Suicide King (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series) (9 page)

We found the bar and ordered a beer for me and a glass of wine for her.

“I almost didn’t make my flight.” She took her first sip of wine, sighed, and sat back a little in her plastic chair. “I couldn’t get off the phone, last night, even this morning. People calling with last-minute goodbyes, questions, regrets that they couldn’t make the trip. When was I coming back? Where was I staying in case they needed to reach me? Was there a number where I could possibly get a message today? I left your hotel number, if that’s okay. There was a meeting this morning, and there’s another one tomorrow afternoon. Noel wanted to know if I was going to make tomorrow’s meeting. I never felt so needed before, certainly not at five o’clock in the morning.” She stopped her monologue suddenly and gazed at me in an oddly helpless, bereft way. I patted her shoulder.

“I guess your people are pretty confused about who to support, that kind of thing.” She nodded. I checked my watch. “Want another glass of wine?” She shook her head. I thought the refusal was probably a good thing, since she looked ready to cry already. “So, when are you going back?”

“Six-thirty tonight.” We finished our drinks. I called the hotel. There were no messages for either of us. We went to find the car.

“I had breakfast with Ron Lewis this morning,” I said. “He told me something about Philip Werner that I wanted to check out with you.” I was driving north toward the suburb where Richmond’s mother lived. The funeral was at a church not far from her house.

“What was that?” She didn’t sound particularly interested.

“He said Richmond thought Phil Werner was planning to sell out. Did Richmond ever say anything like that to you?”

“Yes, but only in passing. He didn’t trust him. He said Philip’s candidacy was as real as Carney’s, but he said all he had was hearsay and his own intuition to back up the charge.”

“That was it?”

“That was it, yes.”

Well, the hearsay part was interesting, anyway.

We found the church with a good fifteen minutes to spare. Not exactly a miracle of detecting. There were half a dozen cops on the sidewalk holding back a small crowd of photographers and reporters anxious to get a shot of or a word with the bereaved who were being allowed in. I figured the excitement was made up of three equal parts: the local importance of the Richmond name, Joe’s way of death, and his latest role as a fringe candidate in crazy California.

The church was spectacular. It was one of those big old Episcopalian jobs. Very respectable, very High. Very aristocratic. I always feel intimidated by ostentatious displays of Christianity. The man at the door let us in when Pam gave her name.

The bronze coffin, nearly buried in flowers, sat on a platform behind and to the right of the pulpit, if that’s what it’s called in a high-class church.

I spotted Ron Lewis about halfway in, sitting near the aisle. There were two seats in back of him and we took them. Pam whispered hello and Lewis turned around. He seemed happy to see us.

What I needed was a quick course in who was who, and between the two of them I got some of the important answers before the show started. Ron pointed out the mother and wife, who were sitting a row apart up in front. Marietta was turned slightly toward the man next to her, so I could see she was still wearing her sunglasses. Emily, the grieving widow, had her head bowed becomingly.

I told Lewis I’d had the pleasure of meeting both ladies.

He said the tall, delicate-looking man next to Emily was her brother, and the man sitting next to Marietta, slouched down and barely visible, was Joe’s brother, Walter. Richmond’s father, Lewis remarked, was long dead.
Right
, I thought.
He of the boating accident
. Then there were Emily’s parents and assorted cousins on both sides.

I noticed Rebecca Gelber across the aisle and a few rows toward the front, chatting with some people in her row. “I see Gelber,” I said. “Where are the other candidates?”

Pam looked around. “There he is,” she said. “Phil Werner.” I followed her gaze. The candidate from Sacramento was walking down the aisle, alone. He was young looking, but with gray hair. Terrific bearing. Tall, well built. I guessed he was somewhere in his forties and spent a lot of time in hiking boots. He slid into a seat a few rows to the rear and spoke to no one.

“What about James X. Carney?” I rather enjoyed saying his name.

Pam and Lewis scanned the church. Both pronounced L.A.’s other candidate, the reluctant one, absent.

“You think he’ll show up?” I asked. Lewis shook his head. The priest was approaching his pulpit. “Aren’t people going to think that’s peculiar?” Pam smiled and shook her head. Lewis just smiled.

I’d attended a few funerals over the years. The thing that struck me about them was that most of the time, the officiating rabbi or minister didn’t seem to have even the slightest acquaintance with the deceased. I could understand that. I knew a rabbi once, but we didn’t like each other, and I hadn’t been near a synagogue for a long time.

