Martinis and Mayhem (5 page)

A moment ago, I’d wanted to soak in a tub and sip white wine. But the superb weather changed my mind. I thought of the heat wave I’d left back in Maine, which hadn’t broken, according to a phone call from Seth. Here, in San Francisco, there was a misty breeze that had cooled and dampened my skin as I left the climate-controlled limo. Refreshing. Invigorating. It was too magnificent a night to spend sitting inside a hotel room, even a spectacular suite like the Windsor.

I returned to the street. “I’d like a cab, please,” I told the elegantly uniformed doorman. He blew his whistle, and a cab instantly pulled to the curb. I debated for a moment going back inside to drop off my heavy black bag. But the cab was there, and the doorman had opened its door. “Here you are, lovely lady,” he said. “Enjoy your evening.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I know I will.”

“A very dry martini, straight up,” I told the waitress as I settled at a window table in the Mark Hopkins’s Top of the Mark cocktail lounge. I don’t drink martinis as a rule. Only on the most special of occasions. And I considered this one of them. The Top of the Mark has meaning for me as few other places in the world have. I’m not alone, of course. During World War II, thousands of people looked out the windows at troop ships sailing beneath the fabled Golden Gate Bridge, returning triumphantly from war in the South Pacific.

The Top of the Mark is considered by many to
define
San Francisco. They get no argument from me.

As I watched a cocoon of fog swallow the Golden Gate, and thought of George Sutherland arriving the next night, my waitress returned with my drink. She also had a copy of the book I was promoting,
Blood Relations.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Fletcher. I hope you don’t think this is pushy of me, but I knew you were in town and figured that maybe—well, I bought your book and kept it here just in case you happened to come by.” A wide smile lit up her face. “And here you are.”

“Yes. Here I am.”

“Would you be good enough to autograph it for me?”

“Of course.” She handed me the book, and the ballpoint pen she carried. I opened the book. “Who shall I sign it to?”

“Frances.”

“Okay, Frances.” I started to write, but the pen had run dry.

“I’ll get another,” she said.

“No need,” I said. “I have a dozen of them in my bag.”

I unzippered the bag and pulled it up onto my lap, surprised again at its weight. I fumbled in its recesses for one of the Flair pens I always carry for just such occasions. “What’s this?” I asked myself. There was a hefty black leather-bound book. It wasn’t mine. I’d never seen it before. Whose was it? How did it get there?

I started to remove it but remembered Frances standing next to me. I fished out a pen and signed her book:
“To Frances. I have a favorite aunt named Frances. Let’s hope you and I aren’t ‘blood relations’ or we may never meet again. Best, Jessica Fletcher.”

I handed her the book, saying, “You’ll understand why I wrote what I did after you finish it.”

Blood Relations
turned out to be one of my more graphic novels. It hinged on the mysterious deaths of a half-dozen blood relatives, some of whom had never even met each other before. The reviews have been kind, although one did point out the uncharacteristically gory details in the novel—uncharacteristic for this writer, at least. The reviewer wrote:
“Blood is
to Blood Relations
what showers are to
Psycho.
You’ll
never feel
the
same about blood
again
—
relatively speaking.”

I supposed he couldn’t resist the pun at the end, although I wish he had.

Frances, the waitress, offered to buy me a drink, but I graciously declined. I’d barely touched my martini, and two were out of the question. I looked out the window. The fog had now enveloped the city itself; visibility appeared to be zero. It was a moody atmosphere, the stuff good British mystery movies are made of. Inside the Top of the Mark, it was cozy and secure. I ordered an appetizer of a sampling of cheeses and fruits, took a sip of my martini, took out the unfamiliar, imposing black notebook from my bag, and began to read.

 

 

I pondered which of the female inmates present at my presentation had surreptitiously placed the journal in my bag. I looked everywhere for a name but couldn’t find one.

As I took another sip of my martini, my thoughts went back to the pretty woman with blond hair who’d asked the question about a convicted murderer’s innocence. For some reason, I was certain the diary belonged to her. But how, when did she manage to slip it into my bag? Of course. During the brief break when I went to the bathroom. I’d left my bag behind. Camille was there, but was busy talking. I continued reading.

 

 

Of course. The inmate who’d written this journal was Kimberly Steffer, convicted of having murdered her husband, Mark Steffer. It had happened in California, San Francisco. She was a noted author of children’s books. I was willing to bet that it was Kimberly who’d asked me that afternoon about wrongly convicted murder suspects.

I thought back to the book that my friend Neil had written,
Scarlet Sins.
I wished I’d read it, at least that chapter, on the plane. I certainly would the minute I returned to my room at the St. Francis. The diary, too. It looked like I was in for a long evening of reading. I paid my check, cabbed back to the hotel, ordered up room service, ate, filled the tub with hot water and a bath gel, sunk into the sea of luxurious bubbles, and propped open Neil’s book and started.

“Nice story, Bill. And factually correct. I always appreciate accuracy, especially when it’s about me.”

I was sitting in the office of Bill Hudson, the
San Francisco Chronicle’s
features editor. He’d interviewed me, and written a story that had run in Wednesday’s paper. I’m always on my guard when being interviewed. Too often, reporters put words in my mouth in order to make their piece say what they
want
it to say, which is not necessarily synonymous with what I’d actually said. Happily, that hadn’t been the case with Hudson’s article.

