Martinis and Mayhem Read online

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Fletcher. I hope you don’t think this is pushy of me, but I knew you were in town and figured that maybe—well, I bought your book and kept it here just in case you happened to come by.” A wide smile lit up her face. “And here you are.”

  “Yes. Here I am.”

  “Would you be good enough to autograph it for me?”

  “Of course.” She handed me the book, and the ballpoint pen she carried. I opened the book. “Who shall I sign it to?”

  “Frances.”

  “Okay, Frances.” I started to write, but the pen had run dry.

  “I’ll get another,” she said.

  “No need,” I said. “I have a dozen of them in my bag.”

  I unzippered the bag and pulled it up onto my lap, surprised again at its weight. I fumbled in its recesses for one of the Flair pens I always carry for just such occasions. “What’s this?” I asked myself. There was a hefty black leather-bound book. It wasn’t mine. I’d never seen it before. Whose was it? How did it get there?

  I started to remove it but remembered Frances standing next to me. I fished out a pen and signed her book: “To Frances. I have a favorite aunt named Frances. Let’s hope you and I aren’t ‘blood relations’ or we may never meet again. Best, Jessica Fletcher.”

  I handed her the book, saying, “You’ll understand why I wrote what I did after you finish it.”

  Blood Relations turned out to be one of my more graphic novels. It hinged on the mysterious deaths of a half-dozen blood relatives, some of whom had never even met each other before. The reviews have been kind, although one did point out the uncharacteristically gory details in the novel—uncharacteristic for this writer, at least. The reviewer wrote: “Blood is to Blood Relations what showers are to Psycho. You’ll never feel the same about blood again—relatively speaking.”

  I supposed he couldn’t resist the pun at the end, although I wish he had.

  Frances, the waitress, offered to buy me a drink, but I graciously declined. I’d barely touched my martini, and two were out of the question. I looked out the window. The fog had now enveloped the city itself; visibility appeared to be zero. It was a moody atmosphere, the stuff good British mystery movies are made of. Inside the Top of the Mark, it was cozy and secure. I ordered an appetizer of a sampling of cheeses and fruits, took a sip of my martini, took out the unfamiliar, imposing black notebook from my bag, and began to read.

  November I. My first day in prison. As they say, the first day of the rest of my life. I want to scream, “I didn’t do it.” I want to tell the other inmates, the guards, everyone I see. “I’m not like you. I didn’t do it. I don’t know who killed my husband but I didn’t.” I guess I’m supposed to believe that God knows I didn’t kill Mark. But given the lack of my religious faith, I guess Santa Claus knows I didn’t do it either. I have just two questions as I begin my days and nights here in Hell—How did I get here, and how do I get out? Goodnight.

  I pondered which of the female inmates present at my presentation had surreptitiously placed the journal in my bag. I looked everywhere for a name but couldn’t find one.

  As I took another sip of my martini, my thoughts went back to the pretty woman with blond hair who’d asked the question about a convicted murderer’s innocence. For some reason, I was certain the diary belonged to her. But how, when did she manage to slip it into my bag? Of course. During the brief break when I went to the bathroom. I’d left my bag behind. Camille was there, but was busy talking. I continued reading.

  I have one goal while spending my time here, and that is to once again feel the burning desire to write books for children. Writing for children is the one passion in my life. I miss it so. But the only way I will be able to do that is to be emancipated from here. in order to write for children, one has to always be aware of their innocence, and be careful not to disturb it in any way. A child’s innocence is precious and vulnerable. Being forced to spend my days and nights here is a stark contradiction. I was robbed of my innocence when I was a child. Now I’ve been robbed of it again. I am innocent of this crime. I remember as a child feeling the same overwhelming emotion—to scream to someone, anyone, to remind them of my innocence, and of my right to live my life as that innocent being.

  Kimberly Steffer!

  Of course. The inmate who’d written this journal was Kimberly Steffer, convicted of having murdered her husband, Mark Steffer. It had happened in California, San Francisco. She was a noted author of children’s books. I was willing to bet that it was Kimberly who’d asked me that afternoon about wrongly convicted murder suspects.

