A Plague of Secrets

by John Lescroart

  Silence collected in the line as this bit of horrifying, yet perhaps good, information began to sink in. Finally, Hardy cleared his throat. “So how’s Abe?”

  Treya hesitated. “Quiet. Even for him.”

  “It’s not his fault,” Frannie said.

  “I know that. It might not be so clear to him.” Again, a stab at an optimistic tone. “He’ll get to it.”

  “I know he will,” Frannie said.

  Hardy, not so certain of that, especially if Zachary didn’t make it, turned to face away from his wife. Stealing a glance at his watch, he did some quick math: If the accident had taken place at five-thirty, it had now been five and a half hours. After they’d gotten his own son Michael to the hospital, he had survived for six.

  The women’s words continued to tumble through the phone at his ear, but he didn’t hear any of them over his own imaginings—or was it only his pulse, sounding like the tick of a clock counting down the seconds?

  2

  Bay Beans West enjoyed a privileged location, location, location at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets in San Francisco.

  The large, wide-windowed coffee shop had opened in the summer of 1998 and from its first days became a fixture in the neighborhood. It opened every morning at six o’clock, except Sunday, when it opened at eight, and it stayed open until ten. Between the UCSF medical school a couple of blocks east, the University of San Francisco a few blocks north, the tourists visiting the epicenter of the birth of hippiedom, and the vibrant and wildly eclectic local neighborhood, the place rarely had a slow moment, much less an empty one.

  The smell of its roasting beans infused the immediate vicinity with a beckoning aroma; the management provided copies of the city’s newspapers—the Chronicle, the Free Press, and the Bay Guardian. The papers rarely disappeared before three o’clock. Even the homeless honored the custom, except for Crazy Melinda, who used to come in, scoop all the papers up, and try to leave with them—until the patrons started setting aside a copy of each paper at the counter for her to pick up whenever she wanted them.

  Comfortable, colorful couches were available as well as the usual chairs and tables; the ethic of the place allowed an unlimited time at your seat once you’d claimed it, whether or not you continued to drink coffee; for the past five years or so customers could avail themselves of free wireless Internet service; and legal or not, pets were welcome. For many in the neighborhood BBW was a refuge, a meeting place, a home away from home.

  At a few minutes before seven o’clock on this Saturday morning, the usual line of about twenty customers needing their morning infusions of caffeine was already growing along Haight Street at the establishment’s front door. A long-haired man named Wes Farrell, in jogging pants and a T-shirt that read “DAM-Mothers Against Dyslexia,” stood holding in one hand the hand of his live-in girlfriend, Sam Duncan, and in the other the leash of Gertrude, his boxer. They, like many others in the city that morning, were discussing the homeless problem.

  For decades San Francisco has been a haven for the homeless, spending upwards of $150 million per year on shelters, subsidized rental units, medical and psychiatric care, soup kitchens, and so on. Now, suddenly, unexpectedly, and apparently due to a series of articles that had just appeared in the Chronicle, came a widespread outcry among the citizenry that the welcome mat should be removed. Wes finished reading today’s article aloud to Sam and, folding up the paper, said, “And about time too.”

  Sam extracted her hand from his. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I don’t? I thought I did.”

  “So what do you want to do with them, I mean once you give them a ticket, which by the way they have no money to pay, so that won’t work.”

  “What part of that statement, I hesitate to call it a sentence, do you want me to address?”

  “Any part. Don’t be wise.”

  “I’m not. But I’d hate to be the guy assigned to trying to diagram one of your sentences.”

  “You’re just trying to get me off the point. Which is what would you do with these homeless people who suddenly are no longer welcome?”

  “Actually, they’re just as welcome. They’re just not going to be welcome to use public streets and sidewalks as their campsites and bathrooms anymore.”

  “So where else would they go?”

  “Are we talking bathrooms? They go to the bathroom in bathrooms, like the rest of us.”

  “The rest of us who have homes, Wes. I think that’s more or less the point. They don’t.”

