Cop Out

by Susan Dunlap

  “That’s hefty entertaining for a nonprofit.” I remembered Daisy Culligan’s being surprised about spotting someone from the ACC office at the city’s premier restaurant.

  Macalester shrugged.

  “Do you have any proof that Bryant bribed Cyril? Or are you just making an assumption, Roger?”

  Macalester shrugged again, then muttered, “No. No proof.”

  “Why take the chance of dealing under the table with Brother Cyril? I mean, everyone agrees Bryant was a great mediator. So why not trust himself?”

  “Because Bryant couldn’t face failure,” he said in that soft, soft voice. Again, it blurred the line between anger and remorse. “It’s my fault. I liked the guy. I was taken in by his ‘most likely to succeed’ attitude.” He scooped up an orange ball. “But here’s the thing. Under that was nothing. He couldn’t face that. For him, looking at failure or even the possibility of failure was like giving it life. You know, like the New Age theories of ‘We are what our thoughts are.’ Allowing a thought of a snarling dog in your mind means getting your ass bitten. Bryant was terrified of the bite. He never faced his mistakes or the danger of them; he just kept moving forward.”

  “Hoping he could outrun them?” I recalled Serenity’s comment about Bryant’s inflating you with the intensity of his interest like a helium balloon and, when he moved on, leaving you to sputter to the ground. I wondered when he’d popped Roger Macalester’s balloon. How long had this man with the dream sat in the dark watching Bryant destroy it? And with it his reputation? Bryant was dead, but it would be Roger who was pulled into the grave when ACC went down.

  I scooped up a purple ball, tossed it up. It made a nice thud back in my hand, and when I squeezed, it resisted only momentarily before bowing to my strength. So satisfying. I tossed again, caught, and repeated my question to Macalester. “Why bribe Brother Cyril?”

  “Because Serenity Kaetz wouldn’t give in.”

  “Did Bryant try her?”

  The ball didn’t move in his hand. It was the first time his fingers had been still. “Don’t know.”

  “But you suspect, don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. So Bryant had approached Serenity Kaetz. I was only mildly surprised Serenity hadn’t told me that. Bryant had tried and failed. The man who hated failure. How desperate must he have been to be forced to deal with Brother Cyril?

  I looked back at Roger’s hand in time to see his control dissolve and orange rubber squeezed out between his fingers. He looked at the ball, not at me.

  “See, Bryant couldn’t avoid that dark hole entirely. So, much as he wanted to believe he was his image through and through, there had to be times when he was alone that he had an inkling that he was fickle, untrustworthy, temporary to any situation.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A couple of things he said, a phrase here or there, after too much booze at the Solstice Party, that type of thing. He didn’t let on to anyone else; with them he was always Mr. Charm, Señor Apropriado. But me, I was part of the office, like the desk here. After you’ve been here awhile, you’re not so careful where you put your butt.” Macalester stood, then flopped back on the desk.

  “But still, Roger, why did he bribe Brother Cyril? If Bryant couldn’t be sure of the outcome, why have Brother Cyril on A Fair Deal at all?” I expected him to concur with Howard’s and my conclusion that Bryant needed a big case, big ratings for his send-off.

  Roger shook his head slowly. “He couldn’t see the importance of mediation, of creating unity, of diffusing irritation before it turns to fury. Oh, he mouthed the words well, but he never really believed them. And so, Officer, he couldn’t trust that the importance of his mission would demand attention, inevitably. He was like a pony pulling a beer wagon, prancing and huffing, dragging, whinnying, sure that he’s the only thing that will draw men to the truck.”

  Put more succinctly: He needed a big case. I pushed myself up and turned to face Macalester head-on. “Roger, save us some time here. You hired Herman Ott, didn’t you?”

  “Why would I?”

  “To find out what Bryant was doing and how bad it was going to be for ACC and for you.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “We’ll find the entry in the books.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Because you paid him out of your own pocket?”

  “Look, I couldn’t even get Bryant to pay me. I haven’t had a check in two months. I’m doing well to eat, much less hire a private eye. Even Ott!”

