by Jack Lynch
She leaned back against the seat, her eyes staring at the roof of the car. “Well, it certainly came back to bother him during the years I knew him. There were nights…” she raised one hand and rubbed at her eyes. “There were nights the only way I could calm him would be to let him suckle like a baby until he fell asleep.”
We were on a curving, twisting section of the road. It was slow going. Erica didn’t speak again for a mile or so. I didn’t have anything to say myself.
“So that was my life with Harry Shank. Once you got used to the nights it wasn’t half bad. He treated me well otherwise. Only he went to seed in a hurry and it used to embarrass the both of us in new groups of people when he had to introduce me as his wife.” She turned to stare out at the night. “And then Harry died, and it’s true I didn’t fall into a state of morbid depression over it. I could barely contain myself at the sense of freedom I felt. I was only scared half to death I would wake up and find Harry there again snoring on the bed beside me. But I was in a state of shock from Buddy’s death. It shouldn’t have surprised me, the way he died. I knew how he made his living. Still, I wasn’t ready for it when it happened. And under the circumstances I couldn’t even talk to anybody about it. Harry made me swear not to tell you or anybody else about that little connection. And so all I could think of the next day was to try to put back together whatever sort of scheme Harry had going. I lied in your office that morning, Peter. Harry didn’t say we could go off to live in Europe once the deal was finished. He said I could go off to Europe, or anywhere else I wanted. Just so long as I would return from time to time to visit with him. He wasn’t totally selfish, after all, and he was realistic enough to know that if he didn’t give me a measure of freedom soon I would take it on my own.
“Then after he died, and after you had left to find Catlin, back out at the beach I learned Harry had been shot, and I’m afraid I just lost my grip on everything. I was scared, Peter. Bryan was there at the time and he offered to take me in. And the reason I decided to go with him was because that soon after Harry’s death, who would ever suspect it? Something that lurid. I didn’t know if my own life was in danger or not. I still don’t. I only know I was terribly frightened, and I wanted to hide!”
I reached across to squeeze her hand a moment. She squeezed back hard and turned to bury her face in my shoulder.
“You do forgive me, don’t you Peter?”
“Stop it, Erica. You’re a grown woman, and you don’t have to ask anybody’s forgiveness for your private life. Least of all mine.”
“But I want it, all the same.”
“Forgiveness isn’t my problem. It’s understanding. I think if it had been anybody other than Gilkerson…But that’s done with now. Let’s put it behind us. Besides, we’ve got more important things to think about. Let’s concentrate on those.”
“Nothing’s more important right now than what you think of me, Peter.”
I wondered if she really expected me to believe that. I just plain didn’t understand the woman. But her followup was good. She nuzzled my neck some and nibbled at my earlobe. She put a hand inside my jacket and started to unbutton my shirt when her knuckle rapped against the automatic in the shoulder holster.
“My God, what’s that?” she asked, sitting up.
“That’s a pistol, and a nice reminder of what we’re doing here. We’ve got to keep our heads straight.”
“Mine’s never been straighter,” she said, leaning back on the seat and resting one hand on my leg. “I’m not going to let you just run off home tonight, Peter. You know that, don’t you?”
“Let’s see how things work out. I haven’t had much time for a private life of my own lately. Do you know where it is we’re going to in Port Costa?”
“I have instructions,” she said, letting go of my leg and reaching into her purse. “May I have the light on, please?”
I turned on the overhead light and she fished out a piece of paper she’d written instructions on. “I think I have it straight.”
“I hope you have it straight. I got lost the last time I tried to find this town.”
Port Costa was little more than a village. It was a few miles west of where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers joined on their way down to San Francisco Bay and the ocean beyond. Years ago it had been a major grain shipping port. The only reminder now of the town’s heyday were fire-blackened piers poking their fingers out of the water where they once supported huge shipping wharves. The county road we were on didn’t drop down into the town itself, but ran along the crest of hills behind the shipping channel. A little road that more resembled the driveway down to somebody’s home branched off and dropped down into the town itself. Port Costa was experiencing a modest renaissance with flea markets and boutiques housed in the old warehouses that used to store wheat from the surrounding countryside. It was the sort of place tourist manuals would call quaint. I successfully found the turnoff this time and was winding down into town when Erica finally got a fix on her directions.
“Oh. I guess it isn’t in the town itself where they live, but up on the bluffs above somewhere.”
“Swell. This is the town we’re coming into now.”
“You’ll have to turn around and go back up to the highway.”
I opened my mouth but then shut it again. I found a driveway where I could turn around and head back out of town.
“Right or left?” I asked when we got back up to the highway.
“We turn right, off Carquinez Drive.”
“You mean they’re on the other side of the road?”
“Oh no, I’m sorry, of course it’s left.”
“But I mean is it east or west of the intersection here?”
“Which is east?”
“Oh God, Erica, you’re not one of those, are you?”
“One of which?”
“People who can’t tell directions. Here, let me look.”
“I’ve never been very good about it,” she admitted, handing me the scrap of paper. “Used to drive poor Harry right up the walls.”
