An Equal Opportunity Death (8 page)

“It seems odd none of us ever saw each other in San Francisco,” I said as Paul settled back onto the sofa.

“Big place.”

“I suppose. Still, you get around. You lived in the Haight, didn’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What did you do there? I mean, you obviously didn’t rent canoes.”

He laughed. “There were plenty of people high enough that I could have
sold
them canoes. If they’d had money. That was the problem. That’s always the problem. Just like it is here. Cash flow.”

I didn’t want to let Paul get onto his finances. “But what
did
you do there?”

“A little of this, a little of that.”

“Like delivering flyers?”

“Yeah, that and collecting. Collecting was a big thing. Activists, they called us, as if we were devoted to whatever cause it was. The only thing that interested us was the couple of bucks an hour. The people who cared about health centers and sea mammals were in the offices; they weren’t tramping door to door.”

“But how could you survive like that? I mean, surely that wasn’t steady work?”

“We weren’t living on Nob Hill! Patsy and me, we know how to make money stretch. We don’t live high.” He gestured toward the room.

I smiled. “Did you know Frank then?”

“Frank Goulet? No. There’s no way we would have been in the same circles as he was.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You just know to look at him. He never lived with six other people in a room. You can tell he always had his own clothes.”

I sipped my brandy to hide a smile. I’d never considered owning your own clothes a status symbol.

“Frank,” Paul continued, “had to have had money. I mean he bought Frank’s Place. You don’t do that without big bucks.”

“But you never saw him in the Haight, never heard about him dealing drugs?”

Another time, with less brandy, with someone who had not berated the sheriff, Paul might have become suspicious. But now he leaned back against the sofa and considered the possibility. “No. I’m sure I would have recognized him here if I’d seen him before. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t doing drugs there.”

“Do you know if he did any here?”

“You mean used, or dealt?”

“Either.”

He shrugged, pushed himself up, and headed for the bottle, giving me a questioning glance on the way. I shook my head.

“Everyone uses, don’t they? Do you know anyone who doesn’t at least smoke weed?”

He had his back to me, so I could ignore the question.

“But dealing? If he did, I didn’t hear about it. But Patsy knew Frank better than I did. You can ask her.”

It was nearly quarter to six. “Shouldn’t she be home soon?” I asked.

“Should be here now. Maybe she stopped at the store.”

We sat in silence, which seemed fine with Paul. He listened to the stereo and drank my brandy. I sat and sloshed the brandy around the glass.

“Are your canoes all up?” I asked.

“Every last one.”

“You haven’t had any stolen, or borrowed and returned, have you?”

“No.” He sat up, suspicious. “Why?”

“You remember Madge Oombs saying Frank’s killer could have come by river.”

“In my canoe!”

“No one else rents canoes on the river, do they?”

“No. I checked that before we took the lease here. I wasn’t going to deal with competition. You get too many guys doing the same thing and it can kill you.”

“So none of your canoes could have been missing? Would you be sure to know if they had been?”

“Every canoe here has its place. I check them each night and morning. People steal things. Kids try for free rides. I’m no fool. I keep good track of these canoes.” He swallowed the rest of his brandy and stood up.

As he passed the door, it opened and Patsy walked in.

“Is that brandy?” she asked. “I can sure use a glass. I’ve had a—”

Before she could finish her sentence Paul wrapped an arm around her shoulder and kissed her. When she emerged, she was looking toward me. She seemed surprised.

“Vejay, what are you doing here?”

“Just sharing some brandy.” Even in the rain she should have seen my pickup parked outside. “I’ve been here a while, as you can tell from the bottle. I thought you would be home sooner.”

“Well, I … paperwork. Sometimes you just don’t get it done. And nothing is so vital as paperwork. When you work part-time, they really raise a stink if everything’s not done.”

“Vejay got suspended,” Paul announced, handing Patsy a glass. “Then she went and chewed out the sheriff.”

I could see that these accomplishments were considerably less impressive to the sober listener. And even I didn’t have enough interest to recount them once more. I said, “We were just speculating about Frank. Maybe his death was somehow connected with drugs.”

