I pulled out a wooden box containing a particularly nice set of specimens from the freezer, laid out my mounting supplies, and set the sausage-and-onion pizza on the massive oak table that pretty much filled what might’ve been intended as a living room had I worried about such things. I suppose it’s where I did most of my living in the house, with wooden cabinets to store my collection along one wall, and glass-topped boxes displaying my best material—and some of the beauties my father had brought back from the Pacific—mounted on the opposite wall above a bookcase of field guides. A battered recliner and a television completed the furnishings. The worktable faced a picture window that looked out onto the street. I could see some teenagers huddled under a streetlight, jostling one another, trying to look cool, and probably figuring out if they had enough money among them to get into trouble with a case of beer.
To round out my Friday night, I poured a glass of Black Bush—an excellent everyday whiskey that didn’t dig too deep into my pocketbook—and put on the Pastoral Symphony. The music was the perfect antidote to the ugliness of the preceding days. Bruno Walter’s conducting of Beethoven’s Sixth was just the right background for pinning a series of gorgeous leaf beetles. As I pulled back each layer of cotton batting, I savored the spectacularly metallic insects. They were the treasure from a collecting trip that I’d taken to Mexico in June, when San Francisco was blanketed in fog and business had slowed. Writing the details of the collecting label for each specimen with a fine-tipped pen took me back to sunny days on the Yucatán. The jangling of the phone broke my reverie.
“Riley here,” I answered with some annoyance.
“Oh, Mr. Riley, I finally reached you. This is Laurie Odum.” She sounded just short of desperate.
“What’s the problem?”
“It’s Maria’s little girl, Marissa.”
“She’s sicker than her mother thought, eh?” I wanted to say “than you thought” but resisted, which was good.
“Riley, she’s dead.”
“Shit,” I mumbled half to myself. I’d taken a liking to the spunky kid. “What happened?”
“Maria called me and said that when she got home, Marissa was all twitchy and had problems breathing. So she took her to the hospital.”
“Which one?”
“Does it matter?”
“It could.” I was already trying to put this piece into the puzzle, although I didn’t know whether or how it would fit.
“Highland Hospital. But it doesn’t matter because they couldn’t save her. This is just too much. I don’t know what to think anymore. Could this be related to Paul’s death?”
“Listen Laurie, your job is to take care of yourself. You’re paying me to do the thinking. Don’t go playing detective. Just tell me anything more that you learn.”
“Okay, Riley.” She paused. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be scared, just be careful. Keep your windows and doors locked, and don’t go hiring a replacement if Maria can’t work for a while. Until I say otherwise, I want you to stay home and keep a low profile.”
“What do you think happened to Marissa?”
“I don’t know, but I have a first-rate contact who might shed some light on this. Now pour yourself a drink, watch a late movie, and go to bed. There’s nothing you can do.”
She thanked me and hung up. I pushed down the button on the phone cradle and called Information. In less than a minute, I’d lied to the hospital switchboard about being a doctor and managed to connect with the emergency room at Highland Hospital. I explained that I was looking for Beth Gilbert. I had to repeat myself to be heard over the wailing siren and shouting in the background. The ambiance of Friday night in Oakland. The harried nurse said that Beth was too busy to take a call and that she’d be back on duty Sunday night. I thanked her and went back to my pinning and labeling. But I couldn’t concentrate, and I didn’t want to damage the specimens.
I turned off the pair of high-intensity lights on my worktable and put the remaining insects back in the freezer and the leftover pizza in the fridge. Beethoven’s Sixth was down to the final movement, so I settled into the motley recliner and nursed the last of my drink. Beth and I had had some great times together in my earlier life. She’d been my nurse in the ER when I came in with my nose splattered across my cheek. I told her that I’d been handsome up until that night, and she laughed. The Columbia Symphony’s rendition of the allegretto stirred a memory of happiness that we’d shared for a while.
