Muller, Marcia - [11] Trophies and Dead Things(v1.0)(html) (26 page)

Of course I knew that the way
things
are
is an entirely different matter. All of those
should-nots happen, over and over again. As a people we profess to hold
lofty ideals— equality, peace, stop the killing, save the whales—but
given what I'd seen in my career, I'd begun to wonder how many of us
truly believe them. Or believe in their feasibility, the human animal
being what it is ...

The sky was lighter now, but the
fog showed no signs of lifting. I could make out the rocks where the
sea lions raised their heads and bellowed, but not the line of the
horizon. Although it promised to be a gray Friday, I kept sitting
there, waiting for some hopeful sign. After a while, when none was
forthcoming, I got up and took myself home for a couple hours of sleep.

My sleep was restless and when I
woke around nine, I felt even more depressed—
a
victim both of
the persistent fog and the dreadful events of the night before. Unlike
last Saturday morning, the dream I'd
had before waking came back immediately, with disturbing clarity.

I'd been seated among a crowd in
a large auditorium, and on the stage a distinguished man in scholar's
robes was giving out diplomas. Perry Hilderly stepped up to the podium,
dressed not in the traditional cap and gown, but in a glittering suit
of gilt armor. The man presented his piece of parchment, praising
Perry's intelligence. Then Perry faced the crowd and held the diploma
aloft; the parchment was tattered around its edges. Instantly I knew it
had been gnawed by rats.

As I recalled the dream, my flesh
rippled unpleasantly, and I drew my quilts higher against the chill in
the room and within myself. I ought to check my paperback on dreams to
figure out what this one was all about. But did I really want to know?

Fortunately I had little time to
dwell on dreams this morning. It was already late, and I wanted to call
the hospital to check on Hank. Then I needed to go to the Hall of
Justice and sign the statement I'd given Greg in the car the night
before; he'd said it would be ready by ten. And after that I wanted to
track down my private investigator friend, to see if he had indeed been
the one who looked into Jenny Ruhl's background for Jess Goodhue.

So many places to go, so many
things to do. So many ways to keep my mind off worrying about Hank.

Patient Information told me that
Hank was still in intensive care, his condition critical but stable.
That covered too wide a range of possibilities to offer me any
reassurance, so I tried unsuccessfully to reach Anne-Marie. No one at
All Souls knew any more than I did. In the end I set off for the Hall
of Justice in an apprehensive frame of mind, with a headache from too
little sleep and a case of the shakes from too much coffee.

McFate was not in the squad room,
even though his suit coat—a blue pinstripe today—hung on the foolish
little rack beside his desk. That, I thought, could be considered the
first positive circumstance of the day. I had nothing to say to the
inspector, but I was sure he would have had plenty to say to me—most of
it barbs about my abilities as a bodyguard, and none of it praise for
apprehending the sniper.

As promised, Greg had my
statement on his desk. I read through it slowly, made a couple of
changes, initialed them, and added my signature.

I said, "There it is, all wrapped
up. I kept thinking it had some connection with Hilderly and his will,
but it didn't."

Greg was shuffling papers, his
brow creased in annoyance, and didn't reply. I got up to leave.

"Wait a minute," he said,
motioning for me to shut the door.

I did so, then sat down again.

"How're you coming on the
Hilderly matter?" he asked.

"I located all the heirs, and
then one was killed—but you know that."

"Grant."

"Right. I told McFate I thought
there might be a connection between his death and Hilderly's will.
Didn't he mention that to you?"

"Only to say he'd found it wasn't
relevant. Apparently he's seriously looking at a couple of Grant's
clients." Greg paused, his frown turning to a scowl. "Brief me on what
you've found out about the heirs' connection to Hilderly."

I did, trying not to omit any
details, however tenuous. Greg made a few notes as I talked, then
studied them before speaking.

