The McCone Files

by Marcia Muller

  The man pushed the loose-leaf notebook at me, looking faintly surprised. “You sign the book, and then I’ll go saddle up Whitefoot.”

  Once our transaction was completed, the stable man pointed out the bridle trail that led toward the pavilion, wished me a good ride, and left me atop one of the gentlest horses I’d ever encountered. Whitefoot—a roan who did indeed have one white fetlock—was so placid I was afraid he’d go to sleep. Recalling my few riding lessons, which had taken place sometime in my early teens, I made some encouraging clicking sounds and tapped his flanks with my heels. Whitefoot put his head down and began munching a clump of dry grass.

  “Come on, big fellow,” I said. Whitefoot continued to munch.

  I shook the reins—gently but with authority.

  No response. I stared disgustedly down the incline of his neck, which made me feel I was sitting at the top of a long slide. Then I repeated the clicking and tapping process. The horse ignored me.

  “Look, you lazy bastard,” I said in a low, menacing tone, “get a move on!”

  The horse raised his head and shook it, glancing back at me with one sullen eye. Then he started down the bridle trail in a swaying, lumbering walk. I sat up straighter in correct horsewoman’s posture, feeling smug.

  The trail wound through a grove of eucalyptus, then began climbing uphill through grassland. The terrain was tough, full of rocky outcroppings and eroded gullies, and I was thankful for both the well-traveled path and Whitefoot’s slovenly gait. After a few minutes I began to feel secure enough in the saddle to take stock of my surroundings, and when we reached the top of a rise, I stopped the horse and looked around.

  To one side lay grazing land dotted with brown-and-white cattle. In the distance, I spotted a barn and a corral with horses. To the other side, the vegetation was thicker, giving onto a canyon choked with Manzanita, scrub oak, and bay laurel. This was the type of terrain I was looking for—the kind where a man can easily become disoriented and lost. Still, there must be dozens of such canyons in the surrounding hills; to explore all of them would take days.

  I had decided to ride further before plunging into rougher territory, when I noticed a movement under the leafy overhang at the edge of the canyon. Peering intently at the spot, I made out a tall figure in light-colored clothing. Before I could identify it as male or female, it slipped back into the shadows and disappeared from view.

  Afraid that the person would see me, I reined the horse to one side, behind a large sandstone boulder a few yards away. Then I slipped from the saddle and peered around the rock toward the canyon. Nothing moved there. I glanced at Whitefoot and decided he would stay where he was without being tethered; true to form, he had lowered his head and was munching contentedly. After patting him once for reassurance, I crept through the tall grass to the underbrush. The air there was still and pungent with the scent of bay laurel—more reminiscent of curry powder than of the bay leaf I kept in a jar in my kitchen. I crouched behind the billowy bright green mat of a chaparral bush while my eyes became accustomed to the gloom. Still nothing stirred; it was as if the figure had been a creature of my imagination.

  Ahead of me, the canyon narrowed between high rock walls. Moss coated them, and stunted trees grew out of their cracks. I came out of my shelter and started that way, over ground that was sloping and uneven. From my right came a trickling sound; I peered through the underbush and saw a tiny stream of water falling over the outcropping. A mere dribble now, it would be a full cascade in the wet season.

  The ground became even rougher, and at times I had difficulty finding a foothold. At a point where the mossy walls almost converged, I stopped, leaning against one of them, and listened. A sound, as if someone were thrashing through thick vegetation, came from the other side of the narrow space. I squeezed between the rocks and saw a heavily forested area. A tree branch a few feet from me looked as if it had recently been broken.

  I started through the vegetation, following the sounds ahead of me. Pine boughs brushed at my face, and chaparral needles scratched my bare arms. After a few minutes, the thrashing sounds stopped. I stood still, wondering if the person I followed had heard me.

  Everything was silent. Not even a bird stirred in the trees above me. I had no idea where I was in relation to either the pavilion or the stables. I wasn’t even sure if I could find my way back to where I’d left the horse. Foolishly I realized the magnitude of the task I’d undertaken; such a search would be better accomplished with a helicopter than on horseback.

