by Rex Burns
“Margaret—”
But she had hung up.
Newspapers would offer a start. But reading months of the San Diego Union without a clear idea of the date and with a victim whose name wasn’t famous enough to be indexed wasn’t that much of a start. There might be another way, and I tried it.
The efficient-sounding receptionist put me through to Tom’s office.
“Jack—don’t tell me, let me guess: you need a favor.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Figure it—you’re not calling so soon to ask me out for a beer; that usually waits a week or so. Plus you’re working a case in new territory. So you need somebody who’s got contacts with the natives. Am I right or am I right?”
“You’re a hell of a lot better detective than I am. Ever hear of David Gates?”
He thought a minute. “No. What’s he do?”
“Not much now. He was an accident victim five or six years ago. Out on Point Loma.”
“San Diego Police called in?”
“I’m sure they had an investigation.”
“I got your man. Give Lieutenant Tony Broadbeck a call. SDPD. I don’t know his office number, but the switchboard can give it to you. Just tell him I said you need help.”
“I owe you, Tommy.”
“Hey, I won’t forget it, either.”
He might not, but if I asked for another favor, Tommy would be willing to help again. He was one of those people who feel genuinely good when they can provide help to a friend. Maybe the foundation of that feeling was the man’s ego, his increased sense of importance. I’d always felt that about Tommy. But if that was a fault, it was a minor one. For whatever reason, the man delivered. When I finally reached Lieutenant Broadbeck and told him what I needed and who recommended him, the policeman agreed to meet me for lunch.
“David Gates.” Broadbeck was a lanky man with a shaggy mustache that showed streaks of white among the black. His hair was unstreaked, though the sideburns were gray. His brown eyes held a guarded look as if they had been forced to see more than they wanted to. “I wasn’t on that one, but I took a look at the file after you called. Kid. Died falling off the edge of a cliff on Point Loma.”
“When was this?”
Broadbeck named the date and it agreed with what Jason and Jenny had told me: near the end of Dorcas Wilcox’s senior year in high school.
I pushed a tomato slice around my salad plate and half-heard the chatter of other diners who filled the small restaurant near police headquarters. A lot of them seemed to be summer students from City College a block or so away.
“Was he alone or with some other kids?”
The brown eyes studied me. We had introduced ourselves by talking a little about Tommy. Broadbeck asked how long I’d known Jenkins by way of verifying whatever the man needed to verify. But the cop still didn’t know that much about me. “You working on this? You a PI or something?”
“More a something.” I explained a little bit about my own military experience and Admiral Combs’s and his missing granddaughter. “So I wondered if Duane Vengley’s name came up in the Gates case.”
Broadbeck nodded and wiped a french fry through the sandwich juice that puddled on his plate. “It’s a name you don’t forget—especially since his old man’s a big-time lawyer in town. He was there and three others besides the Gates kid. They were trespassing at night above Sunset Cliffs—you know how kids do. A little night partying, probably some booze, maybe dope. Anyway, Gates fell over the edge, almost a hundred feet, and was killed.”
“No question of foul play?”
“Not in the coroner’s report, anyway. The other kids’ families swing some weight around town, too. But even so, there wasn’t anything in the autopsy to suggest homicide, so, accidental death.”
“Any chance of my seeing the file?”
The lieutenant shrugged. “It’s a public document, and you’re one of that endangered species, a taxpayer. Here’s the case number.”
I thanked him and we spent a little more time talking about military life and Viet Nam. Then Broadbeck showed me where to find the records office in the white halls of the sprawling police administration building. A sign quoted the per-page fee for documents. A clerk ran off a copy of the coroner’s thick report, took my money, and, without asking, handed me a receipt. She probably thought I was a leg man for a defense lawyer.
