Adjusted to Death Read online

  “How about kids?” I asked.

  “None for her. He has three grown boys from a former marriage.” No girl. That let him out as the boss. I began sorting socks. “Ted was an electrical engineer before he opened his hardware store. Runs the Bay to Breakers every year. Bonnie Harris is a pretty successful artist, according to her notices,” Felix continued.

  “And she was on an art committee with Scott Younger,” I added.

  “Really?” said Felix. His eyes were lighting up. I was glad to see he’d consider someone else besides Wayne as a suspect.

  “How about Maggie?” I asked.

  “Maggie Lambrecht, forty-two years old. Parents: Doris and Henry McCurdy.” The Scottish Mafia? “They live in New Jersey.” Wrong coast for the boss. “Maggie moved out here with her husband, Donald Lambrecht. Married for seventeen years, divorced two years ago. One boy, sixteen years old, lives with his father. She’s been a chiropractor for a little over ten years.”

  I looked down at the socks I was sorting. Bright blues, purples, lime-greens. Maggie would love the colors. I wondered idly if her husband had insisted on drab socks. Grounds for divorce?

  “Julie Moore, a.k.a. Devi Moore. Thirty-eight. Parents: James and Carolyn. Father was a pharmaceutical magnate.”

  “Drugs?” I interrupted, now on alert.

  “Legal drugs. Guy made a fortune in aspirin and such. Didn’t need to sell illegal drugs. Anyway, he died seven years ago.” I went back to sorting socks. “Mother died some years before. Devi and her brother split a bundle when Daddy died. Devi is one rich woman. One daughter, Tanya, fifteen, illegitimate. Who needs a father when you have those bucks, huh?” Felix asked in awe.

  “Valerie Davis, forty years old. Parents: John and Celeste Davis. Father is a dentist in Oregon. First black man admitted to the local chamber of commerce. One younger brother. One daughter, Hope, eighteen. You already know about her, and about Valerie’s prison record. Also, Valerie made the papers some years back as a founding member of Community Drug Watch, an organization which has since died out,” Felix said.

  “What did the organization do?” I asked. Felix looked through some notes.

  “Looks like they kept an eye on whoever was dealing drugs and made it public. Even picketed outside drug dealers’ homes. A few slander and libel suits were brought against Drug Watch, but then dropped.”

  Maybe this was how Valerie had known about Scott Younger’s past life as a drug dealer. And she certainly had been angry. An obsession about drug-dealers…

  “Renee Mickle, thirty-two. Parents: Carl and Rosa Polvino. Carl was a machinist. He passed away in eighty-two. Rosa is a saleswoman at Penny’s.” I shook my head. The boss’s wife wouldn’t work at Penny’s. “Two kids, twelve and fourteen. Renee divorced husband, Tom, two years ago.”

  “Who’s left?” I asked.

  “Kate Jasper,” he said with an evil smile.

  “Forget it,” I answered.

  “Wayne Caruso, age thirty-eight.” he read. “Parents—this is weird—father listed on the birth certificate as Enrico Caruso.”

  He looked up from his papers at me. I was angrily twisting a pair of blue jeans in my hands, outraged at his intrusion into the intimate details of Wayne’s genealogy. Never mind my own prying into the lives of others.

  “Enrico Caruso,” Felix repeated. “Wasn’t he a third-baseman, with the Giants?”

  - Seventeen -

  “A baseball player? He was an opera singer!” I shouted. Then I noticed Felix was laughing.

  “I know that, you dimbulb,” he said. “I just wanted to lighten you up. You looked ready to strangle me with my own jeans.”

  I dropped the jeans, took a few deep breaths and forced a smile. After all, Felix was helping me. He smiled back, like a shark.

  “So answer me this,” he commanded, “Was this another guy named Enrico Caruso, or did Mrs. Caruso just steal the name?”

  “Mrs. Caruso?”

  “Yeah, maiden name Martha Atcheson. She began calling herself Mrs. Caruso after Wayne was born.” He looked up at me. “She’s in a loony bin you know,” he added softly.

  “I know,” I said, and then groaned. What chance was there that the police would interpret this piece of information as further evidence of Wayne’s mental instability, by reason of bad blood?

