Looking for Yesterday (18 page)

“Good.” I began to pace off the four-and-some yards that Nina Weatherford had drawn on the cocktail napkin. “The opening to it must be right around here.”

Mick made a growling noise. “Why didn’t you tell me to dig there in the first place?”

“I had to be sure.”

He moved and began digging again. After a moment he grumbled, “You didn’t need me for backup. A man with an aching back is more like it.”

He flung more earth over his shoulder, and I could’ve sworn he was trying to scatter it over me, but I didn’t complain. Frankly, I didn’t blame him.

After several more minutes he said, “I think I’ve found the end of the drainage pipe,” he said. “I’m gonna go down and clear it.”

He dropped into the hole he’d made, and I heard him grunting as he pushed the earth around.

When he spoke again, his voice was strained. “Shar, there’s something blocking this pipe.”

“What is it?”

“Looks like an aluminum wine cask.”

“Can you get it out of there?”

“I don’t know.” More grunts and a scraping noise. “It’s really heavy.”

“Can you boost it up here?”

“No way. It’s heavy as hell. Must be full of rocks or something.”

Not rocks. Human remains.

The true Kayla Walden. The one with the trust fund that couldn’t be altered. The wife Dave Walden had replaced with someone named Valerie.

Dave Walden: the man who’d killed Caro on my front steps; the man who’d set my house on fire.

The fury that had been simmering in my gut spread through my entire body; my skin felt hot, then cold, then hot again. There was a faint roaring sound in my ears as I pulled my .357 from my bag.

“Shar?” Mick said. “What’re you doing?”

I didn’t answer, just started walking toward the road.

“Shar?”

“Call the county sheriff’s department.”

“But, Shar…?”

“I’m going up there to get the son of a bitch who torched my home and tried to kill me.”

“Shar!”

I kept going.

10:01 p.m.

I was so angry that I didn’t take a circuitous route to the Walden house—just stomped up the driveway, past the tasting room, to the front door. The lights inside were muted, Walden and Valerie already in bed, maybe.

Some internal governor told me to calm down, think this through before I acted. I switched it off and pounded on the door.

Silence. Then shuffling sounds. As the knob turned, I raised the .357.

Dave Walden’s face looked out over the security chain. He registered surprise when he saw the gun, then tried to shut the door. Savagely, I kicked it open, breaking the chain. He stumbled back, caught himself, started toward me. I pointed the gun at his head, my finger tight on the trigger. That stopped him. I stepped into the house, shut the door behind me.

“What the hell’s the idea—?”

“Shut up, you bastard. Where’s Valerie?”

“Who?”

“You know damn well who she is. The ringer you brought in to replace Kayla.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“I found the wine keg where you buried it beyond the drainage ditch. And we both know what’s inside it. A simple DNA test on the real Kayla’s remains…”

Fear twisted his features. I saw his body tense; he took another step toward me.

“Stand still!”

“You won’t use that gun,” he said.

“Try me.”

Walden stopped again, jammed his hands against the sides of his head as if he were trying to crush it. “I didn’t kill Kayla, she killed herself. All I did was hide her body in that keg.”

“How did she kill herself?”

“Gunshot. She was always unstable, showed suicidal tendencies. Finding out about my affair with Amelia put her over the top.”

I half believed him. “How’d she find out?”

“Followed me. Then followed Amelia. She shot Amelia, but she couldn’t live with what she’d done.”

“So when you found her dead you put her body in the cask and brought in Valerie so you could continue benefitting from Kayla’s trust fund. Who is Valerie?”

“An old friend of Caro’s and Amelia’s from school. She was hard up, had just gone through a divorce and lost her job. I thought of her because she really resembles Kayla.”

“Where is Valerie now?”

He moved his hands in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know. She took off after your first visit. The threat of exposure wasn’t worth the money I’d given her, she said.”

“The threat of being accessory to murder, you mean. Did Valerie know you killed Caro when she called you about the letters from Amelia she’d found, and said she was taking them to me?”

“No, Valerie didn’t know anything about that. And that’s not how it was, anyway. Caro tried to sell the letters to me. She gave me twenty-four hours to come up with a hundred thousand dollars, and said if I didn’t she’d take them to you. As if I could get my hands on that kind of money! I drove down to the city and followed her. I didn’t mean to kill her, I just wanted to get those letters out of her hands. She fought me, the envelope tore and the papers blew all over. A car was coming up the street, so I grabbed what papers I could and ran.”

