Chocolate Quake (26 page)

I used my rental phone to call the center for her address, which I gave the taxi driver. Within twenty minutes we pulled up to a drab, pseudo-modern apartment building that made the city’s bay-window-bedecked Victorians seem all the more desirable. Myra Fox lived on the fourth floor and answered the door herself. She looked terrible: emaciated, gray-faced, turban-headed, and exhausted. Still, she seemed happy to see me and offered to make tea. Of course I refused.

We sat in the living room, a pleasantly decorated space in plum and blue-gray with fringed lamps and flowered chairs. “I never got to meet your mother-in-law,” Myra said. “It was a great coup for the center to bring her in this summer. I actually made the initial financial arrangements. That was before I was diagnosed. I suppose someone has told you about—”

“Yes,” I agreed hastily. “I’m so sorry for what you must be going through, but at least you have an interesting job to return to when your treatment is over.”

She smiled wanly. “I do look forward to returning. So many good friends. And they’ve been wonderful to me, especially Charles. Have you met him?”

“No, but I’m sure he’s been a great comfort. I heard how thoughtful he was about getting files for you to work on to take your mind off . . . well . . . work you love must be a welcome distraction.” She looked a little confused, and I had to wonder if she’d been able to do any of the work her lover brought home to divert her.

“Actually, I’m hoping you can help me, and the center,” I continued. “I’m looking into Denise’s murder, and it’s come to my attention that money seems to be missing from the accounts.”

She turned pale.

“Not that anyone blames you,” I hastened to add. “But I wondered if you’d noticed any discrepancies before you had to take medical leave.”

“What kind of discrepancies?” she asked.

I thumbed through to the notes I’d made in Denise’s apartment. “Payments to vendors who didn’t actually provide any goods or services. Consultant payments that were . . . I don’t know . . . fraudulent? I’m afraid I don’t know much about accounting, so I may be describing these things badly. Did you suspect anything like that?”

“No! The books were in perfect order when I left.”

“I’m sure they were,” I said soothingly. I shouldn’t have come. I was upsetting the poor woman. “Well, there are two ways to look at this. Papers I saw in Denise’s apartment seemed to indicate she was setting up these schemes herself.”

“Oh, surely not. I mean I know that Denise was a professional accountant for many years, so I suppose she’d know how to do something like that, but she always seemed to be a nice woman.”

“Who’s a nice woman?” A blonde man had let himself into the apartment, and Myra introduced him as Charles Desmond.

“Mrs. Blue has been telling me about papers found in Denise’s apartment and—and possible theft of center money. It sounds impossible, doesn’t it?”

“I should say so,” said Desmond. “If they’d let you come back to work instead of showering you with false sympathy and making you stay home getting depressed, you’d soon get to the bottom of any funny business. I could have helped.”

“Charles is a great believer in the benefits of working through good health and bad,” said Myra, sighing. “He’s very protective of my emotional well-being.”

“Of course I am. Beating cancer is a matter of mind over matter. And good treatment, of course. I know all about how depressed one can be away from one’s work. The tech disaster put me, and many others, among the unemployed.”

“Yes, I’ve heard how hard it’s been in San Francisco,” I murmured. “As I was saying, the problem seems to be whether Denise was the thief or investigating a theft. I was hoping Myra might be able to help me.”

“Of course she can. Just let her at those books, and she’ll clear matters up in no time, won’t you, love?” He had turned fondly to Myra, who looked more tired than eager.

“That’s a wonderful offer, but I’m afraid the police still have the office sealed off, and the books with it.”

“So the police are investigating this presumed theft?” he asked.

“Not really, although I’m in touch with the police, and I suppose Mrs. Hollis will bring it to their attention sooner or later. She thinks Denise was investigating the books.”

“Nora’s a wonderful fund-raiser and a generous patron,” Myra admitted, “but she never pays any attention to what happens to the money after that, except to dash in and set up some new program from time to time.”

