Looking for Yesterday

by Marcia Muller

  I’d already manufactured a reply to that particular question. “My husband and I are considering buying property up this way. I’m talking to a lot of people in the area.”

  “Hope you’re well fixed. Real-estate market is dead most places, but it’s booming here.”

  “Dave and Kayla told me they’d gotten quite a deal—”

  “That was years ago. Things change.”

  “Do you see them often?”

  “Why, we talk on the phone every now and then.”

  A thought nudged at me; God knows where ideas come from. “When did you last actually see them, though?”

  “Why? Something wrong over there?”

  “Well, I’m not sure. Something was off, anyway—the reason I made it a short visit.”

  “I see Dave in the vineyards now and then, working with his crew.”

  “You don’t deal with him directly on the grapes he buys from you?”

  “No. His field manager handles that. Dave’s strictly a winemaker.”

  “And Kayla?”

  “Every morning she leaves fresh-baked bread on the porch, early before I’m out of bed. Always has.”

  “When did you last have a personal conversation with either of them?”

  A long pause. “Two, maybe two and a half years ago. They’re not very social people, keep pretty much to themselves.”

  They’d seemed social enough with this stranger in their tasting room. Why not with their neighbor?

  3:37 p.m.

  I sat at a small table inside the Jimtown Store, an old-fashioned Alexander Valley institution, eating a bowl of its Chain Gang Chili and sipping a glass of its Jimtown White. In good weather the store—filled with Wine Country antiques, local products, T-shirts, postcards, souvenirs, jars of candy and cookies—would be mobbed. But today, except for the counterman and a scruffy individual nursing a drink whose contents seemed to come from a bottle in the pocket of his raincoat, the place was deserted.

  The scruffy man kept stealing glances at me. I glanced back, smiled encouragingly. Finally he got up and approached my table. Leaned on the extra chair. “You alone, miss?”

  This had to be Jethro Weatherford, shirttail cousin of the Goddens. On the way into town I’d stopped at the grove of gum trees—another term for eucalyptus—that the former winery owners had deeded to him, but his small cabin had been locked and deserted.

  I looked into his bleary eyes. Saw sadness and loneliness. “Yes, I’m alone. Would you care to join me?”

  “Thank you, miss, I would.” He extended a gnarled hand. “Jethro T. Weatherford.”

  “Sharon McCone.”

  With difficulty he lowered his frail, lanky body into the chair. “You’re not from around here. Unless you’re one of the new people.”

  “New people?”

  “The ones who’re coming up here, disturbing the balance of life. Everything’s changing, and I hate change.”

  “You’ve lived here a long time.”

  “All my life. Was born on the old Godden place. My father was foreman there, my mother helped out in the house. They’re gone, all of them now.”

  “The new people who own the winery—do you know them?”

  He moved his hand in dismissal. “Nope, they’re not friendly. In fact, I hear the woman’s downright crazy. Was waving a gun around a few years back, threatening to kill herself. Fellow I know who works for them said the husband had to talk her down, give her a shot.”

  Whatever had been wrong with Kayla back then, the friendly, self-possessed woman I’d talked with in the tasting room had obviously overcome it.

  Weatherford added, “A couple of years ago some lawyer came to see me. Asked if I would sell my place to them Waldens. Hell, no, I said, I’m too goddamn old to start over. He came back a few times, tried his damnedest to get me to sell. Finally he went away, and I never heard from him again.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Nope, but I’ve got his card somewheres. I kept it, just in case. I mean, what if I get disabled? Nice nursing homes are expensive, and I can’t count on my no-good daughter Nina to help out. Big career down in Hollywood, produces animated films. Not married, got no kids, but does she chip in to help her own father? No, she does not.”

  “Can you locate the lawyer’s card for me?”

  “Sure. It’s in one of the kitchen drawers. Tell you what: I gotta get back home, feed and water my sheep. They wait for their treat—wheat and oats with honey—every day this time. You give me an hour, then come ahead. I’ll have that lawyer’s card for you.”

