City of Whispers

by Marcia Muller

  Startled look. “Plenty, of course, given my history. But why?”

  I waved away the question. “Say the abuser is a man in his fifties, the victim barely in her teens when the abuse started. It’s suspected in certain circles, but he’s never been accused because the underage victim would deny it. If someone wants to warn others about the man, what recourse would she or he have?”

  Julia, who had been abused by any number of men during her years as a teenage prostitute, looked thoughtful. “How long did it go on?”

  “Five years or so. From age thirteen until the girl was killed at eighteen.”

  “Killed by her abuser?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, if it was known to others who couldn’t or wouldn’t come forward because they had no evidence, there’s a website they could contact: FreeToHarm.com. People report their suspicions and they put it out on the Net.”

  “That’s potentially libelous.”

  “Yes, but normal laws don’t apply much to the Net.”

  “True.” Regulation of the rapidly growing twists and turns of the Internet was as yet an unresolved issue. Hard to govern something that widespread and amorphous.

  I swiveled to my keyboard, typed in “FreeToHarm.com.”

  The site came up: black letters on a Caltrans-orange background. I scanned its statement of purpose, then typed Clarence Drew’s name in the box provided.

  A page came up, complete with picture. The text read: “Suspected of having molested his legal ward from age 13 or 14, possibly longer. No other victims reported. Number of complainants: 5.” Drew’s addresses—both business and home—were given.

  “This is pretty strong stuff,” I said. “And possibly dangerous. None of it has been proven, unlike the sites that publicize the whereabouts of convicted molesters. Say you don’t like your neighbor, so you put him and his address on this site. Somebody else has a vendetta against molesters and blows him away. And you, of course, are protected by anonymity.”

  “I admit it’s over the top,” Julia agreed. “But when there’ve been five complaints… well, you have to figure something was going on.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What were the dates on the posts?”

  I clicked through them. “All within the past two weeks. Long after Gaby was dead.”

  FreeToHarm.com. Mick or Derek might be able to get information on who had made those posts.

  Darcy Blackhawk

  I couldn’t’ve done that….

  He said the words aloud, staring at the newspaper story. The girl in the brown cape had just read it to him.

  “The police think you did,” she said. “They’re already looking for you.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “It says so in here.”

  They were in the dark bedroom in the tall house.

  He sort of remembered another house. Dark too, and he’d gotten attacked by a stupid little dog. Or had that been just a story he’d heard someplace? He didn’t think he’d been out of the house, had slept a lot, he guessed. Afternoon light was coming from around the dark burlap curtains.

  The little brown girl showed him something else in the paper, a picture of the woman, young and smiling. Darcy knew her. Or did he? And how did he know she looked older now?

  How? Where?

  The water running under the bridge. Her crazy laughter.

  Yes! The Salmon River. Lady Laura.

  The places they’d stayed after they were sent away from there: none of them as nice, some really awful. But Lady Laura knew how to make them home. Last Thanksgiving she’d gone searching and found leftover fried chicken in a Dumpster behind a KFC, and they’d had a feast.

  And now the girl was telling him Laura was dead.

  Her cold dead face… What I did…

  He lowered his face and stared numbly at his hands; they were dirty, the nails ragged.

  Her voice hammered at him, asking the same questions that she had been all along.

  “You knew her in Idaho, right?”

  “… Yeah.”

  They’d been friends. Lady Laura was nice, shared her dope. Had that big, booming laugh that would send up echoes as they hunkered on the bridge supports above the shallow water.

  “What did she give you to keep for her?”

  That again. “Nothing.”

  “Sure she did.”

  “When?”

  “Up in Idaho.”

  “Grass and meth. We used together. It’s all gone.”

  “No, I mean something she wanted you to hold on to. Something valuable.”

  “I told you, I don’t have anything valuable, not even my computer.”

  “Maybe you or Laura hid it someplace?”

  “My computer?”

  “Darcy, I don’t know if you’re very stupid or very crafty.”

