The McCone Files

by Marcia Muller

  DECEPTIONS

  SAN FRANCISCO’S Golden Gate Bridge is deceptively fragile-looking, especially when fog swirls across its high span. But from where I was standing, almost beneath it at the south end, even the mist couldn’t disguise the massiveness of its concrete piers and the taut strength of its cables. I tipped my head back and looked up the tower to where it disappeared into the drifting grayness, thinking about the other ways the bridge is deceptive.

  For one thing, its color isn’t gold, but rust red, reminiscent of dried blood. And though the bridge is a marvel of engineering, it is also plagued by maintenance problems that keep the Bridge District in constant danger of financial collapse. For a reputedly romantic structure, it has seen more than its fair share of tragedy: some eight hundred-odd lost souls have jumped to their deaths from its deck.

  Today I was there to try to find out if that figure should be raised by one. So far I’d met with little success.

  I was standing next to my car in the parking lot of Fort Point, a historic fortification at the mouth of the San Francisco Bay. Where the pavement stopped, the land fell away to jagged black rocks; waves smashed against them, sending up geysers of salty spray. Beyond the rocks the water was choppy, and Angel Island and Alcatraz were mere humpbacked shapes in the mist. I shivered, wishing I’d worn something heavier than my poplin jacket, and started toward the fort.

  This was the last stop on a journey that had taken me from the toll booths and Bridge District offices to Vista Point at the Marin County end of the span, and back to the National Park Services headquarters down the road from the fort. None of the Park Service or bridge personnel—including a group of maintenance workers near the north tower—had seen the slender dark-haired woman in the picture I’d shown them, walking south on the pedestrian sidewalk about four yesterday afternoon. None of them had seen her jump.

  It was for that reason—plus the facts that her parents had revealed about twenty-two-year-old Vanessa DiCesare—that made me tend to doubt she actually had committed suicide, in spite of the note she’d left taped to the dashboard of her Honda she’d abandoned at Vista Point. Surely at four o’clock on a Monday afternoon someone would have noticed her. Still, I had to follow up every possibility, and the people at the Park Service station had suggested I check with the rangers at Fort Point.

  I entered the dark-brick structure through a long, low tunnel—called a sally port, the sign said—which was flanked at either end by massive wooden doors with iron studding. Years before I’d visited the fort, and now I recalled that it was more or less typical of harbor fortifications built in the Civil War era: a ground floor topped by two tiers of working and living quarters, encircling a central courtyard.

  I emerged into the court and looked up at the west side; the tiers were a series of brick archways, their openings as black as empty eye sockets, each roped off by a narrow strip of plastic strung across it at waist level. There was construction gear in the courtyard; the entire west side was under renovation and probably off limits to the public.

  As I stood there trying to remember the layout of the place and wondering which way to go, I became aware of a hollow metallic clanking that echoed in the circular enclosure. The noise drew my eyes upward to the wooden watchtower atop the west tiers, and then to the red arch of the bridge’s girders directly above it. The clanking seemed to have something to do with cars passing over the roadbed, and it was under laid by a constant grumbling rush of tires on the pavement. The sounds, coupled with soaring height of the fog-laced girders, made me feel very small and insignificant. I shivered again and turned to my left, looking for one of the rangers.

  The man who came out of a nearby doorway startled me, more because of his costume than the suddenness of his appearance. Instead of the Park Service uniform I remembered the rangers wearing on my previous visit, he was clad in what looked like an old Union Army uniform: a dark blue frock coat, lighter blue trousers, and a wide-brimmed hat with a red plume. The long saber strapped to his waist made him look thoroughly authentic.

  He smiled at my obvious surprise and came over to me, bushy eyebrows lifted inquiringly. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  I reached into my bag and took out my private investigator’s license and showed it to him. “I’m Sharon McCone, from All Souls Legal Cooperative. Do you have a minute to answer some questions?”

  He frowned, the way people often do when confronted by a private detective, probably trying to remember whether he’d done anything lately that would warrant investigation. Then he said, “Sure,” and motioned for me to step into the shelter of the sally port.

  “I’m investigating a disappearance, a possible suicide from the bridge,” I said. “It would have happened about four yesterday afternoon. Were you on duty then?”

  He shook his head. “Monday’s my day off.”

  “Is there anyone else here who might have been working then?”

  “You could check with Lee—Lee Gottschalk, the other ranger on this shift.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  He moved into the courtyard and looked around. “I saw him start taking a couple of tourists around just a few minutes ago. People are crazy: they’ll come out in any kind of weather.”

  “Can you tell me which way he went?”

  The ranger gestured to our right. “Along this side. When he’s done down here, he’ll take them up that iron stairway to the first tier, but I can’t say how far he’s gotten yet.”

  I thanked him and started off in the direction he’d indicated.

  There were open doors in the cement wall between the sally port and the iron staircase. I glanced through the first and saw no one. The second let into a dark hallway; when I was halfway down it, I saw that this was the fort’s jail. One cell was set up as a display, complete with a mannequin prisoner; the other, beyond an archway that was not much taller than my own five-foot-six, was unrestored. Its water stained walls were covered with graffiti, and a metal railing protected a two-foot-square iron grid on the floor in one corner. A sign said that it was a cistern with a forty-thousand-gallon capacity.

  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 indicted. At its top, I turned 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 chin 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 among them, 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 stationed 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 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 memorizes: 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.”

  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 and rescue 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 one of the watchtowers on 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 up 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 hadn’t been enough. Vanessa was over twenty-one and 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 could 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 side-streets 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 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 1980’s, 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 by 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 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 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, 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 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 s
ome 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 the 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.”