“He was blackmailing you?” he suggested.
“That’s a very ugly word.”
“It’s an ugly thing.”
“I didn’t like it, but it wasn’t anything nasty. Maybe a wee bit nasty,” she amended. “Just a sort of encouragement, to make me do things I otherwise might not have.”
“Such as?”
“They were such big shops, they could afford to lose a bit to pilfering.”
“He had you shoplifting for him?”
Her head came up and she flushed in anger.
“Inspector! How could you think that of me? I would never! There’s a world of difference between actually doing something like that and just not… tattling.”
“I see. You witnessed John shoplifting and he made you keep silent,” Hawkin translated.
“After that he would show me things he’d taken. He knew I didn’t like it, that it made me… uncomfortable.”
“Did he blackmail others?”
“It wasn’t really blackmail,” she protested. “He never wanted anything. It was just a sort of… control thing. He liked to see people squirm.”
“Who were these others?”
“I’ve only known him for two years.”
“Their names?” he asked gently.
“I… don’t know for sure. I wondered, because there were a couple of men he seemed friendly with who suddenly seemed to be uncomfortable around him and then moved away. One of them was named Maguire—I think that was his last name—and then last summer a pleasant little Chinese man named Chin.”
“Any who didn’t move away?”
“Well, I…”
“Salvatore, perhaps?”
“It did seem very odd, him conducting the funeral like that, when he’s never been all that close to Brother Erasmus.”
“Was John? Close to Brother Erasmus, I mean?”
“He thought he was.”
“But you felt Brother Erasmus was keeping some distance?” Kate was very glad that Al seemed to be following this woman’s erratic line of thought, more like a random series of stepping-stones than a clear path.
“Brother Erasmus has no friends.”
“But John thought he was Erasmus’s friend?” Hawkin persisted.
“Undoubtedly. He always steps in when Brother Erasmus is away. Stepped.”
“Do you think John was blackmailing Erasmus?”
“I don’t think that is actually his name.”
“John? Or Erasmus?”
“Why, both, come to think of it.”
“Was John blackmailing Brother Erasmus?”
“Brother Erasmus isn’t the sort to be blackmailed.”
“Do you think John was trying?”
“Oh, Inspector, you are so pushy!”
“That’s my job, Beatrice.”
“You’re as bad as John was, in a way, though much nicer with it, not so sort of slimy.”
“Do you think—”
“I don’t know!” she burst out unhappily. “Yes, all right, it seemed an unlikely friendship, partnership, liaison, what have you. But Brother Erasmus is not the sort to submit to overt blackmail.”
“But covert blackmail?” Hawkin seized on her word.
“I… I wondered. There was a sort of—oh, how to describe it?—a manipulative intimacy about John’s attitude toward Erasmus, and in turn Erasmus—Brother Erasmus—seemed to be… I don’t know. Watching him, maybe. Yes, I suppose that’s it. John would kind of sidle up to Erasmus as if they shared a great secret, and Erasmus would draw himself up and, without actually stepping back, seem to be stopping himself from moving away.”
Considering the source, it was a strikingly lucid picture of a complex relationship, and Kate felt she knew quite a bit about both of the men involved. She continued with the motions of note-taking until Hawkin finally broke the silence.
“Tell me about the man Erasmus.”
“You haven’t met him yet?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Oh, you’d know it if you had. He’s a fool!” she said proudly, varying her terms of derision to include a monosyllable.
“He’s a sort of informal leader of the homeless people around Golden Gate Park?”
“Only for things like the funeral.”
“John’s funeral?”
“I told you, Inspector, he wasn’t there. He brought us together, said words over Theophilus, and lighted the pyre. Today’s lunacy would never have happened on a Sunday or Monday, but instead those morons Harry and Salvatore and Doc—and Wilhemena! God, she’s the worst of them—decided they could say words as well as he could. I should have insisted, I know,” she admitted sadly. “There’s not a one of them playing with a full deck.”
“And Brother Erasmus is a bad as the others, you said.”
“I never!” she said indignantly.
“But you did. You called him a fool.”
“A fool, certainly.”
“But the others are fools, too?” asked Hawkin. He spoke with the caution of a man feeling for a way in the dark, but his words were ill-chosen, and Beatrice went rigid, her eyes narrowing in a rapid reassessment of Inspector Al Hawkin.
“They most certainly are not. They haven’t any sense at all.”
Kate gave up. The woman’s occasional appearance of rationality was obviously misleading. Even Hawkin looked lost.
“I think we should talk with your Brother Erasmus,” he said finally.
“I’m sure he’ll straighten things out for you,” Beatrice agreed. “Although you might find it difficult to talk with him.”
“Why is that?”
“I told you, he’s a fool.”
“But he sounds fairly sensible to me.”
“Of course. Some of them are.”
“Some of whom?”
“Fools, of course.”
Kate was perversely gratified to see that finally Al was beginning to grit his teeth. She’d begun to think she was out of practice.
“And where is this foolish Brother now?” he growled.
“I told you, it’s Wednesday. He’ll be on Holy Hill.”
“Holy Hill? Do you mean Mt. Davidson?” There was a cross on top of that knob, where pilgrims gathered every year for Easter sunrise services.
“I don’t think so,” Beatrice said doubtfully. “Isn’t that in San Francisco? This one is across the bay.”
“Do you mean ‘Holy Hill’ in Berkeley, Ms. Jankowski?” Kate asked suddenly.
“That sounds right. There’s a school there, in Berkeley, isn’t there?” The flagship of the University of California fleet, demoted to a mere “school” status, thought Kate with a smile.
“Yes, there’s a school in Berkeley.”
“Brother Erasmus is in Berkeley every Wednesday, Ms.— Beatrice?” continued Hawkin. “Just
