As a Favor (6 page)

It was possible that someone artistic, or even domestic enough to add curtains and pictures, might have created a home here, but my style of living had blended all-too-easily with Mr. Keppel’s idea of conversion. In the year I’d lived here, I had added only a white wicker table, four straight chairs, and a floor lamp that shone down on the plastic chaise longue that really belonged in the yard.

And a couple of bookcases. They were relatively new acquisitions. For months the sight of paperbacks and hardcovers wedged into a bookcase had reminded me of Nat. (The first month after we’d separated I hadn’t read so much as a newspaper.) But that passed. I’d retrieved my books, renewed my library card, and bought the shelves.

I wriggled out of the sleeping bag and headed into the kitchen that Mr. Keppel had created by halving his garage. Briefly I searched for a tea bag, gave up and turned on the shower. There were plenty of places that would serve me a better breakfast than I’d get here.

But after I showered it was too late to stop for breakfast. I drove directly to Anne’s apartment, where I found nothing changed, then hurried to the welfare office to beat the lunchtime evacuation. It was eleven-forty-five when I pulled up outside.

Although the sign said “Telegraph Office” the building was half a block off Telegraph Avenue on a side street that held small offices, restaurants, and apartments a quarter-mile south of People’s Park. Like several of its neighbors, it was a one-story Victorian of a style common to the Bay Area. The door was on the left side and behind it would be a long, narrow entryway that led at the far end to a bathroom and pantry or laundry room. From the entryway, on the right, an arch would open into the parlor; behind the parlor would be the dining room, behind that the kitchen, and another door would lead from the kitchen to the pantry. The building looked as if it was in original condition, complete with bay window and fluted trim, but the white paint was coated with soot and only crab grass pushed through the cracked clay soil in front. According to Nat, this building was a sort of out-station to handle the Telegraph area.

I opened the door, expecting to find the place full, but the entryway held only empty folding chairs. I stepped in, and looked to my right, into what had once been the front parlor. Now four interviewing booths—open-topped plexiglass boxes—occupied most of the room, two blocking the bay window and the others set in front of the fireplace with a common wall dividing it. All were empty. The built-in cabinets, eight-foot windows, and cavetto cornices that had given the room its character were now reduced to clutter impinging on the dull green lines of the government’s alterations.

It was in the next room behind it, the former dining room, that I spotted a mountainous dark-haired woman in a red caftan seated at a government-issue desk beneath an oil painting. It was an abstract in various shades of blue, signed a bit too largely and clearly—Donn Day. It was hard to say which was the more arresting, the painting or the woman.

As I walked in, she turned in her chair, noted my uniform and eyed me suspiciously.

In Berkeley the police enjoyed good relations with social workers and eligibility workers. I was surprised at this unspoken hostility.

“Can I help you?” she asked. The dark hair was gathered at the nape of the neck and hung down her back. Her eyes were heavily outlined and shadowed in green; lipstick that had started out red had been eaten away with just traces of its original shade surviving at the corners of her mouth. Whatever image she had hoped the make-up would project was overshadowed by the sagging flesh of her jowls and chin.

Nat had started work here after our separation. I had had no reason to meet his co-workers and, knowing Nat, I was sure if he’d mentioned having an ex-wife at all, he would never have admitted she was a cop.

“I’m looking for Nat Smith,” I said.

“He’s gone for the day.”

“Gone for the day, already!”

“To a meeting in Oakland,” she said. “They’ve all gone. The meeting starts at one. They left early to allow time for lunch and travel.”

“And the meeting lasts all afternoon, then?”

“It’s scheduled to. In any case, they certainly won’t be back here today.”

I sighed, allowing myself to sink down on the folding chair behind me. The fat woman turned over the manila folder she had been writing in, name side down, then swivelled to face me.

Meeting her gaze, I said, “Perhaps you can help me anyway.”

“Now?” She placed a hand protectively atop the manila folder.

“What’s wrong with now?”

“I’m waiting for a client.”

“At ten to twelve?”

“Oh, yes. She works. Some of our clients do. I didn’t want her to take time off. And, besides, it’s so much quieter here at lunchtime. It’s so difficult to talk about emotional problems with all the turmoil during the day.”

