by Todd Borg
“Where did you get this stuff?” he said as he rifled through the documents.
“A little bird dropped them by. I thought that before I pop them in the woodstove to heat the cabin, I’d see what they mean. Think you could do a quick translation?”
“Not now, I’m busy.” He glanced at the TV. “I can look at them tonight. Stop by tomorrow?”
“Sure.” I thanked him and went back out to where Spot waited in the Orange Flame.
I didn’t know what my next move was, although I very much wanted a shower and fresh set of clothes. I decided to head out of town for the Bay Area and see if I could start at the other end of Glory’s life. Unlike Faith, at least Glory came from somewhere. I could find a motel on the way.
I pushed the Orange Flame up and over Echo Summit and let her roll down the long hill toward the Central Valley. I gassed up in Placerville and continued on until I started to fall asleep near the coastal range.
There was an exit in Vallejo that promised lodging and shopping options. I got a change of clothes at a K-mart, found food for both of us at the Safeway, then turned into the closest motel. I told the desk woman that there were two of us, forgetting to mention that one of us had two extra legs and very large teeth. Shows what fatigue will do.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, Spot took one bed and I took the other. Eighteen hours later we woke up much refreshed. I showered and dressed and we headed into The City.
I found Upton in a cubicle at one of the San Francisco precincts. We exchanged handshakes and a little shoulder slapping.
“I had a question about Glory Washington’s mother and brother.”
“Anne and Luther,” Upton said. He pointed to a chair. I sat.
“You said the brother died. What happened?”
“Don’t know,” he said, shaking his head.
“What about the mother? Any idea where she is now?”
“Nope,” he said. “Let me make a call over to Oakland, see what I can find out.” I pulled a familiar catalog off the corner of his desk and flipped through it as Upton worked his way through several layers at the Oakland PD. The catalog was for books and videos marketed to cops. Everything from how to disarm street thugs to the best way to make a high-risk vehicle stop.
Eventually, Upton got through to a cop in charge. They had a short conversation. Upton said, “Maybe I better send McKenna over to talk to you in person.” After a few more words, he hung up and turned to me. “They don’t know anything about Glory’s mother. As for the brother’s death, Lieutenant Reddenburg seems to know the situation well. He said feel free to stop by.”
I thanked Upton and left. I headed back over the Bay Bridge, found a parking garage where Spot would be in the shade, and was soon in Reddenburg’s office.
Reddenburg leaned back in his desk chair and laced his fingers behind his head. His short-sleeves revealed large biceps.
I sat on a gray metal chair with a ripped, green padded seat.
“So you were in homicide with Upton some years back,” Reddenburg said after I’d introduced myself. “Why’d you quit?”
It was a question I’d been getting ever since, but I still dreaded it. “I was involved in a shooting. A kid was killed.”
Reddenburg looked at me. “They clear you?”
“Yeah.”
“But that doesn’t make it easier.”
“No,” I said.
Finally Reddenburg said, “You came about Glory’s family. I don’t have much. The mother is Anne Washington. A good woman. Didn’t deserve what happened. The brother was Luther Washington. Now there’s a sad one. No surprise, him dying young, considering the crowd he ran with. But it sure was unfortunate. Luther was a really smart kid. I spent time with him, bringing him in now and then. Later, I spoke with one of his teachers and he had the same impression of Luther that I did. We both saw a potential in that kid that we rarely see in the other kids filling up our facilities.”
“How’d he die?”
“Drowning. We pulled him out of the Bay one morning after a call from a dock worker.”
“What was Luther involved in before he died?” I asked.
“Same as always. Motorcycle theft. The last time we brought him in, we had a good case. A witness to the theft of a Honda race bike picked Luther’s mug out of the book. We found Luther’s prints on the bike which we recovered from a chop shop we busted. So we charged him. His mother posted bail.”
“And he ran.”