"Interesting thing," he finally
said. "That gun you brought in for identification—the lab called about
it yesterday evening. Technician who owes me a favor processed it on
overtime. I initiated a check on the serial number, and the
information's come back."

"And?"

"Gun's one of a half dozen that
were stolen from a shop in the Outer Mission in February of sixty-nine.
Four of them were found on the persons of a radical group that
attempted to bomb the weapons station at Port Chicago the next August:
Taylor, Ruhl, and Heikkinen. A fifth was used in the suicide of Ruhl
several months later."

I drew in my breath, let it out
in a long sigh. "And Hilderly had the sixth. I wonder if they actually
stole them?"

"Our data's not complete enough
to tell."

"Doesn't really matter. What I'd
like to know more about is that bombing attempt and the trial. FBI made
the arrests?"
 

Greg nodded.

"And it would have been a federal
prosecution. Probably it would be easier and quicker if I did some
library research than if I persuaded you to request information through
channels."

"That's really out of the scope
of your investigation for All Souls, isn't it?"

I shrugged. "It'll keep my mind
off worrying about Hank."

"Well, as long as you're
determined to research it, keep me posted. McFate's probably right
about Grant being killed by a disgruntled client, but I still don't
like him not following up on all lines of inquiry."

"And if he's wrong about it being
irrelevant, you'll use it as ammunition against him."

"Something like that."

"Well, I'd better let you get
back to work." I stood up and Greg walked me out the door. "By the
way," I added, "how did McFate take my collaring the sniper?"

"Not too well. Huffed about
civilians treading on departmental territory—as if it mattered
who
collared
him. Actually he seemed relieved that the Hilderly slaying was solved;
maybe he didn't completely believe in the lack of relevancy of that
will to Grant's death. And right after that he took off." Greg glanced
across the squad room, where McFate's suit coat still hung on the brass
rack. "Frankly, I'm getting annoyed at the way he keeps disappearing."

"Where do you suppose he is?"

"Not far away. Usually he puts on
his jacket just to go to the can."

"Well, I think I'll get out of
here before he comes back."

Greg grinned and went back into
his office. I rode the elevator down to the lobby and joined the line
in front of the bank of pay phones.

The lobby was crowded and noisy,
the sounds of footfalls and voices reverberating off the marble walls.
Cops in uniform passed by, going to the elevators or the Southern
police station, housed just
beyond the security station at the entrance. Attorneys in sober suits
and carrying briefcases strode toward the municipal courtrooms on the
building's eastern side. A poorly dressed man on the uncertain edge of
sobriety was eating a sandwich on one of the marble benches. The roles
of the other participants in the unfolding drama of justice were less
easy to define: Was the sharply dressed black man over by the
concession stand a pusher, pimp, or parole officer? Was the woman in
the smart black business suit a prosecution witness or a defendant
facing charges of prostitution? I spotted another woman with punked-up
purple hair wearing tattered jeans and a dirty T-shirt, and recognized
her as a nark Greg had once introduced me to.

As I waited for a phone booth to
free up, I shifted from foot to foot, listening to snatches of
conversation.

". . . Hon, I
to
le
you
we gonna get the bail money . . ."

". . . case has been continued
until next Thursday, so you'll have to shift my calendar around ..."

". . . Babe, it's me. If you get
home before I do, stick that roast in the microwave so it'll defrost
..."

". . . Can we still make the
early edition . . . ?"

When the man with the frozen
roast relinquished his phone, I stepped into the booth and dialed
Patient Information at S.F. General. No change in Hank's condition.
Then I called All Souls for my messages; there were three from media
people—none of whom was Goodhue. In light of the fact that she knew me
personally, I found it odd that the anchorwoman hadn't tried to contact
me for an exclusive story for one of KSTS's reporters on collaring the
sniper. Perhaps her resistance to turning the investigator's name over
to me had its roots in more than being too busy to look for it? But I
couldn't imagine what.

A fourth message, however, was
one I'd been hoping for—from Wolf. I dropped two more dimes into the
slot and punched out his office number. He
answered on the first ring.

