Lisa Lutz Spellman Series E-Book Box Set: The Spellman Files, Curse of the Spellmans, Revenge of the Spellmans, The Spellmans Strike Again (78 page)

A
side from my brother and my new client, Ernie Black, I had one other investigation that was perhaps the most urgent of all—a matter of life and death, come to think of it.

Morty and I agreed to have lunch that Thursday at a diner on upper Market Street. Since Morty and David both live in Russian Hill, I knew I could ask him for a ride without raising suspicion.

My octogenarian friend swung by at 11:45
A
.
M
.—another sign of aging, I’ve noticed, is the taking of meals earlier and earlier in the day. Before I got into Morty’s Cadillac I took a moment to inspect the exterior of his vehicle. I spotted a scratch along the front fender and another small dent on the rear bumper. Oh, and the car was filthy, which normally isn’t the sort of thing I’d comment on, but Morty is not the kind of guy to drive around in a grimy car. It was simply yet another sign of neglect.

I got into the Cadillac, removed the glasses from Morty’s head, and cleaned them.

“How do you not notice that they’re dirty?” I asked. “They’re right in front of your eyes.”

“I have more important things on my mind,” he replied, snatching the glasses out of my hand, returning them to his head, and pulling onto the road without checking his rearview mirror. Fortunately, no one was coming. But
you can only get lucky so many times. On the fifteen-minute drive, Morty broke about half of the traffic laws out there—most significantly running a stop sign at twenty-five miles an hour and making a left turn without using his turn signal (a particular pet peeve of mine). By the time we were entering the restaurant, I’d determined that my objective during lunch would be to identify a person who had the power to take away Morty’s driver’s license.

“Is Ruthy still in Florida?” I asked.

“As far as I know,” Morty replied.

“When is she coming back?”

“‘When hell freezes over’ is her current plan.”

“I see,” I replied, realizing that the situation was far worse than I’d imagined. “Who is your emergency contact while she’s out of town?”

“What? I don’t know.”

“I assume it’s your son, the cardiologist.”

“Sure. I guess so. He’s in the south of France for the summer with his new girlfriend.”

“If he’s in France, he can’t be your emergency contact. What other relatives do you have in the area?”

“What’s with the third degree, Izzele?”

“I just think I should have the number of your emergency contact.”

“My grandson. Gabe.”

“You should give me his info. Do you have your phone book on you?”

Morty pulled his black book from his breast pocket. “He owns a skate shop south of Market. Here’s his number. I’m sure you won’t need it. I don’t have plans to break my hip anytime soon.”

“No one plans to break their hip,” I said.

“Bah,” Morty replied.

Gabe Schilling’s skate shop was flanked by a high-end fashion boutique and a comic book store in South Park. I felt obliged to handle this matter in person to be sure it was taken seriously, so I drove to the shop after lunch.

I asked the pimply young male at the counter if Gabe Schilling was in. He stared at me as if I were a tax collector.

“May I ask what this is regarding?” he asked, with mock formality.

“It’s a personal matter,” I replied in the same tone.

The young male shifted his head toward the back of the store and dropped his professional demeanor.

“Dude, you have a visitor.”

Another male in his mid-to late twenties with sloppy brown hair, tanned skin, and grease on his fingers, which he was wiping off with a rag, came to the front of the store. Unlike the kid at the counter, who I later learned was his employee, Gabe—Morty’s grandson, ex–professional skateboarder (smashed his knee in a career-ending accident), current entrepreneur (one skate shop open in San Francisco, another on the way in the North Bay)—didn’t eye me with the same suspicion. He smiled. It was warm and oddly familiar. He had pieces of Morty in him, I realized later, just not enough to make him seem, well, pickled or something.

“Hi. I’m Isabel Spellman, a friend of your grandfather’s.”

Gabe’s eyes turned upward, consulting his memory. “You’re Izzele? The one who goes to jail?” he said as if he were speaking to a celebrity.

“Most people call me Izzy.”

“What can I do for you?”

“When was the last time you were in a car with your grandfather behind the wheel?”

“I never let him drive. He’s a terrible driver.”

“He’s worse now.”

“How much worse?”

“If he were my grandfather, I would have confiscated his keys already. But he’s yours. Just go for a drive with him. If you survive, you can make up your own mind.”

E
rnie Black insisted this would be the easiest job of my career. His wife worked at his muffler shop, went to a book club now and again, occasionally took in a movie with a neighbor friend, and handled domestic duties. A couple of times a month, Linda claimed to be having lunch or shopping or both with a very old school friend named Sharon Bancroft. The friendship seemed odd for a number of reasons, but mostly because of the disparity in their social status. Sharon was married to a congressman from a well-to-do San Francisco family. “Old money,” Ernie said, rubbing his thumb and fingers together. Ernie had never met Sharon, even though the women had met in grade school. But Ernie always found Sharon suspicious and he never quite understood how a politician’s wife found so much time to spend with a muffler shop owner’s wife. Ernie seemed a little too conscious of status for my liking, but he was older—fifty-five, according to his credit report—and maybe things like that mattered more where he came from.