The focus of the investigation, naturally, had been the victim, to ascertain the cause of death and the possibility of any suspicious contributions to it. The pathologist’s statement made up the bulk of the pages, revealing, among the myriad technical details of breaks and lesions, that Gates was a Caucasian male, nineteen years old, with a history of mental retardation attributed to Fragile-X Syndrome. The probable cause of death was a crushed skull. Some seawater was found in his lungs which indicated breathing after impact. The injuries were consistent with a fall from the cliffs above and impact on the rocks.
The responding officer’s and the investigating officer’s reports, as well as the statements of four witnesses, formed appendices to the document. The witnesses had signed their statements: Dorcas Wilcox, Kimberly Overstreet, Stacey Briggs, and Duane Vengley.
They all said the same thing. They had sneaked out to the cliffs to have a party. Gates had wandered away from the group into the dark near the cliffs. He apparently stepped over the edge. None of them saw it happen, but they heard a noise and looked for him. When they couldn’t find him, they became worried. Stacey Briggs returned home to call the police while the other three remained to search some more.
Nothing in the official file indicated any blame. No charges were brought.
And a lot, it seemed, was left unsaid.
Downtown San Diego still has a compactness that belies the growth which has made the city one of the nation’s largest. The main library is only half a dozen blocks along E Street from the police building. I was directed to the microfilm section and scrolled back through reels of the Union until I found the right date. Then I scanned the print until I located the item: Youth Dies at Sunset Cliffs. The reporter’s story was similar to the police report, but made more emphatic the point that no criminal charges were being sought against the other unnamed juveniles accompanying the victim. A final paragraph spoke to the city’s efforts to improve pedestrian safeguards and barriers at the popular spot.
I made notes on what few items were different from the police version. Then I dialed the police administration building once more. Officer Mason, the investigating officer for the Gates case, was no longer employed. He had moved to the Houston Police Department three years ago—I would have to try that agency for any up-to-date address.
That left only Gates’s family. I called first, then headed north once more to La Jolla.
“As I said, Mr. Steele, I don’t know what more I can add to the information you already have.” The woman spoke mildly and looked mild, too. Her graying blond hair was cut shoulder-length and curled under at the ends. It reminded me of a wholesome female lead from a 1950s movie—June Allyson or Doris Day. Her slightly plump body was wrapped in a brightly flowered dress akin to those sported by matrons on the Alexandria tea circuit. Even her gestures, as she invited me in and indicated a chair in the large, light-filled living room of the old brick mansion, were modulated by propriety. “May I offer you coffee or tea?”
“No thank you, Mrs. Gates. I understand your son was … handicapped?”
She smiled gently. “Mentally retarded, Mr. Steele. But emotionally, he was a very loving, kind, and generous boy.” Her glance went to a framed photograph that sat alone on the baby grand piano. The picture, perhaps a graduation portrait, was of a youth who smiled stiffly. His face was slightly askew, large ears off-center, lower than normal, I decided—and the smile didn’t match eyes that looked both hopeful and defeated at the same time. In fact, there was something in the mixture that reminded me of Dorcas’s gaze when she was a little girl.
“But he w
ent to the same high school as Dorcas Wilcox?”
“In the Special Education program. He was in one of the first groups to be ‘mainstreamed’ as they called it.”
“So he knew Dorcas and the others—the ones who were with him that night?”
“Not really. He knew Dwayne—Dwayne was very kind toward David. One of the few, I might add.” She explained, giving facts without rancor. “The program was supposed to enable greater socialization of the Special Education children; they were to make friends among the regular students, attend the dances and sporting events with designated peer tutors; in short, to become part of the community.”
“It didn’t work?”
“Not immediately—certainly not that year. I understand that later, after the students became used to the … F.L.K.’s—the funny looking kids, as they called them—then the program was effective for some of the children. But not all, Mr. Steele. And that first year was very difficult. David was very lonely.”
It sounded like another of those bureaucratic plans that look good on paper and even better on the account sheet. The kind that hurt people who don’t fit the profile. Even though the misfits become statistically expendable, the school district saves enough money to give the superintendent a glowing report and another hefty raise. School administration seems to be a minor-league training ground for the major league of Sacramento or even Washington. “But Dwayne Vengley was his friend?”
