Murder Crops Up (17 page)

“Mr. Dancey, they don’t know that anyone wanted to hurt her.”

“But someone did.” He nodded his head at me. His face was strongly shaped, with a look of intelligence, but his manner seemed demented, in a low-key way. “Yes. Someone hurt her. Someone had a hand in killing her. I’m almost sure of it. And it had to be one of these gardeners. Or maybe a rapist, coming along—”

“In the middle of the morning, with people all around? It doesn’t sound like a rapist, and she wasn’t molested.”

He shook his head, back and forth, as he had earlier at Planned Parenthood. “No. No. I know that. But did you know—did you see—?” He put out one hand. “Say, what is your name, anyway? I’m Tom Dancey, as you know.” He made the introduction very naturally, producing a smile of great charm.

“Mr. Dancey.” It was Amy’s clear voice, coming from behind my shoulder. “I think you need to see a therapist or something. You’re acting totally spaced and weird, you know that?” She sounded indignant.

Tom Dancey gaped at her. “Miss—I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it. You’re not in good shape. Why don’t you get yourself together before you go telling other people what to do?”

“Amy—”

She overrode my attempt to shut her down. “You know, some girl might just take you seriously some time. And she might just have a baby because of your ugly pictures. And she might just bring that baby to you, because you shoved yourself into her life and influenced the decision she made. And you might just find yourself stuck with some tiny, little baby to take care of for the rest of your life. You have to find child care, you have to feed it, you have to jump when it cries. Then maybe you’d have a better understanding than you do!”

Tom Dancey hadn’t tried to interrupt this tirade. He stood with his head bowed, hands shoved into the pockets of his fleece vest. But when Amy finally finished, he shot her a glance. “I’m sorry, Miss. I—happen to have very strong beliefs. But I didn’t come here to talk about—abortion.” He turned to me. “I want to ask you some things about Rita. I have to know.”

“Don’t talk to him, Aunt Liz,” Amy commanded, her face still flushed. “Don’t give him the slightest speck of information.”

“Excuse me for a minute,” I said to Dancey. Then I took Amy’s arm and urged her to the back of the garden.

“Amy, obviously he’s having a strong reaction to his stepsister’s death. I don’t think goading and baiting him is the correct approach here, no matter how much you feel he deserves it.”

“He deserves it, all right,” Amy muttered. “That picture was indecent!” She directed a glare over her shoulder.

“Well, I think the right thing to do now is for you to go and call Bruno Morales. Here’s his card.” I pulled out the card Bruno had pressed on me Saturday night from the front pocket of my gardening overalls. “There’s a pay phone right by the south entrance. You have change?”

She nodded. “You don’t think this guy is dangerous, do you?”

“Not at the moment, no.” I gave her a little push. “I’ll tell him I’m sending you to the library. He won’t try anything, I’m sure. But I know Bruno wants to talk to him, and I think he does really need help, which Bruno can advise his family about.”

“He’s headed for meltdown, you think?” Amy sounded worried. “Is he going to go postal on you?”

“I doubt it, and if he does, I’ll whack him with the shovel. If Bruno isn’t back in his office yet, leave him a message. I’ll smooth this guy down.”

“Okay, but after I call I’m coming right back.”

“Just don’t set him off. You’ve given him enough food for thought, assuming he’s capable of digesting it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She strode up the path, pushing past Tom Dancey to head for the gate.

He watched her go with relief, and turned to me.

“She’s going to the library for a little while.” I gave him a measured look. “Say what you want to say quickly.”

“Thanks for talking to me. I know I’m not thinking too straight,” he said, his voice low. “I know this is foolish. I know the police think it was an accident. Maybe it was. Maybe it was.” He sighed. “I just don’t want her to be dead at all. That’s the problem.”

“You and your sister were close?”

“She was never my sister,” he corrected me. “She called herself that, but I never thought of her as a sister from the moment she came to live at our house. At first she was just a confounded nuisance, and then—”

His eyes slid away, his voice died.

“You were dating, I heard?”

“Dating.” The harsh laugh seemed forced out of him. “What a word to describe what we did! She was—so out there, so bewitching. I couldn’t help myself. I had to give her whatever she wanted. I guess I should have known she’d want her freedom. I even gave her that. But I never stopped loving her. Never.”

