As a Favor (8 page)

His head shook in a mechanical motion.

“Four of them live right here, in this hotel.”

“Who?” Delehanty’s voice was hoarse.

“Linda Faye Miller, Amelia Sanders, Yvonne McIvor, and Janis Ulrick.”

Delehanty’s head shook. “Nope.”

“Nope what?”

“Don’t live here. Never heard of them.”

“They’ve never lived here?” I asked.

“Not since I’ve been here, and that’s over a year.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I know who’s here. Either they’re down here bitching about me, or I’m up there telling them to keep their goddamned rock music from blowing out my eardrums.”

I couldn’t help but think that this hotel was an unfortunate choice for someone who objected to noise. “Why don’t you move?”

“On two hundred dollars a month? Maybe I could go to San Francisco and stay at the Fairmont?” He reached under the bed and came up with a wine bottle, an empty. He stared, then dropped it.

“You’re only getting General Assistance—county money? Why don’t you apply for Social Security?”

“Hey, lady, I’m not disabled.”

I looked pointedly at the bottle, but Delehantly avoided my stare.

“I don’t drink all the time. It’s just that, well, one of the guys here died over the weekend. O.D.’d. He was just a kid. Tad. Just twenty-one. I warned him. I told him to watch it. I—” He stared down at the streaked floor. His eyes began to unfocus.

“Before I go,” I said, “just one more thing. Do you know Anne Spaulding?”

“His eyes shot open. His face reddened. “Spaulding! Do I know that Spaulding bitch! The bitch at welfare? She’s the one. She made Tad do it. If she’d left him alone he’d be alive today. She did it. She killed him.” His face was red; his fists banged on the bed.

“What did she do?”

“Cut him off, that’s what. She cut him off. Tad got the notice last Thursday. No more money. He freaked. Just twenty-one. Jesus!”

“Did you know Anne Spaulding yourself?”

“What? Yeah, I know who she is. Everyone knows. You don’t do something like that and remain anon…anon… unknown.”

“You’re still pretty angry, aren’t you?”

Delehanty stared at me in disgust. “Don’t give me that social work crap—still pretty angry. Tad’s still pretty dead.”

I wasn’t getting anyplace with that line of questioning. “Who lives here?”

“You want who’s in all twenty rooms? Hell, I can’t tell you that. Look at the register, lady. And leave me alone. I’ve got some serious drinking to do.”

“Where were you Monday night, Delehanty?”

“What? Go away.”

“I will when you answer me. Where were you?”

“Here. Where do you think? You think you get this hung over by just drinking for an hour? You want to see the proof?” He didn’t wait for my reply, but pulled back the bedcovers and displayed six boxes filled with empty wine bottles under the bed.

Obviously they were more than this week’s collection, but there seemed no point in pressing it. I asked for witnesses, but Delehanty maintained he hadn’t gone out of his room.

Strange that all the people involved with Anne were such homebodies.

As I left, Delehanty’s head sunk to his hands. He reached for a bottle of aspirin. And I wondered how long it would be before he joined his friend Tad.

Making a mental note to find the hotel manager and get a list of tenants, I headed back to the car and sat there, examining what I had learned.

There was no reason not to believe Ermentine Brown’s story that Anne was extracting bribes from street vendors. There was no reason for Delehanty to insist the women on the list never stayed at the hotel—feigning ignorance would have been easier. But if those clients did not live here, where were they and why had Anne separated out their case folders? Were they living elsewhere and bribing Anne to say they lived here? It didn’t make much sense, but there was something going on with those missing clients and it was the only lead I had—except for Nat’s pen.

I wondered what Alec Effield, Anne’s supervisor, knew about it.

I
CHECKED BACK AT
the welfare department in case Alec Effield had returned. He hadn’t, a disgruntled Fern Day told me between the ringing of two phones.

My next stop was at the station to run a quick make on Effield. While I waited, I dialed Nat and listened to the phone ring eight times. He had asked me to start this investigation. He had said to let him know. Dammit, where was he?

The microfilm had no listing for Alec Effield—no crimes, no complaints. I got his address and headed for a car.

