Trophies And Dead Things

Twenty-Six

I left D.A. Taylor finally at peace on the slab on top of his island. Climbed back down, feeling sick, the lantern guttering and going out when I reached the easy section of the trail on the beach. There I rested until I heard the irregular stutter of the returning motorboat.

Ross was piloting it. I slogged through the shallow water and climbed aboard.

"D.A.?" she asked.

"Dead. He shot himself."

She compressed her lips, turned the boat around. I made no effort to speak to her on the return trip. When we reached the dock behind Taylor's, I jumped from the boat as soon as it bumped against the pilings.

"Wait!" Ross said.

I turned, looked coldly at her. "Before he killed himself, D.A. told me about the map you drew him. What did you do-go down to the city and case Grant's property before you sent D.A. out to exact revenge for you?"

The faint light from the restaurant's windows showed her face, surprise altering its set lines of strain.

"You knew what would happen," I added. "You're an accessory-more guilty than D.A., to my way of thinking."

"… What do you intend to do about it?"

"Nothing. You'd only cover up with more lies. Besides, enough people are going to be hurt by this without me compounding it."

She raised her hands, then let them fall limply to her sides. "Everybody I ever cared about is dead. Everything that ever mattered to me is over."

"And now you'll just have to live with what you did, won't you?" I strode up the rickety dock, away from her self-serving deceptions, out of her wasted life.

From the phone booth outside Nick's Cove I called the sheriffs department. Later, when I was finished dealing with them, I made two other calls.

The first was to Goodhue, relaying what had happened and saying that I would be able to leave her out of my version for the authorities. "There's something I want you to do in exchange, however," I told her.

"Certainly. What?"

"Since Taylor's dead, his share in the Hilderly estate will be divided between you and Libby Ross. The same with Tom Grant's. I want you to give the amount you receive beyond your original inheritance to Taylor's wife and children. They're going to need money to start a new life."

Goodhue agreed without hesitation.

Next I called Greg at home. I asked him to meet me at the Hall in an hour, said I wanted McFate there, too. Greg didn't ask many questions; he was used to peculiar requests from me and, besides, he probably relished dragging McFate out of whatever bed he might occupy at that hour on a weekend morning.

By the time I parked at the nearly deserted curb in front of the Hall of Justice my anger had built to full pressure and I was primed for a confrontation. As I passed through the echoing marble-walled lobby, I glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes to four on Saturday morning-a week after I'd become involved in the case that for me had stripped away what little remained of the mythic charm of the 1960s.

I still valued the legacy of those years. A war had been stopped, the will of the people had prevailed, society had been altered in profound ways. But there was a darker side to the legacy, and the personal cost had been high on both sides.

I'd been right on Monday night when I'd told Rae that what the sixties had been about was rage-but that was only part of it. What they'd also been about was the same as any other decade: winning and losing. Winning the war against communism in Southeast Asia; winning the war against the Establishment in the streets at home. Losing the country because it had become bitterly divided over the Asian conflict; losing yourself because the conflict in the streets had left you bitter, broken, alone.

That was another legacy of the sixties: trophies and dead things. Nets to catch the wind…

McFate was the first person I saw when I entered the squad room: standing near Greg's office, looking pressed and combed and clean-shaven, even on such short notice. He glanced at me-took in my mud-stained clothes and dirty face and disheveled hair-and sneered. The pressure of my anger soared, and then I totally lost it.

I strode over to him, put my grimy hands against his pin-striped chest, and gave him a shove. "You son of a bitch!"

Greg came to the door of his cubicle, eyebrows raised.

"You fucking pompous jerk!" I shoved McFate again, making sure I left a dirty handprint on the front of his pale blue shirt.

McFate shoved me back, said to Greg, "You saw that! She assaulted a police officer! What are you going to do about it?"

"Shut up, Leo," Greg said wearily. "Get in this office. You, too," he added to me.

McFate did an about-face and went in there, brushing fussily at his shirt. "I don't know why you let her get away with things like this," he told Greg. "If you ask me-"

"Nobody did. Sit down, Leo. Sharon, close the door."

I closed it, then moved the second visitor's chair as far from McFate's as possible, and sat.

"You could at least make her apologize," McFate said.

"Unfortunately, she's not very good at that." Greg turned to me; I could tell I was putting a heavy load on his patience. "Will you explain why this is necessary, please?"

I took a deep breath, gathering the vestiges of my shattered self-control. "The man who killed Tom Grant shot himself tonight-on Hog Island in Tomales Bay."

Slowly McFate turned his head toward me; his pupils narrowed to pinpoints. Greg merely waited.

