More pertinent, the end of court hours meant that I was free to go wherever I wanted without having to worry about being held in contempt again for breaking Judge Iris’s fifteen-minute rule.
Making a quick decision, I grabbed the Keith Locke file from the briefcase I’d been carrying earlier. There was a contacts sheet with a home phone number for Greta and Gerald Locke. I picked up the phone and dialed.
The phone rang twice; then a woman with an African immigrant’s accent answered. “Yes?”
“I’d like to speak with Mrs. Locke, please. Tell her that Mr. Teddy Maxwell is calling.”
I don’t know why I said that, except that I wanted to hear what that name would do to the mother of Teddy’s wayward client.
After a moment a composed voice said, “Teddy Maxwell was shot Wednesday morning. Now please tell me who you are and what your business is.”
“I see. Your maid must have caught the wrong name. This is Leo Maxwell calling. Teddy is my brother. I’m over here at the office trying to get his affairs in order. You see, I’ll probably be taking over his practice, at least until he’s well enough to return to work.” It was the first time I’d spoken the idea out loud. “I hope you don’t mind me just picking up the phone.”
“I suppose whether I mind or not will depend on the reason for your call, now, won’t it?”
It threw me that she didn’t offer even perfunctory condolences. She might have been talking to a plumbing contractor about some shoddy tile work that was going to have to be ripped out and done over—at the plumber’s expense, of course.
“What reason could I give that wouldn’t be offensive to you? Maybe we should start there.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Maxwell. I’m afraid I don’t have time to play twenty questions.”
“Fair enough. I’d like to have a few words with you about your son. This evening, if possible. I can make it brief. If you’d rather not talk to me, I’ll have to go to the police.”
“It isn’t possible. We’re having guests for drinks before the opera.”
“Bad timing for both of us. I was planning to go to the opera this evening myself,” I lied. “We could speak at intermission. I’ll buy you a glass of champagne, and we’ll drink a toast to your boy Keith and all his accomplishments. I’ve heard great things about their new Faust. The soprano is supposed to be marvelous. Don’t worry, you won’t have to look for me. I’ll find you.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
I took satisfaction in having cracked her composure. It had not proved nearly as difficult as I’d guessed. The desperate edge in her voice made her seem human. I liked her a little better for it.
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes, then. I hope you’ll be able to fit me into your schedule.”
I hung up the phone without waiting to hear her response. I remained sitting at the desk for a moment, nodding to myself. That was how it was done, I thought. That was how to handle a situation where you couldn’t take no for an answer.
Then I realized how stupid I’d been to say thirty minutes. It might take me that long just to find a cab.
Chapter 12
I was lucky. In ten minutes I was able to hail a cab, and it carried me away from downtown traffic and through the Geary tunnel without a single red light. I was at the address in thirty-five minutes after hanging up the phone.
The Lockes lived in Presidio Terrace, built in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake and marketed then as San Francisco’s only all-white neighborhood, with only one entrance, a pair of granite gateposts at the intersection of Presidio Terrace and Arguello Boulevard. Beyond those, Presidio Terrace makes an oval. The properties at the center of the oval back onto one another, while those on the outer ring turn their backs on the city. The Tudor and mission revival and Beaux-Arts houses wear hedges like insignias. On both sides of the street mature palm trees frame the California sky. The roses had been pruned for the winter. Not a blade of grass was out of line.
Oddly, the place made me think of Teddy’s neighborhood across the bay in Canyon, that enclave beneath the redwoods, as exclusive in its own way as this one. The two neighborhoods probably had more in common than their residents thought.
The Lockes owned a relatively modest Tudor revival, a long lodgelike place with mansard windows, a slate roof, and three chimneys. It was probably worth only six million. To fit a house that size onto the lot the builder had been forced to put it sideways. From the street I had to proceed up a long sidewalk guarded by ankle-high hedges to reach the front door.
I don’t hold anything against rich people. I am as guilty as anyone else of envying them. I’d love nothing more than a stable of bikes to ride and all the time in the world to ride them. I have this dream of traveling again the way I did after high school, seeing the world from the saddle.
The door was opened by the same woman who’d answered the phone. I guessed she was Nigerian. She wore a sleek gray business suit, and her hair was cut attractively short. “Mr. Maxwell? Mrs. Locke is expecting you. Please come this way.”
The two-story foyer was immaculate, with gleaming wood floors, a huge silver mirror, and a chest of drawers that looked pillaged from a French chateau. On the floor was a massive Afghan rug. A curving staircase led up to an open hallway on the second floor.
There were signs of human life. Mail and a few photographs occupied the top of the chest of drawers, and the door to a deep closet stood open, revealing rows of coats and boots. A dog leash hung on the knob. A heavy oak door to my left was closed, and in front of me one of a pair of double doors was ajar. Through the gap I made out the back of a cream-colored leather couch and beyond that a sunlit expanse of hardwood floor.
“What do you do here?” I asked, both because I was curious and because she was beautiful.
