The Color of Fear

by Marcia Muller

  My most difficult call was to Will Camphouse in Tucson. He wasn’t a relative of mine in the white-world sense, but—as he often claimed—he was my symbolic cousin. Whatever, he was the closest friend I had in the Indian part of my family.

  Will said, “I already know what happened. Robin just called me.”

  Robin Blackhawk, my half sister who was in law school at Berkeley. Of course she knew; Saskia had probably phoned her to ask for a ride from SFO to SF General.

  Will expressed the same anger and indignation that Saskia had, then asked, “You want me to come up there?”

  “Not necessary—not yet.”

  “Well, don’t hesitate to ask; I’ve just wrapped up a big campaign and have some time off coming.” He was creative director at a large Tucson ad agency.

  I closed my eyes, picturing hordes of the descendants of Chief Tendoy—leader of the Lemhi Shoshone from 1863 until his death in 1907—eventually convening at the hospital and in the Marina district, lobbying for Indian rights. The Shoshone are normally a gentle people, skilled in coping with adversity and hostility, but they’ve been pushed around enough by white society and the US government to go into explosive mode when circumstances warrant it.

  The rest of my calls were not so difficult: My adoptive brother John, who lived in a downtown high-rise here in the city, was fond of Elwood and my Indian family and said he’d be on call for anything they needed. My nephew Mick Savage, chief researcher at the agency, had learned of the attack on the morning news and put out a staff bulletin. Then calls began pouring in from friends whom they’d contacted. I’d had no idea how many people cared about me and mine.

  9:08 a.m.

  Shortly after I finished speaking with the last well-wisher, a Sergeant Priscilla Anders from the SFPD assault division called and asked if she could come over and interview us about the attack. I agreed, did a quick spiff-up, and greeted her at the door.

  Anders was an attractive woman of about sixty, wearing a conservative gray pantsuit to match her conservatively cut gray hair; a delicate silver necklace and matching bracelet were her only adornments. She showed me her identification and then followed me to the living room, where she accepted coffee from the pot Hy had just brewed and got right down to business.

  “Your father normally resides where?” she asked me, snapping open a spiral-bound notebook.

  “In St. Ignatius, Montana, on the Flathead Reservation.”

  “He is here visiting for the holidays?”

  “Yes. He arrived two days ago and intends to stay through the New Year.”

  “I understand Mr. Farmer is in his eighties.”

  “Eighty-two.” I told her his birth date.

  “What does Mr. Farmer do in Montana? I assume he’s retired?”

  “No, he isn’t. He’s a nationally known painter and also tutors in various schools in the vicinity of the reservation.”

  Anders looked at her notes. I had the feeling she already knew most of the information I’d provided, but was checking for accuracy’s sake.

  I asked, “Have you turned up anything on the perps yet?”

  “No,” she replied with a frown. “Do you know if your father has any enemies?”

  “In San Francisco? He’s only been here two days.”

  “Someone who may have followed him from Montana?”

  “That’s extremely doubtful. He’s a beloved figure throughout the state.”

  “Could the attack have been directed at you or Mr. Ripinsky?” She nodded at Hy, who was sitting quietly in a chair near the fireplace. “Perhaps someone doing harm to your father-in-law as a way of harming you? Given the nature of your professions—private investigator and security services—you must have made a number of enemies.”

  Hy said, “Well, yes. But I doubt our relationship to Elwood is widely known.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  I said, “My father is a very private man. And my husband and I are as well, at least in our personal lives.”

  “Yet professionally you seem to have garnered more than your fair share of publicity, both local and national.”

  Hy moved restively—a caution not to give in to the emotional storm that he knew was building within me. To Anders he said, “My wife and I don’t seek out attention, Sergeant. Our aim, as simple as it may seem to others, is to effect positive solutions for our clients.”

  “And I suppose these clients are always on the right side of the law?”

  “Over the years, one or two who weren’t have slipped through our background checks. But we pride ourselves on being thorough, and in the unlikely event we find someone has misrepresented himself or herself to us, we have a clause in our contract that releases us from their employ. And”—he smiled wryly—“that allows us to keep all fees that have already been paid to us. That’s the point where the undesirables put down their pens and walk out.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, “but what does all this have to do with the attack on my father? What is the SFPD doing in his case?”

  Anders glanced at me, then looked away. “All we can. Mr. Ripinsky, have you represented some of these ‘undesirables’?”

  “Yes, we have. A few. Our relationships with them ended badly for all concerned.”

  Especially in our last major case that prompted the state and congressional hearings we’d been involved in for much of the past year. The hearings had concerned various individuals and corporations that, contrary to the public record, had committed crimes against the US during the violent times in Southeast Asia following the Vietnam War. When he fled the area, Hy had taken evidence from the charter service he’d worked for and turned it over to the CIA, but for years nothing had happened. When we decided to go public with the information, a number of highly placed and powerful people had fallen from grace; others had been convicted and were serving long sentences. Only two had escaped prosecution.

  “And who are they specifically?” Anders asked.

