Trophies And Dead Things

Thirteen

And then the police arrived," I said to Hank.

We were sitting at the round oak table in All Souls' kitchen-a place where we'd sat for many an hour over the years, rehashing aspects of his cases or mine, drinking wine or coffee, chatting or talking seriously. Tonight the conversation was of the serious variety. I'd called his flat as soon as I'd left the crime scene, but reached only his answering machine; I'd then called the co-op and found he was working late again. Now that I'd told him all I could about Grant's murder, a lethargy was descending on me. I felt as if I'd been without sleep for days.

He asked, "Who's the investigating officer?"

"Leo McFate. You remember him-the one when I was on that case for Willie-"

"I remember. An asshole. I thought he'd transferred to the Intelligence Division."

"He did, but he's back on Homicide now. Better he had stayed in Intelligence-he's a sneaky bastard, and that's a sneaky detail." The Intelligence Division of the SFPD had come under criticism for spying on environmental, gay, and peace organizations that in no way posed a threat to civil order or the public safety. In the sixties operatives infiltrated meetings of civil-rights workers and antiwar demonstrations; a year ago it had been revealed that-despite a 1975 Police Commission ruling against such activity- during the 1984 Democratic Convention the division had spied on such diverse groups as Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, the National Lawyers Guild, and an independent taxi drivers' association that had threatened to strike just as the delegates began to arrive in the city. To me, it seemed a part of the department that McFate was especially well suited to.

Hank said, "I'm surprised he isn't up in Sacramento by now, doing something 'important.'" McFate was a social climber with political aspirations.

"Yes, and I'm of two minds about whether I'd want him there destroying the state, or down here annoying me."

"I don't suppose he let you stick around Grant's very long."

"He got me out of there as fast as he could. Took a statement, told me to come down to the Hall and sign it first thing tomorrow. He didn't seem particularly interested in Grant's connection with Hilderly, or that Hilderly was one of the sniper's victims. In fact, when I offered to share anything that I might turn up in the course of dealing with the other heirs, he told me that wouldn't be necessary."

"What's his problem, anyway?"

I smiled. "Well, part of it stems from the fact that a while back he came on to me and I rebuffed him. But the real problem is that-even though he's seen around town with some of our most eligible women-underneath he doesn't like or trust any of us."

Hank grunted disapprovingly-whether at the concept of McFate coming on to me or at that of a man who didn't like women, I couldn't tell.

I said, "I'm curious about Hilderly's estate. What happens to Grant's share, since he didn't live to sign that waiver?"

"There was a clause in the original will to the effect that if any of the beneficiaries didn't survive until the final distribution of the assets, his share would be divided among the remaining beneficiaries. Fortunately, Hilderly copied it in the holograph, so Grant's share won't be paid into his own estate."

"Which is probably substantial, anyway. I hope he left something to Angela Curtis. Even though she loved him, it couldn't have been easy putting up with him. She deserves recompense."

"You really disliked him, didn't you?"

"He wasn't at all likable. Those fetishes-" I broke off into a shudder and then a yawn.

Hank looked at his watch. "Almost one-thirty. You want some more wine?"

"Half a glass. I'm still too wired to sleep." I stared out the window at the lights of downtown as Hank went to the fridge and poured from the jug. "Hank, what about these snipings and Grant's murder? Even the sniper striking at your house was too coincidental for my taste, and now one of Hilderly's heirs has been bludgeoned to death."

"That's the problem, though." He returned to the table and set down our glasses. "Ballistics show the snipings were all done with the same gun. And Grant's murder wasn't a shooting. In fact, it sounds like a crime of passion, not at all premeditated."

"I know. I could tell McFate was looking at Angela Curtis for it, but I doubt he'll even try to build a case. There were no traces of blood on her, and if she'd done it, she'd have been covered with it."

"You said it looked as if Grant was killed a while before you got there. She could have showered and changed her clothes."

"And then waited for me, since she knew I was due at nine, and faked hysteria." For a moment I reviewed the scene when I'd arrived at Grant's. "No, I don't think so. Her emotional reactions seemed genuine. For her sake, I hope somebody remembers her from the movie theater."

We sipped wine in silence for a few minutes. I was still thinking about the snipings. Something was eluding me there-some connection I should have made. But I couldn't force it. It would come together in its own good time or not at all.

