Bad Scene

by Max Tomlinson

  This was going to be work.

  After many hours in the air, they disembarked the 747, with their shared fabric carry bag from the overhead compartment, clothes and toiletries picked up in Quito. Colleen’s backpack was on a hill somewhere outside Verligting; Pamela had left her things behind as well.

  As they walked up the jetway, Colleen searched Pamela’s face for a trace of a smile. Nothing. Too tired, she told herself.

  But inside, Colleen was ecstatic. For all they had been through and all the work that lay ahead, her daughter was alive. And they were reunited, in a sense, although that might be pushing things.

  And then Colleen saw the newspaper headline, at a stand by the main terminal:

  MOSCONE, MILK SLAIN

  DAN WHITE IS HELD

  Colleen stopped, mouth agape. The mayor—assassinated. As Lucky had predicted.

  One of the city supervisors had been shot, too.

  But the man being held for the murders was not the supervisor Lucky had warned her about—Jordan Kray. But another one.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, reopened them.

  The headlines hadn’t changed.

  They’d been after the wrong man.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The news left a ringing in Colleen’s ears as she stood at the newsstand in SFO. Overhead announcements echoed. Travelers click-clacked through the terminal.

  “Is everything okay?” Pamela asked. She wore a simple loose light-blue floral dress, picked up in the market in Quito, and flip-flops. Her pretty red hair had been washed and brushed and, although she was exhausted, the puffiness around her eyes was hidden by large, round sunglasses. Color had returned to her face. She had been sleeping and, although not eating much, thanks to a stomach bug picked up in South America, Colleen was elated with the improvement she saw. The longer she could provide a normal environment for her daughter, the better.

  All in good time.

  “The news …” Colleen said, gesturing at the Chronicle headline. She had put the case behind her. It was SFPD’s now.

  Pamela read the headline.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “Wow, is right,” Colleen said, not too astonished at her daughter’s lack of concern after everything she’d been through. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

  She reached out to take Pamela’s hand.

  “It’s not home,” Pamela said quietly, and not offering her hand.

  Colleen caught her daughter’s look of admonishment. “It’s just a figure of speech, Pamela,” she said, suppressing a sigh. “What I meant was, let’s go back to my place. Get you settled, get you some rest.” She raised her eyebrows. “Sound okay?”

  Pamela frowned, nodded. “Okay.”

  “Okay, then.” Colleen let her hand drop. Don’t push. You’re here to repair the damage done, not vindicate yourself as a mother.

  It was late evening by the time the Yellow cab dropped them off on Vermont Street. Once upstairs, Pamela immediately ran to the bathroom where she slammed the door and threw up in noisy gasps. What the hell had she picked up?

  Pam didn’t think she could stomach soup. Colleen found a bottle of Seven Up in the fridge. She fixed Pam a glass. Pam downed it, handed it back.

  “I’ll pick up some Pepto-Bismol later,” Colleen said, “and whatever else might help settle your stomach.”

  “Ice cream.”

  “Rocky Road,” Colleen said with a little smile, remembering Pam’s childhood favorite.

  “No. Just vanilla.”

  “Right,” Colleen said. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”

  Pam didn’t seem dissatisfied with the arrangements in the spare room until she saw her old photo in a silver frame on the bedside table. It was a picture of Pam in better days, younger days, before her Goth phase, a young teen with freckles and a rare smile.

  “Really?” she said, eyeing Colleen harshly.

  Colleen went over to the bedside table, picked the picture up, tucked it under her arm. “Sorry. I’ve just always loved that picture.” It had brought her much comfort in Denver Women’s Correctional Facility. If Pam didn’t want it, she’d keep it by her bed.

  “I just don’t want to be crowded,” Pamela said.

  “Got it,” Colleen said, chiding herself. “I’ll let you get some rest. I’m in my office. Shout if you need anything. I’ll run to the store later.”

  “Okay.”

