The Color of Light

by Wendy Hornsby

  After a while, the intruder either grew more bold or more desperate to find whatever he was looking for—there was nothing of value to be found, other than some of Dad’s books—and made the occasional noise moving things around. Maybe he made enough noise that he didn’t hear the police pull up outside.

  I called 911 again, filled in the dispatcher who answered, and told her where the intruder was and that the front door was locked. I asked her to tell the officers that I was coming down to open the door for them. She told me to wait, but already the noise from the radios on the shoulders of the two patrolmen who walked up onto the porch had alerted the person in the den. I heard him unlatch and open a window.

  I flipped on the stair lights, and holding up my hands so the police looking in through the windows could see they were empty, ran down the stairs and unlocked the door.

  “He was in the den,” I told the officers, pointing the way. “He may have gone out the window.”

  There was a sudden cacophony of neighborhood dogs behind our house, the growing ruckus a good hint about the direction the intruder had taken. I was told very firmly to stay put by one officer while the other radioed for backup as he rushed into the den. Lights came on inside. And I stayed put.

  Porch lights went on next door at the Lopers’, too. I muttered, “Shit,” and turned on ours as well, as two more black-and-whites pulled up to the curb, light bars flashing.

  Before anyone got around to talking to me, there was a circling chopper overhead, lighting up the neighborhood with its big night-for-day spotlights. After explaining what all the boxes were about, and after agreeing not to touch anything, I was asked to look around the den to see if anything was missing.

  Several of Dad’s desk drawers had been left hanging open.

  “I emptied the desk earlier today,” I said. “There was nothing to find except maybe a stray paperclip.”

  Mystified about what anyone would want in that room, I pointed to the stack of boxed books the university had selected. “Some of those books have value for a few connoisseurs, but they weren’t touched. The computer is a good one, but it’s a few years old. And it’s still here. The TV, ditto. I have no idea what anyone would want in here. Unless it was someone who was just shopping and got interrupted before he could look elsewhere.”

  “You didn’t see anyone?”

  I shook my head. “I saw his—or her—shadows, and saw that he had a flashlight, and I heard him. But, no, I didn’t come down the stairs and introduce myself.”

  “Were the doors and windows locked?”

  “The doors all were,” I said. “I thought all the windows were, but I can’t swear to it.”

  The questioning officer, Bo Peng, just nodded as he looked around.

  Right away, I thought of Larry. But Kevin knew already that he had been coming into the yard, so I decided that it was best to answer Officer Peng’s questions without volunteering anything, and trust that Kevin would know what to say about Larry.

  The search moved outside very quickly, following the intruder’s ­escape route across the backyard and probably over the fence, then, according to the first barking dogs, down the flood control ditch behind our house, headed toward the bottom of the hill. Once the ­police arrived, it seemed that every dog in the neighborhood had joined the chorus.

  Officers searched the entire house and yard, making sure the intruder wasn’t there. When they were certain he was gone, and hadn’t left a friend behind, Officer Peng checked all the doors and windows again, wished me good night and left.

  For the rest of the night, sleep eluded me except for short naps full of bad dreams. I was hyper-aware of every sound, until about five when the neighbors began to stir. Comforted by the gentle racket of garage doors, the paperboy, and the heels of early dog walkers along the sidewalk, I fell into a deep sleep that lasted only until the trash trucks came up the street about two hours later.

  First thing that Friday morning, I went for a run to clear my head. The day was still young, but already heat was building in the East Bay, drawing ocean air over San Francisco like a cold, gray shroud. Berkeley, in the north, was clear and it was still cool enough for an uphill sprint. I ran across the bottom of Grizzly Peak and over the few blocks to Indian Rock Park, where Mrs. Bartolini’s body was found.

  Indian Rock Park is a volcanic outcropping of stark gray granite that juts up out of the middle of a green hillside neighborhood; it is barely one block square. We used to play there as kids. Great for hide-and-seek and climbing, and sometimes just for hanging out. I knew from the Polaroid I found in Dad’s desk that Mrs. Bartolini had been dumped near one of the park entrances. At that place, there are a park sign, a bike rack and a drinking fountain. A set of steps hewn into the granite rises from that point to give rock climbers access to the tallest of the volcanic towers. Though Mrs. B lay only a few yards from the street, she had been placed in a sort of bowl formed by large boulders so she would not have been visible to passersby.

  During weekends, the park is packed with rock climbers and kids and family picnics. But on a school day, it would have been deserted except for the occasional dog walker, or soul looking for a place for quiet contemplation, or kid ditching school. There are no rest rooms and there are vigilant neighbors close by, so the park is not attractive as a haven for homeless people.

  We had continued to play among the rocks after Mrs. Bartolini died, though never alone. I don’t remember anyone being afraid as much as titillated when we saw some blood on the dirt where her body had been. There wasn’t very much blood and it disappeared soon after, probably washed downhill during the next rainstorm. With great ceremony, we built a small stone cairn as a memorial at the place where the blood had been, and for a while remembered to lay flowers on it. At some point, the cairn was dismantled by some boys playing caveman war, and no one rebuilt it. I won’t say that we forgot her, because we didn’t. But I think we began to forget to remember her link to the place.

