After a minute or so a slender, dark-haired woman in a black tailored suit looked out at us. I introduced Rae and myself and handed her my card. “We were speaking with Mr. Dunn upstairs,” I added, “and he tells us you’ve lived here since nineteen seventy-nine.”
“Nineteen seventy-eight, actually. The year before Carl bought the building. Is there some problem?”
“Nothing concerning you, but we would like to talk to you about the tenant on the second floor.”
She glanced at her watch. “I can give you half an hour before I have to change for my book group.”
The woman opened the door wide and ushered us into a flat that was slightly larger than the upper ones because it lacked a staircase. The living room was to the left, darker than Dunn’s or Jennifer’s and furnished in what looked to be good-quality antiques. When we were seated she said, “I’m Melissa Baker, by the way. Or did Carl tell you that?”
“He didn’t mention you by name, but he did say you were a good tenant.”
She smiled. “And he’s a good landlord. Has repairs made promptly and hasn’t ever raised the rent, except for cost-of-living adjustments. He could, you know, since this building is owner-occupied and only three units, and thus isn’t covered by rent control. But you said you’re interested in the people who lived on the second floor. What did they do? Steal the bathroom fixtures?”
“They?”
A look of confusion passed over her features. “You’re asking about the Jordans, aren’t you? The people who vacated a few months ago?”
“No. We’re interested in the present tenant.”
“Jennifer Aldin. Lovely woman. Such a change, after the Jordans.”
“Do you recall when you last saw Ms. Aldin?”
“Last weekend. Sunday. We had a cup of tea together.”
Rae and I exchanged glances. “D’you recall what time that was?” I asked.
“After lunch. One, one-thirty.” Melissa Baker’s brows knitted together in concern. “Has something happened to Jennifer?”
“She hasn’t come home since Sunday, and her husband has asked us to locate her.”
“Oh no. I hope she wasn’t upset by what I told her. Although she didn’t seem to be.”
“Perhaps you could start at the beginning.”
“Well, Jennifer has been renting her flat as a studio. You probably know she’s a textile designer. There was some problem with her studio at home.”
“Did she tell you what?”
“I don’t know exactly. I gather her husband also works at home, and there are tensions in the marriage.”
“Such as?”
“She didn’t mention anything specific, but I could sense she wasn’t very happy. She’s a successful professional woman: there was an article on her in a home-decorating magazine that I picked up at my hairstylist’s; it said her career had really taken off. But whenever I ran into her she seemed depressed and distracted. And I think she drank alone upstairs. A few times when I encountered her, I smelled it on her breath.”
Depressed and distracted-by her marriage, or by her obsession with her mother? Or a combination of the two?
I said, “How often did the two of you get together?”
“Only three or four times. Yes, three.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Nothing special. Her work, mine. The books my group was reading. She did display some interest in Carl and the previous tenants of her flat. I guess that was only natural; she may have been thinking about staying there on a more regular basis.”
“She said that?”
“No, but at first she wasn’t there more than once a week, then I noticed her quite often. I work in the building also-I’m a CPA-and the hours Jennifer put in here at her studio have escalated in, I’d say, the past two or three weeks. Almost as if she didn’t want to go home.”
“And when she stopped by to see you on Sunday…?”
“She seemed much better, as if she’d made up her mind to make some changes. And she hadn’t been drinking. We talked more about the neighborhood and the building, and I felt I had to tell her the one thing I’d been withholding because I was afraid it might upset her. You see, there was a tragedy that happened in her flat. I’ll never forget it. For a while it almost made me want to move away.”
“What Melissa Baker told us puts a different slant on Carl Dunn’s account of Josie’s death,” Rae said.
“A disturbing one.”
We were seated by the pit fireplace in the living room of her Seacliff home-backs to the windows, ignoring the fog that was still streaming toward the Golden Gate. Our feet were propped on the raised brickwork, and we had glasses of wine in hand.
She said, “We should be glad Baker’s office window opens onto the airshaft, and that she’s a bit of an eavesdropper.”
“What’s wrong with eavesdropping?”
“Nothing. I’ve always considered it a professional asset-both as an investigator and as a writer.”
“Okay.” I began ticking off items on my fingers. “Laurel has been staying with Josie for a week. Josie’s in the terminal phase of her illness, but still lucid at times, and has the unfortunate tendency to get out of bed and wander. On the afternoon of Josie’s death, Laurel receives a phone call, which Baker overhears via the airshaft. She can’t make out much of it, but it upsets Laurel, because she shouts, ‘You’re making it up! You’ve always been jealous of my friendship with Josie, and now for some reason you want to hurt me.’
“Then Baker hears Josie’s voice in the background. Laurel moves far enough away from the shaft that Baker can’t make out their conversation-except that very soon after they start arguing. It’s tax season, Baker’s busy, so she closes the window in order to concentrate on the forms she’s preparing. When she goes outside an hour and a half later to walk down to the corner mom-and-pop store, the police and an ambulance are in front of the building, and Josie’s being taken away on a gurney. Laurel’s hysterical. Carl Dunn arrives and takes charge of her, and they retreat to his flat. The next day, Laurel goes back to Paso Robles and doesn’t return, except briefly for the funeral.”
Rae nodded and took a handful of popcorn from a bowl on the hearth. “Easy to jump to the conclusion that Laurel and Josie were quarreling when Josie fell down the stairs.”
“Quarreling for nearly an
“That’s kind of hard to believe. Maybe they quarreled, Laurel got Josie back to bed, and then took her nap. It could’ve happened the way Carl Dunn thinks it did.”
“Or they quarreled, Josie fell, and Laurel didn’t call nine-one-one till later.”
“Why? Because she was in shock? I don’t think so. Remember, Laurel had also been a nurse.” Rae munched on the popcorn, thinking. “Accidental death? Or did Laurel push her?”
“If there was anything suspicious about Josie’s death, there would’ve been an investigation.”
“Do we know for sure that there wasn’t?”
“Not yet.” I went to where I’d left my purse on a side table, took out my cellular, and speed-dialed the apartment that my friend Adah Joslyn, an inspector on the SFPD homicide detail, shared with Craig Morland. She wasn’t at home, but Craig told me to try the Hall of Justice. Adah was at her desk, working late, and-per usual-in no mood for idle chitchat.
“What?” she said.
“Information on a nineteen eighty-two accidental death that may have fallen under suspicion as involuntary manslaughter.”
“Don’t want much, do you?”
Typical Adah grumbling, but I knew she’d come through for me, because she always had. And she was more bark than bite these days, since the trouble-plagued department, and her career, was on the mend after the appointment of an intelligent, evenhanded female chief of police.
“Too much,” I admitted, “but it’s important to the major case we’re working on.”
“Yeah, Craig’s told me about it. Why can’t you ever come up with something minor, like a skiptrace?”
