“What was he doing, the drunk?” “Nothing much. It was him and this girl. She had him by the arm. You know, kind of propped up. They were laughing like crazy, wandering all over the place on account of his being so screwed up. Alcohol‘11 do that, you know. Bad stuff. Not like weed,” he said.
I bypassed the sales pitch. “What about the woman? Did you get a good look at her?” “Not really. Not to describe.” “What about hair, clothing, things like that?” “I noticed some. She had these real spiky heels and a raincoat, a skirt, and let’s see … a shirt with this sweater over it. Like, what do you call ‘em, preppies wear.”
“A crewneck?”
“Yeah. Same color green as the skirt.” “You saw all that in the dark?” “It’s not that dark there,” he said. “There’s a streetlight right out front. The two of them fell down in a heap they were laughing so hard. She got up first and kind of looked down to see if her stockings were torn. He just lay there in a puddle on his back till she helped’ him up.”
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t think so. I was standing in the shadows of this overhang, keeping out of the wet. I never saw “em look my way.”
“What happened after the fall?”
“They just went on toward the marina.”
“Did you hear them say anything?”
“Not really. It sounded like she was teasing him about falling down, but other than that nothing in particular.”
“Could they have had a car?”
“I don’t think so. Anyway, not that I saw.”
“What if they’d parked it in that municipal lot across the street?”
“I guess they could have, but I don’t know why they’d walk to the marina in weather like that. Seems like if they had a car it’d be easier to drive and then park it down there.”
“Unless he was too drunk. He’d had his driver’s license yanked too.”
“She could have driven. She was half sober at least.”
“You’ve got a point there,” I said. “What about public transportation? Could they have come by bus or cab?”
“I guess, except the buses don’t run that late. A cab maybe. That’d make sense.”
I was jotting down information as he gave it to me. “This is great. What’s your home phone in case I need to get in touch?”
He gave me the number and then said, “I usually work eleven to seven on weekdays.”
I made a quick note. “Do you think you’d recognize the girl if you saw her again?”
“I don’t know. Probably. Do you know who she is?”
“Not yet. I’m working on that.”
“Well, I wish you luck. You think this’ll help?”
“I hope so. Thanks for calling. I really appreciate it.”
“Sure thing, and if you catch up with her, let me know. Maybe you can do like a police lineup or something like that.”
“Great and thanks.”
He clicked off and I finished making notes, adding this information to what I had. Dinah had spotted Daggett and the girl at 2:15 and Paul Fisk’s sighting placed them right on Cabana thirty minutes before. I wondered where they’d been before that. If they’d arrived by cab, had she taken one home from the marina afterward? I didn’t get it. Most killers don’t take taxis to and from. It isn’t good criminal etiquette.
I hauled out the telephone book and turned to the Yellow Pages to look up cab companies. Fortunately, Santa Teresa is a small town and there aren’t that many. Aside from a couple of airport and touring services, there were six listed. I dialed each in turn, patiently explaining who I was and inquiring about a 2:00 A.M. Saturday fare with a Cabana Boulevard drop off. I was also asking about a pickup anywhere in that vicinity sometime between 3:00 and 6:00 A.M. According to the morgue attendant, the watch Daggett had been wearing was frozen at 2:37, but anybody could have jimmied that, breaking the watch to pinpoint the time, then attaching it to his wrist before he was dumped. If she’d left the boat and swum ashore or rowed to the wharf and abandoned it there, it was still going to take her a little time to organize herself for the cab ride home.
All the previous week’s trip sheets, of course, had been filed and there were some heavy sighs and grumblings all around at the notion of having to look them up. Ron Coachella, the dispatcher for Tip Top, was the only cheerful soul in the lot, primarily because he’d done a records search for me once before with good results. I couldn’t talk anyone into doing the file check right then, so I left my name and number and a promise that I’d call again. “Whoopee-do,” said one.
While I was talking, I’d been doodling on the legal pad, running my pencil around idly so that the line formed a maze. I circled the note about the green skirt.
Hadn’t that old bum pulled a pair of spike heels and a green skirt out of a trash bin at the beach? I remembered his shoving discarded clothing into one of the plastic bags he kept in his shopping cart. Hers? Surely she hadn’t made her way home in the buff. She did have the raincoat, but I wondered if she might have had a change of clothes stashed somewhere too. She’d sure gone to a lot of trouble if she were setting Daggett up. This didn’t look like an impulsive act, done in the heat of the moment. Had she had help? Someone who picked her up afterward? If the cab companies didn’t come up with a record of a fare, I’d have to consider the possibility of an accomplice.
In the meantime, I thought I’d better head down to the beach and look for my scruffy drifter friend. I’d seen him that morning near the public restrooms when I did my run. I tore the sheet off the legal pad and folded it, shoving it in my pocket as I grabbed up my handbag, locked the office, and headed down the back stairs to my car.
It was now nearly quarter to five, getting chillier by the minute, but at least it was dry temporarily. I cruised along Cabana, peering from my car window. There weren’t many people at the beach. A couple of power walkers. A guy with a dog. The boulevard seemed deserted. I doubled back, heading toward my place, passing the wharf on the left and the string of motels across the street. Just beyond the boat launch and kiddie pool, I pulled up at a stoplight, scanning the park on the opposite corner. I could see the band shell where bums sometimes took refuge, but I didn’t see any squatters. Where were all the transients?
I circled back, passing the train station. It occurred to me that this was probably the bums’ dinner hour. I cut over another block and a half and sure enough, there they were-fifty or so on a quick count, lined up outside the Redemption Mission. The fellow I was looking for was near the end of the line, along with his pal. There was no sign of their shopping carts, which I thought of as a matched set of movable metal luggage, the derelict’s Louis Vuitton. I slowed, looking for a place to park.
The neighborhood is characterized by light industry, factory outlets, welding shops, and quonset huts where auto body repair work is done. I found a parking spot in front of a place that made custom surfboards. I pulled in, watching in my rearview mirror until the group outside the mission had shuffled in. I locked the car then and crossed the street.
The Redemption Mission looks like it’s made out of papier-mache, a two-story oblong of fakey-looking fieldstone, with ivy clinging to one end. The roofline is as crenellated as a castle’s, the “moat” a wide band of asphalt paving. City fire codes apparently necessitated the addition of fire escapes that angle down the building now on all sides, looking somehow more perilous than the possibility of fire. The property is considered prime real estate and I wondered who would house the poor if the bed space were bought out from under them. For most of the year, the climate in this part of California is mild enough to allow the drifters to sleep outdoors, which they seem to prefer. Seasonally, however, there are weeks of rain … even occasionally someone with a butcher knife intent on slitting their throats. The mission offers safe sleeping for the night, three hot meals a day, and a place to roll cigarettes out of the wind.
I picked up cooking odors as I approached-bulk hamburger with chili seasoning. As usual, I couldn’t remember eating lunch and here it was nearly dinnertime again. The sign outside indicated prayer services at 7:00 every night and Hot Showers & Shaves on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. I stepped inside. The walls were painted glossy beige on top and shoe brown below. Hand-lettered signs pointed me to the