by Susan Dunlap
“So she snuck out.” Kiernan shrugged. “Not how Dear Abby would have advised, but a method of problem-solving that has years of tradition behind it. And what about the casting call?”
“A bust. Director didn’t show. But Jane was so exhausted from the Bad Companions experience, Joyce said she’d never have gotten the part anyway.”
Kiernan nodded. She could imagine Jane, the extra, sneaking out for the lure of a better part, particularly since her work on the location set was over. She could certainly picture Carlton Dratz schlemieling around the gas nozzles by the set house, turning a knob too high so the gas jet blocked Greg’s expected exit, or managing to wedge a door so he couldn’t get it open—whatever. She could almost see the bumbling Dratz watching, horrified, as Greg died, as the realization burned into him that his fumbling had killed Greg. Jumping into his sports car and heading across the border seemed perfectly likely. And once he was gone, the production company closed ranks, buried Greg without question, and got back to the business of mass entertainment. All the parts fitted—but not together. “It’s too fortuitous that Jane Hogarth got the casting call just before Dratz ran out. Are you sure there was a casting call?”
“I saw the message.”
“Who from?”
“Bleeker gave it to her.”
“Joyce is sure of that?”
“Yeah, because Jane was flattered that he recalled who she was.”
“Okay, so there was a note—if Bleeker didn’t write it himself. Then there was a—Tchernak, how many other people came to the casting call? Did Jane hang around with a bunch of other hopefuls until she realized the director wasn’t going to show?”
“I don’t—what Joyce said was that Jane had to be in Burbank at ten in the morning, knew she’d get caught in all the rush-hour traffic so she left at seven, which meant she had to get up at five thirty, and then she was back at ten thirty.”
“Ten thirty! No hanging around, then. Either it was canceled—”
“Wasn’t canceled. Jane groused that the bastard didn’t even bother to call in. She said—wait—she said everyone else in the room was there for another part, a clown. She said she’d already been a fool, she’d be damned if she was going to be a clown, too.”
“So odds are, her casting call never existed,” Kiernan said triumphantly. “And Tchernak, Dratz was a sleazy little playboy. He’d irritated everyone else on the set. It’s not likely he’d send his only companion on a wild-goose chase for no reason. Everyone figured he’d taken off with her. Why would he get rid of her, even if he expected to leave the next day? And we don’t have any reason to suspect that he planned his departure.”
“But if he screwed up with the fire,” Tchernak postulated, “and panicked, it was convenient for him not to have to deal with her right when he wanted to take off.”
“He wouldn’t have known the day before that he’d ignite a killer blaze. If Jane’s note was planted then, that means someone premeditated Greg’s death—his murder.” She sat a moment, feeling as if a heavy marble had rolled off the tip of her tongue. Greg murdered—the idea didn’t come as a shock to her, rather as a legitimization of a concept she had pushed out of her consciousness. Bad enough to die in a fire. Accidental death probably followed a fall, a hit on the head, unconsciousness. A bad death, but nothing like the terror of being trapped in a burning house, of being scalded to death inside your fire suit. Kiernan’s throat tightened; she couldn’t swallow. How could a stunt man, with bodily control that normal people only dream of, die because he couldn’t walk out of a cabin? Her voice was only a little shaky as she said, “Was Greg killed because he heard something or figured out what was going on in the garage? If Dratz was dealing drugs there—we need to know the whole works on that. And Tchernak, if Joyce Hogarth had to drive out to the set at night, she had to have had good directions. And I’ll bet she’ll be glad to give them to you.”
Tchernak grinned. “Just my point! And you, oh primary detective, what will you be after?”
“Pacific Breeze Computers.”
It was midafternoon before the print search turned up an article on Pacific Breeze Computer: LA JOLLA COMPUTER COMPANY FINED FOR DUMPING TOXICS. And three thirty when she reached Martin Jameson, vice-president of PBC.
“Karen Sherman, with the Union-Tribune.” Kiernan said. “I’m doing a story on local firms that are now conforming to the EPA guidelines. Sort of an other-side-of-the-coin from our story about your infraction ten years ago.”
