The Color of Fear

by Marcia Muller

  The sound I’d heard had been Capp’s head hitting the concrete. He lay crumpled and unmoving, his eyes half-open and shining in the light. I couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive, and I didn’t care. All that mattered right now was that he wouldn’t be chasing me any more.

  I turned off the flashlight, climbed out of the fountain. There was no sign of anybody else in the darkness; the rest of them were still partying back at the house and had the music up to a high decibel level, probably hadn’t even missed Capp. Once I got into the bay laurel, I put the flash on again, shielded the beam, and followed it the rest of the way to the boundary wall.

  It turned out that I didn’t have to waste time trying to charge and use my cell. There was a light on in the Hoffman house now; Suzy was home. Five minutes later I was talking on her phone to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28

  7:48 a.m.

  I was resting uncomfortably on a plastic chair in a waiting room at the sheriff’s substation, a cup of cold coffee on the table beside me. I’d been there all night. My eyes felt as if they’d been rubbed with sandpaper; my clothes were the same filthy ones I’d had on when I fled Bellefleur; my body craved sleep, but I was too agitated to settle down—even if there had been a place to do so.

  I couldn’t begin to count the number of questions I’d been asked and had answered, over and over again. By the sheriff and his investigators, FBI and Homeland Security agents, Mick and then Ted on the phone. Hy had undoubtedly been subjected to the same, provided they’d been able to locate him. God, I was sick of questions!

  Rolle and his followers had been rounded up at Bellefleur by a team of sheriff’s deputies acting on a hastily obtained search warrant. They’d still been partying, and too drunk and/or high to put up any resistance. Fortunately, they hadn’t bothered to carry out their intention of burying the gardener Jerzy had beaten to death; his body was still in the upstairs bathroom. The deputies had found Jerzy in the fountain where I’d left him, alive but still unconscious, with a cracked skull. He was now in the prison ward at the San Mateo County Hospital.

  Dean Abbot’s laptop had been found in the house, along with evidence of the gang’s racist activities, and was now in the hands of Homeland Security. The HS agent agreed with me that it was the computer that had been used to shut down M&R, and that its hard drive would contain enough data to help their experts restore our operation and eventually convict Abbot of the hacking crimes.

  Naturally Rolle and Abbot and the rest had hollered for their attorneys and were refusing to talk to the authorities. They were being held in the county lockup until it could be sorted out which agency had jurisdiction and would take custody of them.

  So why did they still need me?

  My hackles rose as I saw one of the Homeland agents approaching across the waiting area. I got to my feet and was about to bark a question of my own at him—Can I go now?—when he said, “Thanks for your time and your assistance, Ms. McCone. We won’t be needing you any longer.”

  “Well, finally!”

  “But please keep yourself available in case we need to confer with you again.”

  “Confer with me? You mean ask me more questions?”

  “If necessary.”

  “Oh, wonderful. There’s nothing I’d like better than having to repeat myself a few hundred times more.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Never mind. The hell with it.”

  I turned my back on him and walked out into the new day.

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29

  4:40 p.m.

  As soon as I got off the elevator I heard laughter in hospitality suite two. Saskia, Robin, Ma, Emi Nomee, and Will Camphouse—celebrating New Year’s early. I’d been on my way home from visiting Elwood in SFG when Saskia called to invite me to the little party they were throwing.

  I didn’t feel much like celebrating. I hadn’t completely recovered from the events at Bellefleur and the all-night interrogation in San Mateo, and Hy still hadn’t been located. The visit with Elwood had lifted my spirits somewhat, but he had been given pain medication before I arrived and was a little disoriented, and I hadn’t stayed long. The fact that the feds had restored M&R’s computer network would have been more cheering if the organization weren’t still in a state of upheaval as a result of the shutdown.

  But socializing with other family members was better than moping around the office or home alone. So I’d agreed to join them.

  Saskia was behind the small bar, mixing margaritas, when I went in. Robin sat on one of the stools chatting with Will and Emi. The only one who didn’t seem to be a little tipsy and having a good time was Ma, who sat slumped in a chair looking glum.

  “What’s the matter with her?” I whispered to Saskia as she handed me a margarita.

  “Reality, I believe, has finally caught up with her.”

  I went over and kissed Ma on the cheek. “Why the long face?”

  “It’s over with Elwood and me. He told me so this morning.”

  No, he hadn’t. He’d never known anything was on. Another fantasy or just plain face saving this time?

  “I’m sorry.” I covered her hand with my own.

  “I’ll never love again.”

  Fantasy. “Sure you will.”

  “Of course he’s still not in his right mind after that beating. I’d be a fool to take up with a man who’s…not quite right.”

  Face saving. “Of course.”

  She sighed heavily and slipped off the stool. “I don’t feel like celebrating. I think I’ll go lie down for a while.”

  I watched her leave. She seemed diminished, frail. It occurred to me that as a family we would need to pay more attention to Ma in the future. Maybe get her some psychological help. But if she’d been living in her fantasy world for so long, as Patsy had said, what was the harm in it? We’d have to have a family meeting about the problem.