She was a good woman, tender and strong. But relationships between cops and nurses are about as stable as fire and gunpowder. We’d given it a good run, but we had too much in common. When both halves of a couple come together at the end of the day to tell their own stories of human suffering and inhuman brutality, there’s nobody to listen. It helps if somebody in a relationship is sane. Or at least lives in a sane part of the world.
She was good at her job at San Francisco General, and I knew she’d gotten a plum offer from Highland Hospital. Nursing supervisor, or head nurse, or something like that. Highland was in a gritty part of Oakland, surrounded by working-class neighborhoods—not the best setting but far from the worst. She told me that the pay was great and the cases were “challenging,” by which she meant lots of gunshot victims and other people clinging to life. Her move had put an end to a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere. She’d sent me a sweet note when the Jamal thing was going down, but we hadn’t talked for years.
It’d be good to see her again, although the circumstances didn’t hold much promise of rekindling anything. I was more interested in finding some answers to a kid’s death than seeking romance. At least Saturday had potential to lift my spirits before diving back into the grime. Tomorrow was my day with Tommy.
CHAPTER 18
After a paczki and cup of muddy coffee at Gustaw’s, I drove over to my mother’s to pick up Tommy. She was out in front, tending her flowers. Ever since I was a kid she’d had the most glorious garden in the neighborhood. The little patches of soil on either side of the steps leading up to the porch couldn’t have been more than a hundred square feet, but they produced like a tropical paradise for her—much to the envy of the other ladies and to my mother’s secret delight.
“Tommy was up before sunrise,” she reported, looking up from thinning her bulbs. She’d once told me that growing plants in San Francisco was easy; the hard part was deciding what to yank up to keep a garden from becoming a jungle. “It’s what you don’t let grow that makes a garden,” she’d said. My mother had on a well-worn flannel shirt that had been my father’s, and a pair of baggy jeans—a fashion that caught me by surprise every time. Working in the garden was the only time she didn’t wear a dress.
“By the time I came down, he’d had his oatmeal, cleaned up his dishes, dressed for your outing, packed his things, and was at the door,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. Saturdays were our “expedition days” and collecting insects was Tommy’s favorite outing. He was sitting in the entryway with all of his insect-collecting gear in a backpack.
“Just a bit excited, eh sport?” I asked, and he nodded vigorously. My mother had brushed the dirt off her hands—she rejected garden gloves, saying that she wanted to feel God’s good earth—and followed me inside. As we gathered up Tommy’s supplies, she emerged from the kitchen.
“I packed you two a lunch,” she said, handing me a basket of food that would’ve fed us for the week.
“Thanks Mom. Now, you have a good day and don’t worry about us. I’ll bring him back after dinner.” If things went as usual, she’d spend the morning tending her plants and grocery shopping, and devote the afternoon to a long visit with Mrs. Flannigan to catch up on all the church news of who was sick, who had started dying her hair, and who had been added to the sacristy committee.
The September sky was piercingly blue and the air was crisp. Autumn is the best time in San Francisco, squeezed between the summer fog and the winter gloom. Golden Gate Park was humming with act
ivity. The emaciated joggers were apparently succeeding in not enjoying themselves, while the beer-bellied softball players were evidently having a grand time. The healthy-and-miserable types reminded me of devout churchgoers.
Tommy and I strolled down to Metson Lake, where he carefully laid out his gear: illustrated field guide, magnifying glass, collecting net, forceps, and pill bottles for specimens. Being away from the ballfields and playgrounds, we managed to find a bit of solitude. I preferred to collect in more distant and natural settings, but Tommy wasn’t keen on taking long drives. He spent a frenetic hour swinging his net along the lake in unrelenting pursuit of dragonflies and damselflies. I stretched out on the grass, closed my eyes, and soaked up the sun. The ground held on to the chill of the night, which perfectly balanced the slow roasting of my face. When he managed to snag an insect, he raced to me so I could put it in the killing jar.
“I like catching insects, Riley.”
“You’re really good at it, Tommy.”
“No I’m not. You can catch them better than me.” It was true, he’d only netted two specimens in an hour of mad dashing that made the joggers look sluggish by comparison. But he never complained about the hand he’d been dealt.
