Muller, Marcia - [10] The Shape of Dread (v1.0) (html) (44 page)

I could understand that, so I told him not to bother her. Then I
wandered around listlessly, thinking about Bobby Foster's plight.

Capital punishment was an issue on which I felt oddly ambivalent. I
agreed with the usual arguments against it: it hasn't been proven a
deterrent; it is used discriminatively against the poor and minority
group members; more than a few innocent parties have been unjustly
condemned and executed; and contrary to what its proponents would have
you believe, most methods of execution are neither painless nor humane.

On the other hand, the sight of a bloodied, broken victim of
violence called up a primal rage in me—an atavistic bloodlust that made
me want to exact the proverbial eye for an eye. I'd encountered enough
unrepentant killers to know that there were those who couldn't be
redeemed, certainly not in an overloaded penal system such as we have
in California.

I had to admit that there were instances when I'd subscribed to the
just-blow-them-away viewpoint.

As of today there had not been an execution in California since
1967. In the interim, some three hundred people, including my client,
had been sentenced to die in the gas chamber. Within the next couple of
years the legal carnage mandated by the reinstatement of the death
penalty would begin, and at that time I suspected that those of us who
were undecided would quickly have our fill of retribution. In my
rational moments, I abhor killing of any kind, so I knew which side of
the issue I would then champion.

To take my mind off that subject I went to the kitchen and put on
some leftover spaghetti to heat slowly. Then I gave in to the impulse
I'd been trying to resist, and looked at the video of Foster's
confession again. That depressed me thoroughly, so I gathered together
my notes and what files Rae didn't have and went over them, paying
particular attention to various "sightings" of Tracy that the
authorities had investigated before the bloodstained car had turned up.
As usual in missing-persons and kidnapping cases, reports from
individuals both sane and mad had poured in to the authorities. Most
had been easily dismissed as mistakes or outright fabrications, but
there had been two leads promising enough for the various law
enforcement agencies to commit themselves to a significant number of
man-hours.

A Walnut Creek woman had spotted someone strongly resembling Tracy
driving a car across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge at around
twelve-thirty in the morning after she was last seen at Café Comedie.
The informant had taken note of her because they'd gone to school
together at Foothill College prior to the woman's marriage and move to
the Contra Costa County suburb. She could say nothing definite about
the make or model of the car, however, nor had she noticed if there was
anyone with Tracy. East Bay authorities assisted in the search, but no
tangible evidence of
Tracy's presence there ever surfaced.

Another lead backed up the sighting on the bridge. A clerk in a
twenty-four-hour convenience store just off Interstate 80 outside of
Berkeley identified Tracy as having stopped and bought a quantity of
groceries at around one that morning. At first she'd thought she didn't
have enough cash to pay for them, and had asked if the store would
accept a traveler's check left over from a recent vacation in Hawaii
(where Tracy had gone with her parents for the Christmas holidays that
year). While she searched for the checks, the clerk asked her where she
had stayed in Hawaii, and she named the resort on the big island where
the Kostakoses had spent a week. Then she discovered she had enough
cash after all, paid, and left. Together with the first lead, this one
had seemed promising, but eventually the East Bay inquiry was
back-burnered.

I flipped through my legal pad to the notes I'd taken on the two
sightings. They both seemed significant to me, but I also had
questions, such as whose car Tracy had been driving. She hadn't owned
one, didn't like to drive. I supposed I could speak with the Walnut
Creek woman and the clerk—assuming either could be located—and see if
they could supply additional details, but that was an unlikely
possibility, given the passage of time.

Frustrated, I grabbed another legal pad and began making a list of
things for Rae to do on Monday—or more likely Tuesday, since January
second was the legal holiday.

1. Ask our contact at the realty co to pull credit rept on T.
Check for activ in chg accts aftr date of disapp. If we have a contact
at her bank (see my Rolodex) check for activ in accts there.

2. Call my friend at DMV & see about vehicles registrd to T.
Check
driving recrd for viols after disapp.

3. Call Mrs. K & get names of T's drs, dntsts. Ask if any reqs
for
med recs.

I stopped, chewing on the pencil top. Why on earth was I doing this?
Rae knew the elements of skip tracing, had probably gotten started. All
I had to do on Monday was tell her to look for Lisa Mclntyre as well.

