There's Something in a Sunday

by Marcia Muller

  I straightened and looked around the room once more. It seemed an unlikely place for Wilkonson to have come. Perhaps I’d fixated on the windmill as his destination merely because it was the closest building to where he’d parked his car. What else was in this corner of the park?

  The sewage plant. It probably would be staffed twenty-four hours; perhaps he’d had business with one of the crew. There was a caretaker’s house a short distance from the windmill, but if he’d been going there, he’d have done better to conceal his car at the end of its long driveway. Otherwise, there was nothing here but wooded area to one side and, at the far end of the sewage plant, soccer fields.

  All the places around here seemed unlikely destinations for Frank Wilkonson.

  Had he realized he was being followed and left his car here as a ploy to elude his pursuer? No, that didn’t make sense. If he were to do that, he would have abandoned the Ranchero in a populous area, one with public transportation, from which he could easily disappear and just as easily return to retrieve his vehicle. Why stage a vanishing act in the dark outer reaches of the park, far from taxicab stands or frequently running bus lines?

  I began to prowl the room once more, moving each blanket, rag, and piece of debris, emptying each paper sack and cardboard carton-trying to make some connection between Wilkonson and its inhabitants. None of the discards or possessions told me anything more about the people who lived here than that they were poor, ate badly, drank alcohol in quantity, and in one case at least, had a drug habit. Then, beneath the last nest of filthy blankets, I found a plywood plank that had been pried up and improperly replaced, which covered a two-foot-deep pit where machinery had once been installed. Inside it was a six-pack of Colt .45-Bob Choteau’s brand of preference-and a white sack with red lettering: I DID MY SHOPPING AT A NEIGHBORHOOD BUSINESS!

  The sack was identical to the ones Vicky Cushman had had stacked in her living room when I’d visited her the other day.

  Inside the sack were foodstuffs: canned hash, tuna fish, sardines, Spam, crackers, instant coffee, peanut butter, rice cakes. There was a box of plastic knives and forks and spoons, as well as a brand-new can opener-both bearing price tickets from one of the chain stores Vicky had vowed she wouldn’t let into her neighborhood.

  I rocked back on my heels and stared at the red lettering on the sack. Just because Vicky had had the bags-fresh from the printer, she’d said-at her home on Thursday, I couldn’t assume this one had come direct from there. Bags could also have been delivered to any number of her fellow organizing committee members; they could have been passed out to hundreds of Haight-Ashbury shoppers between then and now.

  But it was too large a coincidence to suit me.

  There was a noise outside, a snuffling that might have been animal or human. I blew out the candle, turned off my flashlight, and waited tensely. No one entered.

  I took it as a warning that I should get out of there. The squatters wouldn’t have left their food and possessions unattended for long. They were probably out foraging; they might return at any time.

  I groped across the room to the door and stood listening for more sounds. When I was sure whatever had been snuffling around out there had gone away, I stepped out, made sure I was alone, then positioned the door and bolt as close to how I’d found them as I could. Then I retraced my path around the windmill and up the rise until I could see the road. Wilkonson’s Ranchero still sat under the wind-bent cypress.

  He’d walked toward the windmill; I’d seen him do that. In the time I’d spent parking my car he could have reached the mill, entered, and left again. But that still didn’t explain where he’d gone next. And since his car was still here, he had to be around someplace. Where?

  Well, I couldn’t scour the thickets for him. And I doubted he would respond if I called out to him, tried to persuade him to talk with me. I’d just have to watch the Ranchero and wait him out.

  To the right of the windmill, a fair distance away and close to the road, was some kind of debris pile. I moved toward it, saw jumbled wooden beams and sheets of corrugated iron that looked to be the remnants of a shed that had been torn down. It would provide a good view both of the mill and the Ranchero-plus a shelter from the fog and wind.

  I climbed the slope and probed the heap with my flashlight. There was a triangular space about two feet high into which I could curl, between a pair of crisscrossed beams. It looked singularly uninviting but dark and secure.

