The Emerald Cat Killer (4 page)

He put his hand, palm down, on top of the file folder.

Lindsey nodded. “Candidly, I'm just getting started on this. International Surety held a life policy on Mr. Simmons. We paid his widow. As far as we're concerned, that aspect of the case is over.”

“Then—what?”

“There's a threatened lawsuit, Mrs. Simmons and the Marston and Morse Publishing Company against Gordian House. International Surety has an indemnity policy with Gordian, and I'm gathering information to help us deal with that.”

“I don't get it.” Strombeck stood up. He took three steps to a hot plate where a pot of coffee was giving off a strong fragrance. “Like a cup, Mr. Lindsey?”

Lindsey accepted. Drinking coffee wasn't exactly breaking bread, but it was close. Anything to establish a bond. You could never tell when it would come in handy.

Strombeck held his cup in front of his face, savored the odor, then lowered the cup to his desk. His uniform was severe. Midnight-blue shirt, polished badge, a little enamel rectangle that Lindsey recognized as the Medal of Valor. Those didn't come easy, and in his experience, officers who received them seldom cared to talk about the reason.

“I'm afraid this is getting close to a cold case. It's been a year. The official line, of course, is that we never close a homicide case until we've solved it. But it's also true that most murders are resolved quickly. And most of them are pretty straightforward. Domestic violence cases that get out of hand, vehicular homicides. Take away those two and we'd be down to a small fraction of our caseload. There are gang killings and holdups that go wrong. If you're ever threatened, Mr. Lindsey, give the bad guy your wallet. It isn't worth your life.”

“I learned that lesson long ago,” Lindsey said.

Strombeck resumed, “The longer a case goes unsolved, the less likely it is that we'll find the perpetrator. And after a year, unless we catch a break through a DNA sample or—well, never mind the ‘or.' I'm afraid the clearance rate on older homicides is not very good.”

“Understand. Yes. Even so, I think these two cases are one, Sergeant.”

Strombeck lifted blond eyebrows, then nodded encouragingly.

“I've been talking with Mrs. Simmons.”

“Be careful, Mr. Lindsey.” Strombeck was suddenly serious, more serious than he had been. “You're treading on dangerous ground. This is still a police matter.” He paused. “And you are not a licensed investigator anyway, are you?”

Lindsey shook his head. “I'm an insurance adjuster. Or was. Thought I had a great career going until I got downsized into early retirement.”

Strombeck did a magic trick and made Lindsey's business card reappear in his hand. “I don't see retired anywhere on this.”

“Old card.”

The eyebrows and the encouraging nod again.

“I'm too young for social security. It's nice to be too young for anything, these days. I get a modest pension from International Surety. In return for that they pull me back in every now and then as a kind of superannuated temp. That's why I'm working this case.”

“Okay, that's good.”

The concrete block walls of Strombeck's office were starting to look like a jail cell. Lindsey squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again.

Strombeck went on. “But what does a squabble between two publishers—what were their names again?”

Lindsey told him.

Strombeck jotted a note. “Marston and Morse, Gordian House. I've heard of them both.”

“I wouldn't peg you as a literary man,” Lindsey said, smiling. “Is it true that every police officer has a novel in his desk drawer?”

“Not so. You've been watching too many
Barney Miller
reruns.”

Lindsey sipped his coffee. For office hot-plate brew it was well above average. He waited for Strombeck to give him something and Strombeck waited for Lindsey to ask. What a fine game for two grown men to be playing. Finally Lindsey yielded.

“Simmons wrote paperbacks for Marston and Morse. Under a pseudonym. Had to do that to stay out of trouble at his day job. They all had the same hero, a private eye named…” He reached for his pocket organizer and flipped pages until he found what he wanted. “Private eye named Tony Clydesdale. All the books had the same pattern for their titles. Named for animals.
Blue Gazelle, Pink Elephant,
like that.”

“I've heard of that. Didn't MacDonald use colors? And that Grafton woman uses the alphabet?”

This guy
must
be a reader! “That's right.”

“So … I'm still looking for a connection, Mr. Lindsey.”

