Savages

1

On Friday morning, I took Kerry to the U.C. Med Center for her first follow-up appointment with her radiologist and her oncologist.

As I had during the long weeks of radiation therapy, I waited for her in the lobby. When she came out, as she had all the other times, she wore a small, determined smile. “So far so good,” she said.

“What did they say?”

“Come back in one month. Meanwhile go home, talk about cancer in the past tense, and live my life.”

“Is that supposed to be encouraging?”

“Actually, yes. As good as it gets at this point.”

On the drive home to Diamond Heights, as on previous drives, we engaged in bright, upbeat conversation. Her spirits were always good in my presence, and I made sure that mine were in hers. It was vital that we maintain a positive outlook. Any doctor will tell you that mental attitude is important in the treatment of any disease, particularly one as life threatening as breast cancer.

In the beginning it hadn’t been easy for us to remain upbeat, even though the odds were in our favor. Breast cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence for a woman; the survival rate is high when the malignancy is found and treated early. Still, the first couple of months are a pretty tense time. First we’d had to wait for the results of the DNA test to determine whether her father was Ivan Wade, as she’d always believed, or her mother’s writer acquaintance and rapist, Russell Dancer. If it were Dancer, the situation would have been even more difficult, because he was dead now and had been an orphan and kept no personal records; tracing his family medical history would’ve been next to impossible. But the DNA test turned out right, thank God. Kerry was Ivan’s child.

That was the first piece of good news. The second was that the tumor in her right breast proved to be relatively small and the cancer hadn’t become invasive; her oncologist, Dr. Janek, had recommended and performed a lumpectomy rather than a more radical type of surgery. Three weeks of healing time were followed by five weeks of radiation therapy-thirty-three treatments altogether, the first twenty-five focusing on the entire breast area, the remaining eight on the much smaller surgery site. The treatments made Kerry tired, listless much of the time. She hated the necessary tattooing of her skin-little blue dots so that the radiation machine could be placed in exactly the same location each time for maximum effect-and she developed a healthy dislike for her radiologist for what she called his “dehumanizing treatment” of his patients. But her body chemistry was such that she didn’t suffer the worst side effect, severe burning of the radiated areas that results in a painful condition the doctors call “skin breakup.” As it was, the cumulative effects produced some skin reddening and cracks toward the end of the schedule, made her skin feel stiff and rigid like cardboard. She insisted the soreness and discomfort were tolerable, but it hurt me every time I saw this outward abuse of her body-a constant reminder that the cure could sometimes be as savage as the illness.

More cause for optimism at the end of the six-week period. The radiation bombardment seemed to have had the desired effect of killing any remaining infected cells. Dr. Janek was not recommending any other treatment at this point, no drugs that might cause weight gain and night sweats and be a constant reminder to Kerry that she was still an at-risk cancer patient.

When the radiation therapy first started, Kerry had slept a lot, spent her waking hours in bed or propped up on the couch in the living room, reading, watching TV. Gradually, as her body adjusted, she was able to function more or less normally for short periods, do little things around the condo, take short outings. And she’d made arrangements with Bates and Carpenter to handle a limited amount of work from home. Her energy level now was such that she felt she would be ready to go back to work full-time in ten days. I thought that was a little premature, but if Dr. Janek gave his permission I wouldn’t try to talk her out of it.

Long, hard two-plus months. For me, for Cybil, Kerry’s mother, who was eighty-three and in shaky health herself, and for Emily. When we first told the kid, she’d had some trouble coming to terms with it; she had suffered so much loss already in her young life, the sudden deaths of both her natural parents, and the prospect of losing her adoptive mother as well was devastating. If the breast cancer diagnosis had come two years ago, Emily might not have been emotionally equipped to weather it, as fragile as she’d been when she first came to live with us, but she was stronger now, more mature, more secure. Once the initial shock passed she’d shown the kind of strength and courage we’d hoped for.

As for me, I’d all but quit working during July and August, so I could be with Kerry at the hospital every day and take care of Emily and the household chores and bring Cybil over from Larkspur for periodic visits, since she was no longer able to drive long distances. I didn’t get much sleep, had no appetite, and lost ten pounds. Tension and anger lived in me day and night. The first few times I saw Kerry pale and tired after radiation, then later that spreading burn on her chest, the frustration I felt was so great I wanted to hit something-a wall, a door, something. Because I loved her and I couldn’t stand to see her like that. Because there was nothing I could to do to help her. All I could do was watch, wait, hope, pray, remain positive-passive roles that go against my nature.

