Then she and Mickey were seated on cracked and slightly damp cushions around the wheel. Virginia had some laundry drying, hung with clothespins from the guylines on the seaward side. From inside the galley came the sound of talk radio.
Mickey had already decided that Tamara’s call on this woman was correct, but crazy people could have good information. Still, he didn’t want to take more time than was necessary chatting here, so he crossed a leg, casual and relaxed, leaned back against the seat, gave her a smile. “So, Virginia, I understand you have some information you think might be helpful about the Dominic Como murder?”
“I think I do, yes. Do you need anything to verify the time we’re talking? Is there some official form or something we sign that I can keep a copy of?”
Mickey, feeling that maybe Tamara hadn’t sufficiently prepped him here, figuratively put on his tap dancing shoes. “Well,” he said, “I’m sure we could have you come down to the office and we could write up a statement for you to sign, and have it notarized, if it comes to that. But why would you want that exactly?”
“The reward,” she said simply. “So someone don’t steal the reward from me.”
“Ah.”
“An’ nobody tells the cops who I am. I come up with something first, and then next thing you know everybody knows it, because I told it, and suddenly nobody remembers where it first came to light. Pretty convenient, if you ask me.”
Mickey nodded, taking all of this very seriously. “All right, Virginia,” he said at length, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do, if it meets with your approval. You tell me what your information is and if we both decide it’s significant or important enough, I can take you down to the office right away and we can draft and notarize your statement. Then copy it and send you back here with your copy. How does that sound?”
She gave him the thousand-yard stare again, considering. Then, making up her mind, she nodded. “I’m glad they sent somebody with brains.”
The three of them-Mickey, Tamara, and Wyatt Hunt-sat with their knees all but touching at a small table in a blessedly quiet corner of the Quiver Bar at the Epic Roasthouse, Pat Kuleto’s gorgeous new place on the Embarcadero, right at the water’s edge. It was a cocktail hour of celebration about the new work they’d picked up, Hunt springing for drinks at the end of the day.
“She was absolutely lucid,” Mickey was saying. “No question about what she saw and what it meant. And I must say, I don’t think any of us would have even thought of it.”
“So what was it?” Hunt asked.
Mickey sipped at his beer. “You really ought to guess. If only to get a feeling for how far off we all were.”
“She saw the limo out there,” Hunt said, “after it was supposedly back at Sunset.”
“Not close. Tam?”
“She heard something.”
“Nope. Way more obvious.”
“She saw something,” Tamara said.
“Good.”
“From her boat?”
“Getting warm,” Mickey said.
“Wait a minute,” Hunt put in. “So it happened out by the boats?”
Mickey was enjoying the moment, leading them on. “I told you, think outside the box. We would never, ever, have thought of this. We’re not even in the right area code. And we know it happened because she saw it with her own eyes.”
For a long moment, all was silence. “Okay,” Hunt said, “he actually met somebody on one of the boats. They had a fight out there… but, no, that’s too far from the lagoon. Nobody’s carrying a dead guy three blocks. Or even from the boats out to the parking lot.”
“No. No carrying involved. No boats involved either.” Mickey tipped up his beer again, put it down, gave a last-chance look to his colleagues. Theatrically, he sighed. “We can call Devin Juhle and close the case as soon as I tell you guys,” he said, “but I thought, obvious as it is, we might want to talk about it a little first, before we bring in the cops.” One last triumphant glance around the table. “Okay, you know the blimp, the tourist blimp?”
Hunt, very slowly, nodded. “Airship Ventures,” he said with caution. “The Eureka.”
“Right. That’s the one. Well, Virginia was out on her deck Tuesday night, late dusk, just enjoying the peace and serenity out there, and she notices the Eureka coming back from out over the Golden Gate. Beautiful, if you like blimps, and who doesn’t, just floating around up there. But whatever, it was a warm night and she just watched it sail pretty much straight overhead, a couple of blocks south, but really, darn close. And then, suddenly, she’s looking up at it and she sees something-I’m not making this up-she sees something fall out of the thing. At first, she can’t believe what she’s seeing, but then she realizes it looks like a body, and it just falls and falls until it goes out of sight just over the trees, about where the lagoon would be.”
“Lucky they drained it,” Tamara said. “He might have killed a duck.”
“But he hit the lagoon before it was drained,” Mickey said, “and he didn’t hit a duck anyway.”
Tamara smiled brightly. “Well, that was lucky too.”
“You’re right,” Hunt said drily, “we never would have thought of that.”
“He fell into the lagoon?” Tamara asked.
“Absolutely.”
“How’d he wind up at the one end, tied up in all the roots and stuff?”
“Must have been the tide,” Mickey said.
“There’s no tide in the lagoon.”
“Hmm,” Mickey said. “There’s a slight snag in the story.”
“Here’s another one,” Hunt said. “She saw this and didn’t call the police?”
“Ah.” Mickey held up a finger. “That one’s covered. She thought the police might think she had something to do with it if she reported it. She was going to wait until it was in the paper or on the radio and learned more about it, but then they were obviously covering it up somehow. At least until she heard about the reward, and realized what it must have been. Which was Como.”
Tamara put down her Cosmopolitan. “Wow.”
“I know,” Mickey said. “I was impressed. So now I’m wondering how many calls like this we’re going to get. Wyatt, maybe we could figure out a better weeding-out process.”
“Not if they won’t talk on the phone,” Tamara said. “They’re all tapped, you know, and I don’t think Virginia’s the only one that knows it.”
“Heck,” Mickey said, “even I know that. But really. Wyatt?”
Hunt finished his Scotch. “Well, let’s see how many of ’em we get. We told Devin half our work would be weeding out the wackos, maybe more. And if we don’t get some live ones, I’ll be interviewing them too.”
“Not that it wasn’t a good time,” Mickey said.
Hunt made a face. “No. I hear you. Sounds like it.”
12
At ten after six, Hunt walked into the homicide detail and over to Juhle’s desk. The inspector looked up and Hunt opened a leather folder and extracted several sheets of paper.
Juhle didn’t exude joy at the interruption. “What’s this?” he asked.
“Eleven reports. One guy didn’t give his name or address, but we included a summary of his statement. Nine people gave statements, eight to Tamara over the phone. They’re in order from least obviously crazy to most crazy. One lady wouldn’t talk on the phone, so I sent Mickey out to talk to her. She saw Como fall out of a blimp. And I had a chat with Mrs. Como, who mentioned a couple of things she forgot to tell you when you interviewed her. Don’t look at me like that-I’m just the messenger. That’s ten in two hours, Dev, plus Mrs. Como.” Hunt paused. “It’s something,” he said.
Juhle raised his eyes. “Tell me about the blimp lady.”