In the silence that followed his passionate outburst, I could hear the rustle of squirrels in the ivy, checking their winter stores, and the sound of cars whooshing past on Embarcadero Road. Voices called to each other from the cultural center. A businessman, probably on his lunch break, strolled along the perimeter path, looking with enjoyment at the garden plots he passed, and giving Tom Dancey and me a curious glance.

“Did she say anything to make you think someone here at the garden wanted to hurt her?”

His head came up in surprise. I wished I’d never asked the question—that was for Bruno to do, not me. But somehow Dancey seemed ripe for it.

“Yes, she did,” he answered, blinking away his confusion. “After she told me . . . after we stopped ‘dating’"—his voice surrounded the despised word with quote marks—"she started seeing someone from here.”

“Webster?”

“Yes, that’s the name. Webster something or other. Anyway, she spent more time at the garden then, and once she said to me that something fishy was going on.” He flushed a little. “It’s no secret that my family has proposed a HUD-sanctioned low-income project for this site, and we’re having some trouble getting a determination from the city. She knew I’d be interested in anything that would—tarnish the garden and make housing seem more desirable.”

“And you want my help to finish the job?” I tried to keep my voice even, but I was starting to feel a tirade well up within me.

“That doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, shrugging it off with supreme disinterest. “What does anything matter? She’s dead. And she thought something fishy was going on here. Didn’t another woman die last night? Seems to me that Rita was right.”

I was still hung up on the idea of Rita as treacherous spy for her family’s interests. “Didn’t it mean anything to Rita that she worked here? She was willing to sell us down the river to developers?”

“Low-income housing is important.” Dancey’s voice lacked conviction.

“And I suppose your firm is working on a pro bono basis.”

“Heck, no,” he said, and gave me a watery grin. “Look, this is beside the point. I can’t begin to care about it. As far as I’m concerned, this site is only one thing now. Rita’s graveyard.”

“Tom—” I put out a hand, but he didn’t see for a few minutes, sunk in unpalatable thought. I didn’t try to interrupt him.

Then he made a visible effort and smiled at me. Dancey’s smile was charming, indeed. Though he was probably no older than my age of mid-thirties, his face was already creased and deeply suntanned. All the melancholy lines rearranged themselves when he smiled, though.

“This was a mistake, I know.” He blinked, and his voice firmed. “Maybe I’m brooding too much, keeping too much to myself. If there is anything fishy going on in this garden, I’m not going to find out by pestering the gardeners. But if you hear anything, would you contact me?” He reached in his pocket, and pulled out his hand, empty. He looked at it with vague surprise. “I forgot my cards today. Never mind.”

He smiled again, but it didn’t quite reach those reddened eyes. I thought he was turning to go, so I started talking to keep him there until Bruno showed up. “Well, the fishiest thing around here normally is just kelp and fish emulsion. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t something going on. Unfortunately, the woman who knew the most about everything was the one who died last night after your sister’s memorial. I don’t know who else you’d ask. Most everyone has told what they knew to the police, so—” I saw with relief that Bruno was rounding the corner of the equipment shed, with Amy trailing along behind him.

Dancey followed the direction of my gaze. “Who is that?” His voice sharpened.

“It’s Bruno Morales, the officer in charge of the investigation into these deaths.” I waved, and Bruno waved back. “You said you were going to get in touch with him. And here he is! How convenient.”

“Very,” he muttered, looking suspiciously at me. His hand inside the pocket of his fleece vest clenched.

“Mr. Dancey. So good to finally touch base with you.” Bruno charged up, holding out his hand as if in friendly greeting. Dancey was taller and broader, but I would have backed Bruno in a fight.

Dancey shook hands, reluctantly, and Bruno began to pull him along. “I’m parked just over there,” he said, leading the way down the garden path. Amy stayed outside the fence until Bruno had taken Dancey through the gate. “Let’s go sit in my car. I have much to ask you.”

“Fine.” The dispirited look settled over Dancey’s face. “I’ve got some questions for you, too.”

Amy came over to the plot, where I was quickly packing up the tools. “Wow. Is Bruno arresting that guy?”

“I don’t think so. He just wants to talk to him. And I don’t think Dancey would have hurt his stepsister. He was—very fond of her.”