Besides, I knew skip tracing wouldn't turn up anything on a woman as
bright as Tracy. If she were alive and unwilling to be found, she
wouldn't be using her own name. She wouldn't be stupid enough to use
her charge or checking accounts. She would long ago have acquired a new
identity. I would let Rae go through the motions, because it's always
wise to do so, but I was certain she would be wasting her time.

Finally I tore the list off the pad, balled it up, and tossed it on
the floor. For a moment I considered reading through the notebook of
character sketches I'd taken from Tracy's room, but decided to save
that for the next day. In case I was still unable to contact Marc
Emmons, it would give me something to do before I had to get dolled up
for New Year's Eve.

I put the files and the video aside, then dished up some spaghetti
and settled down with it and a tape of Airplane!— my all-time favorite
lunatic comedy movie and cheerer-upper. After a while, my fat old
spotted cat, Watney, came to sit on my lap, and together we whiled away
a few more hours of the waning year.

The shabby brown Victorian on the hill above Mission Street was
ablaze with light and awash with New Year's Eve revelers when I arrived
at nine on Saturday night. The living room chandelier and wall sconces
had been turned on, and for once all the bulbs worked; a fire crackled
on the hearth. I noted with amusement that someone had tried to
disguise the fact that most of the needles had fallen off the Christmas
tree in the window bay by draping it in extra tinsel. A bar had been
set up on the big coffee table; the punch bowl would surely contain the
bourbon punch for which I had long ago provided the recipe. I knew if
Hank had tinkered with it, it would be doubly lethal—and that the
coffee in the urn in the kitchen would be doubly strong.

The crowd was an odd mixture of All Souls clients, personal friends
of staff members, pillars of the local liberal establishment, and even
an occasional Republican. Across the room by the fireplace I spotted
Charlie Cornish, an antiques—well, really junk—dealer who had figured
prominently in the first major case I'd investigated for the co-op.

He raised his punch cup to me, and I waved. On the other side of the
room was my old friend Claudia James, who used to own my answering
service until it went bankrupt due to the increasing popularity of
answering machines. Tonight she looked prosperous in a dyed suede
outfit; it seemed to me that I'd heard she was now doing something with
computers.

I hurried upstairs to my office, dumped my coat and bag, then went
to the hall mirror and examined my appearance. The dress had been my
Christmas present to myself: red silk, long sleeved and low necked,
with a slightly flared, indecently short skirt. I'd piled my hair high
on my head, liberated my grandmother's garnet earrings from the
strongbox where I usually hide them, and put on a pair of high-heeled
black suede pumps. All in all, it was a far cry from my usual sweater
and jeans. Spiffy enough to make me feel hopeful. Maybe there would be
an interesting man downstairs—one who wasn't into Zen gun handling or
death. My "soul mate"? Well, at least somebody who could be taken out
in public.

Before I joined the party, I went to the kitchen to see if I could
help out with the food. Jack was there, arranging a platter of cheese
and cold cuts. His eyes brightened when he saw me; they moved from my
face to the dress's neckline to my legs. I gave him what I hoped was a
sisterly smile.

Ted was there, too, getting out more wineglasses and examining them
for those unsightly spots. "Love your dress," he said.

"Thank you. Where's yours?"

"Didn't come back from alterations in time."

I patted the sleeve of his burgundy velvet smoking jacket. "This is
more you, anyway."

I looked for the bread knife so I could start cutting slices of
sourdough, and saw Rae leaning against the stove, talking to a chubby
man whom I thought held some position in the mayor's office. She had
upgraded her fashion image tonight with a silk blouse and black skirt
splashed with red things that
were probably supposed to be cherries. I smiled affectionately as I
noted that there already was a wine spot on the blouse, and her shoes—a
pair of those spike-heeled, open-toed sandals that always look
tarty—were at least seven years out of date. When she saw me, she
motioned for me to come over, and the man excused himself.

