“How did Mrs. Crane feel about his trips to Tomales? Didn't she mind him going away alone like that?”
“No. Amanda was always very… passive, I suppose is the word. Whatever Harmon did was fine with her.” Porter paused, fought down another cough, and ground out his cigarette in a hollowed-out lump of clay. “You've talked to her? Amanda?”
“For a few minutes yesterday.”
“About Harmon's death?”
“No. She wouldn't discuss it.”
“It's just as well. She… well, she had a severe breakdown, you know, after Adam and that shyster, Yankowski, found the body. She hasn't been right in the head since.”
“So I gathered. She asked about you, Mr. Porter.”
“Did she?” A kind of softness came into his face; he smiled faintly. “I suppose she wonders why I haven't been to see her the past few months.”
“Yes. She said she'd like to see you again.”
He sighed, and it turned into another cough. “Well, I suppose I'll have to go then. I stopped the visits because they depress me. Seeing her the way she is…” He shook his head. “She was such a vital woman before the shooting. An attractive, vital, happy woman.”
He was in love with her too, I thought. At least a little. She must have been quite a woman before the night of December 10, 1949.
I said, “Crane's little retreat at Tomales-do you recall where it was?”
“No, not exactly. I never went there. Adam did, once, at Harmon's invitation; it seems to me he said it was on the east shore. But I can't be sure.”
“Did Crane own the place?”
“I believe he leased it.”
“Would you have any idea who from?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I would. An Italian fellow in Tomales. The town, I mean. Harmon used his name in one of his Johnny Axe books, made him the villain. He liked to do things like that-inside jokes, he called them. He had a puckish sense of humor.”
“Was the Italian a realtor?”
“No, I don't think so. A private party.”
“What was his name?”
Porter did some cudgeling of his memory. But then he shook his head again and said, “I just don't remember.”
“The title of the book?”
“Nor that. I read all of them when they were published, but I haven't looked at one in years. I believe I stored them away with Adam's books after he died.” Porter paused again, musingly this time. “You know,” he said, “there was a box of Harmon's papers among my brother's effects.”
“Papers?”
“Literary papers-manuscripts, letters, and so on. I don't know how Adam came to have them; probably through Amanda. If you think they might be of help, I'll see if I can find the box. It's somewhere down in the basement.”
“I'd appreciate that, Mr. Porter. You never know what might prove useful.”
“I'll start looking this evening.”
“Can you give me the names of any other friends of Crane's I should talk to?”
“I didn't really know any of Harmon's friends,” he said. “I don't believe he had many. He spent most of his time writing or researching. Have you talked to Yankowski yet?”
“Yes. He wasn't very helpful.”
“I'm not surprised. An unpleasant sort. I don't know why Harmon dealt with him.”
“How did your brother feel about Yankowski?”
“The same as I do. He found him overbearing. And the way he pestered poor Amanda after Harmon's death…”
“Pestered her how?”
“He wanted to marry her. That was before he found out her mind was permanently damaged, of course.”
“He left her alone after he found out?”
“Fortunately, yes.”
There didn't seem to be anything more to ask Porter; I waited while he lighted another Camel and got done coughing, thanked him for his time, and started for the door. But he wasn't quite ready to let go of me yet. He tagged along, with his face scrunched up thoughtfully again and his breath making funny little rattling noises in his throat.
When we got to the door he said, “There is one thing. I don't know that I ought to bring it up, after all this time, but… well, it's something that has bothered me for thirty-five years. Bothered Adam, too, while he was alive.”
“What is it, Mr. Porter?”
“The circumstances of Harmon's death. They just didn't seem right.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well… in the first place, it's very hard to believe that he would have killed himself, even in a state of severe depression. If you'd known Harmon you'd understand. He wasn't a courageous man; he feared death more than most of us.”
I frowned at him. “Are you suggesting his death might not have been suicide?”
“I'm suggesting that it is a possibility.”
“Who had reason to want him dead?”
“No one that I know of. Or that Adam knew of. That was one of the reasons the police discounted the idea when Adam broached it to them.”
“What were the other reasons?”
“The main one was the locked office door. They said there was no way anyone but Harmon could have locked it from the inside. But that door was exactly what bothered us the most.”
“Why?”
“Harmon never locked doors, not even the front door to his house; he was a trusting man and he was forever misplacing things like keys. Besides, he was alone in the house that night. Why would a man alone in his own home lock his office door, even if he did intend to take his own life?”
I didn't say anything.
“You see?” Porter said. “It could have been murder, couldn't it?”
SEVEN
When I left North Beach I drove over to the foot of Clay Street and got onto the freeway interchange, heading south for Redwood City. As I drove I mulled over what Porter had told me. Not suicide-murder. Well, it was a possibility, as he'd said; and it would make an intriguing mystery out of Crane's death. But the police had determined that there was no way for a locked-room gimmick to have been worked, and I had a healthy respect for the SFPD Homicide Detail; I knew a lot of the men who'd been on it over the years, from my own days on the cops and from my friendship with Eberhardt, who had worked that detail for a decade and a half as inspector and then lieutenant. No, if they'd felt Crane's death was suicide, then it must have been suicide. And never mind why he decided to lock the office door before he put his. 22 Browning against his temple and pulled the trigger. He'd been drunk at the time, depressed and overwrought; a man in that condition is liable to commit any sort of irrational act.
Sure, I thought, sure. But all the same I wanted a look at the police report-if it still existed and if Eberhardt could find it. Even the best of cops makes mistakes now and then, just like the rest of us.