  I took a drink from the nearby fountain and walked over to the site, scuffed the dirt with my toe, expecting what? A magic clue? Nothing turned up except some buried cat droppings.

  The steps cut in the granite took me up to an overlook. From the top, I could not see the base of the rock where our cairn had been, but I could look down into the yards of several of the houses below. People in those yards, though they could see the taller towers and might have seen people coming and going on the street, would not have been able to see Mrs. Bartolini.

  On my way down, I saw a cross chiseled with care and precision in the granite directly above her resting place. Someone had made an effort. Someone remembered.

  A fresh breeze came up off the Bay. Chilled, I started for home. When I turned onto the top of our street, I saw Chuck Riley in full security guard uniform with his shoes shined and his service Beretta fastened on his belt, walking down the hill in front of me, going toward his house. Out for a little morning stroll, a visit to a neighbor’s house before work, passing out Mary Kay catalogues for his wife, in full regalia? Why not, I thought. Once a cop, always a cop.

  A car came down the hill behind me. The driver—I don’t know who it was—called out, “Morning, Maggie” as it passed me. Chuck heard, turned, and headed back up the street toward me.

  “Out for a run, huh?” he called out. “Nice morning for it.”

  “Very nice,” I said, slowing to a walk. “You on your way to work?”

  “Pretty soon.” Chuck reached the end of our front walkway before I did and waited for me. “What was all that excitement up here last night?”

  “I had a break-in,” I said, still breathing hard.

  “I’ll be damned. They take anything?”

  “Other than my peace of mind, no, not that I’ve found,” I said, sopping up my face on my sleeve. “But there isn’t much left in the house that’s worth taking.”

  “Did you see who it was?”

  “No. Just shadows. I don’t know how he got in, but it looks like he w
ent out over the back fence.”

  “That would take some doing, wouldn’t it?” he said, grinning broadly. “Probably some punk kid, out looking for anything he could find. He was probably more scared of you than you were of him.”

  “Small comfort,” I said.

  “One way to get your peace of mind back is to install a good floor safe,” he said. “I can connect you to a reliable dealer, probably get you a nice discount.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, but wouldn’t. The Rileys, as I remembered them both, always seemed to have something to sell or a discount they could arrange for you.

  “I need to get going,” he said. “But if you have any more trouble, don’t hesitate to give me a call, Maggie. I’m just down the way and I can be here in a hurry. The neighbors have always known they can call on me any time of the day or night if they need a little help.” As emphasis, he patted the service revolver on his belt.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “And give that floor safe some serious thought.” With a wave, he turned and walked back toward his home.

  After a quick shower, I fired up Mike’s pickup and started making deliveries, grateful for a reason not to be alone in the house. Books went to the library, clothes to the thrift store. And two big boxes piled high with fresh garden vegetables went to a soup kitchen in the basement of an old church in downtown Oakland.

  Juggling the heavy produce boxes, one on each arm, I managed to get down the back stairs and into the large community room without either falling or dropping anything; my arms were sore from lifting and carrying the day before.

  As I set the boxes on the first table I came to, I heard a familiar voice call out.

  “Hey, McGurk.” Father John, once my parents’ parish priest, leaned through the service window from the kitchen. He had a white paper cap on his head and an apron over the jeans and polo shirt he wore that day instead of his usual white cassock, looking fairly convincingly like kitchen help. “How long since your last confession?”

  “I don’t know, Padre,” I said. “What year is this?”

  “I thought so.” He grinned at me as I rubbed a kink out of my arm. He looked fine, a little pale, thinner, certainly older. I hadn’t seen him since my sister’s funeral six years earlier. “What’d you bring me?”

  “Green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, potatoes and tomatoes,” I said. “Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.”

  “Bring it in, let’s have a look.”

  I carted the boxes into the kitchen and set them down next to the big stainless steel sinks. Looking around the empty kitchen, I asked, “You all alone?”

  He glanced heavenward, grinning. “I am never alone, child. But Cook is AWOL this morning, so yes, no one is here except me.” He handed me a paper cap like his and an apron to put on. “He’s a good cook, when he can find it in his heart to show up. Give me a hand, will you? We feed lunch to two hundred at noon and the soup isn’t even started.”

  “You can’t feed that many people all by yourself,” I said.

  “The church ladies will be here later to set up the service line and do the salad and bread. But they won’t have soup to serve unless we get busy.”

  He unloaded the boxes into the sink and looked at what he had to work with. “I was hoping you’d hidden a couple of fat chickens in here. Getting enough protein into the meal is always a problem. But this is nice, very nice.”

  There were four giant soup pots on the restaurant-size stove. He poured gallons of chicken broth into the pots and started it simmering while we washed and chopped vegetables and herbs. Everything was dumped into the pots, along with about ten pounds of brown rice and a tub of leftover spaghetti.

  “Do you do this every day?” I asked him.

