Marcia Muller - Locked In

Right. Did she look like she had an IQ of twenty?

“Sorry, no. First she’ll have to sign some documents in the presence of a notary.”

“Then I can’t help you, Ms. Kelleher.”

“Will you at least pass on a message asking her to call me?” Rae extended one of her cards.

“Certainly.” He took it, tossed it carelessly on the desk, and stood up. “More than anything else, I’d like to see my client financially secure and out of her present dubious occupation.”

Sure he would. But only if she’d go halves with him.

When she got back to her car-a lovely black BMW Z4 that Ricky had given her on her birthday two years ago-Rae checked her cell phone for messages. One from Ted, asking why the hell she’d missed the staff meeting, and another from Maggie Lambert of Victims’ Advocates. She wanted a report.

The Advocates had their offices only a few blocks away on Valencia Street. Rae decided she might as well go there and talk with Lambert in person.

The offices were up a dimly lighted, mildewy-smelling staircase above a taqueria. While many blocks of Valencia Street were now lined with good restaurants and chichi shops, the economic upturn hadn’t reached this pocket of poverty. At the top Rae pushed through the door and entered a room full of cast-off furnishings. Maggie Lambert-short, gray-haired, and clad in faded jeans and a red flannel shirt with one button missing-sat at her desk leafing through a thick file. When she looked up and saw Rae, her face became stern.

“Rae, thank you for coming. Is there any progress in the Angie Atkins case?”

Trust Maggie to get right to the point. Rae said, “I’ve got a lead to that friend of hers I told you about-Callie O’Leary.”

“And that’s it?”

“Her attorney will put us in touch when he hears from her.”

“This is very unsatisfactory.”

Rae bit back a tart retort about asking a lot of someone who was working pro bono. Said, “I’m not happy with it myself. If I could talk with Callie, she might be able to tell me more about Angie. From the police report, I gather that’s not her true identity, but there’s no guarantee she told Callie anything other than her street name.”

“What about dental records? DNA? Did you ask the police about them?”

Maggie must’ve been watching too many episodes of CSI . “In order to compare dental charts, you need to have some idea of who the victim was. DNA samples were taken and stored, but they didn’t match any in the current databases.”

“So exactly what is it you intend to do?”

“Wait for Callie O’Leary’s attorney to call. Talk with the investigating officers at the SFPD again. Comb through my files for overlooked leads. Especially anything that may connect this case with my employer’s shooting.”

Maggie’s face softened. “How’s she doing?”

“As well as can be expected. In fact, I’m going to visit her now: even though she can’t speak, I suspect she’ll be a great source of inspiration.”

Iclosed my eyes after Rae left my room. Even with brief naps I was exhausted. Besides Hy and her, I’d had three other visitors: Julia, my sister Charlene, and my brother John. Enough already.

I was beginning to understand the routine of this place. The sun was slanting low on the eucalyptus grove, which meant the nurse would soon come in, check my vital signs, catheter, and feeding tube, and turn me onto my other side. I’d doze, and when I woke Hy would be there. He’d leave late, and then there’d be another visit from the nurse. If I was lucky, I’d sleep deeply for a few hours. If not, I’d face my demons alone in the dark.

My demons were large and numerous: looming figures from the past, including the dark one who had shot me. Vague shadows of the future-fleeting, unreal, frightening. And my present…

Good God, is this going to be my life?

No. No way I could face that.

So what’s your alternative? Suicide?

I’d always considered suicides to be cowards, heedless of the damage they did to those who loved them. Leaving messes behind for others to clean up, as my brother Joey had done when he’d overdosed on booze and drugs in a lumber-town shack outside of Eureka. On one level I hated Joey for the pain he’d inflicted on my family members and me-particularly for causing the shadows that, even on a happy day, never left my mother’s eyes. But Joey had been facing demons he apparently couldn’t control; now, facing my own, I began to wonder if he hadn’t done us, as well as himself, a favor.

And if I were to remain in this state indefinitely? No way I could endure that. I’d rather just check out.

But California didn’t have an assisted-suicide law. And asking assistance from someone I loved-namely Hy-would put a terrible burden on him.

Besides, I wanted to live. I’d reached a point in my life where I could say I was happy and looking forward to a good future. At least I had been, until someone fired a bullet into my skull.

I felt the rage bubble and boil over again. I wished I could scream invectives, hit something, smash the vase of roses placed prominently within my range of vision.

Slowly I regained control. Calm and purpose returned. I would not die a suicide, even if it was possible, because that would be giving in to the scumbag who shot me.

I began going over everything I’d been told so far, hunting for a lead that might ID him.

Slow, soft footsteps creeping toward me. Then a noisy rush.

Flash of light. Pain, pain, pain.

Chains pulling at me.

I wasn’t dreaming; it was another hideous, very real flashback.

He waited under the shelter of the Cessna’s high wing, in his tie-down space at Oakland Airport’s North Field. The afternoon was clear but windy-windy enough to make the wings of the neighboring aircraft, a homebuilt, creak and groan. After a while a man cut through the rows of planes and approached him: near six feet five, heavily muscled, wearing a brown leather flight jacket as battered as Hy’s own and a plain blue baseball cap pulled low on his forehead.

Len Weathers, an acquaintance from the old days in Bangkok. Weathers kept a Cessna Citation here at the field, and Hy and he had exchanged nods over the years, but they’d never spoken. Neither wanted to acknowledge those old days, and Hy didn’t want to acknowledge Weathers because of what it was rumored he’d become.

The word was that Weathers freelanced as an enforcer for various unsavory elements in California and Nevada. Among his alleged services were kidnapping and murder for hire. The same forces that had operated in Southeast Asia during the post-Vietnam era-greed, ruthlessness, and preying upon the weak and helpless-had affected both him and Hy in vastly different ways. Hy had returned with a load of guilt and nightmares enough to last his lifetime and-in time-a desire to make the world a better place. Weathers had continued in an ugly, downward spiral.

Hy had been certain he’d never again exchange a word with Len Weathers. But now he needed one of the man’s services.

Weathers ducked under the wing. Shook Hy’s hand. Said, “I understand you’ve got a problem.”

Hy had relayed his desire to talk with Weathers through one of the line men at the fuel pumps.

“Yeah,” he replied. “My wife-”

“I know what happened to your wife.”

“Her agency and I are working on finding whoever did it.”

“How does that concern me?”

“It doesn’t until we find the person.”

Their eyes met and held, each man taking the other’s measure. Hy flashed back to Bangkok: Weathers had been a hotdog pilot for K-Air, the flight service Hy was employed by, and a tough man. But there’d been a good-natured, humorous side to him. Now there was no trace of that; he was cold and hard and exuded the scent of danger.