by Janet Dawson
“I checked you out,” he said.
“I’m sure you did.”
“The attorneys I spoke with were pleased with your work. One told me you are capable and discreet. Another said he recommends you highly. That is, if you are who you say you are.”
I showed him my investigator’s license. He examined it closely, then nodded.
“So Vera Burke hired you. When you called yesterday, you hadn’t talked to her. You had a different client. Am I right?”
“Yes. My client was Elizabeth Willis’s husband. He changed his mind about finding her.”
“I assume he had his reasons.”
“He claims she’s been abusing their son. Vera doesn’t believe it.”
“Interesting.” Something flickered in Kinney’s eyes, bus I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He laced his fingers together and rested his hands on his knee. “What do you want from me?”
“Background information on the Willis family. Maybe if I know where Elizabeth came from I’ll have a better idea of where she went.”
“That’s one way of going about it,” Kinney said. “I take it you know the details of the murders.”
“I spoke with the investigating officer yesterday, and I have a copy of the police report. I also read the coverage in the Tribune. That’s how I got your name. How did you come to be Mark Willis’s attorney?”
“I’ve known Charles and Vera Burke for years. Charles called me the morning after the murders. He asked if I would talk to the boy. When I saw Mark and got the details of the case, I agreed to act as Mark’s counsel.”
“What can you tell me about George and Frances Willis?”
“When people are dead, other people generally say good things about them.” Kinney favored me with a tight smile. “What I can tell you is hearsay. Not admissible in a court of law, but perhaps suitable for your purpose. Most people spoke of George Willis with affection. He was called a man’s man, a good officer. Frances did volunteer work with the officers’ wives club and she played a lot of golf. Everyone said they were nice people.”
“But...” I said. “Your impression?”
“My impression was that the family was fragmented. George Willis seems to have been less interested in the role of husband and father than he was in his Navy career. He was away a lot. That forced Frances Willis into the role of family leader. I’m not sure she was up to it.”
“You said most people spoke of George with affection. What did they say about Frances?”
“Not much at first,” Kinney said. “Then little bits of information that helped me form a picture. She was a striking woman — from all accounts, a fun-loving one as well. One of her friends told me she liked to party. Another hinted that Frances slept around. She didn’t seem to be close to her children. In fact, several people reported that she was impatient with them. I detected an undercurrent in the accounts of Frances Willis, one of restlessness, frustration, dissatisfaction. Of course I never met the woman, so I’m speculating.”
I asked Kinney the same question I’d asked myself. “Why did Mark Willis murder his parents?”
“He didn’t like them very much.” Kinney shifted in his chair. “He didn’t exactly say that, but he didn’t have to. As for a specific reason, I don’t know. Mark was polite and cooperative, up to a point. But he never retracted his so-called confession. He never offered an explanation or an excuse. I had nothing on which to base a defense. It’s difficult to defend someone who seems determined to go to prison.”
“Why do you think he did it?”
He was quiet for a moment, staring out the window at the lake. Then he spoke. “Policemen, lawyers, and psychologists will tell you that when a child kills his parents there’s usually a history of child abuse, both physical and psychological. There have been a number of well-publicized cases over the past few years.”
“You’re the second person to bring up the subject,” I said. “Do you think that’s what happened in the Willis family?”
“No evidence of it.” Kinney stroked his beard. “My probing in that direction was met by disbelief and outrage from friends and family alike. Remember, they were nice people. The consensus was that George and Frances Willis would never do such a thing. Of course, these were the same people who couldn’t believe that a nice kid like Mark Willis killed his parents. Without input from Mark, I never got anywhere with that line of questioning.”
“What about input from Elizabeth?”
“Minimal. I had very little access to her.”
That surprised me. “But she was in the house when it happened. That makes her a material witness.”