There was anxiety, too, constant and insidious. Despite all the good news and reason for optimism, there were no guarantees that Kerry would continue to be a survivor. Cancer is a devious goddamn disease. You think you’ve got it beat, all the signs point in that direction, and then without warning it can flare up again in the same spot or in some other part of the body, and if it does, then maybe it will be invasive; maybe you won’t survive. You can never be completely sure this won’t happen. You can never feel completely safe.

We both knew that, but we never mentioned it. Once during the first week of radiation therapy I came home after running an errand, walked in quietly, and heard Kerry crying in the bedroom. Great, heart-wrenching sobs that tore through me like knives. She never wept when I was around, not so much as a single tear. I know that crying is a healthy thing for a woman, a form of cartharsis, but I don’t seem able to cope with it; it turns me to jelly inside, unmans me. I slipped out even more quietly, wandered around the neighborhood for a while, and made a lot of noise when I let myself back into the condo. Kerry was dry-eyed and smiling in bed. Episode over and done with, as if it had never happened. But not forgotten, not ever, by me.

I hated those devious, unstable bastard cells in her body and what they had done to her emotionally as well as physically. A greater, more virulent hatred than I’ve ever felt for anything or anybody in my life.

L ate that Friday morning, after I took Kerry home from the hospital, I drove downtown to the new agency offices on South Park. She didn’t need me for anything, and Emily was off at Marine World with a friend and the friend’s parents, and it was time I put in an appearance. What with one thing and another, I hadn’t been in all week.

Tamara was on the phone when I walked in, and the new part-time hire, Alex Chavez, was getting ready to leave. Jake Runyon figured to be out in the field somewhere, as per usual. Everything running smoothly, also as per usual.

Chavez said an effusive “good morning” and immediately asked after Kerry. The question, unlike the greeting, was delivered with what seemed to be genuine concern and a sober countenance. Usually Alex was all smiles and good cheer-one of those rare breeds, a genuinely happy man. He was from El Centro, in the Imperial Valley, where he’d been a deputy sheriff and then an investigator with the D.A.’s office. Late thirties, dark, wiry, married with four kids, religious in the true Christian way. Moved to the Bay Area two years ago at his wife’s urging to be near her aging mother and father. When Tamara and I decided we could use another operative, because of the situation with Kerry and the agency’s increasingly heavy caseload, we’d put out feelers and Chavez had been recommended to us by another of the city’s investigative services who had employed him on a part-time basis. A thirty-minute interview coupled with his resume was all we needed to hire him. He’d proven to be the right choice, just as Runyon had before him. Honest, efficient, uncomplaining, and so upbeat you couldn’t spend five minutes in his company without some of it rubbing off on you.

I told him Kerry was doing well, and he nodded and smiled and said he and his wife were praying for her. A man I’d known less than three months, a part-time employee, and he was including the wife of one of his bosses, a woman he’d never met, in his prayers. I needed people like Alex Chavez in my life, now more than ever. People who took the edge off my general cynicism and helped to renew some of my faith in humanity.

“What’re you working on, Alex?”

“Anderson case. Joseph Anderson, nonpayment of child support?”

“Right. Any leads on his whereabouts?”

“A couple. I’ll find him sooner or later. If there’s one breed I can’t stand, it’s deadbeat fathers.”

“Same here.”

“My old man was one,” he said.

“Oh? Sorry to hear it.”

“Not a problem anymore. I found him, years ago, over in Tucson. Made him pay up most of what he owed my mother. He didn’t like the idea, but he didn’t have any choice when I got through talking to him.”

“Good for you.”

“So guys like this Anderson are a piece of cake,” Chavez said, and went out smiling.

In my office, I found three messages waiting for me. Out of the agency loop for nearly a full week, and all I had were three messages. And two of those were from professional acquaintances concerned about Kerry. The lack of business communications was a reminder-as if I needed another one-that I was no longer an essential part of the agency I’d founded and built up and nurtured for nearly thirty years. Hadn’t been for some time. It was Tamara’s now; she ran it with far more efficiency than I ever had, was making it grow and prosper. Runyon and now Chavez carried out most of the fieldwork I’d once handled almost entirely on my own. There wasn’t much for me to do even at the best of times. Retirement is a concept I don’t much like-I don’t play golf, the only hobby I have, collecting old pulp magazines, doesn’t take up much time, and I chafe under enforced inactivity-so I kept on working whenever I could, as much as I could. But except on infrequent occasions, it wasn’t the same anymore. Everything changes, sure, and this was exactly why I disliked and resisted change.