“Right,” Reddenburg said. “Now, here’s the strange part. There was a gang killing right before we picked up Luther on the grand theft charge. A man got shot in one of the disputed turf areas. His wallet and watch were gone. After Luther jumped bail, we got an anonymous tip to look at Luther for the killing. So we got a warrant and went through his things at his mama’s apartment. And there was the firearm under Luther’s mattress. A little Saturday night popgun. Twenty-two caliber. Tests showed a match with the slug we took out of the victim’s head.”
“You think Luther was the killer,” I said.
“It sure looked like it.”
“What was strange about it?”
“First, the gun had been wiped of prints. If you’re going to hide a gun under your bed, why bother wiping it down? Second, I didn’t see Luther as the type. You get to know these things after working with kids for years. The kids who kill have cold eyes. Like something already died back in there. But that wasn’t Luther.”
“Maybe he was framed.”
“I wondered that. Of course, his mama said no way did the gun belong to Luther. So I spent some effort on the idea, but nothing came of it.”
“His jumping bail on the motorcycle theft charge might suggest he figured you’d make him for the shooting. But the gun under his bed doesn’t make sense. Why not throw it away?”
“I don’t know. Some killers don’t think of the obvious.” Reddenburg said.
“Did Luther’s death look accidental?”
“Actually, it was hard to tell at first. The body had been in the water a while. Looked pretty bad. I didn’t recognize him. The coroner eventually came back with drowning as the cause of death. There were no other signs of trauma to the body. But just because someone dies of drowning doesn’t always mean it’s accidental.”
“He have ID on him?” I said.
“No. He had clothes on, but he’d been stripped of all valuables. Rings, wallet, necklace.”
“If there was no ID, how’d you know it was Luther?”
“After he jumped bail, his mother reported him missing. Said he’d been calling and suddenly stopped. When we got a body that was skinny and looked like it could possibly be Luther, we called her in and she said it was her boy. Broke her heart, I think.”
I could still visualize Mrs. Washington. Poor woman. First Luther. Now Glory.
“Glory’s death,” Reddenburg said, frowning. “They still think it was an accident?”
“Officially, yes. But that’s why I’m asking about Luther.”
“You got something on it?”
“Not much,” I said. “Hearsay, innuendo. Another young woman called me to say she knew something. Then she was killed.”
“The boat explosion I heard about.”
I nodded. “I wonder if you can look in Luther’s file and give me the address of his mother?”
Reddenburg stood up and dug in a tall, gray four-drawer cabinet. He pulled out a file and wrote down the address for me. I thanked him for his time.
I went to Anne Washington’s apartment and found it full of kids and a young mom.
“Mrs. Washington?” she said, a blank look on her face. “You got the wrong apartment.”
I knocked on three different doors down the hallway before I found someone who knew Mrs. Washington.
“Anne Washington was the sweetest person on the floor,” a wizened, white-haired black woman said. She leaned against the doorway for support. “Years and years we lived in this building. I helped with her kids. We
baked together. Cookies and breads. For the church bake sales. I was so sorry to see her go.”
“When did she leave?”
“Some years back. After her boy died. She kind of fell apart. Started forgetting things like turning off the stovetop. I check the stovetop every other minute, myself. You just can’t have stovetops left on. I worried about her. But then her daughter got rich. She’s a famous singer. Lord, can that girl sing. She came to help. But she put her mama in an old folks home. Now maybe that’s help according to some, but not me.” The woman shook her head. “’Course, Anne would go crazy brain sometimes. But that doesn’t mean she had to leave her apartment. I’m older than Anne. But I’m not going to no old folks home. Not me. I’ll chain myself to the radiator.”
“Do you know what home Mrs. Washington is in?”
“No. Someplace near Walnut Creek. All I know is you have to be rich. But her daughter pays the bills.” She leaned toward me and spoke in a low voice. “Just between you and me, I don’t think it’s right. All those white people. Mind you, you seem nice enough. But Anne Washington should be with her own.”
