Trophies and Dead Things

by Marcia Muller

  “It’ll be on your desk in the morning.”

  “Good. I want to talk with him again, and that’ll give me an excuse.” Hank looked eager to go on to his office, but I lingered in the hall, wishing he’d ask me about the Hilderly case so I could put off departing for my empty, lonely house.

  He noticed my reluctance to leave, plus the way I was eyeing the tacqueria sack, and said, “You want some of this? There’s enough for two.”

  “I don’t think I could take Mexican food right now. And I shouldn’t keep you from your work.”

  “Oh, come on to the kitchen with me. Sit a spell, have a glass of wine at least. You can brief me on Hilderly while I eat.”

  I followed him back there, mildly embarrassed that he’d realized how needy I felt tonight.

  For once, however, he didn’t feel called upon to dissect my emotional state. While I sipped chablis and outlined what I’d found out about Hilderly, etc al., he ate two burritos, dripping salsa and grease all over the table, then balled up the wrappings and tossed them at the garbage bag under the sink. They missed and ended up next to it. Hank shrugged and went to get some coffee.

  “No wonder Anne-Marie can’t live with you.” I said.

  He grinned, plainly pleased by his own slovenliness. “Speaking of Anne-Marie, did you know the police dug the sniper’s bullet out of one of her planter boxes on our porch?”

  “No. When did that happen?”

  “This morning. I read about it in Brand Ex a couple of hours ago. Brand Ex is the local nickname for the evening paper, the Examiner. “Looked like a three-fifty-seven Magnun, and they were rushing the ballistics work on it. Bet it’ll match the others.”

  “You’re pretty calm about all this. Are you still convinced the sniping was just a coincidence?”

  ‘I can’t imagine any reasonable connection.” But his face showed strain as he started for the door to the hallway, carrying his coffee.

  ‘Hey,” I said, “you didn’t give me any opinion on Hilderly.” I’d posed the same questions for him as I’d asked myself on the drive back to the city.

  But Hank’s thoughts were clearly elsewhere now. He said, “I’m as much at ease as you are. Keep digging.” Then he pointed his index finger at me in a parting salute and went down the hall.

  I sighed and contemplated my empty wineglass. Even though Hank had more pressing matters on his desk, he could have . . . what? Did I want him to speculate on the case with me, help me try to puzzle it out? Or did I really want him to keep me company, hold my hand? What the hell was wrong with me, anyway? I’d always been self-sufficient, enjoyed my own company, even been something of a loner. Why this recent urge to surround myself with people? I’d never felt it before.

  But that was before you knew George Kostakos, my inner voice said. That was before you started to fall in love with him.

  “Shut up,” I told it, and went to get more wine.

  After a while Larry Koslowski came in with Pam Ogata, our newest associate and, like Larry, a specialist in commercial law. We chatted for a while about Pam’s difficulties in finding a decent apartment, and pretty soon she and I ransacked the refrigerator and made ourselves sandwiches out of various leftovers—amid much dire warning about potential health hazards from Larry. Then Pam—who was staying with friends who had small kids and thus spent as little time there as possible—remembered they were rerunning Funeral in Berlin on Channel 44, and we went to the parlor to watch it. It was after ten when I finally left. Rae hadn’t yet returned from the surveillance job, and the light still burned in Hank’s office.

  The fog was thick again, dimming the light from the windows of the other houses that clustered around the small triangular park that fronted All Souls’ shabby brown Victorian. I paused on the steps, buttoning my jacket and turning up its collar. As I did, a feeling stole over me—uneasy, strong. The feeling that someone was watching from somewhere in the misted darkness.

  Come on, McCone, I thought. More urban paranoia?

  But after the events of the previous night, anyone would be paranoid.

  I stepped back into the doorway, looked around, and listened for a time. The little streets that converged on the side of the hill were relatively quiet. Traffic noises and salsa music drifted up from Mission, and an occasional car drove by. Someone had a stereo turned up too loud, and from behind me I could hear the mutter of the All Souls TV. A man trudge uphill, pulling a handcart of groceries from the nearby twenty-four-hour Safeway. A couple strolled downhill, holding hands. It appeared to be just another Bernal Heights weeknight, the mostly peaceable, law-abiding citizens easing out of their daily routines, getting ready to sleep.

  Even so, when I finally left, I hurried down the steps. As I moved toward the corner where the MG was parked, I kept close to the buildings, enveloped in protective shadow.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  By morning the fog had retreated to sea, leaving behind one of those glorious sun-washed days that make me recall just why it is I’ve chosen to live in San Francisco. The blue skies and temperate breezes cheered me, and I spent the hours before noon performing routine chores, plus exercising my supervisory skills by listening to Rae’s exuberant and oft-repeated account of yesterday’s exploits.

  It seemed she’d gotten lucky her first day on the job and had delivered photographic evidence of the liquor-store clerk’s thieving to the client, who in turn had contacted the police. To hear Rae tell it, her keen wits and talent had been the prime ingredients in this coup (she made no mention of sheer good fortune), and she was at any minute to be inducted into the Detectives’ Hall of Fame. Since I was in a good mood and remembered the thrill of my own first success in the business, I listened patiently and made appropriate congratulatory noises, then ended up treating her to lunch at her favorite bistro on Twenty-forth Street. It wasn’t until we got back to All Souls at one-thirty that I was able to turn my attention to the Hilderly case.

