Looking for Yesterday Page 16

  At first glance Gosling looked old and frail, gray hair a wild cloud around his head, but his strong handshake conflicted with my impression.

  He seated me, offered coffee, and waited intently, studying me with soft brown eyes. I was glad I wasn’t one of his patients: those eyes would see my pretenses and all the lies I’d told myself.

  He said, “As I told you in our phone conversation, this situation is unorthodox. However, Rob Warrick has delivered his authorization as executor of his sister’s estate for me to speak with you. In fact, he was quite insistent that I do. So you may ask your questions.”

  “Dr. Gosling,” I said, “how long was Caro Warrick a patient of yours?”

  “Only for a few months after she was acquitted of her friend’s murder.”

  “She sought you out because…?”

  “Actually it was her brother Rob who sought me out. He practically had to drag her to her sessions.”

  “So you’d say she was a hostile patient?”

  “Initially, yes. During our first session she didn’t speak. The second session, she screamed and cursed at me, her family, and most of the people she’d ever known. It was a catharsis. Afterward she was docile, but she kept parroting the story she’d told at her trial.”

  “You say ‘story.’ I take it you didn’t believe her.”

  “I believed that she’d been in Amelia Bettencourt’s apartment that night. I believe she saw something terrible there. But do I believe she killed her friend? No, I don’t.”

  “Did she ever confide anything to you that didn’t come out at the trial?”

  He considered. “Her parents both had numerous affairs. One of her mother’s boyfriends tried to molest her, but her brother stopped him. I can’t—oh, yes: Amelia was having an affair with an unnamed married man before she died.”

  “Unnamed?”

  “Caro didn’t know who he was, but she had some letters from Amelia about him. She said it sounded serious.”

  Letters: could they have been among the documents Caro was trying to deliver to me when she was bludgeoned to death?

  “Is there anything else you remember?”

  Gosling was silent for a moment, then shook his head. “If I recall anything more, I’ll be sure to contact you. Caro was dear to me in a way most patients aren’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because after all she went through, she was still an innocent; she still believed that life and people could be good.”

  “Do you believe that, Dr. Gosling?”

  “I’m sorry to say I don’t. You?”

  “Occasionally. Only occasionally.”

  When I left 450 Sutter I first headed toward Pier 24½, then toward the blue building on Sly Lane, before I flashed on the new offices in the RI building.

  McCone, are you losing it?

  Something’s out of whack, but it’s not my mind. I’m simply a creature of habit.

  I’d had similar distracted feelings time and time before. A fact was trying to wriggle its way out of the recesses of my consciousness, and I didn’t dare grope for it. It would come eventually, and in the meantime I’d just have to put up with the abstraction and irritation.

  6:37 p.m.

  I sat at my desk, trying to catch up on the day’s paperwork. Julia had successfully closed two cases; after editing her reports I sent them off to the clients, along with invoices. There were long e-mails in my inbox from a number of people, none of them in immediate need of a reply. Why, I wondered, did correspondents have to go on as if they were writing a segment of War and Peace? Wasn’t e-mail supposed to be a brief and speedy form of communication?

  Before I could get to my phone messages, the damned thing rang. I was tempted to let the call go to the machine, but picked up at the last minute.

  “Ms. McCone?” a woman’s voice said. “This is Nina Weatherford.”

  Who? Oh, yes, Jethro Weatherford’s daughter. “Ms. Weatherford, my condolences again—”

  “I’m on the way to Sonoma County to make arrangements for my father’s burial, but decided to spend the night in the city. Since you were the one who last saw him, I’d like to talk with you, if you’re willing.”

  “Of course. Where are you staying?”

  “Hotel Vitale.”

  One of the Embarcadero area’s better lodging places. “I can meet you in the lounge in, say, half an hour.”

  “Thank you, Ms. McCone.”

  7:07 p.m.

  The Americano Restaurant and Bar at Hotel Vitale was warm and comfortable, with big plush chairs and leather banquettes, excellent city views, and soft-colored pine flooring.

  Nina Weatherford had told me she would be wearing a black pantsuit with turquoise-and-silver earrings. I spotted her immediately on one of the banquettes, nervously toying with the stem of a wineglass.

  She recognized me, had probably looked me up on Google. “Ms. McCone, thank you for coming.”

  I sat in the chair opposite hers. “It’s good to meet you.”

  A waitperson came; I ordered a glass of pinot grigio.

  Weatherford said, “Tell me what you know about my father’s last hours.”

  “We’d talked for a while at the Jimtown Store, and he went back home to locate something for me. By the time I got there, he was dead.”

  “Did he suffer much?”

  “I think death was instantaneous.”

  “Thank God.” She took a large swallow of her wine. “Jethro—I thought he’d live forever when I was a kid. After I learned such things don’t happen, I figured he’d be there for me all my life.”

  “But you’d been out of touch.”

  “Yes. My work keeps me in LA. I begged him to move down there so I could take care of him, but he wouldn’t leave the valley. He was angry with me for not coming back. I tried to bridge the gap, but, well, he was a stubborn man. How did he seem before the end?”

