The Color of Light

by Wendy Hornsby

  After we ate, though a nap sounded like a very fine idea, no one was in a hurry to get home until the crime scene cleaners had time to finish removing the gore. Jean-Paul and I decided to walk, to get some fresh air, while Max, playing the martyr, volunteered to go home to check on progress. He said he would call Lyle, to get a referral for someone to patch the walls and to paint; Lyle had contacts.

  After we saw him off, Jean-Paul and I headed up Shattuck to take the shortcut across the Cal campus. I wanted to show him where I had spent a great part of my growing-up years, and where I had earned my degree.

  The day was already warm, uncomfortably so. But the campus under its canopy of redwood trees was sweet-smelling and cool, a lovely break from the ugliness of the night before. Instead of cutting straight across, we wandered arm-in-arm along Strawberry Creek, through the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Grove, and then over to the physics building where my dad’s office had been for so many years. I was feeling a bit wistful, wondering if I would ever take that particular walk again. Saying another good-bye to Dad.

  Jean-Paul interrupted my reverie. “Tell me, my friend in television, if you were to film a dramatization of the murder of Trinh Bartolini, how would it unfold?”

  I rested my head against his shoulder and thought for a moment. “I can think of various scenarios, but the one that makes the most sense to me after seeing the lab reports would begin with Mrs. B in bed with Chuck, his house, drapes closed to keep the room dark so she wouldn’t have to see him, gritting her teeth, praying he’ll finish and roll off her. They hear someone in the house. He pushes her or she falls off the bed, bruising her bottom and her shoulder when she lands on the floor. She grabs the first thing she finds to cover herself—his shirt. Chuck ends up standing behind her. Was he trying to hide, or to use her as a shield?

  “Someone opens the door. Maybe he, or she, has heard a man’s voice inside. In the darkened room he sees a man’s white shirt, assumes it’s Chuck, aims for center mass and shoots.”

  Jean-Paul thought that over before he nodded. “I can see that, yes. But who opened the door?”

  “If this is my story to tell, it would be someone who intended to take out Chuck and made a terrible mistake when he shot her. I don’t know anyone who would want to hurt Mrs. B, but I can’t say that about him.”

  “Khanh Duc?”

  “He’s certainly on the top of my list,” I said. “The Bartolinis paid Quynh’s ransom through him, and then somehow Chuck infused himself into the situation. Did Chuck, always looking for a deal, offer Duc protection from a police investigation in exchange for a cut of the proceeds? If that’s the case, then when my parents brought the FBI aboard there wouldn’t be much Chuck could do to shield either of them, and was probably a liability. He would certainly hand over Duc to save his own scrawny butt. Maybe he asked for too much and Duc wanted him gone.”

  “If that is what happened, then I would expect Duc to try again when he missed killing Riley the first time,” Jean-Paul said. “We learned last night what Duc is capable of.”

  “Unless Chuck told Duc that everything would be exposed if anything happened to him. Duc certainly thought there was something in our house that he needed to get to. Was Dad supposed to have evidence of some sort squirreled away?”

  “He did, if you recall. Isn’t that how you became involved?”

  “True. Nothing that I found in Dad’s desk would incriminate Duc, but we don’t know what Riley might have told Duc.”

  “What about the husband?” Jean-Paul said. “Is it possible that your snooping Larry tells Bartolini, Senior, that his wife is making visits of a certain variety to Riley? In a rage, Bartolini grabs a gun and goes across the street after Riley. He shoots, but it is his beloved wife he hits by mistake. Catastrophe. He is distraught now, of course. Riley foils the murder investigation to save his own—what do you say?—sweet ass, because it is highly problematic to explain why there is a naked dead woman in his bedroom without getting into some grave difficulty. Instead, he dumps the woman’s body and destroys the evidence he can. And there you have it, impasse for thirty years.”

  “Chuck’s wife would have the same motivation as Bart,” I said.

