J is for JUDGMENT Page 28

  Renata finally appeared from the back of the house. She was wearing a white cotton skirt and a royal blue cotton T-shirt, white sandals emphasizing the deep olive tan on her legs. She opened the door, pausing for a moment with her cheek against the wood. “Hello, I heard on the radio they found the boat. He isn’t really gone, is he?”

  “I don’t know, Renata. Honestly. Can I come in?”

  She held the door open for me. “You might as well.” I followed her down the hallway to the living room, which was built across the back of the house. French doors opened onto a view of the backyard patio, which was small, mostly concrete with a fringe of annuals. Beyond the patio, a slope led down to the water. The Fugitive was visible, still moored at the dock.

  “Would you like a bloody Mary? I’m having one.” She moved to the wet bar and opened the lid of the ice bucket. She used a pair of silver tongs to lift cubes of ice, which she dropped, clinking, into her old-fashioned glass. I always wanted to be the kind of person who did that.

  “You go ahead. It’s a little early for me.”

  She squeezed lime over the ice and added an inch of vodka. She took a jug of bloody Mary mix from the minirefrigerator, gave it a whirl to shake it, and poured it over the vodka. Her movements were listless. She looked haggard. She wore very little makeup, and it was clear she’d been crying. Maybe she’d only pulled herself together, answering the door when I rang. She gave me a pained smile. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I was at Dana’s. As long as I was down in Perdido anyway, I thought I’d ask if I could go through some of Wendell’s belongings. I keep thinking he might have forgotten something. He might have left some piece of information. I don’t know how else to get a line on him.”

  “There aren’t any ‘things,’ but you’re welcome to have a look around if you like. Have the police been over the boat, dusting for prints or whatever it is they do?”

  “All I know is what I heard this morning from the insurance company. The boat’s apparently been found, but there’s no sign of Wendell. I don’t know about the money yet.”

  She brought her drink with her, crossing to a big upholstered chair. She took a seat, gesturing for me to join her in the matching chair. “What money?”

  “Wendell didn’t tell you about that? Carl kept three million dollars hidden somewhere on the boat.”

  It took about five seconds for the information to register. Then she threw her head back and started laughing, not exactly a happy sound, but better than sobbing. She collected herself. “You are kidding,” she said.

  I shook my head.

  Another brief laugh and then she shook her head. “Well, that’s incredible. There was that much money on the Lord? I can’t believe it. Actually this helps me because it all makes sense.”

  “What does?”

  “I couldn’t understand his obsession with the damn boat. The Lord was all he talked about.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  She stirred her drink with a swizzle stick, which she licked elaborately. “Well, he loved his kids, of course, but he’d never let that interfere with his life before. He was low on money, which was never an issue as far as I was concerned. God knows I have enough for both of us. About four months ago, he started in on this talk about coming back. He wanted to see his boys. He wanted to see his grandson. He wanted to make it up to Dana for the way he’d treated her. I think what he really l wanted was to get his hands on that cash. You know what? I’ll bet he did it. No wonder he was so fucking secretive. Three million dollars. I’m amazed I didn’t guess.”

  I said, “You don’t seem amazed. You seem depressed.”

  “I suppose I am now you mention it.” She took a long swallow from her glass. I had to guess she’d had more than one drink before I showed up. Tears welled in her eyes. She shook her head. “What?” I asked.

  She leaned back, resting her head against the chair, her eyes closed. “I want to believe in him. I want to think he cares about something besides money. Because if that’s really the kind of man he is, then what’s that say about me?” Her dark eyes came open.

  “I’m not sure what Wendell Jaffe does has anything to do with anything,” I remarked. “I said the same thing to Michael. Don’t take it personally.”

  “Will the insurance company pursue him?”

  “Actually, CF has nothing at stake at this point. I mean, aside from the obvious. Dana’s the one who got the insurance money, and they’ll deal with her in due course. Aside from that, they’re out of it.”

  “What about the police?”

