Beat Until Stiff Read online

  Before I even took off my coat, I curled up on the couch and dialed my mother’s phone number. I dozed for a couple of seconds while waiting for her to pick up the phone.

  “Mom, it’s Mary.”

  “Mary, how are you?” Her voice was pleasantly surprised and upbeat. She’d be in the breakfast nook, a game of solitaire on the kitchen table.

  “Uh, not so hot. There was a murder at the restaurant this morning. I wanted to tell you before you heard it on the news.”

  I pictured the shock on her face, saw her fumbling for her glasses, as if better vision would somehow clear up the confusion.

  I considered my mother a viable candidate for sainthood. She raised my sister and me more or less on her own, when nurses made diddlysquat. I remember her routinely working nine, ten days in a row without a day off. Also in those days, divorced women were stigmatized, basically considered one small step above fallen women. She dated several men over the years, and while many of them might have made good husbands, none of them would have made good fathers. She met my stepfather when I was fifteen and finally found the happiness she so richly deserved, and my sister and I finally got the stability we so desperately needed.

  I went through the gory details with her, trying to be as brief as I could without sounding curt. Being a nurse, details about corpses don’t faze her much.

  “Have you called Jim?” she asked hesitantly.

  “No,” I said peevishly. “It’s none of his business.”

  “Mary, Jim’s a homicide detective.” As if I needed reminding. “It might be wise to let him know what’s going on.”

  “He’s not even in homicide anymore. Don’t worry. O’Connor’s on the case.” I hoped she wouldn’t press the issue any further. She and O’Connor knew each other and had a mutual admiration society going. No such luck, of course.

  “Mary, I know how you feel about him. I felt that way when your father left me. But this is eating you up. Your…”

  I interrupted her, “Mom, hurt doesn’t describe what this divorce did to me. Two years ago I was considered a nice person. I was even happy. Now, I’m mean and bitter. My staff at work is on the verge of mutiny because I’m so sarcastic. A job I once loved, I now hate. I don’t even garden anymore.”

  She paused, took a deep breath, and exhaled that poignant “mom” breath. I was in trouble.

  “I think your anger is out of bounds.” Her speech became slower and slower, and she picked her words with care. “Don’t you think you should see someone again? Maybe this is bigger than you and Jim. Perhaps this anger you feel is related to your father and me divorcing…” My mother’s voice trailed off and I could feel her guilt over the phone.

  The parents and children of divorce—or broken homes, don’t you love that word—do this guilt dance. The parents blame themselves for not trying harder, the kids think that if they were better kids the divorce wouldn’t have happened. In our case, my mother and I knew that divorcing my father was the smartest thing she ever did. Yet the doubts are there, whispering in the back of our mind in times of crisis.

  “If I were on trial for murder I wouldn’t ask for Jim’s help.”

  There wasn’t much she could say to that. We sat in silence for a minute.

  “I’m sorry, Mary.”

  “Mom, I know you’re sorry. I’m sorry too. We’re all sorry together. Except for Jim, of course, he has his nice little family now.” I stopped, realizing too late I’d gone over the line. I pushed my palm hard against my forehead, trying to get back in control. “Let’s drop it, okay?” I fought back tears.

  “I’m worried about you. Let me come over. You sound like you are in bad shape.”

  I love my mother to death, but I just couldn’t handle one more person, one more conversation, one more single thing.

  “Please don’t. I just need some sleep. I’ll be over sometime tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got to give a statement to the police in the morning. Afterwards I’ll come right over. I promise. We’ll have a cup of tea.”

  I hung up, hating myself. The worst thing about this divorce was that it had unleashed a Mr. Hyde persona from within me I never knew existed. Once witty, I was now caustic. Wry had mutated into bitter. It seemed that I couldn’t have a conversation without saying something snide. Now my mother would fret all day and into the night worrying about me. The worst thing was that I knew she was right. The horrible crunchy rumblings I got in my stomach thinking about Jim were the same horrible crunchy rumblings I used to feel as a ten-year-old knowing that my father wasn’t coming home.

