Brush With Death (24 page)

It was starting to annoy me.

Annie,
I chided myself,
Josh is a sweetheart. You really don't deserve him.

Soap-free at last, I cranked off the water, toweled briskly to get my circulation moving again, and slipped into a terry cloth robe. The kettle was whistling when I hurried into the kitchen and poured boiling water over freshly ground Peet's coffee. It would be good to join my friends in the park. I'd been brooding too much lately. My grandfather was in trouble; Raphael's great masterpiece might be in the wrong hands; and a young, vibrant graduate student was dead.

And my friends didn't like my boyfriend.

I had gone through a long dry spell before Josh, and had gotten to the point where it was easier to sublimate with chocolate or alcohol than to date men I had no interest in. Josh was a wonderful person, but the truth was that my attraction to him was mostly physical. The more time we spent together the more I found my mind wandering, wondering about two other men in my life, both of whom scared the you-know-what out of me, emotionwise.

I was brooding again. Time to get a move on.

As I dressed I listened to my phone messages. One was from Josh, but the other was Michael saying that he had searched the “place” for the “item” but found nothing. Huh. So Michael couldn't find anything in the columbarium. I trusted his searching skills far more than my own, so I could scratch that item off my list.

What really confounded me was that Michael did something I asked him to. What should I make of that?

In deference to what promised to be a warm spring day I dressed in cutoff denim shorts, a fuchsia T-shirt with a Bahamas logo, and a bright blue hooded sweatshirt. As I searched for my car keys I thought about someone else who might enjoy a picnic. I made a phone call and headed over to Evergreen Pines.

Mrs. Henderson was waiting in the foyer, chatting with the blue-haired receptionist. Dressed in a pale yellow polyester pantsuit and a black-and-orange Giants baseball cap, Mrs. Henderson clutched a straw bag decorated with blue and yellow raffia flowers, and smelled of suntan lotion and lilacs. I helped her into the passenger's seat, folded up the wheelchair, and slung it into the truck bed.

“And how are you this fine fair morning?” she asked as we pulled away from the curb. “I was so pleased when you called!”

“I'm sorry about the last-minute invitation, but I only just heard about the picnic,” I apologized. “I've been looking forward to seeing you again. I'm glad you're free today.”

“Child, I'm free most days. That's the advantage to being old,” she explained as we sat in the usual weekend traffic jam queuing up for the toll plaza. “Time is the one thing there's plenty of. Until you die, of course.”

“I suppose so,” I said.

“There are worse things than death, you know,” she replied. “A life of missed opportunities, for example.”

I smiled at her.

“Lord knows I've made some questionable choices in my life. I suppose everyone has. But when I look back, I find it's not what I did that I regret. It's what I
didn't
do.”

“You remind me of my grandfather,” I said, for the old reprobate often expressed similar sentiments. Given Georges' many felonies, though, I could only imagine the nature of the opportunities he'd decided to pass up.

We spoke about
La Fornarina
as we crossed the bridge and headed toward Golden Gate Park, but Henderson clammed up and got misty-eyed when I mentioned Donato Sandino. I wondered whether he was one of those items she regretted.

When we arrived at Stow Lake I left the truck in a fire lane, blinkers flashing, unloaded my passenger and her wheelchair, then rolled her over to the concession stand.

“Yoo-hoo, Annie! Over here!” Bryan called.

Dressed in tight shorts and a muscle shirt, lean and handsome and perfectly groomed, Bryan was the embodiment of the gay male stereotype. His partner, Ron, was the opposite. A Stanford MBA with a PhD in economics from Yale, Ron was a name partner in a downtown investment firm. When in business mode, Ron favored custom-tailored British suits, crisp oxford shirts, and sober silk ties, but in his free time preferred ratty T-shirts and Levi's with holes in the knees. He snacked on Cheetos while cheering on his beloved Green Bay Packers, drank cheap beer, and gave Bryan's interior decorating schemes a wide berth.

He and Bryan had been together for years, and I had been honored to stand up as their best woman during San Francisco's brief flirtation with marrying same-sex couples. When the state courts nullified the marriages a few months later, City Hall refunded their license fee. Bryan framed the refund check and hung it in their bathroom.

