The Dirty Secrets Club

by Meg Gardiner

"It was consensual," Scott said. "It wasn't a crime."

  Skunk slowly turned his head. For a moment Scott thought the look on the man's face was disbelief.

  "Honestly. Nobody broke the law," Scott said.

  Skunk laughed. "Incredible."

  With dismay, Scott understood. Skunk knew he was telling the truth. But Skunk couldn't believe Scott still thought he could talk him into keeping quiet. He couldn't believe Scott thought remorse and anguish could buy him anything but destruction.

  "How old was the girl?" Skunk said.

  "She wasn't a minor. She was nineteen, and she never objected." Not in so many words.

  And he had been a senior at USC. How could they blame him? He'd just been a kid in college.

  But he knew how, because he blamed himself. For eight years he'd suppressed it, or confessed it in secret, and tried to expunge the guilt. Last week he'd taken a whipping with a riding crop to obliterate it. And now Skunk was slapping him with it in his own way. Laughing, the bastard.

  It had been crowded at the party. The frat house was always crowded at parties. A face appeared in his mind, incredibly vivid, as it did every night when he slept. Melody, with strawberry-blond hair, with a take-me smile and a tipsy giggle. Her parents were friends with his. She was a sophomore.

  "You thought quick that day, I'll give you that," Skunk said. "What I don't get is, how come you ever told? Anybody?"

  In a dark corner of the room Melody had wound her hair around her fingers, listening to him intently. The Foos were on the stereo. She was sucking on an ice cube. Her lips were cherry-red.

  He kissed her, sucked the ice cube from her mouth, and said, "Let's get an ice bucket and go upstairs."

  Yeah, he was drunk, and he'd smoked a joint. Just to even out, after the coke and the tequila. Just to get his mind smooth for a while. It was a nerve-racking time, the NFL draft only a few days away. He was going to go in the first round, his agent said. His coach and parents and teammates all said. And his future was going to be golden, all sunshine, like Melody's hot little smile.

  The breath left his lungs as though he'd been tackled from behind.

  These days he didn't do dope, didn't do coke, didn't even drink. He was so clean and so sober that you could scrub him against a brick wall and scrape off graffiti. He feared that if he took a drink or a toke, he'd let down his guard and spill everything. He almost had spilled things by getting the bad tattoo—but he could chalk that up to jock style. Still, maybe if he was drunk he wouldn't see Melody in the bed, looking at him as he put on his jeans to answer the knock on the door. As he said, "The other guys like ice, too."

  Now he put a hand across his eyes. "Oh, God."

  Skunk smirked. "You never had to tell a soul. That's the thing that blows my mind. You were home free. But you told Callie Harding, didn't you?"

  That night, Melody had looked at him, confused, when he let the other guys in.

  He said, "It's okay, right?" He smiled. She smiled, maybe not so brightly.

  "Scott..." She looked at his frat brothers. "If I—will you be back?"

  "Of course I'll be back." They weren't going to hurt her. It was a party. He went and sat under a tree and smoked another joint and chilled out in the quiet night.

  They didn't gangbang her. She just. . . let them take turns. She was kind of like a doll. Everybody got to play.

  He was still sitting under the tree when Brady found him. "She's gone nuts," he said. Scott found her in the bathroom, huddled by the toilet, shaking and mumbling to herself.

  Brady wanted to call 911.

  "No," Scott said. "I'll call my agent."

  It seemed like the smart thing to do, and his agent assured him it was the right thing, too. He got her to a private clinic. Paid all her medical bills, paid her to keep quiet.

  And everything had seemed okay. But even then, Scott knew it was his fault. And if he got blamed for it, his season, his career in football, would be over.

  Now his chest wouldn't expand. He couldn't breathe.

  Melody dropped out of school. The next year, her parents admitted her to a private psychiatric clinic. Scott's own parents told him about her folks' anguish. His agent told him to stop feeling guilty. Said, she's unstable, always has been, not your fault. But the shrinks said she had post-traumatic stress. Her mind essentially shattered. And then . . .

  Skunk put a hand on his arm. "How does the club work? Who do you contact?"

