Listen to the Silence

by Marcia Muller

  “No. It’s relatively crime-free.”

  “What about suspicious characters? People who might steal for drug money?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Does Darcy have any friends who might want to break in here? Do you?”

  “My friends’re pretty much like me—working too hard to think of much else. Darce’s… Well, I hate to say it, but they’re either too stoned or too lazy.”

  “Any old boyfriends of yours who might be carrying a grudge?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “What about threats? Could your… our mother have received one and not told you about it?”

  “No way. She’d’ve told me because she’d want me to be on guard.” Robin’s frown was accentuated by the light from my flash. “Sharon, d’you think the breakin has something to do with the hit-and-run?”

  “Big coincidence if it doesn’t. Did the officers you talked with at the hospital give you their cards?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t you call one of them while I make us some coffee?”

  Detective Loretta Willson and her partner, Bob Castner, looked tired; both quickly accepted Robin’s offer of coffee. Willson, a thin blonde whose body and facial features were all sharp angles, sat on a sofa in the parlor, placing her mug on a table next to an evidence bag containing the bullet the lab techs had dug out of the door frame upstairs. Castner, dark and as round as his partner was angular, leaned against a bookcase, warming his hands on his mug. At a glance from Willson, he set it on the top shelf and took out a notebook.

  Willson looked at me and said, “Ms. Blackhawk tells us you saw the intruder.”

  “Only briefly, and I can’t describe him. I think it was a man. Not tall, necessarily, but big-boned, judging from the size of his fingers.”

  “He fired at you?”

  “Toward my flashlight, anyway.”

  “Why didn’t you call nine-one-one as soon as you were aware someone was in the house?”

  “By the time I realized he wasn’t a member of the household, it was too late; he would’ve heard me make the call and gotten away. So I tried to get a look at him instead.”

  “Do you customarily confront intruders when you don’t know if they’re armed or not?”

  “Customarily? No, but…” I handed her the business card I’d tucked into the pocket of my jeans when I dressed. “It was a conditioned reflex.”

  Willson examined it, held it out to Castner. He raised his eyebrows and said, “That’s why the name’s familiar. The Diplo-bomber case, right? I read about you in People.”

  The People magazine profile haunted me the way a bad judgment call haunts a losing coach after the Super Bowl. I merely nodded.

  Willson said to Robin, “What about you, Ms. Blackhawk? You see him?”

  “The shot woke me. He was gone before I figured out what was happening.”

  “You have any idea what he was after? Valuables? Cash?”

  “We don’t own anything very valuable. And we don’t keep much cash on hand.”

  “What about your mother’s legal files?”

  “They’re locked up in the office.”

  Willson looked at Castner. “They tampered with?”

  He shook his head.

  “She keep any files upstairs?” Willson asked Robin.

  “I suppose she might. She works in her bedroom late at night. But why would somebody be after them?”

  “They could contain information someone wanted to obtain—or suppress. We’ll take a look around up there, and then I’d like to get started on all her active cases. Don’t worry, Ms. Blackhawk, we’ll get this guy. Our unit has a sixty-seven percent clearance rate.”

  I said, “From the way you’re talking, I gather that you agree the breakin is related to the hit-and-run?”

  Willson’s mouth twitched in irritation. “Ms. Mc-Cone, maybe in San Francisco the police share their theories with civilians, but it doesn’t work that way in Boise. I’m not even sure why you’re here. Is it on business?”

  “No.”

  “And your connection to the Blackhawks is…?”

  Robin said, “She’s my sister.”

  “… My information is that your mother has only two children—yourself and your brother Darcy.”

  “Sharon’s my half sister. My mother put her up for adoption before she married my father. We met for the first time yesterday.”

  “I see.” From Willson’s speculative expression, I gathered she found my appearance in Boise as convenient a coincidence to the hit-and-run as I did the breakin.