  I thought back to the book that my friend Neil had written, Scarlet Sins. I wished I’d read it, at least that chapter, on the plane. I certainly would the minute I returned to my room at the St. Francis. The diary, too. It looked like I was in for a long evening of reading. I paid my check, cabbed back to the hotel, ordered up room service, ate, filled the tub with hot water and a bath gel, sunk into the sea of luxurious bubbles, and propped open Neil’s book and started.

  Chapter Four

  “Nice story, Bill. And factually correct. I always appreciate accuracy, especially when it’s about me.”

  I was sitting in the office of Bill Hudson, the San Francisco Chronicle’s features editor. He’d interviewed me, and written a story that had run in Wednesday’s paper. I’m always on my guard when being interviewed. Too often, reporters put words in my mouth in order to make their piece say what they want it to say, which is not necessarily synonymous with what I’d actually said. Happily, that hadn’t been the case with Hudson’s article.

  “Coming from you, Jessica, I consider it quite a compliment,” Hudson said. “Glad you liked it. To tell you the truth, though, when you called yesterday to say you wanted to meet with me, I was worried. I thought you had a problem with the article.”

  “Oh, no. Hardly,” I said. “You worried over nothing.”

  Hudson was an average-looking fellow, about thirty-eight years old, medium height, slender build, wavy brown hair, and muddy brown eyes. Brown slacks, brown tie, and a brown tweed jacket completed his earth-tone image.

  His writing, however, was above average. He had a lively style that was visual and anecdotal. I could see why he’d risen quickly at the Chronicle, having become features editor in two short years.

  “You know, Jessica, I was thinking after the interview that you should do your life story. Not only are you this country’s preeminent writer of murder mysteries, you’ve ended up solving your share.”

  “Just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I said.

  “Very modest. But there’s a lot more to your life than that. It could be fascinating, to say nothing of inspiring for many people, especially writers. Like this writer.”

  I think I blushed.

  “Hey,” he said, startling me with his sudden enthusiasm. “Since you like the piece I wrote about you so much, keep me in mind if you’re looking for a collaborator on your autobiography. Maybe I could be your Boswell.”

  “But your name is Hudson.”

  “Ill change it. So, to what do I owe this honor of a second meeting with you?”

  Because the walls of his small cubicle didn’t reach all the way to the ceiling, I spoke softly. “I’m interested in a murder case that took place in San Francisco a couple of years ago. Kimberly Steffer. She was accused and convicted of killing her husband, Mark. She’s doing her time in the Women’s Correctional Facility.”

  He nodded in recognition, at the same time struggling with a balky top on his styrofoam coffee cup. “Sure,” he said. “Big case here. Got lots of media play. I didn’t cover it, but half the staff got involved at one time or another. How ’bout we go to the morgue and see what we can find?”

  I followed him from the cubicle and down a narrow hall lined with similar spaces until we reached the paper’s “morgue,” that important function of any newspaper or magazine in which a complete record of everything appearing in the p
ublication is catalogued and filed. It was a small, crowded room this morning. Bill gestured for me to take a seat next to him in front of a computer. He punched up the name STEPPER, KIMBERLY. “Here we go,” he said. “I’ll leave you to read the articles. Just pull up each of the files you want to look at by placing the cursor in front of the file name, and press ENTER. Pretty basic stuff.”

  I hoped so. While making the switch from writing on a manual typewriter to writing on a computer, I practically had to enlist in a Twelve Step program. After what seemed to be an eternity of agonizing days and countless mistakes, I reached a point where I’m now able to log on, write, edit, and store. But that’s about it.

  But Hudson’s instructions were easy enough. I successfully pulled up the first file.

  Kimberly Steffer, wife of restaurateur Mark Steffer, who was found shot to death in his car earlier this week, has been arrested and charged in that murder. Mrs. Steffer, who holds dual citizenship in the United States and the United Kingdom, was arrested at her home in Sausalito late last night.

  I pulled up several more files; each story had been written by a reporter named Bobby McCormick. I looked around the morgue in search of Bill Hudson, who was planted in front of another computer screen. “Bill,” I said.

