Pacific Beat

Chapter 27

By the false light of dawn, Jim pulled his truck into Virginia’s garage and wearily climbed out. He had dropped Ray off at the station and Kearns at Lucinda’s. His body was aching; his thoughts were racing to no particular destination. They had spent four hours cruising the peninsula, the island, the mainland, hoping for a sight of Horton Goins, but the man had disappeared like smoke.

Jim let himself in through the front door and immediately sensed the emptiness of the big house. Mom will be at the Locker, he thought, getting ready for the breakfast crowd.

But the sign on the window of Poon’s Locker read CLOSED FOR THE DAY. Weir noted his mother’s hurried handwriting, looked through the smoked glass to the lifeless interior — chairs still up on the tables, salt and pepper shakers on a tray for refilling, the grill cleaned and waiting.

Back in the house, he found her note to him on the kitchen table: “Be back in a day or so. Patriots purloined this tape from the developers and I want you to view it and watch carefully. See if you can find why they decided to reshoot. Love, Mom.”

It was a standard videocassette. The label on top said “GROW, DON’T SLOW! spot for June 1–5.” Jim groaned, took it into the living room, slipped it into the machine, and hit Play.

C. David Cantrell — slender, groomed, wearing a white shirt, a striped tie, and an open cardigan sweater — stood atop an overpass on the San Diego Freeway. Behind him, a river of cars was stopped in both directions for as far as the eye could see. Cantrell, arms crossed in friendly adamance, said that this was the daily scene in coastal Orange County now, thanks to unexpected growth, a booming economy, a lifestyle coveted by the nation. Taxes paid for this highway, he said, and all the new people will be paying millions more for the privilege of living here. The road — like so many others — was earmarked for improvement. Which would happen on schedule, if Prop A wasn’t passed. Proposition A, he said, would do more to aggravate the traffic mess in Orange County than all the development put together: No new building meant no new business, no new taxes, no solutions to this kind of mess. Suddenly, the picture was changed to the same overpass at a different time of day — 6:00 A.M. — Weir guessed. Traffic was light, moving along behind Cantrell. He uncrossed his arms and put his hands on the railing, then leaned forward. Don’t be suckered, he said, vote no on Prop A. Grow, don’t slow. Leave Orange County’s problems to the experts, not the elite, not the bureaucracy that got us into all this. Cantrell smiled as the cars whisked by behind him. A voice-over said this ad was paid for by the Citizens for Sensible Traffic Solutions. The picture went to show and static.

Weir sighed, wondering when his mother would quit trying to convert him. She seemed too eager for life to conform to her dire predictions. Where was she now, out on the bay again, taking samples?

...view it and watch carefully.

He rewound it and played it again. So what? Big lies for gullible people. It was a story as old as the county itself: the land of dreams sold to too many dreamers. Maybe the committee was going to retape it because Cantrell’s hair was messed by the breeze.

Jim was sitting on the seawall with a cup of coffee in his lap when a Newport Beach cop car pulled into the alley behind him and stopped.

Raymond, uniformed and fresh for the day shift, stepped out and nodded to him. He slipped his stick into his belt and walked over to the wall.

“Any Goins?” Jim asked.

“We’re on the train stations and airport. OCTD has got the photos and a description. A lady down by Lucinda’s said her son’s bike was stolen off the porch sometime last night. My guess is that Goins used it.”

Raymond sat down next to Jim and slipped on his shades. “Look at all those animals. It’s a shame.”

Weir watched as a cormorant sloshed to shore, its dead webbed feet folded shut like little umbrellas. “How’s it feel to be back on the job?”

Raymond didn’t answer for a while. His radio squawked and he turned the volume up for a moment to listen, then back down. “It feels okay.”

“But?”

Raymond shrugged. “How about taking a little drive with one of Newport’s finest?”

Jim drained off his coffee and tossed the cup in a trash bin. “Just like the old days, Ray.”

“Well, we keep saying that, but it sure doesn’t seem true.”

They cruised down Balboa toward the Wedge, past the commercial district and then into the neighborhoods of the rich. Raymond was silent, locked behind his shades in that calm but alert way that he’d always had. For a moment, Weir was back ten years to his days on the Sheriff’s with Ray; they were both still shy of thirty, both still filled with eagerness and the belief that the only direction their lives could go was up. Youth, thought Weir, what a blessed thing.

Raymond glanced over at him. “Like I said, the idea was to get back on patrol and maybe just get too busy to think about things.”

“That doesn’t really sound like you, Ray.”

“Yeah, well lift up the ticket log there on the seat and take the bottom stack of papers out.”

