Too Close to the Edge (20 page)

All the porch lights were on again. In another few minutes the beat officer would be pulling up out front. The neighbors would be traipsing over to make their complaints. Mr. Kepple would be recounting Bert Prendergast’s advice. And when the beat officer discovered a detective he could defer to …

If I planned to get any sleep I needed to get out of here fast.

A slice of redwood fell. Mr. Kepple turned off the saw. Spotting me he smiled. “Taking my advice, huh? Well, you have a good time.” He poised the saw over the log and turned it on.

At the station, I hurried to my office, grateful to avoid anyone who might ask what I was doing with a sleeping bag under my arm. I spread the bag out between the desks, hung my slacks and turtleneck over the back of my chair, and crawled in, smiling. A sleeping bag may not be a bed, but when you’re used to sleeping in one, it gives you a lot of freedom. One floor is like another.

My last thoughts were, again, of Liz Goldenstern. Again, I failed to push them from my mind and feared I’d spend the night dreaming of the murky bay water filling her nostrils. But I didn’t dream of anything. I didn’t even move until the light went on.

In bleary outrage, I parted my eyelids.

From the doorway, Howard stared down at me. “What are you doing here?”

I dragged my arm out of the bag and held it in front of my eyes, taking a moment to focus on my watch. “It’s five in the morning. Why are you here? I didn’t invite you over.”

“Jill, you’re in the office.”

I rolled to the right and found myself face to face with my bottom desk drawer. “Oh.” Rolling back, I propped myself on my elbows. “Mr. Kepple was sawing off burls of redwood for his path last night. The neighbors were ready to riot. I’d been up all the night before. I thought,” I said, bitterly, “that I could get some sleep here.”

“Oh, sorry. Go back to sleep.” He stepped back to the door.

My eyes focused enough to take in Howard’s appearance. His thick carrot-colored hair stood out in unruly curls. His skin looked drawn, and the dark gray under his eyes was not unlike my own. “Hey, wait. How come you’re here?”

He shrugged. “Nothing to rival your reason.”

I started to sit up, then realized I was only wearing a bra. “Come on, Howard. You’ve got to have some fairly good reason to be in the police station at five in the morning.”

“Well, I thought I could get an hour or so of sleep.” The parties Howard’s roommates gave could be even louder than Mr. Kepple’s mower.

“But I thought you were staying with Nancy.”

“I am.” Leaning back against the door jamb, he said, “Did I mention that she has a dog?”

“No.” I was tempted to say he hadn’t mentioned much of anything about Nancy, but grogginess prevented what tact might not have.

“Well, she does. Gander. I like dogs. I had a Weimaraner as a kid. He went everywhere with me. I was broken up for months after he got hit.”

I nodded, letting Howard take what time necessary to get to the point.

“And God knows, my roommates have had enough dogs, cats, parrots. One even kept a tarantula.” He squatted down and flicked my feet with his hand. When I bent my knees, he settled cross-legged on the end of the bag. “The thing is that Nancy’s dog hates me. He’s jealous. If we close the door and leave him out, he barks. If we let him in he clambers onto the middle of the bed. And Jill, this dog, he’s a Newfoundland.”

I laughed. I had had a Newfoundland as a child. I knew about their patience, their responsibility, their loyalty. But they weighed over two hundred pounds. Picturing the mass of black fur maneuvering Howard toward the edge of the bed, I laughed harder.

“Some friend you are,” he muttered, but even he couldn’t resist a smile. “I haven’t even told you the worst. He crawls up, wedges himself in between us, rolls over so his back is against Nancy, then he shifts himself around, with a scratch here and there, and ends up with his mouth by my ear. And Jill, do you know how much a Newfoundland drools?”

I pounded the floor in laughter, with each let-up bringing new pictures of drool-related disasters in my childhood house, which only made me laugh harder. I rolled onto my stomach and buried my face until the chortling and gurgling stopped. Only then did I realize that Howard was staring blankly at me. His freckled face was flushed, but it wasn’t with amusement.

“It sounds ridiculous,” he said slowly. “It’s like something sitcoms are made of. But it’s really gotten to me. I mean, dammit, Jill, it’s insulting to take second place to a dog.”