  “Well, they might go after him – frankly, I hope they do – but I don’t know how much manpower they’d be willing to devote. Even if we’re talking fraud and grand theft, you have to catch the guy first. Then try to prove it. After all these years? You’d have to ask yourself what’s the object of the exercise.”

  “I’ll bite. What is the object of the exercise? I thought you worked for the insurance company.”

  “I did. I don’t now. Let’s put it this way. I have a vested interest. This is all my life has been about for the last ten days, and I won’t leave it open-ended. I have to finish it out, Renata. I have to know what happens.”

  “God, a zealot. Just what we need.” She closed her eyes again and rolled the icy glass against her temple as if to cool a raging fever. “I’m tired,” she said. “I’d like to sleep for a year.”

  “Do you mind if I look around?”

  “Be my guest. You’re welcome to look. He picked the place clean, but I really haven’t bothered to check myself. You’ll have to pardon my disheveled emotional state. I’m having trouble comprehending the fact that after five years he left me.”

  “I’m not convinced that’s what’s going on, but look at it this way. If he did it to Dana, why not do it to you?”

  She smiled with her eyes closed, and the effect was odd. I wasn’t sure she really heard me. She might have already been asleep. I lifted the glass from her hand and set it on the glass-topped table with a click.

  I spent the next forty-five minutes searching every nook and cranny in the house. In situations like this, you never know what you might find: personal papers, notes, correspondence, telephone numbers, a diary, an address book. Anything might help. She was right about Wendell. He’d really picked her clean. I was forced to shrug. I might have found some fabulous secret concerning his whereabouts. You never know until you look.

  I came down the stairs and moved quietly through the living room. Renata stirred, her eyes coming open as I passed the couch. “Did you have any luck?” Her voice was thick with alcohol-induced weariness.

  “No. But it was worth a try. Will you be all right?”

  “You mean once I recover from the humiliation?

  Sure, I’ll be fine.” I paused. “Did a guy named Harris Brown ever call Wendell ?”

  “Oh, yes. Harris Brown left a message, and Wendell called him back. They had a quarrel on the phone.”

  “When was this?”

  “I don’t remember. Maybe yesterday.”

  “What’d they quarrel about?”

  “Wendell didn’t tell me that. Apparently there were a lot of things he never got around to ‘sharing.’ If you find him, don’t tell me. I think I’ll have the locks changed tomorrow.”

  “That’s Sunday. It’ll be expensive.”

  “Today, then. This afternoon. As soon as I get up.”

  “Call me if you need anything.”

  “I need some laughs,” she said.

  Chapter 25

  *

  The address I had for Harris Brown was in a small Colgate housing tract, one lane of dingy cottages on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific. I counted eight houses altogether on a dirt lane lined with eucalyptus. Board-and-batten, peaked roofs with twin dormers and screened-in porches across the front close to shacks now, they were probably built for the domestic staff on a once grand estate, the main house long demolished by the pass
age of time. Unlike the neighboring exteriors, which were pale pink and green, Harris Brown’s house was… well… brown, perhaps a waggish form of self-referencing. It was hard to tell if the property had been shabby to begin with or if the general state of dilapidation was the function of his being widowed. Sexist creature that I am, it was hard to imagine a woman living here without keeping it better. I went up to the porch.

  The front door was standing open, the wooden screen door hooked shut. I could have popped it open with a penknife, but I knocked instead. Classical music was booming from a radio in the kitchen. I could see a section of the counter from the front doorstep, brown-and-white-checked cafe curtains above the sink. I smelled chicken being fried in bacon grease, the sizzling and popping a succulent counterpoint to the music. If Harris Brown didn’t show up quickly, I’d begin to pick and whimper at the screen. “Mr. Brown?” I called.

  “Hello?” he answered back. He appeared in the kitchen doorway, leaning sideways from the stove. He had a towel around his waist and a two-pronged fork in one hand. “Oh. Hang on.” He disappeared, apparently adjusting the flame under the skillet. If he would just offer me some chicken, I wouldn’t care what he’d done. Food first, then justice. That’s the proper ordering of world events.

