Where Echoes Live

by Marcia Muller

  “Did you ask him if he’d retaliated and killed Mick?”

  “How do you ask your own father a thing like that?” When I didn’t reply, she went on, “Anyway, he didn’t give me a chance to ask. He wanted Lionel Ong’s home address and phone number. I refused to give them to him; I was afraid of what he might do …”

  When she didn’t go on, I said, “And he beat it out of you.”

  Her “yes” was barely a whisper.

  Rose moaned in sympathy and started to move toward her. Margot motioned for her to stay where she was; she crushed out the unsmoked stub of her cigarette and added, “Daddy blamed me as well as Mick for what had happened. He said I’d conspired with the rest of them against him. I’ll never forget the way he looked at me ...the hatred….”

  “Margot,” I said, “did you try to warn Ong before you went to his house and the condominium that night?”

  “No. At first I felt … It was like being paralyzed. This man, the one who had done that to me, he wasn’t the father I’d known all my life. Mick was dead, and now the rest of my world was ...I just stayed at home, watching it get dark. Then I snapped out of it, tried to call Lionel. When I couldn’t reach him, I went looking for him, and that’s when …” Again she looked guilty.

  I asked, “How did your father seem that afternoon, aside from the uncharacteristic violence? Was he at all rational or in control?”

  Rose said, “Is it rational for a good Christian to beat his own daughter?”

  Again I ignored her, continued to look at Margot.

  She considered. “He was functional, if you mean could he handle himself in a way that wouldn’t attract attention. He could speak normally, that sort of thing. And he didn’t seem to be suffering any ill effects from the gunshot wound, except for a little stiffness. But the way he was going on...He was raving, spouting this biblical nonsense.” She glanced apologetically at Rose. “That’s the only way I can describe it.”

  “Has your father always been religious?”

  “Not until the past few years.”

  Rose said, “That’s when I began to interest him in my Bible study group. I think at first he only wanted to play Mr. Intellectual and show up us ‘Bible-thumpers,’ as he liked to call us. But eventually he saw the light.”

  I asked Margot, “Do you remember any of the things he said to you?”

  “Oh …” She pushed her hair off her forehead and rested her hand on top of her head. “There was something about an earthquake. And blood. I can’t phrase it the way he did, but something about the moon and sea turning to blood and the sun going black and a mountain burning.”

  “Anything else?”

  “When he left … This part is vague because I was hurting and kind of in shock. He said something like, ‘They will die when Christ died, on the fifth day.’ Does that make any sense to you?”

  I glanced at Rose. “Hopwood was reading Revelation recently, if that helps.”

  She stood and went to the secretary desk in the lobby, returning with a Bible. As she sat and began to page through its final book, Margot expelled a sigh and let her hand fall from her head to her side. Her eyes were half closed, her face flaccid, as if in the telling of her last violent encounter with her father she’d used whatever strength she held in reserve.

  After a few minutes Rose looked up, her face pink with discovery. “Revelation six, twelve,” she said. “ ‘There was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.’ ”

  I waited. Rose looked disappointed with my reaction and began scanning the pages again, lips moving silently.

  I got up and moved restlessly around the room. What she’d read hadn’t told me a damn thing, but Hopwood’s ravings had to be connected to his later actions—to what he’d intended to do with Lionel Ong….

  “Listen to this,” Rose said. “Revelation eight, eight: ‘and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood.’ ”

  So what? I glanced at Margot to see if it meant anything to her, but her eyes were fully closed now. “What about this fifth-day stuff?” I asked Rose.

  She gave me a look that said I must have been raised a heathen. “ ‘When Christ died, on the fifth day,’ ” she quoted Hopwood. “Christ died on Good Friday. God created the world in seven days, and on the seventh he rested—Sunday.”

  “Friday. Today.” I thought of the rest of it: “They will die.” And of a phrase from the passage of Revelation I’d read in Hopwood’s Bible: “the devil that deceived them.”

