by Susan Dunlap
It took me three stops to find someone home who admitted to knowing the location of a canyon wall cottage and the steps that led down to it—wooden supports holding back earthen platforms—that were wedged in so tight between two rim houses that I’d have taken them as stairs to a back stoop.
I made my way down between houses with roofs level to the street. The stairs weren’t steep, but the supports had been worn down with time, and once I passed out of range of the light from the canyon-facing windows, I had to feel for the edge of each step. Maybe one false step wouldn’t have flung me into the lair of skunk and parking perp, but it felt that way.
A single light shone off the roof of a walkway between halves of the cottage. Mostly it lit the walkway, but from what I could make out of the cottage it could have been a copy of Madeleine’s. Was that what drew her binoculars here, and the telescope in the window of this house to Madeleine’s cottage?
I stepped onto the companionway and knocked on the carved red door that led to the mirror image of Madeleine’s room. When I got no response, I tried the door across the companionway. No answer there either. I gave them both another round, and stood looking across the dark canyon, aware of the smell of fresh dirt and bay leaves and eucalyptus. Only one square of light was visible on the far side, but to my unaided eyes it was nothing more than a yellow square in a black background. Over here, the outside lights illumined hydrangeas offering violet and pink balls at the end of drought-thinned stalks. And I could see the remains of a couple of rose bushes that had doubtless provided an aperitif for the deer.
The resident might well be in bed at this hour, but three knocks should get anyone up. I pounded on the door one last time.
“Okay, okay, hang on. I’ll be there in a second.” The male voice sounded like it came from inside a closet at the far end of the building. If he could hear this knock, he’d heard the others. Not a man much interested in knowing who had tramped down to his out-of-the-way and—I thought, as police officers do—unprotected door.
It was a full minute before the red door swung open, revealing a lanky fiftyish man with wavy gray hair caught in a ponytail. The jeans he was wearing had not only the stylish holes at the knees, but unstylish ones on both thighs and a sub-zipper patch that saved him from indecency. His faded ZOO RUN T-shirt hung loose over sleekly muscled shoulders and arms. There was a cadaverous look to his face that made me flash back uncomfortably to Madeleine Riordan and her bare skull, her too-prominent bones. But there was nothing unhealthy about his tanned face. He just looked like one of those people who had more compelling things to do than eat. I suspected Michael Wennerhaver would view his decrepit garb with horror.
But in most of Berkeley, where well-dressed is viewed as ostentatious, this man would seem an exemplar of proper restraint.
“I don’t give out money at the door,” he announced.
Proper restraint, indeed. And not a great sense of time, unless this neighborhood drew peddlers at eleven at night. “I’m Detective Smith, Berkeley Police. I need to ask you a couple questions.” I smiled, in what I always hope is a disarming way. “Okay if I come in?”
He shrugged. “If you don’t mind the mess. I was in the darkroom,” he added as if that had substituted for a house-cleaning binge.
I followed him inside. Maybe he had turned his closet into a darkroom. It certainly looked like he’d turned out the closet’s contents into the room. Letters and clothes covered a refectory table against the side wall, books were piled haphazardly on the floor amid a thick cushioning of dust balls. Shirts, sweaters, and jackets littered chairs; in a magnificent statement of slovenliness three jackets lay on the floor beneath the wispiest arrangement of clothes hooks I’d ever seen, like half a dozen or so eighteen-inch tapers in a spray coming out from the wall. They probably would have buckled under the jackets’ weight, but nothing suggested they had ever been tested.
I could barely keep myself from smiling. In front of the dark picture window was not the telescope I had thought I’d seen, but a camera with a telephoto lens. He could have looked into Madeleine’s window this evening. He could have captured her murderer on film.
But if he had, he hadn’t rushed to notify the sheriff, and he hadn’t chosen to mention it to me. I would need to slant in on this. With a show of massive self-control I kept my gaze moving from the camera to the kitchen wall and back to him. “I’ll need your full name and address here.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“We’ve had another incident on the canyon.”