  And then I heard voices.

  They came from the right, past a heavy screen of scrub oak. They were male, and from their rhythm I could tell they were angry. But I couldn’t identify them or make out what they were saying. I edged around a clump of mazanilla and started through the trees, trying to make as little sound as possible.

  On the other side of the trees was an outcropping that formed a flat rock shelf that appeared to drop off sharply after about twenty feet. I clambered up on it and flattened onto my stomach, then crept forward. The voices were louder now, coming from straight ahead and below. I identified one as belonging to the man I knew as Gary Fitzgerald.

  “…didn’t know he intended to black mail anyone. I thought he just wanted to see John, make up with him.” The words were labored, twisted with pain.

  “If that were the case, he could have come to the hotel.” The second man was Wayne Kabalka. “He didn’t have to go through all those elaborate machinations of sneaking into the pavilion.”

  “He told me he wanted to reconcile. After all, he was John’s own cousin—”

  “Come on, Elliott. You knew he had threatened us. You knew all about the pressure he’d put on us the past few weeks, ever since he found out the act would be coming to San Francisco.”

  I started at the strange name, even though I had known the missing man wasn’t really Gary Fitzgerald. Elliott. Elliott who?

  Elliott was silent.

  I continued creeping forward, the mossy rock cold through my clothing. When I reached the edge of the shelf, I kept my head down until Kabalka spoke again. “You knew we were all afraid of Gary. That’s why I hired the McCone woman; in case he tried anything, I wanted an armed guard there. I never counted on you playing the Judas.”

  Again Elliott was silent. I risked a look over the ledge.

  There was a sheer drop of some fifteen or twenty feet to a gully full of jagged rocks. The man I’d known as Gary Fitzgerald lay at its bottom, propped in a sitting position, his right leg twisted at an unnatural angle. He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans—the same clothing the man at the stables had described the dead man as having on. Kabalka stood in front of him, perhaps two yards from where I lay, his back to me. For a minute, I was afraid Elliott would see my head, but then I realized his eyes were glazed half blind with pain.

  “What happened between John and Gary?” he asked.

  Kabalka shifted his weight and put one arm behind his back, sliding his hand into his belt.

  “Wayne, what happened?”

  “Gary was found dead at the pavilion this morning. Stabbed. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t connived to switch clothing so he could sneak backstage and threaten John.”

  Elliott’s hand twitched, as if he wanted to cover his eyes but was too weak to lift it. “Dead.” He paused. “I was afraid something awful had happened when he didn’t come back to where I was waiting with the horse.”

  “Of course you were afraid. You knew what would happen.”

  “No…”

  “You planned this for weeks, didn’t you? The thing about staying at the fleabag in the Haight was a ploy so you could turn over one of your costumes to Gary. But it didn’t work, because Corinne had sent all but one to the cleaner. When did you come up with the scheme of sneaking out and trading places?”

  Elliott didn’t answer.

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter when. But why, Elliott? For God’s sake, why?”

  When he finally an
swered, Elliott’s voice was weary. “Maybe I was sick of what you’d done to him. What we’d all done. He was so pathetic when he called me in L.A. And when I saw him…I thought maybe that if John saw him too, he might persuade you to help Gary.”

  “And instead he killed him.”

  “No. I can’t believe that. John loved Gary.”

  “John loved Gary so much he took Nicole away from him. And then he got into a drunken quarrel with him and crashed the car they were riding in and crippled him for life.”

  “Yes, but John’s genuinely guilty over the accident. And he hates you for sending Gary away and replacing him with me. What a fraud we’ve all perpetrated—”

  Kabalka’s body tensed and he began balancing aggressively on the balls of his feet. “That fraud had made us a lot of money. Would have made us more until you pulled this stunt. Sooner or later they’ll identify Gary’s body and then it will all come out. John will be tried for the murder—”

  “I still don’t believe he killed him. I want to ask him about it.”

  Slowly Kabalka slipped his hand from his belt—and I saw the knife. He held it behind his back in his clenched fingers and took a step toward Elliott.

