The Cheshire Cat's Eye Page 4

  “The Italianates,” Wintringham said as we started up the stairway in the wall below his headquarters, “were the earliest San Francisco Victorians. These two date from eighteen-eighty-eight or –nine. The reason I know, again, is that this one was the family home, before the Queen Anne was built.

  We entered through the double doors off the columned porch. As before, Larry French stood behind the desk in the hall.

  “Ahah, I see she found you,” he announced with a leer. “Good work, McCone!”

  I tried not to grit my teeth.

  “Listen, David,” French went on, “we better get out to Fort Mason. The show opens at noon.”

  “Paul’s already there,” Wintringham replied. “He can take care of the booth for a while.”

  “Paul?” French snorted, then added with elaborately feigned embarrassment. “Oooops, David! I didn’t mean to bad-mouth your sweetie!”

  Wintringham didn’t even look annoyed. Probably he was inured to French. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re one hell of an unpleasant character, Larry?” he asked mildly.

  Wintringham’s comment also left French unruffled. “Sure. McCone here thinks so, but she’s too polite to say. That right, McCone?”

  “Now that you mention it.”

  Wintringham turned to me. “Don’t let Larry get to you. His hobby is rubbing people the wrong way.”

  “Seriously, David,” French went on, “I’m going over to the show. And you,” he added to Charmaine, “had better haul your cute little butt over there with me.”

  Charmaine tossed her head, her dark hair hiding whatever expression was on his face.

  “I said, get your ass in gear.”

  “I will drive myself, thank you.” She walked stiffly down the hall toward the rear of the house.

  “Women,” French muttered. He picked up a set of car keys from the desk and exited, jingling them.

  Wintringham heaved a sigh. “Let’s go in the parlor.” He led me to a room that was beautifully appointed with velvet sofas, marble-topped tables, and a crystal chandelier. “Again, let me apologize for my partner. I didn’t pick him for his charm.”

  “What, then?”

  “His money. What else?” Wintringham flung his gaunt frame onto a delicate chair, and I sat on the couch.

  “This is a lovely room,” I said, motioning at the mirrored fireplace and brocade draperies.

  “Thank you. My friend Paul Collins and I live here as well as maintain offices, so we made it as homey as possible.”

  “Did Charmaine decorate it?”

  “Yes. She’s good, isn’t she?”

  “Very.”

  “Of course, Eleanor van Dyne doesn’t think so. That’s because she doesn’t make everything authentic, down to the last detail.” He stared off gloomily, his chin sunk onto his bony chest.

  “Is the van Dyne problem why you wanted to see me?”

  “Huh?” He jerked out of his reverie. “Oh, no, not at all. It’s the murder. The police talked to me last night, but by then you’d already gone. Can you tell me about… about what you found? The police weren’t very informative.”

  They weren’t paid to be. I gave Wintringham as brief a version as possible.

  When I finished, he remained sprawled in the little chair, his expression thoughtful. Had I imagined a flicker of relief when I’d mentioned the faked accident? If so, it was gone now, replaced by moodiness.

  I decided to seize the opportunity. “Mr. Wintringham-”

  “David.”

  ’David. Doesn’t it strike you that it might be to your advantage to find Jake’s killer?”

  He looked up. “How so?”

  “The crime did happen on your property, to one of your employees. I would think you’d feel some responsibility.”

  “Of course I’m concerned…”

  “What if the murder had something to do with this project? Someone may wish to stop it. The murder may only be the beginning.”

  He frowned. “Won’t the police find that out?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  He jumped up and began pacing. “I don’t know. I have little faith in the police myself, I admit.”

  “Often a private operative has more freedom to investigate than the officials.”

  “A private operative like you?”

  “Exactly.”

  He stopped in front of me. “You want a job.”

  “I want to find Jake’s killer, same as you.”

  “And be paid for it.”

  “It would take my time. I have to live.”

  “Doesn’t All Souls pay you?”

  “My time is billed to our clients, so…”

  “I see.”

  He shuffled his feet indecisively. “I don’t know. I don’t have much money. It’s all tied up in the project.”

  “Our rates are reasonable.”

  He nodded. “On the other hand, like I said, I don’t have much faith in the police. Not after my last experience with them.”

  “What was that?”

  He resumed pacing on the Oriental rug. “Three years ago there was another murder in that house.”

  “Who?”

  He turned to me. The expression on his face was complex, tugging between sorrow and…what? I couldn’t define it. “My father, Richard Wintringham. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”

  “He was an architect,” I said, recalling what Johnny Hart had told Hank and me.

