Читать книгу The Radio Red Killer - Richard A. Lupoff - Страница 12

CHAPTER FIVE

Gloria Plum loved her work and hated her co-workers. Or maybe it was the other way around. Marvia had never been able to get that clear. At any rate, Gloria liked her own company better than that of anyone else. For years she had made it a point to rise early, eat breakfast alone and leave the house before other family members came downstairs.

Marvia had thought that was cruel in Marcus’s last years, but today she was relieved not to have to face both her mother and her son over the breakfast table. Jamie would be more than enough. Add Gloria and…Marvia didn’t even want to think about it.

Scrambled eggs and toast with marmalade. A real old-fashioned breakfast. Marvia had the bread out of its wrapper before Jamie entered the kitchen and the eggs cracked and beaten in a bowl.

The swinging door seemed to hesitate once, then sweep inward. Jamie wore an Oakland Raiders cap with the bill turned sideways, a T-shirt featuring a larger-than-life portrait of an angry black man, baggy jeans and sneakers. Marvia didn’t know who the man on Jamie’s shirt was. She bit her lower lip at the realization that she couldn’t even recognize her son’s current hero.

Jamie sat at down at the table.

Marvia said, “Hat off.”

He glared at her but complied.

“Have you thought about what happened last night?”

“What happened to my stash?”

“You’re lucky, Jamie. I got mad and threw it away. So now I’ve destroyed evidence and you and Hakeem are in the clear.”

“I told you the Hackman had nothing to do with it. It was my dope. Could I have my roach clip back? That was expensive. And it’s just a roach clip, it’s not illegal.”

“It’s drug paraphernalia and it is definitely illegal. Have you talked with your friend? Did you call him last night or this morning?”

“No.” He scowled.

Marvia dumped the eggs into the skillet and stirred them in silence, then she carried the skillet to the table and distributed eggs onto both their plates. She never had eaten any pizza last night and she realized, surprised, that she was hungry. The marmalade was already on the table, in its jar, and when the toast popped up she put it on a plate and set it beside the marmalade. Then she sat down.

“I expect to hear from Hakeem’s parents, Jamie, or I’m going to call them myself. This is serious business.”

“What are you going to do, call my dad? He in Washin’ton playin’ up to all ob de white folks, ain’ he?”

Marvia clutched her butter knife until her knuckles ached. She restrained herself from slapping her son. “You will not use that Tomming dialect in this house or anywhere! Never!”

“My mama the sellout. When are they going to give you a talk show?”

She decided to change her tack. “Did you finish your homework? Or were you and your friend too stoned last night to do any?”

“It’s all done.”

“I want to see it before you go to school.”

“The dog ate it.”

Marvia stood up. Jamie grinned and tucked into his scrambled eggs. Marvia had lost her appetite. She checked the blinking readout on the microwave oven. She had to get to work.

“Finish your breakfast and put your dishes in the washer before you go to school. And I want you to come straight home from your last class and study until your grandma and I get home. I just might phone you any time. In fact you can sure that I’ll call, that’s a promise, and you’d better be here when I do.”

She hurried back upstairs, retrieved her .38 Airweight and tucked it into her waistband. She clipped a pair of handcuffs onto a belt loop behind her back. She intended to get rolling seriously on the Bjorner case today, and she would be most effective, she decided, in civvies.

She pulled the Mustang out of the driveway and headed north to McKinley. She needed to talk with somebody about what was going on in her life. For a moment she considered phoning James Wilkerson. He was Jamie’s biological father, and he might have some influence with the boy.

But Wilkerson had never shown much interest in Jamie. Lieutenant Wilkerson getting Corporal Plum pregnant? That meant he’d fraternized with her. A male officer and an enlisted woman? Strictly against regulations!

So she’d got her discharge, he’d married her, she had her baby, and they were divorced.

The only time he’d paid attention was not long after Desert Storm, when Jamie was onboard an antique bomber and in danger of losing his life, and James Senior had a chance to be a hero and make headlines.

Good press for a would-be congressman, and Wilkerson was now a member in good standing of the United States House of Representatives.

