“Listen, Tony, I’m kind of busy here.”
“I heard you’re remarried. New wife. She’s from some wealthy family, isn’t she?”
I’d spent enough time with Tony to guess where this was going. He had a gambling habit, and it got him in trouble. The murder charge had fallen apart but he’d done time for extortion, trying to get money to pay off his gambling debts.
“It’s not going to work, Tony. So what, you saw me dancing in a club?”
“It’s not the dancing, doc.”
I should have gotten off the phone then, but that pig voice of his had a certain allure.
“You remember the man I was standing with that night I saw you, at the lounge there?”
“No,” I lied.
“Well, he remembers you. Says he’s made a number of transactions with you in the past. You had a different companion each time, he says. One of those companions was Angela Mori. He didn’t know who she was at the time. Not until after the fact, he says, after she was dead. When her picture was all over the tube.”
“He’s pulling your leg, Tony”
“I tell you, I hear how she died, doc, I think about you, our little conversations. Well, certain lights go off in my head.”
“Tony . . .”
“I think of those other girls . . .”
“Tony
“You don’t have to worry. My friend in the club, he’s a dim bulb, low wattage. But me, I got needs.”
“He’s got me confused with someone else.”
“That’s a good one, doc. You and your ponytail. How many guys wearing those any more? Makes me think, deep down, you want to be caught. Sub-conscious, like. You know how I mean. Isn’t that the way it is sometimes, guys like you?”
I fell silent. I was at a loss, I suppose, how to respond. “I’m thinking twenty grand for starters. I wouldn’t pinch you so hard except I got people breathing on me, too. You know how it is.”
“I don’t have time for this, Tony,” I said at last. “I’ve got patients to deal with.”
He started to laugh then. It was an ugly noise, that laugh of his. I hung up, but he had gotten to me. I tasted my heart up there in my throat. I glanced at the Wilders’ invitation again and felt my old life slipping away, disappearing into that ugly laugh.
That evening, before the sun went down, I ran along the wetlands by the side of the bay, then underneath the freeway into Corte Madera. It was a popular trail, and once or twice I’d happened into Minor Robinson. He lived on the last street of a subdivision that backed into the old salt marsh.
I was brooding along with my head down, jogging on the berm above the swamp, thinking about the notion that the things that happen to us, they are not just arbitrary, but a reflection of our inner state. The turmoil of the self is the turmoil of the world. I did not really subscribe to such thinking, but there were times you couldn’t help but wonder. As I ran, I happened to catch a glimpse of Minor’s place below me, down a path overgrown with anise and salt grass: a modest house, small and tidy, built on a concrete slab back in the ’50 s. I had been inside once, at a retirement party for a colleague. (Elizabeth had been along, too, more quiet than usual, almost shy.) In the course of the evening, a couple of the guests had inadvertently locked themselves out of the house. They’d gotten back in easily enough, jiggling the slider around in its track. Even so, the episode had been a bit of a joke at the party and something to laugh about later, in the halls of the Civic Center: how easy it was to break into the Prosecuting Attorney’s house. The incident really hadn’t been so funny as people made out, but I remembered it as I glanced down into Minor’s yard. The sliding door looked as flimsy as ever.
I kept running, jogging along.
I thought about Grazzioni and his threats. It is true, there are a few things I haven’t mentioned here about Angela and myself. I pursued her for a little while, in the same manner I pursued Sara. She was reckless in similar ways, and I have a hard time resisting such women, but there is not really much more to tell. You can imagine our encounters: the dark rooms, our damp bodies, mouths wet with liquor. Unfortunately, Grazzioni could imagine it all, too. I feared he would tell Elizabeth, and other people as well, and let his imagination run. Even so, I had no intention of paying him. Because if I paid him once, he would only dial my number again. And he was a complication I did not need, no matter my karma, as they call it, no matter the illusory nature of the world and of the demons herein, selfcreated or otherwise.
12.
I was suspicious about Grazzioni, wondering why he’d shown up just now, if it was coincidence or if there was something else at work. In the past he’d tried to extort people for crimes he himself had committed—which is not uncommon with a certain type of criminal—and I wondered just how desperate he was, how short of money, and if he might be connected to Dillard and Angela in a way I was not aware of.
I decided to call Nate Jackson, a private detective who specialized in defendant work. He’d worked for Wagoner on the Dillard case, but I’d known him for a while—and he owed me a favor.
“Hey Jake,” he said. “It’s nice to hear from you.”
Nate Jackson had a good phone voice, down-to-earth and sonorous. The detective was short on looks, though, obese and sweaty—and when you met him he gave off a rank odor from hauling around all that weight. Though I’d been face-to-face with him a number of times, it was still hard to put those looks together with the voice on the other end of the line.
“It’s great to hear from you,” he said again.
How I knew Jackson was on account of his daughter, Anabelle, who’d spent a few years up at Napa, in Ward C, in the wing for the criminally insane. Before that Anabelle had used to work as an au pair here in Marin. Then one of her charges, four years old, had drowned in a swimming pool under suspicious circumstances. Anabelle had been found unfit for trial. Meantime, as fate would have it, the state’s case fell apart due to a mishap with the evidence. A few months later Napa let her loose. Part of it had to do with my testimony. I’d seen no sign of delusion when I re-examined her. Her reasoning was clear as a bell.
