by Kirk Russell
‘I don’t really believe in the theories of multiple personality but the boy that I interviewed sometimes seemed inhabited by a different person. It was as if when I left the room for a few minutes . . . Let’s say I was interviewing him and needed to go to the rest room or get a glass of water or the Mountain Dew he liked to drink. He loved Mountain Dew. Sometimes I’d be back in less than five minutes, but the person I had been talking to was gone. A completely different person was sitting there now, but subtle, not night and day at all. Scary and exciting, I’ve never been around anything like it before or since. He’s probably even better at it now. Let me put it this way, it doesn’t surprise me a homicide inspector is calling me about him. I can get you copies of the case files, but you didn’t get them from me. You may want to try the department first. I’ll give you a name.’
Raveneau wrote down a name and phone number.
‘I’m going to summarize our conversation on my website, Inspector.’
‘Don’t do that. Keep this one between you and me.’
‘I’ll leave your name out if you want.’
‘Don’t put anything up yet. You’ll compromise us.’
‘All right, I’ll wait until you give me the go.’
‘That might be a while.’
A very long while Raveneau thought and Pierce said, ‘That’s OK, I’ll wait, and I’m going to warn you again, he’s capable of anything. You haven’t come out and said it, but you’re telling me he might be involved in another killing, aren’t you?’
‘We don’t know what’s what yet.’
‘Give me your email and I’ll send you some things I haven’t posted to the site yet.’
Raveneau gave him an email and half an hour later Pierce called to asked if he’d read the documents yet.
He hadn’t. He scanned them now and saw they were Pierce’s analysis of Lindsley’s personality. He thanked Pierce again, said he would read them as he could.
Half an hour later Pierce called back. ‘Have you read what I sent?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I’ll wait for your call.’
‘If you don’t reach me, leave me a message and I’ll get back to you when I can.’
Raveneau broke the connection, laid the phone down, and stared at a photo of Lindsley that Pierce had just sent him. He was young in the photo and with his parents. He looked like he was about ten years old and it took Raveneau a little while to figure out that the hotels behind them were French. Then he put it together that this was somewhere on the French Riviera and they made a family trip there and Lindsley returned after his parents were dead and he had left Chicago. In this photo he looked very happy and leaned against his mother. What did it mean that he returned and stayed six months after they were gone?
THIRTY-NINE
Raveneau put a call in to the Missouri sheriff. She was a little bit of relief in all this and when she picked up the phone it was good to hear her voice.
‘Is this the same mountain where your victim’s body was found?’
‘It is and that area burned early. The fires were set along two roads – one that comes up from the coast road, the highway, on up to the ridge of the mountain, and down the other side. Her body was on the ocean side of the ridge. Listen, Jennie, you’re going to get a call from a Mark Coe at the FBI. He may send you a photo of the man who died while setting the incendiary devices.’
‘This is the fire bomber we’ve all been hearing about?’
‘It is, and he’s a John Doe but so badly burned I don’t know if a photo will do it. We’ve also got testimony that Alan Siles has knowledge about how the skulls made their way into the bomb shelter.’
At noon Raveneau drove out to talk with the contractor Ferranti. He parked and stood looking at the smoke out over the bay. It was whiter and that was a good sign. The garden shed slab was gone, the bomb shelter pumped full of a sand slurry. A backhoe operator dug away the earth to a depth of roughly six feet around the access tube and the operator was using the hoe to bang into the access tube until the rebar was exposed. Raveneau watched him cut through the exposed steel with a blow torch and then knock the tube down. He cut the last rebar, hooked a chain around the tube and lifted it away. Raveneau felt a pang of worry that he missed something that he could now never get, but he also felt an almost superstitious sense that they were entombing a place of evil.
He climbed the stone steps back up to the house. New windows and doors were getting installed and he watched three guys lift in a big window and then found Ferranti. They sat down at a plywood table in what had been Lash’s study and was for the moment a construction office. Ferranti looked happy to finally get the bomb shelter out of his way. He smiled but acted nervous and Raveneau guessed he wanted something. He was going to ask for something and didn’t seem comfortable about it.
‘Should I pull my complaint against Hugh Neilley?’
‘I can’t give you advice on that.’
‘I’d like some anyway because what he did was dishonest and I’m not sure what to do.’
‘You’ll have to make that decision on your own.’
‘He forged those dump tags and the question is do you want me to bury it because he’s a cop and your friend? I mean, you have helped me here. Do I owe you?’
‘You have to do what you think is right.’
‘He’s your friend.’
Raveneau reached over and touched Ferranti’s abdomen. ‘You’re the guy wearing the wire, so that means you can listen to this conversation over and over again. I just gave you my best advice. Replay when you have time and let your lawyer listen too. See what he thinks. As for me, I think you’re as fucked up as Hugh. See you later.’
He called la Rosa as he left Ferranti and she knew this tone of voice in Raveneau. He was driving. She could hear the car engine, the wind blowing through the window. She thought Raveneau was of another time, maybe a better one, but one that had almost gone by. She realized in that instant she was never really going to know him. The difference was generational and she felt an acute sadness well up as he talked.
