McCone and Friends

by Marcia Muller

  Costume jewelry—rings, bracelets, earring, necklaces—with the price tags still attached. Silk scarves. Pantyhose. Gloves, bikini underpants, leather belts, hair ornaments. They were all from Left Coast Casuals.

  Although the items were tagged, the tags were not the plastic kind that trip the sensors at the door. Left Coast Casuals reserved the plastic tags for big-ticket items. All of the merchandise was brand new, had never been worn. No individual item was expensive, but taken together, they added up to a hell of a lot of money.

  This told me a lot about Adrian, but it didn’t explain her disappearance. Or her boyfriend’s murder. I replaced the things in the bag, and the bag beneath the flooring. Then I got out of there and went to bounce this one off Sharon.

  Sharon was all dressed up today, probably either for a meeting with one of our tonier clients or a court appearance. The teal blue suit and silk blouse looked terrific on her, but I could tell she wasn’t all that comfortable in them. Sharon’s more at home in her jeans and sweater and sneakers. The only time she really likes getting gussied up is for a fancy party, and then she goes at it with the excitement of a kid putting on her Halloween costume.

  She said she had some time on her hands, so I suggested we stop down at the Remedy Lounge, our favorite bar-and-grill on Mission Street, for burgers. She hesitated. They serve a great burger at the Remedy, but for some reason Sharon—who’s usually not fastidious when it comes to food—is convinced they’re made of all sorts of disgusting animal parts. Finally she gave in, and we wandered down the hill.

  The Remedy is a creaky local tavern, owned by the O’Flanagan family for longer than anybody can remember. Brian, the middle son and nighttime bartender, wasn’t on yet, so we had to fetch our own food and drinks. Brian’s my buddy, and when he’s working, I get table service—something that drives everybody else from All Souls crazy because they can’t figure out how I manage that. I just let them keep guessing. Truth is, I remind Brian of his favorite sister, who died back in ’76. Would you refuse table service to a family member?

  While we waited for the burgers, I laid out the Adrian Conway situation for Sharon. When I was done, she went and got our food, then looked critically at her burger, taking off the top half of the bun and poking suspiciously at the meat patty. Finally she shrugged, bit into it, and looked relieved at finding it tasted like burger instead of entrail of monkey—or whatever she thinks they make them from. She swallowed and asked, “All the stuff was lifted from Left coast Casuals?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Employee pilferage.” She shook her head. “Do you know that over forty-three percent of shrinkage is due to insiders?”

  I didn’t, but Sharon a former department-store security guard and she keeps up on statistics. I just nodded.

  “A lot of it’s the employers’ fault,” she added. “They don’t treat their people well, so they don’t have a real commitment to the company. The clerks see it as a way of getting ever for low wages and skimpy benefits.”

  “Well, whatever Adrian’s reasons were,” I said, “she dealt with the loot in the usual way. Once she got it home, it wasn’t any good to her. Her mother would notice if she wore a lot of new things and ask where she got the money to buy them. Plus she felt guilty. So she hid the loot away were Donna wouldn’t find it and—more important—where she couldn’t see it and be reminded of what she’d done. Out of sight, out of mind. Only it doesn’t work that way. She was probably aware of that bag of stuff hanging between the floor joists every minute she was in that room. She probably even dreamed about it.”

  My voice had risen as I spoke, and I couldn’t keep an emotional quaver out of it. When I finished, Sharon didn’t say anything, just watched me with her little analytical frown. I ate some of my burger. It tasted like cardboard. I drank some Coke. My hand shook when I set the glass down.

  “Anyway,” I said, “Adrian being a shoplifter doesn’t explain the important things. Did you ask Adah Joslyn what was in the backpack, like I asked you to?”

  She was still watching me. After a moment I gave it up. “All right,” I said, “I used to shoplift.”

  “I suspected as much.”

  “Thanks a lot!”

  “Well, you did get pretty worked up for a moment there. You want to tell me about it?”

