Stone Eater (Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 2)

by D. F. Bailey

  “Right.” She nodded with a look of certainty in her eyes. “Therefore, she didn’t jump. Ergo, no suicide, not from the bridge at least.”

  Finch narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”

  “Sorry, Will.” Fiona studied him a moment. “I know you talked to her a few times. Did she mean something more than that?”

  “Like what?” He held the back of his right hand to his mouth and coughed.

  She shrugged. “You know. Sometimes I interview people and I like them. As people. Sometimes it’s more than that. Like, maybe in the right circumstances….”

  Finch looked away, felt the need to shift direction. “Okay, so what now? Are you going to reveal to Wally the only logical conclusion about Gianna’s death? That she was murdered?”

  “No, I’m going to give Wally exactly what he wants.” She smiled as if she’d avoided a clever trap. “I’m going to interview our TV-glam colleagues and ask them how they determined that Gianna jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge. When they try to wiggle out of answering a direct question — just like you steered away from telling me about Gianna — then I’ll know the truth.”

  He studied her face a moment and realized that Fiona’s new hair style added an attractive flair. Something edgy. Showed she wasn’t your average, weary news hound. Finch leaned back in his chair and smiled. “So what does the truth matter if we keep it hidden from everyone?”

  “It’s not hidden from everyone,” she said and stood up. “I told you, didn’t I? Now you can link it to your story about the flash drive and cell phone.”

  “Oh. So I get to arm wrestle with Wally about this, not you?” His eyes swept over her body swaying ever-so slightly in front of him. He inhaled the light aroma from her skin, the scent of fresh cut flowers. What was it? Lavender?

  “Good idea. Wish I’d thought of that! Besides, everyone knows you handle Wally better than anyone else at the eXpress.” She began to walk back to her cubicle.

  “Hey Fiona.”

  Her head reappeared at the top of his cubicle wall.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember when I was in Astoria. We talked about doing lunch one day? A non-business lunch?”

  She rested her chin on the top of the partition and smiled. “Say the word, Will. I’m an equal-opportunity diner. I embrace local restaurants of all kinds,” she said and disappeared again.

  A moment later, a sense of regret washed through him, a worry that he tended to complicate his working relationships with women. That it made his life unnecessarily complex. Did some sort of neurotic compulsion drive him to it? Since Cecily died and he’d lost Buddy, perhaps his need for intimacy had spun out of control. With Fiona he decided that going forward, he’d keep things strictly platonic. Keep it a hands-off affair.

  ※

  Finch’s cell phone buzzed with a new dispatch from Eve, her first contact since he’d walked out of her condo four days earlier.

  He clicked on the message: I need a truce. Have the forensic report on Gianna’s phone. Want to see it?

  He read the note again, dwelling on the first few words. A truce? He needed much more than that. Over the past few days, he’d thought about her often. Too often. No matter how he tried he couldn’t tear his mind from her uninhibited passion. He knew that if he wasn’t cautious, she could become an obsession, the center of a dizzy spiral drawing him ever closer to her.

  He stared at the wall, then put his phone away. A moment later he texted Sochi: Any breakthrough on the thumb drive?

  Seconds later his phoned pinged: Still ticking. Password set by a pro. Could be a week, maybe more.

  A pro? Perhaps Toeplitz himself. A final digital masterwork by the mathematical genius.

  Frustrated, he walked along the third floor hallway of the eXpress and down the staircase to Mission Street. He walked up to Market Street, glanced left, right, and picked out a path towards the Embarcadero. The air was warm and dry, the latest indication that the three-year-long drought maintained a firm grip on the entire state. The predictable pattern of cool breezes and late-afternoon fog were little more than memories to most San Franciscans. All the familiar weather systems had surrendered to the aberrations of climate change. Maybe more people would protest the looming disaster if only global warming wasn’t so damned pleasant — at least in northern California.