  I couldn’t deal with this now. Freud and murder all in one day was too much. In penance, I called a florist and paid a premium to have flowers delivered to her within an hour.

  Sleep seemed more imperative than a shower. I closed the curtains and climbed into bed with my clothes on. I was just about to shut my eyes when I realized I hadn’t called my sister, Nora. I redialed the florist and asked them to scribble a note on the enclosed card to my mother that in addition to being sorry, would she please call Nora and give her the details. Hoping I had finally fulfilled my familial obligations, I fell into a killer sleep.

  I’d slept for a couple of hours when the phone rang. I moved to answer it. In addition to the aches and pains left over from yesterday, a monster hangover, two hundred tapshoes strong, was tapping out “River Dance” in the back of my head. I slowly eased myself back into my pillows. Whoever it was could leave a message. I fell back into a light sleep during the usual clicks and beeps, and then a familiar voice boomed through the answering machine.

  “Ryan, get your ass out of bed. Right now. I know you’re there. I’ve got questions that need answering right away.”

  He started shouting “get up, get up” into the receiver. I knew this man, he’d keep it up till the tape ran out.

  As he had intended, my stupor turned into pure adrenaline. I was going to get up all right and there wouldn’t be any prisoners. I picked up the phone in a fury.

  “O’Connor, this is harassing a witness. I was asleep, you bastard,” I shouted into the phone.

  He laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Ryan, always ready for a fight.”

  “Let’s be honest, O’Connor. You don’t like me. You just need something from me.”

  “Right on both counts, I don’t like you and I do need something from you. Answer my questions and I’ll leave you alone. Hang up on me and I’ll come across the bridge and ask you my questions in person. To say I’m pissed off at you is an understatement. Talk to me and you can go back to your beauty sleep.”

  I debated hanging up, but knowing him he’d drive across the bridge and track me down like a dog. I smelled, and my mouth felt like I’d been eating stale Cheetos in my sleep. I stared at myself in the dresser mirror. My hair was mashed to one side from my pillow and, despite the nap, bags as plump and dark as mission figs sat under my eyes. Worst of all, I looked old. Beauty sleep. Who was he kidding? I didn’t want anyone seeing me in this state.

  The thought of making O’Connor drive across the bridge during rush hour was mighty tempting, however.

  “Okay, I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I’m not playing any games. I had to leave before they took out the body. I just had to.”

  “If you weren’t my best friend’s wife, I’d haul you in right now,” he threatened.

  “Ex-wife, remember?”

  “Yeah. The coroner is giving me a rough estimate of two in the morning for the time of death. Brown says he left the restaurant at midnight. I talked to his wife and she confirms it. Do you think she’d lie for him?”

  I thought for a minute about Brent’s wife.

  Sharon Brown. A very unhappy woman. I’ve rarely heard her utter something that wasn’t sarcastic, most of it directed at her husband. She obviously knew about his affairs. In addition to her waspish tongue, she’d gained a tremendous amount of weight with her kids and, lately, her clothes and hair were dirty half the t
ime I saw her.

  And yet, I’ve been to several garden parties at her immaculate, elegant house. She designs and plants everything herself, from the flower beds lush with foxgloves and delphiniums to an organic vegetable garden that boasts six different kinds of basil. I often wondered, what’s going on here? To add to the mystery, she’s a wonderful mother. Her kids are smart, unpretentious, and affectionate. Since Brent works about seventy hours a week, I give her all the credit.

  “They’ve got a pretty rotten marriage,” I admitted. “She knows he cheats on her. I’ve worked with him for the last seven years and he always has one or two on the side. She pretty much hates him, but the kids adore him and she’d do anything for her children. So if exposing her husband as a lying sack of shit would hurt her children, yes, she’d lie.”

