Brush With Death (32 page)

“ 'S'up?” They lifted their chins at Shawna and Hannah, who returned the greeting.

“What's she gonna do, go in there?” the taller boy asked.

“This is Kareem and Anthony,” Shawna said, the neighborhood's Welcome Wagon.

“Hi,” I said. “I'm Annie.”

“'S'up?” they answered. “You gonna go in there?”

“How much money would it take to get you to go in there for me?” I asked, ever hopeful.

“More'n you got,” mumbled Kareem.

“Nuh-uh. These are new Nikes,” explained Anthony.

Since when had young people become so fastidious? When I was their age I would have happily gone into a Dumpster for cash. Then again, maybe that said more about
me
than about the youth of today.

“All right, fine. Great.” I marched back to my truck, uneartheda pair of latex gloves that I use for faux-finishing, and returned to the Dumpster. “Anybody know where I can get a ladder?”

My audience shook their heads, so I looked around and spied a crate by the back fence. I brought it over to the Dumpster and climbed on it, but still needed some serious athletic prowess to lift myself up and over.

What a day to wear a skirt.

Snapping on the gloves, I managed to hoist myself onto the side, but couldn't get my rear end far enough onto the ledge. Moved by a spirit of gallantry—or fearing embarrassment if I fell backward with my skirt flying over my head— Anthony of the bright white Nikes stepped onto the crate, placed two broad hands on my waist, and lifted me onto the side as if I weighed no more than Shawna.

With a smile of thanks I swung my legs over the side, closed my eyes, and let go. One sandal-shod foot sank into something soggy, while the other plunged straight to the bottom of the Dumpster, burying my right leg up to my thigh. I forced my thoughts away from what I was standing in, and started searching.

The Dumpster must have served more than just Cindy's duplex, because there was a whole lot of refuse in there, much of which was in flagrant defiance of Oakland's green recycling program. I pushed aside moldy coffee grounds and blackening banana skins, mounds of potato peels, and an open container of gloppy yogurt. Numerous plastic bags had ominously squishy contents, and I could have sworn one was moving. A paper grocery bag contained used Kleenexes, about a mile of dental floss, and an old tube of toothpaste. I poked around a bit and finally unearthed a plastic garbage bag neatly sealed with a plastic twist-tie. That looked promising. Using the back of my wrist to push my hair out of my eyes, I managed to leave a smear of something I didn't want to know about on my upper cheek.

Hearing muffled giggles, I glanced up to see Shawna and Hannah, no doubt held aloft by their teenage accomplices. But it would take more than the ridicule of little girls to daunt me. I'd grown up with an artistic soul in a small provincial Central Valley town; I had been inured to derision and mockery at a young age.

I gave them a bright smile as though to prove how much fun I was having. Hell, it worked for Tom Sawyer. “Sure you don't want to join me?”

This sent them into peals of laughter.

I turned back to my search. Opening the garbage bag, I found several tiny cassettes, but the metallic tape had been torn out and creased, and I doubted they could be salvaged. A stack of notes beneath them seemed like a better bet. I started sorting through them, tossing aside seminar notes and discussions of research materials. At last I uncovered a composition book, which fell open to a page of notes on Rosicrucianism. A sketch of a cross with a flower in the center was titled MAY THE ROSES BLOOM UPON YOUR CROSS. Flipping through the book, I saw Louis Spencer's name and a discussion of the pyramid structure of his crypt. Tucked between the pages was a receipt for a digital copy of
La Fornarina,
by Raphael.

Aha!

“Found something!” I sang out.

No response.

“Guys?” I called. “Hello?”

Nothing.

I had registered the clicking of Shawna's bike a few minutes ago, but was so caught up in the discovery of Cindy's notebook that I hadn't paid attention. With a sinking feeling I realized I had no plan for getting out of this reeking hellhole. I reached up and latched on to the side of the Dumpster, searching for a foothold. I upended a plastic diaper bucket and stood on it so that I could peer over the side.

