Four strikes. Was there even a game that allowed that many?

Chapter 20

On Tuesday morning at breakfast, I had a treat for Maddie, besides the homemade strawberry preserves crafter Mabel Quinlan had distributed to the group last week.

“How would you like to take a ride to San Francisco this afternoon and finally get a Ghirardelli sundae? I’ll pick you up at the Rutledge Center after class and we’ll drive right up.”

Anyone listening in on our family life would have thought that our diet revolved around ice cream: chocolate malts, caramel cashew ice cream, hot fudge sundaes. They wouldn’t be far off.

“That would be cool, Grandma. Do you have more errands to do at the hotel?”

I ruffled her curls. “Why would you ask that?”

I felt I was doing my duty as a good grandmother by at least starting our afternoon with the promised sundae.

We drove directly to Ghirardelli Square and parked a few blocks away-the best we could do, even on a weekday afternoon. A shopping area at the end of a cable car line, the square offered one of the best views in the city. Using a guide we’d picked up at the Duns Scotus over the weekend, Maddie pointed out the hills of Marin County, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the maritime museum.

For a chocolate lover, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory, dating back to the nineteenth century, was the centerpiece of the shopping area. The entire square smelled of sweet, melting chocolate. On this warm summer day, people were lined up around the block on Larkin Street for a chance to eat an outrageously large sundae or soda in cramped quarters.

I held our place in line while Maddie tossed a shiny penny into a fountain already full of coins, each one with a wish attached, I surmised. I never participated in such activities, even as a child. I could never isolate one wish and my parents weren’t about to have me toss in enough coins to cover them all.

Today, I’d truly be at a loss to choose among my wishes. The list ran from a healthy, happy life for Maddie, her parents, and all my friends and relatives, to a solution to the David Bridges murder case. If there were coins left over, I’d wish for another trip to England to see Queen Mary’s dollhouse.

We chose brownie sundaes, with enormous scoops of ice cream, chocolate sauce, and a large brownie stuck down the side of the bowl, in case the thousands of calories in the sundae weren’t enough. We immediately wrapped our brownies in napkins for later. We weren’t gluttons, after all.

It was hard to think of much else in the presence of such delicious decadence. Sadie’s in Lincoln Point was an outstanding little shop, but the excitement of being in San Francisco and the refreshing, cool air by the bay made everything taste better.

In spite of being in this legendary area, where Tony Ben-nett had left his heart, Maddie’s mind, like mine, drifted to the murder case.

“Grandma, can we work on the information I downloaded about those contracts and things?”

I stirred errant crumbs from the brownie into my ice cream. “We should put brownie crumbs on the counter in the Bronx house,” I said.

“Grandma?”

“I’d love to work on that information, but you gave the printout to Uncle Skip, remember?” So there.

Maddie reached into her backpack. “I have copies,” she said, with a chocolate-rimmed grin.

“I should have known.”

“If you had the e-mails I gave you, we could work on everything right now,” she said.

My turn. I reached down into my tote, on the floor by my feet. “I brought the e-mails with me.”

“I should have known,” she said.

I wondered if anyone could have been as proud of a grandchild as I was at that moment.

We both wanted to work on the contract documents on the spot, but one look at our tiny marble-topped table, and another at the long line of customers waiting for their turn at overdosing on chocolate, and we knew that was a bad idea.

“What about the hotel lobby?” I said. “You don’t have to be staying there to walk in and use the coffee tables and chairs. It will be as if we’re still registered,” I said.

Maddie gave me a sideways look. “You’re not going to dump me in the pool, are you?”

Between bouts of laughter, I made a promise to keep Maddie dry, and she accepted.

I couldn’t remember ever being so full as I was driving back toward downtown San Francisco.

“I’ll never eat again,” Maddie said, both hands on her fat-free belly, though we both knew that sentiment would barely last till dinnertime.

While I drove around the ramps of the Duns Scotus parking garage, I organized my goals for the trip.

I needed to establish the chain of custody for Rosie’s locker room scene, tracking its journey from the crafts room in my home to the hands of my LPPD nephew. If I believed Rosie, I could account for the scene up to its fate in room five sixty-eight of the Duns Scotus on Saturday morning, when Rosie unleashed thirty years of anger on it, then dumped it in the trash. The big question: who took the scene from there to the woods of Lincoln Point and then called it in?

I also wanted to study the documents provided by Maddie’s Internet search. This task didn’t seem as important now that Barry Cannon had all but confessed the business fraud to me, and was in police custody, but I liked to be thorough.

What to do first? I wasn’t eager to take Maddie with me on my mission to talk to housekeeping personnel about the locker scene. She had no idea what had happened to the cute room box she liked so much and I’d hoped to keep it that way. Since we were no longer registered at the hotel, we didn’t have access to any of the amenities (that is, I couldn’t dump her at the pool even if I’d wanted to).

“How shall we do this?” I asked Maddie. We had the elevator to ourselves as we rode from the parking garage to the lobby floor.

“Just take me with you everywhere and I’ll be very quiet, okay?”

A promise was a promise.

“Then, let’s say the first stop is the front desk.”

Maddie uttered a loud “Whew,” which, I guessed, expressed her relief that I had no plans to toss her in the water.

I had to find Aaron. I was prepared to wait a long time if necessary, but good fortune smiled on us, and he was on duty.

Maddie and I joined a short line waiting to check in or out, though I assumed that unlike me, most people checked out through their television sets. I didn’t think I’d ever have the confidence in technology that it took to trust a remote control with my credit card.

“Hi, Aaron,” I said. “It’s Mrs. Porter, remember?”

Aaron’s eyes widened, as if he expected an emergency. “Mrs. Porter, I thought you checked out.”

Impressive that Aaron would have that data at his fingertips. But then, I knew I’d been a memorable guest, what with maintenance problems and attracting petty crime in the lobby.

“I did check out, Aaron, and it was a wonderful stay,” I said.

From a spot down and to my left came another voice, that I didn’t expect. “I hope you got our evaluation card,” Maddie said. “We wrote nice things about everyone.”

I uttered a quick prayer that Aaron’s department was completely separate from the evaluation department and that he would have no idea whether we’d filled out the card (I hadn’t) or not.

Aaron gave Maddie a big smile. “Thanks, honey.” He might have been the only person of his generation to call anyone “honey.”

I cleared my throat, preparing for the big push. “Aaron, you’ve done so much for us already, and now I need just one more little favor. I need to find the person who cleaned room five sixty-eight on Saturday.”