Muller, Marcia - [11] Trophies and Dead Things(v1.0)(html) (55 page)

"Because by then Andy Wrightman
was long gone. It was . . . as if he'd never existed. "Her fingers
moved clumsily with the bridle, her hands shaking slightly; she had
difficulty getting the tongue of the buckle through the hole.

"He was Jenny Ruhl's lover back
in Berkeley, wasn't he?"

"One of them."

"Was he Jessica's father?"

"God knows. For a while there
Jenny was fucking a lot of guys. But yes, he probably was. The timing
was right."

"Did Andy Wrightman run off when
Jenny became pregnant?"

"Yeah."

"What do you know about him?"

Ross hoisted the saddle onto the
pinto, positioned it, and squatted to buckle the girth. Her voice was
muffled when she said, "Virtually nothing. He was a ... nobody."

"Any idea where he was from?"

"No."

"It's my guess that he was from
somewhere in the Southwest, and that he came back to Jenny—at least for
a while, and as late as sixty-nine."

Ross straightened, her face
red—whether from exertion or anger, I couldn't tell. "For God's sake,
where do you
get
these ideas?"
 

"Jenny's daughter tells me that
her father came to see her with her mother once, when she was four
years old. That would have been in sixty-nine. The man wore a string
tie, as many people from the Southwest do."

Ross seemed to find that amusing.
She chuckled and said, "All sorts of people wear string ties—including
tourists who buy them on vacation. And as for Jenny's daughter, I don't
know anything about her other than that she existed."

 "And you know
nothing about Andy Wrightman?"

"I told you, he was a nobody,
a
nothing."

 "It's funny: when I went
to see D.A. the other day, I
described Tom Grant to him, same as I did to you. You know what he
said?"

"Where D.A. is concerned, I have
no idea."

"He got very excited, said,
'Wrightman!'"

 Again Ross bit her
lip, then gave me a long, measured look. "I have to ride over to see
the neighbor who runs cattle on my land. I want you gone by the time I
get back. And don't come again."

"I need to ask—"

"No more questions. I told you
before: it's an old, sad story, and I don't want to talk about it. I've
said far too much already."

"D.A. came to see you yesterday
afternoon. What was that about?"

Her eyes narrowed as she mounted
the pinto. "I suppose Mia told you that?"

"Yes."

"She would. Mia's young and
insecure. She can't understand what D.A. and I have . . . had. So she
puts the easiest interpretation on it and is jealous. Every time he
takes off, she thinks he's coming here. But he doesn't. I haven't seen
him in a good long time, and I don't expect him in the foreseeable
future."

Abruptly she turned her horse and
urged him into a trot. I watched as she took the trail under the
trees—not toward the ranch of the neighbor who
contracted to run the cattle, but toward Abbotts Lagoon and the
seacoast.

When she was a fair distance
away, I went over to the barn. Inside I could hear sounds of
activity—the kid she'd mentioned who cleaned the stalls. Ross had
neglected to lock the tack room; I went in there and retrieved the
medallions from where she'd tossed them on the desk. Then I began
looking around.

There was a calendar blotter on
the desk, with notations in its squares of upcoming pack trips and
rentals. Next to it was a phone and a neat stack of periodicals such as
Horse & Rider.
The center desk drawer held the usual
assortment of pens, pencils, and paper clips; the deep bottom drawer
contained files. In the one above it were blank checks, envelopes, a
ledger, and a box of business cards. But toward its back, in a separate
compartment, a framed photograph lay face down.

I took the photo out and found it
was a color shot of Ross, Hilderly, Taylor, and a woman whom I first
mistook for Jess Goodhue. They were grouped on the wide stone steps of
some building—I thought it might be Sproul Hall at Berkeley. While
Ross, Hilderly, and the other woman were seated, D.A. stood behind
them, one arm raised in a clenched-fist salute. Ross didn't look much
different than she did today; Hilderly I recognized easily from the old
photos I'd seen in his albums. But Taylor was another man entirely: his
stance was aggressive and proud, his eyes burned fiercely. Seeing all
that intensity, however poorly preserved on film, made me understand
how D.A.'s internal fires could have flared out of control and burned
themselves out in the bitter aftermath of failure and imprisonment.

The other woman was such a mirror
image of Jess Goodhue that I knew she had to be Jenny Ruhl. She'd
passed on her elfin facial features to her daughter, and her hair—while
long and straight—had the same dark sheen. Next to Hilderly's and
Ross's lankiness, she was tiny and compact, also like Goodhue. But
while she
smiled brashly at the camera, her eyes held none of the uncompromising
quality of Jess's. While her daughter's photos impressed the viewer as
direct, Ruhl merely looked tough and defiant. I suspected the
difference was in their upbringings: Ruhl was from a wealthy family and
probably had had everything handed to her; Goodhue had had to rely on
her natural strength to survive.

I stared at the photograph a
while longer, wondering whose eye had been behind the camera's lens.
Wondering why Ross had framed it and kept it all these years. And
wondering about the disparate reactions of these four people to the
cataclysmic events of the late sixties.

According to Luke Widdows,
Hilderly had become so deeply disillusioned with the cause the others
were fighting for that he set off on a trip halfway around the world in
search of the truth—and then retreated into an emotional void for the
rest of his life. Ross's silence about Port Chicago led me to suspect
she'd been in on the bombing attempt and served time in prison herself.
But after that she'd made a life for herself—albeit one that she'd
hinted was at best only a life "of sorts." Taylor had been broken by
prison—turned into something far less than a functional human being.
And Ruhl? She'd shot herself.

