Act of Deceit

Chapter 35

“W here is she, Sonny boy?”

A grim voice shook Donnally awake. He looked out from the bed of the Willys and recognized the side of the apartment building bordering Sonny’s driveway. He propped himself on an elbow and looked over the driver’s seat toward the front of the wagon. Two men, one black, one white, both in their mid-fifties, stood facing Sonny, who was leaning back against the hood.

“We’re tired of screwing around, asshole. You’ve been fucking with us for over thirty years. It stops tonight. Where’s Trudy?”

Sonny held his hands out and looked at the black one.

“Come on, Jenkins, I don’t know where she is.”

Donnally glanced toward the street to see if there was backup. A vacant Ford Expedition blocked the driveway, probably the one that got cut off in San Rafael. He heard a thud and a grunt, then looked back to see Sonny doubled over.

Jenkins pointed a leather-gloved finger at Sonny’s head. His other hand was still formed into a fist.

“I’ll tell you all I know man,” Sonny said. “Just go through my lawyer.”

Jenkins punched down toward Sonny’s face. His head rocked to the left.

“Fuck your lawyer.”

Donnally eased toward the rear door.

The white one stepped between his partner and Sonny.

“Take it easy. He won’t be able to talk through a broken jaw.” He then set his hand on Sonny’s shoulder. “You better come up with something, Sonny. I’m not sure how long I can control him.”

“Give me the address,” Jenkins said.

Donnally turned the handle to flip up the top half of the gate and gripped the lower latch. He yanked it hard and in one motion kicked the bottom gate and slid out. By the time he’d pulled his gun and crouched down at the back of the truck, there were two Glocks pointed at him.

“I’m a cop,” Donnally called out. “Back off.”

“You used to be a cop, asshole,” Jenkins yelled back. “Why don’t you go back up to Mount Shasta and flip your flapjacks?”

“Not a chance.”

A light came on in a second-story apartment window. Donnally glanced up as the curtain was pulled aside.

The window slid open and a female voice called out, “Everything okay?”

Donnally lowered his gun and slipped it into his back pocket. Jenkins and his partner holstered theirs.

“Yeah, fine,” Donnally said to her, “Sonny just got drunk and passed out. We’ll take care of him.”

“W hy don’t you just cut a deal and get this over with?” Donnally asked.

Sonny pressed the ice pack against the side of his head as they sat at the kitchen table, then quoted back Donnally’s earlier line about Mauricio: “There’d be too much to explain.” He took in a long breath, then exhaled. “Look, man. Anna was everybody’s baby, not just Trudy’s. She was a little goddess that appeared out of nothingness. Everybody showed up at the house after she was murdered. I mean everybody. Crooked and straight. People who were still in the movement and some who’d long left it behind. Even that asshole Sherwyn showed up, but we chased him away.

“We were going to handle it ourselves. It was insane, man, a crazy fantasy. People who’d never touched a gun were buying them on the street, ready to posse up like it was some Western movie.”

Sonny paused, his eyes went vacant for a moment, then he continued.

“Some already had them. The guys that had gone into the drug trade. They’re the ones who figured out that Artie was in Berkeley the day Anna was killed, that he needed money and was trying to find Trudy. He was broke and homeless. Everybody knew it.”

“And he figured Trudy was making a lot of money from marijuana?”

“That wasn’t it. They’d loaned Trudy most of the cash from the armored car robbery to buy her house. If they hadn’t done something like that, it would’ve rotted where it was buried. Artie came back to collect what she owed him, and he was desperate, desperate enough to show his face in Berkeley.”

“What happened?”

“You can guess.”

“Tell me.”

“What’s the point?”

“You want the dollar back and I’ll go find out myself?”

Sonny smiled, then winced and touched his busted lip.

“All I can say is that some people… some people… tracked Artie down. He blamed Robert and led the folks to where he was hiding. Things went sideways and it got kind of bloody.”

“Does Trudy know what happened to Artie and Robert?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“She can’t keep her mouth shut. She admitted buying the guns they had used to kill Tsukamata the first time the cops leaned on her. The last thing anybody wants is for the police to start testing DNA from every unsolved double murder in those years to see if it matches any ex-members of New Sky.”

“So all this time she’s been hiding from dead people and she doesn’t know it?”

Sonny shrugged. “I guess you can say that.”

Donnally walked over to the kitchen counter and refilled their coffee cups. He turned back toward Sonny.

“And for over thirty years you’ve been fending off the cops for her?”

“It wasn’t just for her.” Sonny touched his swollen eyes. “I had no choice.” He tried to smile. “But like the paranoid, at least I was never lonely.”

Donnally returned to the table and set down the cups. He remained standing, arms folded over his chest.

“And that means that you folks were willing to let Charles Brown take the fall for a murder he didn’t do?”

“We knew that wasn’t going to happen.”

“You knew that because…” The last piece fell into place in Donnally’s mind before Sonny could answer. “Because of Sherwyn. It was Sherwyn’s job to make sure Rover never went to trial.”

Sonny nodded. “He was the only one in a position to do it and we had leverage to make sure he did. And things went along fine for decades. Until you showed up. Trudy collapsed into a pile of symptoms because she was terrified, afraid that Rover, as nuts as he is, would go to prison for the rest of his life for a murder that R2T2 did. Everybody knows what happens to mentally ill people in the joint. But then he pled no contest and she thought it was finally over.”

“Then why’d she see me? And why was she so sick-looking if she really believed it was over with? I would’ve thought she’d be dancing among the pine trees.”

“I guess she needed to feel like the book is finally closed on the past.”

“But it isn’t.”

Sonny shook his head. “No matter how hard she tries to slam it shut.”