  I said, “This information isn’t for public consumption, of course. Saskia Blackhawk didn’t know my whereabouts, or that I’d located her. She was run down before we had a chance to meet.”

  Willson threw me a withering look, but Castner’s lips curved up in amusement; he seemed to enjoy someone taking a firm hand with his brusque partner.

  “My sister,” I added, “is willing to cooperate with your investigation in any way possible. As I am.”

  Robin nodded, standing up and squaring her slim shoulders. “Let’s get started on my mother’s files. I’ve watched enough cop shows to know that time’s important in making an arrest. I want you to nail the bastard.”

  Saskia Blackhawk was an active and committed attorney. She carried a large caseload, ranging from major federal suits such as the Coeur d’Alene fishing rights and the Spirit Lake development to minor pro bono work for individual Indians. She’d consulted, although not argued, on a groundbreaking case concerning Indian trust accounts, in which a federal judge held in contempt Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin over their departments’ mismanagement of income from native lands, dating back to the 1880s. And just last week she’d taken up the cause of a group of Nez Perce who were being forced by a private college in Lewiston, Idaho, to take out prayer permits in order to worship at a sacred peak in the Seven Devils Mountains, where the school’s astronomy department had installed costly telescopes.

  When Robin finished summarizing some two dozen files, the sun was slanting in the windows of Saskia’s office and the four of us were both exhausted and wired from too much coffee. Castner, the note-taker of the partners, got up and paced around, consulting his pad.

  “Okay,” he said, “the timber interests in the Coeur d’ Alene case are definitely suspect. But I think we can discount the federal trust case; the feds’re underhanded as hell, but they don’t usually resort to hit-and-run, except on ‘The X-Files.’ Snake River College?”

  Willson yawned widely. “I don’t know. Those telescopes’re expensive, but I can’t see a bunch of academics getting exercised enough to resort to attempted homicide. We assign a low priority to that, and we’re still looking at over half those pro bonos and the Spirit Lake thing. You got names, phone numbers?”

  “Everything we need.”

  “Let’s go, then, so these people can get some rest.”

  As soon as the officers were out the door, Robin called the hospital for an update on Saskia’s condition. No change, she was told. I urged her to try to sleep, but she decided to go over there and wait till she could talk with Dr. Bishop; she would, she said, feel better being closer to her mom. Would I stay with Darcy? she asked. Reassure him if he woke before she got back? Of course, I told her, although I badly wanted to go along to the hospital.

  After she left in my rental car—her keys as yet unfound—I went upstairs and looked in on her—our—brother. He lay on his back, snoring softly, oblivious to the events that had churned around him. Sleep made his face young and vulnerable, in spite of the hardware and purple hair. I hoped that he’d be strong enough to handle the waiting where his mom was concerned. Hoped that if he wasn’t, Robin could handle him. And, lacking either, that I’d be strong enough to handle both of them.

  4:53 P.M.

  “Sharon, wake up.”

  “Huh?” I swam to the surface slowly. The room was unfamiliar, and I wa
s covered by a blue blanket, but I wasn’t in bed.…

  Oh, right, Darcy’s room. I’d sat down in the recliner and must’ve fallen asleep. Robin had probably found me there and covered me, and now she wanted me to wake up.

  “What time is it?”

  “Nearly five in the afternoon.” Her face came into focus, deeply shadowed and strained.

  I struggled to sit up. The bed was rumpled, Darcy gone. “Saskia—is she—”

  “No change. But you’ve got a visitor. A man. He says he’s your father.”

  Austin DeCarlo, here in Boise? At Saskia’s house?

  I untangled myself from the blanket and stood, experiencing a flash of vertigo. My skin felt tight and tingly—a consequence of too little sleep, too much coffee, and no food.

  Robin asked, “Is he your adoptive father, or…?”

  “My birth father.” I started for the adjoining bathroom.

  “Then he’s—”

  “Give me a minute.”

