The Dirty Secrets Club

by Meg Gardiner

Tang said, "And on the race to the bridge, Callie caught a lucky break. She drove past a cop."

  "She ran the red light because she wanted Officer Cruz to join the chase. At that point Meyer knew she'd blown it. She thought she'd set things up to keep Callie under her control, to isolate her and spring all this on her as a trap. But she let her keep control of the one thing that ended up being a deadly weapon."

  "The BMW."

  "Right. Once Cruz joined the chase, Meyer desperately wanted to stop the whole thing and get away. That's when she fought with Callie and tried to jump from the BMW." Jo sat back. "And then the whole thing went even more wildly wrong."

  Callie saw Officer Cruz in her rearview mirror, gaining on her. She thought she had time to ask him for assistance. She stopped, backed up, and shouted to him.

  " 'Help me.' She even stuck her left hand up to the driver's window, with the word Pray written on it." Jo shook her head. "But that's when Meyer got through to Skunk and told him to go ahead with killing the kid. It wasn't for real, but there was no time for Callie to explain to Officer Cruz. She knew Cruz would continue following her. She accelerated toward the bridge."

  Tang fiddled with a coffee stirrer. "On the bridge, Skunk ran out of the way. Why didn't Callie chase him?"

  "No time. Panic. Miscalculation," Jo said. "She went racing down Stockton toward the bridge. She saw Skunk standing there. She saw he didn't have the kid."

  "Didn't that tell her it was a hoax?" Tang said.

  "She thought they'd already thrown the boy off. She kept going headlong, straight into the wall."

  They sat for a minute. Tang finished her coffee. "They?"

  "It's not over," Jo said.

  "Don't tell me that. I'd rather eat a raw egg than hear that."

  "There's one piece missing." And it was like a piece of broken glass. Hard to see and liable to cut without warning. "Somebody tried to initiate me into the Dirty Secrets Club with that anonymous note about Daniel's death."

  "Pray?"

  "No."

  "Is somebody still threatening you . . . ?" Tang said.

  "The threat's there. And I want to stop it."

  "What do you have in mind?"

  "Meyer said something. That she got Callie to think Dirty Secrets Club members were conducting a dare that night on the bridge, messing around to win points by threatening to toss Scott Southern's little boy off the bridge. I think I know who Callie thought it was, and why it got her so hysterical. And I think the same somebody took a dare to see if they could bring me down."

  The door opened and Ferd Bismuth trundled in. When he saw Jo he pushed his glasses up his nose, glanced around furtively, and came over. He slumped down at the table. The aroma of Brylcreem filled the air.

  "Can we speak in confidence?" he said.

  "Ferd, this is Amy Tang." Jo gestured at the lieutenant. He gave Tang a salute. Jo said, "I can give you ninety seconds."

  "It's about Mr. Peebles." His brow crenellated. "Can monkeys develop psychological problems? Neuroses? Unhealthy obsessions?"

  She sighed. "I'm not a simian therapist, but yes."

  "Oh, dear. That's what I was afraid of. I think the trauma of his near-death experience has caused him to snap." He hunched lower, eyes darting. "He's become a kleptomaniac."

  Jo felt herself heating. "He'd better not have lifted my wallet."

  Ferd reached into his pocket and pulled out a baseball. He set it on the table. He gestured at it and spread his hands frantically, like Help!

  Jo and Tang gaped at it. It was an old Willie Mays autographed ball.

  "I've seen this before," Jo said.

  Tang nudged it with a clean coffee stirrer. "I think I know where this came from."

  Ferd wrung his hands. "Can he be treated?"

  "Don't worry," Tang said. "We'll take care of this."

  "And Mr. Peebles won't even have to testify. I'll get him immunity," Jo said.

  Ferd balled his fists with relief. "Thank you. Thank you." He shook Jo's hand, stood up and shook Tang's. "Thank you."

  When he dashed out the door, they looked at each other.

  "Does this relate to what you were saying, about people in the club daring each other to do crazy things?"

  "Yeah. And to them trying to toy with me. The monkey could only have gotten that ball from Skunk's Cadillac. And if Skunk or Pray had it, there's only one person who could have given it to them."

  "What do you want to do?"