  “At first glance it looks like a crime of passion. Perez’s face was beaten to a pulp. The coroner thinks the bruising is consistent with some sort of flat object hitting his face. Your description of the frying pan probably isn’t too far off. The forensic guys are testing every sauté pan in the restaurant. And the strangulation fits too—grab an apron and finish him off. But the business with the laundry bag has me stumped. Also, you’d think some argument that got out of hand would be settled by a jab in the belly. I haven’t met a Latino yet who doesn’t carry a knife. The laundry bag makes it look premeditated. It’s neat. No blood, just haul him out the door. Any ideas on who’d want to kill Perez?”

  The headache ruled out any serious mental overtime, but this one was a no-brainer.

  “No, everyone liked him. Nice guy, hard worker.” When Carlos discovered that Jim and I were getting a divorce, he’d given me a flower every day for two months to cheer me up. God knows whose garden he was pilfering blooms from, but his thoughtfulness saved me from many a bleak hour.

  “Did he chase women?”

  “The guys don’t talk about that stuff with me. Ask his brother or some of the other Latinos. I doubt he was fooling around. He was always bringing me in pictures of his kids, saying how proud he was of them, how they were going to be real Americans when they grew up.”

  Remembering those photos brought a lump to my throat. His two boys were proudly displaying their Forty-Niner football jerseys. His one-year-old daughter wore a frilly pink dress with an enormous lace collar that just about swallowed her sweet little smile.

  “Ever meet his wife?”

  “No, I’ve just seen pictures of her. Pretty. Young.”

  “Morales says Brown practically peed in his pants when you told him about Perez. Is that true?”

  A shiver went down my back. Instinctively, I tried to minimize Brent’s reaction. “Yeah, he seemed upset. I mean, so was I.”

  “You have an excuse, you discovered the body. Morales thinks Brown’s reaction was inappropriate. Knowing Brown’s history, I need to nail down some facts. I’m going to assume his wife is lying. If Brown wasn’t home around the time of Perez’s death, where was he? Who’s his current girlfriend? Out with her name.”

  I lay there mute, holding the phone with one hand while bunching the covers around my neck like a noose with the other. I knew I had to tell him, but something held me back. It’s one thing if everyone in the restaurant knows you’re sleeping with the chef; I imagine it has a certain cachet to these silly girls. They wouldn’t feel so smug once the police reduced it to what it was, a middle-aged man getting his rocks off.

  Brent’s proclivity for screwing the help was the source of our only serious arguments. A few years ago he and I practically came to blows over a pastry assistant who quit when she realized she was just one in a long line of many. Since then, we had a tacit agreement: the pastry staff was off limits.

  “Name or names?” I knew I sounded coy but couldn’t seem to stop myself.

  “Ms. Ryan, this is a homicide investigation. One of your employees was murdered last night. Is this getting through to you? I’m not arresting Brown, I just want to know where he was. No funny games or witticisms. I want names. NOW!” He punched that last word through the phone so forcefully it made my ear ring.

  I mumbled, “Drew Smyth-Sommers and Teri Baxter.”

  “Thank you very much. Be at the Church Street station tomorrow morning at ten sharp to make a formal statement. If you’re not on time, I’m going to put out an APB on you and have you arrested.” He hung up.

  What is it about O’Connor that automatically makes my hackles rise?

  We have a strange relationship. We disagree on almost every topic. He is arrogant, racist, and intolerant; he thinks I’m aggressive, bitchy, and too liberal. Every election found us screaming at each at the top of our lungs, our respective spouses valiantly trying to steer all conversations away from politics. And yet put us in a kitchen…

  O’Connor loves to cook and eat as much as I do. We’d talk for hours about where to buy the best vegetables, what did we like better, Thai or Italian, argue endlessly (but amicably) about who makes the best bread in town (I like Grace Baking, he favors ACME), stuff like that. We cooked extravagant meals together, roasting whole pigs on a spit or making five-foot-high croquenbuches. But outside the kitchen it’s war. Unless we’re discussing, making, or eating food, we’re like oil and water.

  Our little exchange really woke me up. The hangover had dissipated and my stomach was howling from hunger. I was in the middle of eating an omelet when Jim called. No surprise there. His ex-wife discovering a body would make the rounds quickly. I let the machine run its course. I had no intention of answering it.

