Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes (16 page)

I perched on the edge of the table, and he leaned against the breakfast bar as I went over the details. When I finished, he closed his notepad and slipped it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “That's good stuff. You think of anything else, be sure to let me know.”

I hesitate. The concept of a state supreme court justice ordering a professional hit might be farfetched, but my talk with Stameroff had bearing on Lis Benedict's final attempt to clear her name—and that attempt could possibly have led to her death. Withholding the details of my conversation with Stameroff would have been withholding evidence. “Bart,” I said, “there is something else,” and told him about the justice's visit to my house.

Wallace's expression grew very grave. When I finished he was silent for some time. “You've really handed me a can of worms, you know that?”

“Yes.”

He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose where they'd made deep indentations. “Christ, I hate these cases that turn politically sensitive! I'm going to have a talk with my lieutenant about his, and he'll have to go to the captain . . . Listen, Sharon, I want you to promise not to discuss this with anyone else.”

“Of course.”

“And lay off the investigating for now. You don't want to go stirring things up, even by looking into this old murder. Those . . . what was it Stameroff called them? Those ‘people who count' can play rough.”

I nodded and slipped off the table. My gaze rested on the outline of where Lis had fallen, and my eyes stung with tears. It didn't matter that I hadn't liked the woman; this was a terrible end to a terrible life.

Not much escaped Wallace; he put his arm around my shoulders and guided me toward the door. “If it's any consolation,” he said, “it doesn't get any easier for me, either.”

He and I spoke briefly with Jack. Wallace stressing that I was to put my investigation of the McKittridge case on hold. Jack was distracted, his mind on Judy. “It was a bad idea in the first place,” he said, and went to comfort her.

At home I brooded in what remained of the darkness. Brooded not only about Lis Benedict but about the other, living victims of the McKittridge murder. Brooded about all the victims I'd seen during my time in the business. About all the predators I'd seen do the victimizing. And about all the reasons why . . .

As the sitting room windows were taking on gray definition, the doorbell shrilled. I started, flooded with that uneasiness such untimely summonses cause. Went down the hall and peered through the peephole. My neighbor, Will Curley, a short-haul trucker whose route throughout the Bay Area took him away at all sorts of ungodly hours, stood on the steps. Under the bill of his Giants cap, his face was angry.

“Have you seen this?” he demanded as soon as I opened the door.

I stepped outside and looked where he pointed. The shingles on the front of my house were streaked with red; it had soaked in and bled, but I could still make out the words: DEAD WOMAN. Sprayed two, three . . . no, four times.

Numbly I touched the nearest patch of paint. Still tacky. Had it been done as I sat wrapped in an afghan on the sofa, or earlier, while I was at the murder scene? Or even earlier than that, while I slept? I could have missed it while leaving and coming home in the dark. I'd been upset and in a hurry, and the porch light had burned out the night before last.

Dead woman
. Me, if I didn't leave the Benedict case alone. I thought of Wallace's words: “Those ‘people who count' can play rough.”

Will was waiting for me to do something—scream, curse, cry, anything but just stand there. Finally I asked, “Do you know how I can get that off?”

He frowned, clearly puzzled by my mild reaction. “Probably you'll have to reshingle. Is this a job thing or what? The wife said a limo was hanging around here yesterday and that you were talking to a couple of guys in dark suits.”

I smiled weakly. “You've seen too many
Godfather
movies. The guy with the big car—it wasn't a limo—is on our side of the law.” Or at least he was supposed to be, I reminded myself.

“Then who did this?”

“I wish I knew.”

“You find out, come to me. I'll take care of him.”

“I'd rather you asked around for a cheap shingler.”

“I got a cousin in the building trades—he'll get you a good price.” Then Will peered at my face, checking to see if I was really all right. “Anything else you need, just give a holler.”

“Thanks, Will.” As he jogged down the block toward his truck, I felt a wave of gratitude for having found this oasis of neighborliness. Then I went inside and called Bart Wallace at his office.

