Murder Bone by Bone (8 page)

“I’m in charge of an investigation here,” Drake said, “not dog-sitting.”

“Okay, I’ll stop by my place and lock him up for the day.”

Drake sighed. “Leave him here. I don’t want to be responsible for more phone calls about his howling.”

“He doesn’t howl much anymore.”

“If that’s what you think, it’s lucky for you I’m in a position to squash the neighbors’ complaints.”

I hefted the knapsack. “Okay, does anyone need to go to the bathroom before we leave?”

The boys ignored me. Moira, I already knew, was dry.

It took four trips back and forth before all the kids and equipment were loaded into Bridget’s rusty old Suburban. I would have driven my own equally rusty VW bus, but it didn’t have enough space for all the equipment.

The Suburban was a whole new driving experience for me. I lumbered it carefully down the driveway, managing not to hit any of the digging students. The Public Works crew was putting in overtime down the block, crunching through some more asphalt. I waved at Stewart, and he and Doug waved back.

We threaded through cool, leafy streets. Palo Alto wore Sunday morning quiet; the sidewalks downtown were only crowded around the coffee and bagel shops. On an impulse I stopped at the Bagel Works. The kids fell on the warm cinnamon-raisin bagels with enthusiasm.

Claudia, too, appreciated the cup of coffee I’d brought her in a to-go cup with a lid. She settled herself in the passenger seat and accepted responsibility for tending Moira and Mick, strapped into car seats on the middle bench. The older boys occupied the back bench, along with an indestructible-looking tape recorder, a pile of cassette tapes and Tintin books, a box of coloring books and crayons, and enough Legos to build a whole city.

That Suburban was like a yacht. There was room behind the third bench seat for the rest of it: stroller, bulging diaper bag for Moira, change of clothes for both Mick and Moira in case of accident, everyone’s warm jacket in case it was cold in San Francisco, the knapsack of food, and the Suburban’s toolbox, which I desperately hoped not to need. I can keep my old bus running because I know it so well. I didn’t have a clue about Bridget’s car.

Claudia sipped noisily at her coffee and took a bagel from the bag on the front seat. “This is a great idea,” she said, glancing behind her. “Keep the little mouths full, and they’re much quieter.”

“It won’t last.” I headed for 280, the more scenic route to San Francisco. “Thanks for agreeing to come, Claudia I’m just not up to handling four kids in a museum by myself.”

“Who is?” Claudia turned toward me. “I didn’t come because I’m so nice, Liz, so don’t waste your thanks on me. I came to hash over the bones.”

I checked the rearview mirror to see the kids’ reaction to this. None of them appeared to be able to hear what we said in the front seat. Corky and Sam were barely visible way in back, their heads together over the tape recorder. Faint strains of Ray Stevens drifted up to us. In the middle seat, Mick munched steadily through his bagel. Moira wasn’t eating the piece of bagel clutched in her chubby fist; she had already succumbed to road hypnosis.

“Okay, what about the bones?”

Claudia wriggled herself more comfortably into the seat. She enjoyed second-guessing Drake about any of his cases, but especially the occasional suspicious death. In her opinion, he didn’t apply the scholarly method. “What have you learned from Drake?”

“Nothing, really. He just wants to get them dug up and hopes to figure out who it is.”

My peripheral vision glimpsed Claudia’s huge, Chessy-cat smile. “I know who it is.”

“Claudia!” The Suburban bumped over a couple of lane markers before I wrenched it back into line. “How on earth—”

“I don’t know his name, of course.” Claudia shrugged off this minor detail. “But I thought about it all evening, and when I talked to Melanie, I knew.”

“Melanie? What does she have to do with it?”

“Oh, nothing with the crime, I’m sure.” Claudia waved one massive arm with half-eaten bagel attached. I ducked. “But she was there, you know, for a couple of years. She lived in that house. That’s where I first met her. In fact, she baby-sat for Carlie and Jack a couple of times, after our first sitter proved so unreliable. I knew her folks, of course, or I would never have trusted another hippie.”

“Melanie was a hippie!” It seemed so unlikely that perfect Melanie could ever have worn torn jeans and love beads.

