Death Turns A Trick (Rebecca Schwartz #1) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series) (19 page)

“Yes, but—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“But what if he did? If he did, Rebecca, I’m afraid that makes him a murderer.”

I said I’d think about Rob’s proposal, which of course meant I hoped he would do his half of it even if I didn’t do mine. But I knew he was right; I had to talk to Uncle Walter.

For the time being, though, I pushed the whole thing to the back of my mind, just as I’d been doing all along, and concentrated on other things. First I called the district attorney’s office. Parker had been charged with the murder of Carol Phillips and was scheduled to be arraigned at nine the next morning. That depressed me so badly I called Mickey and Alan and invited them to dinner. Alan had a rehearsal, but Mickey accepted.

I still didn’t feel any better.

So I devoted myself once again to my media campaign, and rather enjoyed it, I might say, except for a slight blow to my personal vanity; greater love hath no lawyer than to oblige her client by doing TV tapings with a face like a week-old eggplant.

By the time I was done, no listener or reader or viewer in the Bay Area could fail to know that a police search had overlooked $25,000 hidden in my apartment by Kandi Phillips, who was killed for the money, in my opinion, and that in spite of all that, my hapless client—Miss Phillips’ devoted brother—had been charged with the murder. Eat that, Martinez!

I’d tried like crazy to keep myself from thinking about Uncle Walter, but something must have been going on in the muck underneath my skull. At some time that afternoon I must have reached a decision. Because at four o’clock, just in time to catch Uncle Walter before he left his office, I found I was headed toward it in the Volvo.

Unlike Daddy, Uncle Walter has no juries to impress, so he can be as ostentatious as he pleases. And is, to my mother’s embarrassment. It seems none of the men in her life can hit middle ground in matters of taste.

Uncle Walter’s office is big enough that you hardly notice his desk, which is the size of three normal ones. The carpets are about knee-deep, and he has views to put a humble Telegraph Hill dweller to shame. And telescopes he could use to spy on Mickey in Berkeley.

Now Uncle Walter is a big man, perfectly capable of filling up that office, but he wasn’t doing it that Monday. His big shoulders sloped downward, giving the impression of a much smaller person.

His secretary had phoned the message that I was on my way in, but he wasn’t exactly aglow with avuncular anticipation. He was sitting with his chin in his hands, staring at nothing. He didn’t even get up to kiss me.

“Hello, darling,” he said, but there was no life in the words. The phrase was a thud in the gloomy office.

Murder or no murder, I didn’t like my own uncle behaving like that. I decided to confront it directly. “Hi, Uncle Walter,” I said, almost as gloomily. “Why aren’t you glad to see me?”

He reached out for one of my hands. “Darling, I’m always glad to see you. I’m just worried about you, that’s all. You should see a doctor about that face.”

“I’m glad that’s all it is. I thought you were depressed.”

He shrugged. “Emh.”

“Uncle Walter, we’ve got to talk about some things.”

His face crumpled into that hurt, panicked look I’ve seen on men’s faces when I have disappointed them; when I have said something they didn’t want to hear and they know I will say more and they would do anything to stop the words from coming. Somehow, the face becomes triangular, and still as a death mask, but it has another quality; a hunted, trapped, don’t-hurt-me look. I hated seeing that look on Uncle Walter’s face, and I wanted to make it go away. That look had caused me to stay with men I meant to leave and to do free work for clients whose cases were hopeless, but this time I knew I had to finish what I’d started.

“Uncle, I have to know. You knew Kandi, didn’t you?”

“How would I know a girl like that?”

“A girl like what?”

He shrugged again. “A sweet young thing—a girl young enough to be my daughter.” The papers hadn’t said she was a prostitute, but Uncle Walter didn’t fall into my trap.

I had another card up my sleeve, though. I spoke softly. “Uncle Walter, the papers never said what her nickname was.”

“Your mother told me.”

“I don’t think I ever mentioned it to Mom.”

“You must have. She knew.”

Playing this painful little game was not getting either of us anywhere. “Mom told me she saw Kandi here,” I said. “And that isn’t all, I’m afraid. One of Kandi’s—um—colleagues told me she’d seen you with her. Several times. I already know, so—”

I swear to God I saw tears in his eyes. That may mean nothing to you, because you don’t know him, but the idea of my uncle Walter crying is about as believable as the Lincoln Memorial standing up and reeling off the Gettysburg Address.