  “No! Well, maybe.” I took a deep breath, wishing I’d ordered a beer instead of a Coke. “Okay, it started one day when I was trying to buy some nail polish. The clerk was off yapping with one of the other clerks and wouldn’t stop long enough to notice me. So I got pissed, stuck the bottle in my purse, and walked out. Nobody even looked at me. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten away with it. It was like…a high. The best high I’d ever felt. And I told myself the clerk had goaded me into it, that it was a one-shot thing and would never happen again.”

  “But of course it did.”

  “The second time it was a scarf, and expensive scarf. I had a job interview and I wanted to look nice, but I couldn’t afford to because I didn’t have a job—the old vicious circle. I felt deprived, really angry. So I took the scarf. But what I didn’t count on was the guilt. By the day of the interview, I knew I couldn’t wear the scarf—then or ever. I just tucked it away where I wouldn’t have to see it and be reminded of what I’d done. And where my husband wouldn’t find it.”

  “But you kept stealing.”

  “Yeah. I never deliberately set out to do it, never left the apartment thinking, today I’m going to rip some store off. But …the high. It was something else.” Even now, years after the fact, I could feel aftershocks from it—my blood coursing faster, my heart pounding a little. “I was careful, I only took little things, always went to different stores. And then, just when I thought I was untouchable, I got caught.”

  Sharon nodded. She’d heard it all before, working in retail security.

  I looked down at my half-eaten burger. Shame washed over me, negating the memory of the high. My cheeks went hot, just thinking about the day. “God, it was awful! The security guy nabbed me on the sidewalk, made me go back inside to the store office. What I’d taken was another scarf. I’d stuffed it into a bag with some underpants I’d bought at K-Mart. He dragged it out of there. It was still tagged, and of course I didn’t have the receipt.”

  “So he threatened you.”

  “Scared the hell out of me. I felt like…you know those old crime movies where they’re sweating a confession out of some guy in a back room? Well, it wasn’t like that at all, he was very careful not to do or say anything that might provoke a lawsuit. But I still felt like some sleazy criminal. Or maybe that was what I thought I deserved to feel like. Anyway, he threatened to call my employer.” I laughed—a hollow sound. “That would really have torn it. My employer was another security firm.”

  “So what’d you do—sign a confession?”

  “Yes, and promised never to set foot in their store again. And I’ve never stolen so much as a stick of gum since. Hell, I can’t even bring myself to take the free matchbooks from restaurants!”

  Sharon grinned. “I bet one of the most embarrassing things about that whole period in your life is that you were such a textbook case.”

  I nodded. “Woman’s crime. Nonsensical theft. Doesn’t stem from a real need, but from anger or the idea you’re somehow entitled to things you can’t afford. You get addicted to the high, but you’re also overcome by the guilt, so you can’t get any benefit from what you’ve stolen. Pretty stupid, huh?”

  “We’re all pretty stupid at times—shoplifters haven’t cornered the market on that.”

  “Yeah. You know what scared me the most, thought? Even more than the security guy calling my employer? That Doug would find out. For a perpetual student who leaned on me for everything from financial support to typing his papers, he could be miserably self-righteous and superior. He’d never even have tried to understand that I was stealing to make up for everything that was missing in our marriage. And he’d never have let me forget what I did
.”

  “Well, both the stealing and Doug are history now.” Sharon patted my hand. “Don’t look so hangdog.”

  “Can’t help it. I feel like such a …I bet you’ve never done anything like that in your life.”

  Sharon’s eyes clouded and her mouth pulled down. All she said was, “Don’t count on it.” Then she scrubbed her fingers briskly on her napkin and pushed her empty plate away. “Finish your lunch,” she ordered. “And let’s get back to your case. What you’re telling me is that Adrian was shoplifting and saw a way to break free of it?”

  “A way to break free of something, but I’m not convinced it was the shoplifting. It may have been related, but then again, it may not.” My head was starting to ache. There was too damn big a gap between the bag of loot under the floor of Adrian’s room in Diamond Heights and the abandoned backpack in the living room of the house on Naples Street. I’d hoped Sharon would provide a connection, but all she’d done was listen to me confess to the absolutely worst sin of my life.

