An Equal Opportunity Death (26 page)

“Only partly. It will be a treat for me to have the picture. I remember watching artists doing sketches and caricatures when I was a kid. I always wanted one, but it was a lot of money then.”

Jenny smiled tentatively. It didn’t seem like a normal expression for her. “Okay then, ask your questions, but you’ve got to keep licking that cone.”

I sat in the chair. “Do you have any idea where Michelle could be? Father Calloway of St. Agnes’ dropped her in town last night. I can’t find out what happened after that.”

Jenny leaned back in her chair. She eyed a couple walking by, then forced her attention back to me. “I haven’t seen Michelle in days. I’ve been in Santa Rosa getting supplies. This is my busiest time. I do more work during Bohemian Week than the rest of the season combined. I have to make sure I have everything I need. I can’t take a day off to run to Santa Rosa and pick up charcoal.”

I looked at the sketch pad, the charcoal, the floodlight for evening work lying next to the easel. “It took you more than one trip to get your supplies?” I asked in amazement.

“Are you an artist? Do you know what decisions I have to make or how many places I have to go to get the best?”

I decided not to deal with that. “When was the last time you saw Michelle?”

She rubbed a finger along a piece of charcoal. “Look, the woman lives next door. She’s part of the landscape. I can’t remember when she was out on her deck, doing her Olga Korbut number on the railing. Like Ward was kind enough to tell you, Michelle and I are not friends.”

I had the feeling that Jenny McElvey was on the verge of deciding that an empty chair was preferable to me. “Your husband Ward was talking to Michelle last night, about the cesspool.” I paused, but she didn’t react to that. “He was as helpful as he could be, but I obviously caught him at a time when he had a lot to do.”

“I’m sure,” she said with the same bitterness she’d had for Michelle. “Look, this is the most important time of the year for me. If anyone ever discovers me as an artist tucked away in the country it will happen during Bohemian Week when all the bigshots and reporters and people with taste and influence are here. Ward knows that. So what does he do? Does he try to make things easier for me? Does he offer to take my part-time job at the nursery? No. What he does is invite a pair of total strangers for the weekend. They came yesterday. And they’re staying till Sunday night. He wants the house clean; he wants me to go to dinner with them. He’s angry that I won’t stay home and amuse them.
He’s
angry!” She was shaking.

I sat, amazed by the vehemence of her outburst.

A group of four paused, looking from Jenny to me and back to her. Then, seeing that no sketch was in progress, they moved on.

“I guess Michelle’s anti-hookers’ group won’t help your business, or anyone else’s either,” I said.

It was a moment before Jenny answered. She seemed to be recovering from her outburst. When she did speak, her tone was almost indifferent. “It won’t affect my business. It’s a silly little group, headed by a silly young woman. It’s not going to impress the hookers or their customers. Michelle just wants to get her picture in the paper.”

In spite of her bitterness toward Ward, I still wondered if her reaction to Michelle was based on jealousy. I asked, “Why do you dislike Michelle?”

She took a moment before answering. “I don’t really dislike her, because I don’t really know her. But I find her actions a constant nuisance. Ask anyone who lives near her, they’ll know what I mean. Right now we have a sewer hole blocking our garage. That’s because Michelle kept bugging the city council to keep on the sewer company. If she had let things run their course it wouldn’t have gotten there till fall when the town wasn’t so mobbed and we wouldn’t have tourists driving up the street, slamming on their brakes at the hole, and then trying to turn around. We’ve almost had our car hit three or four times.”

“Surely that’s not the only reason.”

“No, it’s just the latest. I’ve known Michelle since she was a child. She’s four years younger than I am. When she was in high school my brother Ross took her out from time to time. He was already out of school—a big man. He’d invite her somewhere when the spirit moved him, then he’d forget about her. And she’d come over to the house looking for him. I sort of felt sorry for her—it was lousy of Ross—but at the same time she was such a pest. She was a very popular girl, and she just couldn’t accept that someone she wanted didn’t care about her.”

Thinking of the picture inside Michelle’s yearbook, I asked, “What does Ross look like?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ross—your brother.”

