by Lia Matera
“No.” He shook his head, his eyes narrowing to woeful slits. “It’s personal.”
“Personal? Wally, I’m your lawyer. Our relationship is not ‘personal.’“
Bean’s voice dropped to a husky pout. “Just my lawyer?”
I looked at him and suddenly understood. That was all I needed—the puppy love of a psychopath. Hal stepped up beside me and put his arm around my shoulder.
“Where are you staying, Wally?”
“No place. I’m broke. I thought maybe I could—” He looked meaningfully at my couch.
“No. You can’t. But I’ll lend you enough money to get you … wherever.” It was a hell of a time to notice, but beneath my cousin’s protective arm, I felt the contours of an exemplary body.
Bean’s expression was transformed into that of a frustrated ten-year-old boy. He looked equally capable of violence or tears. Hal’s arm tightened around me.
I vaguely noticed Kirsten standing up and moving across the room, but my attention was focused on Bean.
He was red as a tomato, his hands were shaking.
Then Kirsten Strindberg said, “Get out of here.” Her voice was tinged with hysteria.
Hal murmured, “Careful, Laura, it’s cocked,” and I followed his gaze.
Kirsten stood directly behind the little antique desk. Bean’s revolver was in her hand.
“Put it down,” I pleaded. “What are you doing? Somebody’s going to get hurt.”
I shook off Hal’s arm, and started across the room to take the gun away from her. I was halfway there when Kirsten, inadvertently I think, pointed it at me.
I stopped in my tracks, heard Hal say, “Easy. There’s no safety on a revolver.”
Kirsten and I made eye contact. She looked very pale. She also looked like she hated my guts.
In my most authoritative tone, I said, “Bean! Get the hell out of here right now.” Whatever Kirsten meant to do, she was not going to involve my client.
I heard a scramble of footsteps. Kirsten transferred her startled gaze to the hallway. I glanced behind me and found that Bean had taken my advice. I also found Hal staring at Kirsten, his expression intrigued. I turned to find that she’d put the gun down.
Right into my drawerful of letters.
She stared at them, open-mouthed.
When she looked up at me she appeared absolutely demonic, she was so angry. “Where the hell did you—? When did you—? You could be disbarred for this.” Her tone verged on a shriek. “These are my letters!”
“In that case, you’re welcome to them.”
Behind me, Hal coughed back a chuckle.
“How did you get them?”
I was silent. That’s rule number one of criminal defense: admit nothing.
“You stole them,” she accused, her cheeks flushing in patches. “I’ll tell the police. I’ll tell them—”
“That Lennart Strindberg didn’t know how to drive a stick shift?”
That took the wind out of her sails. She gaped at me, her chin quivering, her brows puckered.
“Even if Lennart had known how to run a hose from the exhaust pipe to the interior of the car—”
“What are you doing?” Kirsten whispered.
“—he’d never have been able to get the Volkswagen all the way out to the jetty.”
Kirsten’s blue eyes filled with tears. She groped in the drawer, collecting her letters.
When she walked past me, I could smell her fragrance. It was light and pretty. Gary’s favorite. I’d worn it for him all through high school.
A few seconds later, I heard the front door slam.
Hal said, “Damn! You are something, Mowgli.”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”
He twitched back a grin. “I didn’t say what.”
9
I woke up on the couch with no memory of having gone to sleep there. Hal was gone.
I phoned my papa.
“I came to visit you last night, but your lights were out, so I didn’t knock.”
“Everything all right?” He sounded worried.
“Yes. But listen, when I was leaving, pulling out of my parking space, I hit your car.”
Silence.
I continued. “I don’t think I did very much damage, just a few scratches, probably. I don’t know. It was so dark out.”
Papa’s breathing had grown audible.
I waited—hoped—for an explosion of temper. None came. I added, “My insurance will cover it.”
“Oh, well, if your insurance will cover it.”
This was not the response I’d wanted. My stomach began to cramp in retaliation for the evening’s excess of vodka.
My papa said, “Your car? Is it all right?”
“Yes. Were you out in the Lincoln at around seven? I thought I saw you.”
“Seven? Earlier, I think. Henry took it to the supervisors’ meeting last night. Laura?”
“Yes?”
“Nothing.”
I hung up. My papa had seen me approach Gary Gleason at the office-warming, and he’d been standing close enough to eavesdrop, if he’d cared to.
If so, he’d learned that Gary was coming to my house at seven o’clock. He could have parked his Lincoln down the street and waited. He could have plowed Gary down and made our rendezvous impossible.
But of course, he wouldn’t have.
I phoned the hospital, and they put me through to Gary.
“Gleason,” he responded groggily.
His voice sent a jolt of furious humiliation through me, like an old song rekindling old feelings. “It’s Laura. How do you feel?”
“Drugged.”
“You used to go to a lot of trouble to feel that way.”
“Yeah.”
I tried to think of something else to say, something appropriately conversational. I couldn’t. “What did you say to me last night?”
His tone was cautious. “You don’t remember?”
“No.”