The third message was clipped to a case-file folder. Tamara’s scrawl read: Call Celeste Ogden. Followed by a phone number and the comment Deja vu all over again.

The name Celeste Ogden meant nothing to me until I opened the folder. Then I remembered her, and not with any pleasure. One of my cases, some four years old. Routine stuff, or should have been. I was scanning through the report, refamiliarizing myself with the details, when Tamara finished her call and came in through the connecting door.

I was struck again, as sometimes happened when I hadn’t seen her for a week or more, by what a handsome, poised young woman she was-a far cry from the grunge-dressed, wiseass militant she’d been when she first came to work for me. A lot had happened in her life in those five years, personal and professional both, the combination of which had matured her, added character and patience and determination. She was still very much her own woman, but she had goals and direction now, where before she’d been something of a loose cannon. What she wanted now was for this agency to be successful enough to rival McCone Investigations and the other big outfits in the city, and by God she intended to have her way. I envied her. For her drive and her youth and her health and all the possibilities that lay in her future.

She said, leaning against the doorjamb, “Good news on Kerry’s checkup or you wouldn’t be here.” Making it a statement rather than a question. She’d been a hundred percent supportive during the crisis; you couldn’t have asked more of a friend and business partner.

“So far so good,” I said.

“How you doing? Getting enough sleep?”

“Now I am. You don’t need as much when you get to be my age.”

“Right,” she said. “Old Father Time.”

“Sixty-two must seem ancient to you.”

“Nope. Pop just turned sixty and he can still outrun me in the hundred-yard dash.” She came closer, the better to give me a critical once-over. “Worry lines, not age lines,” she said. “They get any deeper, you’re gonna look like a map of the Mojave Desert.”

“Yeah, well,” I said.

“Not gonna change anything by worrying. But it’ll change you in the long run.”

“Tamara Corbin, philosopher. How’s Tamara Corbin, young woman about town?”

“You asking about my love life?”

“Peripherally.” She’d broken up with Horace, her longtime boyfriend, three months ago-or rather, he’d quit her, long-distance from Philadelphia, for another woman-and it had been rough on her for a while. “Just wondering how you’re doing.”

“I’m cool. My love life’s ice-cold.”

“Still haven’t met anyone new?”

“Not looking. Just me and Mr. V, for now.”

“Who’s Mr. V?”

“My vibrator. We’re going steady. Practically engaged.”

I should know better by now than to ask an outspoken young person like Tamara personal questions; they produce more candid information than an old fart can comfortably process. I said, “Moving right along,” and tapped the Celeste Ogden message slip attached to the file folder. “What’s this all about?”

“Same as before-her sister and brother-in-law. That’s all she’d say. She wants you, nobody else.”

“When did she call?”

“Yesterday afternoon. Told her you might not be available until next week.”

“Didn’t put her off?”

“Not her. She got pushy, I pushed back, and she hung up on me. But then she called again a few minutes later, all stiff and formal, and tried to make nice. She even said please have you call her as soon as possible. I said I’d give you the message and hung up on her.”

“The Tamara method of winning friends and influencing people.”

“Most of ’em like it when I go that route. Detective’s supposed to be tough, right? No-nonsense. Makes clients feel like they’re getting their money’s worth.”

“Ex-client, in her case,” I said. “I’m not interested in putting up with her obsession again.”

“For a big fee, we can put up with anybody’s obsession. That’s our new agency motto-I just made it up.”

“Then let Jake deal with her.”

“She wants you. Besides, his plate’s full. Hollowell skip-trace, a subpoena to deliver up near Red Bluff, and witness interviews and legwork for the defense team on a homicide case starting next week.”

“What homicide case is that?”

“Parking garage shooting in North Beach six weeks ago. The defendant has enough bucks to afford Avery Young as his attorney. And Young handed the investigative job to us two days ago.” Tamara’s eyes shone. “We do a good job on this one, and we will, it won’t be the last for his firm.”

“Nice.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. Score!”

“What’s Alex got other than the Anderson job?”

“Enough preliminary work on the Young case for two operatives. So Celeste Ogden is up to you.”

“Lucky me.”

Tamara’s phone rang and she retreated into her office to answer it. I opened the file folder again, thinking: So now I’m the mop-up guy. Weirdos and recalcitrants, my speciality. Yeah, lucky me.

All right. Background investigation requested by Mrs. Celeste Ogden on one Brandon Mathias, who at the time, nearly four years ago, was engaged to marry her widowed older sister, Nancy Ring. Mrs. Ogden neither liked nor trusted Mathias; she considered him cold, ruthless, self-involved, pathologically ambitious, and several other unflattering things and was convinced he was marrying her sister for her money and the business Nancy Ring had inherited from her first husband. The business, RingTech, was a small but very profitable manufacturer of computer software for businesses, located in Palo Alto.

I’d done what I considered to be a thorough check on Mathias, all the way back to his youth in northern Ohio, and I hadn’t found anything to support Celeste Ogden’s suspicions. He came from a well-to-do family; he’d graduated with honors from both high school and Ohio University, the latter with a degree in computer science; he’d landed a position with a Silicon Valley firm during the boom years, made all the right contacts and all the right professional decisions, worked his way up to an executive position at an annual salary in excess of $200,000. No question that he was ambitious, maybe even to the point of ruthlessness, but so are a lot of men and women in this country. As far as his personal life went, there wasn’t so much as a smudge: no previous marriages, no questionable relationships, no brushes with the law, not even a hint of unethical business practices.

I was satisfied, but Celeste Ogden wasn’t. If anyone was pathological, it was her. She was convinced that Mathias was some sort of Hyde in Jekyll guise. She insisted I dig deeper, keep digging until I found something. I don’t much like that kind of excavation; everybody has some unflattering secret buried in his past, and if it’s small enough and irrelevant enough, it should be allowed to remain buried. But in my business you don’t just blow off a client who has plenty of money-her husband was a well-regarded vascular surgeon-and no set time limit for results, even if you don’t particularly like her.

So I dug and kept on digging, and I still didn’t find anything. Brandon Mathias wasn’t a saint, but neither was he much of a sinner. If he had any buried secrets, they were down so deep a team of detectives working round the clock couldn’t locate them. Obsessive-compulsive in his drive for success was about the harshest criticism you could apply to him. Maybe that was why he was marrying Nancy Ring, but even if so, it wasn’t a hanging offense. And he wouldn’t be fooling her, either. She was forty-three years old and had been married to a Silicon Valley mover and shaker for nearly twenty years; she had to be going into the marriage with her eyes wide open.

I’d said all of this to Ogden, verbally and in my report, and in return I’d got a heaping of abuse. She was one of these moneyed types used to giving orders, having things her own way. She didn’t like it when her opinions went unvalidated, and when that happened she blamed the other party, not herself. She claimed I hadn’t done my job properly, hinted that I was incompetent-like that. I wouldn’t take it from her. I don’t take that kind of crap from anybody. As politely as I could under the circumstances, I defended my work ethic and the results of my investigation, suggested she take her suspicions to another agency, and terminated the relationship. I half-expected to have to take her to small-claims court to collect the balance of our fee, but she surprised me by paying the final invoice by return mail.

That was the last I’d heard from or about her. Whether or not she’d hired another investigator, she hadn’t succeeded in stopping the wedding: the “brother-in-law” reference to Tamara proved that. Now after four years Ogden was back knocking on my door again, and not so imperiously this time. Why? I didn’t want to work for her again, but I was curious enough to listen to what she had to say.

I dialed the number on the message slip. A woman with a Spanish accent answered, asked for my name, and went away to deliver it. Ten seconds later Celeste Ogden was on the line, thanking me for returning her call. The voice was familiar, low pitched and aggressive, but the inflection was different. Subdued, tinged with something I couldn’t quite identify.

“I imagine you were surprised to hear from me again,” she said, “after such a long time.”

“Yes, I was.”

“I didn’t know who else to call. The police… they won’t listen to me. I need someone to listen to me.”

“Police, Mrs. Ogden?”

“They say it was an accident, that it couldn’t be anything else. But they’re wrong. I don’t care what anyone says. He did it. He’s responsible.”

“Did what?”

“Nancy’s dead,” she said in a cold, flat voice. “My sister is dead and that bastard killed her.”