Murder Among Us (A Kate Austen Mystery) Read online

  “I don’t know. Julie took BART in there a couple of times before, kind of on the sly. The Shepherds would never have approved. But it was always in the middle of the day and I assumed she was just, you know, cruising Telegraph.” Libby grabbed another cookie. “All the kids do that.”

  Telegraph Avenue runs south from the main entrance of the University through Berkeley and into the heart of Oakland. What most people mean when they talk about Telegraph Avenue, however, is the four-block stretch nearest the campus—a colorful, eclectic experience of coffeehouses, street artists, musicians, soothsayers, and eccentrics. It’s also a mecca for local high school students who yearn for a taste of what they consider Real Life.

  “Who did Julie usually go with?” I asked.

  “She went alone.”

  I frowned. That was less common.

  Libby’s sense of guilt must have nipped at her again, because she added, “I asked if she wanted to come along the last time a group of us went in there to Amoeba Music.”

  “And she didn’t?”

  “No interest at all.”

  I leaned back in my chair. While the ambiance of Telegraph Avenue is certainly not what you’ll find in Walnut Hills, the truth of the matter is that it’s still far more refined than what passes for real life in many places, including the section of San Pablo where Julie was last seen. I couldn’t imagine what she’d been doing there.

  “Did she do drugs?” I asked.

  Libby tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “She might have tried pot or something, but she wasn’t a dope-head if that’s what you mean.”

  “What about other behaviors?”

  Libby made a face. “Other what?”

  “Did she have a wild side? You know, smoking, drinking . . .”

  “Not that I ever saw.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table. “Maybe she liked to pick up boys and party.”

  “It doesn’t sound much like Julie.”

  “Or maybe she liked to pick up girls,” I added. This was, after all, a generation that seemed to have no use for the closet, literally or otherwise.

  Libby frowned. “I don’t think so.”

  I took another cookie and tried again to reconcile today’s revelations with what I knew of Julie Harmon. It didn’t work. And yet a pattern was emerging. Marlene, the hairdresser who lived across from the Shepherds, had told Faye that she’d seen Julie sneaking out of the house. According to Celeste Tira, Julie had been seen on a street corner in a sleazy section of Berkeley the night she disappeared. I remembered Julie’s tentative interest in talking with me. Her troubling self-portrait. Had she merely been attempting to escape the tight thumb of the Shepherds? Or was there something more to it?

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  The next morning Mario surprised me, not only by showing up to class for the first time in over a week, but working diligently on the day’s assignment. When the bell rang and the rest of the students darted for the door, Mario remained bent over his drawing, methodically shading a detailed array of foliage.

  “It’s nice to have you back again,” I told him, peering over his shoulder. “I mean that sincerely.”

  His response was throaty and undecipherable.

  “You don’t have to finish this today, you know. There’ll be time tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  It’s always nice to see students engrossed in their work, so I was reluctant to interfere. But I knew we’d have to vacate the room soon for the studio art class that met after morning break. “I can give you a few minutes more, then you’ll have to put it away and finish later.”

  He nodded silently and I went to the back of the room to tidy up. Each student had an individual plastic storage bin and segregated portion of shelf, but that didn’t stop most of them from strewing supplies across the back counter. As I straightened loose paper into piles and sorted the soft-leaded drawing pencils, I was reminded that I hadn’t yet cleaned out Julie’s cubicle. It was something I was going to have to do eventually. The sooner I went at it, the less likely it was her drawings would become dog-eared.

  A few minutes later, Mario stood beside me, clearing his throat. When I turned, he thrust a small leather-bound book into my hands.

  “This was Julie’s,” he mumbled.

  “Maybe you should give it to her family.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” He shuffled uneasily from one foot to the other.

  I turned the book to examine the spine. Selected Poems of D. H. Lawrence.

  “Look inside,” Mario said. “At the handwritten message.”

