If Walls Could Talk (22 page)

Trying to shake it off, I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge toward Matt’s house.

Despite his rather high-flying reputation, Matt lived in a humble one-story home at the end of an unmarked cul-de-sac. I wasn’t fooled. In Mill Valley, no matter how unassuming a home might seem, prices started at a cool million and climbed precipitously from there. Roads were rural, often unmarked, sometimes unpaved. There were no sidewalks. Eucalyptus and redwoods shaded the twisty lanes. You had to be from here to understand how well-off the laid-back denizens really were.

I parked by the side of the road. Eucalyptus and bay leaves, still damp from morning fog, gave off a heady aroma as I stepped on them.

As I approached Matt’s garden gate, a large golden retriever next door ran along the fence, barking at me, making me think of Dog. I hoped he was enjoying his day with Dad and Stan. Given his carsickness, my plan to take him with me from site to site was on hold for the foreseeable future. Instead, I had snapped a photo of him with my digital camera. Maybe I’d find someone who recognized him.

On the other hand . . . now that we’d fed him, and he’d spent the night, and we’d kind of named him “Dog” . . . what were the chances I was going to be able to take him away from Dad, and the boys? Even Stan fawned over the mellow canine. Dad was going to take Dog to the vet today to get him checked out; Stan promised to check in with the humane society and the city pound, in case someone had reported him missing. The boys declared they’d wash him and comb out his hair tonight after school.

Matt was standing in the front doorway, wearing a sad smile of welcome. He had showered and shaved, but his eyes were still red-rimmed and exhausted.

I stepped inside and paused, taken aback. The house was a shambles.

“I’ve been cleaning up since I got home,” said Matt. “Someone trashed the place.”

“Vandals? Or did the police come through with a warrant?”

He shrugged. “What’s the difference? It’s the same mess.”

“Could I take a look at the office?”

“That’s the worst part.”

He wasn’t kidding. It was a disaster. Not much chance I would find the answer to my question about the permits in all of this. I picked up a random note that had been written by Kenneth. I wanted to check his handwriting against the forged signature on the permit.

I tried to shake off my feeling of gloom. I was here to cheer Matt up, after all.

His bird, Josephine, called out from the dining room. I went over to scratch her neck and feed her a cracker. Josephine cracked me up. She sang pitch-perfect renditions of Matt’s greatest hits, mimicked kitchen appliances, and when she felt ignored she would burst out with a deafening version of the smoke alarm.

“Doesn’t Josephine need a companion?” I asked. “I happen to have a dog looking for a home.”

“A dog?”

I nodded and showed him the photo on my camera. “Ever seen him before? He was hanging around the job site.”

“Which job site?”

“Yours. The Vallejo Street house.”

“Oh,” he said, shaking his head and leading the way to the kitchen. He had brewed a pot of peppermint tea and put out a plate of finger sandwiches.

“A few days in the slammer and already you’re Martha Stewart?” I teased.

“She made it look so good. Actually, my neighbors keep bringing me food. Seems I’ve only enhanced my celebrity status.”

“Probably the most exciting thing that’s happened around here in ages.”

Matt managed a weak smile. I reminded myself that not only had he endured the trauma of the arrest, but he had just lost a friend—violently.

“How are you holding up?” I asked.

“Truthfully?” He shrugged and shook his head, gazing into his steaming cup of tea as though hoping to read his future. “Could Dylan stay on with you a little longer? He’s got spring break coming up, and I’m knackered, trying to figure this whole thing out.”

“Of course. He asked me himself last night.”

“He did? He’s such a good kid. We had a long talk on the phone—I’ve missed him so much, I can’t tell you. I’ll pick the boys up from school this afternoon so we can spend some time together. I can bring them by your house later.”

I nodded. “Matt, we need to talk about what happened. Do you have any clues, any ideas at all?”

“I’ve been doing nothing but racking my brain, Mel. Kenneth was . . . Well, there were people who didn’t like him all that much, yourself included, obviously. But something like this . . .” He trailed off with a shake of his head.

