Bohemian Heart

by Dalessandro, James

  Downstairs, after I noticed in the mirror how horrible I looked in white coveralls, I changed to sweatpants and a sweatshirt and unloaded the dumbwaiter. Then I flopped in my leather chair and opened the first file, "Initial Incident Report," in the jacket marked PEOPLE VS. COLLEEN FARRAGUT.

  I read until the sun came up.

  Chapter 4

  At six A.M. I climbed onto my mountain bike and speed-pedaled my way to Bugatti's Cafe on Filbert Street in Cow Hollow, halfway between North Beach and the Presidio.

  I ordered coffee and opened the morning Clarion. The trial was front-page news, voluminous copy surrounding a large photograph of the magnificent Mrs. Farragut. Looking good in newsprint is not easy. She looked good and then some.

  An op-ed columnist wrote of the "seeming preponderance of evidence" against Colleen, mentioned her "flimsy defense" and how "skeptical" the police had been when they first heard her story and decided to arrest her. He also spoke of her "sexual escapades" with Tommy Rivera, ignoring the more bizarre activities of her late husband.

  He finished by mentioning that everyone in the world was watching the trial and wondered whether the doctrine of "equal justice for the rich" would indeed mean anything. The only thing he didn't do was recommend a scarlet tattoo on her forehead.

  I climbed back onto the bike and pedaled down Filbert Street to Lyon, then turned into the Presidio.

  The Presidio before seven in the morning is a sight and smell to behold. The oldest military establishment on the West Coast, it's filled with pine and eucalyptus trees that create intricate patterns of morning light and shadow. Through the trees you can see the Bay and the bridge, the whole scene oozing a warmth and light that belies its function as a boarding house for war.

  I'd ridden a bicycle so I could blend in with the scores of other riders and runners. I made a quick move off the road and into the trees along the wall behind the Presidio Heights mansions. The knobby tires bit deep into the black dirt as I glanced over my shoulder for anybody in uniform. Secure, I chugged my way to the highest house.

  I ditched the bike and immediately confirmed what I'd gleaned from the other side the previous night: that scaling the Farragut wall was a mild commando feat.

  I followed the wall downhill and after a dozen houses found what I was looking for: a section that almost anyone could climb. It was laid adobe style, meaning that the bricklayers never bothered to clean the excess grout from between the blocks. Several cracked blocks left toehold-size gaps, and the wall leaned inward. In a matter of eight quick steps, I had climbed it and was stationed on top.

  I stood and walked casually along the wall past three or four mansions. I was wearing a pair of crepe-soled work boots and dark blue work pants and shirt. On the breast pocket of the shirt was a large white patch with red lettering that read CITY SERVICES which meant absolutely nothing. I learned the trick watching Mission Impossible as a kid.

  When I reached the back of the Farragut place I squatted down, staring at the French doors to the den. This is what a burglar would find. Was it feasible for someone, anyone, to pull such a stunt?

  Had anyone climbed the wall at the point I had, looking for an easy mark, they'd probably found the neighbor's doors closed hurricane tight, then found Farragut's wide open. Perhaps they'd even seen Farragut open the French doors, pour a drink, then disappear and reappear upstairs, fighting with his wife. A fifty-yard sprint to the wide-open doors and a house full of treasures. It didn't make sense, but it made junkie sense.

  Desperate but doable.

  As I rose, I noticed the curtains of Colleen's room being drawn. The windows were thrust open and Colleen stood staring out at the bridge and the Bay the way I've seen soldiers and marines stare when they thought they were seeing them for the last time. She was wearing a black lace bra and a tiny G-string, thin black lines running up over her hips.

  She didn't move when she saw me. She wasn't self-conscious or embarrassed. I tried to read something in the steady gaze. I couldn't. I remembered the City Services suit and felt like Geek magazine's Man of the Month. She smiled, nodded good morning, and disappeared back inside.

