She looked up as the Brain Farm erupted into shouts. Their discovery that the pickup truck that had killed Calvin had been reported stolen from an Oakland store owner two days before the mechanic’s death had apparently sent them into a rant about the disproportionate arrests of young African American men and how politicians blamed it on poor moral values of the community instead of on their own policies, which denied these young males equal education and good jobs.
Aloa sighed. The problem with loneliness was that when you fought against it by inviting people to your house, you often realized it was actually quiet that you liked.
She turned her attention to finding the man named Archie whom T.J. had mentioned. Two hours later, she had two possibilities: a cameraman on one of the military shows named Archer Prescott, who could barely afford his child support payments let alone a private jet, and a former bandmate of Tremblay’s named Pat Archibald, who’d become a songwriter for a rather famous country singer until he plowed his car into a bridge abutment three years ago. His wife blamed the music industry for her husband’s problems with drugs and alcohol.
Not the right Archie either. She set aside her laptop.
She’d just come back from a trip to the bathroom when she heard a knock at the door, followed by Doc’s voice.
“Michael Collins in the house,” he exclaimed.
Aloa’s heart gave a quick skip.
She ran her hands through her hair, fingernailed a bit of dried soup from her T-shirt, and took a calming breath. She came out to find Michael standing in her living room with the Brain Farm pumping his hand and slapping him on the back. Their eyes caught.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he said back. “Sorry to just show up, but I wanted to finish our talk. I called but you didn’t answer.”
Aloa had seen the three missed calls earlier but had ignored them.
“Sit down, Mike. Take a load off.” Tick gestured toward the couch. “Wine?”
“I can’t stay long,” he said. “Can I have a moment, ’Lo?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Alone?”
“How about if we go out to the porch?”
Disappointment registered on the Brain Farm’s faces.
“I’ll be back in a minute, guys,” she said, and stepped outside, Michael following. Lights shining from a multitude of windows created a Klimt-like portrait of the city.
Michael leaned against the railing. “So you know how I feel about you continuing with this story.”
“I’m not quitting,” she started to say.
“I hear you loud and clear,” he said. “But can you humor me and tell me what you’ve found so far? I’d feel better if I knew what we were dealing with.”
“I guess that’s fair,” Aloa said.
By the time she’d finished, Michael was frowning and had his arms crossed over his chest. “What the hell did we dig up?” he said.
“I don’t know, but there’s something going on, something that isn’t as simple as a woman committing suicide.”
“Any ideas what?”
Aloa shook her head. “I still have a lot of work to do.”
He looked out toward the bay. “And you won’t quit, even if I ask nicely?”
A faint smile. “I don’t think so, no.”
“You always were stubborn.”
“You used to call it tenacity.”
“How about if I ask Vincent to stay here with you for a while, then?”
“I’m not a two-year-old.”
“I didn’t say that. I’d just feel better if he was around.”
“I can handle myself, Michael. I’ve done stories way more dangerous than this. I spent six months in Juárez, for Chrissake. They had twenty murders a day there,” she said. “I know how to take care of myself. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
“You can’t control everything, you know that.”
“I’ll tell you what, Michael, if anything gets weird, I’ll lift my little petticoats and come running so you can save me.”
“’Lo, don’t,” he started, but before he could say more, Doc opened the door. “We found something, Ink. Something we don’t like.”
Aloa threw Michael a glance and went inside to find Tick frowning at the computer screen.
“What did I tell you about being careful, Ink?” he said. “It looks like you’ve got a stalker.”
Aloa wrinkled her forehead and went to stand behind Tick.
“I found this on the cloud,” he said, tapping the screen. “Lists about where you went and how long it took, with threatening notes like, ‘What are you waiting for?’” Tick pulled off his glasses. “Looks like you tried to delete them but they’re still here, see?”
Heat flushed Aloa’s face. She glanced at Michael, who was watching her intently.
“That’s a workout app, Tick. I had to install it on my phone to get a discount for my health insurance. I just haven’t deleted it yet.”
“But it tracked you yesterday—” Tick began.
Aloa interrupted. “Say, did I tell you I found out where Hayley’s ex-roommate went?”
CHAPTER 27
The call Aloa made the next day to Samantha Foster at Wind River cattle ranch was short and hardly sweet. Samantha apparently didn’t like being found, and liked even less that Aloa was a reporter doing a story on Hayley Poole.
“Like I told the cop, she was acting weird,” Samantha said after Aloa gave her name and said T.J. had been the one who tipped her off to Samantha’s new home.
“Weird how?” Aloa asked.
“Like all paranoid and stuff.”
“Do you know why?”
“Let me get out my psychology book. Um, here it is, maybe because her boyfriend got killed?”
It took every trick Aloa knew—not reacting to sarcasm, direct but simple questions, the repeated use of “uh-huh” and “sure” to indicate understanding—before she got what she wanted.
A week or so before Ethan died, a letter arrived from Africa containing a flash drive and, no, Samantha didn’t know what was on it, although Hayley had made an offhand reference to a book project, which Samantha guessed was about this tribe in Africa that had found the secret to long life. She’d overheard Ethan and Hayley whispering about it one day.