  I lingered at the table, enjoying a second glass of Jimtown White. After nearly fifty minutes had passed, I left the store and drove the short distance down the highway to Jethro Weatherford’s property. The sheep were in an enclosure to the left side of the cabin, happily noshing on their food. There were deep tire gouges in the soft earth in front of the cabin, and I had to maneuver around them to keep the low-slung Z4’s undercarriage from scraping.

  Rain dripped from the eucalypti and their menthol-like smell was strong. I moved under them to the porch of the small structure. The screen door was closed, but the inner one stood open. I knocked on the frame and called out to Jethro.

  No response.

  A feeling of wrongness stole over me, and I knocked and called out louder. No sound from within.

  I pulled the screen door open and stepped inside.

  The old man was sprawled on the floor to the right, over the threshold of a living room. His white hair was soaked with blood; it had spread across the side of his face onto the pine floor. His skull was caved in.

  My stomach lurched. Feeling a mixture of anger and sadness, I went to him, knelt, felt for a pulse.

  Gone.

  Who had done this? And why?

  I looked around for the weapon that had killed him. A bloody brick lay on the floor just inside the living room. I rocked back on my heels, pictured the tire gouges in the mud outside: they had stopped in front of the cabin, made a sharp turn, and gone back toward the road. Wide tires on a heavy vehicle that sank deeply into the mud. A crime lab could get a good fix on what kind they were.

  Jethro couldn’t have been dead long; he’d had time to feed his sheep before he was attacked. He must have just walked into the house when his assailant hit him. The attorney’s card was probably still in one of the kitchen drawers.

  The kitchen was at the rear of the house—reasonably tidy, although the floor could have used a washing. My shoes stuck briefly to what were probably wine drippings in front of the refrigerator, and there was a tomato-red splotch in front of the sink. I began rummaging through the drawers: rubber bands, phone book, pens and pencils. Paper clips, empty eyeglass cases, miscellaneous and unidentifiable plastic parts. A hammer, bags of screws and nails. Checkbooks dating back to the early 2000s.

  No lawyer’s card.

  But Jethro had seemed so sure it was in the kitchen.

  Then I thought of the bag of cards that I’d bought last year in anticipation of several friends’ and relatives’ birthdays. I’d assumed I’d put them into the top drawer of my at-home filing cabinet, only to find them ten months later in the bottom drawer at the office. If I could make such a mistake at my age…

  I began prowling through the rest of the house and found the card under some paperback books—spy novels—in the drawer of a prim little Victorian table in the living room. Gary Wells, with offices in Healdsburg. This was a homicide, and the investigators would need the lawyer’s card. Quickly I snapped a photo of it with my cell, then called 911 and went outside to wait for the sheriff’s deputies.

  5:53 p.m.

  The officers had arrived, the crime scene people had taken their photographs and collected their evidence. Jethro Weatherford’s body was on its way to the morgue, and I was on my way home, still wondering if his sudden murder had anything to do with his conversation with me about my investigation.

  He was such an innocuous old man, but dra
nk too much and talked too freely to strangers. But there had been no sign that he’d been robbed, the only other motive I could think of, and it hadn’t looked as if he’d had anything worth stealing anyway.

  Before I left the Alexander Valley I called the number on the lawyer’s card. Left a message, in case he checked his voice mail on Sundays. As soon as I disconnected, a call came in from Hy.

  “McCone, where are you?”

  “Novato.”

  “Are you okay?”

  It seemed to me I’d heard that question hundreds of times—not only since I’d suffered from locked-in syndrome, but since I’d begun practicing my profession.

  “I’m okay, okay, okay.”

  “Just wondering.” He sounded wistful; we’d had so little time together of late.

  “I’ll be home within the hour.”

  The cell rang again. The lawyer, Gary Wells, returning my call.

