by Susan Dunlap
“Bed’s crowded.”
“Mmm. But Gabriella sure got stuck when Guthrie left. From what Guthrie’s friend Pernell Tancarro said, she was fine and as up-and-coming as he was back then.”
“Tancarro didn’t rise?”
“Not poetically. He isn’t in a coma like she is, but he didn’t run away with his love, either. He just stopped writing. That night seems to have changed all their lives. Look, there were four guys involved in the burglary plan—to send one of them down the chimney. They make such a racket, someone calls the cops. They panic and the rest of them run, but Guthrie’s so obsessed he goes down the chimney. That was twenty years ago and since then he’s been obsessed, climbing down ever-taller chimneys and trying to make himself stay there more than a few seconds. Makes my family seem downright normal.”
“Odd.”
“Odder yet, because after that Santa move, he wasn’t freaked. Au contraire, he got himself together and became an A-1 stuntman. So that’s Guthrie and Tancarro. A third guy’s taken himself into exile in Thailand, and who knows about Ryan Hammond, the guy Guthrie wanted to go down the chimney. Blink said he was here, in the city, but unless the police pick him up, that means nothing. And none of this suggests why Guthrie should be bludgeoned and left under his car in the park. What I have to do is see that room and find out what happened when Guthrie walked out of that fireplace.”
“You’re going down the chimney?”
“No. That’d be the easy way. I’m—”
But it didn’t matter what I intended to do. At the moment I had to go deal with my brother, John, who was standing in the downstairs hall calling my name.
30
“YOU LOOK AWFUL, John.”
“Yeah, well, I was up all night trying to get a flight out of Houston.”
“Have you had coffee?”
“Do I look like it?”
“You look like you’ve been in Guantanamo.” I steered him through the courtyard onto the sidewalk and toward a family in Bermuda shorts. Tourists. They were comfortable now, but if they stayed out past five they’d understand why they hadn’t seen shorts on San Franciscans. “Do you know if Higgins—”
“No. Haven’t even checked in, and if I had, I still wouldn’t know if Higgins—Anything.”
“What are you doing here? I thought you were still in Matamoros.”
“Janice called.”
“I thought she just told you I was okay.”
“That’s what she thought.” He was holding open the door to Renzo’s. We took one of the tables and ordered.
“You still haven’t said how come you raced back,” I said warily. “Janice just told you I was okay, right? Not to worry—”
“She called me. That’s one red flag. She steers clear unless it’s dire. You called her rather than Gracie or Gary. Another. And you were spending the night with her when she could have detoured over here and left you on your own mat. Or, more decently, taken you to Mom’s.”
“She called Mom.”
“Hmm.”
“Okay, so I didn’t want to be pressed. But what about the body in Mexico?”
“What about the body in Mexico? Doesn’t that say it all? No question about whether it was Mike. That’s exactly the way Janice asked. She said what she had to and then, as if she remembered her manners, she inquired about my trip. You don’t need to be a detective to catch on that there’s a big lead on Mike and that it’s coming from you, you who have been incommunicado for days.”
Renzo set down the cups and came back with a porcini and chanterelle mushroom focaccia. I took a large bite. It was still too hot, but I didn’t care. “I’ve got a lead. I can’t tell you more yet. But you’re key to making it work.”
“There’s nothing I won’t do.”
Nothing, but what I have to ask you. “It can’t have been cheap to fly to Brownsville and back at the last moment.”
“Couple thou,” he said, as if it was a couple of trolley fares. How much had he spent searching for Mike all these years? More than I wanted to know about, definitely.
I sipped the espresso. The café was the wrong place for what I had to say. I was the wrong one to tell John. He’d changed a lot, or my perception of him had since I’d come back to the city, but expecting him to understand about Dad was just unreasonable. If I could find someone else to talk to him, someone who was not his baby sister . . . If, if, if. Hesitantly, I said, “Mike worked for Dad the summer before he disappeared.”
“Great job. Y’know I did that before the academy,” he said, wrapping himself in the safety of happy family reminiscence. This was going to be harder than I’d thought. He was gazing out the window as if seeing the city circa 1989. “I was good, but Mike, he was a natural. I remember Dad saying that by the time he’d been there a couple of months he knew every job, plus how to do payroll and keep the books. Dad said to me once, if it’d been another era, he’d’ve been walking out proud knowing he had a son like that to take over the business. And Mike, he didn’t want to do foundation work at first, but he loved working with Dad, hanging around like one of the regular guys, listening to them talk about the old days. I did, too. Do you remember Preston O’Malley and Jerry Larsen? Did you ever meet—”
I had to stop him! “It was so perfect for you at that age.” Not for Mike. “But like you said, Mike was into every part of the operation. And he found a, well, a discrepancy—”
“You mean Dad’s accountant—Mr. Weller?—was cooking the books?”
“No. Nothing to do with him.” I lifted my cup, but now I couldn’t even bring myself to drink. “Okay, here’s the thing. Dad cut corners on materials—”
“Dad would never—”
“He did!”
“How can you say that about Dad? How dare you say that?”
“Because I hate to tell you as much as you hate to hear it.” I put my hand on his arm. “John, think how hard this is for me. I loved Dad, too. Not like you did—no one was as close to Dad as you—but he was my father, too. He was the one who was okay with me taking chances, who believed I could make the leap, balance on the fence, do three backflips in a row. He was the one—” My eyes were filling, my voice catching. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I do not want to say this . . . but for some reason Mike believed Dad was using bad materials.”
“Mike was a kid. He made a mistake.”
I plowed on. “Mike loved Dad, too.”
He nodded. “Mike would never hurt the family.”
God! The irony! “So, then, you know Mike believed Dad was using substandard materials. He . . . would never, ever make an accusation like that if he didn’t”—I almost said “know”—“assume it was true.”
John’s fingers were arched back, his hands tense as claws.
“Just accept that, that Mike believed it.”
“Mmm.”
“Then the earthquake hit and people in those buildings were injured. People died. Because the buildings crumbled. Put yourself in Mike’s place. He worked on those buildings; he knew about the materials. He knew about the materials, John, and he did nothing. Think how he felt.”
“If he was so depressed—and I’m not saying I’m buying into this story—how come not one of us noticed?”
“It was after the earthquake! You were working double shifts; Gracie was interning in the ER. We didn’t hear from her for days. The phones were down, and getting anywhere was a hassle. Everyone was panicky. It would have taken a lot more than depression to get our attention then.”
“Still—”
“The only one who was around a lot was Gary. You remember what a hotshot he was then. There was nothing he didn’t see as cause for damages. That week after the quake he was driving everyone crazy. Even Mom told him to can it with the talk of injuries, damages, jury trials, and gonzo settlements. And on the criminal side, jail time for the people responsible. That’s what Mike kept hearing.”
“Gary wouldn’t—”
“So—and this is the point�
�if Mike stayed here, what would he have faced?”
“He wouldn’t’ve been jailed. No one went to jail. It’s crazy to—”
“You’re looking at it with hindsight. At the time he believed Dad was responsible—legally liable—for those people in those buildings. I’m guessing now, because I never talked to Mike about this, but he was a witness to Dad’s operation. He knew what was purchased and how it was used. If Dad had been indicted, Mike would have been called as a witness—against Dad. Mike would have been responsible for Dad going to jail.”
“No one went to jail!”
“We didn’t know that then! Then, we didn’t even know how many people died. You’re forgetting what it was like. The roadway on the Bay Bridge fell down; the 980 freeway collapsed. We had no idea how bad it was. Mike loved Dad. Of course he’d worry about the worst-case scenario. If not jail, then disgrace. The whole family would have been shamed, and responsible. Mom and Dad would have lost everything, not that there was much. You and Gary, all of us, would have felt responsible, financially, and so we should have.”
“But—”
“Look at this from the point of view of a nineteen-year-old boy. Even if none of that happened, how could he face Dad again? How could he explain to Mom or any of us why he was avoiding Dad? So he left in order to figure out what to do.”
“Dad drove all over the city looking for Mike, driving, driving. He’d call, leave messages at the station, as if I’d get a lead and not tell him! The man was beside himself with worry.”
I lifted my cup, holding it in both hands, sipping slowly.
John sat unmoving. He was facing the window, not to look out now, but to avoid contact with me, his coffee and focaccia untouched. After a while he lifted the cup and drank it in one swallow, like medicine. “It’s lucky for Mike he never told me that crap.”
There was a roteness about his delivery. He couldn’t face this accusation, but he couldn’t dismiss it either.
It was as much as I could hope for.
“Okay, even if Mike believed that garbage, even if he thought he was leaving town to nobly save the family, what about after Dad died? That was only a few years later, a few years of grief over Mike.”
“Then he really couldn’t come back. Would he pretend nothing happened? He certainly couldn’t admit anything was wrong with Dad’s business practices then, after he died. He definitely couldn’t tell the family then. And Mike still had his own guilt. Every time he’d walk through the Marina he’d feel it. Every time there was a news story about the quake. Hell, every time he drove over the Bay Bridge, which they’re still rebuilding now, all these years later.”
“He could have sucked it up and kept quiet.”
“You could have, John, but Mike isn’t you. He’s the guy everyone felt they had a special connection with. If he’d come back then, he’d have changed; he’d have to have. We’d all have noticed. Every one of us would have taken him aside and demanded an explanation. We’re nothing if not persistent. We’d have worn him down or driven him crazy. Look, it’s not as if I’ve talked to him. I heard about the first part, about Dad, but why he didn’t come back later, I’m just guessing. For all I know, he doesn’t know Dad is dead. But my point is, the only way he can come home is if he isn’t in the position of condemning Dad—”
“Let him—”
“The facts are the facts. So, the only way he can not be responsible for destroying our memory of Dad is if we can deal with what Dad did. If we can accept that he did that one wretched thing and remember the rest of who he was.”
“Skip the psych crap!” He slammed his chair back.
“Don’t you leave! This is the most important talk you’ll ever have. You’ve spent twenty years hunting Mike. Don’t get up! Look, we all thought Dad worried himself sick about Mike. But Dad knew the whole story, what he’d done, why Mike was gone, how much that hurt Mom and the rest of us, and why he couldn’t afford to own up. I think that’s what ate away at him. I think . . . I think there is no way anyone could condemn him more than he did himself.”
John looked so gray and drained, I longed to help him. But there was nothing I could do except leave him alone.
“We all make mistakes. If Dad were alive, he’d have done what had to be done. We’d have dealt with the consequences. That would have been just one part of his life, not the central thing. We’d have forgiven him for not being what we thought. That’s what we have to do now.”
For an minute, John said nothing. He was sitting, but he wasn’t still. He was like an old car, clutch held in, engine racing.
I struggled not to get pulled into his vortex. You don’t have to choose between Dad and Mike! “I have to know what you decide. Not today, but soon. Sooner than it’s fair to ask of you.”
“If not?”
“Maybe it’ll be too late.”
“Now or never, that’s his ultimatum? Fuck ’im!” He shoved up. The metal chair careened into the next table and John would have strode out the door had that door not been blocked by Inspector Higgins.
She leapt back. He shot by her as if she were a lamppost. And when she pulled herself together and came in to my table, she looked as outraged as he had.
31
“YOU’VE ARRESTED BLINK Jones and his wife?”
“The alleged thieves driving a plain white truck somewhere in California or points east? Surprisingly, no.” Higgins loomed over the small table, standing in the spot vacated by the chair John had kicked over. If I thought the atmosphere would lighten up with John’s departure, her expression disabused me. She was one testy-looking lady.
“Ms. Lott, I need answers from you. Now!”
“Sit.”
It was too much to ask. “Downtown.”
I know my rights. “The courtyard.” As I was about to ask for another coffee, I saw Renzo already had the paper cup on the table for me and a bag for the rest of my focaccia.
She held open the door, tacitly moving me along. “I told you to keep me informed.”
“What you said was not to go see Guthrie’s sister.”
“Which you did.”
“Which I informed you I’d do and which your surveillance guy saw. That was two days ago. How come you’re just getting—”
“I told you not to interfere.”
“Do you want to know what she told me?”
“What?”
“Exactly what you expected. Zip.”
“And Tancarro?”
“Twenty years ago, Guthrie, a friend who’s now in Thailand, and a guy they met in a bar—Ryan Hammond—planned a burglary of Guthrie’s sister house, the house where she’s all but entombed herself now. That’s what I learned from Tancarro. Ryan Hammond may be in the city right this very moment. You could be closing in on him, if you found Blink Jones.”
She’d pulled out her pad but hadn’t put pen to paper.
“You seem so disinterested it’s almost insulting.”
Another woman might have noted that I hadn’t given her anything worth a raised eyebrow. Higgins, however, strode after me into the courtyard, planted herself on the bench, and continued without missing a beat. “After you skipped out from Tancarro’s—”
“You never—”
“What were you doing in L.A.?”
Conspiring with thieves, eluding the police. It would have been a bit obvious to drag out the focaccia and buy time eating it. The thing was I had no legal and non-incriminating explanation. I was reduced to offering the truth. I hate that; it leaves no fallback position. “Like I told you, I knew so little about Guthrie, I went down there hoping to find out more.”
“And?”
“I checked with his agent. You remember I gave you the name.”
“They’re not great on phones.”
Boy, they’d really taken my warning to heart. How long had they kept up not answering Higgins’s calls? “Agents! Never get back to you fast enough!”
Higgins, of course, missed the humor in that. But she wasn’t
snarling; she was waiting with unexpected patience. It made me uneasy.
“He gave me the key to Guthrie’s house.”
“What did you find there?”
Oh, shit! I was going to be thinking that with every other question now. “An Oscar. Not a copy, a real, engraved, numbered Oscar. That was weird because the Academy doesn’t give Oscars for stunt work or direction. So—”
“It came via Ryan Hammond.”
I dropped the bag. “How do you know about Ryan Hammond?” Why didn’t you let on when I was just talking about him. Oh wait. We’re the cops: we ask, you answer.
“Tell me about Hammond.”
You’re the police; find out. “His moment of fame was the theft of that Oscar from Casimir Goldfarb.”
“The director.”
Uh-oh. “It’s like a morality tale. He was desperate to do stunt work, but he was blackballed. And he can’t get rid of the damned Oscar.”
“You’re saying that theft—”
“I’m saying what everyone in the business says. Goldfarb was a bully who got his comeuppance.”
“Do you think Mr. Goldfarb carried a grudge?”
Despite everything, I laughed. “Think Atlas.”
“After all these years?”
“Hey, I’m not even sure Hammond stole it. There’s another version that has his girlfriend, now Blink’s wife, making off with it. But why are you focusing on this part of Hammond’s life?”
She looked down at her pad—unblemished by notes—as if it would give her the right answer. “Ryan Hammond is dead.”
“Ryan Hammond is dead? How? How long ago? Where?”
“Murdered.”
“Omigod!”
“I’m asking you. Who, besides Goldfarb, who now, by the way, is directing commercials—”
“Directing commercials? Good money, no glory.”
“Hammond?” She prodded.
“Like I said a couple of days ago, we’re on the same side here. You must be thinking Hammond’s death is connected with Guthrie’s. How could it not be? I want to help you to zero in on his killer. But I need to know why you think so. Deal?”