  With a flicker of regret because after this night my camel-colored pea jacket would never again be truly new (and with a stab of pain over the dry-cleaning bill I was likely to incur), I dropped to my knees and crawled under the angled beams.

  For a time I felt warm and cozy in my hideaway; it made me think of long-ago rainy days when my brothers and sisters and I would pull the covers off our parents’ double bed, leaving them anchored at the foot, and pretend the space between them and the floor was an Indian cave. But nifty childhood memories only go so far: soon my tailbone was throbbing again. No matter how I shifted, stones cut painfully into my ass, and it was getting even colder.

  I turned up the collar of my jacket, hugged my arms over my breasts, warmed my hands in my armpits. After a few minutes I felt so toasty that I almost went to sleep. I brought my hands out into the damp, icy air. Soon I was miserable and shivering again. I began to think fondly of home, and the thick quilts on my big soft bed.

  It really was the height of stupidity staying there in the park. For all I knew Wilkonson could be miles away by now. In any event, he probably wouldn’t appear tonight. At best I’d be stiff and sore and exhausted all the next day. At worst, I’d catch a horrendous cold or end up with pneumonia.

  But all the arguments I marshaled for giving up and going home failed to move me. I am extremely stubborn, and while many times that stubbornness has proved to be too much for my own good, there have been times when it’s paid off. So I waited, thinking about Frank Wilkonson and Bob Choteau to take my mind off my discomfort.

  The only connection between the two men was Rudy Goldring. Rudy, who had hired me to tail Frank. Rudy, who had left bequests in his will to both Bob Choteau and Irene Lasser, Frank’s probable former lover. All four of them were connected-in ways I didn’t understand totally, but connected nonetheless.

  But then there was Vicky Cushman. Vicky, whose car-whether she was willing to admit it or not-Irene had been driving the day of Rudy’s murder. Vicky, who had had the I DID MY SHOPPING AT A NEIGHBORHOOD BUSINESS! sacks in her living room on Thursday.

  Maybe I was placing too much emphasis on that sack. But it looked too fresh to be someone’s discard, and the foodstuffs inside were expensive.

  Maybe Bob Choteau was also connected to Vicky Cushman.

  Vicky bothered me. Her lie about the car…her frenetic behavior…her efforts to sedate herself with wine and grass….Something wrong between her and Gerry…and something else there… maybe…. What?...

  A noise brought me back to full wakefulness. I’d been dozing, not really asleep. Hastily I looked at my watch. When I’d checked it after crawling in here, it had been close to two; now it was twenty after four.

  What had awakened me was the police patrol. I could hear the motor of the cruiser and the mutter of its radio. I raised up and peered around the crisscrossed beams at the road. Two uniformed officers were inspecting the Ranchero, one shining his flashlight through its windows while the other stood back, hand ready on his gun butt. After a bit more inspection, the one with the flashlight wrote out a ticket-it was illegal to park there at this hour-and stuck it under the windshield wiper; then they both returned to the cruiser and drove off.

  I started to settle back into shelter, but my body was still cramped and cold, and my stubbornness had diluted some. The noise of the cruiser’s engine faded, and I realized that the foghorn no longer cried. That meant the insulating mist had retreated to the sea; the land had been cooled, and now real autumn-morning iciness would set in.

 
I crawled out of my hiding place and started for the road. As my eyes rested on the Ranchero, I remembered having seen a blanket on the seat when I’d shined my flash through the window hours ago. There was no reason I shouldn’t curl up in Wilkonson’s car and await his return there. After the last few miserable hours, I was in no mood to play any more games. I’d simply confront him and demand explanations.

  Only he didn’t come back.

  When traffic on the surrounding streets increased, I knew the city was waking up, and I began to get worried. I sat up, refolded the blanket, stared through the gray morning haze at the windmill. It looked even more deteriorated now: shingles were flaking away as if it were molting; where the support beams for the vanes weren’t sagging and splintered, they were rotted away. The surrounding terrain was clogged with dead vegetation, and the wind-tortured cypress trees bent low, scoured silver branches clawing at the dull sky.