Weir picked up Raymond’s log and slid out what was under it. The pile came apart in his hand like a new deck of cards: Horton Goins’s photographs of Ann. So, he thought, Raymond has spent his first two hours of patrol working on the murder. Was there ever any doubt that he would?

“I don’t blame you,” said Weir.

“Wouldn’t do you any good to, Jim. Check the top picture — tell me what it implies.”

Weir slipped it out: Ann climbing into the backseat of the limousine on that cold March night. “What was this one called?”

“Joyride — March 21.”

Weir stared down at it. “She’s real pleased to be seeing this guy. Look at her dress, the shine on her shoes.”

“What about him?”

“He’s got money for a car and a driver.”

“How do you know it’s his driver, not a limo service?”

“By the way he’s looking away. He’s letting his boss know how confidential this all is.”

Raymond nodded. “That’s what I figured when I first saw it. Innelman ran an ownership listing for every home within three hundred feet of Annie’s Toyota. I picked it up first thing this morning. It’s under the pictures. Check the second page, halfway down, and see if you can put the name together with Cheverton Sewer and Septic.”

Weir found the listing and turned to the second page. C. David Cantrell’s name was in the middle.

“He owns Cheverton Sewer and Septic.”

“Exactly. And a guy that Cheverton’s people say doesn’t work there is the one who sent the roses and wrote to Ann. Mr. Night — Dave Smith. You do the arithmetic.”

“Dave Cantrell.”

Raymond’s expression was a little pale, and a great deal agitated. “Two days ago, Innelman got the credit card receipts for Ann’s last night at the Whale’s Tale. I found them in a pile of field reports about a foot high. Cantrell ate there, alone. Paid thirty-six bucks for dinner and left fourteen for Ann. I didn’t think anything of it, until I saw the listing. Now I can’t get all this out of my head.”

Jim let the possibilities sink in. No matter how he turned them, they wouldn’t fit. “Cantrell stands for everything Annie was against. I don’t think so.”

Ray nodded, then cleared his throat. “Jim — let’s be honest about something here, okay? Ann was a great woman, she was bright and beautiful and good, but she was sick to death of our life together, sick of me, sick of that cold little house, sick of it all. I think we can assume that much. Say you were her, what would you want? What would your antidote be to all that?”

“Something different. Someone completely different.”

“Mine, too.”

Jim sat back as Raymond answered Dispatch — disturbing the peace complaint up on Fifty-sixth Street. Lt. Cruz told her to let Unit 5 take the call.

“Too bad that garage-door opener is in evidence,” said Jim. “We could run a little experiment.”

Raymond looked at him, grinned, opened the glove compartment, and took out the controller and two new AA batteries. “Checked it back out an hour ago. It’s mine until noon.”

They cruised back down to Cantrell’s beachfront address. From a distance, Weir could see that it was a large but standard 1950s job — stucco, clean angles, a flat roof. It was painted white. Raymond was heading up the alley toward the garage door when he cursed and slowed. “Down in front, partner,” he said. “All the way down in front.”

Weir slipped off the seat and into the foot space, hunkering with his head against the shotgun clipped to the dash. “Company?”

“Umm-hmm. Cantrell’s got security all over the place. I see one in the alley by the house, and another on the street. I’ll bet there’s someone out front, too, keeping an eye on the door.”

“Patrol cars?”

“No way. Dark sedans with cool dudes sitting in them. They look like FBI. I think I’ll just run a little test, then keep on going.”

Jim watched as Raymond lifted the controller, pushed the button, then pushed it twice again.

“Up, stop, and down,” said Ray. “It works. It’s his.”

Weir felt the patrol unit start to move again. “Why’d he leave it in her car?”

“He forgot. Like he forgot and left a hair under the stamp, like he forgot to get that car the hell out of his neighborhood. If he’d just stabbed her twenty-seven times — God only knows what was going through his mind.”

“I think our next stop should be the PacifiCo Security yard, down by the airport.”

“You haven’t lost your chops, Jim. I was thinking the same thing. Maybe you should have taken up Brian on that job offer.”

Weir felt the car engine working beneath his knees, felt Raymond accelerate out of the alley and head for the boulevard. When Ray completed the turn, he pulled himself back up.

Raymond looked at him from behind his shades. “Most innocent citizens I know have their houses patrolled by private security goons.”

“Everyone I know,” said Weir.

Raymond told Dispatch where they were headed, then guided the car back up Balboa Boulevard.

