Muller, Marcia - [11] Trophies and Dead Things(v1.0)(html) (15 page)

"They're brother and sister, and
they get on. It would be a shame to separate them." Now Ted was
watching me hopefully. "Shar, maybe you could—"

"No," I said quickly. "I don't
want another cat."

He was silent for a moment, then
said, "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure."

"Are you kind of ... closing off
since George moved back to Palo Alto?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's none of
my business, really. Forget I asked."

"Ted, the only reason I don't
want another cat is that I'm not home very much. I can't care for a cat
properly. Wat was different—he was old and very independent. These are
kittens; they require a lot of attention."

Another tearing sound. "I know,"
Ted said morosely.

"Look, I'll ask around for you,
see if I can't find somebody who wants them."

"I'd appreciate that."

I got up and went to the door,
but before I opened it I asked, "What're their names?"

"Ralph and Alice."

"The Honeymooners.'"

He brightened some. "I'm glad you
knew that. Half the people I tell don't get it. It makes me feel
ancient. Sometimes I think I'm the only one
who remembers things like old TV shows."

"I remember," I said, and left
the room, shutting the door quickly against further feline onslaught.

Contemplation no longer seemed
possible, so I went downstairs and looked into Rae's office—my former
one, a converted closet under the stairs. The light was out and,
although there were papers scattered all over the desk, her coat wasn't
on the hook where it usually hung. Then I remembered the liquor-store
surveillance job; most likely she was still on it.

As I turned to go back upstairs,
Hank came through the front door, a sack from a tacqueria down on
Mission Street in hand. Seeing it made me realize how inadequate a
lunch was the chocolate bar that I'd eaten on the drive to Point Reyes.
"Working late?" I asked him.

"Yes. You?"

I shook my head. "I'm going home
pretty soon. Did you get a chance to draw up that document for Tom
Grant to sign?"

"It'll be on your desk in the
morning."

"Good. I want to talk with him
again, and that'll give me an excuse." Hank looked eager to go on to
his office, but I lingered in the hall, wishing he'd ask me about the
Hilderly case so I could put off departing for my empty, lonely house.

He noticed my reluctance to
leave, plus the way I was eyeing the tacqueria sack, and said, "You
want some of this? There's enough for two."

"I don't think I could take
Mexican food right now. And I shouldn't keep you from your work."

"Oh, come on to the kitchen with
me. Sit a spell, have a glass of wine at least. You can brief me on
Hilderly while I eat."

I followed him back there, mildly
embarrassed that he'd realized how needy I felt tonight.

For once, however, he didn't feel
called upon to dissect my emotional state. While I sipped chablis and
outlined what I'd found out about Hilderly
et al
., he ate two burritos, dripping salsa and grease all over
the table, then balled up the wrappings and tossed them at the garbage
bag under the sink. They missed and ended up next to it. Hank shrugged
and went to get some coffee.

"No wonder Anne-Marie can't live
with you," I said.

He grinned, plainly pleased by
his own slovenliness. "Speaking of Anne-Marie, did you know the police
dug the sniper's bullet out of one of her planter boxes on our porch?"

"No. When did that happen?"

"This morning. I read about it in
Brand Ex a couple of hours ago." Brand Ex is the local nickname for the
evening paper, the
Examiner.
"Looked like a three-fifty-seven
Magnum, and they were rushing the ballistics work on it. Bet it'll
match the others."

"You're pretty calm about all
this. Are you still convinced the sniping was just a coincidence?"

"I can't imagine any reasonable
connection." But his face showed strain as he started for the door to
the hallway, carrying his coffee.

"Hey," I said, "you didn't give
me any opinion on Hilderly." I'd posed the same questions for him as
I'd asked myself on the drive back to the city.

But Hank's thoughts were clearly
elsewhere now. He said, "I'm as much at sea as you are. Keep digging."
Then he pointed his index finger at me in a parting salute and went
down the hall.

I sighed and contemplated my
empty wineglass. Even though Hank had more pressing matters on his
desk, he could have . . . what? Did I want him to speculate on the case
with me, help me try to puzzle it out? Or did I really want him to keep
me company, hold my hand? What the hell was wrong with me, anyway? I'd
always been self-sufficient, enjoyed my own company, even been
something of a loner. Why this recent urge to surround myself with
people? I'd never felt it before.
 

But that was before you knew
George Kostakos, my inner voice said. That was before you started to
fall in love with him.

"Shut up," I told it, and went to
get more wine.

After a while Larry Koslowski
came in with Pam Ogata, our newest associate and, like Larry, a
specialist in commercial law. We chatted for a while about Pam's
difficulties in finding a decent apartment, and pretty soon she and I
ransacked the refrigerator and made ourselves sandwiches out of various
leftovers—amid much dire warning about potential health hazards from
Larry. Then Pam—who was staying with friends who had small kids and
thus spent as little time there as possible—remembered they were
rerunning
Funeral in Berlin
on Channel 44, and we went to the
parlor to watch it. It was after ten when I finally left. Rae hadn't
yet returned from the surveillance job, and the light still burned in
Hank's office.

The fog was thick again, dimming
the light from the windows of the other houses that clustered around
the small triangular park that fronted All Souls' shabby brown
Victorian. I paused on the steps, buttoning my jacket and turning up
its collar. And as I did, a feeling stole over me—uneasy, strong. The
feeling that someone was watching from somewhere in the misted darkness.

Come on, McCone, I thought. More
urban paranoia? But after the events of the previous night, anyone
would
be paranoid.

