“His private life?”
“Divorced five years ago, no kids. Been at the Kirkham address about that long. Bought himself a brand-new Lexus last month. Not much doubt where he got the money for it.”
“There has to be some tie to Captain Archie, Redwood Village.”
“None I could find.”
“The ex-wife?”
“Nothing there. She moved out of state after the divorce.”
“Well, there’s a connection somewhere,” I said. “We don’t have enough evidence to nail Klinghurst for fraud, or even to stir up an official investigation. Murder’s a strong possibility, all right, if Captain Archie realized he’d been cheated and threatened to blow the whistle, but there’s nothing to back it up or to involve Klinghurst. The missing link is how he and Todd got together in the first place.”
“I’ll keep working on it, blow off my afternoon classes if I have to. No problem.”
“Up to you. Meanwhile I’ll check out Klinghurst’s neighbors.”
“That mean you’re coming back up here now?”
“I might as well. I’m not meeting Agonistes until five — that’s seven hours, and there’s not much I can do down here to fill up the time.” Except run around talking to people who wouldn’t want to see me and wouldn’t be likely to tell me anything they might know — people like the three rumored past lovers of Sheila Hunter, and Smith again in person, and Doc Lukash and Anita Purcell and Richard Twining and any other member of the country club set who knew Mrs. Hunter. Frustrating waste of time, without either leverage or conclusive knowledge. And potentially counterproductive. If there were no leads in the Hunter house, then tomorrow I’d have to bite the bullet and start making the rounds. But not until then.
“Want me to try Mrs. Wade again?” Tamara asked.
“No. Prodding her will only get her back up.”
“I like that old lady, you know? Reminds me of my granny. Tough old meat with a real sweet center.”
I laughed. But Tamara was serious.
“We gonna nail this bastard Klinghurst for her, boss, one way or another. Slimeballs that prey on old people, take their money and what little time they got left, they’re the worst breed of lowlife there is.”
“Amen to that. You know something, Ms. Corbin?”
“What’s that?”
“I like you. Tough young meat with a real sweet center.”
18
San Francisco is essentially two cities when it conies to weather. East of Twin Peaks, the downtown area, is the sunny side, where warming air and wind currents scrub the skies clean on most dry days. West of Twin Peaks, the largely residential ocean side, is the fogbelt where you can spend days, even weeks shivering under a chill gray canopy and never once see the sun. San Franciscans get used to this phenomenon, which is not to say they like it much if they’re westsiders. My flat is on the sunny side and Kerry’s condo is atop Twin Peaks, right on the dividing line, but I was born out near Daly City and I know all too well what it’s like being one of the “fog people.”
The Inner Sunset is also on the gray side, close to Golden Gate Park and the upper reaches of the Haight-Ashbury. Old San Francisco, less dramatically changed than some parts of the city but still undergoing a slow metamorphosis. The rising Asian population in the Outer Sunset has spread inland from the ocean; many of the faces and small businesses on Irving Street, the neighborhood’s commercial hub, are Chinese. Panhandlers and dope peddlers work the area now, and there is evidence of graffiti, vandalism, the subtler forms of urban decay. Still, it’s a reasonably safe and comfortable area to live in as long as you don’t mind the weather.
The fog was in, thick and dripping, when I pulled up in front of John Klinghurst’s building a few minutes past eleven. The architecture here was mixed, everything from one of the brown-shingled cottages built in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake to newish, five-and six-story apartment buildings. Klinghurst’s was a narrow, two-story, stone-faced edifice that had probably been somebody’s private home back in the twenties. There are a lot of places like that in the city, most of them cut up into two, three, or four flats, or several tiny apartments. This one housed four flats, two up and two down: there were four mailboxes in the cramped vestibule. Klinghurst lived upstairs, in 2-A.
I was looking at the other names, hunched against the cold, when a woman came out of one of the ground-floor flats inside. She seemed to be in a hurry; she shoved through the entrance so quickly that I had to backpedal and go down a step to keep the door from whacking into me. She was on the short side, wiry, with iron-gray hair straggling out from under a shapeless hat, a straight-backed carriage, and an unlined, young-old face. She could have been anywhere from sixty to eighty. She wore tennis shoes, Levi’s, a flannel shirt, and a thin sweater — no coat or gloves, in spite of the fact it was that kind of day here.
I said, “Excuse me, ma’am. If you don’t mind I’d like a few minutes of your time.”
Bright blue eyes scowled at me. Snap, crackle, and pop eyes. “I do mind,” she said in a voice to match. “If you’re selling something, you’d better get out of my way. I don’t like solicitors.”
“I’m not a solicitor. I have some questions about one of your neighbors.”
“Which one?”
“John Klinghurst.”
“That asshole. You a friend of his?”
“No, I’m not.”
“What are you then?”
“A private investigator. I—”
“Hah!” she said, and I couldn’t tell if she meant anything by it or not. “I don’t have time to stand around and chew the fat. I’m going to the market. You want to ask me questions, you’ll have to walk along with me.”
She didn’t wait for an answer; she pushed past me — energetically, not rudely — and went down the steps and set off at a brisk pace. I had to hustle to catch up with her. She was short and she took short strides, but she covered a lot of ground in a hurry.
“Market’s three blocks,” she said. “Think you can keep up?”
“No problem.” But I had to work a little just the same.
“Walking’s good for you. Good for the heart, good for the lungs and leg muscles.” She gave me a sidelong glance. “Good for trimming off fat, too. You ought to do more of it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am. My name is Farber, Alice Farber.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Ms. Farber.”
“No you’re not, but at least you’re polite. Not like that asshole you’re investigating. Why are you anyway?”
“Investigating Klinghurst? Well—”
“Screwed somebody, probably, and I don’t mean sex. He’s the type. No scruples, no manners. He once called me a sorry old bitch to my face.”
“What’d you call him back?”
“A prick with ears.” She laughed. “He didn’t like it.”
“I’ll bet he didn’t.”
“Well? You didn’t answer my question.”
“I think he screwed somebody, just as you said.” She wasn’t one to mince words; I saw no reason why I should. “Scammed a friend of my mother-in-law’s out of his life savings.”
“Hah! I knew he was that kind! Why hasn’t he been arrested?”
“No proof yet.”
“Better get plenty of it so some asshole lawyer doesn’t get him off. Think you’ll have it before the end of the month?”
“I hope so.”
“Good. I’d like to be there when the cops come for him.”
“Are you going somewhere at the end of the month?”