“Elizabeth told the police she was upstairs in her room when she heard the shots,” Kinney said. “It was never clear to me whether she came downstairs to investigate. I wanted to question her right after the murders, but she was hysterical. After the hospital released her to Vera, she spent the next few days lying in a darkened bedroom at the Burkes’, crying when she wasn’t sedated. Her aunts wouldn’t let her or Karen go to the funeral.” The attorney stopped and shook his head.
“When I finally talked to Elizabeth she told me all she could remember was hearing shots. The police couldn’t get much else out of her either, and I must say they took her statement at face value. Why shouldn’t they? Mark’s fingerprints were on the gun and he’d confessed.”
“What’s your guess?”
“I think she saw something,” Kinney said. “I don’t know what. Maybe she blocked it out. Or she’s lying. I wish I knew which. It was a traumatic experience for a young girl. That’s why her aunts were hesitant about my pressing Elizabeth for details. It meant that Mark’s statement was the only version of the facts available.”
“Vera Burke hired you to defend her nephew. I would think she’d have been more cooperative.”
“Things always look different in retrospect,” Kinney said. “I was in the middle of a tug-of-war between Vera and her sister. Vera wanted to help Mark. Alice Gray was primarily interested in protecting her nieces. At the first opportunity she whisked them off to Stockton to live with the grandparents.”
“What was your impression of Elizabeth?”
“A troubled young girl.”
“In what way?”
For a moment Kinney seemed to grope for words, an unusual condition in a lawyer. “I can’t quite put my finger on it,” he said finally.
“When I talked to her she seemed a bit sullen, resentful of my questions. Of course she’d already been questioned by the police. I told Vera and Charles at the time that they should see the girl got some counseling. That fall, as I prepared for Mark’s sentencing, Vera mentioned that Elizabeth was seeing a psychologist. I was glad to hear that she was getting some help.”
“Vera says Elizabeth saw the psychologist for a few months,” I said. “That doesn’t seem like sufficient damage control for a teenager who may have seen her brother murder their parents.”
“I doubt that it was. The whole episode was frustrating, from start to finish.” Kinney was talking about his Willis case. I knew how he felt because I was thinking about mine. And it wasn’t finished.
“Given the circumstances, I’m sure you did the best you could.”
“My best would have been keeping Mark Willis out of prison.” Kinney shook his head slowly. “Whether he deserved to be there or not. That’s how the game of criminal defense is played.”
It was after seven when I left Kinney’s office. Outside, the streetlamps cast pools of light on the dark pavement of Harrison Street. As I came down the steps to the sidewalk I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the March evening. It felt like the scrutiny of someone’s eyes.
I swept the dark street with a glance and saw a man and a woman walking down the opposite sidewalk. I thought I glimpsed someone sitting in a parked car to my left, face in shadow. Under one light pole a shaggy-haired derelict scavenged in a trash can. He stared at me for a long moment, his eyes intense above a thin face shadowed by stu
bble, his frame lost in his baggy gray clothes.
How young he looked, I thought, guessing he was a runaway. I turned to the right and walked back to my car. 1 couldn’t shake the sensation that someone’s eyes bored into my back.
The front door of my building was propped open as two men in coveralls carried cleaning supplies into the lobby from a white van marked BUILDING SERVICE. The woman who ran the maintenance crew was in the lobby, going over the checklist she carried on a clipboard.
We exchanged greetings. “There’s a light burned out in the hallway, right in front of my office,” I told her, punching the up button. She said she’d take care of it, making a note on her checklist.
The outer door of Cassie’s office was locked, but I saw a light burning inside. I knocked. A moment later I heard Cassie’s voice. “Who is it?”
“Jeri.”
She opened the door. She was shoeless and jacketless, the cuffs of her raspberry-colored blouse unbuttoned and rolled up her arms.
“I thought you’d gone,” she said. “I was just about to order a pizza. Feel like sharing one?”
“Order a big one, with extra cheese and pepperoni. I’ll get the beer from my refrigerator.”
“What have you been up to?” She cocked her head to one side. “You look wired.”
