Looking for Yesterday Page 19

  I knew that Mick didn’t want to work outside the office any more, but he was my last hope. He picked up right away when I called him.

  “Are you free? I need a ride and backup.”

  “For what?”

  “I think I’ve figured this case out. But I need…well, you’ll see.”

  “Does this involve me getting shot at, stabbed, or bludgeoned?”

  “Not if I can help it. Do you happen to have a shovel?”

  “A shovel? You don’t need a shovel to stuff plants into containers on a balcony in this building.”

  “Never mind. I’ll see if there’s one here. Pick me up as soon as you can.”

  “Shar—”

  I broke the connection and went to look for a shovel, found a large one in the gardening shed. Then I changed into my new heavy-duty boots and waited for Mick.

  5:55 p.m.

  Mick’s car was an old blue Porsche that he’d bought for fifty cents from his father. In California, license plates remain with the vehicle unless the new owner decides to change them; the Porsche’s read COBWEBS, the name Mick himself had suggested after Ricky’s early big hit—“Cobwebs in the Attic of My Mind.” The car required a lot of maintenance, and the plates attracted stares, but I supposed Mick kept it out of sentiment. Mainly he rode his Harley or drove Alison’s car.

  He got out and, when he saw the shovel, opened the trunk. I tossed it inside.

  “Where’re we going?” he asked.

  “The Alexander Valley.”

  “You look really pissed about something. What’s going on?”

  “Not now. I have to think.”

  Traffic was light on the bridge—not surprising for a murky, dark evening. Even so, some tourists were out, walking across the span in rain slickers and heavy sweatshirts. Why, I wondered, did anyone come to San Francisco in January? Reduced airfares and lodging rates, I supposed. I’d have bet many of them returned home complaining that they didn’t see why everybody raved about the city, but those who did rave had seen it on a clear, balmy day when even the grumpiest citizen smiled.

  Traffic slowed at the Novato Narrows, where three lanes became two for a ten-mile stretch between Novato and Petaluma; traffic always backed up there and came to stop after stop, no matter what the time of day or night. There were no exits, except for the county landfill.

  I’d been silent the whole ride, going over the facts, looking for any false assumptions. No, it was solid.

  Occasionally Mick glanced at me, but he didn’t speak either.

  6:58 p.m.

  We exited the freeway on Lytton Springs Road and drove through dark countryside into the Alexander Valley. Lights from the vineyard homes and wineries were misted; Mick turned on the car’s fog lamps, but they didn’t help much and he slowed to well below the speed limit.

  I decided to test my theory on Mick. I said, “Somebody fatally injured Caro and stole papers that were incriminating to him or her. Somebody killed Jethro Weatherford. Somebody burned my house down in an attempt to kill me. What could be so valuable as to motivate crimes like that?”

  “Money.”

  I shook my head, stared out the window at the dark hills. “That’s part of it, but…”

  “But what?”

  “What’s more valuable and permanent than anything else you can possess?”

  “Gold?”

  “Good answer. But there’s something else. And far more precious than a commodity that you store in a bank vault and never visit.”

  “Children?”

  “Another good answer. But think again.”

  “Land.”

  “How about land that conceals a secret?”

  “Okay. But what…?”

  “If I’m right, you’ll soon find out. First place we’re going is Hewette Vineyards, which supplies the Waldens’ grapes. I think the old man who owns it knows more about them than he admitted to me.”

  7:44 p.m.

  Russ Hewette looked surprised when he opened his door to us. There was a pause before he said, “Ms. McCone, whatever are you doing here at this hour?”

  “May we come in?”

  He frowned, then motioned us through the door and into a parlor.

  I said, “This is my nephew, Mick Savage.”

  They shook hands.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t been candid with you,” I added, and extended one of my cards. “I need to ask you more about the Waldens.”

  He studied it, squinting his pale eyes. “I thought you were a somewhat estranged friend of theirs.”

