Looking for Yesterday

by Marcia Muller

  I gave wide berth to a shouting sidewalk preacher dressed in dirty white robes. Avoided the clutching hands of a raggedy man in a ski cap. Ignored the pleas of a woman who sat on her blanket with two small children. God, where was my compassion?

  Well, I’m a city dweller, and if I gave to everyone—genuine needy cases as well as hard-core pretenders—I’d’ve gone broke years ago. And I could spot the pretenders: the sidewalk preacher probably took in more a day than most wage slaves; the man in the ski hat wore an expensive wristwatch; the small children were dressed in Oshkosh clothing and their mother wore a diamond ring.

  On the other hand, the sobbing man was pleading with the cops to transport him to a rehab facility; the poetess behind the TV tray was enterprising and proud of her work. I risked half a buck and bought one.

  The morning, like the dove

  Flies away

  And leaves me to face my tawdry day.

  Not bad. Not good, either.

  The elevator in The Right Shoe’s building was creakier than the one in my new location, and filthy. Squashed coffee cups and beer cans, crumpled newspaper, and various substances whose origin I didn’t care to contemplate covered its floor. The odor was of human waste. I tried not to breathe deeply as I rode upstairs.

  The paper’s offices had probably been remodeled in the 1940s: a high blond wood counter; worn and scuffed linoleum floors; pebbled glass doors, one of which was cracked in a sunburst pattern. The youngish man behind the counter had a bad case of acne and buckteeth. When I asked for Jill Starkey, he silently pointed to one of the doors off the waiting area.

  I knocked, and a harsh voice yelled, “Go away!”

  I knocked again. A rush of motion came from inside, and a woman with frizzy brown hair and an unpleasant twist to her garishly lipsticked red mouth stuck her head out and snarled, “What don’t you understand about go away?”

  “Very little.” I edged around her into a small office crammed with bookcases and piles of paper on the floor. The desk’s surface was buried in more piles.

  Starkey stood by the door with her hands on her hips. From the photograph that had accompanied her column I’d always imagined her as a large woman, but she barely came up to my chin.

  “All right, you’re in here,” she said. “What is it? A hot tip for me about what those liberal assholes at city hall are up to? I suppose you want to be paid, but let me tell you right up front—I don’t pay my sources.”

  I took out my ID and showed it to her. She wasn’t impressed.

  “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of you. Important bleeding heart PI. Keep getting your name and face in the paper and on TV. Well, not in my paper, sister.”

  “That’s a relief.” I removed some books from the only visitors’ chair and sat.

  “Well, make yourself at home!”

  “Thank you.”

  Starkey hesitated, then skirted the desk and sat down in her chair. “I get the feeling I’m stuck with you.”

  “For a while.”

  “So what is it?”

  “You covered the Caro Warrick case.”

  “Bitch who murdered her best friend? You bet I did. What’s your interest in the case? No, don’t tell me. You’re working for the anti-gun nut.”

  “Then you disagree with the jury’s verdict of acquittal.”

  “Of course I do. The prosecution did a shitty job. And Warrick’s attorney, Ned Springer—do you know him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, he had a reputation of not being able to find his ass with both hands, but he can be charming. He charmed that jury. Some say he charmed his client too.”

  “Charmed her?”

  “Come on, McCone. Everybody knew he was screwing her.”

  In my experience, when a person says “everybody knew” it usually means one or two people suspected. I filed the rumor for further consideration.

  “What about the prosecutor?” I asked.

  “Overconfident. Unprepared. Harvard grad, but he’s not going anyplace in this town.”

  “Will you give me an overview of the trial from your perspective? Then I won’t disrupt your day any more.”

  Starkey tipped her desk chair back; I sensed she no longer considered her day disrupted. Quickly she began to spew invective against Caro Warrick, the gun control movement, the American justice system, and the American people in general. On the sensitive recorder in my bag, I was taping her tirade, in case somehow, someday I could use it.

  1:40 p.m.

  I was thoroughly sick of Jill Starkey’s sarcasm and vitriol by the time I left her office. The woman was steeped in negativity: Caro Warrick was “a bitch who should’ve gotten the death penalty”; her attorney, Ned Springer, was a “buffoon”; the prosecutor was “an incompetent Harvard snob”; Jake Green, Warrick’s lover, was a “cheap gigolo.” Even the victim, Amelia Bettencourt, was a “whore who deserved to be killed.”

  Starkey’s diatribe on American society was even worse: most people were “semiliterate fools”; the president was a “fraud”; the Democrats had always “sucked”; the Republicans were “a bunch of rattlebrains who had better get their act together.” And then there were California’s governor and legislators.…

  I’d interrupted her at one point. “Is there anything you do like, Ms. Starkey?”

  She blinked. “Well, I…”

  “Small children, animals, ice cream?”

  “Can’t stand children or animals. Ice cream’s okay.”

  God, the woman had thought the question was serious! The humorless: how did they survive? If you can’t laugh—particularly at yourself—life can be a grinding, dreary proposition.

  Laughter—it’s what keeps us sane.

  2:50 p.m.

