Suicide King (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series) (13 page)

He looked uncertain for a moment, as well he might, but the confusion didn’t last long. “I was shocked about Joe. Horrified. I don’t know what to think. But you two are the detectives. Seems to me that the real question is, what do you think?”

“I try not to,” I replied, smiling cryptically. Rosie was sitting quietly, sipping her beer, watching Gelber in that analytical way she has that would scare me to death if I were the object. “Mostly I’m wondering what this is going to mean to your wife. And to the campaign. And for that matter, to you. I guess I’ve been curious to meet you. Husband of the candidate. What’s that like, anyway?” I was using my best man-to-man voice, and he responded.

“I’m very, very proud of her,” he intoned. “It’s not every man who has a chance to know a woman like Rebecca, let alone be married to her. I only hope that being a woman doesn’t limit how far she goes.”

That sounded like a prepared speech and could have been at least partly for Rosie’s benefit, so I pushed a little farther. “Yeah, but it probably will. Are you heavily involved in the party? I didn’t see you at the benefit— do you just stay out of it? I could see where you might…”

He gave me a thoughtful look. “I am involved in the party. At least as much as I can be. I’m a very busy man with a heavy schedule. Surgery. Surgical oncology. We’re a two-career family.”

And I can’t figure out whether you like it that way
, I thought.

“I guess that’s why you didn’t make it to Richmond’s funeral.”

“I felt badly about him. He was a fine man. I would have liked to be part of that ritual. But my patients usually can’t wait. And of course he was Rebecca’s professional connection, not mine.”

I sipped my beer and squinted at him, trying to see if there was any hint of anger or irony in that last statement. I couldn’t spot a thing. Maybe Rosie had been able to.

“Do you think Richmond’s death puts your wife in front at the convention?” Rosie asked.

“It should, but I don’t know if it will. There’s Werner to be contended with.”

“What do you think of him?”

“He’s competent.”

Rosie pushed on. “Do you want her to be endorsed?”

He shook his gray head at her. “What I want is hardly the point. If the party endorses her, she’ll run.”

“But of course you don’t expect her to win,” I said.

“No. And that’s the pity of it. Not this time, anyway.”

“So you wouldn’t mind? About maybe becoming California’s first gentleman someday?” I said it, Rosie didn’t. I didn’t think she could have without gagging.

I might have liked the guy if he’d had the grace to laugh, but he didn’t.

“I wouldn’t put it that way, Jake. I don’t know where you’re coming from with a question like that, but the answer’s easy. I would love to see my wife— my partner— in the governor’s mansion. She deserves it.”

“And you’d be living there, too, of course. Not a bad place to be, right?”

He did smile at that, but he turned his face slightly away from me and his eyes rested on a spot somewhere to my left. “Possibly you are more power-oriented than I am, Jake. I assure you that medicine is more than enough for me.”

I guess Rosie decided it was time to change the subject, because she asked the alibi question. “I hope you don’t mind my asking this, Mr. Gelber, but you understand we have to know the whereabouts of everyone even distantly connected with Richmond on the morning of his death. Could you give us some idea of where you were, who you were with, that sort of thing?”

He nodded earnestly. “Of course. Let me get my book.” He got up and left the room.

“I don’t like him,” Rosie said softly.

“I hardly ever like doctors,” I said. Gelber had failed to convince me that he had no interest in political power. For one thing, he was the one who had brought up the word
power.
For another, I figured that a doctor who specialized in cancer surgery must feel pretty helpless sometimes. A little control over a large state could go a long way toward alleviating that troublesome feeling of impotence. I didn’t have long to think, though. I was just getting to the part of my thought process where I decide that everything I’ve thought up until then is wrong when Rebecca Gelber strode into the room looking magnificent and apologizing for being late.

Both of us leapt to our feet. I was struck again by the beauty of the woman. A classic kind of beauty, dignified and graceful and timeless as a Greek sculpture. An aging Athena. I had guessed when I’d first seen her, across a room, that she was in her late forties. Now I could see that mid-fifties was more like it. What I couldn’t figure out was what she was doing married to a guy like Gelber. I had to remind myself that I’d never spoken to her, and that some of the classiest-looking women I’d ever met had been pretty boring.

