by Susan Dunlap
I stopped, turned, was inches from his face. “You’ve already convicted him, haven’t you? He’s hiding out. He’s doing secret sleuthing. He’s too cowardly to come to work. Has it even occurred to you that something might have happened to him? Thought never crossed your mind, has it? I have no idea where he is. And I’m worried. It’s not like John, not at all.” My voice was quivering, dammit. Now this train of thought seriously frightened me. I pulled my arm free, turned, and nearly smacked into Chief of Detectives Broder.
I looked back at Korematsu, trying to deduce what was show for Broder and what was real.
He eased back a bit. His breathing was shallower, as if to allow more internal room for weighing options. But when he spoke his voice was unwavering and his eyes hard. “I’m going to give you time to get this message to him: if he gets himself in here by the end of the day, I’ll cover for him. I’ll work with him on this case. Do what you have to. No one’s going to be following you. He’s made enemies in the department, and a lot of guys will be happy to see him gone. No one’s got his back. I’m sticking my neck out, but I’m going to trust you.”
“Thank you,” I said so docilely a lesser man might have laughed. “I have no idea where to find him but I’ll do everything I can. He’s being an ass. He’ll be here by sundown.”
I walked to the street. If I could trust Korematsu then he was on very thin ice here. As for John, there was no way I could find him, even if I had intended to.
I wanted to get back to the zendo. But city running has its drawbacks and there was no good route, with some much worse than others. Hoping to clear my sinuses and my head, I opted for flat and headed back along Howard, on once seedy blocks now in the process of spiffification. I cut left onto the Embarcadero. There was one lead Korematsu might not think of.
I intended a quick stop at the zendo, but when I got there a note was on the door:Come see me—now.
Renzo
“You read my mind, huh?” I said as I walked into his little café on the corner. Just one of the three tiny tables was empty. The bracing aroma of strong coffee and sweet pastry filled the space. I pulled out a chair, ready to wrap my finger around the handle of the little white cup.
Renzo caught my arm. “Outside.”
“Without coffee? What’s going on?”
He motioned me to the door. With his greyhound face and gray ponytail, he looked like he’d walked out of City Lights Books after hearing a young Ferlinghetti in 1960. His jacket—cleaned, pressed—was probably circa 1960. He held the door for me and I walked out and followed him down Pacific till we were clear of the café windows.
“That Korematsu,” he said, “he may be okay, but I don’t really know him. He comes in here getting coffee for you and it makes me uneasy. He looks like he’s on business.”
“He was.”
“Like I say, I don’t know him. I’ve been running this place for forty years. I know the city. I know the police. Korematsu may be okay but his boss—”
“Broder.”
“Yeah, Broder. He’s shifty.”
“He dislikes John.”
Renzo shrugged as if to say my point meant little in the greater scheme of things. “Broder’s father was a cop and his father before him. They were on the force back in the days when joining was a business investment. Grandpa made his money in protection. Dad was a favorite of drug consortiums.”
“Are you telling me—”
“Broder was going to be different. He was a stand-up guy. Could have been a twin to your John. Figured he’d wind up chief. But he didn’t have the pull. Chief’s a political appointment in this town and Broder didn’t have the savvy to spot the right connections. Took him a while, but he realized he’s dead-ended.”
“Interesting.”
“I’m not standing on the sidewalk losing business to give you a history lesson.”
“Sorry. I didn’t—”
“I’m telling you, here’s a guy who blew off easy money and lots of it, in order to be chief. All he’d have to’ve done was looked the other way. But he played by the rules and got zip. His father and grandfather’d say he’d been a fool. He’s fifty years old with nothing to show for it. But now . . . now he’s going to get his. Now, he’s seriously looking the other way.”
“You mean with the smuggling?”
“I’m not talking any one thing. You poke into any one thing and it’s a gateway to the whole business. Trust me, Darcy, you don’t want to be the one who sticks her head through that gate.”
15
“OPEN UP!”
No response.
I pounded.
A shade moved next door.
“Gary, get this door open or I’m calling the cops!”
Fog covered the city all the way into North Beach—thick, damp, cottony. “Gary, I’m going to freeze out here and die on this doorstep and you will never, ever hear the end of it!”
He opened the door. “How’d you find me?”
I pushed into the hallway. The place was a typical San Francisco apartment building—three stories, two flats to a floor separated by the staircase. In each one a hall led past the first bedroom in the front, past the second, through a living room with a window on the airshaft and onto the kitchen and another staircase out back. They were often first rentals for wide-eyed newcomers so delighted to be actually living in the shadow of Coit Tower or near the clubs on Union Street that they didn’t care about spending hours each night hunting parking spots.
“Karen Johnson’s,” I said as I followed him down the hallway to the yellow living room.
He nodded. “But how—”
I shrugged, wishing I was here with a less serious need so I could savor this moment. “You said Karen was here for a divorce. You don’t handle divorces. But you’ve been party to three of your own. You had complaints about the first two attorneys but the third, you called the queen of tangled finance, remember? Erica Ukner.”
“Erica wouldn’t discuss a client with you.”
