Dead Midnight by Marcia Muller Read Free Book Online Page A

stop by Houston’s flat. I drove over to Brannan Street and repeatedly rang the bell, but received no answer. When I dialed her number, I heard only her recorded voice. I left a message asking her to call me and saying that Daniel Nagasawa was concerned about her, then headed south to Palo Alto, reviewing my conversation with him and preparing for one with his youngest son.
    “I don’t have a clue about what was going on with Rog,” Eddie Nagasawa said.
    Not a clue, and he seemed strangely indifferent. Eddie was a handsome young man, stocky like his father, with a small gold loop in his right earlobe and a tiny tattoo of a spider above his left wrist bone. While the day was cool and overcast, he wore shorts and a sleeveless tee. He slouched in his chair at the Fine Eats restaurant on University Avenue, picking at something called a Feel Good Salad. I took a bite of my cheeseburger and for the second time that day mentally thanked Saskia and Elwood for their good genes; my metabolic system processes fat like most people’s do water.
    I asked, “What did Roger tell you about working at
In-Site
?”
    “Not much. He and I didn’t talk often. He was six years older than me and had been away at school since I was twelve. I didn’t really know him.”
    Hadn’t I said the same of Joey? That we’d never had a real conversation? But I’d been lashing out in anger, while Eddie seemed all too calm.
    “Your father said Roger was tense and irritable. Did you notice that too?”
    “Couldn’t help but. One time I tried to talk with him about the ’zine—it’s cool, and my friends were curious about what it was like to work there—and he practically reamed me out. After that we kind of avoided each other.”
    “You saw him at the house?”
    “On weekends.” His mouth quirked up. “I bet when you talked with Dad he told you what a leech I am. Always coming home with the dirty laundry.”
    “Well, yes.”
    “I can hear him: ‘My boys won’t get outta the house. All our friends’re empty nesters, but not us. We can’t get them to leave.’ Secretly he loves it. He knows we keep coming back because he and Mom are terrific.” He frowned and pushed his salad away. “I hate what Rog did to them. They didn’t deserve that.”
    So he
was
angry. “Suicide’s a pretty hateful act.”
    “It ruins everything.” He pushed back from the table, threw his balled-up napkin on the remains of the salad. “Why’d he have to come home, anyway? Why didn’t he just stay back east? I mean, we were all doing great, and then there’s Rog dragging around the house like a zombie. Next thing he’s bought this flat and can’t even bother to come over to dinner. I mean, what’s dinner once or twice a month? But no, he neglects and hurts Mom and Dad, then he throws himself off the bridge. And now everything’s ruined.”
    “In what way?”
    The anger was out now, sparking in his eyes, making him clench his thighs with his hands. A couple at the next table glanced over at the sound of his raised voice, quickly looked away.
    “You wanta know how? Dad’s obsessed with this lawsuit. He says he’s gonna get the people who forced Rog to kill himself. Well, bullshit! Nobody forces you to do that. And Mom—she finally couldn’t take it anymore. She moved out of the house and is living in her office, for Christ’s sake. Me, I don’t go home anymore. And Harry—Jesus!”
    “What about Harry?”
    “I guess you haven’t talked with him yet.”
    “No.”
    “Well, when you do, you’ll see what Rog did to him.”
    I’d planned to ask Eddie about Roger’s final e-mail to him, as well as about the insurance policy his brother had wanted him to help Jody Houston locate, but that would have to wait till another time. After his angry outburst he’d abruptly ended our interview, saying he had to get to class. After walking back to the parking garage where I’d left my car, I took out my phone and began to make calls; its battery was