Sudden Exposure

by Susan Dunlap

  “Catholic school?”

  “Good try. Well, average try, what with the confessional bench and all. But she was the only child of ‘free thinkers.’ Parents were artists of sorts, but with money—”

  “Landed eccentrics? As opposed to … fifty-one fifties.”

  “Right. The Nashes lived in the same town for a couple of generations. They were the accepted educated eccentrics, you know, sort of in the British sense?”

  “Umm. Lived in the ancestral manse, behind their name trees.”

  “Name trees?” That was something we didn’t have in Jersey.

  “A tree their parents planted when they were born. You know—in their name? I went to school with a guy, Tim, who had a name tree. It was like losing a friend when it fell down in a storm.”

  I smiled. At gut level, I would never really understand Howard’s need for his house and the normalcy it represented, but its hold on him was almost mythic. And for Ellen, whose family must have had its own eccentric brand of normalcy, albeit different from the community, the lure of being normal and accepted by the community must have grown with each year she spent hiding out. And now she’d made peace. With no one committed to pursuing her (the statute of limitations on the S and L heist had run out long ago and no one had filed a warrant for her before that) chances were she could have gotten off with little or no time for the felony murder, and gone on to live openly in say, Normal, Pennsylvania. “Howard,” I said, “there’s got to be something I’m missing.”

  “Ahhh. Need some possibilities, huh? Well, you’ve come to the right man. Me, I like the Rent-a-Freak angle. Maybe they really freaked someone out. Or Fannie and Sam, maybe they took offense at her snub. Or in all those years in the underground she’d heard something about Sam, and they panicked at the idea of her passing it on to Bryn.”

  “Like?”

  “Like Sam was involved in a murder of his own. Or maybe the key is in a slip Fannie made, like there was something fishy about the title to the house, or their mortgage, or well … something. I’ll tell you, Jill, if I’d put as much work into my house as Sam has, and then someone I hated tried to take it away from me …”

  I laughed. “Howard, you have put in that much work.” But it sent a chill down my back. After all, the person who could take Howard’s house away was me. I pulled the comforter—his comforter—up to my neck, leaving it loose over my left shoulder like it was when he was next to me. “So when’ll you be home?”

  “Might be the end of the week. More likely as early as Tuesday.”

  “Tuesday,” I said, brightening. “I’ll keep your side of the bed warm.”

  “So, Jill,” he said before I could hang up, “how is life without chocolate?”

  “About like sex with your hands in your pockets—your back pockets.”

  CHAPTER 23

  MONDAY MORNING WAS THE beginning of a typical Berkeley day. The wind off the Bay flowed through the branches of the jacaranda, rustling leaves against my window. Above it the Pacific fog sat thin and dull. I had slept fitfully again, waking up every hour or so to worry about how few hours I had left on this case. Now, at 7 A.M. I was up too early for what I needed to do. The only thing I could manage at that hour was the warrant request. And I wasn’t about to tackle that without a trip to Peet’s. By seven thirty I was sipping an alto doppio latte and was halfway through an oatmeal scone from the Walnut Square Bakery when it occurred to me that I hadn’t bemoaned the lack of a chocolate doughnut. I chewed slowly, tasting the nutty accent of the oatmeal, the sweet of the raisins, the vague saltiness. Were my taste buds reincarnating into healthy buds? If this kept up, I’d be ordering tofu in public.

  I got another latte, drove to the station, and spent an hour on the report. Herman Ott hadn’t returned my call. Big surprise.

  I dialed Raksen in the lab. “Any word from the FBI on the fingerprints from Bryn Wiley’s car?”

  Raksen, a man not given to humor about his work, laughed. “Smith, you know what your chances are of getting word back in a day and a half from the feebies?”

  I didn’t ask. “Call me.”

  I had barely pushed the Off button when the phone rang again.

  “Smith?” It was Inspector Doyle.

  “Morning.”

  “How’s it going?”

