Bones

FIFTEEN

When I got back to the office Eberhardt was gone again and there was another typed note on my desk. This one read: 2:45 P.M.

I talked to DeKalb. Looks like those bones you found are a woman's. Lab found woman's wedding ring, one-carat diamond in gold setting, on a finger bone. Victim was a small adult, probably between 25 and 50, but that's all they can determine so far. Skull may have been crushed prior to burial of body but they're not sure enough to make it official. Unofficially DeKalb thinks it might be homicide connected to your case. He expects to be in touch.

Items buried with bones as follows: four keys on metal ring, cigarette case (no monogram), woman's compact, gold brooch with two small safires (sp?), remains of metal rattail comb, remains of fountain pen, two metal buckles. DeKalb figures all this stuff contents of victim's purse.

You had one call, same pesty woman who called before. Said you'd know who she was and she'd call again. Women.

I sat down and looked out the window at the eddies of fog that obscured the city. Yeah, I thought, women. I didn't want to talk to Mrs. Kiskadon again and I hoped she wouldn't call back while I was here; it would only be more of the same I'd gotten from her up in the park.

I quit thinking about her and thought instead about the woman's wedding ring, one-carat diamond in a gold setting. Harmon Crane's red-haired lover had been married, it seemed. To someone he knew? To a stranger? No way of telling yet. And either way, that kind of affair happens all too often; it didn't have to mean anything significant, to have a direct bearing on the woman's death.

I pulled the phone over and dialed Stephen Porter's number. But it was late afternoon and he just didn't seem to be available at this time of day: no answer. On impulse I looked up Yank-'Em-Out Yankowski's home number and called that. The housekeeper answered. I identified myself, she said just a minute and went away; when she came back, after a good three minutes, she said Mr. Yankowski wasn't home and hung up on me. Uh-huh, I thought. I had figured the old son of a bitch for a grudge-holder and that was what he was.

The phone and I stared at each other for a time. I was debating whether or not I ought to call DeKalb and tell him about the red-haired woman. But there didn't seem to be much point in it just yet. I still had no idea who the woman might have been; for that matter I couldn't even be certain that it was the redhead's bones we'd found yesterday. Some other woman's, maybe. Hell, Crane might have had a steady stream of women up there at Tomales Bay, Dancer's opinion notwithstanding. Better to keep on digging on my own. I had more incentive than DeKalb did anyway: I was getting paid for this specific job, and I was a lot more interested in what had happened in late October of 1949 than he was.

I stared out the window some more. Would Amanda Crane have any idea who the red-haired woman had been? Not likely. From all indications she had worshipped her husband; if she'd had any inkling that he was having an affair or affairs, particularly in view of the fact that her frigidity was the probable cause, she was the type of woman who would have put on blinders and refused to admit the truth even to herself. And her mental state being what it was now, it would be cruel to subject her to that kind of questioning. Not that I could even get to see her again, what with that niece of hers on guard…

The niece, I thought. Would she know anything about Harmon Crane's extracurricular activities? She couldn't be more than fifty, which made her a teenager when Crane had died; but teenagers are just as perceptive as adults sometimes-and sometimes even nosier-and there was also the possibility that she had picked up knowledge later on, from Mrs. Crane or from someone else.

What was the niece's name again? It took me a few seconds to remember that it was Dubek, Marilyn Dubek. Shortterm memory loss-another indicator of creeping old age. I got the number from Information and dialed it, the idea being to determine whether or not she was home yet. If she'd answered I would have said, “Sorry, wrong number,” and hung up and then driven over to Berkeley for the third time in two days. But she didn't answer. Nobody answered.

Temporary impasse.

I decided it was just as well. After four now-almost quitting time. And rush-hour traffic would be turning the bridge approaches into parking lots at this very minute. Who needed to breathe exhaust fumes for an hour or more? Who needed to put up with idiot drivers? Who needed to go to Berkeley to talk about a dead redhead when a live redhead would soon be available in Diamond Heights? Who needed the company of Petunia Pig when the company of Kerry Wade could be had instead?

I closed up half an hour early and hied myself straight to Diamond Heights.

Kerry and I went to a movie down at Ghirardelli Square. It was a mystery movie-“a nightmarish thriller in the grand tradition of Alfred Hitchcock,” according to the ads. It was a film to give you nightmares, all right. And both it and its damned ads were a lie.

Filmmakers these days seem to equate suspense with gore: you're supposed to sit there damp-palmed and full of anticipation for the next gusher of blood, the next beheading, the next Technicolor disembowelment. Hitchcock knew different; every film noir director in the forties and fifties knew different. Character and atmosphere and mood are the true elements of suspense, cinematic or literary; it's what you don't see, what you're forced to imagine, that keeps you poised on the edge of your seat. Not blood, for Christ's sake. Not exposed entrails and rolling heads. Not human depravity of the worst sort.