“Baby doll!” Bryan called out. “You came! I knew you would.”

I made the introductions, and left Mrs. Henderson conversing with my friends while I hurried to move the truck to a legal parking space.

Rats. A chartreuse parking ticket adorned my windshield, flapping like a flag in the breeze. Apparently my emergency blinkers had not fooled the parking cops. When it came to hunting down evildoers, the CIA had nothing on San Francisco's meter corps.

I drove around for several minutes before pulling off an impressive feat of parallel parking, squeezing into a spot sandwiched between two monstrous SUVs. I was tempted to bang into the shiny painted bumper of the space hog behind me when I remembered a lesson my grandfather had taught me when I was eight years old. We'd been riding the crowded Paris Metro when an old woman boarded the car and shoved me aside. I was about to push her back when I felt my grandfather's hand on my arm.

“
Non,
Annie. You must not.”

“But, Grandpapa,” I'd protested with the faultless logic of an outraged child. “She pushed me first!”

“
Oui, chérie,
she did. But that does not give you permission to respond in kind.”

“Why not?” In an eight-year-old's tit-for-tat world, there was no room for generosity of spirit.

“Because we must strive always to be civilized,
ma petite,
especially when others are not. Otherwise society will plunge into an abyss of chaos and destruction from which humankind will never escape.”

I'd fallen silent, impressed by Georges' depth of character. Years later, I realized he had cribbed this bit of philosophy from
Star Trek
's Captain Kirk, but decided it had merit nonetheless.

It was an idyllic day for a picnic in the park. Birds twittered and swooped across the water, a dog barked happily, urging his person to throw a stick, and families arranged their moveable feasts on the verdant lawns that stretched along the banks of the duck-filled lake. Willow trees fluttered in the breeze, their sinewy branches caressing the surface of the water with languid grace. Young lovers and laughing children in colorful paddleboats circled the island in the middle of Stow Lake. A small group of pierced and tattooed young men and women, dressed in black, waited in line at the refreshment stand to buy corn dogs and soda. An elderly couple conversed in a guttural Eastern European language as they strolled along the shore, he leaning upon a cane, she leaning upon him.

Parking ticket or no parking ticket, life was good.

I made it to the picnic table just as Mary, Evangeline, and Pete arrived carrying a basket of oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies. Annette joined us a few minutes later with a bottle of wine, looking relaxed in jeans and a starched red blouse. Accompanying her was a fluffy toylike white dog who greeted me with unrestrained canine love and adoration.
At least Miss Mopsy's glad to see me,
I thought. The dog and I had met last year, when I was sort of breaking and entering while searching for a missing Caravaggio. Miss Mopsy had been abandoned by her people, and Annette wound up adopting her. Annette nodded pleasantly at me, but I noticed she took a seat at the opposite end of the picnic table.

Ron poured wine and Orangina, and we helped ourselves to sesame crackers, three kinds of cheese, fresh organic veggies with a creamy herbed dip, and wheat-berry and potato salads. There was cold grilled Cajun-spiced chicken, individual pots of soufflé, and my personal picnic and holiday favorite: clam dip with salty Ruffles potato chips. I love Ruffles because they have ridges.

I was pleased with myself for thinking to invite Mrs. Henderson, and watched as she turned her smiling face, flowerlike, to the sun. She ate little, and declined the offer of cookies and soda.

“Are you diuretic?” Pete asked.

“Diabetic, my dear,” she answered. “Yes, I am. I took my insulin before we left, so I should be fine. But one can never be too careful.”

“I'll bet you saw some interesting things working at a cemetery,” Ron said.

“Why, as a matter of fact . . .” Mrs. Henderson replied, and regaled us with a tale about orchestrating the funeral of a carnival dancer. “Lesson learned—never, ever trust the word of a bearded woman.”

“Words to live by,” Bryan said, and Pete nodded solemnly.

There was a lull in the conversation as the sun and digestion combined to make us lazy.

“Hey! I want to go out in a paddleboat!” said Mary. “Who's with me? Annie?”