  “Pretty happy. Of course, the alcohol encouraged that.”

  “Yeah, Jethro was always fond of the sauce. But he was an amiable, gentle drunk.”

  “So you’re planning services?”

  “Well, I don’t know how many people would attend. Daddy was pretty much a hermit since my mother died twenty years ago. I think a quiet, private burial will suffice.”

  “Where will that be?”

  “On his little quarter acre. He never wanted to be anyplace else… Well,” she added with a rueful smile, “maybe the Jimtown Store.”

  “That quarter acre of his—someone described it to me as worthless.”

  “Actually, it’s pretty good land. Daddy just didn’t want to work it. Didn’t want to work at all.”

  “The Waldens—the new neighbors with the winery—claimed a corner of his land was theirs, but were proved wrong in court.”

  “Yes, he told me about that in one of our infrequent phone conversations.”

  “This was a couple of years ago, right?”

  “Right. I wanted to refer him to a good lawyer I know here in the city, but as usual he got his back up and used somebody from up there.”

  “Do you remember which corner was in dispute?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  I gave her a pen and she drew a map on a cocktail napkin. “This,” she said, making an x, “is where the drainage tunnel from the Godden—now Walden—vineyards ends.”

  “Show me where it goes on the Walden property.”

  She drew a line between one of the Waldens’ fields and the corner. “I used to creep around in there when I was a kid. Scared the hell out of Jethro by poking my head out of his end of it.”

  Now what could be so important about a drainage tunnel?

  10:10 p.m.

  Mick finally contacted me at home.

  Irritably I asked him, “Where the hell have you been now?”

  “Well, I emailed that San Jose Mercury writer, Rebecca Regan. The one who did that story on where are they now, and she asked me to come down for a breakfast meeting.”

  “Whic
h lasted until well after dinner time?”

  “Don’t get sarcastic with me. I found out some good stuff.”

  “Such as?”

  “Caro never bought the Glock the gun dealer testified she had—that’s why it didn’t show up in state records.”

  “They weren’t expunged?”

  “Never existed.”

  “So the dealer, Levinson, lied.”

  “It would appear so.”

  “Why didn’t Regan come out with that fact at the time of the trial?”

  He laughed. “Because she was in college back East then. She only became aware of the case when she was assigned that piece on the principals’ whereabouts. But she got fascinated and dug deeper.”

  “So whose weapon was it?”

  “I’ve tried to access the information, but had no luck.”

  “Try harder.”

  “I intend to.”

  “Did Regan tell you why Dave Walden was included in the piece?”

  “His name came up in an old article and an interview with Jake Green. He said she should talk with Walden, but she couldn’t reach him and was on a tight deadline.”

  And, conveniently, Jake Green was dead.

  “About this Rebecca Regan…?”

  “Okay, okay. We talked a long time over breakfast. So then we went back to the Merc’s offices and looked through her notes. It was late by the time we finished, so I took her out to lunch.”

  “And dinner?”

  “I like her, Shar. She’s easy to talk with, and there’s not all this baggage that I have with Alison getting in the way.”

  “Baggage, such as a possible pregnancy?”

  “Don’t get on my case. Please. Not now.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to run off on Alison with a woman I’ve met once.”

  “And don’t get defensive with me. Please.”

  “Okay. I’ll call you when I’ve got more information.”

  “Mick? I love you.”

  “Me too, you.”

  I turned off my phone, gathered the cats, and went to bed.

  SATURDAY, JANUARY 14

  4:45 a.m.

  I was drifting on the waves, rising, falling, plunging. The sensation was pleasant, soothing me, but I warned myself not to go to sleep. I could drown.…

  But these waves, they weren’t water. Something softer, like air.

  The plane. I was in the plane—not the new one, but our old Citabria, Seven-Seven-Two-Eight-Niner.

  I wanted to slow down to enjoy the feeling a while longer, but when I reached for the throttle, it wasn’t there. I went to pull back on the yoke, but it wasn’t there either.

  I spread my arms out, realized I wasn’t in the plane at all. Instead, I was free-falling.

  I looked up for my parachute. It wasn’t there either. Panicked, I looked down at the ground. Nothing. All I could see was a swirling grayness. It came at me and its fumes enveloped me and I took in a choking breath.

  Smoke!

  I woke quickly, sitting up in bed. Definite smell of smoke; I hadn’t been dreaming it. On Hy’s pillow the cats sat rigid, sniffing the air, their eyes wide and afraid.

  Fire!

  Where was it? Outside? In the house? Why hadn’t the alarms gone off?

  I scrambled out of bed and ran toward the sliding glass door. Next to it smoke billowed down the spiral staircase. I stared at the swirling gray in disbelief, and then my reflexes kicked in; my first thought was to grab the cats. I got hold of Alex, but Jessie darted under the bed.

  “Damn useless animal!” I shouted at her as I tossed Alex out the door into the backyard.

  The smoke was thickening enough to start me coughing. I stumbled around the bedroom, disoriented, trying to locate one of the light switches. When I found one, nothing happened—the power had gone out. Damn! Why had I bought plug-in detectors instead of the battery-operated kind?

