Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery (12 page)

"Three-eighths." I heard one of them say to
the other.

The second guy slapped a wrench into the
requester's hand.

"Naw, open-end."

The wrench was exchanged for another. About
this time, they noticed me, and glanced up. I half expected them to
be wearing surgical masks.

"Jason Page?" I asked.

I knew immediately which one he was. He had
so much of Catherine in him, there could be no doubt. His build was
slight, although his arms appeared well-muscled under the one-piece
white coveralls he wore. He had Catherine’s brown hair and eyes and
her delicate mouth. As far as I could tell, he bore no resemblance
to his father. No wonder he was mother's little darling.

He took half a step toward me, but made no
move to shake hands. Looking at the grease encrusted palms, I
decided it was all right. I could pass on formalities.

"I'm Charlie Parker," I said, handing him my
card. "I'm looking into your father's death."

He shrugged. "What about it?"

I watched for the complex signs of emotion
that must go with a young man losing his father in a violent
manner.

I could see none.

I knew he was closer to his mother, but
surely he felt
something
.

"Are you doing okay, Jason?"

He looked at the card again. "You an
investigator, or a shrink?"

He shoved the card into the pocket of his
coveralls, and turned back to the car. His friend had found
something important to do at the back of the garage.

"Okay, Jason, you're right. That part of it
may not matter. We can stick to the facts if you want to. Where
were you last Friday night?"

"Home, I guess."

"Your mother says you weren't."

"Okay, then I was here. Whenever I'm not
home, I'm here. You can ask Mark if you want to."

Mark glanced up and nodded. Jason proceeded
to wrench something on the car's engine. I wasn't getting much out
of him.

I walked around to the side of the car. I
thought it had once been a Chevy, although I couldn't swear to it
now. The rear was painted hot pink, which faded into fluorescent
yellow somewhere in the middle. The sides were plastered with
stickers from different brands of oil, tires, spark plugs, and
filters.

"These all your sponsors?" I asked.

"Some of 'em give us a little cash. Most of
'em just give us the stickers," Jason told me.

"Expensive hobby, I guess."

"Yeah," he said, "I guess so. We really want
to get into the big leagues, though. The NASCAR circuit. My mom was
trying to talk Dad into giving me enough money to get a good car.
This thing's okay, but it's small time."

I stuck my head in the side window. The doors
had been welded shut, and the interior completely stripped, empty
except for one bucket seat with massive shoulder and lap belts for
the driver. Everything inside the car, including the roll cage of
heavy pipe, was painted black. I noticed a small cylinder, about
the size of a home fire extinguisher.

"What's that?" I asked.

Jason came up beside me to see what I was
talking about.

"Oh, nitrous," he said. "If I need a little
extra hit, I flip this switch." He pointed to a small toggle switch
on the console. "Whhommm!" He skidded the palms of his two hands
together, shooting one way out front. I got the picture.

"Neat," I said. "I hadn't heard of that
before."

"Yeah, lots of guys use it now. Mostly in the
better cars, though. We have a pretty good advantage in our class
with this one."

He was warming up to me a bit now, so I
thought I'd press my advantage.

"You really were hoping your dad could help
you get a better car, weren't you?"

"Well, geez, it just seems so unfair, ya
know? I mean, my dad does okay, but he's not rich, ya know? I mean,
he doesn't have a half mil to hand out to everyone who asks. But,
he manages to give money to that helicopter guy. He manages to give
money to that girlfriend of his. Why can't he give his own kid
some? I got dreams, too. I got plans."

He turned quickly back to the engine, hiding
his face from me for a few seconds. I couldn't think of an answer
for him. He was still at an age where his wants would take
precedence over anything else. The business sense of a deal
wouldn't make any difference to him. He just wasn't old enough yet
to see that a race car would never earn back the investment.

"What about your mom, Jason? How does she see
it?"

"Mom's okay," he said. His face lost a lot of
its tightness when he spoke of Catherine. "She goes to bat for me
whenever she can."