  Saskia said, “I overheard. She’s backpedaling on her story. But the disappointment is only temporary. She’ll be all right when she’s back in familiar surroundings in Pacific Grove.”

  Would she? Lord, I hoped so.

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30

  AFTER MIDNIGHT

  I was dreaming again: Elwood and his mumbled words to Will and then to me.

  Expansion.

  Too many dials.

  Bluish green.

  No hair.

  Crystal.

  Special ops.

  Cuff.

  Stomp foot.

  Titanium.

  Over and over and over…

  Maybe the reason I couldn’t make sense of them, I thought when I awoke in the morning, was that they didn’t all fit together into one piece. Maybe the answer was that they had to be considered individually or in separate groups.

  11:35 a.m.

  Elwood was sitting up in his hospital bed. His color was very good today, his eyes bright, and—another promising sign—he’d been arguing with Dr. Stiles when I arrived about why he couldn’t be released into my custody immediately. When the doctor told him that they had to be careful with patients of “a certain age,” Elwood’s response had been, “Age—bah!” Stiles had looked at me and added pointedly, “Also patients of your daughter’s age who have been through a period of emotional turmoil, to whom I’d recommend a complete physical checkup.”

  “Father,” I said now, “have you remembered anything more about the attack?”

  “No. It’s still a blank.”

  “Consciously, yes. But subconsciously I think you do remember.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “Several things you said to Will Camphouse and to me while semidelirious. Words and phrases.”

  “Such as?”

  “‘Expansion,’ for one.”

  He considered. “The Expansion Arts Program in Rhode Island, specializing in psychedelic and deviant art.” His eyes twinkled. “The latter is mainly concerned with women’s oversized breasts.”

 
; “I doubt any of those are relevant. Another word you spoke was ‘titanium.’”

  “Symbol Ti, atomic number twenty-two.”

  “How come you remember the periodic table of elements?”

  “I studied advanced chemistry in high school, Daughter. Some things stay with you.” He shook his head. “But the important things, they just go as you grow old…”

  I let that pass without comment. “Okay, next, ‘blue-green.’”

  “Your Christmas present, perhaps.”

  “I received it, and thank you.”

  “How…?”

  “Rae intuited it and gave it to me.”

  “She’s a good girl, that Rae.”

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s get back to this: ‘Too many dials’?”

  He shrugged. “There are all sorts in our world. Old-fashioned phones. That fancy stove you and Hy have that I’m unable to work.”

  “Special ops?”

  Long pause. “Yes. It was the name of the present I was going to buy Hy for Christmas.”

  “And what was that?

  “A Special Ops aviator watch. His is in shoddy condition. In a business such as yours a man needs to be safe.”

  The watch that Rae had also intuited. Of course! That explained ‘titanium’ and ‘expansion,’ and ‘too many dials.’ Those new aviator watches were made of titanium and had an expansion band and more than one dial.

  Elwood went on, “I had concluded that such specialized watches couldn’t be bought locally and I would need to order one from a catalog, but I remember looking in the jewelry store window and seeing one on display.”

  “Just before you were attacked?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was one of the men wearing an expensive watch?”

  “Yes.” Elwood’s eyes brightened; his memory was returning swiftly now. “It was the last thing I saw, beneath the cuff of his shirt sleeve, before I lost consciousness.”

  “Cuff” explained.

  “Did you notice his wrist? Was it hairless by any chance?”

  “No, but one of them had a bald head.”

  “No hair” was explained.

  “Were you able to fight back when they started beating you?”

  “Very little. I remember stomping on one man’s foot. Then as I was falling I managed to smash the dial of his fancy watch against the grate over the store’s window. I heard the crystal break.”

  “Stomp foot” and “crystal” explained. And why he’d said, “too many dials.”

  So it was Elwood who had inflicted the injury that caused Jerzy to limp at Chef D’s. Good for him! Both father and daughter had hurt the bastard.

  The smashed crystal was a solid piece of evidence that Jerzy had led the attack against Elwood, provided he hadn’t had it repaired. Chances were he hadn’t, because he’d been too busy plotting extortion and race war with Rolle Ferguson to take it to a jewelry store.

  “Is there anything more you need to know about that night, Daughter?”

  “No,” I said. “The fact that you’ve regained your memory is all that matters.”

  5:55 p.m.

  To my relief Hy had finally resurfaced that afternoon, with a long-distance call to me at M&R. We’d spoken only briefly because he was in transit. The hostage situation had been resolved successfully, and he’d be home tonight.

  I was curled up on the sofa in front of a crackling fire when I heard him come in. He dropped his travel bag on the floor, crossed the room, picked me up, and held me tight. I clung to him for a long time before he set me down.

  “I could use a drink,” he said. “How about you?”

  “Please.”

  He went to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of Dry Creek Zin and two glasses, which he proceeded to fill.

  “To your homecoming,” I said, raising my glass.

  He raised his. “To you and the end of that crazy racist business.”

  We sat close under the green-and-blue Hudson’s Bay blanket that we always bring out at the first frost. His hand was warm on my knee.

