Free Dead Midnight by Marcia Muller Page A

and quit his job this afternoon. Harsh words were exchanged. So Ted’s afraid to go home, and he and Craig’re on a pub crawl.”
    Great. Now I had to worry about Neal, alone and miserable, while Ted, who couldn’t hold his liquor, was out drinking with Craig, who could, and would probably tempt him to spectacular excess. Well, that was their problem—for now, anyway.
    The health club was a twenty-four-hour operation, and the large windows that fronted on the sidewalk were awash with light. Inside, a dozen or so spandex-suited individuals used various instruments of torture, bearing grim expressions born of a determination to achieve bodily perfection. I’ve never understood why you would want your sweaty efforts displayed to every passerby—isn’t it something better done in private?—but most fitness centers seem to favor this form of free advertising.
    The lobby was empty, with no one at the horseshoe-shaped reception desk. The pay phone was in an alcove tucked between the entrances to the men’s and women’s locker rooms. I went back there and looked around, but there was no trace of the person who’d recently used it. Then I went to the entrance to the exercise room and studied the people. They were all concentrating on their machines and didn’t notice me.
    Well, what did I expect? The caller wasn’t likely to have remained on the premises to work on his or her abs.
    A black woman with curly auburn hair came through a door behind the desk marked Office. “Help you?” she asked.
    “Maybe. A friend called me about half an hour ago from the pay phone. I was supposed to meet her here, but I don’t see her. Is there someplace she might be besides the exercise room?”
    “She a member?”
    “I guess.”
    “What’s her name?”
    “Uh, Jody Houston.” Since she’d lived next door, she might have been a member; if she was, maybe the woman would let me look around.
    She went to her computer and tapped in the name. “Sorry, we’re not showing her.”
    “Maybe you saw her make the call?”
    “I haven’t seen anybody on the phone tonight, but I’ve been in and out of the office, so I could’ve missed her.”
    I glanced toward the signs for the pool, racquetball courts, and juice bar. “Could I—?”
    “Sorry. Members only.”
    “I understand. Thanks anyway.”
    “Hope you find your friend.”
    As I went out I reflected on the phone call. Implied threat there, and I suspected it was directed at Jody Houston, who had told me she had a key to Roger’s flat. Someone was watching the building, had seen the light. But why use a booth that was so close by, whose number Houston could have traced as easily as I had?
    Of course—that was part of the threat:
I’m right here. I can find you any time I want.
    There were three messages on my home machine, two of them predictable and one intriguing.
    My brother John: “Just calling to see how you are. After you left last week, I realized you were talking like you did because you’re pissed at Joey. Well, guess what? So am I. We need to discuss this.”
    Not tonight, John.
    Neal: “I guess you’ve heard that I quit. I’m not cut out for the job, and I should’ve known I couldn’t work with Ted. Sorry for all my screwups. If you know where he is, will you call me?”
    In a minute, Neal.
    J.D. Smith: “Okay, Shar, I’ve got a sweet deal for you. So pick up … Are you screening your calls? No, you wouldn’t screen this one. Why aren’t you home, goddamn it? All right, I guess it can wait till morning. I’ll see you at Miranda’s at nine for breakfast. You’re gonna love my plan.”

Thursday
    APRIL 19
    To the casual passerby Miranda’s would seem to be an ordinary waterfront dive. Gray weathered clapboard with salt-caked windows, it teetered on pilings over the bay’s brackish shallows, clinging tenuously to mainstream San Francisco. It, as well as the nearby Boondocks and Red’s Java House, were already on the city’s endangered-species