  “I’m sorry—it was a subterfuge, to get you to talk about them.”

  “I don’t appreciate that.”

  “I’m sure you don’t. Can we start over?”

  He hesitated, not inviting us to sit down.

  “Please, Mr. Hewette. This is important. Two people have already died—maybe more—because of them.”

  His face tightened, reflecting his conflicting emotions. “You lied to me before. How do I know you aren’t now?”

  “You don’t. But if you wish, you can phone Inspector Devlin Fast at the San Francisco PD. He’ll inform you about the circumstances of the deaths of Caro Warrick and Jake Green.”

  “Who’re they?”

  “They were both connected to the Waldens.”

  He rubbed his chin. “No, I guess I don’t need to call any cop.”

  He sat down in an old lounge chair that looked as if he spent most of his time in it, and motioned Mick and me toward a sofa.

  I said, “Tell me about Jethro Weatherford’s sheep being killed.”

  “Well, it was a while ago. Coyotes, most people said; their natural habitat’s being destroyed with all these new people building in the hills, so they search for food in places they normally wouldn’t.”

  “Jethro thought the Waldens were behind it because he wouldn’t sell him that corner of his land.”

  “Yeah, but Jethro bought more sheep, and so far nothing’s happened to them.”

  “But something happened to Jethro.”

  A pause. “Well, that’s a fact, isn’t it?”

  “Kayla Walden,” I went on. “You told me you haven’t seen her up close in two or three years.”

  “That’s correct. Only from a distance, and not often.”

  “But you’ve seen Dave.”

  “Why, sure. In the fields, as I told you before.”

  “Have you heard of anything unusual or different about Kayla since you last had contact with her?”

  He frowned, and after a moment said, “Well, she’s apparently calmed down a lot.”

  “How so?”

  “The first few years, she was kind of wild. She drank a lot and sometimes she’d start public arguments with Dave in Geyserville.”

  “You witnessed these?”

  “Two of them. Heard about a few more.”

  “What did they argue about?”

  “She argued; he just looked embarrassed and resigned. Mostly it was about the usual—he’d spent too much at the hardware store, when she couldn’t afford to get her hair cut. You know. One time I came upon them in their car, pulled off the road, practically in the ditch. She was yelling that she’d kill him and that woman if he didn’t end it. Sounded to me as if Dave was getting something on the side. Friend of mine heard her screaming about killing herself after Dave had dragged her out of Kelso’s Bar. After that I think that Dave must’ve gotten her into therapy or even an institution, because all the ruckus stopped—and it’s been quiet ever since.”

  I pictured the attractive, pleasant Kayla I’d met at the winery. No way would she carry on like that.

  “Mr. Hewette, is there any possible reason for you to think that the woman over there not might be Kayla Walden?”

  “Of course she’s Kayla. Same hair, same fondness for capes.”

  I remembered Amelia Bettencourt’s claims that she was being followed by someone in a black cape. “So nothing’s changed in the years the Waldens have lived next do
or to you?”

  He considered for a moment. “Well…her bread.”

  “Her bread?”

  “The bread she used to deliver every morning. She’d bring it to the door and knock, sometimes come in and have a slice with me. Now she just sends a loaf with one of the winery workers. You’re going to think this is an old man’s fancy, but it’s not the same. The bread she used to bring me had a certain lightness, a quality…Oh, I can’t describe it.”

  Mick said, “Like Grandma’s. No one’s home-baked bread is the same as anybody else’s.”

  “Right,” Hewette said. “Kayla’s bread changed.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Maybe two, two and a half years ago.”

  Who would think that a case could turn on such a point as bread hot from the oven?

  8:10 p.m.

  We were standing in the grove of eucalyptus on Jethro Weatherford’s property, my flashlight shining on ground littered with leaves and seedpods. It was even darker here than on the road, and the mentholated odor of the trees clogged my nostrils. The rustle of a few night birds was the only sound except for our breathing, and a chill wind blew the fog down from the coastal hills.