Exactly what T.J. had described.
Then Ethan died and Hayley’s subsequent drinking had caused Samantha to wonder about the state of her roommate’s liver. Hayley had gotten into a bar fight. One night, she had broken into Tremblay’s office, where she was found drunk and asleep in his chair, a discovery that brought on an abbreviated stint in rehab, which was followed by sobriety, a return to training, and hours in front of her laptop. Doors were closed, hushed conversations were held on the phone, and a stack of papers was locked in a trunk. Paranoia had risen, arguments between roommates had occurred, and Hayley moved out.
“She didn’t even tell me she was going,” Samantha complained. “Left a bed and a bunch of stuff for me to get rid of.”
A week later a guy claiming to be a lawyer from RedHawk had showed up asking for everything Ethan had left behind, including computers, videos, and notes. He told Samantha if she didn’t cooperate, she could be jailed for theft of corporate property, and that whatever Ethan had produced from the Africa trip belonged to RedHawk and Hank Tremblay. Samantha told him to get the hell out of her apartment. Next, a formal-looking letter arrived that said her name would be turned over to the San Francisco district attorney for prosecution of grand theft, larceny, and accessory to burglary unless she called a certain number to resolve the issue of the missing computer and notes.
“Do you still have the letter?” Aloa asked.
“Are you kidding?” Samantha said. “I threw it in the trash, took my dog, and got the hell out of there. I’m not into prison, and besides, I didn’t have what they wanted.”
Now, as Aloa walked toward Nob Hill, she wondered why Tremblay had wanted the manuscript so badly. Did the story of a l
ong-lived African tribe have anything to do with the wonder drink he bragged about?
Above her, the sky sparkled with sunlight. Around her, the neighborhood spoke of the wealth that had built this city: the railroad barons, the bankers, and those who pulled gold and silver from the ground.
She passed the venerable Fairmont Hotel, the gray splendor of Grace Cathedral with its gilded bronze doors, and continued on to the apartment building where Tremblay made his home.
Aloa came through the building’s twin doors into a lobby that looked like Louis XIV on steroids. Huge gilded chairs sat on shiny, marble floors. Chandeliers waterfalled light, and gold pillars held up a two-story ceiling while two full-size palms stood sentinel next to a set of mirrored elevator doors. Nearby was a reception desk behind which sat a doorman—a detail that the description Aloa had read of the twenty-unit building had failed to mention.
“Can I help you?” the doorman asked.
He had a moustache, a wedding band that cut tightly into the flesh of his ring finger, and a belly that spoke of big home-cooked meals. His nametag announced him as “Tony H.”
Aloa did a quick reshuffle of her plan. “Hi, I’m looking for Hank Tremblay. He lives here, right?” she said, and gave him a smile that she hoped spoke of innocence and honest intentions.
“I’m sorry. We can’t give out the name of our tenants,” the doorman said.
His own face hinted at sincerity and also curiosity as to why a woman in Timberlands and spiked hair was asking about Hank Tremblay.
“Is he a friend of yours?” Tony H. asked.
“I met him once. I’m not sure I’m in the right tax bracket to be a friend,” Aloa said.
Tony H. lifted his chin in homage to a fellow working stiff. “You and me both,” he said.
Aloa saw her opening. “He’s kind of different, right?” she said, allowing the question to be whatever Tony H. wanted it to be.
The doorman leaned forward. “Last Christmas, instead of a bonus, he gives us all a case of some kind of muscle powder. Tasted nasty. Then, the guy starts bragging how he’s giving all this money to put solar in some hospital in Africa. What about us? What about Americans who can’t afford to go to the hospital?”
“I hear you,” Aloa said.
“Plus, he’s always telling us how we should lose some weight.”
“It’s called fat shaming,” Aloa said.
“Hey, that’s a good word,” Tony H. said.
“Let me ask you this: Have you heard anything about Hank Tremblay having money troubles?”
Tony H. considered the question. “Not really. He’s always bragging about how his company is gonna wipe out all the competition. But like I said, he’s cheap when it comes to people who work for him, guys like me. Is that why you’re here?”
Aloa sidestepped the inquiry. “What about other tenants? He have problems with them?”
“A few noise complaints. Mrs. Sullivan next door to him went to the super about him and some woman making a ruckus.” He winked. “A little too much enthusiasm in the bed, if you know what I mean.”
Aloa suppressed a mental retch.
“Any interesting friends? Guys coming here who don’t look like they fit?” She nodded her head in the direction of the marble and gold leaf.
“There was a couple of guys that came by a few weeks ago. Tony Soprano types.”
Aloa had just opened her mouth to ask another question when the phone on the reception desk rang.
“Speak of the devil,” Tony H. said, and picked up the receiver. “Yes, Mr. Tremblay.” He listened for a moment. “Sure. I remembered. Your car is out front, waiting for you.” He hung up. “He’s headed for the elevator.”
Aloa glanced out the lobby doors, not sure she wanted Tremblay to know she’d come to his apartment building asking questions, but what she saw made escape impossible.