Ten minutes later, they sat outside the chain-link fence that surrounded the PacifiCo Security yard near the airport. In the middle of the yard stood a newish building with a wooden sign that read PACIFICO SECURITY SERVICES. Surrounding the building were a handful of jeeps, two dark Buick sedans, and a dozen or so patrol cars with PacifiCo emblems on the front doors.

“Mackie Ruff’s cop car,” said Ray.

“I’d say so.”

Weir felt his scalp tighten. The circle is drawing itself now, he thought: purple roses to Dave Smith, Dave Smith to Cheverton, Cheverton to Cantrell Development, Cantrell Development to PacifiCo, PacifiCo to Cantrell himself. Annie, what have you done? Where do Marge Buzzard, Dale Blodgett, and Louis Braga fit in?

“Play it,” said Ray.

“They had a thing. She met him after work to tell him she was pregnant and it was over between them. Remember the letter? About how talented and important Mr. Night is? It fits, Ray. Maybe they’d walked the Back Bay before. He took her down there for one last night, positive he could keep her close. He’d sent flowers — Mother’s Day. It was his way of saying that pregnant or not, he wanted her. Then it was just like in the letter — he wanted to own her, but Ann wasn’t for sale. He went over the top.”

Raymond was nodding slowly. “Ann’s car was jimmied open, right? Her purse is still missing, right? She left it in his car. When he got back home, he had to get her car out of the garage. But Ann had locked it. So he broke in and used her keys to move it a few blocks away.”

Jim felt another little dose of adrenaline move through him. “No. She couldn’t get into the garage because the opener batteries were gone. He took them. Ann parked a block and a half away because that was as close as she could get. That’s what he wanted — Ann not able to use the garage that night. He jimmied the door to make it look like a stranger took her. But he forgot to ditch the opener.”

Raymond’s face was pale and sweaty.

Neither spoke for a long while.

“Well,” Raymond said quietly. “There you have it. C. David Cantrell. He’s handsome, isn’t he? Rich. A rich, handsome, powerful man who took my wife and used her like a toy. God, wait until Dennison hears this. He’s going to hate the good news.”

“Dennison won’t do anything but get in our way right now. What we’ve got is all circumstance, Ray. We need to put Cantrell at the crime scene. We need to connect him to the Back Bay that night, with Annie. Sit tight. Don’t spill anything to Brian yet. We need more.”

“We need to cancel him.” Raymond guided the car down MacArthur toward Coast Highway. He looked out to the PacifiCo Towers looming in the west.

“Ray, let’s take this one step at a time. We don’t know anything yet. We’re not sure. When we are — then we’ll move.”

Raymond wiped the sweat off his face. His skin hadn’t lost its pallor. “I’m going to take him.”

“That’s what Francisco thought a hundred years ago, but he didn’t do it right. Patience, Ray. We’ll get him.”

“Francisco didn’t have something that I do. A friend like you.”

The 10:00 A.M. sun leaked meekly through the morning haze, warming the bayfront sand in front of Becky’s house, where a volunteer crew of cleanup workers wearing FLYNN FOR MAYOR T-shirts had been employed by the candidate to coincide with the arrival of reporters at her press conference.

Jim stood with his back to the hedge of oleander that protected Becky’s front yard from the usually tourist-laden sidewalk. The thought crossed his mind that he had hunkered against this same hedge years ago to ID one of Becky’s lovers. He watched the cleanup crew dumping dead fish into burlap bags. The press conference was already in progress behind him, questions and answers at rapid-fire.

— Why did you take on the Goins case?

— It isn’t a case yet. I’m trying to keep a miscarriage of justice from happening. Horton Goins is innocent and I can prove it if I have to.

— Who killed Ann Cruz?

— That’s for the police to determine. My job is to protect the rights of a twenty-four-year-old man who’s being hunted down for something he didn’t do.

— What about what he did in Ohio?

— What he did in Ohio was nine years ago.

— The police have photographs of Ann, taken by Goins.

— Taking candid photos of various subjects has long been the photographer’s stock-in-trade. Goins has been an enthused amateur photographer for five years. We’ll show those pictures for what they are: pictures of a pretty girl taken by an admiring young man. The police also found pictures of boats, local landmarks, kids, sea gulls, houses, tourists, dogs, sunsets, and waves. I haven’t read a single word about those in the papers you publish, or seen a mention of it on the shows you produce.

— Miss Flynn, this move to represent a defendant—

— A suspect.

— before he’s even arrested or charged, is going to be construed by some people as a publicity move to promote your campaign.

— That’s exactly what it is. Part of my promise as a candidate for mayor of this city is to see that the innocent are protected, the guilty punished, and Horton Goins isn’t tried for a crime he didn’t commit.

