Something scampered across my ankles. I opened my eyes in time to watch a rat’s tail disappear between one of the two garbage cans I was wedged between. It was still dark. There was a wall behind me, a street-lamp far away, and even more distant, the noise of traffic. My head felt like glass, as if the slightest unplanned move would shatter it. I turned my wrist and slowly brought my watch to my face. It was one-thirty. I had left Grant’s apartment just before ten — three and a half hours lost. I tried to remember. We had driven around a lot and someone asked me a lot of questions but I couldn’t remember what had been said or whether I’d responded. And then I passed out. And now I was awake.
Sort of.
I lifted myself up and found that I was standing in an alley that dead-ended into a brick wall. At the other end, I saw a light and started moving toward it. The light seemed to move away and I kept running into things, trash cans, piles of boxes, the wall. This is not a dream, I told myself, though the atmosphere was as fetid as a nightmare. Finally, I reached the lamp-post and hugged it, closing my eyes and waiting for things to stop spinning. When I looked again, everything was more or less still as I tried to get my bearings.
There was a wide, dimly lit street beside me and warehouses all around. The spire of the Transamerica pyramid, surrounded by the other downtown skyscrapers, loomed ahead of me. Judging by distance, I concluded that I was somewhere south of Market. I made my way up to the first intersection and read the street signs, Harrison at Third; one block south of Folsom and about eight blocks east of the gay bars where I might find help. I headed north to Folsom and turned left, feeling worse with each step as I became more conscious of my nausea and my aching body. The street was full of shadows and silences, and the darkness seemed unending. Had I been in less pain, I would have been terrified.
As I walked down the street, I attempted to puzzle out the identity of my abductors. All roads led to Robert Paris. They had been waiting for me when I came out of Grant’s building. Whether Abrams had called them or they’d followed me into the city, it was clear that my nosing around had not gone unnoticed. Aaron had warned me I was being watched. Until this moment I hadn’t believed him. The judge wanted to know how much I knew about Hugh’s murder. Apparently, I didn’t know enough to be gotten rid of. Yet.
Ahead of me I saw men walking up and down the street. I came to a corner and looked up. There was a red neon sign on an angle above a door. It said Febe’s. I crossed the street and stood at the open doorway. Directly inside the entry was a brown vinyl curtain that reached to the floor, and beyond it I heard muffled noises. I pushed through the curtain just in time for last call at one of the most notorious leather bars in the city.
Two men were playing at a pinball machine on my left. One of them wore black leather pants, shiny in the dim light, and a leather vest. The other wore jeans, a t-shirt and a collar around his neck studded with metal spikes. He sipped from a bottle of Perrier. To my right there was a curved bar bathed in red lights. All heads turned toward me. In my slacks and gray polo shirt I was in the wrong clothes for Febe’s. The atmosphere began to change from curiosity to hostility.
I had now been standing at the door for more than a minute. The bartender, undoubtedly thinking I was a tourist, scowled and started to come out from behind the bar. I took a couple of steps toward him and then passed out.
I was awakened with a hit of amyl nitrate.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, pushing the donor’s hands out of my face. “Enough.”
The hands withdrew and a voice asked, “You all right?”
“I’m better,” I said, sitting up from the floor.
The bartender knelt beside me. He was wearing a tight pair of levis and a pink bowling shirt with the name Norma Jean stitched above the pocket. Most of his face was lost behind a thick beard, but the concern in his wide blue eyes would have done justice to my mother.
“Good,” he said. “I’ll just call a cab and you can go back to the St. Francis or wherever you’re staying and sleep it off.”
“I’m not drunk,” I said, slurring my words. “Drugged. I was drugged.”
“Against your will?”
I nodded.
“Honey, that musta been some scene.” He smiled. “He hurt you?”
I shook my head.
“Did he take your money?”
“No,” I said, “they just drove me around and asked me questions.”
“Now that’s bizarre. Should I get the cops?”
“No, I’d like to call a friend.”
“Oh, are you a local?”
I nodded.
“Hell, the way you came in here staring I thought you were a tourist who’d taken the wrong turn at Fisherman’s Wharf.”