Seven minutes into this piece of crap, the first bloody slashing took place. One minute later, while it was still going on, we got up and walked out. I've seen too much blood and carnage in my life as it is- real blood, real carnage. I don't need to be reminded of all the torn flesh, all the violated humanity, all the shattered hopes and futile dreams, all the goddamn waste. And I don't need my guts tied into knots by phony bullshit special effects that make a mockery of violent death and a mockery of its victims.

I said all of this to Kerry after we were outside the theater. I was pretty steamed up and when I get angry I tend to rant a little. Usually she just lets me rant without saying much, Kerry being of the opinion that if somebody is going to throw a tantrum, he ought to do it and be done with it. Very rational, my lady, which can be annoying as hell sometimes. This time, however, she did some ranting of her own; she doesn't like splatter movies any more than I do, especially the ones that employ name actors and hide behind the guise of “thrillers in the grand tradition of Alfred Hitchcock.”

We went over to my place, ranting all the way, and had a couple of drinks to get rid of the bad taste, and then ate leftover roast and watched I Wake Up Screaming on the tube. That, by God, was a suspenseful film. Even Victor Mature had turned in a halfway decent performance for a change.

I asked Kerry to stay the night again-we wouldn't be seeing each other tomorrow night because she'd made other plans-but she declined. She had to be up and at the office early in the morning, she said. Besides, she said, we had been making love altogether too often lately. All that exertion was bad for my heart, she said, an old fellow like me.

Her cockeyed humor again. But I was not amused.

After she left, the old fellow doddered off to bed and reread the first three chapters of Axe of Mercy. It had been written during World War II, and it was all about fifth columnists, the black market in rubber goods and gas-rationing coupons, a fat farm called the Spread Shed, and the “Mercy Fund for War Widows” that was anything but. Most of the characters were zany, including the fifth columnists and black-marketeers, and there were all sorts of humorous scenes, descriptions, and dialogue. The last time I'd read it, a few years back, it had struck me as hilarious farce. This time I was no more amused than I had been at the splatter movie or at Kerry's levity.

Somehow Harmon Crane just wasn't funny anymore.

Five minutes after I arrived at the office on Friday morning, an attorney I knew named Dick Marsten rang up with a job offer: a female witness in a criminal case of his had disappeared and he wanted me to track her down. I would have liked to lay it off on Eberhardt, but he wasn't in yet-as usual-and Marsten had to be in court at eleven. So I said all right, I'd come to his office right away and pick up the details. Never turn down a paying job, especially not when the only other one you've got is as iffy as the Harmon Crane investigation.

I spent forty-five minutes with Marsten. Then I returned to the office and made some calls to start the skip-trace working. Eberhardt still hadn't come in; he'd either gone directly out on the job-he had a skip-trace of his own that he'd been gnawing at since last week-or he'd taken another day off to further mollify the Footwear Queen. If it was the latter we were going to have a talk, Eb and I. Whether he got offended again or not.

By the time I called Stephen Porter, it was almost noon. He was in and as willing to help as ever; the only thing was, he didn't have anything to tell me. He couldn't remember any redheaded woman with milk-white skin and freckles who had been acquainted with the Cranes; in fact he seemed surprised and a little shocked that Crane had been having an affair with anyone. As far as he'd been aware, Crane had been devoted to Amanda. I didn't say anything to him about her frigidity; it wasn't the kind of knowledge that ought to be casually repeated.

I walked over to a chain restaurant on Van Ness, ate a soggy tuna-salad sandwich and drank some iced tea that tasted as if it had been made with dishwater, and walked back again. Still no Eberhardt. I called Marilyn Dubek's number. No answer. I debated calling Yankowski's home again and decided it would be a waste of time. I looked up the numbers of the novelist and the former confession writer who had known Crane, and called them, and that was a waste of time; neither man remembered a freckled redhead in connection with Harmon Crane.

If I had a number for Russ Dancer, I thought, I'd try picking his brain again. But I didn't have a number for him. Or did I? I dialed San Mateo County Information and asked for the number of Mama Luz's Pink Flamingo Tavern. Dancer was there, all right; but a fat lot of good that did me. He was already “about half shit-faced,” as he put it, and if he'd ever met the mysterious redhead he couldn't dredge up the memory from the alcoholic bog it was mired in.

I tried Marilyn Dubek again. Busy signal this time; I took that as an encouraging sign, puttered around for ten minutes setting up a file for the Marsten skip-trace, and then redialed her number. Four rings and La Dubek's voice said, “Hello? Marie, is that you?” I said, “Wrong number,” and hung up and went to get my hat and coat. Petunia Peg was somebody I would have to talk to in person if I was going to get anything from her other than short shrift.