“Not with me, your sister. But with me, your assistant, it’s a different story. I phoned from your office, leaving a message to call back. ‘Law Offices,’” I said mockingly, “‘Mr. Lott asked me to double-check the local address of Karen Johnson.’” He stared at me, not sure how to react.
“Didn’t Karen tell you she was a tourist?”
“Like you told her to? Yeah, Gary. But she has to have a residence in the City and County of San Francisco for three months before a divorce can be filed. Meaning, before you could do whatever you were doing for her. Which was?”
“I can’t say.”
“I didn’t track you down for nothing!”
“Attorney-client confidentiality.”
“Your client’s dead!”
“Confidentiality survives death.”
“Work around it. This is serious. Karen was barely dead when someone was poking around your office.”
His mouth twitched, as if he was about to grin.
“Oh, that was you, huh? What’d you take?”
“Everything I didn’t want the cops to. I know what can happen. Why do you think John’s hiding out. Do yourself a favor, get clear of this whole thing.”
“Too late! Okay, tell me this: Why did Karen Johnson steal John’s car?”
“Dunno. Really. Since, say, two minutes after I called you, I have not learned a thing that was not on the news.”
“Karen didn’t call you?”
“Hey. I’ve told you what I can.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to peer in through the cracks of his fence of confidentiality. “John said you are the one who set things up.”
“Vague.”
“Different question: You’re covered by privilege. The police can’t force you to reveal anything about Karen. So why are you hiding?”
He hesitated.
“Oh, because you know something not covered by privilege.”
He didn’t disagree.
I leaned against the counter,
aimed my gaze above his head. “Karen’s dead, so it’s not something to protect her. It’s . . . of course! It’s something John told you, something to do with Karen but not your case with her. Now what could that be? The smuggling? She caused a crash in front of Broder’s mistress’s place. Ah . . . you’re not surprised! That wasn’t on the news, or not that specifically. So you’ve been in touch with John. He’s okay?”
He hesitated.
“Dammit, is our brother okay?”
“If I said he was last night, it wouldn’t mean he was today,” he finally brought out.
“What’s that . . . ?”
His face hardened. He was one of my dark-haired, chisel-featured siblings with piercing blue eyes. “I’m not saying more, not about anything. You need to get out of here.”
Go away, little girl! I was so sick of my older brothers’ condescension. I strode back to the bedroom. If Gary wasn’t going to tell me anything, maybe the apartment Karen Johnson had been occupying for three months would.
Then again, I decided after going through the cheery, white-walled, flowery bedroom, the plain bathroom, the dark living room without television or DVD player, much less a book, maybe her connection to this place was no more than what was required to meet the residence requirement. “It’s like a bed-and-breakfast here, except those places at least have something to read. Did she even spend a night here?”
Gary didn’t answer. He’d found a bottle of Merlot—not his taste, so it must have been Karen’s—and was trying to edge out the cork with a paring knife. At the rate he was going, by the time he got a drink he’d need it.
I pulled open the refrigerator. The shelves were empty except for a half pound of coffee and a half pint of half-and-half. “Half-fridge?” Companionable humor wasn’t likely to lead him into unintentional revelation, but it was about the only ploy I had left.
The cabinet next to the refrigerator held a couple of plastic dishes. On the stove was a single saucepan, probably used to heat water. “Look! A cookbook! Planning to be here long enough to have company?” It was the sole book in the apartment.
“Not mine.”
“Karen’s?” I picked up Soups for Summer. “It’s new. Was she the dinner party type?”
He let out a somewhat forced sarcastic laugh and then quickly seemed to catch himself.
“Makes no sense to start cooking now, eh? Who’d she know to ask over? Anyway, the case you’ve got was about to go big time, right? That’s why you were up all night researching; why you needed to do something so immediately that you called me to drop everything and amuse her. If you—”
“Doesn’t Mom have this?” He propped the cookbook upright.
I knew he was trying to distract me. “One like it. I’m surprised you remember something like that. The author had a funny name . . . What was it? Plesko? Kresge?” I looked at it: Cesko. That was weird—same name, but definitely a different book. Wait. Same last name, but different first. “And wasn’t there some scandal attached?”
Suddenly, Gary had a peculiar expression on his face. He put the cookbook face down.
“What’s with this? Is there some connection between Karen and this book?”
He ignored me.
And what was it about, that long-ago cookbook? “One time when I came home from college the cookbook—what was it called? Apples in Autumn?—wasn’t there. Maybe it’d been gone for years and I just hadn’t noticed . . .”
I grabbed it and checked the back flap. The author of Soups for Summer was the niece of the original one. “Hey, maybe I can find this Claire Cesko and see what her connection is to Karen Johnson. It says she lives near Redding . . .” I was just joking so I was caught off guard by Gary’s reply.
“Maybe not a good idea.”
“Why’s that?”
“Trust me.”
“Tell me. You were the one who got me remembering it. It’s just a cookbook.”
He said nothing.
I stood up. “Fine. Well, I guess it’s not. We’ll talk about it when I get back.”
“Darce—”
“But before that, you can give me your car.”