  Scott shook his head. If he told this greasy little man, Skunk would just go on to torment somebody else, the next person in line.

  But the truth was, even if Scott gave Skunk a name, even if he gave him the entire phone book, Skunk wouldn't go away. He'd keep coming back for another bite, because that's how blackmail worked.

  Not for the first time, Scott regretted the day he ever met David Yoshida. Cardiac surgeon, 49ers fan, friend of the team's owner, got to meet the players at a postgame party.

  Now Yoshida was dead. Callie was dead. Because somebody had talked.

  The club was supposed to be secret, absolutely confidential. And he knew, deep down, that it never had been. And that's why he had joined it—for the risk. Didn't they all want the risk?

  He stared through the Roman rotunda at the hills of the city. What the hell had he been thinking, telling a lawyer? A prosecutor, for the love of God? Blond, cool, judgmental Callie. The punisher. He had loved confessing to her. What kind of a game had he been playing?

  He laughed.

  "What's so funny?" Skunk said.

  Games. All his life he'd been playing games. And now he was about to lose. His vision swam.

  Skunk grabbed his arm. "Hey."

  He didn't pull away. Laughter heaved from the bottom of his chest.

  He had gone deep, and fumbled. Melody, oh, Melody—

  Skunk shook his head. "You're fucking nuts, man. You get the names today, or everything comes out. All of it." He shoved Scott away. "You'd better pray."

  Scott wiped his eyes. "Didn't you hear what I said? I can't help you."

  "You have a pool at your house?" Skunk said.

  Scott looked at him. A cold hand gripped his stomach. "No."

  "Course, pools aren't the only places accidents happen. It's a nightmare for parents, keeping their kids safe from everything that could take 'em away forever." Skunk snapped his fingers. "Like that."

  Sweat broke out on his forehead. "Are you threatening—"

  "That poor Dr. Yoshida, for instance. His son died of a drug overdose. Tragic."

  "You son of a bitch."

  "I saw a picture in the Chronicle last season, you holding your little boy after the conference final. Can he swim?"

  Scott felt a ripping sensation in his chest. All the strength left his feet, his legs, his arms.

  An insane thought seized him.

  The lagoon was right there. Who would see? Grab Skunk. Haul him to the water by the back of his saggy-ass jeans, dunk his head, and drown him.

  The little smile vanished from Skunk's face. "Don't even think about it. I'm just mentioning possibilities. But if something happened to me, those possibilities would get a lot less theoretical. You know?"

  Scott could barely see. "Touch my family, you'll die."

  "Somebody's gonna die. The prosecutor wasn't the last, bet your bottom dollar." His small eyes were recessed and glossy. "But it ain't gonna be me. You think hard whether you want it to be somebody you love."

  The wind stung Scott's eyes. He said nothing.

  Skunk turned to go. "The names. By four o'clock."

  Jo and Amy Tang walked across the plaza, heading for the entrance

  to the U.S. Attorney's Office. It was in an architecturally dead white concrete building, recently upgraded with steel bollards to block car bombs. Tang put away her phone.

  "Leo Fonsecca's giving us fifteen minutes," Tang said. "Be ready to talk fast."

  Jo followed her inside. "The city seems to be holding together after the quake."

  "We're
only hearing about minor damage. Unreinforced masonry falling off a few old buildings. Car alarms going off. No injuries reported."

  Jo looked around the echoing lobby. The building seemed fine. Tang pushed the call button for the elevator.

  Jo hooked a thumb at the stairs. "We can walk up."

  Tang looked aghast. "It's on the eleventh floor. I don't care if it's good for my heart, I'm not climbing a skyscraper."

  Jo's own heart pumped harder, and she glanced at the elevator. "You trust that box after a tremor?"

  "An elevator has never plunged to the ground after an earthquake in San Francisco. You're paranoid."

  There'd never been a bridge collapse in San Francisco, either, until there had been. There'd never been a freeway collapse because of an earthquake, until it happened.

  The doors pinged open. Tang walked in and held the door. "Fon-secca has to be in court in half an hour. The timer's running. Come on."

