Coming Back

by Marcia Muller

  “Uh-huh.” He slid his hand over and touched her arm. She didn’t seem to notice.

  “What we were doing seemed so cosmic then, but it wasn’t really. Poverty law. Helping those who couldn’t help themselves.” She snorted. “Sliding-scale fees. Cheap divorces. Tenant-landlord disputes. Child support settlements. And I bet half the clients faked their financial status in order to take advantage of our services. What a crock.”

  Throwing away the good things in her past. Damn!

  Ted said, “No it wasn’t. We helped a lot of people. Some of them wouldn’t have survived without our efforts. Remember Bobby Foster?” A kid whom Shar had saved from the gas chamber. “After he was released from prison he went back to school, eventually became a teacher.”

  “True, but still we were such innocents, thinking we could save the world. And then all that changed.”

  “The world changed.”

  “Yes, drastically. There was a shift in values, and along with the rest of the country, we got cynical and materialistic. Those slick new lawyers that we hired toward the end usurped the firm and ended up taking it downtown. Before that we were so… in it together. We lived each other’s dreams, fought each other’s battles. Now it’s as if we don’t have any dreams, and we’re all separate, alone.”

  “No, that’s not true. Look how this agency has pulled together to find Adah. Look how we pulled together to find out who shot you.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem. Since I recovered I feel as if I’m trapped inside a bubble. I don’t belong here anymore. I look out of the bubble, but I can’t connect with anyone or anything. Not even Hy.”

  “You’re connecting with me now.”

  “Everybody connects with the Grand Poobah.” She smiled weakly. “But maybe that disconnect is why I didn’t really think of Adah yesterday. If I had, it would’ve made all the difference.”

  He clasped her arm more tightly. “You admitted to making an error in judgment. Who hasn’t?”

  “I make a lot of those lately, Ted. There’re times when I just… stall. I lose myself in memories of all that lost time. I still have flashbacks to the shooting.”

  “It’s all natural.”

  “I know that; my neurosurgeon tells me that. But it’s hard to explain, and people around here are starting to think I’m losing it. I’ve become a liability, and maybe I ought to take myself out of the game.”

  “Or take yourself back in.”

  She looked into his eyes, nodded and swallowed as if she were digesting the comment. Then she stood, picked up her briefcase from the table. “I’m going to catch some sleep.”

  “And after that?”

  “I don’t know what I’ll do next.”

  CRAIG MORLAND

  There was an air mattress stashed in the conference room closet and, after he’d called another two contacts, Craig set it up and tried to nap. There wasn’t anything he could do to help Adah till it was time to canvass the neighbors on Tenth Avenue, and he wouldn’t be much good at that unless he rested.

  But he couldn’t tune out the ugly pictures in his mind. Adah being overpowered by some shadowy person. Adah confined to that little storage locker. Adah being loaded into some sort of vehicle and taken away. Adah—

  Don’t go there.

  Finally he got up and drove over to an all-night coffee shop on Judah, on the corner of Ninth Avenue. Sat in a window booth and nursed a cup of what must have been the last of yesterday’s brew. The sky was dawn-gray and lights were coming on in nearby windows. He’d give it another half hour or so before ringing doorbells.

  He watched a streetcar rumble by, going west toward the beach, totally empty. Another one passed going inbound, only a couple of passengers’ heads visible. When you wanted to ride one of the things they were always jam-packed, but when you didn’t…

  In spite of the delays Shar kept on riding the Muni. She’d ridden the same line out here yesterday morning, gotten off at the stop outside, gone to that building, called Adah, and then left her to face whatever was going on there alone. He knew it was irrational to feel so angry with Shar; she’d had faith in Adah’s ability to fend for herself. Probably he would’ve done the same. And, yes, she’d made a mistake in not calling him when she didn’t hear from Adah, but again it was because of that belief in Adah’s self-sufficiency.