“Berkeley side, huh?”
“Right.”
“Connected to the business last night?”
“We don’t know.” When he looked skeptical at that pat reply, I added, “Honestly. It’s too soon to tell, but you can see that with two calls in the same area in two days we have to consider the possibility of a connection.”
He nodded, either in agreement, or acknowledging my having swept him into the in-group of those expected to understand. For my purposes it didn’t matter which. “Your name?”
“Victor Champion.”
I almost laughed.
“Firstborn son. My parents weren’t people to take chances. Unfortunately for them”—he grinned—“they didn’t grasp the concept of overkill. I played every sport in school and nearly had a nervous breakdown from the academic pressure. And that was in the days before it was respectable for boys to break down, particularly sons of colonels. It says something that I’ve chosen to spend my time alone in a darkroom, supporting myself in a noncompetitive field.” He shrugged with pride of rebellion he clearly assumed I would understand. And, in fact, I did.
“Photography is noncompetitive?”
“Quantitatively at least. That’s the best we can do. Life is competitive.”
“I guess that’s something you learn growing up on military bases?”
“Right. And every time you move, the competition starts all over again. It’s like having a new cat move into the neighborhood; suddenly all the territories have to be fought for all over again. I could have spent my whole childhood hissing and with bite marks in my tail.” He waited to see if I caught the significance of the wound placement, then smiled. It was a lopsided smile mostly on the left half of his face. I wondered if that was the side he’d kept hidden from his military parents.
I was dying to ask about Madeleine, but witnesses tend either to offer nothing or to talk nervously until you announce your purpose. Then, comforted or at least focused, they feel like they have more control over the interchange. Once I asked about Riordan, chances were I’d never get him to reveal another thing about himself. “So, how’d the colonel take to that kind of pacifism?”
“Sent me to boarding school. Three, actually. Took him two to realize that military school wasn’t the answer. The third was the kind of place where you can major in photography, bicycling, and the philosophy of Gandhi. Pretty radical for the time.” He offered that lopsided grin. “I’m pretty much through work and ready for a glass of wine. I suppose I can’t tempt you, even if this is out of your venue.”
“Right. But you go ahead.” We love it when witnesses loosen up, not that wariness seemed to be a problem with Champion. Either he had nothing to hide, or he’d spent hours in the darkroom and it was taking a long time for his mental eyes to adjust to the light of police presence.
Taking advantage of his trip to the kitchen, I glanced around the room again. The floor was bare wood—no carpet. The three chairs were of tan canvas, the type you buy at discount import stores and that forever rub your sitting bones no matter how thick your gluteal padding, and Champion’s, I’d noticed, was not a bit excessive. Firm, but definitely not excessive. The walls were white and held no photographs. Either Champion was a very modest artist, or one who found new faults in his work every time he eyed it. Off to the left the hallway led to a kitchen and bathroom. “Is the other room the bedroom?” I asked when he came back.
“Is that a personal question?”
he said with a look that made me think he had observed me in the same way I had him.
“A structural question.”
“Too bad. Still, the answer is yes.”
Now I could place him. Suspects try a variety of strategies with us. One is to pretend we’ve dropped in for a social visit, that whatever we’re questioning can wait. The innocent don’t bother with strategies. But through them, the guilty reveal more of themselves than they realize. I said, “And you support all this as a photographer?”
“You haven’t seen my work.”
“You haven’t shown it to me. But still, I doubt Edward Weston could have handled the payment on this house.” Land in Berkeley, and more so in Kensington, is like little plots of gold. The steeper the incline the more carats.
“I inherited it after my father died.”
“The colonel and his wife lived here?” A studio in the hills overlooking the most liberal city in the country seemed an uncharacteristic whimsy for a colonel.