I felt certain Nat had told me that in this office they dealt only with eligibility. Still, I asked, “You’re an eligibility worker, aren’t you? I thought eligibility workers dealt with money, and social workers handled problems.”

“They do, but, except for protective cases, where social workers are always assigned, clients have one only if they request it. Every client has an eligibility worker to take care of finances, and many of us have every bit as much training as social workers.”

Offering no comment on that, I said, “I’m investigating the disappearance of Anne Spaulding. What can you tell me about her, Ms.…”

“Day. Fern Day.”

“Are you any relation…?” I looked up at the canvas on the wall over her desk.

She followed my gaze to the blue abstract painting. “To Donn? Yes, my husband.”

“It has a nice feel,” I said.

“Thank you. It’s not one of Donn’s best. But it would be sacrilege to hang fine art in here.”

I couldn’t help but agree with Fern Day. Along with shelves set back-to-back, five desks were crammed into the dining room, three by the windows and the others along the inside wall. Hard light flowed from fluorescent fixtures and notices and clippings were Scotch-taped in a haphazard fashion above the other desks.

“About Anne?” I prompted. “She’s been missing since some time before you came to work yesterday.”

“Missing. Yes.” She rolled the words around on her tongue as if tasting the possibilities they held. Her whole expression showed more intrigue than worry. “We can talk here for a few minutes while I wait for Mrs.…for the client. Confidentiality, you know.”

I opened my pad, wondering what Fern Day thought I might do with this valuable client’s name. And if the woman arrived while I was here, would she enter in disguise? “Where is Anne’s family?”

“She never mentioned any. She’s not the family type.”

“What was her full name?”

“Her middle name was a last name—Martin? Marvin? Something like that. I know it began with M because she had a purse with her initials on it.”

“And a dress?”

“Yes. She wore it Monday. Why do you ask?”

“Would you recognize it again?”

Without hesitation Fern said, “Yes. I have a good visual sense. I
am
an artist’s wife.”

I arranged for her to stop by the station and have a look at the bundle of clothes found by the Bay. Taking out my notepad, I asked, “Who are Anne’s friends?”

“Besides the men here?”

“Not excluding them. Was she particularly close to someone here?”

“I think she knew Alec Effield, our supervisor, before she started here, and of course she did train Nat Smith. He’s a graduate student, been here only about a year.” Fern looked at the name on my pocket. I asked quickly, “Who did she see outside of work?”

I could almost see the speculations lining up behind her eyebrows. “I’m afraid I don’t know. Anne doesn’t tell me about her private life.”

I asked about Anne’s enemies, but seemingly the informational blackout had been total. “Can you think of any reason she would have left so suddenly?”

Fern’s finger went to her mouth. It was a tapered finger on a long graceful hand, a hand that looked as if it were on the wrong body. “No, I can’t. Poor Alec’s just been swamped, trying to take care of her cases. It was so inconsiderate of Anne. But then Anne’s not really a thoughtful person.”

“She’s been inconsiderate?”

“I wouldn’t want to say that.” She paused. “Don’t think that I don’t like Anne; it’s just that she’s, well, rather immature in some areas.” Fern leaned forward. “Anne hasn’t really learned to care about other people. It’s not that she dislikes people as much as that she’s oblivious to their needs. It doesn’t occur to her to put herself out.” She sighed. “Anne would never see a client at lunch.”

“Didn’t Anne get on with her clients, then?”

Fern bit the finger. “I didn’t say that.”

I waited while Fern went through a string of circumlocutions to arrive at the conclusion that there was no reason Anne’s clients should have liked her but no proof to the contrary. “Of course,” she said, “Anne has more variety in her caseload—some families, a lot of single adults, and a number of clients who have part-time jobs—they’re street artists on Telegraph, waitresses, or such.”

Glancing at the cluttered green desks, I asked, “Which is Anne’s?”

“None of these. Anne’s desk is in the back.”

I stood up. Following my example, Fern raised herself and led me through the kitchen—now converted to a one-desk office—to what had been a laundry room.

“Anne’s,” she said.

The regulation metal desk stood where the big sinks had been. The room was small, dingy, and cold. Despite the desk and chair, it still looked like a laundry room. I wondered what Alec Effield had had against Anne to assign her to this place.