“You remember something else?” he asked.

“No, but there's been a new development.” I explained about the graffiti.

“‘Dead woman,' “ he said. “I don't like that one bit. I've been in conference with my lieutenant for the last hour, and now he's with the captain, but my gut feeling is that I'm going to have to move slow on the Stameroff angle.” He paused. “Tell you what—I'll send a lab crew out there to take pictures and paint samples. Maybe we can get a match with the stuff at the Benedict's. You okay?”

“I'm not frightened, if that's what you mean. In fact, I'm starting to get really pissed off.”

Wallace was silent for a moment. “Sharon, why don't you go away for a few days? Memorial Day weekend's coming up. Have yourself a little vacation.”

“Why? I doubt I'm in any real danger.”

“You don't know that. Besides, you keep on getting pissed, it'll be the ruin of my case.” He tried to make a joke of it, but there was real concern for me behind the words. “Think about it, will you? There's nothing you can do here.”

“Bart, I do have other work besides the Benedict case.”

“Well, think about it anyway. If you decide to go, just let me know where I can reach you.” Abruptly he hung up.

As I ground coffee beans, I considered Wallace's suggestion. Leaving town seemed like running away, but on the other hand, I really couldn't do anything about the Benedict case or the graffiti. My remaining caseload was light, and I'd already requested this coming Friday off, so why not take a couple more days on either end of the long weekend? I could sort through the facts and my impressions of the case in a different environment; something might occur to me that would aid Wallace's investigation.

But
could
I leave, given what had just been done to my house? What if the perpetrator returned, wreaked even more costly havoc?

Of course I could leave. Through Wallace I could arrange for extra police patrols on my street; it stood to further his case if they apprehended the vandal. And Ted could be persuaded to periodically check on the house; he had a proprietary interest in Ralph and Alice—they'd originally belonged to his childhood friend, Harry, who had died of AIDS—and always fed them when I went out of town. Plus there were vigilant neighbors like Will Curley. Sure I could leave.

And there was an added factor that made the prospect of getting away attractive; I'd feared I was becoming obsessive about the McKittridge murder, and now I could feel the pull of that long-ago crime even more strongly. I needed to sort through not only the facts and my impressions but also my feelings. With distance, perhaps I could regain control.

After I'd finished my first cup of coffee, I made my arrangements. Then I called Hy. Said I needed to get away for a while. He heard the seriousness in my voice and without question told me he'd meet me at Oakland Airport in four hours. We'd fly over the Sierra Nevada. He'd take me to the Great White Mountains, where bristlecone pines, the oldest living things on the earth, grow. We'd watch the tule elk, the wild mustangs, the golden eagles. We'd make love under the black star-shot sky. We'd listen to the silence.

Uneasiness nudged me. I reminded him that I hated the oppressive silence of the mountains.

That was because I'd never really listened to it, he said. Once I learned to do that, the silence of the Great Whites would soothe me. Strengthen me, so I'd return home prepared to face whatever was driving me from the city.

I wasn't totally convinced, but I agreed and started packing. And realized I'd made all my arrangements without once doubting that Hy would fly here for me—just as he hadn't doubted I would fly off to the Great Whites with him.

In that moment I understood that we knew each other as fully as was necessary. There might be blanks and empty spaces in both our lives that we chose not to fill in, but what counted was the essence of a person, and almost from the first we'd instinctively grasped that.

On the way to Oakland I stopped at my office and destroyed the file labeled “Ripinsky, Heino.”

Flames flickering against rough stone, Hy warming his back as he sat on the raised hearth. Shifting light leaving his hawk-nosed face in shadow, playing on the dark blond hair that curled over the collar of his wool shirt.

I crossed the room, stepping over our joined sleeping bags, and handed him the beer I'd fetched from the ice chest. Then I placed my own on the rough pine floor and sat beside him, my thigh pressing against his.

“You've been awful quiet the last few days, McCone,” he said. “Come to any conclusions yet?”