Coming up to the front doors was a man she recognized: the rude real estate agent, Baldy. In a city of 864,000 people, she thought, what are the odds?
She knew if she tried to leave, Baldy would corral her and then Tremblay would want to know why she was in his apartment building.
“Is there someplace I can duck into? Hank might not be too happy to see me, if you know what I mean.” Aloa made a face as if to confirm every negative word Tony had uttered about Tremblay.
“Sure thing,” the doorman said, and tugged open a discreet handle set in the wall behind him just as the elevator dinged to announce the arrival of its cage at the lobby.
Aloa darted into what turned out to be a small supply closet filled with old mops, buckets, and a damp pile of rags. It smelled of mildew with a faint undertone of vomit. So much for the glamorous life of a journalist. She opened the door a crack.
“Good afternoon, sir,” she heard Tony H. say.
“Hey there, Mr. T. How’s it going, man?” Tremblay’s voice had that false bonhomie the rich used in an effort to erase the class differences between them and their servants, even though it usually had the opposite effect.
“Good, sir. And how is your day?” Tony was moving away from the station and toward the front doors.
“Not bad,” Tremblay said. “You know: people to see and places to go.” He pointed a finger at Tony’s ample girth. “Looks like you’re not doing those exercises I told you about. Nine minutes a day. That’s all you need.”
“I’ll get right on them, sir.”
Aloa guessed Tremblay couldn’t hear the undercurrent of dislike in Tony H.’s words.
At the sound of the front doors opening, Aloa pressed her eye to the door crack but all she could see was a sliver of golden pillar. She held her breath, prayed no one would turn to look back at the doorman’s desk, and pushed the closet door open a couple of inches.
“Right on time,” Baldy said to Hank Tremblay as Tony H. swung open the door to admit him.
Baldy and Tremblay knew each other?
“I hope this won’t take long,” Tremblay said.
Baldy clapped a hand on Tremblay’s shoulder. “It’ll be quick, I promise.”
“I thought we’d taken care of this,” Tremblay said, petulance creeping into his voice.
“Just a small snag, Boots. I can call you that, right?”
Tremblay shook off Baldy’s hand as they walked through the front door. “No, you can’t.”
“Enjoy the day, gentlemen,” Tony H. called after them.
CHAPTER 28
The detective called right as Aloa threw herself back in her desk chair with a curse. Energized by the discovery that the missing witness Boots was actually Hank Tremblay, she’d done a vehicle search the minute she’d gotten home. There was a Tesla sedan, a brand-new Escalade, and a BMW convertible under Tremblay’s name along with two Mercedes vans registered to RedHawk—but not a single motorcycle on the list. He didn’t even have a motorcycle license.
When the phone rang, she barked, “Snow here.”
The caller identified himself as Rick Quinn with the Major Crimes Unit of the San Francisco PD and asked if she minded coming down to his office. He wanted to follow up on some of the statements she’d given to his partner at Calvin’s shop.
“What did you find?” she asked, pushing herself up from her desk.
“We’re looking at every plausible alternative,” Quinn replied.
“Which means you’re suspicious. I was a crime reporter. I speak cop.” She dropped the name of the homicide detective she’d dated for eight months in LA, although she didn’t mention the exact nature of their relationship. Law enforcement was a secret society where you needed a reference to even peek through the clubhouse doors.
“I guess you could say there are a few things that don’t add up,” Quinn said. “I’m here until eight if you want to stop by.”
He had a nice voice, an absence of the macho blustering some of the old-school officers carried, and she was curious to know what he knew.
Two hours later, she was dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt, and her leather ja
cket and seated in a hard chair next to Quinn’s desk. He was well groomed with studious hazel eyes, enough muscle to let you know he worked out but wasn’t a fanatic about it, and a platinum wedding band on his left hand.
He offered her coffee, which she declined.
“Good choice. That stuff will kill you,” he said.
He shifted through a few papers and got down to business.
“I don’t normally do this, but Colm told me you were OK,” he said. Colm was the detective whose name she’d mentioned, and “OK” was high praise in the language of detectives.
“He’s closed more homicides than the rest of the LAPD combined,” she said.
“Which is why I’m going to tell you that I don’t think Mr. Rabren’s death was accidental,” he said.
Aloa nodded.
“Tell me why you agree.”
He is good, Aloa thought. She told him about the wheel chocks, the missing knife, and about the disorder in what had been a meticulous shop.
“What about you? Why do you think Calvin’s death wasn’t an accident?”
He said the extent of the mechanic’s injuries seemed to indicate the truck had been driven, not rolled, into the victim. He picked up a piece of paper. “Your witness statement said you came to see Mr. Rabren because you’re doing a story on a former neighbor, Hayley Poole.” He looked up at her. “Miss Poole is dead, a suicide, apparently.”
“That’s right.” She waited.
He raised his eyebrows. “So is there a reason I should be wondering why two people in the same building are dead?”
There was always an uneasy dance between law enforcement and reporters. On one hand, each could be of benefit to the other. On the other hand, distrust was the hallmark of both professions.
“Let me ask you this,” Aloa said. “Did the surveillance tapes show who drove the truck that killed Calvin?”
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