Clutching the bag in front of me, I reached out a hand and put a hand on Howard’s arm. I knew him well enough to realize that he wasn’t so much insulted as hurt. He might be more than a little shocked. Howard had always had women willing to give up apartments, lovers, or careers for him. His only problem had been choosing among these women. In his more serious relationships, the ones he hadn’t told me about until they were over, he had had the women stay the weekend at his place. He had gone with them for weeks to Tahoe or Mazatlan. But he had never come close to giving up his own place and moving in with a woman before.

My teeth jammed together and I could feel my face coloring. I wanted to get up and stalk across the street to wherever this callous woman lived and smack her silly.

Howard weaved his fingers in among mine. “I feel like a fool,” he said.

His hand was cold. “That’s okay. I felt like one every time I complained about my divorce.”

“It’s not the sex I’m complaining about, though it’s hard to get in the mood with the growls coming under the door. It’s not even the dog himself.” His fingers squeezed into the flesh of my palm. “It’s just that there’s this thing between us, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Nancy won’t even talk about it.”

The cold flowed down my unprotected back. I shivered. Howard leaned over and tossed me my turtleneck, but he didn’t let go of my hand. Awkwardly, I draped it over my shoulders. He settled back against his desk, his long legs bent over my knees. And we sat, not moving, with time, in that stillness, ceasing to exist. By tacit agreement we had never taken the chance of endangering a friendship that had been vital to both of us. But I could feel it all balanced on the tip of an atom now. It wouldn’t require more than a word, or even a look. Just one movement.

It would be so easy, so comfortable to stroke his hand with the tip of my finger, to draw him in.

But not this way, when he was deflated by someone else. I sighed. “You know, Howard, a dog is almost like a child. So trusting, so emotionally helpless. You can’t explain to a dog that it just looks like he’s being replaced. How long has Nancy had this dog?”

“Six years,” he said hoarsely.

“Look at it from Nancy’s view. It must be an awful situation for her. Would you want a woman who didn’t care about her dog? It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you. You’re just able to handle the situation better than the dog. Give her a little time.”

He nodded.

His fingers felt waxy, like a mannequin’s. He drew them out and, without looking at me, made the offer that had always eased uncomfortable situations here. “Let’s go to Wally’s and you can tell me about your case.”

A
T SIX
A.M. W
ALLY’S
was nearly empty. Howard and I sat at a small table by the window, and when Wally came over Howard ordered the huge Walleroo. I hesitated. I felt like I hadn’t eaten in days. Indeed, the last meal I had had was in here yesterday morning. I ordered the Wallyrag and hoped I wouldn’t be too tired and depressed to get through it. My voice was lifeless. I hoped Howard would credit that to my lack of sleep, or to mid-case blues. I hoped Wally wouldn’t carry on in his normal way about my lack of appetite.

“So, how’s the murder case going?” It was the same question Howard had asked me many times, even the same words, but it sounded hollow now. I wished I had begged off breakfast. By now, he probably wished I had, too.

But we were here. And no matter how out of sync, we had to make it through breakfast. I said, “Liz was killed between ten and midnight, night before last. That morning her husband-of-convenience threatened to drown the Marina Vista contractor at the same spot.”

“Why there?” he asked, looking into his coffee cup.

“Ian Stuart, the husband, lives in Rainbow Village,” I answered observing the view out the window.

“He’s the guy who was railing about Marina Vista?”

“Yes, but helicopters are his passion. He says—and other residents agree—that he didn’t really care about Rainbow Village, or Marina Vista.”

“Then why the fuss?”

“Best guess is animosity toward Butz.” I sipped at the hot coffee. “Then there’s Liz’s landlord, Laurence Mayer, who says he spent the night with his girlfriend.”

“Good alibi for both of them.”

“Exactly. He’s a psychologist who says he’s committed to helping people with disabilities. He was driving the car that put Liz in the chair.”

“Whew! A little guilt?”

“A lot. He bought Liz the building to provide her a decent place to live. And Liz asked him to be on the board of Marina Vista. It’s pretty clear that he and Brad Butz, the builder, aren’t crazy about each other.”

“Butz isn’t a real likeable guy,” Howard said, with a small shake of the head.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t had someone from City Hall on my tail by now. Maybe he doesn’t have as much influence as he says.”

“More likely, City Hall’s as sick of him as we are.”

I nodded. “He’s certainly taken his position at Marina Vista seriously. You’d think he was Berkeley’s Contractor Laureate.”

