The Dangerous Hour

by Marcia Muller

  Doesn’t get more personal than that.

  But I couldn’t build any resolve or enthusiasm. Everything seemed to be crashing and burning around me. Hy had suddenly changed from the easygoing man I’d fallen in love with to a man with a mission. My cat had diabetes. I was riding across the bridge—which was now totally socked in—in a car whose top was held together with duct tape.

  My life felt as if it could use duct tape.

  As Glenn ushered her into his office at two that afternoon, Julia—in the denim jacket and jeans she’d been wearing on Friday—looked shabby next to his tailored elegance. Her eyes widened as they took in the leather furnishings, oriental carpets, and dark, polished wood. Fog wrapped around this high floor of Embarcadero Four, making it seem that we were trapped in some remote but luxurious alternate universe. Certainly a universe as remote as one could get from Julia’s everyday world. I wondered if the expression on her face was similar to what Marguerite Hayley had seen on mine as I sat in her office contemplating fee scales that morning.

  Glenn steered Julia toward one of the armchairs facing the desk. I said hello and smiled at her from the other. She nodded and tried to return the smile, her lips trembling.

  Glenn sat behind the desk, clasped his hands on the vest that stretched over his well-rounded stomach. Several weeks ago he’d confided to me that at the urging of his wife, interior designer Bette Silver, he’d taken to working out on “one of those contraptions that threatens to seize and strangle me if I anger it.” So far, his new regimen had produced no visible results.

  “Have you been waiting long?” he asked me.

  “An hour or so. But I’ve kept busy.” I motioned at the copy of the California Penal Code that I’d set aside when they arrived.

  “Ah, some light reading.” To Julia, he added, “Sharon is the only person I know who actually enjoys law books. She delights in bringing obscure statutes to my attention. Did you know that in California it’s illegal to trap birds in public cemeteries, but not in private ones?”

  Julia shook her head.

  “Neither did I, and what she expects I’ll do with the information is beyond my understanding.” Glenn leaned foward then, removed a file from the briefcase he’d set on the desk, suddenly all business. I’d seen him make such abrupt switches of mood in court, much to the confusion of his opposing counsel.

  “Bail,” he said, “wasn’t as bad as it might’ve been. Twenty-five thousand. The judge accepted my argument that she’s a long-term resident of the community, single mother, gainfully employed, has family and friends to lend support.”

  Julia said softly, “You shouldn’t’ve paid it.”

  “Of course he should have,” I told her. “It’s bad enough you were in jail for three days.”

  “I’ve been in jail before. And you know I don’t like to owe what I can’t afford to pay back.”

  “Then don’t flee the country, and eventually you’ll owe me nothing,” Glenn told her.

  The corners of her mouth twitched in a faint smile.

  “Now,” he went on, “as to the evidence: Julia tells me she concluded her investigation for Alex Aguilar on June thirteenth. He asked her if she’d like to go to dinner to celebrate a satisfactory wrap-up to the case. Friday the thirteenth. Wouldn’t you know it? Why don’t you take it from here, Julia, tell it to Sharon as you told it to me?”

  She shifted toward me in the big chair. Her eyes were deeply shadowed and troubled. “Okay, he asked me to dinner, and I said yes. I justified it by telling myself it was a business meal, no big deal, but I admit I was attracted to him. And it’d been a long time since I had a real date. Anyway, we went to this tapas place in the Mission that’s owned by a neighbor of his.”

  “Café Gastrónomo?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Lots of important people go there; they kept stopping by our table. People I never thought I’d meet. Afterwards he suggested we go back to his place, have some more wine. And I did. Stupid, huh?”

  “I’ve done stupider things. Go on.”

  “I was there about an hour. We drank; he played some music, had a couple of phone calls that he took in the bedroom. Then he started to put the moves on me, but I could tell he wasn’t really into it. I mean, it felt like he was . . . following a manual, or something.” She glanced at Glenn, flushed.

  Glenn spread his hands. “Consider me as you would your parish priest. Nothing anyone says can shock me.”

