Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes (2 page)

Suspicion naturally centered on the think tank staff, an elite corps of intellectuals recruited from the most prestigious universities in the country. While lofty-minded, they apparently also had their earthy side; at least two were rumored to be having affairs with Cordy, a member of a wealthy family whose fortune went back to the days of the Nevada silver boom. Since her debut at the Winter Cotillion two years before, Cordy had delighted in shocking proper San Francisco society, and the dovecote—a small circular structure with high-beamed rafters, nestled on a wooded bluff above the Pacific—had been the scene of many a tryst. On the night of her death she reportedly had an appointment for a rendezvous with biochemist Vincent Benedict, but Benedict and his colleagues were gathered at a banquet at a financial district restaurant that evening. Prosecuting attorney Joseph Stameroff would later argue that the assignation was a setup engineered by Benedict's wife, Lisbeth, and that the resulting confrontation had been bloody and final.

That, anyway, was what the jury at Lis Benedict's trial had believed. At the time there were rumors of the involvement of people in high places, collusion between the police and the prosecutor's office, influence brought to bear by the rich and powerful family of the victim–the usual talk that surfaced in high-visibility murder cases that combined society, wealth, power and sex –but in the end no one gave them much credence. Lis Benedict was sentenced to die in the gas chamber, was reprieved at the last hour, and then had her sentence commuted to life in prison. Every time she came up for parole, the former prosecutor and a representative of the McKittridge family's law firm appeared at the hearing and argued successfully against her release.

That was virtually all I knew about the Two Penny Murder—facts I'd gleaned from a newspaper update that had run when Mrs. Benedict got out of prison. And the only reason I'd read it in the first place was my connection with Judy. Gruesome murders hold no fascination for me; I've seen too much ugliness in my work as a private investigator to relish gory accounts of true crime, current or historical. I supposed I could take a look at the trial transcript over the weekend. . .

For a moment I stopped thinking about it, emptied my mind, and tipped my head back, feeling the sun on my face. I'd often climbed up here to the little-used public land at the tip of Bernal Heights during my years at All Souls, some dozen steep blocks away on the northwestern incline. A barren russet outcropping, it towers above the ill-assorted small dwellings that crowd the lower slopes, standing fast in the face of nature's worst assaults. While much of the city is built on sandy fill that shifts or even liquefies during an earth tremor, this hill is bedrock; while other areas are easily altered by wind, rain, or tide, the elements have little impact here. I suppose a good part of the place's appeal for me is its homely permanence, which seems to embody a refreshing honesty and truth.

Honesty and truth: commodities that are generally in short supply for an investigator. How much of either was Lis Benedict offering me? The woman seemed sincere, but so do many murderers who claim innocence of the crimes for which they've been imprisoned. My conversation with her had been too brief to allow me to take an accurate reading.

Finally I got up, brushed off the seat of my jeans, and started downhill. At the far side of the access road I angled along several blocks to where I'd left my car on Wool Street near Judy's house. The homes I passed were an odd mixture: frame cottages, stucco row houses, small apartment buildings, classic Victorians. Many had vegetable gardens; a few had illegal chicken coops. There is a hint of the rural about Bernal Heights, which may be why it attracts couples with young children, newly arrived émigrés from Mexico, aging and nostalgic hippies, and oddball institutions such as All Souls.

As I rounded the corner of Wool Street, I saw a crowd in front of Judy's white Victorian. Concerned, I quickened my pace. The crowd –not large, since it was midafternoon on a Friday—milled about, murmuring in subdued voices. Lis Benedict stood just inside the low picket fence staring at the house's façade. As I went closer, I saw words spray-painted in red on the clapboard: Murdered. . . Killer . . . Bucher. They hadn't gotten all the spellings right, but the meaning was clear.

I pushed through the gawkers and touched Mrs. Benedict's arm. “Who did this? Did you see?”

She shook her head, unable to look away from the words. The paint was so fresh that it still dribbled. It speckled the white clapboard like a huge blood-spatter pattern. Judy was going to be horrified when she returned from the theater and saw this.

