Where Echoes Live

by Marcia Muller

  I did.

  He shrugged, as if he found the inquiry naive or stupid, then sat again. “As any company does, we rely on the opinions of experts.”

  “That would include geologists, of course. What about the parties you purchased the land from?”

  “What about them?”

  “When you made your initial contact with them, did they voice any opinions as to the mine’s potential?”

  A fleeting expression of annoyance crossed Ong’s face. “Of course,” he said with exaggerated patience. “After all, they were trying to sell the land to us. If anything, they overrated its value.”

  “Did either Franklin Tarbeaux or Earl Hopwood seem qualified to evaluate that potential?”

  Annoyance again, tinged with surprise this time. “How did you learn those names?”

  “Through my relative in Mono County.”

  “I see.” But it was clear he didn’t believe me. He took a long drink of cognac—I’d noticed that, instead of sipping, he drank it as he might beer. In the silence that followed, he appeared to be trying to frame a reply.

  I added, “Were you aware of Franklin Tarbeaux’s real identity? And that Mick Erickson was shot to death in the Tufa Lake area Saturday night?”

  Slowly he turned his head to look at me, eyes narrowed and hard. He set his glass down carefully and seemed about to speak when the phone next to his chair rang. Quickly he picked up the receiver.

  “Ong here…. Who? … You’re where? ...All right, take Seventeenth Street and— Yes, left off Glenbrook onto Saint Germain.” When he hung up, he’d composed his face into its former pleasant lines.

  “You must excuse me,” he said. “My office is messengering over some contracts; it seems to be a different service than the usual, and the driver is lost. I need to go outside and make sure he finds the house.” He took another gulp of cognac and clattered up the spiral staircase.

  Irritated at the untimely interruption, I turned off the tape recorder and went to the glass door that opened onto the terrace. It was unlocked, so I stepped outside. The wind— strong up here even on the warm October days that are jokingly referred to as San Francisco’s summer—whipped my hair about and molded my skirt to my thighs. The city spread below, edges softened by a faint haze.

  I stood for a moment contemplating the minuscule city-scape, the smallest of the houses barely distinguishable, the largest no more imposing than Tinkertoys. For those who craved power, there must be inspiration in a view that made it seem possible to scoop up the Bank of America building in the palm of one’s hand. For an already powerful man like Ong, the vista would be an affirmation.

  After a bit I moved to the terrace wall and peered down the overgrown slope. Through a tangle of conifer branches the red-tiled roof of another house was visible. The road I’d ascended on curved in the distance, an old yellow van—the awaited messenger?—toiling up it. I watched until it passed from my view, then went back into the house.

  Ong was still absent. At first I could hear nothing from upstairs; then a car door slammed and faint voices drifted down from the courtyard.

  I crossed the room and began looking at Ong’s bookshelves. Their contents gave evidence of fairly eclectic tastes: besides the expected volumes on finance, real estate, and management, there was an impressive collection of works on world history and philosophy, as well as mainstream fiction and poetry. I reached for a slim volume by Robinson Jeffers, one of our own California poets, and was about to open it when I noticed that the voices in the courtyard were now raised. I set the book back in its place and moved toward the staircase.

  Ong said, “This is absurd!” The outrage in his voice thinly masked an undercurrent of panic.

  The other person spoke—the voice higher pitched and not so loud. I couldn’t make out the words or if the speaker was a man or a woman.

  By the time I reached the bottom of the steps the voices had fallen silent. While I was debating whether to venture up there, I heard a car door slam. Then another, and an engine starting up. The messenger leaving?

  But Ong still didn’t return to the house. I put one foot on the bottom step, then withdrew it. Ong was a man who would not appreciate prying; I didn’t want to destroy what fragile rapport remained between us after my questions about the gold-mining venture.

  But where was he?

  I glanced up the staircase, saw only the sterile wintry light of the foyer. Listened, but heard nothing save the wind rattling the fronds of the yucca trees in the courtyard.

  Quickly I moved up the spiral staircase. The foyer was empty, the front door standing open. I hurried across the black marble floor and peered outside. No one was in the courtyard, and the gate was also ajar.