  He said, “How’s Elwood? Still doing okay?”

  “Thriving, in fact. If he has his way, he’ll be out of the hospital and home with us the day after New Year’s.”

  “He really does have amazing recuperative powers for a man his age.”

  “I hope I’ve inherited them,” I said. “So tell me about the hostage situation.”

  “Not much to tell. I’ll fill you in later. Right now I want to hear the details of what you went through.”

  He’d monitored the news reports on his laptop while in transit, so he already knew the basics. I provided the details he’d asked for, glossing over some of the more hazardous ones. Finished by using one of his favorite expressions when he’d squeaked out of a difficult situation: “Piece of cake.”

  He wasn’t fooled. “You know, McCone, you take too many risks sometimes.” His face flushed, suffused with emotion. “You need to be more careful in the future. Please.”

  “So do you.”

  “Touché. Any new developments?”

  I told him what Elwood had remembered about the attack. “I notified Sergeant Anders so she could add aggravated assault charges to Jerzy Capp’s list of crimes. She called this afternoon to report that Capp still had the watch and that it hadn’t been repaired. With Elwood’s testimony, that should be enough to convict him of another hate crime.”

  “And add a few more years to his prison sentence. What about the gardener Capp murdered? Has he been identified?”

  “Yes. Carlos Sanchez. He eked out a living by doing gardening and handyman work.”

  “Poor guy. He picked the wrong place to look for work.”

  “That’s for sure. The San Mateo DA cut a deal with the feds: they get to prosecute on the murder and accessory charges; Homeland and the FBI will deal with the federal cybercrime.”

  “Have Ferguson and the others turned on each other yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ll bet some of them do. Rat out their buddies to cop pleas and save their own asses.”

  “They’ll still do jail time.”

  “A few more bigots off the street—and out of our lives.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Hy put a finger to my cheek and ran it down my neck and then to my breast. “Missed you,” he said before we kissed.

  “Mmmm…”

  “We’ve got to spend more…quality time together.”

  “Mmmm…”

  After an interval—a long interval that alarmed the cats, who fled—we got up and gathered our clothing. Hy picked up the wine bottle and glasses with one big hand.

  “Let’s continue this…discussion upstairs, McCone.”

  “An excellent idea.”

  MONDAY, JANUARY 1

  12:01 a.m.

  Happy New Year! ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind…’”

  Crystal flutes full of champagne, wine, sparkling water, and—in one case—Dr Pepper were raised in toasts. A bad year had ended. Maybe the new one would be brighter.

  Fourteen of us were gathered around the snack-laden table in Hy’s and my dining room. Mick. Rae and Ricky. Ted and Neal. Several other friends. John and his new lady, an attractive blonde named Diana. Will. Derek.

  The huge glass bowl had been drained twice of what Rae called her “sneaky punch,” but it hadn’t sneaked up on any of us because we’d been stuffing ourselves with finger food over the past four hours. Chips and dips, pâté and crackers, cheeses and olives and pickles and marinated mushrooms—all had been consumed as if we were a tribe that had been stranded in a desert for weeks. Hot hors d’oeuvres had followed.

  Sometimes when I go to supermarkets I feel ashamed. They are so opulent, so crammed full of foods and objects that no human being can possibly need but that many of us feel we must have that it makes me want to purge my life of them. But I’m as much a product of American society as the next person, and often, as on this New
Year’s, I plunge in with both hands and a wide-open mouth.

  After a while, comfortably stuffed, we repaired to the living room to laze around on the furniture or cushions on the floor before the fire. Conversation was slow and lazy.

  I asked Mick, “So how are you and John coming on restoring your house to normal?”

  “It’s going well. I’m thinking of putting it on the market—too many memories.”

  It didn’t surprise me. “Where’ll you go? Back to that little studio where you used to do your computer work?”

  “Nah, I gave it up six months ago. There’s a condo for sale in John’s high-rise. It’s small, compact, and all I need.”

  “Well, if you ever feel the need for wide-open spaces—”

  “I know. There’s always Touchstone or Hy’s ranch. But I’m a city boy and always will be.”

  Contented silence.

  After a while Will said, “I’m thinking of making a change too. Giving notice at the ad agency and then moving here.”

  I raised my head from Hy’s lap. “Leaving Tucson? Why?”

  He shrugged. “The work’s no longer challenging, seems frivolous. And I like San Francisco.”

  “What would you do here?”

  “Find a position with a small local agency.”

  “Jobs in the advertising business aren’t that easy to come by here.”

  “I’m not worried. I’ll find something.”

  I had an idea. “You know, the agency’s getting too big for me. Hy and I agree that it’s not meshing as well with RI as we thought it would. And I’m tired of spending most of my time in my office signing off on reports and invoices and mediating employee spats. I’m an investigator, not an administrator.”

  “No argument there,” Hy said wryly.

  “So I could use someone to help pick up some of the slack. How would you like to work for me, Will? Temporarily, if not permanently.”

  “Are you serious, Shar?”

  “Absolutely. As I said, I’m tired of doing administrative work. And you’d be perfect for the job.”