“That! You’re still on that?” Jameson’s outrage certainly sounded genuine.
The original scandal must have been a major one, Kiernan decided. And Jameson must have been with PBC long enough to be involved personally. “Like I said, I’m presenting the other side of the coin. Readers aren’t going to care what you did back in the dark ages. They’ll be impressed by how you’re conducting yourselves now, right?”
“I suppose so.”
“Great. So let’s start right after that infraction. That was April twenty-fourth, ten years ago. Along with the fine, you got a cease and desist from dumping your toxics in north county, right?”
“Your own paper made that real clear, Miss Sherman.”
She could hear Jameson’s irritated breaths against the receiver. Ignoring them, she said, “So then you started complying. First you had to dispose of your waste elsewhere. Where did you find?”
“Moss Valley.”
“The municipal government there?”
“Actually, the scavenger service—you know, the garbage company.”
“How did you find it so quickly? You must have been in a great rush.”
“Miss Sherman, surely you know court hearings take forever. We could have built an incinerator in the time it took to appeal the desist order.”
“But the desist order held while you appealed. You had to stop dumping immediately.”
“Obviously you’ve been over these facts. All I can tell you is, we have complied faithfully ever since then. Check with Moss Valley.”
“Very well. Thank you, Mr. Jameson.”
It was another twenty minutes before Kiernan got off the phone and sidled to the trompe l’oeil table where a platter of hors d’oeuvres—braised crab on jalapeno zucchini bread, topped with a sharp cheese—sat atop the faux French bread. Atop the faux Ezra head was the real one, the real canine eyes eyeing the real hors d’oeuvres. She scooped off the crab and cheese topping, held it out for him, and plopped the zucchini bread into her own mouth, all before Tchernak, across the room making Tanqueray and tonics, could see. Then she picked up another piece.
“What we have,” Kiernan said, “is an unexplained gap. Jameson at Pacific Breeze Computer says they stopped dumping illegally April twenty-fourth. But Moss Valley has no record of accepting their refuse until June first.”
“So what did they do with five weeks’ worth of toxic waste?” Tchernak demanded, clearly caught between interest in the solution and his environmentalist’s outrage at the likely answer.
Kiernan plopped the crab into her mouth, chewing slowly to savor the sharp taste of the cheese and the peppers. “No one has an answer for that. But we do know that out there on the Bad Companions set, there was a big hole filled with something in the month of May that year. Have you got the directions from Joyce Hogarth?”
Tchernak got up, walked to the office, and silently walked back with a print-out in hand. “Yes, I have the directions.”
Kiernan held out a hand.
“No, no. This is nothing so mundane as that. This, mistress mine, is one of those connections you love so much. It closes one of the gaps. It—”
“Tchernak!”
Tchernak grinned. “I got the background check on Trace Yarrow. Seems he does some consulting, troubleshooting new computer programs.”
She nodded. That she knew.
“Doesn’t work steady, doesn’t work much. But would you like to guess where he’s worked on and off for the past fifteen years?”
“Pacific Breeze Computer,” she said, almost as an afterthought. “Doesn’t work much. ... I wonder just how much Pacific Breeze paid to get rid of their embarrassing five weeks of toxic wastes.”
CHAPTER 28
KIERNAN CAME DOWNSTAIRS AT five A.M. A steaming plate of eggs, scrambled with fresh salmon and fresh dill and sprinkled with freshly ground and roasted sesame seeds, sat next to a basket of popovers, a glass of orange juice, and a Thermos of coffee. Tchernak and Ezra had just left. She pictured them loping sluggishly on the beach. Ezra was not an early-to-rise hound. He could have been a pub or cafe hound, wandering among the brethren until closing time, and after a brief morning walk, happy to devote his A.M. hours to watching his person peruse the Times. And Tchernak, she felt sure, was slogging through the sand because nothing but distance could keep him from commenting on the foolhardiness of a solo trip to wild country where a murderer could misbehave.