  He had no opinion on that. A lot of people had called him stupid, but so far nobody had called him crafty. He wasn’t even sure what “crafty” meant.

  “Look,” the girl said. “You were at the Salmon River with Lady Laura. Then the two of you came down here. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Tell me everything you remember about that time.”

  Remember. He’d forgotten so much. He looked again at the newspaper. He’d remember if he’d done it. Wouldn’t he?

  I couldn’t have done that.

  Sharon McCone

  I wanted to talk with Clarence Drew in person, but when I phoned his office the receptionist said he’d gone home for the day. No problem: I had his address on Filbert Street in Pacific Heights, and decided the shock value of having an investigator show up unannounced might catch him off guard.

  Drew’s block was an attractive one: shady elm trees, well-tended little front yards beyond low fences, Bay views between the detached houses. His lot was narrow—the standard San Francisco twenty-five feet—but the dwelling itself was a huge three-story Victorian.

  I parked across the street but remained in my car for a moment, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, considering my approach. My earlier conversation with him had not been adversarial, but a certain amount of pressure from me might elicit a more volatile—and truthful—response.

  A uniformed maid with a cloud of black hair that dwarfed her small features answered the bell, looked skeptically at my credentials, then silently admitted me into a dark foyer; I glimpsed tapestries on the walls and a narrow staircase. She said in a slight Spanish accent, “I’ll see if he’s receiving visitors,” and vanished.

  I waited. The house was unnaturally quiet. No television sounds, no music, no one moving about. Eventually I heard footsteps coming down a back staircase—probably the maid returning. But then a door slammed at the rear.

  I hurried along a hallway toward where the sound had come from into a spacious, well-appointed kitchen. Reached the outside door in time to see an old Chevy Camaro back down the driveway. The maid leaving—in a hurry.

  I retraced my steps to the foyer. The house was silent again. I called out to Drew, received only echoes of my own voice in return.

  Maybe he wasn’t home. Maybe he’d sent the maid away because he didn’t want to see me… no, he would have told her to get rid of me, not to run. Maybe he was hiding somewhere.

  I had no business being here, even if I’d been let in by the maid, but my curiosity overwhelmed my good sense. I inspected the other ground-floor rooms. Formal parlor, with Hepplewhite furnishings that looked as if no one had ever sat on them, plenty of mahogany and a big, deep blue rug with raised pink flowers at each corner. Informal parlor, well used, with magazines, books, videotapes, and DVDs scattered about. Dining room, crystal and fine china displayed in cabinets and not a mote of dust on the gleaming table and sideboard. Tiled butler’s pantry connecting to the kitchen: well stocked with canned goods, more dishes, linens, and flatware.

  A low, whimpering sound came from one of the cabinets. I stooped down, saw its door was slightly open. Inside was a little dog with
wide, frightened eyes; its body was quivering. I put out a hand to calm it, and it drew back its lips and snapped at me.

  “Okay,” I said. “You’re scared. Stay in there.”

  The dog laid its head on its paws.

  I left the kitchen and went back down the hallway. Climbed the front stairs and moved along a central hallway from door to door, shoving each open and looking inside. Storage room: cartons stacked haphazardly, a jumble of old-style exercise equipment pushed to one side. Videotapes spilled from an open carton near the window. An office: rolltop desk and oak file cabinets, but no papers or desk chair, obviously unused. Neatly made-up bedroom that might have belonged to a young woman: pale yellow walls, canopied bed, mirrored dressing table.

  Gaby’s room.

  Inside I looked at the dust-covered things laid out on the top of the dressing table: half-full perfume vial, Chanel No. 19; manicure and pedicure kit; brush and comb; various ointments and creams; makeup from Prescriptives, a firm that had by now gone out of business.

  Nothing had changed since Gaby’s death.

  A rocking chair was pulled up to a rear window overlooking a small yard where a marble fountain splashed. The chair, I was sure, where Clarence Drew’s wife had kept her vigil after Gaby had “ruined” their lives by “getting herself killed.” I wondered what thoughts had passed through the woman’s mind. Sorrow and loneliness, yes, but something more. I could feel its presence in the room.

