The McCone Files
Page 29
Quickly I considered several stories, rejected all of them, and told Swenson the truth. He reacted with glee, laughing loudly and slapping his hand on his desk. “Good for Howie! At least he got a few weeks of good life before everything went down the sewer.”
“So can you tell me where I can find him?”
“I still don’t know why you want him.”
I hesitated, unsure myself as to why I did. No one was looking for Howard John any more, and the organization that had assigned me to find him had ceased to exist. Finally I said, ”When you have a sale pending that you think is a sure thing and then if falls through, does it nag at you afterwards?”
“Sure, for years, sometimes. I wonder what I did wrong, why it didn’t fly.”
“I’m the same way about my cases. This is my last open file from the law firm where I used to work. Closing it will tie off some loose ends.”
“Well…” Swenson considered some more. “Okay. I don’t know if Howie’s still there, but I saw him working another lot about three months ago—Roy’s Motors, up in Concord.”
Concord was a city to the north. I thanked Swenson and hurried out to the van.
Concord, like Walnut Creek, had developed into a metropolis since I once worked a case at its performing arts pavilion, but the windswept frontage road where Roy’s Motors was located was a throwback to the early sixties. An aging shopping center with a geodesic dome-type cinema and dozens of mostly dead stores adjoined the used-car lot; both were almost devoid of customers. Faded plastic flags fluttered limply above Roy’s stock, which consisted mainly of vehicles that looked as though they’d welcome a trip to the auto dismantler’s; a sign proclaiming it HOME OF THE BEST DEALS IN TOWN creaked disconsolately. I could make out a man sitting inside the small sales shack, but his features were obscured by the dirty window glass.
A young couple were wandering through the lot, stopping here and there to examine pick-up trucks. After a few minutes they displayed more than passing interest in a canary-yellow Ford, and the man got up and came out of the shack. He was on the short side and running to paunch, with thinning dark hair, a brushy mustache, and a face that once had been handsome. Howard John?
As he approached the couple, the salesman held himself more erect and sucked in his stomach; his step took on a jaunty rhythm and a charismatic smile lit up his face. He shook hands with the couple, began expounding on the truck. He laughed; they laughed. He helped the woman into the cab, urged the man in on the driver’s side. The chemistry was working, the magic glowing. This, I was sure, was the man who years before had scammed the greedy merchants of San Francisco.
A few short weeks of living like the high rollers, I thought, then dismissal from a good job and a series of steps down to this. How did he go on, with the memory of those weeks ever in the back of his mind? How did he come to his windswept lot every day and put himself through the paces?
Well, maybe his dreams—improbable as they might seem—had survived intact. He’d done it once, his reasoning might go, and he could do it again. Maybe Howard John still believed that he was only occupying a way station on the road to the top.
But what about Marnie Morrison?
I found Howard John’s residence by a method whose simplicity and effectiveness have never ceased to amaze me: a look-see into the phone book. The listing was in two names, and the wife’s was Marnie.
The shabby residential street was not far from the used-car lot: a two-block row of identical shoebox-style tract homes of the same vintage as the shopping center. The pavement was potholed and the houses on the west side backed up on a concrete viaduct but big poplars, arched over the street and, in spite of the hum of nearby freeway traffic, it had an aura of tranquility. The house I was looking for was painted mint green and surrounded by a low chain link fence. A sign on its gate said SUNNYSIDE DAYCARE CENTER, and in the yard beyond it sat an assortment of brightly colored playground equipment.
It was close to five o’clock; for the next hour I watched a steady stream of parents arrive and depart with their offspring. Ten minutes after the last had left a woman came out of the house and began collecting the playthings strewn in the yard. I peered through my shade-dappled windshield and recognized an older, heavier version of Marnie Morrison. Clad in an oversized sweatshirt and leggings that strained over her ample thighs, she moved slowly, stopping now and then to wipe sweat from her brow. When she finished she trudged inside.
So this was what Marnie had become since I’d last seen her: the overworked, prematurely aged wife of an unsuccessful used-car salesman, who operated a daycare center to make ends meet. And one of those ends was her periodic hundred-dollar atonement to her parents’ favorite charity for the credit-card binge that had bought her a few weeks of high living and dreams.
Unsure as to why I was doing it, I continued to watch the mint green house. I’d found Marnie. Why didn’t I give up and go back to the city? There were things I should be doing at the new offices, things I should be doing at home.
But I wanted an end to the story, so I stayed where I was.