  “Wayne’s got a pretty impressive scholastic record. Third in his graduating class at U.S.F. law school. Why didn’t he ever practice?” Felix’s look indicated he hoped for a sinister reason.

  “Too many lawyers in the Bay Area,” I answered.

  “Yeah, so I hear,” he acknowledged. His face bore an expression of disappointment at the simple explanation.

  That expression grew more pronounced as I answered the rest of his questions about Wayne. I didn’t think there was anything in what I said to give him a handle on Wayne as the murderer. And there was nothing left in his files to give me a handle on anyone else. School records, job histories, residences. Nothing screeched out “clue.”

  I returned home, tired and frustrated, to the sound of my own recorded voice cheerfully announcing my absence to a telephone caller. I clicked off the answering machine with a stab of my finger, stilling the cheery voice mid-sentence, and snarled “hello” into the receiver.

  My friend Ann Rivera was on the other end. She needed to talk, she said, about the death of Scott Younger. She was feeling an unwarranted surge of guilt and responsibility over his death, although she hadn’t seen the man in over fifteen years. Maybe if she had been more sensitive?

  I reassured her impatiently that it wouldn’t have made any difference. When she heard the impatience in my voice she concluded that I needed to talk. By the time I got off the phone she had lovingly bludgeoned me into a visit for a “real talk” the next day. I didn’t know whether to be touched or annoyed.

  There were no more messages on the machine. I had over an hour to kill before my lunch with Maggie and Eileen. I pulled my chair up to my desk with every intention of working, but the towering mounds of paper on my desk seemed alien to me, forming a small, coldly distant Stonehenge. I pushed them aside, put my elbows on the desk and rested my face in my hands. Would I ever know for certain that Wayne was not a murderer? The police believed that he killed Scott Younger. Would they arrest him whether he had killed Scott or not? I remember what my hairdresser had said about the police phonying up evidence.

  I pulled my face out of my hands and reached for my purse. Fishing around in it, I found Guru Illumananda’s pamphlet, the scrap of lavender stationery with Devi’s phone number and address, and Ted Reisner’s business card. Reisner’s Hardware was local. I could always use a box of nails.

  But I wanted to talk to Devi as well. I just didn’t trust anyone so damn ethereal. And she had known Scott Younger. I dialed her number, wondering if she would agree to meet with me or somehow float her way out of it like a wispy cloud. The question was moot. No one answered her phone, not even a machine.

  I picked up Ted’s card and left my ruined paper Stonehenge behind without a backward glance.

  Ted’s store was only a few blocks from Maggie’s office, between a Chinese takeout and a lingerie shop. “Reisner’s Hardware” was painted on the window in the silvery shapes of tools against a blue background, just as it was on his business card. And below this a small sign announced “art gallery upstairs” in tasteful black calligraphy.

  I pushed open the door, my eyes seeking Ted’s wife, Bonnie, among the light fixtures, wheelbarrows and paint cans displayed at the entrance. I saw a young woman, wearing makeup more appropriate to a Las Vegas showgirl, standing at the checkout counter. Had she been Scott Younger’s type? Forcing the muscles of my face into a “let’s chat” smile, I advanced upon her.

  “Are you Ted’s wife, Bonnie?” I asked. “I’ve heard so much about you—”

  “Bonnie,” the young woman hollered, cutting me off mid-socialization. “Someone for you.”

  It took my tired mind a few seconds
to realize the young woman in front of me was not Bonnie at all. The real Bonnie ambled down the polished wooden stairs that led to the gallery. She was pinkly plump with fluffy blond hair and round blue eyes. Once she stood in front of me, she smiled pleasantly, no doubt trying to remember if she knew me.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Nails,” I said. “Tell me about your nails.”

  She looked down at her short fingernails for a second before answering. “Oh, nails. They’re three aisles down, against the wall.”

  Damn, I thought, I should have asked about something complicated, like bathroom sink drain assemblies. I knew from experience those were worth at least a ten-minute lesson from which I might have segued into a friendly question like, “Was you husband jealous enough of Scott Younger to kill him?” As I was trying to formulate a credible question about nails a voice spoke into my ear, startling me into a little jump.

