Murder in the Marketplace (14 page)

"Sorry to lay it all on you.” Suzanne turned back to face me. The twisted smile was in place again on her lips. She was a beautiful woman who’d given up trying to be beautiful, but it was still there for those with eyes to see. “What do they say—we unload on strangers before we talk to our friends. I didn’t know all that was going to come out.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I said, answering the subtext of her remark. “I won’t stay either, if it makes you uncomfortable. I still have some census work to do, and with the flu going around like it is, there’ll he other temp jobs through the agency.”

“And what about our phones?” She smiled more genuinely this time. “You appear to have some integrity, Liz Sullivan. Stay for today. We’ll see how it goes.” Beeping sounded behind her, and she whirled her desk chair to face the intimidating bank of computer equipment grouped around her desk.

“So it finished that,” she mumbled, keyboarding like mad. “Gotta start compiling the rest of the data.”

Fascinated, I lingered, watching her fingers fly over the keyboard, her eyes fixed
intently on the screen.

“Do you ever lose stuff? Do you know a good way to get it back again?” Computers were such a mystery to me. I pictured all the files I’d ever lost, digesting in the digital craw of my elderly computer. Maybe Suzanne had a quick fix that would help me.

“I don’t usually lose anything unless there’s a power failure." She spoke absently, her attention still on the screen in front of her. “And I’m careful to back everything up. That’s the one important rule.”

It sounded like a good one; I added it to my own list of rules. Suzanne’s computer produced a series of beeps, whirls, and trumpeting noises. Mine didn’t make sounds like that. I kind of liked it.

She typed some more, the computer brayed triumphantly, and she leaned back in her chair and looked at me. “Was there anything else?”

"No. I’ll get back to the phones now.”

“Great. That’s what we need.” I thought I detected a note of condescension in her voice. “I’m sure things will work out now that we understand each other.”

I left her office, thinking crossly that all these people seemed to regard the job of answering their phones as some kind of plum for me. I hated the panty hose and the need to be polite to people like Larry, whom in reality I despised. I didn’t care to be cooped up in the viewless office on a beautiful June day. I didn’t like the way Mindy scurried off when I came back to the reception desk, eyeing me as if I were going to produce a big knife and start carving.

Obviously office gossip was at a fever pitch about me; I figured Larry must have accomplished that. Ed was still out to lunch; his stack of messages had gotten pretty tall, and with the addition of the bone I had to pick with him, would be heavy as well. I wanted a drink of water or a cup of tea, but had no desire to brave the walk through the partitions and the inevitable group of whisperers at the coffeepot. And Suzanne’s confidences sat uncomfortably on me.

The phone was the only thing that kept me in my chair. It rang constantly. I started to enjoy my power—putting people on hold, routing them here and there, taking messages and figuring out whether the caller really needed to speak with anyone or could be fobbed off with a stock answer. I realized that Larry’s extension was only one digit different from the office manager’s, and after that I “accidentally” gave him all the salespeople who called wanting to talk about copier supplies and fax paper and antiglare computer screens.

As the afternoon wore on, I started thinking about Bridget’s dessert gathering that evening. It was a conflict between going out with the census register or enjoying myself. An enjoyable evening for me is often as simple as finding a recently published book at the library before someone else does, and reading it until the wee hours in the morning. Sitting in my own cottage, with electric light and, if it’s cold, a fire in the fireplace, reading something I’ve looked forward to since seeing it mentioned in Drake’s copy of
The New York Times Book Review,
is a pleasure that’s only been available to me for a short time. I will never get tired of it.

But now my living room was Amy’s bedroom, the fireplace was unneeded until fall, and I had the opportunity to visit with the small circle of friends I’d found in Palo Alto.

The register would have to wait. In fact, it could wait until Saturday, after my work in Claudia’s garden was done, as far as I was concerned. Then maybe I could finish it and put it behind me.

Just before five, Ed breezed in. “Liz. How’s it going?” He was with a couple of guys in dark suits, white shirts, and exquisite ties. “Right in there, fellows.” The suits marched obediently into Ed’s office. I smelled venture capital. “Liz, do you think you could arrange for coffee?” Ed beamed at me.

