Well, I thought, that’s interesting, but playing tourist isn’t helping me catch up with Lee Gottschalk. Quickly I left the jail and hurried up the iron staircase the first ranger had indicated. At its top, I turned to my left and bumped into a chain link fence that blocked access to the area under renovation. Warning myself to watch where I was going, I went the other way, toward the east tier. The archways there were fenced off with similar chain link so no one could fall, and doors opened off the gallery into what I supposed had been the soldiers’ living quarters. I pushed through the first one and stepped into a small museum.
The room was high-ceilinged, with tall, narrow windows in the outside wall. No ranger or tourists were in sight. I looked toward an interior door that led to the next room and saw a series of mirror images: one door within another leading off into the distance, each diminishing in size until the last seemed very tiny. I had the unpleasant sensation that if I walked along there, I would become progressively smaller and eventually disappear.
From somewhere down there came the sound of voices. I followed it, passing through more museum displays until I came to a room containing an old-fashioned bedstead and footlocker. A ranger, dressed the same as the man downstairs except that he was bearded and wore granny glasses, stood beyond the bedstead lecturing to a man and a woman who were bundled to their chins in bulky sweaters.
“You’ll notice that the fireplaces are very small,” he was saying, motioning to the one on the wall next to the bed, “and you can imagine how cold it could get for the soldiers garrisoned here. They didn’t have a heated employees’ lounge like we do.” Smiling at his own little joke, he glanced at me. “Do you want to join the tour?”
I shook my head and stepped over by the footlocker. “Are you Lee Gottschalk?”
“Yes.” He spoke the word a shade warily.
“I have a few questions I’d like to ask you. How long will the rest of the tour take?”
“At least half an hour. These folks want to see the unrestored rooms on the third floor.”
I didn’t want to wait around that long, so I said, “Could you take a couple of minutes and talk with me now?”
He moved his head so the light from the windows caught his granny glasses and I couldn’t see the expression in his eyes, but his mouth tightened in a way that might have been annoyance. After a moment he said, “Well, the rest of the tour on this floor is pretty much self-guided.” To the tourists, he added, “Why don’t you go on ahead and I’ll catch up after I talk with this lady.”
They nodded agreeably and moved on into the next room. Lee Gottschalk folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the small fireplace. “Now what can I do for you?”
I introduced myself and showed him my license. His mouth twitched briefly in surprise, but he didn’t comment. I said, “At about four yesterday afternoon, a young woman left her car at Vista Point with a suicide note in it. I’m trying to locate a witness who saw her jump.” I took out the photograph I’d been showing to people and handed it to him. By now I had Vanessa DiCesare’s features memorized: high forehead, straight nose, full lips, glossy wings of dark-brown hair curling inward at the jawbone. It was a strong face, not beautiful but striking—and a face I’d recognize anywhere.
Gottschalk studied the photo, then handed it back to me. “I read about her in the morning paper. Why are you trying to find a witness?”
“Her parents have hired me to look into it.”
“The paper said her father is some big politician here in the city.”
I didn’t see any harm in discussing what had already appeared in print. “Yes, Ernest DiCesare—he’s on the Board of Supes and likely to be our next mayor.”
“And she was a law student, engaged to some hotshot lawyer who ran her father’s last political campaign.”
“Right again.”
He shook his head, lips pushing out in bewilderment. “Sounds like she had a lot going for her. Why would she kill herself? Did that note taped inside her car explain it?”
I’d seen the note, but its contents were confidential. “No. Did you happen to see anything unusual yesterday afternoon?”
“No. But if I’d seen anyone jump, I’d have reported it to the Coast Guard station so they could try to recover the body before the current carried it out to sea.”
“What about someone standing by the bridge railing, acting strangely, perhaps?”
“If I’d noticed anyone like that, I’d have reported it to the bridge offices so they could send out a suicide prevention team.” He stared almost combatively at me, as if I’d accused him of some kind of wrongdoing, then seemed to relent a little. “Come outside,” he said, “and I’ll show you something.”
We went through the door to the gallery, and he guided me to the chain link barrier in the archway and pointed up. “Look at the angle of the bridge, and the distance we are from it. You couldn’t spot anyone standing at the rail from here, at least not well enough to tell if they were acting upset. And a jumper would have to hurl herself way out before she’d be noticeable.”
“And there’s nowhere else in the fort from where a jumper would be clearly visible?”
“Maybe from one of the watchtowers or the extreme west side. But they’re off limits to the public, and we only give them one routine check at closing.”
Satisfied now, I said, “Well, that about does it. I appreciate your taking the time.”
He nodded and we started along the gallery. When we reached the other end, where an enclosed staircase spiraled tip and down, I thanked him again and we parted company.
The way the facts looked to me now, Vanessa DiCesare had faked this suicide and just walked away—away from her wealthy old-line Italian family, from her up-and-coming liberal lawyer, from a life that either had become too much or just hadn’t been enough. Vanessa was over twenty-one; she had a legal right to disappear if she wanted to. But her parents and her fiancé loved her, and they also had a right to know she was alive and well. If I could locate her and reassure them without ruining whatever new life she planned to create for herself, I would feel I’d performed the job I’d been hired to do. But right now I was weary, chilled to the bone, and out of leads. I decided to go back to All Souls and consider my next moves in warmth and comfort.
