Where Echoes Live

by Marcia Muller

  “Saturday morning, around ten.”

  “Was it a fresh wound?”

  “It had been inflicted shortly beforehand.”

  “And he gave you no indication of where he might go next, what he might do?”

  “No. He would barely talk to me, except to complain about the loss of the gun.”

  “Have you seen him since?”

  “I haven’t. Saturday evening I became worried about him, so I drove out to Stone Valley to check on him. The cabin was locked up.”

  “What was his condition when he left here?”

  Mahoney considered. “Fairly good. Earl’s a tough old bird.”

  I was silent, trying to fit these new facts to those I already possessed.

  Mahoney added, “I suppose you’ll have to report this to the sheriff. In good conscience, I can’t ask you not to.” His pale eyes were troubled, envisioning the problems that would ensue.

  I thought of another dedicated and old-fashioned doctor I’d known: the man who had brought me into the world and who, when I was young and unsure where to turn, had talked frankly with me, then written me a prescription for birth-control pills and said it was no business of my parents. He was also the one who made house calls and sat up all night at the hospital with my brother John the time he had the motorcycle accident and my folks were out of town. There are still a few of those rare professionals left—although not nearly as many as we need—who practice medicine for the benefit of the patient rather than for profit. I didn’t want to be responsible for their ranks being reduced by one.

  So I said, “I don’t think it’ll be necessary to contact the sheriff.”

  Mahoney let me use the phone at his reception desk, and I reached Bart Wallace just as he was about to leave the Hall of Justice for the evening. He groused a little, until I reminded him that I’d relieved him of the burden of cooperating with Mono County on the Erickson homicide; then he gladly looked up what had come back on the checks I’d requested.

  “Naturally there’s nothing from NCIC,” he told me. “You can’t expect speed from the feds. CJIS shows nothing on Hopwood, the Ericksons, or Lionel Ong. But since that’s only California, there could have been something out of state. Ripinsky, on the other hand, has a long sheet going back to the early seventies. Should I start at the beginning?”

  “Please.”

  “Conviction in Bridgeport in seventy-one. The charge”— Wallace chuckled—“was lassoing a streetlight.”

  “What?”

  “Technically it was D and D. He did thirty days in the county jail and had to pay to replace the light pole.”

  “Good Lord. And after that?”

  “Nothing until the mid-eighties. Then there’s a string of arrests and convictions from L.A. County to Siskiyou, all relating to environmental protests. You want the particulars?”

  “Not if there’s nothing between seventy-one and then. What about Nickles?”

  “Two convictions for soliciting in Sacramento in eighty-four. Not nearly as interesting as Ripinsky. But Sanderman— the one you added as an afterthought—is a piece of work.”

  I sat up straighter and reached for my notepad. “Go on.”

  “Nineteen eighty-three conviction for industrial espionage. Stole computer plans from his employer in Silicon Valley and sold them to a rival company. Did time in one of those minimum-security facilities where they take their golf clubs.”

  “In Sanderman’s case, he probably took his PC.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Is that it?”

  “No. While he was out on bail pending appeal, his wife filed for divorce. Sanderman went after her with a gun. Didn’t shoot her, but beat her up pretty bad. She filed charges, then withdrew them—probably in exchange for a more favorable property settlement.”

  “Anything else?”

  “That’s it. You want to give me a number where I can reach you if and when NCIC comes through?”

  I doubted the FBI information center would do so by the end of the weekend. “Just call All Souls. If I’m not there, I’ll be checking in.”

  After I thanked Bart and hung up, I stared at the bare cream-colored wall of the receptionist’s cubicle, thinking of the fabricated life story Ned Sanderman had fed me—fed all of us. No wonder he talked so much about himself; by giving out a wealth of false and unimportant details, he could cover the damning ones. And perhaps he had good reason to cover them. Would a man who had sold out his employer also sell out the environmentalists? Would a man who had badly beaten his estranged wife similarly attack another woman?

