City of Whispers

by Marcia Muller

  I knew their names. The Favors were well known in both aviation and philanthropic circles.

  Next hangar: a perfectly restored and maintained blue Citabria like the one Hy used to own, until a crazy woman who had once tried to steal my identity had crashed it in the hills above Point Arena.

  “Don Krall specializes in vintage restoration,” Homestead told us. “He’d never risk one of his aircraft.”

  The plane was an absolute treasure. Hy and I nodded in agreement with Homestead.

  Another FedEx flight was incoming. It roared over us, its lights brilliant splashes on the darkness, and I shouted to Hy, “If I don’t get out of here soon, I’ll need a Miracle-Ear!”

  “Hah?” he yelled, mimicking deafness.

  The incoming flight had diverted my attention to a structure close to runway 10L. I tugged on Homestead’s sleeve. “What’s that?”

  He glanced up from fingering his ring of hangar keys.

  “Storage shed belonging to Bellassis. It hasn’t been used in years.”

  Hy and I exchanged glances, then ran together toward the shed.

  One more incoming cargo carrier made the air around us shudder, the ground feel as if it were liquefying. I grabbed for Hy’s arm and he clutched me tightly.

  “Christ,” he said, “I feel like I’m back in a war zone.”

  “Different enemy.”

  “Somebody does shit like this to innocent people, and they’re all the same enemy to me. I don’t discriminate when it comes to evil.”

  Neither did I.

  The shed stood well out of harm’s way, but it looked vulnerable. I shifted my gaze to the northwest, saw the lights of more incoming traffic.

  “If Darcy’s in there,” I said, “we’ve got to get him out ASAP.”

  “Yeah.” Hy pressed forward, pulling me along. When we reached the shed I heard noises coming from inside. Sounded like terrified wails.

  “He’s in there, all right,” I said.

  I examined the door; it was padlocked and the hasp looked sturdy. But its hinges were rusted, screws protruding. I indicated them to Hy, and slowly we began removing them with the aid of my Swiss Army knife. Finally they gave way and the door creaked open.

  Darcy was curled on the concrete floor, arms behind him, legs bound at the ankles. He was shuddering, and when we tried to pull him up, he screamed.

  “No! Don’t touch me! Nobody can ever touch me again!”

  “Darce, it’s me, Shar. Please get up!”

  The roar of the incoming plane was louder now.

  Darcy cried out again and curled into a fetal position.

  Hy had moved over to a far corner of the shed, drawn by a red light blinking on some sort of box. I hadn’t noticed it until he swung around and said urgently, “McCone!”

  “What is that?”

  “Explosive device, armed! We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “Christ!”

  Frantically we took hold of Darcy’s arms and dragged him out of there. He wiggled and grunted in protest, but we didn’t let go. Twenty yards from the shed. Thirty yards. Forty, fifty…

  “Get down!” Hy shouted. “Now!”

  We both dropped face-forward, our bodies shielding Darcy’s, our combined weight holding him in place. In the next second there was a booming roar and the shed blew up.

  The concussion was powerful enough to shake the ground, the reflected glare blinding as the fireball blossomed into the sky. The heat was intense, searing my skin and hair; I heard the leather of Hy’s old flight jacket snap and bubble. And then the echoes of the explosion faded and there was only the crackling of flames to break the deadly silence that follows a disaster.

  I lay there shaking, the thought sharp in my mind that if we’d been two minutes slower in getting to the shed all three of us would have been inside when the explosive device detonated. Two short minutes, one hundred and twenty seconds—the thin margin between life and death.

  The silence was ended with the drone of another incoming plane, and with shouts and sirens and rumbling engines. And Darcy sobbing and shrieking.

  “Stop touching me! Don’t ever touch me again!”

  I freed my right hand from the tangle of our bodies, got a grip on Darcy’s neck and put pressure on his carotid artery. It stopped his struggles and he lost consciousness.