— Why attach yourself to such an unpopular issue?

— If it’s so unpopular, why are all you here?

— Do you have inside information on the murder — being linked to the victim yourself?

— Yes. And I wasn’t linked to her. She was the best friend I had in the world.

— What is this information, generally speaking?

— I won’t speak generally.

— Anyone can make promises, Miss Flynn.

— That’s why I’d rather speak specifically, Marcia. We have evidence showing that Ann Cruz was being harassed by an employee of Cheverton Sewer of Newport Beach.

— What evidence?

— I won’t say until we have the man identified by name. That will be shortly — within the next forty-eight hours.

Good Christ, thought Weir. Shut up, Becky. You’re only driving him underground. The idea came to Jim that Becky would pillory Cantrell whether they had enough to question him or not.

— Harassed in what way?

— He followed her, wrote her suggestive letters, sent her certain gifts, possibly confronted her bodily.

— Killed her?

— That’s for Assistant District Attorney George Percy and Brian Dennison to discover.

— You don’t agree with the way the chief of Newport Beach Police has handled this?

— I don’t agree with the way he handles anything. Look out at that bay. Thousands of dead fish, hundreds of dead birds, water so poisonous that the sharks can’t even swim in it. Brian Dennison has a Toxic Waste squad of one officer, who works part-time only, who is paid almost nothing for his efforts, who has to furnish his own boat. The boat blew a gasket, then a rod, on a toxic-spill patrol a few nights ago. The bill is going to run about twelve hundred dollars, and not a penny of that is coming from Chief Dennison’s department or the city of Newport. I’m making arrangements to pay it myself. At the same time, Brian Dennison has requested funds for ten new patrol units, eight more officers, a new computer network for the station, and more sky time for that five-hundred-dollar-an-hour helicopter he likes so much. He’s got six point five million dollars in lawsuits pending against his department for brutality charges, a great many of which were brought by people who live in this neighborhood, grew up on this peninsula, and contribute regularly to the health, welfare, and character of this city. I believe that Brian Dennison can run his department any way he wants, but I do not believe for a moment that he should apply his dubious talents to guiding this city. Here, I’d like to show you something. This is Art. He’s a little western gull who ate enough trichloroethane to make him good and sick; maybe he’ll even die.

Jim peeked backward through the hedge and saw Becky coddling a sea gull. She stroked the bird’s body, then held his blinking, astonished face up to the cameras. Becky’s shamelessness had never lost its ability to surprise him, even though she’d learned most of it from Virginia. Maybe that’s why men marry their mothers, Jim thought.

— My volunteers picked him up yesterday, huddled against the seawall right out front. This is what I’m talking about when I say we’ve got to manage the growth in this county, and start to take care of what we’ve got left. We all know that we didn’t inherit this place from our parents; we’re borrowing it from our children. Until Art can swim in Newport Harbor and eat his fish without getting sick or dead, I think we have work to do. Brian Dennison’s campaign is bought and paid for by C. David Cantrell and the other big developers, people who believe that the first responsibility of this land of ours is to bring them huge profits. Developer Kathryn Thompson recently threw up a new mass-produced housing tract, named it the Laguna Audubon after courts decided she could appropriate that naturalist’s name for her own marketing concerns. She used Laguna Beach’s name, too — her Laguna Audubon isn’t even in Laguna. Ms. Thompson named the streets in her development after birds. And, of course, Ms. Thompson assigned a “theme bird” to each phase. Wipe out the birds, name housing after them. That, in my mind, is the kind of arrogance that typifies the development cartel.

— Why don’t you debate with Dennison?

— Ask him. He’s the one who refuses. Thank you, that’s all. I’m going to get out the eyedropper and give Art here a bite to eat. I’ll keep you all informed on these issues.

Weir listened to the communal grumble as Becky’s front door slammed shut. He started for the gate, feeling an inclination to strangle her. A handful of print reporters hustled down the sidewalk for the nearest telephones. A couple of television crews shot Becky’s cleanup crew loading up dead animals on the bayfront, cutting in front of each other for the best angles.

“Comment for Channel Five, Mr. Weir?”

It was Laurel Kenney, looking lovely in her usual pinched way. She leaned her microphone toward Jim’s face. The minicam operator behind her aimed his lens at Weir like some giant mechanical eye.

“None at all.”

“Is Becky Flynn making a campaign issue of the death of your sister?”

“Say what you think.”

“I asked what you think, Mr. Weir.”

