“Thanks for the call about the accident,” he said to me.
“You know, I was there, driving home, up the coast road and I saw the car. I talked with Mike Menton at the crash site. This isn’t normal, is it? Two accidents in two weeks?”
“No, not at all. Trisha, I can’t explain why these two…uh… events happened, one right after the other. I know that Jackie’s accident must have been upsetting and you were kind to go to the hospital and check up on her. But, and it is a big but, your job as an assistant in this office—even a temporary one—is to let me know immediately when things out of the ordinary happen. Mike Menton tracked me down from his car before he left Casitas Cove. I was very surprised when he said you had just left and then he asked ‘hadn’t she called’ to let me know?”
“Sorry. My fault. I’ll do better with the communication.”
I walked to my desk and sat down. Bill was right. He needed to be informed. I had let him down.
“Bill, do you think it at all possible that Waddell’s death and Jackie’s accident are related?”
“No, I don’t. They aren’t. They couldn’t be.”
“What about Mike Menton? He seems to be connected to both Dick Waddell and Jackie. Do you think he is involved with these events in some way?”
“This has nothing to do with him. They were accidents. Mike’s an okay guy. A little intense, but so are many of the swimmers.”
I changed the subject. “The evaluation.”
“What?”
“The evaluation for the Cold Water Clash. Remember? I was doing the evaluation?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I’ll have it to you later today. Before I leave.”
Bill glanced up at me.
“Bet you didn’t expect all this to happen in your first few weeks of work,” he said with a slight smile. “Like in Waddell’s case, don’t talk about Jackie’s accident. You can say that she is alive and what hospital she is in. Other than that, be polite and vague. Got it?”
I nodded. “Right. Lawyers.”
“Let’s send Jackie some flowers,” I said.
Bill gave me the office credit card and I called Green Street Flowers in the Marina District and ordered a cheery get-well bouquet.
“I’ll pick them up,” I said to the florist. “Around noon.”
They suggested I text them as I was leaving the office and they’d wait outside of the shop with the flowers.
“I can’t believe it.”
I was standing in the large parking lot just outside my office at Fort Mason, looking at what was left of my car’s windshield. Glass was scattered everywhere. Shards of it glittered like cold hard ice chips on the Honda’s front seat.
“Who would throw a brick at my car?” I said out loud.
“Oh no.” My hands went up to my mouth. “My car doors. They’ve been keyed.”
I walked around the car and ran my hands along the deep scratches etched into the side panels. This car was the one thing that I owned completely. I was proud of it. It was mine. Now it was damaged and I had no money to repair it.
I called upstairs to Bill and told him what happened. In a few minutes, he was by my side walking around the car.
“What a mess. Who’d you piss off?” he asked.
“Nobody. I haven’t worked here long enough to piss off anyone.”
Jon Angel pulled up in a NPS car. “What happened here?”
“Some jerk ruined my sole possession in life.”
“Did you see anyone around your car?” he asked.
“No. It was okay when we walked by to get coffee this morning. I haven’t been outside since.”
“Well, I’ll need to make out a report.”
Jon pulled out a small black notebook and looked at me. I wasn’t paying attention, that much was obvious to him and the small crowd that had gathered around the car.
“Tell you what,” he said, looking around at the gawkers, “let’s call your insurance company and report this. Then, we can talk in your office.”
“I was on my way to pick up some flowers, then go to SF Memorial. How am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to drive home?”
How am I supposed to get to AT&T Park? I thought.
“We’ve got a small storage garage between the buildings by our headquarters. Maybe we can move your car there until you figure out what you want to do. Give me your keys. I’ll meet you upstairs.”
I threw the keys to Jon and followed Bill back up the three flights, mumbling to myself with each step.
“Randomness, that’s what it is. Pure randomness,” he said.
“I don’t know about that.” I gave the door to the office a good solid kick and it flew open and bounced back, almost closing in our faces.
“You want to use my car this afternoon. I’m not going anywhere for a change,” he said.
“Thanks, that would work. I’ll call my sister and get her to pick me up later.”
It took about fifteen minutes before I heard Jon’s footsteps in the hall.
“This belong to you?” he asked. He was holding a large red brick with some kind of paper wrapped around it.
“No,” I said.
“It was on the floor of the passenger side in the front.”
“What is it?” asked Bill. He walked over and took the brick from Jon. He turned it around and around in his hands. “Someone sent you a note.”
A wrinkled piece of paper with a three word message was ducttaped to the brick. “Stay out of it.”
“What does that mean?” asked Bill.
“Stay out of what?” asked Jon.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Maybe it’s a mistake…someone got the wrong car.”
Or did they, I wondered. Instead of a mistake, it could be a warning. Who would know that I was interested in both Dick Waddell’s and Jackie Gibson’s accidents? The only name that came to mind was Mike Menton.
Jon and I sat down and we filled out the accident report. He included the wording of the note. When we finished, he gave me a strange look.
“You can keep your car in the NPS storage garage.”