  I flipped open the cover and leafed through a couple of pages. Scrawled in loopy penmanship on the title page was a message in black ink. It took a moment for me to decipher the writing.

  What wild ecstasy it is, riding the waves of your desire. I too, yearn for another night like the last. Be patient and we will find a way. I am yours always in body and soul.

  No signature, only a casually sketched heart, and below that, an initial so tangled I couldn’t make it out.

  I felt my pulse skip a beat. “Did you give this to her?”

  Mario’s cheeks took on the faintest hue of pink. “You think I’d be showing it to you if I did?”

  “No, I guess not.” Although to tell the truth, I wasn’t sure why he was showing it to me at all. “How did you wind up with it, then?”

  Mario looked at his hands. “Julie left her backpack in my truck last week. I didn’t discover it until I got home. I called and said I’d drop it off, but she said not to bother. And then I thought, since I had her books and stuff, I might as well copy her notes from English. We did that a lot, so I knew she wouldn’t mind.” He gestured toward the book. “That was in her backpack.”

  “Do you know who did give it to her?”

  “At first I thought it was Brian Walker. The two of them were seeing each other for a while and he’s the kind of candy ass who’d write shit like that.” Mario paused, looking uncomfortable. “She said it wasn’t, though.”

  “What else did she say?”

  There was a flicker of anger in his eyes, and then an icing over of emotion. “That it was none of my business.”

  Something in my mind clicked. “Is that what the two of you were arguing about Friday?”

  “Pretty much.” He turned away. “Julie was . . . well, I thought she was kind of special, you know. I mean, it’s not like I expected that she’d see me in the same way at all, but ...” He paused for a breath. “Well, I thought she could do a whole lot better than some jerk who’d write crap like that. Makes her sound like a slut.”

  There were a lot of years and a lot of living that separated my own experience from Mario’s. To me, the scrawled message spoke of passion rather than bawdiness. But I was as uncomfortable as he was with the context.

  “Anyone besides Brian come to mind?”

  He shook his head.

  “How about outside of school? Do you think she might have been seeing someone who wasn’t a student here?”

  Mario snorted in disgust. “It’s pretty obvious she was seeing someone.” His words were clipped, his voice angry. For an emotion that brings such joy, love certainly has its dark side as well.

  “Libby says Julie used to go into Berkeley sometimes,” I said. “Do you know anything about that?”

  Mario shot me a sorrowful, beseeching look. “You think she was meeting some guy there?”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to take this book though, and show it to the police.”

  His face froze. “Ms. Austen, I don’t want any trouble.”

  “You wouldn’t be in trouble.”

  “My family would be real upset if I got involved with the police.”

  “Mario, you didn’t do anything wrong.” I stopped. “Did you?”

  “Not like you’re thinking, no.” He stepped back, paused to shake his head. “Shit, no way.”

  Despite the words, I detected a layer of uncertainty. “But?” I said.
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  He hesitated. “Julie didn’t get along with the Shepherds. She’d come to my house after school sometimes, tell them she was working on the newspaper or something. Mr. Shepherd found out. He didn’t like it. He called my parents hollering and screaming, told them I should stay away from Julie. It was ugly, Ms. Austen.”

  “And what did your parents say?”

  “To Mr. Shepherd, nothing. But they were upset with me. They told me there’s no sense in going looking for trouble, that I should do what the man says.”

  The injustice of it caused the heat to rise in my chest. “Did you?”

  He shook his head. “My folks, they’re both gone during the day. They’d be real angry if they knew she’d been coming over after they told me to keep my distance.”

  “I’ve got a friend who’s a policeman,” I said. “Can I give the book to him? He’ll be careful what he says.”

  Mario hesitated. “He’s a good guy?”

  “A very good guy.”

  “I dunno, I don’t want trouble.”

  “It might help find Julie’s killer.”

  Mario scratched his cheek. “Okay, I guess.”

  As I ran my hand over the smooth leather of the cover, another thought came to mind. “Did Julie ever talk about the Shepherds’ son, Dennis?”

