A Radical Departure by Lia Matera

Author:Lia Matera
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

23

On the table in my bay window were some more hate letters. Funny how worked up strangers can get about things that don’t concern them and about which they know nothing (as witness the letters-to-the-editor page of any newspaper). The letter that interested me most contained details about the law school I’d attended. Its accusations had clearly come from a fellow alumnus. There are some crazy lawyers out there. Not that I needed the letter as proof.

Still, anonymous hatred, especially in a city full of lunatics, tends to make a person feel vulnerable. So I was glad to see Don Surgelato, for once. I opened my apartment door to him and even catered to his instinctive nosiness by showing him the letter from my fellow Malhousie alumn.

He shrugged it off. I guess it takes at least a mutilated corpse to perturb a homicide lieutenant. “You heard about the sentence?”

I pointed to my evening paper. The headline read, LAW SCHOOL MURDERER SENTENCED. “Fifteen years.”

“Know what that works out to, per person? Assuming the killer serves maybe two-thirds of the term—which, hell, with good behavior, we’d be lucky— Or what the trial cost the city? One-point-two million.”

I had no reason to be angry with the lieutenant, except that he reminded me of things I wanted to forget. “Is that why you’re not catching this killer? It’s thriftier not to?”

Surgelato looked peaked, as skinny as his barrel-chested, Italianate frame would allow. His skin looked pasty and his coarse hair had thinned on top, making his brows seem even thicker, even lower. “Look, I’m trying to keep this friendly, but you know something?” He dropped into a director’s chair. “You’re the only goddam person who was at all three murder scenes. You were sitting with Warneke when he got it, you were at your office when Mrs. Warneke—”

“She was alive when I left.”

“And you were at Caesar’s when—” He stopped, squinting at me. “Did you know Mae Siegel would be there? Was she supposed to be?”

“No to both questions.”

“So what was she doing?”

“I don’t know. Except that— Do you understand Teamster politics?” I explained about Jim Zissner and the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, about the upcoming election, and Zissner’s chances of winning it. “Mae was Zissner’s girlfriend. So she was particularly non grata with some of the people at the council.”

Surgelato pulled out a notebook and pen with University of San Francisco logos. I spelled out some names for him. Local 16 wouldn’t appreciate it, but I needed a favor from the lieutenant. I said, “René’s, the restaurant where Julian—where we had lunch that day. It’s Teamster, too. Did you know that? Local 16.”

Surgelato put his notebook away, watching me.

“I don’t usually volunteer information, I know. But I appreciate the fact that you’re keeping things friendly.”

“Do you, now?”

“And I thought as long as you were feeling friendly, you might answer a question for me.”

“Depends on the question, of course. If it doesn’t involve this case—”

“It does. But if I knew the answer— Look, if I fill you in on some office gossip …” I hesitated.

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