I surveyed the table and saw the chips and dip were still plentiful. “Maybe in a little while,” I said, pulling the basket toward me. “You go ahead.”

“It looks dangerous,” said Pete. “Anything could happen. Look at that water.”

The water was murky and green—icky, but hardly dangerous, I thought. “I think the water's only a few feet deep, Pete. It's a man-made lake, after all.”

Mary turned to Annette. “Whaddaya say, Inspector? Ron?”

“I think I'll take a pass,” Annette replied.

“I'm not budging an inch,” Ron chimed in. “I'm going to sit right here and do nothing.”

Mary turned to Bryan, who cuddled Miss Mopsy in his brawny arms. “Bryan?”

“Honey pie, I am
so
not into paddleboats.”

“I'll go,” Evangeline said and belched loudly.

“Good appetite,” Mrs. Henderson murmured.

“Pardon my French,” Evangeline said. “S'go.”

Pete rose to accompany them.

“Hold my cell phone so it doesn't get wet, okay, Annie? If Dante calls, answer it, but if it's from A.J., don't answer it. If it's from—”

“I'm not answering your phone, Mare,” I said and dropped it in my shoulder bag.

Mary, Pete, and Evangeline arrived at the boat rental kiosk just ahead of a dozen or so pierced and tattooed Goths. Unnaturally pale and clothed in black, a few of the Goths wore splashes of pink and some of the women shaded their ashen complexions with crepe-festooned black parasols.

“Annie,” Annette said. “It's good to see you again. I'm sorry to hear about your recent trauma.”

Bryan avoided my eyes. Big mouth.

I shrugged, not wanting to spoil the beautiful day with thoughts of death. Mrs. Henderson raised an eyebrow but was too well bred to ask.

“Someone I knew died,” I told her, “and I discovered her body. I didn't know her well, but it was still a shock. The police say it was suicide, but she didn't seem like someone who would do such a thing.”

“I'm sorry, dear,” said the elderly woman, resting a soft hand with skin as thin as crepe paper over mine. I returned her squeeze.

“I can't shake the feeling that there's more to it,” I said to Annette. “Maybe you could check into it? I know it's not San Francisco's case but . . .”

“No offense, Annie,” Annette said, “but there could be all kinds of reasons she'd want to kill herself, reasons you would know nothing about.”

“But—”

“You do tend to jump to conclusions. Remember last fall, when you thought that sculptor had killed Evangeline because she didn't show up for work?”

“And that time you thought my downstairs neighbor was a mobster because he wore a diamond pinkie ring?” added the ever-helpful Bryan.

“I still say he's not to be trusted,” I muttered.

“And we won't mention how you managed to get arrested for smuggling drugs,” Annette said.

“You were smuggling drugs?” Mrs. Henderson asked. “Oh my.”

“I wasn't smuggling drugs,” I assured her. “I was accidentally transporting drugs.”

My friends rolled their eyes.

“Hey! It
was
an accident!”

Ron patted my hand. “I believe you, Annie.”

“Thanks, Ron.” I glared at Bryan and Annette, who looked as if they were stifling guffaws. “Need I remind you two Doubting Thomases that, other than the part about killing Evangeline, I was right about the sculptor?”

“True enough,” Annette said. “But what on earth made you think it was a good idea to steal the evidence?”

“I was bringing it to the police!”

“You're not supposed to take evidence from a crime scene!” Annette snapped. “You're supposed to leave it alone and call the cops!”

“I know, but—”

“Ooh, look! There's Mary and Evangeline! Hellooooo!” Bryan waved as the pair chugged past in their bright blue paddleboat. They waved back. “And just
look
at the baby ducks. Ducklings are the cutest!”

Ron started laughing at Bryan's transparent attempt to lighten the mood, and Annette joined in.

“You're right, Annette,” I conceded. “I got in over my head that time, and my first call should have been to you. I won't do that again, I promise. I'm sorry, truly.”

“I know you meant well, Annie. Apology accepted,” Annette said, and I relaxed. “But why do I get the feeling that this is the calm before another storm?”