William Rabkin - Mind-Altering Murder

“She kept asking if I’d seen anything or if I’d talked to anyone else who might have seen something,” Frank said. “And then she gave me a cookie.”

O’Hara felt any trace of excitement vanish. “That was me, Frank,” she said.

He squinted up at her, unsure. “It was?”

“Oatmeal raisin, with a hint of cinnamon, right?” she said.

He broke into a broad smile at the memory. “Could have done without the walnut pieces, personally, but on the whole a damn fine cookie,” he said. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

She nodded wearily and held out the doughnut box again. At this rate she’d run out before she made it down one block, but she was having a hard time caring about that. She’d been down this street too many times, asked the same people the same questions and gotten the same non-answers over and over again. Maybe this was finally the sign she should stop.

“I don’t suppose you’ve remembered anything else since last night,” she said without any real hope.

“Not me,” Frank said.

“I didn’t think so,” she said. “Thanks for trying, anyway.”

“The other guy might have, though,” Frank said.

“The other guy?” This time she wouldn’t let herself get her hopes up. “Do I know him?”

“Don’t think so.” Frank chuckled to himself. “Takes off like a startled rat every time you come around here. I always tell him he should stick around, at least on brownie night. But he just takes off like a startled rat scurrying for the sewers.”

“You’ve never mentioned this man before, have you?” she said.

“Haven’t I?” Frank said. “I don’t know.”

“And you think he saw the hit-and-run?” she said, fighting against the excitement that was building inside her.

“Can’t say for sure he did or didn’t,” Frank said. “All I know, when I mentioned there was a police officer asking questions about some car thing and paying for answers with treats, he ran away. And then whenever you started coming down this way he just took off like-”

“A startled rat, right,” she said. “Can you describe him for me?”

“He’s got beady little eyes, white whiskers sticking out this way from his face,” Frank said, making sure she was writing all this down. “And don’t forget about that long tail.”

She slapped her notebook shut, disappointed. “Frank, that’s a description of the startled rat, isn’t it?”

He just chuckled in response.

“There is no other man, is there?”

“Oh, but there is,” he said. “I was just having some fun with you. This guy’s about six feet tall, maybe thirty years old. His hair’s about your color, and he’s got a month or two’s worth of beard. Don’t think he’s been on the streets long.”

“Why’s that?” she said. This was sounding promising, the first possible break they’d had in the case yet.

“His face doesn’t have these wrinkles you get from living out under the sun all day,” Frank said, pointing to his own. “And his hands are too soft.”

“Do you know where he is now?” O’Hara asked, scanning the street for any sight of the new man. This could be the break she’d been searching for. At the very least he was a witness. But the way he was so terrified of being asked about the accident suggested he might be much more.

“Hiding where any startled rat’s going to hide,” Frank said. “Someplace you’re not going to be able to find him.”

That’s what he thinks, O’Hara said to herself. There is nothing that’s going to stop me from finding this guy if I have to talk the chief into putting every officer in the force on State Street every night for a week.

“Do me a favor, Frank,” she said. She wrote her name and cell phone number on the pink cardboard of the doughnut box and handed it to him. “When he comes back, give him these for me. Tell him to call me, day or night. There’s a lot more than doughnuts waiting for him if he does.”

Gus had been to the Santa Barbara Yacht Club only once in his life, on a sales call to a plastic surgeon who was concerned the Feds were spying on his office and didn’t want to take a chance on asking for a kickback where they might be listening. He hadn’t made a sale that day, since the only bribes he was authorized to offer came in the form of T-shirts and tote bags with pharmaceutical logos on them and the doctor was hoping for someone who would at least pick up his moorage fees at the club. But that unpleasantness aside, he’d had a wonderful time sitting out in the sun, watching the waves lap against the dock as the rich and beautiful sailed their multimillion-dollar boats out for the day.

When he saw on the invitation that Steve Ecclesine’s memorial service was going to be held at the San Francisco Bay Yacht Club, he’d felt guilty for looking forward to it so much. He was remembering the Santa Barbara club and anticipating another lovely afternoon, sitting out on the water, knowing that he could safely zone out because nothing important was going to transpire. Which was the wrong way to approach what was, for all intents and purposes, a funeral. He should spend the ceremony contemplating the tragedy of a life cut short. Even if it was true that he hadn’t particularly cared for Ecclesine, he should use the occasion to meditate on the nature and purpose of human existence. That was what you did at these things.

But as he walked down Market toward the waterfront, he couldn’t focus on the meaning of life or any other deep issues. He felt the warm sun and the cool bay breeze against his skin, and no matter how many times he reminded himself this was a solemn occasion, he couldn’t stop feeling like school had just let out early on the first day of summer.

Gus was feeling so good that he barely noticed where he was going until he had crossed the wide Embarcadero and found himself heading away from the new baseball stadium. The GPS on his phone told him he wanted to keep going past AT amp;T Park and continue for half a mile. But as he scanned the waterfront walk ahead of him all he saw were industrial piers and warehouses. The Santa Barbara Yacht Club had a rolling lawn in front of it; if the Bay Club had ever had any such thing it had already rolled into the water. More perplexing, given that his phone was telling him that he was within five hundred yards of the correct address, was the complete absence of anything that could be described as a yacht. There were a couple of vessels bobbing on the gray water, but even someone with as little nautical knowledge as Gus would have had a hard time describing these decaying houseboats as yachts.

By the time the GPS had beeped to announce his arrival at his destination, Gus was ready to toss the phone into the bay. Clearly it had sent him to the wrong place. He was standing outside a small, shabby, whitewashed wood building. It looked like the kind of bar that did most of its business selling vodka to people who couldn’t afford to be seen drinking during office hours.

He was about to turn back in disgust when a burst of laughter from inside made him look up, and now he noticed the small sign over the door: SAN FRANCISCO BAY YACHT CLUB.

Of course, Gus realized too late, this was San Francisco. There probably were real yacht clubs for the superrich, but for every one of them there would be a dozen of these ironically named establishments. Yacht clubs for the rest of us, they’d call them.

Once again, Gus considered turning back to the office. His vision of a day spent playing hooky in the sun had vanished, and now he was facing the reality of spending who knew how many hours sitting in this dump, listening to people who’d never liked Ecclesine when he was alive talking about how much they were going to miss him.