Where The Bodies Are Buried Read online

  I mulled this over. Hank had told me he used to work for Berkshire and Gentry, but when I’d asked him why he made the change from a law firm to a corporate legal department, he’d been vague. With her next words, Gladys provided the answer that Hank hadn’t.

  “You mark my words, they’re gonna do it to Alex Campbell, too. And after they boot him out the door, Hank Irvin will be the next general counsel.”

  Seventeen

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON SID LEFT A MESSAGE ON MY OFFICE answering machine and another on the machine at home. Both messages demanded an answer to essentially the same question. What was I doing over at Bates?

  I didn’t call Sid back. I managed to avoid speaking with him until Saturday morning. I was standing in front of my open closet, in my underwear, trying to decide what to wear to Rob’s funeral. When the phone rang, I picked up the receiver, expecting Cassie.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sid growled at me.

  “A little investigating. Thank you for not blowing my cover.”

  “Yet.” He underscored the word ominously. “If I should happen to mention it to that security guy, Tarcher, he’d bounce you out of there so fast—”

  “Just trying to find out who killed my client.”

  “That’s my job. I’m the homicide detective, remember. You’re the pushy PI who’s got no business getting involved in this investigation.”

  “I’m the PI whose client got pushed out a fifth-floor window, remember. So I’m already involved.” The best defense is an offense, I figured, so I turned the question back at him. “Why were you at Bates yesterday, Sid?”

  “I’m not telling you squat, Jeri.”

  “Is that fair?” I wheedled. With the phone tucked under my chin, I took a gray linen dress, then a navy blue cotton, from the closet and held them up, examining each for wrinkles, fallen hems, or missing buttons. “I gave you a copy of that threatening note Rob received, just like a good citizen. That’s what you were doing, admit it. You were following up my lead. And all I get in the way of thanks is the rough side of your tongue.”

  He sighed. “You wear me out, damn it. I don’t like it when you get in the middle of a murder investigation. You run into any leads over at Bates?”

  I hung both dresses back in the closet and sat down on my bed. “Not yet. I’ve only worked there two days. Give me some time.”

  “You’ll pass along any information you get.” The way he said it, that was an order, not a request. “And get out of there at the first sign of trouble, or if you’re made. Buck Tarcher’s no fool. You get out of line with your snooping, he’ll spot you for sure.”

  “I promise. And I’ll be careful.” He groused at me some more, but I could tell it was just part of the routine. “So, did Campbell or Tarcher have anything to say about the note?”

  “Nothing,” Sid told me. “Neither of them had any theories as to why someone would send Lawter a note like that.”

  But now that Alex Campbell and Buck Tarcher knew about it, they’d start investigating internally, which meant they’d be looking for the same information I was. It increased my chances of being found out. On the other hand, if I kept an eye on what Campbell was doing, maybe I’d find out what had prompted Rob to blow the whistle.

  I leaned back against the pillows on my bed and switched the phone from one ear to the other. “Hey, Sid. I’m buying a house.”

  “No kidding? Where?”

  “Chabot Road in Rockridge, near the Berkeley border. We’ll be neighbors, sort of.” Sid lived on Manila Avenue in the Temescal section of Oakland, southwest of the house I was already thinking of as mine. “It’s really a terrific house, even if it does need some work. I knew it was perfect the minute I saw it. Which was just last week, but the sellers have accepted the offer. We’ve got the termite inspection scheduled for next week, and then the appraiser.”

  “That’s great news, Jeri.” His voice changed, and he was no longer the gruff cop, but the man I still liked, even though our brief marriage hadn’t worked out. “Congratulations. I’m glad you were able to swing it.”

  “Thanks. I’ll call you when it comes time to move. Maybe you can help me carry boxes.”

  “You buy the pizza and beer,” he said with a laugh, “and I could be persuaded.”

  I hung up the phone and went back to the closet, deciding I would wear the gray linen. Once I’d dressed, I left Abigail and Black Bart catnapping together on the sofa and headed out to my car. Cassie and Eric lived in the condo Cassie had bought several years ago, on Lakeshore Avenue. They were looking for a house to buy, as well, but so far hadn’t found anything they liked. I was familiar with that song and dance.