  “But you talked to Ott when he came by with questions.”

  “I told him to go away.”

  “Did he ask about Brother Cyril?”

  His hand relaxed enough to begin working the ball again. “Yeah, he did.”

  “What specifically?”

  “I don’t know. If he’d been here in the office, if he’d called, if Bryant had called him. I don’t know.”

  “And you told him?”

  “No, no, and I didn’t know.”

  “But you do know, don’t you?”

  “No!”

  I let a moment pass, then said, “Okay. Where can I find Brother Cyril?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Bryant knew. Where did he keep addresses, phone numbers?”

  “On his Rolodex.” Macalester was smiling. “Don’t bother checking; Ott already did when my back was turned to answer the phone.”

  “Could Ott have pocketed a card from there while your back was turned?”

  It was a moment before Macalester said, “Oh, shit.”

  “Is that a yes or a maybe?”

  He looked down at the ball. I’d seen that same expression on Herman Ott’s face, the lump in the old rad’s throat as he considers helping the police. With Ott the blockage was usually so large he was in danger not of speaking but of choking. Occasionally I eased that lump out, greasing his throat with a portion of the discretionary fund. But Roger Macalester seemed to manage his impediment. “I saw a paper going in his pocket. I called him on it. He pulled out a receipt of some sort. Then he accused me of losing my principles, and he stomped out.”

  The Ottian inverse of bait and switch. I could picture him stalking out in a huff of righteousness.

  And stalking into Cyril’s lair. I sighed.

  As if in concert with me, Pereira groaned.

  “What? Something in the books?”

  “I can’t tell yet. But…I don’t know…something.”

  “How soon are you going to know?”

  “I don’t know.” She turned a page and leaned closer. She wasn’t groaning anymore. All the semesters and quarters she’d taken classes in economics, stocks, trading strategies, accounting, forensic accounting, all seemed in vain. Her family siphoned her profits; her patrol buddies’ eyes glazed at numbers and theories and terms we’d heard but could never define. But here she was like a pig nosing out the best truffle in France. She’d sniff and dig until she’d found it. Nothing was going to deter her. Alas, nothing was going to rush her either.

  “I’ll check back,” I said. And to Macalester: “One last thing. How did you come into your job here?”

  He was staring at Pereira’s back as if updates of her suspicions and discoveries were being spelled out across the back of her neck like the news in Times Square. “This job? That’s easy. Daisy recommended me.”

  CHAPTER 25

  WAS THAT DAISY CULLIGAN’S revenge, sending her ex-husband Roger Macalester for an office manager? The concept appealed to me. I yearned to drive across town and ask her about it. But that wasn’t going to bring me any closer to finding Herman Ott.

  I left a note about it on Inspector Doyle’s desk and moved on to the mailboxes. No word from Goldman. But there was a message from a DeLisle Draper at Golden Gate National Seashore. I called.

  “Draper.”

  “Jill Smith, Berkeley Police. You got back to me about Herman Ott”—I checked the message—“fifteen minutes ago.” />
  “Right. You wanted to know if we’d seen the guy who looks like a giant canary, right?”

  “Canary in a mustard raincoat.”

  “Right. Well, here’s the thing. I didn’t see your guy myself, but one of the other rangers is sure he spotted him Sunday just as he was closing the parking lot at Muir Beach. He noticed your guy because he didn’t have a car, and when he told him he was closing the lot, your guy headed toward the lagoon there, and my buddy figured your guy’d sneak back onto the beach. He warned him. He was going to come back and check later, see if he spotted a fire, but he got sidetracked by some kids.…But he was doing a double shift, and so the next morning, when he opened the lot, he checked, and there your guy was. Clear he’d been on the beach all night. Looked damp and bedraggled. You know wet birds don’t fly at night.” A chortle rattled the line.

  “True.” I’d heard the old joke too, but I couldn’t bring myself to laugh now.

  “But looks like your bird flew after that. No one’s seen him since.”

