Muller, Marcia - [11] Trophies and Dead Things(v1.0)(html) (45 page)

Finally—in order not to dwell on
the events of the night before—I began to work through the other files:
telephoning, checking and rechecking facts. When my intercom buzzed for
the first time that morning, I was surprised to see it was nearly ten.

"Tracy Miller on line three," Ted
said.

"Thanks." Tracy is my friend at
the DMV, who—in exchange for lunches, dinners, and an occasional free
ticket to a play or a concert—cuts the red tape by running names
through her computer for me. I punched the flashing button. "Hi, how
you doing?"

"Better than you, I'm sure. That
was a hell of a thing you were involved in last night."

The
Chronicle
had been
full of news of the city's apparent fifth sniping this morning, and
Willie's picture had been prominently featured on the front page. "Sure
was. I'll tell you all about it the next time we get together."

"Good. Listen, your assistant's
on another line, and since I know this information's for you, I thought
I'd pass it on directly. We show no driver's
license or vehicle registration for David Arlen Taylor, but I came up
with an address on Libby Heikkinen Ross. Post-office box in Inverness
over in West Marin, and an address on Pierce Point Road there."

I took them both down and
reminded Tracy that I owed her a dinner for various favors done over
the past couple of months. She promised to check her calendar and call
me back on the weekend. After I replaced the receiver, I swiveled
around and stared out the window at the gray-shrouded flat-lands.

I knew Inverness, more or less.
It was a picturesque country town with a population of no more than a
few hundred, nestled between heavily wooded hills and the marshes of
Tomales Bay, not far from the Point Reyes National Seashore. One of its
chief attractions was a Czechoslovakian restaurant where a former
lover and I had taken refuge during a downpour one long-ago October
night, warming ourselves by the woodstove and drinking slivovitz with
the proprietor. In a place like Inverness, Libby Heikkinen Ross would
not be difficult to locate.

I swiveled around again and
dialed Rae's extension on the intercom. When she answered, I asked,
"How's Willie this morning?"

"I was just talking to him. He's
so pleased with his newfound celebrity that he's even forgotten his jaw
hurts. KPIX is sending somebody out to interview him for the six
o'clock news, and I think he's having visions of stardom."

"God forbid that his head should
get any more swelled. Look, I've got an address for Ross over in West
Marin, so I'll probably be gone for most of the day. They didn't have
anything on Taylor, but I want you to hold off on checking
out-of-county Vital Statistics; there's a chance Ross might know his
whereabouts."

"I guess I'll just cover here,
then." Rae sounded disappointed at not getting out of the office. "Only
for a while. I need you to finish up a background
investigation I've started for
one of Larry's clients. But then we've got a surveillance job, starts
at noon when the subject comes on shift at Lloyd's Liquors. I'll drop
both files by your office on the way out."

"A surveillance job? For
me?"
Now she sounded elated.

I knew how she felt. The prospect
of a drive to West Marin had raised my own spirits measurably.

The western part of Marin
County is a world in itself, a spectacularly endowed strip of coast and
countryside that has as yet managed to escape the ravages of industrial
growth, overpopulation, and tourism. Much of this has to do with the
weather, which is often foggy and cold; other factors are the sluggish
economy and lack of jobs, coupled with the long, inconvenient commute
across the ridge of hills that separates West Marin from the rest of
the county. The presence of some sixty large dairy ranches guarantees
that a good deal of acreage will be devoted to agricultural use; the
Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area
further ensure that much of the land will remain as it was when the
Miwok Indians roamed it, before the Spanish incursions of the early
nineteenth century.

Up to now my experience with West
Marin had been of the ordinary tourist nature: picnics at the Seashore,
a tour of the Point Reyes lighthouse, oysters at Nick's Cove, Sunday
drives on two-lane roads through the dairylands, and—of course—the
Czech restaurant. I'd even once spent the night at the Olema Inn, a
former
stage stop in a hamlet of less than one hundred people, but by and
large my knowledge of the area was gleaned from newspaper features and
the California history course that every public-school student is
force-fed before graduating. Although I'd heard tales of insularity and
occasional hostility toward strangers from east of the hills, I'd had
no direct experience with it, nor had I had any real personal contact
with the residents.