I turned and shouted to the people behind us, “Did anyone see who did this?”

More murmurs. Then a man in coveralls said, “A kid, looked Mexican. Ran off that way.” He pointed downhill toward Mission Street. “Shouldn't be hard to find him. He's got that red enamel all over his hands.”

I turned back to Lis Benedict. She hadn't moved. Her shoulders slumped, and the proud tilt of her head had vanished. I touched her arm again: slowly she looked at me. Her eyes were dull, their translucence muddled.

She said, “They warned me.”

“Who did?”

“Voices on the phone.”

“You've received threatening phone calls? Why didn't you tell me?”

She swallowed, took a deep breath, grasped my hand to steady herself. “I wanted you to decide whether or not to help me on the merits of my case alone. If I'd mentioned the calls, it would have sounded as if I were begging. I never beg. My life has been demeaning enough without stooping to that.”

Pride, stubborn pride. It could get you hurt, even killed. “When did you receive the calls?”

“They started on Tuesday, have been coming regularly ever since.”

“How often?”

“Two or three times a day.”

“What do they say?”

“The same as it does up there.” She motioned at the house. “Even worse.”

“Threats?”

“Not exactly. Just that I should leave the city, that I'm not wanted here.”

Anonymous phone calls: the refuge of cowards. I shook my head angrily. “You said, ‘voices.' Is it a different one each time?”

“I can't tell.”

“Male or female?”

“Male, with a Spanish accent.”

The people behind us were starting to leave. I watched them, wondering if a neighbor might be responsible for the calls. Any number of them might not want Lis Benedict living so close by.

She said something I didn't catch.

“What?”

“I'll have to go somewhere else.”

“They're just crank calls. Ignore them.”

“But this . . .” She gestured weakly at the house.

“A kid's malicious mischief.”

“Kids can be dangerous. I can't risk my daughter's safety.” She leaned heavily on my arm—no longer the haughty, unpleasant woman, but merely a vulnerable old lady.

My anger was high. I cautioned myself against allowing my emotions to influence my decision about whether to investigate her case. “Don't do anything hasty,” I told her. “At least talk it over with Judy first.”

She didn't reply. Her eyes were once again focused on the red spatter pattern. She shuddered, pushed me away, and stumbled toward the house's door—as if she'd suddenly remembered a blood-splashed scene thirty-six years in the past.

I made sure Lis Benedict was securely inside the cottage. Then I went looking for a kid with red hands.

The business establishments that I passed as I hurried along the crowded sidewalks of Mission Street reflected the influence not only of the area's working-class Irish and Italian settlers and today's predominately Hispanic population, but also recent encroachments of other cultures. Scattered among the small bodegas were Asian produce shops. Tacquerias abounded, but so did Vietnamese restaurants and sushi bars. The Remedy Lounge, All Souls' favorite watering hole, had been owned for more than forty years by the O'Flanagan family, and Spanish-language videos were still the staple of the rental shop, but a karate studio, a Filipino travel agency, and a Zen mediation center all foretold a new order.

While the various cultures remained relatively segregated on the street, inside City Amusement Arcade the melting-pot process prevailed. The appeal of video games knows no ethnic boundaries; kids of diverse backgrounds and appearances, speaking at least a half dozen languages, hunched over the glowing machines. The air was stale and far too warm, thick with smoke and redolent of cheap after-shave and sweat. I stopped inside the door and waited.

After a moment a slender young man wearing an expensive leather jacket emerged from one of the aisles. He glared at me as he took a comb from his pocket and ran it through his luxuriant black hair. I smiled. His scowl intensified, and he jerked his head toward the door. I went back outside and halfway down the block to a decrepit sandwich shop called the Serving Spoon. There I bought two cups of black coffee and sat in one of the booths. A few minutes later Tony Neuva came in and took the seat across from me.

“Jesus, McCone,” he said, “why do you have to stand around the arcade looking like you're my dope connection?”

“It's more likely people will think I'm your parole officer.”

“Shit, why would I have a P.O.? I'm a businessman is all.”