  I was sitting in Ned Springer’s waiting room leafing through a six-month-old copy of California Law Review, which seemed to be the only publication Caro’s former attorney subscribed to. Springer was already twenty minutes late for our two thirty appointment. The only article that had caught my attention was on environmental issues, and it was dry and not all that interesting. Finally I set the magazine aside.

  The law offices were in a seventies-style building in the Sunset district on Nineteenth Avenue near Ortega; it looked as if it should be—and probably once had been—a dental clinic. Springer had been there, according to his Internet listing, ever since he left the Public Defender’s Office and went into private practice. From the looks of his waiting room—cheap, beat-up furniture, half-dead plants, and a scowly, unwelcoming receptionist—no wealthy or high-powered clients had lined up at his door.

  It was five more minutes before the receptionist’s phone buzzed. She said, “Yes, sir, I’ll send her in.” Then she glowered at me and jerked her head toward the inner door. “He’s back.”

  The door opened into a short hallway, where a man in a tan suit stood. Ned Springer surprised me: because of his waiting room and his tardiness, I’d expected a harried, rumpled, unprosperous-looking individual, but he was well groomed and had a friendly smile and a good, strong handshake.

  “I apologize for being late, Ms. McCone,” he said. “I volunteer for a mentoring program, and one of my kids had a crisis.”

  “I know all about those,” I replied, thinking of Jamie.

  We went into his office and sat down. It wasn’t large, but in contrast to Jill Starkey’s, it was ordered. The spines of the law books on the shelves that took up two walls were neatly aligned, and the few items on his desk appeared to be in their proper places. Of course, it could have been that he seldom consulted the tomes or used his stapler, paperweights, or stamp and tape dispensers.

  He said, “You told my secretary you want to speak with me about the Caro Warrick case. Attorney-client privilege—”

  “Has been waived.” I passed over a copy of the document Warrick had messengered to the pier that morning along with her retainer check.

  He read it thoroughly. Springer was, I thought, what my friend and attorney Hank Zahn calle
d a “belt-and-suspenders kind of guy,” making sure all the loopholes were closed. It was a quality both Hank and I respected.

  “May I keep this?” Springer asked.

  “Please do.”

  “Why does Ms. Warrick want you to speak with me?”

  “She’s hired me to reinvestigate her case, to get the facts correct for a true-crime book she’s cooperating on. What I’m mainly interested in is how the two of you interacted, your impressions of her and of her innocence or guilt.”

  “It sounds to me as if you’re investigating your own client.”

  “At her request.”

  “That’s bizarre. But then, Caro always was a little off center.”

  “In what way?”

  “She went to extremes: she had to be the best at everything she did; she had to feel most passionately, act most forcefully, make the biggest impression on everyone. Very often she managed all of those things, but if not, it was cause for full-blown depression.”

  “It sounds as if you know her well.”

  “I do. We grew up on the same street in the Marina. We even dated a few times.”

  “You’re aware of her history of unexplained seizures and dyslexia?”

  “The dyslexia is real, and she’s learned to handle it well. The seizures she manufactured herself to get attention. She never had epilepsy or any other disease that would have caused them.”

  “She claims she doesn’t remember when the seizures stopped.”

  “Well, she’s lying to you, probably in order to gain your sympathy. She knows exactly when the so-called seizures stopped—the day she started to throw one in her shrink’s office, and he called her on it.”

  “She didn’t mention having been under psychiatric care.”

  “This was nine or ten years ago, during her abortive attempt at college. It was fashionable at the time to be in therapy, but she probably needed it too.”

  “What was the psychiatrist’s name?”

  Springer thought a few seconds. “Richard Gosling. I think his offices are in 450 Sutter.”

  I noted the information; I’d need separate permission from Warrick to talk with her therapist, and I wasn’t sure she’d consent to that.

  I asked, “Will you describe what kind of client Caro Warrick was?”

  “Passive and not very helpful with building her defense. She insisted upon her innocence and seemed to think her well-publicized stance on gun control would prove she never could have shot anyone. When I explained that many people go against their principles in times of stress, she simply said, ‘I don’t.’ Fortunately there was no real evidence against her, so I was able to win an acquittal. She didn’t seem to be particularly relieved or grateful.”

  “Yet now she wants that acquittal affirmed.”

  “You said it’s a true-crime account she’s hired you to gather background for?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, there you have it. Money. Money’s been a primary motivation for Caro her whole life. The Warricks lived well, but not well enough for her. Her parents are still active and in good health, and besides, any inheritance from them would have had to split three ways. But Caro had big dreams. That was why she was so upset over losing Jake Green to Amelia; his family has multimillions, and he was about to come into a substantial trust fund.”

  “What were these big dreams?”

  “Luxury homes and cars and yachts and travel. Expensive clothing and jewelry. Never having to work. You know, the usual.”

  I thought of Caro’s dingy studio apartment, her boring little job. If she had a car, it was most likely old and badly used. No yacht, and she probably hadn’t left the city since her trial. Such dreams die hard, but very few people kill for them.

  Very few—but was Caro one of them?

  4:15 p.m.