  It was then that I realized one more thing about my decision, one more reason to be glad she'd known of Farragut's diaries and put them on the carrot pole. I'd spend a month in her company, though never sure if she was the most calculating of killers or the most wronged of the innocent, it would mean a month in the soft, mesmerizing light of her beauty nonetheless.

  I pedaled back to my house, mostly uphill, burning off a few pounds en route, and cursed turning forty as I stashed the bike. After a quick shower I called Zane Neidlinger at home to tell him I needed a seat in court for the day, and that it was very important to both of us to meet beforehand. He promised to have a seat ready and to meet me at Café Roma in an hour.

  Within a half hour all three of my agency cohorts, Martha, Henry Borowski, and Arnie Nuckles, had gathered in the City Lights office downstairs to hear the boss's latest brainstorm. I don't know if they were more astonished by the fact that we were involved in the Farragut murder case, the million-dollar offer, or the Herculean nature of the task. I didn't plan to tell them about the diaries.

  I'd always tried to stay out of the guessing game, rarely feeling an obligation to figure in advance if a potential client was guilty or not. Most of the time you didn't have to ask; it was the first thing out of their mouths. Usually you just tried not to yawn.

  I told them what I'd heard and what doubts I had. Then thought better of keeping the offer of the diaries to myself and told them about the remote chance that I'd be able to clear my name. They were Three Jaws Hanging.

  I put the big question to them: why would Colleen Farragut invest half her remaining money, plus waste what precious time she had, unless there was something to her story?

  Martha was the first to side with Colleen. She'd felt from the beginning that Colleen had been railroaded and the evidence against her was circumstantial.

  Arnie was more skeptical but voted to proceed promising his best effort. I knew he was doing it for my sake. Henry just nodded and smiled. He was in for the thrill of working on a case that amounted to a P.I.'s wet dream.

  I counted out three stacks of bills, fifteen hundred dollars each, keeping five hundred for myself for expenses. I told them that if we cracked the case, a quarter of the bonus money would go for new equipment and long-range operating expenses, I'd keep a quarter for myself, and they could split the other half million three ways. They'd have walked a barefoot mile on broken glass when I finished.

  I gave each of them an assignment. I wanted Martha to check on Colleen's activities for the entire year preceding William's murder, to research her phone bills, credit card receipts, and her sexual escapades with Tommy Rivera. When she finished, I wanted her to look into Rivera himself. If we couldn't find the plates and the burglar, maybe we could uncover something to discredit Rivera. His testimony figured to be the most damning piece of evidence against her.

  Arnie would work on William Farragut from the same angle: phone records, credit cards, all his activities during the year preceding his death, looking for anyone who might have threatened him. Henry's assignment was to check on any known burglars in the Bay Area, particularly those heavily into drugs and prone to spontaneous acts of violence. The police had already done extensive work on those subjects, so we'd be starting in their files and looking for mistakes and anything they had overlooked. That meant hours of reading documents.

  There are a lot of stages in an investigation, and we were in the weirdest combination I'd ever seen, the preliminary round-up-the-usual-suspects phase and the eleventh-hour Hail Mary- Divine Intervention phase. When I mentioned the roughly thirty-day deadline and the fate that awaited our client, they headed to the loft to retrieve the files.

  I grabbed my coat and sprinted down the hill to Café Roma on Columbus Avenue to meet Zane Neidlinger.

  When I arrived he was ensconced at a corner table, a trace of cap
puccino foam on his thin blond moustache, using the morning Clarion as a shield to ogle the behind of a blue-jeaned brunette tall enough to hunt geese with a rake. Zane was fifty-three years old, still blonde, pink-skinned, and perennially wearing the contented grin of the aging satyr. He called it his fresh-fucked, just-got-paid look. He'd been a reporter for over thirty years and was that rarest of humans, one who never wanted to be anything but what he was. Irreverent, fearless, insightful, Zane was an encyclopedia of city history, a raconteur with few peers.