  Hy rolled off us, lifted me, and cradled my body against his chest. We both smelled of smoke and scorched flesh and hair. Our hearts were beating fast, but after a while they slowed and as we clung together while chaos surged around us, I felt myself slipping into the twilight state that gives the temporary—and largely false—illusion of peace.

  Darcy was taken by medevac helicopter to San Francisco General Hospital, whose trauma unit is considered the best in the Bay Area. As the paramedics lifted him onto the gurney, he grasped my hands and wouldn’t let go, so I rode along. When we got to the landing pad and the chopper crew tried to offload Darcy, he still clung to me with icy, rigid fingers. The ER personnel had to give him a shot of something before he relaxed and let go.

  By then my hands hurt like hell, and I felt bruises and abrasions all over my body. I declined any medical help until they had Darcy stabilized, remembering all too well from personal experience how minutes—even seconds—can be critical to maintaining a life.

  While they worked on Darcy I called Hy’s cell: his injuries were superficial and had already been treated. He was now in conference at the Bellassis FBO with various airport officials.

  A while later, after having my wounds cleaned, ointments and bandages applied, and a large amount of something—antibiotics, I presumed—pumped into my butt, I caught a ride back to the airport with one of the paramedics. There I located Hy in the conference room at the FBO with airport security, FAA people, uniformed police officers and sheriff’s deputies, and a couple of men whom I identified from their immaculate appearances as FBI.

  Homeland Security personnel were going to be pissed because they’d obviously not been informed early enough to get in on the beginning of this latest mess.

  Oh, yes, there was going to be a jolly little jurisdictional squabble over authority on this one. I wished such nonsense still amused me, but lately the inefficiency and waste it created just enraged me and made me sad. Nobody won, and after the chaos it created few people were punished.

  Hy’s eyebrows and mustache were singed, his eyes tired. On the way in I’d spotted his beloved old flight jacket stuffed into a trash receptacle. I suspected that—in spite of the paramedics’ ministrations—I didn’t look much better, but Hy’s eyes brightened when he saw me, and he excused himself from the circle of officialdom and came over to hold me.

  “How’s Darcy?” he asked.

  “Physically okay, psychologically bad.” I paused. “He’s had a major breakdown. I’ve got to call Saskia and Robin.”

  “And I’ve got to get back to the aviation inquisitors.” He jerked his thumb at the lounge. “Meet you here later.”

  I called Saskia: she’d heard the story on the early news and had already chartered a flight to San Francisco from Boise. She’d take a taxi directly to the hospital.

  Robbie called me: maybe there was something we could do for Darcy after all, she said. She’d been overly harsh on him in the past. We’d see, I told her.

  Ma, Patsy, and Charlene called: I was to let them know if there was any way they could help. My brother John called: “You go, girl. And why the hell did Ma send me pink bunny slippers?”

  Elwood’s message, which I accessed from my home machine—he distrusted cellular phones—said, “Daughter, I am here for you if and when you need me.” Hearing the kind voice of the father I barely knew made me cry.

  I spent some time with the aviation inquisitors, as Hy had called them. They were reasonably gentle and pleasant, as well as generous with information. They told me that the Citation belonging to Bellassis Aviation that Park had left in earlier that day had been located at Napa Airport.

&nbs
p; Zoe Wasler phoned Hy to report that the red Honda had cut over into Nevada, apparently headed toward Las Vegas. He told her the FBI was now on the case, and she should find a motel and get some sleep. Zoe laughed and said, “Not when I’m this close to Vegas. I’m gonna risk the overtime you’re paying me at the tables.”

  Mick called. At first he sounded upset because he hadn’t been able to help more actively on the case, then he slipped into melancholy tones: Alison had told him that she couldn’t deal with a partner who practiced such a dangerous profession. He’d have to choose between her or his job.

  “Which d’you think it’ll be?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “I’ve already decided. I love her, but not as much as my work. And I don’t like being given ultimatums.”

  “Me either.”

  Rae and Ricky called, their voices competing on separate extensions. I should come to their place to rest up: Mrs. Wellcome wanted to feed me poached eggs on toast; Rae would read her manuscript to me and that would be sure to put me to sleep; if it didn’t work Ricky would make me a couple of his world-famous martinis. Hy could come too, plus Alex and Jessie.