  “Yes.” Wintringham sprawled in the chair again. “An architect, of sorts. He designed the Wintringham row houses. There are hundreds of them out in the Avenues.”

  “They’re stucco, each attached to the other.”

  Wintringham’s smile was taut with embarrassment. “You don’t have to be polite, Sharon. They’re dreary little boxes with two eyes of a window and a grinning mouth of a garage below. A critic once said that if you put a chain across the garage door, they would look like they were wearing braces. But after the war, they were a reasonable response to the housing shortage. And it’s to my father’s credit that he never went so far as to live in one.”

  “Your father lived in the Queen Anne?”

  “And met his death there.”

  “Exactly how did he die?”

  “The police theorized that he surprised a burglar. A number of valuable objects were taken, small things that could easily be carried away.”

  “Any of them ever turn up?”

  “No.”

  “And I take it the killer was never caught.”

  “There were no clues.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Almost three years ago, on the twenty-sixth of May.”

  “What was the cause of death?”

  “A blow to the head.”

  I looked up. My eyes met his. The way Jake had been killed.

  “Are the police aware of the similarity?” I asked.

  “Yes, but they didn’t seem particularly interested.”

  “No, they wouldn’t be. They’d just consider it a coincidence.”

  “Do you?”

  “I’m not sure.” I paused. I tend not to like coincidence as an explanation for similar events. “Perhaps the two are related. I might be able to find out something about your father’s death by investigating Jake’s.” But even as I said it I felt it to be a cheap trick. Three-year old murders are difficult, if not impossible, to solve.

  Wintringham, however, looked thoughtful.

  I pressed my advantage. “Will you hire me?”

  He bit his lip. “I guess I have no choice. I want to get to the bottom of this – of both of the murders.”

  Again I felt a twinge of guilt, but only a twinge. Who knew what I’d turn up? “Good. Now, there’s a minor problem. Technically I can only work for clients of All Souls.” At his dismayed look, I held up my hand and went on. “But that’s easily overcome. The way All Souls works, you pay a small yearly membership fee and you’re charged on a sliding scale, according to your i
ncome. All you have to do is fill in our application and pay the fee, and we’ll be in business.”

  He sat up briskly. “Do you have an application with you?”

  I smiled. “Sure do.”

  While Wintringham filled it out, I wandered into the hall, studying the oil paintings that hung there. A door at the rear of the building opened, and Charmaine came out. She had repaired her smeared eye makeup and put on an overwhelming amount of heavy perfume.

  “Do you have the time?” she asked in a harried voice.

  “It’s eleven-thirty.”

  “Ah, good. I’ll make it.”

  “What is it you’re going to, some kind of show?”

  “There’s a Victorian home exhibition at Fort Mason, Pier Three.” She named a former army supply base that was now used for a variety of cultural activities. “Everyone who’s anyone in the restoration field will have a booth there. I myself am showing off my interior designs.”

  “Charmaine,” I said, remembering the old-fashioned tubular piece of metal I had pocketed at the murder scene last night, and van Dyne’s comment about the decorator dabbling in stained glass, “do you know anything about light fixtures?”

  “I purchase them, in consultation with various lighting designers.”

  “Who?”

  She moved restlessly toward the door. “There are a number of them. Why?”

  “I need someone to help light my apartment.” Inwardly I grinned. My Mission District studio had sparkly things mixed in with the acoustical material on the ceiling, so I kept my lights as dim as possible.

  “Oh,” Charmaine paused, hand on the doorknob. “Try Victoriana. They’re the biggest.” In a cloud of exotic scent, she was gone.

  “Thanks,” I said, patting my bag where the piece of metal now rested. “Thanks. I will.”

  6.

  San Francisco Victoriana’s showroom was in the industrial Bayshore District, several miles across town. I drove over there in a pensive mood, wondering if I were wasting my time pursuing this clue. It was, however, the only lead I had. The only lead except for Jake’s comment about the person he was meeting being a drunk. If I interviewed all the drunks in a town like San Francisco, looking for a suspicious sign, I’d be at it for the rest of my life. No, better to try to track down the origin of the little piece of metal.

  The showroom’s walls were covered with plaster rosettes and fish-scale shingles like the ones Wintringham had pointed out on his family Queen Anne. From the ceiling hung dozens of light fixtures, their outstretched arms ending in etched-glass shades. I looked them over carefully as I waited at the sales desk, wondering how a piece of metal like the one in my purse would fit.

  A gray cat lay curled on the desk. It raised its head and favored me with a great yawn. I scratched its ears, and it began to purr.

  In a minute, a woman with short blond hair emerged from a room behind the desk. “Oh, I see you’ve met Victoria,” she said cheerfully.

