Silent Witness (22 page)

Another long, uncomfortable silence. Then, no longer the good old boy, Benson said, “Listen, Howard, I think the time’s come when we’ve got to take a new look at the Price homicide. We’ve been proceeding on the theory that it was a prowler, a transient, someone who’s long gone. But, to my knowledge, at least, we don’t have much in the way of proof—physical proof, or eye witnesses—that do much to back up that theory. In fact, when you come right down to it, we’re really proceeding on the assumption that everything Dennis Price said is true. We’ve taken his account of events, and we’ve gone from there. We’ve done the same as concerns his kid. John. However—” For emphasis, Benson let a long, significant beat pass. “However, as I said, I think we’ve got to talk to Price again. And the boy, too. I think we’ve got to question them again. One reason I say this is that I happened to run into Al Martelli yesterday, in town. And just for the hell of it—we were having coffee, in fact—I asked him, right out, whether he believed it was a prowler that killed Constance Price. And he told me—right out—that he didn’t think so. Now, I didn’t want to take it any farther than that, with Al. I mean, it wasn’t an official interrogation, and Al understood that. He also understood that I appreciated his leveling with me. So, just as we were leaving the coffee shop, he asked me if I’d talked to Bernhardt. And when I said that I had, then Al nodded, and he said that was good, because he thought Bernhardt was on the right track.”

“I talked to Martelli about five days ago. He didn’t seem to think so much of Bernhardt then.”

“Only a fool won’t change his mind once in a while, Howard. And Al’s no fool.”

Fowler made no response. Instead, he began to drum his fingers on the desk. From the tone of Benson’s voice, and the cadence of his words, it was obvious that the fuss-budget DA was finally coming to the point: “So what I think we should do,” Benson said, “is talk to Price again. And I also think we should talk to his boy. John.” A short silence. Then: “I’ll leave it up to you, Howard, how we handle it. Shall we both go out to the Price place, separate them, see what they say?”

Fowler drew a long, reluctant breath—followed by a short, rattling cough. He cleared his throat, coughed again, cleared his throat again. Finally: “I’ll go first, see what they say. Then I’ll get back to you.”

“Will you do it today, Howard?” Unmistakably, it was a command, not a question.

“Why not?”

I
N THE BEDROOM, PAULA
heard Bernhardt talking on the telephone. She ran a comb through thick, dark hair, stepped back from the bathroom mirror, surveyed the effect. Was the gauzy blouse too sheer to wear without a sweater? She turned so that the sunlight from the frosted-glass window backlit her torso. Yes, the curve of her breast was clearly outlined, something she was unwilling to offer casual eyes. She would change to the cotton blouse she’d left hanging in the closet, the conservative alternative.

She dropped comb, lipstick, and eyebrow pencil into her toilet kit and put the kit beside Alan’s on the bathroom counter. Was this a hint of domesticity to come: two toilet kits, side by side, along with Alan’s electric shaver plugged into a wall socket, and her shower cap drying on the shower head? They’d both been through it before: the domestic experience, she with a husband she’d come to hate, Alan with his beloved Jennie, the young wife whose radiant memory would live forever in Alan’s thoughts.

While she, Jennie’s flesh-and-blood successor, grew older every day.

As she opened the bathroom door she saw Alan sitting on the bed, telephone to his ear, listening. Fulsomely aware of his eyes following her, she took off the sheer nylon blouse, put on the cotton one. As she worked at the buttons, she sat in the room’s only armchair, propping her bare feet on the bed. Smiling, mischievously erotic, she began burrowing her toes beneath his thigh. Shifting the phone to his left hand, he began stroking her calf. Last night, this morning, and now—whenever they touched each other—the bells began to ring. Two months ago, weekending in Mendocino, their first time together in a motel, it had been the same: a feast of the senses. Motel madness, she’d called it.

He put down the telephone, began caressing her thigh as he leaned forward to kiss her.

Just as the telephone warbled.

Sighing, he lifted the phone with his left hand, shrugged broadly, withdrew his right hand from her thigh, reached for a notepad and pen—while he ruefully smiled.

“Hello?”

She watched his face as he listened. The first time she’d seen him, he’d introduced himself to the dozen-odd hopefuls who were trying out for
The Buried Child,
the play he would be directing. “Lincolnesque” was the phrase that had immediately come to mind. Alan’s long, lean, gangling body, his deeply etched face with its hint of sadness, the somber dark eyes that saw so much and sometimes revealed so little—they were all part of his persona.