The sun was shining in Berkeley this afternoon, which was more than you could say for San Francisco. Not that it was any warmer over there; a strong cold wind was blowing. The wind had tugged leaves and twigs off the trees lining Linden Street and carpeted the pavement with them; more leaves covered the Dubek lawn, littered the porch stairs. As soon as the wind stopped blowing, I thought, she would be out here with a broom-or maybe her vacuum cleaner-to tidy up. She was just that type.

She answered promptly when I leaned on the doorbell. Her dyed black hair was up in curlers, her fat lips looked as if they had been stained with blueberry juice, and she was wearing a housedress that was as colorful and puckish as a page from the Sunday funnies. In one hand she carried a saucepan full of stringbeans, holding it tight-fisted like a weapon. She was quite a sight. If there had ever been a Porky in her life he had probably run off screaming years ago, in self-defense.

She glared at me, said, “Oh, it's you again,” and got ready to shut the door in my face. “You can't see my aunt. She's not seeing anybody-”

“I didn't come to see Mrs. Crane,” I said quickly, “I came to see you.”

“Me? What for?”

“To ask you some questions.”

“About Harmon Crane, I suppose. Well, I'm not answering any questions about him, not for you or any other fan.”

“I'm not a fan.”

“Writer, then.”

“I'm not a writer.”

“Well? Then what are you?”

“A private detective.”

If that surprised her she didn't show it. Suspicion made her little pig eyes glitter. “Prove it,” she said.

I proved it with the photostat of my license. “Now can we talk, Miss Dubek?”

“It's Mrs. Dubek, if you don't mind. Talk about what?”

“About Harmon Crane.”

“Listen,” she said, “what is this? Who hired you to come around here bothering us?”

“Michael Kiskadon.”

“Oh, so that's it. Claiming to be Harmon's son. I don't believe it for a minute. Not a minute, you hear me?”

“I hear you, Miss Dubek.”

“It's Missus Dubek.”

I said, “Do you have any idea why Harmon Crane shot himself?”

“What?” she said. Then she said, “I'm not going to answer that. I don't have to answer your questions, why should I?” And she started to close the door again.

“If you don't answer my questions,” I said, “you might have to answer the same ones from the police.”

“What?”

“The police, Miss Dubek.”

“Missus, missus, how many times do I have to-Police? Why should the police want to ask me questions?”

“You and Mrs. Crane both.”

“That's ridiculous, I never heard of such a thing. Why, for heaven's sake?”

“Because of some bones that were found the other day at Tomales Bay. Human bones, buried at the site of the cabin Harmon Crane rented up there. A woman's bones.”

She gawped at me slack-jawed. Behind her, somewhere in the house, Amanda Crane's voice called, “Marilyn? Do we have company, dear?” The Dubek blinked, glanced over her shoulder, said in a tolerable bellow, “No, Auntie, it's all right, you go back and rest,” and glared at me again. “Now see what you've done,” she said, using a snarl this time, and then crowded past me onto the porch and shut the door behind her.

“I'm sorry, Miss Dubek, but I-”

She made an exasperated sound through her teeth. “You're doing that on purpose,” she said, “calling me Miss Dubek like that, trying to get me all flustered. But it won't work, you hear me? It won't work!”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Now what's this about bones? A woman's bones, you said?”

“That's right. Buried in an old earthquake fissure at Tomales Bay. Probably right after one of the bigger quakes-the one in 1949, for instance.”

“You don't think Harmon buried those bones? My God!”

“It wasn't bones that were buried. It was the body of a woman.”

“That's crazy. Harmon? Harmon and some woman?”

“You don't believe that's possible?”

“Of course not. Harmon wasn't a philanderer like that lowlife I married; he and Auntie were devoted to each other.” She scowled and waggled the saucepan at me. “What woman are you talking about? Whose bones?”

“The police aren't sure yet. But she was probably a redhead, the kind with milk-white skin and freckles. Would you know if the Cranes knew anyone who fits that description?”

“Redhead, you say? Milk-white skin?”

“And freckles. Lots of freckles.”

“How do you know all of that, anyway? What she looked like? If it was just bones that were found-”

“The police have ways,” I said cryptically. “About that redhead, Miss Dubek…”

“You stop that now. I won't tell you again, it's missus-missus, missus, missus!”

“About that redhead, Mrs. Dubek.”

Another scowl, but it was in concentration this time. Pretty soon she said, “I remember I went up to Tomales Bay with Auntie one summer to see Harmon, 1948 or 1949, I was just a girl at the time. We had lunch with some other people; I think one of the women was a redhead… yes, I'm sure she was. Red hair and white skin and freckles.”

“Do you remember her name?”

“Some Italian name. Her last name, I mean. I thought that was funny because she looked Irish-all that red hair, Irish, not Italian. And her first name was… let's see… Kate, that's it. Kate.”

I said, “The last name wouldn't have been Bertolucci, would it?”

“Well, it might have been,” she said. “Bertolucci. Mmm, yes, Kate Bertolucci. Her husband was the man who rented Harmon the cabin.”