Case File - a Collection of Nameless Detective Stories (6 page)

"Is that all he said about it?"

"Yeah, that's all."

"What time did he leave your flop last night?"

"Who knows?" Freddy said. "With a jug of real scotch whisky, who knows?"

"You know where he went when he left?"

"To see Robin Hood."

"Is that what he told you?"

"He was a kidder, you know? A great kidder."

"Yeah."

"Good old Chaucer," Freddy said dreamily. "Man, I can still taste that scotch whisky . . ."

I got out of there. Robin Hood, I thought as I walked back toward Mission. It could have meant something, or nothing at all. The same way the sawdust Aldrich had mentioned could mean something or nothing at all. The only thing definite I had, found out was that Chaucer had been in Daly City yesterday — but without some idea of where in Daly City, that information wasn't Worth much.

I picked up my car and drove over to a restaurant on Van Ness and had something to eat; the food, through no fault of the management, was tasteless. I felt a little depressed, the way I used to feel when I was working the Row as a patrolman. There didn't seem to be much else I could do for Nello, no leads I
could follow that might identify Chaucer's killer.

When I got back to my building on Taylor Street I found a
single piece of mail in the lobby box. I carried it upstairs, turned on the valve on the steam radiator
—
it was cold in there, as
usual
—
and then sat down and opened the letter. Another bill
from a magazine readership club. In a weak moment some time back I had succumbed to the sales pitch of a doe-eyed college
girl; but I had never received any of the magazines I'd subscribed to. Across the bottom of the bill was typed:
Your continued refusal to pay will leave us no alternative but to turn your account over to our legal department. This could seriously damage your credit rating. Remit the above amount today!

I crumpled the bill and the envelope, said aloud, "What credit rating?" and threw them into the wastebasket. Then I sat there and smoked a cigarette and looked at the wall and listened to the ringing knock of the radiator as it warmed up.

Robin Hood, I thought.

Sawdust.

I stood after a time and took the pot off the two-burner and looked at what was left of my morning coffee. A thin sheen of
oil floated on the surface, but I put it back on the hot plate
anyway and turned the thing on. And sat down again and checked with my answering service to find out if there had been
any calls. There hadn't. I got out one of the issues of
Black Mask
I keep in a desk drawer to pass idle time, but I couldn't concentrate on the Frederick Nebel story I tried to read. I put the pulp away and lit another cigarette.

Sawdust, I thought.

Robin Hood.

And Daly City . . .

Damn! I thought. Well, maybe the police could make those three things connect up. Before I left the office for the day – my watch said it was quarter of five – I would call Eberhardt and tell him what I'd found out from Freddy the Dreamer. After that, like it or not, I would be out of it.

The coffee began to boil. I poured some into my cup, carried it to the window behind my desk. The city looked cold and gray through the restless patterns of fog. I glanced down at Taylor Street; rush hour had started and there were a lot of cars jammed up down there. A large flatbed truck was blocking two lanes of traffic, trying to back into a narrow alley across the way. It was carrying a load of plywood sheeting, and the driver was having difficulty jockeying the truck into the alley mouth.

I watched him for a time, listening to the angry horn blasts from the blocked cars, still thinking about sawdust and Robin Hood and Daly City — and my subconscious opened up and disgorged the memory of a place in Daly City I'd visited several months ago, on a routine skip-trace. I spilled some of the coffee getting the cup down on the desk. From the bottom drawer I dragged out the San Francisco telephone directory, which included Daly City, and opened it to the yellow pages. Half a minute later, my finger came to rest on a boxed, single-column advertisement on one of the pages under Lumber - Retail. Freddy the Dreamer had been right, I thought then. Chaucer, the former teacher of English literature, had been a great kidder.

I caught up the telephone, dialed the Hall of Justice. Eberhardt was in, and he came on the wire right away.

"I think I might have a line on the man who killed Chaucer," I said. "I've got a hunch he works for a lumber outfit in Daly City."

"What lumber outfit?"

"A place called Sherwood Forest Products."

"I
t was the owner's son - Ted Sherwood," Eberhardt said. "The car, one of those El Camino pickups – a jazzed-up '68 model – was parked in the company lot when Branislaus went there this morning to check out your hunch. Registration told him it belonged to the Sherwood kid, and he went and questioned him. The kid got nervous, made a couple of slips, acted guilty enough so that Branislaus brought him in."

I nodded and drank a little of my beer. We were sitting in a small tavern on Boardman Place, near the Hall of Justice. It was after five o'clock the following day, and Eberhardt had just come off duty. He'd called me forty minutes ago; I had been
waiting for him for about fifteen. I asked, "Did he confess?"

"Not right away. The old man insisted he have his lawyer present before the kid did any more talking, so that took a while. But the lawyer's one of these smart young pricks; he advised Sherwood to tell it straight. The idea being full cooperation so he can cop manslaughter pleas on both homicide charges and get the kid off with a reduced sentence. He'll probably get away with it, too."

"Did Sherwood tell it straight?"

"He did. The night he ran Old Jenny down, he'd been out cruising with his girlfriend and had just taken the girl home up on Potrero Hill. We figure he was probably stoned on pot or booze, or both, although he won't admit it. In any case, he swears the light was green at the intersection, the bag lady was crossing against it and he didn't see her until he hit her. Then he panicked and kept on going."

"The sawdust must have been jarred out of the pickup's bed," I said. "Am I right it got there because Sherwood made small deliveries of lumber from time to time?"

Eberhardt nodded. "So he told us."

"How did he get the dents ironed out?"

"Some friend of his works in a body shop, and the two of them did the job at night; that's why Hit-and-Run didn't get a report on the repairs. With the new paint job, and the fact that nothing happened in three weeks, he figured he was home free."