“Thank God for him, and how tragic David’s death was for him, too.” She was silent a moment, looking down at her hands clasped lightly together in her lap. “Dwayne used to come by and take David out for a soft drink and a pizza at a place where the young people liked to gather. It was the high point of David’s week. Of his life, perhaps.”
“But he didn’t know the girls—Dorcas, Kimberly, Stacey.”
“I’m sure he’d seen them at school. But of course there was nothing of a relationship between them.” She smiled. “David used to pretend he had a girlfriend—he’d come home and talk about ‘Sandra’ and how they had arranged for a date for the movies. Dwayne would even tease him about his girlfriend—in a gentle, not a vicious manner—and David enjoyed that very much. It made him feel very grown up.”
“But there was no Sandra?”
“No. Just an imaginary girlfriend. But very real to David, of course.”
“How did he happen to be with the group that night?”
For the first time, a small frown creased her forehead between carefully outlined eyebrows. The gentle, refined manner revealed an air of sadness. “Dwayne invited him to a beach party. David had never been on one—not with the other young people, the normal ones. He was so excited. He wore his favorite pullover.” She shook her head and tried to keep her mind focused on the question. “It was a rather large party, Dwayne told me afterwards. And David wasn’t really comfortable because the others made a point of ignoring him. They can be cruel, you understand—unintentionally, perhaps; but as I’ve said, David was a very sensitive and loving child. He knew when he was being slighted.” She looked up at me. “So many people used to try to console me by saying that at least David was too dull to realize he was retarded. But that’s ignorance, Mr. Steele. David knew. They all know they’re different from the normal, no matter how hard they try not to be. And they suffer that knowledge. After all, they’re reminded of it every day.”
“I understand.”
“Anyway, Dwayne and several others—the girls—decided to have their own party away from the group. So they went out on the point. They shouldn’t have, of course, and Dwayne was very remorseful about choosing the cliffs. He blamed himself for the accident, and I can still see him at the funeral.” Another smile, this one not quite so gentle. “David had more school friends at his funeral than he had in life.”
I hesitated, but I had to ask, “And there’s no question that it was an accident?”
She stared at me a long moment, shock and a deep hurt mingling in her eyes. “Of course not! What a horrible thought!”
“I’m sorry to ask that, but I don’t know much about what happened.”
“It could only have been an accident, Mr. Steele. David would never have killed himself—in fact he was afraid of heights. And no one in the world would have wanted to harm the child. Certainly not Dwayne, who was David’s only friend that year in school.” She shook her head again, positive. “No. It was a tragic accident, but an accident nevertheless.”
In my car, I made a few notes and then drove slowly down the curving and tree-guarded streets past the large homes and out to an overlook that showed the sparkle of the Pacific. A distant, looming rise marked Point Loma, almost invisible in the sea haze down the coast. In the soft sunlight, the vast bowl of earth between La Jolla and the Point showed a long, curving strip of sand with tiny white streaks of surf and hundreds of dots of bathers. Two or three miles of beaches that, at night, would offer a vast alternative of other sites for David’s party.
From the coast, I gazed out at the sea and the distant horizon where the glimmer of a sail marked a boat hull-down over the curve of earth. Clean. From this distance, and despite the steady, tiny restlessness of traffic on avenues and drives, the coast and sea looked pristine. Balboa chose the right name for the glorious stretch of blue and sunny ocean that had spread at his feet in a vista of beauty and emptiness and peace. But Balboa—like the rest of us—knew that any ocean can darken, that the peace of every sea is transitory, and that in its depths swim things that belie the calm and happy surface.
