His wife said, “What earthly good would it do us to subject the Abbott woman to petty vandalism? We’ve already lost her property, thanks to that bleeding-heart judge.”
“I’m not here to accuse you of anything,” I said. “I just want to ask you a few questions.”
“We don’t have anything to say to you. We don’t know anything; we don’t want to know anything.”
“And furthermore, you don’t give a damn.”
“You said that, I didn’t. Anyway, why should we?”
“Because an old woman in trouble deserves a little compassion?”
“Not that crazy old woman. Or her even crazier friend. Not after all we’ve been put through, all the legal fees they cost us.”
Patterson said, “If you or the Alvarez woman try to imply that we’re involved, or that we’re in any way exploiters of the chronologically gifted, we’ll sue for defamation of character. I mean that-we’ll sue.”
“Exploiters of the what?” I said.
“You heard me. The chronologically gifted.”
Christ, I thought. Old people hadn’t been old people-or elderly people-for some time, but I hadn’t realized they were no longer even senior citizens. Now they were the “chronologically gifted”-the most asinine example of newspeak I had yet encountered. The ungifted agency types who coined such euphemisms ought to be excessed, transitioned, outsourced, offered voluntary severance, or provided with immedate career-change opportunities. Or better yet, subjected to permanent chronological interruption.
So much for the Pattersons. A waste of time coming here; you couldn’t get them to admit to anything even remotely illegal or unethical, no matter what you said or did. All the interview had accomplished was to confirm Helen Alvarez’s low opinion of the pair. I’d be satisfied if it turned out they had something to do with the vandalism and scare tactics, but hell, where was their motive? Opportunistic assholes, yes; childishly vindictive tormenters, no. And unfortunately there is no law against being an asshole in today’s society. If there was, 10 percent of the population would be in jail and another 10 percent would be on the cusp.
Charley Doyle, Mrs. Abbott’s nephew, worked for a glass-service outfit in Daly City. I called to see if he was in, and he wasn’t: out on a job and not expected to return until late afternoon.
I spent the rest of the morning checking in with Helen Alvarez-no further incidents at the Abbott home-and then interviewing several of Mrs. Abbott’s neighbors. None of them had anything enlightening to tell me. A few had opinions, though, as to who was responsible for the vandalism; the Pattersons topped the list, followed by Everett Belasco’s “bums or street punks.”
I had no appetite, so I skipped lunch and drove downtown to the agency. Tamara had promised to do some background checking on the principals in the case and I thought there might be something in the data to give me a direction to move in. But she wasn’t there; Jake Runyon was holding down the fort. The background info wasn’t there, either. Usually she prints out Internet material, my computer skills being what they aren’t, and leaves the papers on my desk. No papers today. And no note of explanation.
I asked Runyon, “Tamara say when she’d be back from lunch?”
“No. Just to lock up if she wasn’t here by the time I was ready to leave. Everything okay with her?”
“Why do you ask?”
“She doesn’t seem herself lately. Took a bite out of me this morning for a mistake in my Bower case report that wasn’t a mistake.”
“I’ve noticed it, too,” I said. “Distracted. Worked up about something personal she doesn’t want to talk about, probably. She didn’t do background checks I asked for yesterday-and that’s a first for her.”
Runyon had nothing to say to that. He was reticent when it came to personal matters himself. The best field investigator I’d ever worked with, but a private man, inwardly focused much of the time, weighed down with grief over the lingering cancer death of his second wife a couple of years ago. But lately it seemed as if he was finally starting to let go of his grief. He was more relaxed, less determined to wrap himself cocoonlike in his work. Reason for the change: Bryn Darby, the graphic designer and artist he’d met a couple of months ago. Their relationship seemed to be developing legs; for his sake, I hoped so.
Runyon went off to interview somebody on the bail-jump case he was working for Abe Melikian, and I went back into my office to take care of some routine business. But I wasn’t alone for long. Ten minutes later, Tamara banged in.
“Banged” is the right word. She shouldered open the door, slammed it shut behind her, and stomped into her office. I got up to look in through the open connecting door. She was shedding her coat; instead of hanging it up, she pitched it onto the client’s chair; and when it slid off onto the floor, she left it there. Good Tamara was on vacation again, Bad Tamara once more the temp in residence.
“Hey,” I said, “what’s up, kiddo?”
“Nothing,” she said. She sounded frustrated as well as grumpy. “Waiting’s a bitch.”
“Waiting for what?”
“Just waiting, that’s all.”
“If you want to talk-”
“I don’t. Just want to get back to work.”
“On those background checks I asked for yesterday?”
“What? Oh… yeah. Meant to do them this morning, but I got sidetracked.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d do them now. Unless you’ve got more pressing business.”
“No. Get right on it.”
I felt that I ought to say something more to her, try to draw her out a little, but you can’t get through to Bad Tamara. Reason, subtle probing, the fatherly or mentor approach… none of it works. All you can do is ride out the storm until Good Tamara decides to come home again.
10
It didn’t take Tamara long to run the checks on the various individuals I’d encountered so far in the Abbott case. All but two had spotless records, the Pattersons among them unless you counted questionable ethics and business practices. The other two had only minor blemishes on their records, though one of the blemishes was of some potentially relevant interest.
Charley Doyle, the nephew, had been arrested twice, once on a D amp; D charge and once, five years ago, for causing a traffic accident while drunk that landed a forty-four-year-old Millbrae woman in the hospital with minor injuries. For the latter he’d paid a hefty fine and lost his driver’s license for a year; he was lucky the injured woman hadn’t sued him. Mrs. Alvarez’s brother, Leonard Crenshaw, was a parking scofflaw-twenty-two unpaid parking tickets dating back several years-and had been arrested once at age eighteen on a charge of malicious mischief. He and two other dummies had broken into an abandoned house in the Excelsior District and trashed it for no reason other than pure deviltry. A judge had ordered him and his cohorts to pay damages and sentenced them to two hundred hours each of community service.
Once a vandal, always a vandal? Pretty thin, but something to keep in mind just the same. And to ask Helen Alvarez and Crenshaw about the next time I saw them.
At a little after three I drove out to Dependable Glass Service, on Mission a half mile or so beyond the San Francisco-Daly City line, to see what I could find out from Charley Doyle. I’d been told he’d be back in the shop by three thirty, and he had been. But then he’d immediately signed out for the day; I missed him by five minutes. Glaziers evidently had the same sweetheart thirty-six-hour workweek as plumbers and other union tradespeople.
I told one of the office workers that I needed to talk to Doyle on an urgent matter regarding his aunt. That bought me his home address, which was also in Daly City. In my car I looked up the street and a route on one of the sheaf of maps I keep in the glove box. Newer cars nowadays are equipped with GPS navigators that make printed maps pretty much obsolete; Kerry has one in hers. But mine is fifteen years old, and even when I trade it in, as I figure I’ll need to do fairly soon, it’ll likely be for a used pre-GPS model. I’m a Luddite when it comes to modern technological advancements. A lighted computer screen on my dashboard and a disembodied mechanical voice giving me directions and chastising me if I didn’t follow them to the letter would only make me uncomfortable. I prefer to get my directions the old-fashioned way.