I stepped back into the doorway,
looked around, and listened for a time. The little streets that
converged on the side of the hill were relatively quiet. Traffic noises
and salsa music drifted up from Mission, and an occasional car drove
by. Someone had a stereo turned up too loud, and from behind me I could
hear the mutter of the All Souls TV. A man trudged uphill, pulling a
handcart of groceries from the nearby twenty-four-hour Safeway. A
couple strolled downhill, holding hands. It appeared to be just another
Bernal
Heights weeknight,
the mostly
peaceable, law-abiding citizens easing out of their daily routines,
getting ready for sleep.

Even so, when I finally left, I
hurried down the steps. As I moved toward the corner where the MG was
parked, I kept close to the buildings, enveloped in protective shadow.

By morning the fog had retreated
to sea, leaving behind one of those glorious sun-washed days that make
me recall just why it is I've chosen to live in San Francisco. The blue
skies and temperate breezes cheered me, and I spent the hours before
noon performing routine chores, plus exercising my supervisory skills
by listening to Rae's exuberant and oft-repeated account of yesterday's
exploits.

It seemed she'd gotten lucky her
first day on the job and had delivered photographic evidence of the
liquor-store clerk's thieving to the client, who in turn had contacted
the police. To hear Rae tell it, her keen wits and talent had been the
prime ingredients in this coup (she made no mention of sheer good
fortune), and she was at any minute to be inducted into the Detectives'
Hall of Fame. Since I was in a good mood and also remembered the thrill
of my own first success in the business, I listened patiently and made
appropriate congratulatory noises, then ended up treating her to lunch
at her favorite bistro on Twenty-fourth Street. It wasn't until we got
back to All Souls at one-thirty that I was able to turn my attention to
the Hilderly case.

Jess Goodhue hadn't yet
arrived at KSTS, and of course the TV station wouldn't give out her
home phone number. When I called directory assistance for the number of
Taylor's Oysters, I was told it was no longer in service. Finally I
phoned Tom Grant's home office and asked Ms.Curtis to schedule an
appointment so Grant could sign the document renouncing his share in
the Hilderly estate. She put me on hold, and then Grant came on the
line. He was booked solid for the day, but said he could see me that
evening.

"What time?" I asked.

"I have a dinner with a client
and then an appointment for an interview. Make it around nine, and I'll
give you a drink and show you my studio."

I hesitated. The invitation held
a seductive note that I didn't care for. Then I decided I was behaving
too much like a Tennessee Williams heroine, seeing a potential
debaucher behind every tree, and agreed to the appointment.

As I hung up the phone Ted
entered the office and placed a pink message slip on my desk. Gene
Carver, Hilderly's former boss at Tax Management Corporation, had
called over the noon hour. When I called back, Carver was available and
agreed to answer a few questions.

"I'm interested in
a
seminar
you required Perry to attend in late May—possibly one with a
motivational slant."

"Motivational?" Carver sounded
amused. "I don't think so. The only seminar I recall last spring was
the one on taxation problems associated with divorce. Big gathering
cosponsored by the bar association and the California CPAs Foundation
at the Cathedral Hill Hotel on the last weekend of the month. I went.
So did Perry and two of my other accountants."

That
was what had
promised to change Hilderly's life, as he'd told his son Kurt? An
unlikely topic. Unless . . . "Do you recall if a divorce attorney named
Thomas Y. Grant participated?"
 

"Sure. Old friend of Perry's, it
turned out. Ran one of the workshops."

"Grant and Perry were friends?"

"Apparently they went back a long
way. At first they didn't recognize each other; then they both seemed
surprised and confused. But Perry spoke with Grant at the morning
break, and later I saw them having lunch together at Tommy's Joint."

"Did Perry say anything about
Grant to you?"

"As a matter of fact, he did. Let
me see if I can remember it right." Carver paused. "This was when the
afternoon session broke. What he said was that Grant was a man who had
made a great deal out of an essentially ruined life. That struck me as
an odd assessment, seeing how much the man's worth. I asked Perry what
he meant, but all he said was that he felt sorry for Grant, because he
could see a lot of himself in him."

"And that was all he told you?"

"I didn't pursue it; the session
was about to resume. And frankly, until now I'd forgotten about it."

I thanked Carver and jotted a few
notes on a scratch pad after I hung up. In no way could I imagine how
Hilderly could have considered Grant's life "ruined." Nor could I
understand how he could have seen himself in a semi-ethical attorney
whose hobby was making things out of dead animal parts. Of course, I
hadn't known Hilderly and the way his mind worked; even those who had
been part of his life hadn't mastered that.

After a few minutes I got up and
wandered downstairs to Hank's office. I stopped in the door and asked,
"By any chance did a call from D.A. Taylor's wife get routed to you
instead of me?"

He shook his head. "I need to
talk with her when she does call, though, so be sure to pass her along
to me."

"If she calls. That damn Harley
probably didn't give her the message. That means I'll
have to drive all the way out there again."

"You sound out of sorts. What's
wrong?"

I shrugged. "Afternoon malaise, I
guess. You know what I just found out? Hilderly and Grant were old
friends." I related what Gene Carver had told me.

"So Grant lied," Hank said. "He
must want to cover up the association very badly to toss away a quarter
of a million dollars."

"Yes—and I intend to ask him why
when I take that document for his signature tonight." I paused,
glancing at a stack of magazines that threatened to spill off the
corner of one of Hank's filing cabinets. "One more question, and then
I'll let you get back to work. That magazine that sent Hilderly to
Vietnam—what was its name?"

He frowned.
"New . . .
something.
Something relatively conservative, for a Movement publication.
New
. . .
dammit, I hate it when something's right on the tip of my
tongue like this!" He shut his eyes, concentrating fiercely. When he
opened them, he said, "Ahah!
New Liberty."