Back in the Orange Flame, I drove around until I found a phone booth with a Yellow Pages. I jotted down the numbers for nursing homes and assisted living facilities near Walnut Creek and surrounding communities.
I called each and asked for Anne Washington. After seven negatives, I finally got a positive at the Pleasant Acres Residences. A woman said visiting hours were from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
It was already 3:00 and rush hour was starting, so I hurried.
The Oakland tunnel was backed up a mile, but the traffic, while slow, was moving. I made it through the mountain and found Pleasant Acres up on a steep hillside.
They directed me out to a large lawn behind the main building. Artful gardens thick with flowers made it seem more like an arboretum.
I introduced myself to a young woman in a blue business suit and asked if she could tell me where Anne Washington was.
She brought me out across the grass to a spot of shade with a beautiful view of the valley.
A woman sat in a wicker chair, facing the view, a sweet look on her face. She wore an ankle-length yellow skirt and a yellow blouse with lace trim at the neckline. The yellow fabric cast a warm glow up onto her face which, despite the years, I still recognized.
“Mrs. Washington,” the young woman said, “I’ve brought you a visitor. Mr. Owen McKenna is here to see you.” The young woman smiled at both of us, then left.
“So nice to meet you again, Mrs. Washington,” I said.
The woman turned her head a little and looked up at me. She kept smiling and gave me the tiniest of nods.
I sat cross-legged on the grass in front of Anne Washington, in what seemed like the glow of her yellow clothes and warm smile.
“We met some years ago, Mrs. Washington. I was a cop, and my partner and I came to your apartment to meet Luther.”
She smiled at me. She had healthy, clear skin and a pretty face below thick hair, which was brushed up and back. Her eyes were deep brown and crinkled at the corners. They looked at me, not focusing perfectly, but still, I thought, taking me in.
“You gave us homemade cookies and you even played the piano. Your daughter Glorene sang. She had a wonderful voice.”
Anne Washington started humming, her smile as warm as ever. Her voice was rich and deep. It was obvious where Glory had gotten her talent. I didn’t recognize the tune. A blues. Mournful. Emotive. Yet still she smiled.
“I came to ask you about Luther and Glorene,” I said.
She hummed and smiled.
“I’m a private investigator and I’m looking into Glory’s death. I wanted to ask if you were aware of anything unusual about your daughter before she died.”
She kept humming.
“Did she contact you? Did she say anything strange?”
No response. A gray squirrel ran by, and the woman’s eyes followed it for a bit. Then she looked out over the valley. Then back at me. Her smile was undiminished. She was humming a new tune, now.
“Mrs. Washington, I’m interested in any thoughts you have about Glorene. Anything at all that comes into your mind about recent events. Any concerns? Anyone else asking you questions? Is anything worrying you?”
It was obvious that the woman was gone, in a happy place. The rest of us should be so content.
I stood up to leave. I decided to try one more approach. “It’s been nice talking to you, Mrs. Washington, on such a cloudy day.”
“It’s a sunny day.”
I sat back down. “Are you so happy because it is a sunny day? Or are you happy for a different reason?”
She smiled. Her eyes looked at the sky, slightly out-of-focus.
It was frustrating. I didn’t think she was trying to be difficult. Nor did it seem like it was a game to her. She wouldn’t respond. Except when I provoked her.
“Now that your daughter has died,” I said, “I would think you would be sad. How can you be happy?”
“My son died, too.” She still smiled.
“So why are you smiling and humming?”
She hummed a few bars, then stopped. “My son came back.” She looked at me. Her smile was radiant.
“Your son came back?”
She nodded.
“But he died years ago,” I said.
“I know. But he comes late at night when everyone is asleep. It’s my best dream ever.”
I looked out over the valley, wondering if there was anything I could learn from her.
“Do you think your daughter will come back, too?”