He laughed. “Hardly. The colonel would never have set foot in Berkeley. After he died, my mother drove up from Arizona once, but all the steps here were too much for her.” He glanced around the room proprietorially. “The colonel would be rolling in his flag-decked grave to know how I spent his money. It took the whole of it, but it’s worth it. So how do I eat, you’re asking? My mother died a year ago. I inherited what little she had. I make the occasional sale, and well, Nature has been good to me.”
I expected him to glance down at his lean body. Nature had, indeed, been good to him. And clearly from the tone of his conversation I was not the first woman to have noticed it. Had Madeleine with her binoculars noticed it? Was that all her return to Canyonview was about, a last burst of lust?
A smile played at the left corner of Champion’s mouth as if he could read my mind. He said, “I don’t usually mention Nature’s gift, but a police officer will have heard worse.” He caught my eye momentarily, grinned, and said, “One of the things I’ve learned along the way is how to bolt houses to their foundations. After the Loma Prieta earthquake people have gotten a whole lot more serious about keeping their houses where they are. I could spend all day every day crawling around foundations. It’s straight grunt work. But if I do one a month, I’m in good shape. And I don’t have to go far for business.”
“Well, I can see why you don’t go around here boasting about this boon. You work in the canyon?”
“On the rim. There aren’t many houses as far down in it as this one.”
“Have you seen anyone down there?”
“In the canyon? Kids. But I work during school hours.”
“No one else?”
“Who’d you have in mind?”
I hesitated momentarily, then decided to go on a “need to know only” basis. “We had a solo hostage situation there last night. The suspect disappeared. Maybe you’ve seen something that could help us find him.” What we’d found down there he didn’t need to know.
He stiffened.
“Mr. Champion—”
“Pi-on. Call me Pion.”
Peon, indeed. I laughed. “Socked it to your parents, huh?”
“Final straw in the second military school.”
“Well, Pion, I can guess how you see us, the police. But give my question some thought. If there’s a guy hanging out down there, he can be building fires …” I didn’t have to elaborate on the danger. The fire storm of 1991 was in a canyon on the other side of Berkeley. Fire swept down the canyon; temperatures rose to 2000 degrees (the temperature of crematoria); twenty-six people died.
Pion leaned back. The light hit half his angular face, showing me how it might look in photographic art. His cheeks hung off prominent bones, his mouth was wide, his lips thin, and his spatulate nose a bit too long as if he’d spent his half century stroking it in thought. His eyes moved from side to side under heavy half-closed lids. Come-to-bed eyes, Connie Pereira would have called them.
He shook his head. “Sorry. When I’m doing foundations, I’m making a racket. And I’ll tell you you don’t get much of a view when your nose is against the support posts. But I’ll keep an eye out. If there were a fire here, I’d be the first to burn.”
“Good enough.”
He leaned forward. “Can I get you something? Coffee? Tea?”
I had enough background on him. He was relaxed, complacent, his guard down. This was the moment I’d been waiting for.
“No, thanks.” I looked over at the telephoto lens. “But tell me about Madeleine Riordan.”
“Who?”
“Madeleine Riordan, the woman your camera’s focused on.”
His whole body tensed. It was as if all those lanky bones had shrunk a size, and all those sleek muscles compacted. He leaned forward, poised on the edge of the chair. “She’s got no reason to complain,” he whined. “I’ve got a release for her. She said she’d sign it. I just haven’t gotten over there for it. Now that I don’t have a car, it takes more time to get places. I know she was uncomfortable about the photographs, but, shit, she could have called me. She didn’t have to bring you guys in. Ridiculous. The whole thing’s ridiculous.”
Suddenly the room seemed icy, the walls too bright, the picture window startlingly dark. What kind of man was this—this man who I’d found attractive—who spent his time taking Peeping Tom photos of a dying woman? I could feel the muscles in my neck clutching. What kind of man took advantage of the only things she had left: her view of the canyon and the body disease was sucking dry? And brushed aside her objections with the ease of a rapist insisting “she wanted it.” I had to swallow twice before I could trust my voice. “Show me the photos.”