No point in calling him, Marvia decided. He wouldn’t want the trouble, and if she pushed him too hard he might just make another attempt to get Jamie away from her.

She shivered.

She was wearing a plaid button-up shirt and jeans and a bright red sweatshirt. She didn’t want to be invisible today, she wanted people to see her coming and know that they were expected to answer questions when she asked them.

Her second husband was worse than the first, and the man she’d had between them.… She shook her head. She wanted to kick herself. He hadn’t been a great physical specimen and he wasn’t the world’s most sparkling personality and he was white, one-two-three strikes you’re out at the old ball game. But he was the best man she’d ever known, except for her father, and she’d shined him on and now he was living in a glitzy high-rise in Denver and climbing a corporate pyramid.

He was out of California and out of her life and—brakes screamed. Marvia gasped, hit her own brakes, and swung the wheel and missed a FedEx van by a hair. She sat clutching her steering wheel and shaking. She’d gone so deep into her self-pitying reverie that she’d run the red light at Ashby, one of the busiest streets in the city. She was lucky she hadn’t been killed, or killed somebody else.

When the light changed again she crept through the intersection and continued on to work.

It wasn’t even eight o’clock in the morning and already her day was a depressing pile of compost.

She found a stack of paper on her desk, including a note from Dorothy Yamura. Come see me.

She sank into her chair and rubbed her temples until her head hurt. It took her mind off other things. She leafed through the stack of paper. A few routine memos, a number of interviews and crime-scene reports from KRED. That was good, anyhow. Nothing from the lab or the coroner’s office, though. A call-back slip from Angelina Tesla at the DA’s office.

She had to clear her mind of her personal problems. Gloria had always been a difficult mother. Since the death of Marvia’s dad, Marcus, she had become impossible. And Jamie smoking dope in his room with Hakeem—Marvia knew that marijuana itself was a mild enough drug, but it put her into an untenable position as a sworn police officer.

Besides, if Jamie and Hakeem were starting to move with the drug crowd.… She didn’t even want to think about it, but she had to. Maybe she should talk to her brother, Tyrone. He was Jamie’s favorite uncle—his only uncle—the only positive, adult male figure in the family.

And she did love her brother, and did enjoy his company. She’d ask him to help out.

In the meanwhile she sent off a memo to Inspector Stillman in narcotics. She’d gone undercover once on a narco bust, with mixed results. She and her team had failed to prevent a murder, but they’d made a collar that stuck and put away not only the killer but several of his associates, including the club owner, Solomon San Remo.

And wasn’t that an amusing coincidence: here was Solomon San Remo again, connected with the late Robert Bjorner. Except that Solly was in prison. That Marvia knew for a fact.

Other than that one occasion, Marvia had shied away from narco work. She was old enough to retain a few of the romantic illusions of the Sixties. She knew that narco wasn’t a matter of busting school kids for trying out a little weed. If it ever was, it wasn’t anymore. It was crack and smack and crystal. It was ugly and it was violent. She wondered if she had the stomach for that kind of work. She was starting to think she might have to develop it.

Her schoolgirl friends had argued that there were inconsistencies in the law. Gin-swilling and wine-quaffing politicians wouldn’t let kids smoke grass. They were a bunch of hypocrites. There were irrational provisions that Marvia still had trouble reconciling to the satisfaction of her own conscience.

How different those arguments sounded when she found herself on the receiving end of them—from her own son!

She asked Stillman for an informal briefing on Blue Beetle and Acid Alice, then tried to put the matter out of her mind. It was time for work now.

She called Tesla first. She learned nothing useful from the assistant DA, but she hadn’t really expected to. It was important to keep that line of communication open.

Next, she called the county coroner’s office in Oakland. She got a coroner’s tech named Gemma Silver. What a stupid name, she sounded like something out of a bad hippie flashback. She introduced herself and asked Silver if there was an autopsy report yet on Bjorner.

Silver laughed, not the sound of silver tinkling bells.

“I asked you a simple question,” Marvia barked.