“So where’re you now?” he was asking. Then, after a brief pause: “Do you think she made you, and was trying to lose you?” A short silence. “Well, let’s decide on San Rafael. No, call my machine in the city, don’t bother with this number.” A final pause. “Okay. Good luck.” He cradled the phone, shook his head, saying to her, “That was C.B. He lost Theo in Corte Madera.”

“Hmmm …” She began to run one bare foot up his thigh.

“Behave, will you?” Suddenly he tickled the sole of her foot. Laughing, convulsed, she drew back her legs, twisting away.
“Don’t.”

“Ticklish, eh?” He leered at her. “I’ll remember that, when all else fails.”

“What ‘all else’ did you have in mind?” She matched his leer.

“Right now, nothing. After all—” He glanced at his watch. “It’s barely been two hours.”

“Hmmm …”

“Besides, the meter’s running. Would you feel right about it, billing your childhood friend for time we spent making love at ten o’clock in the morning?”

She laughed: almost a girlish giggle, pure, uncomplicated pleasure. “I guess that’d depend on whether you itemized the bill. Besides, you could always—”

The telephone came alive. Resigned, she suddenly rose, spoke quickly: “I’m going to find Janice, see if she wants coffee.”

He nodded, lifted the phone. “Hello?”

“Alan, this is Frank.”

“Frank
—” He’d forgotten that, more than an hour ago, he’d called Frank Hastings to ask for a quick police check, up or down, on Theo Stark. Years ago, Bernhardt had worked with Ann Haywood, in little theater. Newly divorced from a venal society psychiatrist, keeping herself in circulation, Ann had volunteered to paint sets at the Howell. Later, she’d met Frank Hastings, who cocommanded the SFPD’s Homicide Squad, along with the irascible Peter Friedman. Frequently, Bernhardt and Hastings exchanged favors, usually information from the police computers in exchange for small, not-quite-legal jobs the police needed done.

“No news,” Hastings said. “As far as California is concerned, the lady’s clean.”

“I thought so.”

“I know the building she lives in. Pretty fancy.”

“Yeah …”

“Listen,” Hastings said, “I’ve got to get off. How’s Paula?”

“Fine. Ann?”

“She’s great. We’re going to take her two kids river rafting next week. My daughter—Claudia—is coming out from Detroit. She’s going with us.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“If you and Paula are interested, you could probably come along. There’re several rafts, you know—eight-passenger rafts, I think. I can give you the name of the outfit that puts the trips together.”

“I doubt that I can do it. Free-lancing, I’m discovering, doesn’t let you plan very far ahead. Not if you’re interested in cash flow.”

“My father used to say that the only thing worse than working for yourself is working for someone else.”

“Your father must’ve been a very wise man.” As he said it, he heard Hastings cover the mouthpiece of his phone, and talk behind his hand.

Then: “Gotta go, Alan. See you soon. Come by for some of the city’s coffee.”

“Right. And thanks again.” He cradled the telephone, rose, went to the window, adjusted the curtain so that he could look out across the parking lot to the pool. Three small children were playing in the wading pool. Two women, both in bathing suits, one slim, the other chunky, sat beside the pool, watching their children.

While, a few miles to the south, John might also be at play in the water of Price’s swimming pool.

But John would be playing alone, watched over by a paid employee—or an indifferent father.

Was the tension building? Were the principals drawing together, entering the lists, ready for the final combat? Mixing the metaphor, was the third act about to begin? Yes, ready or not, the curtain could be going up. Janice was about to commit herself. Price, at bay, could be turning dangerous. Al Martelli, the pivot character, was onstage, ready. Theo Stark, the mystery woman, was somewhere in the wings. All of it centering on John.

If he could write the play, could make fact follow fiction, how would he construct the plot? It would be rooted of course, in conflict, the essence of drama. A scene at the graveyard could be the opening, trite but serviceable. Janice and Dennis Price, the antagonists. John, the pint-size protagonist. Paula had been at the graveyard, too, a member of the chorus. The mourners—the shades, from Greek tragedy—defined the mood, silent messengers from beyond.