  Jo swallowed and stepped inside. Tang pushed the button and the doors began to close. Jo leaned against the back wall; watched the doors slide shut. They reminded her of two blades closing on each other. With her back pressed against the wall, she felt, ludicrously, that if the elevator began to shrink like a trash compacter, she could brace herself and shove her feet against the doors to stop it from crushing her.

  Tang looked indifferent. "Tell me how you got your expertise with sexual fantasy."

  The car rose. Jo heard a buzz in her ears. "You mean my experience analyzing equivocal deaths that involve sexual games gone fatally wrong."

  "Same diff. That was ..."

  "Jeffrey Nagel, found hanged in his bedroom, partially nude."

  "Accident?"

  The elevator bounced to a stop on the fifth floor. She gritted her teeth.

  Tang regarded her analytically. "You really hate this."

  "I'd rather stab myself in the eye with a fork." She forced a smile. "Luckily, all I have in my purse is a spork."

  With a smooth burst of energy, the elevator rose again. Her jaw was clenched and she couldn't get it to relax.

  Tang smiled. "A claustrophobic shrink? That seems—"

  "Ironic. I know." She watched the numbers. "Bad quake experience."

  Tang turned thoughtful. "Loma Prieta?"

  She nodded. Her palms were sweaty. She was going to need to shake hands with people in a minute. She wiped them on her slacks.

  "No fun," Tang said.

  Jo shook her head.

  The air, as ever when she was in a tight space, felt electrically charged. Her skin tingled. She wanted to gulp air. She fought the temptation. Rush her breathing, try to bring in all the air she needed right now, to breathe while she still had the chance, before the walls and concrete and roadway collapsed, the metal creaked and pressed against her face and chest—

  She exhaled. Grab for air and she'd hyperventilate. She watched the numbers. Come on, come on. Her face felt red-hot. She knew how she must look to Tang: stupid. A mental health expert, reduced to dread, unable to handle a simple elevator ride because of an irrational fear.

  She knew the terms. Anxiety disorder. Panic trigger. She didn't care. Hurry up, stupid box. Tang was watching her.

  The numbers went up. Nine. Ten. "How much have the police told the U.S. Attorney's Office about Harding's death and the scene last night?"

  "They know what's been on the news. Nothing else—not about dirty and certainly not this pray stuff. Let's keep it that way."

  "I want to ask him if he's heard of a Dirty Secrets Club."

  "That's fine."

  The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and Jo strode out into a bright hallway. Thank you, God. She resisted the urge to drop to her knees and kiss the floor.

  Tang caught up. "How old were you when the quake hit?"

  "A kid. More or less."

  "You were in the city?"

  She shook her head. Most of the people who died in the Loma Prieta quake had been killed in San Francisco's Marina District. But that's not where she had been.

  "You weren't on the Bay Bridge, were you?"

  "East Bay."

  Tang glanced at her sharply. They walked up to the desk and showed their IDs to the receptionist. The heavy seal of the Department of Justice was on the wall behind her. She picked up the phone.

  Jo reached into her satchel for her notebook and pen. She couldn't find them.

  Ugh. She had left them on the table at the taqueria after the earthquake.

  The Loma Prieta quake, centered under Santa Cruz eighty miles to the southwest, had played a dirty trick on the Bay Area. When the fault cracked, incredible seismic energy had bounded down through the ground and hit a lower stratum of rock. Santa Cruz shook, but most of the energy rebounded, like a basketball, and surfaced in San Francisco. It happened on a beautiful October evening, at the end of rush hour, when Candlestick Park was packed with people attending the World Series. It was her aunt's birthday. She was with her dad; Tina; and her brother, Rafe, on the way to the party in Oakland.

  Tang said, "Don't tell me you were on the Cypress Viaduct."

  Briefly she smelled gasoline and burning tires. She offered a bitter smile. "I seem to be a cat with eighteen lives."

  Tang arched an eyebrow. "Who'd you take the extra nine from?"

  Leo Fonsecca walked into the lobby, shaking his head. "I hope you're here to tell me who killed my prosecutor. Because if you can't, both of you deserve to be out of a job."

