BERNHARDT WAS AT THE sink shredding lettuce when the doorbell rang. He put the lettuce in a plastic bag, put the bag in the refrigerator, dried his hands. In the rear garden, having heard the doorbell, Crusher was loudly barking, demanding admittance. Whereupon, by way of greeting, the Airedale would jump up on Bernhardt’s guest—any guest. Ignoring the dog, Bernhardt called out, “Just a minute, please.” He walked to his office, where his corduroy jacket was draped over a chair. He was a tall, lean, angular man, slightly stooped. His face was unmistakably Semitic: a high-bridge, slightly beaked nose, a broad forehead, a full mouth. Like the body, the darkly pigmented face was angular, deeply lined in a pattern that suggested both reflection and sadness. The dark, perceptive eyes were also reflective, also sad. In his mid-forties, Bernhardt had thick, unruly hair that was flecked with grey. The rhythm of his movements was neither graceful nor without grace. But he moved purposefully, meaningfully. He wore a soft button-down tattersall shirt without a tie, slacks that needed pressing, and loafers that needed polishing. His corduroy jacket was creased for comfort, not style.
He took a sheaf of files from his visitor’s chair, considered, decided to place the files atop a bookcase, precariously balanced. Then he went to the front door, drew the bolt, and greeted Carley Hanks. She was a small woman, a blue-eyed blonde with a shy smile and a soft, hesitant voice. She wore an oversize cable-knit white cotton sweater, khaki safari pants with expanding patch pockets, and scuffed running shoes. Her shoulder-length hair was loose; she wore no makeup or jewelry.
Bernhardt was the first to speak: “So how does your mother like Santa Barbara?”
“I don’t think she likes it much. She grew up in San Francisco, and she misses it here.” She spoke calmly, concisely. Her eyes were steady. In person, Bernhardt was deciding, she was more decisive than her telephone manner suggested.
“Give her my very best wishes,” Bernhardt said. “She’s a good actress. Better than a lot of pros.”
“She’s doing a little theater in Santa Barbara.” It was a grudging admission. Could it be, Bernhardt speculated, that Emily Hanks liked Santa Barbara more than her daughter was willing to acknowledge, another sad story of divorce?
Bernhardt nodded. “Good. I’m glad to hear she’s acting.”
“She says you write plays—that you wrote a play that was produced off-Broadway.”
Bernhardt’s smile turned reflective, then wry. “That was a long time ago, I’m afraid.”
“Still—Broadway.”
“Off Broadway. There’s a big difference.” Now the wry smile twisted inward as he said, “Which is why I’m a part-time private detective.”
“Mother says you have an interest in the Howell Theater.”
“That’s yet another reason I moonlight. Most little theaters are supported. Not vice versa.”
“Hmm …” Carley frowned.
“So tell me about your friend,” Bernhardt said. “What’s her name again?” He drew a notepad closer, clicked a ballpoint pen.
“It’s Diane Cutler. And I’m afraid that—”
“Wait.” He raised a hand. “Before we get into that—her problem—give me a rundown on her.”
She frowned again. “Rundown?”
“Vital statistics. Age, marital status. What kind of work she does. Her history, in other words.”
“Oh.” She nodded earnestly. “Okay. Well, she’s my age. Eighteen. And we grew up together. Ever since we were both five years old, we lived within two blocks of each other.”
“Were you best friends?”
Gravely, she nodded. “Yes. At least, we were until we were about fifteen. And then—” She drew a long, deep, heavily laden breath. “And then our parents both got divorced. It was within just a few months of each other, that they got divorced. And then—” Now her clear blue eyes went dull, clouded by regret. “Then, also just within a few months of each other, our mothers both got married again, and moved away. My mom went to Santa Barbara, and Diane’s mom went to New York. She married Preston Daniels. Have you ever heard of him?”
“Sure.” Bernhardt nodded. “The real estate tycoon.”
“Yeah.” It was a sarcastic acknowledgment. “Right.”
“You don’t think much of Preston Daniels, I gather.”
“That’s right, I don’t.”
“Have you ever met him?”
“Yes. They have a place on Cape Cod. A wonderful beach house. I spent a week there, last summer.”
“Does Diane live in New York?”
“She’s going to college. Or, at least, she was going to college. She just finished her freshman year at Swarthmore. But her father lives here, in San Francisco. He’s remarried, just like my dad. He’s a lawyer—Diane’s dad, I mean. His name is Cutler. Paul Cutler. So, a week or two ago, Diane came out here—drove out here, in her car. See—” Earnestly, she leaned toward Bernhardt. Carley Hanks had come to the crux of it, the reason she desperately sought help. “See, she had a terrible fight with her mother. And with her stepfather, too. Daniels. So—” She spread her hands, evoking the eternal plight of the powerless teenager. “So she came out here, to San Francisco. Except that she doesn’t get along with her stepmother, either. So—” As if she were admitting to a defeat, she grimly shook her head. “So she’s staying with me.”
“It sounds like Diane has problems with both her stepparents.” Watching her, Bernhardt spoke quietly, evenly.
“Yeah, well—” She broke off, considered, then decided to say, “Well, the truth is, the past couple of years, Diane’s been pretty hard to get along with herself.”