  The very fact that Adah hadn’t coped with the situation made it even more serious.

  The day was brightening now. Going to be cold and clear again. A woman in a wheelchair rolled up to the building on the opposite corner and waited for an automatic door to open. A man with a gym bag appeared, limping, and went in behind her. Craig narrowed his eyes and read the discreet letters on the facade: ALTA VISTA REHABILITATION. The place where Shar and Piper Quinn went.

  “More coffee?”

  He looked around. She was a different waitress from the one who had served him when he’d come in: fresh-faced, almost pretty, her uniform clean and crisp. The shifts must’ve changed while he sat there.

  “Yes, please.” There were no other customers in the shop. “May I talk with you before the morning rush starts?”

  She smiled. “Morning rush? The only customers we get in here are what I call the Septuagenarians’ Social Club. Nine o’clock’s early for them. Tell you what, I’ll join you.” She filled his cup, went back to the counter, and returned with one of her own.

  This coffee was freshly brewed, much better. He smiled in appreciation, slid his card across the table. The waitress’s eyes widened as she looked at it, but she made no comment.

  Craig said, “I’m interested in a woman who may have come in here occasionally. In her late twenties, long blonde hair, walks with difficulty. She attends therapy sessions at the place on the other corner.”

  “I know her. Piper, I think her name is. Comes in sometimes with a friend, older than her, black spiky hair with a white streak. What’s she done?”

  “Piper? Nothing. I’m trying to locate her for a relative.”

  “Well, she lives in the neighborhood. The other one doesn’t; she’s always waiting for the streetcar. Are you sure this Piper hasn’t done something?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Another guy was in here yesterday afternoon around two o’clock, asking about her too. Said he was her brother, but I don’t know…. He looked kind of rough, not at all like he’d be related to her.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  She sipped her coffee, closed her eyes. “Dark brown medium-length hair, full dark brown beard. Wraparound sunglasses that he never took off. About six feet, slender, but muscled like he works out a lot. Dressed all in black. Oh—and he had a small crescent-shaped scar on his right cheek. Looked like an old one.”

  Craig had had extensive experience with witnesses who embroidered on what they’d actually seen, but to him this sounded like the real thing.

  “You’re very observant,” he said.

  “I’m an artist in my spare time—portraits, mainly.”

  “Could you do a sketch of him for me? I’d pay you.”

  “Pay for my work? It’d be the first time anybody has.”

  “A hundred dollars?”

  “Wow. More than enough. I can have it for you this evening.”

  She wrote her name—Roxanne Cramer—and number on a napkin and passed it to him.

  Time to canvass. Craig stood, dropped bills on the table for the coffee.

  As an afterthought, he asked, “Did you tell the guy about the other woman who comes in with Piper?”

  “Yeah, he wanted to know about her friends, in case he couldn’t find her. I told him what the friend looked like and that I thought her name was Sharon. Suggested he ask at the rehab place.”

  Where, according to Shar, they weren’t forthcoming with patient information. Thank God.

  SHARON McCONE

  I felt useless, so I left a message for Craig, saying I would help canvass Piper’s neighbors. Then I started ringing doorbells at the hous
e directly across from Piper’s building. When no one answered, I proceeded south.

  A twenty-ish woman in a dark blue suit: “I remember seeing a blonde woman in a wheelchair, but I can’t say what building she lives in.”

  A disembodied voice behind a door: “Go away. I don’t open up for strangers.”

  A grumpy-looking man in a paisley bathrobe, coming outside to get his paper: “For Christ’s sake, lady, it’s seven-thirty in the morning.”

  A distraught young mother with a screaming infant: “Does it look like this is a good time?”

  A thirties-ish man with punked-up hair, seemingly stoned: “I been playing this club all night. Leave me alone.”

  Slamming doors and no answers. A couple of kids nearly knocking me over as they lurched outside under the burden of heavy backpacks.

  Standard abuse for my profession.