  Flattening on the floor beside the bed, I felt around for Jessie. She had backed into the far corner, and when I touched her she shrank out of my reach. I ducked my head lower and inched toward her, feeling the bedsprings rake at my scalp. When I was almost to her, she ran out from under the bed and straight through the door into the backyard.

  Cursing the feline population in general, I dragged myself out and ran across the room too. As I passed the spiral staircase, what I saw made me cringe—at its top was a wall of flame: red and yellow and gold, tinged with green and black soot; angry, licking up toward the roof.

  Phone!

  The one down here was cordless, wouldn’t work without electricity.

  Cell!

  Upstairs in my bag that I’d left on the kitchen table.

  In the distance I heard sirens. Somebody had seen the smoke or the flames, called in an alarm.

  Don’t stand here like an idiot, McCone—get yourself out!

  But I’m naked—

  Stupid thing to think of in a life-threatening situation, but still I took the time to feel around for something to cover myself with. An old sweatshirt of Hy’s hung on one of the chairs; I grabbed it, pulled it over my head as I plunged through the door.

  The gravel under the upper deck lacerated my feet as I sprinted for the grass. Above, the deck railing collapsed, spewing sparks and burning fragments: one of the flaming posts fell directly on my shoulder, singeing my hair and setting my sleeve on fire.

  I managed to slap out some of the flames, then threw myself down on the grass and rolled around till they were all out. My arm tingled, but it didn’t feel badly burned. Finally, coughing and gasping, my heart pounding, I lay on my back, staring up at the smoke-palled sky.

  Fire engines were out front now, men and women milling around and shouting. Jets of water spurted onto the roof and cascaded down the sides of the house. The engines’ pulsing lights formed a lurid background to the flames.

  Booted feet thundered on the walk to the side of the house. A male voice called, “Anybody here?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You injured?”

  I tried to sit up, then settled for a weak, “I’m okay,” ignoring the increasing pain in my arm.

  “You the owner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everybody else get out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, look, I’m gonna move you back toward the fence line. This is a bad one, and when the house collapses, we don’t want you hurt.” He picked me up as if I were a feather pillow and deposited me on the grass under the pines that grew there.

  “Are the neighboring houses going to be okay?” I asked him.

  “Looks like it. Everybody’s outside and they’re helping us by wetting down their roofs and walls.”

  “Thank God!”

  From the front of my house there was a thunderous explosion; even from where I was I could feel its heat. Somebody yelled, “Watch out!” and there was a jarring crash that fouled the air with more smoke and sparks. Then the deck gave what I could only define as a sigh and crumbled.

  I could do nothing but lie watching a vital part of my life burn to the ground.

  The firemen did what they could, but they’d gotten there too late. When they finally had the blaze under control, the roof was gone and the rest of the house leaned in on itself. One upstairs wall groaned and collapsed into what had used to be the kitchen.

  I closed my eyes and wept like a baby.

  I had loved this house, had bought it when it was a decrepit wreck left over from the post–1906 quake era and made it a home. An earthquake house it was called by historians and architects, one of those small structures that had been put up here, in what was at that time the far reaches of the city, for the quake’s survivors.

  The previous owners hadn’t tended to it in decades. Ceilings had caved in; floors were rotting; the toilet was in a cold cubicle on the back porch and didn’t work all that well anyway. Refrigerator and stove: shot to hell. Tub and shower: not functional. But I’ve always been
one to see potential in places, and over the years I’d made it a lovely place to live.

  As much as I also loved Touchstone and the ranch in the high desert, this house was the first I’d ever owned, and the memories associated with it were precious.

  “Shar? Thank God, Shar!”

  The voice belonged to Michelle Curley, one of the young women from next door.

  “Chelle,” I said dully as she gathered me into her arms.

  “We were so afraid!” she sobbed. “Mom saw the fire and called it in. Then she tried to call you, but she couldn’t get through. And then the firefighters wouldn’t let me past the barricades to look for you, so I came over the fence from our backyard. Are you okay?”

  “I’m alive.”

  “Hurt?”

  “Not much, physically. I’ll have to get a haircut, though.” I showed her the singed side of my head and laughed, trying to make a joke of it.

  “Stop clowning around! You’ve got to be hurting bad inside. This house, all your stuff…”

  “It can be replaced.”

  “You don’t have to act brave in front of me,” she said. “I’ve seen you brave before. But this…”

  “Oh, shit.” I started to cry again.

  “Where’s Hy?”

  “Africa, somewhere.”

  “How do we get hold of him?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve told you about RI—they’ve got that damn need-to-know policy.”

  “Well, he needs to know. You want to go to emergency? Get checked out?”

  “Chelle, I’ve had enough of hospitals to last the rest of my life.”

  “Then come home with me. Mom can put ointment on your burns, and I can make you soup. Then you can take one of Mom’s pills and sleep.”

  “No sleeping pills. I’ve got to track down Hy. RI’s staff is going to qualify this as a need-to-know situation. They’ll damned well put me in touch with him.”

  Suddenly Chelle frowned. “The cats…?”

  “Are outside, probably went over the back fence.”