What fundamental flaw had caused
the crack-ups of Ruhl and Taylor? What made Ross and Hilderly
survivors— however wounded? Taylor claimed he'd never been a strong
man, but I suspected the crucial difference had less to do with
strength than with flexibility. The eucalyptus trees that formed the
windbreaks on this headland looked strong, but in a bad storm they were
easily torn apart or uprooted. Conversely, the relatively
delicate-looking cypresses could bend to the ground and live on, bowed
and warped as they might become.

Finally I replaced the photo in
the drawer and left the tack room. The air had grown chill; high wisps
of fog drifted in from the coastline. I looked
toward the sea, along the path that Ross had taken. And saw them, on
the edge of the lagoon.

Ross sat on the pinto, and a
denim-clad man with long black hair who surely was D.A. Taylor stood
beside it. Ross leaned down toward him; Taylor had one hand on her
shoulder. For a moment they spoke, their faces close, and then Taylor
raised his other hand and pulled her head even closer. In spite of the
distance, I could tell there was no resistance on Ross's part when
their lips met.

I bought a sandwich and a
bottle of Calistoga water at a deli in Inverness, then drove down the
road and parked by the salt-marsh wildlife refuge to eat a late lunch
and think. The white cranes were there again—half a dozen this time—and
the sight of them standing placid among the reeds soothed my anger at
Ross's deception and put me in a cooler frame of mind.

Actually I wasn't so much angry
at Ross as I was at myself. In the course of my work people frequently
lie to me—sometimes for no better reason than that they think they
should
lie to a detective. I should have been more on my guard with Ross,
pressed harder about what now appeared to be her ongoing relationship
with D.A. Taylor. But the interview had been valuable nonetheless: I
now knew about the Port Chicago bombing attempt—a crime that would
doubtless be well reported in back issues of area newspapers. And I
also had a few ideas about the man called Andy Wrightman.

When I arrived at KSTS-TV at
about four-thirty, I spotted Goodhue driving into the parking lot in a
little yellow Datsun. I beeped the MG's horn
and followed her, pulling up behind her rear bumper. She got out of the
car and waved at me.

"I know what you want," she
called, "but I don't have it for you. I had a late night, then an early
breakfast with some people from a charity benefit we're cosponsoring,
and
then
a luncheon speech for Women in Communications. I'm an
hour late and running ragged and hoping I can make it through until
it's time to rest between broadcasts."

She did look tired—not totally
exhausted, but red around the eyes and hollow in the face. Her staccato
chatter made me wonder if she'd been taking uppers to keep going. I
said, "Jess, I wouldn't bother you if this wasn't important."

Her mouth tightened, and I caught
a hint of the testiness that she'd displayed with her co-workers Monday
afternoon. "We all have our priorities," she said, "and mine is to make
it through the day without screwing up our newscasts."

"I thought you wanted to find out
about your father, about Perry Hilderly's reason for naming you in his
will."

She shrugged and began walking
toward the rear entrance to the studio. "Frankly, I've decided it's not
all that important. I was right when I burned that detective's report;
the past is dead, and I ought to be getting on with my future."

"Does that mean you won't look
for the investigator's name?"

"Jesus!" She turned toward me,
her irritation plain now. "I said I would look for it when I have the
time. I
do not
have the time today. Besides, there probably
wasn't anything valuable in his report; he was just some big Italian
guy with a crummy two-man office on the edge of the Tenderloin. For all
I know, he was incompetent."

Unwittingly she'd given me
something to go on. Except for the "incompetent," the man she described
sounded suspiciously like an investigator friend I call Wolf. But it
was strange that a newscaster wouldn't have remembered his name right
off; Wolf—a nickname
I'd long ago derived from the press claims that he was "the last of the
lone-wolf detectives"—has had more than his share of publicity, and
fairly recently.

It was for that reason—plus the
fact that I'd been lied to by one of the other heirs earlier that
afternoon—that I concealed my satisfaction with Goodhue's revelation
and merely said, "I'll call you later."

Willie Whelan's flagship jewelry
store was situated on the south side of Market Street between Seventh
and Eighth— an iffy location at best, and one that had reaped little
benefit from what city planners are fond of calling "the Renaissance of
Market Street." All the rebirth is going on further downtown, where
high-rises have mushroomed and cautious shoppers now venture into what
used to be a minefield in the war between the haves and the have-nots.
Willie's block remained largely unchanged: street people pushed grocery
carts loaded with all their belongings; winos sprawled on the benches
that were part of the beautification project; merchants hawked cut-rate
wares from sidewalk bins; private security guards were stationed at
most of the doorways.

When I entered the store at a few
minutes after five, Willie was already there, extolling the merits of
a
ring with the world's tiniest diamond to a young Asian couple. He'd
point to it and then gesture expansively; the couple would look at one
another and nod dubiously. Then he'd enthuse some more and they'd nod
again, a little more firmly. When both nodded decisively, Willie
flashed his most sincere smile of congratulation and whipped out a
credit application from under the counter. As the couple began filling
it out, he gave me a victory sign.

"Is Hank here yet?" I asked,
casting a sympathetic glance at the latest victims of Willie's
salesmanship.

"He called, said he'd be a few
minutes late."
 

"Just as well. I need to make a
couple of calls of my own."

"Use my office—you know where it
is."

"Thanks." I skirted the central
counter where he stood and went through an opening in a smaller counter
that bordered the showroom on three sides. Numerous customers—none of
them terribly solvent-looking—leaned over its displays of watches and
charm bracelets and pendants and birthstone rings. On the other side of
the counter was a door; beyond it lay the stockroom and Willie's office.

My first call was to Wolf, but I
reached only his machine. That was no surprise; he and his partner
spent more time in the field than at the office. I left a brief
message. Next I called All Souls and caught Rae just as she was on her
way out.

"Oh, good," she said. "I've got
the information you wanted on American Consolidated Services. They're a
government contractor that operates restaurants and cafeterias for the
military on bases all over the world."