“I wish we could be more help to you, Mrs. Blue,” said Charles Desmond, “but if the books are unavailable, I don’t see how. Still, it was very kind of you to visit Myra and solicit her help. She needs all the company and encouragement she can get. By the way, do you live close by, or can I offer you a ride home?”

“I’m staying at my mother-in-law’s sublet, but actually I’ve got to go back to the center. I can call a cab.”

“Nonsense, I’ll drive you,” he insisted. “Myra, is there anything I need to pick up at the market? Why don’t you have a nap until I get back.”

“I think I will,” she said in a tired voice.

Desmond drove me back to the center, asking about the notes I’d seen at Denise’s house and looking very concerned with my answers. “Good lord, you don’t suppose Denise was actually stealing, do you? I wonder if someone was in it with her, and killed her to keep the profits for him or herself.”

“I wondered about that myself, and I do have the name of a man named Jacob who seemed to be involved in whatever she was doing.”

“Really? Well, they say there’s no honor among thieves.”

“I understand you were in the building that night, Mr. Desmond. Did you see anyone who shouldn’t have been there?”

“Not that I remember. I talked to Denise about taking home work for Myra, but she refused, which I thought pretty hard-hearted at the time. Looking back, maybe she knew the files couldn’t bear scrutiny by an accountant familiar with center business. The only other person I remember talking to was a young Japanese cooking teacher. I suppose I must have seen people but didn’t particularly remark them because they were regulars.”

We’d reached Union Street, so I thanked him for his input and wished Myra a speedy recovery, then climbed the stairs, thinking that he must be very devoted to her. He was younger and quite good-looking, yet he’d stayed with her through very hard times.

41

Chaos at the Center

 

A
fter talking to
Myra and Charles, it seemed that Denise might have been a thief, but Nora Hollis had said Denise was investigating possible thefts. Well, I’d discuss the information with Sam. If he’d gotten hold of the elusive Jacob, that might help.

At the sign-in desk I discovered a teenage boy, presumably the son, instead of Mr. Timatovich. His presence reminded me that the father had issues with Denise, fear of being revealed as an overtime thief, plans to blackmail her or force her to include him in the spoils. Maybe they’d quarreled that night, and he’d killed her. As Sam said, too many suspects.

I was almost relieved to reach the kitchen and face a group of women who evidently thought cooking something that didn’t involve government surplus food would be a real treat. Some were dubious at the idea of cake made of finely ground walnuts instead of flour, but we progressed through the batter mixing and baking. Only when I went in quest of some pot holders and a knife with which to cut horizontally through the finished cakes did the unthinkable occur. I found, in a non-Japanese knife drawer in among the pot holders, the missing sashimi knife. It was coated with dried blood. I backed away from the sight in such haste that I tripped and fell. A blessing, evidence-wise. By the time the students had helped me up, I realized that no one must touch the murder weapon. Fingerprints had to be preserved. Accordingly, I slammed the drawer shut before the students saw its grisly contents, leaned against it, and instructed them to search the kitchen for suitable cake knives.

While they searched, I pulled out my cell phone, called Inspector Yu, and told him I’d found the murder weapon. He questioned me, then told me not to touch it or let anyone else near it. He would send crime-scene techs over to take it into custody.

My students found all kinds of things, including a number of useful knives and some duct tape. I taped the drawer closed and proceeded with my cake instructions. We sliced each cake in half horizontally, having refrigerated them straight from the oven in order to shorten cooling-off time. Then we slathered a thick layer of black raspberry jam on the bottom halves and settled the upper halves on top. Having reassembled them, we put them in freezers, and I demonstrated the preparation of the chocolate cream frosting, which they would have to make Saturday morning by themselves, while the cakes defrosted, and apply both between the two layers and then on the tops and sides of the four-layer extravaganzas. With the lesson completed, everyone milled around congratulating each other on how many compliments would come their way at the anniversary celebration. Some hugged me. Some asked if their names were going to be in my column.