  Mahoney was somewhere behind a closed door at the rear of his office suite. I called out thanks for the use of the phone and headed back to the lodge.

  Rose Wittington’s Chevy was no longer in its usual parking space, and I found the main building locked. No one answered when I pounded on the door. I went to the garage and tried without success to get inside; it was windowless, so I couldn’t check for Margot’s Miata. Next I skirted the building and hurried downslope to Sanderman’s cabin. Its door stood open, and in the living room I saw his key on the coffee table; a quick pass through the other rooms told me he’d left.

  Nothing surprising in that, I thought. The Coalition’s need for a man on site here was at an end; Sanderman would deal with the Bureau of Land Management in Sacramento. Still, it was strange that Anne-Marie hadn’t known of his plans to leave Vernon, or that Ripinsky hadn’t been told.

  On the off chance that Sanderman was at the trailer, I drove back into town. When I arrived at the office park I saw that the California poppy banner had been removed from the side of the trailer, and I found its door locked. The banner had been there when I drove past earlier; apparently I’d missed Sanderman by less than an hour.

  As I stood on the steps of the trailer, I saw Ripinsky’s Morgan drive by and pull into Zelda’s parking lot. A glance at my watch told me it was close to four-thirty. People were streaming into the restaurant; Vernon was gearing up for another weekend. With a shock I realized I’d been on the case an entire seven days.

  Seven days was long enough, dammit. It was time to separate the truths from the falsehoods, and Ripinsky was a good person to start with.

  Twenty-five

  I left the Land Rover next to the deserted trailer and walked down the highway to Zelda’s. Ripinsky sat in the lounge at the same window table where Anne-Marie had waited for me the previous Friday. I elbowed through the crowd around the bar and went over there.

  He smiled and stood, pulling out the extra chair. I greeted him curtly. As he was about to speak, a waitress came up with two beers. After she’d gone he said, “You have a bad afternoon?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because you’ve got two nasty little lines right here.” He touched his finger to the bridge of my nose.

  I jerked my head away, scowling harder. “Never mind that. What I want from you is straight talk, for a change.”

  Now he frowned. Sipped at his beer and waited.

  “What’s the connection between you, Alvin Knight, and Lionel Ong?”

  “Connection? Ong’s CEO of Transpacific. Knight … that’s their supervising geologist, right?”

  “I don’t have to tell you who he is.”

  “I’d forgotten for a minute there. What’s this about a connection between him and me?”

  “Cut the crap, Hy.”

  “McCone, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I met the fellow once, up at the mine site when I was being given a tour by a Transpacific PR guy. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

  “You spoke with him on the phone Wednesday evening, about six-thirty. I know because I was at Knight’s house listening in on his extension. Knight was looking for Ong. You said you didn’t know where he was, but that you’d have him return the call if he showed up here.”

  “McCone, you been smoking something you shouldn’t?”

  I leaned across the table, keeping my voice low with
an effort. “Don’t try to make a joke of this. Why did Knight call you?”

  He saw how serious I was and regarded me for a few seconds through narrowed eyes. “Wednesday, six-thirty,” he said, “I was at the Coalition trailer.” Then comprehension spread across his face. “So that’s who Al is.”

  I waited, eyebrows raised.

  “I don’t know where Lionel Ong enters into this, but here’s what happened. I’d been there all afternoon fielding calls for Ned, who hadn’t bothered to inform anyone where he was or what he was doing. Anne-Marie had just stopped by to see if I wanted to go get some dinner, and she answered the phone. It was for Ned again. She said she’d seen him on the weekend and thought he might be back soon, but maybe I knew something more specific, and then she handed the receiver to me. The guy—Al—was real insistent, said it was urgent, but I couldn’t tell him anything more than Anne-Marie had. He asked me to have Ned call him, and I said I would.”

  I reviewed the portion of the conversation I’d heard: He must have told you something…. No. He should have, but he didn’t… . But she said she saw him— Look, I’m sorry but I can’t help you. I wish I knew when he’d get here, too.