  She looked at her watch. “Well, I’ll try to find out what you need to know from Adah later this afternoon, but right now I’ve got to go. I’m giving a deposition at an upscale Montgomery Street law firm at three.” Her nose wrinkled when she said “upscale.”

  I waved away the money she held out and told her I’d pick up the tab. It was the least I could do. Even though she hadn’t helped me with the case, she’d helped me with my life. Again.

  I’ve always felt like something of a fraud—pretending to be this nice little person when inside I’m seething with all sorts of resentments and peculiarities and secrets. But since I’ve been with All Souls, where people are mostly open and nonjudgmental, I’ve realized I’m not that unusual. Lately the two me’s—the outside nice one and the inside nasty one—are coming closer together. Today’s conversation with Sharon was just one more step in the right direction.

  VII

  I’d come up with a plan, an experiment I wanted to try out, and while it probably wouldn’t work, I had a lot of time on my hands and nothing to lose. So after I finished my burger, I went back up the hill to our annex and got Lillian Chu to call her son Tom at McAteer and command his presence at my office as soon as school let out. When Tom arrived, he’d traded his friendly smile for a pout. To make up for my high-handedness, I took him to the kitchen and treated him to a Coke.

  Tom perched on one of the counter tops and stared around at the ancient sink and wheezy appliances. “Man,” he said, “this is really retro. I mean, how can you people live like this?”

  “We’re products of a more primitive era. You’re probably wondering why I—”

  “Pulled this authority shit. Yeah. You didn’t have to get my mom to order me come here.”

  “I wasn’t sure you would, otherwise. Besides, the people at McAteer wouldn’t have called you to the phone for me. I’m sorry, but I really need your help. You heard about Kirby, of course.”

  The anger in his eyes melted. He shook his head, bit his lip. “Oh man. What an awful…You know, I didn’t like the dude, but for him to be murdered…”

  “Did you hear that Adrian’s backpack was found in the house whose backyard he was killed in?’

  “No.” For a few seconds it didn’t seem to compute. Then he said, “Wait, you don’t think Adrian…?”

  “Of course not, but I’m afraid for her. If she’s alive, it’s possible Kirby’s killer is after her, too. I need to find her before anyone else does.”

  Tom sat up straighter. “I get you. Okay, what can I do to help?”

  “You have a group of friends you hang out with, right? People you can trust, who aren’t into anything—”

  “Like Kirby was.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, sure I do.”

  “Can you get some of them together this afternoon? Bring them here?”

  He frowned, thinking. “Today’s Thursday, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay, football practice’ll be over in about an hour, so I can get hold of Harry. Cat and Jenny don’t work today, so they should be around. Del—he’s just hanging out these days. The others…probably. But it’ll getting close to suppertime before I can round them all up.”

  “I’ll spring for some pizzas.”

  Tom grinned. “That’ll help. At least it’ll get Del and Harry here.”

  I realized why when I met Del and Harry—they each weighed around two hundred pounds. Harry’s were all football player’s muscle, but Del’s were pure flab. Both waded into Mama Mia’s Special like they hadn’t eaten in a week. Even the girls—Anna, Cat, Jenny, and Lee—had appetites that would put a linebacker to shame.

  They perched around the kitchen on top of the counters and table and chopping block, making me wonder why teenagers always feel more at home on surfaces where they have no right to plant their fannies. Each had some comment on the vintage of the appliances, ranging from “really raunchy” to “awesome.” The staff couldn’t resist poking their noses through the door to check out my young guests, but when Tom Chu, who knew full well who Hank Zahn was, pointed to him and called, “Hey, Rae, who’s the geezer?” I put a stop to that and got the meeting underway. After shutting the swinging door and shouting for them to get serious, I perched on the counter next to Tom. Seven tomato sauce-smudged faces turned toward me.

