Spit In The Ocean: A Laid-Back Bay Area Mystery (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series Book 4) (8 page)

Sometime later, maybe two minutes, a small door set in one half of the big doors swung back. Spiegel was frowning, his chunky shoulders cast aggressively forward. He was dressed in a T-shirt and those little shorts people run in. The T-shirt didn’t say anything. I noticed the heavy glasses were held together on one side with a small safety pin.

“What’s the problem?” he wanted to know.

“No problem,” I said, and was about to launch into my
Probe
magazine scam when I realized the spiel wouldn’t work with him. He’d dealt with the press too often, and I thought I remembered something about how hard it was for reporters to get to see him. So I played it straight.

“We’re looking into some things for Nora, and we want to talk to you about the accident out here last night.”

“Accident?” He slumped against the doorjamb, the aggressive stance suddenly gone. “You mean Gracie. You some kind of private cops?”

I shrugged and nodded, a half statement he could interpret any way he wanted. “Actually, we were looking into the break-in at the bank, but then this happened. This accident…”

Again, I let him fill in the blanks. “Could we come in and talk to you about it?”

He tightened up again, and danced a couple of steps in place, like he was going to start sparring. “I’m kind of busy. There was some damage to the house. I haven’t even checked every room yet.”

“We won’t take much of your time,” Rosie said.

“Well, okay. But I don’t know much about last night. I was in L.A. I feel so bad that she came out here— can you understand that I’m not feeling too great about that? Shit. Come on in, then, for a few minutes. I’m not trying to be hostile or inhospitable or anything, you know, it’s just that a lot of people are always bothering me… Come on in.” Finally, he stood aside and we entered.

The man was in great shape. Short, maybe five foot seven, but every inch was pared down to the muscle. I’d been doing some bicycling lately, and my spare tire was nearly gone. But he made me feel flabby. I resented it.

The entry hall was big and square and empty except for several black iron coat hooks screwed into the paneled wall. The floor was quarry tile. He led us across the tile into an immense room that would have done service as a Saxon Great Hall. Squares of white plaster wall were framed in chunky redwood. The vaulted ceiling was crossed by beams a foot wide and two feet deep.

The floor was pegged hardwood planking. Along one wall was a stone fireplace with a firebox that must have been five feet across. Along the back of the room were anachronistic sliding glass doors leading to a deck. There wasn’t a lot of furniture, just a seating arrangement, facing the fireplace, consisting of an eight-foot brown leather couch, a couple of leather chairs, and a few obviously hand-hewn tables. The rug on which the furniture sat also looked handmade, Scandinavian, and very thick. A wide staircase led up to a gallery, along the front of the house, above the entry hall, with a row of windows filled with plants in big pots— the ones I’d seen from outside— and to doors on either side that I guessed led to second-floor rooms.

I don’t enter the homes of strangers with any expectations, or at least I try not to. But once invited in, I do tend to halfway expect to be asked to sit down. It didn’t happen.

“Just on my way to take a look at the pool when the bell rang,” he said. “Come on.”

He trotted toward the back of the living room and made a sharp left through a swinging door into a smaller room, only twenty by twenty. It was a well-equipped gym, with the same hardwood floor as the living room but no fancy beams. Just white plaster walls and surgical chrome. A rowing machine, a treadmill, an exercise cycle, a slant board, and one of those multi-station weight machines. The back wall, like the one in the living room, was glass. One section was broken, with a large branch poking through and rainwater on the floor. Outside the glass I could see more deck and a big covered swimming pool. The cover, and the deck, were littered with debris from the trees.

“Take a seat somewhere,” he said, waving at the exercise equipment. Then he slid back a glass door and went outside. The weight equipment offered a couple of seats, so we sat, watching him poke around.

“He’s rich,” I said to Rosie. “He can be as weird as he wants to be.”

“And creative. Don’t forget creative.”

He returned quickly. He seemed to do everything quickly.

“Pool looks okay. Hot tub’s okay. Lost some roof tiles,” he reported, as though we might actually care. “Be right with you.” He disappeared through a thick doorway with a tiny window in it. Rosie gave me a look, and I grinned back at her. He popped out again. “Sauna’s fine. No leaks.”