“Oh, maybe she was more of a wanna-be, but she was there.” Claudia considered for a minute, munching. “Actually, she’s had trouble with drugs. Didn’t you know?”

I shook my head. Gossiping makes me uncomfortable. It seems so unfair, somehow. Claudia loves to gossip, excusing it on the grounds that it’s not gossip unless you’re judgmental; otherwise it’s just research into the vagaries of human behavior.

And I did have a rank little need to hear anything shady about Melanie, who wanted everyone to do good the way she thought was best. Every time I refused to volunteer in one of those society-type charities that target the homeless population, she let me feel her disapproval. I do what I can on a one-to-one basis with characters like Old Mackie, who often drops by for a meal and was just then the proud possessor of my favorite pair of thick wool socks. But I don’t want to stand there and flaunt my good luck in having a house over people who used to be my neighbors on the street.*

*Murder in a Nice Neighborhood

So I didn’t stop Claudia from telling me about Melanie’s checkered past.

“Yes, awhile ago—it would be about the time Biddy got pregnant with Moira—Melanie was mixed up in a murder case. She ended up in Betty Ford kicking a nasty cocaine habit, and since then she’s been so holier-than-thou. Wants to pretend she was never a hell-raiser, never used an illegal substance.” Claudia made a noise between a sniff and a snort. “I wasn’t taking any of that, you can believe. Asked her who she bought her drugs from back in the old days.”

I checked the rearview mirror again. Mick had joined Moira in bye-bye land. Sam and Corky were having a delightful time with Ray Stevens. Already, after little more than twenty-four hours in their company, I knew they would move on to Weird Al Yankovic soon.

“What did she say?”

Claudia laughed. “You mean after she denied using drugs? That was funny. I had to remind her that I had been in that house in the seventies, I knew what all those kids were doing. That Richard Grolen, for instance. Soon as I laid eyes on him, I remembered him. He was older than the rest of them, but no better. Alfred and I came home once and found Melanie entertaining him in the living room.”

“You mean—”

“Necking.” She said the word with zest. “In fact, petting. Yes!
Heavy
petting. Of course, the kids were asleep, and no harm done. But when I reminded Melanie of that, she stopped weaseling. She said she didn’t remember the real name of that fellow who was the dealer. They called him Nado, because he came from Kansas and he kept talking about tornadoes all the time. He just vanished the year she graduated. Nobody really paid much attention, but she remembers because she wanted some dope or something for a party and couldn’t find this guy anywhere, and that’s when people started wondering what happened to him. They figured he was in jail somewhere.”

“Maybe he was.”

“He was never seen again.” Claudia’s voice was low and portentous. “Now, considering that most of those people have turned up, off and on, over the years, don’t you think that’s suspicious? I mean, take Richard Grolen. He’s been gone for a while, but here he is, back again. Melanie, some of the others—they’re still around town. I see them every now and again. Saw that ex-baby-sitter of mine at a Red Ribbon Week rally, urging her kids to say no to drugs.” Claudia laughed again. “That tickled me. I almost went up and asked her if she was drawing from her own experience.”

“People change.”

“That they do,” Claudia agreed with good humor. "That’s what makes them so interesting.”

We were silent for a moment. “So you think this drug dealer overreached himself in some way and was killed and buried beneath the sidewalk.”

“Melanie couldn’t remember if the sidewalk was torn up just then or not,” Claudia said, sounding disgruntled.

“Who could? It must be fifteen years or more since then.”

“At least fifteen years. But it narrows it down a good deal.”

“This is total speculation.” I glanced at Claudia, who was working on her second bagel. “You have no basis for any of this.”

“I have a feeling,” Claudia said darkly. “And at least I’m looking around. Your Drake is so involved with digging up the here and now he can’t be bothered to dig up the past.”

“He’ll get there.” I had another thought. "Did you tell him any of this?”

“He’d be even less inclined than you to believe it.”

I had to agree that was true. “Nevertheless, he should know. And I don’t think you should go asking around anymore, Claudia. You might provoke someone.”

“You think Melanie is the killer?” Claudia chuckled. “I don’t think so. She doesn’t have the guts.”

“She might spread it around that you’re interested, though. The killer might hear—” I caught myself.

