much like Mr. Nice Guy himself. He was beefy, even a little porky, a few years older than Jacobson, and he had one of those short, neat beards with no mustache. He hadn’t said a word yet, but his scowl said not to mess with him. I wished we had a choice.

“Is she dead?” Marty asked again.

“Who, Marty?” asked Tillman.

“The woman in the tank.”

He shrugged. “Who is she?”

“We were wondering that, too,” I said quickly, hearing an “S” hiss out of Marty.

“You have no idea?”

Marty held her tongue. Good.

Jacobson smiled. “We don’t know if she’s dead. They haven’t got her out of the tank yet.”

Marty said, “I see.” She was making a nice recovery.

I led Marty away and sat her on one of the benches. We had to whisper, but too bad—there were some things I had to cover. Fast. “Marty, what’s going on here?”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“What else do I need to know?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“There’s a good chance you could be arrested tonight.” Finally, as the light dawned, she began to look alarmed. “Me? For what?”

“Marty, you have a motive, and the weapon’s yours. They don’t need a lot more than that. What else is there? Did you and Sadie fight? Did you threaten her?”

“Of course not.”

“Listen, Marty, I’m a good lawyer. I’ll get you out of this if I can. But you have to help. I just called a bail bondsman in San Francisco—he’s standing by, but I have to tell you—the cops’ll call a judge and try to get him to let them hold you on a no-bail warrant. And there’s a good chance they’ll get it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She shook her head. How could she understand? “Marty, if they put you in jail tonight, you might not get out till Monday. All they need is probable cause, and they might think they have it. But our real problem is, it’s Friday. You can’t be arraigned till Monday. If a judge won’t set bail, they can hold you till then.”

“But this is America!”

I shrugged, having vented my spleen on this subject enough times. Defense lawyers like this rule of law the way we like black mambas, but there’s nothing we can do about it. I didn’t want to tell her, but they could actually hold her till Tuesday—the rule was seventy-two hours before she had to be arraigned, and weekends didn’t count.

Marty got hold of herself. “But you can get me out on Monday?”

“Probably. But listen, Marty, you have to help me. Believe me, you don’t want to go to jail. When did you last see Sadie?”

“I don’t know—five o’clock maybe. Six. Who knows?”

“What time does the aquarium close?”

“Six.”

“Where were you between six and the time I got here?”

“In my office. Working.”

“Were other people there?”

“Are you kidding? It’s Friday.”

“Did Sadie leave at six with the others?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see her.”

“Did you see anyone in that period? Before I got here?”

“No.”

My heart raced. If they decided to take her in, I didn’t see what I could do about it.

Tillman came over. “Will
you
talk to us, Ms. Schwartz?”

“Certainly.”

He sighed, and began the mechanical questions: When did I arrive? How did I get in? Did I go anywhere before coming into the kelp forest area? What did I see when I got here? How did the lights happen to be on?

What time had it been when we called the control room?

What exactly did I see when the lights went on?

What else?

And on and on like that for several millennia. Similar scenes were being acted out around us with other employees, as public servants of one sort or another—we certainly had a variety on hand—fished out Sadie Swedlow.

Finally one of the other cops called Tillman away. I felt like a boxer’s corner man between rounds, and wished I had his equipment—Marty needed her face wiped and maybe a little water thrown in it.

We were alone again for a long while. Marty said, “Why don’t you want me to talk to them?”

“Surely you’ve heard the phrase ‘Anything you say can and will be used against you.’ They’re not kidding about that.”

“But if I’m not guilty, how can I incriminate myself?”

I winced, imagining about three hundred different ways. To change the subject, I said, “Who else had a reason to kill her?”

“The bitch! Anybody might have. She’d slept with half the guys who work here. Miss Sadie Stoop-Low was certainly never troubled about scruples—she was the boss, and she used it every way she could. Took what she wanted from everybody else—everything from free overtime to sex—and she was nasty.”

“To whom?”

“To everybody except her favorites—needless to say, they were all men.”

“She wasn’t popular?”

“She was a bitch.”

“She must have been a good administrator, or she wouldn’t have lasted in a job like that.”

“I doubt she
would
have lasted. She’d only been here six months.”

“She was pretty busy if she’d already alienated half the staff and slept with the other half.”

“That’s our Sadie.” There was real venom in her voice. The cops came back.

“Marty Whitehead,” Jacobson said, “you’re under arrest.” She proceeded to read Marty her rights.

I grabbed Tillman. “Are you crazy? You don’t have any reason to arrest her. This is a woman with strong community ties—you can’t afford to make a mistake.”

He was smooth, I’ll give him that. “Want to come up to the roof with me?”

We took the freight elevator, and when we got off, the first thing I saw was a body bag—Sadie, awaiting her ride to the morgue.

From this vantage point, the kelp forest looked like nothing more romantic than a swimming pool surrounded by a flimsy fence of plastic wire. The wire was attached to posts by hooks that could easily be removed, and some of them had been, to get the body out. The lights around the tank were giant, powerful ones—had to be to illuminate twenty-eight feet of murk—and near the surface swam the phosphorescent sardines, a habit they have that made them easy prey on moonless nights back in the cannery days. Even now, a sea gull dived at a silvery target.