Scorpio Rising

  Her last year in high school, there came heavy drinking with boys, and all that went with it. A trip to the hospital for a broken arm sustained in a car accident, another time to get stitches in her scalp after a nasty catfight with tennis rackets. Arrests for underage consumption of alcohol, public indecency, shoplifting, witness to a felony, possession of a controlled substance. A weekend in a Dallas hotel with two college boys. A visit to an abortion clinic. A week in rehab. A month of useless therapy.

  You could talk for a thousand years, but her father was gone and no amount of talking could bring him back.

  Her mother moved on, found a second husband, kindled a new life and fanned it into flame. Illogical or not, Carrie always resented her for that. How nice for you, now you’ve found a replacement, but what about me? Her mother had tried to sustain her on a tough-love diet, but never gave her the tenderness she secretly craved.

  From inside her cage of grief, she was alone with her pain. Always had been, always would be. Her mother had denied her the company of siblings. Hate your life with all your heart, you couldn’t change the way it was. So she’d learned to cope the best she could. If asked what she remembered from high school, she could sum it up in two words: Carpe diem. Get it while you can. She should’ve had it tattooed on her forearm where everyone could see it.

  And on the other arm, Illegitimi non carborundum. Don’t let the bastards wear you down. God knows there were enough of them who wanted to give it a try.

  Chapter 25

  San Rafael

  Dave Munson climbed the ramp past security on his way out of the San Francisco Airport terminal, carrying only his bowling ball. He went downstairs to the baggage carousel, fetched his battered suitcase with the broken wheels and dragged it to the parking lot.

  In his powder blue 1999 Nissan, he headed up Van Ness Boulevard past stucco houses crowding the sidewalk. He rolled down the windows as he drove through the Presidio, catching a whiff of sea breeze through the trees. Traffic slowed at the Golden Gate Bridge and he angled the rearview to check his face in the mirror. His skin had suffered in Albuquerque, the place drier’n a kiln oven. He was glad to be back in the Bay Area where the humidity was better for the complexion.

  Thirty minutes later he parked at Bernie’s house in Marin Bay Park. As he climbed out of the Nissan he paused to run his hand along the fender of Bernie’s yellow Boxster. Now this was something to die for. Fortunately, someone else had done the dying…

  He’d half expected to find Police tape across the front entrance but there was nothing. He dropped his luggage in the foyer and entered the kitchen. He took an opened bottle of Chardonnay from the fridge and poured himself a glass.

  On the counter he found a blue memo with a San Rafael Police Department letterhead. Its message was simple: call Detectives Jim Starrett or Fred Hutchins upon arrival, at any of three phone numbers – an office number and two cell numbers. He shoved the memo into his pocket and went downstairs.

  In his room he stripped off his shirt and threw it in the corner. He took his stash from his bedside table drawer and rolled a joint. He took a couple of puffs, then catapulted off the bed in a billow of smoke and went to Bernie’s room, one wall of which was mirrored panels.

  He slid open a panel to reveal a closet packed with clothes. Joint hanging from his lip, he flipped through the rack, selected a fuchsia silk shirt and slipped it on without buttoning it. He kicked off his running shoes and pulled on a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots that Bernie’d bought on LA’s Rodeo Drive for eight hundred bucks. He stood before the mirror and struck a pose. Bernie’d had good taste in just about everything.

  He went to a massive dresser adjacent the window. Lying atop it was a teak jewelry box the size of a small pirate’s chest. He pawed through a mass of gold and silver jewelry, all of it expensive but some if it in questionable taste unless you were a bit of a queen. He chose a heavy silver chain from among the tangle of precious metals and looped it over his neck.

  He used a remote control to power on a sound system. Cher, diva of the gay community, wailed from the Bose speakers in the ceiling.

  “Half-queer, that’s all you ever were…” He sang along as he danced before the panel of mirrors, getting into the groove.

  After the song, he tumbled onto the bed and stubbed the half-finished joint in an ashtray Bernie kept in the night table drawer. He lay with eyes closed, listening to the next song, running his hands down his chest and over his crotch, nodding to the music.