“I don’t think there’s anything I can say right now that wouldn’t be construed the wrong way. No comment.”

“Are you and Becky Flynn still personally involved?”

Three or four bodies moved around Weir; notebooks flipped back open; cameras clicked and strobes flashed; another minicam pressed in, red light blipping. Laurel positioned the microphone closer to Jim’s mouth. “Are you and Becky Flynn still romantically linked, Mr. Weir?”

“Oh hell, Laurel, who could possibly care?”

“Do you think Chief Dennison’s investigation has been fair and impartial?”

“Sorry, I’m not going to answer—”

Suddenly, Weir was aware of a figure cutting between him and the media people. It was a broad, tallish shape, with a white blouse buttoned to the neck and an improbable ruffle at the throat. The thick gray-brown hair was up this time in a bun of severest attitude. Marge Buzzard shoved away Laurel Kenney with a large knotted hand, then turned her fury upon the minicam operators, pursuing first one, then another until they had backed off to her liking. They kept shooting. She marched back on thick heels, and brought the full focus of her intensity upon Jim.

“Come with me,” she ordered. “You will tell no more lies about Cheverton Sewer and Septic.”

“God, you look good this morning,” said Weir, taking her by a trembling arm. “Right this way.”

Wielding her like a weapon, Jim guided Marge past the clicking shutters and whirring video cameras, up the sidewalk past Raymond’s place, past Ann’s Kids, around the corner of Poon’s Locker, and finally through the back door and into the coolness of the supply room.

Marge Buzzard wheeled and measured Weir with enraged eyes. “You have no idea what you’re doing,” she said.

“I was standing by the oleander.”

“Then that smart tart of a girlfriend you have — she doesn’t know what she’s doing.” Marge poked a stiff finger at Jim’s face.

He caught it in his hand, squeezed, and guided her backward into the empty café. “Don’t you poke me again, Marge. You want to do business, you learn some manners. Now sit down on your butt, shut up, and get yourself together. I’ll get some coffee.” He let go of her fingers and took a chair from one of the tables.

He watched her as the coffee brewed. She sat primly, back straight and off the chair, head erect, one hand in her lap and the other dabbing her eyes with a lacy white handkerchief. Weir concluded that Marge Buzzard was — as Poon was fond of saying — crazy as a shithouse rat. He liked her. He set the cup of hot coffee down in front of her, along with a creamer and sugar.

“I suspect you’ve got something to tell me,” he said. “I’m all ears.”

Marge’s eyes bore into Jim’s with a suspicion he could only characterize as boundless. She made Virginia look trusting. At the same time, she started sniffling again, a helpless, tiny sound like a five-year-old might make, accompanied by a dignified quivering of the chin. “I’ve had enough of you people,” she said finally.

“What people, Marge?”

“Disrespectful people — hustlers, gossips, liars, cheats, Migrates... just... just people in general.”

“You lost me. Start from the beginning.”

Marge clamped her purse into her lap. “Cheverton Sewer and Septic was founded in 1959 by Richard Cheverton. We called him Dickie. I was his first and only secretary. His wife... well, that’s another matter. He was the finest man I ever knew, and our business was honest. Honest, Mr. Weir, do you hear me?”

“I do,” he answered, noting her ringless left hand.

“In 1986, when our company was bought up by Cantrell Development as part of PacifiCo, we had annual revenues of five point eight million dollars against expenditures of two point six million. Our after-tax profit was two point one million. It was a happy little company of fifty-six employees.”

Marge dabbed her eyes again. Jim was beginning to see what it was about the bottom line of a sewer company that meant so much to Marge. “After 1986, we maintained a profitable status for another two years, but we were finally folded into Cantrell Development’s contracting division and all we were was a part of PacifiCo’s development wing. Our profitability suddenly became...” She sniffed again, then straightened her back and looked at Jim. “Nonpriority.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be supercilious with me. You think it sounds stupid, but to me, Cheverton Sewer and Septic was a way of life.”

Weir was silent.

“They gutted us. They folded our septic and cesspool operations, so our name wasn’t even correct. All we were used for was sewer construction on PacifiCo’s new tracts. Even at that, PacifiCo subcontracted out sewer installation if other bids came in lower than ours. The division we were part of made huge profits, and ours got upstreamed as part of them. But we weren’t allowed to do outside work, so if no new houses were going up, we stood still. I continued to keep a set of books as if we were a viable company, and I can tell you we would have continued to grow at an annualized rate of six percent if we’d been allowed to. Of course, those books didn’t mean anything.”

“No.”

