Poor Butterfly (14 page)

“We,” she gasped.

“We?” I asked.

The eyes fluttered. “We are the Phantom.”

“Who did this?” I asked, my face near enough hers to taste her bloody breath.

“Lorna’s mouth opened. “Rance and Johnson. And Minnie. Don’t forget Minnie.”

“Minnie?” I asked.

“Miguelito,” she answered.

“Miguelito did this?”

She shook her head. “Ask Miguelito,” she gasped, and made a motion with her right hand. “Shave,” she whispered.

I touched my cheek. I needed a shave all right, but this wasn’t the time to talk about it. She convulsed in my arms, reached up, trying to grab for life, and scratched her fingers across my face. Then she was dead.

Reactions came quickly. The first was a weariness, the most overwhelming sense of being tired that I had ever felt. I wanted to turn over the ripped sofa and take a nap.

Think, I told myself. Think. I got up, staggered to the door to the small balcony. It was open. I could see the bay. The apartment was right at the edge of the water. I stepped out and caught the bay breeze and smell of fish.

Someone had killed Lorna and wanted something she had, had torn the apartment apart to find it. Either he had gone through everything and found whatever it was he was looking for in the last place he looked, or it was still somewhere and I might find it, whatever it was.

I didn’t find the knife that had been used on Lorna. I figured the killer—or killers, if Lorna was right—had taken it away. Or had pitched it out the window into the ocean. I imagined the bloody knife spinning on the way down, catching the reflection of the sun, clanking against the rocks and flipping into the water.

I touched my forehead to see if I was feverish and my hand came back red with blood. My cheek was bleeding where Lorna had reached for me in her last shudder.

I went into the kitchen, found an unbroken glass on the counter near the sink, and got a drink of cool water from the tap. Then I used a clean dish towel to wipe the blood from my cheek. There was something I should be doing, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I leaned forward over the kitchen sink. Somewhere beyond the window I heard a siren.

Then my brain kicked into second gear. Lorna Bartholomew was dead. My face was scratched. The murder weapon was missing. With a little help from a classy assistant district attorney and the testimony of a doorman, I would make a pretty good murder suspect.

Lorna hadn’t answered the house phone. The killer had probably just given a high-pitched grunt. The killer knew someone was coming up. The killer, in fact, knew that someone named Peters was coming up. I had been announced.

It was time to move. I went from the kitchen into the bedroom, avoiding the living room where Lorna’s body lay. I found the phone, but it had been ripped from the wall.

I was standing there with the dead phone in my hand when the door to the apartment pushed open and a uniformed cop came in with a service revolver in his hand.

“Don’t move,” he croaked.

He was young enough to be my son. I didn’t move.

He looked around quickly. Sweat was building on his forehead.

“What’s going on?”

“Woman’s murdered,” I answered. “In the other room.”

“Against the wall,” the cop ordered.

I moved to the wall, spread my legs, and leaned forward.

The cop came behind me, reached under my arm, and removed my .38 from my pocket.

“Where’s the phone?”

“Busted,” I said, turning part way to show it to him.

“Great,” the cop said.

“Use the intercom,” I suggested. “Doorman can call for backup.”

“Thanks,” he said, and called the doorman.

“I had someone call a Sergeant Preston and an Inspector Sunset,” I said.

“Head down,” the cop said, and told the doorman to call in a murder in apartment 6-D.

The young cop cuffed me, had me sit down on a kitchen chair that hadn’t been busted up, and we waited after he checked Lorna to be sure she was dead. It was more than he wanted to handle. I tried to talk to him but he told me to be quiet. He did what a lot of scared cops do, overcompensated. Basic psych book stuff. He told me to shut up. I shut up. If I didn’t, the psych books say he might have started in on me.

Less than five minutes later Preston and Sunset came through the door.

“What’ve we got …?”

“Brummel. Got a homicide. In there. Found the suspect on the scene.”

“You guys didn’t exactly fly here,” I said.

Preston glanced at me.

