“Three hundred. That’s at least a few years. I could do something else.”
“I’m sure you could,” he said. “Anything you wanted, probably.”
“And you wouldn’t care?”
He laughed quietly. “Jan, I’m going to be a doctor. I’m going to make money hand over fist. You’re going to be able to do anything you want.” He drew her back into him. “So where’s our little Benjamin now?”
“He’s still at my mom and dad’s.”
“So we’re actually alone? What are we waiting for?”
6
Maya Townshend’s home was a big cut above average even in its very prestigious location. Behind a sculpted rose garden the residence rose four stories on the large northeast corner lot of Green and Divisadero. Behind it the escarpment dropped off precipitously down to the Marina, which meant that all of Maya Townshend’s back and west-side windows-all forty-six of them-had killer views of the bay, the rust-red Golden Gate Bridge, the Marin headlands.
It was a multimillion-dollar property, and standing out in front of it, Bracco whistled. “There’s more money in coffee than I thought.”
Schiff stared at the immensity of the house, shaking her head. “This isn’t coffee money, Darrel. Unless she also owns Starbucks. But in that case Bay Beans West would have been a Starbucks, right? No way she wouldn’t have gone for the brand name.”
It was closing in on one o’clock, the schizophrenic temperature back up near seventy. Above them, high clouds drifted in the blue. A fitful breeze, barely strong enough to ruffle Schiff’s hair, hinted of another change in the weather, but for the moment it was nice.
The ornately carved door had an eight-toned ring.
“Lord, we thank thee. We bow our heads.”
Schiff turned to him. “What?”
“Those bells. The song that goes with it. Lord, we thank thee. We bow our heads. You watch,” he said. “She’s Catholic.”
“Maybe, but the Ferry Building, you might not have noticed, plays the same song.”
“Maybe it’s a Vatican plot.”
Before Schiff could come back with a suitable wisecrack, the door opened to an attractive dark-haired woman in her early thirties who dressed as though she’d never heard of the Haight-Ashbury, or blue jeans, for that matter. In fact, she wore a grown-up, upscale version of the uniform for a Catholic girls’ school-a plaid skirt over a white shirt under an argyle sweater. Her hair curled under at the shoulders. Green eyes, flawless skin.
Bracco and Schiff hadn’t specifically told her when, or even if, they’d be coming by. Schiff had talked to her by telephone briefly over the weekend and said that the police might like to interview her sometime about Dylan Vogler and the business she owned, but she’d purposely refrained from making an appointment. There was the possibility that Maya wouldn’t be in when they came to call, of course, but that downside was more than offset by the chance to catch her before she’d talked to a lawyer or given too much thought to what she might want to tell the inspectors.
“Hello,” she said. “Can I help you?”
Bracco had his ID out. “Police inspectors, ma’am. Homicide. We wonder if we might have a word. On the Dylan Vogler matter.”
“Sure. Of course.” She stepped back, maybe unable to come up with an excuse on the spur of the moment why this wasn’t a great time-and invited them inside, through a large square foyer with a thirty-foot ceiling.
Schiff stopped, agog at the panorama through the enormous windows. Apparently her reaction wasn’t that unusual.
Maya stopped and presented the view as though it belonged to her. “I know,” she said. “We’re very fortunate.”
“You must be selling a whole lot of coffee,” Bracco said.
Maya’s contralto laugh was unforced. “Oh, this doesn’t come from BBW. This is all Joel, my husband. He’s in real estate. The coffee shop is really more or less a hobby for me, to keep me busy.”
Schiff came at her with a casual tone. “I understand you don’t spend much time there.”
Maya nodded. “Yes, that’s true, very little. But I do most of the books, approve the ordering, sign the paychecks, that kind of thing.” She shrugged apologetically. “It might not be really true, but I feel like I’m somewhat involved. It’s good to have something keeping you busy besides the kids and outside of housework. Maybe you know.”
Neither Schiff nor Bracco was married, so maybe they didn’t. But Bracco kept the early patter alive. “But the place breaks even?”
“Oh, much better than that. Last year we grossed around forty thousand a month. It’s actually quite a little gold mine, all things considered. People really like the place.” Suddenly a pout appeared. “I’m sorry. What kind of hostess am I? Here we are all standing around. Would you like to sit down? Can I get you some coffee or something?”
“Sitting’s good.” Bracco lowered himself onto an ottoman. “Nothing for me, though.”
Schiff took one end of the overstuffed floral-print couch. “I’m fine too.”
For another second or two Maya stood expectantly, then she shrugged and took her place at the other end of the couch. “So all this business talk is interesting to me, of course, but that’s not why you’re here. How can I help you?”
Schiff threw a look over to Bracco, and he came forward slightly. “Well, let’s get the hard stuff out of the way first. How long had Dylan Vogler managed BBW?”
Maya’s lips turned up. “That’s not a hard one. He pretty much started when I opened, which was ten years ago, and took over full-time about two years later.”
“Were you aware,” Bracco continued, “that he was selling marijuana out of BBW?”
All traces of animation left her face. “To be honest, I had heard a couple of rumors.” She looked at Schiff.
The female inspector nodded. “They were evidently true. He was growing high-grade marijuana in his attic. He had a backpack full of it on him when he was shot. He’s got records at his house for about seventy regular clients, a couple dozen of which we’ve already talked to. He sold it out of the store.”
Maya’s hand went to her mouth. “I didn’t realize it was-”
“So”-Bracco kept up the press-“you didn’t know that he had a criminal record?”
Her brow clouded as she whiplashed back to Bracco. “Well, yes. I knew about that. But that was a long time ago.”
Schiff again. “Before he worked for you.”
“Right.”
Bracco, double-teaming. “You knew about his record when you hired him?”
“Of course.”
“Of course?” Schiff asked.
Maya nodded. “We were friends. We’d been friends in college, USF. I knew he’d made a mistake, but he’d paid for it, and I had an opportunity to help him get back on his feet. It didn’t seem like any kind of risk. He was a good guy and everybody liked him. He’s been an ideal manager for all this time.” She paused. “I can’t believe he was selling dope over the counter at the store.”
“That’s pretty much established, ma’am,” Bracco said. “Do you mind telling us how much he made working for you?”
For the first time Maya showed a reluctance to answer. Her back straightened for a second. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“Nevertheless,” Schiff said, “it could save us some time.”
Still rigid on her corner of the couch, now no longer smiling, Maya looked at her hands in her lap. “He made ninety thousand dollars a year. Seventy-five hundred a month.”
“A lot of money,” Schiff said.
“As I said,” Maya responded, “the store made money. And largely because of Dylan’s management. He did a good job, and I thought it was fair to pay him well.”
“What’s a manager of a Starbucks make?” Schiff asked.
Maya shook her head. “Less than that, I’m sure. But that doesn’t matter. I’m not a big multinational corporation. I don’t have stock-holders. I can pay him whatever I want. He worked hard and I wanted to keep him happy, so I paid him well. As I said, we were friends in college. Once I got him set up, and especially once he started having a family, I felt a responsibility for him. Is there anything wrong with that?”