  I summarized my interview with Fannie Johnson, told him about the lead on the nudist and Rent-a-Freak, not mentioning Ott’s name but emphasizing that the information was from a personal source. Even though I hadn’t come up with Jed Estler, I explained, Karl Pironnen had admitted that Estler had worked not alone but with Ellen Waller. “And Inspector, you probably know by now that Ellen Waller was actually Mary Ellen Nash, the Golden State S and L driver.”

  “Good work, Smith.”

  “Thanks. So, I stay on the case?”

  “That’s what I was calling about.”

  I knew that tone. I was holding my breath.

  “Brucker’s got a confession on his two forty-five.”

  Assault with a deadly weapon.

  “He’s finishing up the essentials now. He’ll be ready for the Wiley case after lunch.”

  “Inspector, I haven’t gotten the search warrant yet.”

  “Brucker can do that.”

  “He won’t know what he’s looking for in Wiley’s house.”

  “Then, Smith, you can tell him.”

  “He’ll never understand the people involved. He doesn’t know Berkeley!”

  A moment passed before Doyle said, “Smith, you’re good. I wish I had you back here in Homicide.” He paused just long enough for me to note that he’d never made that kind of admission before; I would have felt pleased and justified if I hadn’t known a “but” would be leading his next phrase. “But Smith, you’re not in Homicide. You are in patrol. Brucker is in Homicide. Got it? Whatever his failings, it’s his case. Already been announced to the press. Get it transferred by twelve o’clock.”

  “He’ll be back from lunch at noon?”

  “Okay, one o’clock.” Doyle hung up.

  Four hours. Less than four hours!

  I dialed the Telegraph Travel Service and got the manager. “Yeah, I remember Tiffany Glass, the diver. Wasn’t my client. Change of time and flight number. We reissued the tickets. Guy next to me handled it. Felt awful. Wasn’t his fault, poor devil. He tried every way he could to get ahold of her. Called and called. Left messages. Got the other two girls. Bryn Wiley and the other one. Wiley came in and picked up her new ticket. But he dropped off the other girls’ tickets. You can’t do more than that, can you?”

  “What happened to him afterwards?”

  “Oh, you mean was he fired? No. No reason. Like I say, he did over and beyond. But the Glass girl’s boyfriend burst in here and scared the shit out of him.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Threatened to smash him into the wall. Said he’d bang him up just the way his girlfriend was. Dave’s a little guy; he was here alone. Then the thug demanded to look at the Glass file. He grilled Dave like a co—Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “Forget it. Go on.”

  “He made Dave go through every contact he’d had about the flight. Like I said, he scared the shit out of him. Dave was sure the guy was going to kill him. He quit. I think he went back to school. In art, or something.”

  “Where can I contact him?”

  “Dave? Got me; I can’t even remember his last name. The school he went to, it was somewhere back East.”

  A few more questions and answers made it clear I wasn’t going to find Dave, not in three hours and forty-seven minutes.

  What had Sam Johnson found out? Was it really something that implicated Bryn? If so, why hadn’t he exposed her in all these years? If not, why had he and Fannie hung on to her until she became the focus of their marriage?

  I could have called Herman Ott. I didn’t bother. I ran for my car and headed to Telegraph. It was nine thirty, very early for the likes of Ott. But I was sure Ott would unde
rstand.

  I had underestimated him.

  When I got to his building, he was on his way out. I caught him flying across the lobby, tan chinos clinging to his spindly legs, ocher down jacket zipped up to his almost nonexistent neck, and gold beaked cap pulled down low. “Expecting me, were you?” I asked, blocking the exit.

  “I was getting a bagel and coffee. Want some?”

  “Your mother must have drilled you on protecting against a chill.” Noah’s bagels was half a block away.

  Ott shifted from foot to foot. “Okay. I admit it, I was skipping out. Look, Smith, the thing is, I can’t find a whisper about Ellen Waller. Nothing.”

  He hadn’t heard! I’d known Ellen’s identity so long now I’d forgotten it was still a question for him. Any other time I’d have played my advantage to the max. Now I shrugged. “Forget it.”

  But Ott wasn’t about to do that. “You mean you know?” The man’s tone was almost insulting.

  “We police officers are not like you wise and crafty private eyes but occasionally, as we plod along we do stumble, flat-footedly, into an answer.”

