The Sepia Siren Killer. Richard A. Lupoff
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just the stink,” Plum said. “She can’t hurt you.” She took Lindsey by the hand, led him to the Movieola. The young woman slumped over it didn’t look dead.
Marvia Plum said, “This place is full of toxics. Most modern buildings are full of them. The furniture’s the worst. Burn a chair and you get poison gas. Not to mention the film itself, in a place like this.”
Lindsey looked around. What the staff of the film archive hadn’t coated with foam, the firefighters’ hoses had drenched with water. “It’s a mess, but I don’t see much actual fire damage.”
“There wasn’t much. Just enough to send up the gases that killed her.”
“You say she was an exchange student?” Lindsey was able to look at the young woman’s face now. Dark hair, rich and lustrous, but chopped short to keep it out of her way. Soft features, smooth olive skin. She had to be in her early twenties.
Tony Roland, the fat man, came careening by. Marvia Plum stopped him. “You’d better talk to Mr. Lindsey. He’s from International Surety.”
Roland stuck out his hand. It looked more like a reflex than a conscious act. He mumbled something polite. His eyes didn’t look focused.
Lindsey handed him a business card and Roland stuck it in his pocket. Lindsey asked, “Who was she?” He indicated the body. He couldn’t get used to seeing dead people, even after all his years in the insurance business. Death certificates, policy claims, yes. Lifeless bodies, no.
“She worked for me.” Roland pulled Lindsey’s card from his pocket, looked at it as if he’d never seen it before, then stuck it in his pocket again. “I mean, I was coordinating her project. She came from Italy. She spoke English, though. A lovely—a lovely—”
Without warning the fat man started to cry. Big tears rolled down his face. He patted his pockets, obviously looking for a handkerchief. He couldn’t find one. He pulled his shirt-tail from his trousers and started to mop his tears with it. Lindsey found his own handkerchief and handed it to the man. He said, “Here, use this. Keep it.”
Roland blew his nose in Lindsey’s handkerchief, then stuffed it in his pocket. “Thanks.”
“About the girl.…”
“University of Bologna. Has her Master’s. Working on a Doctorate.”
Lindsey had his pocket organizer and his gold International Surety pen in his hand. KlameNet and Elmer Mueller should really deal with this. Lindsey was part of SPUDS, Special Projects Unit/Detached Service. Corporate trouble-shooters. But Mueller was absent from the scene, probably in Emeryville looking after his real estate investments. “What’s her name?”
“Annabella Buonaventura.” Roland spelled it for Lindsey. “Your company is our insurance carrier. I don’t know if we’re responsible, what if her family sue us? You’ll pay for the damage, will you stand by us if they sue?”
Lindsey frowned. “That’s up to Legal. Were you negligent? This is a modern building. Don’t you have sprinklers?”
Roland pointed at the ceiling. It showed modern, minimalist, bare-pipes construction. There were fire-sprinklers overhead but no evidence that they had been activated.
Sergeant Plum called to the police-and-fire duo. They responded. “What about the sprinklers?”
The police officer, another sergeant, said, “We’ve checked them out. They should have gone. Take a look.” He hopped on a desk.
Marvia Plum followed. She said, “Come on, Bart.”
Grunting, he climbed onto the desk. It was crowded, the three of them standing there. The sergeant had a pencil in his hand. He pointed at the nearest sprinkler. “See that? Putty. Somebody gimmicked the sprinklers so they wouldn’t let go when the fire started. Could have been a lot worse.”
They clambered down. Lindsey said, “That makes it murder. Even if it wasn’t intentional, if it was caused by an arson fire then it’s felony murder.”
Marvia Plum said, “That’s why I’m here. Why are you here?”
“I.S. will pay, even if it was arson. I don’t see contributory negligence. Any ideas who did it?”
Outside the Archive’s glass doors, most of the curiosity-seekers had gone on their way. The orator was still at it, preaching to an audience of three. One of them, a scrawny ten-year-old, lost interest and wandered away. The orator cranked up his passion. The remaining two looked at each other and headed toward Telegraph Avenue, holding hands.
Lindsey jotted what notes he could. He managed to get Anthony Roland to stand still for a few minutes—he couldn’t get him to sit down —and talk about the damage. Lindsey said he’d talk to Elmer Mueller. Processing the claim was Mueller’s job. International Surety would send out a contract estimator. The Film Archive could send in their own estimate on repair costs and other losses.
“I’ll have to inventory the film. I don’t know everything Annabella was working on. Some of our holdings are unique. How can we put a value on them?”
Lindsey tried to sound sympathetic. He’d dealt with rarities before, collectibles, irreplaceable treasures. No matter how hard it might be for people to put a price on a lost item, they always wound up taking the check. “Everything should be described in your policy. There should be a value listed for each item.”
The coroner’s squad arrived. They took photos and measurements and samples and the body and left.
Lindsey wanted to talk with Marvia Plum but this was obviously not the moment. At least, not the moment to talk with her about personal matters. He touched her hand and promised to call her.
CHAPTER TWO
You wouldn’t call it a great party. Ms. Wilbur wore a dress to the office for the first time in Hobart Lindsey’s recollection, a floral print that looked like an Impressionist version of the Amazon rain forest. A couple of women from the costume jewelry distributor across the hall had chipped in to buy her a corsage. At best, the corsage disappeared into the print of Ms. Wilbur’s dress.
In fact, the party had a distinctly floral theme. Harden at Regional had sent a small display and Ms. Johanssen at National had sent a slightly larger one. The morning’s Oakland Tribune was spread on a desk to protect valuable company property from any water that dripped from the flowers. Both displays bore friendly, handwritten messages congratulating Ms. Wilbur on her retirement and wishing her great happiness in the future. And Elmer Mueller, the Walnut Creek branch manager, had sprung for sandwiches and punch.
It was all according to the International Surety Operations Manual. Lindsey ought to know that. He’d worked for International Surety for his entire professional life, and the OpsMan was the loyal employee’s Bible. Lindsey had sat in the very chair Elmer Mueller now occupied before he’d strayed from the true path of the OpsMan. In the course of so doing, he had trod on a few sensitive toes and got himself kicked upstairs to the Special Projects Unit/Detached Service. If SPUDS was the graveyard of International Surety careers, then Desmond Richelieu, its chief, was the company’s in-house undertaker. Desmond Richelieu sat in his tower office in Denver and sent out the word. Demote. Suspend. Terminate.
It was not a good thing to be invited to a meeting with Desmond Richelieu, yet Lindsey had survived several such. Maybe Richelieu considered him too small a gadfly to bother swatting. Or maybe he liked having somebody around who could break the rules when he felt that a higher good was involved. It was a funny way to do business, and no one had ever accused Richelieu of having a sense of humor.
Somehow, Lindsey had hung onto his job.
Conversation was desultory, drifting from talk of marriages good and bad to children and grandchildren to recipes and television shows. It was woman talk. Lindsey let his eye drift to the Oakland Tribune peeking out from under the flowers. The local news section was visible; it featured a photograph of a blocky, modernistic building and a headline about the fire at the Pacific Film Archive.