“Of course,” she said, beaming. “Maybe tonight or tomorrow night. Or next month. It could be years, but she’ll come.”
“That would make one happy,” I said.
She started humming again.
“Thank you very much for talking to me, Mrs. Washington.” I stood up and left her smiling out across the valley.
I was near Placerville when I had a thought. I dialed Lieutenant Reddenburg. A woman asked me to wait. I drove by a billboard with a picture of a rose. Underneath it said, “Scents Of Love.” The curvy words were shaped like a woman lying on her side. I remembered it was the perfume chain owned by Violet Verona.
“Reddenburg here,” a voice barked.
“Owen McKenna. I had another question.”
“Shoot.”
“The guy Luther shot. Do you know who he was?”
“Not off the top of my head. You want to hold on?”
“Please.” I was driving up into the foothills toward Cameron Park. The highway got steeper and I had to downshift again. The engine roared as the speed gradually crept from 38 to 40 to 45.
“Here it is,” Reddenburg said. “The victim was a guy named Willard Kilpatrick. Lived in Oakland near where he died.”
“Any idea what he did for a living?”
“Lemme see. It might be in here. Oh, right in front of my face. He was with the Sierra Club. Doesn’t say what he did. Maybe one of those trust fund babies, watching the environment for the rest of us working stiffs.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“Wait, here’s something else.” I heard papers flipping over the phone. “It says he was also the Governor’s appointee for one of the at-large seats on the T.R.P.A. That’s Tahoe Regional…”
“Planning Agency,” I finished for him.
“Right. You must know about them, huh?”
“Yeah.”
FORTY-FOUR
I dialed the newspaper and got Glenda Gorman on the line.
“Did you learn anything about those people who died?” she said.
“Not much. But I have another death I’m hoping you can look up. This one was clearly a murder. A man named Willard Kilpatrick was shot to death in Oakland about twelve years ago. The police thought he was killed by an Oakland gang member. Kilpatrick worked for the Sierra Club and was appointed by the governor to serve on the T.R.P.A. as one of the at-large members
.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do. How do I get hold of you? I can’t seem to get you at your office or your cabin.”
“I’m out of town. I’ll call you later today.”
“You think I can learn this guy’s life story that soon?”
“If not you, who?” I said.
“Nobody!” she said with enthusiasm, then hung up.
I stopped at Conan Reynolds’ law office on my way back into South Lake Tahoe.
His secretary said, “Go right in, but don’t expect him to be in a good mood. He’s still mad over yesterday’s game.”
“What’s the matter,” I said as I pushed in through his door.
Conan was digging in a desk drawer. “Whassa matter?” Conan said. “Yankees killed ’em. Eighteen zip. What kind of game is that, eighteen zip? That’s not a game.”
“But you knew it would happen.”
“Doesn’t make it hurt less. If the doctor says to you, ‘hold on, this is going to hurt,’ it’ll probably hurt even more, not less.”
“True,” I said as I sat in one of his chairs.
Conan reached a stack of folders off a nearby table. “This is the stuff you brought in.”
“Were you able to get anything out of it?” I said.
He steepled his fingers and leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “So,” he said. “You’re wondering about the legitimacy of Camp Twenty-Five.”
“Maybe.”
“What do you know about it?” he asked.
“Very little,” I said. “A non-profit group that plans to build a camp for disabled kids.”
“What made you wonder about its legitimacy?”
“I was looking into the deaths of the singer Glory and of Faith Runyon, the girl who died in the boat explosion. One of the first people I met was a kid who is sponsored by Company Twenty-Five, a snowboarder named Bobby Crash. I also met a mountain biker named Wheels Washburn. Turns out he knew just where Glory had gone off the Flume Trail. That was not public information. Wheels said he heard it from his friend Bobby Crash. Bobby Crash doesn’t seem to be around. And Wheels was killed two days ago. You know Glenda Gorman, the reporter?”