There was a protracted silence, and I knew Gary was weighing his options. He would tell me what he felt it would be in his best interests for me to hear. That’s how he’d dealt with me as a husband; he’d be no more forthcoming as an adversary. But it would be useful, knowing what Gary wanted me to believe.
He finally replied, “I don’t remember, either.”
“You don’t know who hit you?”
“No.”
“But you were hit from the front, weren’t you?”
“The car came from behind me. I spun around when I heard it, but I was down and it was gone before I even realized what had happened.”
My papa had been good to Gary when we were married. He’d gone out of his way to get to know him, despite Gary’s long hair and radical views. And he’d decided Gary was an intelligent boy, a nascent professional, a good investment. He’d helped us with the rent, paid our junior college expenses, and bought us the secondhand Volkswagen.
If Gary had told me the truth the night before, then he was repaying my papa now with his silence.
I managed a few polite questions about his ailments, and wondered all the while if he meant to blackmail me.
It would be too bloody irritating if my plan were derailed at the last minute because Gary Gleason suddenly “remembered” who’d run him down.
And if he really hadn’t seen the culprit—if he’d been nimble enough to say the one thing he knew he could use later to control me—I didn’t see how the hell I could find out.
I felt myself grow hot with frustration. I’d only been back “home” a few days, and already things were going wrong.
I had to think of a way to neutralize Gary’s advantage over me.
I glanced at my desk and remembered Kirsten standing there, the revolver in her hand.
“You mean Kirsten? What are you talking about?”
“I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it.” I hung up.
I crossed to the desk, wishing I’d remembered the revolver sooner. The damned thing was probably loaded, not something I wanted sitting around my living room. I opened the desk drawer. It was empty.
10
I was frantic. The revolver had Bean’s fingerprints on it, and there wasn’t a cop, a journalist, or an average citizen (especially among Republicans) who didn’t want to see Bean in prison for something, if not the senators’ murder.
I was sure Hal had the gun. Kirsten and Bean were the only other people who knew about it, and I couldn’t imagine either of them sneaking into my house in the middle of the night to get it. I grabbed my jacket, intending to find my cousin and sock him in the jaw for worrying me half to death.
I didn’t get the chance. I heard someone pounding on my door, and when I opened it two police detectives were standing there, flashing their picture IDs at me.
I was politely told (not asked) to accompany them to police headquarters.
The detectives drove me downtown to the courthouse, where the police station and jail claimed the top two floors.
I sat by myself in a sparsely furnished cubicle that stank of disinfectant. My stomach reacted to the smell, and I shaded my eyes against the winking fluorescent light. I’d never mix champagne and vodka again.
For ten minutes I waited, afraid that I’d pushed Gary Gleason too far. I visualized my papa under arrest, his Lincoln under police impound.
The door finally opened and the pair of detectives ushered in a trim man with wavy silver hair, bright blue eyes, and a deeply cleft chin. His blue and white pin-striped shirt (no suit jacket) looked freshly starched. He introduced himself as Captain Loftus.
The name rang a bell.
I stood up, letting the captain pump my hand.
“We’ve all read about you, of course.” He left it at that. Cops were not big fans of the TV-syndrome defense.
“Why am I here, Captain?”
But Loftus seemed determined to do a little socializing before getting down to business.
“My son went to school with you, Miss Di Palma. My son John.”
John Loftus. Of course. He’d been a football star at my high school. He’d also been a reactionary airhead. John’s idea of a good time had been shooting BBs through the Peace Center window. Gary had forgotten his pacifism long enough to come to blows with John because of it.
“I remember John. Is he still at the Volkswagen place?” After high school, John had become a mechanic. He’d repaired my old bug a few times; not often—animosity had inspired Gary to take up the wrench himself, whenever possible.
The captain looked away. “Killed in Vietnam.” He pronounced it Veet-nam.
I sighed. It was too early in the morning to commiserate with strangers in a police station. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, no need to be.” There was a faint twang in his voice. Oklahoma, probably; thousands of Okies had traded the dust bowl for the mud bowl. “It was a worthy cause, our country’s honor. Me and his mother, may she rest in peace, we were proud of John.”
“I’m sure,” I murmured.
The skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Got to keep your perspective. My only boy, but …” He shrugged. “Veetnam was a lot better off under us than they are now with the Communists. That’s a proven fact.”
The police detectives exchanged glances; apparently they’d heard the captain ride this hobbyhorse before.
“Why am I here?” I repeated.
“Get Miss Di Palma a cup of coffee, will you, fellas?” He waited for the detectives to leave. “Sit down, sit down.” He offered me a polished oak chair. San Francisco Police Department chairs tended to be scarred and sticky. I felt nostalgic for them.
I sat, and the captain did too.
“Miss Di Palma, we’d like to know when you last saw Wallace Bean.”
Bean—I should have known. I wondered what the hell kind of trouble he’d gotten into this time.
“You brought me here to ask me about Wallace Bean? Is he in custody? Is he asking for me?” If so, the cops were violating Bean’s right to counsel by questioning me about him. It might be enough to get the charges dismissed.