This funeral was different. It turned out the priest really had known Richmond, as a child and as a man. I couldn’t imagine having that kind of stability and respectability. I also couldn’t imagine that the priest would say anything about who killed the deceased, so, at the risk of being rude, I asked another quick question.

I whispered to Pam, “Who are those people sitting with Rebecca Gelber?” There were several locally active Vivos, she said, and a couple of Gelber’s campaign workers from home. I asked her if Werner had brought any of his campaign people, and, after checking out the row where he sat, she said she didn’t think so, but she thought she recognized a local Vivo or two sitting near him.

So far I knew one difference between the candidates, besides the obvious ones of sex and geography. He traveled light, she didn’t. And Carney didn’t travel at all, not for Joe Richmond’s funeral, anyway.

The priest continued to say nice things. I used the time to watch people. Emily’s parents sat rigid, unmoving, through the whole eulogy. All I ever saw were the backs of two gray heads. Emily’s brother sat very close to her. She turned her head once to whisper something to him and I saw that she was very heavily veiled. So heavily that you really couldn’t tell just how mournful she was. Marietta, who had been leaning toward her remaining son earlier, was now leaning away from him. She seemed to be crying. I saw her poke a hankie up behind her dark glasses once or twice. Some of the cousins, also, cried.

I had a really good view of Gelber and her people. She dabbed at her eyes from time to time. One of her campaign workers blew his nose once. They all looked sad, but I couldn’t tell whether they meant it or not.

I didn’t have anything like a good view of Philip Werner. He was off to the side and a few rows behind us, and any prolonged study would have been pretty obvious and probably not acceptable behavior in the middle of a funeral. An occasional quick glance, though, caught him looking, if not heartbroken, very sober.

When the service was over, I told Pam I’d meet her at the car in ten minutes or so and wormed my way through the crowd after Werner, who was moving fast. I caught up to him just as he was starting his car. He was still alone.

“Mr. Werner,” I said. “I’d like to have a few words with you sometime today. My name is Samson.”

He nodded, pleasant but neutral. “I saw you sitting with Pam. I suppose you’re the detective she hired to investigate Joe’s death?”

“That’s right.”

He nodded again. “Catch me out at graveside, we’ll set up a time.” Then he put the car into drive and pulled away.

Pam and I caught the tail end of the procession and snaked along to the cemetery. I’d seen a few of those, too, and I hadn’t been too impressed.

South of San Francisco there’s a town with more dead inhabitants than live ones. That’s because it has so many graveyards— big ones— inside its limits. Acre upon acre, a crowded supermarket, or maybe it’s more like a bargain basement, of the dead.

None of that for Joe Richmond. Oak Grove was pretty big. I guess most cemeteries are. But it had rolling hills and old trees, big, expensive carved headstones, statues of angels hovering over the dear departed, and several large family tombs for corpses whose names anyone anywhere in the country would recognize. Mostly names connected with food, this being Minnesota. It also had, on this day, some private uniformed cops that kept the few newspeople who had bothered to come this far at a respectful distance.

The Richmond family mausoleum was nestled in some big trees, oaks, I think, and there were a lot of flowers around it. Rosebushes and a border of annuals. The roses were very well cared for. Not a sign of mildew or black spot, diseases I have been forced to think of as ornamental in my own self-reliant yard.

Joe Richmond’s coffin was sitting up on yet another platform, this one in front of the mausoleum entrance. The crowd at the funeral had been fairly large, but only a couple dozen people had come all the way out to the cemetery. There was the bereaved wife, who must have been blinded either by tears or veils, because her brother was steering her around. He looked even more delicate out of doors than he had in the church. Their parents tottered behind. Then there were a few of the Richmond relatives: his mother was still wearing her sunglasses, and his brother looked grief-stricken and angry at the same time. Two weeping cousins stood with them.

Rebecca had driven out with her small entourage. Philip Werner stood with them, next to Rebecca.

