McCone and Friends Read online

  MCCONE AND FRIENDS

  BY

  MARCIA MULLER

  For Sandi and Doug Greene,

  Good People,

  Good Publishers

  Copyright © 2000 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust

  Ebook Copyright 2011 by AudioGO

  “If You Can’t Take the Heat,” © 1996 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust, first published in Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, Summer 1996; “The Holes in the System,” © 1996 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, June 1996; “One Final Arrangement,” © 1998 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust, first published in Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, Summer 1998: “Up the Riverside,” ©1999 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust, first published in Irreconcilable Differences; “Knives at Midnight,” © 1996 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust, first published in Guilty as Charged;“The Wall,” © 1993 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust, first published in Criminal Intent 1; “Recycle,” ©1999 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust, first published in Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, Summer 1999: “Solo,” © 1997 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, April 1997.

  AudioGO

  ISBN 978-1-60998-622-3

  42 Whitecap Drive

  North Kingstown, RI 02852

  Visit us online at www.audiogo.com

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  If You Can’t Take the Heat (Sharon McCone)

  The Holes in the System (Rae Kelleher)

  One Final Arrangement (Mick Savage)

  Up at the Riverside (Ted Smalley)

  Knives at Midnight (Sharon McCone)

  The Wall (Rae Kelleher)

  Recycle (Hy Ripinsky)

  Solo (Sharon McCone)

  INTRODUCTION

  Sharon McCone was conceived in 1971, when an insistent and sometimes annoying woman’s voice inside my head began demanding I pay attention to her. For months I’d been toying with the idea of creating a female counterpart to the male private investigators whose adventures I so loved reading about; now, it seemed, she wanted to be heard. But as insistent as she sounded, at first she gave me few clues as to her identity. In fact, she seemed more intent upon impressing on me who and what she was not.

  She was not the kind of private detective who has a bottle stashed in the desk drawer. She was not emotionally immune to the depressing and often tragic events she encountered on San Francisco’s mean streets. She did not operate out of a shabby, one-woman down-town office. She was not a loner.

  Well, fine. But who and what was she?

  Some of the specifics proved surprisingly easy to pin down, for I sensed a close kinship between us from the start. She was the kind of woman who liked her wine but didn’t let it interfere with business. She was an emotional, caring woman who fully interacted with the world and those around her. She worked for an organization whose philosophy and goals reflected her humanitarian sentiments—All Souls Legal Cooperative, a poverty-law firm. And she had family, friends, love interests.

  The family, friends, and love interests developed slowly over five years of writing manuscripts that can only be described as learning experiences. When the first McCone novel, Edwin of the Iron Shoes, finally saw publication in 1977, Sharon possessed a large, mostly dysfunctional clan based in San Diego; a boss who had been her closest male friend at University of California, Berkeley; another friend who provided information that enabled her to crack this first case; and a potential lover. Over the ensuing 21 years she has acquired a large (and somewhat confusing, even to the author) circle of friends and associates.

  In 1993 I began to experiment with the voice of some of these friends in a number of short stories in which McCone would be viewed through their eyes and sometimes upstaged by their detecting abilities—my way of keeping her fresh and multi-faceted in my own mind, while trying to entertain the reader in a different way than in the novels. These tales, along with three stories form Sharon’s point of view, are collected for the first time in McCone and Friends.

  Rae Kelleher, who narrates two of the stories, initially appeared as McCone’s new assistant in There’s Something in a Sunday (1989), and was the first employee Sharon hired when she moved her new agency from All Souls Legal Cooperative to their present offices in Pier 24 ½. Rae also narrated sections of The Broken Promise Land (1996); the events set in motion there will culminate when she marries McCone’s former brother-in-law (Listen to the Silence, 2000). Both of Rae’s tales, “The Wall” and “The Holes in the System,” date from the period while she and McCone were still employed at All Souls.

  Mick Savage, McCone’s nephew, first appeared in the 1990 short story, “Silent Night” (collected in The McCone Files, 1995), in which he ran away from his southern California home and his aunt was forced to track him down on Christmas Eve. Still a troubled young man, he was sent to work for her in Till the Butchers Cut Him Down (1992), and soon revolutionized her operations with his computer expertise. In “One Final Arrangement,” he and another McCone operative, Charlotte Keim, work along with her to prevent a killer from inheriting his missing wife’s fortune.

  Ted Smalley, originally secretary and later office manager at All Souls, also accompanied McCone Investigations to their new headquarters, and has emerged from a crossword-solver who didn’t even possess a last name to one of the most significant characters in the series. He represents San Francisco’s gay community, and his personal problems formed a major plot element of While Other People Sleep (1998). In “Up at the Riverside,” Ted’s membership in this community allow him to give McCone insights into a decades-old crime.

  Hy Ripinsky, McCone’s long-term lover, seldom interferes with her investigations. Although he himself is an expert on hostage-negotiation and a partner in an international corporate security firm, he keeps his distance while she’s working—having learned from “long and sometimes hellacious experience” that this is the wisest course. However, in “Recycle,” Ripinsky is prompted to depart from his “hands-off attitude.”