“Coming from you, Jessica, I consider it quite a compliment,” Hudson said. “Glad you liked it. To tell you the truth, though, when you called yesterday to say you wanted to meet with me, I was worried. I thought you had a problem with the article.”

“Oh, no. Hardly,” I said. “You worried over nothing.”

Hudson was an average-looking fellow, about thirty-eight years old, medium height, slender build, wavy brown hair, and muddy brown eyes. Brown slacks, brown tie, and a brown tweed jacket completed his earth-tone image.

His writing, however, was above average. He had a lively style that was visual and anecdotal. I could see why he’d risen quickly at the
Chronicle,
having become features editor in two short years.

“You know, Jessica, I was thinking after the interview that you should do your life story. Not only are you this country’s preeminent writer of murder mysteries, you’ve ended up solving your share.”

“Just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I said.

“Very modest. But there’s a lot more to your life than that. It could be fascinating, to say nothing of inspiring for many people, especially writers. Like this writer.”

I think I blushed.

“Hey,” he said, startling me with his sudden enthusiasm. “Since you like the piece I wrote about you so much, keep me in mind if you’re looking for a collaborator on your autobiography. Maybe I could be your Boswell.”

“But your name is Hudson.”

“Ill change it. So, to what do I owe this honor of a second meeting with you?”

Because the walls of his small cubicle didn’t reach all the way to the ceiling, I spoke softly. “I’m interested in a murder case that took place in San Francisco a couple of years ago. Kimberly Steffer. She was accused and convicted of killing her husband, Mark. She’s doing her time in the Women’s Correctional Facility.”

He nodded in recognition, at the same time struggling with a balky top on his styrofoam coffee cup. “Sure,” he said. “Big case here. Got lots of media play. I didn’t cover it, but half the staff got involved at one time or another. How ’bout we go to the morgue and see what we can find?”

I followed him from the cubicle and down a narrow hall lined with similar spaces until we reached the paper’s “morgue,” that important function of any newspaper or magazine in which a complete record of everything appearing in the publication is catalogued and filed. It was a small, crowded room this morning. Bill gestured for me to take a seat next to him in front of a computer. He punched up the name STEPPER, KIMBERLY. “Here we go,” he said. “I’ll leave you to read the articles. Just pull up each of the files you want to look at by placing the cursor in front of the file name, and press ENTER. Pretty basic stuff.”

I hoped so. While making the switch from writing on a manual typewriter to writing on a computer, I practically had to enlist in a Twelve Step program. After what seemed to be an eternity of agonizing days and countless mistakes, I reached a point where I’m now able to log on, write, edit, and store. But that’s about it.

But Hudson’s instructions were easy enough. I successfully pulled up the first file.

 

 

I pulled up several more files; each story had been written by a reporter named Bobby McCormick. I looked around the morgue in search of Bill Hudson, who was planted in front of another computer screen. “Bill,” I said.

“Over here,” he said. “Finding what you need?”

“Yes. Is a reporter named Bobby McCormick still with the paper?”

“I might be in a morgue, but I ain’t dead yet” came a voice from over my left shoulder. I turned to face a tall, grinning bear of a man with a day’s growth of beard. His gray-and-brown hair was sparse on top but long on the sides, pulled back into a ponytail secured by a red-and-gold band. He wore chino pants, sneakers sans socks, a plaid button-down shirt open at the neck, and a stained yellow tie pulled down into a tiny, tight knot. “Bobby McCormick,” he said. “At your service.” He extended his hand.

“Behave yourself, Bobby,” Hudson said, draping an arm easily over his colleague’s shoulder. “This is Jessica Fletcher.
The
Jessica Fletcher.”

“Of course it is,” said McCormick. “Hardly an unfamiliar face, especially if you read stories in the
Chronicle
by Bill Hudson. I won’t say I’ve read all your books, but a good number of them. Pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“The feeling is mutual,” I said. “The reason I asked if you were still with the paper is that I see you covered the Kimberly Steffer trial extensively.”

“Sure did. And I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up covering another Kimberly Steffer trial.”

“Really? I’d be interested in knowing why. Would you spend a couple of minutes talking with me about the Steffer case? I’m—well, I’m very interested in it.”

“Be my pleasure.”

“Wonderful,” I said. I liked Bobby McCornick. He was obviously a character, a throwback to the image of a beat reporter from another era.

“Give me a couple of minutes?” he said. “Just have to finish up something here.”

“Of course. Take your time.”

“Come on,” said Bill Hudson. “I’ll take you to Bobby’s office.” He said to McCormick, “Can we get in it this morning?”

“If you’re lucky.”

“Bobby’s office is not what you’d call an oasis of neatness and order,” Hudson said as he led me from the morgue. “But at least he has a real office, not one of the cubicles. That’s what happens when you become a living legend like Bobby. He’s been the crime reporter here for twenty years, maybe more. He’s the best. Crime’s a tough beat.”

Bobby’s office reminded me of a bachelor’s pad. Did he live as well as work there? It was chockablock with books, magazines, yellow copy paper, and empty boxes. Clothing was tossed in every comer, and a dozen dirty coffee cups perched precariously on stacks of old newspapers. Tasteless calendars of naked women hung on the walls; some were four years old. The date, not the models. A life-size poster of John Lennon and the Beatles took up most of one wall. Framed photos and plaques dominated another. A computer screen peeked out from where it was partially buried beneath some shirts.