  It could fit either scenario, but I had to admit Ripinsky’s was by far the more convincing—and he had Anne-Marie to back it up.

  Hy was watching me. After a moment he signaled to the waitress. “You going to drink that or what?” he asked, pointing to the beer in front of me.

  I shook my head in confusion, trying to readjust my thinking to what he’d just told me.

  “You want something else instead?”

  “White wine, please.”

  “Done.” He moved my untouched beer to his side of the table and ordered the wine.

  I turned my face away from his probing gaze and stared out the window at the lake. Twilight was coming on; long fingers of shadow reached over the water. Birds homed in on the graying tufa towers.

  Lord knew it wasn’t the first time I’d jumped to an unwarranted conclusion about a principal in a case, but this one now struck me as particularly hasty and somewhat paranoid. It seemed as if I had wanted to suspect Hy, had actually hoped to find him guilty of collusion with Transpacific. Why?

  To provide a buffer between myself and this man to whom I felt strongly drawn? To remove from my life someone to whom I connected in a very basic way? Hy understood the darker side of me, the one I’d never dared reveal to George. Understood it, and neither approved nor disapproved. Accepted my violent urges and dangerous impulses because at some time in his past he had been a victim of the same.

  It was frightening to feel that kinship with him. It might upset—no, forever destroy—my newly found and comfortable status quo.

  When the waitress set the wineglass in front of me, I turned back to Hy. My eyes, I knew, were troubled, and apparently they told him more of what I was thinking than I would willingly have imparted. He covered my hand with his and said, “It’s okay, McCone.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll start over, from here on out. Deal?”

  “Deal.” I raised my glass and we drank solemnly.

  “All right,” I said, setting the glass down. “Knight tried to contact Ong. He wasn’t able to, because Ong had disappeared, so he called Ned. That means it’s Ned who’s involved—”

  “Wait a minute.” Hy took his hand from mine and held it up. “Ong has disappeared?”

  “Yes, either abducted or ...oh.” I stopped, confused again. “I haven’t told you any of this.”

  “No, you’ve done a pretty good job of putting me off, and now I understand why.”

  “Hy, I’m—”

  “Apologize one more time and you’ll never get a second chance with me.”

  “Chance for what?”

  He merely gave me a look—long, level, and full of possibilities.

  My flesh rippled pleasurably along my backbone, and I said, “Then I guess I’ll skip the apology and tell you all about it.”

  When I finished, Hy ordered another round of drinks, his eyes hooded, gaze turned inward. “Let me think a little bit on this, McCone.” He was still considering when the drinks arrived. After the waitress departed, he said, “I had my suspicions of Sanderman from the day he got here. Nothing all that definite, but he seemed to be just going through the motions, and he was never around. Back and forth to Sacramento, generally unavailable. And the day before you got here—Thursday—when I was making one last stab at locating Earl Hopwood, I spotted Ned’s car on the access road to the mine site, where it had no business being. When I asked him what he’d been doing there, he said I must be mistaken. But all the same he was damned flustered.” He paused. “Now, what about Lionel Ong? Any developments there? Ransom demands?”

  “I’ve been monitoring the news, and nothing’s been made public. A little while ago I spoke with an inspector on the SFPD about some checks I’d asked him to run; Ong’s name was one of them, and I think he’d have reacted differently if anything had broken about a kidnapping.”

  “Not if the feds were called in rather than the police.”

  “I know someone who has a source in Ong’s office.” I glanced at my watch. Five-thirty, but as overburdened an employee as Marcy Cheung might still be at work. “I’ll try to call her.”

  There was a pay phone near the rest rooms. I dialed the Sino-American Alliance, gave the operator my credit-card number, and was not surprised to hear Marcy herself answer. “Hey,” she said, “I was hoping you’d get my message.”

  Damn—I’d forgotten all day to call in to All Souls! “What’s up?”