After a bit Hank stirred and took our empty glasses to the sink. "Better get going, huh? It's already well into tomorrow, and I've got a full schedule."

I stood, stretched. "Me, too-I've got to be in Berkeley at nine, which means going to the Hall to sign my statement by seven-thirty, latest."

"What're you doing in Berkeley?"

"Talking with the man who edited the magazine Hilderly worked for. I'm hoping he can give me some insight into Perry's past, his connection with Grant."

"Shar, you've already located the heirs-"

"I thought we agreed that I'd pursue this until we were certain Hilderly wasn't under duress or unduly influenced when he wrote the holograph. Besides, the Hilderly angle is one that McFate seems determined to ignore in investigating Grant's murder."

Hank hesitated, then nodded. "Keep on it a while longer, then." As we went down the hall and I picked up my jacket from where I'd left it on Ted's chair, he added, "You always get so personally involved in your cases."

"And you don't?"

"Good point. Just be careful. Don't tread on any sensitive toes at the Hall. You've got a license to protect, and I'd miss having you around here."

As we started down the front steps I smiled up at Hank. "I will tread as lightly as Ralph and Alice-without leaving half the trail of destruction."

I didn't sleep well or long, due to recurring nightmares in which feathers and bone and blood spatters figured prominently. By seven-twenty I was at the Hall of Justice and had affixed my signature to a typed statement about Grant's murder. Leo McFate was nowhere to be seen; the officer with whom I dealt said he'd been there all night and had gone to the Intelligence Division-his old stomping grounds-only minutes before my arrival. Greg was in his cubicle, however, sifting through a mound of paperwork. I went over there and tapped on the glass. He looked up and motioned for me to enter.

"You're here early," he said as I sank onto his visitor's chair.

"I could say the same for you."

"Been here since six. Pressure's coming down about these snipings. I hear you had quite an evening."

"McFate's already reported on the Grant case?"

He nodded. "And did a fair amount of grumbling about how my former lady friend had managed to foul up one of his crime scenes."

My face became hot with anger. "Damn him!"

"Consider the source." Greg harbored no more goodwill toward McFate than I did.

"I'd rather not." I dug in my bag, where earlier I'd placed the pouch containing the gun I'd found at Hilderly's flat. Greg raised his eyebrows when I set it on his desk blotter. Quickly I explained how I'd come to have it. "Could you ask the lab to bring out that serial number?"

"Why?"

"Knowing its history might shed some light on why Grant was murdered. Or even why Hilderly was killed."

Greg looked doubtful, but he merely nodded. "Okay, I'll send it down. I can't tell them to place priority on it, though."

"I don't expect you to. Another thing: may I take a second look at those files on the snipings?"

"Again, why?"

"I have a feeling there's something I missed the other day."

His gaze suddenly turned inward, reminiscent. "You remember when we first met, and I accused you in my sexist way of relying on woman's intuition?"

I nodded.

"You were fiddling with a hair ribbon you'd had on, and without noticing what you were doing, you twisted it into a little noose."

"That's right. I'd completely forgotten."

"Well, over the years I've come to realize it's just plain good investigator's instincts you rely on. And I've come to trust them, too. You're welcome to the files."

He picked up the phone receiver and asked that the files be brought in, then made arrangements to have the gun sent to the lab. "You can use my desk again," he added when he hung up. "I'm due in a meeting in fifteen minutes and probably won't be back until afternoon. If there's anything you need to tell me, call me then."

I watched him leave the cubicle, thinking that he looked not all that different from the man who had made me want to hang him in the old days. But underneath he had changed – become more mellow, plus a good bit sadder and more cynical.

Well, hadn't we all? I thought as I moved around the desk and took his chair.

When a clerk brought the files in, I began going over them in a great deal more detail than I had earlier in the week. This time I paid particular attention to the other three sniping victims.

The first victim – the restaurant employee – was Bob Smith. A common name – perhaps false. I noted it on my legal pad, put a question mark beside it. Smith's employment record was spotty: for the nine months prior to his death he'd worked in food preparation at a small pizza restaurant on Market Street; in the fifteen years before that he'd sporadically held various food-service jobs in Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix. His only long-term employment-from 1967 to 1973-was with American Consolidated Services of Fort Worth, Texas. I made a note to find out more about the company. Smith had lived alone in a rooming house in the Outer Mission; from police talks with the landlord and other tenants, the picture that emerged of him was of a loner, a drifter, a man without family and friends. Whatever I'd sensed I'd missed in the files did not have to do with him.