A car sat in the alley. A dark sedan. The kind detectives drove.

I dropped back down, muttering to myself about young hoodlums who didn't have the courtesy to warn a person to cheese-it when the cops showed. What to do, what to do . . . In all of my years of training at Grandfather's knee, not once had he offered a lesson on Dumpster diving.

On the plus side, my olfactory sense seemed to have given up the ghost, and the little delinquents were unlikely to tattle to the authorities. As long as I hunkered down in the trash, I would be safe. No way would anyone think to look in the—

“Fancy meeting you here,” Detective Hucles said as he squinted down at me.

“Detective.” I nodded, casual as one could be while standing thigh-deep in lumpy yogurt and soiled diapers. Hucles looked tired, his eyes red and lined, his tie loose at the collar.

“You look terrible,” I blurted out.

“This from the woman in a Dumpster. What's that on your cheek?”

“I'm trying not to think about it.”

“I don't blame you. Ms. Kincaid—”

“Call me Annie,” I replied. No point in standing on ceremony.

“Annie. Are you going to tell me what you're doing in there surrounded by garbage? And not just any garbage, but Cindy Tanaka's garbage?”

I drew a complete and total blank.

“The Oakland PD doesn't look fondly on citizens interfering in an ongoing investigation, Annie.”

“I thought you were convinced it was a suicide,” I said. “Does this mean you've changed your mind?”

I heard a police radio crackle. It sounded as if reinforcements had arrived. Hucles held my gaze a moment longer, but he had hard-to-read cop's eyes. Was he about to ticket me? Arrest me? Burst out laughing?

“Find anything?” he asked.

“I think so. Cindy's notes.”

“A suicide note?”

“No—research notes.”

He held out his hand, and I reluctantly surrendered the composition book. He flipped through it and handed it to someone I couldn't see.

“What's with the gloves?” he asked.

“Have you
seen
what's in here?”

“I can only imagine. You always carry latex gloves with you?”

“Usually. I—” Wait a minute. Did the detective think I was trying to avoid leaving fingerprints?
Try acting innocent for a change,
I scolded myself.
Especially since this time you are.
“I'm a faux finisher. I use these gloves for work, and I was just trying to stay clean. This place is disgusting.”

“Which begs the question, what are you doing in the Dumpster?”

Something wet and slimy fell against my bare knee. I couldn't bring myself to look.

“Um, Detective? Do you think we could have this discussion some place else?” At this point, being taken downtown to an interrogation room could only be an improvement.

Hucles disappeared from view, and two young officers popped up. What followed was not one of my better moments. The cops grabbed my arms and pulled, but between my lack of upper body strength and their lack of coordination, I wound up banging against the front wall of the Dumpster, twice, and falling on my butt in someone's discarded pizza. By the time I was hauled unceremoniously over the side I was smeared and slimed and bruised in places I didn't know could be bruised.

I collapsed on the crate, peeled off my gloves, and tossed them into the Dumpster.

Hucles was waiting, his arms crossed over his chest. “Better?”

I hesitated before answering. “Hard to say.”

“Where were you on the night of the twelfth?”

“I worked late at Chapel of the Chimes Columbarium, where I'm restoring some murals. My assistant was with me.”

“Name?”

I offered Mary's name and phone number.

He flipped through his notebook. “A Ms. Sally Granger, administrative assistant in the anthropology department at UC Berkeley, told me you lied to her to get Cindy's address.”

“Um . . . that's true.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Gossen wouldn't give it to me. And I was worried about her.”

“Why? You said you hardly knew the woman.”

I fessed up and told him about the masked grave robber stealing Louis' box, and the possibility of a Raphael at the columbarium. “And on Sunday, a woman who was secretary at the columbarium for fifty-one years went into a suspicious diabetic coma.”

“Why didn't you go to the police right away with this information?”

“At first I thought Cindy or the cemetery management would call. And then it just all seemed pretty far-fetched, especially the bit about the Raphael. In the end . . . I was just stupid, I guess.”