“Maybe I do, but you have more heart. And that’s what counts. Hey, this green darner is gorgeous,” I said, slipping the insect from his net into the cyanide-charged container.
“I don’t like this part,” he said, screwing up his face and then turning away from the insect flapping furiously in the jar.
“That’s okay, pal. It kills them quickly and they don’t feel much. Remember, we’ve talked about this. Everything dies. And most insects just rot away, but we preserve their beauty in our collection.”
He nodded slowly. “So, killing the darner is a good thing?”
“Well, it can be if we do a nice job of pinning the ones we collect.” The knowledge that good can come from killing is the reality understood by all exterminators, including soldiers and cops. The tree huggers and peaceniks are free to protest because others do the dirty work. But I didn’t want to confuse Tommy with all of this.
He took a brief look at the insect thrashing in the jar. “I know, but I don’t like to watch them get all twitchy.”
Twitchy? That was how Maria had described Marissa’s symptoms to Laurie Odum. What had been a serene morning plunged back into a bout of sifting through conversations and events over the last couple of days. My grim silence disturbed Tommy.
“What’s wrong, Riley?”
“Nothing. I was just thinking. Are you worn out or are you up for some more collecting?”
“I want to catch some more. But I want to find some butterflies.” We’d passed some flower beds on our way to the lake. The day had warmed enough that some late-season butterflies might be working the blossoms.
“All right, I think you might have some luck back toward the picnic area and the redwood trees. Butterflies love the sunny spots.” I pointed back toward where we’d crossed earlier.
“I’ll try over by the crillies,” he declared.
“Where?”
“The crillies,” he insisted, pointing toward a stretch of ferns interspersed with gaudy flowers atop tall stalks. We’d attended a walking tour led by a naturalist a couple weeks earlier, so I knew what he meant.
“The crinum lilies, pal. You almost had it.”
“I hate getting words wrong,” he grumbled in one of his rare moments of frustration. I knew better than to dwell on his mistake.
“Do you want me to come along with you?”
“No. I can do it myself,” he announced, recovering quickly from his irritation. “Mom said I can do things if I’m careful.”
“Fair enough, champ. But the deal is that you can’t cross any streets. Understand?” We were in a section of the park bordered by Middle Drive and Metson Road, and both could be busy on the weekend.
“I won’t cross any roads. I promise.”
“Then it’s a deal. I’m going to take a little walk. I’ll circle back and find you in about an hour.”
“How long is that?”
“About as long as you spent chasing dragonflies.”
“Dragonflies and damselflies,” he insisted. The kid knew his insects. Tommy stuffed his supplies into the backpack and lurched his way across the grass. I walked in the other direction, across the polo field and toward the police stables. There, I found Sergeant Ulatowski, an old buddy from the force who was spending his pre-retirement years in his version of police heaven. The sergeant had soured on what he called “street scum,” but the man adored horses. He was fond of saying that “shoveling manure beats chasing thugs or pushing papers.”
Just before noon, I headed back to find Tommy. The strip of land where he was supposed to be was only about a hundred by five hundred yards. Even with the trees and bushes, it should’ve been easy to pick out Tommy in his orange-and-black Giants sweatshirt.
I was starting to feel a twinge of anxiety when I was relieved to see his backpack outside the public restroom. He hated the dirtiness of the dimly lit facilities and he treasured his collecting gear, so I understood why the backpack was left next to the doorway. When I walked into the dank building, it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. It was almost enough time for the punks to adopt nonchalant postures of feigned innocence. But I could see that Tommy was backed into a corner and looked terrified.
“What’s going on here?”
“They’re being mean,” he stammered. The biggest of the three, in his late teens and wearing a denim jacket, stepped toward me.
“Probably best to mind your own business,” he sneered. The other two were more my size. One of them slouched against the opening of a stall and the other followed behind his leader.