“Darling, do you think your uncle Walter would kill somebody in your living room?”

“Oh, Uncle Walter, I’m so sorry. Of course not.” I walked around the desk to hug him, but he turned away from me. “Uncle Walter—”

“Darling, I’m late for an appointment.” He raised his wrist, and again I saw the white skin where his watch should have been.

Quickly, I circled his wrist with my fingers and rubbed the white space gently. “She stole your watch, didn’t she, Uncle Walter, as proof that she knew you? And then made you give her money to keep anyone from finding out.”

He wheeled around to face me, his eyes angry now. “No! No! I never—” He was shouting, and I guess he suddenly realized it. “I mean I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said in a normal voice.

If people really writhe in discomfort, I guess that’s what I did. Every muscle in my body, and especially those in my face, seemed to be working at cross purposes, twitching in opposite directions.

“Oh, Uncle Walter, I hate this!” It came out a banshee wail. “Look, the police have probably found the watch with her things, and it’s inscribed and probably has your fingerprints on it. They could—”

“Rebecca, you’re too upset to talk. I’m calling your mother.” All those twitchy muscles had finally given way, and I was actually shaking, but Uncle Walter was back in control. He picked up the phone.

“Uncle Walter, please, please—” I was begging now, and I realized how afraid for him I actually was. “Please tell me what you were doing Friday night.” It came out as horrifyingly bald and bare as that.

Uncle Walter replaced the telephone receiver. He looked at me with eyes the color of his $500 silver-gray suit, eyes that reminded me of the Pacific on a winter day—cold and deep and unknowable. “Go, Rebecca. Get out of my office,” he said in a voice that matched his eyes.

I did, fast. The man I was talking to wasn’t my uncle Walter who used to buy me raspberry ice cream cones, and I wanted out of there. My throat felt tight the way it does when I want to cry but can’t.

I got in the car and tried to think while I warmed it up. He was furious like I’d never seen him. Like I’d never seen any man. I should have known he was capable of that—a person doesn’t get as rich and successful as Uncle Walter by buying ice cream cones for his nieces—but it was a side of him I’d never even glimpsed. Was a man who could look at me with those eyes—me, his favorite niece!—capable of murder? I think I considered it seriously for the first time then. On the other hand, I realized that an intolerable situation had risen between Uncle Walter and me. For Walter Berman, the consummate family man, to be exposed as a person who went to prostitutes must be the worst thing that had ever happened to him. And that was only half of what I’d suggested; when you practically accuse your uncle of whoring and murder, you can hardly expect him to chuck you under the chin.

Oh God, I didn’t want to think about it anymore! I turned the radio to KKHI, turned it up loud, thanked my stars something I knew was on, and started driving. God knows why, but they were playing
Swan Lake
. I hate the treacly thing, but I do know it by heart. I hummed along all the way to the supermarket, and then I sat in the car and kept it up to the end. That made me feel better, but still not good enough to start thinking.

I concentrated on dinner with Mickey instead of on Uncle Walter. Ever since my Berkeley days, spaghetti has been my favorite security food, so I bought the makings for it to get me through the night. I debated whether I should tell Mickey about Uncle Walter, but I was just being silly. I knew I was going to.

When I got home, I called Rob before I even put my groceries away, hoping—I don’t know what I was hoping for, maybe just that he’d say something to cheer me up.

But he didn’t. He said, “Goodfellow’s clean.”

“How do you know?”

“Friday night he was at a fund-raiser for a politician at the Fairmont Hotel, and after that he went drinking with friends at Alexis until 1:30 a.m., whereupon he was driven home by said friends, arriving at his Hillsborough estate sometime after two. Matter cannot occupy more than one space at a time, or something like that. Ergo, he’s clean.”

“How’d you find that out?”

“Ordinarily a reporter does not reveal his sources, but for you… Suffice it so to say that I am on friendly terms with one of the Goodfellow daughters.”

That annoyed me. “So that’s how you got your job,” I said.

“Miss Schwartz! She’s married to an old college buddy of mine, an event which did not occur until long after I had proved my mettle in the trenches of journalism.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just in a lousy mood.”