“No.” Marge wadded the handkerchief into her big hand. “As soon as PacifiCo bought us up, Louis Braga — the corporate flunky they sent — started getting all this attention from corporate. Dickie, who was retained as manager, didn’t understand it, and when he questioned it, there were no answers forthcoming.”

“Attention?”

“Mr. Braga received sealed pouches from PacifiCo headquarters, up on the hill in Newport. Louis Braga got calls from them. Louis Braga got a corporate credit card under the Cheverton Sewer and Septic name — even though we were really just part of PacifiCo. Well, Mr. Weir, once a month when I organized the payables and billables, I’d go through our expenditures with a fine-tooth comb. Every other month, there’d be a nine-thousand-dollar cash withdrawal on our card, made by Dave Smith of Cheverton. Braga told me to pay it and account for it as a consulting fee. I demanded to know where nine thousand dollars of Dickie’s — Mr. Cheverton’s — money was going, with a man who didn’t work for us. Corporate called me up to Newport and told me not to ‘modify’ the way they were doing the books — Mr. Braga knew the new system, if I had any more questions. The next week, I got a raise. But I know for a fact they’d have fired me if it wasn’t for Mr. Cheverton. He defended me to them.”

“So Braga and Smith could use the card. Who at PacifiCo had access to the Cheverton number?”

“I have no idea. We’ve never been a part of PacifiCo, as far as I’m concerned. It’s what accounting calls an O and I card. That stands for Open and Incidental. Everything else is O accounts for Office charges or M for miscellany, or T for Travel expenses, like that. They’re all credit accounts with suppliers. But PacifiCo can call nine thousand dollars every other month on a credit card incidental because their sales ran over six hundred million last year.”

Jim waited while Marge unraveled a corner of her balled handkerchief and dabbed an eye. It was time to go fishing. “Did Mr. Smith ever get mail at Cheverton?”

“Yes. It was occasional and often marked ‘Personal and Confidential.’ I never opened an envelope addressed to Mr. Smith. I was under orders from PacifiCo not to. I gave it directly to Mr. Braga.”

Letters from Ann, he thought, to Cantrell. “There really never was a Dave Smith?”

Marge’s expression suddenly looked more hurt than hurtful. “I told you that when you first came out.”

“But you’ve been covering for him for five years.”

She nodded, a new storm of tears gathering in her eyes. “When Mr. Cheverton died in late ’eighty-six, I vowed to continue with the company, to do what I could to restore it to its former integrity. But it’s not the same. It’s shameful. The only thing the same is the picture of him I’ve got on my office wall. That’s why I won’t stand still for Dave Smith casting a shadow on the ghost of Mr. Cheverton. Mr. Cheverton hated what was happening to what was once his company, and I simply will not let his memory be further trampled. Not by you, not by that strumpet for mayor, not by the papers.”

“Are the nine-thousand-dollar cash withdrawals still coming through?”

She nodded. “Every other month.”

“Who takes the cash?”

“Louis Braga, I assume.” Marge straightened her back and fixed her formidable eyes on Jim. “I have no idea where it goes after he touches it.”

Jim waited as Marge took a deep breath. She composed herself behind wet, steel-hard eyes and stared down at the Formica tabletop in front of her.

“None at all, Marge?” he asked quietly. “You of all people have no idea where the money goes?”

A flash of beseechment crossed her face, then vanished. “No, really.”

“Ah.”

She glanced up at Jim, then away.

“But you’ve seen something that doesn’t fit, haven’t you? You’re not stupid, Marge. You’ve hung around a little after hours, maybe? Checked the books real close to see if there’s a legitimate reason for it? Spun by late at night, or maybe on the weekends to see what’s happening? Maybe? For Mr. Cheverton? Am I right?”

She cleared her throat and nodded. “I intend to defend Mr. Cheverton, not to cast suspicion.”

“Wake up, Marge — Mr. Cheverton is being used.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I do know that.” She blinked wetly, and wiped her eye again. “It’s just so difficult to know when to fight and when to retreat. All we really have to go on is our own convictions, sooner or later.”

“That’s true,” said Weir. He leaned back in the chair. Give her room, he thought. He sipped his coffee and waited.

Marge Buzzard glanced quickly at him, then down into her coffee cup. Her perfume smelled of lilac. “I’ve been thinking of retiring,” she said finally. “It’s not the same. Nothing is the same.”

“It’s a terrible thing, to lose someone you love.”

Something indignant flashed in her eyes. “He was the finest man I ever knew. Honest, caring. He... deserved more than he got from life, I believe. Yes, I loved him. But I was never improprietous. He was a married man, and I a... single woman. I honor the marriage contract, Mr. Weir, whether it’s mine or someone else’s. If I had one, I mean.”