She ate quickly, barely tasting the scramble. Her mind was on the trip ahead to the town no one could remember, and on Trace Yarrow, who was suddenly not home. She wouldn’t have admitted it to Tchernak, but it made her uneasy. Yarrow had double crossed her, triple crossed Dolly; had he been back in contact with the producer for the quadruple cross? The lines of communication were too easy for all the suspects. Anyone she’d talked to could know where she was headed. She pulled a piece of paper off her desk and wrote: Tchernak, see if you can find out just how much Pacific Breeze paid for their illegal dumping.
She propped it amidst the breakfast dishes and headed out for the desert.
The road east out of San Diego changed rapidly from the downtown neighborhoods of white stucco and Jacaranda trees, comfortable four-plexes, and stark new high rises softened by patches of purple Mexican sage bush, golden day lilies, or the salmon-colored pods of Chinese flame trees, to shake-roofed suburban tracts so new, the landscape bushes still wore their burlap sacks. The developments butted up to four-way, four-lane stoplights with left-turn lanes and green-lighted arrows for each direction. At six thirty A.M. all four turn lanes were occupied, and Kiernan sat through the entirety of “Sunday Mornin’ Coming Down,” followed by “Monday, Monday,” before her turn came.
Then, as if she had turned a page, all signs of suburb ceased, the last fifty years vanished, and she found herself on a two-lane blacktop winding between the gnarly lumps of hill. She grinned with delight as she pulled the steering wheel right and left, testing the curves at a speed nearly double that posted. The joy of desert driving. In the distance the land resembled the mounds and creases of a wadded bedspread that the cat had tracked dirt on. There were sprinklings of clover here and there on the spread, but mostly it looked as if the cat had been left in charge for a week. It said something about just how intrinsically dry the desert was that even after an abnormally wet winter, the ground cover was already tan. With the window down an inch, the air was still cold from night and smelled of straw and dirt.
She passed through Dulzura, under tall canopies of palm fronds and fenced-off stacks of hay. Any trace of fog had long gone, but a haze still covered the sky. From time to time she slowed—once she stopped at a cafe that surely had sat unchanged since the twenties. Inside she asked if there was a military town along the road. The only official force was the border guard, the waitress assured her.
Back on the road, she checked the mirror for cars. There was dust in the distance—maybe a car, maybe not. But a car on the road didn’t mean she was being tailed. Still, she slowed, trying to make out the car; but it was always too far away.
The whole trip could be a bust, as skimpy as her directions were. The sun glared off the rocks, the land grew drier, the radio station faded and died out. She turned off the road, checking out small town after town, asking the military question, getting the same nonplussed reply. There was no army, navy, or air force base; no military town.
It was still early morning, but she felt as if she’d been driving for hours. Bleeker had told her there was no military base near the movie location. And yet why would Yarrow have lied? Or been mistaken? What would have made him think: military? A tank in a park? A statue? He hadn’t been on the set long enough to recall the town as Bleeker did. For Yarrow, the town would have shrunk to no more than an image in memory.
She drove on, windows open wide, feeling the dry air scraping against her skin, the sway of the Jeep as she leaned into curves Tchernak would tell her she was taking too fast. One more hour, she told herself, and she realized as she did that the possibility of not finding Greg Gaige’s grave was as much relief as frustration.
CONROY 1M., the sign said. She signaled to the empty-looking road behind. Then she saw it. Atop a bare hill, on what was clearly the side of the town, was a giant flagpole with the biggest American flag she’d ever seen. At the base was some sort of monument. She was willing to bet it and the flag were lit at night. Yarrow’s military image.
Despite its spot in a valley between hills, the town of Conroy was flat and dry and consisted of a clutch of weathered buildings—houses converted into stores—and the low, large stucco rectangles that are home to supermarkets and discount stores. Beyond the two blocks of “downtown” were splatterings of wood and adobe bungalows on lots too dry to sustain grass. For a number of the homes, the landscaping consisted of cars on blocks. Atop the far hill sat a water tower. On the near one was the flag. She headed toward it, eager to see what the monument commemorated.
The hill was thinly shaded by wispy trees. On the ground beneath was grass, sparse and pale, but apparently it was the best that perpetual care could provide. The place was a cemetery. This would be where Greg Gaige was buried.