“Sorry, Sergeant. We’re just a little behind. As usual. Hold the phone, I’ll check the schedule.”

Marvia let her eyes rove the room while she waited. She must have been emanating angry rays. Nobody wanted to make eye contact.

“Two o’clock this afternoon, Sergeant. Dr. Bisonte’s going to handle it himself. You want to attend?”

Marvia shook her head. “Not if I can help it. I know what three hundred pounds of blubber looks like. I just want to know the results ASAP.” But she knew that she would attend the autopsy. It was department policy.

“I’ll tell you right now,” Silver offered. “He’s dead. Or if he isn’t, he will be when Dr. Bisonte finishes with him.”

“I want to know cause of death.”

“Right.”

“Think I can get that today?”

“If somebody shot him it would be easier.”

“That’s the point, Ms. Silver.”

“Well, I’ve peeped at the cadaver. Golly, what a whale! I’d guess a massive heart attack. Second choice, stroke.”

“No autopsy yet and you’re giving me cause of death, Silver?”

“I’m just giving you an educated guess, Sergeant.”

“Yeah, sure. Listen to me, just in case Dr. Bisonte isn’t feeling too committed to his work today, would you remind him that I’d like a report on the contents of the decedent’s stomach.”

“That’s SOP, Sergeant.”

“Fine. Just don’t overlook it, will you? And don’t throw anything away, for God’s sake.”

“Got it. Look, I’ve got another call, is there anything else?”

Marvia said no and hung up. She called the forensics lab. Laura Kern took the call. That was good. She knew Kern, had worked with her before and had confidence in her. She asked if there was a report on the contents of the ashtray in Studio B, or the food containers in the wastebasket.

Nothing yet. That was to be expected. Marvia was just getting impatient, jittery, more because of her home situation than the Bjorner case, but when one spilled over and impacted the other she knew it would lead to bad police work on her part.

She put her hands on her thighs, closed her eyes, and tried to relax.

She stood up and went to see Lieutenant Dorothy Yamura.

Yamura tilted her head toward a client chair and Marvia Plum settled into it without particularly relaxing. Yamura was wearing a tan tweed jacket over a pink button-down shirt. A pair of reading glasses shaped liked twin teacups sat on her nose. They were attached to a polished chain that ran behind Yamura’s neck. She looked like a stern librarian. Before Marvia said a word, Yamura asked how well she was settling back into routine.

Marvia slid lower in the chair. She hesitated, then replied, “Just great, Lieutenant.”

Yamura lowered her head and peered at Marvia over the top of her glasses. “You’re a lousy liar, you know that?”

“No, really.”

Yamura waited.

“Well,” Marvia conceded, “glass half full, glass half empty. You know.”

Yamura flipped the pages on her desk calendar. “You want to talk about it, off duty, after hours, off the reservation?”

Again, Marvia considered. “Off the record, too?”

“Woman to woman and friend to friend. I’ll buy you dinner. How about—let me check my calendar—how about Saturday night? I’ll pick you up at your house.”

Marvia nodded.

Yamura scribbled on her calendar and dropped her glasses so they hung on her chest by their chain. When she removed the glasses she shifted gears. “Guess who called me this morning, demanding action on this death over at KRED.”

Marvia didn’t have to guess. “City councilmember Hanson.”

Yamura made a pistol out of her hand, pointed it at Marvia and dropped the hammer. She made a popping sound with her tongue. “First try. Bull’s eye. Now, for double or nothing, What did she have to say?”

Marvia dipped her head and said, “What’s wrong with the BPD, can’t we protect a vital community asset like KRED, Bob Bjorner was a pillar of the community and of civic thought, and if this was one of those right-wing rant-stations in San Francisco they would have the case wrapped up by now.”

With a thin smile, Yamura said, “If you had a crystal ball you could set up shop and make a fortune. You know that Hanson is getting restless at City Hall. She has her eye on Sacramento. Or maybe, I don’t know, Washington. She’s looking for a good club to pound the tub with.” She leaned her elbows on her desk and folded one hand over the other. “What do you have?”