  As I started along the path, an object on the ground near the gate caught my attention. A thick nine-by-twelve envelope. I went over and picked it up. There was no address label, no markings of any kind. Its flap had been undone, but its contents were undisturbed. I pulled them out, turned them over. Blank sheets of paper, about half a package of cheap lined notebook filler.

  Nearby a terracotta pot containing a succulent plant had been knocked on its side. Pebbles littered the stone pathway, and the ground next to it was scuffed. I rushed to the gate and looked out.

  The street was deserted. No delivery person or van. No Lionel Ong, either.

  I glanced back at the house. No, I would have heard him if he’d returned.

  This is absurd!

  My mind replayed the panicky note in Ong’s voice. Reviewed the signs of an apparent struggle in the courtyard. And I remembered that I’d heard two car doors slam.

  Had Ong simply taken off without telling me? Or had he been abducted while I waited downstairs in his study?

  Fifteen

  Cautioning myself against jumping to conclusions, I went back to the courtyard and looked around some more. The signs that indicated a struggle, I decided, could also be the residue of haste and/or clumsiness. The envelope full of blank paper that I held didn’t necessarily have to relate to Ong, might even have been slipped through the gate for one of his absent children. And the panic in his voice? Could I have been mistaken about that? No, I thought, I couldn’t.

  1 crossed the courtyard and went back into the house. It held that heavy silence that only an empty dwelling does. Even though I was certain Ong wasn’t there, I called out to him. My voice bounced back at me off the walls of the foyer. And now what should I do? I wondered. Call 911? Tell them what? It wasn’t a police matter if Ong had simply driven away with his visitor. And if I said I thought he’d been kidnapped, they’d ask what evidence I based that on.

  Some scuffed-up ground, an overturned flowerpot, the envelope, the panic in Ong’s voice that only I had heard: it wasn’t much. The police would tell me to wait twenty-four hours and if he didn’t return have someone related to him file a missing persons report.

  Besides, once they knew the whole story, the police were more likely to think that Ong had vanished of his own volition, perhaps because he’d gotten fed up with answering my questions or become uncomfortable with the direction the interview had taken. Illogical as it seemed that he’d leave a stranger in his unlocked house, that could conceivably be the case. And if so, once he returned and found I’d called the police, I’d be in trouble. He was the sort of man who shunned attention of the official sort. It would cause him embarrassment, constitute an invasion of his privacy—conditions that made people like Ong turn to their attorneys….

  I crossed the foyer and slid open the double doors. A living room—the one whose balcony I’d glimpsed from the study— lay directly ahead. There was a phone on a credenza just inside the doors; I picked up its receiver and called All Souls.

  Hank was on another line, Ted told me. I read the number off the plate below the push buttons, asked that my boss call me back. Then I hung up and, with a haste born of nervousness, began to explore.

  The first floor was all living and entertaining area, expensively furnished but a
gain containing nothing that would suggest the family was Chinese. A second spiral staircase led down to a hallway on the next level; off that were three bath-and bedrooms and a master suite. I passed quickly along it to yet another stairway, which took me to a lower level that hadn’t been observable from the terrace above it; the rooms there clearly belonged to young children, and a recreation area was stocked with toys, games, and electronic equipment. Still edgy about Ong returning and finding me where I shouldn’t be, I wasted only a cursory glance through these rooms before going back to the study.

  Set into the far end of one wall in the shadow of the upstairs balcony was a door that I hadn’t noticed before. Keeping an ear out for the sound of footsteps or a car, I opened it and found an office with a computer setup and a bank of steel file cabinets. The desk was clear of papers, but a leather briefcase lay on it; when I tried the catch I found it was secured with a good-quality lock; the same was true of the files. If there was a safe, I felt fairly sure I could locate it, but safecracking is not one of my collection of more dubious skills.

  I sighed, listened some more, then sat down in the desk chair and contemplated the computer. My computer skills are only a small cut above my safecracking abilities, and Ong wouldn’t have stored interesting material where it could easily be accessed, anyway.