The captain hesitated, running a hand over the back of his head. “No. Not in custody exactly. But tell me, have you seen him recently? In this area?”
If he was just fishing for information about Bean, then he was exceeding the scope of his authority. My tone was sharp. “Why are you asking me about Bean?”
The captain leaned closer, searching my face with concerned eyes. “Well, I think we’ve got his corpse downstairs, Miss Di Palma.”
I shook my head. Heard myself murmur, “What happened to him?”
He patted my hand. “Pretty darn ugly, I’m afraid. Twenty-two caliber bullet”—he turned his head and pointed to a spot at the base of his skull bone—“right about here. Come out just under the nose. Doesn’t look like it could have been self-inflicted.”
“Someone shot him.” The news magazines had all but predicted it. They’d labeled Bean the most unpopular man since Sirhan Sirhan. “Poor son of a bitch.”
The captain slid his chair farther from mine. He appeared startled, possibly by my unladylike language, probably by my sympathy for Wally. He glanced at the door. “Where in the heck did Bill and Marty go? You look like you could use that coffee right about now.”
“Have you arrested anyone?”
“No, ‘fraid not. No weapon, no witnesses, no suspect, no nothing.” He exhaled deeply.
“Where did you find Wally? Who called you?”
“You know the Lucky Logger?”
I nodded. A seedy bar in an unrenovated enclave behind the fish canneries.
“Owner found him in the alley when he put out the trash. I could run you over there right now. But maybe you’re too upset—”
I stood up. “Let’s go.”
11
I imagined Wallace Bean on his knees in the dirty alley, being executed like some prisoner of war.
“It’s the angle of the bullet tells us he was on his knees,” Captain Loftus explained quietly. He extended his arm at a forty-five-degree angle, two fingers out like a gun barrel. “Somebody over him like this. You can see the way he fell.” There was a foreshortened chalk outline between two dumpsters. “Fell forward, then sideways.”
I looked away. A heavy layer of drizzle had collected on straggles of nasturtiums and geraniums growing among the broken beer bottles and sodden piles of litter. The back doors of bars, thrift stores, and bait shops were crisscrossed with yellow POLICE LINE streamers. Squad cars blocked either end of the crooked alley. Officers were turning away curious cannery workers in checked flannel and rubber boots.
“Mighty damp out here,” the captain observed, wiping cold mist from his cheeks. “We can talk in the Logger, if that’s all right with you.” He motioned for a pair of police officers to resume whatever it was they’d been doing inside the dumpsters, and we went into the dark bar.
I slumped in a back booth, trying to ignore the faint but unmistakable stench of upchucked beer. The table top was heavily polyurethaned, smudged, and strewn with pretzel salt. The wall behind the captain was plastered with risqué bumper stickers.
Captain Loftus emptied a packet of imitation cream into his coffee. “You say Bean came to your house?”
My cup was chipped, stained black at the lip. I pushed it away. I’d have been happier with hair of the dog.
“It must have been close to two in the morning. Wally said he was broke. He wanted to sleep on my couch.’�
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The captain frowned disapprovingly. A sticker above his head announced that A Hard Man Is Good To Find.
“I didn’t let him. I offered to lend him some money, but …” I shrugged. “I try to keep a professional distance from my clients.”
“You got to, your line of work. Did Bean take the money?”
“No.” I hesitated. I hadn’t mentioned my other guests, yet. I was reluctant to explain that Bean had fled because Kirsten had pulled a gun—Bean’s gun—on him. I was even more reluctant to admit that the gun, entrusted to my care, had subsequently vanished. “Wally took offense. He walked out. He was in and out in less than ten minutes.”
I hadn’t lied. I’d just omitted certain details. Nor could I lie to the captain. The state bar would have my license if I did. I waited for Loftus to walk me through Bean’s visit, utterance by utterance, occurrence by occurrence. I waited for him to force me to admit others had been present at the time, to ask me point-blank whether Bean had been armed.
Instead, he drank his coffee in thoughtful silence. I tried to conceal my surprise at his incompetence.
A few minutes later, one of the detectives I’d met that morning dashed into the bar. Even in the windowless gloom, the man’s dishevelment and excitement were apparent. The captain joined him near the front door for a hasty conference that involved much gesticulating on the detective’s part. The captain’s back was to me, but I could see his gun hand shake as it patted his holstered hip.
When Loftus returned to the table, it was to excuse himself and offer me a police chauffeur.
“Did you find out something else about Wally?”
He shook his head gravely. “Too early to say. But we’ll be in touch—you can count on it, Miss Di Palma.”
12
It seemed probable that Bean had crept back into my house while I slept, that he’d retrieved his gun, ultimately getting himself shot with it.
That meant big trouble for me. When a client leaves a deadly weapon with his lawyer for safekeeping, the lawyer’s supposed to lock the damn thing away somewhere— not toss it into a drawer and forget about it. The state bar ethics committee, comprised of conservative old turds who’d publicly deplored the TV-syndrome defense, would be selling popcorn at my disciplinary proceeding.