  Okay, time for some role play. He grabbed the remote and killed the music. He breathed deeply and let the silence envelop him. He closed his eyes. He was alone in the house. Bernie was gone, never to return. No, drop the euphemism. Bernie was dead. D-E-A-D. He thought about that for a while, imagining Bernie lying in a stainless steel drawer in the morgue. Naked under a sheet. No silk shirt, no snakeskin boots, no jewelry…

  His mouth twitched as it curled downward at the corners. Two salty tears escaped from his eyes and ran down his cheeks into his ears. His chest trembled and then he felt it coming, rising like gorge from his gut, the remorse along with the guilt, until he was really crying, first just a sniffle as his nose started to run and then honking and wheezing, a real blubber-fest that left him curled fetal-like on his side with fists clenched between legs and the pillow under his face wet with tears.

  He pulled himself upright and reached for the phone on the night table. He fished the crumpled SRPD memo from his back pocket and called the number. When he heard the phone ring at the other end, he tugged a tissue from a box in the drawer of the night table.

  “Detective Starrett? It’s Dave Munson. I just got home to find your note…” Sniffling, he paused to blow his nose. “Sorry, I’m a bit of a mess right now. It just hit me again when I walked in, you know, the house so quiet and Bernie not here…” He sniffled again. “He was the best friend I ever had, I loved him so much, and now he’s gone and I don’t know what I’m going to do…”

  He paused in his soliloquy, hearing the detective trying to get a word in edge-wise. He rearranged the silver necklace on his chest and crossed his legs, angling one foot to admire the stitching on the snakeskin boots as he listened to the cop.

  “That’s fine. Come by whenever it’s convenient,” Munson said. “I won’t feel like going out for quite a while.”

  He hung up and thumbed the remote. Music poured out of the ceiling. He reached for the remains of the joint.

  Chapter 26

  New York

  Detectives Levinson and Rossimoff drove to 59th and Fifth Avenue where the deceased Janis Stockwell had lived with her husband. The Upper East Side was a neighborhood where, if prone to fantasy, they might imagine themselves living, but only if employed as private security officers for some paranoid millionaire who needed live-in protection. Levinson parked in front of a fire hydrant on Fifth, placing an NYPD placard on the dash to prevent parking enforcement from towing them. Climbing out of the car, they paused as four young women in biking shorts and halter tops jogged along Central Park.

  “Now that makes me want to take up running.” Rossimoff’s eyes tracked the formation of tight butts heading north.

  “Only time I ever saw you run for anything, somebody’d told you there were fresh doughnuts in the lunch room.”

  “You’re right. Broad-jumping’s more my sport.”

  “I always thought, jumping to conclusions was what you excelled in.” Levinson crossed the street to the building opposite.

  “Guilty as charged.” Rossimoff followed Levinson into the foyer where they flashed their IDs to the doorman and said they had business with Jeb Stockwell.

  Minutes later, they were sitting under an awning on the penthouse terrace, a nice view of the park over the trees lining Fifth Avenue. Stockwell wore slacks, loafers and a cream white shirt. A Filipino maid, maybe thirty years old in a white uniform, brought a Scotch on the rocks for Stockwell, Cokes for the detectives and a plate of roasted almonds, cashews and macad
amia nuts.

  Levinson glanced at Rossimoff, who was unable to suppress his joy as he scooped up some cashews. Jackpot! Never in danger of shedding weight, Rossimoff was like a bear bulking up for hibernation. God forbid a few hours should pass without banking a thousand calories or more.

  While Rossimoff’s mouth was occupied, Levinson brought Stockwell up to speed on the results of their investigation.

  “Her own pepper spray...?” Stockwell was appalled when told of how his wife had died. “My God, how bizarre! Poor Janis! She must have suffered so much.”

  Levinson shook his head. “The Medical Examiner thinks she was already unconscious. Her neck was badly bruised, consistent with a chokehold.”

  Stockwell drained his Scotch and swirled the ice in his glass, reminding Levinson of a gambler at the end of a bad night, shaking the dice for the next throw.

  Rossimoff, his caloric intake now assured, wiped his hands on a napkin. “Was your wife in the habit of going to the theatre alone?”