The second victim was a nurse, Mary Davis, birth name Johnson. Another common name. Davis had worked at Children's Hospital in Laurel Heights less than two months before she was shot while walking to her car on a quiet side street near the crisis clinic where she'd been on night duty. Before that she'd done psychiatric nursing at Letterman Army Hospital in the Presidio, and S.F. General, There was an eight-year period of unemployment after her 1975 marriage, and in 1983 she'd attended City College for additional training in the psychiatric nursing field. Before her marriage she'd been with the American Red Cross from 1968 to 1974. Davis's family and friends described her as a devoted wife and mother, good neighbor, and active volunteer for an organization providing counseling for AIDS patients.

I noted down several details about Davis, feeling an idea begin to take shape.

The third sniping victim, John Owens, was a veteran living on disability pay in a small home near the beach in the Outer Sunset. His wife and friends described him as the designated neighborhood repairman: he had a shop in his garage and was a genius with balky machinery. The fact that he was confined to a wheelchair due to injuries suffered in shelling near Saigon in 1972 didn't affect his ability to fix practically anything-

Vietnam again.

Hilderly had been there. So had Hank and Willie. And John Owens. All roughly within the same time frame. I checked my notes on Mary Davis: American Red Cross, 1968 to 1973. Had she also been over there? Bob Smith, too, maybe?

Embittered war protester knocking off veterans eighteen or so years after they'd fought their war? No. It sounded too much like the plot of a bad made-for-TV movie. Besides, Hilderly and Davis hadn't been in the military. And Hank wasn't what you'd call your typical vet. For that matter, neither was Willie.

I wished Greg were there so we could talk it over; he was good at sorting out the possibilities from the improbables. But he wouldn't be back until afternoon, and I had to be in Berkeley in less than an hour.

What I needed was more information. I picked up Greg's phone receiver and called Hank's flat; only the machine answered. The same was true at Willie's house. I got the number of his main store on Market Street from directory assistance. Willie wasn't there, either, but I finally tracked him down at the Daly City store, in conference with its manager.

I asked, "When will you be free?"

"Christ, McCone, I don't know. I've got a full schedule today, going round to the stores."

"Give me a time when you'll be back at Market Street."

"Five? Five-thirty?"

"Good. I'll see you then." I hung up before he could reply and called Ted at All Souls. "What's Hank's schedule today?"

"Let me-dammit, get down!"

"Ted?"

"I was talking to Alice. She just walked across my keyboard and screwed up the computer. Back, you beast!" There was a thump and a tiny, indignant yowl. "Now- what?" he asked. "Hank's schedule?"

"If it won't interrupt your parenting too drastically."

"Don't be sarcastic. You could have taken them off my hands, you know."

"The schedule…?"

"In court this morning. Back around two. Says he's going to clear up a few things and then go home early for a change."

"Okay, will you give him this message, please, and tell him it's urgent? I want him to meet me at Willie's Market Street store between five and five-thirty. Emphasize the urgent."

"Willie's, Market Street, four-thirty. That's so he'll get there on time; Hank, as you know, runs late. Will do, and I'll see that he follows through on it."

There are times when I thank whatever powers-that-be for Ted's calm efficiency. "Great," I said. "One more thing- is Rae in her office yet?"

"I think I heard her stumble in there about five minutes ago. Hold on."

When Rae picked up her extension, she sounded none too cheerful. "I just read about Tom Grant in the paper," she said. "Did you get involved in that?"

"I arrived right after the secretary found his body."

"They didn't mention you."

"Good. I'm notorious enough as is. Listen, I'll fill you in on it later. Do you have time to check into something for me this morning?"

"If it's not too complicated. My brain seems to be on hold. Okay, go ahead."

"I need to know about a Forth Worth, Texas, firm- American Consolidated Services. Specifically, what services they provide, and where. If you can get personnel to cooperate, ask about a Bob Smith who worked for them from nineteen sixty-seven to seventy-three."

"What's my reason for wanting to know about him?"

"Tell them employee background check. No, that won't work-they've been contacted by the police and whoever you talk with might remember he's dead. Well, think of something."

"Sure," she said, a shade glumly.

I scribbled a note to Greg, telling him I had a possible lead on the sniper and would be in touch later. Then I set off for the town that plays host to my alma mater.