“Some, but nothing major.”

He nodded, didn't press me.

We'd flown in the Citabria to a landing strip at the northern Inyo County town of Big Pine. There we had picked up supplies and a rental Jeep and driven along Death Valley Road into the Great Whites, to this two-room cabin belonging to one of the many nameless, faceless friends who owed Hy favors. We'd done all the things he'd said we would, and more. I'd learned to listen to the silence. This was our last night here; tomorrow—Wednesday—we'd fly to Oakland, and Hy would continue on an unexplained mission to San Diego.

“What about you?” I asked. “Are you ready to tell me why you're making this trip to my hometown?”

“I've got to talk to an old buddy about a business proposition he's made me.”

“What kind of proposition?”

“I'll tell you about it if it works out.”

“Something to do with the foundation?” Watch it, I warned myself; you're getting too inquisitive.

Surprisingly, he grinned, teeth flashing white under his droopy mustache. “No, you nosy person. To tell the truth, environmental work's kind of paled for me. Not the cause—the work itself. That foundation directorship my late wife so generously set up for me doesn't take half my time. As for the rest of it . . . maybe I'm just tired of getting busted to save the trees. The trees'll get saved sooner or later, but some kid with a good fund-raising apparatus and a PR firm, not by an old jailbird like me.”

The word “old” didn't fit him, but “jailbird” certainly did. I'd never known anyone who had done more jail time for more noble causes than Hy. “Sounds to me like you're getting restless.”

“That I am.” He glanced at me, frowned, then put his hand under my chin and tipped my face up toward his. “Look, McCone, I feel a change coming on. It's a good change, and a lot of it's due to you. But I've never been much of a talker, at least about myself, so don't rush me, okay?”

I let the subject drop. He'd tell me what he wanted me to know in his own good time, and in his own way.

The silence that fell was comfortable. Wind baffled around the stone chimney behind us. I shrank deeper into the luxurious warmth of my down jacket, conscious of the heat of Hy's thigh through my jeans. Minutes ticked by before he said, “You never called that cop back.”

I'd phoned Bart Wallace from Big Pine, to let him know I'd be incommunicado for a few days. Friday afternoon Hy and I had driven back into town for more supplies and spent the evening eating, drinking, and dancing at a country-and-western bar, but I'd made no effort to check in with the inspector. “No point in it. He wouldn't have gotten anything conclusive from the coroner's office or the lab yet, and the higher-ups had advised him to tread very lightly as far as the Stameroff angle is concerned. Treading lightly gets you nowhere with a bastard like that.”

“So what're you going to do? Let them cover it up, like they did thirty-six year ago?”

The question annoyed me. He should have known by then that I'd never been a quitter. This trip—my flight from the city and the case—was merely a respite. And part of the reason I hadn't called Wallace again was that I'd been playing for time, hoping that one nagging piece of information would shake itself free from the mass of useless data that we all carry in some remote corner of our minds. Something
had
been wrong about Lis's murder scene. Something . . . but I just couldn't grasp it.

Because of my irritation, my voice sounded sharp when I replied, “You're jumping to a conclusion, Hy. Stameroff may be just a concerned and overprotective father.”

He didn't react to my tone, merely said, “You know you don't believe that. Sure as hell he's covering something up, and take it from me, McCone, cover-ups are bad shit.”

I looked at him with interest, hoping he'd go on. We all knew cover-ups were bad, but Hy had spoken with a vehemence that was obviously born of bitter personal experience. He saw my expression, however, and his own became closed, guarded.

“Well,” I said after a moment, “cover-up or not, it isn't my case anymore.”

Hy pulled at his beer, looking thoughtful. “What is it with you, McCone? You're not afraid—not of the good Justice Stameroff or the scumbag with the spray paint. You're pissed off, but you're not afraid you'll lose control; you've faced that fear twice now, and you know you won't step over the line. So why the resistance? You could still research the old case for the Historical Tribunal. Nobody can stop you from doing that.”