  “Great, and me not even Catholic anymore. To say nothing of you being Jewish.”

  Her response startled me. I’d expected her to be as intimidated by Glenn as she was by his office, but apparently in the short time they’d spent together, they’d built a rapport.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “a guy acting like I’m some kind of machine he’s trying to program is a total turnoff to me. I said I had to go home and relieve the babysitter, got the hell out of there. Wouldn’t even let him drive me. And that was the end of it.”

  I asked, “You didn’t hear from him again?”

  “No.”

  Aguilar couldn’t have been too upset at Julia’s rejection; the next Monday he’d complimented her work to me. I turned to Glenn. “What evidence does the D.A. have?”

  He opened his folder, paged through it. “The packages they seized from Julia’s storage bin. No credit card; since it hasn’t turned up anywhere incriminating by now, I doubt it will. Aguilar’s complaint alleges that he last used his MasterCard at Café Gastrónomo on the night of June thirteenth. However, on July seventh he received a call from Citibank’s fraud division, asking about unusually frequent and high purchases beginning on June fourteenth. All the charges were placed by computer and were to be sent to a second party—Julia Rafael—at McCone Investigations. That’s where it leads back to your agency.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “The orders must show the e-mail address they originated from.”

  “Yes, they do. All were placed late at night from the main computer at Trabajo por Todos.”

  Relief flooded me. “Well, there you have it. Julia didn’t have access to their computer after she concluded her investigation. Someone who did must’ve stolen Aguilar’s credit card and placed the orders. I don’t know why the D.A. is going forward—”

  Glenn shook his head.

  “What?” I said.

  “There’s a matter of a key,” he told me. “One to the job-training center that Julia used while she was investigating. Aguilar claims she never returned it.”

  I looked at her. “But you did.”

  She shook her head, gestured at Glenn. He was holding up a key on a metal chain.

  Julia said, “I forgot to give it back. I don’t know how I could’ve, but I did.”

  “So what’s your gut feeling about this?” Glenn asked. “Is she a truth teller, or have we misjudged her?”

  We were alone in his office, Julia having gone home to be with her son. She’d refused Glenn’s offer of a cab, saying she preferred to walk over to Market Street and take BART. She hadn’t much money with her and didn’t want to accept any from either of us.

  I said, “Sometimes she’s a truth teller. She’s also a bit of a con woman—but then, so am I. Nobody who doesn’t possess a sneaky, shifty side gets very far in our business. You walk a little to one side of the line, a little to the other, and hope you don’t stray too far. But I do know this: Julia’s not stupid. And only a fool would have attempted a scam like this. So, yes, in this case at least, she’s a truth teller.”

  Glenn nodded, fingering the key to the job-training center.

  I said, “I wonder why the police didn’t find that. You said it was mentioned in the search warrants for her home and my offices.”

  “It was in a cluttered container in her office desk; they must’ve overlooked it. We stopped by to pick it up on the way here.” He hesitated. “I suppose Maggie Hayley mentioned to you that you might want to distance yourself from Julia.”

  “Yes. I refused.”

 
“How are you feeling about that now?”

  I considered before I spoke. “I don’t want to give up on her. She’s come so far since I hired her. Ms. Hayley’s convinced me that our best strategy is to prove the crimes didn’t happen the way Aguilar says.”

  “That would be an excellent solution, my friend. Why don’t you get started?”

  Fund-raiser dies in fall

  by Kristine Winter

  Chronicle Staff Writer

  Scott Wagner, fund-raiser for the Mission district’s Trabajo por Todos, died in a hiking accident at Olompali State Historic Park in northern Marin County on Sunday, June 22. Wagner’s body was discovered at the bottom of a steep ravine on Monday afternoon by a maintenance man who was repairing a drainage pipe. Wagner, 34, was an experienced hiker and frequent visitor to the park, according to Ranger James White, who spoke with him shortly after his arrival that morning.

  “This is a tragic loss for Scott’s friends, associates, and Trabajo por Todos’ clients,” said Alex Aguilar, co-founder with Wagner of the center. “His spirit, tenacity, and talents will be very much missed.”