  He must have put a lid on the skillet because the sizzling sound was abruptly dampened. He moved to the far wall and turned down the radio, and then he came toward the door, wiping his hands on the towel. I was standing against the light, so I figured he really couldn’t see much of me until he got up close.

  He peered at the screen. “Can I help you?”

  “Hi. Remember me?” I said. I suspected he’d been a cop so long he’d never forget a face, though he probably recognized me without being able to recall the context. What added another layer of confusion was the fact we’d chatted on the phone within the last few days. If he knew my voice, I didn’t think he’d attach it to the hooker on the balcony in Viento Negro, but it would nag at him.

  “Refresh my memory.”

  “Kinsey Millhone,” I said. “We were supposed to have lunch.”

  “Oh, right, right, right. Sorry. Come on in,” he said. He unhooked the screen door and held it open, his expression attentive. “We’ve met, haven’t we? I know your face from some place.”

  I laughed sheepishly. “Viento Negro. The hotel balcony. I said the boys sent me up, but I’m afraid I was fibbing. I was really looking for Wendell, the same as you.”

  He said, “Christ.” He walked away from the door. “I got chicken on the stove. You better come on back here.”

  I eased the screen shut behind me, taking in the room at a glance as I passed through. Scruffy linoleum on the floor, big overstuffed chairs from the thirties, shelves piled haphazardly with books. Not only messy, but not clean. No curtains, no table lamps, a fireplace that didn’t function.

  I reached the kitchen and peered in. “It looks like Wendell Jaffe’s disappeared again.”

  Harris Brown was back at the stove, skillet lid held aloft while a cloud of steam escaped. A glass pie plate full of seasoned flour sat on the edge of the stove. The surface of the unused griddle looked as though snow had fallen on it where he’d trailed the pieces from the pie plate to the skillet. If he stuck me in the neck with the fork he held, it would look like I’d been bitten by a snake. He poked at the pieces. “Really. I hadn’t heard. How’d he manage that?”

  I stayed where I was, leaning against the door frame. The kitchen was the one room that seemed to get all the sunlight. It was also cleaner than the rest of the house. The sink had been scoured. The refrigerator was round-shouldered, old and yellowing, but it wasn’t smudged with prints. The shelves were open, filled with mismatched crockery. “I don’t know,” I said. “I thought you might tell me. You talked to him the other day.”

  “Says who?”

  “His girlfriend. She was there when he called you back.”

  “The infamous Mrs. Huff,” he said.

  “How’d you find her?”

  “That was easy. You told me her name in our first telephone conversation.”

  “Ah, that’s right. I bet I even mentioned she lived in the Keys. I’d forgotten.”

  “I don’t forget much,” he said, “though I notice age is catching up with me.”

  Inwardly I was gritched. The man seemed too casual. “I talked to Carl last night. He told me he paid the hundred grand he owed you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why’d you quarrel with Wendell?”

  He turned over some chicken pieces, mahogany brown with a spice-speckled crust. Looked done to me, but when he stuck it with his fork, blood-tinged liquid oozed out of the joint. He lowered the flame and replaced the lid. “I quarreled with Wendell before I got the money. That’s why I laid into Eckert and made him drive down that night.”

  “I don’t understand the connection.”

  “Wendell tells me he’s going to blow the whistle. He wants to ‘clear his conscience’ before he goes to jail. What a crock of shit. I can’t believe it. He’s going to tell ‘em about the money he and Eckert have been hoarding. The minute he says it, I know that’s the end of it. I’m finished. By the time the court gets done, I’ll never see a cent. I get straight on the horn to Eckert and tell him he better get himself down here with the cash in hand. I mean, pronto.”

  “Why hadn’t you pressed for the money before?”

  “Because I thought it was gone. Eckert claimed the two of them had blown every penny. Once I heard I Wendell was alive, I threw the whole story out the window. I put the screws to Eckert, and it turns out they had a bundle. Wendell only took a million or so when he left. Eckert had the rest. Can you believe that? He’d had it the whole time, just taking out what he needed.

  “He was clever, I’ll say that. He lived like a pauper, so who would have guessed?”