When Yamura leaned forward in her chair, Marvia leaned back in hers. “I’m waiting for the lab reports. I talked to Silver at Bisonte’s office and to Laura Kern at the forensics lab out in San Leandro and all I know for sure is Bjorner’s dead. Heck, I knew that yesterday. I want to know what killed him.”

“What about that warning fax? Any progress on tracking down the sender?”

“Nothing.” You never said “No luck” to Dorothy Yamura. She didn’t like coincidences, and she didn’t believe in luck at all. Intelligence, application, and plain good police work led to success; deficiency in any of those characteristics led to the failure of an investigation. That was her philosophy and if you worked for her, no matter how well you got along together, that was the standard you were expected to meet.

Yamura looked at Marvia, obviously waiting for information.

“I have to study the reports from the people we had at the station. Check the canvass. And I want to interview the next of kin.”

Yamura nodded. “Who’s that?”

“Bjorner had a brother, Herb. I already talked with him at the station last night. He seems cooperative. Upset but fairly coherent. The receptionist at the station says he brought Bob to the studio every afternoon and took him home after his show. Did you know that Bob Bjorner was almost totally blind?”

Yamura sat up straight. “No.” It was a long, drawn-out no. “What do you think that means? Is it relevant?”

Marvia shook her head. “No idea. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with his death. But he used a Braille script. I want it turned into typescript. I want to know what he was going to say in his last broadcast. Going to call UC and get somebody there to read it back for me. And I want to get an air-check from KRED and see if there’s anything there.”

Yamura said, “Sounds good, Marvia. I want to move fast on this, and it looks like you’re a step ahead of the game.”

Marvia stood up. “I’ll be happier when I see the reports from the coroner and chem lab.”

“Who’s handling it?”

“Gemma Silver says Bisonte’s doing the PM himself. And Laura Kern is doing the chem checks at the forensics lab.”

Yamura said, “Keep me posted.” She swung around in her chair and pulled a file folder from a wire basket.

* * * *

Marvia Plum headed back to her own desk. She scanned the reports from Holloway, Rosetti and Gutierrez. It looked as if they’d all done their jobs and it looked as if none of them had learned anything useful.

She padded into the squad room moving silently in her sneakers. She poured herself a cup of coffee and scanned the morning papers. There was an Oakland Trib under the creamer and there were copies of both of the San Francisco morning papers, the long-running Chronicle and the brash upstart Mirror.

The Trib gave the Bjorner case a tease above the logo on the main news section and a story on page one of the local news section. They had a photo of the body bag on the gurney being loaded into the coroner’s ambulance in the KRED parking lot.

The Chron actually put the story on its front page but used no photo.

The Mirror—oh, lordy. Forget about the current Balkan war and latest Pacific storm. KRED KILLER, the main headline read. And the subhead, Radical ’Caster Croaks into Mike—Was Radio Red’s Final Message Cry for Help? And, would you believe it, they had a photo of the cadaver slumped across the broadcaster’s desk in Studio B. They ran it the width of the front page.

How the hell did they get that?

There was a credit line on the photo but it just said, Staff. The story itself started on page three with another juicy headline and a shot similar to the Oakland Trib’s and another—how in bloody blue blazing hell did they get this one?—of Marvia Plum conversing with Herb Bjorner.

You could see Herb Bjorner clearly. He was standing in front of the KRED building. You could see the station call letters on the marquee, and there was a uniformed police officer with her back to the camera, talking with Bjorner. You couldn’t see her face but there was no question it was Marvia Plum. Her sergeant’s stripes were even visible.

The story itself was headlined simply, KRED KILLING. It was bylined, Special to the San Francisco Mirror, by Maude Markham. Marvia thought she knew most of the local media, by face or by byline if not in person. She’d only been gone for a matter of weeks. But she didn’t know Maude Markham. Maybe a new reporter. Maybe a college kid interning at the Mirror, who had just got very, very lucky.

She heard a page over the loudspeaker. “Sergeant Plum, pick up your phone.” The page didn’t say who was calling, but Marvia could easily feel the looming presence of city councilmember Sherry Hanson.