“Next time,” I mumbled, “I’ll remember you have a dress code. Help me to the phone, okay?”
“Sure,” he said, rising to his full height. I grabbed his extended hands and he raised me up, effortlessly. The bar was empty and all the lights were on, revealing a homey and rather shabby tavern. Apparently I’d cleared the place out. He led me around the bar to the house phone. “You make your call. I’ve got to clean up.”
“Thanks. I know your name’s not Norma Jean.”
“Dean,” he said, grabbing a broom.
“Thanks, Dean. I’m Henry.” He nodded acknowledgement while I dialed Grant’s number.
Grant picked up the phone on the second ring, and I remembered he was a light sleeper. I told him, briefly, what had learned and asked if he would come and pick me up. Wide awake, he told me to wait and that he was on his way. I hung up.
Dean brought me a glass of brandy and had me sit on a stool behind the bar as he went back to his work. I watched him lifting boxes of empty beer bottles and stacking them against the wall.
Someone was knocking at the front door. Dean glanced over at me and then went to answer it, behind the curtain. He emerged a second later followed by Grant Hancock. With his Burberry overcoat and perfectly groomed hair, Grant looked as if he had just stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine. Dean winked at me, approvingly.
Grant came up and inspected me. “You look terrible, Henry. Should we get you to a hospital?”
“I think everything’s working,” I said. “I just need a ride back to my car.”
“Your car? What you need is sleep. Come on.”
I got up and followed him out. Dean walked us to the curb where Grant had parked.
“Thanks, Dean.” I reached out and patted his arm awkwardly, wanting to say more but not sure what.
“Come back sometime,” he said, smiling. I climbed into Grant’s car. We drove through the soundless streets to his building.
“I really should get back home tonight,” I said.
“Henry, it’s three-thirty in the morning,” Grant replied as he steered into the underground garage and parked in a numbered stall. “No one has to do anything at three-thirty, especially you. You’re hardly awake now. I doubt that you could make it all the way back.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “I’ll stay.”
“Of course you will,” he replied, getting out of the car.
When we got to his condo, I took a hot shower, changed into borrowed clothes and asked for a drink. We sat on the floor in the living room drinking brandy by candlelight. The room was very still as Grant had me explain the events which occurred after I left his apartment.
“I think,” he said, “that you are lucky to be alive.”
“I agree, and now I know, beyond any doubt, that the judge was responsible for Hugh’s death.”
“So now you can stop and go on with your life.”
“What?”
Grant swirled the brandy in his glass, watching it streak and run down the sides. “The mystery is solved.”
“But I still have to prove the solution.”
“To whom?”
“The police, to begin with, and maybe, at some point, a jury.”
“Are you serious?” he asked, putting his glass down. “You think you can prove this against Robert Paris? Do you know anything about the man?”
“As a general proposition? No.”
“You’re talking about one of the most powerful men in the state,” he said. “You’re talking about a man who declined appointment to the United States Supreme Court.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“That’s the point. Think of it this way, Henry. You and the judge both have piles of stones to throw at each other. You’ve pretty much used yours up but he hasn’t even started. He’s been playing with you.”
“Schoolboys throw rocks at frogs in sport,” I quoted, “but the frogs die in earnest.”
“No,” Grant said. “Not for sport. For power. I know Robert Paris,” he continued, staring into his glass. “You don’t stand a chance.”
“Is this the voice of experience talking?”
Grant looked up. “My father,” he began, “got it into his head that he wanted to be mayor of this city. Have you met my father?” I nodded. My recollection was of an elegant but rather dim patrician whom Grant inexplicably idolized. “Robert Paris was backing another candidate who would have trounced my father anyway. But just to make sure,” he set his glass down and looked away, “they told my father I was gay and that if he persisted, the whole town would know. That’s how my father found out his only son was homosexual. My father is a man,” he continued, “who still thinks gay is a perfectly acceptable adjective for divorcees. Or did, anyway. It broke his heart,” Grant said. “It really did.”
“Grant, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “That’s water under the bridge,” he said, “but the moral is: Don’t fuck with Robert Paris. Hugh’s dead. You’re not.” And then he added softly, “I’m not.”
“But if it had been you rather than Hugh, I’d do the same.”
