The McCone Files

by Marcia Muller

  “It’s not a pretty story, Mr. Shoemaker,” I said, “and I can see why the wording of the notes might make you suspect there’s a connection between it and this harassment. But who do you think John is?”

  “Carding’s oldest boy. Carding and his family knew I’d witnessed the accident; one of his coworkers saw me watching from the catwalk and told him. Later, when I turned up as a senior counsel…” He shrugged.

  “But why, after all this time—”

  “Why not? People nurse grudges. John Carding was sixteen at the time of the lawsuit; there were some ugly scenes with him, both at my home and my office at the mill. By now he’d be in his forties. Maybe it’s his way of acting out some sort of midlife crisis.”

  “Well, I’ll call my office and have my assistant run a check on all three Carding kids. And I want to speak with Mrs. Shoemaker—preferably in your presence.”

  He glanced at his watch. “It can’t be tonight. She’s got a meeting of her professional organization, and I’m dining with my campaign manager.”

  A potentially psychotic man was threatening Andrea’s life, yet they both carried on as usual. Well, who was I to question it? Maybe it was their way of coping.

  “Tomorrow, then,” I said. “Your home. At the noon hour.”

  Shoemaker nodded. Then he gave me the address, as well as the names of John Carding’s siblings.

  I left him on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant: a handsome man whose shoulders now slumped inside his expensive suit coat, shivering in the brisk wind off Humboldt Bay. As we shook hands, I saw that shame made his gaze unsteady, the set of his mouth less than firm.

  I knew that kind of shame. Over the course of my career, I’d committed some dreadful acts that years later woke me in the deep of the night to sudden panic. I’d also not committed certain acts—failure that woke me to regret an emptiness. My sins of omission were infinitely worse than those of commission, because I knew that if I’d acted, I could have made a difference. Could even have saved a life.

  I wasn’t able to reach Rae Kelleher, my assistant at All Souls, that evening, and by the time she got back to me the next morning—Thursday—I was definitely annoyed. Still, I tried to keep a lid on my irritation. Rae is young, attractive, and in love; I couldn’t expect her to spend her evenings waiting to be of service to her workaholic boss.

  I got her started on a computer check on all three Cardings, then took myself to the Eureka P.D. and spoke with Shoemaker’s contact, Sergeant Bob Wolfe. Wolfe—a dark haired, sharp-featured man whose appearance was a good match for his surname—told me he’d had the notes processed by the lab, which had turned up no useful evidence.

  “Then I started to probe, you know? When you got a harassment case like this, you look into the victims’ private lives.”

  “And that was when Shoemaker told you to back off.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When was this?”

  “About five weeks ago.”

  “I wonder why he waited so long to hire me. Did he, by any chance, ask you for a referral to a local investigator?”

  Wolfe frowned. “Not this time.”

  “Then you’d referred him to someone before?”

  “Yeah, guy who used to be on the force—Dave Morrison. Last April.”

  “Did Shoemaker tell you why he needed an investigator?”

  “No, and I didn’t ask. These politicians, they’re always trying to get something on their rivals. I didn’t want any part of it.”

  “Do you have Morrison’s address and phone number handy?”

  Wolfe reached into his desk drawer, shuffled things, and flipped a business card across the blotter. “Dave gave me a stack of these when he set up shop,” he said. “Always glad to help an old pal.”

  Morrison was out of town, the message on his answering machine said, but would be back tomorrow afternoon. I left a message of my own, asking him to call me at my motel then I headed for the Shoemaker’s home, hoping I could talk some common sense into Andrea.

  But Andrea wasn’t having any common sense.

  She strode around the parlor of their big Victorian—built by one of the city’s lumber barons, her husband told me when I complimented them on it—arguing and waving her arms and making scathing statements punctuated by a good amount of profanity. And knocking back martinis, even though it was only a little past noon.

  Yes, she was going to the cabin. No, neither her husband nor I was welcome there. No, she wouldn’t postpone the trip; she was sick and tired of being cooped up like some kind of zoo animal because her husband had made a mistake years before she’d met him. All right, she realized this John person was dangerous. But she’d taken self-defense classes and owned a .32 revolver. Of course she knew how to use it. Practiced frequently, too. Women had to be prepared these days, and she was.

  But, she added darkly, glaring at her husband, she’d just as soon not have to shoot John. She’d rather send him straight back to Steve and let them settle this score. May the best man win—and she was placing bets on John.

  As far as I was concerned, Steve and Andrea Shoemaker deserved each other.

  I tried to explain to her that self-defense classes don’t fully prepare you for a paralyzing, heart-pounding encounter with an actual violent stranger. I tried to warn her that the ability to shoot well on a firing range doesn’t fully prepare you for pumping a bullet into a human being who is advancing swiftly on you.

  I wanted to tell her she was being an idiot.

  Before I could, she slammed down her glass and stormed out of the house.

  Her husband replenished his own drink and said, “Now do you see what I’m up against?”

  I didn’t respond to that. Instead I said, “I spoke with Sergeant Wolfe earlier.”

