Tail of the Dragon

by Connie Di Marco

  I nodded. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “That’s kind of you,” the brother replied. “I think Leonard wanted to keep working because he felt so alone after his wife died. Didn’t know what to do with himself.”

  The woman smiled. “Just couldn’t stop being a cop, you know. It gets some of them like that.”

  I did my best to smile and hide my disappointment. “Thank you.” The door was gently closed in my face.

  I descended the front stairs and stood in the wind for a moment. I didn’t want to go home. I couldn’t bring myself to call Maggie just yet but wondered if she knew that Leonard O’Brien was dead. No, I thought. If she had known, she would have called. I’d have to be the one to break the news. I started the car and drove to the end of the street. When the lanes were clear, I crossed the Great Highway and pulled into a parking spot. A storm was threatening and the tide was so high, the waves were pounding and crashing against the barrier. Droplets of salt­water sprayed my windshield. The surfers were undaunted, paddling out to meet the waves of a raging ocean. I watched one man climb onto his board and ride a wave for several yards. Losing his balance, he dove into the roiling sea. Would we ever have any answers?

  forty-one

  Don Forrester pushed a generous plate of sausages, eggs, and hash browns across the Formica table top. “Eat up. I keep telling you you’re too skinny.”

  Don, who was enjoying a day off from the Chronicle, and Maggie and I had grabbed a booth at the diner above Seal Rocks at Lands End, with a view of the remains of the old Sutro Baths. Down below, waves crashed against the rocks and hikers scrambled over the remaining vestiges of concrete walls now filled with sea water.

  “Oh, Don, it smells great, but I can’t possibly eat all this.”

  “What would your grandmother say?” I suspected our breakfast was Don’s way of assuaging his guilt. I had insisted repeatedly that it wasn’t his fault. He’d had no way of knowing, when he texted Adam’s picture to me that night, that he’d be putting me in danger.

  “She’d say, ‘Mangia, mia cara.’ That’s what she’d say. That’s what she always says. She’s always trying to feed me.” I dipped a corner of toast into the yolk of the egg and watched it run. Then I took a bite of sausage and savored the delicious greasy taste. Maybe I would tackle all this food.

  “I wish I could have known this place when it was still in existence.” Maggie pressed her face against the plate-glass window, looking down at the ruins of the Baths. “I would have come here every day.”

  “Me too,” I said. “We were all born too late.” Don was attacking a plate of waffles. “You’d know, Don. When did it burn down?”

  “Well …” He took a moment to swallow a mouthful. “After Adolph Sutro died, his heirs really tried to keep the enormous place running, but it was just too expensive. They were forced to finally give up. Then in 1966, I think, a fire destroyed what was left of the structure. I’ve always had my suspicions about that fire because at the time a developer was drooling over the site. Thankfully, the city shot down his plan for a luxury condominium project. Only in San Francisco. That’s what I love about my city. This incredible view was far more important than allowing a developer to line his pockets.”

  “Can you imagine what it must have been like? Saltwater swimming pools, even an ice rink,” Maggie remarked. “I’ve seen photos of the place and talked to older people about how wonderful it was.”

  “I have a framed print of the interior, an artist’s rendering.” I turned to Maggie. “You’ve seen it, I know. In fact, ask at the cash register. I’m sure they still sell them. I bought mine for five bucks.”

  Don was watching me carefully. “Julia, I have to ask. What the hell made you go back to Montgomery Street on Halloween night?”

  “Oh … it was the dragon.”

  “Huh?” Don took a last bite of his pile of waffles before starting in on his eggs and bacon. “What dragon?”

  “I was haunted by them. I kept having dreams about a dragon and its swishing tail. I couldn’t figure out what it meant, but I’d wake up in a panic with my heart racing. Every place I looked I saw a dragon—at the Asia Inn where Kuan threw my grandmother’s birthday dinner, at the Mystic Eye the night of the open house. I’m certain now that my unconscious was sending me a message but I couldn’t decipher it.” I speared a second sausage with my fork and took a bite. “I realize now it started right after I set up the charts for the people at David’s firm. Karen’s chart showed her Sun conjunct the South Node of the Moon. Not a good placement at all. She was easy to overlook. She was someone who always managed to blend into the background with a different face for every situation. She showed everyone what they expected to see. That’s why I didn’t pay enough attention to her. The only time I caught a glimpse of what might be underneath was when I questioned her about Billy, the messenger. She bit my head off. And then, with solar arc Pluto setting off that natal conjunction …”

  “Gawd, Julia. Give me a break. In English, okay?”

  Maggie laughed. “I agree. You might as well be speaking Sanskrit to us.”

  “Sorry, I’m speaking shorthand. I tend to forget. See, the nodes of the Moon are just points on the ecliptic, not planets at all. But the zodiac sign of those points has a lot to say about where you’re supposed to be going in this life and where you’ve been in the past. For example, if your North Node is in Pisces, and your South Node is in Virgo, you’re meant to develop a Piscean sensibility in this lifetime, develop an openness and respect for the unseen, and move away from the Virgo-type talents that your soul has already developed. You may be a brilliant accountant, but you really need to learn to appreciate music. That’s a very silly, mundane example, but you get the picture.”

  Don nodded. “Go on.”