“Did Kenneth have any family?”

“Not really. He was an only child, and his parents passed away a couple of years ago.”

“He wasn’t married, involved with anyone?”

“No. He was really well connected, you know, could talk just about anyone into anything when he turned on the charm. But . . . I guess you could say he developed a bit of a reputation as being not quite forthcoming.”

“How do you mean?”

“I think people didn’t really trust him. He was the life of the party, the guy you invited to openings. But he had a hard time getting close to people. In a way I think I was the closest person to him. Which is sort of sad—he was my business partner, but we weren’t exactly brothers.”

Silence reigned for a few moments while we sipped our tea, lost in thought. I wondered whether Kenneth’s ghost was lingering, and whether he had heard what Matt had said . . . and what he would think of it.

“Maybe we should go about this systematically,” I said. “Do you have a list of the people who were at the party?”

“A list?”

“Some sort of invitation list?”

“Not everyone who was invited came.”

“But we could go over the list together, talk about folks.”

“I sent out an Evite.”

“Let’s call it up.”

Matt powered up his Mac and typed in a few commands. A moment later we were on the Evite site and he had opened up the list of invitees.

“The police never asked to look at this list?”

He shook his head.

We ran through the names. First Matt told me who had been there and who hadn’t shown up, to the best of his recollection. As he himself said, at a certain point his memory failed. And he had invited nearly seventy people, many of whom had brought dates. Tracking down everyone would be an overwhelming task.

I recognized a few of the invited guests: Celia and Vincent Hutchins from next door; the other neighbor I had met, Meredith Montgomery; Jason Wehr, the architect; a few society names; even the mayor of San Francisco.

“Did the mayor show up?” I asked. It was very hard to picture our slick, perfectly attired mayor brandishing a Sawzall.

“Nah. But his cousin was there—Rory Abrams.”

“That name sounds familiar.”

“He brought the food. Rory opened a new restaurant in North Beach last month. It’s kind of a big deal—everyone who’s anyone wants to be seen there.”

Which would explain why I couldn’t quite place him. I wasn’t exactly up on the places to go to “be seen.”

“Actually, now that I think about it—Rory was a pretty good friend of Kenneth’s.”

“I don’t see Philip Singh on this list anywhere.”

“Who’s Philip Singh?”

“He came by the house the other day when I was there. He said he was supposed to buy the place.”

“Buy it? You mean after the remodel?”

“I’m not sure. . . . I wasn’t really thinking clearly enough to ask him a lot of details. I take it you’ve never heard of him?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about that. Kenneth—”

“I know, I know. Kenneth took care of all of that.” Or took care of none of it, as the case may be.

“It might explain one thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“When I tried to use the house as collateral to make bail, they wouldn’t grant it. Said there was a lien against it. Would that be because someone’s buying it? But that doesn’t make any sense—we just started the remodel.”

“You tried to use the house for bail?”

He nodded. “I needed a big chunk of money. The house is my biggest asset.”

“How
did
you make bail?” I asked, thinking of him, but also of myself. I had been sloppy, not even bothering to get Matt’s name on the contracts before starting the job. Was I jumping the gun? Would Matt be able to pay me? Would I be able to pay my workers?

“Several of my friends stepped in to cover it,” Matt said. “A lot of them are pretty well-off, to say the least.”

“Well, that’s lucky.”

“The thing I feel weird about is that a bunch of fans have been sending me stuff as well. When I got home I found a big sack of mail from all sorts of people, sending in their support, five-dollar bills. . . . I feel like such a fraud.”

“They like you, Matt. They want to help.”

“They don’t even know me.”

I hated to hear him sound so defeated. I reached out and took his cold hand. “You’re a good person, Matt. And your music has meant a lot to people through the years, myself included. Don’t disparage that. You’ll get through this; you’ll see.”

“How could anyone think I actually killed Kenneth?”

“I guess we’ll have to convince them otherwise,” I said.