‘I just left the contractor, Ferranti. He was wearing a wire and wanted to draw me into saying he should back off Hugh. There’s something there that we need to learn about.’
‘How do you know he was wearing a wire?’
‘I saw it when he moved and reached over and touched it. I’m wondering what he’s heard about Hugh. I hate to say, we’ve got to know.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘On the Golden Gate on my way to Marion Coryell’s.’
‘Does she know you’re coming?’
‘She does, and an old friend of hers will be there also.’
‘What is it, an intervention?’
‘She’s got something she wants to tell me. Her friend is helping her find the words.’
‘I’m surprised she’s even in her house with the fires. Is it something she should have told us a long time ago?’
‘I really don’t know, and on getting back into the house, she told me they were allowed to go back in last night. I’ll call you when I leave Marion’s house.’
‘OK.’
Except it wasn’t OK, because now what he said nagged at her. Raveneau wouldn’t have called unless he was seeing something. She continued working for another hour then scratched around on her desk until she found the number Raveneau got from pot-bellied Hugh Neilley, Southern Precinct lieutenant turned crooked demolition contractor. She swore as she dialed the number, but then quietly asked for a Lieutenant Sanger.
‘This is Sanger.’
‘It’s Liz. I want to talk to you about Hugh Neilley, but let’s do it away from the Hall.’
‘I’ve always got time for you.’
She knew that but would just have to deal with him today. If there was anything, Sanger would probably know.
‘How about in an hour?’ she asked. ‘I’ll meet you outside.’
‘An hour from now is tough, but for you I’ll do it. I thought y
ou’d never ask.’
So did I, she thought. ‘Good. See you then.’
FORTY
When Raveneau sat down in the kitchen with Marion Coryell and her friend, sunlight was bright on both of their faces. It also revealed age, weathered lines at the mouth and the eyes, a slight yellowing of her friend’s eyes, and all the worry and sadness Marion had carried and now wore. But her voice was firm. What she had to say was not what Raveneau anticipated.
‘Alan, I mean Brandon, brought me flowers and a copy of the book. That’s when I first met him. He said he had a number of copies and was going to give it away so she wasn’t forgotten. He wanted a photo of Ann and I gave him one. I could have told you this last time we talked, but I didn’t know you had questions about the book.’
‘Did he say anything about who published it?’
‘Not that I remember, but I think it says so on the book. I had the impression it was a friend of his.’
‘That friend might have been Professor Lash.’
‘Please don’t say something like that.’
‘They were good friends, Marion.’
‘No, they weren’t. They couldn’t have been.’
‘Why not? He lied about his name and about his relationship with Lash. Do you think that’s where the lies stopped?’
‘I may be wrong again but you have to understand how often we talked about Professor Lash. Brandon and I agreed about Professor Lash. We both hate him. Excuse me a minute, I’m going to get something to show you.’
She got up and left and Raveneau looked to her friend but got nothing there. Then Marion was back and carrying a photo album that in her arms looked heavy, though she had no difficulty setting it on to the table. She turned to her friend. ‘You’ll remember this.’
She showed Raveneau a photo of Ann as a graduate student standing on upper Bancroft with the campus behind her.
‘I had two of the same and I gave him one.’
‘Gave Brandon Lindsley one?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he say why he wanted it?’
‘He admired Ann.’
Raveneau studied the photo and asked, ‘Can I take this and get a copy made?’
‘I don’t want to lose it.’
‘I’ll get it back to you.’ Raveneau turned to the friend. ‘Are you married?’
She smiled at that and said, ‘George and I have been married forty-six years.’
‘Do you and George keep secrets from each other?’
‘Never.’
‘Then you need to walk outside while Marion and I talk.’
She walked out and Raveneau told Marion that they had recovered a partially burned photo from the bomb shelter and that the photo used in the book might also be the same as the burned one. He tapped the photo in her album. ‘I want to compare it with the burned fragment we have.’
She nodded then said, ‘If you’re going to tell me he doesn’t believe in the things Ann wrote, then I don’t know anything at all about anything.’
‘He may well believe in the things she wrote. I’m talking about something different. I’m talking about a fragment of a burned photo we found in the bomb shelter. I want to compare it to the photo in this book.’
‘Why was it burned?’
‘There were candles in the shelter and it may have been accidental that it was burned. Why it was there I don’t know yet, though we are getting closer.’ He saw her reaction and added, ‘Marion, I’m not saying Brandon Lindsley was her killer and her killer befriended you. I’m not saying that at all and I may be completely wrong about this photo.’
‘You must have one of the books. I can’t lose this picture of Ann.’
‘We do have a book but the photo there is cropped. It doesn’t show as much as this one. I’ll make sure it stays with me.’
She gave him the photo after finding an envelope to put it in. Now she sat straight-backed in her chair, her face ashen as if the conversation had exhausted her. Raveneau left soon after.