  One of the McCone stories, “Knives at Midnight,” is another case she reluctantly shares—this time with her older brother John, who first intruded onto her investigative turf in Wolf in the Shadows (1993). The other two, “If You Can’t Take the Heat,” and “Solo,” reflect her growing love of flight and understanding of the world of aviation.

  I hope the stories collected here will display new aspects of Sharon McCone’s character, as well as better acquaint you, the reader, with other ongoing series characters. More important, I hope that when McCone soars into the air on the last page, you’ll have enjoyed these glimpses into the world she and her friends inhabit!

  Marcia Muller

  Petaluma, California

  September 30, 1999

  IF YOU CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT

  (Sharon McCone)

  The private investigation business has been glamorized to death by writers and filmmakers, but I can tell you firsthand that more often than not it’s downright tedious. Even though I own a small agency and have three operatives to take on the scut work, I still conduct a fair number of surveillances while twisted into unnatural positions in the front seat of my car, or standing in the rain when any fool would go inside. Last month I leaped at the chance to take on a job with a little more pizzazz—and even then ended up to my neck in mud. Quite literally.

  The job came to me from a contact at a small air-charter company—Wide Horizons—located at Oakland Airport’s North Field. I fly in and out of there frequently, both in the passenger’s and pilot’s seat of my friend Hy Ripinsky’s Citabria, and when you’re around an airport a lot, you get to know people. When Wide Horizons’ owner, Gordon T
illis, became nervous about a pair of regular customers, he called me into his office.

  “Here’s the problem,” he told me. “For three months now, Sam Delaney’s been flying what he calls ‘a couple of babes’ to Calistoga, in the Napa Valley. Always on the same day—the last Wednesday. On the flight there they’re tense, clutch at their briefcases, don’t talk much. A limo picks them up, they’re gone a few hours. And when they come back, it’s a whole different story.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, I heard this from this airport manager up there, and Sam confirms it. They’re excited, giddy with relief. Once it was obvious they’d been drinking too much; another time they had new hairdos and new clothes. They call a lot of attention to themselves.”

  “Sounds to me like a couple of rich women who like to fly, shop and do some wine tasting—and who don’t hold their alcohol too well.”

  “It would sound that way to me too except for two things: the initial nervousness and the fact that they come back flush with cash.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They pay cash for the charter, and one time I got a look into their briefcases. Even after the plane rental and a big tip for Sam, there was plenty left.”

  The cash did put a different spin on it. “I assume you think they might be carrying some illegal substance?”

  Gordon nodded.

  “So why don’t you tell Sam to search their cases? The FAA gives him the authority to, as pilot in command.”

  Gordon got up and went to the window, opened the blinds and motioned at the field. “You see all those aircraft sitting idle? There’re pilots sitting idle, too. Sam doesn’t get paid when he doesn’t fly; my overhead doesn’t get paid while those planes are tied down. In this economy, neither of us can afford to lose paying customers.”

  “Security at the main terminal X-rays bags—”

  “That’s the main terminal - people expect it there. If Sam suddenly demands to go through those women’s personal effects the word gets out, people might take their business elsewhere. If he does it in a way that embarrasses them—and, face it, Sam’s not your most tactful guy—we’re opening the door for a lawsuit.”

  “But you also don’t want your planes used for illegal purposes, I see your problem.”

  In the end, Gordon and I worked out a plan where I would ride in the fourth seat of the Cessna that Sam would fly to Calistoga the next Wednesday. My cover story was that I was a new hire learning the ropes. I found myself looking forward to the job; it sounded a whole lot more interesting than the stakeout at a deadbeat dad’s apartment that I had planned for the evening.

  “They’re babes, all right,” Sam Delaney said, “but I’ll let you judge for yourself.” He grunted as he stowed his bag of take-out cartons in the back of the plane—his lunch, he’d informed me earlier. Business had been so bad recently that he couldn’t even afford the relatively inexpensive airport dinners. Eating bad take-out food, I thought, probably accounted for the weight Sam had gained in the year or so that I’d know him. He’d always had a round face under his mop of brown curls, but now it resembled a chipmunk’s, and his body was growing round to match. Poor guy had probably hired on with Wide Horizons thinking to build up enough hours for a lucrative job with the airlines; now he wasn’t flying enough to go to a decent restaurant.

  “Here they come,” he whispered to me. “Look at them—they make heads turn, especially when they’ve had a few pops of that Napa Valley vino.”

  The women were attractive, and a number of heads did turn as they crossed from the charter service. But people take notice of any woman tripping across the tarmac in high heels, her brightly colored silk dress blowing in the breeze. We women pilots are pretty much confined to athletic shoes, shirts and pants in cotton and denim—and the darker the color, the less the gas and oil and grease stains will show.