  Okay. By now, Colleen wasn’t expecting a thank you. She left Pam to sleep and went into her office. Whatever anguish she was experiencing over Pam, bottom line, her daughter was home—yes, home—and safe. For the moment. She would look into counseling, whatever it would take for Pam to come back from the nightmare of Die Kerk, but for the time being, baby steps.

  And she had that damn Mayor Moscone shooting plaguing her again.

  At her desk she lit up the first cigarette in over a week, savored the nicotine rush, sat back, wondering what to do next. Wet fog ran down the window. Out there was a city in disarray, with a dead mayor, and a supervisor being held for his murder.

  Lucky’s accusation that Shuggy and his biker cronies had discussed Supervisor Jordan Kray shooting the mayor had kicked all of this off. But Supervisor Dan White was the shooter.

  What had happened there?

  She told herself to let it go, focus on Pam. Sergeant Dwight was handling the case. She’d been instructed to back off.

  But Lucky had died for this. And so had the mayor and another supervisor, Harvey Milk.

  Lucky had been right to a point. So this whole thing seemed to circle back to Shuggy Johnston.

  She tapped ash. Shuggy had some sort of connection with Pamela, back during her Moon Ranch days, when she apparently delivered acid for them, not that long ago. It only seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Colleen couldn’t exactly ask Pamela right now, sleeping off Montezuma’s Revenge, serious jet lag, and a trip to South America with a suicide cult. The two of them were barely on speaking terms to begin with. Pam might be asleep in the next room, but she was a thousand miles away.

  Colleen called her answering service.

  Two messages from Alex, worried sick about her and Pamela. Alex knew the reason for Colleen’s trip to Ecuador. Colleen would call her back at a decent hour.

  And one from Sergeant Dwight. But nothing from Inspector Owens, who’d been AWOL for some time now.

  Sergeant Dwight wanted to talk to her ASAP. He’d left two numbers.

  Even though it was late, she called Matt Dwight at the first number, which she recognized as the home number he’d jotted down on the back of his business card when he first stopped by. No answer. He was most likely working the Mayor Moscone shooting. She called the second number.

  But before anyone could answer, Colleen’s doorbell rang. She hung up the phone, went over to the front window, looked down onto Vermont Street.

  A boxy beige Ford sedan sat double-parked. An unmarked police car.

  Maybe it was Matt Dwight. It would make sense he’d want to talk to her with the immediacy of the shooting.

  She went to the front door, hit the intercom.

  The voice did not belong to Sergeant Dwight.

  “This is Inspector Ryan—SFPD Special Operations. We need to talk to you.”

  An inspector. From the same department Sergeant Dwight reported to. Were SFPD sending in a bigger gun? Since there had been a mistake in the tip? Under the circumstances, she could see it. She buzzed them in, went to quickly check on Pamela. Pam was out like a light, head under the covers. Sleep—the best medicine. Put that damned death church into the past, get over that bug. Colleen pulled the bedroom door gently shut.

  Back at the front door, she waited while two pair of feet trudged up the stairs.

  Two men appeared.

  One was a big, weary-looking, middle-aged man with a five o’clock shadow and a shaggy head of hair, weeks past a haircut, wearing orthopedic shoes and a roomy shapeless tan sport coat with sleeves that were too long. Loo
king like Fred Flintstone with a mean streak. He was followed by a short wiry bald guy in rimless glasses.

  The big man showed his badge. Inspector Ryan.

  She stood back, invited them in. “I ask that you guys try to keep it down. My daughter’s asleep. We just got back from a trip and she’s picked up some kind of stomach bug.”

  Ryan unveiled a fleshy grimace. “That won’t be a problem—because you’re coming with us.”

  Colleen’s heart started. She had been the one to bring the matter to SFPD’s attention to begin with. Now they wanted her downtown. With Lucky’s information only partially right, maybe they were suspicious.

  “Why can’t we talk here?” she said.

  “Because this is a murder investigation,” Ryan said. “Now, is that okay with you or should we come back at a more opportune time?” The sarcasm was thick.

  So it was going to be like that.