CHAPTER 12
THE WILCOX HOME was only a few minutes away. I took Prospect Street and turned onto the now familiar curving lane of quiet shade and private walls and hedges. The soft chime of the doorbell echoed on the other side of a door carved with ornate Spanish motifs. No answer. I rang again. The hiss of sprinklers beyond a hedge in a neighboring yard made the silence deeper. Finally the latch clicked and Margaret, bleary and moving with exaggerated control, squinted to focus her eyes on me.
“Jack? … Why? … Henry’s not …”
“I need to ask you a few questions, Margaret. May I come in?”
“Come in?” She backed up reflexively to let me enter. Then she raised a hand. “Why? No … I don’t—”
“It’s about David Gates. And Dwayne and Dorcas, Stacey and Kimberly.”
She stared, but I wasn’t all that certain it was me she saw. I closed the street door and guided the stumbling woman to a chair in the cool living room. A flash of scarlet bougainvillea wound up beside one of the windows. The patch of private, manicured lawn outside showed a rock fountain that splashed a steady, bright chuckle.
“I’ve looked at the police file on David Gates’s death, Margaret.”
“You can’t … You have no right. …”
“The police listed it as an accident. No question. There’s nothing—not one thing—in the file that implicates Dorcas or anyone else. No suspicion of foul play, no possible charges against your daughter.”
“It was an accident. I told you that!”
“That’s what puzzles me, Margaret. You keep insisting when there’s no reason to. Who said anything to the contrary? And what did they say?”
Now I knew she saw me. Bloodshot and watery blue eyes bulged with fear in their net of puffy flesh.
“It’s the reason Dorcas ran away in her senior year of high school, isn’t it? Was she the one who told you it wasn’t an accident? Was it Dwayne? Who, Margaret, and what did they tell you?”
The woman leaned away, an arm groping behind to brace against the upholstered chair. I could see thoughts tumble over themselves behind her eyes, and a widening terror that she struggled to resist. “A drink … Jack, I need a drink. …”
She tried to stand. I pressed her gently back into the chair. “Tell me, Margaret. Who said what?”
“This is my house! You can’t push me like this in my own house!”
“David Gates. What happened to David Gates?”
“
Oh, God!”
“What did Dori tell you about David Gates?”
“Shut up! It didn’t happen!”
“Tell me, Margaret. You really do want to tell someone. Tell me!”
The wrinkled lips worked, pinched between her teeth.
“Tell me, Margaret. I want to help you and Dorcas.”
Gradually, brokenly, the woman began to talk. What’s wrong, Dori? That’s what she’d asked her daughter. The girl was numb and distant, depressed. Understandably so—who wouldn’t be after something like that? The doctor advised Margaret to get Dori to talk about it. “Let her talk it out,” he said. “She’s feeling guilt and needs to know she’s forgiven.” Guilt. For an accident? Foolish—yes. They had been foolish to go along those cliffs at night, especially with that retarded boy. But children did foolish things, and it had been an accident—terribly painful for David’s parents, of course. She was a mother, she could understand their loss. But Dori didn’t have to ruin her life with remorse for something that wasn’t her fault. That’s what Margaret explained to her daughter. Dori, it wasn’t your fault. That’s what she said: you just acted unthinkingly. Going to a dangerous place like that was a foolish thing to do, but you can’t torture yourself about it anymore. You’ve suffered enough. It was an accident and you mustn’t blame yourself. “My fault,” she had said. Two words and silence. “No, it’s not! It was an accident—it could have been you or Kimberly, any of you. It just happened to be David. God help us, Dori, but if it had to be anyone, it’s best it was that poor boy. He probably didn’t even know what was happening to him.”
“Goddamn you, Mother, it was my fault! Mine!”
And then, word by shaking, torn word, Dori told Margaret and even now she couldn’t make sense of it. Couldn’t understand all Dori was telling her. A game. Some kind of game they were playing with David Gates about something named a Place of Calling. A ritual to open some kind of gates and the boy’s name and his innocence all tangled in a sobbing, convulsed swarm of words that didn’t make any sense at all. An invocation. A springtime sacrifice to Beelzebub.