“If it’s all a crock, as you just said, there’s no danger, is there?” Claudia stared at me with bright, amused eyes. “And if it’s not, then any interest in me is proof I’m on the right track.”

“Would that be any satisfaction if the killer comes after you?” I shivered. “That is not a pleasant experience.”

Claudia patted my arm. “Just be thankful you aren’t mixed up in it this time, Liz. I’m not in any danger just from poking around. Heavens, I don’t even know any of their names, except Melanie’s. I didn’t remember Richard’s name until I met him again. Most of them went by nicknames anyway. That flaky baby-sitter called herself Primrose. I think her real name is Jane Holfinger. There was another one they called Mondo Man, and a girl named Wendy, I think. Don’t know any of the rest of them, and believe me, they came and went. That house must have seen upwards of twenty young people in the space of a year.”

“Drake ought to know, anyway.”

“You’re so loyal.” Claudia made me sound a bit like Barker. I wondered if he was giving Drake a hard time. I wished that Bridget’s mom hadn’t broken her ankle. I wished that Emery hadn’t chosen this week to have a conference in Hawaii. I wished I were holed up in my cottage, peacefully writing about winter aconites for
Ornamental Horticulture
.

“Anyway,” Claudia said, “Melanie agreed to tell Drake whatever she knew.”

“Maybe she’s in danger, too.”

Claudia sounded impatient. “No one’s in danger now, Liz. This all happened so long ago. If it turns out to be this drug dealer under the sidewalk, he might even have died of an overdose and panicked someone into planting him there. Whoever did it is probably long gone now.”

“Maybe not.” I slowed for a turn onto Brotherhood Way that would take us the back way into Golden Gate Park, avoiding the traffic on 19th. “You just pointed out that all those people turn up again, and some of them never left.” I shook it off. “This is all stupid, anyway. No way could you come up with the identity of those bones just from gossiping with Melanie.”

“You’re probably right.” Claudia sounded disappointed. “So Drake shouldn’t know. He’s so competitive about his cases.”

“He is?” I smothered a laugh.

We managed to find a place to park not too far from the museum and marched our troops inside, where there were bones enough to please everyone. However, when I had my turn at a bathroom break, I found a pay phone and left a message for Drake about Claudia’s revelations. I didn’t go into detail—didn’t have that much change. But I felt he should know.

Chapter 9

We had meant to have our picnic on Ocean Beach, but the wind blew a cloud of fine sand over the beach right at sandwich level if you were sitting on a blanket. So we spent a few minutes looking at the few hardy souls sailboarding in that cold water, located a sea lion or two, and then took our lunch to Queen Wilhelmina’s Tulip Garden by the north windmill. The tulips were long gone, of course, but a vivid display of zinnias and petunias took their place, and the windmill proved interesting to the boys.

On the way home, everyone slept, even Claudia, whose soft snores began soon after we wheeled onto 280. I felt a little guilty for dragging her all over the Academy of Sciences. Standing in the middle of the Fish Surround, a circular room with walls made from a continuous fish tank, watching the leopard sharks and salmon and rockfish and groupers swimming by had made all of us dizzy, but Claudia had had to sit down.

I didn’t mind that my passengers were snoozing, especially when the “Riders in the Sky” tape ended and no little fingers pushed the rewind button. There’s only so much yodeling a person can take. In the quiet, with just engine noise to distract me, I started thinking about what Claudia had said earlier.

I found Melanie Dixon irritating, but she was in a bad position if Claudia were right. Anyone who came within the boundaries of a criminal investigation had my sympathy. I was just glad Bridget was well out of it. She would have been aghast at the trouble her house had gotten into—still would be, when she returned. If only Drake could clean up the investigation by then.

I turned it over in my mind, wondering how you could ever learn the details about something that had happened so long ago. Even if the bones could be firmly identified, reconstructing the last few hours or days of that person’s life would be nearly impossible. Anyone whose movements were noticed enough to be recollected would also have been missed at the time.

Drake didn’t talk about his job to me, and I didn’t want to know about police work, but I wondered how they searched for old information. This is a subject I know something about, having written a couple of articles on Palo Alto history for
Smithsonian.
I decided to do some checking of my own the next day, Monday. The boys would be in school, leaving only Moira to tend. Surely she and I could do some library work without too much hassle.