“No, we didn’t make it. My husband and I were at San Francisco General Hospital from Friday night to Saturday morning. By the time we got out, it was already close to noon and we knew we couldn’t make it, but we stayed around anyway and waited for the banquet. Andy was sick right after the cocktail party, losing everything, you know, and we didn’t want to take a chance, being away from home and all, so we went to the ER and they said it was probably food poisoning. We thought of the shrimp immediately. I don’t know if you had a problem with it. I didn’t, but Andy has a sensitive digestive system. Anyway, they gave him something to calm his stomach down and he was okay, but by then it was too late to go back to Lincoln Point for the groundbreaking.”
I thought it must have been my personal best at not interrupting a story I didn’t care about. Except, I did care in the sense that it gave Allison Parker an unsolicited alibi for the time of David’s death. In case anyone asked.
During the story, I’d held the phone in the crook of my neck while I poured myself a glass of ice tea. “Allison, I wonder if you could do me a favor? Do you still have the posters that were on display in the hotel ballroom? The ones you helped Cheryl with?”
“Yes, and I’m not sure what to do with them, to tell you the truth. I guess I’ve become the official archivist for my class, although-”
“Do you mind if I take a look at them again?”
“Sure, no problem.”
One of my pet peeves reared its head. “Sure” meant she did mind, when I knew the opposite was true. I hadn’t been in charge of Allison’s grammar lessons for many years, however, and I passed on the need to correct her.
Though she didn’t ask, I felt I should explain, or rather, create a fictional explanation for why I wanted to see the posters.
“I remember that some of the photographs showed students in the background whom I’ve been trying to reconnect with, and I’d like a closer look. Also, I thought you might be able to help me locate them.”
“Oh, you’re so good, Mrs. Porter, keeping up with your students from so long ago like that. I always liked you.”
I never forgot where my students fell on the grading curve. “That’s because you were such a good student, Allison.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Porter. Sometimes I wish I were back in high school when life was so simple.”
Not for everyone, I thought. Not for Rosie. “Are you free now, by any chance? I wouldn’t need to see all the posters. The ones I’m interested in are the medium-size, about fifteen by twenty-four.” No sense in having the poor girl lug all that heavy cardboard for my sham research. “Can we meet downtown somewhere?”
“Oh, gosh. I’m just leaving to pick up my grandson because his mother is tied up with a client. She’s in real estate. Is this evening okay? I could even swing by your house.
You’re in the Eichler neighborhood on the upper west side, right?” Allison made our humble residential area sound like the real Upper West Side of Manhattan. I felt a pang of longing for my former, big city life, where I’d never been involved in a murder case.
“This evening is fine, Allison. I have my crafts group, but I’ll certainly be able to take a break with you.”
I gave Allison directions to my house and rejoiced in my luck. If Allison came through, my crafts group were exactly the people I’d need to consult with tonight.
Nothing to do now but listen to my messages.
There were three from the crafters, about this evening’s meeting. Linda wanted to know if she could use some pages of my large stack book instead of lugging hers to my house. Mabel needed a ride to my house since Jim was not feeling well. Susan alerted me to the fact that she would be bringing a sweet potato pie from her grandmother’s recipe, so I didn’t need to bake.
The fourth message was from Rosie. “Gerry, I tried your cell but can’t reach you.” Uh-oh. I realized I’d turned the phone off while I was in the library with Lourdes, and hadn’t turned it back on. “Now they have my father, Gerry. He went over to Barry Cannon’s house and a fight started, and the police have him in custody. Can you come to the police station? Call me. Please. This is Rosie.”
I wondered if Larry Esterman had been caught with a bank record clutched in his fist.
I left quick messages to say “yes” to Linda and “thanks” to Susan and asked Susan to pick up Mabel, in case I was busy till the last minute. Instead of calling Rosie, I grabbed my keys and rushed to my car.
I had no choice. I had to go to the LPPD, Maddie or no Maddie.
This time Rosie was in the waiting area, and her father was inside the confines of the LPPD.
Rosie sat in an uncomfortable police department chair, her hands in her lap, her eyes staring straight ahead. Anyone who didn’t know better would think she was relaxed. But it seemed a long time since I’d seen Rosie at ease or in good humor-behind the counter of her shop, bent over a new box of books, or scanning a bookshelf for a title. Now she was as tight as the bolts that held her bookcases to the wall for earthquake safety.
I looked around the large room. Drew Blackstone was on duty. Did the man never get a day off, or did he show up just to accommodate me? I resolved to bring him a tin of cookies soon. For the first time in a while, I hoped I wouldn’t run into Skip.
Rosie stood up when she saw me. “Gerry, where have you been?”
When this was all over I was going to have to sit Rosie and Linda down and explain that I wasn’t required to be on call twenty-four/seven. They should have known that most of the time when they couldn’t get hold of me this past week, I was investigating a murder case, trying to clear Rosie, and that I had a life. Maybe not that last one.
“Do you know what this is all about?” I asked Rosie.
“As I told you in my message, the police are holding him for assault.”
“On Barry Cannon? Barry must be thirty years younger. What was your dad thinking?”
“He, uh, took a weapon with him.”
I was stunned. Mild-mannered Larry Esterman with what? A gun? A knife? Another trophy?
“A gun,” Rosie said, before I asked. “I didn’t even know he had one, but I guess he got it when his business was robbed a couple of times years ago. Some kids broke into his warehouse and took a lot of inventory. I’m sure he’d never use it. He just wanted to scare him.”
I couldn’t tell whether Rosie was talking about the kids of long ago or the kid Barry Cannon, of the present. Probably both.
As Rosie and I took seats, Drew and I exchanged waves and smiles across the wide room. I figured he was wondering when I was going to saunter over and ask for a favor.
“Have you heard anything about what’s going on in there?” I asked Rosie, pointing past Drew to the innards of the police station.
Rosie shook her head and sniffed. “No one’s come out to talk to me.”
“Where did they pick him up?”
“At my house. He didn’t do anything to Barry except wave the gun and yell at him. Then he came to my house. Barry must have called the police after he left. My dad’s gun is registered, Gerry.”
“I’m sure they’ll take that into account.”
Why was I saying something I didn’t believe in? Did we want everyone in town with a registered gun waving it in our faces when they wanted to settle a feud or make a point?
The bigger question was, why hadn’t I been a better friend to Rosie? If I’d been stronger and not so afraid of alienating her, I might have helped her to be more realistic about the reunion in the first place. Then David wouldn’t have had the chance to rebuff her and Larry wouldn’t have been forced to relive a thirty-year-old humiliation. For all I knew, David would still be alive, though that connection wasn’t as clear to me.