When she didn’t say anything, I prompted, “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Why would I know?”

“I thought you might have heard of Frank when you were living in San Francisco.”

“No.”

“Paul said you might know if he did any dealing here.”

She glared at Paul, then at me. “He didn’t. I wouldn’t know. I’ve had a rotten day and I’m in a rotten mood and this isn’t making it any better. I’m tired of people asking me about Frank. It’s really infuriating, for me and for Paul. Frank could have been selling land on the moon for all I know.”

“I just thought you might have heard something about him dealing marijuana. It wouldn’t be unknown for a bartender to deal drugs.”

“I left the drug scene in the city. I don’t know who deals what here. I just go to work and rent canoes.”

I stood to leave.

“And you know, Vejay,” Patsy added, “I don’t like all this pawing over Frank’s life. He’s dead. Don’t you care? Or are you just interested in seeing what kind of slime you can stir up?”

I started to answer, to defend myself, but I could see Patsy’s eyes brimming. So I kept my mouth shut, nodded to Paul, and slunk out.

It was well I had restrained myself from drinking more brandy. The parking lot outside Paul and Patsy’s was dark and wet; it would be hard to avoid its many potholes. Patsy’s van was about ten feet from me. She must indeed have had a rotten day to have overlooked my truck.

Had my questions been abrupt to the point of rudeness? Had the brandy and Paul’s unsuspicious responses smothered my usual caution? Or had I hit a raw spot?

I backed the truck slowly and pulled out of the parking lot, hitting only two potholes. South Bank Road was still above water, but one acacia leaned heavily and it was unlikely to survive another day.

I crossed the bridge and hit the red light at the end. I was still thinking of Patsy and Frank, and of Frank and drugs, as I came to the turn for my house. I hesitated, knowing from ample experience that the house, which would have been cold at five, would be icy now. There was not enough time before bed to get it anywhere near warm.

I turned left into town.

I might have had Skip Bollo in the back of my mind. I don’t know. But when I saw the light on in his real estate office, I stopped.

H
ENDERSON REALTY WAS IN
the center of a short block of shops and offices built within the last ten years and raised well above the street level. There was a double walkway: one sidewalk at the normal level by the street, and a wooden walk four feet above that. In front of each shop eight steps connected the two. The shops were shingled and tasteful without being too cute. Skip Bollo had had a hand in the building of the block. It should have been a good investment.

I climbed the steps, stood for a moment under the overhang, shaking the rain from my slicker, then walked in.

Skip Bollo was sitting behind the last of three desks. The office was carpeted in a caramel brown that, as I recalled from a psychology class, was a color that people instinctively connect with home and security. The walls were beige, the furniture solid and substantial, and the large potted plants green and healthy. It was the office of a man whom you’d trust.

“Hi, Skip,” I said.

He pushed his file drawer shut and stood up. “This is a surprise. Are you panicking and do you want to sell your house?”

“No. I saw your light on.” I walked back and sat in the seat next to his desk as he settled back in his chair. I could tell he wondered why I was here—a natural reaction, since I hadn’t been in this office after I’d bought my house from him—but he was too polite to ask.

Putting the papers in front of him in a folder, he said, “Your visit is a welcome excuse to interrupt work.” In spite of the hour and his being alone, he was still wearing a herringbone jacket. It fit well and looked comfortable. The gray of the fabric picked up the gray of his hair and accented his slate blue eyes. His skin was hardly wrinkled, his features chiseled. But his nose was what one first noticed. It was a cartoonlike bulb, too big for his face. Knowing Skip, this was not the nose he would have chosen for himself. But it was this appealing imperfection that made him seem immediately likable. Without it, he would have looked too precise, finicky, bordering on the homosexual stereotype. The nose, more than anything, may have been responsible for his success.

I didn’t know where to begin. All I could think of was Skip sitting with Madge Oombs at the restaurant on Route 101 yesterday morning, and I knew I didn’t want to start with that. I asked, “Has the sheriff talked to you about Frank’s death?”

“No. Should he have?”