“But not before you bludgeoned her.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

They never
mean
to kill their victims.

And Caro probably hadn’t thought she was doing anything wrong in attempting to sell the letters. In fact, she’d felt entitled; her stupid, greedy blackmail attempt was her last chance to grab the brass ring that had eluded her all her life.

“So you got the evidence. I was no threat to you any more.”

“I didn’t know what the papers I lost were or how much Caro’d told you. And then you showed up here, asking about my connection to her, talking to that old drunken geezer, Weatherford. I saw your car at Russ Hewette’s place too. You were getting too close. I had to do something.”

“Yeah, you fucking piece of shit, you set fire to my house.”

Panic surged in him, made him reckless. He lunged sideways, grabbed a table lamp and started to swing it at my head. I had no choice then—I shot him in the thigh.

He collapsed, clutching his leg and rolling around in pain, cursing me between groans and sobs.

I looked down at him, hating him and asking myself why I hadn’t shot to kill.

Because I’m done with killing. It’s too much of a drain on my spirit, my soul, whatever that thing is that supposedly lives inside all of us.

3:00 p.m.

M
y parents,” Rob Warrick said, “are unavailable—once again.”

He, Patty, and I were seated around the oak table in the conference room next to my office in the RI building. The table was a treasure from the days when it had sat by the window in the All Souls kitchen—the site of card and board games, friendships, agony, soul-searching, and—occasionally—love. Unlike my chair, it would never be refurbished; too much of our lives had gone into its scars and stains.

I wasn’t surprised that Betsy and Ben had declined to attend this meeting, but I asked, “What was their excuse this time?”

“That Caro had ruined their lives anyway, and they didn’t want to hear how you’d exonerated her once and for all of Amelia’s murder. Besides,” he added with a wry twist of his lips, “they’re off on a tour of China.”

I glanced at Patty, saw the hint of a smile. Maybe now, with the help of her brother—who had decided to move in with her and see that she took care of herself—she might eventually learn to laugh.

Rob asked, “You talk with the authorities up in Sonoma County?”

“Yes, they confirmed that they’d found human remains in the wine barrel and would be performing forensics tests to make sure they were of the real Kayla Walden.”

“God.” He shuddered. “That’s got to be the ultimate in disrespect—putting your wife’s body in a wine barrel and burying it in a drainage ditch. Does ATF think Walden killed Green too?”

“I’m not exactly in their confidence but no, I doubt it. One of their agents did tell me they apprehended the men who searched Jake Green’s home while Mick and I were there. They were partners in his arms-smuggling scheme. Green had held out a key piece of equipment from them—a sophisticated type of detonator—but wherever he was keeping it, it wasn’t in the house.”

“But they didn’t kill Green; he was already dead when they got there.”

“Right. Green was probably killed by somebody else involved in one of his illegal schemes. They’ll eventually find out who it was.”

Maybe. Or maybe not. Doesn’t really matter. Whoever killed Jake Green did the world a favor.

1:43 p.m.

H
ere’s a place that looks interesting,” Hy said.

“Hmmm?” We were taking a day off: we’d slept late and now were reading last Sunday’s newspaper in bed at the RI hospitality suite; he was into the house ads and I was into the car ads.

“Victorian home, Noe Valley.”

“Where in Noe Valley?”

“Twenty-Fourth Street.”

“Garage?”

“Um…no.”

“Too congested for on-street parking.”

“Right.”

I asked, “What do you think of a Corvette?”

“Too low-slung. They ride like skateboards. It’d ruin our spines.”

“Yeah, and when the fiberglass shatters, you’re looking at huge repair bills.”

“Another BMW?” he suggested.

“Maybe, but I don’t like the new ones as much as the one I had, and I do want a brand-new car. Something sporty and fun to drive, before I get too old to enjoy it.”

“You’ll
never
get too old for that.”

The phone rang, and I picked up. Deputy Ortiz in Sonoma County. He said they’d begun testing on the human remains in the wine barrel and had come up with preliminary evidence that they were Kayla Walden’s, based on dental records and jewelry. DNA testing to confirm the identification would take longer.

