Strawberry Sunday Page 15

  “And what is the nature of your business?”

  “Murder.”

  “I … what did you say?” Her left hand flew to her sternum, to make sure everything was still in place, to make sure I hadn’t shot her.

  I grinned into her overreaction—Mr. Noland must not do criminal defense work. “I’m in the murder business,” I said. “The solving part, not the committing part.”

  “I see,” she managed. “But what—”

  “Specifically, I’m in the business of the murder of a woman named Rita Lombardi.”

  “I see,” she said again, ill at ease with issues more volatile than rules against perpetuities and covenants running with the land. “I remember reading about it in the Californian. A tragic event, I’m sure, but of course it is impossible that Mr. Noland had anything to do with Ms. Lombardi’s unfortunate demise or any trouble she might have been experiencing at the time she was killed.”

  Her essay made me laugh. “That’s not what her appointment book said.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean Ms. Lombardi had an appointment to see Mr. Noland two days before she died. I’m surprised you don’t remember—you look more competent than that.”

  She blushed. “I was on vacation last week but I’m sure nothing … that is, I’m quite confident that—” She broke off the disclaimer as though it had burned her tongue. “Just a moment, please.”

  She fled down the hall, her gait somewhere between a gallop and a waddle. I was left to admire both the receptionist and the art on the walls, the latter a series of semiskilled renderings of idyllic landscapes and breaking waves. I made a mental bet that the artist was connected to the firm by marriage.

  The fullback returned. “Please follow me,” she said without preamble, then went back the way she’d come.

  She led me to the office in the far corner of the building, which we entered without pause. “Mr. Noland; Mr. Tanner.” With that terse introduction, she left me alone with her boss.

  He was sandy-haired and pink-skinned, too chubby and too oily and too expensively dressed in silks and linens in pastel shades that made it look as if he’d just driven in from Beverly Hills or La Jolla. His forehead was flushed and freckled and the flesh of his neck dripped over his shirt collar like wallpaper coming loose from its glue. He was not a handsome man, had no doubt been a homely kid, and had been making the world make up the deficit for the last fifty years.

  “Mr. Tanner, is it?” he asked, his fingers pawing through papers on his desk in order to let me know that he had better things to do with his time than speak with me. On the wall behind him, a version of the Ten Commandments in elaborate frame and calligraphy shared space with his law degree from U.C.-Davis, a citation for some form of public zealotry from Rotary International, and two paintings of Point Lobos just like the ones out front. The only book on his desk was a Bible but if he was a Christian, I was an astronaut.

  “What brings you to our fair city?” he asked.

  “Rita Lombardi,” I said.

  He kept pawing the papers. “Ah, yes. An unfortunate thing. Extremely unfortunate.” He looked up. “May I assume you’re connected with law enforcement in some capacity, Mr. Tanner?”

  “In the capacity of observer and critic and occasional competitor.”

  He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m a private eye.”

  His expression turned massively condescending, which was good because it pissed me off and I’m a better interrogator when I don’t give a damn about feelings. “Employed by whom?” he asked.

  “My conscience.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t—”

  “I was a friend of Rita’s. I feel the way you’d feel if someone ripped your wife’s art work off the walls and burned it in the yard.”

  The pink turned two shades darker, to the tint his wife had employed to evoke the setting sun. “Of course. I didn’t mean to imply … how may I help you?”

  “How well did you know Rita?”

  He raised a sun-bleached brow. “Why are you assuming I did?”

  “Because you saw her two days before she died. In this office. On official business.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Informed sources.”

  “I see.” He put down the papers and looked at me. “I did meet with her briefly, as it happens. But it had nothing to do with her death, I assure you.”

  I smiled. “I’ll be the judge of that. Did you know her other than professionally, Mr. Noland?”

  “What are you implying?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well, I didn’t know Ms. Lombardi at all, I’m afraid, other than that one encounter. But people say she was a very nice person.”

  “What people are those?”

  He shrugged. “People around town. You know. The people who keep track of such things.”

  “Your clients, you mean.” I glanced at the plaque on the wall at his back. “Or maybe you’re making a theological reference.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “God keeps track of who’s naughty and nice, don’t you think? If He does anything at all, that’s what He spends His time doing. Seeing who measures up to the ethic.”

  Noland was off balance—it always disturbs people when you take their spiritual poses seriously. His voice dropped the lilt of paternal patronizing and took on the throb of the legal eagle. “What do you want to know, Mr. Tanner? I have other business that is quite pressing.”

  “Tell me what you and Rita talked about when she came to see you.”

  “I’m afraid that would be privileged information.”

  I shook my head. “Only if she was a client, and that seems unlikely. Unless you can show me a receipt for a retainer.”

  Noland leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, as if he could think his brand of thought only in total darkness. “I suppose there’s no reason to dissemble in this instance. It was a rather absurd conversation, really.”

  “Absurd how? Why was she here?”

  “She seemed to believe I negotiated the contract between her employer, a Mr.…”

  “Reyna.”