  Cassie wore a forest green dress, with a tiny hat to match. She also carried another hat, black straw with a wide brim and a veil. This was for me. Since I’d heard Nancy Fong and Gladys Olivette talking about the funeral yesterday, I knew that they, Alex Campbell, and Hank Irvin would be there. It was also possible that others from Bates would attend. If any of them saw me, they’d wonder why I was there, hence the disguise. Besides paying my respects to my client, I wasn’t sure what else I hoped to discover at Rob’s funeral. An unguarded look on someone’s face, an overheard conversation, a curious interaction between some of the people attending—any of these might provide a lead, an avenue of inquiry.

  Cassie set the hat on the back seat. Once she was belted into the passenger seat of my Toyota, I headed for the MacArthur Freeway. We drove southeast along the hills, dry in the Indian summer heat of September.

  “When you were at Berkshire and Gentry, did you know an attorney named Hank Irvin?” I asked Cassie. “He was a partner until he left to go to work for Bates.”

  “It’s been six years since I left. Berkshire’s a big firm with lots of attorneys. Irvin...” She shook her head. “The name doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “If he’s at the funeral, I’ll point him out to you. Maybe he’ll look familiar. Next question. He took over as corporate attorney from a woman named Lauren Musso, who was evidently fired to make room for Irvin. How do I find her, short of ransacking someone’s desk for a forwarding address?”

  “There I can help you,” Cassie said. “Surely she’s a member of the California State Bar Association. If she is, I can locate her with a couple of calls.”

  “You have your assignment,” I told her, as I took the exit off the freeway.

  There was a parking lot across the street from the Santos-Robinson Mortuary on Estudillo Avenue, but I parked on the street a block away, near the San Leandro Public Library. Cassie arranged the hat and veil so that it obscured most of my face, then we walked toward the building. We stayed on the periphery of the small group of people who had gathered on the sidewalk outside.

  In a black dress with white collar and cuffs, Robin Hartzell stood next to her brother, Doug, who’d cleaned up and put on a suit. She spotted me with Cassie, but other than a tiny nod in my direction, she ignored my presence.

  Carol Hartzell was getting plenty of support as she leaned on the arm of her boyfriend, Leon Gomes. She greeted people and dabbed her eyes with a white handkerchief. Gomes, on the other hand, seemed distracted. He was talking with another man, a frown on his dark face, gesturing with his thick-fingered hands. As Cassie and I approached, I heard Leon say, “There isn’t going to be any strike. Take it from me, the union’s just bluffing.”

  A strike threat at Bates? That was interesting, though I wasn’t sure whether it had anything to do with my current dilemma, who killed Rob Lawter and why. I’d have to put out some feelers on Monday when I went back to work in the legal department.

  I glanced around. Diana Palmer, Rob’s former fiancée, was here, and so was Sally Morgan, Rob’s next-door neighbor. But I kept my head tilted down and hoped they saw only the hat and veil. It seemed to be working. Their eyes moved past me without recognition.

  Then I saw a knot of people crossing the street from the parking lot. It looked like the contingent from Bate
s Inc. Alex Campbell and Nancy Fong were in the lead followed by Gladys Olivette and Hank Irvin. Several other people, mostly women, brought up the rear. A couple of faces I recognized, although I couldn’t put names to them. Perhaps I’d seen them in the hallways at Bates.

  “That’s Irvin,” I said. “The good-looking guy in the blue suit.”

  Cassie peered at him. “He does look vaguely familiar. But that’s all. Guess we were at Berkshire the same time.”

  As the Bates people approached the steps leading to the mortuary, a large blond woman in a blue dress left the shady spot where she’d been standing and walked up to greet Gladys and the others, who all seemed to know her. I could tell from Nancy Fong’s body language that she didn’t much care for the woman. Martha Bronson, I told myself. This must be the woman who had quit without notice, thus complicating Nancy’s life and providing me with the opportunity to fill her job.

