“How much is the estate worth?” I asked him.
“Upwards of two million. Of course, the bulk of that is in property and other non-liquid assets.”
“How much cash?”
“Something better than five hundred thousand.”
“The three primary beneficiaries are his widow, his daughter, and his brother Leonard, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Divided how?”
“The cash into equal thirds,” Rossiter said. “Most of the property and other assets go to his widow.”
“Including the Moss Beach house?”
“Yes.”
“And his collection of antique tobacco items?”
“That too, yes.”
“How much is the collection worth?”
“It was appraised at three hundred thousand. The house is valued at half a million at the current market price.”
That kind of estate was a hell of a good motive for murder, I thought. Especially so for Alicia Purcell, but also for the daughter, Melanie; people had been given a nudge into the hereafter for a lot less than a couple of hundred grand. Still, as Klein had pointed out, a strong motive didn’t mean anything if you couldn’t prove a homicide had taken place.
I asked Rossiter, “Did Kenneth make any other bequests?”
“No.”
“Nothing to his first wife? Or is she no longer living?”
“Katherine is alive as far as I know. Living in Seattle, I believe. But Kenneth chose not to include her.”
“It wasn’t an amicable divorce, then?”
“It was not.”
“When did they split up?”
“They separated in ’seventy-three; the divorce was final the following year.”
“When did he marry Alicia?”
“Immediately after the final decree.”
“Was she the reason for the first marriage breaking up?”
Rossiter gave me a look of mild reproach. “I hardly think that’s germane to the subject of Kenneth’s will,” he said.
“I guess not. Were there any unusual stipulations or clauses in the will?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. A proviso that Leonard’s bequest not be paid to him until two full years after the closing of probate. And that it not be paid at all if Leonard died in the interim.”
“What was the reason for that?”
Rossiter hesitated. Then he shrugged and said, “I see no reason not to tell you. Kenneth disliked his brother’s lifestyle and disapproved of the man Leonard was living with.”
“Uh-huh, I get it. He couldn’t stop Leonard from leaving his own money to Tom Washburn, but he didn’t want Washburn to get a piece of his money-at least not right away.”
“Something like that.”
“Nice guy, Kenneth.”
Rossiter didn’t have any comment.
I said, “Who gets Leonard’s third of the estate now?”
“Alicia and Melanie. Evenly divided between them.”
Motive for both, I thought, to have shot Leonard as well as to have murdered Kenneth. More so for Melanie, though; when you were getting more than a million, as Alicia was, you’d have to be damned greedy to commit murder for another few hundred thousand.
Rossiter had nothing more to tell me. I thanked him for his time and left him to his work. Downstairs in the lobby, I closed myself inside a public telephone booth and called the Moss Beach number I had got from Ben Klein. A woman I took to be a maid or housekeeper answered. She said Mrs. Purcell was not at home and wasn’t expected back until after five. Did I wish to leave a message? I said no, I would call back, and rang off. I would have tried calling Melanie Purcell, too, but she didn’t have a phone. Not too many people living on Mission Creek did have one.
Where to next? I asked myself when I came out of the booth. Some of the guests at Kenneth’s farewell party had San Francisco addresses; I could start canvassing them, beginning with the gallery owner, Eldon Summerhayes. But I wanted a better handle on the surviving members of the Purcell family first, particularly after Klein’s “sweethearts” comment, and now that I knew the details of Kenneth’s will. Alicia Purcell wasn’t home; maybe Melanie was.
I picked up my car and went to find out.
Chapter Six
Mission Creek is a narrow body of water that leads inland from China Basin, a dead-end canal spanned by the Third and Fourth Street drawbridges-all that is left of old Mission Bay, landfill having claimed the rest. The creek is flanked on one side by warehouses, freight consolidators, and industrial outfits that line parallel Channel Street; on another side by part of the Southern Pacific freight yards; on another by empty storage lots. And over it all loom the curving ramps and overpasses of Highway 280’s city terminus. Standing down there along the canal, you can hear the steady thrum of traffic, the air horns on the commuter trains that move in and out of the SP Depot at Third and Townsend, the throb and roar of trucks and heavy machinery. And yet there is something about Mission Creek itself, a kind of timeless solitude, that seems to keep it aloof from its hectic surroundings.
Up until about ten years ago, the canal had harbored a rotting pier and pilings, a lot of sea birds, schools of anchovies and perch, and several squatters who lived on and fished from ragamuffin barges, hay scows, converted Navy landing craft, cabin cruisers, and houseboats. When the Port Authority threatened to evict the boat people in the mid-seventies, with the idea of turning the channel into a modern landscaped marina, the waterfolk had got their act together, formed the Mission Creek Harbor Association, and hired a lawyer to intercede on their behalf with the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. The result was that they had not only been allowed to stay, but had received a kind of official sanction-the only stipulation being that they clean up the area and maintain it in an acceptable fashion.
The boat people had been scrupulous about keeping their part of the bargain: Mission Creek was a pretty decent place these days, a haven for boat lovers, artists, artisans, and average citizens who disliked conventional city living. There were more than fifty authorized slips, all of them occupied, extending in a nice orderly row up the middle of the creek, with several security-gated ramps giving access to them from the Channel Street embankment. Most of the craft in there now were houseboats of one type or another, sailboats, and cabin cruisers; and most of them were well cared for, if a little on the funky side.
I parked in one of the slots down toward Fourth Street, walked past a gaggle of geese and one of the Port-O-Johns that were strategically placed along the embankment-most of the berthed craft would have chemical toilets, but that kind of waste disposal can be a problem-and went to the nearest access ramp. The security gate there was standing open; it was probably kept locked only at night. I descended onto a narrow board float set almost flush with the murky water of the creek, bordered on one side by the slips and on the other by horizontally arranged logs along which were strung electrical cables and water hookups. The first person I saw was a bearded guy in his thirties, doing some work on the deck of a green cabin cruiser; the smell of creosote coming off him and the boat was strong in the thin cold air. I asked him where I could find the boat belonging to Melanie Purcell, and he pointed back toward Fourth Street and said, “Eight slips that way. Houseboat with the decals.”
I moved along in that direction. Gulls and something I took to be a heron wheeled overhead; the water made little slapping sounds against the float and the moored boats. The sounds of the freeway traffic and the SP trains seemed remote, as if they were coming from some dimension or continuum once removed. The houseboat in the eighth slip down had decals all over the front of it-big flower things made out of wood and painted different pastel colors. It also had a peaked roof, some odd angles, varnished wood siding, a pair of bubble skylights, and a round stained-glass window high up under the eaves of its roof.