  At 2nd Street he hopped onto the F-Line Street car, settled into a seat among a group of five tourists from France. He could recall a few words, phrases that he remembered as a teenager in Montreal, enough to comment on three or four tourist highlights for the foreigners as the car shunted along its tracks through the traffic down the stretch of the Embarcadero from Pier 1 to Fisherman’s Wharf.

  At Taylor Street he stepped off the streetcar and made his way past the World War II liberty ship and submarine to the tip of Pier 45. As he passed the crowds of strolling tourists his thoughts turned to Gianna. When he reached the end of the wharf he stood at the edge and gazed into the choppy waves below his feet. This is where Gianna’s corpse had washed up against the pier.

  “I’m sorry, Gianna.” He watched the waves break against the wharf footings and then slip away. “You deserved better. Much better than this.”

  Since he’d driven up to Astoria he’d determined that Toeplitz had been shot by Sheriff Mark Gruman, who also killed the boy, Donnel Smeardon. But with the demise of Toeplitz, Smeardon, and the sheriff himself, the circle of connections closed; no one remained to testify to the criminal motives. Furthermore, in some way Senator Whitelaw’s twin sons Justin and Evan had aided and abetted Toeplitz’s murder. Gianna had exposed their connection, and for that she’d paid with her life. Maybe.

  So far, only three people believed that Gianna’s so-called suicide was a cover-up for her murder: Fiona, Eve and Finch himself. He tried to imagine who could benefit from Gianna’s death. But the obvious answer seemed impossible: the senator and his brother. Would they stoop to such incestuous madness to protect themselves? And what about the twin brothers? No one had interviewed them. Fiona mentioned that she’d seen them enter and depart from the private memorial service following Gianna’s cremation. They’d slipped under the radar without a murmur. Maybe Fiona could open a wedge between the twins, discover some discrepancies in their stories that would split them apart. Unlikely.

  After this long assessment, Finch realized that he had no other avenues to pursue. No one to call. No hidden sources to open a new door for him. That left the cell phone, the thumb drive and the missing laptop — and the tedious work to determine if they held any relevant information.

  Riding the F-Line back to the office he considered the possibilities presented by the lost computer. As he climbed the set of stairs up to the eXpress office, a fully-formed idea arrived just as his right shoe touched the top step. It was as if he’d exited a deep fog and now everything appeared with complete clarity. Depending on its configuration, Gianna’s physical computer might not be needed for him to access her email.

  As he strode along the corridor, he could feel the blood pulsing through his body. Maybe she’d kept everything in the Google cloud. Her email, her text documents, spreadsheets, photos — all the files might still reside in the cloud. Just like her Facebook account where every day dozens of people added their condolences to her last note.

  By the time he returned to the bog he felt a sense of renewal. He walked over to Fiona’s cubicle and flopped into the chair beside her desk. He decided not to tell her about his revelation. Not yet. Instead he’d urge her to open up a second front with the Whitelaw twins. They’d need leverage on two sides to break the story open.

  “There has to be another way,” he said and explained the urgency of talking to the twins. As he spoke she uncapped a stick of Lypsyl and swept it across her lips.

  “I tried that already,” she said and tucked the lip balm next to her keyboard. “They wouldn’t talk to me.”

  “Were they together when you spoke to them?�
��

  “Yes.”

  “And when was that?”

  “I told you. After the memorial service. I approached them as they left the building on the way to their car. They articulated a very polite form of ‘go screw yourself’. At least I think that’s what they meant by ‘up yours’.”

  “Okay. Let’s try something different. Find out when they part company. Then introduce yourself to one of them.”

  She tilted backwards in her chair and smiled. “Me?”

  “Yeah. They literally chased me away from the family lodge in Cannon Beach. But with your make over” — he nodded at her new hairstyle — “they might not recognize you. Especially since they were in mourning when they saw you. Even if they do, at least you can tell Wally you gave it the ole college try.”