  “You’re right. But you notice we’re loaded with shelters and public toilets.”

  “They don’t like the shelters. They’re dangerous and dirty.”

  “And the streets aren’t? Besides, this may sound like a cruel cliché, my dear, but where do you think we get the expression ‘Beggars can’t be choosers’?”

  “I can’t believe you just said that. That is so”—Sam dredged up about the worst epithet she could imagine—“so right wing.”

  Wes looked down, went to a knee, and snapped his fingers, bringing Gertrude close in for a quick pet. “It’s all right, girl, your mom and I aren’t fighting. We’re just talking.” Standing up, he said, “She’s getting upset.”

  “So am I. If you try to pet me to calm me down, I’ll deck you.”

  “There’s a tolerant approach. And meanwhile, I hate to say this, but it’s not a right wing, left wing issue here. It’s a health and quality of life issue. Feces and urine on public streets and playgrounds and parks pose a health risk and are just a little bit of a nuisance, I think we can admit. Are we in accord here?”

  Sam, arms folded, leaned back against the windows of the coffee shop, unyielding.

  “Sam,” Wes continued, “when I take Gertie out for a walk, I bring a bag to clean up after her. That’s for a dog. You really think it’s too much to ask the same for humans?”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because a lot of these people, they have mental problems too. They don’t even know they’re doing it, or where.”

  “And so we should just tolerate it? You send your kids out to play and there’s a pile of shit on your front stoop? Next thing you know, half a school’s got hepatitis. You don’t think that’s a small problem?”

  “That’s not what’s happening.”

  “Sam, that’s exactly what’s happening. They’ve got to check the sandbox near the merry-go-round in Golden Gate Park every morning for shit and needles. Some of these people think it’s a litter box.”

  “Well, I haven’t heard of any hepatitis epidemic. That’s way an exaggeration.”

  “The point is the alfresco bathroom kind of thing that’s been happening downtown for years. I think you’ll remember we had a guy used our front stoop at the office every night for a month. We had to wash the steps down every morning.”

  “There,” Sam said. “That was a solution.”

  “It was a ridiculous solution. It was insane. To say nothing about the fact that using the streets for bathrooms punishes innocent, good citizens and devalues property.”

  “Aha! I knew property would get in there.”

  “Property’s not a bad thing, Sam.”

  “Which is what every Republican in the world believes.”

  “And some Democrats too. Dare I say most? And for the umpteenth time, Sam, it’s not a Republican thing. You can be vaguely left of center and still not want to have people shitting in your flower-pots. Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  “I think they might actually be.”

  “Well, no offense, but you’re wrong. Public defecation and homeless encampments on the streets and in the parks are gross and unhealthy and sickening. I don’t understand how you can’t see that.”

  Sam again shook her head. “I see those poor people suffering. That’s what I see. We’ve got a fire department with miles of hoses. We could deploy them to wash down the streets. The city could get up some work
program and hire people to clean up.”

  “What a great idea! Should we pay them to clean up after themselves, or after each other? Except then again, where does the money to do that come from?”

  “There it is again, money! It always comes down to money.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, yes, sometimes it does.”

  “The point is, Wes, these people just don’t have the same options as everybody else.”

  “And they never will, Sam. That’s rough maybe, okay, but it’s life. And life’s just not fair sometimes. Which doesn’t mean everybody else has to deal with their problems. They get rounded up and taken to the shelters whether or not they want to go, and I say it’s about time.”

  Without either Sam or Wes noticing, several others in the line, both male and female, had closed in around them, listening in. Now a young hippie spoke up to Wes. “You’re right, dude,” he said. “It’s out of control. It is about time.”

  A chorus of similar sentiments followed.

  Sam took it all in, straightened up, and looked out into the faces surrounding her. “I just can’t believe that I’m hearing this in San Francisco,” she said. “I’m so ashamed of all of you.”