“Uh oh. You spoke to your friend?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it, if you don’t mind.”

“I wish—oh, hell.”

“What?”

“I was just thinking how much I’d like to take you out tonight and get your mind off your troubles, but, alas, duty calls. I’m on special assignment.”

“What’s that?”

“Can’t talk about it. I’ll tell you later.”

I’d meant what does “special assignment” mean, but if he wanted to be mysterious, the hell with him. I put on some music and started cutting up onions and mushrooms.

The spaghetti sauce was simmering nicely when Mickey arrived. I poured us some wine, and we watched me on the seven o’clock news. I’d already seen the six o’clock version, but when you’re a show biz newcomer, you never get enough of yourself. Mickey said I did fine.

Over dinner, we rehashed my adventure of the night before pretty thoroughly. Mickey had a few theories I hadn’t thought of. “Even if Jaycocks didn’t kill Kandi,” she postulated, “maybe he guessed she’d left the money there and he came for it.”

“He hadn’t searched for it.”

“Maybe you surprised him before he could.”

“No good. He saw us leave for Mom and Dad’s. He could have searched and been gone long before we came back. There’s no other explanation except that he was there to kill me.”

Mickey chewed on a bit of salad, and I poured myself a third glass of wine. It was going to take at least three to broach the subject of Uncle Walter.

“What about this?” she said. “Suppose Kandi wasn’t killed for the money. Suppose she stole it or collected it from someone she was blackmailing. But meanwhile the famous George decides to make good on his threat to kill her. So he hires Jaycocks to do it. Jaycocks goes to the party, follows her here, gets in the same way he got in last night, and bashes her.”

“It wasn’t exactly an execution-style killing.”

“That could have been deliberate—to throw the hounds off the scent.”

I considered. “Not bad. But what was he doing here last night?”

“The same reason you said; you knew he worked for George, and it was only a matter of time before you found out he was a cop. It applies even better, in fact. Murder’s a lot more serious charge than pimping.”

“But how was I going to connect him with the murder?” She sighed in exasperation. “Same way I did. By using the little gray cells.
He
didn’t know you were too dumb to figure it out.”

I was beginning to like the theory. It was at least as good as the one Martinez had about Parker. But I had to come clean. “Mickey, she had to get that money from somewhere.”

“So she blackmailed somebody.”

“There’s some suspicion she might have been blackmailing a couple of people.”

“There you are, then. What’s the big deal?”

I shouldn’t have had the third glass of wine after all. I lost control and let the tears come into my eyes. “Uncle Walter might have been one of them.”

“Uncle Walter! Have you lost your mind?” In her agitation, she threw out an arm and knocked over her wine glass. I was momentarily so relieved I hadn’t set the table with the white tablecloth Aunt Ellen had left me that I forgot all about Uncle Walter.

By the time I cleaned the wine up, I was composed again. “Mickey, listen. Uncle Walter knew her. Mom saw her at his office.”

“But that can’t be!”

“Would Mom lie?”

That did it. Mickey had to accept the facts. “Not about that,” she said slowly. “But how could he have known her?”

“How do you think?”

“But Uncle Walter wouldn’t—wouldn’t go to a prostitute; he’s still suffering from Aunt Ellen’s death.”

I nodded. “I know. That’s what I’m clinging to to make sense out of it. A person might try anything to get over his grief.”

She looked skeptical.

“It’s the best I can do,” I said.

Mickey bit her little finger a moment before she spoke. “It wouldn’t work.”

“No, but he might try it.”

“Wait a minute. I’m a psychology student, remember? You wouldn’t try that to forget. You’d look for a nice widow.”

“But—”

“No, let me finish. Going to a prostitute might be a good way to avoid going on with your life, of wallowing in your grief. You could tell yourself you’re such a bad person no one would have you.”

Mickey is not dumb.

“Yeah,” I said. “That makes sense.” I was so sorry for Uncle Walter I was afraid I was going to cry again.

“Have you asked Uncle Walter about it?”

“Yes. He won’t talk about it.”

“So you think Kandi figured out what kind of man he is—that he’d die of humiliation if anyone found out. And that he had enough money to pay what she wanted.”