“No. It’s five. I’m leaving. I suggest you go ahead and turn on the voice mail.” I stood up as I spoke.

Ed’s jaw tightened. “What’s the problem here? Are you holding me up for more money?”

I shook my head. “This afternoon has not been easy, Ed. You were wrong about the gossip. My presence is just stirring things up instead of quieting them down.”

His face relaxed a little. “Look, I know that’s a drag, but we need you to finish the week. I’ll make it worth your while. We can’t afford to loose momentum now.”

Suzanne’s office door opened, and he swung around to look at her. She seemed tired; her hair was coming out of the rubber band to curl around her face.

“So how are the money guys?” There was a touch of acerbity in her question.

"Just fine,” Ed said steadily. “Very interested. Do you want to join us? We’ll be going out for dinner in an hour or so.”

She glanced down at herself. “Like this?” When she looked up, she caught the expression on his face and smiled that tight smile. “Don’t worry, Ed. I don’t want to go out with you. I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

I picked up my tote bag; I didn’t wish to be in the middle of their fight. “See you.”

"Tomorrow?” Ed aimed the force of his personality at me. “You’ll be here tomorrow?”

“I guess. Let me know if you find someone else.” The phone rang, and Suzanne crossed to the console, pushing a couple of buttons. “Now it gives voice mail,” she said, barely glancing at me. “Good-bye, Liz.”

“Good-bye.” I walked out, leaving them confronting each other.

Chapter 14

I hadn’t gone half a block when Jason Paston fell into step beside me.

“You’re the one who was there with Clarice,” he said, grabbing my arm. “When my sister died.”

I pulled away and kept walking. “For five minutes or so, yes.”

“Clarice won’t talk to me at all.” The light at University and Bryant turned red. He stopped beside me at the curb. “She’s got a lot to answer for, if you ask me. That crazy religion of hers! It just made Jenifer’s problems worse.”

This was a new angle. I nobly resisted the temptation to pump him myself. “Did you tell Drake, the detective, about it?”

“Oh, the cop.” The light turned green, and I started on up University. Jason kept pace with me, walking with his hands behind him and his head down, almost talking to himself. I had to strain to hear him over the traffic noise. “Yeah, I mentioned something about it to him. I don’t know just what I did tell him.” He shook his head and glanced at me. He seemed very young then. “Just can’t make it real,” he said, blinking, before looking back down at the sidewalk.

My nobility wore off. “So what religion? Baptist?”

“No.” The idea seemed to startle him. “Some goofy thing with chanting and stuff. I didn’t recognize the name, and now I’ve forgotten it. You get clear by shedding the burdens of your old life.” His lip curled when he said that—probably something he’d heard Jenifer say. “You know—telling people what you really thought of them and stuff. Clarice had done it—guess that’s when she got divorced.” For a moment he smiled.

We crossed Waverley with the light. I didn’t really want him to tag after me all the way home, but I didn’t want to go out of my way, either. I tarned down Waverley toward San Francisquito Creek. “So you think that might have had a bearing on your sister’s suicide? The religion thing?”

“I don’t know.”

The Waving Guy was bicycling slowly down the street, heading for his usual place at the corner of University. He wore spotless white tennis shorts, a white sweater with red, white, and blue stripes around the neck, and a jaunty white yachtsman’s cap. He rose no-hands, his body arched, arms extended above his head, holding up two fingers on each hand in the V-for-Victory sign. When he saw me, he waved, smiling his usual broad, triumphant smile. I waved back. Jason paid no attention. Living in San Francisco, he probably saw weirder things than the Waving Guy every day.

“Look,” he said, “can I buy you a cup of coffee? I—I just need to talk to you.”

One more person unloading on me would be three too many. I am not sympathetic; I am not like Bridget, to whom people tell the most extraordinary things. But so far that day, people had been spilling their guts to me as if I were Oprah.

“Please?” It was hard to resist when a good-looking young fellow begged for my company.

“Okay.” I nodded at the sidewalk tables of a little coffee place on the corner of Waverley and Lytton. There are more coffee places around here than you can shake a stick at; the Seattle area may have started the mondo coffee trend, but the Bay Area was not slow to embrace it. Constant quaffing of high-octane caffeine has a lot to do with the sad shape of our society, if you ask me.