“Right.” At only nineteen, Tony Nueva had built a minor financial empire on a base of various semi-legal activities not the least of which was selling information to the highest bidder. The fact that he was still alive, much less thriving, testified to a certain warped genius.

He sipped his coffee and made a face. “What do you need?”

“Sometime during the past hour, a Hispanic kid painted graffiti on a house up on Wool Street. The spray can leaked, and the kid came away with red hands. I want to know who he is.”

Tony rolled the Styrofoam cup between his palms. “Graffiti artists are a dime a dozen. Some nights there're more of them than riders waiting for buses at the Muni stops.”

“Still, can you find out?”

“Why you so interested?”

“This is no ordinary incident. There's a possibility somebody hired him to do it.”

“I don't know McCone.”

“Come on, Tony. I've got faith in you. White Victorian. Red spray enamel.” I gave him the address. “It's twenty bucks to you when you deliver.”

“Now wait a minute! I got overhead—”

“Ten now, ten when you deliver.” I had the bill ready and pushed it across the table.

Tony made a disgusted sound and pocketed it. Ritual dance of informant and buyer ended, he said, “I'll have it for you by five. You gonna be in your office?”

“Yes.”

“Talk to you later.”

The big Victorian that houses All Souls was wrapped in scaffolding and its scabrous brown façade had been prepped for painting, but as I cut through the grassy triangle across the street, I didn't see any workmen. That in itself was a bad sign and should have prepared me for the chaos that reigned just inside the front door.

The first person I saw was an overall-clad man who apparently had tracked light-colored paint onto the newly refinished hardwood floor of the foyer. Another worked stood beside him, shouting and flailing a crowbar dangerously close to the antique chandelier. My assistant, Rae Kelleher, faced him, arms akimbo, her flushed face complementing her auburn hair. And Ted Smalley, our usually unflappable office manager, looked on with alarm.

“Ain't my fuckin' fault!” The man with the crowbar ended his tirade.

“It is, too, you idiot!” Rae exclaimed. “Don't you
dare
try to duck responsibility. You're dealing with a law firm, you know.”

“Goddamn roof's rotten.”

“Don't you try to blame your ineptitude on the roof!”

The worker gaped at her as if she'd said a filthy word—and one he wasn't familiar with, to boot.

“Color's not coming out,” the painter whined plaintively.

The others ignored him.

“Rae, please,” Ted said, “let's talk reasonably—”

“You keep out of this!” She grabbed at the crowbar as it grazed one of the chandelier's fluted-glass shades. “That was an expensive brass bed you crushed,” she told the workman.

“
I
didn't crush it. Fuckin' piece of roof fell on it.”

“Still, you're liable.” Rae looked at Ted. “He
is
liable, isn't he? Oh, shit, why am I asking you? You're not a lawyer. Where's Hank when I need him?”

Ted spotted me in the driveway and rolled his eyes. “Now I know why Hank and Anne-Marie picked this week to leave for Hawaii,” he said.

“What am I supposed to do with thirty gallons of paint that looks like what I find in my kid's diaper?”

“If you don't pay for that bed, I'll sue!”

“The hell you say!”

I slammed the front door and shouted, “Everybody shut up!”

Quite incredibly, they did.

Ted quickly seized control. “You,” he said to the painter, “go outside and get something to clean this floor. We'll talk about the color problem on Monday.”

Exit the painter, muttering.

Ted turned to Rae. “That roof
is
in bad shape, and I happen to know that your brass bed is a cheap imitation. I'm sure our insurance will cover its replacement.”

She hesitated. I could tell she was torn between the pleasure of laying into the workman again and the wisdom of staying in Ted's good graces so he'd file a claim.

Ted asked the workman, “Are those skylights going to need special bracing so the roof'll support them?”

He nodded.

“How much?”

The workman opened his mouth, then glanced at Rae. Suddenly downcast, her lower lip aquiver, she'd undergone a transformation from the litigious bitch from hell to Little Match Girl. “Aw, I'll do it for a hundred,” he said.