“I’m Mrs. Locke’s personal assistant.” She shot me a quick smile over her shoulder as she led me through an open door to our right. “Chloe.” She wore no perfume. Perhaps Mrs. Locke had a rule against it. Nevertheless she smelled wonderful. I wanted to ask her what kind of soap she used.
“You plan on doing that for the rest of your life?”
Another look, this time with a challenge in it. “I’m starting a joint JD/MBA program at Stanford in the fall.”
That shut me up, but only for a second. “Give me a call if you ever get interested in criminal law. Who knows, maybe you’ll need a lawyer yourself.”
She palmed the card with devastating politeness, knocked once on a door at the end of the hallway, gave me another smile with nothing behind it, and left me waiting for the door to open.
After a second it did. “Come in, Mr. Maxwell. Let’s make this quick, shall we? You said it was something about Keith. You mentioned the police.”
Greta Locke was nearly six feet tall. She had silver white hair cut above her ears, a thin gray-eyed scholar’s face with a sharp nose, and a rail-thin body that still looked young. She’d had her hair done but wasn’t dressed yet for the evening. She wore a man’s flannel shirt and tights. She went to the couch across from her desk and indicated a matching leather chair beside her. One wall was filled floor to ceiling with bookshelves. The other wall was taken up by pictures. Behind the desk a large dormer window let in evening light through a row of shrubs.
I studied the pictures from my chair, trying to pick out Keith Locke, but my eyes locked on another face: a broad-shouldered girl in a black bodysuit with a maroon S on her chest, posing with a large red- and white-bladed oar leaning in the crook of her shoulder. I felt a jolt run from the back of my scalp down to my heels, a physical memory of the shock I’d gotten yesterday evening. That was the girl who had Tasered me at the Seward.
I looked at Greta and saw the family resemblance. “You have a daughter at Stanford?”
“I thought you came here to talk about my son.”
&nb
sp; “You must be thrilled. I always wanted to go there. We couldn’t afford it, but the main thing was I couldn’t get in. I had a rough couple of years at the beginning of high school. I did two years at San Francisco City College, then transferred to Berkeley. I was pretty proud of that.”
“Stanford was always Christine’s number one pick. They have a fine women’s crew.”
“Rowing, huh? I was always more partial to cycling. They don’t give scholarships to cyclists, unfortunately.”
“Christine was a merit scholar and the salutatorian of her class at Choate. She is a scholar first and an athlete second. I fully expect her to become a career academic. But I don’t intend to discuss my daughter with you.”
“That’s right. The fact is, I think Keith may be in danger.”
“You mean more than usual?” she asked, making an effort at a smile. It was then I saw something loosen behind her eyes, laying bare years and years of anxious days and sleepless nights. She blinked and it was gone, though her expression didn’t change at all. It was like a person flipping on a light to get her bearings in a darkened room, then turning it off before the light could dazzle her eyes.
“I think so. I need to speak with him. I don’t need to know where he’s been hiding, but I’d like him to give me a call or preferably agree to meet me someplace he considers safe. Like I said, I’m taking over my brother’s practice, and there are a lot of loose ends in Keith’s case.”
“That doesn’t sound like life or death to me, nor like anything that concerns the police.” She waited. She knew there was more. I suppose with Keith there always was. I couldn’t help thinking of the story Jeanie had told me about Keith’s first brush with the law, that oral-cop-on-a-minor charge at the bus stop early Christmas morning. Thinking of that, and of her daughter with the Taser, I felt sorry for Greta.
I got up from my chair and went to the wall of pictures. “If you’re looking for Keith you won’t find him,” she said. “There came a point where I had to take all his pictures down. I keep one in my drawer.” She went behind her desk, took out a silver-framed photograph, and handed it to me. It was a portrait of a young man in a cap and gown, sitting on a grassy lawn in front of a venerable, ivy-covered academic building. “He never actually graduated,” she said. “He had this taken a few months after Choate kicked him out, once it became clear that we couldn’t find another school to accept him. That was fourteen years ago. He still looks just the same, and he doesn’t have a single degree.”
“There’s always the GED.” Keith was tall, probably six three or four, with curly brown hair, a widow’s peak accentuated by the graduation cap, broad cheeks, a wide mouth, and the long fingers of a pianist. He had a face that would nakedly display every change of emotion. Seeing the smirk on it, I understood that this was a man for whom the future and its consequences were trivial things, like debts he had no intention of paying.
“Yes, I hear they can earn degrees in prison now,” Greta said.
“Is that where you think your son belongs? Prison?”
She came back to the couch and sat down. “You said Keith was in danger. If that’s truly the case, I would prefer not to be kept in suspense. If not, I don’t understand your purpose here.”
“My brother may have been shot to send Keith a message.”
“A message. What sort of message?”
“Keep your mouth shut about the dead man you were heaving into a Dumpster. Don’t tell what you know, whatever that may be. Do prison time if you have to. That sort of thing.”
She folded her legs Indian-style and sat looking past me with an unreadable expression. “So you believe someone tried to murder your brother because of my son.”
I hadn’t meant to put it that way, but there it was. “I want the police to find the person who shot Teddy, and to help them I need to give them some details from Keith’s case. Some of the things Keith told my brother are covered by attorney-client privilege, and I’d need Keith’s permission before I could divulge them—before I could do so ethically, anyway. My brother must have some way of reaching him, but he didn’t share it with me.”