He arranged himself on the rowing machine, taking off his glasses, placing them carefully on the floor, and setting a timer. “Do you mind if I do a few things while we talk?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but began pulling. “I missed my workout this morning, flying up here.” Before either of us could speak, he added, “Tell me what it’s like being a P.I.”

“A lot of the time,” Rosie said, “it’s pretty tedious.”

“Bet it’s fun. Admit that it’s fun. What does it take to get a license?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t have one.”

He laughed. Pull. Pull. Pull. “I guess you don’t want to talk about it, am I right? Okay, ask away.”

“You don’t seem very upset about Gracie’s death,” I said.

He looked as though he considered stopping his rhythmic chore, thought better of it, and kept on going. “Of course I’m upset. I feel shitty. I told you. But I’m not devastated. She was a nice person, and we liked talking to each other. But nothing really close. I feel guilt more than loss.”

Nicely put, I thought. He was creative, all right.

“There’s something I don’t quite get, though,” Rosie said. “All she had to do was come out here, walk around the house, take a look, and go home again. But she didn’t do that. She went and stood out on the scarp to watch the waves coming in to get her. Why would she do a thing like that?”

“Wouldn’t you? It must have been magnificent out here last night.”

“I don’t know,” Rosie said. “I doubt it. The question is, would
she?”

He thought about it, rowing that damned machine to nowhere. “Are you saying maybe she didn’t? That something else happened?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “But on the off chance that the death is related to the break-in at the sperm bank, we’re just checking out possibilities. Eliminating the extraneous if we can.”

He raised his eyebrows, turning to look at me, just as his timer went off.

“I don’t know what she’d do. She had to have had a romantic streak— she loved those old movies— but I guess I never thought of her as a person who took chances. I never really thought about it one way or the other. But you never can tell about people. Maybe she was feeling reckless. Maybe she’d had a fight with her boyfriend or something and was playing out some dramatic scenario.” He stood up, shook himself, and trotted over to the treadmill. He set it at a good jog and took off.

“Did they fight much?” I asked. “Gracie and Wolf?”

He shook his head. “We never talked about things like that. Except once she did say, jokingly, that he seemed to be a little jealous of our friendship.”

“And you’re sure there was nothing to be jealous of? Maybe on her side?”

He was sweating and breathing hard, finally. “I never noticed anything emotional.”

“So you called from L.A.,” Rosie said. He nodded, sweat dripping off his chin. “Why did you call her instead of the local police?”

“I never thought of the police. I just called to ask her about the storm, and she offered to check the house. That seemed okay. When I hadn’t heard from her by this morning, I decided to come up. And Clement told me about her accident.”

Rosie continued. “Was anyone with you when you called?”

He shook his head, laughing. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you? I really was in L.A. I’ve got a plane ticket somewhere around from this morning.”

“Is that the only reason you came up? To check on the house?” Rosie asked.

He glanced sideways at her. Was he blushing or just turning red from exertion? I would have been turning red from exertion.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well,” I eased into it, “there was that theft at the sperm bank. And we saw you there this morning.”

He turned off the treadmill, hopped off, and trotted over to the cycle. I didn’t push for an answer. He got on the cycle and started pedaling.

“We’re investigating what happened over there— that’s why we came to Wheeler in the first place. And I guess I was wondering if you had any ideas about why it might have happened. The break-in.”

He was breathing harder, blowing noisily like jocks do when they’re pushing it.

“I heard it was religious nuts. Nora said there was a note.”

“Could be,” I said. “I guess there’ll be a lot of activity around there for a while until they restock.”

“Yeah.” His dark curly hair was soaked with sweat.

“I’ve always been kind of curious about why a man would do that. What his motive might be. To have his sperm frozen that way. To be sold to a stranger.”

“Don’t know. Lots of different reasons for doing it, lots of situations. Ask Nora.”

Since I already had, I moved on to other things. “Do you know Fredda Carey?”

“Fredda? Gracie’s cousin? We’ve met.” He was grunting with every breath, but he kept going. Rosie must have gotten tired watching him, because she was lying down on the slant board.