  “Kate, heh, good to see you,” Ted said. “What happened to your hair?” He moved to Bonnie’s side. He was in top form, his eyes twinkling and his mustache twitching merrily.

  “New hairstyle,” I said shortly.

  “Have you met my Bonnie?” he asked, putting his arm around her. She moved herself close up against the enclosure of his arm like a cat. I expected her to purr any minute. They did not look like an unhappy couple. In fact they looked nauseatingly in love.

  “Glad to meet you, Bonnie,” I answered. “Ted’s told me you’re an artist.”

  Bonnie looked up at him with glowing eyes. “He tells everyone about me, like I was famous.”

  “Well you are to me, sweetie, and you’re a heck of a good artist,” he said, giving her a glowing look in return. I began to feel like a voyeur. Their pheromones were turning my own skin warm and pink.

  “Weren’t you on an art committee with Scott Younger?” I asked abruptly. They both turned their eyes back to me. Bonnie looked somewhat confused by the question.

  “Kate was with me at the murder,” he explained to her. An interesting choice of words.

  “Oh, that poor man,” Bonnie said, her voice and face both filled with compassion. “He seemed so unhappy, he hardly came to meetings anymore. I felt so sorry for him.”

  “Bonnie feels sorry for all of us sinners,” Ted said, squeezing her affectionately. “Especially us old ones.”

  Was Ted just a little too eager to explain his wife’s concern for Younger? She didn’t look concerned about Younger for long, though. She was laughing and staring into Ted’s face with adoration again after his last comment.

  “How about a look at Bonnie’s paintings?” Ted suggested.

  I agreed and the three of us climbed the polished wooden stairs to the gallery above the store, leaving the Las Vegas showgirl to mind the hardware. Bonnie’s paintings were landscapes, but landscapes as an alien might paint them, stark with an eerie luminescence. There was tension in each painting, as if something was about to explode, a rainstorm or even a nuclear holocaust. How could a fluffy woman like Bonnie produce such spooky images? They made me shiver. Bonnie and Ted didn’t shiver. They were cuddling again.

  I found myself resenting their romance, and immediately felt guilty. In penance, I bought four kinds of nails and a new hammer. But at least I didn’t leave Reisner’s Hardware with one of Bonnie’s paintings.

  It was twelve on the dot when I parked my Toyota in front of Maggie’s office. For once the waiting room was empty, filled only by space music and the ever present sterile smell. Renee was at her desk, but she wasn’t speaking, at least not to me. Apparently she had not forgotten, or forgiven, my last phone call to her. She pursed her lips and compressed her eyes to barely visible slits in greeting. Was this the face of a murderer?

  “She’s here,” she shouted over her shoulder, all the while watching me through those slits, as if daring me to steal the furniture.

  Maggie and Eileen walked down the hall together, suddenly looking very much like lovers to me. True, they were not as obvious as Ted and Bonnie about their relationship. But there was some sort of invisible link between them, which integrated the rhythms of Maggie’s lope and Eileen’s glide into a solid couple’s walk.

  They both glanced at my hair but didn’t comment. Women usually are more subtle about these things. Though I was surprised at Maggie’s show of sensitivity. Maybe Eileen was a good influence on her.

  “Don’t take too long,” Renee commanded. “I want to get out of here on time today. My kids are tired of waiting all afternoon for me in an empty house.”

  “We’ll be back in a flash,” Maggie assured her.

  “Make it an hour or less flash,” Renee muttered.

  Maggie chattered all the way down the street about how much I was going to love the Starship Café. It was a really “neat” new restaurant, not to mention “far-out.” I noticed she avoided any mention of Wayne, murder—or my hairdo, for that matter.

  When we got to the Starship I saw that “far-out” was an understatement. The restaurant’s entrance was designed to look like the transporter room in Star Trek. And once through the transporter we were met by a space hostess wearing silver tights and a navy blue tunic, who seated us at our table. The table was topped by a silver metallic cloth, and sat under a lamp resembling the planet Saturn, complete with rings.

  “Neat, huh?” asked Maggie.

  “Neat,” I acknowledged.

  “Look at the ceiling,” she suggested.

