office, but with a greater complement of green metal government furniture. The supervisor’s office. Notices were tacked in rows at either side of a bulletin board. In the middle was a pen-and-ink print—Suzanne Valadon’s “After the Bath.” And on the supervisor’s desk directly beneath it lay a half-done copy, a very good copy. Presumably Alec Effield, the supervisor here, had a fair amount of free time.
Behind the desk was a file shelf half the size of the one in the next room. It was marked “Closed files.”
It didn’t take me long to find Ermentine Brown’s folder and take down her address and the date her welfare grant had been discontinued because of—if my interpretation of the crabbed writing that could only have been Anne’s was correct—excess income.
A closed case—reason to resent Anne? Ermentine Brown could tell me herself.
Chapter 8
O N THE OFF CHANCE that he might have detoured by the house on the way to his meeting, I called Nat there. He hadn’t.
Ravenous, I stopped at Wally’s Donut Shop and ordered eggs and sausage. Lowering the platter, Wally glanced from the eggs to the hash browns and sausage and up at me. “This is big time for you, isn’t it? I thought you only ate jelly donuts.”
“This is breakfast.”
“Good thing. Most important meal. Though”—he wiped a hand across his apron—“a lot of people eat breakfast in the morning.”
“Wally,” I said, I’m doing the best I can.”
He grinned. It was a variation on an old interchange. Wally’s was close to the station and many a break had been spent here, many a jelly donut consumed, and many a cup of coffee that should rightfully have been tossed out had washed down those donuts. I salted everything, poured ketchup over the eggs and hash browns, and forked off a piece of scrambled egg.
My thoughts were on the case. What did I know, so far? Anne Spaulding had been missing for a day and a half. Her apartment looked like it had been the scene of a fight So presumably, she had fought someone and…and lost. If she’d won she would have been home and I’d have been taking my complaint from her. So she’d lost.
Who was that someone? A psychotic killer who had chosen her at random, dumped her bloody clothes by the Bay and done…what?…with her nude body? A sex killing? If so, the killer would go on attacking women month after month or week after week until we could collect enough data to track him down. How many women would die before then?
I spread strawberry jam on my toast. Once, thoughts of murder had knotted my stomach, but now I could consider what would make a normal person retch and not miss a bite.
Suppose the killer were not psychotic, not random. Suppose it was someone she knew…a friend? So far that meant Nat or Alec Effield, the supervisor. Anne didn’t seem to put herself out to make friends, if Skip Weston and Fern Day were to be believed. And what of Nat’s pewter pen in Anne’s living room? I knew how much he valued that pen. I knew how careful Nat was. The pen wasn’t something he would mislay, unless…but I couldn’t picture him there while the blood was still fresh.
I’d have to get this issue of the pen cleared up soon. It could provide a wedge to force Nat to describe Anne’s life much more thoroughly than he apparently wanted. And I certainly had to have an explanation of Nat and the pen before Lt. Davis read about it in my initial report.
The only other lead was “Ermentine Brown 20,” the notation I had found in Anne’s wallet, the former welfare client whose case had been closed for excess income. I finished the hash browns, paid Wally, ignoring his reproof about the scarcely touched eggs, and headed for my car.
Ermentine Brown lived in public housing. Her unit was at the end of what appeared to be a giant stucco shoebox. Before it, the grass had been trampled and the hard clay soil shone through.
The shades of her apartment were drawn, but the unmistakable crescendos of
Behind the desk was a file shelf half the size of the one in the next room. It was marked “Closed files.”
It didn’t take me long to find Ermentine Brown’s folder and take down her address and the date her welfare grant had been discontinued because of—if my interpretation of the crabbed writing that could only have been Anne’s was correct—excess income.
A closed case—reason to resent Anne? Ermentine Brown could tell me herself.
Chapter 8
O N THE OFF CHANCE that he might have detoured by the house on the way to his meeting, I called Nat there. He hadn’t.
Ravenous, I stopped at Wally’s Donut Shop and ordered eggs and sausage. Lowering the platter, Wally glanced from the eggs to the hash browns and sausage and up at me. “This is big time for you, isn’t it? I thought you only ate jelly donuts.”
“This is breakfast.”
“Good thing. Most important meal. Though”—he wiped a hand across his apron—“a lot of people eat breakfast in the morning.”
“Wally,” I said, I’m doing the best I can.”
He grinned. It was a variation on an old interchange. Wally’s was close to the station and many a break had been spent here, many a jelly donut consumed, and many a cup of coffee that should rightfully have been tossed out had washed down those donuts. I salted everything, poured ketchup over the eggs and hash browns, and forked off a piece of scrambled egg.
My thoughts were on the case. What did I know, so far? Anne Spaulding had been missing for a day and a half. Her apartment looked like it had been the scene of a fight So presumably, she had fought someone and…and lost. If she’d won she would have been home and I’d have been taking my complaint from her. So she’d lost.
Who was that someone? A psychotic killer who had chosen her at random, dumped her bloody clothes by the Bay and done…what?…with her nude body? A sex killing? If so, the killer would go on attacking women month after month or week after week until we could collect enough data to track him down. How many women would die before then?
I spread strawberry jam on my toast. Once, thoughts of murder had knotted my stomach, but now I could consider what would make a normal person retch and not miss a bite.
Suppose the killer were not psychotic, not random. Suppose it was someone she knew…a friend? So far that meant Nat or Alec Effield, the supervisor. Anne didn’t seem to put herself out to make friends, if Skip Weston and Fern Day were to be believed. And what of Nat’s pewter pen in Anne’s living room? I knew how much he valued that pen. I knew how careful Nat was. The pen wasn’t something he would mislay, unless…but I couldn’t picture him there while the blood was still fresh.
I’d have to get this issue of the pen cleared up soon. It could provide a wedge to force Nat to describe Anne’s life much more thoroughly than he apparently wanted. And I certainly had to have an explanation of Nat and the pen before Lt. Davis read about it in my initial report.
The only other lead was “Ermentine Brown 20,” the notation I had found in Anne’s wallet, the former welfare client whose case had been closed for excess income. I finished the hash browns, paid Wally, ignoring his reproof about the scarcely touched eggs, and headed for my car.
Ermentine Brown lived in public housing. Her unit was at the end of what appeared to be a giant stucco shoebox. Before it, the grass had been trampled and the hard clay soil shone through.
The shades of her apartment were drawn, but the unmistakable crescendos of
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