Bill handed over the keys to his car. “Be careful, okay?” All that was left was for me to deliver the flowers to Jackie.
I nodded and headed for the door, still talking to myself about the idiot who damaged my car.
12
Green Street was packed with the lunch crowd. The sun was like a magnet for pedestrians. The warmer it was, the more they headed outside their offices. They clogged the sidewalks and streets. I held down the horn trying to get them to move a little faster. It didn’t help much.
As promised, there was a clerk in a bright green apron waiting in front of the shop. With a ‘Hi, I’m really happy to see you’ smile pasted on her face, she opened the trunk and carefully wedged in the flowers.
I wish I was in my own car, I thought. How much would the repairs cost me? Whatever the amount, I don’t have it.
The streets surrounding the hospital were just as crowded as in the Marina District. I pulled into the hospital parking lot, took out the flowers and walked in. The hallway on the second floor that led to Intensive Care was surprisingly empty. By the double doors leading into the IC unit, there was a security desk; but the guard was nowhere to be seen. I pressed the automatic door opener and walked in, no questions asked.
The air was filled with a quiet hum. No loud talking; no heavy bass from a radio—just subdued voices. I walked by nurses checking computer screens outside each room. Most of the patient’s doors were shut.
The hospital rooms formed a circle around a nurse’s station where three staff members sat. They looked up briefly when I walked by, but then went back to their work. I stopped one nurse checking a computer screen outside a patient’s door and asked where Jackie was. She pointed farther down the corridor and I continued walking.
Jackie was in a large airy room. She was hooked up to a number of machines that blinked and pushed out ever-changing numbers, monit
oring her blood pressure and heart rate. The spikes and valleys of an electrocardiogram kept track of her heart’s electrical activity. Her eyes were closed. One arm and a leg were in a cast.
My flowers were not the first. In fact, I had to make room on top of a table for my bouquet. I wondered how many of these were from men. Most of the cards were signed by names I didn’t recognize, but some looked familiar. There was a spray of roses from Mike M. Next to that was one from an anonymous admirer. It was only signed ‘Your almost Saturday night date.’
That’s provocative.
There was even a bouquet from her swim team in Pacifica. And another with a card that said, ‘I’ll be there to help you recover. Xoxoxo Sis.’
The computer with her medical records had been moved inside the room almost next to the bed. Her nurse must have just left, since test results were still on the screen. Looking around first and making sure that the hospital door was shut, I clicked through them. For the most part, I didn’t understand a word. But, I quickly jotted down the tests marked positive on the back of an envelope I had crammed into a pocket. Maybe Terrel could interpret what I was looking at.
I walked out and went to the nurse’s station. “How is she doing?” I asked the fifty-something nurse sitting behind the desk.
“And you are?” she said.
“I’m with the organization that she swims with. As a group, we are all very concerned about her.”
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” the nurse said. “This is Intensive Care, normally just family members.” She stood up and pointed toward the door.
“Sorry. I wanted to drop off some flowers from the office. It doesn’t look like she has any family close by. I only saw one getwell bouquet from a sister, but no one else. Are her mom and dad around?”
“You’ll have to leave.”
She pushed the automatic door opener and nodded to the guard now sitting at the door. He moved toward me at a quick pace. I politely thanked the nurse and walked out with him.
“Thanks for the escort. I know my way from here,” I said, as I walked to the elevators and pushed the down button. Maybe Dr. T was in the Emergency Room.
Walking through the double doors to the ER waiting room, I approached the main desk. The same nurse that was on duty when I was here yesterday had just finished registering a patient.
“Is Dr. Robinson, Terrel Robinson, on this shift?” I asked him. The nurse had tattoos running up and down his arms.
“I’m a close friend,” I said, since I could tell he was about to ask for every piece of ID that I was carrying. “Just wanted to say “Hi.”
“Sorry. He’s not. Want to leave a message?”
“No thanks, he’s my sister’s boyfriend. I’ll see him in the next few days.”
I was on my way out when I turned around. I had almost blown one chance in a million. “Weren’t you here yesterday when Jackie Gibson was brought in?”
“Oh, yeah. Crash victim. Drove off a cliff somewhere south of Pacifica. Lucky she’s alive.”
“Remember me? I came in about forty-five minutes later and talked to Dr. Robinson then.”
He shrugged. “This is a busy place. People are in and out all the time.”
“Anyone know what happened to her? Was it a major car malfunction? Brakes failed?” I was pushing my luck here. The nurse wasn’t supposed to talk about a case with anyone except the family.
“Could be drugs from what the preliminary tox screen showed.”
“Really? Like what kind of drugs? From Terrel’s conversation yesterday with the lab tech, I knew they were testing for something in particular.”
“Maybe you’d better talk to him,” the nurse said, clearly uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going. He nodded at me, then turned to the woman standing behind me. “Can I help you?” he said.
13
The hospital was on the same side of town as AT&T Park. It wouldn’t take me too long to get there and meet up with Justin. A few innings of baseball should keep my mind off my car. There was nothing random about what happened. The message was clearer each time I thought about it. Cease and desist. My inquisitiveness into the Waddell death and Jackie’s accident was considered ugly meddling by someone.
