“I have to write him a check for some brushes. Thanks.” I hung up before he could ask why I didn’t make it out to the Blind Center.
Fifteen minutes later, after only one wasted call, the personnel supervisor of Standard Oil in Point Richmond cautiously asked if he could call me back. I agreed, glad I had anticipated his precaution of ascertaining that All Souls Legal Cooperative really had a Ms. McCone who was checking Hetzer’s references for possible employment under their program to hire the handicapped. I rushed down the hall to tip Ted that we momentarily had a personnel director and sat back to await the call.
Sebastian Hetzer had worked in maintenance at the refinery since his discharge from the Army after Korea, the personnel man told me. The explosion and fire three years ago had been due to Hetzer’s negligence, but the company had given him a settlement. He had immediately entered the burn-care unit of Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco, and six months later had been referred to the Sunrise Blind Center.
What kind of worker was Hetzer?
Capable. He did have a tendency to let personal problems interfere with his work. At the time of his accident, he’d been preoccupied with financial troubles.
“What kind of financial troubles?”
The personnel man chuckled. Hetzer liked to play the ponies. He often had to borrow to make up for his losses at Golden Gate Fields. It was a common failing.
What about future employment with Standard Oil? I asked. What if Hetzer should regain his sight?
A pause. “Obviously you haven’t seen the man yet. His loss of sight was total, and there is no chance he could regain it. And, of course, he was very unpleasantly disfigured.”
My calls completed, I cleared my desk and got ready to leave. The stories I’d gotten from Clemente, Neverman and Sebastian might check out, but there was one that didn’t. It was what Mr. Moe had told me yesterday morning. I’d drive back home and confront him about it now.
At six-thirty, I arrived at the Albatross Superette. The store was empty once again, but I heard sounds out in the stockroom. I pushed the swinging door and looked in.
Mr. Moe stood with his back to me, lifting a squat green bottle from a carton. The harsh light of a bare bulb illuminated crates that held lettuce, oranges and canned goods.
I knocked on the doorframe. “Mr. Moe, can I talk to you a minute?”
The grocer started, and he dropped the bottle. It smashed on the concrete floor. A puddle of liquid ran toward my feet, and I smelled the sharp odor of gin.
“I’m sorry I startled you!” I exclaimed.
Mr. Moe waved me away from the encroaching tide. “It is all right. But, please, it is dirty back here. Come out front. I will take care of this mess later.” He shooed me into the store, latching the door of the stockroom.
“There was no difficulty about the check for Sebastian?” he asked. “The name I gave you was correct?”
“The check...” I’d almost forgotten the story I’d told him on the phone. “No, no difficulty.”
“Good.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the counter. In spite of his polite expression, I sensed he was jumpy and anxious to be rid of me.
“Mr. Moe, I need to talk to you privately. Can you...” I gestured at the door.
“It is the dinner hour. I will lose customers if I close now.” As if to emphasize his point, a man entered and asked for a carton of cigarettes. I waited while the grocer rang them up.
“All right, we can talk between customers,” I said. “You see, I’ve discovered that you didn’t tell me — or the police — the truth about the night before last.”
He frowned elaborately. “I do not understand.”
“I think you do. When I identified Molly’s body, I saw her groceries on the floor, the groceries from this store.”
“So you have said.” Mr. Moe glanced nervously as a woman came in and headed for the produce aisle.
“There were eggs, oranges, and frozen lima beans.” I paused. “The lima beans were still frozen. They had melted some, but not all that much.”
Mr. Moe’s eyes flickered and narrowed.
“You told me — and the police — that Molly bought those groceries around seven o’clock.”
“That is true.”
“No it isn’t. I believed you, initially. It fit, almost exactly, with the established time of death.”
The woman came out of the produce aisle with a head of lettuce. Mr. Moe rung it up, taking his time. When she had left, he turned to me. “I do not understand what is wrong, then.”
“Molly could have come in here at seven and returned home to surprise her killer — except for one thing.”
“And that is?”
“The lima beans. They would have melted more if they’d been lying there on the floor since a little after seven.”
He glanced at his watch. “Really, Miss McCone, I do not see what frozen vegetables have to do with this tragedy.”
“Let me explain, then.” I sat down on the wooden stool, smiling, as if this were a friendly visit.
His head moved toward the street entrance and then to the stockroom door. Obviously he was waiting for someone he didn’t want me to see.
“The lima beans,” I said, “should have melted more.”
He frowned nervously. “Why?”
“Because I bought some here last night and tested how long it took them to defrost. In four hours, they were mushy, not firm like the ones in Molly’s hall. Those had to have arrived at her apartment much later than you said.”
Again, the agitated glance at his watch.
I pressed my advantage. “Well, Mr. Moe?”
“Perhaps I was mistaken about the time. It was a very busy night.” He paused again and then udded with growing conviction, “Yes, I am certain it was just before I closed, at ten.”
A man came in. Mr. Moe jerked his head toward him, then relaxed. The man began looking over a rack of pipe tobacco.
I had the upper hand now. The grocer would tell me the truth, if only to be rid of me. “No, Mr. Moe. It couldn’t have been. By the time you closed, Molly had been dead nearly two hours. The police have established that scientifically.”
His mouth twitched. The man came up with a packet of tobacco and Mr. Moe rung it up, his hands shaking.
“Well?” I demanded.
He watched the man leave, then turned to me. What I could see of his eyes through the slits of his lids calculated rapidly. “All right, Miss McCone. I lied. I suppose you will report me to the police now.”
“Not if you tell the truth this time.”
He fingered the cash register keys. “That is fair. I will tell you. Mrs. Antonio called me with the grocery order. I often deliver to old ladies who are afraid to go out at night.”
“When was this?”
“She called at seven o’clock. I did not lie about the time. I told her I would deliver the order after I closed and swept up.”
“And you got there when?”
“Possibly ten thirty.”
“How did you get in?”
“Someone had left the front door open, and also the door to Mrs. Antonio’s apartment. At first, when she did not answer my knock, I thought she might have taken the garbage down or gone somewhere else in the building.”
“And?”
He spread his hands, which trembled more now. “I went in, and she was lying on the floor. I do not remember crying out, but I set the groceries down by the telephone. I must have knocked them over. I do not remember anything more until I arrived home, upstairs.” He motioned toward the ceiling. “All night I sat there in my front window. I saw Gus return from Ellen T’s. I saw the police arrive. The ambulance leave. I sat and watched the empty street until morning, when I had to open the store.”