  A memorial celebration of Wagner’s life is to be held at the center’s headquarters at 2141 Mission Street at five p.m., Sunday, July 6. Contributions in his honor to the job center will be welcomed in lieu of flowers.

  I hit the Print icon and waited while a copy of the Chronicle’s June 23 article on Scott Wagner’s death slid from the machine. Then I backed up and started another search for Olompali State Historic Park. Their Web page gave a brief description and directions: it was on Highway 101, just above Novato, some thirty miles north of the city. The park hours specified day use only, and it was well after six. Still, I called the phone number listed on the site, hoping to reach Ranger White, but got only a recording. Then I went to my old armchair and rested my feet on the low sill of my office’s big, arching window. Stared out at the shifting fog.

  When investigating a person’s life, look for the unusual—even if the unusual appears to have nothing to do with the matter at hand.

  The man who trained me as an investigator, Bob Stern, had embedded that—and many other valuable concepts—into my mind, and I, in turn, had frequently recited them to my operatives.

  Look for the unusual.

  Damned right. Tomorrow morning I’d head for northern Marin County.

  Wednesday

  JULY 16

  The directions to Olompali State Historic Park instructed northbound drivers to continue past the park on Highway 101 and, at the next opening in the median strip, make a “safe U-turn” south.

  Sure, I thought as I waited for traffic to clear. Huge trucks, passenger cars, and SUVs rumbled past, some in a gaggle, others spread out, all going too fast. I’d be lucky if I got to the park by sundown.

  But then, miraculously, a break appeared, and I shot across into the far lane. Headed south to where a wood-and-stone sign marked the park entrance.

  I drove along a winding access road across a sun-browned meadow toward the western hills—sun-browned, too, and thickly forested with darker vegetation. A jackrabbit bounded across the pavement, and I braked hard to avoid hitting it; it ran along the side, as if it were racing the MG, then veered off into the underbrush.

  The road ended in a parking lot where several vehicles, including a horse trailer, sat. A rider astride a roan was starting up a dirt trail, the horse picking its way carefully. I got out of the car, took off my light jacket, and threw it into the back. It was warm and clear here, unlike in the fogbound city. Maybe in the high eighties, with a cloudless sky. I stood still for a moment, savoring the heat and the scents that filled the air—dry grass, eucalyptus, and bay laurel. Then I went to pay the park fee and started toward a paved pathway that led to a distant cluster of buildings.

  There weren’t many people in this part of the park, just a couple sunning themselves on a blanket spread next to a huge iron pot that looked as if it should contain witches’ brew. I nodded to the sunbathers and walked toward the buildings. The closest was a curious hybrid, the back part a two-story adobe in poor repair, the front a characterless shingled box with aluminum-framed windows. Brick steps led up to the box; I climbed them and peered through the dusty windows into a dark room where building materials and assorted junk lay about.

  A quick inspection of the adobe and a nearby yellow frame house turned up no one, but sounds came from across the path, where wide, moss-covered steps led down into an area that was laid out like a formal garden. Eucalyptus, oak, walnut, and some of the tallest, most spindly palms I’d seen outside Southern California shaded the area, and a man in work clothes was tossing a fallen limb into a wheelbarrow near a huge cairn of stones at the garden’s center. I went down the steps and saw that the stones—artfully piled some twenty-five feet high and another twenty-five feet in circumference—were actually a fountain surrounded by an empty pool. In between the stones at various levels from top to bottom were large, cavelike spaces where ferns, agapanthus, and calla lilies grew. Two small children were running around in the pool and ducking in and out of the lower caverns in a game of hide-and-seek.

  The man tossed another tree limb into the wheelbarrow and straightened. “Okay, you two, I’m not gonna tell you again,” he called to the kids in a deep, Spanish-accented voice. “Climb on outta there.”