All Souls Legal Cooperative is housed in a ramshackle Victorian on one of the steeply sloping sidestreets of Bernal Heights, a working-class district in the southern part of the city. The co-op caters mainly to clients who live in the area: people with low to middle incomes who don’t have much extra money for expensive lawyers. The sliding fee scale allows them to obtain quality legal assistance at reasonable prices—a concept that is probably outdated in the self-centered 1980s, but is kept alive by the people who staff All Souls. It’s a place where the lawyers care about their clients, and a good place to work.
I left my MG at the curb and hurried up the front steps through the blowing fog. The warmth inside was almost a shock after the chilliness at Fort Point; I unbuttoned my jacket and went down the long deserted hallway to the big country kitchen at the rear. There I found my boss, Hank Zahn, stirring up a mug of the Navy grog he often concocts on cold November nights like this one.
He looked at me, pointed to the rum bottle, and said, “Shall I make you one?” When I nodded, he reached for another mug.
I went to the round oak table under the windows, moved a pile of newspapers from one of the chairs, and sat down. Hank added lemon juice, hot water, and sugar syrup to the rum; dusted it artistically with nutmeg; and set it in front of me with a flourish. I sampled it as he sat down across from me, then nodded my approval.
He said, “How’s it going with the DiCesare investigation?”
Hank had a personal interest in the case; Vanessa’s fiancé, Gary Stornetta, was a long-time friend of his, which was why I, rather than one of the large investigative firms her father normally favored, had been asked to look into it. I said, “Everything I’ve come up with points
to it being a disappearance, not a suicide.”
“Just as Gary and her parents suspected.”
“Yes. I’ve covered the entire area around the bridge. There are absolutely no witnesses, except for the tour bus driver who saw her park her car at four and got suspicious when it was still there at seven and reported it. But even he didn’t see her walk off toward the bridge.” I drank some more grog, felt its warmth, and began to relax.
Behind his thick horn-rimmed glasses, Hank’s eyes became concerned. “Did the DiCesares or Gary give you any idea why she would have done such a thing?”
“When I talked with Ernest and Sylvia this morning, they said Vanessa had changed her mind about marrying Gary. He’s not admitting to that, but he doesn’t speak of Vanessa the way a happy husband-to-be would. And it seems an unlikely match to me—he’s close to twenty years older than she.”
“More like fifteen,” Hank said. “Gary’s father was Ernest’s best friend, and after Ron Stornetta died, Ernest more or less took him on as a protégé. Ernest was delighted that their families were finally going to be joined.”
“Oh, he was delighted all right. He admitted to me that he’d practically arranged the marriage. ‘Girl didn’t know what was good for her,’ he said. ‘Needed a strong older man to guide her.’ ” I snorted.
Hank smiled faintly. He’s a feminist, but over the years his sense of outrage has mellowed; mine still has a hair trigger.
“Anyway,” I said, “when Vanessa first announced she was backing out of the engagement, Ernest told her he would cut off her funds for law school if she didn’t go through with the wedding.”
“Jesus, I had no idea he was capable of such . . . Neanderthal tactics.”
“Well, he is. After that Vanessa went ahead and set the wedding date. But Sylvia said she suspected she wouldn’t go through with it. Vanessa talked of quitting law school and moving out of their home. And she’d been seeing other men; she and her father had a bad quarrel about it just last week. Anyway, all of that, plus the fact that one of her suitcases and some clothing are missing, made them highly suspicious of the suicide.”
Hank reached for my mug and went to get us more grog. I began thumbing through the copy of the morning paper that I’d moved off the chair, looking for the story on Vanessa. I found it on page three.
The daughter of Supervisor Ernest DiCesare apparently committed suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge late yesterday afternoon.
Vanessa DiCesare, 22, abandoned her 1985 Honda Civic at Vista Point at approximately four p.m., police said. There were no witnesses to her jump, and the body has not been recovered. The contents of a suicide note found in her car have not been disclosed.
Ms. DiCesare, a first-year student at Hastings College of Law, is the only child of the supervisor and his wife, Sylvia. She planned to be married next month to San Francisco attorney Gary R. Stornetta, a political associate of her father. . .
Strange how routine it all sounded when reduced to journalistic language. And yet how mysterious—the “undisclosed contents” of the suicide note, for instance.
“You know,” I said as Hank came back to the table and set down the fresh mugs of grog, “that note is another factor that makes me believe she staged this whole thing. It was so formal and controlled. If they had samples of suicide notes in etiquette books, I’d say she looked one up and copied it.”
He ran his fingers through his wiry brown hair. “What I don’t understand is why she didn’t just break off the engagement and move out of the house. So what if her father cut off her money? There are lots worse things than working your way through law school.”
“Oh, but this way she gets back at everyone, and has the advantage of actually being alive to gloat over it. Imagine her parents’ and Gary’s grief and guilt—it’s the ultimate way of getting even.”