“I am minding my business. He’s my business.” I nodded toward Tommy. “Now why don’t you find some other way to occupy your Saturday?” Tommy had started to cry and the guy at the stall was mocking him by rubbing his eyes.
“Look, old man, we’re just playing with the retard. But if you want to give us a little exercise, we’ll be happy to rearrange your face.” He stepped forward and pushed me in the chest. I stepped back and gave him one more chance.
“I don’t want to ruin anybody’s weekend. So if you leave now, we can all go back to enjoying ourselves.” I stepped to the side as if to allow him and the others to get to the door. My real intent was to keep the big guy between me and his buddies. If things went bad, I wanted to give myself the chance to take them one at a time in the cramped space.
“I guess you don’t want to do this the easy way,” the head punk snarled and lifted his hands to deliver another push. I figured it was coming, knowing that this was just the sort of intimidation that bullies used to screw up their courage and impress groupies. As he leaned toward me, I caught him with a hard right to the solar plexus. He gasped and crumpled to his knees, which gave me access to his buddy. I needed to put him away quickly in case the third guy decided to go after Tommy.
Stepping around his indisposed pal, the guy threw a roundhouse left, which surprised me, although I shouldn’t have supposed he was right-handed. I was a bit slow and it glanced off the top of my head as I ducked. But from my crouch, I had great leverage to throw a hard left hook into his exposed ribs. I was glad it was a body shot, as hitting him in the head would’ve really hurt. Me, that is. Dislocating that ring finger is unpleasant, but less painful than what he had coming. I felt a crunch as a couple of ribs gave way and a pop as my finger slid out of joint and then back into place. I figured he’d be out of commission, but I drove a right into his belly just to be sure. I considered doing some damage to his face. Although he was plenty deserving, it meant risking my hands. And I wasn’t keen on not being able to work with my insect collection for a couple of weeks just for the satisfaction of rearranging this jerk’s features.
The first guy had struggled to his feet, but he was still doubled up. A sharp knee sent him toppling backward. Tommy whimp
ered as blood gushed from the guy’s nose. I stepped forward to put myself between Tommy and the last guy, but I needn’t have worried. Having less fight or more brains than his buddies, the guy bolted past me and out the door. I might’ve punished the two guys on the floor, but I figured they hurt enough for my purposes. I know about busted noses and cracked ribs. They’d sustained enough damage to remember the consequences of picking on the weak, but not so much as to clog up the ER with their sorry asses.
Tommy was sobbing by now, asking if the bad guys were going to die. He wanted to call a doctor, but I convinced him they’d be okay. I knew that Tommy was enormously sensitive, but with him being trapped in the corner there was no way to spare him the violence. We went back to my house, and spent the afternoon working on the collection and listening to my assortment of Mozart’s piano sonatas, violin concertos, and flute quartets.
I ordered takeout Chinese and we kept going through dinner, only pausing long enough to take a bite of egg roll or sweet-and-sour pork, which were Tommy’s favorites. He can work for hours when Mozart is on the stereo, and I had quite a backlog of specimens in the freezer. It’s amazing that the kid struggles so hard to walk and only by sheer persistence manages to net the occasional insect, but he can put an insect pin through a flea beetle. According to my mother we should thank God that Tommy survived and has retained at least some of his abilities. But if God’s calling all the shots, I can’t figure out why He decided to screw up the kid in the first place. Just so we could be grateful that things hadn’t turned out worse? Seems perverse to me.
CHAPTER 19
I picked up the Sunday Chronicle and walked down to Gustaw’s. The sun was shining on Potrero Hill and illuminating the tops of skyscrapers down in the city. Ludwika cut an enormous slice of babka for me. The chocolaty cake went perfectly with my morning coffee. The sports page announced that Notre Dame had beaten Purdue 23-0. Seems that God was a Catholic after all. But it was hard to square a football victory with a little girl’s body in the morgue. I knew that the clock was ticking on my deal with Laurie Odum, and I was frustrated that there wasn’t anything I could do about it until this evening. My mood was becoming as black as Gustaw’s coffee.
Poisoned Justice Page 11