Ernie gave me his wife’s vital statistics so that I could run a background check if need be. But he insisted it was unnecessary. Ernie just wanted to make sure his marriage wasn’t in trouble. If all she was doing during her
long absences was having lunch with an old friend, then Ernie could rest easy. All he wanted to know was whether his wife was having an affair or shoplifting or dealing drugs. Once I had the answer, case closed.

In light of Ernie’s recent suspicions, I asked him if he’d ever followed his wife to see whether she was, in fact, only having lunch. He responded, “No, I’d never do that.”

I’m fascinated by ethical distinctions like that.

On Thursday evening, after a three-hour search of David’s home, just when I was about to call it a night, Ernie phoned to inform me that his wife had made plans the following day with
Sharon.
He said the woman’s name as if she were an imaginary friend. We would soon find out. I agreed to be in front of his residence the following morning at 10:30
A
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M
.
²

I’ve said this before: Surveillance is boring. Don’t let the movies fool you. Watching an ordinary person live his or her life in real time is usually uneventful. They don’t do things all that differently from you or me.

Linda Black exited her home at 11:10
A
.
M
. and got into her vehicle—a ten-year-old Honda Civic. Linda was indeed a redhead, although patches of color had begun to fade near her brow. She wore her hair long and wavy, clipping it in back with a single barrette. She was approximately five foot six and slim but not skinny. An even pattern of freckles ran across her entire face. From a distance she appeared to be in her midthirties. Upon closer viewing, her real age (forty-five) was more evident. She had not shied away from the sun; through my binoculars I could see deep wrinkles framing her eyes. You could count the creases in her forehead. Still, the end result was attractive. She seemed comfortable in her skin.

Linda drove from her home in San Bruno (south of the city) to downtown San Francisco. She parked her car in the Macy’s parking lot and took the elevator to the top floor. She had an hour-and-a-half lunch with the
woman Ernie described as Sharon Bancroft (who appeared to be a cinematic stereotype of a congressman’s wife).

I estimated Sharon’s age to be within a few years of Linda’s, but she’d aged less willingly. She was pale, with the skin tone and facial expressions of a porcelain doll. I concluded that Botox was her drug of choice, maybe along with diet pills, judging by her emaciated frame and the way she picked at her salad at lunch.

Even if I weren’t investigating the women, I might have noticed that they were mismatched. I saw no evidence of opposites attracting. The women seemed uncomfortable with each other, their conversation strained.

After lunch, the women shopped. More accurately, Sharon displayed items for Linda, and Linda shook her head. Eventually Sharon wore down Linda’s protests and bought her a scarf. The women exited Macy’s and separated in the parking lot. Once Sharon was out of sight, Linda reentered the department store and returned the scarf for a store credit. Upon later examination of a similar scarf in the store, I learned that it cost close to five hundred dollars.

Something was amiss between the two women, but I couldn’t say at the time whether it warranted an investigation. I was curious about their relationship, but it was hard to say what an investigation could uncover. There’s only so much you can learn about someone through surveillance.

To save Ernie some money, I opted against an official report and simply called him to relay the facts of the day.

“So she was doing what she said she would be doing?” Ernie asked, sounding disappointed—not with his wife, but with himself.

“So it appears,” I replied. “But I’d like to at least continue the investigation one more day, just to be sure. Call me the next time she plans another outing with Sharon.”

“Okay,” Ernie said.

“One more thing, Ernie. Why would Sharon buy your wife a five-hundred-dollar scarf? Is her birthday coming up?”

“Her birthday isn’t for a while. May eighteenth. A five-hundred-dollar scarf?”

“Yes,” I replied. “That seemed a bit odd.”

“Rich people,” Ernie said as if that explained everything.

“Right,” I replied. “I’ll talk to you later, Ernie.”

That night I worked a shift at the Philosopher’s Club. My dad walked in early on, ordered a drink, and instead of griping about my current state of apathy, started griping about his back. There was something showy about his delivery that put me on guard.

“Maybe you should go to a doctor or a chiropractor or something,” I said, trying to be helpful.

“No, it’s not that bad.”

“Okay. So get some rest.”

“I just need a little something to ease the pain. You know what I mean?”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Dad. But I don’t have a prescription drug connection anymore, if you’re looking to score some Vicodin.”

“First of all, Isabel, Mom has a huge stash of emergency pain medication from all the dental work she had last year.
³
What I’m getting at is that it would be nice to use David’s hot tub. Hand over the key and I’ll leave it under the frog
⁴
when I leave. You won’t even know I was there.”