  I asked, “Do all of you know what brainstorming is?”

  Seven heads nodded.

  “What we’re going to do,” I went on, “is to share information about Kirby and Adrian. I’ll ask questions, throw out some ideas, you say whatever comes into your heads. Anything, no matter how trivial it may seem to you, because you never know what might be important in an investigation.”

  The kids exchanged excited glances. I supposed they thought this was just like Pros and Cons.

  “Okay,” I began, “here’s one idea—shoplifting.”

  Total silence. A couple of furtive looks.

  “No takers? Come on, I’m not talking about any of you. I could care less. But think of Adrian and Kirby.”

  The angelic-looking blonde—Cat—said, “Well, Adrian took stuff from the place where she worked sometimes. We all suspected that.”

  “I didn’t,” Harry protested.

  “Well, she did. At first she thought it was a giggle, but then…” Cat shrugged. “She just stopped talking about it. She’d get real snotty if you mentioned it.”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “Sometime last spring. Right about the time things started getting very heavy between her and Kirby.”

  “When she started sleeping with him,” Del added.

  “Okay,” I said, “tell me about Kirby’s scams.”

  Beside me, Tom muttered, “Dope.”

  “Test questions.” Anna, a pretty Filipina, nodded knowingly.

  Cat said, “He sold stuff.”

  “Like L.L. Bean without the catalog.” The one sitting cross legged on the chopping block was Jenny.

  I waited, letting them go with it.

  Harry said, “Kirby’d get you stuff wholesale. He sold me the new Guns ‘n Roses CD for half price.”

  “You wanted something,” Anna added, “you’d give him an order. Kirby filled it.”

  “A real en-tree-preneur,” Del said, and the others laughed. All of them, that is, except Lee, a tiny girl who looked Eurasian. She sat on the far side of the oak table and had said nothing. When I looked at her, she avoided my eyes.

  Jenny said, “It’s not funny Del. Kirby was so into money. It was like if he got enough of it, he’d really be somebody. Only he wouldn’t’ve been because there was no one there. You know what I mean? He had nothing inside of him—”

  “Except money hunger,” Tom finished.

  “Yeah, but don’t forget about his power trip,” Cat said. She looked at me and added, “Kirb had a real thing about power. He liked pushing people round, and I think he figured having money would mean he could push all he wanted. He really w
as a control freak, and the person he controlled best was Adrian.”

  “Jump, Adrian,” Harry said. “How high, Kirby?”

  Anna shook her head. “She was getting out from under that, though. Around the week before she disappeared, we were talking and she said she’d about had it with Kirby, she was going to blow the whistle and the game would be over. And I said something like, ‘Sure you are, Adrian’ and she goes, ‘No, I’ve worked it all out and I’ve got somebody to take my side.’ And I go, ‘You mean you got another guy on the line who’s going to stand up to Kirb?’ And she goes, ‘Yes, I’ve got somebody to protect me, somebody strong and fierce, who isn’t going to take any shit off of anybody.’”

  “Did you tell the cops about that when they came around?” Del asked. Anna tossed her long hair. “Why should I? If Adrian took off with some guy, it’s her business.”

  I caught a movement to one side, and turned in time to see Lee, the silent one, slip off the table and through the swinging door to the hall. “Lee?” I called.

  There was no answer but her footsteps running toward the front of the house. I was off the counter top and out the door in seconds. “Help yourself to more Cokes,” I called over my shoulder.

  By the time I spotted her, Lee was on the sidewalk heading downhill toward Mission. As I ran after her I realized what truly lousy shape I’d let myself get into these past few months, what with the caseload I’d been carrying and spending too much time with Willie. There’s only one kind of exercise that Willie likes, and while it’s totally diverting, it doesn’t do the same thing for you as aerobics.

  Lee heard my feet slapping on the pavement, looked back, and then cut to the left and started running back uphill through the little wedge-shaped park that divides the street in front of All Souls. I groaned and reversed, panting.