  “Where do I dig?” Mick asked.

  “Here, at the corner of the property.”

  He went at it, working steadily, muscles flexing, as I held the flashlight on the spot. It was a long time before the shovel clanged on metal and he stopped. “I think I’ve hit that drainage pipe.”

  “Good.” I began to pace off the four-and-some yards that Nina Weatherford had drawn on the cocktail napkin. “The opening to it must be right around here.”

  Mick made a growling noise. “Why didn’t you tell me to dig there in the first place?”

  “I had to be sure.”

  He moved and began digging again. After a moment he grumbled, “You didn’t need me for backup. A man with an aching back is more like it.”

  He flung more earth over his shoulder, and I could’ve sworn he was trying to scatter it over me, but I didn’t complain. Frankly, I didn’t blame him.

  After several more minutes he said, “I think I’ve found the end of the drainage pipe,” he said. “I’m gonna go down and clear it.”

  He dropped into the hole he’d made, and I heard him grunting as he pushed the earth around.

  When he spoke again, his voice was strained. “Shar, there’s something blocking this pipe.”

  “What is it?”

  “Looks like an aluminum wine cask.”

  “Can you get it out of there?”

  “I don’t know.” More grunts and a scraping noise. “It’s really heavy.”

  “Can you boost it up here?”

  “No way. It’s heavy as hell. Must be full of rocks or something.”

  Not rocks. Human remains.

  The true Kayla Walden. The one with the trust fund that couldn’t be altered. The wife Dave Walden had replaced with someone named Valerie.

  Dave Walden: the man who’d killed Caro on my front steps; the man who’d set my house on fire.

  The fury that had been simmering in my gut spread through my entire body; my skin felt hot, then cold, then hot again. There was a faint roaring sound in my ears as I pulled my .357 from my bag.

  “Shar?” Mick said. “What’re you doing?”

  I didn’t answer, just started walking toward the road.

  “Shar?”

  “Call the county sheriff’s department.”

  “But, Shar…?”

  “I’m going up there to get the son of a bitch who torched my home and tried to kill me.”

  “Shar!”

  I kept going.

  10:01 p.m.

  I was so angry that I didn’t take a circuitous route to the Walden house—just stomped up the driveway, past the tasting room, to the front door. The lights inside were muted, Walden and Valerie already in bed, maybe.

  Some internal governor told me to calm down, think this through before I acted. I switched it off and pounded on the door.

  Silence. Then shuffling sounds. As the knob turned, I raised the .357.

  Dave Walden’s face looked out over the security chain. He registered surprise when he saw the gun, then tried to shut the door. Savagely, I kicked it open, breaking the chain. He stumbled back, caught himself, started toward me. I pointed the gun at his head, my finger tight on the trigger. That stopped him. I stepped into the house, shut the door behind me.

  “What the hell’s the idea—?”

  “Shut up, you bastard. Where’s Valerie?”

  “Who?”

  “You know damn well who she is. The ringer you brought in to replace Kayla.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  “I found the wine keg where you buried it beyond the drainage ditch. And we both know what’s inside it. A simple DNA test on the real Kayla’s remains…”

  Fear twisted his features. I saw his body tense; he took another step toward me.

  “Stand still!”

  “You won’t use that gun,” he said.

  “Try me.”

  Walden stopped again, jammed his hands against the sides of his head as if he were trying to crush it. “I didn’t kill Kayla, she killed herself. All I did was hide her body in that keg.”

  “How did she kill herself?”

  “Gunshot. She was always unstable, showed suicidal tendencies. Finding out about my affair with Amelia put her over the top.”

  I half believed him. “How’d she find out?”

  “Followed me. Then followed Amelia. She shot Amelia, but she couldn’t live with what she’d done.”

  “So when you found her dead you put her body in the cask and brought in Valerie so you could continue benefitting from Kayla’s trust fund. Who is Valerie?”