  Jo parked the rental car and got out into bracing autumn sunshine. Cypress trees and Monterey pines stood like sentinels all along the roadway at Lands End. The hills of Lincoln Park were verdant. People sat on the benches, watching the tide flow in. The Pacific was a booming blue, pricked with whitecaps. She walked to the overlook.

  Below, the ocean frothed white around the rocks. To her right she could see the Golden Gate Bridge. Straight ahead, the brown hills of Marin County rolled north to Point Reyes, Bodega Bay, the rocks where Daniel had died, to San Rafael and the cemetery where he was buried. Jo leaned on a fence post. The wind lifted her hair. She waited.

  It was half an hour before the silver Maserati thrummed into the parking lot. The driver's door opened and the sounds of Nirvana tumbled out. Jo gazed out to sea and waited for Gregory Harding to join her.

  Callie's ex-husband was wearing a banker's slick suit with an open-collared shirt and his Rolex. He propped his sunglasses on top of his arctic blond head.

  "What's this about, Dr. Beckett?"

  "A courtesy. You were Callie's next of kin. I thought you should know what my psychological autopsy report is going to say."

  "Shall we cut the crap? What nasty news do you have to break to me?"

  "I got an anonymous letter this week. It was an invitation to join the Dirty Secrets Club." She turned to face him. "It set my hair on fire. But when I calmed down, I wondered, why send it? And it came down to this. I got the note because somebody was trying to wreck my investigation and expose me to danger."

  "And?" Harding glanced at his watch. "I'm sorry, but what does this have to do with Callie? I have a busy day. Can yoil get to the point?"

  "You sent the note, Greg."

  He put a foot on the anchor chains that made up the fence. He stared at his hands, checked his cuticles, smoothed down a hangnail.

  She took hold of his wrist and looked at his Rolex. "Custom detailing, very nice. How much did it cost to get the black diamond inserted on the face?"

  He withdrew his wrist and put his right hand over the watch.

  "You're a member of the Dirty Secrets Club. And you're playing Truth or Dare. With my life."

  His expression didn't change. He reached into his inside pocket and took out a portable radio frequency scanner. He turned it on.

  "Hold out your arms."

  "You think I'm wired?" she said.

  "You're a police consultant. Of course you're wired."

  He waved the scanner over Jo's shirt. It squelched. Harding looked at her as he would at a toad he was about to step on, and moved toward her.

  She put out a hand. Reluctantly, feeling the wind on her neck, she unbuttoned her peacoat, reached around beneath her shirt, and unstrapped the digital micro-recorder she had taped to the small of her back. Harding held out his hand. She gave it to him.

  He dropped it and ground it under his heel. "Now your phone."

  She held it out. "Just wand it. Don't squash it."

  He held it under the scanner. The signal squeaked. He took out the battery and hurled it over the rail into the riptides below.

  "Satisfied?" Jo said.

  He put the scanner away. "You think you're a genius, don't you? The puzzle mistress, mind-fucker extraordinaire. You're an amateur."

  "You had me going, I'll admit," Jo said. "The grieving ex. Confused about why Callie turned a law school bullshit session into the real deal. In fact, you and she were the first two members of the club, weren't you?"

  "Are we going to have a pissing contest to see who'
s got the other's number? I can piss a whole lot farther than you. Even if you are a black widow." He leaned on the fence. "You'll never prove it. There's no mention of my name in Callie's files. She certainly didn't have my resume in her desk. You're guessing."

  "You know that for sure, do you?"

  He turned and smiled, like a lizard. "She never put my name in the files. Because she loved me. She loved fucking me too much."

  "Did she know you were blackmailing the other members?"

  His smile stayed icy, but his eyes withdrew.

  "I noticed something," she said. "In Scott Southern's suicide note, in Xochi Zapata's video, in the rant Perry Ames shouted at me the other night—and in what Geli Meyer talked about in her confession. At some point, they all talked about blackmail."

  He stared out over the headlands.

  "Pray even talked about extortion being used to fund club members' businesses and IPOs," she said.

  His smile was diminishing. He looked as cold as an ice pick.

  "You forced Xochi Zapata and William Willets to rob Perry Ames. That was not only a dare, but the price of keeping their secrets," she said.

