He found Marci downstairs and asked her how long she’d been cleaning the place.
“Since September, one year ago. Every week.”
“This was Janelle’s apartment, right?”
“Yes. She was nice and spoke Spanish very well. I saw her only two times. Once when I first started. Then a few days before she died. I work here on Fridays.”
Andy nodded. Noted the dishless kitchen counters. The shining sink. The unblemished floor.
“You are not what you say you are,” said Marci. She shook her head but looked down.
Andy admitted he was a reporter. And a friend of Janelle’s. This felt odd. He’d never considered himself a friend when she was living.
“Have you done the kitchen for today?”
“No.”
“Are there ever any dishes to do?”
“No.”
“What about the bed? Is it ever used?”
“Once,” she said. “Friday after she died.”
“The landlord is Mr. Stoltz?”
“I don’t know his name. Slender with a mustache. Thirty-five years. Maybe more. He said nothing to me but hello and goodbye.”
“When?”
Marci looked up at the ceiling while she thought. “Two Fridays ago.”
Two days after they found her in the packinghouse, thought Andy. “And the bed had been used?”
Marci blushed. “Yes,” she said. “It was not made. The sheets and pillowcases were gone. The bedspread and blanket were still here.”
He asked her what the landlord had done when he came here that day.
“He looked out the window upstairs. I was cleaning the bathroom and pretended I didn’t see him. He wiped his eyes.”
Andy thought of the secret man Janelle kept from Jesse Black. Stoltz? Almost certainly. Thought of Janelle’s letter to her sister. Roger doesn’t want anything in return except for me to be cool about it.
Really.
His heart sped up a beat when he remembered the scratches and the scab on Roger Stoltz’s hand that night at his parents’ house. After the funeral.
Janelle, pregnant by Stoltz?
Threatening to keep the child and demanding money?
Offering an abortion for a price?
An argument? A fight?
Jesse Black had said that Janelle was scheduled for an abortion.
Had childless Stoltz wanted her to keep their baby, and she refused?
Andy asked Marci how she knew that Janelle had been murdered.
“Her picture was in the Spanish paper. They called her the Queen with No Head.”
ANDY WENT through a door in the kitchen and into the garage. Small, for one car only. Dank and cool and he could smell the bay stronger. Noted that nobody could see him here if the big overhead garage door was shut. Tried to push it open with his foot but the outside latch was fastened. Found a light switch and turned it on.
Two red Schwinn ten-speeds hung end to end on brackets on one wall. Andy ran his finger along a crossbar. New paint shiny where the dust was gone. Below them a two-person Sears Whirlwind sailboat, tilted lengthwise. A sail-rigged mast hung above the bikes. Two orange life jackets hung from the pedals.
Toys, he thought. Toys for lovers. Never used and left behind.
He heard Lynette’s words: Even in the letters I can tell he wanted her for the same things any man would want her for. But she never did it with him. At least that’s what she wrote, and I believe her.
The concrete floor was clean. Old oil stains, faint and cut by bleach. Andy thought of Janelle’s powder blue Volkswagen. Also provided, along with the apartment and other gifts, by humanitarian Roger Stoltz.
Who was an honored friend of his father.
Who could make his mother smile.
Who fixed David with a job out of seminary and Nick with a letter from Dick Nixon and Clay with a CIA scholarship to a language school the Beckers probably couldn’t even afford and got Clay killed anyway.
Trouble was, Stoltz was in Washington, D.C., the night Janelle died. At least that’s what Stoltz’s congratulatory telegram on breaking the story had implied.
Back in the apartment Andy was surprised to find the telephone working. But why not, he wondered. Everything else was in running order. Even if the girl this was all for lived somewhere else entirely.
Representative Roger Stoltz’s office in Tustin picked up on the second ring. Pleasant female voice.
“This is Andy Becker of the Orange County Journal. We’re doing a story on Congressman Stoltz and need to confirm that he was here in Southern California on Tuesday, October the first, and attended a Republican Party fund-raiser hosted by John Wayne.”
“Oh. Let me see, Mr. Becker. Just a moment.”
Andy stood there twirling the coiled phone cord. Heard paper rustling. Heard Marci running a vacuum upstairs. Then the woman came back on the line.
“No, Mr. Becker. Roger was in Washington that day. The Un-American Activities House Committee had hearings and Roger is a member.”
“Right,” said Andy. “The Commies.”
“Yes, Roger understands that the Communist threat is real. He has proof that there are still some American citizens working against their own government. Some are involved in espionage, others spew propaganda and dissent. By the way, I enjoy your articles very much.”
Andy went upstairs again. Looked out the picture window and heard Marci banging around in the bathroom.
He asked her if she’d ever seen Janelle and the landlord together here.
“No,” she said. “I only saw her two times. Once was a year ago and once was three Fridays ago.”
“What was Janelle doing?
“The first, she was putting some clothes in the dresser. Second time, she was sitting at the kitchen table downstairs with a man. He was very large and had long blond hair and a broken smile. He wore a bright shirt with palm trees on it and short pants and huaraches with car tires for a bottom. Like they make in Mexico.”
“What is a broken smile?”
“His teeth were broken. A little. Not all the way.”
Cory Bonnett, thought Andy. “What was his name?”
“He didn’t speak to me. She blushed when I came in and didn’t look in my eyes. They looked like they were very…exhausted.”
“And this was when?”
“Friday. Before she died.”
ANDY DROVE to the RoMar Industries headquarters in Tustin. It was across town from the SunBlesst packinghouse, part of a light commercial zone up by State 55.
Marie Stoltz led Andy through the offices, warehouse, and shipping/receiving.
“None of the manufacturing is done here,” she said. She was dark-haired and pretty in a delicate way. Very small. Made Andy think of a Japanese doll. “The process is time-consuming and produces steam and noise. So we do the juicing, distilling, and blending up in Long Beach.”
“Interesting.”
“I’m happy that the Journal wants to do another story on us. Though I wonder why their crack crime reporter is writing it.”
She smiled sweetly.
Andy’s father came bustling into the office from the warehouse. Sleeves up, brow furrowed, clipboard in hand. He still wore the Irish Setters Andy remembered from his childhood. Still had the straight-backed alertness and sharp eyes that had helped him be such a good shotgunner and fisherman.
His eyes widened when he saw Andy. “Son, everything okay?”
“Journal wants another RoMar story,” said Andy. “Focus this time is on Marie, running the company while her husband saves the world from Communism.”
Andy smiled. Got a small one from Marie and none from his father.
“The label machine’s on the fritz again,” he said. “Just in time for the late morning run.”
“Maybe Rollins can fix it,” said Marie.
“I think Rollins broke it,” said Max. “I’ll have to shut down, see what I can do with it. If I can’t get it running right, we’re calling Federated Label again. If they can’t get here today this time, I’ll line up someone else.”
“Thanks, Max. You know those machines drive me loony.”