  The woman Sam introduced as Melissa Wells had shoulder-length red hair and looked as though she could have used a few more hours’ sleep; Angie Holbrook wore dark hair close-cropped and spoke in a clipped manner that betrayed her tension. Neither had more to say than basic greetings, and they settled into the back seats quickly, refusing headsets. During the thirty-minute flight, Melissa sipped at a large container of coffee she’d brought along and Angie tapped her manicured fingernails against her expensive leather briefcase. Sam insisted on keeping up the fiction that I was a new Wide Horizons pilot by chattering at me—even though over the noise of the engine the women couldn’t hear a word we said through our linked headsets.

  “Gordon’s real strict about the paperwork. Plan’s got to be file and complete. Weight-and-balance calculation, too. It’s not difficult, thought; each of us has got his own routes. Mine’re the Napa and Sonoma Valleys. I’d like to get some of the longer trips, build up more hours that way, but I don’t have enough seniority with the company. At least I get to look at some pretty scenery.”

  He certainly did. It was springtime, and the length of California’s prime wine-growing valley was in its splendor. Gentle hills, looking as if someone had shaped bolt after blot of green velvet to their contours; brilliant slashes of yellow where the wild mustard bloomed; orchards in pink and white flower. It made me want to snatch Sam’s takeout and go on a picnic.

  We touched down at Calistoga shortly before ten. The limo was there for Melissa and Angie, as was the rental car Wide Horizons had arranged for me. I waited till the limo cleared the parking lot, then jumped into the rental and followed, noting the other car’s license number. It took the main road south for several miles, past wineries offering tours and tasting, then turned off onto a secondary road and drove into the hills to the west. I held back, allowing a sports car to get between us; the sports car put on its brakes abruptly as it whipped around a curve, and by the time I’d avoided a collision, the limo had turned through a pair of stone pillars flanking a steep driveway. The security gates closed, and the car snaked uphill and disappeared into the trees.

  I pulled my rental into the shade of scrub oak on the far side of the road and got out. It was very quite there; I could hear only birds in a grove of acacia trees on the other side of the high stone wall. I walked its length, looking for something that would identify the owner of the heavily wooded property, but saw nothing and no way to gain access. Finally I went back to the car to wait it out.

  Why did everything always seem to boil down to another stakeout?

  And three hours later was when I found myself up to my neck in mud.

  The limo had departed the estate in the hills and, after a few wine tasting stops, deposited Melissa and Angie at the Serenata Spa in Calistoga. Calistoga is famed for is hot springs, and initially I’d fancied myself eavesdropping on the pair while floating in a tub of mineral water. But Calistoga is also famed for its mud baths, and in order to get close enough, I’d had to opt for my own private wallow. As I sunk into the gritty stuff—stifling a cry of disgust—I could clearly hear Angie’s voice through the flimsy pink partition. In spite of the wine they’d sampled, she sounded as tense as before.

  “Well, what do you think? Honestly?”

  “They’re high on it.”

  “But are they high enough?”

  “They paid us, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Angie, it was the best we could come up with. And I thought it was damn good.”

  “It’s getting more difficult to come up with the stuff without making it too obvious what we’re doing. And this idea of yours about image—the charter flights cut into our profits.”

  “So, I’ll pay for it out of my share from now on. I love to fly. Besides, it’s good for Carlos’ people to see us getting off a private plane. It established us a cut above the competition.”

  Silence from Angie.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing—people getting high; difficulty coming up with the stuff; Carlos…In the eighties, nine out of ten fictional arch villains dealing in terrorism and drugs had been named
Carlos. Was I to assume that one had materialized in the Napa Valley?

  “Angie,” Melissa said impatiently, “what is with you this week?”

  “I don’t know. I’m really spooked about getting caught. Maybe it was the way Sarge looked at me last night when I told him we wouldn’t be in HQ today.”

  “He can’t possibly suspect. He thinks we’re out in the field, that’s all.”

  “But all day, every fourth Wednesday? We’re going to have to shift the deliveries around among our clients. If Sarge finds out we’ve been stealing—“

  “Stop, already!”

  Now what I couldn’t believe was that they’d discuss such things in a public place. A sergeant, headquarters, being out in the field, deliveries, stealing…Was it possible that Angie and Melissa were a couple of undercover narcs who were selling the drugs they confiscated?

  After a while one of them sighed. Melissa’s voice said, “It’s time.”

  “Yeah. Back to the ghetto.”

  “Listen, if you can’t take the heat…”

  “Funny. Very funny.”

  When we got back to Oakland I hung around Wide Horizons while Melissa paid for the flight in cash and gave Sam a two hundred dollar tip. Then I went to Gordon’s office and made a verbal report, asking him to keep the information confidential until I’d collected concrete evidence. I’d have that for him, I said, before the woman’s next scheduled flight.

  As I drove across the Bay Bridge to my offices at Pier 24 ½, one of the renovated structures along San Francisco’s Embarcadero, I thought over what I’d heard at the mud baths. Something was wrong with the picture I’d formed. No specific detail, just the nagging sense that I’d overlooked an item of importance. I wanted to get my computer researcher, Mick Savage, started on the case as soon as possible.