“Not everyone is so noble.”

“I’m a big ugly woman, Mr. Weir, but I do have my strengths. Loyalty, conviction, a certain amount of bravery when it’s called for.”

“I admired the way you tried to throw me off the property,” he said.

She looked at him in assessment. “And here I come with the same things I was trying so hard to keep you from finding out.”

“Why?”

“I knew who you were from the papers when you came to us looking for Smith,” she said. “I heard about Becky Flynn’s press conference and I thought she might try to exploit us. But I’m deeply affected by what happened to your sister, and though I’m sure there’s no connection between the larceny at Cheverton Sewer and Ann, still — your sister’s death helped me see the importance of...”

Jim waited, but she didn’t finish the sentence.

Marge’s fingers wrapped around her coffee cup. She didn’t look at Jim when she spoke. “Louis Braga gave money to a policeman named Blodgett, on at least two occasions. I heard Mr. Braga putting the cash into a shopping bag once while I was waiting for him in his trailer, and I saw him give Blodgett the bag that evening when I was working late. I can’t say that

all the payments have gone to him, but two did. I suspect the others have, as well.”

“Why does Blodgett get nine grand of PacifiCo’s money?”

“Cheverton’s money!”

“Cheverton’s, I mean.”

Marge studied Jim intently for a moment, her eyes narrowed, her big nose pink from crying. “I have my suspicions.” She brought her bag up from her lap and zipped it open. Out came a small jar. “The bait tank of Duty Free was filled with this material last week. There were six large canisters, too. They always take out the boat after a truck from Blake-Hollis Chemical comes. I know because Louis Braga never reports to work the following day until evening, and the boat is not there. I believe that this... substance is delivered by the Blake-Hollis Chemical truck. When Duty Free comes back the next day on the trailer, the tank is always empty and the canisters are, too.”

“Is Blake-Hollis Chemical part of PacifiCo?”

“A subsidiary.”

She offered the jar, but Jim shook his head and refused to touch it. He asked her instead to open the lid.

The fumes were sharp and alien. The fluid looked like water. Solvent, he thought. “It’s probably 1,1,1-trichloroethane,” he said. “That’s how it got into the bay.”

“That’s what I believe. I’ll leave it to you to find out and proceed as you see fit. I am not willing to tell the police what I know. Not the Newport Beach Police. Not with a man like Dale Blodgett in charge of toxic waste.”

“How about a federal grand jury?”

“The grander the better, Mr. Weir.”

“Miss Buzzard, you can’t leave that with me. Take it and hide it somewhere safe, but don’t let anyone else handle it. If you want to prove that this was dumped into the bay, you’re going to have to account for the sample. I can’t touch it now. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“I’m going to ask you a question now that I want you to think about for a minute. The answer is extremely important.”

She snuffed, stiffened her back.

“Did you ever see my sister, Ann, at Cheverton, going out or getting ready to go out on Duty Free? She was blond, tall, pretty — I’m sure you saw her pictures. She may or may not have been with an older woman. Please think.”

Marge blinked and focused her fierce, wet eyes on Weir.

“No. Never.”

“Think again.”

“Never. I don’t forget things. But I do remember this. One day about a month ago, Blodgett had come to see Louis. It was the same evening I saw Louis give him the pouch of money, the day after they’d had the boat out. They were in Louis’s office, talking and laughing. I was watering those miserable geraniums outside his trailer, the ones that he will never stoop to water himself. The following is a rough translation of what I overheard. Louis said, ‘That was a close call last night.’ Blodgett said, ‘She had no idea.’ Louis said, ‘She walked right past the truck when she came in.’ Blodgett said, ‘There’re a dozen trucks in this yard. Don’t sweat it. If it was her mom, then we might have to worry. Virginia’s the one to watch.’ ”

“Virginia?”

“Yes. ‘Virginia’s the one to watch.’ I’m positive. Who is she?”

Weir’s vision had blurred for just a moment, then refocused with remarkable clarity. “Virginia is my mother. Ann’s mother. They’d gone out with Blodgett and Braga on the Toxic Waste patrol. Apparently, Ann tried to go out once alone with them, on a night they were dumping.”

“Oh, my. And now she’s dead.”

Weir stood up. “Don’t do anything for now. As far as you know, everything is fine. Wait until I call you. Do Braga or Blodgett have any idea you know this?”

“I’ve been the model of circumspection for thirty years at Cheverton.”

“You’ve done a good thing, Marge.”