  “Yeah, a bit.”

  “What did she say about him?”

  Mario shrugged. “That he was nothing like his dad.”

  “Anything else?”

  Mario shook his head, “Nothing I can recall.”

  After he left, I tucked the book of poems into my canvas tote bag and then hefted Julie’s portfolio under my arm.

  On my way to the parking lot, I stopped by the office to pick up my mail and call Michael, who wasn’t available. Then I headed over to Sharon’s for the Fall Festival meeting, promising myself I’d be assertive about saying no to additional responsibility.

  Chapter 16

  I spotted Susie’s silver Mercedes and Laurelle’s white one parked side by side in Sharon’s driveway. In front of the house were several other cars I recognized as belonging to mothers of Anna’s schoolmates—a BMW, a Lexus, and a brand-new Suburban. I pulled my dented and dusty old Volvo into the closest remaining spot, a rutted area under a large Monterey Pine where the car was sure to collect bird droppings as well as more grit.

  Although they hadn’t started the official meeting without me, they’d polished off half the pastries and were well into pre-meeting gossip by the time I got myself settled.

  “Did you ask him?” Susie whispered, pulling her chair closer to mine.

  “Ask who?”

  “Michael. You know, the interview. I wanted to talk to him about the murders, remember?”

  “I haven’t had a chance,” I told her, which was the truth. Her request had also completely slipped my mind. “But I left a message for him. I’m sure we’ll speak soon.”

  “Good,” she said rather snippily. “You can call me this evening. I’ll be home.” With that, she scooted her chair back to join in the trashing of Cheri Dupres, who two months ago had replaced Beau who-required-no-last- name as the aerobics instructor at the club.

  “That isn’t her God-given nose,” Laurelle said derisively.

  “I bet those aren’t her God-given boobs, either,” added Marsha.

  Sharon set her coffee cup down with a thunk of disgust. “For that matter,” she said sarcastically, “I don’t imagine she was born with holes pierced in her earlobes, either. And I know for a fact she had orthodontia as a child and now wears contact lenses. What difference does it make?”

  Since I didn’t belong to the club myself, I’d never so much as laid eyes on Cheri. But I knew that Beau had been the inspiration for many a woman’s devotion to aerobics—or more precisely, devotion to aerobics classes at the Walnut Hills Country Club.

  “She never even sweats,” said Susie, sipping her coffee. “Maybe she’s entirely synthetic.”

  Marsha laughed. “I doubt that. I saw her last week at Yoshi’s. She was with a guy, draped around him like a hungry boa. They were both working up a sweat,”—she paused for effect—“if you know what I mean.”

  She turned to me. “You might know him, Kate. Cheri says he teaches English at the high school. Dick something, if I recall.”

  I mentally ran through the list of faculty and couldn’t come up with anyone named Dick. I shook my head.

  “Tall,” Marsha said. “Blond hair, fair complexion, eyes that are almost turquoise. He teaches English.”

  “Marvin Melville?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” She laughed self-consciously. “The Melville connection. I guess I was thinking of Moby Dick. ”

  “Or maybe you were just thinking of dick,” Susie said under her breath.

  Sharon took a baby carrot from the largely untouched platter of vegetables on the coffee table. “I wonder if that’s the guy she met over the Internet. Sounds like him anyway.”

  I rocked forward. “The Internet? When? How?”

  “Some chat room or something. That’s how they first met. Then they discovered they lived in the same area.”

  “You can talk over the Internet?” Marsha asked.

  “You don’t actually talk, you type your message.”

  “Seems silly to me,” Sharon said. “But apparently there are all these different rooms or bulletin boards or whatever for different interests. I guess it’s like those classified ads you see in the paper—Sexy, gentle, fun-loving guy looking for beautiful babe—only it comes over the modem.”