  “I talked with my friend Lynn—Lionel Ong’s secretary— again. No ransom demands, but Ong still hasn’t shown, and they’re panicked over at Transpacific headquarters. The wife is flying home from Hong Kong, and the board’s meeting to decide whether to go to the police.”

  “For God’s sake, why do they have to deliberate on it? The man’s been missing for two days now.”

  “Something to do with a big issue of Transpacific stock on the Tokyo exchange; if word gets out about Ong, it’ll look like the corporation’s in trouble and sink the price per share. Besides, the police require seventy-two hours before opening an investigation.”

  “Given Ong’s influence in the city, if the family demands an immediate investigation, I’m sure they can get one going. Will you let me know if you hear more?”

  “Sure. Where can I reach you?”

  I thought, then took out my notebook and read off Hy’s home number as well as that of the Friends’ trailer. After I hung up I checked with All Souls for messages and received only the one from Cheung; Ted told me he was about to go to my house to feed Ralphie and Allie, and that I owed him five dollars for hair ball medicine. I noted it on the last page in my notebook, in the running tab I keep for small amounts due to friends. Then I went back to the lounge.

  Hy had turned his chair to face the lake, propped his feet on the ledge below the window. The water was purpled now, flame from the setting sun searing its surface; the tufa towers’ black reflections seemed to penetrate clear to the lake bottom. Unbidden, the line I’d read in Hopwood’s bedside Bible came to me: “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone….”

  When I sat down Hy turned back to the table. Quickly I told him Cheung’s news. He nodded thoughtfully and drained his beer. “Well, that situation’s out of our hands.”

  “Yes, and there’s no way we can reach Sanderman until he gets back to Sacramento—if that’s where he’s headed.” I sipped wine, thinking about the Coalition’s troubleshooter. “Hy, were you keeping a close watch on Ned?”

  “Uh-huh. Like I said, I suspected something wrong about him from the first.”

  “Let’s go over what you know of his movements for the past week. Start last Friday morning.”

  “He went to Lee Vining with Anne-Marie to talk with the Mono Lake Committee people. Ate take-out pizza—I think
he subsists on the stuff—in the trailer; then we had our meeting. Saturday …” He shrugged. “First I saw of him was when he came to your cabin that night after Anne-Marie woke him so we could talk about the murder.”

  I pictured Sanderman entering the cabin, fresh from the shower. “Okay, early the next morning I talked with him on the dock there about how he’d known Erickson from before. That story, along with the personal things he told me, was mostly lies.”

  “And Sunday afternoon he packed up his computer and went back to Sacramento because he needed to access some files.”

  “When did he come back?”

  “Not until yesterday afternoon.”

  “And he was in Sacramento the whole time?”

  Hy frowned. “We thought so. Anne-Marie spoke with him a couple of times on both Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday nobody seemed able to reach him. I suppose he could have been anywhere.”

  Anywhere, I thought, including San Francisco, beating up Margot Erickson or abducting Lionel Ong. But what possible motive could Sanderman have for either?

  “Think back to Saturday,” I told Hy. “You came into town that morning, and we spoke at the trailer. Ned wasn’t there. What did you do after I left?”

  “Went over to the airstrip and did some maintenance work on the Citabria. Had a couple of beers with the guy who runs the place. Came back to town and picked up some groceries. I ran into Anne-Marie and one of the Friends outside the Swifty Mart. They were going up to Bridgeport for dinner and taking Rose Wittington along so she could attend her Bible study group. Anne-Marie asked where you were, and I said I didn’t know. Then she invited me to come along, but I didn’t feel like making the drive. I went home, and you arrived a couple of hours later.”

  “So this was around … ?”

  “Four o’clock, thereabouts.”

  “Are you sure Ned wasn’t going with them?”

  “God, no. He’s not much interested in socializing with people here; seems to consider us beneath him.”

  “Actually, it’s all people he considers beneath him. He told me he greatly prefers his own company.” I was silent, mentally reviewing the timetable we’d constructed. “Hy, how’d you like to do me a couple of favors?”