It was nice, though, to sit at a table on the sidewalk and watch people, and have someone else pay for the refreshments. Since it was a hot afternoon, I asked for one of those fizzy drinks they make with syrup and soda water. Jason disappeared inside, and I turned my face to the sun, relaxing.

Around the corner on Lytton, traffic roared by, but on the Waverley side of the building it was quieter. The fragrance of herbs and small trees planted in pots competed successfully with car exhaust. Farther down the street were picket-fenced gardens fronting turn-of-the-century bungalows and cottages. It was as good a place as any to talk about a young girl ending her life.

Jason brought back my soda and slumped in the plastic chair across the table. He sipped his iced mocha, or whatever it was, gazing unseeingly down the street. I sipped too, making it last. I rarely get such treats for myself.

“I don’t really know why I’m bugging you,” Jason admitted finally. “It’s just—I just feel so alone. Jenifer and me—we didn’t have anyone else.”

“You were orphans?”

“Our folks died when I was twelve and she was ten.” He set his cup down, still gazing into the distance. “We lived with grandparents for a while, but they were old and didn’t really want us around. When I went to college I got an apartment in Santa Clara and she moved in.” He brought his gaze back to mine. “I don’t know why I’m going on like this. I just—miss her so much.”

“You weren’t living together anymore.” The comment slipped out. I didn’t really want to poke around, but Clarice’s accusation that morning recurred to me.

Jason reddened. “That’s right.” He didn’t say anything for a while. “I moved to the city after I graduated, and she stayed in Santa Clara to finish her computer science degree. She was so smart.” He looked at me proudly. “She got a job right away with MicroMax in Seattle. Then, when she came back down here, she found a place to live, close to her new job.” He hesitated. “My apartment in the city is small, and she didn’t really want to live so far from work. I was just glad to have her back in the Bay Area. Clarice seemed nice, too.” He gripped his cup but didn’t lift it. His eyes lost focus while he cruised Memory Lane. “But she had changed already. People she met in Seattle—they claimed—she said she remembered—”

“Look, this is too painful for you.” And for me.

Jason wasn’t listening. “I took care of her. I would never have done the things she said she remembered.” His voice was little more than a whisper, but even over the traffic noise I could hear the agony in every word. “She was wrong. I tried to tell her, but she didn’t believe me. Then she told Francine. Now Francine wants to break our engagement.”

Mercifully, he stopped talking. I didn’t know what to say. I let the silence lie there. He stared into his cup as if it held the answer to all questions.

After a while I cleared my throat. “I’ve got to be going soon.” I had Amy to worry about, after all. I sucked up the last of my soda. There was a loud, embarrassing gurgle at the end.

Jason was beyond noticing. “I just wanted to know—did she suffer? Was she—”

“She looked very peaceful.” I felt like a parrot, repeating this over and over.

“Can you tell me more about it?”

I hesitated. “Look, I told Ed Garfield to ask the police about that. They were there, too. They’ll tell you about it.”

“Ed Garfield?” Jason shoved his chair back. “What did he want?”

“Search me.”

“That womanizing snake. He was seducing Jenifer. He told her lies, tried to get her into bed.”

“How do you know?” I shouldn’t have been asking questions. As soon as the words left my mouth I wanted to call them back.

Jason, caught up in his grievance, didn’t seem to care that I had no need to know. “She told me about him. She was falling in love with him. A man almost twice her age! I told her—but she wouldn’t listen.” His voice was a monotone. “Guys like that think they can have any woman. I told her not to get involved. I told her she needed help, but she said--"

A motorcycle started on Lytton with a roar. Jason blinked. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I was turning into quite a gossipmonger, a new role for me.

“If you can’t tell me any more, I guess I will go to the police.” Jason stood and so did I, feeling that I had gotten the best of our encounter—a nice drink in a sunny spot. I thanked him for the drink, and by the time I’d picked up my tote bag he was striding back toward downtown.

I went on down Waverley, past the picket fences and rosebushes, through the park where children played. It took a conscious effort to shake off the emotional burden of the confidences that had been laid on me. I visualized the breeze blowing them away.