Besides, I could hardly ever figure out what anybody saw in anybody— or I could see it too well.

Just as she and Rosie were saying their hellos, and I was being introduced, Gelber slid back into the room carrying an appointment book, skidded to a halt, smiled blindingly, advanced, kissed his wife on the cheek and said, “I didn’t hear you come in, Rebecca. How did it go?”

“Fine. Everything’s fine. I told Howard that you’d call him about the petition.”

She sounded abrupt, or maybe just tired. Gelber caught the tone and nodded. “I’ll do that now and leave you alone to talk. Mr. Samson? You asked where I was the morning of the eleventh? I had brunch with my wife, then, at eleven, I went bicycling with a friend.”

“Could we have your friend’s name?” Rosie asked.

He looked annoyed. “Sure. Mack Frazier. Doctor. Do you want his phone number?”

“Yes, please.” I scribbled the name and number in my notebook. “Thanks very much. Sorry to trouble you.”

“No trouble,” he said, still annoyed. “Pleasure meeting you both.” He didn’t mean it. He left the room.

Rebecca turned back to us. “Please sit down.” She glanced at my empty bottle and Rosie’s half-empty. “Would you like another beer?”

We declined and sat down again.

She started to sit on the love seat where her husband had sat, then changed her mind. “I think I’ll just have a glass of wine, if you don’t mind waiting for another second.” She was tired. Her smile lined her face and made her eyes look sad.

I watched her walk out of the room. She was wearing a white jacket and pants that looked tailored and expensive. Her walk was firm, shoulders back, with no trace of weariness. I guessed she could hide it everywhere but her face. I’ve noticed that starts happening somewhere around the age of forty. Years of faking it wear the face out first.

She came back, sat down, and started asking me questions.

“Why are you checking up on my husband?” she wanted to know. She spoke pleasantly, with mild curiosity. “Do you suspect him of something?”

“Not really,” I said blandly. “We just need a picture of what everyone was doing the day Richmond was killed.”

She laughed and sipped her wine. “Isn’t that the same thing? I’m afraid I don’t have an alibi beyond that brunch with my husband. I spent the rest of the day alone. I had a campaign dinner scheduled for that evening, but then I heard about Joe.”

“Who told you?” Rosie asked.

“One of my campaign people. He’d talked to Ron Lewis. You know Ron?” I nodded.

“And what time was it that you talked to him?” Rosie persisted, determined to find an alibi in there somewhere.

“Not until right before the dinner. About five.” She sat back, rubbed her neck, drank some more wine. “I suppose you’re wondering about my relationship with Joe? How I felt about running against him? What I thought of him as a candidate? Possibly you want to know how I felt about him personally?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Those are some of the things we’ve been wondering. But let’s start at the beginning. Do you think we really have something to look into? That he didn’t just kill himself?”

She shook her head. “That’s hard to say. I suppose that you’ve been talking to a lot of our people. And that none of them think he could or would kill himself?”

Another question. I wanted her to answer in answers.

“Most of the people I’ve talked to don’t think so. For various reasons. But what about you?”

She laughed softly. “All right— may I call you Jake?— I’ll tell you what I think. It’s what I told the police. I think he could have killed himself. I think he was essentially unhappy. He wasn’t happy in his marriage, he wasn’t happy that he had no children, and he wasn’t happy with his… social life.”

“Don’t be so coy— may I call you Rebecca?— and please do call me Jake. I know he chased women.”

She looked at me, her gray eyes soft and sadly amused. “I don’t know that I would put it exactly that way, Jake. He didn’t have to chase women. They chased him.”

It was hard for me to say, but I said it.

“You, too?”

The soft eyes went hard and blank. “I’m married, Jake. Happily.”

“Rebecca, someone saw you.”

“Someone has a vivid imagination.” She drank the rest of her wine. “I’ll be happy to give you any facts I might have that could help your investigation, but I’m not going to play games with you. Joe and I respected each other, even liked each other. Whoever said we slept together was lying.”