  I imagined Jim clutching the phone, for once his benign, elfish face without a smile on it. One of the things I resent most about our divorce is that I no longer have Jim’s riotous sense of humor to balance my cynical view of life. The Type B that took the edge off my Type A. He has a smile and that peculiarly Irish way of having a funny story on tap for every occasion. He and O’Connor made a good team, Jim the good cop to O’Connor’s bad cop. I remembered O’Connor’s wooden reply when he told me Jim had transferred to I.A. O’Connor’s as dour and cynical as I am; maybe he needs Jim’s joie de vivre as much as I do.

  “Mary, I just talked to O’Connor and he told me you found a body at the restaurant. He didn’t have time to tell me many details. My God, what’s going on?”

  He sounded unfairly proprietary, as if my concerns were still his goddamn concerns. I bet he was calling from work. Making calls to the ex sounding like he actually cared wouldn’t go over well with wife number two.

  “Mary, are you there? Please pick up the phone.”

  I picked up the phone.

  “What do you want, Jim?”

  “Mary, what in the hell happened? O’Connor called me from the restaurant.”

  “I went to work, found a body concealed in a laundry bag, called 911, end of story,” I said flatly. I threw my half-eaten omelet into the garbage. I wasn’t hungry anymore.

  “Who was it? An employee?”

  “Jim, I’ve already played twenty questions with O’Connor and my mother. I really don’t want to go through it a third time. I’m all right. Go back to work. Anyway, isn’t this out of your jurisdiction now? I understand from O’Connor that you bailed on him, too. Internal Affairs, what a joke. You, one of the best homicide inspectors on the force, working for I.A.”

  In theory cops watching over cops is a good idea. In reality, it’s the fanatically ambitious, the power mongers, the misfits who can’t find partners to work with them that populate I.A.

  “Do you think you could talk to me for five minutes without being sarcastic or nasty? I called because I’m worried about you. Anyway, I’m not at work. Tina and the kids are visiting her mother for a week. And for your information, I didn’t bail on O’Connor. He understood my decision. The hours were too much. Tina and the kids need me.”

  I whispered into the phone, “Need you? I need you.”

  “No, Mary, you don’t.” He sounded exasperated. We’d had this argument many
times before. The twentieth time around didn’t make it any easier to hear. “Tina’s here when I am, not off baking two thousand pies for assholes who could care less.” His voice got louder and angrier with each word. My own anger began escalating in response to his, and my free hand grabbed my stomach. Those evil crunchies started roiling and churning. I felt like I was going to be sick again.

  “Is that how I failed you?” I shouted back. “I didn’t stay at home merrily raising children and fighting the constant mold on the walls that comes from living in that foggy hellhole you call the Sunset?”

  I slammed down the phone.

  The phone rang several times, but the caller didn’t leave a message.

  Chapter 5

  The last year of our marriage had been ugly. We’d reached the stage where the simplest response was automatically interpreted as a Fuck You. In a classic case of denial, I told myself over and over again it’d get better if only I’d keep my mouth shut. Two years ago, reality reared its ugly head at three o’clock in the morning on a New Year’s Eve that was so cold I broke my key in the lock of the car door and had to use the spare hidden under my car fender.

  After attempting to enter the house without making a sound, I’d tripped over a dark mountain of moving boxes neatly stacked in the foyer. I turned on the light. Eight boxes sat lined up in two neat rows, one row stacked on top of the other, his treasure trove of old jazz LPs on the bottom, shirts, shoes, and sweaters on top. In Catholic school cursive, he had written the contents on the side of each box, plus his name: McCreary, 425 Magnolia Street, San Francisco. He’d even added the zip code.

  Jim lay in our bed, the faint light from the foyer outlining the long, slim silhouette of his body propped up against the pillows.

  “And a Happy New Year to you, too.”

  “I’m sorry, Mary. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

  “I just finished an eighteen-hour shift. Couldn’t you have picked a more opportune evening?” Exhaustion saturated every pore in my body. On the verge of physical collapse, I gripped the footboard of the bed for support.