He smiled a little. “You miss my meaning.”
“No,” I said, reaching out to touch his hand, “I don’t.”
“What time is it?” Grant mumbled, turning over in bed.
“A little after six,” I replied, buttoning my shirt.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes, there’s someone I have to see.”
“Your associates keep odd hours.” He sat up in bed, watching me tie my shoes.
“Will you call Smith for me?” I asked.
He thought about it a second.
“I still don’t see the point of it,” he said.
“The police wouldn’t reopen their investigation without pressure from somewhere. Who better than Smith?”
“If you could only give me something more concrete,” he said.
“If I didn’t know you better, Grant, I’d say John Smith intimidates you.”
“He does. It’s not often I ask for an audience with a local deity.”
“Okay,” I said, “then don’t.”
“I’m sorry, Henry. I just can’t see getting involved at this point.”
“You’ve already been helpful, Grant.”
“Thanks.”
We looked at each other.
“Is this it, then?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “No.”
I leaned over and kissed him.
“All right,” he said.
An hour later I was finishing breakfast in Terry Ormes’ kitchen. She cooked well for a cop, I thought as I swallowed a forkful of scrambled eggs. It occurred to me that I could not remember when I had eaten last. The eggs were good — she put tarragon in them. She was talking on the phone, explaining to someone why she would be late for work. I got up and cleared the table, rinsing dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher. Her kitchen was long, sunny and narrow. Everything was in its place but this bespoke an orderly presence rather than a fussy one. She finished her call and came back into the kitchen carrying a manila folder. She sat down at the kitchen table. I joined her there.
“More coffee?” she asked, pouring herself a cup.
“Sure,” I said, noticing for the first time that the backs of her hands were covered with faint freckles.
“How long have you been a cop?” I asked, continuing our earlier conversation.
“Seven years, going on twenty.”
“Tough life?”
“It’s what I always wanted. My dad was a cop. He got as high up as captain before he retired.”
“Did he want you to join the force?”
“He never came out and said it, but he was happy that I did.”
“And your mother?”
“She’d have been happier if I’d gone into something more feminine. Schoolteaching, for instance, like my brother.” She sipped her coffee. “What about you? Was your dad a lawyer?”
“No, he was foreman of the night crew at a cannery in Marysville. I’m the only lawyer in my family.”
“The scuttlebutt around the station is that you’re good.”
“I am,” I said.
“But you’re not a great cop,” she said, “judging from what happened to you last night. The first thing we learn is not to take unnecessary risks.”
“And how do you know when a risk is unnecessary? I was playing a hunch going to see Abrams. I didn’t think much would come from it. I was wrong.”
“I’ll say. Why don’t you run your next scheme by me and let me decide if it’s an unnecessary risk?”
I laughed. “Are you my partner or my mother?”
“I guess that depends on what you need most,” Terry said. “Let’s get to work.”
She opened the manila folder and handed me a thin sheaf of papers.
“What’s this?”
“Hugh Paris,” she said. “Everything I could get on him.”
“Doesn’t seem like much.”
“It isn’t. He didn’t have a California driver’s license so I ran his name with DMV and came back with nothing. The only criminal record he has was his arrest in July. No credit cards, no known bank accounts. He leased his house from something called the Pegasus Corporation, one of those companies that owns companies.”
I’d been going through the papers as I listened to her. “These are his phone bills?”
“For the last six months. Service was in his name. An unlisted number.”
A fair number of the calls were to Portola Valley — the judge
— and even a couple to my apartment. It was odd to see my phone number there and I wondered if anyone else had obtained these records. And then I noticed a number of calls made to Napa. I asked Terry about them.
“They were made to a private mental institution called Silverwood. You know anything about that?”
“His father is a patient there,” I replied, writing the number down. I came to the last page. “I thought there’d be more.”
“So did I. I get the feeling he was deliberately lying low.” I nodded agreement. She took out a bundle of papers from the folder and pushed them across to me. “I had better luck with the grandmother and uncle,” she said. I had asked her to find out what she could about the car crash which had killed Hugh’s grandmother, Christina, and his uncle, Jeremy, twenty years earlier. Hugh had maintained that his grandfather was responsible for those deaths.