  “I can’t recall all their names offhand, I’m afraid,” Hy said. “And I don’t see any of them doing what was done to Elwood as a form of payback.”

  “Ms. McCone?”

  My back was up; Anders was following a standard routine of ignoring the female witness while catering to the male. All I said was, “Neither do I.”

  “You think the assault was random, then?”

  “Not necessarily, but all the surface evidence points that way.”

  “A random attack in an affluent neighborhood upon an individual who didn’t look as if he belonged there.”

  “An especially vicious attack,” I said. “Very possibly by someone motivated by racial hatred.”

  Anders nodded as if I were a schoolkid who had given the right answer to a tricky question. “That would be my best guess as well, though it’s too early to rule out other possibilities.”

  She stood up briskly, snapping her notebook shut. “I’ll leave you now, but I’ll want to talk with you tomorrow.”

  “You’ll let us know right away if you come up with anything?”

  “Naturally.”

  I shut the door behind her and said to Hy, “Kind of a cold woman, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why, d’you think?”

  “Could be many things.”

  “Not racial prejudice. I can sniff that out instantly. Not because she resents our financial status; her clothing and jewelry tell me she uses what she earns well.”

  “Could be that she doesn’t like dealing with a firm like M&R.”

  M&R: McCone & Ripinsky. A few years ago we’d merged my investigative agency and his international executive protection firm into one entity. So far the merger had been successful, despite a number of snags along the way.

  Hy went on, “We’ve snatched the solutions to prized investigations out of the SFPD’s hands a few times.”

  Alex the cat entered the room, his tail switching, and sniffed the place where the inspector had been sitting.

  I said, “S
he hates cats?”

  We both burst into tension-easing laughter, and then the landline rang. I picked up. A familiar voice, usually maternal but distinctively not so at the moment, said, “What the hell are you doing at home? Get your asses over here!”

  “Ma?” The name came out weakly.

  “Your father is lying here in the ICU, and what are you doing?”

  “We’ve been talking with the police.”

  “Are you done with them?”

  “Yes, just now.”

  “Then get your asses over here!” She hung up.

  I met Hy’s eyes. His were faintly amused. He’d heard every one of her shouted words.

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay, let’s go.”

  11:10 a.m.

  As we drove to the hospital, my thoughts were on my family. Ma has shrunk with age, and her formerly red hair has gone gray, but she is still strong, energetic, and very involved in life—her own and sometimes, unfortunately, those of her children and grandchildren. But she’s a good, loving person and we all know we can rely on her in a crisis. Apparently now she needed to rely on us.

  Because it was prime visiting hours at SFG, it seemed as though it took us ages to find a parking space in the emergency unit lot. I’d girded myself for chaos inside, but the waiting area and halls were surprisingly quiet; the only sounds were the clicking of the computer keyboards at the intake desk and the rustle of the magazine pages that those waiting for news of relatives and friends idly flipped through. I didn’t recognize either of the two nurses, but that wasn’t surprising; a long time had passed since I was rushed to the trauma unit, and at the time I’d been unconscious with a bullet lodged in my brain.

  I went up to the desk and asked about Elwood. His condition hadn’t changed, and he still wasn’t allowed visitors. The nurse summoned an aide, who guided us to a smaller room where Ma waited.

  Fortunately she didn’t chastise us for our tardiness. In fact, she drew us close and sniffled into my coat. Hy and I looked at each other over her head: two redwoods towering above a little quaking aspen.

  I took a tissue from a pack in my pocket and unfolded it for her. After a moment she released us, stepped back, and gave the Kleenex two of what she called her “goose honks.”

  She said, “You talked to the police. What’re they doing?”

  “Investigating.”

  “Do they have any leads yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, they’d better find the sons of bitches who did this! That’s somebody I care about lying in there.”

  Katie McCone had come a long way since she used to scold us kids about our “salty” language, I thought as she clutched me and burst into tears again.

  3:31 p.m.

  The necessary tests were still going on. That’s all the doctors and nurses could tell us, until just before Saskia and Robin arrived. Then Dr. Stiles came in with word that the CT scan had revealed what I’d been dreading: both a concussion and a subdural hematoma. Elwood was being prepped for brain surgery.

  “The prognosis is fair,” he told us. “For a man in his eighties, he’s incredibly fit. The surgery will take several hours; the best thing you people can do for yourselves is to go home. You’ll be informed as soon as we have the results of the surgery.”

  It was the second time the doctor had told us to go home. Was this what it was going to be like? To-ing and fro-ing and hanging on tenterhooks for hours, even days, while we waited for news?

  The elevator beeped and Saskia stepped through its doors. She is a tall woman, maybe five foot ten, with thick silver-black hair that she customarily gathers into braids that she coils about her head. We strongly resemble one another in our high cheekbones and the tilt of our noses.

  Saskia had been very young when she became pregnant with me—the result of a one-night stand with Elwood shortly before he moved to New York to pursue his painting. My birth mother was poor and about to enter college on a scholarship; no way could she raise a child. She arranged—by way of a mutual relative—to have me adopted by Andrew and Katie McCone, who’d told me my looks were a “throwback” to my Indian grandmother. When I found out about their lies and half truths I’d been enraged, but that was years ago, and by now I’d become close to both my families, as thoroughly dysfunctional as both were.