“What?” Hy asked when I hung up.

“The remains in the wine barrel apparently are Kayla Walden’s.”

“What about this Valerie Benbow? Have they located her?”

“Not yet, and neither has Mick. She’s probably going under a different name in a different part of the country by now. But eventually they will. She’ll testify against Walden and get off with a slap on the wrist. In a way, I feel sorry for her.”

“Why?”

“She’s one of these small-time con artists who thought she had a toe through the door into the good life, probably imagined she could charm Dave Walden, but his kind aren’t susceptible to being enchanted.”

“Well, greed drives people to stranger acts than that. Like Walden: he would’ve lost everything under the terms of Kayla’s trust.”

After a moment I said, “There’s still a problem about a highly sophisticated detonator belonging to Green that’s gone missing.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

“Oh?”

“It’s been in my office safe since the day after Green died. Mick gave it to me.”

“He found it?”

“Yeah, while you were upstairs in Green’s house. It was in the basement room where the firearms were.”

I recalled my nephew holding up something that looked like a flash drive for a computer and saying,
Decoding device. Something I whipped up in my spare time.

“So he didn’t actually have this creation that unlocks security systems?”

“Sure he does. But most of that stuff he can do on his own.”

“The little shit! Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

“He suspected what it was and was afraid that if he gave it to you, you might set it off.”

“But why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because nobody in my organization really knows how it works, any more than Mick does. We’re holding it for the feds—who probably won’t know either.”

“God. I probably
would’ve
set it off. I’m sorry I called Mick a little shit—don’t tell him.”

“My lips are sealed with duct tape.”

We both contemplated our want ads in silence for a moment.

“You know,” I said, “there’s a real irony in this case.”

“What’s that?”

“It all centered around the issue of gun control, yet in the end I had to use my gun to stop Walden.”

“But you used it responsibly, in self-defense. People who are empowered by the law to carry guns for professional reasons—”

“Aren’t always responsible. The federal probe last year of the cops who were using their exemptions to buy assault weapons for resale to arms dealers proved that.”

“The probe resulted in crackdowns. Slowly, we’re gaining ground.”

“Too slowly for me.”

Hy went back to the want ads. After a moment he said, “Now here’s a property for us: Lake Street, corner lot, three stories, exceptional details. Brown-shingled. I know you love brown shingles.”

“Mark it,” I told him. “You know, the Mercedes S-Class models look good.”

“Pricey, though.”

“Not really. You should see what they’re asking for one of those asshole-creating machines.”

“Porsches? You’d never buy one, anyway.”

We continued perusing the ads.

Hy said, “Here’s an even better one. Another corner lot, but in the Marina. Two stories, four bedrooms, three baths, two-car garage, quiet block.”

“I’ve always loved the Marina, but think what happened there during Loma Prieta.”

The October 17, 1989, quake, measuring a major 6.9 on the Richter scale, had toppled many residences in the Marina, and the ensuing fires from broken gas lines had swept through the district.

“Could happen anyplace in the city,” Hy said. “Anyplace in the country. Hell, they just had a big quake in Indiana. No point in spending your life worrying about the what-ifs.”

“You’re right, no point at all.” Homes in the Marina had been rebuilt, retrofitted against another disaster. Other precautions—utility systems, home foundations, fire department response times, and seismic monitoring—had been upgraded.

I looked back at the car ads: Audi, Chevrolet, Nissan, Toyota, Volvo… All models of all makes were making me crazy. I dropped the pages to the floor.

“McCone, this house is open today from two till five.”

“Is it affordable?”

“Yes.”

“Four bedrooms. One for us, two for our offices, one for guests. Is there a picture?”

He showed me.

“Too grainy. Can you pull it up on the laptop?”

He did. “Oh, yes, it’s great,” he said as he passed the machine over to me.

Spanish style, red-tiled roof. Hardwood floors and fireplaces. Newly remodeled kitchen and bathrooms. A pretty landscaped backyard with a garden gnome. Usually I hate them, but I could see myself sticking a Santa cap and glittery garland around it at Christmastime.

I said, “Two to five. Let’s get up, go out to brunch, and take a look at it.”

He turned to me and smiled. “This reminds me of when I changed the plane’s course for Reno and we got married.”

“It’s much the same—a turning point.”