  “Jeezus, Finch. You know you’re a man without scruples. A flippin’ pirate.”

  “Yes, I’m completely scruples-less.” He laughed and stood up. “But will you do it?”

  “Go back to your little poop-deck over there.” She waved a hand at his pod near the far wall. “I need to think about it. I’ve got this damn TV imbroglio to battle right now.”

  “Did the news narcissists confess to their journalistic sins?”

  “More than that. Wally’s involved now.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Now away with you, matey.” She turned back to her computer and slipped a set of noise-canceling headphones over her ears.

  As Finch made his way back to his desk he realized that he was now the only reporter in the bog without headphones. It’ll never happen, he assured himself. Be the last holdout. There’s dignity in that.

  Then he picked up his cellphone and clicked on the last text from Eve. He thought a moment and then replied to her message:

  I need more than a truce. I need a blood oath. Can you give me that?

  ※ — TEN — ※

  “SO. YOU EXPECT me to slash a wrist, bleed on a Bible and swear allegiance to you? Not that I’m a believer in all things Biblical,” Eve added with a laugh. She forced a smile to her lips, leaned toward Finch and kissed him lightly on the cheek. She felt happy to see him again, pleased that he wanted to visit.

  They sat on the sofa in her living room, now fully restored to its former comfort and order. Maybe Finch was part of that now. In any case, she liked to see him sitting beside her, his big face alive with emotion as he rubbed two fingers over the stub of his missing earlobe.

  Finch glanced away, scanned a few titles in her book case. The God Delusion, The Moral Landscape, God is not Great.

  “It’s not a joke,” he said after a moment. “Can’t you see the compromise you’ve put me in?”

  “I can see that you’re compromised,” she said as her voice softened, “but I didn’t put you there.”

  He narrowed his eyes and stared at her. “Granted. But how am I supposed to trust you when you threaten my career?”

  She settled the back of her head on the couch upholstery and gazed at the ceiling. “Okay, I admit that was a mistake. It was the cop in me coming on too hard. Especially the first few times we met. When I told you what I knew about Gianna’s autopsy — about your DNA — I didn’t know you. But it’s all different now. We’re different now, aren’t we?” She turned her face to him with a look of contrition.

  Finch pulled away and studied her. She wore a black silk blouse that fit snuggly against her breasts and tapered down to her waist. Strands of gold dangled from her ears and settled into the broad curls of her auburn hair. When she leaned forward, he could see the lacy trim of her chemise peeking through the V of her blouse.

  “No,” he said, “Not yet.”

  “So. The DNA evidence — I can’t change that. It’s on record, but buried deep in Gianna’s file and likely no one will ever connect you to it. What I can change is your sense of trust.”

  “Oh really?” A look of doubt swept over his face. “And how will you do that?”

  “Give me your phone.”

  “What?”

  “Your phone.” She held out a hand while he tugged the phone from his pocket and passed it to her. “Password?”

  He took the phone back and swept a finger across four buttons in a patterned sequence.

  “All right. This is the video recorder, right?” Her finger taped an icon on the screen.

  “What are you doing?”

  Her face moved closer to him. Her expression seemed open, vulnerable. “I’m giving you what you want.”

  He watched the screen brighten and capture the moving images as she stood up. She stacked six books back-to-back on the coffee table and set the camera on top of the pile. She adjusted the phone’s position so that the lens captured the full length of the sofa. Then she sat down again, about two feet away from Finch, close to, but not touching him.

  “It’s Wednesday, June third,” she declared formally as she looked into the camera. “I’m Eve Noon and I’m speaking with Will Finch, a journalist employed by the San Francisco eXpress. I am about to disclose the details of the non-disclosure agreement I signed a little over two years ago with the San Francisco Police Department and the City of San Francisco. This recording is made with my consent and without constraint of any kind.”

  A look of surprise crossed Will’s face as she began her testimony. He shook his head, as if to say “no,” but she returned a look of defiance and continued.

