‘But look at me, chattering on. You didn’t come here to talk about my sons – I call them both my sons. Len’s my son-in-law really, but he’s like a son. They were legally married last summer, you know.’
‘I think that’s wonderful,’ Dorothy said. Mrs Franck beamed. ‘I’m so glad. A lot of people don’t understand, you know. They see two men… and you know. I admit I had a difficult time accepting it at first. But if you could see them – and then offering to take me in -I mean they’re just wonderful boys, and they do love one another. And then having all this…’
Looking around, Jeff took the opening. ‘Somebody must be doing very well already.’
Mrs Franck beamed. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘This place now. It’s a dream come true.’
‘It is beautiful,’ Dorothy said.
‘I don’t think even Celine did it justice,’ Jeff said, almost as an aside to Dorothy. ‘I’m glad we came down.’
‘Are you really going to feature it in the Chronicle?’ Jeff nodded. ‘It’s why we’re here. Celine told me I couldn’t do a complete feature on restored Victorians if I didn’t see this place. But I still think she sold it short – I don’t think there’s one in San Francisco that’s this nice.’
‘Well, if the boys come home, don’t even breathe a bad word about Celine. They won’t hear of it.’
‘You’re all pretty close, huh?’ Jeff had his notepad out. Mrs Franck nodded. ‘She must be the most generous person God ever put on this earth.’
‘She was a help, was she?’
Karl’s mother rolled her eyes to the heavens. ‘You can’t imagine! Anything we needed. You should have seen the place before, and now…’ She gestured to take it all in. ‘So, is Celine like a sponsor, or what?’ Jeff asked.
‘You know, that’s the funny thing. I think she just took a liking to Karl. He had been up in the city, trying to work out some things – they have a coach up there who’s really marvelous – and he met her at her club. She’s in fine shape herself, you know.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Well, you have to know Karl. But he is the sweetest man. Everyone loves him. The two of them – he and Celine – just got to be friends. I think he was a little lonely for Len, up there all alone in the city like he was. He needed someone to talk to, and you know he’s so faithful – he didn’t want to lead on any other men – so I guess he and Celine just clicked and he started telling her about his dreams, you know, his life, his career, this house he and Len wanted to fix up.’ Mrs Franck lowered her voice and leaned toward them across the table. ‘Celine’s very rich, you know. Her father was Owen Nash.’
Jeff and Dorothy both nodded.
‘It’s a terrible shame about her father, isn’t it, that poor man. Has that judge been found guilty yet?’
Jeff told her the trial was still going on.
‘Well, it’s just so awful, the whole thing. Especially for Celine.’ She sighed. ‘And on top of everything else.’
Dorothy spoke up. ‘Are other things hard for her too?’
‘Oh, you know, even the rich. Sometimes I think it’s almost harder for them.’
‘Why?’Jeff asked.
‘Oh, you know. All the people after their money. You never know if anyone’s sincere. I think that’s why she cares so much about Karl. I mean, before he even knew about the money, that she had money… well, he’s just always been there for her. He’d do anything for her. We all would. I think she just needs some friends she can count on, who don’t pester her. She needs a place to stay where it’s not a hotel, where she’s not Celine Nash, just a normal person.’
That’s nice,‘ Dorothy said, ’everybody needs that.‘
Mrs Franck nodded. ‘We just let her come and go. She’s got her own room – well, I guess you’ll see it when we go on up – Karl fixed it up for her especially. Lord knows, one thing this house has is enough rooms. But that’s Karl. He says this house is her house. She’s welcome even if we’re not here.’
‘Is that often?’ Jeff asked.
‘Oh, you know, with the boys competing, sometimes she’ll come down on a Thursday or Friday and we’ll all be going off for the weekend someplace – Long Beach or Las Vegas. We come back Sunday or Monday and she’ll have a dinner or something waiting for us. She’s really so great.’
The Monterey Bay Club had a listing of all the sanctioned weight-lifting events of 1992. On June 20-21, Saturday and Sunday, the Mr California regionals had been held in San Diego at the Mission Bay Inn.
Dorothy sat in a booth at the Pelican’s Nest just off the Santa Cruz boardwalk, sipping a Bloody Mary, checking the shine on her new diamond. The rain had picked up again, slanting sheets of water across the bay. Jeff was coming back from the pay telephones. He walked easily with the crutches, barely seeming to need them when he was hot on a lead like this one.
He slid into the booth and kissed her. ‘Karl Franck and his mother checked in with Len Hoeffner on Friday evening, June nineteenth. Both were listed as entrants in the pageant.’
‘So Celine wasn’t here?’
‘She might have been. She might have come down on Friday night to see them off. I’m sure there are plane records somewhere, but I don’t think Hardy’s going to need them.’
‘And she was back by Sunday.’ It wasn’t a question.
Jeff nodded. ‘And so far as the Francks knew or assumed, she was there all weekend. They weren’t even lying, as far as they knew, when they said so. She probably had a nice meal waiting for them when they got home and a story about a relaxed weekend doing nothing.’
‘Except for killing her father.’
Jeff stared out the window at the rain. ‘Except, maybe, for that.’
Hardy had gone down to pick up Frannie and Rebecca. He took them out to breakfast and then swung by their house again for another day’s clothes and baby supplies before dropping them back at her former mother-in-law’s. He probably wasn’t going to be back home all day anyway and he had some nagging notion that things could get dangerous. Maybe that was ridiculous, but he’d play it safe anyway. He’d feel more comfortable if his wife and child were out of harm’s way.
The other thing he had done was call Andy Fowler, still at Jane’s, and cancel their noon appointment to go over his trial testimony. He told him about Chomorro’s decision not to allow his line of questioning on the ‘backward’ collection of evidence.
Fowler had been low-key. ‘Listen, Diz, when you get me on the stand I’ll simply tell the truth. I did not kill Owen Nash and they haven’t proved I did. Their burden, remember. I think it’s a good idea to take the day off, get a little rest.’…Take the day off. Sure.
Now he was closing the Owen Industries security logbook. It hadn’t taken much time. He had reviewed the calls to and from Nash’s office for the two weeks prior to his death. There was one call to Celine, though it was on Monday, not Tuesday, hardly by itself a critical flaw in Celine’s testimony.
He was sitting at Ken’s desk at his office – the one so much like his own – at Owen Industries in South San Francisco. Farris had come down with his security supervisor – Gary Simpson – at eleven-thirty, then left the two men to find whatever it was Hardy was looking for.
Simpson sat, legs crossed and bored, across the desk from him. ‘Okay,’ Hardy said, ‘we’ve got one hit. You mind if we give it a listen.’
Simpson shrugged and stood up, stretching theatrically. He was a tall man in jeans and a flannel shirt. That’s what I’m here for.‘ He motioned with his head. ’Back this way.‘
They walked, Hardy following, down the red-tiled hallways and around a couple of corners. The door marked ‘Security’ was over-sized, double-locked with deadbolts. Simpson’s office was to the right inside, and there was a small anteroom with two waiting chairs, an end table and a coffee table, and, in contrast to the rest of the building, no plants anywhere. These rooms were much colder than the others. Simpson gestured for Hardy to follow him back.