Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes (26 page)

“We all have a choice.”

“If I do, then I fail to see it.”

We sat silent for a moment, sharing the one thing we had in common—our sense of impending ruin. Finally, surprisingly, Stameroff offered me his hand. “I don't suppose we'll have occasion to speak again.”

“No, I don't suppose we will.”

I got out of the car and watched it inch away along my narrow congested street. Then I went about my self-appointed rounds.

The morning had downed foggy, and like any true San Franciscan, I felt a measure of relief. Long warm stretches are just not natural for our city by the bay; when one continues for more than a few days, memories of the strange mugginess preceding the quake of ‘89 surface, and we tend to become jumpy and short-tempered. As I waited beneath the closed clamshell dome of the Institute for North American Studies building, I actually enjoyed watching the gray salt-laden moisture stipple its curved glass.

Leonard Eyestone was late for our ten o'clock appointment. After twenty minutes I stood and moved restlessly about the lobby. To the far left of the reception desk was a recessed hexagonal area that reminded me of an apse in a church. I went over there and found a small photograph gallery with a cushioned bench in its center.

The photos depicted events in the history of the Institute: furnishing being moved into the Seacliff house: Russell Eyestone accepting a plaque from John F. Kennedy; the ground-breaking here on the Embarcadero; opening ceremonies for the new building. Most of the others showed men at lecterns—delivering speeches, accepting awards, shaking hands with public figures. I recognized one I'd seen on microfilm at the library of the Eyestones with John Foster Dulles. In yet another, of a head table at a banquet, I found an attractive young Lis Benedict. I stepped closer and studied the man to her right. Vincent Benedict had been good-looking in a dark, dissipated way; the camera had caught him in what I assumed was a characteristic pose, cocktail glass halfway to his lips. All the photographs, even the recent ones, were stamped in their lower left-hand corner with a silver signature: Loomis.

“Ah, there you are.” Leonard Eyestone had come up behind me.

I turned. He was impeccably clad in gray pinstripe, but his face looked puffy, his protuberant eyes tired. We shook hands, and he motioned at the bench.

“If you don't mind, we'll talk here,” he said. “My office is in chaos. We're getting ready for a press conference, and for some reason my staff are convinced that reporters notice such details as dust.”

“Press conference? About what?”

“A major new contract—quite a coup. A five-year, sixty million dollar study of the religious right, with emphasis on their disruptive tactics and potential for undermining established social institutions. If our findings are as we expect, we'll also develop the frame work for a teaching apparatus—public seminars, lectures on college campuses—to educate citizens to the inherent dangers.”

“This study is funded by the government?”

“Department of Health, Education and Welfare.”

“I'm surprised the present administration would take off after the religious right.”

“Why? The administration is concerned with stability. The religious right are extremists, have been known to be a source of embarrassment in the past. They're capable of doing incalculable harm to the conservative position.”

I could see his point; as a liberal, I too was concerned about the rise of the religious right. But government funding of a study obviously designed to control them smacked of the same sort of intolerance displayed by those who would outlaw abortion, forbid the teaching of evolution in the schools, and ban books that did not agree with their own narrow outlook.

“This study is a far cry from the contract you people announced the night Cordy McKittridge was murdered,” I commented. “From taking off after the far left to talking off after the far right is a long way to come in only thirty-six years.”

“Ms. McCone, we are not ‘taking off after' anyone. Nor have we ever done so. We are merely contracting with the government to determine the facts of the situations we study.”

“And after you issue your reports, you don't care how they're interpreted? How they're used—or against whom?”

He sighed, as if weary of trying to explain a simply concept to a slow child. “That's right. We're merely contracting to gather information and apply objective analytical techniques.”

“And you have no personal stake in the outcome?”

“Personal stake? No. Now, if you're asking me if I have a personal opinion, that's something else entirely. I believe that all forms of extremism have negative effects on our society. But if we can contain them, channel them, they can be used for the public good. In the case of this study, if we can objectify and quantify the religious right—in layman's terms, find out what makes them tick—we can neutralize their undesirable effects while utilizing those that may bring about greater stability for American society as a whole. It's what we should have done with the Communists and the Vietnam War protesters.”

Now I felt uneasy. “You mean use them without their being aware of it?”

“Essentially.”

“To preserve the status quo?”

“To improve it.”

“But to preserve the position of those currently in power?”

“Well . . .” He shrugged.

“To discourage change, unless it's government-mandated?”

“For the greater good.”

Troubled, I looked around at the photos on the walls surrounding us; they were stark testimony to the Institute's alliance with those in control at any given time. Too much power was contained here in Eyestone's shrine to the intellect. Too damn much power that could be used—abused—to ride roughshod over the rights of the largely powerless individual.

Eyestone said, “You don't like the concept.”

“It takes me back to Big Brother.”

He made a dismissive sound. “Fictional nonsense—and badly outdated. My point is that extremism has no place in modern society. Terrorists, mass murderers, protester of every stripe: we can't afford rampant individualism anymore. Nor can we afford unplanned societal change.”

I'd seldom felt so entrapped by an argument, and I sensed it was structure to accomplish just that. Eyestone had presented me with a thorny dilemma: on one hand, I abhorred terrorists and murderers as much as I did protestors who resorted to mindless violence or intimidating tactics. On the other hand, when he spoke of curtailing the rights of individual . . .

“What place would First Amendment freedoms have in this scheme of things?” I asked.

“They're vastly overrated. You're politically naïve if you believe they actually exist anymore.”

“I'm not as politically naïve as you think. What you're talking about here is an oligarchy, where only those approved by the few in power would be granted the right to register an opinion. It hasn't quite come to that yet.”