  Then I considered Hopwood, a man I’d never laid eyes on but in a sense knew intimately: a lonely man, recently steeped in biblical lore of destruction and redemption. A man who had possessed one overruling passion—and had been deceived, had had that passion stolen from him.

  And I thought: A burning mountain … a fire mountain … on the fifth day….

  Twenty-seven

  I went directly to the Friends’ trailer and laid out my suspicions for Hy. At first he repeated his earlier accusation that I’d been smoking a controlled substance. But when I reminded him of the maps at Hopwood’s “museum” and the fragment of dynamite crate I’d found on the garbage dump, he sobered and fell silent.

  Finally he said, “In a way it fits with something I figured out while I was asking around town for the old guy tonight. He’s been here all along; we’ve just been looking in the wrong places.”

  “How can that be?”

  “Think about it, McCone. Before you came up here, I checked his cabin and asked the folks in Stone Valley if they’d seen him. Then I concluded he was missing. You did the same thing, and after you talked with Lily Nickles, you assumed he’d gone over the state line for fun and games. Even after you found out he hadn’t turned up in Reno and that he’d been seen around here by Rose and that old hippie, we hung on to the idea that he was someplace other than right in the area. But tonight I found out that he’s been in and out of the Swifty Mart pretty regularly, plus occasionally to the filling station.”

  “When?”

  “The Swifty Mart three times in the past month, which is about usual for him. The filling station as recently as late last Friday afternoon, when he was inquiring about a woman in a red sports car who had come from the office park and asked directions to the tufa forest.”

  “So it was Hopwood who spied on me down there?”

  “Guess so. He wanted to know what you’d asked the attendant, where you were headed. And he took off after you.”

  “Why, I wonder?”

  “Well, you were a stranger in the area and had just been talking with me. I think he was keeping a pretty close watch on all of us—initially because we were opposed to the new mining venture, and later because he knew Sanderman had been involved in the Golden Hills project. That must have confused the hell out of him.”

  The mention of Ned reminded me I hadn’t told Hy that I’d found out the troubleshooter had killed Mick Erickson. But there wasn’t time for that now, and besides, something about Sanderman’s motive bothered me—something I wanted to work out in my own mind first.

  I said, “Hopwood must have been the one who broke into your home, these trailers, and the cabins and who checked at All Souls to find out who I was.”

  Hy nodded.

  “It’s hard to believe he could slip in and out of town like that with so few people noticing.”

  “Not really, when you think about it. Reminds me of these golden trout we’ve got in the streams here. You look in the slow-moving water where you expect them, and there they are; but if they’re swimming fast through moss-covered rocks in the sunlight, you’re bound to miss them.”

  “But where has Hopwood been staying? Not at his cabin. And not anyplace very obvious, or the people in the valley would have spotted him.”

  “Earl knows every nook and cranny in the valley, and he’s used to roughing it. Woman at the Swifty Mart says he’s been buying a lot of
camping supplies.”

  I thought of what Margot had said of her father and repeated it. “He knows that mesa inside out, too.”

  “I’ll just bet he does.”

  “Of course, none of this proves my theory.”

  “There’s more. While I was waiting for you, I got to thinking about Hopwood and what you found on his garbage dump. So I made a few calls and hit pay dirt with a mining-supply store down in Lee Vining. He’d been in there a few times, starting about a month ago. At first all he bought was new picks and shovels; then he needed jacks and timbers like you’d use to shore up tunnels. Struck Del, the guy who runs it, as odd, seeing as Earl’s never done any hard-rock mining. Then, only a couple of weeks ago, he asked about dynamite—did Del know anybody who could help him get his hands on it without going through all the required legal rigmarole.”

  “Did Del steer him to somebody?”

  “He says he ‘may have.’”

  “Uh-huh. And I’ll bet the crate I found part of wasn’t the only one he bought.”