I filled them in on what had happened, making it sound as if I'd gone up there on business about Hilderly's will and walked in on a family crisis. When I finished, I said to Greg, "That's one of the reasons I'm so pissed at him." I jerked my chin at McFate. "If he'd told me about Grant's early career as a federal undercover agent, I would have realized who had motive to kill him, and Taylor might not have died."

McFate said, "Doesn't sound as if he was worth keeping alive."

I turned on him. "Shut up, you! You don't know anything about… anything."

Greg sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Okay," I said. "I'm sorry. But he can be such a pain in the-"

"If I may be heard," McFate said. "I withheld that information for two reasons. First, I do not feel required to share the details of my investigations with civilians. And second, the identities and records of undercover agents are classified information. I was not provided with full details of Grant's activities, so I could hardly be expected to connect it with the other persons named in Hilderly's will."

Greg said, "He has a point, Sharon."

"Half a point. I mentioned the probable connection with Hilderly to him-and more than once. If he had followed up on that, shared what he knew with me… Just yesterday didn't you say it's making the collar that counts-not who makes it?"

Greg nodded.

"Then as a corollary, I'd say it's utilizing the available information that counts, not whether the information was uncovered by a civilian or a member of the department."

McFate said, "I still could not have been expected to make the connection-"

"I think you could have, given the other information you got from the Intelligence Division-but conveniently neglected to put in your reports."

McFate stiffened slightly. Greg leaned forward, interested.

I said to Greg, "Yesterday you also told me you were annoyed at how Leo kept disappearing."

"That's right."

"On at least one of those occasions-and I'm willing to bet quite a few others-he was over at his old detail."

"So?"

I glanced at McFate. He was sitting very still now.

"I suspect what he was doing there was going through back files on radicals they spied on in the sixties, looking for information on Hilderly and his other heirs-just in case the lead I'd given him was valid after all. One of the things he discovered was the circumstance that twenty years later caused Hilderly to change his will-which in turn triggered Grant's murder."

"Why did Hilderly change his will?"

"Hilderly was never a part of that collective, at least not in the sense its members thought he was. He was close to the people, and they assumed he was using his job as a reporter to further their propaganda efforts. What he was really doing was gathering information for a story, perhaps something along the lines of 'Inside a Weather Collective.' But when they began to formulate plans to bomb Port Chicago-plans that were certain to result in the deaths of innocent people-he became disillusioned and concerned."

McFate said, "Why would he? He was a radical. None of them cared-"

"Hilderly cared. He valued human life above anything. Even above his loyalty to his closest friends. I think he went to the ID-their activities were well known even in those days-and warned them about the bombing plans. He knew he'd done the right thing, but his guilt over the betrayal more or less soured the rest of his life. Then last May he ran into Tom Grant, who handed him an untrue story about his ruined life, and Hilderly decided to atone for what he'd done-by leaving money to three of the people he'd harmed, plus to the only living heir of the other."

Greg looked at McFate. "Is it true that Hilderly went to the ID, Leo?"

It was a moment before he replied. "Yes. I don't know about the business with the will; I don't know how she can surmise all that. But Hilderly did talk with the ID. They, in turn, contacted the FBI. When the Bureau got back to them, they said they already had the situation covered and that arrests would be forthcoming. Hilderly needn't have felt guilty about anything; he didn't even try to turn them in to the agency with jurisdiction."

McFate spoke as if what had happened was amusing-a joke that Hilderly had led a guilt-ridden life and then attempted to atone for something he hadn't actually done. I frowned at his callousness, saw Greg was frowning, too.

"How did you, put all that together?" Greg asked.

"I'll explain later." I was notgoing to tell him in front of McFate about my dream of the previous morning-the sly visual pun on the word "intelligence," in which a gilt suit of armor stood for "guilt" and a gnawed diploma indicated its possessor had "ratted on" someone.

"All right," Greg said. Then to McFate, "Why wasn't I apprised of any of this, Leo?"

"I didn't find it relevant-"

"Bullshit! The reason you didn't report it to me is that you were protecting your pals at the ID."

"Lieutenant, twenty years ago it was acceptable for the division to maintain surveillance on groups who could be deemed-"

"Yes. But it hasn't been acceptable since nineteen seventy-five, when the commission adopted rules against such activity. And recently the ID has taken a lot of heat for having ignored those rules. They like to maintain a low profile over there these days; I'm sure your pals made it clear they'd appreciate being kept out of something like the Grant case-even though their involvement was a long way back and very peripheral."

