Marcia Muller - Games to Keep the Dark Away

“Is it okay for me to leave Port San Marco?” I asked.

“You heading back to San Francisco?”

“Yes. My job here seems to be done.”

“Well, go ahead. I know where to find you if I need you.”

“I hung up and sat, once more contemplating the crack in the wall. Cala was telling the truth about not killing Jane, but why had he gone out on the old pier? I’d have liked to know, but then, it really wasn’t any of my concern. The police would get it out of him. I picked up the phone again, hoping Snelling would be at home.

The photographer answers on the first ring. “It’s about time you called,” he said.

“I tried to, last night and then again this morning. You didn’t answer.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“Where were you?”

“In the darkroom.”

“All night?”

“No, of course not. But I like to work in there late at night, and I unplug the phone so if it rings I won’t hear it and be tempted to interrupt my work and answer. And I leave it unplugged until I get up, usually around eleven in the morning. What do you have to report?”

“I’m afraid I have bad news.” Quickly I told him about Jane’s death.

There was a long silence. It stretched out more than thirty seconds. “Abe,” I finally said, “are you okay?”

When he spoke his voice was high-pitched and full of fear. “Dead! She can’t be dead. How could this happen?”

“Abe, I don’t know. But what I can do is stay down here and follow up with the police-”

“No!”

“Obviously you care that someone killed your roommate. Don’t you want to find out who it was?”

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Nothing matters anymore. Nothing. I have to go now, Sharon.” There was a click as he set down the receiver.

I hung up and stared at the phone, wondering about Snelling’s strange reaction. I had expected regret and sorrow-because he and Jane, while not lovers, had been friends. But what I’d heard was shock verging on panic. Why? I wondered. Because Snelling was not too stable? Or was it something to do with how urgently he had needed to speak to Jane? To find out, I’d have to head back to San Francisco.

It took me only a few minutes to pack and check out, and soon after that I was on the pass road heading inland. Once away from the sea, the air became hot and dry, heavy with the bitter odor of eucalyptus. I opened the car windows and vents to create a breeze. It did little to alleviate the heat, and I kept leaning forward to unstick my shirt form my damp back. The road rejoined the freeway and I sped along on the ridge above the Salinas Valley.

Ten years ago there had been no freeway here, just a winding two-lane road that connected the little valley towns like Bradley, San Ardo, and San Lucas. I remembered Sunday nights, coming back from weekends in Santa Barbara or Los Angeles, when the road would be a continuous line of traffic crawling in both directions. In those days I had thought nothing of driving a six- or eight-hundred-mile round trip on a weekend, but now the prospect was unthinkable. I liked to imagine I was getting more sensible now that I’d entered my thirties, but occasionally I wondered how good that was.

In King City, near the midpoint of the valley, I stopped for gas and a Coke. The soda was sticky-sweet and only made me more thirsty. I leaned against the car as I drank it, watching trucks and autos and campers and buses whiz by on the freeway. A prickly, irritated feeling was rising inside me-both at Snelling for reacting to Jane’s death in such an unusual way and at myself for not being able to understand it. I tossed the half-full Coke can in the trash basket and continued north on Route 101, through the ever-present bottleneck at San Jose, up the Peninsula, past the airport, and home.

Watney greeted me vociferously as I entered the apartment. His food bowl was empty, the water dish dry. Tim had obviously forgotten to feed him today. He’d never neglected the cat before, and as I filled the bowls I wondered if perhaps all the beer my building manager guzzled had finally destroyed his few remaining brain cells. The cat taken care of, I got myself a glass of wine-with no consideration at all for my own brain cells-and went into the main room. Everything was the same there-the rumpled quilts, the want ads with the red circles, the books and magazines on the table. I didn’t know why I’d expected it to be different, but the lack of change only heightened my sense of discontent.

I tried to call Snelling, hoping he’d calmed down by now. There was no answer. I dialed my service and received two messages-a second one from Paula Mercer about the apartment she’d found for me, and another from my sister, this time leaving her name-Patsy. Patsy was my youngest sister and the family rebel. She lived on a farm up near Ukiah, had three children-each by a different boyfriend-and steadfastly refused to get married. The embodiment of the back-to-the-land craze of the seventies, she sold quilts for money, raised vegetables and chickens for food, and seemed perfectly content to do without TV, video recorders, and electronic games. Since she had been living like that for eight years and was so good at it, I figured it had passed over the line from being a media-induced aberration to a genuine way of life.

Much as I loved my sister, I didn’t want to talk to her tonight. And much as I needed a new apartment, I didn’t care to spend the evening looking at one. I ignored both messages and sat, sipping wine, feeling prickly and out of sorts, as dusk fell over the city.

The next morning I drove to the big brown Victorian that housed All Souls. The house was on a steeply sloping side street across from a trash-littered triangular park and, as usual, parking was at a premium. I finally left the MG by a fire hydrant-the meter maids never got there till noon-and hurried up the rickety front steps. The co-op was in its customary morning turmoil: attorneys who didn’t live in the second-floor rooms were arriving; others were grabbing their briefcases and rushing off for court. Hank stood by the front desk, talking with Ted, the secretary, about an office-supply order. When Hank saw me, he mumbled something about some documents and notes on my desk. I started down the hall, but suddenly he called after me.

“Abe Snelling phoned me this morning.”

I stopped. “What did he have to say?”

“He told me to thank you for your good work and asked that we send a bill.”

“How did he sound?”

Hank frowned. “Okay. Why?”

“He was pretty broken up yesterday over his roommate’s death.”

“Well, he recovers quickly, then. This morning he was all business.”

I sighed, irrationally annoyed by Snelling’s recuperative powers and went into my office. On my desk was a thick folder of notes on a pretrial conference for a landlord-tenant dispute that was due to go to court next week. I took off my jacket, curled up in my ratty armchair, and spent the next few hours going over it.

The case was an interesting one. A couple had bought a two-unit house with the intention of moving into the upper flat. They’d sold their previous home and were now living in a motel because the occupants of the flat had refused to leave, even after they had been served with a legal eviction notice. Through striking up an acquaintance with the downstairs neighbors, I’d found out that the tenants had already moved into a new apartment and were merely keeping enough possessions in the flat to make it appear they still lived there. They were now attempting to extort several thousand dollars from the new owners before they would remove everything and give up the keys to the premises.

I’d followed the tenants, gotten pictures of them entering their new apartment, and we’d subpoenaed evidence that they’d changed the addresses on their bank and charge accounts. It promised to be a lively court battle, since the tenants were a surly and unpleasant pair, and I was looking forward-in spite of being a renter myself-to testifying against them.