It turned out she also wrote illegibly. “How could anybody read this?”
“Oh here,” she said, taking it back. “You don’t have to make such a fuss. Just let me study it a minute.”
I loosened my tie and opened the window some. It had quit raining again and the air was fresh. Erica giggled on the seat beside me.
“Now what?”
“I can’t make heads or tails of the damn thing. Why don’t we just pull off the road somewhere and neck?”
“Come on, Erica, concentrate. This is important. This is big bucks. Paris in the spring and stuff.”
“Oh, all right. Go back.”
“Go back where?”
“The way we came in. A half mile or so. I’ll try to remember the landmarks he told me about. I wasn’t paying that much attention before.”
We spent another twenty minutes driving up this road and down that road until Erica finally sat up and clapped her hands.
“There, that barn all falling down. He said that was on the road to their place. Two hundred yards farther there will be a water tower on the right. We turn left just after that and we’re practically there. Hurry, Peter, you’ve wasted enough time.”
FOURTEEN
It felt about right, if Bowman and the Duchess lived on the bluffs above town. We continued on and I was relieved to find the water tower and road beyond where she said they’d be. We drove about a quarter mile up the road and it eventually wound around and led us into a sweeping drive approaching one of the biggest private homes I’d ever seen, three stories high.
“This place looks more like an old hotel. You sure it’s right?”
“Positive. It’s just like he described, complete with turrets and chimneys.”
“These people look as if they already have enough money.”
“They don’t. Harry said the property taxes are killing them.”
I went around and opened the car door for her
and we crossed the drive. I hardly had my finger off the doorbell before the door was opened by young Brandi, wearing a pretty blue cotton dress and white flats. She was beaming when she swung open the door but that faded quickly when she saw Erica.
“Hello, Brandi, I don’t know if you’ve met Mrs. Shank. She’s the widow of the man who was out in the Pacific with your father and Mr. Bowman. And her brother…”
“I know who she is,” the girl said coldly. “You can hang your duds over there,” she told us, nodding toward a row of wooden pegs along the wall.
I helped Erica out of her coat while Brandi closed the door. Gretchen Zane came sweeping into the entrance hall like a battle cruiser, wearing a high-necked, ice blue hostess gown of silk that nicely complemented her silver hair piled high on her head. She wore only one piece of jewelry, a wide choker around her neck studded with what looked like enough diamonds to buy downtown Port Costa.
“Mr. Bragg, how nice to see you again, and you must be Erica Shank. I’m Gretchen Zane, but you can call me either Gretchen or Duchess, whichever comes easier for you.”
“Gretchen will be fine, and call me Erica, please.”
“I’m charmed, my dear,” gushed the Duchess while I tried to hang our coats, and Brandi stood by the door glowering. One of the wooden pegs came out when I tried to put my coat on it. “Let me take you into the study to meet Edward. Brandi, you show Mr. Bragg the way, please.”
They went down the passageway. I tried to screw the peg back in. I finally put it aside and used another.
“Well, Brandi, that’s a pretty outfit you have on…Okay, kid, what’s eating you?”
“Her.” She almost hissed it.
“Mrs. Shank? You must have known she was coming.”
“Yes. What I didn’t know is that she’d be coming with you.”
She went past me like it was my job to go back outside and put away the horses or something. I finally got the coats hung and trailed after her to a large book-lined room with tired-looking leather furniture, a globe of the world, forest green carpets and rifles and pistols and swords on the walls. Over the fireplace was a rifle that looked big enough for giants to use. Beneath it stood Edward Bowman, wearing a white dinner jacket faded with age, and yellow slacks. He had a poker in his hand and was taking desultory jabs at a fading fire. He looked like he was in a cranky mood of his own, while Erica and the Duchess chattered like birds in the center of the room and Brandi took up an angry post in one corner. The Duchess took Erica to a large sofa and asked me to join them. I sat on the other side of Erica at a proper distance while Bowman gave up on the fire, muttering to himself and turning his back on the smoking embers.
“You’re late,” he complained, not looking at anyone.
“Sorry,” I told him. “It was hard to see in the rain and it turns out Mrs. Shank is a little dizzy when it comes to remembering directions. We spent a while whistling around the countryside.”
I had hoped by calling her Mrs. Shank to take some of the sting out of Brandi’s resentment. But then Erica fixed things just fine by laughing a little too gaily and reaching out to put one hand on my knee.
“It is my fault, I’m afraid, Mr. Bowman. But Peter was a dear about it.”
I cleared my throat and removed her hand from my knee. Brandi rolled her eyes and went over to fuss with the fire. She got it going with three pokes and threw on another piece of wood.
“Brandi’s father is late as well,” Bowman complained. “I wanted to retire early and read this evening.”
“Don’t fume,” Brandi told him. “Mum always said he was a little tardy.”
“Where is your father?” I asked.
“He wanted to look up an old chum who moved to San Francisco years ago. A Jack somebody. He sells imported beer.”
“You’ve talked to your father?”