"I… well, I…"

"Funny thing about this, McFate: Sharon-this civilian-shared most of the details of her investigation with me. I knew a lot of the facts you didn't deem 'relevant.' If you'd reported properly, I would probably have worked out the solution to your case, and Taylor would still be alive." Greg was as angry as I'd ever seen him.

"Lieutenant, I-"

"Oh, get the hell out of here. We'll discuss it tomorrow."

McFate left the cubicle without looking at either of us.

"You know," Greg said when he was gone, "I'm pleased that one of my last official acts on Homicide will be making sure he's reprimanded for this. I damned well want it to go in his file."

"The captaincy came through, then?"

"They're announcing it Monday."

I felt an odd tug of sadness. "Congratulations."

"Jesus, you make it sound as if I'd just told you I had a fatal disease."

"Oh, Greg." I stood and moved toward the door, suddenly needing to be out of there. "It's only that it'll seem strange for you not to be here, where you've been ever since I've known you."

"Wherever I am, I'll always be there for you."

"I know, but… everything's changing." I actually felt as if I might cry.

As soon as I closed my front door behind me, I realized how weary I was-and that I was also coming down with a cold. I took a handful of vitamin C with a big glass of red wine, then showered and washed my hair and bundled up in my white terry-cloth bathrobe.

And thought, My God, I haven't checked on Hank in nearly ten hours!

I hurried to the phone, but before I could dial the hospital I saw the red light was on on my answering machine. Quickly I reached for the rewind button-five calls.

My mother: "Are you there? I read in the paper about Hank getting shot and you chasing after that sniper like a lunatic. Oh, Shari, why can't you get a decent job where you won't always be-"

I thought, Oh, Ma, I love you, too. And fast-forwarded through the rest of the message.

Luke Widdows: "I heard about the shooting. Are you okay? Call me anytime."

Jim Addison: "You didn't return my last call, but don't bother. I've been reading about you in the papers. You know, I always thought you were a gentle person like me, but this thing with the sniper… what you did was like police brutality. Sharon, you're just too violent for me. Violent women are unnatural-" The beep cut him off with a satisfying finality.

I smiled, remembering how I'd worried about Jim's potential for violence. Now he was put off by mine!

The fourth call was the one I'd been hoping for, Anne-Marie: "Well, God, he's okay. Surgery went fine. I think that on Sunday he'll be able to have a certain visitor he's already asking for. I'm going home to sleep now, so check with me sometime after noon tomorrow."

I stopped the tape, replayed the message. Hank was all right; soon I could visit him. I'd take him a stack of magazines, a care package from that bakery on Twenty-fourth Street whose blueberry muffins he so loved…

I'd almost forgotten that there was one more message. I switched the tape on. It was from George Kostakos.

I played it all the way through. Reversed the tape, listened to it again. His wife was fully recovered from her breakdown, and they'd begun divorce proceedings. She'd taken the Palo Alto house, and he'd moved to a condominium on Russian Hill. He still cared for me. If I felt the same, he'd love to see me. His new phone number was…

At first I felt a stubborn resistance. All those months he'd been silent, left me wondering where we stood, and now he thought he could simply walk back into my life. But then I felt a softening: it couldn't have been easy for him, either. Besides, on some level I'd always known where we stood, known he'd eventually return.

I pictured George: his rough-hewn face, his changeable hazel eyes, his gray-frosted black hair, his tall, lean body. I put my hand to my lips, imagining how it would be to see him after all this time. Imagining how we would be together.

The pain and anger and disillusionment of the past week fell away from me. Their vestiges would return, I knew. Bad memories would recur-probably for the rest of my life. But I would take comfort in moments like this, when I felt temporarily safe, warm, insulated. I stretched, yawned. What an embarrassment of riches I'd come home to!

Restlessly I moved about the silent house, testing the doors and windows, even though I knew they were all locked. I prowled through the parlor, straightening a book on the shelf, dusting a cobweb from the mantelpiece. In the kitchen I checked to see if the pilot light on the stove was lit. Snooped at the ice cubes in the freezer, felt the bread for freshness, looked to see if there were enough eggs for breakfast. But finally weariness drove me to the bedroom, where I dropped my robe to the floor and crawled naked between the sheets.

As I hugged my pillow and closed my eyes, I resolved to wake by noon and return four of the five phone calls. I would reassure my mother. Thank Luke Widdows for the information that had aided me in my investigation. Ask Anne-Marie if I couldn't visit Hank sooner than Sunday. And tell George yes, I felt the same, wanted to see him.

And after that I would initiate a call of my own. I couldn't go on fooling myself: it was high time I told Ted to drop Ralph and Alice off at their new home.