“If he’s going to get killed,” I said, “it’ll probably be on his way from the airport, or at City Hall.”
“Right.” He turned left on Thirty-second Avenue. “My main concern is City Hall. The mayor will say his standard few words on the steps, and Castro will probably say several words. There’ll be a crowd. Maybe an unfriendly crowd. Or, at least, there’ll be protesters. Which will make a confusing situation. Which I don’t like.”
We passed through the two brick pillars that marked the entrance to Sea Cliff, one of the city’s most pretentious subdivisions. Built on the highlands overlooking San Francisco Bay and situated on the seaward side of the Golden Gate narrows, Sea Cliff was a part of the ocean’s shoreline panorama. Here, the nights were always foggy. The fog smelled of salt and water and the pungent odor of marine life.
I pointed to a large two-story brick house, checked the address Friedman had scrawled on an envelope and said, “There it is — Leo’s house.”
“This isn’t going to work,” Friedman said, pushing the bell for the fourth time. “Either no one’s home, or no one’s answering.”
“Push it again. Keep your finger on it.”
Yawning, he leaned heavily against a porch pillar and did as I asked. A full minute passed before I saw an oblong of light fall on a hallway wall at the top of the big central stairway. A bedroom door had opened.
“Someone’s coming,” I said. But it was another two minutes before I saw a muff-slippered foot appear on the upstairs landing. The foot moved hesitantly beneath a richly embroidered blue dressing gown. Another foot followed the first. An angle of the upstairs wall contrived to reveal first a skirt, then a woman’s torso, finally her full figure. With the dim reflected light behind her, she stood at the head of the stairs, looking down at us. I took my shield case from my pocket and held my badge against the door’s single pane of glass. At the same time, Friedman rang the bell again. I saw her squint as she stared down at the badge. Finally, with one hand at her breast and one hand gathering the gown together midway down her thigh, she began descending the stairs one slow, reluctant step at a time. Underneath the embroidered blue dressing gown, her nightdress was frothy white lace. Her dark hair fell loose around her shoulders.
“Good-looking woman,” Friedman said. “Leo’s wife?”
“I don’t know.”
At the bottom of the stairs, still fifteen feet from the front door, she stopped.
“What d’you want?” she called. Clutching the robe with both hands, she evoked the classic image of the threatened female: eyes wide, mouth soft and uncertain, head held rigidly on a taut neck, bosom rapidly rising and falling. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing’s happened,” I said. “We just want to talk to you. Let us in. I don’t want to shout.”
One slow step at a time, she approached the door, closely examining my badge. Even without makeup, she was a striking woman. The swell of her breasts was full and firm. Her shoulders were wide, self-confidently set. Her mouth was generous, her eyes large and luminous beneath gracefully arched brows.
But she was frightened. Badly frightened. Fear was plain in the fixity of her stare, and the pallor of her face, and the small, uncertain movements of her hands and mouth.
Friedman stepped forward. “Are you Mrs. Leo Cappellani?”
She nodded: one slow, tight inclination of her handsome head. The muscles of her neck were corded. Still clutching the robe, her hand was knuckle-white.
“Let us in, Mrs. Cappellani,” Friedman ordered. “We’ve got to talk to your husband.”
She began shaking her head in short, unnatural arcs. “Leo’s not here.”
“Then we want to talk to you.” As he spoke, light from the house next door fell across the Cappellani porch. “Open the door,” Friedman grated. “Now.”
Her head moved sharply aside, as if he’d struck at her. The quick, spontaneous response suggested an abused wife’s reaction. A moment later I heard a click and a chain rattle. As we entered the house, she retreated before us. Again she moved as if she expected us to abuse her — and was resigned to it.
“You look like you should sit down, Mrs. Cappellani.” Friedman took her elbow and turned her firmly toward a darkened living room. “Let’s go in here.” He switched on a lamp and gestured her to a seat on the sofa. Still moving with strangely nerveless submission, as if she’d surrendered her will, she obeyed him. She sat in the exact center of a large velvet sofa. She looked like an unhappy little girl waiting for someone to come into the room and punish her.
“Where’s your husband?” I asked. “He left the winery between ten and eleven. He told his mother he was coming here, to his home.” I spoke in a flat, hard voice, making the question an accusation.
“He didn’t come home,” she answered. “He’s not here.” Her voice was totally uninflected: a dull, dead monotone. Her eyes, too, were dead.
“Has he phoned you tonight?”
“No, he hasn’t phoned.” Her embroidered robe had fallen open across her thighs, revealing a froth of white nightgown lace. She tried to close the robe with one hand and couldn’t. When she used her other hand, the robe parted at the top, revealing the swell of her breasts. Defeated, she tremulously caught her breath as she struggled with the robe.
“What’s the matter, Mrs. Cappellani?” Friedman asked.
Head bowed, she didn’t answer. Slowly, hopelessly, she began to shake her head.
“You’re very upset,” Friedman said, speaking quietly and reasonably. “It’s obvious. And it’s got something to do with Leo, hasn’t it?”
“He’s in trouble. That’s why you’re here. Because he’s in trouble.” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. Suddenly she let the robe fall away as she clasped her hands in her lap. She sat staring helplessly down at her hands.
“Leo had Jason Booker killed,” I said. “You suspected that, didn’t you?”
“I… I thought so. I heard him talking — saying strange things on the phone. And he — he acted strangely, too. He’d done something terrible. It was in his eyes.”
“He tried to have his brother killed, too. He tried three times. Thursday, Saturday, and again tonight. He ordered Paul Rosten to kill Alex, tonight.”
“Paul Rosten is—” She let her voice trail off. Still bowed over her clasped hands, she again moved her head slowly from side to side. She could have been a penitent, atoning for some terrible sin. “He’s mad, I think. Paul’s a little mad. I can see it deep in his eyes, sometimes. But Leo’s not mad. Leo — he’s fallen from grace. He’s wicked and cruel. He’s done terrible things, and he believes in terrible, godless laws. But he’s not mad. Not like Paul.”
“Do you know what Leo’s planning to do in just a few hours, Mrs. Cappellani?” Friedman asked. “Has he told you?”
“Oh, no.” Almost primly, she denied it. “No, he wouldn’t tell me, because it’s wicked. What he’s planning is wicked. I know he’s planning something. And I know someone’s going to die. Someone very important. I… I listen to Leo, that’s why. And I watch his eyes. That’s how you learn about people, you know — by watching the eyes. Because the eyes are the windows of the soul. And, lately, I’ve seen something terrible in Leo’s eyes. It looks like a… a flower of evil, blooming in his eyes.” To herself, she secretly nodded. She was speaking very softly, in a small, shy, little girl’s voice. She was leaving us, retreating to some safe, secret place. “At first it was just a seed,” she murmured dreamily. “And then it was a bud, way down deep in his eyes. Then, one by one, the petals began to open — terrible, blood-red petals.” She looked up at me and said, “Most people, you know, think flowers are beautiful. But I know better. Flowers can be poison. They can be evil and terrible — with death at the center.”