  "This is bullshit."

  "Members gain status by pulling stunts and getting away with them. That's what you decided to do to me, the first day we met. You decided to play Truth or Dare with me. Now that I look back, it was obvious. You practically shoved information about the DSC at me. You faked a tantrum at Callie's and handed me the 'welcome to the club' note in a way that made it look totally innocent. Then at the Fairmont, you flat-out handed over her notebook with all the rules in it."

  He tried ignoring her. She tilted her head. "How much did it cost you to find out how my husband died—some Google research and a few bribes?"

  He refused to look at her. "You'd be surprised how cheaply people will sell information. Gossip. Secrets. They love it. They'll practically give it away."

  "How much for the claim I killed my husband?"

  "Forty bucks, plus a Maserati polo shirt. Guy was a former civilian dispatcher for the Air National Guard."

  She felt a sour taste in her mouth. Hurting people was a cheap commodity. "Originally I thought by sending the note, you were trying to scare me into stopping my investigation. It was getting too close to you. But that was exactly backward. You tried to tell me as much about the Dirty Secrets Club as possible, from the very start. You were dancing in the fire, giving me Callie's notebooks. You wanted to see if you could slide by right in plain view. But then you went farther. You gave my name to Pray."

  He stared at his shoes. He seemed inordinately pleased by how shiny they were.

  "How did you do that?" Jo said. "Just tell me that."

  He slid a glance her way. "You know you'll never prove a thing, don't you? I'm golden. Nobody's going to touch me."

  "So tell me. I'm dying to know."

  "Insatiable curiosity, is it?"

  "Professional hazard. Nature of the people who become shrinks."

  He smiled. "I'm the one who tapped Susan—I mean Xochi Zapata—into the club. Why do you think that is?"

  "You tell me."

  "Venture capital is the grease that drives business in Silicon Valley." He swept an arm out, showing Jo the glorious panorama. "From San Francisco down to San Jose, the entire tech industry slides on money. And I'm the one who provides it. No matter what. If we need bucks to get a deal going, I get it."

  "Raising money isn't always clean, is that what you're saying?"

  "You actually look at the dank underside of people's minds, and it doesn't occur to you that money is dirty, too?"

  She kept her face neutral. "You wanted funds for your business, didn't you? You raised it by blackmailing other members of the club."

  "Imagination is my strong suit."

  "Do tell."

  "It was a perfect setup. Get all these rich thrill seekers to join the club by telling us their secrets. Then blackmail them. I recruited them, bilked them, and then moved them on up to a higher level, where they got a cut of the proceeds by blackmailing the next round of new members."

  "A pyramid scheme."

  "I like the classics."

  The wind twisted her hair. "And when Perry Ames applied to join, you tried to blackmail him. And he was the wrong guy."

  "Yeah, that one didn't go as well as it could. A lowlife gambling promoter, I should have known he was trouble. Though I did get the money."

  "Were you there, Greg? When William Willets nearly killed Ames?"

  "Of course not. He never knew I was involved in that. I'd had Xochi and Will set up the meeting. My name was never mentioned to him."

  "You're the one Pray's been after all along."

  He smiled. "He wants the name of the man who ordered the robbery. He never knew he killed the people who could have given it to him. He killed Willets and Xochi, and burned the trail to me."

  "Perfect."

  "It is, isn't it?"

  "Did you ever feel bad about stealing his money and letting him be garroted?"

  "Feel bad about exterminating a cockroach? Why should I?"

  "And then poor Xochi couldn't keep quiet, could she? She was a compulsive babbler. Once she was in the club, she leaked information to people she shouldn't have. Word got out on the street, didn't it?"

  "So we didn't bat a thousand with our membership drive. That problem's solved."

  "You actually think the DSC is going to keep going? You're planning your next membership drive to replenish the ranks?"

  "Why not? Nobody's going to believe you. You're a weak woman who killed two people through medical incompetence. You have no proof of anything you're hearing today. And if for some reason anybody does believe your incredible tale, I'll explain that I came to you in confidence, for therapy, and you're breaching your professional obligations. No reputable psychiatrist reveals what their patients tell them. You'd lose your license."

  The wind shook the Monterey pines. "Why did you pass my name around to the members of the club? Did you really want to egg me into joining?"