  The crackle of another police radio drew my attention away; it must be time for the next patrol. Quickly I ducked down, opened the car door, and slipped out. As the cruiser pulled to a stop behind the Ranchero, I moved through the undergrowth and found a path that would take me to where the MG was parked on Lincoln Way.

  FIFTEEN

  Eight o’clock on a Sunday morning was probably an impolitic time to go calling on a potentially hostile witness, but at this point I just didn’t care to observe the proprieties. The presence of the shopping bag in Bob Choteau’s hideaway, coupled with her lie about Irene Lasser using her BMW, placed Vicky Cushman squarely in the middle of what I was coming to think of as my case. It was time I established the precise nature of her connection to the other principals.

  Vicky had better not cross me, I thought as I stopped my car next to the wall of The Castles. She may think she’s tough because she takes on the chain stores and Cal’s medical center, but she’s never had to contend with a determined McCone before!

  Surprisingly, when I pushed the button on the intercom, I received an immediate answering buzz, rather than the sleep-choked inquiry I expected. I went through the gate and followed the path under the eucalyptus trees. The air was still, and their leaves hung heavy with dew; moisture blanketed the lawn with a silvery sheen. Ahead of me I heard a door close, and when I looked in the direction of the noise, I saw Gerry Cushman coming out of the castle to the left of the main one-the master bedroom suite, I supposed.

  Gerry was a tall, slender man who walked in a bouncy gait that reflected his high energy level. His black hair was curly and stood up from a widow’s peak in a funny little corkscrew. When I’d seen him at All Souls parties, he’d been quiet at first; after he’d gotten a couple of drinks in him, he’d become animated and had dominated conversations with his quick wit and expansive gestures. In spite of his somewhat odd appearance, his obvious keen enjoyment of life made him very attractive to women; I’d heard that he wasn’t above a romantic fling from time to time. Presumably Vicky was too busy with her civic causes to notice-or perhaps she just didn’t care.

  This morning, however, Gerry didn’t look as if he was enjoying anything very much. He carried a set of rolled-up blueprints under one arm and was scowling ferociously. His hands were thrust in the pockets of his trendy baggy hounds-tooth jacket. When he saw me, he stopped and stared, not saying anything.

  “Gerry,” I said. “Sharon McCone, from All Souls Legal Cooperative.”

  “Oh, right. I was trying to place you. Vicky mentioned you’d dropped in the other day.”

  As if on cue, one of the upper windows of the turret behind him opened, and Vicky stuck her head out. Her frizzy perm was wildly disheveled; even at this distance I could see that her eyes were red and swollen. She ignored me, focusing on Gerry, her mouth twisting in anger.

  “Fuck you, Gerry!” she yelled. “Fuck you!” Then she withdrew from the window and slammed it shut.

  Gerry seemed to shrink inside the loose jacket. He didn’t even look back, just started walking toward the gate, his head bent, eyes on the ground.

  “I really needed that,” he said. “It’s just the way I wanted to start my day.”

  I fell in step beside him, deciding to talk with him first and get a feel for the situation before I went inside to see Vicky.

  “I’ve got to go down to Carmel Highlands, look over a building site with a client,” Gerry added. “He’s picking me up, that’s who I thought you were when I buzzed you in. Would have been great if it had been him. Nice scene for a client to witness, right?”

  “People have their off days-everybody understands that.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Vicky seems to have cornered more than her fair market share.” Outside the wall, what sounded like a van with a diesel engine drove up. Gerry glanced apprehensively at the gate. “Look, that’s my client. I’m just going to take off. Will you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Go in there and try to talk some sense into her. Calm her down. Try to keep her from getting into the grass or wine this early. Will you do that for me?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Try’s all anyone can do with Vicky.”