“He’s nutso,” Amy said bluntly. “I was kind of afraid to leave you alone in here with him, but Bruno—Mr. Morales—said I should stay at the library until he got there.” She shivered. “It would be pretty creepy if he killed her, wouldn’t it? I mean, we would have been talking to a murderer.” Her eyes grew round. “I could have been slanging a murderer, right to his face!”

“I don’t think he is. But if so, we’d better watch out.”

“Why?” Amy picked up the shovel and a bucket. "He’s been hauled away."

“He’s being questioned. He’ll be out of Bruno’s car after that. And we’ll be long gone, so he can’t follow us home and continue our conversation.”

Amy was silent while we loaded the bus. We hopped in, much to Barker’s pleasure, and tooled out of the parking lot, passing Bruno’s car on the way. Bruno had been driven over in a cruiser, instead of driving his own car, which meant he expected trouble. He sat in back with Tom Dancey, while Officer Rhea sat in front. It looked like Bruno was taking Dancey very seriously indeed.

“He’ll be mad when Bruno lets him go, won’t he?” Amy’s voice was small. “Won’t he, Aunt Liz?”

“Yeah.” I turned toward Embarcadero instead of taking Newell to Channing, as I would have if I were on my way straight home. “Yeah, I think he will.”

Chapter 20

Parking the bus at the end of my driveway, I saw from the corner of my eye a figure rise up on the front porch. I jammed on the brake faster than I meant to, and Amy’s seat belt snapped her back into her seat.

“What—”

Before the panic could blossom, I realized that the majestic figure was Claudia Kaplan, hauling herself out of the fraying wicker chair on the porch. She was clad, as usual, in one of her flowing outfits, and wore her iron-gray hair pulled back in a bun, much as she’d probably worn it when she was an undergraduate years before. Her queenly figure advanced on us when we hopped out of Babe.

“Liz. Oh, I see Amy is visiting. Hello, Amy.” She offered a ritual embrace, but bent her commanding gaze on me. “Liz. There’s something very strange going on.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Actually,” Claudia said, reflecting briefly, “several strange things. Did you know a woman was parked across your driveway when I got here today?”

“Carlotta.”

“You know her?” Claudia’s brows bent into a frown. “She babbled some nonsense about watching you. I told her to go away and never come back, so I’m sorry if she’s a friend.”

“Far from it.” I gave Claudia a hug myself. “Thanks for sending her away, but she’ll be back. She’s stalking me.”

Amy turned around. “You said something about being stalked yesterday, Aunt Liz. What is going on here, anyway?”

“I have much the same question.” Claudia looked on Amy with approval. “Do you have a few minutes to talk, Liz?”

“Sure. I just want to get this stuff put away.” I opened the back of the bus and pulled out the shovel and rake.

Amy took the buckets and unlocked the garage for me. “I’ll clean the tools if you want to put the veggies away,” she said. “But don’t say anything, like, major until I’m there.”

Claudia followed me into the kitchen. “Isn’t it the middle of the school year? Has Amy transferred out here?”

“Shh.” I peered through the window over the sink to make sure Amy was still in the garage. “Don’t put such an idea into her head, although it’s probably already there. Her school had a fire, so the students are off for a while, and she’s doing college visitation here.”

Claudia subjected me to the penetrating stare that is characteristic of her. “What’s the real reason?”

“Why don’t you think that’s the real reason?”

“Because her mother didn’t come with her.” Claudia swept the living room with a comprehensive glance. “Her mother would never have let Amy go off college visiting alone. And there’s only one bag here erupting with female apparel. Amy’s mother didn’t come, so the college visiting is just an excuse.”

“Well, you’re right, but the real reason is Amy’s private business, so I can’t tell it.”

“She’s pregnant.” Claudia observed me closely as she made this pronouncement, and then nodded with satisfaction. “She’s come here to take care of it. Very sensible. I always thought she had a good head on her shoulders.” She paused. “Of course, it’s an imposition on you. Will she be staying several months?”

“I don’t believe so.” Our eyes met for a long moment. “I don’t think she’s really firmly made up her mind about her course of action. We’re just coping with one day at a time.” I lifted the little lettuces out of the colander and rolled them in a dish towel, which I tucked into the refrigerator.