  “We had season tickets at a few theatres. It was a Tuesday night routine for us – a regular date – to see a show or a movie.” Stockwell paused. “Despite several years of marriage, we worked at preserving our romance, spending time with each other doing things we both enjoyed.” He raised his eyes to Levinson and his lids were rimmed with tears. “I should have been with her last night. But this week I had to attend a banking conference.”

  “How long were you in San Francisco?” Rossimoff said.

  “I flew out Sunday. I was supposed to be there until tomorrow.”

  “How was your marriage?” Levinson asked.

  “What?”

  “You just implied that, to prevent its luster from fading, you had to buff up the romance a bit. Was it working?”

  “What is this, a standard ploy to challenge the integrity of a grieving spouse?” A flush appeared in Stockwell’s face, his sorrow giving way to indignation. “My marriage was solid. I think you owe me an apology.”

  “Thirty percent of the time,” Rossimoff pitched in, “a female victim’s attacker is a spouse, boyfriend or an ex.”

  “Screw your statistics,” Stockwell said. “Besides, I thought this was a mugging.”

  “We don’t know that yet, and we still need to eliminate you as a suspect.”

  “Is that what I am?”

  “Mr. Stockwell, this is difficult for everyone,” Levinson said, “but we have a job to do, and that means not playing favorites with anyone. Motive alone puts you front and center. There’s a lot of money involved. Her father’s Abner Blaikie, am I right?”

  “Listen, Detectives.” Stockwell’s indignation brightened his already-florid face still further. “I have a large six-figure income of my own, thank you very much, and I don’t need her family’s money. I can’t believe this questioning. Don’t you have anything better to do than needle me vague implications? Have you no tangible leads at all?” He shook a finger at both of them, like a teacher reprimanding two unruly students. “When my father-in-law hears of this, the Mayor’s phone will be ringing. What the hell are you doing?”

  “Rest assured, we’re running down every lead as fast as it arises,” Levinson said. “We lifted prints from several cars at the crime scene and got a hit on one set, belonged to an ex-con. But as it turns out, he’s gone straight, runs a car wash over on Eighth and 43rd. Plus, he lives in Jersey and was home with his wife at the time.”

  “We’ve canvassed everyone who lives and works on the street,” Rossimoff pitched in. “Nothing so far.”

  “But a construction worker found her cell phone and empty purse in a dumpster this morning, at the corner of 58th and Sixth,” Levinson said. “A couple of hours ago, a street bum tried to use one of her credit cards at a liquor store on Eighth Avenue.”

  “And where was he last night?”

  “He’s a regular at a Lexington flophouse with an eleven o’clock curfew. People that run the place say he watched TV in the common room all evening.”

  “Then where’d he get her wallet?”

  “Claims he found it in a garbage can this morning, corner of 53rd and Fifth,” Levinson said.

  “Since both her credit cards and cell phone were dumped,” Rossimoff said, “we’re assuming minor felony was not a motive.”

  “Maybe someone just got lucky,” Stockwell suggested. “Janis often carried a couple of hundred dollars in cash.”

  “Still, for a mugging, it isn’t typical,” Rossimoff said. “Usually, a perp gets his hands on credit cards, he uses them within minutes of the crime, hoping to max them out before they’re reported stolen.”

  “Maybe this mugger was smart, and took from her only what couldn’t be traced.”

  “You might be right,” Levinson said, “but that implies a fair degree of caution on the part of the perp. Killing someone on the street suggests otherwise. Too much risk, too little reward.”

  “Speaking of which,” Stockwell said, “would it help if I posted a reward, asking for anyone with information to come forward?”

  “It might.” Levinson glanced at Rossimoff, who rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. It might hinder as much as help, they both knew. Based on past experience, the offer of a reward typically triggered an inordinate number of calls, whose usefulness typically hovered below the one percent mark. It was frightening to contemplate what might happen if Stockwell posted a large reward. The entire squad would be relegated to phone duty for weeks on end. “But let’s wait for a few days.”

  Fortunately, Stockwell let it go at that, something to be held in reserve until the NYPD had exhausted normal procedures, which Levinson and Rossimoff promised they would devote all their waking hours to pursuing.