  And with that she pushed her way through the crowd and started walking up Ashbury, away from her boyfriend and their dog.

  Sam was the director of San Francisco’s Rape Crisis Counseling Center, which also happened to be on Haight Street. Her plan this morning had been to take her early morning constitutional from their home up on Buena Vista with Wes and Gertie, share a cup of coffee and a croissant at BBW, then check in at the office to make sure there hadn’t been an overnight crisis that demanded her attention.

  But now, seething, just wanting to get away from all the reactionaries, she had started out in the wrong direction to get to the center. Fortunately, the line for the BBW stretched down Haight Street, and not up Ashbury, and she’d gone about half a block uphill when she stopped and turned around, realizing she could take the alley that ran behind the Haight Street storefronts, bypassing the crowd and emerging on the next block on the way to her office.

  But first she stopped a minute, not just to get her breath, but to try to calm herself. After an extraordinarily rocky beginning to their relationship she and Wes hadn’t had a fight in six or seven years. She’d come to believe that he was her true soul mate and shared her opinions about nearly everything, especially politics. But now, apparently not.

  It shook her.

  And, okay, she knew that she was among those whom most people would include among California’s “fruits and nuts.” She certainly didn’t too often doubt the rightness of her various stances. She was in her early forties and had seen enough of the world to know that the dollar was the basic problem. The military-industrial complex. Big oil and corporate globalism. Republicans.

  But here now Wes, who had registered Green and hated the right wingers as much as she did, was arguing for something that she just knew in her heart was wrong. You couldn’t just abandon these homeless people who had, after all, flocked to San Francisco precisely because of the benign political environment. That would be the worst bait-and-switch tactic she could imagine. She would have to talk to him, but after they’d both calmed down.

  She crossed back to where she wouldn’t be visible to Wes or anyone else in the line as she came back down the hill. It was the kind of clear morning that people tended to expect when they visited San Francisco during the traditional summer months. Those people often left in bitter disappointment at the incessant fog, the general inclemency of the weather. But today the early sun sprayed the rooftops golden. The temperature was already in the low sixties. It was going to be a perfect day.

  She got to the alley, squinting into the bright morning sun, when here was an example of exactly the thing she and Wes had been talking about—a pair of feet protruded from the backdoor area of BBW. Not wanting to awaken the poor sleeping homeless man, she gave him a wide berth and only a quick glance as she came abreast of where he slept.

  But something about the attitude of the body stopped her. It didn’t seem to be lying in a natural position, the head propped up against the screen door. She couldn’t imagine such a posture would be conducive to sleep. Most of the weight seemed to be on his left shoulder, but under that the torso turned in an awkward way so that both feet pointed up, as if he were lying on his back.

  Moving closer, she noticed a line of liquid tracing itself down over the concrete and pooling in the gap between the cement of the porch and the asphalt of the alley. In the bright morning sunlight, from a distance it could have been water. But another couple of steps brought her close enough to remove any doubt on that score—the glistening wet stuff was red.

  Leaning over, Sam shaded her eyes against the glare and she saw the man’s face; a face she recognized, had expected to see that morning behind the counter where he always was at BBW.

  Her hand, already trembling, went to her mouth.

  3

  At a few minutes past seven-thirty a sergeant inspector of homicide named Darrel Bracco double-parked on Ashbury. He unhooked his squawk box handset and draped the cord up over the rearview mirror, so that a meter person coming by might surmise that this was a police vehicle and as such shouldn’t get a parking ticket. Just to be double sure, though, he left his business card on the dashboard of his city-issue Pontiac. He knew from bitter personal experience that even these precautions might not be enough.

  A crowd of perhaps sixty souls stood beyond the yellow crime-scene tape that the responding unit had strung across the mouth of the alley and again farther down. Bracco saw that the coroner’s van hadn’t yet arrived, but two black-and-white squad cars also helped to close off the entrance to the alley from the inquisitive populace.