"You look great!" she said.

"You too." She did—for Rae. "Did you get the room finished?"

"Sort of. It's not painted, and I've still got to do something about
carpet and a door, but I can start sleeping there tonight."

"Good for you."

Behind me Jack yelled for someone to get a move on with the bread.
Rae went over to the cutting board of the Hoosier cabinet, and I
followed.

"Listen," she said, "your friend from the DMV stopped by for a few
minutes a while ago. She had another party and said to tell you she's
sorry she missed you. But she brought the data I requested on Kostakos,
and I put it on your desk."

"You got her records pulled already?"

"I started the skip trace yesterday. Things were slow, so your
friend was able to speed it up."

"Anything there?"

"I didn't have the time to look."

"Well, thanks for getting to it so quickly." I'd been absolutely
right about not needing to make a list for Rae; she was turning into a
first-rate assistant. "I've got another person for you to trace, but
I'll go into it on Monday. If you're planning to work—it's a legal
holiday."

"I'd as soon work as anything else. By then I'll have done all I can
on the room, until I get some money."

"Good. Have you seen Hank and Anne-Marie tonight?"

A funny look came onto her face. "Hank's in his office."

"Where's Anne-Marie?"

"Home."

"Uh-oh. I better go talk with him." As I left the kitchen, however,
a loud whoop resounded at the far end of the hall. A tall, lanky man in
Levis, a leather vest, and cowboy boots charged at me, grabbed me by
the waist, and swung me high off the ground. Jack, who had been
following me with the plate of cold cuts, looked startled, then
chagrined.

It was Willie Whelan, a longtime client. Willie had once been a
fence, operating out of local flea markets, but he'd since gone legit,
as he put it. Now he owned a chain of cut-rate jewelry stores, the kind
that extend credit to anybody and charge usurious interest rates for
the favor. He even did his own commercials, and for a couple of years
now, I'd been accustomed to seeing him leering at me on late-night TV,
asking, "Need credit? Come to Willie's Jewelry Mart…" He set me down,
planted a big kiss on my forehead, and backed off to look me over. Jack
scowled and tried to edge around us, with no success.

"McCone, you look great!" Willie exclaimed. "Jesus, what's it
been—two years? Three? Got no call for your services now that I've gone
legit."

"You look great, too. But I've seen a lot of you lately."

"Yeah? How do you like those commercials? Clever, huh? The way that
happened, one day my ad man comes to me and says, 'Willie, there's not
a thing I can do for you that you can't do for yourself. You're a
walking advertisement for the Jewelry Mart'—this was when I only had
the one store—'and what I want to do is put you on TV.' Well, I thought
about it. This fellow owns the Diamond Center has had a lot of success
with it. So I said, 'What the hell, let's try it.' And we did, and it
worked, and now I've got seven stores all over the Bay Area."

"Excuse me," Jack said plaintively.

"And you know why it works?" Willie went on. "Sincerity. I love my
customers, every one of them. That comes through in the ads. They come
in, they got no credit, lousy credit, and I help them. Those
commercials? I write them myself. None of this speech writer crap like
the politicians. I just say what I feel, and the customers keep pouring
in." He winked at me. "And so does the money."

"Excuse me," Jack said again.

"Say, where can I get a drink around here?" Willie asked.

"Front room." I pointed.

"Think I'll go grab one. We got to sit down and talk later. I want
to know all about what's going on with you."

As Willie ambled back down the hall, Jack sighed in relief. I
stepped aside so he could deliver the platter, then went to Hank's
office and knocked on the half-shut door.

Hank sat tipped back in the chair in front of his roll top desk; the
room was illuminated only by his green glass lamp; his coat hung over
the head of his emaciated-looking cigar-store Indian. Recently he had
begun spiffing up the office, buying the desk and the Indian. It should
have been a good sign, indicating he was becoming less slovenly and
taking more pride in his surroundings, but I viewed it with alarm. The
improvements were a result of his spending more time there than at the
flat he and Anne-Marie owned in Noe Valley. He was also spending more
time at the Remedy Lounge on Mission Street, playing pinball and
drinking too much.