  Jess Goodhue hadn’t yet arrived at KSTS, and of course, the TV station wouldn’t give out her home phone number. When I called directory assistance for the number of Taylor’s Oysters, I was told it was no longer in service. Finally I phoned Tom Grant’s home office and asked Ms. Curtis to schedule an appointment so Grant could sign the documents renouncing his share of the Hilderly estate. She put me on hold, and then Grant came on the line. He was booked solid for the day, but said he could see me that evening.

  “What time?” I asked.

  “I have a dinner with a client and then an appointment for an interview. Make it around nine, and I’ll give you a drink and show you my studio.”

  I hesitated. The invitation held a seductive note that I didn’t care for. Then I decided I was behaving too much like a Tennessee Williams heroine, seeing a potential debaucher behind every tree, and agreed to the appointment.

  As I hung up the phone Ted entered the office and placed a pink message slip on my desk. Gene Carver, Hilderly’s former boss at Tax Management Corporation had called over the noon hour. When I called back, Carver was available and agreed to answer a few questions.

  “I’m interested in a seminar you required Perry to attend in late May—possibly one with a motivational slant.”

  “Motivational?” Carver sounded amused. “I don’t think so. The only seminar I recall last spring was the one on taxation problems associated with divorce. Big gathering cosponsored by the bar association and the California CPAs Foundation at the Cathedral Hill Hotel on the last weekend of the month. I went. So did Perry and two of my other accountants.

  That was what had promised to change Hilderly’s life, as he’d told his son Kurt? An unlikely topic. Unless . . . “Do you recall if a divorce attorney named Thomas Y. Grant participated?”

  “Sure. Old friend of Perry’s, it turned out. Ran one of the workshops.”

  “Grant and Perry were friends?”

  “Apparently they went back a long way. At first they didn’t recognize each other; then they both seemed surprised and confuse
d. But Perry spoke with Grant at the morning break, and later I saw them having lunch together at Tommy’s Joynt.”

  “Did Perry say anything about Grant to you?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did. Let me see if I can remember it right.” Carver paused. “This was when the afternoon session broke. What he said was that Grant was a man who had made a great deal out of an essentially ruined life. That struck me as an odd assessment, seeing how much the man’s worth. I asked Perry what he meant, but all he said was that he felt sorry for Grant, because he could see a lot of himself in him.”

  “And that was all he told you?”

  “I didn’t pursue it; the session was about to resume. And frankly, until now I’d forgotten about it.”

  I thanked Carver and jotted a few notes on a scratch pad after I hung up. In no way could I imagine how Hilderly could have considered Grant’s life “ruined.” Nor could I understand how he could have seen himself in a semi-ethical attorney whose hobby was making things out of dead animal parts. Of course, I hadn’t known Hilderly and the way his mind worked; even those who had been part of his life hadn’t mastered that.

  After a few minutes I got up and wandered downstairs to Hank’s office. I stopped in the door and asked. “By any chance did a call from D.A. Taylor’s wife get routed to you instead of me?”

  He shook his head. “I need to talk with her when she does call, though, so be sure to pass her along to me.”

  “If she calls. That damn Harley probably didn’t give her the message. That means I’ll have to drive all the way out there again.”

  “You sound out of sorts. What’s wrong?”

  I shrugged. “Afternoon malaise, I guess. You know that I just found out? Hilderly and Grant were old friends.” I related what Gene Carter had told me.

  “So Grant lied,” Hank said. “He must want to cover up the association very badly to toss away a quarter of a million dollars.”

  “Yes—and I intend to ask him why when I take that document for his signature tonight.” I paused, glancing at the stack of magazines that threatened to spill off the corner one of Hank’s filing cabinets. “One more question, and then I’ll let you get back to work. That magazine that sent Hilderly to Vietnam—what was its name?”

  He frowned. “New . . . something. Something relatively conservative, for a Movement publication. New . . . dammit, I hate it when something’s right on the tip of my tongue like this!” He shut his eyes, concentrating fiercely. When he opened them, he said, “Ahah! New Liberty.”

  “And it was based here in the city?”

  “Think so.”

  “Thanks.” I hurried back to my office.

  The man on the reference line at the public library had never heard of New Liberty; he put me on hold for a few minutes while he looked up information on the magazine. It had enjoyed a long life, as alternative publications go; from 1965 to 1970. While its circulation was never large, at one point it had reached ten thousand. The name of the editor in chief up to 1969 was Luke Widdows. After that there had been a succession of individuals, none of whom had lasted more than a month of two.

  “Do you have any idea what Widdows is doing now? I asked.

  “I think I’ve seen his by-line someplace. He may be a free-lance journalist.”

  I hung up and called my friend J. D. Smith at the Chronicle. J.D. also said Widdow’s name was familiar, and promised to check around and get back to me. I had an appointment to give a deposition in behalf of one of Larry’s clients at a downtown law firm at three, so I tidied my desk and left the office. The deposition, as was typical, took far longer than it was supposed to, and by the time I got back to All Souls it was close to five. Ted sat at his desk, the calico kitten—Alice—draped around his shoulders.