  His badge out, excusing himself as he went, he pushed his way through the mass of people and ducked under the tape. A no-nonsense guy, he met no real resistance—Bracco was forty-two years old, just under six feet tall, clean-cut, casually buffed. He nodded to the two uniformed officers who were keeping the crime scene from being violated.

  Over by the body, obvious enough on the ground by the back door to one of the local establishments, another uniform with graying hair and the start of a gut, undoubtedly the lieutenant from Park Station, was standing talking with Bracco’s new partner, Debra Schiff. Debra was thirty-eight, wore her sandy hair short, and possessed a very good if tough-looking face that looked tougher without makeup. For which reason she never wore any.

  Bracco flashed his badge and stuck his hand out. “How you doin’, Lieutenant? Darrel Bracco.”

  “Bill Banks.”

  “Nice to meet you. Thanks for holding down the fort. I miss anything fun yet?”

  Schiff answered, shaking her head no. “Waiting on the techs. Story of our lives, huh? You’d think these people would have the good grace to get themselves shot during regular business hours. But here it is, first thing on a weekend. Time the techs get mounted and rolling, they might not get here till noon.” She turned to Banks. “But Darrel and I can handle things here, Lieutenant, if you want to get back to your station or go home. Your call.”

  Banks clucked and shrugged. “Thanks, but if you don’t mind, I’ll just hang awhile. See where this goes a little.”

  “He was just telling me he knows the guy,” Schiff said.

  Banks nodded. “Everybody in the neighborhood knows him. Dylan Vogler. He managed this place.”

  “And what place is that?” Bracco asked.

  “The coffee shop, Bay Beans West. Takes up the whole corner.” Banks pointed. “This is the back entrance he’s up against. Also, I was just showing Inspector Schiff, see on the side wall that hole in the stucco . . .”

  “The bullet. But, hmm . . .” Bracco moved over to look more closely.

  “What?” Schiff said.

  Bracco, his face right up against the wall, said, “No blood?”

  Schiff, now over next to him, pointed down and said, �
�Backpack.”

  “Backpack.” Bracco repeated. “That’d do it.” Then he went down into a squat.

  “Darrel,” Schiff began, a warning note in her voice.

  But he put out a hand. “I’m not moving him, Debra. If my eyes don’t deceive me, that holster on his belt’s got a cell phone in it.” He flipped the leather top open. “Aha!” Extracting the device from its holder, he stood back up and opened it.

  “Ice?” Schiff asked.

  Pushing buttons on the phone, Bracco nodded.

  Banks’s gaze went from Bracco over to Schiff. “Ice?”

  “ ‘In case of emergency,’ ” Schiff said. “ICE. They’re telling everybody to put that in their cell phones now. You don’t have that in yours?”

  Banks shook his head. “I’m lucky if I can keep the damn thing charged.”

  “Here you go.” Darrel pushed the send button and held the phone to his ear. “Hello,” he said after a brief moment, then identified himself. “I’m calling because you’re the emergency number on a cell phone in the possession of a man named . . .” He raised his eyebrows at Banks, a question, and got the name again from the lieutenant.

  “Dylan Vogler.” Bracco paused, listened. “Yes. Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid so. Well, at the moment I’m in the alley behind his place of business. Sure. Just tell the officers who you are and they’ll let you through. No, you don’t want to bring your child. Can we send someone up to your house to get you? Okay, then. Okay. There’s no hurry, ma’am. We’ll be here.”

  Closing the phone, he shrugged and let out a heavy breath. “The wife.” Then, cocking his head and checking his watch, he turned to Schiff. “Not too bad for a weekend. There’s a siren now.”

  By the time the first cops had arrived, there had been no question that Dylan Vogler was completely and absolutely dead—no hint of a pulse, the skin just warm to the touch, his eyes wide open and unresponsive to light or other stimulation. Nevertheless, the first responding squad car cops got some EMTs down to pronounce him. The photographer took a couple of dozen photos, memorializing the scene, before anyone else touched the body at all.