“I said I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in eight years, since my father died. He left town that day. My father had a heart attack. He had it because he was shoveling a hole and Ross was standing by watching him work—and there you have Ross’s character in a nutshell.” She swallowed. “Ross didn’t even bother to come to the hospital. Ward had to ride in the ambulance with my father. And when I looked for Ross to drive me there, he was gone. He just left.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know. He lived in San Francisco, off some woman. That was years ago. He hasn’t come back. I wouldn’t see him if he did.” She looked down at the charcoal and when she looked at me again she seemed to be in control. “I’m sure I sound spiteful but if you knew Ross you wouldn’t be surprised. He came and went as he pleased. But there was always a job for him with my father. My father kept thinking it would work out, that Ross would shape up and take over the business, like a son should. It was lucky for him that he had Ward to get some work done. Ross was too busy with himself. He had to go to Mexico, or he had to picket at the Grove, or ride his motorcycle. He was always too busy to take customers around. Ward had to do that. Or my father. It’s no wonder he had a heart attack.”

I waited a moment before asking, “When you saw him last, was Ross tall with sandy hair?”

She nodded.

“There’s a snapshot Michelle has of herself and a tall sandy-haired man holding a picket sign…”

She nodded again. “Michelle showed it to me. She’d brought it to show to Ross, but, of course, he wasn’t there. That picture was the story of their relationship—Ross looking at the sign, Michelle staring cow-eyed at Ross.”

“That was definitely Ross in the picture?” I could hear the excitement creep into my voice.

“Yes. Of course. Why?”

“Because I saw him on the back porch of your house today. It might not have been him, but it looked a lot like—”

The charcoal snapped. Jenny sat staring at it. I couldn’t decide by looking at her if her reaction was shock, or anger, or both.

“If Ross came back, would Michelle have spent the night with him?”

Her eyes refocused slowly. “What?”

I repeated the question.

In that time she gathered herself together. “Probably,” she snapped. “If he’d asked her to walk barefoot to Nome she would have done that. And that’s—”

“Jenny.” A couple was standing beside the easel. I hadn’t noticed them. I was sure Jenny hadn’t either. The man continued, “I really want a picture of my girl. Are you going to be through soon?”

“Yes. I’m through now.”

“What about my picture?” I said.

“You got what you wanted. Now leave me to do my work.” The bitterness in her voice put me in a group with Ross and Michelle.

I got up, leaving the chair to the girlfriend. As I walked along the sidewalk toward my house, I wondered, if his sister hated Ross, how would Craig Davidson feel?

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Susan Dunlap (b. 1943) is the author of more than twenty mystery novels and a founding member of Sisters in Crime, an organization that promotes women in the field of crime writing.

Born in New York City, Dunlap entered Bucknell University as a math major, but quickly switched to English. After earning a master’s degree in education from the University of North Carolina, she taught junior high before becoming a social worker. Her jobs took her all over the country, from Baltimore to New York and finally to Northern California, where many of her novels take place.

One night, while reading an Agatha Christie novel, Dunlap told her husband that she thought she could write mysteries. When he asked her to prove it, she accepted the challenge. Dunlap wrote in her spare time, completing six manuscripts before selling her first book,
Karma
(1981), which began a ten-book series about brash Berkeley cop Jill Smith.

After selling her second novel, Dunlap quit her job to write fulltime. While penning the Jill Smith mysteries, she also wrote three novels about utility-meter-reading amateur sleuth Vejay Haskell. In 1989, she published
Pious Deception
, the first in a series starring former medical examiner Kiernan O’Shaughnessy. To research the O’Shaughnessy and Smith series, Dunlap rode along with police officers, attended autopsies, and spent ten weeks studying the daily operations of the Berkeley Police Department.

Dunlap concluded the Smith series with
Cop Out
(1997). In 2006 she published
A Single Eye
, her first mystery featuring Darcy Lott, a Zen Buddhist stuntwoman. Her most recent novel is
No Footprints
(2012), the fifth in the Darcy Lott series.

In addition to writing, Dunlap has taught yoga and worked for a private investigator on death penalty defense cases and as a paralegal. In 1986, she helped found Sisters in Crime, an organization that supports women in the field of mystery writing. She lives and writes near San Francisco.