I drove out that day on a country
road that crested White's Hill beyond Fairfax. The topography was
softly rolling, with frequent outcroppings of gray rock that rose like
cairns from the sun-bleached grass. Gnarled live oak clustered in the
gullies or stood lone and wind-bent on the hillsides. At Olema the road
crossed Coast Highway One and continued toward Inverness.

The highway skirted the marshland
at the southeast end of Tomales Bay. Although it had been sunny and
warm in what I thought of as Marin proper, fog hung still and thick
above the tule grass; it lurked in the hollows of the heavily forested
hills, and I caught the smell of woodsmoke from the fireplaces of homes
that were occasionally visible through the foliage. Buckeye trees were
in full pink bloom, and wildflowers and white anise grew along the
sides of the road. Buildings appeared here and there—a grocery, a
pottery studio, the ubiquitous antique stores and real-estate offices.
A sign indicated a salt-marsh wildlife refuge; when I looked toward it,
I saw a trio of white long-necked cranes standing placidly among the
reeds.

After a few miles I reached
Inverness itself: a post office that shared a pale blue Victorian
building with a pizza parlor; the Czech restaurant and a couple of
other small eateries; a few shops that seemed mainly designed to cater
to the tourist trade; a Chevron station. I pulled into the station, got
out of the MG, and located a man in a heavy plaid jacket who was
staring glumly under the hood of a beat-up Toyota. There were cables
attached to the car's battery, but the meter on the
recharging machine indicated nothing was happening. The man turned away
with a discouraged shrug and saw me.

"Help you, ma'am?"

"I hope so." I held out a piece
of paper on which I'd written Libby Ross's address. "Can you tell me
how to get here?"

He studied it, frowning. "Don't
go much by house numbers out there. Who're you looking for?"

"Libby Ross."

He smiled; from the way it
touched his eyes, I could tell he liked the woman. "What you want is
Moon Ridge Stables. Stay on the main road here, follow it along the
water and up the hill past the sign for the Seashore. A ways beyond
that the road'll fork; you keep to the right—that's Pierce Point.
Libby's place is just this side of Abbotts Lagoon— four, maybe four and
a half miles. Big place down in the hollow, with cypress all around it."

"What is it—a riding stable?"

"Sort of. Libby rents horses to
tourists, leads pack trips to the Seashore." His expression sharpened
with small-town curiosity. "Guess you don't know her personal."

"Not yet. Thanks for the
directions." I smiled at him and went back to the MG.

As instructed, I continued along
the road. It hugged the shore of the bay, where there were cottages
with long docks extending out into the gray, choppy water. I saw a
motel, a yacht club, a barbecue restaurant, and a rather bizarre house
with turrets that reminded me of a Greek Orthodox church. Then the road
began to wind uphill through a conifer forest; I swerved sharply coming
around a curve, to avoid a pair of joggers. Shortly after the sign for
the Point Reyes National Seashore appeared, the road forked; Pierce
Point veered to the right, toward McClure's Beach.

Within a mile the countryside
flattened to dairy graze. Cows stood in clumps or stared stupidly at
the road through the fences. Vegetation became sparser—mainly yellow
gorse and flowering thistles. The
land stretched toward Wuffs that overlooked the distant sea and bay,
its barrenness broken only by clusters of ranch buildings. Although I
encountered a few bicyclists and several other cars, the desolation
overwhelmed me, flattening my spirits; I wondered what this place would
be like in the dark of a moonless night.

When I'd traveled a little under
four miles, I came to a sharp bend in the road and caught my first
unobstructed view of the Pacific, breakers crashing onto a sand beach.
A backwater extended inland, cut off now at low tide. Its motionless
surface mirrored the somber sky. Abbotts Lagoon, I supposed.