  “And?”

  “He told me he referred you to a local private investigator, Dave Morrison, last April.”

  “So.”

  “Why didn’t you hire Morrison for this job?”

  “As I told you yesterday, my—”

  “Sensitive position, yes.”

  Shoemaker scowled.

  Before he could comment, I asked, “What was the job last April?”

  “Nothing to do with this matter.”

  “Something to do with politics?

  “In a way.”

  “Mr. Shoemaker, hasn’t it occurred to you that a political enemy may be using the Carding case as a smoke screen? That a rival’s trying to throw you off balance before this special election?”

  “It did, and…well, it isn’t my opponent’s style. My god, we’re civilized people. But those notes…they’re the work of a lunatic.”

  I wasn’t so sure he was right—both about the notes being the work of a lunatic and politicians being civilized people—but I merely said, “Okay, you keep working on Mrs. Shoemaker. At least persuade her to let me go to the Lost Coast with her. I’ll be in touch.” Then I headed for the public library.

  After a few hours of ruining my eyes at the microfilm machine, I knew little more than before. Newspaper accounts of the Carding accident, lawsuit, and murder-suicide didn’t differ substantially from what my client had told me. Their coverage of the Shoemakers’ activities was only marginally interesting.

  Normally I don’t do a great deal of background investigation on clients, but as Sergeant Wolfe had said, in a case like this where one or both of them was a target, a thorough look at careers and lifestyles was mandatory. The papers described Steve as straightforward, effective assembly man who took a hard, conservative stance on such issues as welfare and the environment. He was strongly pro-business, particularly the lumber industry. He and his “charming and talented wife” didn’t share many interests: Steve hunted and golfed; Andrea was a “generous supporter of the arts” and a “lavish party-giver.” An odd couple, I thought, and odd people to be friends of Jack Stuart, a liberal who’d chosen to dedicate his career to representing the underdog.

  Back at the motel, I put in a
call to Jack. Why, I asked him, had he remained close to a man who was so clearly his opposite?

  Jack laughed. “You’re trying to say politely that you think he’s a pompous, conservative ass.”

  “Well…”

  “Okay, I admit it: he is. But back in college, he was a mentor to me. I doubt I would have gone into the law if it hadn’t been for Steve. And we shared some good times, too: one summer we took a motorcycle trip around the country, like something out of Easy Rider without the tragedy. I guess we stay in touch because of a shared past.”

  I was trying to imagine Steve Shoemaker on a motorcycle; the picture wouldn’t materialize. “Was he always so conservative?” I asked.

  “No, not until he moved back to Eureka and went to work for that lumber company. Then…I don’t know. Everything changed. It was as if something had happened that took all the fight out of him.”

  What had happened, I thought, was trading another man’s life for a prestigious job.

  Jack and I chatted for a moment longer, and then I asked him to transfer me to Rae. She hadn’t turned up anything on the Cardings yet, but was working on it. In the meantime, she added, she’d taken care of what correspondence had come in, dealt with seven phone calls, entered next week’s must-do’s in the call-up file she’d created for me, and found a remedy for the blight that was affecting my rubber plant.

  With a pang, I realized that the office ran just as well—better perhaps—when I wasn’t there. It would keep functioning smoothly without me for weeks, months, maybe years.

  Hell, it would probably keep functioning smoothly even if I were dead.

  In the morning I opened the Yellow Pages to florists and began calling each that was listed. While Shoemaker had been vague on the date his wife received the funeral arrangement, surely a customer who wanted one sent to a private home, rather than a mortuary, would stand out in the order-taker’s mind. The listing was long, covering a relatively wide area; it wasn’t until I reached the R’s and my watch showed nearly eleven o’clock that I got lucky.

  “I don’t remember any order like that in the past six weeks,” the clerk at Rainbow Florists said, “but we had one yesterday, was delivered this morning.”

  I gripped the receiver harder. “Will you pull the order, please?”

  “I’m not sure I should—”

  “Please. You could help to save a woman’s life.”

  Quick intake of breath, than his voice filled with excitement; he’d become part of a real-life drama. “One minute. I’ll check.” When he came back on the line, he said, “Thirty-dollar standard condolence arrangement, delivered this morning to Mr. Steven Shoemaker—”

  “Mister? Not Mrs. or Ms?”

  “Mister, definitely. I took the order myself.” He read off the Shoemakers’ address.

  “Who placed it?”

  “A kid. Came in with cash and written instructions.”

  Standard ploy—hire a kid off the street so nobody can identify you.

  “Thanks very much.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me—”

  I hung up and dialed Shoemaker’s office. His secretary told me he was working at home today. I dialed the home number. Busy. I hung up, and the phone rang immediately. Rae, with information on the Cardings.

  She’d traced Sam Carding’s daughter and younger son. The daughter lived near Cleveland, Ohio, and Rae had spoken with her on the phone. John, his sister had told her, was a drifter and an addict; she hadn’t seen or spoken to him in more than ten years. When Rae reached the younger brother at his office in L.A., he told her the same, adding that he assumed John had died years ago.

