“Tom had been outspoken about gay rights. Outspoken and abrasive. He had enemies on the county board of supervisors and in the sheriff’s department. They’d have seen to it that he was charged with murder. Tom was afraid, so I did what any friend would do.”
Chris said, “For God’s sake, Ira, why didn’t you tell me this when we inherited the hotel?’
“I wanted to preserve Tom’s memory. And I was afraid what you might think of me. What you might do about it.”
His partner was silent for a moment, then he said, “I should’ve let you keep your secret.”
“Maybe not,” Shar told him. “Secrets that tear two people apart are destructive and potentially dangerous.”
“But-”
“The fact is, Chris, that secrets come in all varieties. What you do about them, too. You can expose them, and then everybody gets hurt. You can make a tacit agreement to keep them, and by the time they come out, nobody cares, but keeping them’s still extracted a toll on you. Or you can share them with a select group of trusted people and agree to do something about them.”
“What’re you trying to tell me?”
“The group of people in this room is a small and closed-mouthed one. We all know Ira can keep his own counsel. Bobby Gardena’s been in this tomb a long time, but I doubt he’s rested in a more suitable place on the property, and created a better monument to him.”
I said, “A better monument, like a garden in the colors of the rainbow.”
Chris nodded. A faint ray of hope touched Ira’s tortured features.
I added, “Of course, a fitting monument to both Bobby and Tom would be if you renovated this hotel like you planned and reopened it to the living.”
Chris nodded again. Then he went to Ira, grasped the warning tape, and tore it free where it was anchored to the pigeonholes.
I rode in the back of the van on our way home to the city, making sure the Seeburg Trashcan didn’t slip its mooring. Both Shar and I were quiet as we maneuvered it up my building’s elevator and into the apartment.
Later, after Neal promised to become the fifth party to a closely held secret, I told him the story of August 16, 1978. He was quiet too.
But still later, when we’d jockeyed the Trashcan into position in our living room and plugged it in, the nostalgic tunes of happier times played long into the night, heralding happy times to come.
KNIVES AT MIDNIGHT
My eyes were burning, and I felt not unlike a creature that spends a great deal of its life underground. I marked the beat-up copy of last year’s Standard California Codes that I’d scrounged up at a used bookstore on Adams Avenue, then shut it. When I stood up, my limbs felt as if I were emerging from the creature’s burrow. I stretched, smiling. Well, McCone, I told myself, at last one of your peculiarities is going to pay off.
For years, I’d taken what many considered a strange pleasure in browsing through the tissue-thin pages of both the civil and penal codes. I had learned many obscure facts. For instance: it is illegal to trap birds in a public cemetery; anyone advertising merchandise that is made in whole or in part by prisoners must insert the words “convict-made” in the ad copy; stealing a dog worth $400 or less is a petty theft, while stealing a dog worth more than $400 is grand theft. Now I could add another esoteric statute to my store of knowledge, only this one promised a big payoff.
Somebody who thought himself above the law was about to go down-and I was the one who would topple him.
Two nights earlier, I’d flown into San Diego’s Lindbergh Field from my home base in San Francisco. Flown in on a perilous approach that always makes me, holder of both single- and a multi-engine rating, wish I didn’t know quite so much about pilot error. On top of a perfectly natural edginess, I was aggravated with myself for giving in to my older brother John’s plea. The case he wanted me to take on for some friends sounded like one where every lead comes to a dead end; besides, I was afraid that in my former hometown I’d become embroiled in some family crisis. The McCone clan attracts catastrophe the way normal people attract stray kittens.
John was waiting for me at the curb in his old red International Scout. When he saw me, he jumped out and enveloped me in a bear hug that made me drop both my purse and my briefcase. My travel bag swung around and whacked him on his back; he released me, grunting.
“You’re looking good,” he said, stepping back.
“So’re you.” John’s a big guy-six -foot-four-and sometimes he bulks up from the beer he’s so fond of. But now he was slimmed down to muscle and sported a new closely trimmed beard. Only his blond hair resisted taming.
He grabbed my bag, tossed it into the Scout, and motioned for me to climb aboard. I held my ground. “Before we go anyplace-you didn’t tell Pa I was coming down, did you?”
“No.”
“Ma and Melvin? Charlene and Ricky?”
“None of them.”
“Good. Did you make me a motel reservation and reserve a rental car?”
“No.”
“I asked you-”
“You’re staying at my place.”
“John! Don’t you remember-”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t involve the people you care about in something that could get dangerous. I heard all that before.”
“And it did get dangerous.”
“Not very. Anyway, you’re staying with me. Get in.”
John can be as stubborn as I when he makes up his mind. I opted for the path of least resistance. “Okay, I’ll stay tonight-only. But what am I supposed to drive while I’m here?”
“I’ll loan you the Scout.”
I frowned. It hadn’t aged well since I last borrowed it.
He added, “I could go along, help you out.”
“John!”
He started the engine and edged into the flow of traffic.
“You know, I’ve missed you.” Reaching over and ruffling my hair, he grinned broadly. “McCone and McCone-the detecting duo. Together again.”
I heaved a martyred sigh and buckled my seat belt.
The happy tone of our reunion dissipated when we walked into the living room of John’s stucco house in nearby Lemon Grove. His old friends, Bryce and Mari Winslip, sat on the sofa in front of the corner fireplace; their hollow eyes reflected weariness and pain and-when they saw me-a kind of hope that I immediately feared was misplaced. While John made the introductions and fetched wine for me and freshened the Winslips’ drinks, I studied them.
Both were a fair number of years older than my brother, perhaps in their early sixties. John had told me on the phone that Bryce Winslip was the painting contractor who had employed him during his apprenticeship; several years ago, he’d retired and they’d moved north to Oregon. Bryce and Mari were white-haired and had the bronzed, tough-skinned look of people who spent a lot of time outdoors. I could tell that customarily they were clear-eyed, mentally acute, and vigorous. But not tonight.
Tonight the Winslips were gaunt-faced and red-eyed; they moved in faltering sequences that betrayed their age. Tonight they were drinking straight whiskey, and every word seemed an effort. Small wonder: they were hurting badly because their only child, Troy, was violently dead.
Yesterday morning, twenty-five-year-old Troy Winslip’s body had been found by the Tijuana, Mexico, authorities in a parking lot near the bullring at the edge of the border town. He had been stabbed seventeen times. Cause of death; exsanguination. Estimated time of death: midnight. There were no witnesses, no suspects, no known reason for the victim to have been in that place. Although Troy was a San Diego resident and a student at San Diego State, the SDPD could do no more than urge the Tijuana authorities to pursue and investigation and report their findings. The TPD, which would have been overworked even if it wasn’t notoriously corrupt, wasn’t about to devote time to the murder of a gringo who shouldn’t have been down there in the middle of the night anyway. For all practical purposes, case closed.