  "No. You don't have the juice. You couldn't cut it."

  "So by giving my name to Pray, you thought you might even lure Pray into killing me, solving your problem for good. Of course, you were also exposing yourself to the risk that I or the cops would trace things back to you."

  "But that was my challenge. It was all part of the fun." He smiled. "Just like meeting Pray before he went after you was part of the fun. David Yoshida was the one who had lured him into applying to join the club—so he just thought I was Callie's ex, nothing more."

  "You wanted me to die an equivocal death. That's why you told Pray and Skunk not to shoot me. You wanted it to look like an accident."

  "I figured suicide would be too much trouble to arrange." The smile was chilly. "Equivocal death. Irony is a big thing with me. We don't have enough irony in America."

  He laughed. "Don't you see? You have no proof. You have nothing."

  "Having fun bragging to me?"

  "It ain't bragging if you really done it."

  "You really took the club and ran with it, didn't you?"

  "Callie had a good idea. It took me to fine-tune it. She was judgmental and straightforward. I can see around corners."

  "How entertaining for you."

  His smile was becoming broader. "This is really getting your goat. There's no chance I'll ever be prosecuted. No evidence to link me to Perry Ames. Xochi might eventually have told, but she's dead. It's a foolproof setup."

  "Maybe this is a good time to tell you, Greg. You're so shit-hot on secrets. I know something you don't."

  " Yippee-kay-fucking-yay."

  "You and Callie spent all the years you were divorced trying to destroy each other, didn't you? It's not that hard to figure out. Everything you've said tells me you had a destructive obsession with each other. Sexual and emotional."

  He said nothing.

  "You said she punished people. You meant she punished you. And you punish
ed her. Did she know you'd turned the DSC into your own private blackmail operation?"

  "She must have realized it the night she died."

  He was so self-satisfied, so angry, so full of hubris, that she wanted to retch. She kept her face calm. "That was how you were secretly punishing her."

  He smiled. Jo let him enjoy the moment.

  "Callie had a secret, too. Something that's going to punish you permanently. The Dirty Secrets Club is a sting operation."

  His head tilted, just slightly.

  "That's right," she said.

  Jo watched his mouth curl, his diaphragm catch, as though he'd just choked on a lump of meat. He backed up and caught his breath, trying to right himself.

  His lips drew back. "I'll come after you anyway. I'll get you. So you won't do it. The only way to stop me would be to kill me, and you don't have the guts."

  The sun glinted from the ocean. She didn't move. "You're right, I won't. I took an oath. It's a bitch on days like today, but I abide by it. First, do no harm."

  He sneered. "Jesus Christ. Quilt it on a sampler and sing 'God Bless the USA.' Fuck you. I took no oath."

  Twenty yards down the path, Gabe Quintana stood up from the park bench where he was sitting. He strolled toward them, removing an earpiece from his iPod.

  "Excuse me," he said.

  Harding didn't look at him. "Get lost."

  Gabe stopped two feet from Harding. "I'm sorry, sir, but I couldn't help hearing what you said to the lady."

  "Fuck off."

  "No."

  Harding looked at Gabe and did a double take, sensing an undercurrent of violence.

  "I said, I heard everything. And I'm not barred from backing Dr. Beckett up."

  Harding's mouth pinched.

  "And I happened to be recording dictation on my iPod. My mike may have picked up what you were saying."

  "Listen, pal, you don't—"

  "And nothing, repeat, nothing bad is going to happen to this woman. Because I also took an oath. That Others May Live. That means Jo. And I'll kill you to make sure I keep that oath."

  Gabe stepped closer and lowered his voice. "Pray went after my daughter with a Molotov cocktail. But you're leaving here alive. Think about how lucky that makes you."

  Harding looked down.

  Jo turned to go, and turned back. "One last thing. I think you lost this." From the pocket of her peacoat she took out a baseball. "I don't know how it got in Skunk's Cadillac, but you had to have had a part in it." She tossed and caught it, and turned it over in her hand. "Willie Mays. My expert says it's the ball from the 1954 Series. Worth over a hundred thousand dollars. I don't know how you'll fence it on eBay to fund your next deal, but good luck."