  “A partial account of my whistle-blowing was recorded in the media at the time, but the undisclosed details, that is, the facts of conspiracy, manipulation, humiliation, and sexual harassment against me — and several women within the SFPD — have been sealed from the public until today.”

  Finch felt his shoulders relax as he settled into the couch and absorbed the saga of her career on the force. She described the hazing which began the week after she’d been assigned to a patrol beat in the Tenderloin district. When she returned to the change room at the end of each shift she found a new porn poster taped over her locker grill. At first she simply tore them away and dropped them into the garbage. Then the harmless tits ’n’ ass shots were annotated with expressions about her own body. Most of them revealed a crude, moronic mind. She registered a complaint with her sergeant; he advised her to ignore the taunts and suggested that with time, they would fall away. Instead, they became more disgusting and appeared more frequently.

  Finally, one particularly vivid note gripped her attention: “Eve: nothing could be finer than to sleep in yer vagina.” For the first time she felt smeared, felt as she’d actually been penetrated by some scumbag on Turk Street. She tore this sheet of filth away and slipped it into her purse, took it home and catalogued it as the first piece of evidence in what would become a dossier of over a hundred pages of documents, pictures, transcripts and confessions.

  Four months after her appointment to the position of media relations officer, the crisis exploded. The porn photos were followed by “accidental” gropings, slut-shaming and more than a dozen episodes of her sergeant exposing himself to her when he found her alone. Late night phone calls interrupted her sleep. Long, anonymous letters appeared in her mail box, each of them detailing extended fantasies of her submission to humiliating domination.

  Eve began to question other women on the force. Of the eleven females who confirmed similar abuses, three agreed to go on the record and Eve taped each of their testimonies. Then one by one, their allegiance to Eve’s mission fell away.

  Incensed by the collapse in morale, Eve went directly to the police chief who denigrated her accusations as rants intended to generate sympathy and elevate her career. She’d already been promoted to Media Relations. What more did she want? His response felt like a gut punch. During the rest of their ten-minute interview she could barely respond to his dismissive attitude. Was it possible? Was she actually being blamed for the series of attacks she and the other women had suffered?

  A day later she determined to stand her ground. Once she decided this, she understood that her ca
reer as a cop would end. In terms of compensation, the most she could hope for was money. And the more the merrier. Goddamnit, the bastards would pay.

  Her best decision was to hire Fran Bransome. A seasoned employment lawyer, Bransome handled the next confrontation with the chief and all of the ensuing negotiations which lasted another three months. Fortunately, Eve didn’t have to meet any of her oppressors again. Fran took control of Eve’s files which she claimed “documented the systemic oppression, mental abuse, and sexual harassment of eleven female staff.” When she advised the police chief that all the sordid details would be revealed in the course of a public trial, it took him less than a day to consult with the mayor and agree to settle out of court. Fran dedicated the remainder of her time to working out the specifics of Eve’s settlement.

  “And that, as you know from the confidential non-disclosure agreement,” Eve said as she gazed into Finch’s eyes, “came to just under two million dollars, once the legal disbursements were cleared. Not a lump sum. But enough to get me back on my feet.”

  She examined Finch with a look that expected a response. When he said nothing, she faced the camera, and continued. “That’s the extent of my statement, which I freely undertake with full knowledge that if this recording is made public, I will be in breach of my agreement with the SFPD, in jeopardy of losing my financial compensation, and subject to prosecution.”

  She stood, picked up the cellphone, clicked the stop button on the video recorder and handed it back to Finch.

  “There you have it. At the ripe old age of thirty, after five years of dedicated service, I’d been busted out of the force and tossed out on my own.”

  Finch calculated the math. She was now thirty-two, three years younger than him. “Something similar happened to me when I left the army,” he said. “At a certain point you realize there’s no going back.”

  “No. And who would bother?” She sat beside him again. “So.” She pointed to his cellphone. “Satisfied?”