  “Was anyone with him?”

  “Nope. That’s part of why he looked suspicious, lone man in trench coat and all.”

  “The guy who spotted him, has he been on duty since then?”

  “Zeise? Oh, yeah. He went to Mexico for two weeks. He’s got to pay back everyone in the station. He’ll be doing double shifts till his tan is gone.”

  “Zeise is sure he didn’t see my guy again?”

  “Yeah, see, he wasn’t about to have him sneaking back on that beach another time. So he checked all the hideouts. You’d be hard pressed to burrow down in a spot we don’t know about. Squatters think they’re going to drop in here cold and outsmart us. Hardly. We’re here forty hours a week. They think they can hoodwink us; it’s insulting.”

  “Ott—my guy—did Zeise notice any scars or bruises on him? Anything to suggest he was banged around and dumped off in Muir Beach?”

  “This is Muir Beach, not the Jersey meadowlands. We don’t do cement bootees here. And even if we did, you could crawl to a house. Not to mention that the beach is rarely empty, even after hours,” he added with a soupcon of pique.

  “Gotcha. If my guy shows up there again, let me know, okay?”

  “You bet.”

  “And, Draper, thanks.” I restrained myself till I put the receiver down. Then I kicked the waste can into the wall. The squad room was empty, so I didn’t have to explain that was the closest I could get to kicking Ott where he’d remember it.

  Herman Ott—I smacked the can upright—you are lucky there’s an entire bay between us. Or there was when you were last seen, strolling on the beach, alone, in no danger. Did you rent your office out for murder and use the money to hire a driver to the beach? Maybe you had a little left over, huh? Maybe you extended your vacation to Puerto Vallarta?

  I took the steps down to the parking lot so fast I was nearly sliding. Sapolu was checking the trunk of his patrol car, but I didn’t say hello. I needed to be by myself and think. I drove a couple of blocks and parked.

  Ott got in a car on Telegraph Sunday night. No visible gun pointed at him. Still, the driver could have been armed.

  Sure! And he had Ott hold the gun on himself while he, the kidnapper, drove? And if Ott tried to escape, would he have shot himself?

  And then what? The kidnapper drops Ott off at the beach, figuring he’ll be too intimidated to walk a few yards to a house and knock.

  What did you really do, Ott? Call a friend, someone who owed you, and ask for a ride out of town?

  There are ample people who wouldn’t dare mention that trip if you told them not to.

  I slammed my fist into the seat. If Ott hadn’t been kidnapped, that meant he wasn’t potential victim number two. If Ott hadn’t been kidnapped, then he had left his office on his own. And I wasn’t looking for an endangered hostage but a witness, or an accomplice, or a murderer.

  It’s hard to make a case that a man’s not a killer when a body’s dead in his office, shot with a gun stashed outside his window, and he’s gone to the beach.

  Gone to the beach, hung around overnight, and disappeared. Where was he now? In a safe house with the friend who had taken him to the beach? Or back in Pittsburgh? Cairo? Des Moines? Had he gone to the beach just long enough for his cohort to ready his present hidey-hole?

  Herman Ott, murderer.

  I guess I’d been seduced by Ott. I just couldn’t believe a man who’d governed his life by integrity, who’d given up things monastics and street people consider necessities would kill a man.

  In his own office yet.

  But it was just a belief—my naive belief about Ott—and every bit of evidence and logic argued against it. Ott had made a chump of me before; he could do it again now, big time.

  It all pointed to Ott.

  But I couldn’t believe it.

  Maybe the truth was I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. Everyone has his price, Leonard had insisted. But if Ott sold his soul…Ott was the soul of the old sixties ethic here, the undercurrent of individual integrity that ran through Berkeley. That commitment to the integrity of the individual was why we put up with annual protests for People’s Park, with being panhandled three times on a block, with the toughest police review commission around. It was why we had a tree ordinance to protect citizens’ views, a gourmet ghetto ordinance to protect neighbors from being overrun with restaurants. It was why the city council had risked money and reputation setting aside an acre for transients living in vehicles, forging sister city agreements with cities that needed us more than we them. It was the good still left from the sixties, the assurance that people were more than impediments to downsizing, that on some level every person mattered.