“Peters,” Preston said, as Sunset knelt to examine Lorna’s body, “I’ve had a long, bad night, and you’re going to make the day worse and longer. I’ve got a headache and I’m hungry, so if you just want to confess and get this over with …”

“I didn’t kill her,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” Preston said with a deep sigh, looking at the scratches on my bloody cheek.

“Preston,” I said. “I had you called. Would I call you and tell you to come if I planned to kill her?”

“Remember Barnes,” Sunset said from Lorna’s body.

“Gus Barnes,” Preston explained to me. “Few months back. Called. Said someone just called and said he was on the way over to kill his wife. Told the desk man to hurry. We got a car there in six minutes.”

“Five-eleven, Sarge,” said Sunset, standing up. “She’s dead.”

“Barnes killed his wife,” said Preston, nodding and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Messed it up. Your having us called doesn’t prove diddle-daddle.”

“Diddle-daddle?”

“Sorry,” he said. “Hard to be creative on an hour of sleep.”

“Why would I kill her?”

“Hired,” said Sunset.

“Spurned,” added Preston.

“Accident,” said Sunset.

“Wouldn’t pay blackmail,” said Preston.

“Enough,” I said. “Let me make a call.”

“You see a phone?” asked Preston. “I mean one you didn’t tear off the wall?”

“I didn’t do it, Preston,” I said.

Brummel, the first cop, came back. About twelve minutes after that a bunch of cops came in, and I was escorted from the apartment by Preston, who said his wife would make him sleep in the guest room tonight if he ever got home. I told him I felt sorry for him. He thanked me.

T
he Bayfront Police Station wasn’t on the bay and barely deserved the title “station.” The core of the station was an old red stone building that looked as if it had once been a firehouse. It had been added to over at least three generations, each generation contributing a different color of stone. The wing to the left of the entrance was gray brick, and the right wing a combination of reds, yellows, grays, and even almost-blacks.

A sergeant named Cunningham with red hair, suspenders, and very bad teeth took my wallet, comb, and the lint from my pockets less than a minute after we went in. A half-asleep Amazon woman in a blue uniform took my picture, and then Preston and Sunset led me up a flight of stairs to a small interrogation room with yellow walls that reminded me of my brother’s office in the Wilshire Station back in Los Angeles. Preston and Sunset spoke to me sincerely for about twenty minutes, letting me know I was in very deep diddle-daddle.

“Peters,” Preston leaned over and whispered, “you are nailed. You wanna give us some details so we can all get a night’s sleep?”

“I didn’t kill her,” I said. “I was there to protect her from someone. Stokowski hired me to protect, not murder, remember?”

“You did good work,” sighed Sunset, looking around for something to use as an imaginary bat.

“Who?” asked Preston, wearily drinking something hot from a paper cup. “Who were you protecting her from? Oh, yeah. The Phantom of the Opera.”

“Maybe,” said Sunset brightly, sizing up a rolled San Francisco
Chronicle
for use as an imaginary Louisville Slugger, “he killed her for the publicity. Phantom strikes. Fill the seats.”

“Forgive him,” Preston said to me quietly.

“He’s forgiven,” I said. “What about me?”

“Not so easy,” sighed Preston. “You didn’t do it, who did? Doorman says she told you to come up. Few minutes later we find you with the body, scratches on your face, phone in your hand ripped from the wall.”

“She said a couple of guys named Rance and Johnson and a woman named Minnie did it.”

“Minnie?” Preston groaned, kneading the bridge of his nose.

“She also said I should ask Miguelito,” I added.

“Miguelito?”

“Her dog.”

Sunset, who had moved behind me, hit me with the rolled-up newspaper. My head jerked forward.

“Sorry,” Sunset said. “Big fly on your head.”

“Cut that shit,” Preston ordered, stepping behind me so I had to turn my head to watch the two cops. Preston was smaller, but older and presumably wiser. Sunset shrugged and came back in front of the table to hit a few imaginary balls through the grimy wall.

“Thanks,” I said over my shoulder to Preston.