  “Why didn’t you just say that instead of walking up two flights of stairs?” she said with an edge. The trip hadn’t been easy on him.

  “Because we had to make sure you wouldn’t decide not to come with us.” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Do you want to be?” Inspector Ryan didn’t like being questioned.

  “If you say I’m not, I’m going to hold you to it. So is my lawyer.”

  “To hell with your lawyer. The mayor’s been shot.”

  “And where are we going exactly?”

  Ryan didn’t like that either.

  “850,” he said.

  850 Bryant. Hall of Justice. “How long will I be?”

  “That depends on how forthcoming you are. If this is any indication, it could be a while.”

  “I’m going to get my jacket and leave my daughter a note so she knows where I am.”

  “Hey, take your time,” he said mockingly. “We’ll wait.”

  Colleen scribbled a note for Pamela, while she grabbed the wall phone, shut the kitchen door, called her lawyer. She tucked the note under the sugar bowl and positioned it on the corner of the kitchen counter. Late at night, Gus Pedersen didn’t answer. She left a quiet message for Gus on his answering machine, the latest of technical gadgets, and told him when and where she was going and why. She mentioned the inspector’s name. Gus knew her situation calling the anonymous tip line and talking to Sergeant Dwight. “I don’t like the way this is shaping up,” she said softly into the machine. Being an ex-felon, the police tended to think of you in one way.

  Inspector Ryan scowled at her on the way out the door.

  If there was one thing Colleen disliked, it was riding in the back of a police car. She was taken back to that night in West Denver, 1967, when she called DPD after she buried a screwdriver in her husband’s neck and watched him die on the kitchen floor. Afterwards she called her mother to come over and pick up Pam, who was eight at the time, and when that was done, she called the police and turned herself in. Served close to ten years of a fourteen-year sentence.

  And here she was again, trying to take care of Pam, being carted off by the police.

  They drove in silence for a couple of blocks, the little man at the wheel peering over the top of it.

  “What’s the latest in the mayor’s assassination?” Colleen asked as they bounced over the pothole she always avoided. “And the supervisor—Harvey Milk?”

  The two cops looked at each other but said nothing. The silence was deafening. She realized it was also part of the treatment.

  Then, she noticed they turned right on Potrero, rather than left.

  “I thought you said ‘850,’” she said, as they headed south.

  No answer.

  Her heart thrummed. But they were playing her. The trick was to stay cool.

  They bounced down Potrero onto 101 South, picking up speed, getting off shortly at Alemany Boulevard. The farmers market was nothing but desolate concrete stalls, shut for the night, next to a grim section of public housing. All jammed by the freeway at the bottom of the hill. Not the San Francisco in the postcards.

  They pulled into the farmers market. Not many vehicles, and most of them not anything anyone would care about. The little man drove them to the very back of the lot, into the shadows of a fishmonger’s truck. He stopped, set the brake, shut off the ignition.

  The door locks clicked shut.

  Colleen wasn’t going to rattle, but her heart was thumping nicely. They were a long way from people who would give a damn about the police roughing up a suspect.

  “Anyone bring a deck of cards?” she said.

  No answer.

  Inspector Ryan turned in the front passenger seat to Colleen, his arm over the back. With his bulk it was an effort for him. Even so, he was intimidating in the semi-darkness, his heavy face jowled with antagonism.

  “Why did you tell Sergeant Dwight that Jordan Kray was gonna be the shooter?” he said.

  So that’s what this was about. “Because that’s what I heard.”

  “From who?”

  “Herman Waddell.”

  “Where can we find this Herman Waddell?”

  “The morgue—if he hasn’t received a county burial.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “That’s generally how you get to the morgue,” she said.

  Ryan smirked. “So why didn’t you tell Dwight about Herman Waddell?”

  She actually had. Maybe Matt didn’t write it down. Respectful of her concern for Lucky’s privacy perhaps. “My client was worried his real name might get him in trouble.” As it turned out, for good reason.

  “That wasn’t your call.”