  Cassie and I waited until everyone had filed into the mortuary before we entered and took a seat on the back row of chairs. The assembled mourners numbered about fifty. The service itself was brief and perfunctory, performed by someone I took to be a minister. I guessed from the way he read his lines, he hadn’t known Rob.

  When it was over, Cassie and I skipped the line of people who were filing past Rob’s sister and her children. We were the first ones out of the building, and we stood near the hedge that bordered the mortuary property. The Bates people headed across the street, but the blond woman in the blue dress walked past us and headed down the sidewalk, in the direction of the library, where I’d parked my car. I nodded at Cassie, indicating that we should follow.

  “You ask the questions,” I told her.

  “What am I asking?” she whispered, her sidelong glance full of consternation.

  “Find out who she is and how she knew Rob. You’re a trial lawyer, for God’s sake. You can do that.”

  “I do it better in a courtroom.”

  We quickened our pace to catch up with the woman. As we did so, Cassie glanced toward her and sighed. “I just hate funerals, don’t you? Especially for someone like Rob.”

  The blond woman turned her head and gave us a once-over. She was in her forties, with a round tanned face and crinkly lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. When she spoke, her voice was pleasant and noncommittal. “Yes, he was a nice guy. I hate to see anyone go that way. Or that young.”

  “I really got to know him when we worked at Berkshire, over in the city,” Cassie continued. “Such a wonderful sense of humor, and he always had good things to say about people, no matter how frantic the job got. That’s hard to do, what with the pressure of a big law firm like that.”

  The woman laughed. “I guess that would be a good way to describe Rob. Grace under pressure.”

  “You worked with him, too?” Cassie asked.

  She glanced at me, then at Cassie, as though considering her response. “Yes, I did. At Bates, the food processing company, in the legal department. We had a lot of pressure there, too, even if it wasn’t a law firm. I got so frustrated with the place I quit. But Rob, he’d just smile and say, Martha, don’t let it get to you.”

  “Hi, Martha. I’m Cassie.”

  Martha Bronson looked at me, as though waiting for me to introduce myself. I slumped a bit, and tilted my head so the veil obscured my face. “Jeri,” I said, so quietly I hoped it sounded like Mary or Terry. “Bates? Isn’t that the place that had the leveraged buyout last year?”

  “Leveraged buyout.” Martha spat out the words as though they tasted bad. “Just another term for firing all the peons so the bigwigs on the top floor can make money.”

  “There’s sure a lot of that merger mania stuff going on,” I said. “And you’re right, it always seems like the workers lose out when that happens. Is that why you left Bates?”

  Martha stopped next to a brown Ford and pulled a key ring from her handbag. “I managed to survive both layoffs. But still, that’s small comfort. Even if I didn’t lose my job, I’d wonder if my name would be on the list for the next one. So I started looking for a new job. Found one in Palo Alto. It wasn’t my first choice and it’s a longer commute, but it’s more money than I was getting at Bates.”

  “Last time I talked with Rob, he was uncertain about his future with Bates,” Cassie said, which was fairly close to the truth. If he’d blown the whistle on some illegal activity, his job would have been in jeopardy, so he’d consulted Cassie about his rights. By mentioning it now, Cassie was fishing. We both waited to see if Martha took the bait.

  “Rob liked Bates.” Martha shrugged as she unlocked the car. “He told me once it was the kind of homegrown company that inspired loyalty. People used to work for Bates for their whole adult life. I knew a guy out in one of the plants who’d been with the company nearly fifty years. But all that’s changed now. That kind of relationship is long gone. Why should employees be loyal to a company when it doesn’t give a damn about them? When I think about what they did to one of the lawyers I used to work with...”

  Cassie and I traded looks. Martha had to be referring to the woman Hank Irvin had replaced. “I think I know who you mean,” Cassie said, without missing a beat. “I met her at a party a few months ago. Her name was Lauren...”