  I shut the door against her question, used the facilities, splashed water on my face. In the mirror my skin looked grayish and unhealthy; my hair needed washing. I ran my fingers through it, said, “What the hell,” and went back to Robin.

  “That man downstairs,” she said. “He was my mother’s lover?”

  “Yes. I located him a few days ago, and he told me where she was living.”

  “How did he know? I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

  “Come downstairs with me, and I’ll introduce you.”

  Austin DeCarlo, clad in a blue business suit and red-and-blue-striped tie, stood in front of the fireplace in the parlor, looking up at the painted elk hide. His manner was formal as he turned toward us.

  “Sharon, I came as soon as I heard about Kia. How is she?”

  “She’s been in a coma since the hit-and-run.”

  “Did you get to meet her?”

  “No.” I drew Robin forward. “This is Austin DeCarlo, my father. Robin Blackhawk, my half sister.”

  DeCarlo extended his hand, but Robin sucked her breath in and backed up, her face hardening. “Austin DeCarlo, the Spirit Lake developer?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me he was your father?”

  “You had enough to deal with, without me dumping that on you. Now that he’s here, though—”

  “Now that he’s here, I’d like to spit in his face!” She glared at DeCarlo. “First you knock up my mother and leave her. Then—”

  “Ms. Blackhawk, I realize we aren’t meeting under the best of circumstances—”

  “Circumstances? Circumstances that you created! You’re the one, aren’t you? The one who tried to kill my mother?”

  DeCarlo frowned. “Kill Kia? Why would I—?”

  Robin made an enraged sound, half grunt and half scream, and hurled herself at him. Her fists pummeled the air, and then his chest. DeCarlo fended her off, his hands on her shoulders, while I grabbed her from behind.

  “Robin, calm down!” I said. “He wouldn’t’ve come here if—”

  “He shouldn’t’ve come here at all!” She broke my hold, slamming me against the wall next to the archway. By the time I caught my breath and started after her, she was halfway up the stairs, sobbing harshly. I let her go.

  DeCarlo came over to me. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Jesus, what was all that about?”

  “Why don’t we sit down.”

  I felt terrible about the whole business. I should have prepared Robin. An oversight, because I was disoriented and tired and surprised Austin was here? Or had I subconsciously pushed the confrontation, hoping to learn something from his reaction? Was my mind really that devious, even when half asleep? Was I really that cruel?

  “Exactly why are you here?” I asked him.

  “I heard about Kia’s accident from my attorney. I thought you might need my support.”

  His reasoning was preposterous. In forty years he’d made only the one attempt to locate me, and now he was rushing to my side, wanting to be a daddy.

  My expression must have given away my thoughts. “All right,” he said. “I was presumptuous, but I can’t help the way I feel.”

  “How’d you know where I was?”

  “From your office.”

  I’d called the agency machine last night, left the address and number. “You should’ve phoned first.”

  “I realize that now. Why does Robin think I tried to kill Kia?”

  I explained the circumstances of the hit-and-run. “The police are looking at everyone in an adversarial relationship to her and her causes. You’re a top priority.”

  “Because of Spirit Lake? That’s crazy.”

  “Is it? Where were you last night, Austin?”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “Where?”

  “With my friend Nicole, making up for leaving her at the restaurant the night you found me.”

  It made sense, and I wanted to believe him, but… “We need to talk about Spirit Lake,” I said. “Before the police contact you. Does anyone in Monterey know you’re here?”

  “My executive assistant, and he won’t give out information.”

  “Good. We can’t talk here, though. Why don’t you check in to a hotel?”

  “I have a reservation at the Grove.”

  “Then go there, and I’ll be along after I smooth things over with Robin.”

  He nodded and stood. For a moment he hesitated, as if he wanted to say something more, but then he turned and left. I stayed where I was for a few moments before I went upstairs to comfort my half sister.

  7:02 P.M.