  A friendly, plump woman in her forties, hands dusted with flour: “I’ve said hello to that girl passing on the street. As far as I know, the second floor of that building’s occupied—I’ve seen lights. But they’ve been trying to rent the top unit for months. I thought somebody might be moving in over the weekend. A van was pulled up there on Saturday…. It was white, no name on it or anything…. No, I didn’t notice the license plate.”

  The cleanup crew, no doubt.

  More door slamming. More lack of response to buzzers. I went back and started working my way north.

  Detached house with a good view of Piper’s apartment house. A slender, slightly balding man in sweats, leaning on a cane. I’d seen him at the rehab center. “Oh, you’re Piper’s friend,” he said. “Come in. I’m Perry Lennon.”

  He led me to a living room that was cluttered with books and DVDs and CDs. Shoved a load of them off an armchair and motioned for me to sit. “I’m worried about her,” he said before I could speak.

  “Why?”

  “She hasn’t been to rehab for well over a week. And she moved out of the building on Saturday. At least I think she did, because a van was there for a long time. And her wheelchair ramp is gone.” He paused, looking sheepish. “We weren’t friends, not like the two of you, but I liked her and kind of looked out for her. If she was planning to move, she would’ve said good-bye.”

  “When she didn’t come to rehab, did you check up on her?”

  “No. If she thought I was… well, monitoring her activities, she would’ve been furious with me.”

  Stalker, or a man with an unrequited crush? I suspected the latter.

  “I did try to walk past there, late last night after eleven,” he added. “I’m an insomniac. My back—I injured it a year ago in a skiing accident—gives me a lot of pain, but I have to be careful with the meds because I have an addictive personality. So sometimes I go out for fresh air.”

  “You say you tried to walk past?”

  “That’s right. I was on the sidewalk in front and I thought I’d look down the alley, see if Piper’s lights were on out back. But then the garage door went up and this van—a small one, not like the moving truck, with its windows all covered—backed out of there, going fast. I had to jump aside and almost fell down.” His nostrils flared in outrage.

  “What color van?”

  “Gray.”

  “And the windows were covered with what?”

  “It looked like sheets, ordinary white sheets.”

  “You notice the make or model?”

  “An Econoline, at least five years old.”

  To my surprised look he added, “I’ve got a photographic memory. Details don’t stay with me as long as they did when I was younger, but this was only yesterday.”

  “I don’t suppose you remember the license plate number?”

  “Of course I do—4XAS560.”

  CRAIG MORLAND

  The woman at the first house he tried told him to get fucked.

  The man at the second place threatened to call the cops.

  A kid in a ground-floor apartment stuck out his tongue and gave him the finger. Another good reason not to have kids.

  Although he and Adah had talked about getting married, they both were skeptical about having a family. They knew some delightful children, but being around Patrick’s boys had made them wary of procreating. Patrick had two: Rocky and Roscoe, he called them, but they were only nicknames. Their real names were Evan and Curtis. They called him Rex. The three Rs, Patrick explained, was their way of bonding after his ugly custody battle with their mother. Maybe it was the upheaval of that year but, damn, those kids were contentious.

  Craig kept canvassing. He wished his credentials brought him the instant, wary cooperation that his FBI shield had. Most people didn’t even look at the card he presented. Others stared at it in weary bewilderment. It was too early to talk, they said. How could he expect them to remember anything at this hour?

  But the time he had left to find Adah was running out.

  A few of the neighbors knew Piper. Two had seen the cleanup van at the building on Saturday. One had seen a jogger—female—going in and out the past week or so. Another said a big bald man lived on the second floor, but he must’ve moved out because a moving van had been there sometime on the weekend. Everyone who saw the van agreed it was white, except for one woman who thought it might’ve been brown or gray or maybe beige….

  At the far north end of the block he struck pay dirt of a sort. A man remembered seeing Adah’s car parked across the street, slightly overhanging a driveway entrance on Monday afternoon. That evening it had been towed away, probably at the request of the residents whose access it had been infringing on.