When he walked out the sky was bluer and yet the smell of burn was still very strong. He called la Rosa, left a message on her cell, and then crossed back to San Francisco to a copy shop where he knew he could get a jpeg emailed to him before he left the store. Upstairs at his desk in the homicide office he opened the image and then sized it to match the photo found in the bomb shelter. When he did that he saw a match, but it would take someone better than him looking at it. He left another message for la Rosa. This time she called back and said, ‘I’m on my way back to the office. I’ll see you in a few minutes.’
When she walked in he held the photo from the bomb shelter up against the image on his monitor.
‘Mom’s photo?’
‘Yes. An old friend of hers got her to open up a little more. The publisher of the orange book of her writings was given a copy of this photo and most likely they got it from Brandon when he was impersonating Alan Siles. Marion loaned him the photo to make copies about six months after Ann’s remains were identified. He made one or more copies.’
Raveneau read her quizzical look and answered it as best he could.
‘I don’t know if it matters at all, but I think Lindsley gave a copy of the photo to whoever published the orange book. This is the photo that’s at the back of that book, and the charred photo that came out of the bomb shelter may be the same.’
‘OK, but why are we chasing it?’
‘I don’t think Lash was the publisher, and if it was Alan Siles then that deepens the connection with him and Lindsley. Why was it left in the bomb shelter? Was it discarded because it was burned or was that intentional? If it connects Lindsley to Siles at a point when Lindsley swears he only knew Siles in passing, that’s information that might help us later. I just don’t know how yet.’ He paused. ‘But there’s something there and we need to know it. I’m sure of that.’
FORTY-ONE
Raveneau picked up Jennie Crawford, the Missouri sheriff, after she landed at SFO. That was her idea, though it was the FBI who paid for her to fly out. She said it was the first time she had ever flown business class and that she hadn’t been apart from her daughter a single night in three years. Not only that, she was uncomfortable leaving her daughter with her mom.
‘What’s the matter with your mom?’
‘She’s always got a cigarette.’
‘What about your ex? Where is he?’
‘JB works for a company that supplies goods to the military. If he was here, Julie could stay with him, but he’s not and he never is. He’s probably wherever the next war is being planned, figuring out how much his company can charge the Army for water. Let’s not talk about him. What’s that thing over there that looks like a chopped-off tea cup?’
‘Candlestick Park. It’s a sports stadium.’
‘They should think about knocking it down.’
‘They are.’
‘Is the traffic always like this?’
‘This isn’t bad at all.’
‘I wouldn’t have asked you to pick me up if I knew the traffic would be like this. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be and I’m glad to meet you.’
‘Likewise, though I really don’t know why I’m here. I still don’t understand why I couldn’t get the FBI’s questions answered with a fax and a phone. Where do they get the money for all this anyway?’
‘You know the answer to the second question. Did you bring those files with you?’
‘I did and they’re yours first, but we should go over them together. I want to check into the hotel and shower. Any chance you want to meet at the restaurant your girlfriend has?’
‘It’s more like a bar.’
‘That sounds even better. If she owns a good bar I’d marry her if I were you. Have you ever been married?’
‘I was for a while.’
‘Kids?’
‘A son.’
Raveneau waited for the next question. He didn’t want to answer it or change the mood in the car, and of all things thi
s was still the hardest for him. For some reason his head always went to the lines of a poem. He braced, and it came as human and naturally as breathing.
‘Where is he?’
‘He died in Fallujah, Iraq.’
She nodded. She didn’t say anything for seconds and he saw in her profile the grit that made her sheriff.
‘I have a cousin who died there. I was older and I babysat him a lot and saw him grow up. He was on his way to becoming a really good man. In those long wars so many things happen. A lot is just luck, I think.’ She was quiet then in a softer voice said, ‘Fallujah was special. It’s one we’ll remember. I miss my cousin and I’m sorry I made you talk about your son.’
That was a bond for Raveneau. He was quiet for a mile and then picked up the conversation again, lightened things up and gave her a thumbnail city-tour on the way to the Sheraton, and then told her he’d come get her in a couple of hours and take her to meet Celeste and get a drink. He dropped her off and picked her up two hours later. One drink in she opened the file she brought. In it were photos of every casket that got pilfered. The caskets looked like shipwrecks in the river mud.
‘Sometimes a burial site turns up on a farm or an old cemetery outside of where a town used to be, and it’s been so long their people are gone. There’s no one left to care. But that wasn’t the case here. We knew the river was rising but we hoped the levee would hold. It didn’t.’ She paused a moment. ‘Maybe I said this to you before. I’ve had it in mind that the thief of these skulls was looking for an opportunity like this.’
‘That fits.’
‘Some of them got cleaned.’
‘That’s right. Several got cleaned.’
‘People at home are very offended by that. They want to see whoever did this go to prison and they want to understand why it happened. Whoever stole them took a pretty good risk of getting caught. That’s always puzzled me. A deputy could easily have driven up that road just to make sure it was all still secure.’
Raveneau had no explanation for the man’s lack of fear of being caught, other than the invulnerability delusion can create.