  Guilt.

  Why? Because Gaby had come to them and been shunted off to boarding school for much of the time? Because they had failed to love her as parents would? Because Mrs. Drew knew her husband was molesting the girl and had done nothing to stop it? Because Gaby had been murdered on their watch?

  All of those reasons, maybe.

  I opened the closet. Not a lot of clothing there, but Gaby would have taken most of her things to Palo Alto, and Lucy Grant had disposed of them at Drew’s request. What Gaby had chosen not to take with her was telling: school uniforms, penny loafers, preppy plaid skirts, demure little blouses. Gaby had exchanged her girl’s wardrobe for that of a college woman.

  I went through the rest of the room, but found nothing of interest. Most of the drawers were empty except for some ruffled young-girl’s nightgowns, shabby underwear, and junk jewelry. No secret hiding places, no clues to her inner life. What remained were simply discards.

  Time to get out of there. I was trespassing, on dangerous ground. I started for the staircase, but an odd creaking noise from the next room attracted me. The door was half open, so I went over and looked into a bedroom full of more ponderous mahogany furnishings and—

  And in its center a large man’s body hanging from a rope tied around a high beam.

  The chair Clarence Drew had apparently been standing on—a desk model, probably the one from the office—lay on its side beneath the dangling legs. The body sagged, dead weight, but moved slightly in a breeze from an open window. The odors of urine and feces permeated the air.

  I’ve seen victims of violence—self-inflicted or otherwise—many times, but I’ve never become indifferent to them. My breath caught, and I backed away from the door, stood in the hallway breathing shallowly. An old friend who could frequently be found with her mouth and nose in a paper bag to avoid hyperventilating had taught me that too much intake of oxygen after a shock could lead to disorientation and loss of consciousness. In the absence of a bag, little breaths worked.

  After a couple of minutes I went back to the door. There was no doubt that Drew was dead; his face was deeply purple and even at a distance I could tell his neck was broken.

  I glanced around the room, looking for a suicide note. Found it on the bureau next to a pile of loose change.

  I HAVE NO ONE FROM WHOM TO ASK FOR FORGIVENESS. MY WILL AND OTHER DOCUMENTS ARE IN THE SAFE AT MY OFFICE.

  Short, and not sweet.

  I backed out of the room and called 911.

  “So we meet again, Ms. McCone,” Inspector Devlin Fast said. “But this time I know more of your history.”

  We were sitting at the table in the kitchen of Clarence Drew’s house. Through the closed door I could hear the sounds of the paramedics removing Drew’s body. They’d taken longer to arrive than the animal rescue group I’d called to take custody of Drew’s frightened little dog.

  “My history,” I said.

  “Long career, high-profile cases. The Diplo-bomber, for instance. More than your usual fifteen minutes’ worth of fame, more sound bites.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy the attention.”

  I sat up straighter. “I wasn’t looking for publicity, if that’s what you mean. It’s not helpful in my profession. And I don’t get off on people’s pain and misery.”

  Fast looked skeptical. “And you’ve built up a nice business.”

  “I don’t see where that’s any problem. We’ve helped a lot of people over the years.”

  He smiled thinly. “You do stand up for yourself. I like that.”

  Why the sudden shift? To disarm me so I’d tell him what he wanted to know?

  “Now,” he said, “what were you doing here at Mr. Drew’s house?”

  I explained the sequence of events.

  “But why did you come here?”

  “As I told you in my previous statement about the Chuck Bosworth case, I’m writing a true-crime account of the Gabriella DeLucci murder. I needed to ask Mr. Drew some questions.”

  “Ah, yes, your book. Who’s the publisher?”

  “It’s on spec.” A term I had heard Rae use.

  “Well, I hope you find a home for it and it sells well. These recent slayings will undoubtedly spice it up.” He looked down at the plastic evidence bag containing Drew’s suicide note. “What do you make of this?”