I walked past the Giants Dugout store toward McCovey Cove. The game against the LA Dodgers was already in the third inning. I didn’t see Justin so I inched my way forward into the crowd until I was standing against the fence.
The big hot-headed right fielder, Eddie Martinez, was only 25 yards in front of me. If the Giants are in the field, and Eddie misses a ball, the crowd at the Port Walk can be vocal. At the beginning of his career with the Giants, Martinez was known to end an inning with his face pressed against the fence, shouting insults right back. But that ‘I’m going to kick your ass’ attitude had mellowed with time on the field. Today, the Port Walk crowd applauded him after he made a dive to catch a fly ball.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. “You made it.”
I turned around. There was Justin.
“Have you been standing there long?” I asked.
“Just walked over. Glad you could spare some time.”
I reluctantly moved away from the front of the crowd and the game. I followed Justin over to the railing overlooking McCovey Cove. There were at least 15 kayakers and paddleboarders drifting around in the cove, waiting patiently for a ball to be launched out of the ballpark into the water.
“Party in the Cove,” said Justin, staring at the enthusiastic fans on the Bay.
“Well, I needed a little R&R.” Then I told him about my car.
“That’s too bad. Any idea who did it?”
“Not a clue. But I think it’s a way of telling me to back off.”
“Back off from what?” Justin asked.
“I don’t know if you heard. Remember the woman that was hanging on Mike Menton’s arm after the pier swim?”
“Jackie? Yeah. Why?”
“Well, she had an automobile accident on the way home. She drove off a cliff on Highway 1.”
“No. Really? I didn’t know. How is she doing?”
“Not so good. I just stopped by to visit her and drop off some flowers from the office. She’s connected to all sorts of tubes and machines. She will be out of the water for a long time.”
“Too bad.”
“You know, I don’t think it was an accident.”
A roar went up from inside the ballpark. It took a minute or two until it quieted down. So we stood there, awkwardly and waited.
“Sure it was. What else could it be?” said Justin.
“This is going to sound strange. I want to show you something.”
We walked over to a bench by the Marina entrance to the ballpark and sat down. I pulled out my pack of 3 x 5 cards.
“What are those?” Justin asked.
“Remember, two weeks ago when your pal Dick Waddell died? Well, I think his death and Jackie’s accident are related. And I think the brick through my car window is part of the same story. Look, I put everything about the events on these cards.”
I spread the cards out on the bench. There was a card for Waddell, one for Jackie, one for Mike Menton, one for his darling daughter, Daisy, one for the brother-in-law, Spencer and his wife, Pamela.
“Spencer? You know Spencer?” He picked up each card and read them. “I don’t get it. What’s this supposed to prove?”
“From what I can tell, the one common denominator is Mike Menton.”
“Mike? You think he’s connected with Dick’s death, that he keyed your car, and somehow made Jackie crash at the Cove? What do you think he did… tamper with her brakes or something like that?”
“Granted, it sounds farfetched. He seems to be the connecting link. But that doesn’t make him anything more than that…just a link.”
“If you’re looking for people who knew both of them, there are plenty of those. Me, for instance, and the whole open water swim community for starters.”
“May
be someone has a grudge against open water swimmers and wants to get rid of them or some of them. Maybe, he or she, doesn’t want me asking questions.”
Justin just stared at me in disbelief.
“Why? What’s the reasoning? That makes no sense at all.”
“I need to talk to Mike Menton. One conversation, that’s all it would take. I’d get a sense of who he is and his involvement.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty good at reading people, but he won’t talk to me. You saw what happened at the swim. Maybe I should talk to Waddell’s sister? Maybe she can tell me something about what was going on in his life.”
“Pamela? I knew her back in high school, too. Look, she just suffered a tremendous loss. This would upset her even more. Besides, I told you all about Dick last weekend.”
“You said you two hadn’t been in touch very much since he moved here. Maybe Pamela can help me figure this out.”
“Well, Pamela won’t be able to help you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She…Look. You’re trying to put two and two together and get four. But there is no two and two. There’s no nothing. Take your cards,” and he picked them up and handed them to me. “Now put them away or better yet, walk over to the railing and toss them into McCovey Cove.”
I gave the cards one last look and put them back into my bag.
“You’re not going to throw them away, are you?”
I shook my head. “If these accidents are connected, I’m going to find out. One brick is not going to stop me.”
“I have an idea. To help calm that overactive mind of yours, how about coming to a baseball game on Saturday with me? I have field club level seats behind home plate. We’ll be on TV.”
As he said that, my conspiracy theory and bull dog determination evaporated like bay fog on a sunny day. I had been asked on a date. A real date. And to a baseball game to boot. I hadn’t been asked out by anyone since before I was married, 10 years ago. You bet I was going to go.
“Sure. After what happened to my car, I need to look forward to something. Who do they play?”
“Would you say no if you didn’t like the team?”
Dead in the Water Page 8
