Christ.
It was like walking into a prison cell. First impression, and one that stayed with me the entire time I was there. Twelve-by-fourteen box, bare wood floor, walls bare except for two small glass-framed hangings. The simulated oak desk and battered swivel chair he’d bought when we first became partners. But the rest of his old office furniture — two clumsy file cabinets made of particle board, typewriter and typewriter stand, an old-fashioned porcelain water cooler — was missing. In one corner stood a stubby, cheap-looking, two-drawer metal file case, and on a pair of pull-out desk boards on either side of the chair were a computer and a printer. That was all. The office was completely empty otherwise.
I open my own agency, I’m my own boss. Angry words flung at me not long before he ended the partnership. Prove to you and everybody else my way’s just as good as yours, maybe better.
His way. This way.
For no particular reason I went and looked at the wall hangings first. One was his investigator’s certificate, issued by the State Board of Licenses; the other was a twelve-by-fifteen photograph of him and a dozen other cops in uniform at some sort of SFPD function. The photo was so old and so badly framed that it had begun to yellow and buckle at the edges. It wasn’t familiar to me and there was nothing on it to identify when or where it had been taken. I wondered where it had come from, but not why he’d hung it here. Reality and illusion were difficult to separate now, but one thing I did know for sure about Eberhardt: The only thing he’d ever wanted to be was a cop and the only period in his life he’d been truly happy was during his time on the force.
I turned to the file cabinet. The cooking odors from the tacqueria were almost as strong up here, wafting through the floor, but they no longer made me hungry; now there was a faint sick feeling in my belly. I took a couple of deep breaths, kept on breathing through my mouth as I poked through the two drawers. One held paper files: hard-copy printouts of reports and research data, copies of invoices, business correspondence, paid bills, bank statements, and cancelled checks. It was only about three-quarters full. The other drawer contained computer diskettes, each one labeled. I left both drawers open and moved to the desk.
Its scarred top held nothing more than a rack with three of the stubby briar pipes he’d favored, a humidor, and a combination telephone and answering machine, the inexpensive kind made by Radio Shack. The computer and printer were both Tandys, also of Radio Shack manufacture. The message light on the answering machine blinked steadily; I punched the rewind and then the play button. Four messages, none more recent than the Friday before his death — three from Barney Rivera, saying only his name and “Call me” on the first two, and “Come on, Eb, we need to talk” on the last; and the fourth from PG&E’s billing department, reminding Mr. Eberhardt that he had not paid his March statement and that his electricity would be shut off if he didn’t bring his account current by the tenth of May.
I opened the kneehole drawer. Envelopes, a thin stack of contract forms similar to the kind I used, pens and paper clips and a book of stamps, and a thin file folder marked CURRENT and containing a couple of pieces of stationery headed “O’Hanlon Bros., Distributors.” Left-side drawers: unused diskettes, paper for the printer, a small carton of white plastic garbage bags. The bags puzzled me for a few seconds, until I realized there would be no janitorial service in a building like this and Eberhardt would have had to bus his own trash. Top right-side drawer: address book and appointment calendar. I took those out, set them on the desktop. Lower right-hand drawer—
A fifth of Four Roses, half empty, and two dirty glasses.
It was such a cliché — bottle of bourbon in the bottom drawer of the private eye’s desk — that it might’ve been funny in different circumstances. Not here, not in these circumstances. So Eberhardt hadn’t confined his boozing to home or neighborhood saloons; he’d been drinking on the job, too. But there was no surprise in the discovery. If I’d thought about it hard enough, I could’ve guessed it would be like this, just like this.
Nothing more for me here. Time to get the hell out, away from the crisping tortillas and frying chorizo, away from the miasma of decay that seemed to emanate like an invisible gas from the walls and floor and ceiling. I stuffed all the paper files and used diskettes into one of the garbage bags, added the address book and appointment calendar. I would go through the files later, with Kerry’s help in screening the diskettes on her PC, and then I’d destroy everything to ensure confidentiality to Eberhardt’s clients. The rest of the items in the office could go to Goodwill or the Salvation Army or one of the Mission’s ethnic charities. Cliff Hoyt could take care of arranging that, or hire somebody to do it. Once I walked out of this cell, I would never come back.
But before I did that I stood in the doorway and took one last look at the place where Eberhardt had spent most of his days over the past four years. And I wondered if Barney Rivera or Bobbie Jean or anyone other than Eberhardt had set foot in here before tonight, or if he’d spent all those long days and maybe a few nights sitting here alone, drinking Four Roses and waiting for the phone to ring. And wondering that, I could feel his pain the way I’d felt Ira Erskine’s on Monday. Feel it and understand a little more clearly why he’d decided dying was preferable to living.
“Now this is interesting,” Kerry said when I walked into the condo. “A full garbage bag in one hand and a jug of wine in the other. What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion. No connection either. I went to Eberhardt’s office; this one bag is what I came away with. I’ll sort through it tomorrow, the next day — not tonight.”
“And the wine?”
I explained about that.
She said, “It looks expensive.”
“Nope. Moderately priced.”
Kerry took a closer look, and I was glad I’d peeled off the price tag. “Estate-bottled zinfandel? It must’ve cost at least fifteen dollars.”
“Nothing’s too good for you, my sweet. I’ll have you know this was Gourmet magazine’s pick of the month not long ago. Supple, texturally distinctive, assertive. Firm tannic structures, too.”
She gave me one of her looks.
“Besides,” I said, “by drinking the entire bottle before dinner you can get a nice buzz on. You and me together.”
“Must’ve been bad at Eberhardt’s office.”
“Bad enough. Shall we open the wine and let it assert itself?”
“I’ll get the corkscrew,” she said.
6
The Alexander Valley is a nearly two-hour drive northeast of San Francisco, some distance above its more famous neighbors, the Napa and Sonoma valleys. Twenty-four miles long, gradually broadening toward its southern end, it lies between the small towns of Cloverdale and Healdsburg. Highway 101 runs along its western perimeter; so does the Russian River, the valley’s main irrigation source, for two-thirds of its length. The most fertile sections are below the hamlet of Geyserville, where the river veers eastward and meanders down the center of the valley. That part is flat, bordered by low, rolling hills whose slopes and clefts are clotted with oak and madrone; the topsoil is so thick and rich, the weather so vineyard-perfect the whole year round, that the cabernet and zinfandel grapes grown there are considered to be among the best in the state.