  “Client privilege,” she said. “He was staying in a flop hotel in a room next door to the characters originally throwing Jordan Kray’s name around.” She told Ryan about Shuggy and his two biker friends. “You really need to talk to Dwight,” she said. It was Dwight’s investigation. She wasn’t going to get Matt into trouble, Ryan being a superior. “The same people are the ones who beat Luck to death.”

  “Luck?” Ryan said.

  “Herman Waddell.”

  Ryan nodded; his bottom lip pursed. “How did this Shuggy and his friends get Jordan Kray’s name?”

  “Good question. You should ask him. I was instructed to stay away from the case.”

  “How many times have you met with Sergeant Dwight?”

  They could find that out. But again, Dwight might have had a reason to keep things confidential. Maybe he didn’t trust them. She certainly didn’t. And they didn’t seem to trust him either. Dwight might be under the microscope for appearing to drop the ball on the mayor shooting.

  “I met him twice,” Colleen said. “Once when he came by my place, introduced himself. Again at a bar where we touched base.”

  “And how did you come by Dwight in the first place?”

  She told him about calling the anonymous tip line, then calling Inspector Owens.

  “Why Owens?”

  “I know him. I wanted to make sure it got looked into. I wasn’t convinced the anonymous tip would be acted upon.”

  “Why?”

  She weighed her words. “Because SFPD doesn’t always have the most stellar image of following through.”

  The little guy gave a quiet harrumph and shot her an accusing look in the rearview mirror. Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “What else?”

  She told him about the neo-Nazi Klan party, Dr. Lange and Doris Pender.

  “So you went to this Klan thing, even after you were told to stay off the case?”

  “Lucky died on my watch. I wanted to find his killer. At the event, one of Shuggy’s buddies pretty much said they did it—the little troll who calls himself Ace. Plus, I’m not crazy about Nazis and Klansmen in general—especially when they want to shoot the mayor. Call me sentimental.” She wasn’t going to share her concern about Pam and Shuggy. Pam was her business.

  With some effort, Ryan dug out a business card. “If Dwight contacts you again, you call me right away. Got that?”


  She took the card. They didn’t trust Dwight.

  “Lucky’s information was close,” she said. “Maybe the shooter and whoever he’s connected with are smarter than we thought. Used Jordan Kray’s name as an alternative when they really meant the real shooter—Dan White.”

  “Maybe you think too much,” Ryan said.

  “Maybe you’re not thinking enough,” she said. “Focusing on one of your own instead of the shooter.”

  “Right now, we’re focusing on you. And information you sat on.”

  “I was told to stay off the case. I’ve been out of the country.”

  “We don’t have to go easy on you, you know.”

  “What are you going to do—beat me up, leave me in some godforsaken parking lot by the projects? You could barely get up the stairs to my flat.”

  “We know all about you,” Ryan said quietly. “Murdered your ex. We know your type.”

  A shudder went through Colleen. They were making this personal. But it wouldn’t do to appear intimidated. “An ex-cop shoots the mayor and you guys spend your time harassing the citizen who tried to warn you. Why don’t you find the people who did this? You can start with Shuggy Johnston and his pals. I think you’ll find they’re the ones who killed Lucky, too. Maybe it will lead to Dr. Lange. If you need any more help, let me know.” She reached for the car door handle.

  The door was locked. More pressure. Her pulse tightened.

  “Let me out,” she said.

  “You get out when we say you do.”

  “I called my lawyer right before we left the house. Told him where I was going, who I was with. You said 850 Bryant. But you drove me down here instead. If I’m not home soon, safe and sound, he’s going to file a complaint with SFPD Internal Affairs.”

  “Bullshit.”

  She shrugged. “Go ahead—call my bluff. I can sure use the money.”

  Ryan’s eyes became narrow slits. He gave an irritated sigh, nodded at his partner. The little guy hit a button.

  With relief, she opened the door. Got out.

  Ryan said, “Best watch your step, bitch.”

  She leaned down, looked into the car.