When the crime-scene techs arrived, we had just started cleanup. Needless to say, the police presence and the untaping of the drawer distracted my students, but they couldn’t see what was being taken out so carefully. And then it was over. We had returned to the cleanup of the processors, bowls, pans, and utensils when the shrieking started.

Dragging their hands from dishwater, abandoning sticky kitchenware, my students stampeded toward the sound. With trepidation, I followed. In the front section of the house we discovered a stocky, graying woman proclaiming to an ever-increasing audience that it was just as she thought: her worthless husband was not where he should be, and she knew just what he was doing instead of his job, which he had palmed off on his son, the treacherous boy who would make a fool of his mother by concealing his father’s affair. She had a very distinct Russian accent.

At the sign-in desk the teenaged math genius kept saying, “Mama. Mama.” He had no luck breaking into his mother’s noisy lamentation.

“Gone last week. You think I don’t see you sitting here in his place, Vassily, traitor son? Now gone this week. Your father is an animal. One woman not enough for him.” She moaned and wrung her hands.

“It’s the prostate, Mama,” cried Vassily. “He’s always in the bathroom when he’s not working.”

“In the bathroom. He is in the toilet now?” She rushed over to the door under the stairs and banged her fist on it.

“Just a minute please,” called a female voice.

“Is the mistress,” cried Mrs. Timatovich and hurled herself against the door, which sagged on its hinges and revealed Maria Fortuni of the Crone Cohort sitting on the toilet. Mrs. Timatovich then decided that her husband and the alleged mistress were copulating in some nearby office, so she pushed through the crowd to begin a search.

Maria pulled her knee-length underpants up under her dress, and said, “I should have believed Yolanda. People
are
breaking in on old ladies. We’re not safe here. I’m going home.” She picked up her purse and, cane thumping angrily on the floor, scuttled toward the old ladies’ exterior ramp. Meanwhile, Mrs. Timatovich had broken through the police tape and into the untenanted business office.

“No, no, Mama,” her son cried, running after her. “That’s where the lady died.”

The mother screamed and backed out into Vassily’s arms. “I see bloody ghost. She still there in office.” Mrs. Timatovich began to weep. Members of the crowd peered into Denise’s office to see if they too could spot the gory sight.

I quickly pushed them away, explaining that the office was a sealed crime scene. As I closed the door and stuck the tape back up, I didn’t see any bloody apparitions. Vassily put his mother into his chair behind the desk and tried to explain that his father was working another job, while he, Vassily, filled in here.

“Why he’s not telling me about other job? He’s spending the money on his mistress.”

“No, Mama. It’s so I can go to Cal Tech.”

“Many good colleges here. Why not study here?”

Since their conversation did not seem to be winding down, I interrupted. “He wasn’t here last Thursday?” I asked.

Vasilly looked shame-faced. “I called him before the police came, and he left his other job to come back so no one would notice that I’d taken his place.”

“So where exactly was he when Denise Faulk was killed?” I demanded.

“He substitutes as a guard on Thursdays at the Faulk building. It’s—”

“I know where it is.” If this was true, Timatovich hadn’t murdered Faulk, but he might know if her stepson had an alibi. “Did you kill her?” I asked the son bluntly.

The boy was so astonished that he couldn’t speak. However, his mother could. “My son? You think my son is killing some woman? Having sex with some woman? Shame. Shame. He is good boy. Is virgin.”

“Mama!” The son turned bright red.

Before I could pursue the matter, Sam burst through the front door. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “I’m double-parked out front, and we’ve only got a few minutes left to set up surveillance.”

“You won’t believe what’s been going on here this evening,” I said as he hustled me down the steps.

“Tell me later,” he responded brusquely. “If I miss Croker, I’m going to call your father-in-law and tell him, either you quit or I do.”

“Goodness, you’re cranky.”