  “Weren’t you a party to the lawsuit?”

  “Well, sure, but that kind of money won’t survive intact. You know what I’d get? Maybe ten cents on the dollar, and that’s if I’m lucky. You got the IRS first and two hundred fifty investors? Everybody wants a piece. I didn’t give a shit if he turned in the money, as long as I got mine up front. To hell with everybody else. I earned that dough, and I went to great lengths to collect.”

  “And what was the deal? What did you do in exchange?”

  “I didn’t do anything. That’s the point. Once I had the money I didn’t care about those two.”

  “You had no further interest.”

  “That’s right.”

  I shook my head, confused. “I don’t get this. Why would Carl Eckert pay you that much? If you want to get right down to it, why would he pay you at all? Was it blackmail?”

  “Of course it wasn’t blackmail. Jesus Christ, I’m a cop. He didn’t pay me a cent. He made good on my losses. I invested a hundred grand and that’s what I got back. To the nickel,” he said.

  “Did you tell Carl Eckert about Wendell turning in the money?”

  “Sure I did. Wendell was going to the cops that night. I’d already talked to Carl. He was supposed to stop by with the money Friday morning, so I knew he had it with him. I wanted to make sure I had the money in my pocket before old looney tunes Wendell started blabbing. What a dope he was.”

  “Why do you say ‘was’?”

  “Because he’s gone again, right? You just said so yourself.”

  “Maybe getting your money back wasn’t enough.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  I shrugged. “You might have wanted him dead.”

  He laughed. “You’re really stretching for that one. Why would I want him dead?”

  “The way I heard it, he ruined your relationship with your kids. Your marriage broke up. Your wife died shortly after that.”

  “Oh, hell. My marriage was lousy to begin with, and she was sick for years. Losing the money was what pissed my kids off. Once I slipped’ em each twenty-five grand under the table, they warmed ri
ght up.”

  “Nice kids.”

  “At least I know where I stand,” he said dryly.

  “You’re telling me you didn’t kill him.”

  “I’m telling you I didn’t have to. I figured Dana Jaffe would do that once she found out about this other woman. It’s enough he’d abandon her and the kids, but to do it over some little piece of fluff like that? Seems a bit much.”

  Since my apartment is only a block from the ocean, I left my car parked in front and walked back to the marina. I loitered outside the locked gate leading down to Marina 1. I could have climbed around the outside as I’d done with Renata, but there was enough foot traffic at that hour to wait for someone with a key. The day was turning grim. I didn’t think it would rain, but the clouds were a thick, brooding gray and the sea air was chilly. These Santa Teresa summers are really such a treat.

  Finally a guy came along in shorts and a sweatshirt. He had his card key in hand and he unlocked the gate. He even held it for me when he saw that I was interested in sliding through.

  “Thanks,” I said, falling into step with him as he proceeded along the walkway. “You know Carl Eckert, by any chance? He owns the boat that was stolen Friday morning.”

  “I heard about that. Yeah, I know Carl by sight. I think he went down to get it, as a matter of fact. I saw him motor out in his dinghy a couple of hours ago.” The guy took the second left turn onto the line of slips marked D. I continued on to J, which was on the right-hand side. Sure enough, Eckert’s slip was still empty, and there was no way to predict just what time he’d get back.

  It was nearly one o’clock, and I’d never had lunch. I walked back to my place and brought my typewriter in from the car. I made myself a sandwich-hot hard-boiled egg, sliced across a slathering of Best Foods mayo. Whole-wheat bread, lots of salt, a vertical cut. Rules are rules. I hummed to myself, licking my fingers as I set up my Smith-Corona. I ate at my desk, typing intermittently in between big gooey bites. I worked my way through a pack of index cards, reducing everything I knew to three-by-five notes. I sorted them into various categories and tacked them on the bulletin board hanging over my desk. I turned on my desk lamp. I got myself a diet Pepsi at one point. As if it were some kind of board game, I played and replayed the same set of cards. I didn’t even know what I was doing, just looking at the information, arranging and rearranging, hoping I’d see a pattern emerge.