  “Over here,” he said. “Finding what you need?”

  “Yes. Is a reporter named Bobby McCormick still with the paper?”

  “I might be in a morgue, but I ain’t dead yet” came a voice from over my left shoulder. I turned to face a tall, grinning bear of a man with a day’s growth of beard. His gray-and-brown hair was sparse on top but long on the sides, pulled back into a ponytail secured by a red-and-gold band. He wore chino pants, sneakers sans socks, a plaid button-down shirt open at the neck, and a stained yellow tie pulled down into a tiny, tight knot. “Bobby McCormick,” he said. “At your service.” He extended his hand.

  “Behave yourself, Bobby,” Hudson said, draping an arm easily over his colleague’s shoulder. “This is Jessica Fletcher. The Jessica Fletcher.”

  “Of course it is,” said McCormick. “Hardly an unfamiliar face, especially if you read stories in the Chronicle by Bill Hudson. I won’t say I’ve read all your books, but a good number of them. Pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “The feeling is mutual,” I said. “The reason I asked if you were still with the paper is that I see you covered the Kimberly Steffer trial extensively.”

  “Sure did. And I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up covering another Kimberly Steffer trial.”

  “Really? I’d be interested in knowing why. Would you spend a couple of minutes talking with me about the Steffer case? I’m—well, I’m very interested in it.”

  “Be my pleasure.”

  “Wonderful,” I said. I liked Bobby McCornick. He was obviously a character, a throwback to the image of a beat reporter from another era.

  “Give me a couple of minutes?” he said. “Just have to finish up something here.”

  “Of course. Take your time.”

  “Come on,” said Bill Hudson. “I’ll take you to Bobby’s office.” He said to McCormick, “Can we get in it this morning?”

  “If you’re lucky.”

  “Bobby’s office is not what you’d call an oasis of neatness and order,” Hudson said as he led me from the morgue. “But at least he has a real office, not one of the cubicles. That’s what happens when you become a living legend like Bobby. He’s been the crime reporter here for twenty years, maybe more. He’s the best. Crime’s a tough beat.”

  Bobby’s office reminded me of a bachelor’s pad. Did he live as well as work there? It was chockablock with books, magazines, yellow copy paper, and empty boxes. Clothing was tossed in every comer, and a dozen dirty coffee cups perched precariously on stacks of old newspapers. Tasteless calendars of naked women hung on the walls; some were four years old. The date, not the models. A life-size poster of John Lennon and the Beatles took up most of one wall. Framed photos and plaques dominated another. A computer screen peeked out from where it was partially buried beneath some shirts.

  My nose started to itch; a major sneeze was in the offing. I figured the room hadn’t been dusted for the duration of McCormick’s tenure at the paper.

  Bill Hudson blessed me, and laughed. “I have an interview to do in a couple of minutes. Make yourself at home, if that’s possible. Stop by my cubicle on your way out.”

  “Shall do. And thanks for everything.”

  I didn’t sit because there was no place to sit, except for McCormick’s chair behind the desk. The only other chair in the room was piled high with record albums. I perused the top LPs. All rock ’n’ roll from another time.

  I was in the process of reading plaques on the wall, mostly awards McCormick had garnered from area press associations, when he entered the office. “Well, Mrs. Fletcher, welcome to McCormick’s lair. Ask me to find anything. There’s a place for everything in here, including its occupant.” He struggled past debris to reach his chair and fell heavily into it. Then he slung his large feet up onto the desk, realized I had no place to sit, came back around to where I stood, removed the albums from the visitor’s chair and put them on the floor. Finally, he gestured for me to take the seat. He made his way back to his chair, got his feet up on the desk again, and smiled. “So, have you come here to steal some good plot ideas? The world’s getting weirder and weirder. Don’t need fiction anymore, do we? It’s got to the point where a fiction writer’s imagination can’t hold a goddamn candle to real life.”

  “Right you are,” I said, shaking my head. “It makes my job that much tougher. Yours, too, I imagine.”