  In way of response, he pulled out a key, unlocked the old cage elevator, hopped inside, and perched on the pull-down operator’s seat. “Come on, Smith.”

  “Come where? That thing hasn’t operated in forty years.”

  “Does now. You can thank Sam Johnson for that.” He shut the door after me and rotated the gear lever up. The mechanism was so old there were no floor numbers on the gear box, just Up and Down, meant for post-World War One operators who signed on for lifetime employment and learned every inch of their building’s elevator shaft. Blindfolded, one of them could have brought the car to a stop level with every floor. Ott jerked the box up fifteen feet and stopped it, leaving us hanging in the open shaft between floors.

  From someone else I would have taken this as a power play. But Ott? He didn’t want to bother climbing the two flights back to his office. Here, Ott could wheedle and barter in a soft enough voice that no one would hear him dealing with a cop. If I wasn’t satisfied, I could shout again and blow his cover.

  “Ott, I’ve got less than three hours left on this case. No time for our usual pleasantries. What did Sam Johnson find out at the Telegraph Travel Agency?”

  He tapped a finger on the gear lever.

  “Today, Ott!”

  Letting his finger come to rest, he said, “Waller for Johnson, eh? Fair enough.”

  “Okay. When the case is closed, you’ll be the first to know about her.”

  “Oh no, Smith. I want. But you need. So give, or down we go.” He reached for the gear lever.

  I grabbed his hand. “Ott, let me tell you the lay of the land here, just between us pals.”

  An expression of such horror crossed his face I almost laughed. He would stuff his mouth with rusty Nixon buttons before he’d ever admit that he was on such close terms with a cop.

  “I have to turn the case over at one o’clock. To Brucker. Sam and Fannie Johnson can take care of themselves. But Karl Pironnen …”

  Color faded from Ott’s sallow face. His hand lay limp on the gear lever. Clearly our game was over. “Brucker’ll grind Pironnen into dust. Smith, even if you don’t charge him, the harassing, the interrogation’ll turn him into a vegetable.”

  “I know, Ott. I know.”

  We stood there a moment hanging high above the lobby, his hand still on the gear lever, mine halfway between us. I wasn’t surprised that Ott knew Pironnen; or that he cared what happened to him. His tiny eyes were almost closed, his forehead squeezed in anguish as ethics battled concern. But even if he had something that would save an outcast and damn the man who had defrauded the poor, I wasn’t sure he could bring himself to give it, free, to a police officer.

  I hadn’t been conning Ott when I said I knew. Standing here in the old elevator watching his pale eyes shift as he considered his unconscionable options, I realized I was at my own crossroad. Ott or Brucker? If I gave a civilian—a pain-in-the-ass civilian—vital, undisclosed case data without checking with the incoming officer in charge, I’d be facing a reprimand. But beyond that, I’d never again be trusted with protected information. And Telegraph Avenue would be under three feet of snow before I ever got back to Homicide. Howard and I had a bet on which one of us would make chief. We’d spent long lovely hours contemplating a suitable prize. And now, instead of chief I’d be what? Searching the civil service ads? Driving an airport van? Opening up an office down the hall from the only one who still trusted me—Ott?

  I could push down the lever and walk out of here. Brucker would get the case as is. He’d spot Mary Ellen Nash and the Golden State S and L robbery, and zero in on Sam Johnson and the old rads. If the answer didn’t lie there, he’d never solve the case. The chasm between the rads and us would deepen; Ellen Waller would fade away as nothing more than a footnote in an unclosed case. And Karl Pironnen? Ott had been dead right in his prognosis. Momentarily I shut my eyes against the no-win choice, then said, “Okay. You repeat this, the only cop you can tolerate will be off the force, you understand.”

  I expected him to protest or up the ante, or at least gloat at his enormous victory, but he said, “You’ve got my word.”

  “Right. Ellen Waller is Mary Ellen Nash.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Right. Now tell me what Sam Johnson found out at the Telegraph Travel Agency?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ott! You lied to—”

  “Keep your pants on, Smith. I’m giving you all I’ve got. I don’t know what Sam discovered there, if anything. But here’s the thing. Sam and Fannie are sure Bryn was behind her missing that plane. They don’t know how, but they know it’s true.”