  “In that case, which one was she gunning for?”

  “They were both hit.”

  “It is a fine puzzle, chérie.”

  The rest of the way, we talked about anything except the people in my neighborhood.

  When we got home, the cleaning crew was still at work inside. We found Max out front helping Toshio Sato unload the plants he had brought to repair the ruined flower borders. The two men were arguing affably about what should go where.

  Jean-Paul went up onto the porch, a quiet place to return calls, while I went over to greet Mr. Sato.

  To the plant discussion, I contributed, “Think tidy, hardy and low maintenance.”

  “Not good enough,” Max said, waving off what I’d said. “We should at the very least try for some approximation of my brother’s planting scheme. Red, orange, yellow, and so on.”

  “Max, Max, Max.” Mr. Sato took off his hat and wiped the sweatband with his big white handkerchief. “Yesterday I asked Duc to give me some good plants for Al’s borders, and this is what he gave me. I got pink begonia, I got yellow lamium, I got white shrub roses, and I got some rosemary makes a nice blue flower in the spring. You want something else, you go get it. But don’t fool around ’cuz I got grandkids to pick up from lacrosse camp this afternoon.”

  At the mention of Duc’s name, Max and I looked at each other. He shook his head; now was not the time to announce Duc’s death to Mr. Sato. So far, the coroner’s office had released no information about Duc.

  “So, Tosh,” Max said, “are you and Duc good friends?”

  “Nah, the guy’s a pain in the ass, but he knows flowers,” he said, putting his hat back on. “As long as we talk flowers, we get along okay. If you’re thinking of driving all the way down there, don’t bother unless you want to pay retail because Duc didn’t come in today. Now, you gonna give me a hand here or do you want to stand around talking?”

  “Mr. Sato,” I said as he sank the end of a shovel into the soil of the flower border. “I was wondering, if Duc worked with you, why don’t I remember meeting him before the other day? Every Monday I would say hello to you and your helper. I never knew them very well, but I’d like to think I would remember them.”

  He pulled off his hat again and wiped the sweatband with his big handkerchief. “That’s because Duc never worked for me on Mondays when I did your yard. Guy worked two or three jobs. Mondays and Fridays, he drove a delivery truck, I think.”

  “Did he?” I caught Uncle Max’s eye but he just shrugged. “Could he have worked for Bay Laundry and Dry Cleaners?”

  “The laundry?” Mr. Sato thought that over as he settled his hat back on his head. “Yeah, I think it was the laundry. I remember he used to pick up dirty tablecloths after big weekend parties. He’d salvage all the wilted centerpieces, recycle the vases and florist foam and junk, save it for when he opened his nursery.”

  “Mystery solved,” I said, thinking Duc had just hit the Trifecta: motive, means, and opportunity. “I’ll go see what’s happening inside and get out of your way.”

  I was allowed into the living room, but everything from five feet beyond the front door was sealed off behind plastic sheeting. Jean-Paul and I had decided to pack our things and go to a hotel until we could hand the house keys over to the university. Max was leaving, too. He had a late afternoon meeting in LA with Lana and would be leaving for the airport in a few hours. But because of the wall of plastic sheeting, we couldn’t get up the stairs until the crew left.

  They wouldn’t need much longer, I was told, because as crime scenes go, this one was relatively small. The man I spoke with launched into a lurid account of a mass shooting at a crack house down in Fremont, but was summoned back to work before he got very far into his tale. I was not unhappy to see him slip back behind the plastic.<
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  Just for information, I called Lyle and asked him how long he thought it would take for workers to finish the house cleanup and repairs. He went through the list I gave him: the blood was being dealt with, a plasterer was scheduled to patch the holes in the walls made by the lab people, then some new paint, and finally a thorough general house cleaning before we handed the keys to University Housing.

  “Four days, maybe more if some flooring needs to be replaced,” he said. “Guido told me you guys are headed for France in a couple of weeks. Is this going to put you in a jam?”