Enter the hero: Alan Bernhardt, the avenger. More conflict, more revelation. Enter Theo Stark, the mysterious presence. Fowler, a surly Rosencrantz. Benson, lean and saturnine, a stoop-shouldered Guildenstern. Martelli, the wayfarer—and, finally, C. B. Tate, the ghetto Falstaff.

Heighten the tension, draw the circle tighter—watch them begin to squirm, lash out at each other. While John, the innocent, held the key.

Yes, it was a workable plot, with a serviceable roster of characters, a good mix.

But how would it end?

What were the possibilities, the combinations? Would the ending be revelatory: finally the truth, dashing the evildoers’ nefarious designs?

Would the ending be upbeat: Dennis, the errant father, redeeming himself, embracing his son, with a fade-out to a swelling musical score?

A surprise ending, perhaps—a twist: Enter Fowler, with the murderer in chains, a stranger, glowering as he confessed?

Or another, more complicated twist: Martelli as Connie’s lover, perhaps, the good guy unmasked as the murderer?

Or … ?

B
ERNHARDT DREW THE CURTAIN
, bolted the door, swung the canvas bag up on the luggage rack. Seated on the bed, Paula watched him as he stripped off his shirt and bent over the bag. Soon, she knew, Alan and Janice would leave for the winery. The contents of the bag, then, were essential to their mission, to their safety. Guns or communication equipment. Or both.

Conscious of a dull, nameless dread that translated into a constriction of the throat and chest, she watched him unzip the bag. The second time they’d made love, in the afterglow, lying side by side in her bed, pillow-talking, he’d told her how the black hit man had died. It had happened in the desert below Palm Springs. When he’d told her about it—how the black man had died, and why—it had been a confession, something he’d had to tell her.

He was remembering that night now, the night he’d told her what happened. She could see it in his face, read it in his eyes as, yes, he withdrew the revolver from the canvas bag. The revolver was holstered; only the walnut butt showed. Turning his attention to the pistol, he drew it from the holster and swung out the cylinder. She saw them clearly: the five brass cartridges, and the one empty chamber. Now he returned the cylinder to its locked position, careful to put the empty cylinder under the hammer. He returned the pistol to its leather holster, and slipped it down against the small of his back, above the butt. A large leather fob held the holster in position, an ingenious design.

Often, making love, she’d caressed him in the hollow of the spine above the buttocks, where the pistol now rested.

As he slipped on his shirt and began buttoning it, she saw him watching her. His face—the dark, Semitic face, the face that so often expressed so much—was now without expression. Watching her. Waiting.

“I—I hope you won’t need that,” she ventured.

“I won’t need it. But it’s nice to feel it there.” Now, gravely, he was smiling. He turned back to the bag, took out a small cardboard box. He put the box on the corner of the bureau, and rezipped the bag. The box, she knew, contained cartridges for the revolver.

“It’s time to go.” He spoke quietly, seriously.

She rose, went to him, put her arms around his waist, careful not to touch the gun. “Be careful. Come back safe.”

“I’m not going to war, you know. I’m just going to stand lookout for Janice.”

“With a gun.”

“Price can get pretty excited. People seem to calm down, I’ve noticed, when they see a gun.” He slipped his arms around her waist, drew her close, felt her body’s intimacy, his special privilege, arousing him. But now, smiling, he resolutely stepped back. “Got to go. We should be back in two, three hours. If C.B. shows up, tell him to try me on the car phone. If he doesn’t get me—” He hesitated, deciding. Then: “Tell him to come here, to Saint Stephen, to the motel.” As he spoke, he dropped his eyes to the canvas bag. Then he lifted the bag, shoved it under the bed, saying, “There’s a sawed-off shotgun in that bag. It’s very effective, but illegal as hell. If C.B. asks, tell him where it is, okay?” As he spoke, he took the box of cartridges from the corner of the bureau.

She swallowed. “Yes, I’ll tell him.”

“Okay—here I go.” He stepped close, touched her cheek, smiled into her eyes. “Love you lots.”

“Me too you.”

It was a whimsical exchange that had evolved between them, one of their special secrets.

A
S FOWLER CLOSED HIS
office door and locked it, he heard the radio come to life: Andy Strauss, bored, was reporting from the field: “Base, this is Unit One.”

Equally bored, Grace Perkins slid the microphone across the desk, keyed the microphone, pressed the “record” switch.