  “Probably not.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Go to the sheriff with it?” Hy didn’t sound too sanguine.

  I shook my head. “First off, there’s a big wreck on three ninety-five. All their manpower’s been diverted to it, and no one can get through. Second, if you didn’t want to believe my theory, how on earth is the sheriff’s department going to? They need more than what I’ve got to justify going out there.”

  “Then you better get more.”

  “What’s this ‘you’?”

  “I didn’t realize I was allowed in on this.”

  “And I know you well enough to realize I can’t keep you out.”

  On the way to the valley we swung by Hy’s house for some things we’d need. While he was inside getting them, I glanced at the clock on the Land Rover’s dashboard: close to eight, not much left of the “fifth day.”

  Now the danger of this mission struck me. My interpretation of Hopwood’s ravings was shaky at best, and the concept of the fifth day was the weakest part of it, but who knew what he had planned—and for when? I could understand Hy’s reasons for wanting to go out to the valley and investigate: this was his home; he loved it, and had a stake in what went on here. But I, on the other hand …

  He came out of the house and loaded a rope and some large torchlights into the Land Rover. “You comfortable with a thirty-eight?”

  It was the caliber of gun I owned. I nodded and took the Colt he passed through the window.

  Hy studied my face. “Having second thoughts?”

  “Some.”

  “This isn’t your fight, McCone.”

  I shrugged. “In some ways, no. But in another, it is.”

  He nodded. “Let’s go, then. Better take this and the Morgan, huh? We might need both.”

  “Right. We’ll leave them in the livery stable, stop by Hopwood’s museum for a look at those maps. See you there.” I started the Land Rover.

  Once again the night was cold and the moon rode high. The landscape had that same cut-crystal sharpness. I drove along the winding, bumpy road, climbing steadily to the crest above the valley. As on the previous night, no lights shone below, and only faint security beacons marked the chain-link fence atop the mesa. But I was now acutely aware of the lives that went on in the darkness: Bayard and his family and the other desert rats in their burrows on the valley floor, the Transpacific guards in their trailers above. And an unbalanced man with a deadly purpose and a terrified hostage.

  The moon shed enough light so that I could turn the headlights down to park; in the rearview mirror I saw Hy do the same. We coasted down the grade to the town and moved along the main street to the livery stable. But when we arrived there, a third vehicle was parked inside, nose pointing outward—the old van Bayard had described as belonging to Hopwood. A van painted the same yellow as the one I’d taken for the messenger service’s as it labored up the hill to Lionel Ong’s house on Wednesday.

  I blocked the stable door with the Land Rover and Hy pulled up behind me. We approached the van cautiously, hands on our guns. I touched the engine compartment: cold. Hy opened the driver’s side door and shone his flashlight inside. I peered around him.

  The van contained the usual junk belonging to less than meticulous drivers: scraps of paper, torn maps, crushed aluminum cans. A crumpled gray blanket lay in back as well as some lengths of sturdy rope.

  Hy and I exchanged glances. I moved around the vehicle, opened the passenger door, and leaned in for a better look. A balled-up cloth had been discarded on the floor in front of the seat. I squatted down and sniffed at it; the odor was faintly medicinal. With a tissue, I opened the glovebox. Inside rested a bottle: chloroform.

  I said, “Better not touch anything.” My voice sounded very loud; in the rafters above, a bird stirred in protest.

  Hy didn’t answer. When I straightened, I saw him leaning over the driver’s seat, staring at something caught in a channel near the rear wheel well. I went around the back for a better look.

  It was a pair of heavy gold links that looked as if they’d been broken off a chain. I’d seen a massive gold chain like that recently. Of course—the band of the watch Ong had been wearing when I’d interviewed him.

  “Well, there’s our proof,” I said. “They’re from Ong’s watchband. The pieces of rope, the blanket, those links—and there’s a rag on the front floor and chloroform in the glovebox. Hopwood kidnapped him.”

