Locked In - [McCone 29]

by Marcia Muller

  She took several deep breaths. The throbbing stopped. She raised her head and fumbled in the desk drawer for eyedrops. They soothed the ache.

  She raised her head and stared out the window to the northeast at the fog-shrouded towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. Below the house waves pounded the shoreline. Many millions’ worth of view. She remembered when she and Ricky and the real-estate agent had first toured the multilevel mansion in the exclusive Sea Cliff area: it was so beautiful that she ached to live there. She’d been poor and in debt most of her life, and she couldn’t believe anything remotely like that was possible. But in the bedroom with the indoor hot tub overlooking the sea, Ricky had put his arms around her and said, “What do you think, Red? Will you live here with me?” The answer was a given.

  Back to the present, she told herself.

  But the present was so depressing. Shar ...

  She thought back to her initial interview with the woman she’d hoped would be her boss, when Shar was staff investigator at All Souls Legal Cooperative, a poverty law firm. Rae had been in her twenties, trapped in a bad marriage to a professional student, and adrift as far as a career was concerned. Shar’s faith in her ability to make a good investigator had given her the strength to break with her husband and move on. And as they worked together, a friendship strong enough to last a lifetime had formed between them.

  At least, she’d thought it would last a lifetime, till some scumbag had pumped a bullet into Shar’s brain.

  And now she was trying without much success to connect this old homicide to Shar’s shooting. Cold cases fascinated most people, but as far as Rae was concerned they were a pain in the ass. For that matter, so was the director at the San Francisco Victims’ Advocates. Maggie Lambert, an old-school feminist and former rape victim with great empathy for her mostly deceased clients. But Maggie wasn’t interested in providing accurate files or details. She wanted instant resolutions to cases that had been gathering dust forever.

  Plus it was hard for Rae to focus when she was so worried about Shar.

  Shar—now almost but not quite a relative by marriage. Ricky was only Shar’s former brother-in-law, but his and her sister Charlene’s six kids—four of whom Rae was participating in raising—had caused her enough trouble to qualify her for family membership. They weren’t collectively called the Little Savages for nothing.

  Back to the files.

  Angie Atkins, in her late teens, a hooker who’d been found slashed to death three years ago in an alley off Sixth Street downtown—San Francisco’s skid row. No family, no history. She’d never been fingerprinted—didn’t hold a driver’s license—but Rae had a lead on another hooker who had been Angie’s best friend. So far her informant had only given her a first name—Callie—which she could’ve made up in order to get the money for her next fix.

  Victims’ Advocates was a nonprofit group funded by various foundations and state and federal grants. Their focus was on cold cases involving violence to women. Although they employed two investigators, they were currently on overload, and McCone Investigations had agreed to take the case pro bono.

  Why, Rae thought now, had she been the one Adah Joslyn approached with the assignment? And why had she agreed? She didn’t draw a salary from the agency, didn’t need to work if she didn’t want to. But although she and Ricky had so much money that neither of them would have to lift a finger for the rest of their lives, idleness wasn’t a component of their natures. So he managed his recording company, scouted for new talent, issued an occasional CD, and performed charity concerts. She wrote and investigated, because both pursuits were in her blood.

  Now Rae tried to think of scenarios that would link the cold case with the burglar who had rifled their offices and then shot Shar. It was a stretch. She’d asked Patrick Neilan, the operative who coordinated their investigations, to look into those that Shar had been working three years ago. He’d turned up nothing to link with this one.

  Finally Rae gave up and decided to have a glass of wine while she waited for Ricky to return from his recording company’s headquarters in LA.

  Then the phone rang. An informant with an address for Angie Atkins’s friend Callie—last name O’Leary.

  * * * *

  MICK SAVAGE

  H

  e was really pissed off, and Celestina Gates wasn’t improving his mood any.

  She strode around the living room of her Nob Hill condominium issuing statements that boiled down to it’s-all-about-me and why-haven’t-you-found-out-who’s-ruined-my-life. Tall, willowy, with long dark hair, she normally would have attracted Mick. Had attracted him when he’d first met her. Now, instead of taking her to bed, he wanted to dangle her off her twelfth-story balcony.

  Being pissed off had to do with Shar’s condition: Gates’s problem seemed so trivial compared with what had happened to his aunt. His aunt, who had put up with his immaturity, mentored him, given him a sure direction in life.

  If this Gates bitch had anything to do with Shar’s shooting ...

  He waited with gritted teeth till his client’s tantrum had passed, sitting on her red leather sofa and looking at the gray sky above the grim brownstone facade of the old Flood Mansion across California Street—a creation of famed architect Willis Polk that now housed the exclusive Pacific-Union Club. When Gates finally sat in a matching chair opposite him and fumbled with a cigarette and lighter, he said, “Ms. Gates, something’s wrong here.”