  Ma was very pale; Saskia hugged her and told her to go downstairs and wait for my sister Patsy to arrive after having gotten one of her employees to close out her Napa Valley restaurant for the evening. As soon as the elevator doors closed behind Ma, I asked Saskia, “What was it you wanted to explain to me?”

  “You know your mother and I have become close.”

  “Yes.”

  “She has become emotionally fragile recently.”

  “How so?”

  “Too much loss in her life—your father, her second husband, one of your brothers. She cries easily. Talks of death a lot.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “A few months. You haven’t noticed it?”

  “No, we haven’t been in touch as much as usual.”

  I thought about Ma’s present circumstances. A year ago she’d moved from San Diego to the Monterey Peninsula and seemed happy there, but maybe I hadn’t been listening carefully. She’d made friends, thrown herself into painting her watercolors, but now that I thought about it, there had been a hollow note in her voice during our frequent phone calls. And her reaction to Elwood’s condition had been uncharacteristically emotional…

  Before I could ask Saskia anything more, Ma returned with Patsy. Hy and I went downstairs to the business office to complete the necessary paperwork to arrange for Elwood’s care.

  When we got back upstairs, Patsy was looking ragged.

  She whispered, “No way I can take any more crying.”

  “Me either.”

  Hy said, “Then we’re out of here. Your mother won’t notice—the doctor’s making his rounds and soon she’ll have a new audience.” He swept his arm toward the door. “After you two, please.”

  4:46 p.m.

  Instead of going home, we drove to the M&R building. It was a beautifully restored Vermont granite structure—circa 1932—on New Montgomery Street in the city’s thriving financial district. We leased the ground floor to a number of upscale clothing shops, as well as the famous Angie’s Deli, where we whiled away many a lunch hour in the outdoor dining section. The top three stories of the building were ours.

  On floor two our case and financial files were encoded and stored; the personnel department operated out of there too. Clerks tabulated operatives’ hours and expenses. Building services and maintenance people checked in for their daily schedules. Floor three consisted of hospitality suites: at-risk clients could reside there confident of their safety; operatives from our offices in other cities were welcomed; large functions such as parties and dinners were hosted.

  But the heart and soul of the M&R building was the fourth floor and the roof garden. The offices of the core employees—including Hy and me—were elegant. Deep, gray carpets a couple of shades darker than the walls. Beautiful but functional rosewood furnishings. Colorful framed posters depicting special events throughout the city over the years. And the roof garden was a splendid place to entertain clients or just chill out.

  We left the car in the underground garage, then walked to a favorite restaurant near the waterfront. Its interior was pseudo–old San Francisco—heavy gilt-framed mirrors, ornately carved wooden bar, and cozy red-plush booths—but lacking the colorful characters and elaborate free-lunch buffets that had typified the saloons of the city in bygone days. Back in the Gay Nineties the men entering the saloons could feast on a banquet of everything from meats and seafood to the ever-popular terrapin—after purchasing a beer for only ten cents. The bankers and attorneys and businessmen who worked downtown would join the parade that was known as the Cocktail Route by midafternoon and carouse through the evenings, often into the mornings. Marriages would die, children would
be left fatherless, but the march continued.

  No wild goings-on here, however, in this new century. During the late afternoon only a pair of well-dressed businessmen played liar’s dice at the bar, while a single similarly stylish woman read a magazine and sipped a glass of wine in one of the booths.

  “When we come here, do you ever get the idea,” Hy said, “that we’ve stepped back into history?”

  “With all this crap I carry around?” I indicated my bag, which contained an iPad, an ultra-high-resolution camera, a flashlight, and a packet of surgical gloves and another of plastic evidence bags. To say nothing of my .38 Special—the gun I’ve tried to replace with one with more firepower, more accuracy, and a lighter frame, but to which I keep coming back. “Of course we live in a new world.”

  Patsy said, “But is it a brave new world?”

  I considered. “Not hardly, if we need all this stuff to protect and connect ourselves.”

  The bartender came over. “You three look like you could use a drink.”

  “Yep,” Hy said. “Bourbon straight up for me.”

  I said, “Chardonnay, please.”

  Patsy, who spends the majority of her life around food and drink, made a face and said, “Black coffee, with orange juice on the side.”

  “You sure she’s with you?” the barman asked.

  “She’s an abstainer,” I said.

  He shrugged. “There’s an oddball in every crowd.”

  The look Patsy shot at his departing back would have melted a steel girder. “If any one of my servers ever spoke that way about a customer, he’d’ve been out the door before he could set down his tray.”

  “Restaurant protocol isn’t our main concern at the moment,” I said.

  Our drinks arrived, and I took a healthy swig of mine. Patsy stared longingly at it and flagged down the waiter to ask for one.

  I looked at her, and she shrugged and said, “I decided I need an antidote too.”