He didn’t move.
“Now!”
He jumped up. “Okay, okay. They’re in the darkroom. It’s just that I’ve never shown them to anyone.”
With effort I restrained comment and followed his long loose steps into the hallway to a room that must once have been a laundry area. It was five by eight, with brown chemical bottles on shelves, shallow pans by the sink, and streamers of negatives hanging from clothespins. Champion walked to the far end and extricated three 8-by-11 prints. “These are the best,” he said in a voice that barely resembled the sure, easy tone he’d had before. This was the voice of the boy afraid of the consequences of not fighting for territory, afraid what territory he’d managed to steal for himself would be snatched away and he’d be standing on nothingness.
I stepped out into the hallway. He followed, shut the darkroom door, and walked back to the living room. With the sweep of an arm he cleared the refectory table. Letters and clothes thudded to the floor. Carefully he propped the photos on the table, then moved back.
I steeled myself, silently apologized to Madeleine for compounding Champion’s invasion, then stepped up to them. The telephoto lens had made the pictures startlingly clear. One was a nighttime silhouette taken through the window. Madeleine must have been sitting on the foot of the bed; her legs must have been crossed, but I couldn’t be sure. Her back was utterly straight, and the light formed a halo around her bare head. She looked both like a candle and like a Japanese monk. Strong, self-contained, a light in the darkness. Utterly sexless, just insight and integrity. The Madeleine Riordan her clients trusted with their futures. The lawyer everyone respected but few asked to lunch. This was a photo I’d expect Michael Wennerhaver to have in the honored spot above his desk. It captured Riordan in a depth I hadn’t expected from Champion. I felt a flush of guilt, recalling my suspicions about him. Still, the man who came on to me was as real as the sensitive photographer.
The second photograph was a daylight shot. Madeleine was sitting in the same place, clearly cross-legged, and Coco had his paws on her shoulders. They were nearly nose to nose and Madeleine was smiling. Her smile was so intense I had the sense that everything else, including her illness, had dropped away. In the photo there was no dying woman, only one delighted with her pet. Only the delight. I stared at it, amazed that these two
pictures had captured sides of her so disparate they might have been of different people. And I found myself strangely relieved to know that the first picture wasn’t the whole, that she had had at least this one moment of joy over there in the room she was to die in. Of course, I realized almost immediately, there had to have been more. I barely knew her. It shocked me anew on how little I had made my judgment of her, not just now in this case, but in the image I’d had of her over the years.
The third photograph was from a different angle. A palm branch cut into the edge of the window. I hadn’t noticed that palm. Madeleine was facing the other direction. She seemed to be looking at or beyond a partition or doorway; I couldn’t tell just what—it was too hazy. Her head seemed like a skull, dead and yet vivified by outrage—an outrage as burning as the joy had been glowing, the calm inspiring. If I wondered whether Madeleine Riordan had accepted her dying easily, I had my answer.
I turned slowly to Pion. “Are there others?”
“Nothing worth printing.”
But he would have made contact prints at least. “I’ll have to see them.”
He nodded and headed back to the darkroom.
I would ask him if he saw anything today in Madeleine’s studio. But I knew what answer I’d get. He would tell me he hadn’t. And I would believe him. I could imagine these portraits would have made Madeleine uncomfortable. She had probably never been adored like this. I couldn’t stop looking at the pictures, looking from one to another, from the joyous to the outraged to the controlled. I found myself glancing faster and faster as if I could mentally flip them like animated drawings fast enough to create one picture of the essence of Madeleine Riordan.
When he brought the other prints I could see why he hadn’t earlier. They were ordinary shots of an ordinary woman. I looked back at the three, wondering if Champion had captured the triumvirate of Madeleine Riordan or had recorded three of any number of her hidden sides.
Whichever, he’d shown an insight I couldn’t believe of a stranger. I handed him back the rejected photos. “Now, tell me about Madeleine Riordan.”