“Were she and Gracie close? They were having dinner that night.”

He got off the cycle, went to a shelf in the corner and grabbed a big white towel. He wiped the sweat off his chest, arms, and hands. “They saw each other once in a while, I guess. They seemed like pretty different types, but they got along like relatives do, as far as I could tell.” He asked me to vacate the bench, tossed the towel on the floor, and lay down. I stood, watching him pump iron.

“How were they different?”

“Gracie was nicer. I mean, I don’t know Fredda, really, but the couple of times we met it seemed to me she was kind of pissed off at life or something. Always trying to cut a deal. Gracie said it had to do with her kid being born crippled. I don’t know.”

“Where’s Fredda’s husband?” Rosie wanted to know. She was still lying on the slant board.

“Never heard there was one.”

“You going to be around for a few days?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Grunt. “Got some repairs to see to. I need some time off, anyway.” He swung his feet to the floor and sat there, looking up at me. Rosie got off the slant board and stood next to me. “I’d like to hear more about the work you guys do,” he said.

Sure, I told him, maybe we could have a beer or something. I wanted to hear more about what he did too. Rich people can be pretty interesting, and I almost liked this one.

He showed us out. I said we’d be in touch. He was wearing his thick glasses again, and his eyes looked tiny.

Clement was sitting at his desk, staring at some paperwork. He looked happy to see us.

“I was just trying to think of an excuse to make another pot of coffee. Want some?”

I didn’t, really, but said I did. Rosie asked for some water for Alice, who was sitting outside the door.

“Bring her in. I got a soup bowl around here somewhere.”

Once we were all set up with liquid refreshment, I got to the point of our visit.

“Anything on Gracie Piedmont?”

“Only that she didn’t drown. No water in her lungs.”

“What did she die of?” Rosie asked.

“Her head was crushed in. But then, the rest of her was banged up too. Those rocks are pretty bad.”

“Any way to tell if all the damage was done by rocks?” I doubted it, but I had to ask.

He shook his head. “Let’s just say there wasn’t any damage that couldn’t have been done by rocks.”

“What about the car?”

“Nothing yet.”

“What do you think?” I persisted.

He shook his head again. “She was washed clean, jammed stuck down there on the rocks with the water washing her. Hard to tell if one wound killed her and the rest of them didn’t bleed. Hard to tell anything. You got any reasons to suppose someone did this to her somehow?”

It was my turn to shake my head. “None.”

Angie walked in the door, said hello to us, asked if we had enough coffee, and, reassured, moved on into the back room.

“Well.” Clement took a last slug of coffee and sighed deeply. “I got a bunch of little stuff to deal with here.” He tapped his finger on the pile of papers.

“I wanted to ask you,” I said. “How did Henry find out about Gracie?”

“I told him,” Angie chirped from the other room.

“One more thing,” I said. “We want to have a look at the spot where the sperm was dumped. Can you tell us where it is?”

“Sure. You won’t see much down there, though. What you do is, you take Cellini to the coast road, and on past the Spicer Street access…” He caught our blank looks, laughed, and picked up a ballpoint. He scribbled some lines, blobs, and words on a sheet of notepaper and slid it across the desk. “You’re here,” he said, pointing at a cross labeled “downtown,” at the far left of the sketchy map. “Cellini’s the next street over here, crosses Main. Runs into the coast road, here. You turn right onto the road and go north. About half a mile on you pass where Spicer comes in. All along in there you’re pretty high up above the beach. You go a little farther then, and you’ll see a kind of dip between the dunes. Big path down to the beach there. That’s the spot.” He pointed to some blobs he’d drawn out beyond the line of the beach. “Rocks out there make a kind of triangle formation close in. That’s where the stuff was, what we found of it. Tangled up in the seaweed around those rocks.” Over at the far right of the map he’d shown the spit, another half-mile or so beyond the triangle rocks. The coast road crossed the road out onto the spit, the one we’d taken on our way out from Nora’s hillside home, east of town, the night before.

“You going to keep on looking into Gracie’s death?”

“I think so,” I answered.