  “Of course something’s wrong! My life and career are destroyed!”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  Her nostrils flared. “What, you think I’m not telling you everything?”

  She’d said it, he hadn’t. “Yes, I do.”

  “How dare you—?”

  He held up his hand. “Last night I was rereading the case histories you describe in Protect Your Identity. In each one, it took a long time for the individual to regain access to bank accounts and establish new credit card accounts and ratings.”

  Wary now. “Yes.”

  “I understand that as an expert on identity theft, this would be easier for you to accomplish than for a run-of-the-mill victim— even one using your book.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Yet you chose to hire our agency.”

  “Well, sometimes an objective investigator can do a better job than the individual involved.”

  “Uh-huh. You claim you’ve been financially ruined.”

  “I have been.”

  “This condo—your mortgage is ninety-five hundred and thirteen dollars a month.”

  “How do you—?”

  “And that Jaguar in the garage downstairs is leased for three thousand.”

  “... Right.”

  “Your credit cards are all clean, and over there in the foyer are five big shopping bags full of stuff from places like Gucci and Neiman Marcus.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “You don’t seem to be hurting—at least not as badly as you’ve made it out to be.”

  “I’ve tapped into my savings—”

  “Your column’s been canceled, nobody wants you on TV, clients are running like hell from your consulting firm. And you told me a book contract’s on hold. You’re spending a lot for someone who’s living on her savings and has no prospects for future income.”

  She stubbed out the cigarette and immediately lit another. “I have an image to keep up.”

  “According to you, that image is ruined.”

  “All right, so I’m a compulsive shopper.”

  “I doubt that. You’re too savvy a businesswoman to yield to impulse.”

  “We all have our faults.”

  “And one of yours is lying.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Never lie to an investigator when you’re trying to pull off a scam, Ms. Gates. It’s too easy for us to check into your background, credit rating, and finances. I did, when I started feeling uncomfortable about you. Everything’s golden, except for a scam y
ou pulled off before you left your hometown in Texas. And that’s been pretty well covered up; I had to dig hard for the information. It was a similar scam to the one you’re trying to pull off now, but on a more minor scale.”

  “What the hell—?”

  “Failure and triumphant recoveries generate publicity and profits. Your career has been slacking off for at least two years since other, more reliable consultants have come on the scene. My guess is that you hired our agency so you could outshine us by solving your own manufactured identity theft and putting yourself back on top.”

  She was silent now, glowering. Caught out.

  “Who was going to be the lucky individual to take the blame for the theft?”

  More silence.

  “Well?”

  “You’re so smart. Who do you think?”

  It came to him in a flash. Himself! Why hadn’t he realized that before? Dumb, just plain dumb. He was the perfect scapegoat: he had all her significant information, and she’d probably set up a way to prove he’d had it before she ever went to McCone Investigations. Set up a way to prove the nonexistent identity theft, too.

  He didn’t have to ask her why she’d picked him. Publicity value. After all, he was Ricky Savage’s son.

  Nearly choking on his anger, he stood and loomed over her. She squirmed a little but maintained eye contact.

  He said, “On the night of July seventh, did you or someone you hired go to Pier 24½ looking for information I’d gathered?”

  “Me? Why— Oh, God, that was the night your boss was shot!”

  “Right.”

  “I didn’t go there. I never hired anyone. You can’t involve me in that—oh, no.”

  Her defensive reaction seemed genuine, made him think she was telling the truth. “I’ll accept that for now. But if I find out otherwise, I’ll go to the police and the press and expose you for what you are.”

  “Does this mean you’re dumping me as a client?”

  “What do you think, Ms. Gates?”

  In the elevator on the way down, he thought, I really should’ve dangled the bitch off her balcony.

  * * * *

  CRAIG MORLAND

  H

  e waited in the booth of the dimly lighted bar on Peach Alley, not far from the Civic Center.

  He felt as if he were meeting Deep Throat, but at least this wasn’t a parking garage, so he could get a drink.

  The Deep Throat analogy was valid, though: in 1973 and -74 Mark Felt, then assistant director of the FBI, had leaked details of the Watergate break-in to a Washington Post reporter and brought down the Nixon presidency. Although San Francisco wasn’t Washington, DC, if what Craig’s informant had been telling him was true, it could very well blow the lid off city government.

  The bar was quiet, even now at the tail end of happy hour; politicos didn’t hang out there because there was nobody important to see them and no deals to be made. During Craig’s tenure with the Bureau in DC he’d spent a lot of time in lively look-at-me establishments—sometimes on duty, sometimes to impress a date—and he hadn’t realized how much he hated them till he’d thrown it all away and moved to San Francisco to be with Adah.