Half an hour later a Ford Bronco passed me and pulled into the John’s driveway. Howard got out carrying a bouquet of pink carnations. He let himself into the yard, stopping to pick up a stuffed bear that Marnie had missed. He held the bear at arm’s length, gave it a jaunty grin, and tucked it under his arm, his step was light as he moved toward the door. Before he got it open his wife appeared, now dressed in a gauzy caftan, and enveloped him in a welcoming embrace.
I’d reached the end of the tale. Leaving Marnie and Howard to their surviving dreams and illusions, I drove back to All Souls for the last time.
The big Victorian was mostly dark and totally silent. Only the porch light and another far back in the kitchen shone. It was about eight o’clock; none of the remaining partners lived in the building, and they rarely spent more time there than was necessary. The new corporation they’d formed had the property up for sale and would move downtown as soon as a buyer was found.
Moving on, all of us.
I was about to haul the cartons I’d left in the foyer down to the van when I heard a sound in the kitchen—the familiar creak of the refrigerator door. Curiosity aroused, I went back there, walking softly. The room was dim, the light coming from a single bulb in the sconce over the sink. A figure turned from the fridge, glass of wine in hand. Hank.
He started nearly dropping the glass. “Jesus, Shar!”
“Sorry, I’m not up to talking to any of the new guard tonight, so I tiptoed. Why aren’t you down at the pier helping everybody shove the new furniture around?”
“I was, but nobody could make up their mind where it should go, and I foresaw a long and unpleasant relationship with a chiropractor.”
“So you came here?”
He shrugged. “Why not? You want some wine?”
“Sure. For old times’ sake.”
Hank went to the fridge and poured the last of the so-so jug variety that had been an All Souls staple. He handed it to me and motioned for me to sit at the table by the window. As we took our places I realized that they were identical to those we’d occupied the first afternoon I’d come here.
I said, “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”
“You haven’t told me why you’re here.”
“I meant to be gone hours ago, but wait till you hear my news!” I explained about closing the Morrison file.
He shook his head. “You do believe in typing up loose ends. So what about those two—do you think they’re happy?”
I hesitated. “What’s happy? It’s all relative. The guy still brings her flowers. She still dresses up for him. Maybe that was enough too.”
“Maybe.” He took a long pull at his wine, took a longer look around the kitchen. His expression grew melancholy. This room and this table had been a big part of Hank’s life since leaving law school.
“Don’t,” I said, “or you’ll get me going.”
His eyes m
oved to the window, scanning the lights of downtown. After a moment they stopped and his lips curved into a smile. I knew he was looking at the section of waterfront where the law firm of Altman & Zahn had recently rented offices next to McCone Investigations on a renovated pier. We finished our wine in silence. Around us the big house creaked and groaned, as it did every evening when the day’s warmth faded. I felt my eyes sting, blinked hard. Only an incurable romantic would find significance in tonight’s particular creaks and groans. And I, of course, had not a romantic bone in my body.
So why had the last creak sounded like “goodbye?”
Hank drained his glass and stood. Carried both to the sink, where he rinsed them carefully and set them on the drain board. “In answer to your earlier question,” he said, “I’m here because I forgot something.”
“Oh? What?”
He came over and rapped his knuckles on the table where we’d eaten and drunk, played games and talked, celebrated and commiserated, fought and made up, and—now—let go. “This table and chairs’re mine. Marin County Flea Market, the week after we founded All Souls. They’re going along.”
“To our joint conference room?”
I nodded.
“Then give me a hand with them, will you?”
I stood, grinning, “Sure, but only if…”
“If what?”
It was a stupid sentimental decision—one I was sure to regret. “Only if you’ll give me hand with that ratty armchair in my former office. I can’t imagine I forgot it.”
We hope you’ve enjoyed this McCone mystery. Now check out the rest of Marcia Muller’s SHARON MCCONE series – all available as ebooks and audiobooks from AudioGO!
1
Edwin of the Iron Shoes
2
Ask the Cards a Question
3
The Cheshire Cat’s Eye
4
Games to Keep the Dark Away
5
Leave a Message for Willie
6
Double
7
There’s Nothing to Be Afraid Of
8
Eye of the Storm
9
There’s Something in a Sunday
10
The Shape of Dread
11
Trophies and Dead Things
12
Where Echoes Live
13
Pennies on a Dead Woman’s Eyes
Plus two short story collections: McCone and Friends, and The McCone Files.