  “What I can’t understand,” Laurelle said, “is why anyone would agree to actually get together with someone like that. I mean, in person. You’ve got to figure any guy who’s not a total weenie is going to have no trouble meeting women on his own. So odds are, you’re getting the dregs to begin with.”

  “It’s got to be dangerous,” Sharon said. “Who knows what kind of psychopaths are out there disguising themselves as gentle, fun-loving guys.”

  I nodded. “That’s what may have happened with the woman who was murdered out by the reservoir. She apparently gave out her name and address to guys she met on-line. Someone should tell Cheri to be careful.”

  Marsha shuddered. “Especially now. I don’t know about the rest of you, but having a killer on the prowl makes me nervous.”

  “So what’s this Moby Dick guy like?” Susie asked, addressing her question my way.

  “Not a psychopath.”

  “A weenie?”

  “Hardly,” I said with a laugh. “He’s decent looking, although maybe a little anemic for my tastes. But he’s got that quiet, sensitive, shy quality that some women seem to adore. I’m sure Marvin doesn’t need to look far to find a date.”

  Sharon stood and stretched. “Who all wants a refill? And then we’d better get down to business.”

  The rest of the meeting was decidedly less interesting. We formed committees, divvied up chores, and finished off the wine. I embroidered the truth a bit, saying I had an appointment, and left early in the hope of catching Michael at the station.

  He was just heading out when I arrived.

  “Come take a ride with me,” he said, throwing a jacket over his shoulder.

  “A ride? Why?”

  “She asks why?” he said dramatically. His expression was pure vaudeville. “The love of my life, a woman I’ve barely seen in days. I want to spend a little time with her, and she asks why?”

  I laughed. “Okay, where to?”

  “Berkeley. I need to take another look at Cindy Purcell’s computer. It’s a long shot, but after talking to this guy I told you about, the one who said he’d communicated with her on-line, I really think there might be a connection.”

  “The guy’s name isn’t Melville, is it?”

  Michael shook his head. “It’s not Hemingway, either.”

  “That wasn’t a joke.” While we walked to the car, I filled him in on the conversation at Sharon’s, or the relevant parts of it a
nyway.

  “It does boggle the mind a bit,” he said, “the number of people who are reaching out and touching someone through cyberspace. And it runs the gamut from clever erotica to the genuinely sordid and disgusting. People get hooked on it. It can apparently be a real addiction.”

  It certainly boggled my mind. I slid over next to Michael and gave him a kiss before buckling myself in. “I think I’ll stick to the tried and true forms of romance. Speaking of which ...” I reached into my canvas tote and pulled out the book of poems Mario had given me. “This belonged to Julie.”

  Michael’s gaze bounced my direction for just a moment before returning to the road. “What is it?”

  I explained and then read the inscription.

  “The waves of your desire, ” he repeated, whistling softly under his breath. “And to think that when I was that age it took all my nerve to inscribe Marilyn Horner’s yearbook with a ‘roses are red’ verse.”

  “Maybe you were just a late bloomer.”

  He looked at me and bit back a smirk.

  “And who was Marilyn Horner?”

  This time he laughed out loud. “Someone who would probably have preferred ‘waves of desire’ to ‘roses are red.’ ”

  “I always assumed Julie was more the red-roses type,” I said. And yet it was becoming clear to me that she wasn’t. “You’ve heard that she was last seen in Berkeley, on San Pablo Avenue?”

  “Yeah, Gates told me.” There was a brief pause. “Gates also told me that you dropped by to see him yesterday.” Michael’s tone was neutral but I could well imagine that the tone of Jim Gates’s message had been otherwise.

  “I just wanted to be sure he knew about Dennis Shepherd,” I explained.

  “You didn’t think I’d pass along your message?”

  “It’s not that—”

  “And now. I suppose, you want to make sure he hears about the inscription in Julie’s book as well?”

  I nodded. “Will you see that he gets it?”

  Michael sighed. “It would be better if you’d let this Mario kid call Gates directly.”