  I thanked Rae and told her to keep on it. Then I called Shoemaker’s home number again. Still busy; time to go over there.

  Shoemaker’s Lincoln was parked in the drive of the Victorian, a dusty Honda motorcycle beside it. As I rang the doorbell I again tried to picture a younger, free-spirited Steve bumming around the country on a bike with Jack, but the image simply wouldn’t come clear. It took Shoemaker a while to answer the door, and when he saw me, his mouth pulled down in displeasure.

  “Come in, and be quick about it,” he told me. “I’m on an important conference call.”

  I was quick about it. He rushed down the hallway to what must be a study, and I went into the parlor where we’d talked the day before. Unlike his offices, it was exquisitely decorated, calling up images of the days of the lumber barons. Andrea’s work probably. Had she also done his offices? Perhaps their gaudy décor was her way of getting back at a husband who put his political life ahead of their marriage?

  It was at least half an hour before Shoemaker finished with his call. He appeared in the archway leading to the hall, somewhat disheveled, running his fingers through his hair. “Come with me,” he said. “I have something to show you.”

  He led me to a large kitchen at the back of the house. A floral arrangement sat on the granite-topped center island; white lilies with a single red rose. Shoemaker handed me the card: “My sympathy on your wife’s passing.” It was signed “John.”

  “Where’s Mrs. Shoemaker?” I asked.

  “Apparently she went out to the coast last night I haven’t seen her since she walked out on us at the noon hour.”

  “And you’ve been home the whole time?”

  He nodded. “Mainly on the phone.”

  “Why didn’t you call me when she didn’t come home?”

  “I didn’t realize she hadn’t until mid-morning. We have separate bedrooms, and Andrea comes and goes as she pleases. Then this arrangement arrived, and my conference call came through…” He shrugged spreading his hands helplessly.

  “All right,” I said, “I’m going out there whether she likes it or not. And I think you’d better clear up whatever you’re doing here and follow. Maybe your showing up there will convince her you care about her safety, make her listen to reason.”

  As I spoke, Shoemaker had taken a fifth of Tanqueray gin and a jar of Del Prado Spanish olives from a Lucky sack that sat on the counter. He opened a cupboard, reached for a glass.

  “No, “I said. “This is no time to have a drink.”

  He hesitated, then replaced the glass, and began giving me directions to the cabin. His voice was flat, and his curious travelogue-like digressions made me feel as if I were listening to a tape of a National Geographic special. Reality, I thought, had finally sunk in, and it had turned him into any automaton.

  I had one stop to make before heading out to the coast, but it was right on my way. Morrison Investigations had its office in what looked to be a former motel on Highway 101, near the outskirts of the city. It was a neighborhood of fast-food restaurants and bars, thrift shops, and marginal businesses. Besides the detective agency, the motel’s cinderblock units housed an insurance brokerage, a secretarial service, two accountants, and a palm reader. Dave Morrison, who was just arriving as I pulled into the parking area, was a bit of a surprise: in his mid-forties, wearing one small gold earring and a short ponytail. I wondered what Steve Shoemaker had made of him.

  Morrison showed me into a two-room suite crowded with computer equipment and file cabinets and furniture that looked as if he might have hauled it down the street from the nearby Thrift Emporium. When he noticed me studying him, he grinned easily. “I know, I don’t look like a former cop. I worked undercover narcotics my last few years on the force. Afterwards I realized I was comfortable with the uniform.” His gesture took in his lumberjack’s shirt, work-worn jeans and boots.

  I smiled in return, and he cleared some files off a chair so I could sit.

  “So you’re working for Steve Shoemaker,” he said.

  “I understand you did, too.”

  He nodded. “Last April and again around the beginning of August.”

  “Did he approach you about another job after that?”

  He shook his head.

  “And the jobs you did for him were—”

  “You know better than to ask that.�
��

  “I was going to ask, were they completed to his satisfaction?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have idea why Shoemaker would go to the trouble of bringing me up from San Francisco when he had an investigator here whose work satisfied him?”

  Headshake.

  “Shoemaker told me the first job you did for him had to do with politics.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “In a manner of speaking.” He paused, shrewd eyes assessing me. “How come you’re investigating your own client?”

  “It’s that kind of case. And something feels wrong. Did you get that sense about either of the jobs you took on for him?”

  “No.” Then he hesitated, frowning, “Well, maybe. Why don’t you just come out and ask what you want to? If I can, I’ll answer.”

  “Okay—did either of the jobs have to do with a man named John Carding?”

  That surprised him. After a moment he asked a question of his own.

  “He’s still trying to trace Carding?”

  “Yes.”

  Morrison got up and moved toward the window, stopped and drummed his fingers on top of a file cabinet. “Well, I can save you further trouble. John Carding is untraceable. I tried every way I know—and that’s every way there is. My guess is that he’s dead, years dead.”

  “And when was it you tried to trace him?”

  “Most of August.”