  I walked across the downtown plaza known as the Grove toward the hotel of the same name, dodging rollerbladers whose skates rumbled on the brick-work. Mist from a fountain that sent columns of water high in the air caressed my face. The evening was warmish, and people strolled along or sat at the outdoor tables of the cafés. A young woman with electric green hair and a filmy pink dress twirled a rainbow-striped parasol; she was soon joined by two men dressed in black leather and metal ornaments, whose dye jobs made them look as if they were wearing skunks on their heads. Unlike many cities’, Boise’s downtown district was far from dead after office hours, and highly entertaining.

  Austin DeCarlo’s hotel was clearly one of the best in town, and his thirteenth-floor suite had to be their finest. As he settled me on a sofa with a mountain view and poured me a glass of Chardonnay, I reflected on the irony of my situation.

  No one in the McCone family had ever possessed the ability to attract much money; my parents and aunts and uncles had pretty much lived hand-to-mouth or on credit. My brothers and sisters and I worked on weekends and during the summers as soon as we were of age, and when I decided to go to college after a two-year stint as a department-store security guard, it was understood that it would be on my own nickel. For years after graduation I paid off student loans while working at low-salaried jobs, and had it not been for a cash reward from a grateful client, I might never have owned a house. A second reward, this one from the federal government, bankrolled my agency’s expansion. I was doing well, but out of lifelong habit, I still counted every penny. Now, though, I had a rich father who could buy anything he pleased. Could buy me anything I pleased—as long as I pleased him.

  So why didn’t it matter to me?

  Austin settled into an oversized chair; he’d changed to jeans and a sweater, and his feet were clad in moccasins. He lounged low, stretching out his long legs, a glass of Scotch in hand.

  “You get things straightened out with Robin?” he asked.

  “Yes. She allowed as how she’d acted out of proportion to the situation. You didn’t see her at her best; normally she’s quite levelheaded.”

  “And the brother? What’s he like?”

  “That’s another thing entirely. But I didn’t come here to discuss Saskia’s family. We need to talk about Spirit Lake. The police will be looking at you as a suspe
ct, both in the hit-and-run and the breakin at the Blackhawk house. They’ll gather background on the dispute over the project. They’ll gather background on you and your past relationship with Saskia.”

  “Jesus, I can prove where I was last night—”

  “I know that, but the police might contend you were setting up an alibi because you’d hired the hit and the breakin. We need to talk everything over and find a way to diffuse those suspicions.”

  “You believe me, then.”

  I didn’t know what I believed, but I said, “Yes. Tell me about the project.”

  “It’s an unusual property, with interesting potential. Do you know anything about Modoc County?”

  “Very little.”

  “Well, the Modoc Bioregion actually includes all or part of seven counties: Modoc, Siskiyou, Lassen, Shasta, Tehama, Butte, and Plumas. It’s one of the most unspoiled and diverse in the West: contains forest, mountains, high desert, wetlands, and volcanic fields. And it’s relatively unsettled: Modoc County has less than eleven thousand population, the others some half million combined. Spirit Lake is alkalai, in the high desert, but to the east it’s forestland and to the west the acreage encompasses lava fields that’re more spectacular than those of the national monument near Tule Lake.”

  “This is all very interesting, but what’s it got to do—”

  “Sorry. I’m enthusiastic about the property, and I digress. Anyway, I’ve known about the area for a long time, and a few years ago I heard that the lake and acreage were available for purchase from the Department of the Interior. It seemed the perfect place for an exclusive luxury resort. So I bought the land, had surveys done and plans drawn up. But now everything’s blocked by this damned lawsuit, and the Modocs’re being backed by a powerful consortium of environmentalists.”

  “Does this consortium have a name?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “What do you know about them?”

  “… From what my attorney’s investigators have been able to find out, they’re a group of wealthy philanthropists who want their good deeds to go unpublicized.”

  “And?”

  “… That’s it.”

  Some investigators. “Okay, who’s the spokesperson for the Modocs?”