Terry had obtained copies of the accident report prepared by the CHP, written within a couple of hours of the collision. She had also gotten the coroner’s findings based on an inquest held in San Francisco three days after the accident.
The CHP concluded that the car, driven by Jeremy Paris, had been headed east into Nevada on highway 80 at the time of the crash. It was dusk, a few days before Thanksgiving, the road was icy, traffic was light and there had been a snowstorm earlier in the week. The Paris car had been in the far left lane, nearest the center divider, a metal railing about four feet high. There was reason to believe that Jeremy Paris had been speeding.
About twenty miles outside of Truckee, disaster overcame the Parises. Their car suddenly went through the center divider, skidded off the side of the road across four lanes of westbound traffic, nearly hit a westbound car, and plunged off the road where its fall was broken by a stand of trees. Within a matter of moments, the car burst into flames. Christina Paris was dead when the police got to her, having been summoned by the driver of the car who had narrowly avoided being struck by the Paris car. Jeremy Paris died in the ambulance.
The driver of the other car, Warren Hansen, was the only witness and had provided details of the accident to the police. Hansen had been returning home to Sacramento from a week’s skiing. He, the report noted in cop talk, was HBD — had been drinking, shorthand for drunk. Hansen claimed that the Paris car was going too fast for the road and that it appeared to be followed by another car, tailing it from the next lane over. He remembered that the second car was dark and its lights were off. He said that just before the accident the dark car had been striking against the back bumper of the Paris car.
All these statements were duly noted by the cop who took the report. They were then dismissed by the sergeant who signed off on the report and who remarked that Hansen was drunk and further disoriented by the shock of nearly having been in a serious collision. The sergeant concluded that Jeremy Paris had simply lost control of his car as he sped down the icy roads at dusk, the most treacherous hour for motorists. It was plausible. I could almost hear the sergeant sighing with relief as he filed the report; another mess averted.
I turned to the coroner’s report. Sitting without a jury, he accepted the findings of the CHP as to the circumstances of the accident, based upon the brief testimony of a single witness, the sergeant. He added some information from the autopsies; charred meat is essentially all that had been left of Christina and Jeremy Paris. Finally, he fixed the times of their deaths. According to the coroner, given the circumstances of the accident and the conditions of the bodies, the deaths could be characterized as essentially simultaneous. When I came upon that phrase, simultaneous death, something clicked in the back of my mind.
I went on to the next page. It was a death certificate, made out for Warren Hansen who died on April 27, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Six months after the accident. I looked up at Terry.
“Up to this,” I said, holding the death certificate, “I could almost believe it was just an accident.”
“Me, too,” she said. “But as soon as I got it, all the loose ends unraveled again.” She explained that it made no sense to hold the inquest without calling the only eye-witness to the accident, or the paramedics who brought the bodies up from the crash and who could have testified to the times of death. “But then,” she continued, “it dawned on me that that was the whole reason for the inquest. To set the times of death. There’s no other reason to hold a coroner’s inquest for a simple car accident. They don’t usually call the coroner unless there’s some question about the deaths.”
“But there wasn’t any question here,” I said. “And certainly no reason to hold the inquest hundreds of miles from where the accident occurred and three days afterwards. The only difference between the police report and the coroner’s inquest were the times of death. Someone wasn’t happy with the fact that Jeremy Paris was still alive when they pulled him from the car.”
“Naturally,” she said, “I thought it was the judge who requested the coroner but I was wrong. It was John Smith, Christina’s brother, who arranged it.”
I thought for a moment. “Well, maybe he suspected,” I replied, “and wanted a coroner’s independent examination of the accident.”
Terry laughed derisively.
“What?” I asked.
“That’s not what Smith got,” she said. “The examining coroner was Tom Fierro. Do you know about him?” I shook my head. “He’s the guy they discovered with the suitcases of money under his bed. My dad used to talk about him and said that Tom was everyone’s favorite coroner. When you bought him, he stayed bought.”
“Do you think he was paid off?”
She sighed eloquently. “Of course I do, but who am I going to ask about it?” She gathered up the papers and stacked them neatly. “What’s our next move?”