  If that ethic was a sham, then so was the city. My city.

  I knew then if that were true, I’d have to move on, leave the only place I’d ever belonged.

  My hands burned from squeezing the steering wheel. I wrenched them free, pressed my half-numb fingers around the keys, and started the car.

  Cops work not from hunches but from evidence. What does this show? Can this be used in court? Each bit of evidence I found about Ott was more incriminating.

  What about that cross that fell out of his pocket at the Claremont? I would believe he sold his soul and his city before I’d buy his becoming a disciple of Brother Cyril. He had to be investigating Cyril. Bryant and Cyril. The question was which came first. Had Bryant sicced him on Cyril and aroused Ott’s suspicions himself? Despite his poor-mouthing, Roger might well have thought the cost of getting the goods on Bryant was money well spent. The ACC books had to show that one of them paid him for that investigation. Surely.

  I turned on the engine and headed to Delaware Street. When I pulled up in the parking lot, Connie Pereira was smiling.

  CHAPTER 26

  DID YOU FIND ANY record of a payment to Ott?” I demanded as Connie Pereira loaded the ACC books into her trunk.

  “Macalester gave his permission.” She indicated the books. “He thinks that makes him look innocent.” Her expression said: More fool he.

  “Ott?” I prompted.

  “No, Smith, they didn’t hire him. Nothing in the books. Nothing on Ott, that is,” she said in an ask-me-more tone.

  “Did you find a payoff to Brother Cyril?”

  “Nada, believe me. I’ve inched through Hemming’s books; he’s not good enough to hide a bribe. Or a retainer to Ott. Unless there’s another set of books, of course.”

  But if not for a bribe, why had Brother Cyril allowed himself to be mediated off Telegraph? And Ott, what was he after in the ACC books, the connection between Hemming and Cyril? Had he too been expecting to find a bribe? Focusing back on the revelation at hand, I said, “Okay, what’s the secret of the books?”

  “Pyramid scheme,” she whispered.

  “ACC? A pyramid? With the little money their people invested?”

  “I didn’t say they could bury a pharaoh, Smith. It’s more like, remember those little me
tal pyramids people were sticking under or over their pears to keep them from spoiling?”

  One of Howard’s tenants a few years back had been a devotee of pyramid power. He’d had a glass pyramid over his strawberries, clusters of metal ones under his broccoli, under vases of flowers, and when we found one under his girlfriend’s chair, we started to worry. “A sort of molehill of the pyramid world?”

  Pereira grinned. “You got it, Smith. Tiny but structured like the big guys.” She followed me to my car and climbed in beside me. “The classic pyramid was the New Age Foundation in Philadelphia. There they had a fictitious group of donors, who supposedly would double any investment worthy nonprofit groups left with the foundation for six months. Nonprofits invested, and when it came time to pay off, New Age paid them from the money invested by later groups. The nonprofits told others about their great investment, and soon boards of charities all over the country were begging to be allowed to hand over their cash.”

  I recalled that, though not in the gleeful detail Pereira did. “Connie, doesn’t it occur to the crooks who cook up pyramid schemes that there has to come a point when they can’t pay off?”

  Pereira shrugged. “These con guys fall into three categories. One, the regulation crooks who figure they’ll attract a bundle of cash, clear the coffers, and disappear before the jig is up. Their problem is they forget they’re greedy. They’re like the Indian monkeys caught in the monkey traps. You know what those are, Smith?”

  “The traps?”

  “They’re nothing more than holes big enough for the monkey to slip his empty paw through and grab the banana inside. Too small for the paw holding the banana to come out. All the monkey has to do is let go of the banana, and he’ll be free. Does he? Does the pyramid con man clear out the account when there’s a million dollars in it or wait another month for the next million?”

  I nodded uncomfortably. The con men were on their own, but I hated to think of the monkeys. Or the moral.