“I’ll explain in a minute.”
In my office I unlocked the filing cabinet and slipped Vera Burke’s check into the Foster file. I pulled out the bits of paper I’d tucked in my wallet, the addresses and phone numbers Vera Burke had given me.
Mark Willis lived in Cibola. The name of the town was familiar. I took a California map from my desk drawer and scanned it. Cibola was a tiny speck on Highway 49, between Jackson and San Andreas, in Calaveras County. When I was a kid we’d spent lots of summers in the Gold Country. Dad’s mother was born in Jackson and she had a brother there, so we used the town as a base while we explored the towns of the Mother Lode. We’d probably driven through Cibola, but I didn’t remember the town. No doubt it was just another collection of tired old buildings in a dusty street, a remnant of the gold frenzy of 1849.
I picked up the phone. Mark Willis’s phone in Cibola rang several times. He didn’t answer. Neither did Karen Willis in Berkeley. Maybe I’d have better luck locating both of them at work tomorrow, after I kept my appointment with Lenore Franklin. I fetched a couple of beers from my refrigerator and locked my door.
“The pizza will be here in about twenty minutes,” Cassie said as she let me into her office. “I told the guy who took the order that we’d pick it up at the front door.” She took one of the beers and twisted off the cap. “You look more cheerful than you did this afternoon.”
“The Foster case has been reactivated.”
“Did the husband change his mind?”
“No. After you left my office I called the antique store again. This time someone answered.”
“The aunt?”
I nodded. “Vera Burke. I went to the shop and talked to her. She doesn’t buy the child-abuse story, and she wants me to find Elizabeth.”
“So you’ve got another client,” Cassie set her beer bottle on her desk, which was piled with law books and file folders. “I guess that background check will have to wait.”
“I’ll finish it as soon as I can.”
“That’s okay,” she said with a wave of her hand. “It looks like we may settle before the hearing. Besides, I know you wanted to continue this investigation. Now you’ve got a client, so do it.”
“I may be out of town for a couple of days. If I give you my extra key will you look after my cat?”
“That bottomless pit with legs?” Cassie laughed. “Sure. Just let me know when you’re leaving and when to expect you back.” I gave her the key. She put it in her purse and took out her wallet. “You go get the pizza and I’ll clean off my desk.”
Upstairs in her office Cassie and I devoured the pizza as though we hadn’t eaten in a week, tomato sauce and strings of cheese dribbling down our chins and fingers. I grabbed a couple of napkins and mopped at my mouth, then reached for my beer. As we ate, Cassie told me about the case she’d won in court that afternoon. We finished the pizza and tidied up Cassie’s desk. Then I heard something that made me come out of my chair.
“What is it?” Cassie asked.
“I’m not sure.”
Wiping my hands on a napkin, I headed for the darkened outer office, Cassie at my heels. I heard the noise again, the dull thunk of a solid object striking wood. I pulled open the door, wide enough to look into the hallway.
The figure was clothed in black, wearing a turtleneck sweater and a knit cap with not much face visible in between. Those features I could see were obscured in the shadows left by the burned-out light fixture. Gloved hands held an iron crowbar, which was jammed in the crack between the frame and my office door.
I slipped out the door, moving quickly toward the intruder. Then he heard me and turned. Beneath the cap a pair of pale eyes widened in a narrow face. He swung the crowbar at me. I dodged the blow and heard another thunk as the bar hit the wall behind me. I kicked him on the knee. A voice hissed a curse, then he swung at me again. This time I caught the bar with my hands. We struggled, neither of us making a sound. Between the cuffs of the sweater and the glove of his right wrist I saw the blue lines of a tattoo.
He kicked me several times on the left shin and ankle. It hurt like hell. I fell against the wall, still clinging to the bar. His grip loosened. I wrenched the crowbar away from him and shoved one end into his abdomen. I heard him grunt in pain, but the blow didn’t slow him. He aimed a fist at my face. I twisted away from the wall, and the blow landed on my shoulder. I circled, limping slightly, but he kept moving too.