“Yes. He phoned this afternoon.”
“When did he get in, do you know?”
“He didn’t say. Why?”
“No reason. I just like to keep track of people.”
She gave me a funny look. I got up to look around at the walls some. “Quite a weapons collection.”
“Should have seen it before I talked her into selling off some of it,” Bowman grumbled. “Like living in a museum.”
“These aren’t yours then?”
“Not on your life. It’s Gretchen’s lifelong passion. Guns and battle and war. Not to mention an occasional soldier and sailor. And it’s very dangerous for the most part. The guns shoot and the blades cut.”
“What’s the big fellow over the fireplace?” I asked the Duchess.
“Isn’t that a honey?” she replied. “It’s a four-bore rifle used by the Belgian Army in eighteen seventy-six to silence artillery gun crews. I fired it once. Couldn’t hear for a week afterward.”
I smiled and looked around some more. “This place looks more like a country inn than a residence, Duchess. How many rooms does it have?”
“Twenty-four, but we’ve closed off the upper floors. Too much to dust and fuss with.”
“Was it always a private home?”
“Yes, my grandfather built it. He owned most of this hillside when Port Costa was a thriving wheat terminal. He expected the rich would eventually want to settle on estates up here. But the town never developed the way he expected it to. Once other parts of the country had killed off sufficient numbers of Indians for them to plow and plant the land the bottom fell out of the California wheat market and my grandfather’s dreams for the hillside as well. But he had other investments, and would love to throw huge parties for people he would invite over from San Francisco. It was a long journey in those days and he wanted room enough for them to spend the night.”
There was a loud rapping from the front of the house.
“That must be your father, Brandi,” said the Duchess. “Go let him in, will you?”
The girl went down the hall and I followed, just in case it was somebody other than her father. She heard me and turned to wait for me.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Making sure it’s who it’s supposed to be.”
“You’re worried about me, then?”
“I’m worried about all of us.”
She shook her head. “You’re an odd one.”
“Why’s that?”
“Letting that Shank woman grope you one minute then playing Mother Goose over me the next.”
“Funny as it might sound I’m just trying to do my job, Brandi. I can’t always control what others might do. Mrs. Shank and I have known each other for years. What do you have against her anyway? You hardly know her.”
“She’s a witch, that’s what. I know she is. I can feel it in my bones. And you’d best beware of her.”
There was a sound from outside like somebody crumpling against the front door, followed by voices.
“Wait here,” I told the girl. I went to the door and unlatched it, then had to exert a bit of pressure to keep it from sweeping me to one side.
“Ho, there, Jack, easy now, boy.”
The speaker I recognized as Malcolm Battersea from the photo out at Stinson Beach. His face was dark and lined, and he wore a mustache, but he was the same spindly legged fellow from the Pacific war, now wearing a raincoat. He was trying to support a man nearly twice his size, large of girth with a flushed face. He had a mustache too, a large, flowing thing. He was the man who’d been leaning against the door, and now he nearly sagged to his knees.
“Hello, Dad,” said Brandi from just in back of me.
The little man’s face broke into a wide grin. He let go his companion and stepped quickly across the threshhold to embrace his daughter. I had to grab his friend’s arm to support him. He smelled as if he’d been drinking for a couple of days, but he still was articulate.
“Oh, thanks there, mate. Feel a bit storm-tossed, I do.”
I eased him in and over to a straight-backed chair to one side. He settled into it heavily. He leaned a little,
but stayed put.
Brandi introduced me to her father and he in turn introduced the man in the chair.
“Jack Watson, a dear friend from the old days back home. Haven’t seen the man in years. Spent an afternoon, we did. He offered to give me a lift out, but by the time we were ready to come he couldn’t drive. So I drove and we spent a while trying to find the place. Thought I’d bring him in for a cup of something warm.”
The man started to tilt dangerously. I propped him up again.
“There, Jack, how is it now?” asked Battersea.
Jack mumbled something, then began to sing something I didn’t recognize.
“He’s been away from home for too long,” said Battersea. “Can’t drink any longer.”
“I’ll get him some coffee,” said Brandi. “Come along, Dad, and greet the others. Peter, don’t just stand there propping him up like that.”
“But he might fall.”
“Whoosh,” said Battersea with a little wave of his hand. “Won’t be the first time. He’s hardy enough to take a little tumble. Come along, man.”
I followed them back down to where the others were. Battersea and Bowman shook hands warmly. The Australian took off his coat and was introduced to Gretchen Zane and Erica, while Brandi poured a mug of coffee from a pot on a sideboard and carried it down the hall. During a pause in the conversation Malcolm Battersea turned toward me.
“Mr. Bragg, Brandi says you’ve been an immense help with things. Been knocked about some, even.”
“It’s what I do for a living. That happens, sometimes.”
“You’re a bit older than I imagined, from the glowing way my daughter spoke of you.”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. He grinned and gave me a friendly poke on the arm. “Don’t mind me. She’s got her own life to lead.”
Erica was staring at me with a curious expression.