Marge stood, arranged the frilly collar high on her neck, and patted down her skirt. “I feel like Judas must have felt,” she said.

“Judas betrayed Christ,” said Weir. “You’ve just busted a couple of profiteers who might be killers, too.”

“I think I will take a few days off and complete my letter of resignation.”

“Don’t do that yet. Be quiet. Act like everything is normal.”

“Normal? Really. We’re going to be flooded with questions because of what that awful Flynn lady has said. We have something in common, Mr. Weir — we both work for manipulators.”

The statement struck Jim with a certain force. “Stand your ground, Marge.”

“I’ve never had any trouble doing that. It just always seems to have been the wrong ground. My letter of resignation is half-written. I shall finish it and mail it.”

“No. If you upset them now, it could be a disaster for you. I’m serious, Marge. They’re serious.”

“It includes a one month’s notice,” she said. “I wouldn’t leave Mr. Cheverton with anything less than that courtesy.”

“Wait a month to send it. Will you do that?”

She sighed. “I’ve stuck it out long enough with Cheverton. Another month won’t hurt.”

“It might save your life.”

Weir was holding open the heavy back door for Marge when Becky came in. The two women stopped and stared at each other for a moment. Weir could hear Marge Buzzard’s breath catch as she raised a hand to the collar of her blouse.

“You are simply egregious,” she said.

“You can call me Becky, Ms...”

“Buzzard with a d, like bazaar.”

Becky offered her hand, with a worried glance to Jim.

Marge let out a wavering breath, and walked past Becky into the dull spring morning.

Becky’s face was dappled with sweat and her hair was sticking to her forehead. “Did you watch it?”

“You’re way ahead of things.”

“Not the press conference, the tape Virginia left.”

“I watched it.”

She looked at him for a moment, then sighed and wiped her hand across her brow. “You didn’t see it, though. Things are now in motion, Jim. You’ve got to see things for what they are.”

“I’ll say they’re in motion. You all but fingered Cantrell out there. We can’t link him with the roses yet — not for sure. We can say he had an affair with Ann, but we can’t prove it yet. We’ve got nothing to put him down at the Back Bay. Nothing. You’re going to blow this if you don’t slow down. You’re going to drive him away.”

A cunning smile came to Becky’s face. “Come with me, Jim. You have to learn to see.”

Back in the big house, Becky pushed the tape into the VCR and stood back. Weir sat down at Virginia’s desk and tried to avoid Becky’s impatient glances. He read his mother’s note again:... view it and watch carefully.

As Cantrell’s image and homilies went past him, Jim searched the pictures for whatever it was he had missed. The first half of the spot was innocuous enough. Then the background switched to the blissful flow of maximum-speed traffic and Cantrell leaned forward onto the railing for his heart-to-heart plea. His sweater shifted with the move, his tie swung forward, then stopped. The camera moved in on his face.

Something tugged at Weir’s brain. What was it?

He stopped the tape, rewound it briefly, then let it play again. Cantrell leaned forward, his sweater shifted, the tie moved and stopped, caught by the tie tack. The tie tack. There was a tiny reflective flash amid the stripes, two-thirds of the way down. The camera came in to his face; the little gleam dropped away off screen. Jim rewound again and stopped the frame just as Cantrell’s necktie caught on the tack chain. The focus wasn’t great. But the shape was right; the size was right.

Jim could feel his skin tighten, his heart speeding up. “We’ve got him. He was there.”

“We’re miles from getting him, but he was there.”

“How did Virginia know about the tack?”

Becky shrugged. “Ways.”

Jim was about to call Robbins when the phone rang.

“Jim Weir?”

“That’s right.”

“My name is David Cantrell.”

Jim said nothing. Cantrell waited a moment. “I think we have some things to talk about.”

“I think you’re right,” said Jim.

“Can you be outside the Balboa theater in half an hour?”

“I’ll be there. Hope you don’t get stuck in traffic.”

Weir hung up.

Becky studied him closely, her dark brown eyes shifting across his face. “Was it him?”

“It was him.”

The smile came to Becky’s face, that cunning little grin that always put him on edge. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then she came to the table and knelt down beside him. “From now on, everything has to be done right. You’ve got to go through Dennison to get to Robbins, and Brian won’t help. What he will do is everything he can to cover Cantrell’s ass. We need the DA, and I can get to the DA. We’re going to nail him Jim. We’re going to hang that guy.”

Weir sat back and stared for a moment up at the ceiling. Hang him? Ray is going to kill him.

“How long until you meet Cantrell?” Becky asked.

“Half an hour.”