Rush hour. None of the cross-town streets was more than four lanes wide. Grove Street, with parking on both sides, was effectively two-lane, but it was still predominately residential and I could make better time on it. Even so, it took me twenty minutes to cross most of north Berkeley and turn east into the hills.

In reality the Berkeley hills are not individual peaks but a long bulge on the eastern edge of the Hayward Fault from Contra Costa County in the north almost to San Jose in the south. The streets wind steeply upward, overhung by branches of live oak and liquid amber, and lined by four-bedroom houses clustered close together. Turning north just short of the summit, I wondered how a welfare supervisor could afford a house here.

But Alec Effield turned out not to live in a house. He had a flat over the garage, ten feet to the left of a large, dark, Queen Anne house. The brick steps to Effield’s flat matched the curved walkway to the main house. The yard showed signs of a flower garden recently pulled up. The grass was cut, the edges trimmed.

As I climbed Effield’s steps, I could hear the sounds of Ravel.

I knocked and when the door opened, identified myself.

Soft light, soft music flowed up behind the man who, in turn, identified himself as Alec Effield, giving him the aura of a celestial character from a Busby Berkeley musical. His eyes were the palest blue and his flaxen hair was barely distinguishable from his gently tanned face, his beige turtleneck, and beige slacks. But as he asked why I was there, his voice was jarring. He had the last vestige of a New York accent, and even it sounded faded. In another year or two he would blend perfectly into his beige surroundings.

Waving me inside, he turned off the music and turned on an art deco lamp. The brighter light showed a carefully understated room; the only signs of use were two indentations close together on a toffee-colored love seat. Whoever was responsible for the second depression was not visible.

I decided on a direct approach. “I’m afraid Anne Spaulding may be dead. We found clothing that appears to be hers by the Bay.”

Effield gasped, a timid sound.

I waited, giving him time to recover. “I’m sure you want to help us.”

“Yes, of course. It’s awful. Anne?”

“Did she have any enemies?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Kinky friends?”

“Oh, no. Not Anne.”

“We don’t have much to go on, but we do know she was accepting bribes from her clients.”

Effield’s pale eyes opened wider. He looked around, as if hoping his friend would emerge suddenly and answer for him. “Surely, Officer, surely that couldn’t be true.”

“I’m afraid it is. It’s common knowledge.”

“But that’s not possible. I would have heard if Anne had done anything like that. Ours is a small office. Perhaps if you’d seen it—”

“I’ve been there.”

Effield lifted a brass letter opener from the end table and moved his fingers precisely back and forth along the sides of the blade, carefully avoiding the sharp edges. “You say it’s common knowledge. You have people who will swear that Anne took money from her clients?”

“Yes.”
Maybe
was closer to the truth.

Effield shook his head. “This is awful. Nothing like this has ever happened in our office. I just can’t believe it.” He put the letter opener back on the end table. “But I suppose it must be. I just wouldn’t have thought it of Anne.” He groaned. “This is terrible. I vouched for her. She used me as a reference. What will they think?”

“You knew Anne back East, is that right?”

“Yes. In New York.”

“How did you come to know her there?”

“We both worked for the welfare department. She was there briefly, only a few months. But she had completed training. She did know the job.” He seemed anxious that I see the validity of his recommendation.

“And were you friends in New York?”

Effield seemed to consider this. “Acquaintances. I lost track of Anne after she left the department, and then I ran into her right before I came out here. She followed, well, not followed, but she came here later and she knew I’d be at the department here and she called and asked to use me as a reference.”

A toilet flushed. I flipped a page in my notes. There was a lot of ground I needed to cover before we were interrupted. “Then there are Anne’s clients who don’t live where they’re supposed to.”

Effield looked up, startled.

I was on shakier ground here. “Mr. Effield, Anne has twelve adult cases with addresses at three Telegraph Avenue hotels.”

“Yes,” Effield said slowly, “we do have clients living in hotels.”

“These women don’t. I’ve already checked one hotel and none of them lives there. No one remembers them. There’s nothing to say they exist.”

Effield sat.

Water splashed in what I supposed was the bathroom.

“Oh,” he said.

The water stopped. A door at the back of the room opened a crack.