It seemed to me she was taking the “lie” awfully seriously. It made her angry. There could have been any number of reasons for that. She could have been concerned about the political effects such a story might have. She could have been worried about its effects on her marriage. Or maybe she was angry because it was true. I was tending toward the last reason, mostly because she was staring so blankly at me. One of those direct, honest gazes out of Orphan Annie eyes. A gaze that reminded me of my ex-wife, who was a pretty good liar, especially when it came to this very subject— whom she had and had not slept with. I dragged myself away from that comparison. I wanted to continue liking Rebecca Gelber.

“Look, Rebecca,” I said. “At the risk of having you hate me, I’d like to pursue that subject for just a while longer. It doesn’t matter to me whether you and Joe had an affair, except that it would help me to understand both of you a little better. I am very interested in the man’s private life. He’s dead, and I think someone killed him. I need to find out why. Sex is one hell of a motive— from disappointed lovers to pissed-off husbands. And I’m going to find out the truth one way or another. I’d rather not have to keep asking other people. I’d rather get something that feels true from you, right now. Your husband doesn’t have to know— if he doesn’t already.”

She glanced at her empty wineglass, sighed, and looked at me with those soft, sad eyes I’d seen earlier. “You are a persistently insulting little bastard, aren’t you?” But she was smiling, almost affectionately, when she said it. “I suppose it’s common knowledge?”

“I don’t know. I heard it from one person.” She nodded thoughtfully.

“I think it’s probably common knowledge. But as far as I know, Bruce is unaware. And it really has no significance of any kind. It was a fluke. An infatuation that lasted a few days. We were away from home. The meeting was exciting, full of promise for the future. We were up, happy… he wasn’t happy very often in those days.”

“What about you?” Rosie asked quietly.

“You two are merciless, aren’t you?”

“We try.”

She laughed. “I wasn’t happy and I wasn’t unhappy.”

“Then you were bored.”

“No. Not really. There was plenty to keep me occupied.”

“So you two were high on politics, excited about the same things, fell into bed. Okay. How did you feel afterward?” I probed.

She studied me for a moment. One corner of her mouth went up. Her eyelids drooped. I felt the heat rise. “Sleepy,” she said.

“I mean how did you feel when he took someone else to bed, showed interest in other women?”

She was still smiling quirkily. She knew she’d gotten to me. “I expected it and I was relieved. Really. Of course, there was a twinge of jealousy. I think there always is unless the experience is totally repellent. But it really didn’t matter to me. Is that enough of that subject?”

“Not quite. You say you knew he was with other women. Which women? How did they take his love ‘em and leave ‘em ways?”

“Oh, I think you’re misunderstanding Joe. It wasn’t that way. He honestly cared about everyone. He did not have a Don Juan attitude. He expressed his affection.”

“Just a sweet, simple guy, right?”

“Well, sweet anyway. And attractive. And sexy.”

“And about one inch deep.”

“Are you married?”

“No.”

“Monogamously involved?”

“Not exactly. Okay, okay. Forget it.” I couldn’t help but laugh. She’d gotten me again. “Tell us about some of his women.”

“I only know of two others, for sure. Pam and Gerda. And I have no idea how they felt about him, or how far things actually went with them. I suspect he and Pam were still seeing each other when he died.”

“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I think I would like that second beer, now.” I needed some time to breathe and we still had questions that needed answering. She asked if Rosie wanted one. Again, Rosie declined. Rebecca left the room.

She’d given in and told the truth about her affair with Richmond, but she was such a clever woman that I couldn’t be sure the whole process hadn’t been planned. Maybe she had not made a big show of telling the truth so we’d believe the rest of what she said— that she had felt just fine about getting dumped after a night of passion. Sometimes it’s very difficult dealing with people you suspect might be smarter than you are. I prefer feeling superior.

“Let me ask her about Minneapolis,” Rosie said. “You’re doing too much of the work.” I thanked her.

Rebecca came back, handed me the beer, and sat down again. Rosie picked up the questioning.

“You were in Minneapolis for the funeral, right?” Rebecca nodded. “Was your husband there with you?”

“No. He had a full schedule that week. He stayed here.”

“Where were you later that night, after the funeral? Say, after—” she glanced at me.

“Ten.”

“After ten?”

I was creating an interesting image of this tall, sturdy-looking woman stripping me and tying me down in the shower.