“She must be a very angry young woman.”
“Yes. After I talked with Ernest and Sylvia and Gary, I spoke briefly with Vanessa’s best friend, a law student named Kathy Graves. Kathy told me that Vanessa was furious with her father for making her go through with the marriage. And she’d come to hate Gary because she’d decided he was only marrying her for her family’s money and political power.”
“Oh, come on. Gary’s ambitious, sure. But you can’t tell me he doesn’t genuinely care for Vanessa.”
“I’m only giving you her side of the story.”
“So now what do you plan to do?”
“Talk with Gary and the DiCesares again. See if I can’t come up with some bit of information that will help me find her.”
“And then?”
“Then it’s up to them to work it out.”
The DiCesare home was mock-Tudor, brick and half-timber, set on a corner knoll in the exclusive area of St. Francis Wood. When I’d first come there that morning, I’d been slightly awed; now the house had lost its power to impress me. After delving into the lives of the family who lived there, I knew that it was merely a pile of brick and mortar and wood that contained more than the usual amount of misery.
The DiCesares and Gary Stornetta were waiting for me in the living room, a strangely formal place with several groupings of furniture and expensive-looking knickknacks laid out in precise patterns on the tables. Vanessa’s parents and fiancée—like the house—seemed diminished since my previous visit: Sylvia huddled in an armchair by the fireplace, her gray-blonde hair straggling from its elegant coiffure; Ernest stood behind her, haggard-faced, one hand protectively on her shoulder. Gary paced, smoking and clawing at his hair with his other hand. Occasionally he dropped ashes on the thick wall-to-wall carpeting, but no one called it to his attention.
They listened to what I had to report without interruption. When I finished, there was a long silence. Then Sylvia put a hand over her eyes and said, “How she must hate us to do a thing like this!”
Ernest tightened his grip on his wife’s shoulder. His face was a conflict of anger, bewilderment, and sorrow.
There was no question of which emotion had hold of Gary; he smashed out his cigarette in an ashtray, lit another, and resumed pacing. But while his movements before had merely been nervous, now his tall, lean body was rigid with thinly controlled fury. “Damn her!” he said. “Damn her anyway!”
“Gary.” There was a warning note in Ernest’s voice.
Gary glanced at him, then at Sylvia. “Sorry.”
I said, “The question now is, do you want me to continue looking for her?”
In shocked tones, Sylvia said, “Of course we do!” Then she tipped her head back and looked at her husband.
Ernest was silent, his fingers pressing hard against the black wool of her dress.
“Ernest?” Now Sylvia’s voice held a note of panic.
“Of course we do,” he said. But the words somehow lacked conviction.
I took out my notebook and pencil, glancing at Gary. He had stopped pacing and was watching the DiCesares. His craggy face was still mottled with anger, and I sensed he shared Ernest’s uncertainty.
Opening the notebook, I said, “I need more details about Vanessa, what her life was like the past month or so. Perhaps something will occur to one of you that didn’t this morning.”
“Ms. McCone,” Ernest said, “I don’t think Sylvia’s up to this right now. Why don’t you and Gary talk, and then if there’s anything else, I’ll be glad to help you.”
“Fine.” Gary was the one I was primarily interested in questioning, anyway. I waited until Ernest and Sylvia had left the room, then turned to him.
When the door shut behind them, he hurled his cigarette into the empty fireplace. “Goddamn little bitch!” he said.
I said, “Why don’t you sit down.”
He looked at me for a few seconds, obviously wanting to keep on pacing, but then he flopped into the chair Sylvia had vacated. When I’d first met with Gary this morning, he’d been controlled and immaculately groomed, and he had seemed more solicitous of the DiCesares than con
cerned with his own feelings. Now his clothing was disheveled, his graying hair tousled, and he looked to be on the brink of a rage that would flatten anyone in its path.
Unfortunately, what I had to ask him would probably fan that rage. I braced myself and said, “Now tell me about Vanessa. And not all the stuff about her being a lovely young woman and a brilliant student. I heard all that this morning—but now we both know it isn’t the whole truth, don’t we?”
Surprisingly he reached for a cigarette and lit it slowly, using the time to calm himself. When he spoke, his voice was as level as my own. “All right, it’s not the whole truth. Vanessa is lovely and brilliant. She’ll make a top-notch lawyer. There’s a hardness in her; she gets it from Ernest. It took guts to fake this suicide . . .”
“What do you think she hopes to gain from it?”
“Freedom. From me. From Ernest’s domination. She’s probably taken off somewhere for a good time. When she’s ready she’ll come back and make her demands.”
“And what will they be?”
“Enough money to move into a place of her own and finish law school. And she’ll get it, too. She’s all her parents have.”
“You don’t think she’s set out to make a new life for herself?”
“Hell, no. That would mean giving up all this.” The sweep of his arm encompassed the house and all of the DiCesares’s privileged world.
But there was one factor that made me doubt his assessment. I said, “What about the other men in her life?”
He tried to look surprised, but an angry muscle twitched in his jaw.
“Come on, Gary,” I said, “you know there were other men. Even Ernest and Sylvia were aware of that.”
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