  “Yes. Carlos Reyna. The contract between Mr. Reyna and Gelbride Berry Farms.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. I have never met Mr. Reyna nor any other independent grower for that matter. I am, however, the primary drafter of the basic contract for agricultural goods and services that the Gelbrides negotiate with all their share farmers.”

  “What did Rita want you to do with the contract?”

  “As I understood it, she wanted me to change it.”

  “In what way?”

  He sighed and chuckled dryly, as though we were discussing Seinfeld. “It was really quite remarkable. She wanted certain costs of production to be borne by the Gelbrides, not the IGs. She wanted the growers to be free to borrow elsewhere than from the Gelbride State Bank and to sell fruit other than through the Gelbride cooperative. She wanted certain financial guarantees in the event of a bad crop year and guarantees that all state and federal laws would be obeyed to the point of allowing independent observers to come on company property to ensure compliance. And she wanted an independent accounting of income and wage allocations at the Gelbrides’ expense.” He shook his head in mock befuddlement. “What she wanted was pie in the sky, in other words.”

  “She wanted you to make these changes for Mr. Reyna?”

  “For all the Gelbride growers.” The pulp in his lips disappeared in an expression of distaste. “Hence my use of the word absurd.”

  “Why did she think you’d agree to do this? Because you’re such a nice guy?”

  “My interpretation was that she was making some sort of threat.”

  “Threat?”

  He nodded.

  “How could Rita be in a position to threaten you or the Gelbrides?”

  His grin would have peeved a weasel. “She couldn’t.”

 
“But she must have had something in mind; she wasn’t a foolish person.”

  “She just said she was giving me a chance to make the changes on my own. If I didn’t, she would make them over my dead body, which was exactly how she put it.”

  This time I was the one off balance. “She was threatening violence of some kind?”

  “That’s the interpretation I put on it. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Did you take her seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I assumed she was speaking for the union or some other group hostile to the Gelbride family. Even if she were acting alone, anyone can be violent with a gun in her hand. So I’ve been taking precautions.”

  “What kind?”

  He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a pistol and held it up. It looked like a nice little Llama 9mm semiautomatic, retailing for close to a grand. “I have identical weapons in my car and home. I’ve advised my clients to arm themselves similarly.”

  “By clients you mean the Gelbrides.”

  “Primarily.”

  “Don’t you think that makes for the chance of an unfortunate accident somewhere down the road, Mr. Noland?”

  “You may see it that way,” he answered prissily. “I see it strictly in terms of protection and prevention.”

  I borrowed the feral smile he had used on me. “Protection from the ghost of Rita Lombardi?”

  “And from those allied with her cause.”

  “What cause was that?”

  He mounted his soapbox. “To destroy the system of agricultural production that has prevailed in this valley for the last hundred years. The system that puts on the table of the average American the best food products in the world at a price that is the envy of our competitors, foreign and domestic.”

  “The system that made you rich, you mean.”

  “Please, Mr. Tanner. Don’t expect me to apologize for my success or for that of my clients. This nation was founded on the principles of Christian capitalism. I know of nothing that makes profit immoral. Now I’m afraid you must excuse me.”

  He fiddled with a file but I ignored it. “A couple of points. How much did the Gelbrides net from their operations last year?”

  “Last year was a bad year. The weather was horrible.”

  “So how much?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, of course.”

  “But they made money.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything on that score.”

  “Will the Gelbrides plow up the fields if their workers vote union?”

  He looked up. “Don’t take me for a fool. You know that question involves private client communications. I wouldn’t last a day in this business if I discussed such a subject with you. Now really, I must insist that you leave. Otherwise I will summon security.”

  “One last thing. Did Rita’s visit have anything to do with a young woman named Consuelo Vargas?”

  Noland turned his chair toward the wall, as though the Commandments had something to do with any of this. “The name came up. Yes.”

  “In what connection?”

  “Ms. Lombardi had some hysterical fantasy about Randy Gelbride and the Vargas girl. A sexual assault that was purportedly imminent.”

  “What did Rita want you to do?”

  “Put a stop to it, apparently.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  He paused, then swiveled my way, then shrugged. “That no one has any control over Randy anymore. Not even his father.”

  “How did Rita react?”

  “She said if Randy harmed Consuelo, it would destroy the Gelbrides forever.”

  “How so?”

  “She didn’t say. Because she couldn’t, of course. Her threat was juvenile posturing, no more. Gus Gelbride is the most powerful man in this county.”

  “I take it you represent the father, not the son, Mr. Noland.”

  “Who I represent is none of your damned business. If you don’t leave this minute, I’m calling the police.”

  Noland reached for the phone and I stood up. “Lots of things point to the Gelbrides in Rita’s murder, Mr. Noland. If they did it, I’m going to find out and take it to the police. You might want to consider whether you want to go down with them.”

  “Now you’re being absurd yourself,” he said, but the quiver in his lower lip belied his words.

  “By the way,” I said. “The bit about the morality of profits and capitalism?”

  “Yes?”