  “What’s that doing there?” I asked.

  He started to shrug, but caught himself in time; one really good shrug and the wisp of varicolored fur would have gone flying. “It’s the only way I can get her to behave and stop tearing the place apart. For some reason she likes it there.”

  “Where’s the other one?”

  He pointed under the desk. I bent down and saw Ralph curled up on his feet. “ It’s tough being a working father,” I said.

  He glared at me and went back to the brief he was proofing.

  There was a message from J.D. in my box, giving a Berkeley address and phone number for Luke Widdows, as well as a note from Hank saying he’d talked with Mia Taylor and settled matters about the inheritance. I frowned, annoyed to have missed her call; I would have liked to question Mrs. Taylor about her husband’s past. Now I’d probably have to revisit West Marin after all.

  Again Jess Goodhue hadn’t called with the investigator’s name. I dialed KSTS-TV, was told the anchorwoman was unavailable. The results of my final call were a bit more positive: Luke Widdows would be glad to talk with me about Hilderly, but was on his way out. Could I come to his place at nine the next morning? I agreed and took down directions.

  Now what to do? I thought irritably. I had four empty hours before my appointment with Tom Grant. I didn’t particularly want to go home, nor was I enthusiastic about catching up on my paperwork. Finally I went downstairs and lured Rae away from filling out her expense report, and we headed down to the hill to the Remedy Lounge on Mission Street.

  The Remedy has long been an All Souls hangout. Hank discovered it, I think, only hours after signing the lease on the Victorian, and over the years we’ve celebrated our triumphs and commiserated over our failures there. Unalterably dark and sleazy, with a frequently broken jukebox and shabby appurtenances, it would seem a good place to stay out of, but its ambiance belies mere surface appearances. At times within its four grimy walls I have the sensation that its tolerant—but not intrusively friendly—clientele and I are sailing on a stormy sea on a ship, snug and protected from raging elements. Of course, the ship is a tired old scow and the rocky shoals lie straight ahead, but the temporary sense of security is soothing nonetheless.

  Rae and I took one of the rear booths, and within a minute Brian, the bartender, brought her a beer and me a glass of white wine. That was one of the advantages of taking my assistant along: so far as I know, hers is the only table Brian has ever brought a drink to in some thirty years of tending bar. Perhaps she reminds him of some long-lost sweetheart back in Ireland; perhaps he admires her because she naively assumed from the start that such treatment was merely her due as a paying customer. Whatever the reason, Rae rates with Brian—far higher than those of us who have been patronizing the Remedy for years.

  She wanted to rerun the liquor-store saga—the realization that she’d have to testify in court having lent it further drama—but I cut her short and updated her on the Hilderly case. We kicked the facts around for two hours and three drinks plus beer nuts, but came to very few conclusions.

  Rae asked, “Are you going to confront Grant about his friendship with Hilderly, tonight?”

  “It’s the only way I’ll pry the whole story out of him.”

  “According to you, the guy is weird. What if he gets violent?”

  “I can handle him. But I doubt he will. He’s not the type and, besides, he’s got a position to protect. He’s not about to harm me when there are people who know I’m with him. I plan to call All Souls when I get to his house and make sure he hears me tell whoever answers exactly where I am.”

  Rae considered that, then nodded thoughtfully. I could see she was placing the technique in her mental file for future use.

  I said, “I meant to ask you—have you heard whether the bullet the police found at Hank and Anne-Marie’s matched the ones that killed the sniping victims?”

  “Yeah. Willie called Greg Marcus this afternoon. It matched.”

  I’d expected as much, but I supposed on some level I’d been hoping to hear the bullet didn’t match. It would have simplified my investigation if the sniping had turned out to be a copycat shooting perpetrated by, say, someone who had had a diamond ring reposses
sed by Willie. Rae was watching me as if she expected some insightful comments, but I had none to offer.

  When I didn’t speak, she said, “What about Hank? Does he still think he’s not in any danger?”

  “That’s what he says. But I’m not convinced of that—and I don’t think he really is, either. How’s Willie doing?”

  “He’s housebound and claustrophobic. They’ve stationed a cop outside, but he’s afraid to leave after dark.” She looked at her watch. “Come to think of it, I promised to be there right about now.”

  After she left I finished my wine in solitude and went home. The only message on my answering machine was from Jim, asking plaintively if we couldn’t get together and talk things over. No, I decided, we couldn’t. I then tried Jess Goodhue again, but the switchboard couldn’t locate her. The microwave burned the middle of my frozen lasagna and left icy little lumps on the top. I ate it anyway. Afterward I went to the strongbox where I keep my .38 and took out the pouch I’d found among Hilderly’s boxed possessions. The gun weighed heavy in my hand. I fingered the rough place where its serial number had been removed, then replaced it in the pouch, and the pouch in the strongbox, keeping out only the chain with the metal letters K and A suspended from it. After studying it for a moment, I put it into the zipper compartment of my purse.