Eyestone's lopsided face skewed in a smile. “Oligarchy! Why, Ms. McCone, I had no idea your vocabulary was so extensive!”

“Why, Dr. Eyestone, one can't help but pick up a few four-syllable words at Berkeley. But to get back to what we were talking about—do your colleagues here at the Institute share your personal opinion?”

“To varying degrees.”

“And has that always been the Institute's political stance?”

“You mean, of course, was it the stance at the time of the McKittridge murder? More or less.”

“The intellectuals of the cold war era were a fairly conservative breed?”

“Yes, with the exception of a few household names—C. Wright Mills and Erich Fromm, for example. There were a number of reasons for that, from the dramatic—fear of HUAC and blacklists—to the mundane—enjoyment of postwar prosperity. Both were operative here at the Institute. We're a privately held corporation, founded and built by my father. We rely on our contracts for our profit, and the contracts come from the government and big business. Surely you can understand the implications of that?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You sound disapproving, fitting for one who attended Berkeley and picked up those four-syllable words.” He smiled as he spoke, as if trying to take the edge of the conversation. “Now what else can I tell you about my organization?”

“I'd like to talk about Cordy for a minute. How long had you been romantically involved with her before she broke it off?”

He seemed surprised at the change of subject and had to think for a moment before he replied, “About two and a half years.”

“She was only a high school girl when it started?”

“Cordy was never o
nly
a high school girl, and she could be very . . . persuasive when she saw something –or someone—she wanted. In hindsight, I realize I seemed sophisticated to her, and of course the clandestine quality of the affair was titillating. Also, it didn't hurt that I had a good deal of money of my own and stood to inherit more, as well as control of the Institute.”

“You say the affair was clandestine. I thought you brought her around to Institute parties.”

“As a friend of the family, a surrogate older brother, might.”

“So few people knew you were seeing her?”

“Only her younger friends—Louise Wingfield, for example.”

“You saw Cordy at the apartment in North Beach, then?”

“Ah, you know about that?”

“Louise Wingfield told me. Did you know Melissa Cardinal?”

“Was she the little blond flight attendant? I saw her occasionally.”

“What about her stepbrother, Roger Woods?”

Eyestone frowned. “I don't recall any brother.”

“Stepbrother. He lived in the flat with Melissa before the others began contributing to the rent.”

“Then I couldn't have known him, could I?”

“I guess not. But you may have a chance to meet Melissa if you accept the invitation I'm here to extend.”

“And what is that?”

I explained about the Historical Tribunal calendaring the mock trial for the weekend and added, “Since Justice Stameroff is participating, I thought it would be interesting for all of you who testified at the original trial to be there. And Melissa Cardinal, even though she wasn't actually a witness.” I doubted Cardinal would accept my invitation, but I'd decided it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Eyestone thought for a moment. I waited to see if my blatant appeal to his vanity would work. Finally he smiled. “I'd be pleased to attend, Ms. McCone. I'll see you at City Hall tomorrow morning.”

Louise Wingfield said, “I suppose if I don't attend this mock trial, you'll forever suspect me of having murdered Cordy.”

“Does it matter?”

“Oddly enough, I like you and care what you think of me.” She hesitated, sunk in thought. “Jose and Leonard will be there. Judy. And you say you're going to try to persuade Melissa to attend. Old home week, God, what a motley group!”

“Will you be there?”

“Yes. I don't like the idea, but I suppose it's all part of the cathartic process. I see from the morning paper that the police found evidence that points to Lis being a suicide.” She gestured at a copy of the
Chronicle
that lay on the corner of her desk.

I'd seen the article; it had been written just in time for the city edition. “Lis's death still constitutes a form of murder; she might not have killed herself if she hadn't been harassed.” Then I switched subjects. “I need to clarify a point about your testimony at the original Benedict trial, as well as ask you a few more things about Cordy. Do you have time?”

Wingfield leaned back in her chair and reached for a cigarette. “Go ahead. I don't seem able to accomplish much this morning anyway.”

“First your testimony: when the note to Cordy arrived at the apartment, was anyone else there?”

She thought, eyes narrowed. “Melissa was.”

“Did you tell the police that?”

“ . . . I must have.”

“Did the police question Melissa?”

“I don't know.”

“Later, did Stameroff ask you if Melissa was present?”

“No. As I mentioned before, the subject of the apartment and the people who shared it was ignored for Cordy's family's sake.”

Or someone else's, I thought. “Did anyone ever approach Melissa about testifying?”

“I wouldn't know. The day the note came was the last time I saw Melissa until I went to her apartment last week.”

“All right. Now, about Cordy: what were her political opinions? Were they conservative or liberal?”

“What few she had—and that wasn't many—were conservative. All of us who were raised in San Francisco society thought that way. Even on the college campuses we were more concerned with becoming well-rounded individuals—the educational catchphrase of the day—than with exploring new concepts or ideologies.” She grimaced ruefully. “That's why they called us the “Silent Generation.”

“And as far as you know, Cordy never flirted with radicalism? Communism?”

Wingfield raised her eyebrows. “Cordy? God, no! Her flirtations were strictly sexual.”

“What about Melissa Cardinal? Did you ever talk politics with her?”

“No. My relations with the other girls in the flat were fairly superficial. And then there was Vincent. When you're closeted in a bedroom with the man you think you love, you're not likely to pay much attention to a roommate's preferences at the polls.”

Her frankness about Benedict was an abrupt switch from her previous resentment at my intrusion into her privacy. Acceptance of the truth coming out, I wondered, or more candor calculated to confuse? “Did you ever meet Melissa's stepbrother, Roger Woods?”

“I didn't even know she had a stepbrother.”

“And you don't remember anything further about where Cordy and Melissa met?”