"And then Chaucer showed up."

"Yeah. He wanted five hundred dollars to keep what he'd seen quiet, the damned fool. Sherwood put him off with fifty, arranged to meet him down on the Embarcadero last night with the rest. He picked Chaucer up there and took him to that alley on Hubbell Street. Sherwood swears he didn't mean to kill him; all he was going to do, he said, was rough Chaucer up a little to get him to lay off. But he's a pretty big kid, and he waded in too heavy and lost his head. When he saw Chaucer was dead, he panicked the way he had after the hit-and-run and beat it out of there."

"Which explains why Chaucer still had the rest of the fifty dollars on him when he was found."

"Uh-huh." Eberhardt watched me finish the last of my beer. "Listen," he said then, "I called Dana before I left the Hall and told her to put on some steaks. You want to come for supper?"

"Rain check," I said. "I've got something to do."

"What's that?"

"Go hunt up Nello. I promised I'd let him know if anything turned up. Maybe when I tell him about Sherwood, it'll restore some of his faith in humanity. Or at least in the minions of the law."

"After fifteen years on the Row? Fat chance."

"Well, you never know."

Eberhardt lifted his glass toward me in a kind of mock salute "So long, social worker," he said.

"So long, cop."

I went out into the cold, damp night.

I
t was one of those cases you take on when you're on your uppers. You want to turn it down — it's an old story, a sordid one, a sad one — but you know you can't afford to. So you look into tear-filmed eyes, and you sigh, and you say yes.

Her name was Judith Paige. She was in her late twenties, attractive in a quiet, shy sort of way. She had pale blond hair, china-blue eyes, and the kind of translucent white skin that seems brittle and makes you think of opaque and finely blown glass. Until the previous year, she had lived in a small town in Idaho and had come to San Francisco "to search for some meaning in life." Which probably meant that she had come looking for a husband.

And she'd found one, a salesman named Walter Paige. They had been married six weeks now, and it was something less than the idyllic union she had expected. It wasn't that Paige abused her in any way, or was a drinker or a gambler; it was just that, in the past month, he'd taken to leaving her alone in the evenings. He told her it was business — he worked for a real estate firm out near the Cow Palace — and when she pressed him for details he grew short-tempered. He was working on a couple of large prospects, he said, that would set them up for the future. She figured he was working on another woman.

Like I said; an old, sordid, sad story. And one of those cases. She wanted me to follow him for a few days, either to confirm or deny her suspicions. That was all. You don't need to prove adultery, or much of anything else, to obtain a divorce in the state of California these days, so I would not be required to — testify in any civil proceedings. It was just that she had to know, one way or the other — the tears starting then — and if she were right, she wanted to dissolve the marriage and go back to Idaho. She had a little money saved and could pay my standard rates; and she was sure I was honest and capable, which meant that she hoped I wouldn't take advantage of her in any way.

I sat there behind my desk feeling old and tired and cynical. It was a nice day outside, and I had the window open a little; the breeze off the Bay was cool and fresh, but the air I was pulling into my lungs tasted sour somehow. I lit a cigarette. And then took one of the contract forms out of the bottom drawer and slid it over for her to examine.

When she had, without much interest, I drew it back and filled it out and had her sign it. Then I said, "All right, Mrs. Paige. What time does your husband come home from work?"

"Usually about six o'clock."

"Does he use public transportation or drive?"

"He drives."

"What kind of car?"

"A dark-blue VW."

"License number?"

"It has one of those personalized plates. WALLY P."

"Uh-huh. What time does he leave again when he goes out?"

"Right after supper," Mrs. Paige said. "Seven-thirty or so."

"He comes back at what time?"

"Around midnight."

"How often does this happen?"

"Four or five times a week, lately."

"Any particular nights?"

"No, not really."

"Saturdays and Sundays?"

"Saturdays, sometimes. Not Sundays, though. He . . . he always spends that day with me."

Never on Sunday, I thought sourly. I said, "Which real estate company does he work for?"

"I'm sorry," she said, "I don't know. Walter is very closemouthed about his job."

"He's never told you where he works?"

"Well, he did once, but I can't remember it. Is it important?"

"Probably not." I put down the pencil I had been using to take notes. "I think I have everything I need for now, Mrs. Paige. I'll be on the job tonight if your husband goes out."

"You won't let him know you're following him, will you? I mean, if I'm wrong and he's, well, just working, I wouldn't want him to know what I've done."

"I'll be as careful as I can."

"Thank you," she said, and dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief and cleared her throat. "Will you call me as soon as you find out anything?"

"Right away."

"I'll give you a check. Will fifty dollars be all right?"

"Fine."

I looked away while she made out the check, out through the window. Sunlight and bright blue sky softened the look of the ugly, crumbling buildings in the Tenderloin. Even the panhandlers and dope pushers seemed to be enjoying the weather; they were out in droves this afternoon.

A nice day for a lot of people, all right. But not for Judith Paige and not for me.

At seven o'clock I was sitting behind the wheel of my car, parked four buildings down and on the opposite side of the street from the stucco-fronted apartment house the Paiges lived in. The dark-blue VW with the WALLY P license plate was thirty feet away, facing in the same direction.

This was a fairly well-to-do neighborhood in the Parkside district; kids were out playing, husbands and wives were still arriving home from work. If you're staked out in an area like that, you run a risk by sitting around in a parked car for any length of time. People get suspicious, and the next thing you know, you've got a couple of patrol cops pulling up and asking questions. But if you don't stay more than an hour, and if you keep glancing at your watch and show signs of increasing annoyance, you can get away with it; the residents tend to think you're waiting for somebody and leave you alone. I expected to be here less than an hour, so I wasn't worried.