  We met when he wrote a story about me, a fourth-generation San Francisco cop, a month after I graduated from the academy. He'd also written about me when I helped crack the Golden Dragon Massacre in Chinatown and was appointed head of the white-collar-crime division at the age of twenty-nine. When I was bounced from the department, Zane was there again, trumpeting my side of the story. Through his efforts, my career rose and fell under public scrutiny. In the end it was his defense of me that had almost single-handedly turned a lot of public opinion in my favor. I owed him a lot.

  We climbed into his prehistoric Chevy and headed toward City Hall and the courthouse. En route he handed me a temporary press pass from a newspaper I'd never heard of and asked why I was so interested in the Farragut case, hinting that my previous battles with William were behind it.

  First I swore him to secrecy. Then I asked him to be my eyes and ears for the remainder of the trial and to provide me with his notes and observations. I promised to make it worth his while. He'd known me long enough to realize I wasn't kidding.

  I took a deep breath and told him. Jerking to a halt behind two shirtless Chinese boys unloading plucked chickens outside of a restaurant on Stockton Street, he made me repeat the part about the Farragut Diaries.

  It's hard to rattle a guy like Zane but his hands started to tremble on the wheel. He knew of the diaries and had coveted them for years.

  Zane urged me to spare no effort in exonerating Colleen and securing the Farragut diaries and promised whatever help I'd need. In return, I promised to share the diaries with him alone. He reached over to shake my hand, visions of the Pulitzer Prize dancing in his head, as we headed to the courthouse.

  We parked in the underground municipal lot near City Hall. As we climbed out of the car a black Cadillac with official plates entered, circled, stopped a few yards away. A bodyguard in a shiny blue suit exited and reached for the rear door.

  We stared intently as Supervisor Helen Smidge emerged. Formerly Helen Smidgelewski, she was appointed to the board of supervisors to fill the vacancy when one of the supervisors succeeded DiMarco upon his death.

  Three reporters materialized from nowhere to begin peppering her with questions about the Farragut case and her "close relationship" with Farragut. My heart jumped a little as another link between my wounded past and the events of the day fell into place.

  Politics rivals television as our primary source of self-loathing and mediocrity. Out of a simple-minded narcissist with a sackful of inherited money and the insight of a fortune cookie, politics can make the future darling of city government, headed for the governor's office and beyond. Out of a friendless Ivy League nerd with a hundred-dollar smile and the sincerity of a laugh track, it makes a "dynamic leader" destined for the White House. It'll take a backwoods racist spouting jukebox idioms as a mask for the darkness and ignorance of his soul and make him a "voice for reason and moderation."

  From a boring nonentity with an encyclopedia of clichés, the desperation of the unloved and the compassion of a baby peddler, comes a woman such as supervisor Helen Smidge.

  Nicknamed "Helen Smudge" by a San Francisco columnist for the oily stain she left on everything she touched, she had a physical presence that was impossible to forget, for all the wrong reasons.

  The toes of her sensible shoes pointed so far apart it was hard to tell if she was making a left or a right. She had long, breadstick ankles with two lumps of calf pasted just below the woolen hem of her A-frame dresses. She was thick-wasted and neckless. Under a helmet of bleached and varathaned hair was a set of eyes close enough to share the same socket. In spite of it, she had risen from a precinct political hack with a Rolodex full of bored housewives ready to mobilize for any cause or candidate she dictated to become a feared and omnipotent supervisor with a deathlike grip on the city's wealthiest elite.

  She had also been William Farragut's number-one confidante, crony, and hatchet woman on the board, as well as the principal recipient of his political patronage.

  After Warren Dillon murdered the mayor, Smidge was appointed to the board of supervisors by DiMarco's conservative successor, Adam Reikling, the prime butt-boy of the sell-everything-to-anyone faction. The city instantly became a feeding trough for the high-rise developers and tourist hotel associations, with Farragut and Smidge leading the charge. Smidge had also been friend and mentor to former police officer turned assassin, Warren Dillon.

  As Helen Smidge disappeared into the darkness under a canopy of "No comment," Zane and I made our way up the steps and into the flawless morning light. A few dozen homeless people had just awakened from their luxury accommodations on the park benches of their choice and sat watching all the commotion fifty yards away.

