Second Chance

Chapter 78

LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, Jacobi and I pulled up in front of condo 3A at the Blakesly Residential Community down the coast in Half Moon Bay.

Keating's name had stuck in my mind from when I was a kid. He'd been a regular at the Alibi after the nine-to-four shift, where many afternoons I'd been hoisted up on a bar stool by my father. In my mind, Keating had a ruddy complexion and a shock of prematurely white hair. God, I thought, that was almost thirty years ago.

We knocked on the door of Keating's modest slatted-wood condo. A trim, pleasant-looking woman with gray hair answered.

“Mrs. Keating? I'm Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer of the San Francisco Homicide detail. This is Inspector Jacobi. Is your husband at home?” “Homicide...?” she said, surprised.

“Just an old case,” I said with a smile.

A voice called from inside, “Helen, I can't find the damned clicker anywhere.” “just a minute, Tom. He's in the back,” she said as she motioned us into the house.

We walked through the sparsely decorated house and into a sun room overlooking a small patio. There were several framed police photos on the wall. Keating was as I remembered him, just thirty years older. Gaunt, white hair thinning, but with that same ruddy complexion.

He sat watching an afternoon news show with the stock market tape streaming by. I realized he was sitting in a wheelchair.

Helen Keating introduced us, then, finding the clicker, put the TV volume down. Keating seemed pleased to have visitors from the force.

“I don't get to many functions since my legs went. Arthritis, they tell me. Brought on by a bullet to lumbar four. Can't play golf anymore.” He chuckled. “But I can still watch the old pension grow.”

I saw him studying my face. “You're Marty Boxer's little girl, aren't you?” I smiled. “The Alibi... A couple of five-oh-ones, right, Tom?” A 5-0-1 was the call for backup, and how they used to call a favorite drink, an Irish whiskey with a beer chaser.

“I heard you were quite the big shot these days.” Keating nodded with a toothy smile. “So, what brings you two honchos down to talk to an old street cop?”

“Frank Coombs,” I said.

Keating's features suddenly turned hard. “What about Frank?” “We're trying to find him, Tom. I was told you might know where he is.”

“Why don't you call his parole officer? That wouldn't be me.”

“He's split, Tom. Four weeks now. Quit his job.”

“So they got Homicide following up on parole offenders now?”

I held Keating's eyes. “What do you say Tom?”

“What makes you think I'd have any idea?” He glanced toward his legs. “Old times are old times.”

“I heard you guys kept in touch. It's important.”

“Well, you're wasting your time here, Lieutenant,” he said, suddenly turning formal.

I knew he was lying. “When was the last time you spoke with Coombs?”

“Maybe just after he got out. Could be once or twice since then. He needed some help to get on his feet. I may have lent him a hand.”

“And where was he staying,” Jacobi cut in, “while you were lending him this hand?”

Keating shook his head. “Some hotel down on Eddy or O'Farrell. Wasn't the St. Francis,” he said.

“And you haven't spoken with him since?” My eyes flicked toward Helen Keating.

“What do you want with the man, anyway?” Keating snapped. “He's paid his time. Why don't you just leave him alone?” “It would be easier this way, Tom,” I said. “If you'd just talk to us.”

Keating pursed his dry lips, trying to size up where his loyalties fell.

“You put in thirty years, didn't you?” Jacobi said.

“Twenty-four.” He patted his leg. “Got it cut short at the end.”

“Twenty-four good years. It'd be a shame to dishonor it in any way by not cooperating now.”

He shot back, “You want to know who was a goddamn expert in lack of cooperation? Frank Coombs. Man was only doing his job and all those bastards, supposedly his friends, looked the other way. Maybe that's the way you do things now with your community action meetings and your sensitivity training. But then we had to get the bad guys off the streets. With the means that we had.”

“Tom.” His wife raised her voice. “Frank Coombs killed a boy. These people, they're your friends. They want to speak with him. I don't know how far you have to take this duty-and-loyalty thing. Your duty's here.”

Keating glared at her harshly. “Yeah, sure, my duty's here.”

He picked up the TV clicker and turned back to me. “Stay here all day if you like; I don't have the slightest idea where Frank Coombs is.”

He turned up the volume on his TV.