  Back at my office, I returned a message from Rae. She said, “Jamie’s been in touch. Mick tracked her down and made her phone us.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Berkeley, with Cash Only. They’re doing a gig at some place called the Damp Cellar tonight, and she asked me to be there. Mick and Alison are going too. You want to go with?”

  “What time does it start?”

  “Eight.”

  I considered. If I sent out for a sandwich and worked on my summary of the day’s activities on the Warrick case, I could spare a few hours to watch my niece perform. “Why not?” I said. Besides, I might be able to get my blue blanket back from her.

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 5

  1:30 a.m.

  The concert was a big success, even though the drummer later passed out in the band’s van from too much beer and the bass player fell asleep at the table while we were celebrating.

  “They do that all the time,” Jamie told me as she—under the drinking age and thus the sober designated driver—steered her rental car over the Bay Bridge toward the city.

  Mick said, “You need to get a better band.”

  “Believe me, I’m working on it.”

  I was the last to be dropped off. I hugged Jamie and started to get out of the car, but she twisted around and pulled a tote bag from the backseat.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Your blanket. You didn’t think I’d steal it, did you?”

  We both laughed, and I hugged her again before I got out and started up the front steps. The porch light had burned out a couple of days before, and I hadn’t gotten around to replacing it, but Michelle Curley, my cat- and house-sitter, had left the hallway light on for me. Still, it was dark and I stumbled over something large and unyielding close to the door.

  A person. On my front porch. One of the homeless street people?

  Warily I reached over the person and unlocked the door, disarmed the security system, and looked down.

  My God! Caro Warrick.

  Her entire face was bloody, and there was a gash above her hairline that leaked.

  She was bleeding, so still alive. I felt for a pulse anyway: barely there, no time to waste, not wise to move her.

  I pulled my phone out and dialed 911, questions crowding my mind: Who had attacked her? Why? And why had she come to my house?

  The night around me seemed colder, blacker. As I made my report to the dispatcher my gaze moved over the quiet street: few lights showed in the windows, and nothing moved. A shiver traveled along my spine. Whoever had attacked Caro could be watching from a short distance away, girding himself to also attack me.…

  I waited, vigilant. Traffic thrummed on the far-off freeways. A television flickered and mumbled in the house across the way. A car’s brakes squealed on the cross street. My nerves tingled. Never again would I be immune to the fear of assaults in dark places.

  After a few frozen moments I remembered the blue blanket Jamie had returned to me, took it from the tote bag, and spread it over Caro’s still form. Checked her pulse again. Weaker.

  Damn the slow emergency response time in this town!

  I held Caro’s hand tightly, spoke to her: “You’ll be okay, the paramedics are on the way. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  The empty but comforting words we offer up to the sick and injured, even though, in our ignorance, we can’t possibly know what the outcome will be.

  While I held Caro’s hand, I looked around for a weapon. I didn’t see one, but there was a scattering of papers over the steps below. Also a badly torn eight-by-ten envelope with my name on it. The items Caro had said she’d search for in her storage locker? They looked as if her assailant had gone through them, maybe removed something. I gathered them up and put them in my bag; she’d intended them for me, and I wanted a look at what was left. If anything pertinent to this attack remained I’d turn it over to the investigating officers.

  2:11 a.m.

  Caro had been struck with a blunt instrument, an EMT told me; she had a concussion but that her condition didn’t seem to be critical, though head wounds always bleed profusely. As she was being transferred to the ambula
nce, one of the cops found the blunt instrument, a hammer, on the ground beside my front steps. I wanted to ride along with Caro to the trauma unit at SF General, but a plainclothesman stopped me and asked me the same questions I’d already asked myself. I didn’t have many answers for him either.

  When the police finally left, I called the hospital and was told Caro’s condition was stable. Then I sat down and read through the contents of the envelope I’d found. They were Xeroxes of newspaper clippings, and I couldn’t find anything in them that I didn’t already know. Maybe Caro’s assailant had taken something incriminating to him or her. Or maybe I was just too damn tired to see what Caro had wanted me to.

  I took a quick shower, set the coffeepot for six a.m., and went to bed.

  5:32 a.m.

  Someone was in the house.

  I came awake quickly, heard steps approaching down the upper hallway—familiar steps. I relaxed, smiled, and closed my eyes. Let Hy surprise me.

  He paused at the top of the spiral staircase that led down into our bedroom suite. His shoes clunked onto the floor. If he was trying not to bother me, he was doing a poor job of it. He came downstairs, and his clothing rustled as he took it off and dropped it onto one of the chairs by the small gas-log fireplace. When he slipped into bed beside me, I felt the heat of his body. Sighed and turned, pressing against him.

  “You’re early,” I said.

  “No, I’m late. Late getting here to be with you.” He kissed me, long and deeply, then buried his face between my breasts.

  Ah, homecomings…

  7:15 a.m.

  “You seem tense,” Hy said, smoothing my hair and looking down into my eyes.

  “I am. Something happened here last night.” I told him about finding Caro’s still body on the front steps.

  His ruggedly handsome face and hazel eyes showed concern. “Why didn’t you tell me when I got here?”