  “Drew was an arrogant man. He was suspected of having molested his legal ward, Gaby DeLucci, and there’s a good chance he did. But even in his last message he wouldn’t admit it. In his eyes he’d done nothing wrong.”

  “That’s a pretty insightful analysis of a man you say you’ve met only once.”

  “I’ve met his kind before. I’ve read case histories and the SFPD’s file on the DeLucci murder. And I’ve visited FreeToHarm.com.”

  Fast’s eyes narrowed at my mention of the site. “Oh, yes, the watchdogs.”

  “They’re performing a service.”

  “And hurting a lot of innocent people along the way. Anybody with a grudge—”

  “I realize that. I’m just as aware of the site’s potential for harm as you are. And so was Drew; he realized that other people weren’t going to take the same casual attitude toward the molestations that he did. His life and career were essentially over. There were five postings about Drew and Gaby in the last two weeks.”

  “Only two weeks? The DeLucci girl’s been dead for two years.”

  “Apparently somebody’s decided to stir the hornet’s nest.”

  Mick Savage

  He was plenty pissed off by the time he got back to San Francisco. Pissed at the airline—his flight had been late leaving Portland—pissed at traffic, pissed at himself. The latter because he’d neglected to find out the identity of the friend—Marco—who had e-mailed Tullock about the NA meeting. He could e-mail him, of course, but it wouldn’t be the same as speaking with him in person. Mick wondered how Shar would feel about additional air ticket charges on the old expense account if he had to fly back up there.

  Nothing was happening at the pier. Late-afternoon lull. Ted and Kendra had their heads together over a spreadsheet. Patrick was conferring with Thelia Chen. Rae was absent, as were Shar and Julia. Craig Morland and Adah Joslyn, the remaining operatives, were in Italy on their honeymoon.

  When Mick went into his own office, Derek was working at his keyboard and held up a hand to indicate he couldn’t be disturbed.

  One good thing with Shar gone, Mick thought, he wouldn’t have to fess up to his laxity on the Portlan
d end of the investigation.

  Mick booted up his Mac and fired off a message to Marco’s address. Then he checked his mail: nothing of importance, but he hadn’t expected there to be.

  At a loss for anything else to do, he began a search on Marco.

  Marco Pinole, age thirty-six. Address in Amity, Oregon, not too many miles from Tullock’s ranch. Listed phone number. Occupation: crop duster. Wife, thirty-four, named Serena. Two sons, William, age eight, and Anthony, age six.

  No municipal airport in Amity, three private strips, permission required before landing. A crop duster would likely be located at one of them, or maybe at a grass or gravel strip that had no FAA designation.

  No message yet from Marco Pinole. Mick picked up the phone and called the listed number.

  “No, Marco’s not here now,” the youngish female voice said. “This is his wife. May I help you?”

  “I’m calling about a crop-dusting job. When will he be back?”

  “Not until morning; he’s out on a charter.”

  “Sorry I missed him. I didn’t know he also flies charters.”

  “He doesn’t, all that much, but this was a favor to some friends of his.”

  “Friends, plural? In a little crop-dusting plane?”

  She laughed. “No, we have a Cessna that can carry four passengers—more if, like today, there’re children in the party.”

  “D’you have any idea where he was going?”

  Hesitation. “Canada, I think. Probably Vancouver. He took his passport.”

  “Is that usual for him? To fly charters to Canada?”

  “As I said, this was a favor to a friend. Look, Mr….”

  “Savage. Mick Savage.” He gave her his number.

  “I’ll see he gets back to you.” She hung up.

  So the Tullocks were on their way to Canada with very little, if any, baggage. Running scared.

  Sharon McCone

  I had an edge on the SFPD: while I’d been waiting for them to arrive at Clarence Drew’s house I’d located an address book in a kitchen drawer that listed all the household help. The name of the maid who had fled the scene was Carlita Yanez, and she lived in Pacifica, a small city on the sea some twenty miles south of the city.