I couldn’t just sit here and watch Matt so miserable and alone. Since the police didn’t seem to be doing their job, the least I could do was poke around a little. I’d gotten that nurse at the hospital to talk to me easily enough.

“Matt, the emergency room nurse, the one who heard Kenneth talk about you. She said he said, ‘goddamned Matt’s fault.’ Any idea what he was referring to?”

Matt shook his head. “We fought some over the house design, but it wasn’t anything serious. I can’t think what he meant.”

“And you were asleep on the couch the whole time?”

He let out a breath in exasperation. “Yes, can you believe it? What a time to black out. I swear to God I’ll never drink again.”

“That’s probably not a bad idea. But if you’d been conscious that morning, you might be dead as well. Remember that.” It dawned on me that I, too, might have just missed a murderer. Kenneth couldn’t have been hurt too long before I arrived. I looked back at the list and pondered for a moment. “Okay, about Zach-thephotographer—do you trust him?”

“Of course.”

“How well do you know him?”

“Kenneth hired him.”

“So not well, then.”

“I just met him the night of the party.”

“Then you can’t possibly know whether to trust him or not, right?”

He looked bemused.

“Matt, something terrible went on in that house, and you’re getting blamed for it. Whether you like to or not, you’re going to have to find it in your heart to be suspicious of the people around you.”

“I guess you’re right. I just hate to think of anyone actually setting out to do something like that.”

“So do I. But someone did. Back to Zach. He was in the house yesterday, along with somebody else. He said he found the door open and that there were some kids playing around, but it seemed strange.”

Matt just nodded. “I’m going to get myself together, get over to the remodel, and help out. Just give me a day or two—how about I start on Friday? After lunch?”

“Sure, Matt, that would be great. But listen, tell me what you know about Zach. He was at the party that night.” I urged him to focus. “Do you think he saw anything?”

“He left in the early morning sometime. The party was still going strong. But I do remember Kenneth was fighting with Vincent Hutchins from next door.”

“Fighting?”

“Arguing. Nothing violent.”

“About what?”

“I guess Vincent thought we should have sold the house to his mom or something. And I remember this part: Kenneth was being kind of sarcastic, and thanked Vincent for lowering the cost of the house. Which didn’t really make any sense. Anyway, I tried to stay out of it.”

“You didn’t ask him what he meant by that?”

Matt shook his head. “I didn’t really get involved in any of the monetary aspects. I just worked on design with Jason. He’s amazing. He’s won the AIA Design Award for Excellence in Architecture
twice
.”

“Yeah, you told me that already.”

“Now that I think about it, I guess Jason was sort of, like, friends with Kenneth, too.” He picked up a rather anemic-looking finger sandwich and took a bite. “It makes me feel better to think of Kenneth having friends. Last fall the three of us went on a ski trip together, up to Bear Valley. There was a big storm, so we got stuck in a small town at the base of the mountains, called Murphys. Cute place. There was some sort of rock-hound convention in town, so we all had to share a single hotel room—you should have seen the look on Kenneth’s face!” He laughed.

I smiled. It was good to see Matt laugh again.

Then he shook his head and the smile fell away. “I guess, now that I think about it, maybe he was just homophobic. Seemed funny at the time.”

“Jason mentioned that he was donating his time as part of his ‘investment’ in this project. He said you didn’t have a traditional bank mortgage. Who were the other investors?”

“I don’t think . . . They’re not people who want their names bandied about.”

“I’m not going to ‘bandy about’ anything. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“I don’t even know all of them. There was Rory Abrams, the restaurateur. And there was someone else, but Kenneth never told me his name.”

“Why not?”

“Dunno. I probably never asked. Didn’t seem important at the time.”

 

I drove away, silently fuming. I cared for Matt as a friend, but he frustrated the hell out of me. With sudden clarity I remembered that I had walked off the kitchen job he and Kenneth and I were all working on, way back when, not only because of Kenneth’s obnoxiousness but also because Matt’s waffling was driving me insane.