  “Well, for Karen, having her Sun sign conjunct her South Node indicated her fate to be a repetition of the past. An individual would really have to struggle to let go of the past. But nothing clicked until that night at the Mystic Eye. Someone wore a dragon costume, you know, like the things they use in Chinatown for the dragon dances. Then a lightbulb went off in my brain. I realized that given her age, Karen’s solar arc Pluto would have advanced to her—”

  Don groaned. “Now my eyes are really crossing, okay? I am not getting it.”

  “The dragon was a dream symbol for me. The North Node of the Moon is called the Dragon’s Head, or the Caput Draconis, and the South Node is the Cauda Draconis, or the Dragon’s Tail. Ancient nomenclature. The Dragon’s Tail is a point of, and take this with a grain of salt, undoing. The point of least resistance for the soul. If someone misuses their South Node, there’s resistance to moving forward. To quote one of my books, ‘rigid compulsions which sow the seeds of one’s own undoing.’ Rather archaic way to put it, but valid nonetheless. Karen wasn’t able to release the past and move toward the future. She was literally the cause of her own undoing.”

  “By taking revenge.”

  “Yes. There were times I felt I was being watched, and now I’m sure it was Karen who pushed me into traffic that day. Building security wasn’t tight at first, and she must have avoided security checks by hiding out in the office all night and then appearing again in the morning. Easy enough to do; there are plenty of storerooms and closets. She didn’t use her car, so it wasn’t possible to pin down her movements with a parking card. Dani even made a comment once about Karen always being the first one into the office in the morning. But I was so focused on Rebecca Moulton, or Rebecca possibly being someone actually working in David’s office, that I wasn’t looking close enough to home. Once Adam …” I hesitated. Just the mention of his name brought up unresolved feelings. “Once Adam located Rebecca, I realized she couldn’t possibly fit the bill. I was back to square one. Elva Karen Ward—Ward was Karen’s married name—never recovered from her husband’s suicide. She blamed the people who focused on the negligence o
f the electrical contractor, her husband. Whether he was truly negligent, I don’t know, but the arson investigators thought so at least.”

  Don looked thoughtful. “From what I read, the electrical contractor really was to blame for the faulty wiring that started the fire.”

  “Was he?” I asked. “Or was he just a very easy scapegoat because he couldn’t afford a battery of lawyers to defend himself ? Maybe we’ll never know.”

  “Well,” Don said, “it doesn’t change the fact that three people are dead because of this. Four if you want to count Terrence Ward. And now, two more possibly facing the death penalty.” We fell silent. Don stared out the window. “I’m really bummed there aren’t seals here anymore.” Seal Rocks, just offshore, is a collection of black rocks named for the creatures that always used to be here, as far back as I could remember.

  “They’re really sea lions,” Maggie replied. “Not seals.” She peered out the window. “I used to love to see them hanging out on top of the rocks and barking all the time.”

  “I miss them too,” I said. “They left years ago. I’m not really sure where they went.”

  “They’re all downtown now, at the Embarcadero. Classier restaurants, I guess.” Don placed some bills on the table. “Hey, what do you say we climb down the hill and explore the rocks? Work off some of our calories. Kathy’s always on me to exercise.”

  “Okay, I’m game.” I slipped on my jacket and grabbed my purse.

  “Me too,” Maggie said. “But wait for me. I’ll be right back. I think I’ll get one of those prints of the old Baths if they still have them.” I was relieved to see her in better spirits. She’d confided that she and Harry, Michael’s dog, had moved back in with her mother. She would be returning to school and finally get her degree.

  Don turned to me. “Okay, Julia, you can drop the act.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. How are you feeling about that guy? Adam?”

  “What can I say?” I groaned. “Awful. Stupid. Betrayed. Horrified, really. I don’t understand how I could have been so attracted to him. How I couldn’t have seen what he was.”

  “It happens. Forgive yourself. You’re only human.”

  Maggie rushed back to our booth with a large rolled-up print of the Baths. “I got one, Julia. Just like yours!”

  “Treasure it. It’s important to remember what’s no longer here.”

  We headed for the door. “Oh, Julia.” Don followed me through the restaurant. “Before I forget to ask, Kathy wants you to come over for dinner next week. There’s someone she’d like you to meet. She’ll kill me if I forget to pin you down.”

  “You must be kidding.” I shook my head. “No way. If it’s just you two, fine. Otherwise, I don’t think so.”

  “Why not, Julia?” Maggie said. “You should. You never know who you might meet.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Don shrugged his shoulders. “Have it your way, but I think you’d like this guy.” He held the door open as Maggie and I stepped into the brisk wind and headed toward the path to the rocks below.

  I couldn’t help but reflect on the choices we make. Rebecca, with the strength to carve out a new life for herself and her children. Sarah, Jack’s sister, locked bitterly in the past. Elva and her path of psychosis. I’d managed to create a new and productive life … not without pain, but did I have Rebecca’s strength? To open my heart to new risk? Right now, the answer was a resounding no.

  “Tell Kathy I’ll think about it,” I said.

  about the author

  Connie di Marco (Los Angeles, CA) is the bestselling author of the Soup Lover’s Mysteries (Penguin), which she published under the name Connie Archer. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and Sisters in Crime. She has always been fascinated by astrology and is excited to combine her love of the stars with her love of writing mysteries. Visit her at conniedimarco.com, on Facebook at Connie di Marco (Author), or on Twitter: @askzodia.