“So this other company, Gordian House, brought out a book with a similar title.
The Emerald Cat.
Different hero, if you can call him that, different byline. But Mrs. Simmons says that it was her husband's last book, somebody just went over it and changed a few names and sold it to Gordian. Gordon Simmons's laptop computer disappeared the night he was murdered. His wife thinks there was an unpublished novel in the computer.” Lindsey drew a breath. “Do you see where I'm going with this?”

“Aha, the plot thickens.” Strombeck grinned. He had perfect teeth. Then the grin faded. “This sounds like a plagiarism case. I'm not an attorney, you understand, but all cops have to be at least jack-lawyers, and I don't see any crime here. Sounds like a civil matter.”

Lindsey put away his pocket organizer. “That may be so. But I remember something Lieutenant Yamura used to say. Is she still on the force, Sergeant?”

The grin came back. Apparently Strombeck was fond of Dorothy Yamura. “She's a captain now. Fine cop.”

“‘I'm sure that coincidences really happen, but they make me nervous,'” Lindsey quoted. “That's what Yamura liked to say.”

Strombeck smiled and nodded, up and down, three times, precisely. “That's Dorothy, all right!”

“The Berkeley Police Department was very helpful to me in resolving several cases, and I like to think I helped the police as well.”

Strombeck grunted encouragingly.

Lindsey said, “And another officer. Marvia Plum. Sergeant Plum.” Oh, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. If Strombeck had X-ray vision he'd see Lindsey quivering inside when he spoke the name. How long had it been since he'd last worked with Marvia, last seen her, last touched her? But he managed to ask about her as if it were a passing thought.

Strombeck paused, then shook his head, left and right, three times, precisely. “Sorry, doesn't ring a bell. This is a small police force, Mr. Lindsey. Everybody knows everybody. Berkeley isn't exactly Mayberry R.F.D. but we're small enough. Maybe Sergeant Plum is on the University of California force. They're about as big as we are.”

“I don't think so.”

“Well, maybe Oakland or Emeryville. Or Alameda County Sheriff?”

Strombeck sounded like a man trying to be helpful or at least sound helpful when he knew he wasn't really offering anything.

Lindsey said, “I can see I have a lot of work to do. Thank you for your time, Sergeant Strombeck.”

“Any time, sir.”

“I'll take you up on that, Sergeant.” Lindsey pushed back his chair, stood up, and turned toward the doorway.

Strombeck said, “Remember, sir, you stick to that insurance claim. Stay out of homicide.”

Lindsey headed down the hallway. Coming toward him, captain's bars shining on her uniform collar, was Dorothy Yamura. Her hair was no longer the glossy sable it had been when last Lindsey had seen her. Now it was streaked with gray. But otherwise she appeared unchanged.

Lindsey wondered if she would recognize him. He did not wonder long.

“Mr. Lindsey! I heard you were in the building. Is this a social call?”

Had Strombeck alerted Yamura that Lindsey was poking around in police matters again? Or was their encounter a coincidence? Dorothy Yamura did not give any indication of which was the case.

“I thought I was retired,” Lindsey told her, “but here I am back in harness after all this time.”

“I hope Sergeant Strombeck was helpful.”

“It's a start.” Lindsey paused, then asked, “Is Sergeant Plum still on the force?”

Again a pause, but this time there was more information coming. More, but not much more. “Yes.”

“I'd love to say hello.”
You bet I would!

“I'm afraid she's out of the building just now.”

“When will she be back? Tomorrow morning?”

Yamura frowned. “Tell you what, Mr. Lindsey. I'll get a message to her. Are you staying in Berkeley?”

“Emeryville. I'll be at the Woodfin for a while.”

Yamura looked impressed. “Nice surroundings. I trust you're on an expense account.” She smiled.

Lindsey found another International Surety card, scribbled “Woodfin” on the back and handed it to Yamura.

She escorted him to the lobby. He turned in his visitor's badge and stepped out of the building, into brilliant late-afternoon sunlight. He'd come into Berkeley on public transit and rented a car on International Surety's dime. The Avenger was safely garaged in a Center Street facility. Feeling stale, Lindsey headed toward Berkeley's modest downtown on foot. There were the usual changes, businesses coming and going, pedestrians' fashions evolving along with the rest of the world. Business-suited professionals mingled with jeans-wearing high school and college students and ragged street people.