She stopped the Jeep a block away and sat thinking. Now that she’d found the town, Joyce Hogarth’s directions to the movie location would be easy to follow. It was not yet nine A.M. She could get out there, dig up a sample from the dumping hole, and be back before the sun was too hot. She could get to La Jolla by early afternoon, in time to take soil samples to a lab. She could nudge the lab so they’d give them priority. By tomorrow, she could know something. She could …
Her shoulders were hunched up against her neck. She was breathing in shallow puffs. She looked down at her hands squeezed white on the steering wheel, and she had to keep herself from twisting the wheel hard to the right and heading out of town. Away from the cemetery. Away from Greg Gaige’s grave.
No. That, she could not allow herself to do.
Gritting her teeth, she shifted into first and drove the block to the tiled-roofed, single-story white stucco mortuary. The heavy wooden doors were unlocked, and she walked through a beige hallway with a worn brown carpet that reminded her of an arroyo, the dry stream bed of the west in which the only water that flowed was in memory. Here the mourners had flowed to the right, into a plain chapel with worn wooden benches, a place where more than ashes-to-ashes would have seemed ostentatious. The air conditioner rumbled, and the air smelled of freshener.
“I’m Edmund Halsey. May I help you?” a surprisingly cheerful-looking gray-haired man asked. “We don’t get many strangers.”
“I’ve come to see Greg Gaige’s grave.”
“Gaige?”
“The stunt man who died on the movie set ten years ago.”
“Oh, sure, sure. That was before my time, but I can take you to the grave. You a relation?”
She nodded. Always better to start out as a relative. It was one of her rules. Relatives can become very distant cousins if family responsibilities start to press in too close. But nonrelations can never move up to family.
“Well, you’re the first of his family to come by. ’Course we’re pretty out of the way. Still … well, it’s nice of you to stop in. Here, now I’ll take you—”
“I’m sure you’re busy, Mr. Halsey. Could you just tell me where the grave is?”
Halsey hesitated only a moment before saying, “No one is more important than our deceased and those who loved them. But you’d rather be alone. Of course. Many people feel
that way. Through the doors, down the path. Once you pass the stone wall, it’s the last grave on the right.” He patted her arm.
Kiernan tensed at the touch but restrained the urge to pull away. She walked outside into the dry heat, along the unshaded path to the low stone wall.
Scraggly desert trees poked up like whiskers on a dead chin. Close up, the grass was even sparser than it had seemed from a distance. The small shade from the trees only made the sun seem stronger. But as if in reaction to nature’s penury, survivors of the deceased had gone all out for stonework: angels, obelisks, mausoleums. Monuments listed families of names. Low, black railings surrounded the groupings. Kiernan was tempted to climb the hill and see what the large monument at the top commemorated, but she knew she was merely stalling. Taking a deep breath, she walked along the wall to the right, past the Montoyas and the Marshalls, the Lesters’ vault with a spray of gladiolus at the door, the Tieros lying in the shade of a granite angel’s outstretched wings. Then the graves, and the grass, stopped. She hesitated, running through Halsey’s directions in her mind, and walked on twenty yards, around an outthrusting of hill to an unshaded spot almost barren of grass. A dirt-strewn metal plaque on the dry ground said: GREGORY GAIGE.
Her breath caught. “Not even a birth date.” Trace Yarrow had said the studio wanted a swift and low-key funeral, but this? This was like throwing out the trash!
Despite the heat she shivered, as if her stomach were filled with ice, her lungs shrunken and atrophied. She wrapped her arms across her chest and stood staring at the cracked ground, seeing not it but the macadam of the San Francisco street as she and Greg had walked back from that midnight lunch on the movie set eleven years ago. “What about the future?” she had asked one last time.
She heard Greg swallow abruptly. They walked on, the slap of her leather shoes loud in her ears, the night city suddenly seeming empty of anything but her question and his desperate wish to avoid it. They rounded the corner onto the set. The banks of lights turned the street brighter than day but sucked out the color, leaving a dreamscape from which the giant crane protruded ten stories up.