“This is overwhelming. First you tell me Anne’s dead, then you say she was accepting bribes, and now you say her cases have the wrong addresses.” Effield’s head shook ever more slowly. Finally he said, “I’m trying to think how that could be. Perhaps, yes, perhaps Anne was in the process of changing their addresses. You see, Officer, a lot of clients are transients of sorts. They come to Berkeley and they need to have an address in order to apply for aid, so they live at one of those hotels where it’s easy to find a room cheap and the management asks no questions. A lot of places won’t rent to welfare recipients.”

“But they don’t live there, Mr. Effield.”

“I’m getting to that.” Now he seemed quite confident, protected by his bureaucratic knowledge. “As soon as aid is granted, the client can look for another place, and those hotels being what they are, most people move on quickly. So what you saw are, no doubt, people who’ve moved and notified the department of their change of address.”

“Can you show me any proof of that?”

“I don’t know. What type of thing did you have in mind?” He seemed uneasy. He swallowed, then looked directly at me. “Nat Smith’s worked with Anne. He should know what went on in her cases. Maybe you should ask him.”

In spite of my nametag, Effield didn’t make the connection and for once I was profoundly thankful for a common name. To Effield, I said, “I will be talking to all the workers, but right now I need evidence. The case folders must have some listing of the new addresses. I could run down the clients, if they exist.”

“All of them?”

“It depends on time.”

“Well, the thing is, Officer, I
am
bound by the rules of confidentiality. Much as I’d like to get this straightened out, I just can’t reveal the addresses of twelve clients, not even to the police. I could be fired for a breach like that.”

“I see. You’ve got your rules. I could get a court order—” I let the statement hang, hoping it would bring forth some offer. It was a threat I didn’t want to have to carry out—one I doubted I could get approved.

The bathroom door opened and a woman started out.

I caught her eye and shook my head.

Effield had been too involved in his thoughts to notice. “Suppose,” he said, “I can arrange for you to see one of those clients. I could find out if one of them would be willing to talk to you.”

I considered that, picturing Effield meticulously going through the stack, choosing the least offensive client. “No, that’s not good enough. Not representative.”

He sat, his eyes nearly closed, so that his whole body seemed devoid of color. His eyes opened and his gaze lifted till he nearly met my eyes. “Why don’t you choose the client?”

“I still don’t like you arranging it.”

“I’m afraid there’s no other way within our rules.”

Picturing Lt. Davis’ exasperated expression as I discussed a court order, I said, “Okay.” And glancing through the list I had copied, I chose a name from Delehanty’s hotel, one I knew didn’t live there. “How about Yvonne McIvor?”

“Yvonne McIvor?” the woman behind Effield asked in a listless voice. “Who’s that?”

Effield turned. It was a moment before he said, “I’d forgotten you were here. This is Mona Liebowitz,” he added to me. I recalled Mona Liebowitz’s name from the desk next to Fern Day’s.

Mona took a sluggish step into the room. In a stained T-shirt and long faded skirt she looked like something Alec Effield would use to wax his car. She had broad features and long curly brown hair that hung to the tip of her shoulder blades. But her most attention-grabbing feature, behind which all others blurred, were the large loose breasts that strained her cotton shirt. I, who am built like a Cub Scout, stared. Effield failed miserably in his attempt to direct his eyes elsewhere.

Recalling the indentations on the sofa, I wasn’t surprised that Effield had seemed distracted.

Mona lowered herself to the couch, pulling her bare and dirty feet up under her.

Ignoring Effield’s muffled gasp, she said, “So who is Yvonne McIvor?”

“One of Anne’s clients.”

“I don’t—”

“Mona,” Effield said, “I’m breaking the rules of confidentiality as it is. I don’t want to discuss this more than necessary.” To me, he added, “I’ll arrange what we discussed tomorrow.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll be at your office at eight-thirty.” Eight-thirty was way before I wanted to begin work, but I couldn’t give Effield time to call Yvonne McIvor before I arrived.

Effield stood up. “I hope this finishes it.”

“I hope it will,” I said. “But I do need one more piece of information from you.”

“What? Surely—”

“Not about your clientele.”