Small surprise when I stepped into the inner gloom: a car was parked there. I found a light switch, and a bare overhead bulb chased away two-thirds of the shadows. White Ford Taurus — Gail Kendall’s car. So where was she? Off with a friend, maybe. Or someone might have given her a ride to Silver Creek Cellars. In any event, for my purposes the presence of the car was an unexpected bonus.
I tried the driver’s side door; it wasn’t locked. I slid in and poked through the glove box without finding anything to hold my attention. A plastic trash bag hung from one of the radio knobs: used Kleenex, a candy wrapper, and a couple of styrofoam coffee containers. One of the tissues had a smear of bright-red lipstick — the shade Sondra Nelson had been wearing at Woolfox’s ranch. I swept the floor mats in front and back, reaching under the seat as far as I could. Nothing.
Hood release, trunk release, and around back to check the trunk first. Nothing. I lifted the hood to have a look at the battery. Newish but not brand-new, the terminals free of acid-leak corrosion. It would be heavy to lift, but it was positioned where you could get at it easily enough; exchanging one battery for another would take less than five minutes, as long as you had a wrench handy and the rudimentary knowledge of how to hook up the cables. A woman could do it without much strain, even a small, slender woman like Sondra Nelson.
The old corroded battery Pete Flynn had recharged was still there in the garage, under a bench along the rear wall. I took a quick look, left it where it sat.
Finished. I stepped outside and futzed with the door until I was able to force the bolt back into the locking plate.
The house now? I wouldn’t have minded a quick look around in there, but I was not going to break in to get it. Trespassing and animaling your way through a door into a garage were minor offenses; a house B&E was a major felony whether you took anything away with you or not. If Kendall happened to’ve left a window or the back door unlatched, maybe I’d chance it. Otherwise, no.
One other thing I could do here, even if it would make me feel like one of the government’s dirty tricks boys. I lifted the lid on the nearest of the garbage containers, peered inside. Half full. I couldn’t reach all the way down to the trash because the thing was a good five feet in height, so I tilted it carefully on its side and then got down on my knees and took off my jacket and rolled up my shirtsleeves and began sifting. Nasty job, and all it got me were stained fingers and an even lower opinion of myself. I almost didn’t bother with the second container. Then I thought, what the hell, I’d gone this far, and opened that one and laid it down and went garbage-diving again.
Pay dirt, partway through.
Perforated stub torn off a large postcard. I thought at first it was either part of a bill or some kind of computer-generated advertisement, but then I spotted the red lettering on the front: “Sonoma County, Office of the Jury Commissioner.” Sondra Nelson’s name was on it, too, along with a number — her assigned juror’s number.
The stub went into my jacket pocket. And in my mind now was a developing idea of how they’d worked it. I needed a little more information to be sure the basic premise was possible; if it was, then I could go to Sheriff’s Lieutenant Battle and lay it all out for him. He might not like the idea of my having conducted my own unsanctioned investigation, but he’d struck me as a dedicated cop without an ego problem, and that meant results were what counted with him.
Too late to get the information today? Probably, it being a Friday. If so, it could wait until Monday. Sondra Nelson and Gail Kendall weren’t going anywhere.
I shoved the pile of smelly trash back inside and closed the container. I was about to wheel it back into its original position against the garage wall when I heard the sound rising above the cry of the wind. It froze me as soon as I recognized it.
A car was coming up the drive, whining in low gear.
17
I ran the garbage container over against the wall, twisted back to snatch up my jacket. There was just enough time for me to get it on before the car reached the top of the drive. Muddy brown Chrysler about ten years old, two people visible behind the windshield. When the driver saw me walking away from the garage he stood on the brakes hard enough for the front wheels to lock and the car to pull a quarter turn to the left before it stopped. I kept walking toward it, my hands in plain sight.
Five, six, seven seconds and then both doors flew open simultaneously. The driver was out first, moving fast — a burly guy in a corduroy jacket and Levi’s. The passenger was Gail Kendall; she called out sharply, “Vic!” and swung around the open door, but the burly guy didn’t slow or look back. His eyes were fixed on me and from the angry set of his mouth he already knew who I was.
I recognized him, too: the workman on the forklift I’d spoken to at the winery last Thursday. He plowed to a halt in front of me, blocking my way, and said heatedly, “What the hell’re you doing here, man?”
I made the mistake of ignoring him, changing direction to bypass him on his left. He jumped over to block me again just as Kendall, running toward us, yelled his name a second time. I saw his arm swing up, but not in time to take evasive action; his fist smacked into my cheek, mashed my upper lip against my teeth. Pain erupted, my vision went cockeyed, and the next thing I knew I was down on my butt on the macadam with him standing over me, a kind of stolid elation on his face like a heavyweight who’d just fattened his ego on a tired old sparring partner.
Kendall loomed up at his side. “Vic, for God’s sake, what’s the matter with you? What did you hit him for?”
“He had it coming.”
“What if he charges you with assault?”
“He’s trespassing, ain’t he?”
I was on one knee by this time. An incisor had sliced partway through the inside of my upper lip; I tasted blood, felt it trickling from a corner of my mouth. The punch had been solid enough but not square on or I’d have a worse cut and a couple of broken teeth. I shoved up onto my feet, spat out a gob of blood, smeared more of it off my mouth and over the back of one hand before I looked at Kendall and the burly guy again. He was still angry and she was halfway between anger and anxiety. Funny thing, but the knockdown hadn’t built any rage in me. In a way, Vic was right: I’d had it coming.
“Okay,” I said to him, “you win the round. But that’s all it’s going to be. One punch, one round.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You come at me again, I’ll break something of yours.”
“Tough talk for an old man.”
“Come at me and we’ll see how old I am.”
Part of him wanted to push it; part of him didn’t. The part with whatever sense he owned won out. He stood with his legs spread and his hands folding and unfolding at his sides, but he didn’t do anything except glare at me. I let him maul me that way and turned my attention to Gail Kendall.
She said, “What’re you doing on my property?”
“Looking for you.”
“Why? What do you want this time?”
“Nothing much. A little talk.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Not to me, maybe.”
“...What does that mean?”
“Ira Erskine,” I said.
Her anger was all but dead now, suffocating under the growing weight of anxiety. She wet her lips; her gaze wouldn’t quite hold mine, as if she were afraid she might betray something through steady eye contact.
Vic said, still with heat, “He was in your garage, babe.” The term of endearment stirred my memory and I heard him saying at the winery that he was Sondra Nelson’s “best friend’s main man.” So Kendall wasn’t a man-hater, just an abuse-hater.