“Professor Gossen spoke about test results from a valuable painting. That's the one you're talking about?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Detective Hucles took a deep breath and flipped through his notebook. He wrote down Mrs. Henderson's information, read some more, then fixed me with a steady gaze. “I'm choosing to believe your version of events, for now. If I have any reason to doubt you, we're going to have problems. Do I make myself clear?”

I nodded. “Crystal.”

“That's it, then. You can go.”

“I . . . er . . . Cindy's notebook? Could I take a look . . . ?”

“That's the problem with these darned homicide investigations, Ms. Kincaid,” Hucles said with a shake of his head. “Everything's potential evidence. Forensics is on their way, and they'll have to try to figure out what might be significant and what might be the result of a faux finisher falling on her butt in the evidence.”

I deserved that. Hucles seemed okay for a cop. And he hadn't arrested me, so he was a good egg in my book.

The detective accompanied me to my truck, where I reached in back of the seat and extracted Louis' box.

“Oh, Kincaid,” he called as I started up the motor. “Don't make any travel plans.”

Civilian detective or no, I thought as I climbed into my truck, trying to ignore the items drying on my skin, I still wanted to talk with Roy Cogswell. I was in desperate need of a shower, but I'd been meaning to talk to the columbarium director for days, and it was almost quitting time. I made a U-turn and headed north to the columbarium, pulled up to the curb, and started searching for a quarter for the parking meter. I was rifling through the door pockets— usually a mother lode of loose change—when a knock sounded on the passenger window.

It was Helena, in a neat cream pantsuit and a robin's-egg-blue paisley scarf. I leaned across the bench seat and opened the door. She climbed into the passenger's seat, folded her hands in her lap, and stared straight ahead. I thought I noticed her nostrils flaring, but she didn't mention anything about my appearance or aroma.

“Helena? Something I can do for you?”

“Hands off my husband.”

“Dr. Dick?”

“His name's Richard!”

“Fine, Richard. I'm not even remotely—”

“Don't bother denying it. I saw how he reacted to you,” she said, pursing her lips. “I've had experience with this kind of thing.”

“You mean Aaron—”

“I have no intention of discussing my personal life with you, young lady.”

It had been my experience that people who suspect their spouses of cheating aren't famous for their logic. “You started it,” I muttered.

“She's a senile old bat, you know.”

“Who?”

“Henderson. She had a thing for my husband, too. Don't think she didn't.”

“Helena, I swear to you that I have no romantic interest in your Dick—your husband—whatever. And even if I did it wouldn't do me any good. He's nuts about you. We talked about you, mostly.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“Yes, I do. It's the truth.”

She looked at me, her hazel eyes limpid and yearning. Helena was a rhymes-with-witch-on-wheels, but some men loved the idea of rescuing an unhappy, demanding woman. It was a twisted version of the Prince Charming fantasy.

“Honest. He told me he'd live anywhere ‘as long as his lovely wife was at his side.' ”

She looked as if she were choking back tears.

“You're a lucky woman, Helena.”

“He's such a dear man,” she sighed. “I'm sorry I said those things to you.”

“I'm just glad we got that straightened out.”

Now that we'd built a little sisterly camaraderie, I thought I'd take it out for a spin. “Why didn't you want me to see the painting in the tube?”

“I've seen how you sneer at the Tim O'Neill in the office.” She sniffed and lifted her chin. “You are rude and sarcastic.”

“I'm sorry. You have every right to enjoy whatever art you please.”

“I wish the whole world were like an O'Neill painting,” she sighed.

I glanced out the windshield and saw Curly Top Russell walking up to an old beat-up Cadillac a few meters ahead of us.

Helena looked at her delicate platinum-and-ruby watch and frowned. “Is it time to leave already? Where
does
the time go?”

Russell climbed into the car, pulled the door closed, and started swinging his arms in the air, as if punching the roof.