  I declined for the cats, said maybe for Hy and me. Such pampering did sound tempting.

  But first I had to sort out everything that had contributed to this sorry mess, and that wasn’t going to be easy.

  Not by a long shot.

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

  Sharon McCone

  And sorting it out sure as hell hasn’t been easy.

  Torrey Grant was taken into custody by the Highway Patrol heading east on Highway 80. Later she made a full confession. As Inspector Fast summarized it to me, Laura had confided the whole story of her relationship with Gaby and the alleged sex tapes while they were in jail together, on Torrey’s promise to supply her with drugs when she was released. But Laura wouldn’t reveal the whereabouts of the tapes. Or the name of the man who had molested Gaby. Torrey got that information from her sister, and then she and Morgan hatched their first plan: get hold of the tapes, blackmail Clarence Drew, and use the money to finance a drug deal.

  After Laura was released, Torrey hooked up with her and Darcy and supplied them with cocaine. But Laura overestimated her capacity after two months in jail and overdosed before Torrey could get any more information out of her. That left her with Darcy, who she believed knew where the tapes were.

  But Darcy was strung out and acting weirdly, babbling about a palace and Gaby being dead and buried in some cemetery under a coral tree. Torrey thought he or Laura might’ve hidden the tapes in or around Gaby’s grave, and when that turned out not to be the case she’d taken him to the building where she and Morgan shared a flat, locked him up in the downstairs apartment, and kept him drugged while she tried to pump him for information.

  When they couldn’t get anything out of Darcy they’d figured Laura might also have confided in Chuck Bosworth, and Morgan had gone to see him. He’d beaten the Nobody when Chuck refused to talk, then shot him when he tried to run away.

  Clarence Drew’s suicide put an end to the blackmail scheme. So then they tried to extort money from Jack Tullock. And when that didn’t work they decided to get rid of Darcy and bury his body in McLaren Park. The fight with Mick changed Morgan’s mind, and next they came up with the idea of the ransom demand. One stupid plan after another. A comedy of errors, except that none of it was even the slightest bit funny.

  Jeff Morgan was picked up by the FBI in Las Vegas and charged with kidnapping. He still had the briefcase containing the fifty thousand dollars on the seat beside him. At first he lawyered up and refused to talk, but when he was told Torrey had confessed he admitted to everything, including rigging the explosive device at the FBO—he’d been in the service in Afghanistan and trained in the use of explosives. He offered to cut a deal for testifying against Torrey. They didn’t take him up on it.

  Park Bellassis rushed back to the FBO from Napa and did a lot of hand-wringing about Torrey and Morgan. I was amused to read in the business section of the Chron two days later that Bellassis Aviation had gone into Chapter 11—something that had apparently been coming for a long time—and federal regulators were considering charging it with a number of violations of FAA rulings.

  Park tried to patch things up with Lucy, but in a confessional and alcohol-glazed mood admitted that he was in love with a wealthy woman from the Napa Valley and had planned to divorce Lucy and marry her once he gained access to their joint assets. Lucy immediately had him removed from the house by a security guard she’d hired.

  “He was all, ‘We can try again, baby,’ ” she told me. “Can you imagine how immensely stupid he must be to’ve told me about that woman and his plans? And how immensely stupid he must think I am to agree to take him back?”

  Lucy was growing up fast. While Park licked his wounds in the Napa Valley, she filed for divorce, put the house on the market, and placed the other assets in the hands of her father’s investment advisor.

  “Where will you go?” I asked her.

  “Not far, maybe someplace on Lake Street. I like this neighborhood but—God!” She looked around, shivering. “It’s been like living in a mausoleum. Part of Park’s image thing, you know.” She paused. “About Gaby—she was really killed by Clarence Drew?”

  “Yes. Glenn Solomon urged the authorities to review the case, and they found overlooked—or suppressed—DNA evidence in the file that points solidly to Drew.”