  The phone rang. I started and automatically reached for the receiver. Then I hesitated; probably it was Hank, but …

  “Ong residence.” I answered.

  “Sharon?”

  “Hank. Thanks for calling back. I need a legal opinion.”

  “Go ahead.”

  I explained what had happened there, finishing, “Am I right in protecting myself and All Souls by not notifying the police?”

  Hank was silent; he’d never been one for making uncon-sidered judgments. In a moment he asked, “Ong gave no indication that he might be about to terminate the interview?”

  “Well, he didn’t like the direction my questions were taking. But if I read him right, I’d say he was interested in finding out why I kept asking them and how much I knew. I don’t think he’d have voluntarily ended our discussion at that point.”

  “And you say this messenger called him?”

  “Yes. Well, somebody called him.”

  More silence. “All right—two things. First, you’re under no obligation to call the police, because you have no real proof that Ong’s met with misadventure; he could have left voluntarily, for whatever reason. You’re treading in a gray area here, and if you do call them in, legally you’re at high risk. But second, I think Ong may have set you up.”

  “In what way?”

  “This disappearance—abduction, whatever—sounds staged to me. The absence of other people in the house, the timing of the call, the minor signs of struggle—they’re all a tad too convenient.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “But why? Ong doesn’t know I’m an investigator; he thinks I’m a free-lance journalist.”

  “I don’t mean he was setting you up personally. You were a convenience. It looks to me as if he wanted to make it seem he’d been abducted and needed a witness.”

  Hank’s scenario had a disturbingly familiar ring. First Mick Erickson had manufactured an elaborate ruse for dropping out of sight. Now Ong had probably done the same. And Erickson’s contrived absence had ended fatally….

  “Well,” I finally said, “we can speculate all day about this.”

  “Better you get out of there. We’ll talk more later.”

  I thanked him and hung up, eager now to escape the overwhelming silence of Ong’s deserted house. But as I started to leave the office something caught my eye— something that seemed not so much wrong as inappropriate. I stopped midway to the door and stared at it.

  It was the only Chinese object I’d seen in the entire house: a landscape painting depicting a rugged mountain towering over a fir-dotted plain. In the foreground were small tentlike structures—pagodas?—and even smaller figures in coolie hats. Several lines of fine-brushed characters ran vertically down its right side, but on the bottom a superimposed English legend said, “Gum San, 1852.’’

  What seemed inappropriate, of course, was the presence of such a work in a home where the family seemed determined to exclude all reminders of their ancestry. But the painting itself—prominently displayed on the wall opposite the desk—bothered me, too. It was not done on paper or silk like the Chinese scrolls I’d seen in museums, but on canvas, and a coarse-weave canvas at that. The workmanship looked amateurish even to my unschooled eye, and the English legend appeared to be a later addition lacking the limited skill of the calligraphy. Although the painting appeared to be quite old, I would have taken it for a cheap tourist item, had I not been unable to imagine Lionel Ong framing and placing on his office wall something from the sidewalk bins of Grant Avenue.

  On impulse I took a piece of scratch paper from a pad on the desk and copied down the words “Gum San, 1852.” Then I took Hank’s advice and got out of there.

  The address of Transpacific’s consulting geologist, Alvin Knight, was relatively close to Ong’s, in a quiet residential district between Mount Davidson Park and Monterey Boulevard, near the southern border of the city. I stopped at a pay phone in a small shopping center at the top of Portola and called Knight’s number. When he answered I explained I’d just come from talking with Lionel Ong and asked if I might stop by. Knight sounded reluctant, but agreed to a meeting and gave me directions.

  The streets in that part of town are as steep and winding as those in Ong’s neighborhood, but the resemblance stops there. The small stucco row houses are built right up to the narrow sidewalks, there is little or no landscaping, and the views—where they exist at all—are of other hills tiered with similar homes. It is an area of middle-class families struggling to meet the high cost of living in San Francisco—a cost that seems excessive, given the sameness and drabness of the dwellings and their distance from the heart of the city.