I was about to ask when a woman’s voice called, “Mrs. Day?”

Fern turned.

Taking advantage of her need to rush, I said, “Where were you Monday evening?”

“That’s a strange question,” she said, looking toward the door. “I thought Anne was missing.”

“Missing can cover a lot of ground.”

“You mean it could be more serious?”

I nodded.

“She could be…” There was a long pause as if Fern were seeking a euphemism for the ultimately unpleasant word: “… dead?”

“We don’t know.”

Fern bit down on the flesh below her lower lip so that the center of the lip itself was entirely hidden by her teeth. Slowly she let the lip back out. “That’s terrible. Poor Anne,” she said without emotion. “Why would someone kill Anne?”

I made a mental note of her interpretation of murder rather than suicide.

“Mrs. Day?” The woman sounded closer.

Recalling my question, I asked, “Monday night?”

“I was at home.” She glanced nervously toward the door.

“Did you go out at all?”

“Oh, no. Donn told me about his day—who he saw, what his ideas were, what innovations he was considering in his work—” She looked past me to the door.

I stepped back, and Fern rushed from the room.

Fern Day had set up an alibi for Donn and for herself. There was something she wasn’t telling me but I didn’t have enough information to decide where to press yet. Whatever Fern’s secret, it, and the presence of her waiting client, had sufficiently unnerved her so that she’d abandoned Anne’s office. I was willing to bet that under normal circumstances she would have stood her ground here against the entire Berkeley police force.

I stood a moment, glancing around Anne’s office. The walls sported neither pictures nor notices; peels of beige paint hung from the ceiling. Welfare manuals were stacked in piles on the desk; uncovered ballpoint pens lay around them. On the left side was a folder marked “To Do” and in it lists headed “Renewals,” “Address Changes,” and “Closings.” All the names on the lists had been crossed out. Anne must have been very efficient.

I checked the desk, and found it divided, as Anne’s apartment had been, into the messy and the meticulous. In the first of the three left-side drawers were jumbles of cups, tea bags, maps, and phone books, and in the other two, carefully ordered groups of agency memos, work forms, and folders. The folders stood in the deep-bottomed drawer in alphabetical order by the client’s name. On a hunch I checked for Ermentine Brown. Maybe she was a welfare client and the “20” had something to do with her case. But if so, her case wasn’t here.

I was just about to shut the drawer when I spotted more folders in a heap at the back. They were much thinner than the others. I pulled them out and opened the first, aware that this was illegal. I’d need a warrant to do it right. The first folder held four legal-size forms. One form gave identifying information—name, address, social security number, marital status; on another Anne had written “O/V” and two dates within the past month. The remaining forms appeared to be some sort of financial worksheets.

The second folder contained the same, plus a few long, brown, curly hairs—obviously not Anne Spaulding’s hair—lying amongst the papers. By the third folder I realized I had no idea what was supposed to be recorded here and what wasn’t, and I could hardly ask Fern Day to explain.

I satisfied myself with making a list of the names—seventeen in all. There were five sizeable families with addresses in two buildings off Telegraph, and twelve single women, who lived in Telegraph-area hotels. One of the hotels was the place I’d chased Howard’s thief through.

Four of Anne’s clients lived at that hotel. Perhaps I’d have a talk with them and find out why Anne had separated out their folders. And I’d have another talk with Quentin Delehanty.

Replacing the folders, I made my way back to the room with the five desks and the shelves of case folders. Glancing around the corner I could see the outline of Fern Day in one of the plexiglass booths. Her client’s voice was soft, the phrasing hesitant. Fern sat unmoving, as if entranced.

I pulled open the top file drawer, but, though there were numerous Browns, there were no Ermentines.

I slipped back into the kitchen. It, too, was now an office, but with a greater complement of green metal government furniture. The supervisor’s office. Notices were tacked in rows at either side of a bulletin board. In the middle was a pen-and-ink print—Suzanne Valadon’s “After the Bath.” And on the supervisor’s desk directly beneath it lay a half-done copy, a very good copy. Presumably Alec Effield, the supervisor here, had a fair amount of free time.