  Back on the street Rossimoff said, “What do you think?”

  “I think he’s not as heartbroken as he acts,” Levinson said. “All that talk about keeping the romance alive sounded pretty hollow to me.”

  “That doesn’t prove he had anything to do with it. In the end, she might simply have been the victim of a mugger with a short fuse. As we both know, there are lots of crazies out there.”

  “True enough, but something about this doesn’t smell right.” Levinson unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel, waiting until Rossimoff had joined him in the car before finishing his thought. “You know how too much salt can ruin a dish? In this case, I think it was too much pepper.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It speaks of anger. Like there was something personal to it.”

  Chapter 27

  San Rafael

  Detective Jim Starrett walked to the corner of 4th and B Streets where The Royal Blend served the finest cup of Kona this side of Waikiki. En route he got a call from Manny Cantata, a detective in Narcotics. Cantata was responding to a message Starrett had left him earlier. Starrett paused and sat on the edge of a giant flower pot, one of many with which the taxpayers had beautified the downtown area.

  He had a one-minute conversation with Cantata and continued to the coffee shop. Some of the boutiques on 4th were having sales and there were more people than usual on the street. It was a perfect day in San Rafael, as it usually was this time of year, and everyone looked happy and beautiful and wealthy. He often wondered why none of that rubbed off on him.

  As he walked back to the office, he was intercepted by a reporter from The Marin Independent Journal, a pain-in-the-ass whose name he never bothered to remember.

  “Detective Starrett, is it true the Lang hit-and-run is now being treated as a homicide?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Sources close to the investigation,” the reporter said with a smile that was ten percent polite and ninety percent fawning.

  “You didn’t hear it from me, my partner or my lieutenant so unless you crawled up the ass of the county coroner, which I wouldn’t put past you, I can’t imagine where you got it.”

  The reporter switched tack from submissive to offensive. “But is it true?”

  “No com
ment.”

  Starrett shouldered his way past the guy and crossed the street. The reporter, knowing better than to dog his heels, turned toward the City Hall Building.

  As Starrett entered the office, Hutchins was just hanging up his phone. Starrett set their coffees down. Hutchins popped the lid on his, added cream and sugar.

  “I just got off the phone with the lawyer who handled Lang’s business affairs. Our hit-and-run victim was worth almost twenty mil.”

  Starrett sipped the Kona, savoring the taste of the bean. This was what it was all about. He looked at Hutchins. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Fred.”

  “Three beneficiaries. A nephew in Philadelphia. An AIDS hospice in San Francisco. And his live-in buddy Dave Munson, the latter to the tune of five million.”

  Starrett whistled. “Interesting...”

  “Ever hear back from Manny?”

  Hutchins had fed Munson’s name into the computer and got a hit. Munson had been arrested fourteen years ago in Berkeley with thirty ounces of Thai sticks, possession of which had earned him a year in the Alameda County jail. Nothing else on his record, violent or otherwise. Easy to chalk it up to youthful indiscretion. Hence, their call to Cantata, see if Munson was involved in any local action that hadn’t turned up on his sheet.

  “Just a few minutes ago,” Starrett said.

  “Our boy in the game? Or did he learn his lesson?”

  “Either that, or learned to fly under the radar. He’s not on Manny’s watch list. Nor is he listed as a known associate of those who are. As far as Manny’s concerned he doesn’t even exist, except perhaps as a customer whose numbers are legion.”

  “So maybe our boy’s graduated from dope peddler to something else.”

  “Or maybe he just cleaned up his act and got lucky.” Starrett tried to give the benefit of doubt.

  “Too bad he’s got an airtight alibi, being away in Albuquerque.”

  Starrett nodded. “Yeah, really too bad.”

  They looked at each other. They hated when good suspects had really good alibis. It was one of the challenges of the job, testing a foolproof alibi. But a necessary one, not unlike civil engineers who, once they’d designed a bridge, loaded their model with weights until it bent and cracked and came crashing down in a mess of debris. Looks like that’s what they’d have to do with Munson. It was messy sometimes, but it was all for the public good. That’s why they were paid the big bucks.