  “And is it?”

  Ott hesitated. We were on new ground, he and I, and his feet shook with every step he took.

  I didn’t have time to wait him out. I went with my hunch. “That’s what you asked Bryn yesterday morning, isn’t it? That’s what made her decide to leave.” I took his silence for a yes. “And you promised her you wouldn’t reveal what she said, right? Come on, Ott, I’m trusting you with my entire future here. Tell me.”

  He pressed the lever. The car jolted. It began to descend. “She swore she wasn’t involved.”

  The car stopped. Ott reached for the gate.

  I caught his hand. “You didn’t believe her, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Wow. If you don’t believe her—and you wanted to, didn’t you?—no wonder Fannie and Sam don’t. All these years to know she’s guilty and not be able to find proof. No wonder they are so frustrated, so vindictive. It explains,” I said with a shiver, “why they feel perfectly justified in taking the law into their own hands.”

  Ott nodded. “It’s like Karl Pironnen said: When you toss a pebble in the water, you should be willing to get splashed. Sam would see Bryn drown.”

  I stood thinking of the ripples of vengeance that rolled ever outward, wider, farther from the source, till they became a force unto themselves, impossible to stop.

  I fingered the abbreviated ends of my hair, my perky hair, and felt like the strangeness of it had seeped down into my skull. I’d made a choice that meant this could be my last day as a police officer.

  But till 1 P.M. I was still the acting detective in charge. I ran full out for my car.

  I was almost there when my pager went off.

  Bryn Wiley’s house was on fire.

  Chapter 24

  FLAMES WERE SHOOTING OUT the front door. A fire truck was in the driveway, another in the street. Hoses stretched toward the house; firefighters, masked and shielded, yanked them forward. The windows in Bryn Wiley’s living room glowed red against the white stucco walls. Black smoke swirled up into the redwoods. The crackling sounded as loud as if I’d been caught in the middle of the flames.

  Glass crashed—a firefighter axing a window. Flames climbed stalks of new air, pricking at the nether branches of a redwood. Water pou
red in the window and sluiced off the house, hissing violently. Sirens from another engine howled in the distance. Automatically I glanced at the two trucks already here—one of ours, one from Kensington to the north. The third was coming east—from Albany.

  Clumps of neighbors stood well away from the action, silently watching, making no attempt to cross the lines or question the officers as they had at Ellen’s murder scene. Their drawn faces showed not so much curiosity as fear. They shifted from foot to foot, alert for the flames to spread, ready to throw their photo albums and computer disks in their cars and get out. The Oakland Hills Firestorm had been only a few years ago and hill dwellers had learned that second thoughts can be last thoughts.

  Three patrol cars pulled up, spitting out old-timers who’d been around long enough to get the coveted Monday-Thursday day shift. The distant siren shrieked and broke and wound itself up again.

  Ì spotted Jed Estler and Karl Pironnen on their lawn. They were both staring silently, but Estler’s eyes were wide with interest, shifting as his attention jerked from one action spot to the next. Pironnen’s gaunt, gray face was blank.

  “Who reported the fire?” I asked them.

  Jed shrank back. “Me. I just saw it, I mean, I wasn’t involved, I was just throwing a ball for Nora.” His high, brittle voice seemed on the verge of cracking.

  “It’s okay.” Suspicious, but okay for the moment. “Did you see anyone inside?”

  “No. I told the firemen that.”

  “Anyone around the house before?”

  He shook his head.

  “It wouldn’t have to have been right before, Jed. Fires can smolder a long time before they’re big enough to be spotted.”

  “No. Look, I’d just come out to relieve Karl. Nora would chase her ball all day and all night if we’d keep throwing it.”

  I turned to Karl. “Did you see anything there?”

  The siren shrieked; Pironnen threw his hands over his ears. The engine came around the lower corner, straining at the hill. Inside the house the dogs wailed.

  When the siren broke, Pironnen lowered his hands.

  I repeated my question. “Did you see anything there?”