“What about her and her father?” He glanced at his notes. “Paul Cutler. Do they get along?”
“Yes, they do. But she can’t live with him and his wife.”
“Do you think she’s talked to her father since she arrived in San Francisco, told him what was bothering her?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” But, even as he asked the question, he knew it was meaningless. The answer was lost in the mystery of the parent-child relationship.
“What about you?” he asked. “Will she talk to you?”
“She tells me a little. But not enough. That’s why I called you. Sometimes strangers can help more than friends or family. You know—like psychiatrists.”
“On my machine, you said Diane’s in trouble. What kind of trouble?”
She looked away, shifted in her chair. The body language was definitive: she was deciding how much to tell him—and how much not to tell. Finally she admitted: “The fact is—the truth is—that the past year or two, Diane’s done more—” She looked away, bit her lip.
“She’s done more drugs than she should have,” Bernhardt offered. “Is that what you were going to say?”
Sadly, she nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.”
“What kinds of drugs does she do?” There was an edge to Bernhardt’s voice, a sharpness in his eyes. If Diane Cutler was a junkie, he would stay clear. It was the second lesson he’d learned. The first lesson was to always get a retainer.
“She drinks a lot, and she smokes a lot of dope.”
“That’s it?”
“She also takes pills. Lots of pills. And if she does the pills with the booze, she gets really spaced out.”
“How about cocaine?”
“I’m sure she’s tried it. But she’s not really hooked. I’d know if she was doing a lot of it.”
“Heroin?”
“No, not heroin.”
“So she does booze and grass and pills.”
Gravely, she nodded.
“You say she gets spaced out. What’s that mean?”
“She just kind of—kind of floats off.”
“Would you say she’s self-destructive? Does she get in car accidents, things like that?”
“No, nothing like that. She loves her car. If she drinks too much, pops too many pills, she’s extra careful.”
Judiciously, he nodded. “That’s a good sign.”
Carley nodded in return. “I thought so too. Except that she’s so—so sad. So terribly sad. It’s like she’s got nowhere to go. Nowhere at all.”
“Is she suicidal, would you say?”
Hopelessly—helplessly—she shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“This trouble she’s in, has it got anything to do with drugs? A supplier that wants his money?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.”
Thinking now about the time he’d already put in, Bernhardt spoke crisply now, all business: “So what’s the problem you called about, Carley?”
“I called you because she’s scared. So scared, and so—so lost. That’s the only way I can say it.”
“Scared of what? Scared of who?”
“I don’t know. The only way I get any information is when she’s high, lets things slip out, and I piece them together. Otherwise, when she isn’t high, she won’t talk about it. But it’s got something to do with—” She swallowed. “It’s got something to do with murder. Maybe with two murders.” Her voice was hushed. Her eyes were very blue, very round.
“Do you mean that she was a witness to murder? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I—I don’t know, Mr. Bernhardt. I honest to God don’t know. All I know is that she’s afraid. Deathly afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid that she’ll be killed.”
He studied her for a long, thoughtful moment. Yes, she believed it, believed Diane Cutler was in mortal danger.
“So how do you think I can help?”
“Well, I—I was thinking that if you talked to her, maybe you could find out what happened. You know, the way people talk to their psychiatrists, like I said. And if you could get some information from the police, maybe, then you could advise her.”
“You say she’s living with you.”
“Yes.”
“Where do you live?” He drew the notepad closer.
“At forty-one-seventy-four Noe. That’s in Noe Valley, between Clipper and Twenty-sixth Street.”
“What’s your schedule? Do you work?”
“Yes. Nine to five. Not today, though. The owner of the business died.”
“What about Diane? What’s she do during the day?”
She shrugged. “Hangs around. Reads. Drives her car.”
“What kind of building do you live in?”
“It’s a lot like this place—a big old Victorian that’s been cut up into four apartments. They’re small apartments, though. One bedroom.” As she spoke, she looked wistfully around Bernhardt’s office, originally the flat’s master bedroom. “I wish I had a place like this—a flat with a garden and everything. This is great.”
“Thanks.” Bernhardt rose from behind the desk, went to the window that looked out across a small front garden to the street. He stood for a long moment with his back to Carley Hanks, a Holmesian pantomime of deep, reflective thought. It was, Bernhardt admitted to himself, a deliberate actor’s turn, calculated to impress. But, after all, the best investigators were the best actors; fiction was the investigator’s best tool.
Finally he turned to face his visitor as he said, “There’s my fee—forty dollars an hour for most things, sometimes a little less for surveillance. And there’s a two-hundred-dollar minimum, for something like this. That’s—ah—in advance. I don’t charge for what we’re doing now, for the first consultation. But after that, I charge.”
While he’d been talking, she’d looked at him steadily, undismayed. Carley Hanks could pay the freight, then. And, confirming it, she opened her big saddle-leather shoulder bag, rummaged, and came up with a checkbook, all in one single, self-assured movement of the hands. “I’ve decided to go up to five hundred dollars,” she said. “After that, maybe we’ll have to hit up Mr. Cutler.” She opened the checkbook, then looked at him directly, all business now. “Is that one ‘l’ in Alan?”
Amused, Bernhardt smiled. “Right. And there’s a ‘d’ in Bernhardt.”