  “What kind of evidence?”

  “That he’d been with her the day she died. His wife, out of sentimentality, never changed anything in Gaby’s room—including the sheets. And after she died, Drew didn’t bother with the room either.”

  Lucy was silent for a few moments, her gaze inward. “And the sex tapes Drew made of him and Gaby?”

  “You know, I doubt they ever existed. Jack Tullock swore they were a fiction Gaby had created in order to get the other Four Musketeers to kill Clarence. There was no evidence in Drew’s house to indicate anything had ever been clandestinely taped there. No tapes have appeared on porn channels or on the Internet, so it’s not likely anyone else got his hands on them. The irony is that if they don’t exist, Torrey’s and Jeff’s plan was folly from the beginning.”

  “But that makes Gaby a terrible person—someone I didn’t really know.”

  “No, it makes her a broken, desperate human being. She’d been victimized for years.”

  “But—murder?”

  “Some victims see removal of the victimizer as their only choice. It’s not an excuse, but an explanation.”

  Lucy nodded, but her faith in the friend she’d loved had been fractured. It would be a long time—if ever—before it mended.

  “How’s your brother?” Lucy asked.

  “Doing better.” Darcy was settling in at a psychiatric facility Saskia had chosen near Butte, Montana. A long distance from Boise, but she felt several degrees of separation were what both of them needed. She’d been enabling him far too long, she’d confessed.

  Lucy sat in silence for a few minutes. We’d said everything that had needed to be said. I stood, held out my hand.

  “Good luck, Lucy.”

  “Good luck to you too, Sharon.”

  Years from now investigators of unsolved mysteries will search for clues to the whereabouts of the Gaby Tapes and never find them. They simply don’t exist. But people love to believe in urban legend, so the search for the tapes will persist until something hotter and more intriguing comes along.

  I’m sitting here with a glass of champagne on our platform above the sea at Touchstone. Since we bought the place—for a dollar, but that’s another story—Hy and I have always spent my birthday here. And the sunset is always spectacular.

  That alone—in an area where fog often hovers and cruel winds whip the ocean to white foam—is a miracle.

  Other miracles exist in my life.

  I possess two dysfunctional families. (So far Elwood and the Malamutes remain a th
ird, normal unit.) Yet in spite of their oddities—witness Ma’s gift of the pink slippers that finally reached me and did indeed turn out to be fuzzy, bright-eyed little bunnies that I passed on for Lisa and Molly to fight over—I love them and they love me.

  I have a strong marriage. Hy and I are in touch psychically, physically, and—thanks to what I consider the Instant Communication Age—by every cyber device so far invented by humankind.

  Back in the city I can sit at my computer workstation in the soon-to-be-demolished Pier 24½ and instantly reach out to people in such diverse places as New York, Stockholm, Beijing, São Paulo, Cedar Rapids, Detroit, Calgary, and New Delhi. I can order almost any product I wish for and have it delivered to my home within a week (unless, as is often the case, it’s on backorder). My news comes via the dying print media (I still prefer the San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times), TV channels (although not FOX), and the Internet. Blogs satisfy my appetite for gossip, or occasional wisdom. I accessed the owner of the building near Pioneer Park where we’re moving the agency at her home in Alabama and negotiated a great lease in one e-mail and two pleasurable phone exchanges.

  But the miracle I cannot access is an understanding of the failings of the human heart and soul.

  And so many whispers have haunted me during the long city nights:

  What did I do wrong, Darcy?

  Why couldn’t I help you enough?

  Will you ever be okay?

  Yes, you will. I’ve got to believe that because I’ve got to go on living in this world. And living a good life requires belief.

  Not so complicated, if you think about it.

  Hy comes up behind me, puts his hand on my shoulder. It smells of alder chips; he’s been smoking salmon on the grill. He raises his glass to me and then to the sunset. Says, “Happy birthday, McCone.”

  Not so complicated at all.

  More mystery and suspense from

  MARCIA MULLER

  Recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America’s