  “Musso,” Martha said obligingly. “She’d been with Bates a long time. Right after the LBO, they dumped her to make room for another attorney. They being those fat-cat executives. If Alex Campbell had any starch in his backbone, he wouldn’t have let it happen. But he’s too busy watching his own back, from what I hear. Poor Lauren. It took her months to find another job. But she really likes where she’s working now. In fact, I interviewed with that company. That job was my first choice, but I didn’t get it. I must say, the Financial District would have been a shorter commute.”

  Eighteen

  I HADN’T FORGOTTEN ABOUT CHARLIE KELLERMAN. I was sure Rob Lawter’s other next-door neighbor had seen something, perhaps the two people Sally Morgan heard in Rob’s apartment before my client took his fatal plunge out the window. All I had to back up that theory was what Charlie said Monday morning at the Alice Street apartment building.

  “Did they send you?” he’d asked, before he clammed up and scooted into his messy apartment, carrying his sack full of expensive booze.

  Who were “they”? I asked myself Sunday afternoon, as I sat in my car across the street from the apartment building. I hadn’t seen Charlie Kellerman in the hour I’d been there. Then I spotted Leon Gomes at the wheel of a rented truck, jockeying the vehicle into a space in front. With him were half a dozen guys I’d never seen before. After Leon parked the truck, they opened the back of the truck and hoisted out two dollies, some furniture pads, and several stacks of flattened cardboard that I identified as moving boxes that hadn’t been put together yet. They hauled all of this down the sidewalk, stood waiting while Leon fiddled with some keys, then went into the building.

  I didn’t have to have a printed scorecard to know what they were doing. I was just curious as to why Carol Hartzell and her children weren’t part of this packing party. About twenty minutes after the men went into the building, they started carrying Rob’s furniture out and loading it into the truck. This was followed by a procession of boxes and odd-sized things that wouldn’t fit into cartons. The last things to be loaded into the truck were Rob’s bicycle and four potted plants of varying sizes.

  Someone must have done some preliminary packing during the week, because the whole process took them less than two hours. All that was left of Rob’s presence in this building was an empty apartment.

  I watched Leon get into the truck and pilot it away from the curb, wondering where Rob’s things were going and whether I could get close enough to take a look at them. I still hadn’t seen Charlie Kellerman, but fifteen minutes after Leon left, my quarry came through the front door of the building. He stopped for a moment, as though surveying the street, then slowly and carefully came down the shallow steps. He walked toward Alice Street wi
th the same deliberation, then turned right, moving toward Seventeenth. I got out of my car and followed him. At the corner, he turned right, then right again on Jackson Street. I kept my distance as he strolled past the first building. Then he turned and entered a market on the ground floor of the second apartment building.

  I followed him inside. The store was larger than it looked from the outside, and it had plentiful supplies of things a city dweller might want to have conveniently near, primarily food and drink. I suspected it was drink Charlie was after, the kind with an alcohol content.

  He picked up a red plastic basket from a stack near the door and made his way down one of the aisles, ignoring the cans and boxes. He was more interested in bottles, especially the hard stuff. I watched as he loaded his basket with Scotch, jamming in as many bottles as the basket would hold. When he turned to carry his supplies to the market’s only cash register, he found me blocking his way.

  “Hello, Charlie,” I said. “Remember me?”

  He squinted as though he wasn’t sure. Then his eyes turned wary and he licked his lips. “Yeah.”

  “Good so far. Who did you see a week ago Thursday night, when Rob died?”

  He raised a hand and scratched at the gray stubble on his chin. “Wha’ makes you think I saw anything?”

  “The last time I saw you, Charlie, you asked if ‘they’ sent me. That makes me think you saw something. Who are ‘they’?”

  His eyes moved quickly from left to right, as though he was looking for an escape route. But he was stymied in either direction. On his right was a tall wire rack, its shelves full of bread from several East Bay bakeries. On his left, a middle-aged woman set her overflowing basket on the floor near Charlie’s feet, then straightened as she peered at bottles of wine. Then there was me, standing in front of him.

  “Do you know who ‘they’ are?” I asked.

  “I might,” he said, after a moment. He looked longingly at the Scotch in his basket and then at the cash register.