  “Didn’t you say he may have posed as a messenger with contracts from Ong’s office?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, here’s some more proof.”

  I moved around the van and looked where he was pointing. In a pocket on the driver’s side door was a billed cap; the words “Ace Messenger Service” were stitched in script across it. “So Ong really thought Hopwood was a delivery-man,” I said. “He must have pulled a gun once he got inside the gate—I heard Ong exclaim, ‘This is absurd’—marched him to the van, and chloroformed him.”

  “Jesus.” Hy stepped away from the door. “I wish the van had been here earlier.”

  “Wonder where he was?”

  “Who knows, with a maniac like that?”

  “We’d better go look at those maps.”

  Our footsteps echoed like gunshots as we started down the sagging board sidewalk. Quickly we both detoured onto the soft earth of the street. In silence we approached the false front of the hanged Chinese’s store. As I opened the door, trapped heat and blackness greeted me. I took the flashlight Hy held out, flicked it on, shone it around the room.

  Hopwood’s helter-skelter shrine to the past had been bizarre by day, but the night made it surreal. The upright piano draped in furs became a great beast with dozens of furry paws and glassy eyes. A giant’s shadow spread threateningly over the far wall; my breath caught until I realized it was only that of the cigar-store Indian. I became aware of sounds: the snick of claws as rodents scampered over the plank floor, a rustle and sigh as the breeze gusted through the open door. Behind me Hy stood as if frozen. When I glanced back at him, his eyes glittered hard in the torchlight, and the planes of his face were taut. I wondered how the scene before us appeared when viewed through the filter of his own unique perspective.

  I caught his attention, motioned toward the far aisle. He flashed me a wry grin and followed. The maps of the mesa hung undisturbed on the wall. I pulled down the newer drawing; Hy did the same with the tattered and browning ones. We spread them on the floor and huddled over them with our flashlights.

  “Here’s the main shaft,” he whispered, tracing it with his index finger. “I’ve heard it’s been sealed up for decades. This level—that’s mining parlance for a horizontal tunnel—and this one, too, are long gone.”

  “Which side of the mesa are we looking at?”

  “Near as I can tell, this map is an overview. Wait—this other one’s better.” He pulled a second diagram on top of it. “This level here a
nd these two appear in that newer drawing you’ve got there.”

  “I still can’t … This is the stamp mill?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Now I see. Then this tunnel … level”—I traced it on Hopwood’s new map—“lies near the access road.”

  “Probably was collapsed by the grading.”

  “And this one, plus the smaller one—”

  “The small one’s what’s called a crosscut. It’s at right angles to the level, leads toward where the vein of ore was located.”

  “Okay, this level and this crosscut are on the north side of the mesa. Any openings that Hopwood might have dug to get to them from outside would be well out of view of the guard shack and the trailers.”

  “So that’s probably where he gained access.”

  “Once inside, where would he go?”

  Hy shrugged. “The mesa was once full of levels and crosscuts, as this old map shows, and there’s no way of telling which are still in existence. In addition there are hundreds of stopes—excavations that extend above or below the level to where the ore deposits were. He could be holed up anywhere in there.”

  “Then how are we going to find him?”

  “On a wing and a prayer, McCone. A wing and a prayer.”

  * * *

  We’d gotten no farther up the slope than Lily Nickles’s deserted house when I identified something that had been bothering me since we’d left the Chinese’s store. I motioned to Hy, and we went onto the shelter of the porch.

  I said, “I’m worried about those people on the mesa.”

  “The Transpacific guards?”

  “Yes. That’s at least three lives—”

  “Bastards knew what they were getting into.”

  “Did they?”

  “… Not this, at any rate.”

  “Hy, if something goes wrong, if this fifth-day nonsense isn’t so nonsensical after all—”

  “Not our problem. Besides, we don’t have time—”

  “How would you feel knowing you could have gotten them off there and didn’t?”