“You want to take my Lexus to the back of beyond! Think again. Besides, up there it’s going to stick out, look a little too, uh—”
“City shyster?”
Only a sister would have spotted the cringe before he shifted, relaunched. “You’re going to drive through all those redwoods?”
“I’m over my tree fear,” I lied. “Just give me the keys, dammit!”
He hesitated, weighing his responsibilities to his client and the law, to his sister and family. “Okay, okay, but it’s crazy to do this cold. There’s a PI John knows up there, Les Wallinsky, who’s helped out looking for Mike. You need a contact.”
“Right.”
I had an idea, a necessary one. “Listen, we never had this conversation.” I pulled a dollar out of my pocket. “I’m hiring you.”
“Good point, everything considered.”
I watched him pull out his wallet, insert the bill, slide the wallet back in his pocket, me weighing whether I really had to ask the question that would bring me a barrage of flak. “What’s your take on Korematsu?”
“You interested in him?”
“No, no! I don’t even know his first name. No, my question is can I trust him.” I told him our conversation at the morgue.
“He said he wouldn’t have you followed and you believed him?”
“Not enough to come right here. I took a few diversionary measures. But Korematsu? Got an opinion?” He was bound to, I knew.
Gary leaned back till the chair almost toppled backwards. He was a master of the trick. He’d used it to attract women, distract opponents, and by now he’d done it so long the balancing actually helped him focus. “The guy seems too decent to be a detective.”
“John’ll—”
“John’d be the first to agree. A detective’s got to be ready to work a suspect. Nobody’s the good cop all the time. What I think about Korematsu is he’s hiding something. I’d trust him with the family silver but not with . . . not with . . . I don’t know what. Besides, he’s reporting to Broder, so you don’t need to waste time wondering if you can trust him.”
I laughed.
Gary started to speak, caught himself, eased his chair back to the ground with more care than necessary. “Darce . . .”
“What!”
“Korematsu, it’s not that he wouldn’t protect you in this, it’s that he can’t protect you. John can’t protect you; he can’t even protect himself. If he could he wouldn’t be lying low. No one can protect you. Remember how he says: ‘Contraband doesn’t pass through this city without some cop on the take.’ Look, I’m serious about being bound by attorney-client privilege. There are things I can’t talk about, even with you.” He pulled out his keys and laid them in my palm, resting his hand there for a moment. “Karen Johnson did something that got her murdered. I don’t know what. But her killer’s out there somewhere. Be careful. Seriously careful.”
16
THURSDAY
GARY CALLS HIS Lexus his conference room. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club played from the Blauplunkts in the back. Later I could flip to news updates from London, Karachi, or suburban Mars.
I’d slept at the zendo, sat morning zazen, and driven Duffy to the beach for a run. Ocean Beach is only a few blocks from Mom’s house, but Duffy loves to stand on the fine leather seat and peer appraisingly out the window like a right-seat driver. Another owner would blow a gasket at the thought of twenty sharp paw nails scratching across the pale tan leather; another owner would toss Duffy and me onto the street. But likeability is Gary’s forte: it’s not just that he can sway a jury to his side, but that his client and opposing counsel, expecting him to own the courtroom, make their decisions accordingly. In Duffy’s case, a seat cover was all it took for my brother to control the outcome.
It was mid-afternoon before I got out of the city. The Ceskos’ town, Star Pin
e, was three or so hours up I-5. Gary’s warning about trees had not only been a jab about the embarrassing phobia that had dogged me since childhood—though I’d pretty nearly licked it—but his comment could hardly have been more unnecessary: I-5 runs from San Diego to Redding without a leaf to block the sun. It’s California’s tribute to the Jersey Turnpike.
I caught the freeway north of Sacramento. Of course, the car had cruise control, climate control, and lines of buttons that moved the seat up, down, back, forth, heated it, vibrated the back and much, much more. The car moved north but inside nothing changed. So it was a shock when I opened the door at a rest stop near Redding and stepped out into what had to be a hundred degrees.
“You must be Darcy Lott.”
“You’re Les Wallinsky?”
“You look surprised.”
“I just assumed—shit, assumed—that my brother’s contact would be a former sheriff.”
“How do you know I’m not?”
“Pigs may fly.” I laughed. Without creating a picture in my mind, I’d been expecting a friend of John’s to be in his fifties, wearing a shirt that fit ten pounds ago, and a suit that screamed “prosecution witness.” But the real Les Wallinsky looked to be in his mid-forties, buff, wearing a work shirt, khaki chinos, hiking boots. Barely taller than I am, he had an adorable knob of a nose, black button eyes, short wiry blond hair, and a killer grin. If he’d been hired by my sister Gracie instead of John, I’d have wondered if he was a gift for my weekend.
“You need to eat?” he asked, glancing at the restaurant next to the parking lot.
“Is there a place closer to Star Pine?”
He grinned. “Okay, but you’ll have to hold your appetite for an hour. Oh, and leave that car here.”
“Will it be all right?”
“Sure. Don’t worry.” He motioned to a tan pickup. I followed him and he opened the passenger-side door for me.