  “People eat every day,” he said, fitting lids onto the pots. “Hey, McGonagle, I have a good idea. Why don’t you do one of your programs about homeless people, break some hearts, loosen some wallets?”

  “Already did that one, years ago,” I said. “You should work on your skills dividing loaves and fishes instead.”

  “Every day I ask for God’s help with that particular sleight-of-hand,” he said with a chuckle. “And today he sent me you.”

  “If there’s a miracle in this story, it’s Mr. Sato’s green thumb.” I untied my apron and hung it back on the hook he had taken it from and gave him my cap.

  He asked about Mom and my daughter, Casey, and I filled him in.

  “And how are you?” I asked, watching him closely as he decided how to answer. He leaned back against a counter, arms crossed over his chest, looking down.

  “Floor needs a good mopping,” he said instead of answering the question.

  “Kevin Halloran told me you were back in the parish,” I said. “I wanted to say hello, so I called the church and asked about your schedule. I was told you’d be here.”

  He turned his face up to me, grimacing. “What blabbermouth did you talk to?”

  “Lorna Priddy,” I said. “She told me you’re in remission.”

  “My missing cook calls it recess,” he said. “When I was diagnosed, the diocese offered to assign me a rocking chair at the old priests’ home to wait until Our Father calls me home.”

  “I can’t imagine you accepting that deal.”

  “Me either. So I asked if there was a rack available in the rectory at St. Mary’s that I could use until the recess bell rings. Cancer be damned, there’s still some use in me.”

  “Your soup’s starting to smell good.”

  He asked me to stay and help serve lunch, but I had too much to do. I did, however, agree to stay and keep him company until the church ladies arrived. There was something fragile about him that had never been there before; I sensed that he very much did not want to be alone, any more than I did.

  I knew he wouldn’t tell me anything about his relationship with Larry Nordquist if I asked him directly—that penitent-confessor bar. But I thought he might talk to me about the work he and Mrs. Bartolini had done with Vietnamese refugees. It seemed to me that at the end of a failed war there would be people from all sides who, as Mom suggested, still needed enemies, and he might have some ideas about who they were. But I could not bring myself to launch into that topic just then. He seemed so happy, so relaxed that I did not want to upset his peace.

  Instead, we talked about nothing and everything as we stirred the soup and argued over seasonings. He was curious about my current film project, a two-hour special scheduled for fall Sweeps Week. He had met the subject of the film, a murdered former congressman, and found him to be sympathetic to issues relating to poverty.

  I told him, “I’m calling the film There Was a Crooked Man.”

  He began to recite the poem, “‘There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile / He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile...’ Was your congressman a crooked man?”

  “You’ll just have to wait till September when the film airs,” I said. “Then you can decide for yourself.”

  “I liked the man,” he said with a little lift to his shoulders. “Maybe I don’t want to learn something that might change my opinion of him. I think I’ll just read a book the night of the broadcast.”

  “That’s up to you,” I said, knowing from experience that there was a lesson in the offing.

  “Maggie, I’m not your only old friend who’s back in town.”

  “Oh? Who?”

  “Larry Nordquist. Do you remember him?”

  “I saw him yesterday,” I said, wondering where Father John was headed, but happy that he had brought up the subject.

  “Was he okay?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “He came and went. Seems he’s been hanging around in Mom’s backyard.”

  “Who’d you hear that from?”

  “Toshio Sato,” I said. “Mr. Sato was with me yesterday when Larry came into the yard.”

  “Ah.” He didn’t look happy with that answer.

  “
Father John, Larry is on parole for murder—”

  “Manslaughter,” he corrected. “Involuntary manslaughter. He got into a bar brawl and the other guy lost.”

  “Okay. The thing is, he’s out on parole. When the police picked him up last week, it was you who came to fetch him, not his parole officer.”

  “His parole officer called me because I’m Larry’s employer,” he said. “Larry is my missing cook.”

  I chuckled. “I shoulda known.”

  “I thought maybe you did when you popped in here out of the blue this morning,” he said. “Thought maybe you wanted to talk to him.”

  “You read me like a book, Padre.”

  “Comes with the job, child,” he said.

  “And?”

  He raised a shoulder, a small self-deprecating gesture. “And yesterday, when I told Larry that you were staying at your folks’ place he got very agitated. It was all I could do to get him to finish making the spaghetti before he shot out of here. When he didn’t show up today, well, I was a bit concerned that maybe the demons he struggles with got the better of him. Or you did.”

  “Should I be watching my back?”

  “Not on his account,” he said. “When he’s sober, he’s a peaceful man.”

  “Small comfort,” I said. “Father John, someone broke into the house last night.”

  “You think it was Larry?”

  “I didn’t see who it was, and I don’t think anything was taken,” I said. “Why does Larry hang out around at Mom’s?”

  “Maybe he figured you’d show up sooner or later.” He hunkered down to put his eyes on a level with mine. “He’s worried about it, but he wants to talk to you, Maggie.”

  “Whoever came into the house last night was definitely not looking for conversation,” I said. “If Larry has something he wants to say to me, he could have said so when he came into the yard.”