“Don’t you have an extra key to David’s place?”

“No. He never gave us one. I think he didn’t want you and Rae to have easy access to his house.”

“Maybe he didn’t want you and Mom to have easy access.”

Dad ignored my theory. “Hand it over,” he said.

I pulled the key out of my pocket and was about to relinquish it without securing anything in return, but I caught myself just in time.

“I’ll give you the key if you lay off the lectures for a month.”

“Fine. But I’m making a copy of the key so I can use the hot tub until David gets back.”

“One more thing,” I said, still clinging to my leverage. “You make yourself scarce when I’m around.”

“Deal.”

I
returned to David’s home at three A.M., after my shift. I kicked the frog, found the key, and went straight to bed. In the morning I discovered that my father had left several damp towels on the floor in the bathroom and a sinkful of unwashed dishes. Too many dishes for an afternoon snack. I called him at ten A.M., after I got my first sip of coffee.

“What the hell did you do here, Dad? Have a hot tub party?”

“It wouldn’t kill you to clean up after us for once in your life,” Dad replied.

“Who’s us?”

“Your mother and me. We decided to spend the evening at David’s place.”

“Why? You have your own house.”

“David’s is nicer and Mom likes cooking in his kitchen. Besides, she wanted to use the hot tub, too.”

My call-waiting beeped, and frankly, this conversation was over.

“Next time, clean up after yourselves. I’ve got to go.”

Morty was on the other line. “Hello,” I said.

“You rat!” Morty shouted.

“Hi, Morty.”

“You tattletale. You snitch. You Judas.”

“No need to waste the entire thesaurus.”

“How could you tell my grandson to steal my car?”

“He took your whole car? I just told him to take your keys.”

“But why?”

“You’re a menace to society, Morty. You could kill yourself or someone else.”

“Izzele, I’ve been driving for eighty-four years.”

“Check your math,” I replied, since Morty is exactly eighty-four years old.

“I’ve been driving seventy-two years, and other than a fender bender or two, and that one time I totaled the car on a light post during a windstorm in the late eighties, I haven’t been in an accident.”

“Then what’s with all the new scrapes and dents on your Caddy?”

“Why don’t you mind your own business for once? This conversation is over.”

Morty hung up before I could get in another word. Five minutes later he called back.

“Where are we having lunch today?” he asked.

“You still want to have lunch with me?”

“I have to eat, don’t I?”

Morty had arranged for his own transportation to Moishe’s Pippic.
¹
He figured my recent betrayal of trust earned him the restaurant pick for that week. When I arrived, he and his grandson, Gabe, were already seated at a back table.

“You’re late,” he said to me, not removing his eyes from the menu. A menu he has memorized, I might add.

I checked my watch. “Only five minutes.”

“Being on time is a courtesy. It shows respect.”

I sat down opposite the two men and waited for Morty to simmer down. He didn’t.

“I’m not sure if formal introductions are in order since you’ve already met, but I’ll keep my manners. Isabel the Snitch, meet my grandson, Gabe the Car Thief.” Morty then turned to Gabe and in the friendliest tone suggested, “The pastrami here is out of this world.”

“Why are you being nice to him?” I asked. “He’s the one who stole your car.”

“Because he’s family. You expect family to disappoint you.”

While Gabe delivered our orders at the counter, Morty stared at his menu, pretending to ignore me.

“Stop looking at the menu. You already ordered.”

Morty slapped the menu onto the table. “How am I supposed to get around now?”

“San Francisco has a fine public transportation system.”

“You want me to take the bus?!” Morty shouted. “I’m extremely old; by the time I get to the bus stop, I might be dead.”

“Well, if you keep driving…” I stopped myself short. “Look, Morty, if you need a ride someplace, call me. I’ll help out when I can. I’m sure Gabe will help you out. You can always call a cab, too.”

Morty’s fast boil was slowing to a simmer. It was time to learn whether any progress had been made on his wife’s return from Florida.

“When’s Ruthy coming home?” I asked.

“Only god and Ruthy have that answer. And neither is talking to me.”

“Have you called her?”

“Of course I’ve called her. What do you take me for? She won’t speak to me. She says if I want to talk I can get on a plane and talk to her in Miami.”

“Then maybe you need to go.”

Out of the corner of his Coke-bottle glasses, Morty caught Gabe returning to the table with our drinks. My old friend shot me a threatening glance and changed the subject.

“Are you crazy, Izzele? I’m not taking up bingo. I’ve better things to do with my time,” Morty said, louder than necessary.

Over lunch I learned that Gabe was none the wiser about his grandmother’s extended vacation. Morty lightened up on the verbal attacks. By the end of his pastrami sandwich he was in relatively decent spirits. We parted on almost-friendly terms and I reminded Morty that he should call me should he need my services as a chauffeur.