Death in North Beach Read Online Free Page A

need the details.’

Three
    â€˜Let’s go get lunch,’ Lang said, looking up at Carly.
    â€˜Now?’
    â€˜It’s early afternoon. While some folks may prefer lunch at midnight, I’m told many people often eat lunch this time of day,’ he said.
    â€˜Some people . . .’ She halted. Whatever she was going to say, she thought better of it. She took note of Lang’s sandy good looks, rougher than William’s smooth beauty. Interesting to compare men, she thought. Lang was a straight-on kind of guy. William seemed to cultivate mystery. Both were charming in their ways. Then there was Thanh. What was she to make of him? Or her?
    â€˜It’ll take a while to find a parking place in North Beach,’ Lang said. ‘We can get a bite to eat, talk about your list and get the lay of the land.’
    She nodded. It made sense, her expression seemed to say. She had been hesitant at first, but in the end she just blurted out her request for him to assist in the new case.
    He understood why she needed help with the investigation. There were a dozen names on the list. And often, in these cases, one name led to another. It would take forever for one person to track them all down, interview them, follow up on leads they provided and put it all in perspective.
    The wallet that Gratelli extracted from Warfield’s soggy suit contained mushy bills, some unreadable notes on paper tucked in every little orifice, a check-cashing card, a charge card, a library card, and a San Francisco Museum of Modern Art membership card. A key ring and some change were found in his trousers. Inside the left front breast pocket of his suit jacket was a notebook. Also soggy. There was no pen. Gratelli thought that a writer, one who carried a notebook, would also have a pen. He concluded that the pen in Warfield’s neck was the author’s own.
    Live by the pen, die by the pen. The pen is mightier . . . Gratelli let his thoughts trail off.
    The lab worked on the notebook. It was far too delicate an operation for Gratelli to undertake the separation of the wet pages and the preservation of the writing on them. The notebook was back at his desk in the Homicide Detail office in hours and some names were legible. There were also a few phone numbers. Throughout the morning, Gratelli made the calls, looking up numbers for names without numbers and calling the numbers that were legible. He made half a dozen of these calls and two of them volunteered hearsay that Warfield had made a spectacle of himself again at Alighieri’s, a bar just off Grant, and that he had argued with a man who one person identified as William. William was commonly thought a gigolo, said the man. By mid-morning Gratelli, through a series of additional calls and callbacks, used various sets of information to pull out other information. In hours, he had tracked one William Blake to an expensive home on Telegraph Hill, a home that he did not own. When police arrived, William Blake was either not at home or he wasn’t answering the door. Gratelli had the home watched.
    The widow, Mrs Elena Warfield, preferred coming to the office rather than have the police at her home.
    She was dark-haired, obviously Italian – still had a slight accent. He would guess of peasant stock. He chided himself at the observation, but forgave himself. Gratelli would boast of his own peasant stock – plain-spoken people who worked the earth. It wasn’t really a slight, though he would not relate his observations to her.
    Elena Warfield, a big woman with a hard to ignore ample bosom, meant to be cooperative, but she was not helpful. She had no idea about any book or why anyone would want to kill her husband. She often, she said, didn’t know where he went and just as often wasn’t the least bit curious. She had her friends. And he had his.
    â€˜And your son?’ Gratelli asked.
    She shook her head as if she had been beaten