Berkeley had lost much of its fabled radicalism, but it was still a progressive town whose character was dominated by a huge university. Farther from police headquarters Lindsey came to fabled Telegraph Avenue. That street had changed little in the years since he'd first tackled a case there. A seemingly worthless cache of comic books had been burgled from a specialty shop, and when the owner filed a claim the local International Surety branch manager had turned pale, then bright red, then sent Hobart Lindsey to look into the matter.

The routine insurance matter had turned into a murder investigation and Lindsey had found himself working with then Officer Marvia Plum, the first African American with whom he had had more than a passing acquaintance. That case had changed Lindsey's career, made him a rising star at International Surety. And Marvia Plum had changed his life.

The biggest change on Telegraph Avenue was the disappearance of a landmark bookstore. Lindsey stood gazing at the vacant building. He asked a scholarly looking individual what had happened and was rewarded with a wry smile. “General Motors got a bailout, Citibank got a bailout, Cody's Books went belly up. Sometimes mismanagement pays, sometimes it doesn't.”

Lindsey found a quiet restaurant near the campus. It was in an old building, had the atmosphere of a monastery's refectory. He had a good meal, treated himself to a glass of red wine, and strolled back to the garage for the Avenger. Minutes later he was settled in his hotel room. He had a soothing view of San Francisco Bay, a big-screen TV, and an Internet connection.

He had nearly finished writing up his notes for the day, preparatory to sending them to SPUDS headquarters in Denver, when he heard the knock. He put his laptop to sleep and crossed the room to open the door.

For a moment it seemed that time stood still; neither of them said a word or moved a muscle. Then they moved simultaneously, he toward her, she toward him. Then they were in his hotel room, the door closed behind them, their arms around each other. To Lindsey's astonishment he found himself crying.

Then they dropped their arms as if embarrassed. Was it embarrassment, Lindsey wondered, or something else? What else? He had no idea. He was not an emotional man. Since his enforced early retirement from International Surety he had lived quietly in the house where he had grown up. His mother had remarried. The former Mrs. Joe Lindsey, widow, was now Mrs. Gordon Sloane. She lived with her husband in a senior community in the town of Carlsbad, California, near San Diego. Lindsey had spent his time reading, watching old motion pictures, filling his mental Rolodex with trivia about the entertainment world of Mother's era, tending a modest garden, and waiting for middle age to turn into old age so he could move into a senior community near San Diego.

Instead … instead—he was breathless.

The two of them crossed the room hand in hand, like children taking courage from one another in the darkness, except that this room was by no means dark. They sat on a characterless hotel-room sofa holding hands.

Lindsey studied Marvia Plum. Her hair was cropped short. Her face—she might have gained a few pounds but her face was hardly changed.

She wore civilian clothes. Nothing to draw the eye, nothing to attract attention to the outfit or the person. A lightweight jacket, a plaid shirt with a button-up front and a button-down collar, moderately faded jeans, flat shoes. In a town like Berkeley you passed a hundred Marvia Plums in an afternoon and didn't really notice one of them. The only place where she'd stand out would be a town where anybody with black skin was noticed.

When they spoke they spoke simultaneously.

“Dorothy Yamura told me you were looking for me.”

“Dorothy Yamura told me you were still on the force.”

“It's funny.”

“It's funny.”

Finally, she put her hand on his mouth, to stop him from speaking, to caress her onetime lover. He leaned forward, pressed his cheek to her head. He wasn't as tall as he might have been, but he was tall enough to do this. After a moment he straightened.

“Hobart, it's been a long time since we worked together.”

“That arms collector in Marin.” She'd dropped her hand back to her lap.

“What's this about the Simmons homicide?”

“It's an insurance matter.”

“Same as always.”

“What about—” He started to say “us” but his courage failed and instead he said, “you.” “What about you and your family? Your mother? Tyrone and Jamie?”