Pam was close beside me, almost touching, during the brief service. Ron Lewis stood with us. Aside from the minister actually having known the dead man, this funeral was providing yet another first. I’ve never been to one where the deceased went anywhere but in a hole in the ground. I watched, fascinated, while they carried that expensive box into the mausoleum. Then the party broke up. On the way back to the cars I got Pam to introduce me to Richmond’s brother, Walter, and asked him if we could have a talk later. He looked at me like I’d just danced out from under a toadstool but said I could reach him at home after seven that night and gave me his phone number. I thanked him. Then I caught Werner before he ducked into his car again and reminded him about our talk.

He scribbled the name and number of his hotel on the back of a card that had nothing printed on it but his name and a Sacramento address and phone number.

“But I won’t be back there for an hour or two,” he said.

“Fine. I’ll call you then. Some time after six.” I handed him my hotel card. “In case there’s a problem.”

Pam was catching a 6:30 flight back to San Francisco, so I drove her out to the airport where we had a decent if unimaginative dinner, patted her on the shoulder, and said I’d see her in a couple of days. Then I called Werner’s hotel. He’d checked out. There was no message for anyone named Samson. There was no message at my hotel, either. No wonder the guy traveled light. He liked to make quick getaways.

So much for avoiding a trip to Sacramento.

Richmond’s brother, however, was reachable where he’d said he would be, but he didn’t want me to go there. He gave me directions to a bar he said was trendy but comfortable. I agreed to meet him there in half an hour.

WALTER Richmond was already there, sitting in a booth near the door, drinking what looked like a double bourbon and water. I slid in across from him, he nodded, I nodded, a waitress in tight jeans and an immense sweater appeared instantly and took my order. The place had shiny pine floors, wainscoting of the same wood, and stark white textured plaster walls. The booths were old and small, dark wood with chips and initials, and obviously came from an entirely different establishment. But the service was good, the waitress was good-looking, and the draft beer was terrific. Couldn’t ask for anything more than that. Except a prettier companion.

Where Joe Richmond had been a startlingly handsome man, something had gone askew with Walter, the older brother. His pale brown hair looked like he had trouble slicking it down. His eyes, blue like his brother’s, were watery-looking and just a little small and close-set. The family jaw, strong and clean-lined in the second child, was just big and bony in the unrefined version. And most important, where the younger man had looked intelligent and visionary, Walter looked vague and self-absorbed.

“Were you and your brother very close?” I asked, by way of an opener.

“We were five years apart.” He lit a cigarette and sucked on it. “When you’re kids, that’s a big difference.”

“So I guess you’re saying you weren’t close?”

He shrugged. “We didn’t start out that way, but we grew up, got married, lived in the same town. Family things. You get closer. We got so we could talk sometimes. Of course, then he moved to California, took over the office out there. You know how it is.”

I didn’t know how it was, because I was an only child. Walter didn’t sound like he knew how it was, either.

“I guess you both inherited money from your father? He’s dead, right?”

“Well, yes, but we had our own money before then. Each of us, when we were twenty-one, came into some. The family…” He let his words drift off. I drifted with him for a moment.

“Who gets his, now?”

He looked startled, then confused, as if he’d never thought of that. “Wife, I guess. I don’t know. We never talked about our wills. Whoever he left it to. I don’t know. Why? I don’t get all this. Didn’t the police decide he killed himself? Who hired you, anyway?”

“Do you think he killed himself?”

He smashed his cigarette into the ashtray, breaking it. Somehow, on him, this was not a violent act but merely a clumsy one. He took a couple of swallows of his drink. His face turned red. “I suppose you think I should have hired someone? Someone to investigate his death?”

“Only if you thought there was a reason to hire someone. Did you?”

He looked down at the table. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw tears in his eyes. “I guess I thought he must have killed himself, because the police said so. They did an autopsy. I thought they must know. I suppose I’m not a very decisive man, in some ways. But I don’t really think he killed himself. Have you met his wife?” I nodded. “Did she talk about him at all?” I nodded again. “I don’t think he would have killed himself over that marriage. Even when we were kids, if Joe couldn’t have something he wanted, he’d find something else to want. And I don’t know why else he would have done it. I don’t know much about his political life. I never could understand that crazy Vivo stuff. If he wanted political office, he could have run as a Democrat. All that money for a lost cause. And all that work. He was out to get his heart broken, that’s all. Like marrying that damned woman. Stubborn, I guess. If something was easy, or comfortable, he didn’t want it. I wanted him to work here, in the business with me, but he wanted to run the Los Angeles office, and then he didn’t even want to do that…”