  “An old friend of Caro’s and Amelia’s from school. She was hard up, had just gone through a divorce and lost her job. I thought of her because she really resembles Kayla.”

  “Where is Valerie now?”

  He moved his hands in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know. She took off after your first visit. The threat of exposure wasn’t worth the money I’d given her, she said.”

  “The threat of being accessory to murder, you mean. Did Valerie know you killed Caro when she called you about the letters from Amelia she’d found, and said she was taking them to me?”

  “No, Valerie didn’t know anything about that. And that’s not how it was, anyway. Caro tried to sell the letters to me. She gave me twenty-four hours to come up with a hundred thousand dollars, and said if I didn’t she’d take them to you. As if I could get my hands on that kind of money! I drove down to the city and followed her. I didn’t mean to kill her, I just wanted to get those letters out of her hands. She fought me, the envelope tore and the papers blew all over. A car was coming up the street, so I grabbed what papers I could and ran.”

  “But not before you bludgeoned her.”

  “I didn’t mean to!”

  They never mean to kill their victims.

  And Caro probably hadn’t thought she was doing anything wrong in attempting to sell the letters. In fact, she’d felt entitled; her stupid, greedy blackmail attempt was her last chance to grab the brass ring that had eluded her all her life.

  “So you got the evidence. I was no threat to you any more.”

  “I didn’t know what the papers I lost were or how much Caro’d told you. And then you showed up here, asking about my connection to her, talking to that old drunken geezer, Weatherford. I saw your car at Russ Hewette’s place too. You were getting too close. I had to do something.”

  “Yeah, you fucking piece of shit, you set fire to my house.”

  Panic surged in him, made him reckless. He lunged sideways, grabbed a table lamp and started to swing it at my head. I had no choice then—I shot him in the thigh.

  He collapsed, clutching his leg and rolling around in pain, cursing me between groans and sobs.

  I looked down at
him, hating him and asking myself why I hadn’t shot to kill.

  Because I’m done with killing. It’s too much of a drain on my spirit, my soul, whatever that thing is that supposedly lives inside all of us.

  MONDAY, JANUARY 16

  3:00 p.m.

  My parents,” Rob Warrick said, “are unavailable—once again.”

  He, Patty, and I were seated around the oak table in the conference room next to my office in the RI building. The table was a treasure from the days when it had sat by the window in the All Souls kitchen—the site of card and board games, friendships, agony, soul-searching, and—occasionally—love. Unlike my chair, it would never be refurbished; too much of our lives had gone into its scars and stains.

  I wasn’t surprised that Betsy and Ben had declined to attend this meeting, but I asked, “What was their excuse this time?”

  “That Caro had ruined their lives anyway, and they didn’t want to hear how you’d exonerated her once and for all of Amelia’s murder. Besides,” he added with a wry twist of his lips, “they’re off on a tour of China.”

  I glanced at Patty, saw the hint of a smile. Maybe now, with the help of her brother—who had decided to move in with her and see that she took care of herself—she might eventually learn to laugh.

  Rob asked, “You talk with the authorities up in Sonoma County?”

  “Yes, they confirmed that they’d found human remains in the wine barrel and would be performing forensics tests to make sure they were of the real Kayla Walden.”

  “God.” He shuddered. “That’s got to be the ultimate in disrespect—putting your wife’s body in a wine barrel and burying it in a drainage ditch. Does ATF think Walden killed Green too?”

  “I’m not exactly in their confidence but no, I doubt it. One of their agents did tell me they apprehended the men who searched Jake Green’s home while Mick and I were there. They were partners in his arms-smuggling scheme. Green had held out a key piece of equipment from them—a sophisticated type of detonator—but wherever he was keeping it, it wasn’t in the house.”

  “But they didn’t kill Green; he was already dead when they got there.”

  “Right. Green was probably killed by somebody else involved in one of his illegal schemes. They’ll eventually find out who it was.”