"Well, Sharon," he said when I
identified myself. "What's up?"

"Do you recall a client named
Jess Goodhue? The TV news anchorwoman? The job would have been a
background check on her mother, Jenny Ruhl, a few years ago—"

"Sure I remember. What about her?"

"She's peripherally involved in a
case I'm working, and I need to take a look at your report on the
investigation. It's okay with Goodhue," I added, since I didn't really
know that it wasn't, "but she's been too busy to contact you, so I
thought I'd go ahead and request it myself."

"Funny."

"How so?"

"She called Tuesday morning and
asked for a copy of the report. Picked it up that afternoon."

So Goodhue, like Ross, had been
lying to me. But why didn't she want me to know she already had the
report? I said, "And now I'm unable to reach her. I know that
technically you shouldn't give me a copy without her permission, but
what are my chances of getting a look at it?"

"Depends. Why do you need it?"

I explained about the Hilderly
case, stressing our need to know that Perry had not been under duress
or undue influence at the time he made his holograph will.

Wolf said, "Well, I don't see any
reason why you shouldn't have a copy, since you say Jess Goodhue has
already agreed to that. I can't get to it until this afternoon, though.
If you want I'll drop it off at All Souls around four."

His mention of All Souls made me
realize that Wolf—who makes a point of avoiding the often depressing
contents of the morning paper—probably knew nothing about what had gone
on there the night before. By the time I'd finished telling him that
story, my rage at the sniper had been rekindled, and when Wolf
expressed his regrets about Hank being shot, I could hear some of
the same anger in his voice. Before I hung up, I thought to ask one
last question. "I don't suppose you recall what you found out about
Goodhue's mother?"

"Sorry, I don't. My memory isn't
what it used to be." I thanked him and hung up the receiver. The phone
booth was quickly claimed by a young woman with reddened eyes and runny
mascara. Someone had once commented to me that more tears must be shed
in the Hall of Justice than any other building in San Francisco—public
or private, and not excepting the funeral homes. I had never doubted
the truth of that statement.

By eleven-thirty I was seated at
a machine in a quiet corner of the microfilm room at the main branch of
the public library. Ghostly images flickered before me as I
fast-forwarded through the reels I'd requested, stopping at articles on
the Port Chicago bombing attempt and trial. When I'd checked the
various periodical indexes, I'd found that coverage had been extensive;
one of the national newsmagazines had even run a long piece on the
case: "Revolutionaries' Plot Runs Afoul of Government's Tough New
Stance on Violence."

What I gleaned from the article
jolted me. Taylor and Heikkinen had been sole defendants in the trial;
the government had asked for stiff sentences in order to make examples
of them for other would-be saboteurs, and each had received five years
in federal prison—Taylor at McNeil Island in Washington State, and
Heikkinen at a facility in Alderson, West Virginia. The crime of
conspiracy to bomb a military installation had held more serious
undertones than I'd originally assumed: had they been successful in
planting and detonating the bombs, their blast would have taken several
lives.

But what surprised me the most
was the identity of the prosecution's chief witness. Jenny Ruhl had
been the one to offer the particularly damning
testimony that the collective had "deemed the sacrifice of life
acceptable and even desirable, given the cause for which they were
fighting."

Libby Ross had told me that what
the collective mainly did was engage in endless intense talk; now it
seemed that the rhetoric had gotten seriously out of hand. Even though—
as the accounts of the trial pointed out—there were significant reasons
to doubt parts of Ruhl's testimony, it made me look at the affair in a
new light. If the members of the collective had been comfortable with
the concept of killing innocent strangers, what other crimes might they
have contemplated—or committed? If I kept digging, what else might I
turn up? And was that really necessary at this late date? There were
people who could be badly hurt: Jess Goodhue, D.A. Taylor's wife and
young children. Perhaps it would be kinder to let the past die, as most
of those involved in the case had.