  An impromptu press conference was being held on the front steps; there was a crush of people roughly the size of the crowd that attended Kennedy's funeral. As we hustled to the edge, Calvin Sherenian strode to the microphone tree to work the crowd. A French-Armenian orphan who was reared from the age of fifteen by relatives in the U.S., Calvin had put himself through Stanford Law School and was widely recognized as both judicial scholar and orator's orator. He was graceful, strong, witty, and eloquent enough to stir a crowd of Texans to weep for Saddam Hussein.

  The sun balanced itself gracefully above the Hall of Justice, the sky a radiant blue backdrop. Everything grew quiet except for the cameras clicking and the sound of auto winders as Calvin fixed the crowd steadily with his gaze.

  "I have asked to make this statement," he said, his voice instantly gripping the crowd, "to try to quell the frightening aura of hysteria that surrounds this case. It is my last public statement in this matter until after the inevitable verdict of not guilty."

  "When I came to this country as a teenager, an orphan from a land of chaos and brutality, I was overwhelmed by the feelings of decency, hope, and fair play I found in my new home. Here, I said as I grew into a young man, is a land based on the rule of law and the sovereignty of justice."

  "Occasionally that great vision is lost, as it has been in the case of Mrs. Colleen Farragut. She has been tried and convicted in absentia by the press and the office of the district attorney."

  "On numerous occasions, I have been asked how I could defend the accused murderer of a lifelong friend and associate. It is because she is innocent, because I believe to the last fiber of my being that she is innocent, because I believe the circumstantial evidence against her is not sufficient enough to warrant an indictment let alone a trial and a conviction."

  "William Farragut was my friend, but so is Colleen Farragut."

  "Over the past decade my friendship with Colleen has become as strong as it was with her late husband. I can think of no greater crime beyond the one already committed than to send an innocent woman to her death or to prison for the rest of her life. I have lost one friend to a horrible injustice; I do not intend to lose two."

  "I ask now that we all let justice have its day. I will not speak again on this matter outside the courtroom, and I ask that you refrain from shoving microphones into my face and shouting out questions, as my inevitable refusal may, in its brusqueness, cause you ill will."

  With a smile he turned from the rush of cameramen and reporters shoving microphones in his face and shouting out questions and ran inside the courthouse.

  It was a marvelous performance, old Abe at the Springfield Courthouse getting in shape for Gettysburg, a Franco-Armenian Lincoln winning the hearts of a crowd in three hundred words or less. Th
ey wanted to acquit Colleen Farragut, perhaps torch the courthouse, and lynch the DA for good measure. It was a strange feeling for me, for many were the times I had hated Calvin for springing some swine the good cops of San Francisco had spent months throwing a net over. I was now his second greatest cheerleader.

  As the conga line of Betacams and notebooks followed Calvin, I told Zane I'd meet him inside and quickly made my way to the back of the courthouse.

  I figured the "Police Only" entrance was out of the question, though a dozen reporters felt otherwise, doing the one-foot-to-the-other shuffle they do, smoking, stomping out cigarette butts, tossing coffee cups, waiting. One of them was collecting money and writing names in little squares on a piece of notebook paper. They had a pool going on what Colleen's sentence would be. The jackpot was her receiving the death penalty.

  I went to the cafeteria delivery dock, found no one there. After fifteen minutes a string of a dozen small and large delivery trucks, pulled into the driveway, followed by an unmarked gold van with the windows blackened out. I was unable to see who or what was inside. A few feet past me, the van stopped. The driver's side window opened and a long, graceful female hand with long, perfectly manicured fuchsia-colored nails chucked a piece of notebook paper in my direction. I snatched it quickly from the ground and opened it.

  On it was written How did you ever get the name Peekaboo Frankie Fagen? followed by Here's hoping. It was signed with the same initial C, in the same lovely hand as the first note I'd received.

  Chapter 5

  I made my way past twenty-five reporters doing stand-ups at the entrance to Judge Marilyn Walters's courtroom, including one each in French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese.