Bones

TWO

St. Francis Wood was only a ten-minute drive, so I went there to see Yank-'Em-Out Yankowski first. Unlike Golden Gate Heights, the Wood is one of the city's ritzy neighborhoods, spread out along the lower, westward slope of Mt. Davidson and full of old money and the old codgers who'd accumulated it. Some of the houses in there had fine views of the ocean a couple of miles distant, but Yankowski's wasn't one of them. It was a Spanish-style job built down off San Juanito Way, bordered on one side by a high cypress hedge and on the other by a woody lot overgrown with eucalyptus trees; half-hidden by flowering bushes, more cypress, and a tangle of other vegetation. Either Yankowski was a bucolic at heart, which I doubted, or he liked plenty of privacy.

I parked at the curb in front and went down a set of curving stone stairs and onto a tile-floored porch. The front door looked like the one that barred the entrance to the castle in every B-grade horror film ever made: aged black wood, ironbound, with nail studs and an ornate latch. There wasn't any bell; I lifted a huge black-iron knocker and let it make a bang like a gun going off.

Immediately a dog began barking inside. It was a big dog, and it sounded mad as hell at having been disturbed. But it didn't bark for long; when the noise stopped I heard it moving, heard the click and scrape of its nails on stone or tile, and then it slammed into the door snarling and growling and burbling like Lewis Carroll's jabberwock. It probably had eyes of flame, too, and its drooling jaws would no doubt have enjoyed making a snicker-snack of my throat. If I'd been a burglar I would have run like hell. As it was I backed off a couple of paces. I am not crazy about dogs, especially vicious dogs like whatever monstrosity Yankowski kept in there.

It went right on snarling and burbling. Nobody came and told it to shut up; nobody opened the door, either, for which I was properly grateful. I debated leaving one of my business cards, and decided against it; when I saw Yank-'Em-Out I wanted to catch him unprepared, just in case he hadn't told Michael Kiskadon everything he knew about Harmon Crane's suicide.

The thing in the house lunged against the door again, making it quiver and creak in protest. I said, “Stupid goddamn beast,” but I said it under my breath while I was going back up the stairs.

Berkeley used to be a quiet, sleepy little college town, with tree-shaded side streets and big old houses as its main non-academic attraction. But its image had changed in the sixties, as a result of the flower children and radical politics fomented by the senseless war in Vietnam. In the seventies, Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army had added a bizarre new dimension, which the media and the right-wingers had mushroomed into a silly reputation for Berkeley as the home of every left-wing nut group in the country. And in the eighties, it seemed to have become a magnet for a variety of criminals and the lunatic fringe: drug dealers, muggers, purse snatchers, burglars, pimps, panhandlers, bag ladies, bag men, flashers, acidheads, religious cultists, and just plain weirdos. Nowadays it had one of the highest crime rates in the Bay Area. And the downtown area centering on Telegraph Avenue near the university was a free daily freakshow. You could get high on marijuana just walking the sidewalks; and you were liable to see just about anything on a given day. The last time I'd been there I had seen, within the space of a single block, a filth-encrusted kid with bombed-out eyes reciting passages from the Rubaiyat; a guy dressed up like an Oriental potentate sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk with a myna bird perched on his shoulder, plucking out Willie Nelson tunes on a sitar; and a jolly old fellow in a yarmulke selling half a kilo of grass to an aging hippie couple, the female member of which was carrying an infant in a shoulder sling.

No more sleepy little college town: Berkeley had graduated to the big time. Welcome to urban America, babycakes.

Still, the old, saner Berkeley continued to exist in pockets up in the hills and down on the flats. The Cal campus was pretty much the same as it had always been, and the kids who went there were mostly good kids with their priorities on straight. Most of the residents were good people too, no matter what their politics happened to be. And the tree-shaded side streets and big old houses were still there, with the only difference being that now the houses had alarm systems, bars on their windows, triple locks on their doors, and maybe a handgun or a shotgun strategically placed inside. Driving along one of those old-Berkeley streets, you could almost believe things were as simple and uncomplicated as they had been in the days when this was just another college town. Almost.

The street Amanda Crane lived on was like that: it seemed a long, long way from the Telegraph Avenue freak-show, even though only a couple of miles separated them. It was off Ashby Avenue up near the fashionable Claremont Hotel: Linden Street, named after the ferny trees that lined it and that, here and there along its length, joined overhead to create a tunnel effect. The number Michael Kiskadon had given me was down toward the far end-a brown-shingled place at least half a century old, with a brick-and-dark-wood porch that had splashes of red bouganvillea growing over it. A massive willow and a couple of kumquat trees grew in the front yard, providing plenty of shade.

A woman was sitting on an old-fashioned swing on the porch. But it wasn't until I parked the car and started along the walk that I had a good look at her: silver-haired, elderly, holding a magazine in her lap so that it was illuminated by dappled sunlight filtering down through the leaves of the willow tree.

She lifted her head and smiled at me as I came up onto the porch. I returned the smile, moving over to stand near her with my back to the porch railing. Inside the house, a vacuum cleaner was making a high-pitched screeching noise that would probably have done things to my nerves if I had been any closer to it.

The woman on the swing was in her mid-sixties, small, delicate, with pale and finely wrinkled skin that made you think of a fragile piece of bone china that had been webbed with tiny cracks. She had never been beautiful, but I thought that once, thirty-five years ago, she would have been quite striking. She was still striking, but in a different sort of way. There was a certain serenity in her expression and in her faded blue eyes, the kind of look you sometimes see on the faces of the ultra-devout-the look of complete inner peace. She was wearing an old-fashioned blue summer dress buttoned to the throat. A pair of rimless spectacles were tilted forward on a tiny nose dusted with powder to dull if not hide its freckles.

“Hello,” she said, smiling.

“Hello. Mrs. Crane-Amanda Crane?”

“Why, yes. Do I know you?”

“No, ma'am.”

“You're not a salesman, are you? This is my niece's house and she can't abide salesmen.”

“No, I'm not a salesman. I'm here to see you.”

“Really? About what?”

“Harmon Crane.”

“Oh,” she said in a pleased way. “You're a fan, then.”

“Fan?”

“Of Harmon's writing. His fans come to see me once in a while; one of them even wrote an article about me for some little magazine. You are one of his fans, aren't you?”

“Yes, I am,” I said truthfully. “Your husband was a very good writer.”

“Oh yes, so everyone says.”

“Don't you think so?”

“Well,” she said, and shrugged delicately, and closed her magazine- Ladies' Home Journal — and took off her glasses. “Harmon had rather a risque sense of humor, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You did read his fiction, though?”

“Some of it. His magazine stories… some of those were nice. There was one about a young couple on vacation in Yosemite, I think it was in The Saturday Evening Post. Do you remember that story?”

“No, I'm afraid I don't.”

“It was very funny. Not at all risque. I can't seem to remember the title.”

“Was your husband funny in person too?”

“Funny? Oh yes, he liked to make people laugh.”

“Would you say he was basically a happy man?”

“Yes, I would.”

“And you and he were happy together?”

“Quite happy. We had a lovely marriage. He was devoted to me, you know. And I to him.”

“No problems of any kind between you?”

“Oh no. No.”

“But he did have other problems,” I said gently. “Would you know what they were?”

“Problems?” she said.

“That led him to take his own life.”

She sat motionless, still smiling slightly; she might not have heard me. “I think it was ‘Never Argue with a Woman,’” she said at length.

“Pardon?”

“The story of Harmon's that I liked in The Saturday Evening Post. Yes, it must have been ‘Never Argue with a Woman.’”

“Mrs. Crane, do you know why your husband shot himself?”

Silence. A little brown-and-yellow bird swooped down out of one of the kumquat trees and landed on the porch railing; she watched as it hopped along, chittering softly to itself, its head darting from side to side. Her hands, folded together just under her breasts, had a poised, suspended look.

“Mrs. Crane?”

I moved when I spoke, startling the bird; it went away. The last of her smile went away with it. She blinked, and her hands settled on top of the copy of Ladies' Home Journal. Unconsciously she began to twist the small diamond ring on the third finger of her left hand.

“No,” she said. “No.”

“You don't know why?”

“I won't talk about that. Not about that.”

“It's important, Mrs. Crane. If you could just give me some idea…”

“No,” she said. Then she said, “Oh, wait, I was wrong. It wasn't ‘Never Argue with a Woman’ that I liked so much. Of course it wasn't. It was ‘the Almost Perfect Vacation.’ How silly of me to have got the two mixed up.”

She smiled at me again, but it was a different kind of smile this time; her eyes seemed to be saying, “Please don't talk about this anymore, please don't hurt me.” I felt her pain-that had always been one of my problems, too much empathy-and it made me feel like one of the sleazy types that prowled Telegraph Avenue.

But I didn't quit probing at her, not just yet. I might not like myself sometimes, but that had never stopped me from doing my job. If it had I would have gone out of business years ago.

I said, “I'm sorry, Mrs. Crane. I won't bring that up again. Is it all right if I ask you some different questions?”

“Well…”

“Do you still see any old friends of your husband's?”

She bit her lip. “We didn't have many friends,” she said. “We had each other, but… it wasn't…” The words trailed off into silence.

“There's no one you're still in touch with?”

“Only Stephen. He still comes to see me sometimes.”

“Stephen?”

“Stephen Porter.”

“Would he be any relation to Adam Porter?”

“Why, yes-Adam's brother. Did you know Adam?”

“No, ma'am. He was mentioned to me as a friend of your husband's.”

“More my friend than Harmon's, I must say.”

“Adam, you mean?”

“Yes. He was my art teacher. He was a painter, you know.”

“No, I didn't know.”

“A very good painter. Oils. I was much better with watercolors. Still life, mostly. Fruit and such.”

“Do you still paint?”

“Oh no, not in years and years.”

“Is Stephen Porter also a painter?”

“No, he's a sculptor. He teaches, too; it's very difficult for sculptors to make a living these days unless they also teach. I imagine that's the case with most artists, don't you?”

“Yes, ma'am. Does he have a studio?”

“Oh, of course.”

“In what city?”

“In San Francisco.”

“Could you tell me the address?”

“Are you going to see Stephen?”

“I'd like to, yes.”

“Well, you tell him it's been quite a while since he came to visit. Months, now. Will you tell him that?”

“I will.”

“North Beach,” she said.

“Ma'am?”

“Stephen's studio. It's in North Beach.” She smiled reminiscently. “Harmon and I used to live in North Beach-a lovely old house near Coit Tower, with trees all around. He so loved his privacy.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“It's gone now. Torn down long ago.”

“Can you tell me the address of Stephen's studio?”

“I don't believe I remember it,” she said. “But I'm sure it's in the telephone directory.”

Inside the house, the vacuum cleaner stopped its screeching; there was a hushed quality to the silence that followed. I broke it by saying, “I understand Thomas Yankowski was also a friend of your husband's.”

“Well, he was Harmon's attorney.”

“Did your husband have any special reason to need a lawyer?”

“Well, a woman tried to sue him once, for plagiarism. It was a silly thing, one of those… what do you call them?”

“Nuisance suits?”

“Yes. A nuisance suit. He met Thomas somewhere, while he was doing legal research for one of his books, I think it was, and Thomas handled the matter for him.”

“Were they also friends?”

“I suppose they were. Although we seldom saw Thomas socially.”

“Does he ever come to visit you now?”

“Thomas? No, not since I refused him.”

“How do you mean, ‘refused him?’”

“When he asked me to marry him.”

“When was this?”

“Not long after… well, a long time ago.”

“And you turned him down?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Harmon was the only man I ever loved. I've never remarried; I never could.”

“You and Mr. Crane had no children, is that right?”

She said demurely, “We weren't blessed that way, no.”

“But your husband did have a son by a previous marriage.”

“Michael,” she said, and nodded. “I was quite surprised when he came to see me. I never knew Harmon had a son. Michael never knew it either. Michael… I can't seem to recall his last name…”

“Kiskadon.”

“Yes. An odd name. I wish he'd come back for another visit; he was only here that one time. Such a nice boy. Harmon would have been proud of him, I'm sure.”

“Did you know Michael's mother?”

“No. Harmon was already divorced from her when I met him.”

“Did you know his first wife?”

“First wife?”

“Ellen Corneal.”

“No, you're mistaken,” she said. “Harmon was never married to a woman named Ellen.”

“But he was. While they were attending UC…”

“No,” she said positively. “He was only married once before we took our vows. To Michael's mother, Susan. Only once.”

“Is that what he told you?”

She didn't have the chance to answer my question. The front door opened just then and a woman came out-a dumpy woman in her forties, with dyed black hair bound up with a bandanna and a face like Petunia Pig. She said, “I thought I heard voices out here,” and gave me a suspicious look. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“We've been talking about Harmon,” Mrs. Crane said.

“Yes,” I said, “we have,” and let it go at that.

“God, another one of those,” the dumpy woman said. “You haven't been upsetting her, have you? You fan types always upset her.”

“I don't think so, no.”

She turned to Mrs. Crane. “Auntie? Has he been upsetting you?”

“No, Marilyn. Do I look upset, dear?”

“Well, I think you'd better come inside now.”

“I don't want to come inside, dear.”

“We'll have some tea. Earl Grey's.”

“Well, tea would be nice. Perhaps the gentleman…”

“The gentleman can come back some other time,” Petunia Pig said. She was looking at me as she spoke and her expression said: I'm lying for her benefit. Go away and don't come back.

“But he might want to ask me some more questions…”

“No more questions. Not today.”

Mrs. Crane smiled up at me. “It has been very nice talking to you,” she said.

“Same here. I appreciate your time, Mrs. Crane.”

“Not at all. I enjoy talking about Harmon.”

“Of course you do, Auntie,” Petunia Pig said, “but you know it isn't good for you when it goes on too long. Come along, now. Upsy-daisy.”

She helped Mrs. Crane up off the swing, putting an arm protectively around her shoulders, and Mrs. Crane smiled at her and then smiled at me and said, “Marilyn takes such good care of me,” and all of a sudden I realized, with a profound sense of shock, that her air of serenity did not come from inner peace at all; it and her smile both were the product of a mental illness.

The niece, Marilyn, glared at me over her shoulder as she walked Mrs. Crane to the door. I moved quickly to the stairs, went down them, and when I looked back they were gone inside. The door banged shut behind them.

I sat in the car for a couple of minutes, a little shaken, staring up at the house and remembering Mrs. Crane's smile and the pain that had come into her eyes when I pressed her about her husband's suicide. That must have been what did it to her, what unsettled her mind and made her unable to care for herself. And that meant she had been like this for thirty-five years. Thirty-five years!

I felt like a horse's ass.

No. I felt like its droppings.