I came out of the hairpin turn
and pulled into an overlook. Below me the land dropped away steeply,
then sloped gently to the lagoon. Tucked into a hollow between two
cypress-covered knolls was a collection of buildings—white, and small
as toys from this vantage. I drove about twenty yards further before I
spotted a weathered sign for the Moon Ridge Stables. A rutted dirt
driveway led away through the pastureland.

I followed it, avoiding the
deeper potholes. As I neared the first grove of cypress I saw a long,
low house tucked under them, its paint mostly scoured off by the
elements. The drive continued through more pastureland, and then I came
to a paddock where a half dozen motley-looking horses huddled by an
empty feed rack; beyond it was a weathered barn and various other
outbuildings. Two heavily bundled riders straddled a pair of pintos
directly in front of the barn door, and a woman squatted beside one,
checking the saddle girth. When she heard my car, she glanced over her
shoulder at it, then went on with what she was doing. All I could make
out about her was longish curly dark blond hair.

I brought the MG to a stop next
to the paddock's rail fence. When I got out, the wind buffeted me,
strong and bitterly cold even in this protected place. The woman
straightened, wiping her palms on the thighs of
her faded jeans. After a few words with her, the riders started off
toward a bridle path that snaked under the trees in the direction of
the lagoon.

The woman turned and came toward
me, moving in a long, athletic stride. She was tall and rangy, with a
generous mouth and startling violet eyes. Although she was only in her
forties, her skin was as weathered as the paint on the barn, but the
lines and furrows gave an odd attractiveness to what otherwise would
have been a plain face.

"Hello," she called in a husky
voice. "What can I do for you?"

I moved around the MG. "I'm
looking for Libby Heikkinen Ross."

The woman slowed, a wariness
entering her eyes. "That's me."

"You the owner?" I gestured
around us.

 "Owner and sole
employee, unless you count my worthless
stepson and the kid who cleans out the stalls." Her tone was friendly
but guarded. She stopped, folding her arms across the front of her blue
down jacket.

I went up to her and handed her
one of my cards. She studied it, then said flatly, "Is this about
Dick?"

"Dick?"

"My stepson, the useless little
bastard."

"No." A sudden blast of cold
air rushed down from the knoll
behind us, whipping my jacket open. "Is there someplace warmer where we
can talk?"

She nodded curtly and led me
toward the barn. There was a shed attached to one side of it—a tack
room. Saddles rested on pegs along three walls, bridles and halters
hanging from hooks above them. Each was labeled with an individual
horse's name: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Moliere. Ross obviously
had a literary bent.

A bench ran along the wall next
to the door, a wooden desk wedged into the corner. Ross scooped a pile
of saddle blankets from the bench and motioned for me to sit. A
tortoiseshell cat that had been
sleeping behind the blankets looked up in mild annoyance.

As I sat, Ross took the desk
chair for herself, propping her sneakered feet on the blotter. The
tortoiseshell recognized a cat lover and jumped into my lap. It curled
into a ball, the purr motor starting immediately. I stroked it, feeling
vaguely ill at ease—unwilling to awaken the old feeling of comfort that
a cat in the lap engenders.

Ross said, "So what is it?"

"Do you know a man named Perry
Hilderly?"

Her reaction was totally unlike
Goodhue's or Grant's. Surprise spread across her face, mingled with a
bittersweet pleasure. "Yes," she said eagerly. "What about him?"

"He died last month."

The pleased expression faded. ".
. . I didn't know that. How?"

"He was killed by a sniper, in
San Francisco. Haven't you seen anything about the random shootings in
the papers or on TV?"

She shook her head. "I don't have
a TV, and I don't take a paper. Suppose that sounds strange in this day
and age, but when I came out here I wanted to keep the rest of the
world at bay. So far, I've pretty much succeeded."