“All this means something,” I mused, “and if I just sat still long enough it would come to me. But I can’t sit still. These calls to Napa,” I said, lifting the phone bills. “Maybe Hugh said something to his father that could help us. That’s where I’m going. You work on finding out more about John Smith. He may hold the key.”
“I don’t know,” she said, “I think there are too many doors for just one key. Stay in touch.”
The street sign was so discreetly placed that I missed it the first time and drove on until I found myself at a dead end. I turned around and drove slowly until I saw that the narrow opening between clumps of dusty bushes was, in fact, a road; a back road off a back road at the edge of Napa’s suburban sprawl.
It was one of those luminescent autumn days. The sky was radiantly blue and the air was warm and sultry. You drank rather than breathed it. At my right, a white picket fence appeared and beyond it, orchards and pasture. These gave way to a large, formal lawn, arbors, tennis courts, and a rose garden, looking for all the world like the grounds of a country club.
Only there was no one around.
I looked over to my left and saw a white antebellum mansion shimmering like a mirage in the heat of the day. Smaller bungalows surrounded it at a respectful distance, each in the shade of its own great oak. One or two people moved slowly down a walk between the big house and one of the smaller ones. I turned into a circular driveway and drove up to a parking lot at the side of the house. I got out of my car and went up the steps of the great house, crossed the veranda and touched the doorbell.
Above the bell was a small brass plate with the word “Silverwood” etched into it.
A husky young man dressed in orderly’s white appeared at the door. “May I help you?”
“I’ve come to see Mr. Nicholas Paris,” I said, extracting a business card from my breast pocket and handing it to him.
He studied it.
“Are you expected?”
“I was his late son’s lawyer,” I replied. “He’ll know who I am.”
The attendant looked at me and then opened the door. I stood in a massive foyer. There was a small table off the side of the staircase where he had been sitting. He went to the table, picked up the phone and dialed three numbers.
“There’s a lawyer out here to see one of the patients.” He paused. “Okay, clients, then. Anyway, he’s out here now.” He hung up and said, “Have a seat,” gesturing me to a sofa against the wall beneath a portrait of a seventeenth-century gentleman. I sat down. The attendant went back to his book, something called The Other David. The house was still, but the air was nervous.
“Where are the patients?” I asked.
“Everyone takes a nap after lunch,” he replied, looking up, “just like kindergarten.”
“You a nurse?”
“Do I look like a nurse?” His muscles bulged against his white uniform. “I keep people out there,” he gestured to the door, “from getting in and people in here from getting out.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” I observed.
He grunted and went back to his book.
A moment later, a short, bald man stepped into the foyer from a room off the side. He wore a white doctor’s coat over a pale blue shirt and a red knit tie. He looked like an aging preppie and I was willing to bet that he wore argyle socks. The attendant handed him my business card.
“Mr. Rios,” he said, “I’m Dr. Phillips, the director. Why don’t we step into the visitor’s lounge?”
I followed him into the room from which he had emerged. It was a long, narrow rectangle, paneled in dark wood, furnished in stiff-backed Victorian chairs and couches clustered in little groups around coffee tables. The view from the windows was of a rose garden. A dozen long-stemmed red roses had been stiffly arranged in a vase on the mantel of the fireplace. A grandfather clock ticked away in a corner. Except for us, the room was deserted.
Phillips lowered himself in a wing chair and I sat across from him. The little table between us held a decanter filled with syrupy brown fluid and surrounded by small wine glasses. He poured two drinks. I lifted a glass and sniffed, discreetly. Cream sherry. I sipped, crossing my legs at my ankles like a gentleman.
“Now, then, Mr. Rios, what can we,” he said, using the imperial, medical we, “do for you?”
“I represent the estate of Hugh Paris, the son of one of your patients — “
“Clients,” he cautioned.
“Clients,” I agreed. “At any rate, Hugh Paris died rather — suddenly, and there are some problems with the will I believe I could clear up by speaking to his father, Nicholas.”
Phillips shook his head. “That’s quite impossible. You must know that Nicholas Paris is incompetent.”
“Doctor, that’s a legal conclusion, not a medical diagnosis. I was told he has moments of lucidity.”