He ran a hand through his graying hair and threw his empty coffee cup in the general direction of the overfull wastebasket in the corner. The wastebasket had one of those paper liners two sizes too big for the basket.

“And I want a phone call,” I said.

“Who’s stopping you?” asked Preston, pointing to the phone on the table. “Hey, make two, three calls. No long distance.”

“All you had to do was ask,” said Sunset.

I picked up the phone and called information. I got Lundeen’s number. The phone rang six times before Lundeen answered.

“It’s me, Toby Peters,” I said. “Are you sitting?”

“Whenever I can,” he said with a deep sigh.

And I told him. I’ll give him credit. He didn’t say much. He did groan from time to time, and his voice wasn’t steady, but he said he’d have a lawyer there as quickly as he could.

“Peters,” he said with a tear in his voice, “I must say this. I never really liked Lorna. I didn’t know her well, but I didn’t like her and now … You didn’t kill her?”

“John,” I said, “why the hell would I kill her?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I … Lord, ‘O happy dagger. This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.’”

“Beautiful, John,” I said. The two cops looked at me with weariness in their drooping eyes.

“Gounod,” he said. “
Roméo et Juliette
. Actually, the words are Shakespeare’s, but …”

“John, find Gunther, Jeremy, and Shelly,” I said. “Tell them not to come here, to stay on the job. Got it?”

“I have it,” he said.

“And send a lawyer, fast,” I said. “You have Vera’s number?”

He had it. Or rather he knew the hotel she was staying at and looked up the number while I waited. When he hung up I called. The phone rang six times and then a man answered. It was Martin Passacaglia. I heard a dog yapping behind him. I hung up.

I passed the time waiting for the lawyer feeling sorry for myself. Preston and Sunset played scare-the-suspect.

“Open …” Preston began.

“… and shut,” Sunset agreed. “Witnesses say he entered about ten. We get a call that a murder is in progress seconds later, dispatch a car, and catch him with a mess—scratches on his face, and a very newly dead body. Open …”

“… and shut,” Preston finished.

I didn’t say anything.

Preston sang a medley of Russ Columbo, Harry Cool, and Bing Crosby songs.

“What do you think? Could have been a crooner?” he asked.

“Lovely voice,” I said. “None of the new guys have the timbre. Maybe Buddy Clark, Perry Como.”

When Preston started “Just One More Chance” for the third time at about two-thirty in the morning, Sunset left, announcing that he “had to take a leak.” Preston took the news solemnly and sat across from me, waiting with his arms folded.

“You like baseball?” I asked.

“I like singing and I like quiet,” Preston said. “I like being home with my wife and kids when my shift is over. I don’t like catching murder calls, and I don’t like talking baseball with out-of-town private dicks.”

I shrugged and shut up. He sat quietly, arms folded, out of songs.

The lawyer arrived at a little after three, escorted in by Sunset, who smiled at Preston and me. I didn’t like the smile. The lawyer was a little Mexican guy about sixty-five. His back was straight, his face clean-shaven except for a mustache, his three-piece beige suit recently pressed, his tan shoes highly polished. He nodded at me and the two cops and placed his briefcase on the table.

“Gentlemen,” he said.

“Counselor,” said Preston, sitting on the edge of the table and looking at his watch. “You want some time alone with your client?”

“Absolutely,” he answered.

Preston and Sunset moved toward the door, but the little lawyer held up his hand.

“Not in this room,” he said. “I want privacy. You wouldn’t want your case thrown out later because you failed to honor the lawyer-client relationship?”

In short, the lawyer was telling them the room had a hidden mike and he knew it. Now we all knew it.

“Bathroom’s down the hall to the right,” Preston said. “Inspector Sunset will show you.”

The lawyer picked up his briefcase, adjusted his jacket and vest, and we followed Sunset into the hall. Sunset led us to the washroom and made it clear he would be waiting outside the door for us. There were two windows in the room, both open a crack to let some of the smell of Lysol out and some of the smell of the night air in. Four urinals, their white showing rust patterns, stood along one wall alongside two stalls without doors. Opposite urinals and stalls were two sinks.