must have been some homeless person. Probably some homeless man, maybe a woman, you can never tell nowadays.” Angela Simmons reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic bag and a couple of paper towels. She cleaned up after Millicent, walked to a gray trash container and dropped the bag inside. She came back and resumed. She’d caught her breath.
“It must have been some homeless person,” she repeated. “It was raining and he must have been trying every car door he came to, looking for a place to sleep. At least that’s what the police thought. That’s what they told me. Gordon always locked the car but it was cold and raining and he was so tired, he forgot. Just that once, he forgot. The homeless man saw Gordon’s laptop and he thought he could steal it and maybe sell it the next day. But Millicent heard him and Gordon went to investigate.”
Lindsey stood, listening. He could make his notes later. When an interviewee gets on a roll you just listened and remembered.
“The police thought that Gordon pulled open the car door to send the man away, and he smacked him in the face with the laptop. It must have been a man, a woman wouldn’t do that, do you think? I think it must have been a man. He smashed him in the face with the laptop and knocked him back against the pillar. That’s why his nose was broken and why he had bone splinters in his brain. That’s why he’s dead.”
“The killer was never found?” Lindsey asked. “I would think—well, weren’t there fingerprints in the car that could lead to the killer?”
Angela Simmons shook her head. No.
“But if the person was in the car—did he wipe off his fingerprints?”
“The police don’t think so. They checked out the car. They found plenty of prints. Gordon’s, mine, some friends that we gave a ride to the airport a week or so before. Everything was normal. But nothing that helped very much. I mean—nothing that helped at all, in fact. Nothing that helped at all.”
Lindsey started to take his leave but she put her fingers on his wrist and detained him for another minute.
“They found an organ donor card in his wallet. I never knew about that. He wanted to donate his organs, and they took them at the hospital. Harvested them. That’s what they call it, you know. They harvested his organs, and his heart is beating in another person’s chest right this very minute. And somebody has his liver. And his spleen, and his pancreas. Even his eyeballs. They weren’t damaged when he was hit. They use everything today, nothing goes to waste.”
Lindsey said, “Like the Shmoo.”
Mrs. Simmons tilted her head and gave him a curious look. “Like the what?”
Lindsey said, “Nothing. Nobody remembers the Shmoo.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Berkeley Police Department had got its new headquarters building at last. After the creaky old structure on McKinley Avenue, the nearby replacement looked modern and efficient from the outside. From the inside it resembled a medieval dungeon. Well, progress was progress.
Lindsey had phoned ahead and he was met by a uniformed sergeant who could have passed for a shaving lotion model. If there were such things any more. Blond, blue-eyed, clean-shaven, and wearing a uniform that must have been custom-fitted. He looked like a private eye from a Richard Prather paperback, suddenly drafted into the official police force.
“Olaf Strombeck,” the shaving lotion model introduced himself. They shook hands, exchanged business cards, and proceeded to Strombeck’s office, Lindsey now wearing a visitor’s badge on his jacket pocket. You would have thought they were a couple of Japanese businessmen meeting to cut a billion dollar deal for some futuristic electronic gadget, not an insurance man and a detective sitting down to discuss a murder.
Strombeck had pulled a file and laid it on his desk, but before opening it he said, “Mr. Lindsey, I don’t understand why you’re here, sir. This is a police matter. This is an open case. I’m not sure just how much information I can give you.”
He laid his hand, palm down, on top of the file folder.
Lindsey nodded. “Candidly, I’m just getting started on this. International Surety held a life policy on Mr. Simmons. We paid his widow. As far as we’re concerned, that aspect of the case is over.”
“Then—what?”
“There’s a lawsuit, Mrs. Simmons and the Marston and Morse Publishing Company are suing Gordian House. International Surety has an indemnity policy with Gordian, and I’m gathering information to help us deal with that.”
“I don’t get it.” Strombeck stood up. He took three steps to a hot plate where a pot of coffee was giving off its fragrance. “Like a cup, Mr. Lindsey?”
Lindsey accepted. Drinking coffee wasn’t exactly breaking bread, but it was close. Anything to establish a bond. You could never tell when it would come in handy.
Strombeck held his cup in front of his face, savored the odor rising from it, then lowered it to his desk. His uniform was severe. Midnight blue shirt, polished badge, a little enamel rectangle that Lindsey recognized as the Medal of Valor. Those didn’t come easy, and in his experience, officers who received them seldom cared to talk about the reason.
“I don’t get it, Mr. Lindsey. I’m afraid this is getting to be a cold case. It’s been a year. The official line, of course, is that we never close a homicide case until we’ve solved it. But it’s also true that most murders are resolved quickly. And most of them are pretty straightforward. Domestic violence cases that get out of hand, vehicular homicides. Take away those two and we’d be down to a small fraction of our caseload. The longer a case goes unsolved, the less likely it is that we’ll find the perpetrator. And after a year—unless we catch a break through a DNA sample or—well, never mind the or. I’m afraid the solve rate of older homicides is not very good.”
“I understand. Even so, I think these two cases are one, Sergeant.”
Strombeck lifted blond eyebrows, then nodded encouragingly.
“I’ve been talking with Mrs. Simmons.”
“Be careful, Mr. Lindsey.” Strombeck was suddenly serious, more serious than he had been. “You’re treading on dangerous ground. This is still a police case.” He paused. “And you are not a licensed investigator anyway, are you?”
Lindsey shook his head. “I’m an insurance adjuster. Or was. Thought I had a great career going until I got downsized into early retirement.”
Strombeck did a magic trick and made Lindsey’s business card reappear in his hand. “I don’t see retired anywhere on this.”
“Old card.”
The eyebrows and the encouraging nod again.
“I’m too young for Social Security. It’s nice to be too young for anything, these days. I get a modest pension from International Surety. In return for that they pull me back in every now and then as a kind of superannuated temp. That’s why I’m working this case.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
The concrete block walls of Strombeck’s office were starting to look like a jail cell. Lindsey squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again.
Strombeck