“Far and few between,” Phillips said, dismissively. “Perhaps if you told me what you need, I could help you.”
“All right,” I said. “I drafted Hugh Paris’s will which, as it happens, made certain bequests that violate the rule in Shelley’s case, rendering the document ineffective. I had hoped that Mr. Paris, as his son’s intestate heir, would agree to certain modifications that would affect the testator’s intent, at least as to those bequests which do not directly concern his interests in the estate.”
Phillips’s eyes had glazed over at the first mention of the word will. He now bestirred himself and said, “I see.”
“Then you understand my problem,” I plunged on, “I am responsible for drafting errors in Hugh’s will. There’s some question of malpractice — “
Phillips perked up. “Malpractice?” He was now on comfortable ground. “I sympathize, of course, but Mr. Paris is hardly in any condition to discuss such intricate legal matters.”
“I only need ten minutes with him,” I said.
“Really,” Phillips said, lighting a cigarette, “you don’t understand. Mr. Paris is not lucid.”
I could tell our interview was coming to an end.
I tried another tack. “But he’s being treated.”
Phillips lifted an eyebrow. “We can do very little of that in Mr. Paris’s case. We try to make him comfortable and see that he poses no danger to himself or others.”
“Is he violent?”
“Not very.”
“Drugs?”
“The law permits it.”
“You know, doctor,” I said, “even those who cannot be reached by treatment can sometimes be reached by subpoena.”
Phillips sat up. “What are you talking about?”
“A probate hearing, with all the trimmings. You might be called to testify to Paris’s present mental condition and the type of care he’s received here. It might even be necessary to subpoena his medical records. I understand he’s been here for nearly twenty years. That’s a long time, doctor, time enough to turn even a genius into a vegetable with the right kind of — treatment.”
Phillips fought to keep his composure.
“I could have you thrown out,” he said softly.
“And I’ll be back with the marshal and a bushel of subpoenas.”
In an even softer voice he asked, “What is it you want?”
“I want to make sure he’s too crazy to sue me.”
Phillips expelled his breath, disbelievingly. “Is that all?” He rose from the chair. “Ten minutes, Mr. Rios, and you’ll go?”
“Never to darken your doorway again.”
“Wait here,” he said abruptly and left the room. I poured my sherry into a potted plant.
When Nicholas Paris entered the room, the air went dead around him. He wore an old gray blazer over a white shirt and tan khaki slacks. No belt. He might have been a country squire returning from a walk with his white-blond hair, ruddy complexion and composed features — there was more than a hint of Hugh in his face. But then you looked into his eyes. They were blue and they stared out as if from shadows focusing on a landscape that did not exist beneath the mild California sun. I felt the smile leak from my face. Phillips sat him down in a chair, scowled at me and said, “Ten minutes.”
I approached him. “Nicholas?”
He inclined his head toward me.
“My name is Henry. I was Hugh’s friend.”
He said nothing.
I knelt beside the chair and looked at him. It was as if he were standing behind a screen: the thousand splinters refused to add up to a human face. I saw that his pupils were moving erratically. Drugs.
“I was his friend,” I continued. “Your son Hugh.”
He looked away, out the window.
He said in a voice hoarse from disuse, “Hugh.”
“Hugh,” I said.
I kept talking, softly. I told him how I had met Hugh and how much I had cared for him. I told him that I believed Hugh’s death was a murder. I was telling him that I needed to know what, if anything, Hugh had said to him when he visited here.
Nicholas Paris stared out the window as I spoke, giving no indication that he heard anything but the loud chirping of a bird outside.
And then, suddenly, I saw a tear run from the corner of his eye. A single, streaky tear.
He said, “Is Hugh dead?”
He hadn’t known.
“Oh, God,” I muttered. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s enough,” a woman spoke, commandingly, above me. I looked up. Katherine Paris stood, coldly composed, beside me. Her face was red beneath her makeup, and her small, elegant hands were clenched into fists. I glanced up at the doorway. Phillips was standing there and, behind him, two burly orderlies.
I rose from the floor. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Paris.”
She raised a hand and slapped me. “Get him out of here,” she ordered Phillips.
He gave a signal and the orderlies moved in.