  I explained my reason for contacting him, and he said, “Yes, I remember Jethro Weatherford. A golfing buddy of mine, Dave Walden, asked me to contact him about selling his property.”

  “Why did your friend want it?”

  “To complete his vineyard’s acreage. Weatherford didn’t want to sell, so that was that.”

  “Jethro Weatherford died this afternoon.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Of what?”

  “He was murdered.”

  “What? By whom?”

  “A person or persons unknown.”

  “Poor old man. What’s to become of his land? I’m sure Dave would still like to have it.”

  Typical lawyer comment. Always thinking of a potential fee.

  “That will depend on what Mr. Weatherford’s heirs decide.”

  “Heirs? That hermit—”

  “He has a daughter, Nina, who lives in Southern California.”

  A long pause. “Do you have her contact information?”

  “I’m not at liberty to give that out,” I lied, “but I’m sure you won’t have any difficulty accessing it.”

  As I ended the call, I thought, But you won’t access it before I will.

  7:10 p.m.

  Nina Weatherford said, “Oh my God, not Daddy.”

  “From something he said to me, I take it the two of you weren’t close.”

  “…No, not really. We were until my mom died, but then I asked him to move down here, and he wouldn’t. He wanted me to come home, but he didn’t understand that Southern California is where I make my living. The last time we spoke, we quarreled about that; he said ‘girls’ didn’t need to support themselves. Their ‘upkeep’ was supposed to be provided by their fathers or husbands.”

  “An old-fashioned gentleman; I sensed that.”

  “Old-fashioned, but always a gentleman.” Nina Weatherford was crying now. After a moment she got herself under control and asked, “What’s your connection with him?”

  “I’m investigating a case involving some people who wanted to buy his land. I spoke with him at the Jimtown Store—”

  “Daddy’s hangout.”

  “Yes. He said he had an attorney’s card that might’ve been of help to me, and went home to find it. When I arrived there he was dead.”

  “How was…?”

  “A blow to the head.”

  “Did he suffer?”

  “No. He died instantly.”

  “Oh, God, I should’ve made him move down here. Driven up and collected him and his damn stuff and dragged him to my house. I should’ve known it would come to this. I should’ve…”

  “Should’ve known what, Ms. Weatherford?”

  A long silence, and then Nina Weatherford broke the connection.

  9:14 p.m.

  Hy and I had no sooner finished dinner than he received a phone call from RI’s Denver office requesting his presence in the morning.

  “I’ll call the pilot and ask him to preflight Six-Oh-Six right away,” he told me. “It’s a comfortable ride, I can sleep and be fresh for this new crisis by our eight o’clock meeting.”

  Six-Oh-Six: the Cessna Citation, an eight-seater, luxurious, and the fastest private jet so far manufactured, which RI kept at Oakland Airport.

  I tried not to look disappointed, but he sensed my mood.

  “After I get back, I’ll take some time off and we’ll fly up to the ranch or Touchstone.”

  “If I can take some time off.”

  “You know, if we merged our agencies, we could schedule more compatibly.”

  “There’d still be crises.”

  “Sure. That’s what this business is all about.”

  After Hy threw some things into a flight bag and left, I sat in the parlor for a long time, pondering my resistance to change. If Hy and I merged our agencies, things would work out well, I knew that. So why did I want to cling to the old days, the old ways? It wasn’t that I felt insecure; in many ways I’d never felt so secure in all my life. Secure in my marriage and Hy’s love for me, secure in my profession, secure with my friends and family. It didn’t make sense.

  I got up and went to my home office, where I booted up my laptop. The cats joined me, staring greedily at the fish in the aquarium we’d recently purchased.

  “Don’t even think of it,” I said.

  They ignored me and licked their chops.

  My earlier search on Walden Vineyards had been cursory, but now that I knew Dave Walden had been interested in buying Jethro Weatherford’s small plot of land, I went deeper. I was interested to find out that the backing funds for the not-quite-profitable vineyards came from a trust that Kayla’s late parents had set up for her. I didn’t have the computer skills to get at the terms of the trust, but Mick did.