  I looked up to see a panorama of the night sky painted in shades of midnight-blue and purple, and littered with silvery stars. I was still staring upward when our waiter arrived, also attired in silver tights and a navy blue tunic. I nodded in sudden approval of the uniform. He had great legs.

  “Rocket fuel anyone?” he asked, lifting a pot of coffee in our direction. Maggie held out her cup. He filled it, and recited the rest of the available beverages. I chose a Quantum Carrot Juice. Eileen asked for Martian Mint Tea. He told us the soups of the day were Rocket Booster Bean and Split Atom Pea, and then left us with our menus.

  The menu was printed on what appeared to be laminated computer printout paper. I ran my eyes over it, searching for dishes without animal products. I reluctantly bypassed the Nova Nachos and the Warp Drive Wiener, narrowing my choices down to the Venusian Veggie Burger or the vegetarian version of the Twenty-First Century Tostada. As I had suspected from the decor, the prices were astronomical. Eileen’s gentle voice interrupted my consideration.

  “Wayne’s a good man,” she said softly. “Not a murderer. I just wanted to let you know I believe that.”

  I looked at her lovely face through suddenly moist eyes, and realized just how much I had longed to hear that assessment of Wayne from someone else. She gave my hand a quick squeeze as our waiter returned to the table, bearing carrot juice and tea.

  “So, are we ready to order?” he asked. He looked in my direction, white teeth and blue eyes sparkling. I would have bet he got damn good tips from his female customers.

  “Vegetarian tostada, no cheese or sour cream,” I answered brusquely, embarrassed by my own libidinous thoughts.

  “Veggie burger for me,” Eileen said.

  “Melt Down Patty,” ordered Maggie diffidently.

  “That’s got a hamburger patty in it, you know,” he told her.

  “I know, I know!” she said. A little blush was creeping in under her freckles.

  Once the waiter had left, Maggie defended her selection to Eileen. “Jeez, one little hamburger isn’t going to hurt!”

  Eileen lifted sorrowful eyes to Maggie’s and said, “It’s up to you what you put in your body. You know that.” Maggie squirmed in her chair like a bad puppy.

  “Are you a vegetarian?” I asked Eileen conversationally. I felt a misguided urge to get Maggie off the hot seat.

  “Almost. I still eat fish sometimes.”

  “Then you’re a fish-etarian,” I told her and took a sip of my carrot juice.

  She smiled gently at the description. Maggi
e giggled.

  “Once I stopped smoking dope, I gradually started cleaning up my body,” Eileen said. I noticed she had the same fanatical gleam in her eye that my almost ex-husband Craig had exhibited. Now, that man knew how to make meat eaters miserable. By the time he would finish his description of slaughterhouse conditions, people would either go pale and order something vegetarian, or never speak to him again.

  “First no dope, then no alcohol, and then I started looking at my diet,” Eileen continued, her lovely smile in place under the gleam of her eyes. “Caffeine, sugar, meat. It really comes down to how much you’re willing to pollute your body.”

  I nodded. But, much as I agreed, I still felt sympathy for Maggie’s rebellion. I’ve often wondered if I would have become an abstemious vegetarian if it hadn’t been for Craig’s not so gentle nudging.

  “Jeez, drugs are one thing. Caffeine and alcohol are another,” objected Maggie. Was I in the middle of their current disagreement? “I mean, look at all these people addicted to crack and stuff,” she said, her freckled face thrust forward earnestly.

  “Look at all the people addicted to alcohol,” Eileen responded.

  “I know, I know. But lots of people are just fine with a little alcohol,” Maggie insisted. I suspected she was talking about herself. “And drugs. Why look at…” She braked her tongue for a moment of self-censorship. Was she about to say a client’s name? “Look at you-know-who’s brother,” she said finally, with a significant glance at Eileen. “Their parents escape the black ghetto and heroin and all that, and then the kid goes to college and burns out his brains on psychedelics. Now that’s a real bummer, a real tragedy.”

  Could she be talking about Valerie’s brother? I hadn’t seen that many black clients at Maggie’s. Mill Valley is not known for its ethnic diversity. If it was Valerie, that might explain her antipathy toward drug dealers. My heart jumped. What if Younger had personally sold Valerie’s brother drugs? But my thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of our waiter, bearing space food.