  “Yeah, it does. When I first came here, I covered what I call ‘monotonous murder.’ Same story, different cast of characters. Now the stuff I see turns even my stomach. And I’ve got a stomach made of steel, Mrs. Fletcher. Chili peppers go down easy and stay that way. Never took a Turn in my life. But the way people go around killing other people these days chums me up now and then. Some of it’s not even fit for a family newspaper, but readers are different these days, too. Can’t get enough blood and guts it seems. Weirdness on all sides. Surrounded by it.”

  I listened patiently as he continued his take on the deterioration of the human condition.

  “But not up to me to judge anybody, huh, Mrs. Fletcher? I have a job to do. I do it. They want gore, I give ’em gore. Factual gore. Not like the gore you make up in your books.” He let out a thunderous laugh, ending with a coughing spasm which, along with a massive filled-to-the-brim ashtray, testified to a two-pack-a-day smoking habit. Probably why he’s got his own office, I thought. The air in the room was stale and odorous. The newsroom was undoubtedly a smoke-free zone. Same with the cubicles lined up next to each other, with their open tops that allow smoke to drift from one to the other. Unpleasant for nonsmokers.

  “Move over, Stephen King,” McCormick continued. “Move over, Jessica Fletcher. Here comes real life.” He lit a cigarette, coughed, and spread his hands out in a welcoming gesture. “So, where do we begin?” he asked, eyeing several “While You Were Out” memos.

  “What did you mean when you said you wouldn’t be surprised to be covering another Kimberly Steffer trial?”

  He replied without looking up, “I said that, Mrs. Fletcher, because I don’t think Kimberly Steffer is guilty.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s right. Nothing ever really linked her to the crime except a bunch of goddamn coincidences. In my opinion, if you ask me—and it looks like you are—I think she was framed. Set up. Her attorney tried to get that across to the jury but fell flat on his smug face. They never found the gun. They found her fingerprints in the car, but it was her husband’s car, for crying out loud. Why wouldn’t her fingerprints be in there? Her biggest mistake was going to the mall the day he was found murdered. And that could have been coincidental. But they found receipts in her purse that showed she’d been there that day, and the jury latched on to it because the prosecutor m
ade damn sure they did.”

  Still not looking at me, he continued.

  “Yeah, sure, the cabdriver who allegedly picked up a woman fitting Steffer’s description at the mall that day made points for the prosecution. But hell, he wore glasses thick as Coke bottles. And the testimony from other so-called prosecution witnesses was weak. Who were they?” He glanced at me. I shrugged. “I’ll tell you who they were. Her husband’s ex-wife, and the ex-wife’s best friend. You look up the word ‘biased’ in any dictionary, you see pictures of those witnesses.”

  I laughed.

  “Not funny.”

  “I—”

  He lit up another cigarette. I now viewed him through a blue smoky haze. “Unfortunately, the jury bought it,” he said. “The prosecuting attorney did a hell of a good job pinning the rap on Kimberly Steffer. Her attorney was a pompous dunce. She didn’t have a chance.”

  “Mr. McCormick, is—”

  “Call me Bobby. Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m too old to be called Bobby. But one look at me, and you know I’m not a ‘Robert.’ ‘Bob’ sounds dumb to me, like some dork in a bad radio commercial. So it’s always been Bobby.”

  “All right. Bobby it is. Bobby, is Kimberly Steffer currently at the Women’s Correctional Facility?”

  “Yup. She’ll be there a long time unless she can come up with some hot-shot attorney with brains this time around to get her another trial. So, Mrs. Fletcher, how come you’re interested in this case?”

  “Jessica,” I said. “Or, Jess.”

  “Right. So? What’s with the interest in Kimberly Steffer?”

  “I was at the Women’s Correctional Facility yesterday. I spoke to some of the inmates about writing. I think one of the women in the audience was Kimberly Steffer. At least I assume it was her. She asked some interesting questions. I’ve been thinking about her ever since. There’s a quality to her—if it was Kimberly Steffer—that’s appealing.” I didn’t intend to tell McCormick, or anyone else for that matter, about the diary she’d planted in my bag. He’d want to see it, but it would be an act of betrayal on my part to share it with anyone—unless, of course, there was a compelling reason, a reason that would help Steffer.