  “It is, but it has to be done,” I said.

  “Maybe we can do each other a favor,” he said. “We have a friend, broke up with his partner, needed a sofa to sleep on, so we took him in. He’s a good guy, a very good guy, and we’ve enjoyed having him. But Roy’s parents are coming out for a visit day after tomorrow and I think it would be better for all if we don’t have an extra person around while they’re here. What if I send him over to you? He doesn’t have any disgusting habits I’m aware of. He works from home so we can put him in charge of overseeing your workers, make sure everything is done right.”

  “If he’s willing, it would be a godsend,” I said, feeling a mountain lift from my shoulders.

  “No, honey, it would be a Lylesend. Let me go get him so you can work out the details.”

  “You’re my guru.”

  After a brief conversation, arrangements with the friend were made. He would leave the City before freeway rush hour that afternoon and arrive at our door as soon as traffic allowed. After we said good-bye, I called Evie Miller at the housing office to tell her that there was a delay for some repair work. We put off her inspection for a week—it didn’t seem to be a problem for her. By then, my truck should be finished and I could take care of both tasks in one quick trip.

  It was early evening in France. I called my French grandmother and told her when Guido and I planned to arrive. She was delighted, especially so because the government had recalled Jean-Paul from his consular post and he would be returning to France at about the same time. “Such a nice young man,” she said. I suppose that to a woman in her nineties, a man of fifty could be considered young.

  Out in the hall, there was a great rustle of plastic and hardware as the cleaning crew got ready to decamp. I was handed a bill that made my eyes water. Thank God, Mom had good home owner’s insurance.

  “There was a nice coat of wax on the hardwood floor,” I was told by the man who handed me the bill. “You’re lucky. There won’t be much of a stain at all.”

  I followed them out and found Jean-Paul dozing on the porch in the wicker rocker with his feet up on the porch rail. Max and Mr. Sato seemed to have settled their issues. The plants, still in cans, were arranged in the borders as they would be planted. Mr. Sato was working on the roses I had managed to salvage so even if the colors in the flower borders would no longer follow the order of the color spectrum, at least some of Dad’s beloved Chrysler roses would be among them.

  Peace, at last, I thought, looking out across the lawn, enjoying the fresh breeze off the Bay, the slight salt tang in the air mixed with jasmine growing on a trellis in the Lopers’ side yard. There had been a time when I knew every person on the street. During the short time I had been back, I came to understand that the big secret my family kept, namely my origins, was petty stuff compared to the secrets some of our neighbors held tight. What a terrible burden, I thought, a secret could be.

  I said a silent farewell to them all, and went inside to pack.

  Sometimes, when something is entirely out of place it takes a moment to realize what you’re actually seeing. The red leather jewel box was lying in the middle of the upstairs hall, open and upside down. I felt a moment of panic until I saw the dragonfly brooch a few feet away and apparently intact. It was only when I stooped to pick up the brooch that all the implications of it being where it was flooded in, and real panic ensued. I pushed open the door to the room I had been sharing with Jean-Paul and saw a jumble of clothes and books and overturned drawers in the middle of the floor. All of the furniture had been pulled away from the walls and left in higgledy-piggledy disarray.

  My first thought was that one of the cleaners had come upstairs looking for loot, but that made no sense. A little pilfering, sure, but not this, not a thorough tossing; a member of the crew would be sure he’d be caught. That’s when I saw that a window in my former bedroom was broken. I went over and looked down, saw the ladder against the side of the house. During the cleaners’ hubbub downstairs behind the plastic wall, someone had broken in upstairs. My next thought was to get the hell out. Now.

  I ran down the hall, clutching the brooch in one hand while I tried to pry my phone out of my pocket with the other. He was no more than a blur, a flying tackle launched from the side out of Max’s bedroom door. He dropped me on my belly and slapped the phone out of my hand as he pulled my arm behind me, bending it up toward my shoulder until I thought it would pop out of the socket. With his other hand, he pressed the tip of a knife against my throat.