  “Appropriately named.”

  “A little cutesy, but she’s a cute cat. We’ve had her since she was a kitten. What can I do for you?”

  “I need some information on light fixtures.” I took out the metal piece. “I have a fragment of one here, and I’m trying to trace the manufacturer.”

  Her smooth brow creased. “Gosh, I don’t know if I can help you. The guys who would know are at the home show.” At my disappointed look, she added, “I’ll give it a try though. If it’s somebody local, I might recognize it.”

  I handed her the fragment. She studied it, turning it over in his hands. Finally she said, “I could be wrong, but this looks like Prince Albert’s work.”

  “Prince Albert!”

  She grinned. “He’s really Al Prince, but, like Victoria here, the names go with the trade.”

  “Where might I find this royal personage?”

  “His shop is on Natoma Street, that alley between Mission and Howard, south of Market. He’s somewhere around Sixth. Look for a sign saying, ‘Prince Albert’s Lighthouse.’”

  I thanked her and directed my battered red MG downtown. Once there, I parked on Sixth Street, nicknamed “Rue de Wino” because of the characters with brown paper bags who hung out there. Natoma was one car wide, its sidewalks crowded with parked vehicles. I settled for the middle of the street, keeping alert for approaching motors.

  I was not unfamiliar with this part of town, having worked cases here before, but now I was amazed to discover that people actually lived in the back alleys of this commercial district. The surrounding blocks consisted of stores, office buildings, and light industry, but here on a Saturday morning children played in the street, women hung laundry on porches, and men tinkered with old cars. The houses were largely wood frame and in bad repair. With my newfound knowledge, I recognized small squat Italianates and Sticks. The elegant Queen Anne, however, did not belong in this working-class neighborhood.

  I continued along for two blocks, skirting abandoned tricycles and toys, until I saw the sign for Prince Albert’s Lighthouse. It was a simple woodcarving that hung at a right angle to the face of the brick building. Another sign in the window said CLOSED.

  Frustrated, I went up and peered in through the grimy plate glass. All I saw were worktables and unfamiliar machinery. A few light fixtures, similar to those at Victoriana, hung from the rafters.

  The home show at Fort Mason – obviously that was the place to go. But first I had unfinished business to take care of. I returned to the MG and steered it toward Johnny’s Kansas City Barbecue.

  It was a mistake to appear there even at the tail end of the noon hour. I knew that as soon as I stepped in the door. Dark eyes in black faces turned toward me, and the level of noise dropped to a hush. Johnny Hart came forward, his face an angry mask.

  “What the hell you doing here?” he demanded.

  Summoning bravado, I said, “I thought I’d try some of your barbecued ribs.”

  “Well, forget it. Just get your ass out of here.”

  “Don’t tell me you discriminate?”

  “Sure I discriminate, ‘specially against lying little sneaks.”

  “Don’t you want to know why I asked all those questions last night?”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  “Sure you do.”

  Exasperated, he looked around at his silent clientele. “All right, dammit. But we’re not gonna talk here.” He grabbed my elbow and propelled me toward the kitchen.

  Inside were two waiters and a dishwasher. They looked up, startled, as we came in.

  “You fellas get out there and take care of the customers, huh?” Hart said.

  Puzzled, they exited to the front of the restaurant.

  Hart leaned against a huge chopping block. “Lunchtime rush is almost over. So explain yourself, Miss Private Eye.”

  I blinked. “How’d you know?”

  “I may be a nigger, girl, but I’m one of the literate ones. Your name’s in the paper.”

  “Oh. Well, then you know why I asked you all that stuff.”

  “What I don’t know is why the cover-up. You come around, you say, Look, I’m a private cop and this guy got dead – maybe I’ll help you, maybe not. But I sure as shit won’t lift a finger when you poke into things pretending to be some girlfriend of a knee-jerk liberal lawyer.”

  I grinned.

  “What the hell’s so funny?”

  “You have just insulted Hank Zahn twice. Once by calling him a ‘knee-jerk liberal’ and once by implying he’d ever ask me out.”

  Hart tried to look stern, but a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  I looked around the kitchen, sniffing. “Sure smells good.”

  “So now you’re trying to hit me up for a meal.”

  “All I’ve had today is coffee.”

  “Dammit, girl, I don’t want to like you, and I don’t want to feed you, and I sense I’m gonna end up doing both. Ribs?”

  “With fries?”

  “Beer?”

&n
bsp; “Coke.”

  Hart went to the stainless-steel oven and threw some ribs on a plate, along with some greasy French fries from a vat of bubbling oil. While he was drawing my Coke, he said, “You still didn’t explain yourself.”