The Sepia Siren Killer. Richard A. Lupoff
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telephone wouldn’t stop burbling at him until he rolled over and picked it up. Things were better when telephones just rang at you. Nowadays they sounded like lovesick pigeons serenading their chosen sweethearts.
The voice on the telephone was Ms. Wilbur’s. “Now that you don’t have to punch a clock any more, what time do you roll out, Hobart?”
He rubbed his eyes and blinked at the clock. He sniffed. Mother had the coffee started, anyway. His mind flashed on the cold coffee at the Robeson Center. The cups were probably still on the table.
“What’s the matter? Ms. Wilbur, aren’t you retired?”
“How does that saying go? This is the first day of the rest of my life. Sure I’m retired. How’s your own calendar, Hobart?”
He rubbed his head. The blood was starting to flow again. “A ton of routine stuff. Why?”
“I’m at the Robeson Center. I’m still not satisfied with Mr. MacReedy’s situation.”
“KlameNet can handle it. You know that Mueller’s full of bullstuff.”
“Bullstuff, hey? I thought you were going to say a naughty word for once.”
Lindsey had his feet in his slippers. “What are you doing at the center? Is MacReedy all right?”
He could almost see her shaking her head in the characteristic way that meant, maybe-yes-and-maybe-no. He’d seen her do that often enough in all the years they’d worked together. She said, “I think you ought to come over to Berkeley again. We’ll talk about it when you get here.” She waited for his grunt of assent, then broke the connection.
He drank coffee and ate toast with Mother. After breakfast he dropped her at the bus stop, then drove back to Berkeley. It was definitely an advantage, having the freedom that went with his assignment to SPUDS, but at the same time it frequently left him at loose ends. Was he earning his salary? Was he contributing to the company? Was Desmond Richelieu watching, ready to pounce at Lindsey’s first misstep?
The commuter traffic was heavy. The news on the car radio was dominated by reports of an earthquake in Japan and a massacre in the Balkans. After a commercial for an investment broker, the station switched to a syndicated Hollywood update. Arturo Madrid, onetime matinee idol and latter-day character actor, was to receive a lifetime achievement award on the occasion of his eighty-fifth birthday and sixty-fifth anniversary in films. The ceremony would be carried live on cable and excerpted for network television.
Local news coverage was slim, consisting mainly of a sidebar to the Arturo Madrid story, playing up an Oakland angle. Surprisingly for Hollywood, the powers-that-be had decided to hold the climactic ceremonies of the Madrid honors at the Oakland Paramount. Local politicians were falling over each other to get onto the program with the great actor. Other than that, there was little out of the ordinary. Not a word about the fire at the Robeson Center. Well, there was little enough to be said about a minor incident involving no injuries. Not in a town where murders and political squabbles competed daily for the attention of the news media.
The morning was bright and in it the Robeson Center looked far better than it had the previous evening. For the first time Lindsey saw a carved oval plaque mounted above the main entrance. It was shaped like a giant cameo brooch. The face was heavy-boned, the lips broad, the nose flat. It was Paul Robeson, all right. He turned up occasionally on TV in movies made in the 1930s.
Ms. Wilbur and Mr. MacReedy were sitting beneath a Corinthian pillar on a round, cushioned seat. Ms. Wilbur wore a casual outfit. Her gray hair was pinned up. Mr. MacReedy wore a threadbare blue suit and a black tie, probably the same ones he’d worn the day before. Apparently he’d been able to borrow a fresh shirt, anyway.
Today a woman stood behind the reception desk. She sported a rectangular badge that identified her as LaVonda Hendry. Even at this distance, her wedding ring was conspicuous. Lindsey wondered if she and Oliver ever saw each other except when changing shifts.
A Berkeley police officer nodded to Lindsey. Well, police HQ on McKinley Avenue had taken Sgt. Stromback seriously, at least.
Ms. Wilbur stood up and drew Lindsey out of earshot of the others. “A little test, Bart. Why would somebody wait for Mr. MacReedy to leave, then burn out his room? Five points for the correct answer.”
Lindsey shook his head. “He has an enemy.”
Ms. Wilbur looked exasperated. “Two points for that. But why wait for him to leave? If somebody wanted to harm him, wouldn’t it make more sense to start the fire when he was in the room?”
“He would have called for help. He would have seen the arsonist. And maybe whoever it was didn’t have that much against him, didn’t want to risk his death in the fire. He just wanted to destroy MacReedy’s property.”
“You think there was some particular property the arsonist wanted to destroy?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
She rubbed her jaw. Come to think of it, Ms. Wilbur’s face was kind of long. Cruel writers of an earlier era might have called it equine. She said, “Suppose Mr. MacReedy had something, or the arsonist thought he had something, that the arsonist wanted destroyed. He might have stolen the…whatever, and destroyed it at his leisure. But then the theft would have been detected. Might have been detected. And that would draw attention to the object of the robbery—exactly what the criminal wanted to avoid. Do you follow me?”
“Sure I do.” Lindsey frowned. “I follow you right into some nutty old movie. You ever see the Hildegarde Withers pictures? The Penguin Pool Murder, Murder on a Honeymoon.…”
“You’re being nasty.”
“Look, Ms. Wilbur, I thought you were going to stay home and play housewife once you retired from International Surety. You never said you were going to become a sleuth.”
“I’m not. I’m just concerned about Mr. MacReedy and I’m concerned about this fire.”
“There are professionals working on the case. There’s a cop right over there,” Lindsey said.
“I talked to him.”
“And what did he tell you? Were the arson investigators here? Don’t you trust Sergeant Stromback?”
“I’m sure that Sergeant Stromback is doing a fine job, Bart. In fact, the officer didn’t want to tell me anything but I managed to worm a couple of facts out of him.”
“Such as what?”
“Such as, they found some scrapes in the lower hallway and several spots where the arsonist apparently spilled gasoline. That must be how he got in and out of the building, and he could have sent the whole place up in flames if he’d wanted to.”
“Good that he didn’t.”
“Don’t you see, that proves he targeted Mr. MacReedy. If there was ever any doubt about that, which I don’t think there was.”
Lindsey turned back toward MacReedy. The old man sat patiently on the round sofa, his hands folded in his lap. A few other residents drifted through the lobby. They were all old and they were all black. From time to time an ancient individual would stop and exchange a few words with MacReedy. They all touched him, all either shook his hand or kissed him on his cheek. He acknowledged each with a nod.
For the second time this morning, Lindsey asked Ms. Wilbur if she thought MacReedy was all right. She assured him that he was. Lindsey said, “Then let’s take a walk and talk about this thing.”
The heavy doors swung shut behind them. They descended the old steps from the portico. A wheelchair ramp had been added beside the steps. Canyon Road ran through the hills between the University of California campus and the old deaf and blind school, now taken over by the university as a conference center. Surely UC would love to pick up the strip of land that separated the two campuses. If the Anti-Imperialist Front was a catspaw of university schemers, and if the league