  Knight’s home was distinguishable from its neighbors only because it was painted an odd shade of blue and had a fire hydrant out front. I parked uphill, curbing my wheels firmly, and walked back down. The geologist—a short, stocky man whose sun-toughened skin attested to a great deal of time spent outdoors—answered my ring promptly and led me to a small, cluttered office that had been created by converting a portion of the garage. Knight’s manner, as he brushed aside my apology for asking to see him at what must have been his dinner hour, was cordial but guarded. I sat in the dilapidated director’s chair that he indicated and glanced around.

  The walls of the cramped space were layered with maps and charts; stacks of paper and bound reports covered the desk, the tops of the file cabinets, and part of the floor. Everything was filmed with dust. Knight dragged another chair from a corner and sat opposite me. “Excuse the mess,” he said. “I’ve been out in the field for a month. You said you’re with All Souls Legal Cooperative?”

  “Yes.” I’d decided to drop the constraining fiction of being a journalist.

  “Attorney?”

  “No, investigator.” I gave him one of my cards.

  “Ah.” He studied it, a frown pulling his bushy gray eyebrows together.

  “I was speaking with Mr. Ong about the Golden Hills project,” I added. “He thought you could fill me in on the details.”

  “What’s your interest in Golden Hills?”

  “A man was killed up there over the weekend. I’m aiding the Mono County authorities in their investigation.”

  Knight’s eyes narrowed, but otherwise he didn’t react strongly. “Someone was killed? An accident at the site?”

  I shook my head. “A murder—a shooting.”

  “Who?”

  “Mick Erickson.’’ When he didn’t say anything, I added, “Or maybe you knew him as Franklin Tarbeaux.”

  “Who shot him?”

  It wasn’t the response I’d expected. I ignored the question, asked, “You do know both names, then?”<
br />
  Knight also ignored my question. “Who shot him?” he repeated.

  “It’s unsolved as yet.’’

  The sun-browned skin around his eyes furrowed; confusion and indecision showed in his eyes. He said, “I’d better call Mr. Ong to confirm that he sent you.”

  “Please do.”

  Knight stood. Instead of going to the phone on the desk, however, he moved toward the door. “Be back in a few minutes.” Soon after, the risers of the stairway creaked under his weight, and then footsteps crossed the floor above me.

  Interesting that he hadn’t felt he could call Ong in my presence.

  I got up and moved toward the desk, hoping the phone was an extension of the one upstairs. After I slipped the receiver off the hook, I eased up gradually on the disconnect button. Repeated ringing came to my ear; then Knight grunted in displeasure and broke the connection. I replaced the receiver and went back to my chair.

  Knight’s footsteps didn’t recross the floor. I listened for a moment, then went back to the desk and lifted the receiver again. A voice other than the geologist’s was speaking.

  “I said I don’t know where he is.”

  Who … ?

  “He must have told you something.”

  “No. He should have, but he didn’t.”

  I knew that voice!

  “But she said she saw him—”

  “Look, I’m sorry but I can’t help you. I wish I knew when he’d get here, too.”

  Knight sighed heavily. “Okay, when he shows up there, just ask him to call me, would you?”

  I put the receiver down and made a hasty retreat to the director’s chair, my mind fumbling with the possibilities. I would need to think this latest development through very carefully; it significantly altered my conceptions of what might be going on in the Tufa Lake area. And while I was at it, I’d better consider what had gone haywire with my ability as a good judge of others.

  The person Knight had been speaking with was Hy Ripinsky.

  Sixteen

  When he came back downstairs, Knight told me that he hadn’t been able to reach Lionel Ong and couldn’t talk about the Golden Hills project until he had Ong’s okay. I asked him about the relationship between Ong, himself, and Ripinsky, but he became annoyed and claimed he didn’t know who Hy was—a statement I found hard to believe, since he’d just finished speaking with him on the phone. When I began probing further about his knowledge of Mick Erickson and Erickson’s use of the Tarbeaux name, he became even more irritated and insisted I leave. I told him I would call him the next day after he’d had time to contact Ong, although I was sure that by then—whether he spoke with Ong or not—he would have come up with an excuse for not dealing with me at all.