Marcia Muller - McCone And Friends

Sharon doesn’t live far from All Souls-in Glen Park, a district that’s been undergoing what they call gentrification. I suppose you could say her brown-shingled cottage-one of the few thousand built as temporary housing after the ’06 quake that have survived far better than most of the grand mansions of that era-has been gentrified, since she’s remodeled it and added a room and a deck, but to me it’s just nice and homey, not fancy at all. Besides, things are always going wrong with it-tonight it was the porch light, shorting out from rain that had dripped into it because the gutters were overflowing. I rang the bell, hoping it wouldn’t also short out and electrocute me.

Sharon answered wearing her long white terry robe and fur lined slippers and looking like she was coming down with a cold-probably from the soaking she’d gotten Tuesday night, which meant I would be the next one in line to get sick, from the soaking I’d gotten last night. She looked concerned when she saw me on the steps.

Last night, after I’d dealt with the Marin authorities and driven home feeling rocky and ready to fly apart at the slightest sound or movement, she’d come over to the co-op-Ted had called her at home, I guess-and we’d sat quietly in my nest for a while. Neither of us had said much-there was nothing to say, and we didn’t need to, anyway. This second horror in a week of unpleasantness had changed me somehow, maybe forced me to grow up. I wasn’t looking to Sharon for wisdom or even comfort, just for understanding and fellowship. And fellows we were-members of a select group to which election was neither an honor nor a pleasure.

Tonight I could tell that she was afraid I was suffering delayed repercussions from the violent events of the week, so quickly I said, “I need to run some facts by you. Got a few minutes?”

She nodded, looking relieved, and waved me inside. We went to the sitting room off her kitchen, where she had a fire going, and she offered me some mulled wine. While she was getting it, her yellow cat, Ralph, jumped into my lap. Ralph is okay as cats go, but really, I’m more of a dog person. He knows that, too-it’s why he always makes a beeline for me when I come over. The little sadist looked at me with knowing eyes, then curled into a ball on my lap. His calico sister Alice, who was grooming herself in the middle of the floor, looked up, and damned if she didn’t wink!

Sharon came back with the wine, wrapped herself in her afghan on the couch, and said, “So run it by me.”

I did, concluding, “Adrian couldn’t have killed Kirby. Her hysterics when Waterson told her he was dead were genuine.”

“Mmmm.” Sharon seemed to be evaluating that. Then she said, “Maybe one of the other kids Kirby was blackmailing?”

“I thought of that, too, but it doesn’t wash. Adrian talked a little while we were driving to Point Reyes to call the sheriff. She said none of the kids knew about the house on Naples-Kirby insisted it be kept a secret.”

“What about one of the fences he dealt with? Maybe he’d crossed one of them.”

“I tend to doubt it. Fences don’t operate that way.”

“Well, you should know. Willie…”

“Yeah.” I sipped wine, feeling gloomy and frustrated.

Sharon asked, “Who else besides Adrian knew about that house?”

“Well, Waterson, but his alibi is firm. And Aunt June. Adrian called her from a pay phone at a store on the corner the day she walked in on Kirby and Waterson making a deal with a fence, and June drove over to the city and picked her up. Adrian had told June about the trouble she was in when she and Kirby went to Tomales for the autumnal equinox firing in late September, and June’d offered to take her in after she went to security about what was going on. I don’t know how June thought Adrian could escape prosecution for her part in the scam, but then, she didn’t strike me as a terribly realistic person.”

“Caring, though,” Sharon said. “Caring and controlling.”

I nodded. “June, the fierce protectress. Who died with a fire place poker in her hand. Waterson had a gun, and she still tried to go up against him.”

“And Kirby had come out to her place. Had scared Adrian.”

“Yes,” I said.

Sharon got up, took out glasses, and went to the kitchen for refills. I stared moodily into the fire. When I’d taken this job. I’d assumed I’d be running skip traces and interviewing witnesses for lawsuits. Now I’d found two dead bodies, almost killed a man, almost gotten killed myself-all in the course of a few days. Add to that an ethical dilemma…

When Sharon came back I said, “If I suggest this to the police, and June really was innocent, I’ll be smearing the memory of a basically good woman.”

She was silent, framing her reply. “If June was innocent, the police won’t find any evidence. If she was guilty, they may find a weapon with blood and hair samples that match Kirby’s somewhere on the premises at Tomales, and be able to close the file.”

“But what will that do to Adrian?”

“From what you tell me, she’s a survivor. And you’ve got to think of Kirby’s parents. You’ve got to think of justice.”

Leave it to Sharon to bring up the J-word. She thinks about things like that all the time, but to me they’re just abstractions.

“And you’ve got to think about the truth,” she added.

Not fair-and she knows how I feel about the truth. “All right,” I finally said. “I’ll call Adah back later.”

“Good. By the way, how are Adrian and her mother doing?”

“Well, all of this has been tough on them. Will be tough for a while. But they’ll make it. Adrian is a survivor, and Donna-maybe this will help her realized her ‘potential to be.’”

We both smile wryly. Sharon said, “Here’s to our potential to be,” and we toasted.

After a while I went into her home office and called Adah. Then I called All Souls and Hy, who was regaling the folks in the kitchen with stories about the days when he was on the wrong side of the law, and told him I’d be there soon.

“So,” Sharon said as I was putting on my slicker. “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m still rocky, but that’ll pass.”

“Nightmares?”

“Yeah. But tonight they won’t bother me. I plan to scare them off by sleeping with my favorite gorilla.”

Sharon grinned and toasted me again, but damned if she didn’t look melancholy.

Maybe she still knew something that I didn’t.

On their fortieth birthdays, most women want a little romance, right? Be taken out to dinner, given a present, maybe flowers. Not McCone though. She’s one of a kind. On her fortieth, she wanted me to go with her to the dump.

Sure, I know we’re supposed to call it a refuse disposal site, but politically correct doesn’t always cut it with me. A dump’s a dump, and the proof of that is in the smell.

The dump we’re talking about was in Sonoma County, some 45 miles north of the Golden Gate, out in the middle of farmland near the town of Los Alegres. A long blacktop road led uphill from the highway; at its top earthmovers worked on the edge of the landfill and seagulls perched on a mountain of recycled yard waste.

“Nasty little scavengers flew twenty miles inland to feast at this fancy establishment,” I commented.

McCone gave me look that said she wasn’t impressed with the gulls’ navigational talents, and then slammed on the brakes inches short of the bumper of a van crammed with plastic garbage bags-the last in a line of vehicles that were stopped at the gate waiting to pay the entrance fee.

“I know, Ripinsky, I know,” she muttered, even though I hadn’t said anything. “Eyes front.” Then she steered her MG around the van and took a side road toward the recycling sheds-a row of board shacks surrounded by busted furniture and rusted appliances, were a hand lettered sign advertised: