Suicide King (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series) (8 page)

She sat down on a love seat. I took the chair I’d been sitting in before she’d arrived.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes people kill just for the pleasure of it.” She smiled again. I really wanted to see her eyes.

“I don’t think that’s what happened here.” The old man in the blue suit came in.

“Would you like something to drink, Jake?”

“Mineral water would be nice. With lime?”

“And an orange soda for me, please, Gerald.” The old man went out of the room again. “I’m glad you’re doing this, Jake. I don’t think he killed himself, not for a minute. He was not that kind of man. He was not that kind of child, either.”

“Had you thought about hiring an investigator?”

“No. I never thought of it. But I’m glad someone did.”

Gerald returned with our drinks. She took a big swallow of her bright orange soda pop. It left a bright orange mustache. A lesser woman would have made excuses, given reasons, been almost apologetic for liking a child’s drink. Not this one.

“I suppose you want to know who I think might have done it?”

“Sure.” I plucked the lime wedge off the rim of the glass, squeezed it into the water and dropped it in. “I’d like that. I need all the help I can get.” I pulled out my notebook and pencil.

“I have no idea.” She took another sip of her soda and dabbed at her lip with a napkin. She still had an orange mustache. “But there’s his wife, of course. And what about that odd woman who was running against him. Gelber, I believe her name is? I met her once. Although I don’t think a political opponent is really the answer.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s not like there was any real power to be had by winning the Vivo endorsement.” There was an edge of contempt in her voice. Did anyone close to Richmond, except Pam, respect his political career?

“So I guess you didn’t think much of his politics?”

If I’d been able to see her damned eyes, I guessed they would have widened. “I admired my son’s politics very much, Jake. What I didn’t admire was his delusion that he could make a career of them. I don’t understand what he was doing. It was the only stupid thing he ever did. Except of course for marrying Emily, but sex is different.”

I stayed away from that one. “So you think the motive was personal?”

She smiled over the rim of her glass. “A scorned woman? A betrayed husband? I don’t know about that side of my son’s life, but I assume he had affairs. God knows his father did. Of course, his father wasn’t killed by a jealous husband, he died in a boating accident.” She shrugged. “At least I don’t think he was killed by a jealous husband.”

“His father, you mean.”

“Yes. I think you should look into money. There’s very big money involved in politics, isn’t there? Big contributions, that sort of thing?”

“Yes. Big money, people with lots of money.”

“Joe was a very noble character in some ways, Jake. He had his ideals, his beliefs. But money was also very important to him. Money to live out his ideals. Money to run his campaign. Money to do as he damn well pleased. Very important.”

“But he already had a lot of money, didn’t he?”

“Oh, yes, And it was very important to him. That’s where you should be looking.”

“I’ll remember that. Who else do you think I should talk to before I leave Minneapolis?”

“I suppose you could talk to his brother.” She went to a small side table, took a pen and a piece of paper out of a drawer, wrote down a number, and gave it to me. “This is his home phone.” I already had his work number; I’d gotten that from Pam. “Have you talked to Emily? Maybe she knows something I don’t, although I doubt it. Other than that…” she waved a limp hand and swallowed the last of her orange soda.

“I’ve talked to Emily.”

“In that case… this has been very pleasant, Jake.” Her smile was coquettish, charming. “But I’m very tired, and I still have to get through the funeral tomorrow.”

“Of course,” I said, standing. “If I have any other questions, I hope you won’t mind if I give you a call?”

“As long as it’s after the funeral. And I do want to know what you find out, ultimately.” She leaned forward, toward me. “I really do.”

“Sure.” I gave her a card from the stack I’d taken off the hotel desk. “And here’s where I’m staying, in case you come up with any ideas.” She took the card and stuck it in an invisible pocket in the long skirt.

“Would you like to see the rest of the house? Gerald can show it to you. I have an art deco room, a Victorian room, a medieval room, a modern room— I have a Mondrian in that one.”

“No, thanks just the same. I’ll go now.”

“I don’t want you to feel I’m being inhospitable. I’ll be fine, once I’ve gotten through the funeral.”

“Right. Of course you will.”

“Gerald will show you out, then.”

On my way out behind Gerald, I was wondering what she thought the funeral was going to do for her. Did she think she would stop mourning once the formalities were over? Did she think that once he was buried everything would be okay and she could take off her dark glasses?

PAM had given me a few leads, a few names to start with. The wife, the mother, the cousin who was currently running the mill. The brother. A couple of old friends. Some political connections, including Richmond’s campaign manager, who would be in town for the funeral.

By the time I’d finished with Marietta Richmond, it was nearly six o’clock. No one answered at the business numbers I had for the cousin and brother, or at the home number Marietta had given me for her older son. I did manage to reach one old friend— he hadn’t known Richmond was dead, and kept repeating, “Hanged? He was hanged?”— the campaign manager and one local political pal. I’d asked the old friend to meet me, but he declined, saying there was nothing he could possibly know about Joe Richmond hanging himself. When I explained that he might not exactly have hanged himself, the man was even more certain he had nothing to say. The campaign manager agreed to meet me for breakfast the next day, and the local political connection said Wednesday was fine.

I went out for a Japanese dinner and a couple of bottles of sake, then I went back to my room, mellow, full of raw fish, tempura and rice, and called Rosie for a consultation. Her carpentry job, she said, would be finished by Wednesday morning.

“I’m really sorry I’m not with you, Jake. Sounds like the Richmond women are a lot of fun.”

“Who knows? You may get your chance. Have you managed to get anything done on your end?”

She had, with Pam’s help, paid some calls on Pam’s immediate neighbors. No one had seen anything the day of Richmond’s death. She’d made a couple of phone calls earlier that evening— it was seven o’clock in Oakland— and was getting some idea of what directions we ought to take out there, and who we should be talking to for starters. That was good news. As usual at the beginning of a case, the possibilities are multidirectional and somewhat overwhelming. And narrowing things down is tough. If you’re not careful, you can eliminate someone early on who might have had the key to the whole damned thing. In real life, there’s no nice, straight literary line that leads right to the killer. I was hoping to do a great deal of narrowing down in Minneapolis.

After I had talked to Rosie, I called Pam. She wasn’t there, so I left her a message to get back to me. I had just settled down with one of my favorite sitcoms when she called.

I ran over some of the same ground with her, although I was a bit kinder to Richmond’s wife with Pam than I had been with Rosie. I’m not sure why. And a little less amusing about Richmond’s mother.

Pam told me what flight she would be coming in on the next day, for the funeral. We had agreed that she would travel to Minneapolis, first of all because she wanted to be there, and second, because I thought I could probably use some help in identifying the people who showed up and getting a fix on them.

“I can’t believe how hard it is to get away,” she said. “Everything’s in total chaos. People don’t know what to do. I’ll have to leave again right after the funeral.”

I didn’t guess that would be a problem, I reassured her. She sounded pretty wired, and maybe glad, in a way, that she was needed at home. I couldn’t imagine that she felt all that comfortable about spending time in Richmond’s other life.

I went to bed early and got an early start on the next day, but I might as well not have bothered. Neither the cousin nor the brother was at the mill, and, once again, the brother was not answering his home phone. I was meeting the campaign manager at ten, which gave me a little over an hour with him before I had to head out to the airport to get Pam.

RON Lewis seemed like a nice guy, but somehow he didn’t fit my image of a campaign manager.

For one thing, he looked unbelievably innocent. He was a youngish— about thirty-five— man of medium height, with plump cheeks, slender figure, and thin hair. His eyes were pale blue and childishly wide. He had picked me up at the motel and taken me to a place he’d heard of where we could get a “real jack and avocado omelet.”

I’m not that crazy about omelets, but he was so proud of himself for tracking down the restaurant that I ordered one.

He started talking about how anxious he was to get back to L.A.

“I feel all torn up, you know? And before this, with the campaign, I had to be all over the state. That was great, in a lot of ways, but now… I just need to level out.”

“Sure. I can understand that.” I needed to get him on the track, even if he was homesick. “We don’t have a lot of time, Lewis. I’d like to get some of your ideas on what might have been going on in Richmond’s life and in the party that could have led to this.”

He poured cream into his coffee, slowly, watching the color change. Then he added a teaspoon of sugar, exactly level.

“I wish I knew, Jake. I don’t think he killed himself. I guess you know about him and Pam. And his political career was going straight up. Straight up.” He sighed.

I was afraid he was going to start feeling sorry for himself again, so I broke in. “Pam thinks it was a political murder. You must be more knowledgeable about Vivo than nearly anyone else. Give me some of the dirt.”

He looked shocked. “Dirt?”

“Oh, come on. There must have been something, more than one something. If he was murdered, and a lot of us seem to think he was, and if the motive was political, which remains to be seen, then what was the motive, and who was motivated? You must have some ideas.”

He screwed up his face. I wasn’t sure if he was thinking or about to cry. Turned out he was thinking.

“Well, the people who would be motivated, I guess, would be his political opponents.”

I drank some of my fresh-squeezed orange juice, waiting.

“So someone either killed him because they wanted an easy road to the endorsement…” He finished his omelet. I could see that this kind of thought was tough for him. He was a manager, a salesman. “Or because he was more than just an obstacle.”

“That’s good. That’s good,” I crooned encouragingly. “More than just an obstacle?”

“What if,” he said softly, leaning forward across the table, “he was actually dangerous to someone? Like if he knew something about someone that could actually destroy them?”

“Are you making this up because it sounds like a mystery or do you actually have some idea of who that might be?” I couldn’t help it. I expected him to start talking about the Casbah.

He sat back again and sipped at his coffee. “Very funny, Samson.” I wasn’t Jake anymore. “But there was one thing… I’m not saying I really know anything about it, but he did mention to me once, he had some idea, that Phil Werner was planning to sell out to a major party if he won Vivo’s backing.”

“Sell out?” I made a quick note in my notebook.

“Negotiate. Promise to bring in a bloc of votes, and money, in exchange for some kind of office for himself. Jump the fence, turn coat, whatever you want to call it.”

“Did he say where he got that idea?”

“No. And he wouldn’t tell me. Said he didn’t have any proof. What if he got some proof?”

Yeah
, I thought.
What if?

I looked at my watch. We were running out of time. I needed a couple more things from him.

“Listen, Ron, I’m going to have to take off soon. Can I count on your help in this investigation?” He nodded, serious. “If you come up with anything— anything like that about anyone in the party, will you let me know?” He nodded again. “And I hope you understand I have to ask you this, but where were you the morning Richmond was killed?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I understand. I was in the Bay Area— I suppose you already know that.” I nodded. Pam had mentioned it. “I was in San Francisco, meeting with some money people most of the day.”

“Carl Maddux?”

“No, he wasn’t there. But some of the people on his recipient committee.” He wrote down their names and where they could be reached. I exchanged his piece of paper for mine— my Oakland phone number.

“In case you come up with anything. What are your plans now, anyway?”

He shrugged. He looked very sad. “I don’t really have any. I could get involved in Rebecca’s campaign. She’s operating as her own campaign manager— she could probably use more help. I don’t know. This kind of took the heart out of me, Joe dying.”

I tended to believe that Lewis was okay, but at the airport, with five minutes to go before Pam’s plane was due, I called Rosie and left a message on her machine, giving her the information she needed to check his alibi.

PAM looked tired. She gave me a big hug and asked if I thought we might have enough time for a drink before the funeral. I took her flight bag and told her I guessed we could squeeze baggage retrieval, a drink, and the drive to the church into an hour and a half.

“I don’t have any more baggage,” she said, “and I just feel as if I’d like to sit still for a few minutes. Not be flying or riding or moving in any way at all.”

I could understand that, although whenever I fly— something I’m not particularly crazy about doing anymore— I’m happy to get on the ground and just as happy to get away from the airport.