  I pushed with my palms against the rock. The motion caught Elliott’s eye and he looked around in alarm. Kabalka must have taken the look to be aimed at him because he brought the knife up.

  I didn’t hesitate. I jumped off the ledge. For what seemed like an eternity I was falling toward the jagged rocks below. Then I landed heavily—directly on top of Kabalka.

  As he hit the ground, I heard the distinctive sound of cracking bone. He went limp, and I rolled off him—unhurt, because his body had cushioned my fall. Kabalka lay unconscious, his head against a rock. When I looked at Elliott, I saw he had passed out from pain and shock.

  The room at John Muir hospital in Walnut Creek was antiseptic white, with bright touches of red and blue in the curtains and a colorful spray of fall flowers on the bureau. Elliott Larson—I’d found out that was his full name—lay on the bed with his right leg in traction. John Tilby stood by the door, his hands clasped formally behind his back, looking shy and afraid to come any further into the room. I sat on a chair by the bed, sharing a split of smuggled-in wine with Elliott.

  I’d arrived at the same time as Tilby, who had brought the flowers. He’d seemed unsure of a welcome, and even though Elliott had acted glad to see him, he was still keeping his distance. But after a few awkward minutes, he had agreed to answer some questions and had told me about the drunken auto accident five years ago in which he had been thrown clear of his MG and the real Gary Fitzgerald had been crippled. And about how Wayne Kabalka had sent Gary away with what the manager had termed an “ample settlement”—and which would have been except for Gary’s mounting medical expenses, which eventually ate up all his funds and forced him to live on welfare in a cheap San Francisco hotel. Determined not to lose the bright financial future the comedy team had promised him, Kabalka had looked around for a replacement for Gary and found Elliott performing in a seedy Haight-Ashbury club. He’d put him into the act, never telling the advertisers who were clamoring for Fitzgerald and Tilby’s services that one of the men in the whiteface was not the clown they had contracted with. And he’d insisted Elliott totally assume Gary’s identity.

  “At first,” Elliott said, “it wasn’t so bad. When Wayne found me, I was on a downslide. I was heavy into drugs, and I’d been kicked out of my place in the Haight and was crashing with whatever friends would let me. At first it was great making all that money, but after a while I began to realize I’d never be anything more than the shadow of a broken man.”

  “And then,” I said, “Gary reappeared.”

  “Yes. He needed some sort of operation and he contacted Wayne in L.A. Over the years Wayne had been sending him money—hush money, I guess you could call it—but it was barely enough to cover his minimum expenses. Gary had been seeing all the ads on TV, reading about how well we were doing, and he was angry and demanding a cut.”

  “And rightly so,” Tilby added. “I’d always thought Gary was well provided for, because Wayne took part of my earnings and said he was sending it to him. Now I know most of it was going into Wayne’s pocket.”

  “Did Wayne refuse to give Gary the money for the operation?” I asked.

  Tilby nodded. “There was a time when Gary would merely have crept back into the woodwork when Wayne refused him. But by then his anger and hurt had festered, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He threatened Wayne, and continued to make daily threats by phone. We were all on edge, afraid of what he might do. Corinne kept urging Wayne to give him the money, especially because we had contracted to come to San Francisco, where Gary was, for the clown festival. But Wayne was too stubborn to give in.”

  Thinking of Corinne, I said, “How’s she taking it, anyway?”

  “Badly,” Tilby said. “But she’s a tough lady. She’ll pull through.”

  “And Nicole?”

  “Nicole has vanished. Was packed and gone by the time I want back to the hotel after Wayne’s arrest.” He seemed unconcerned; five years with Nicole had probably been enough.

  I said, “I talked to the sheriff’s department. Wayne hasn’t confessed.” After I’d revived Elliott out there in the canyon, I’d given him my gun and made my way back to where I’d left the horse. Then I’d ridden—probably the most energetic ride of old Whitefoot’s life—back to the stables and summoned the sheriff’s men. When we’d arrived at the gulley, Wayne had regained consciousness and was attempting to buy Elliott off. Elliott seemed to be enjoying bargaining and then refusing.