  Adah: poster woman for the SFPD, assigned as liaison to the same special FBI task force as he was. Goal: to apprehend a man who’d been bombing foreign consulates. Unused to playing hardball like the Bureau’s men, Adah had gone into an emotional meltdown, and Craig had helped her through it. Later, after she’d fully healed, he himself became broken and disillusioned by the work that had steadily eroded all his idealistic dreams, and during coast-to-coast phone conversations whose cost had rivaled the national debt, she’d supported him in his decision to leave the Bureau. Now Adah had given up her similarly disillusioning career with the SFPD, and only Shar’s need for an executive assistant had saved them from a move to Denver, where she’d been offered an administrative position at the DPD. Good thing, too: he hated snow.

  Thoughts of Adah and the agency immediately turned into thoughts of McCone. It was fucking unbelievable that she was in a coma. That a random—or maybe not-so-random—encounter after hours at the pier could have reduced such a vital woman to a vegetative state ... Neither he nor Adah had been sleeping much since it happened, and some nights she’d slipped out of bed and he’d heard sounds of crying coming from the bathroom. He didn’t cry, but a couple of nights he’d taken out his anger on the refrigerator, pounding its door till his fist was bruised—which, for him, amounted to the same as tears.

  Craig looked up as his informant came through the door, swept the room with wary eyes. Spotted Craig and moved toward him, looking stupid in a hat and trench coat. Did he really think no one would notice him?

  Harvey Davis was the former campaign manager for Amanda Teller, president of the city’s board of supervisors, and one of her most trusted aides. Independently wealthy, handsome, sophisticated—in spite of tonight’s silly disguise—he had recently been voted one of the city’s most eligible bachelors by a national magazine. He’d contacted Craig three weeks ago, claiming something was very wrong at city hall.

  “What’ll you have?” Craig asked as the man sat down.

  “Scotch, neat. Single malt.”

  “Done.” He went to the bar and ordered. When he returned to the booth and set the drink down, he asked, “What’ve you got for me? You haven’t given me much so far.”

  “She’s meeting with Janssen on Saturday.”

  She: Amanda Teller. He: Paul Janssen, a state representative for this district.

  “Where?”

  “Down the coast. A rundown lodge near Big Sur.”

  “Why Big Sur?”

  “Good halfway point: Amanda’s giving a talk at UC-Santa Barbara Friday evening. Besides, the lodge is isolated and no one’s likely to recognize them there.”

  “So what’s this—about sex, power, money?”

  “Not sex, I don’t think; they reserved separate rooms—under false names, of course. Power and money? For sure. What else? Who knows?”

  “You’re not giving me a lot to go on.”

  “It’s all I have. How’s your boss doing?”

  “Still in a coma.”

  “Too bad. McCone’s a good woman.”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  Craig’s informant tossed back what was left of his drink, stood up, and slid a piece of paper across the table. “Here’s the information on Teller and Janssen’s meeting.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I also want to give you a key and the security code to my condo.”

  “Why?”

  “Evidence there. Videos. If something happens to me ...”

  “What, you mean—?”

  “Just take the key.” He placed it on the table. “The security code’s 1773. I’ll be in touch.”

  Craig pocketed the key, watched him go, and after half a minute, followed him.

  * * * *

  The street was deserted, dusky, fog-damp. Davis’s footsteps echoed off the pavement down the block. Craig went the other way toward his SUV, fumbling for his keys. They caught inside his jacket pocket and he had to pause to extricate them.

  Behind him Davis’s footsteps stopped. Craig glanced back, saw him unlocking the door of a white Mercedes sedan. Davis looked at him, gave him a thumbs-up sign, and got into the car.

  Finally the keys came free. Craig again started walking toward his SUV. Davis still hadn’t started the Mercedes; he was a methodical man and was probably making minor adjustments to the seat and mirrors—as if they would’ve moved in the brief time he’d been in the bar.

  Craig was halfway around to his driver’s-side door when a vehicle started up, its engine burbling as if something was wrong with the exhaust manifold; it pulled out from the curb across from him, nearly grazing his front quarter panel. Black pickup with a white camper shell. The driver had forgotten to put on his lights—

  Craig whirled, shouting after the truck, but it kept going toward the end of the block where Harve
y Davis’s headlights were flashing on.

  A gunshot echoed loudly in the narrow street.

  Instinctively Craig dropped to the pavement, his hands protecting his head.

  Two more shots, staccato bursts. Semiautomatic weapon, he thought. The pickup’s tires squealed as it sped around the corner onto Golden Gate. Harvey Davis’s car stayed in place, its engine purring in the sudden quiet.