"Did she and your father argue about the
car?"

"That, and everything else," he said.
"Everybody argued with Dad. He wasn't open to any idea that wasn't
his. If you didn't go along with his way of doing things, you got
screamed at. Sometimes Mom would fight back. Usually, it was just
easier to fix herself a drink and keep quiet."

"How did you cope with that?" My own parents
had fought a lot when I was a kid, but it was all verbal, and never
directed at us kids. Somehow I just let it roll off me. I was
curious how Jason had handled it all.

"Me? I'd just get out. I'd come over here,
and work on the car with Mark. Mark's dad skipped out a long time
ago, so there's only his mom here. She's cool. She comes out to
watch us race sometimes."

"You have any idea who might have killed
him?"

"Yeah, about two dozen I could name off the
top of my head who hated him bad enough, including Mom and me. But,
to actually pick up the gun and do it? Who knows?" He shrugged,
then turned to look straight at me. "Charlie, do you think I'll
ever get my car now?"

I couldn't answer that. I thanked him, and
walked back to my car.

Jason Page was clearly too wrapped up in
himself to have planned and carried out a murder. Even if he'd
seriously thought of it, which I doubted, he would have decided it
was too much work. I could see, though, how he would have thrown
enough logic into his arguments to bring Catherine around to his
side.

I inserted the ignition key, and cranked life
into the rental. When I glanced up before putting it into reverse,
I saw that Mark had walked over to Jason's side, and put his arm
around his friend's shoulders.

I started to raise my fingers to wave
goodbye, but realized they weren't looking at me. As I put the car
in gear, Mark leaned forward and gave Jason a kiss on the
mouth.

So much for Catherine's little fantasy about
her son and the girl next door.

Chapter 8

I drove away thinking about Jason and Mark. I
wondered whether Gil Page had guessed his son's secret. I couldn't
picture a man like Gil being very understanding about it. The
conflicts between them must have been endless.

Maybe I shouldn’t write Jason off as a
suspect quite so quickly.

The phone directory had listed Gilbert Page
Enterprises at a downtown address. It wasn't far if I hit Van Ness
Avenue. I decided to buzz by there, even though nothing so far in
the case had brought his San Francisco business into the picture.
You just never know.

Traffic was pleasantly light. I wasn't sure
why. Maybe I had hit a temporary lull between the lunch rush and
the go-home rush.

I found the building easily enough, but
getting a parking space was another story. On my third trip around,
a spot opened up on a side street two blocks over.

Thankfully, it wasn't one of San Francisco's
steeper streets, but it was bad enough. Parallel parking,
especially on an incline, has never been one of my strong suits. It
took me two tries to get reasonably close to the curb. Beyond that,
I wasn't willing to endure the embarrassment. I was sure dozens of
people must be watching me from their office windows. I turned my
wheels into the curb, hoping I remembered which way was correct. My
armpits felt damp by the time I climbed out.

The wind was still brisk here in town, but
less chilly than it had been at the construction site. A wadded up
brown lunch sack rolled past me, an empty soda can trailing close
behind. I was glad I hadn't worn a skirt.

The sun felt weak, screened from its full
effectiveness by a high, thin cloud layer. On Van Ness horns
tooted, and exhaust fumes permeated the air. I glanced around as I
locked the car, getting my bearings.

Page's address was listed on McAllister, and
I found it just down from the State Office Building. It was an
imposing place. The plate glass entry doors must have been a good
inch thick, with brass handles I had a hard time getting my hand
around.

My heels clacked across the marble lobby,
heading for the office directory near the elevators. I was curious
to see how much of the building his business occupied.

Gilbert Page Enterprises was listed in suite
500. There were no other listings on the fifth floor. If indeed his
offices encompassed the entire floor, I was prepared to be
impressed. The elevator doors slid open, and closed with a whisper
behind me. I pressed five, and stood with my arms folded awkwardly.
Left alone in an elevator, I find that I don't quite know what to
do with myself. When others are present, you can always stare up at
the floor numbers. But, what do you do alone? I didn't have to
worry about it long.