  Craig went back to his van and from his laptop accessed the number of the towing service the city contracted with. When he called, he found they didn’t have the two-year-old white Prius. A private contractor, then, but there were dozens, so he called the office and asked Mick to check.

  Back on the street. A few more buildings, but no results. Then again pay dirt: a man with a cane, name of Perry Lennon. He not only knew Piper from rehab, but also said Shar had been there questioning him.

  The woman was finally getting her act together.

  “How long ago was she here, Mr. Lennon?”

  “Half an hour, tops.”

  And she’d gotten the jump on him.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “The license plate number of a van I saw leaving Piper’s building late last night.”

  By now, Craig thought as he got back into his SUV, Shar would have run the plate number through her contact at the DMV and be chasing down its owner. DMV information, while not so tightly guarded as Social Security numbers, was hard to get unless you knew someone who had legitimate access to the information, or someone who worked there, as Shar did. He himself had never developed a relationship with anyone at the DMV, relying on either her or Adah to get him what he needed.

  He tried Shar’s cell. Busy. Damn, he’d’ve liked to get in on this with her, but she was a good investigator and had half an hour’s head start. Better for him to keep on canvassing.

  SHARON McCONE

  I walked from the streetcar stop toward the pier, then stood on the sidewalk breathing the cold, briny air. The day was winter clear, the kind that brings objects in the distance into sharp relief. I went to the chain-link fence between the pier and the fireboat station and looked across the water at the East Bay: I could see the buildings of downtown Oakland and houses high in the hills; for a change there was no smog or haze.

  I’d lived in Berkeley for four and a half years while earning my BA in sociology. The degree had turned out to be useless in the job market of that time, but I was proud of it; my diploma hung on the wall of my office, along with citations and awards I’d never dreamed I would earn. I seldom returned to Berkeley, though, except to visit my half sister, Robin Blackhawk, who was attending law school there; she and I had become close after I discovered I was adopted and had a whole second family. But Berkeley’s culture had changed, and my old friends were scattered.
There were some things I missed: Telegraph Avenue and Cody’s Bookstore; lazy afternoons at the Bier Garten; the quiet of the library and the noisiness at Sather Gate. But Cody’s and the Garten were gone now, I had no need of the library, and if I walked by the gate or through campus I felt melancholy because my old haunts were now peopled by strangers….

  My phone rang. My contact at the DMV, calling with the information on the old van that had nearly run Perry Lennon over while backing out of the garage of Piper’s building on Monday night. It was registered to a J. T. Verke, with an address in Cupertino, south in Silicon Valley.

  My often-battered spirits soared, then just as quickly fell. I couldn’t drive. How the hell was I going to get down to the South Bay and run a surveillance?

  Then I recalled a conversation I’d had with my teenaged neighbor, Michelle Curley, last evening when I returned home and found her slumped despondently on my front steps. Despondence wasn’t normal for Chelle: she had a cheerful, tough, in-your-face approach to life that complemented her spiky varicolored hair, multiple piercings, and tattoos. She’d graduated six months early from high school, and was taking business administration classes at SF State at night, waitressing by day, and saving her money to purchase dilapidated residential property to rehab and resell. I was certain she’d be a real-estate mogul by twenty-five, if not sooner.

  “Mom told me about Allie,” she said. In addition to her other enterprises, she house- and cat-sat for us, and loved the animals as much as we did.

  I went up the steps and sat down beside her.

  “I’m so sorry,” she added.

  “Thank you. She hadn’t been doing well since Ralph died.”

  “I know.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be waitressing or at class?”

  She slumped even more. “No class till seven. And my job got outsourced—to the owner’s new slut. Just when I had almost enough money to buy that shack on Chenery Street. I could still swing it with help from my dad, but I don’t want to ask him. I really want to do it on my own.”