  He went through the gate, slamming it as hard as Vicky had the window, and I retraced my steps toward the smaller castle. When I tried the door handle it turned, so I stepped inside and called out to Vicky. She didn’t reply. I shut the door and looked around.

  The ground floor was a sitting room, with a fireplace fitted into the curve of the wall. In the center of the room, a spiral staircase rose to the second story. The place was in total disorder: bedding materials were heaped in one chair and on a hassock drawn up in front of it, as if someone had slept there; on a table between it and a second chair stood an empty jug of red wine and a half-full brandy snifter. My eyes moved from it to a trail of red stains that led across the pale blue carpet toward the hearth. A smashed wineglass lay there, and there was a great splash of red on the wall above the mantel. I shook my head, then went toward the staircase, calling out again.

  “I’m up here,” Vicky’s voice said. “Has the fucker gone?”

  I climbed the stairs to the bedroom. It too was round, decorated all in blue; a door opened to a combination bath- and dressing room set in the square area over the entryway. Vicky huddled on one of the most enormous beds I’d ever seen-obviously custom-made because of the way its padded headboard conformed to the turret’s curving wall. The sheets and blankets were twisted and rumpled, and most of the pillows-there had to have been at least ten-had fallen to the floor. Vicky wore a long ruffly white nightgown that would have looked virginal had it not been for the red spatter marks that matched the stains downstairs. She was smoking a joint.

  Sorry about that, Gerry, I thought. I would have tried.

  “Has the fucker gone?” she repeated.

  “If you mean Gerry, yes. His client came, and they took off. I thought I’d check to see if you’re okay.”

  “Now that he’s gone, I am.” She extended the joint to me.

  I shook my head and sat down at the foot of the bed.

  “Oh, that’s right. Your drug’s alcohol. I’d give you some wine, but I drank it all. What I didn’t throw at the wall, I mean.” She giggled.

  “I take it you two had a fight,” I said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “What’s to talk about? It was just one more episode in the big serial fight. The other day I was thinking that we might as well make a soap opera out of it. What do you think? We could call it As the Worm Turns.”

  “Vicky-”

  “I like it, don’t you? Of course all the characters except Gerry would be women. He’d like that. Gerry and his women.”

  Ah, I thought, she does know-and cares.

  Vicky stubbed out the joint in an ashtray and scuttled over to the edge of the bed. She picked up a pillow and retreated to the headboard, where she sat Indian-style, the pillow cradled against her breasts as if for protection.

  “You know when I found out what he was like?” she said. “It was yea
rs and years ago. My oldest daughter, Lindy, had just been born. She was just a little baby and we were living out in the Sunset and I drove up and saw Gerry necking with this woman in her car in broad daylight in front of our own house.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Waited till he got out of her car and tried to run him down with mine. It went out of control and I hit a fireplug instead. Water went spurting all over the place. I jumped out of the car and ran into the house and locked myself in this walk-in closet we had. I stayed in there for twenty-four hours, screaming off and on.”

  She was silent for a moment, her gaze darkly inward as she relived those hours in the closet. “When I came out the fucker told me he wanted an open marriage. That was the first episode in our soap opera. It’s been number one in the ratings ever since. I can’t have an open marriage, I won’t have one, and Gerry-he just does.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just sat there, wondering why she persisted in making me a sort of unwilling voyeur. If Vicky had been a close friend-Anne-Marie, for instance-I would have been glad to listen. But she was a mere acquaintance, and the primary emotion her revelations aroused in me was embarrassment. I suspected she would also be embarrassed when she recalled our conversation in a calmer, more sober light.

  After a bit Vicky sighed and crawled over to one of the nightstands. She fumbled through its drawer, came up with another joint.

  “Maybe,” I said, “you should leave the grass alone for a while. You look like you could use some food. Why don’t we go over to the kitchen and I’ll cook you breakfast-”

  A look of alarm passed over her features. I guessed she was afraid I’d confiscate her dope. Then the alarm faded and was replaced by irritation. “Maybe,” she said, in a good imitation of me, “you should mind your own business.”