Her dad, Nate, was eternally grateful. The truth was I had just played it by the rules, but he felt like he owed me a favor.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“The Dillard case.”
“I heard he was convicted.”
“Yes.” My voice cracked and I let it do so, deliberately maybe, because I wanted his help and his sympathy—and needed him to hear my disillusionment with the way the case had gone. Or maybe it was just the emotion of the last few weeks. “Tell me, did you do an alternative suspect search? Did Wagoner ask for one of those?”
He hesitated on the other end. Wondering why I was pursuing this, I supposed. It was a good question. It could be that I felt badly about Dillard’s conviction. That I was doing a little research, looking to help out on the appeal. That may have been part of it—but if I am honest, I knew there wasn’t going to be an appeal. Not by Haney, anyway. The money was exhausted, and Dillard would have to use a court-appointed attorney now. No, I had another reason. I wanted to know if Grazzioni could be linked to the case—and if there was a way to get him out of my life.
“We did an investigation into the Dillard business, yeah,” Jackson said now. “I had one of my people scope the police records, looking for a similar MO, unsolved cases. He put together a pretty theory, serial killer kind of thing. Wagoner barely glanced at it. He was focused elsewhere, as you know”
“Any primes?” I asked, and I knew I had to see that report.
“There’s a half-dozen strangulation artists out there. But no one matched our scenario.”
“How about Tony Grazzioni? Did you check him out?”
“Yeah—we checked Grazzioni out, but I don’t know. My feeling, the cops were off base on that murder charge down south. They wanted him for other things, so they dragged him in on that, too.”
“That’s his story. I don’t know if I be
lieve it.”
“My opinion, Grazzioni, he’s a peep show guy—so to speak. Likes to look at funny pictures, talk to weirdos. Get his rocks hot peeking at other people’s laundry, then using it against them. Extortion—that’s his thing. That and gambling. Not murder.”
“So what did Wagoner think of the report?”
“He didn’t find much use for it, like I said. Except for that motel story. He leaked that one to the press.”
I remembered the story, unsubstantiated, but it had made the papers anyway: a rumor that Angela had taken a room in a motel up in Novato, accompanied by an unidentified man. The only witness was a motel maid. “Guatemalan illegal, scared of her shadow,” said Jackson. “Vestido azul. Blue suit, that’s all I got out of her. Wagoner could have used her in the trial, maybe, to create reasonable doubt. To show there was another man, somewhere, that might have been the murderer. But no. He didn’t think it was enough.”
“I’ve got a job for you,” I said. “Could you run a make on Grazzioni? Find out where he’s living, where he’s hanging around—that kind of thing?”
“All right, but I don’t think you’ll learn much. Not about the Dillard case anyway. He’s got no connection to the deceased—if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“Probably not.” I shrugged. “But do you think I could take a look at the report you told me about? The one you put together for Wagoner?”
He hesitated once more. It was a confidential report, after all, and I could see the spot I was putting him in. “Never mind,” I said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No. It’s okay. That case—it’s still under your skin, isn’t it?”
“I guess. But I know how these things are. In regard to client information. You can’t just . . .”
“It’s okay. I can the get report for you. I have to dig it out, that’s all. It’s with my other files.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“Meantime, let me see what I can find out about Grazzioni. I’ll give you a call in a couple of days. You can swing by—and I’ll give you everything at once.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“I’ll cover your time on this.”
“Don’t worry about it. I owe you, remember.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” I said. “Give my regards to Anabelle.”
“All right.”
“How’s she doing, anyway?”
“Great.”
His voice weakened, though, the sound of a worried parent. His daughter was in Florida, the last I’d heard, working as a governess. Who had hired her, and how much they’d known about her past, those were other matters, and not necessarily a concern of mine.
13.
While Jackson tracked down Grazzioni, I turned my attention to other things in my life. Over the next few days, I drove out to Golden Hinde several times. I needed a few things at the house, it was true, but more than that I wanted to see Elizabeth. My timing was off—or her schedule had changed; she was never there when I arrived. I could have left a message, but I feared she would ignore it, or arrange for me to come out to the house when she was not there. I didn’t want that to happen, so I risked coming to the house unannounced. I wanted to talk. I wanted to make it up between us. The Wilder party was coming up soon—just a week away—and I had it in mind that we might still be able to go together. Maybe I was foolish, the way people are foolish when they don’t want to believe something is finished. Either way I drove out to Golden Hinde several times before at last I saw her car in the driveway—and I walked once again down the pink flagstones to our front porch. When she opened the door, she was wearing her reading glasses, new ones with tortoiseshell frames that gave her a studious look, big-eyed and prim.
“I just need to get a few things,” I said. “I hope it’s all night.”
She dressed simply, in slacks and a white sweater, but her looks still affected me. She had on the pearls, of course, and studied me warily. Her eyes seemed bluer through the reading lenses, larger and more penetrating.
“I won’t be long, I promise.”
She was not quite able to turn away from me. Maybe she wanted to, I don’t know, but something in her face softened and she let me in. I went into our bedroom and gathered some clothes I had left behind. Some good shoes, for the Wilders’ party. My linen jacket. A silk tie. It didn’t take long. I let the moment stretch, lingering in the closet there amongst her clothes. I touched one of her dresses, the sheer fabric, remembering her once upon a time as she leaned against the wall at some party, a little drunk, dallying, waiting for me to come to her, to take her outside and lean against her in the dark. I touched the collar now, I touched the hem. I let my fingers drift down the buttons.
On the dresser, there was a picture of her from when she was a child, maybe six years old, in a checkered pinafore with a wide collar. I picked up the picture and studied her eyes and they were the same eyes I knew so well, taking you apart in a glance.
At length, I left the closet. I found her at the kitchen table with books and papers spread all around.
“Research?”
She nodded, giving me the barest of glances then bowing her head to the papers. “You got what you came for, I assume.”
“I’m glad to see you getting back to it.”
“What?”
“Your book.”
“I never really left off.”
It wasn’t exactly true. The last couple of years, after her father’s death, she’d pretty much abandoned the project. On the table now lay the weather-beaten copies of some old folk tales, raw material for the analysis she’d started not long after her first divorce: a reinterpretation of the transformation stories from the point of view of depth psychology. Bluebeard. The Bears Son. The Handless Maiden.
I knew her thesis. Stories like these were not just cautionary tales but talismans, messages from the nether land beneath human consciousness—and as such were vehicles for the re-integration of the self, the joining of the conscious and unconscious.
“What chapter you working on?”
“The last one.”
“What’s the title again, of the last chapter?”
Elizabeth was shy about this conversation, a little reluctant. Or maybe she just wanted me to leave her be. The truth was I already knew the answer. We’d had this conversation before.
“The Demon Lover,” she said.
In her book, the last chapter and the first shared the same title. That was the way the Jungians were. Everything circled upon itself. When Elizabeth and I had gotten together, she’d been exploring the anarchic principle, and the importance of welcoming it into your life.
“How are they different,” I asked now. “The first chapter and the last?”
Elizabeth pursed her lips, hesitating. She was a bright woman and understood my interest was not without ulterior motive. Even so, she couldn’t resist talking about her work.
“The opening concerns itself with the act of seduction.” Her eyes skittered over me. On the stove, a teapot had just begun to simmer.
“And the conclusion?”
“With fidelity. The union of the lovers forever.”
Her face reddened. Elizabeth was a fair woman and reddened easily—sometimes for no reason at all, it seemed—but it was embarrassing her, this conversation. The teapot grew shrill. She pushed her hands against the table and stood up, brushing past me as she went.
I could ask her about the in-between chapters, I supposed, but I knew that answer as well. The middle chapters would be about the process of transformation: the movement from one state of consciousness to the other, and acceptance of the fact that each mode had within it the seeds of the other.
I watched her at the counter, steeping the tea in a china cup. “Is there anything else?”
She stood with her back to me, in her white sweater and her slacks and her silver thongs.
“I just have a few things to get from my desk.”
/> The truth was, though, there was nothing in my desk I wanted. I lingered in the hall, looking at pictures from our life together. Snapshots of our honeymoon in Bangkok. Our vacations in Cancun and Santa Barbara. The Mardi Gras in New Orleans. There were pictures of her family, too: her mother, her father, her maiden aunt. The pictures went back to when she was a child, and at the center of them all was a photo of her father taken some thirty years before. He stood in his polo shirt and his pleated khakis at some community event, a lean man who had the admiration of all concerned. Fair-minded and generous. Charming. With a debonair smile. The kind of guy who did everything well. Made all kinds of money. Played golf like a son-of-a-bitch. Killed a million Japs in the war.
Elizabeth came up the hallway now, her tea cup in one hand, a book in the other, and I knew her routine: how she would spend the evening in the bedroom, sitting and reading, propped up on her pillows—but before that there would be the sauna, out on the deck, and she would let the day soak out of her, her headed tilted back, eyes half-closed, not seeing the prison across the way or Mt. Tamalpais either, shadowing the water.
“You find what you came for?”
“Just looking at the pictures.”
“Oh.”
“Your father, he was a good looking man.”
“People admired him. Yes.”
“You can see his personality, here in the picture. You can really see the life in him.”
My motivation was pretty transparent, I’m sure, but
Elizabeth seemed not to care. She was blind when it came to her father.
“He was a good man,” she said. Tears welled in her eyes all of a sudden, and she choked up as she spoke. I knew the things that touched her, I admit, and took some pleasure in her reaction. I was manipulating her, maybe, but it is the land of thing people do, sometimes, when they seek to get close to another. I’m not sure it is such a bad thing. “Did you find everything?” she asked. Though she was still angry with me, her voice was subdued and in her accent I could hear that small town where she was born. I could hear the railroad going by, and her Negro nanny, and her father, and the birds flocking to the pecan groves outside town, untended now, abandoned to the crows. I imagined for a moment the great swamp she’d walked in as a young girl, its fetid smell, the endless mud, and her laughter as the swamp stuck to her legs, sucking her deeper.
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