  Fonsecca's office had a cramped view of the office buildings surrounding City Hall and the Federal Courthouse. He stood in front of his desk, hands clasped like a funeral director. His thinning gray hair topped a face that was sad and flushed.

  On the sofa Jo and Tang sat like schoolkids called to the principal's office.

  "Callie wasn't suicidal," Fonsecca said.

  "What was her mood in the past few weeks?" Jo said.

  "Working hard, as usual." He looked soft, but his movements seemed quick and exaggerated. His rimless glasses shone under the lights.

  Fonsecca was the chief federal prosecutor for the Northern District of California, a jurisdiction that comprises eight million people. Jo knew that he was a career prosecutor, a courtroom battler rather than a political appointee. Though he looked like a mournful hamster, he was a powerful figure, respected and intense.

  "Callie could not have killed herself. Period. I've known her for ten years. She didn't let courtroom losses get to her. She hated to lose, but knew we can't get every bad guy who's out there. She was not obsessed."

  "Can you tell me what she was working on?" Jo said.

  His head popped around. He stared at her. "No."

  "In general terms?"

  "Absolutely not. I will not reveal details of her active cases. And I don't want you worming information out of anybody in this office."

  "I'm not your adversary, Mr. Fonsecca," she said.

  His shoulders slumped. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry. She was aces. I consider it a privilege to have called her my friend."

  "I'm sorry."

  He put his glasses back on and attempted a weary smile. She gave him a few seconds to regain his composure.

  "Have you heard of something called the Dirty Secrets Club?" she said.

  He looked puzzled. "What's that?"

  "I'm trying to find out."

  He shook his head. "How does it connect to Callie?"

  "I was hoping you could tell me."

  "No. It sounds very odd. Where have you come up with this idea?"

  Tang said, "The phrase has come up in the course of our investigation."

  "It sounds like ... a nightclub. Not Callie's type of thing at all." Fonsecca shrugged. His face was bemused and slightly red.

  "Was she investigating the deaths of Maki Prichingo and David Yoshida?" Jo said.

  "No."

  He fired the answer at her like a bullet. She didn't exactly disbelieve him, but it was a shot across her bow, and she de
cided not to ask again.

  "Can you tell us what Callie might have been doing with Angelika Meyer last night?" she said.

  "Angelika was working with Callie on a couple of matters. Doing basic research, that sort of thing. She's a bright young woman. We've been happy to have her here this semester."

  "Had she and Callie become friends?"

  "I couldn't say." Wearily he ran a hand over his lank hair.

  "Would you consider Callie a mentor to her?" Jo said.

  "Yes. Angelika has a keen interest in criminal justice. Wants to become a prosecutor when she graduates from law school." He thought for a moment. "What else can I tell you? She did an undergraduate criminology internship at San Quentin—so she's not a wilting flower. She'd make a good street fighter."

  Jo nodded, but knew from her own forensic psychiatry rotation that working in the California prison system didn't prove your toughness. What the work did was remove scales from your eyes, and test your nerve.

  Fonsecca's face looked drawn. "Do you have the latest on her condition?"

  Tang said, "No change."

  He pressed his lips tight. "She's tough. She'll pull through."

  Jo and Tang didn't respond.

  After a moment, Tang said, "Do you know of any threats against Callie? Maybe from somebody she put away?"

  "We're investigating that. But so far, no."

  Jo waited a moment. "Do you know why Geli was in Callie's car last night?"

  "Maybe she was getting a ride home."

  "Did they have a personal relationship?"

  His gaze was wandering, but now zeroed on her. "Are you implying that they had a lesbian attraction to each other?"

  "Asking."

  In San Francisco, the question could hardly be considered controversial or insulting. Nonetheless, Fonsecca's face was red again.

  "Absolutely not." He adjusted his glasses. "Callie was divorced, and had dated since then. Dated men. Angelika—I ..." He waved his hands vaguely. He didn't know. "This is groundless speculation."

  With a knock, a secretary opened the door. "Time to head to court."

  "I'll be right out."

  Concern tightened her face. "Sir, are you all right?"

  "Fine, yes."

  She opened her mouth to say something else, but he raised a hand to forestall it. Reluctantly she departed.