“And you think I may have some way of contacting my son. Well, I don’t. It’s been over a year since I’ve seen him. I would probably turn him away if he showed up at the door.”
“Probably?”
She gave a shrug. “He wouldn’t come here. He knows better. He wouldn’t risk running into his father.”
“I guess I was mistaken, then. I figured if anyone would know how to find him, his family would.” I hesitated. “I thought you might be protecting him.”
“I wish I could protect him. I would pay just about anything if someone would tell me where he was. You see, when you called me, I had an idea that you might know.”
“He was making a deal with the DA to provide information about a homicide. Then, just before the shooting, he disappeared. He might be afraid for his life. I think I can tell you that much, if you don’t know it already. But that’s really all I know for sure.”
“Well, I can’t help you with any of that.” She leaned forward. “Maybe you can help me, though. I have to see Keith. I must speak with him.” Her voice wavered, and she tilted her chin defiantly. “I need to touch him, to hold him. He’s my son, my flesh and blood. If he needs help, I need to help him. I can’t bear the idea of Keith going to prison. He wouldn’t be able to bear it, and that means I wouldn’t be able to bear it. If that makes me soft, I’m soft. But no child of mine deserves to be thrown away like some—some unwanted dog.” She was not soft at all. She was as hard and fierce as a mother bear defending her cub.
And yet she kept his picture in a drawer. I handed her the heavy frame, and she immediately laid it facedown on the couch. On balance I couldn’t blame her, though I sensed that a woman of a different class, with less money and less power, would have long since been forced to accept that her son was lost to her. I found that I admired Greta Locke for refusing to accept this fact.
“If Keith becomes my client, I’ll have to abide by his wishes. If he wants to see you, I’ll try to make it happen.”
She jotted a number on a card. “That’s my personal cell phone. If you call the other number, Chloe will answer.”
She rose, and I understood that I was being told to depart. Casually she added, “If you can convince him to see me, I’ll pay you twenty thousand dollars.”
I was floored. “Thanks, but I couldn’t take your money. If Keith wants to pay me for my trouble, that’s different, but I’d be working for him.”
She seemed to take this in stride, obviously not believing that I’d refuse the money when the time came. I wasn’t sure I believed it, either. “Where will you start looking?” she asked.
“I was going to ask you for advice.” The door opened as we reached it.
“I wouldn’t know. Our son has lived his own life for the past fifteen years. Probably nearby, in the city or close to it. Keith always was a homebody. That’s what he hated most about boarding school, being away from San Francisco. Even as a teenager he used to throw tantrums when it was time to head east for the start of term.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have kept sending him.”
Her eyes slid past me and she gave a nod to Chloe.
“See you at the opera,” I said to the closing door.
I followed half a step behind Chloe, trying to think of something to say that might charm her. Voices suddenly filled the hall ahead of us, men’s voices echoing in self-satisfied merriment, women’s voices climbing to that pitch of laughter that fills a high-ceilinged room. Chloe put her hand on my arm, and we waited until they were muffled by a closing door.
“You ought to have been a harbor pilot,” I told Chloe as she released me and we walked on to the foyer.
That earned me a laugh. “Does this look like a harbor to you? This
is the ocean deep, my friend.” She seemed to reach the limit of banter required in the name of professional politeness. “Dr. Locke has asked to see you before you leave.”
“What about his guests?”
Instead of answering she inclined her head toward the door I’d noticed earlier, on the opposite side of the foyer from the hallway to Greta Locke’s office. Chloe led me through it into a dining room with a highly polished table. The table was ringed by high-backed chairs and overhung by a very large cylindrical chandelier glittering with silver and glass. Through another set of double doors to my right I heard voices again. We walked through the dining room and down the back hall past the kitchen. I followed Chloe through a door into a book-lined den, from which another closed door gave onto the room where the party was.
“Dr. Locke will be with you shortly,” she said and shut me in.
Everything was dark leather and heavy shag. The doors were padded on the inside with plush leather. A massive glass-topped desk was empty except for a blotter, a green-shaded brass reading lamp, and a heavy paperweight. One wall held modern medical texts. The other was divided between antique medical treatises and modern literature, hardcovers in pristine condition with dust jackets. They were first editions, I realized, taking one down.
I was still scanning the titles when the door opened and Gerald Locke came in. I dropped my hand reflexively when he entered. “My passion,” he said, then added: “Don’t worry, you can touch them.” He had a broad unhandsome face with a large nose and ears. He shook my hand, pulled down a book, and showed me where a small child had scribbled all over the frontispiece in crayon. “This is a first edition of Frank Norris’s McTeague. See what a patient father I am? In a pristine state this book would be worth nine hundred dollars. I didn’t even raise my voice.”
I could guess which child had done the scribbling. He poured us each a Scotch. The cut-glass tumbler that he handed me must have weighed half a pound. Setting his own drink aside, he perched on the edge of the desk and studied me with a frown.
Bear is Broken Page 12