  I cried out, “What do you want?”

  “You know damn well.” He stank of old sweat and hot fear. “Where is the letter?”

  “What letter?”

  “Her letter. She hid it in this house.”

  “I don’t know anything about a letter.”

  “You do,” he said. “You showed it to my son-in-law.”

  I heard what sounded like “whuff,” and suddenly his weight was off me; his knife hit the wall beside my head and skittered down the hall. I came up off the floor running.

  “Maggie?”

  I turned at the sound of Jean-Paul’s voice. He had Chuck Riley face down, hog-tying him with the cord from Uncle Max’s bathrobe.

  “Did he hurt you, chérie?”

  I shook out my arm; it hurt. “Where did you come from?”

  His chin flicked toward the end of the hall. “I came up to find you.”

  “But—”

  “Please telephone,” he said as he bounced Chuck’s head on the floor and ordered him to quit squirming.

  I retrieved both my phone and the knife. Why bother with 911? I called the chief of police. “We have your man,” I told him. “Please send someone before he gets too squirrelly.” And then I called Uncle Max, who was still in the front yard, and suggested he should get upstairs, pronto.

  “Chuck,” I said, keeping my distance in case Jean-Paul lost control of him. “Tell me about the letter.”

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  “Okay, then. Who pulled the trigger that day? You were standing behind Trinh Bartolini when she was shot. Who pulled the trigger?”

  He strained to look up at me, seemed confused by the question. “How could you know that?”

  “Who shot Trinh Bartolini?”

  He suddenly lost his starch, stopped struggling and turned his face to the wall. Through choking sobs he said, “God, she was so beautiful.”

  “Was it Duc?”

  “That damn gook, he didn’t have to do that.”

  “He was aiming at you.”

  “He was only supposed to scare her,” he said. “To make her back off. The feebs were asking questions. We needed her to stop before she fucked up everything.”

  “You gave him the gun,” I said.

  “So what?”

  “You blackmailed him after he shot her, didn’t you?”

  “I couldn’t let him get off scot-free, could I?”

  “For killing her? Or for failing to kill you?”

  “Both, I guess. But it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “What have you been looking for?”

  “A letter.” He raised his head as sirens approached. “She said she wrote a letter, and that if anything happened to her or to your family, the letter would come to light.”

  “You think it’s in this house?”

  He dropped his face to the floor, defeated. “I know it is.”

  “You broke in t
o look for it.”

  “Old George Loper was afraid someone would find Al’s gun,” he said with a smirk. “Fuck the gun. That letter is a bomb. A nuclear bomb with my ass in its sights.”

  Chapter 22

  “Jean-Paul.” I snuggled against him in the backseat of the San Francisco consul general’s Town Car, happy that Rafael was driving us to the airport. “What is it that you really do? I mean, what did you do before you accepted the consular appointment? I know what you’ve told me, but you’re always just a bit vague about it.”

  That shrug again. “I’m a businessman. A quite boring businessman.”

  “That’s what you always say, but I don’t believe it anymore.”

  “No?” He smiled, a funny little smile that was full of secrets.

  “No. Exactly what kind of business are you in that you can make a call and someone tells you that Thai Van, an obscure man, died in a jungle shootout thirty years ago? You traced a very old shipment of guns, with serial numbers, from the manufacturer to the U.S. Army by placing a call. Another call and someone faxes equally old records of Khanh Duc’s international bank transfers from a bank in Berkeley to an account in the Cayman Islands, and from there to Bangkok, as well as regular payments to his ‘employee’ Chuck Riley. Quite boring businessmen don’t have that variety of contacts no matter where they went to school.”

  “But, my dear, it was a very good school.”

  “But a school of a very certain sort,” I said. “They also teach whatever form of martial arts you used to take down Riley?”