Over his shoulder I saw Cassie at her office door. “The police are on their way,” she called, her voice shrill with tension.
The intruder rushed me, knocking me to the floor. He kept going, headed for the fire escape at the back of the building. I jumped to my feet and ran after him. He hit the door and his footsteps clattered down the metal stairs. By the time I got out to the landing he was in the alley, running toward the street.
“Are you all right?” Cassie asked as I walked back to my office, favoring my right ankle.
“I’m okay.” I looked at my office door and the frame near the lock, examining the gouges and scratches left by the crowbar. “Guess he couldn’t wait till office hours.”
My left leg ached. I sat down on the floor and pulled up the cuff of my slacks to inspect my shin and ankle. A couple of angry red spots were already swelling, the skin hard and painful.
Fred, the building security guard, appeared from the stairwell. “I thought I heard something,” he said, his face furrowing as he saw me sitting on the floor. “What happened?”
“Someone tried to break into Jeri’s office,” Cassie said. “I called the police.”
“Damn.” Fred hurried over to my door. “Did he get in?”
“No. This is as far as he got.”
Two uniformed Oakland cops arrived a moment later. I stood up to greet them. I knew one of them, Glen Lee. His partner was a woman I didn’t recognize. Her name tag read Alvarez. She took out a notebook and started asking questions.
“Ms. Taylor and I were in her office.” I pointed toward Cassie’s door. “I heard something in the hallway, looked out, and saw a man attempting to force my office door. We struggled, and he kicked me several times. I took this crowbar away from him, but he got away. He went down the fire escape at the back of the building and ran down the alley in the direction of Eleventh Street.”
“Description?” Lee asked.
“Male Caucasian, slight build. I’d say five-six or five-seven, maybe a hundred forty pounds. He was wearing black pants, a black turtleneck, black gloves, and a knitted watch cap pulled down to his eyebrows. All I could see were his eyes and nose. The eyes were light blue or gray, and I didn’t see any facial hair. Heavy shoes, maybe steel-toed. He had a tattoo on
his right wrist. I only caught a glimpse, but it looked like a butterfly.”
“Any idea who might want to break into your office?” Alvarez asked.
I’d been asking myself the same question. Who wanted to get into my office badly enough to break in?
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I have no idea.”
That wasn’t exactly true. I recalled the sensation I’d felt earlier on the street outside Lawrence Kinney’s office. Someone had been watching me. Was it that kid I’d seen, rummaging in the trash can? Our eyes had met for just a few seconds, a brief period, but enough to make a connection. Had he followed me back to my office, wearing dark clothes under his rags, his hair stuffed into a cap? It would have been easy to get in, since the cleaning crew had the door propped open. Maybe he’d hidden in the stairwell with his crowbar until I left my office. But I couldn’t be sure. It had been dark on the street, and equally dark in this hallway. The tattoo I’d glimpsed made me think of the Navy. There were a lot of sailors stationed in the Bay Area, some of them retired — like Admiral Joseph Franklin.
After the police left, Cassie and I looked at each other, then at Fred, who’d been hovering around, watching the excitement.
“Well, I’ve had enough drama for one night,” Cassie said. “Let’s go home.” I waited in the hallway while she fetched her briefcase and locked her office. Fred assured me he’d keep a close eye on things in case that joker returned.
“Thanks, Fred, but I don’t think he’ll be back.”
Cassie and I headed for the stairs. “Okay, Jeri, tell me what you really think.”
“He was an amateur. He made a lot of noise. A pro would have picked the lock — quietly.”
“What was he after?”
“Computer equipment, maybe. But there are easier ways to make a score. Smash a car window and grab the stereo, for instance. Eliminate the computer, and the only thing in my office worth stealing is information.”
“That’s what I thought. Now all you have to do is figure out what. And who’s after it.”