  I called him at the Millennium Tower condo that he and Alison shared.

  “It’s Sunday night!” he exclaimed. “Are you nuts?”

  “Probably.”

  “We’re watching The Wasp Woman!”

  Whatever that was. “Alison can DVR the rest of it for you.”

  The sound that he made was similar to what came out of Jessie when Alex was deviling her—half growl, half hiss. “So give me the details. I’ll get back to you. And in exchange, I’m taking tomorrow morning off.”

  Now that was a gift: on Monday mornings Mick could make Ebenezer Scrooge seem cheerful.

  11:35 p.m.

  “The terms of the trust are these,” Mick told me. “Kayla Walden—formerly Kayla Chase—is sole beneficiary of a sixty-five-million-dollar trust set up for her by her father, Anthony Chase.”

  “Anthony Chase—Chase Oil and other enterprises, right?”

  “Right. Kayla was his only daughter, and her mother died of breast cancer in her late thirties. The trust places few stipulations upon her, except that if she predeceases her husband, he inherits a certain amount, but the winery and the capital revert to the trust, which in turn donates it to various breast cancer research organizations.”

  “Well, she looked healthy this afternoon. I liked her, her husband too.”

  “Then why’re you—”

  “It’s got to do with their insistence that Dave had nothing to do with the Warrick case.”

  “The Chron’s not always right, you know.”

  “Do I ever! The things they’ve said about me… Still, here’s your next assignment: contact the writer of the where-are-they-now piece and ask where her information came from. I’d ask you to contact the reporter who covered the trial—Jill Starkey—but I’m afraid she might do serious damage to sensitive parts of your anatomy. I’ll tackle Starkey.”

  “Thanks. Nobody touches my junk except Alison. But are you gonna be okay?”

  That question again!

  “I’ve gone up against her before. This time I’ll be carrying a big stick.”

  MONDAY, JANUARY 9

  7:37 a.m.

  I was finishing my second cup of coffee and contemplating my next approach to Jill Starkey when the phone rang and a man identified himself as Mr. Snelling, a representative of the management
company for the building on Sly Lane.

  “We’re aware of the unfortunate situation with the elevator on Friday night,” he said, “and would like to compensate you for your, ah, inconvenience. We could—”

  “I’m not a litigious person, Mr. Snelling, although my firm’s attorney will be in touch with you about terminating the lease, effective last Friday. Has anyone inspected the elevator?”

  “We had a man out there yesterday.”

  “Was there evidence it had been tampered with?”

  “Possibly. One of the cables was frayed, but it could’ve been overlooked by the earlier inspectors.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Yes and no. The new man showed the cable to me, but I haven’t the expertise to evaluate what happened.”

  I had no reason to doubt him; it was to his advantage to persuade me to return.

  As I’d expected, he said, “Are you sure you won’t reconsider and stay, Ms. McCone?”

  “I’m very sure; we’ve already arranged for other quarters.”

  “In that case, we’ll send you a check for the unused portion for the rent.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Snelling.”

  “I’m not litigious either. Makes the world a better place.”

  Amen to that. At least he appeared to be conscientious and good at his job. I told him I needed to return to the building to make sure my staff had removed everything and that I would leave my keys, along with theirs, on the table in the foyer.

  8:40 a.m.

  Ted was the only one at the Sly Lane building when I arrived, and he was emptying the contents of his desk into a cardboard carton. He said, “The others are all getting settled into the new office suite. Pretty posh digs. Can we afford them?”

  “They’re sublet from RI. Hy cut me a deal.”

  “He still talking about a merger?”

  “Off and on.”

  “And your thinking?”

  I shrugged. “Let’s see how it goes being next door to them before we make that decision.”

  “‘We’?”

  “Of course ‘we.’ All the employees of this agency have to be in accord on major issues.”

  “You weren’t in accord about moving here, but you didn’t express it. You hate this building.”