The doors whooshed open at five, discharging
me into a wide hallway carpeted in deep blue. The walls were pale
gray, hung with pastel watercolors of northern California
seascapes.

The hall formed a T just beyond the
elevators. Suite 500 was conspicuously the first door I came
to.

Out of curiosity, I walked the length of the
hall to my right, scanning the doors. The other suites were
numbered, but none had a company name listed. I tried the door on
504. It was locked. I wasn't sure what significance that held.

The door to Page's offices slid open on
well-oiled hinges. I found myself in a large reception area, facing
an empty desk. The carpeting was the same deep blue as the hall
outside, the walls the same pale gray, as if the entire floor had
been decorated to please the tenant of this suite.

There was a conference room to my left,
behind a glass wall. The lights were off, the chairs neatly placed
around a spotless smoked glass table.

The furniture was quality. The reception desk
was cherry, solid and elegant. The matching credenza held two
bronze statuettes. I'd seen them once at a San Francisco gallery.
The limited edition introductory price had been seventy-five
hundred each.

A sofa/loveseat grouping upholstered in a
softly patterned blue, gray, and burgundy silk stood in the corner
in case I might want to be comfortable while I waited. To my right,
was a closed door with a brass name plate, Gilbert Page.

Behind the receptionist's desk were closed
double doors, leading presumably to the chambers where the peons
slaved away. I cleared my throat a couple of times, figuring that
was fair warning to anyone who cared to come checking on me. No one
did, so I casually approached the desk.

It's really not smart to leave me unattended
in places like this. I tend to get nosy. As nonchalantly as
possible, I did a visual sweep of the room. I didn't spot any
surveillance equipment, no silent human observers. I assumed there
must be a buzzer of some kind in the back that would be activated
when the front door was opened. Someone would surely come through
those double doors at any second.

I kept my ears tuned for the sound of the
doorknob turning, while I let my eyes wander over the desk top.
Although it was scrupulously neat, little clues indicated that the
receptionist was something more than merely a telephone answerer. A
green columnar pad revealed (when I happened to lift the cover)
neat rows of figures.

The account names were cryptically referred
to, with names such as Group 4 and Venture Holdings. That didn't
tell me much.

She hadn't reached the bottom line yet, but
was far enough along that some quick math in my head told me it
wasn't going to be good. The rest of the work in progress consisted
of two manila folders of bills, PAID and TO BE PAID. The latter was
thicker.

I still had not heard a sound, other than the
neutral hum of the air conditioning.

I was half tempted to plop myself down in her
chair and start on the desk drawers, but figured that really would
be going too far. I was dying to see what lay beyond Gilbert Page's
private office door. I even entertained the idea of closing myself
in there for the rest of the day, hoping not to get caught. My luck
though, I'd need to go to the bathroom, and I'd be trapped, waiting
for closing time with my legs crossed.

Without being blatant, in the five minutes
I'd been there I'd seen about all there was to see. Where was
everyone?

I finally decided to risk facing whatever lay
beyond the double doors. I tapped with my right hand, in a gesture
that was more form than substance, while I turned the knob with my
left. The door opened into a narrow hall running perpendicular to
me.

Straight ahead was a blank gray wall. To the
left were restrooms. Generic symbols on the closed doors defined
his and hers. To my right, the blue carpet continued for about ten
feet, then abruptly ended.

What I could see beyond the end of the carpet
looked like unfinished construction. The concrete floor was
spattered with paint spots, and gobs of drywall paste. Bare
two-by-four studs framed the far wall, which was covered on the
opposite side by drywall, open on my side. Ribbons of variously
colored wire ran through holes in the studs to metal outlet boxes,
ending in tangles. I tiptoed to the end of the carpet, and peeked
around the corner.

The gray wall which formed the narrow hall
was completely a facade. Beyond was an empty room, probably fifty
feet square.