  Remembering the conversation I’d overheard between the two men, I said to Elliott, “Did Wayne have it right about you intending to loan Gary one of your costumes?”

  “Yes. When I found I didn’t have an extra costume to give him, Gary came up the plan of signaling me from a horse on the hill. He knew the area from when he lived there and had seen a piece in the paper about how people would ride up on the hill to watch the concerts. You guessed about the signal?”

  “I saw it happen. I just didn’t put it together until later, when I thought about the fragments of leaves and needles they found in Gary’s clothing.” No need to explain about the catalyst to my thought process—the horse of a cat named Watney.

  “Well,” Elliott said “that was how it worked. The signal with the field glasses was to tell me Gary had been able to get a horse and show me where he’d be waiting. At the prearranged time, I made the excuse about going to the men’s room, climbed out the window, and left the pavilion. Gary changed and got himself into white face in a clump of trees with the aid of a flashlight. I put on his clothes and took the horse and waited, but he never came back. Finally the crowd was streaming out of the pavilion, and then the lights went out; I tried to ride down there, but I’m not a very good horseman, and I got turned around in the dark. Then something scared the horse and it threw me into that ravine and bolted. As soon as I hit the rocks I knew my leg was broken.”

  “And you lay there all night.”

  “Yes, half frozen. And in the morning I heard Wayne thrashing through the underbush. I don’t know if he intended to kill me at first, or if he planned to try to convince me that John had killed Gary and we should cover it up.”

  “Probably the latter, at least initially.” I turned to Tilby. “What happened at the pavilion with Gary?”

  “He came into the dressing room. Right off I knew it was him, by the limp. He was angry, wanted money. I told him I was willing to give him whatever he needed, but that Wayne would have to arrange for it. Gary hid in the dressing room closet and when you came in there, I asked you to get Wayne. He took Gary away, out into the audience, and when he came back, he said he’d fixed everything.” He paused, lips twisting bitterly. “And he certainly had.”

  We were silent for a moment. Then Elliott said to me, “Were you surprised to find out I wasn’t really Gary Fitzgerald?”


  “Yes and no. I had a funny feeling about you all along.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, first there was the fact you and John just didn’t look as though you were related. And then when we were driving through Contra Costa County, you didn’t display much interest in it—not the kind of curiosity a man would have when returning home after so many years. And there was one other thing.”

  “What?”

  “I said something about sound from the two pavilions being audible all the way to Port Chicago. That’s the place where the Naval Weapons Station is, up on the Strait. And you said ‘Not all the way to Chicago.’ You didn’t know where Port Chicago was, but I took it to mean you were making a joke. I remember thinking that for a clown, you didn’t have much of a sense of humor.”

  “Thanks a lot.” But he grinned, unoffended.

  I stood up. “So now what? Even if Wayne never confesses, they’ve got a solid case against him. You’re out a manager, so you’ll have to handle your own future plans.”

  They shrugged almost simultaneously.

  “You’ve got a terrific act,” I said. “There’ll be some adverse publicity, but you can probably weather it.”

  Tilby said, “A couple of advertisers have already called to withdraw their offers.”

  “Others will be calling with new ones.”

  “You can count on it. A squeaky clean reputation isn’t always an asset in show business; your notoriety will hurt in some ways, but help you in others.” I picked up my bag and squeezed Elliott’s arm, went toward the door, touching Tilby briefly on the shoulder. “At least think about keeping the act going.”

  As I went out, I looked back at them. Tilby had sat down in the chair. His posture was rigid, tentative, as if he might flee at any moment. Elliott looked uncertain, but hopeful.

  What was it, I thought, that John had said to me about clowns when we were playing gin in the dressing room at the pavilion? Something to the effect that they were all funny but, more important, that they all made people look at their own foibles. John Tilby and Elliott Larson—in a sense both broken men like Gary Fitzgerald—knew more about those foibles than most people. Maybe there was a way they could continue to turn that sad knowledge into humor.