“That’s understandable, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” Summerhayes said. But there was a hint of distaste in his voice, as if he considered males becoming half hysterical under any circumstances an unmanly thing to do. “He and Kenneth were close.”
I nodded. “Did you or your wife have any contact with Leonard after that night?”
“No. We hardly move in the same circles.”
“Who do you think shot him?”
“I’m sure I have no idea. A burglar, I suppose. Or someone in the gay community. God knows, those people can be violent sometimes. Look what they did to City Hall after the Dan White trial.”
“Look what Dan White did to the mayor and Harvey Milk. Look what the jury did for Dan White.”
He didn’t say anything.
I said, “What can you tell me about Kenneth’s daughter?”
“Tell you about her? Why?”
“I’d like your opinion.”
“Very well. Melanie is irresponsible, not terribly bright, and a drug freak. She’ll waste away her entire inheritance in a few years.”
“The kid she’s living with, Richard Dessault-you know him?”
“No. And I wouldn’t want to.”
“Alicia Purcell?”
The scowl again. “What about her?”
“What’s your opinion of her?”
“She’s a fine woman. Elisabeth and I have always thought so, haven’t we, Elisabeth?”
“Yes,” she said.
Summerhayes made an impatient gesture and a show of looking at his watch. “We’ve answered enough of your questions, I think — let you take up enough of our time. We have business to attend to.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said. “Lots of customers lined up out there, clamoring for attention.”
He curled his lip to let me know what he thought of my sarcasm. “Please leave,” he said.
I didn’t argue with him. I nodded and said that I appreciated his help, even though I didn’t, and put my back to him and went out. I made a point of looking at Mrs. Summerhayes as I passed her, but she still wasn’t having any. Even with her eyes averted, though, I saw enough of her face to read its expression: she was worried about something. I wondered what it was.
I wondered, too, why her husband had cut me off short when I asked him about Alicia Purcell. And why Elisabeth’s voice had been so cold and flat when she agreed that the widow was a fine woman.
Chapter Eight
Outside the gallery I took another look at the guest list. George Collins lived in Atherton, an affluent community down near Palo Alto, so seeing him would have to wait for another day. Margaret Prine, however, lived on top of Nob Hill-not far away at all. I walked back to Powell and down to the St. Francis Hotel, and went in there to consult one of their public telephone directories. No listing for Margaret Prine. I decided to go ahead and make the short trip anyway, take a chance on her being home. Maybe she could tell me some enlightening things about Eldon and Elisabeth Summerhayes, if nothing else.
I caught a cable car out front, the first time I’d been on one in a couple of years. It was overflowing with tourists, as usual-the main reason why San Franciscans don’t ride the cable cars much any more-and I had to hang on outside with what Kerry calls my “ample duff” exposed to pedestrians and passing traffic. I got off at California Street and panted my way uphill past the Stanford Court and the Mark Hopkins and the Fairmont, three of the city’s posher hotels, and then over past the Pacific Union Club and Huntington Park to a fancy old apartment building on Sacramento.
There were a couple of doormen in full livery, a species you seldom see anywhere in San Francisco these days except on Nob Hill; one of them took my card and the message that I was here about Kenneth and Leonard Purcell, and said he would see if Mrs. Prine was in. He used a house phone ten feet away, keeping an eye on me all the while. She was home, all right, because he was on there a good minute and a half, but when he hung up and came back to where I was he said, “Mrs. Prine isn’t available, sir.”
“I saw you talking to her.”
“I’m sorry, sir. She doesn’t wish to see you.”
“Did she say why?”
“No, sir. I’ll have to ask you to leave, please.”
I was getting tired of people asking me to leave places. But it wasn’t his fault-he was only doing his job-so I didn’t pick on him about it. I left with something else to wonder about now: Why had Margaret Prine refused to see me?
I hoofed it all the way back to Union Square, not bothering with a cable car because there wasn’t one in sight when I got to California and Powell and because it was an easy walk downhill from there. I ransomed the car, drove over to the Civic Center, and stopped in at the main library, where I checked out a couple of books on the history of snuff and snuff containers. I knew next to nothing about the subject and I figured it would be a good idea if I boned up a little. The more you know about something, the better off you are-in my business especially.
When I got back to the office it was locked up tight. But there was a note on my desk from Eberhardt, typed because his handwriting is so bad you needed a cryptographer to decipher it. The note said:
3:15 P.M.
Ed Berg called. He got the dope on the Church of the Holy Mission and the Moral Crusade. Too involved to put down here, I’ll tell you when I see you. Back around five.
Thanks a lot, Eb, I thought. I crumpled the note, threw it into the wastebasket, and checked the answering machine. Two calls, one for Eberhardt, one for me that didn’t require immediate attention. So I dragged the reverse city directory out of my file cabinet and found an A. Ozimas in the index. He was a resident of one of those big, new high-rise apartment buildings in Pacific Heights. I knew the building-Pacific Heights is my neighborhood; my flat, in fact, was only a few blocks away, on the other side of the hill — and if Ozimas lived there, he was even wealthier than Melanie Purcell had led me to believe. All of the units were condos, and the cheapest would go for something around $250,000.
I considered driving over there, but it was after four and Eberhardt was due back pretty soon. I stayed put and rang up the Hall of Justice. Ben Klein and his partner, Walt Tucker, were still out; the cop I talked to didn’t know when they would be back. I would have to wait until tomorrow to find out what, if anything, the police knew about Alex Ozimas.
My second call was to Tom Washburn at his friend’s place. When I got him on the line I asked if he’d ever heard Leonard speak of Ozimas. He said, “No, I don’t think so. Who’s he?”
“Business acquaintance of Kenneth’s. The man you talked to on the phone-could his accent have been Filipino instead of Latin?”
He thought about that. “I’m not sure,” he said at length. “I don’t know any Filipinos, I don’t know what their accent sounds like.”
“Could sound Spanish, depending on the person speaking.”
“Do you think this man Ozimas might be the caller?”
“Not really. He seems to have quite a bit of money; he wouldn’t need to shake anybody down for a couple of thousand. But I don’t want to overlook any possibilities.”
Washburn wanted to know what I’d found out so far; he sounded pretty low, so I told him in detail how the day had gone. It didn’t do much to cheer him up, but then I wasn’t trying to cheer him up. I’m a detective, not a professional candy-striper. I asked him some questions about the Summerhayeses, but he had never met either of them and couldn’t remember Leonard ever saying much about them. He didn’t know anything about George Collins or Margaret Prine, either.
Directory Assistance gave me a telephone number for George Collins at the address I had in Atherton. I called the number, and a male voice informed me that Mr. Collins was out of town. I asked when he’d be back. The