  The kids scaled the pool’s wall and ran across the garden toward the steps, squealing when they narrowly avoided crashing into me. The man took off his Giants cap and wiped his sweaty face with his forearm, then nodded to me and shrugged. “The parents should watch them, but they don’t. Me, I’m not paid to babysit, but they could get hurt in there.”

  “Yeah, they could. Do you know where I can find Ranger James White?”

  “Sorry, ma’am, he doesn’t work here anymore. Can I help you?”

  “If you have a few minutes to answer some questions.”

  He jammed the cap back over his longish black hair, sat down on the edge of the fountain, patted the concrete beside him. “I don’t take a break soon, I’ll get a heatstroke. Days like this, they make me wonder why I don’t get a job in a nice, air-conditioned office building. This thing was filled”—he jerked his thumb at the fountain—“I’d jump right in.”

  I sat beside him, gave him one of my cards, introduced myself.

  The man studied the card, then said, “I’m Ray Rios, park maintenance. So, Ms. McCone, how come you drove all the way up here?”

  “A client has asked me to look into a fatal hiking accident that happened last month.”

  “You must mean Scott Wagner. Only fatality we’ve had all the years I’ve worked here. I was the one found his body. An accidental fall. Why would somebody hire you to look into it?”

  “My client’s a relative, wants closure. You know how that is.”

  Rios nodded. “Well, it was a Monday afternoon, June twenty-third. I’ll never forget. I’m pulling a broken drainage pipe up past the Miwok village. Springtime, there’s a lot of runoff from up above. Pipes collect it, dump it in the stream, stop erosion. I’m going back to my Jeep for one of my tools when I see something blue in the ravine, so I climb down, and it’s a dead body, face in the water. I turn him over and it’s Scott. His head is all bashed in. Face was pretty bad, too.”

  “You knew Scott Wagner, then.”

  “Most of us did. He hiked here once, twice a month.”

  “It’s a long way to come from the city for a hike.”

  “Scott told me he grew up in Novato, had been hiking here since he was a kid. Guess he felt connected to the land. He was a good guy, raised funds for some nonprofit. Offered to help us get a grant to keep the restoration going, but he died before we could do anything.”

  “That house looks like it could use a lot of restoration.” I motioned at the adobe with the shingled addition.

  Rios nodded. “The old Camillo Initia adobe. Later the Burdell family home. This place has some history. Spanish land grant, site of a battle during the Bea
r Flag Rebellion in the eighteen-forties. Initia sold out to a rich Marin family—the Blacks—in the eighteen-fifties, and Olompali was passed along ten years later to the daughter, Mary, when she married Galen Burdell, the San Francisco dentist who invented tooth powder. She was the one planted this garden. Loved plants, old Mary did. Went as far as Japan for some of them, actually got them to grow here.”

  He shook his head, smiling wryly. “Crazy family, though. Mary’s stepmother died from blood loss or something while Doc Burdell was doing surgery on her teeth. After that, old man Black disinherited Mary and took to drinking, used to come up here and ride around on horseback, so drunk they practically had to tie him to the saddle. He died, and when they read his will, Mary got so pissed off at being disinherited that she tore his signature off the will and ate it. Was arrested, caused a big scandal.”

  This was all very interesting, and normally I’d be fascinated by the crazy family—possessing one of my own—but Rios’s storytelling wasn’t furthering my purpose in coming here. “Could you show me around?” I asked. “Take me to the place where you found Scott Wagner’s body?”

  “Sure.” Rios stood. “My Jeep’s over there, beyond the stone bridge.”

  As we walked toward the steps that led up toward the adobe, he said, “Bet you can’t believe that was once a twenty-six-room mansion, real fancy country estate. Remained in the Burdell family till World War Two, when they sold it. After that a lot of different people lived here. Jesuits used it as a retreat. Was a hippie commune in the late sixties, and they nearly burned the house down during a naked wedding. The Grateful Dead leased it for a time—a wild time.” He paused, thoughtful. “Speaking of the old days, here’s something you might be interested in.”

  We’d reached a Jeep that sat around a curve in the path. I slid into the passenger’s seat and asked, “What?”