“That it doesn’t change anything. That she took it herself, willingly.”
“Well?”
“She wouldn’t and she didn’t.”
“But she had a prescription for it?”
“Yes. For Klonopin, a trade name for the stuff,” he said. “Her doctor gave it to her a while back, when she was having mild panic attacks at night. There’s a supply in her bathroom medicine cabinet. She swears she hasn’t taken any in weeks, and that she’d never voluntarily take it with alcohol.”
“No? Why not?”
“She did that once and it made her sick. Very sick. She had to have her stomach pumped. That’s not an experience anyone would want to repeat.”
The time the EMTs had been called to the house, I thought. Matter of public record and a point in her favor.
“What’s her claim?” I asked. “That her brother spiked her martinis?”
“No. Her husband. He made the martinis, but he drank scotch himself.”
“So she’s saying Pollexfen drugged both her and Cullrane?”
“She’s not sure about Cullrane. We asked the police to have a tox screen done on him, but they said it wouldn’t make any difference if clonazepam is found in his system, she could’ve given it to him as well as to herself.”
“Why would Pollexfen drug the two of them?”
“Isn’t that obvious? To frame her for the murder.”
“How could he do that, Mr. DiSantis? Cullrane was shot in a locked room, Mrs. Pollexfen was the only other occupant, and I was outside with Pollexfen and his secretary when the round was fired.”
“I know that, I know it doesn’t seem possible. But I believe that Angelina is telling the truth. She didn’t kill her brother. And she had nothing to do with those books being stolen.”
“She think her husband is responsible for that, too?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Why would he dream up such an elaborate scenario to frame Cullrane for theft and her for Cullrane’s murder? What does he stand to gain?”
“He hated Cullrane and he hates her.”
“There’d have to be more than that. And there’s still the fact that he couldn’t have fired the shot that killed Cullrane.”
DiSantis spread his hands. “That’s why I’m here. If anybody can find out the truth and prove Angelina’s innocence, it’s you.”
“I’m not a miracle worker.”
“Mr. Rivera at Great Western Insurance thinks you are.”
Rivera again. I said between my teeth, “I’ll want to talk to Mrs. Pollexfen before I make any commitments. Has she been formally charged?”
“Yes.”
“Still being held, then?”
“Until tomorrow morning. Arthur has a court date at ten to try to arrange bail.”
“Can you get me in to see her?”
“Should be able to, yes. Now?”
“Now,” I said. “I need to drop off my statement at the Hall of Justice anyway.”
S an Francisco operates eight city jails, which says something about the local crime rate. Two of them are located down the Peninsula in San Bruno, there’s a prison ward in San Francisco General Hospital, and a pair for the booking and release of prisoners and for “program-oriented rehabilitation” are in the newest jail complex on Seventh Street near the Hall of Justice. The other three are in the Hall itself, on the two top floors. One of those, on the sixth floor, houses the women’s section where Angelina Pollexfen was being held.
Every time I enter the Hall of Justice these days, I can’t help remembering that the sprawling monolith has design flaws and is a potential death trap in a high-magnitude earthquake. I don’t read the newspapers as a rule, but Kerry does; there was an article a few years ago in the Chronicle about the building’s “vulnerability to calamity” that she’d called to my attention. The original structure was built in 1958 and has been expanded twice since, but none of the city administrators has seen fit to authorize the necessary retrofitting to meet current earthquake codes. There’s been plenty of talk about putting up a replacement building, yet in twenty years plans haven’t gotten much beyond the talking stage. The ever-increasing cost of tearing down the old and putting up the new back- burners it every time.
The Hall withstood the Loma Prieta quake in 1989 with only minor damage, though the power failed and prevented officers from opening an electronic door to the secured area where weapons are stored. In a stronger shake centered in or close to the city, the walls would probably crack and even if the building managed not to topple, or the section of the freeway approach to the Bay Bridge in whose shadow it sits didn’t collapse into it, it would likely trap people inside and be rendered unusable-a crisis within a crisis. All of which makes me feel just a little vulnerable in its confines, despite the fact that native San Franciscans learn early on not to be intimidated by the threat of earthquakes.
The jails in the Hall are gloomy, noisy places presided over by grim-visaged sheriff’s deputies of both sexes. DiSantis got us an audience with Angelina Pollexfen with no trouble, after which we went through the usual security checks and paperwork before being admitted to the visitors’ room. A matron brought Pollexfen out and she and I sat down on our respective sides of the glass wall and picked up the communicating handsets. DiSantis stood behind me and, to his credit, kept his own counsel.
Different woman, Mrs. Pollexfen, than the one I’d had the adversarial lunch with on Tuesday. Orange jumpsuit in place of the expensive clothes, hair uncombed, pale face free of makeup, eyes sick and dull. The smart-ass cool had been replaced by a kind of wheedling deference.
“Thank you for coming,” she said. “Paul said you would, but after the other day… I’m sorry about the way I acted. I shouldn’t have had all those martinis.”
I waved that away. “Tell me what happened yesterday.”
“I didn’t kill Jeremy,” she said fervently. “I swear to God I didn’t.”
“Just tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know what happened. The last thing I remember is having drinks with with Jeremy and that bastard I’m married to. I started to feel woozy, I think I said something about it, and then… nothing until I woke up with police all over the place.”
“Where did you have the drinks?”
“The library. I thought that was a little strange because Greg doesn’t usually let anybody in there with him, especially Jeremy and me.”
“His idea, this little gathering?”
“Yes. He insisted we be there at twelve thirty-he said he wanted to talk to us.”
“About?”
“Those damn missing books. But he didn’t really have much to say, just the same old baseless accusations.”
“Against your brother?”
“Yes. And that I must have known and was keeping quiet about it to protect Jeremy.”
“Were you?”
“No. I swear I don’t know what happened to those books. Neither did Jeremy. He called Greg a conniving old fool and told him he’d better watch out or he’d regret it.”
“Regret it how?”
Her gaze shifted to DiSantis, but she must not have gotten anything from him in return; she said to my right ear, “He didn’t say how.”
I said, “Look, Mrs. Pollexfen, if you want my help you’re going to have to confide in me and in your attorneys. Everything you know, nothing held back. Understood?”
“Yes.” Low, almost a whisper.
“The three of you hated one another, and yet your husband kept right on letting you and your brother live