“I suppose that does seem an odd question. Since he’s talked to me twice I just assume that he’s made the rounds of everyone in town. It’s not a good thing to be the last one to see a man alive.”

“Have they been bothering you?” He seemed truly concerned. It was the same feeling I’d had about him when he went through seven or eight houses with me before I decided on mine.

“Wescott isn’t hassling me. But he hasn’t ruled me out either. I’m just continually startled that he could suspect me at all.”

Skip smiled sadly. “It’s always disappointing when someone prejudges you.”

I hesitated to acknowledge his statement. While there had been anti-gay feeling lately, Skip had been here for years. Still, he was different; “homosexual, but quite nice,” was how he had been described to me early on. “I guess you’ve been prejudged here?” I said.

“It was always subtle until the last couple years.” He stared past me out the picture window that formed the front of the office. The rain was coming down hard, enveloping us in the warm dry office. There were none of the usual night sounds—no auto horns beeping, no tires skidding, no doors slamming, no voices calling back and forth. It was as if we were totally alone.

He said, “I came to Henderson ten years ago. No one around here thought about homosexuals then. Gays were people who lived in San Francisco and dressed oddly. They weren’t men who opened the real estate offices in Henderson. It was quite a while before anyone questioned my preferences. I try to be courteous—I don’t try to hide my life, but I don’t want to rub it in anyone’s face either. It was nice, those years and the ones after. It was nice just being a realtor. Seven, eight years. You’re not a minority until there are enough of you to be noticed. And that started happening only recently.”

“But,” I said, “you’re still not totally accepted. Not ‘normal.’”

He sat forward, seeming to shake off his introspective mood. “No, not normal. But that was fine. Had I desired normality, I would have married, had children, and lived in Pleasant Hill.”

“Tell me,” I said, searching for the right entree. “How did you see Frank?” That certainly wasn’t it. “I mean, you knew Frank as well as the rest of us, but there was apparently some facet of Frank which none of us suspected, something that led to his being killed.…”

“Possibly. It’s also conceivable that some lunatic wandered in, demanded a drink in the afternoon, and when Frank refused, shot him.”

“If so, he came unobserved. Like Madge said.”

“True. It’s stretching a point to think a lunatic stole a canoe, paddled down the river at this time of year, and came up through Frank’s trap door just to demand a drink.”

“And then paddled back upstream!”

The wind hurled a sheet of water against the window. We both started and turned, relieved to see the window still in place.

“I’m afraid, Vejay, that I can’t tell you anything new about Frank. No esoteric observations. He was just a nice enough guy who had the sense to buy a bar in a good location, make a few inexpensive improvements like adding a fireplace and getting Rosa to bring in those wonderful dinners, and he had himself a going business. If he was involved in something more, it was a shame. He should have been satisfied. What he had would have satisfied most men.”

“But it didn’t satisfy Frank, did it?”

Skip propped his fingertips against their mates. “Presumably not.”

“Why not? What was there in Frank that left him, well, unfulfilled? What kept Frank from being a happy bar owner?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’d better talk to a psychiatrist rather than a realtor, Vejay.”

I laughed. “I’m beginning to think that’s not a bad idea. But for the moment, you’re all I have. You’re not pressed for time now, are you?” I asked as an afterthought. He had been working when I barged in; Skip, a firm believer in courtesy, might find it lacking in me.

“No. The windows are shuttered at my house. The plants are covered, and there’s no danger of flooding that high up. I’ve done everything I can. And here,” he smiled, “well, no one’s going to be buying real estate during a flood. No, I’m not busy. If Frank were alive I’d be at Frank’s Place.”

“What was Frank like when he was buying the Place? He bought it from you, didn’t he?”

“Had no choice. I was the only realtor in town then.”

“Rosa said that Frank came up here, spent about a week, and the next thing they knew he bought the place. He must have been a model client for you.”

“He was. He knew what he wanted. He asked about bars, and, I think, restaurants. There weren’t many for sale. There never are at any one time. It’s a small area. I showed him the write-ups on a couple places, and he chose the Place.”