“Loathing Butz could be viewed as a plus for Mayer, and Stuart. But what’s Mayer’s gripe?”

“They both claimed credit for the special features of the building, like the outdoor circular ramp.”

“Both wanted to see themselves as top dog.” Howard jerked back infinitesimally as he realized the allusion to his own predicament.

“And neither of them was,” I said quickly. “Liz had the power. She’s the one who got the permit to build apartments on the waterfront. It’s illegal to put housing on fill. The consensus is that no one else could have managed that.”

“Still, there’s no question that both the shrink and the builder wanted to see themselves as the power behind the throne. There has to be a lot of prestige in this project. They’ll want everyone else to know who Number One is.”

Wally put Howard’s platter in front of him with a nod of approval. And, showing hitherto unseen self-control, he said nothing as he set down my eggs, home fries, and toast. He even brought the mustard and ketchup without grimacing.

“I’ll tell you the thing that’s been bugging me, Howard. Why did Liz go down there that night? And how did she get there? It takes a truck or a van to transport a power chair, and a ramp to get it into the vehicle.”

“Well, who of the suspects has a van?”

“Let’s see,” I said, forking a wad of egg. “Butz, the builder, has a panel truck with a ramp. Greta Tennerud, the shrink’s girlfriend, has access to the one that belongs to Racer’s Edge. Aura Summerlight and Ian Stuart have pickups—no ramps—but hers doesn’t run, and his has a hot tub on the back.”

“His has what?”

I shrugged. “We
are
in California. And Laurence Mayer doesn’t drive at all.”

“That doesn’t sound very upwardly mobile,” he commented before stuffing a piece of waffle in his mouth.

“After the accident, Mayer swore he’d never drive again. It was one of the promises he made to Liz.”

Howard shook his head. “That doesn’t fit with a middle-aged guy who’s peacocking around his beautiful, young, athlete lover. Let me tell you about the male ego, Jill.”

I smiled. This was a classic Howard line. And it sounded the way it always had.

“If a guy plans to spread his tail feathers, he doesn’t take the bus to do it.”

“When I saw Mayer yesterday morning he’d just run home after a night with Greta.”

“Running home in the morning is the hard-muscle thing to do. Walking to the bus stop at night is not. Mayer may not own a car—I’m betting he does, but I’ll give on that—but when he takes out his pea hen, I’m willing to bet my …” He rolled his eyes up in thought. “What? You’ve already got my parking space.”

“Skip the prize. When Greta and Mayer go out, you bet … ?”

“He’s behind the wheel.”

I nodded. “I’ll check.

Howard shook his head. “I could have made a bundle on this one.” He turned his attention back to the dish before him. Howard had ordered a breakfast fit for the Forty-Niners training table. He hadn’t appeared to be gulping his food. But in record time his platter was empty.

“Hey,” I said, “you’re eyeing my toast.”

“I thought you’d forgotten it.”

I stuffed a piece in my mouth. Then, relenting, I handed him the other half. Without a second thought he ate it.

My throat tightened. With time, the time I had pressured Howard to give her, Nancy would deal with her dog. Or the dog would adjust to Howard. Then everything would be fine for them. There’d be no more breakfast sessions like this. Howard would be eating at home, with her. The beers after work, the lap swims at the pool—there wouldn’t be any more of those. He’d be too busy buying charcoal for the barbecue. And the piquant tension that underlay it all, that certainly would be gone. Rats. I had done the decent thing. And I was sorry. Maybe there was reincarnation and I would get a reward in the next life—a big one.

“But, still,” I said, “that doesn’t tell me how Liz got to the waterfront.”

“You should have made Herman Ott tell you that instead of making a big deal about Liz being married. That you could have discovered yourself.”

“She had a driver’s license, from before the accident,” I said, ignoring the jibe about Ott. Ott was a sore point with Howard. In four years, Howard had gotten zilch from Ott. “The D.M.V. sent her one of those renewals through the mail, so it’s still good—no restrictions.”

“But with that kind of paralysis …”

“You’d be surprised, Howard. They make vans to be driven almost as easily as power chairs. Some have a board of push buttons, some have a knob on the steering wheel, some are driven by the same hand controls that work the chair. Liz could have driven …” I stopped, cup poised mid-air.