  I pointed to the Bible. “You might want to reread that one of these days. Particularly Matthew Chapter Nineteen.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I took Alisal back to the Best Western, unpacked, shaved and showered, smeared on deodorant, brushed my teeth, gargled with mouthwash, brushed my teeth again to be rid of the taste of the mouthwash, sucked on a Breath Saver I’d bought in the lobby, and started to get dressed. I don’t know how to pack effectively, though, and I don’t own the right kind of luggage, so everything in my suitcase was wrinkled: I looked like I’d wadded up my best shirt and spent the day with it in my pocket.

  I called the front desk and asked if they had an iron I could borrow. They said they’d send it right up. A minute passed, then four more. I called again. They said another room was using the iron, but it would be available shortly. I went from having time to spare to running late.

  I began to sweat, hot pebbles forming atop my forehead and along my forearms as though my flesh had a fresh coat of varnish that was beginning to blister in the sun. Increasingly desperate, I spread my shirt on the bed and tried to smooth it out with my hands, which seemed at least as hot as steam irons, but apparently they were not. I did the same with my trousers, tucking the cuffs under my chin and pressing the wrinkles against my torso and thighs, but that was similarly ineffective. I sweated some more, to the point that I decided to take a second shower. This time the deodorant was applied in three layers—my underarms would itch for a month.

  When I emerged from the shower the iron and board were in my room. I set up the board as fast as I could, creating a racket in the nature of a fusillade. I ran the iron over my shirt and pants in a hurry, pressing in as many wrinkles as I removed, burning my hand as I made a mad grasp to keep the shirt from falling to the floor, knocking the iron off the board and spilling its store of steaming water into the carpet in the process. By the time I was finished I’d uttered every swear word in my vocabulary and was bathed in a sticky subdural substance that made sweat seem sweet by comparison.

  When I was dressed I looked in the mirror: I looked like a drunk who’d tried to sober up and had decided to hell with it. With one last look in the mirror and an appropriate curse at its contents, I left the room, only to turn back when I was halfway to the elevator in order to unplug the iron. By the time I got to the lobby I was ten minutes late and two degrees below boiling.

  But of course Jill wasn’t there. By the time she arrived twenty minutes later, I’d looked at my watch two hundred times, looked into the parking lot half that often, drunk two cans of vending machine pop while convincing the East Indian desk clerk I was either insane or a criminal masterminding a heist. At seven-thirty, convinced she wasn’t coming and that I’d been an idiot to expect her, I strolled toward the elevator with as much nonchalance as I could muster after having made it abundantly clear to all and sundry that I’d been stood up.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said at my back, sounding far more coy than sorry, sounding expectant, sounding even eager, maybe. “Traffic backed up south of Gilroy. A truck turned over—tomatoes all over the place.”

  When I turned to look at her, my arms inched across my body as though I were stark naked and my voice became as tremulous as hers. “Hi there,” I ventured.

  “Hi.”

  “Glad you could make it.”

  She looked around the lobby. What she saw didn’t obviously impress. “I hope you weren’t waiting down here all that time.”


  “Five minutes,” I lied. “No problem. I was running late myself.”

  “Good.”

  She was wearing black slacks and a gray print blouse and black shoes with no heels that looked something like the loafers I was wearing myself. Her hair was tousled in a blowzy way, scraped haphazardly across her forehead and over her ears. Her face was ruddy from the drive, giving her a carnal blush; her blue eyes seemed double the wattage of my own. I was thankful as hell that she’d come, though it was clear Jill was reserving judgment.

  I shuffled from one foot to the next, then back to the first. “Shall we go straight to dinner or do you want to go up to the room and … freshen up, as they say? I can give you the key and wait here, if you want.”

  She shook her head. “I can do all that needs to be done when we get to the restaurant.”

  “Fine. What kind of food are you in the mood for?”

  “You choose,” she said.

  “I don’t do decent food all that often. I still look forward to macaroni and cheese.”

  She grinned. “Me, too.”

  “Kraft? In the blue box.”

  She nodded. “To die for. How about Mexican? I’m sure there’s some great Mexican food in this town.”

  “Mexican it is,” I said, and led her out of the lobby and toward my Buick. Thanks to a brochure in the room and some consultation with the desk clerk while I was waiting, I’d made a mental list of the decent restaurants in each of three categories—Mexican, Chinese, and Italian. The Mexican place was on John Street. I got there after only one wrong turn and two curses at my fellow drivers.

  Conversation along the way was immaculately inoffensive—the weather, the ride down, the geometric precision of the newly plowed fields, the contrast with life in the city, the preponderance of Latino faces in town. I was happy to be as trivial as Jill was and we arrived at the restaurant without major damage, except I’d forgotten to tell her how nice she looked, a defect I remedied as we waited for the hostess to take us to our table. She thanked me but didn’t say anything I could interpret as a return of the compliment.

  The restaurant wasn’t quite full and the service and menu were adequate if not innovative. Jill ordered a chile relleno and I ordered a chimichanga. We both ordered margaritas, which came in stem glasses with salted rims with the circumference of Frisbees. We sipped and smiled for quite a while, each thinking of something to say and editing out most of the product. I was glad she hadn’t made the waitress amend the menu to fit some sort of nutritive eleventh commandment and she seemed pleased to be the most stylish woman in the place.