Wendy Hornsby - The Color of Light

“The report is at the station.” The chief bowed from the waist as he swept an arm toward the exit. “Shall we?”

“As soon as the house cleaners come,” I said, turning Max’s wrist to see his watch. “About half an hour.”

“Maggie?” Max managed to pull himself upright. “Lana called. The network funded your account at start of business this morning, New York time.”

“So, that’s done,” I said. We were staying with the network for the Normandy project, and I didn’t know how I felt about that. There was relief that the project would go forward, of course, but also some disappointment that we were still entangled with the old network-a problem child-instead of making a fresh start with a new backer.

“To tell you the truth,” Max said, “I was surprised that the network came through. Apparently the push happened when someone on the New York goon squad picked your name off the morning news feed. He immediately sent in the order to fund.”

“Saw my name?” I said, puzzled.

“Actually, this.” He took out his phone and flipped through his files until he found what he wanted, a photograph. He handed the phone to me. “Lana says it’s gone viral. I hope Jean-Paul doesn’t take any flak because of it.”

“Holy crap,” was all I could think to say when I saw the image. There we were, Jean-Paul and I, standing shoulder to shoulder at the open front door, barely dressed and covered in blood watching paramedics wheel Kevin to an ambulance.

Jean-Paul heard me and came in from the dining room to look over my shoulder. He muttered, “Merde,” and went back to his call.

It was still early when we got to the police station, though we’d been up so long it felt like midday. The Civic Center was just coming to life, city workers beginning to straggle in, paper cups of coffee clutched in their hands as they dodged the cadre of young skateboarders who use the public sidewalks, ramps and stairs as their private skate park. And, of course, there was a fair cross section of street people drinking out of paper bags or sleeping off the night before on shaded benches. Max, Jean-Paul and I managed to negotiate our way through wheeled youth and panhandlers and get through the front door of the police station without incident.

The rookie cop on front-desk duty expected us. He led us out of the police lobby and through a maze of cubicles in back. We passed Chief Wasick’s office door and went instead into the detectives’ bullpen. Tony Wasick was at Kevin’s desk studying the contents of the manila file folder open in front of him. He glanced up when we came in.

“It’s interesting,” he said as the three of us peered over his shoulders. “Very interesting.”

When Kevin sent Trinh Bartolini’s shirt to the lab for testing, he had also sent along a sweat-stained T-shirt belonging to Chuck Riley, the baseball bat belonging to George Loper, a plastic fork Bart Bartolini had used, and a chewed-on pencil he lifted from the pencil cup on Dad’s desk. Beto gave him a bamboo flute that he remembered his mother playing, from which her DNA sample was extracted. Of the five samples, only two matched the DNA on swatches cut from the bloody white shirt she wore when she was found. They were hers and Chuck Riley’s.

When I saw that Chuck Riley’s semen as well as some of his blood were found on the shirt, I felt like crying and laughing and maybe doing a rain dance at the same time; fatigue, let-down after a very bad night, both or neither, I didn’t know what all, made me feel just a bit giddy.

I reached around Wasick and put my finger on a line in the lab report: a small amount of Chuck Riley’s blood was found on the back of her shirt. I said, “Riley was behind her when she was shot.”

“Looks like it,” Wasick said. “She took a frontal hit, middle of the chest. The bullet passed through her and may have grazed him. So, the question is, if he was behind her, who pulled the trigger?”

“Ask Riley,” I said.

“When we find him, we will.”

Max chimed in, “You certainly have enough to get a search warrant for Riley’s house, Chief.”

“Thirty years after the fact, what am I looking for and where am I looking for it?”

“Riley’s bedroom or whatever dungeon he took that dear woman into. Take up the carpets, check the walls, look for blood, a gun, a bullet hole. A souvenir he kept of her, maybe.”

“ More than thirty years, counselor.” Wasick rubbed tired eyes.

“It’s a long shot,” I said. “But it is a shot. If Chuck Riley won’t talk, we may never know exactly what happened to Trinh Bartolini. Larry Nordquist is another matter. After all that I have seen and heard, I am just awfully damn certain that Chuck whacked Larry to keep him from talking. I have faith in you, Chief. You’ll find what you need to convict Chuck on that one.”

“We’ll see,” Wasick said, closing the file. “We’ll see.”

We had learned what we came to learn, and now it was time to go. I offered Wasick my hand. “Thank you, Chief.”

He took my hand in both of his and looked directly, pointedly, into my eyes. “Like the murder book, you never saw this report. Got it?”

“Of course.”

He rose from his chair. “Now, if you folks will excuse me, I have a nap to take. I’m too old for all-nighters.”

Jean-Paul, Max and I walked up to the Bartolini deli for breakfast. Beto’s wife, Zaida, was busy with customers, but she took the time to tell us that Beto was at the hospital with his dad and that Bart was having a pretty good day, all things considered. Beto had run into Kevin’s son at the hospital, so he knew in broad outlines what had happened the night before. And because Beto knew half the staff at the hospital from either school or the deli, he was able to get regular updates on Kevin’s condition. Zaida told us that Duc’s bullet had pierced Kevin’s lung and shattered a rib on the way out. He had lost a lot of blood, but no other vital organs were damaged. He was still in the ICU, still asleep, and his condition was stable. Good news all around.

After we ate, though a nap sounded like a very fine idea, no one was in a hurry to get home until the crime scene cleaners had time to finish removing the gore. Jean-Paul and I decided to walk, to get some fresh air, while Max, playing the martyr, volunteered to go home to check on progress. He said he would call Lyle, to get a referral for someone to patch the walls and to paint; Lyle had contacts.

After we saw him off, Jean-Paul and I headed up Shattuck to take the shortcut across the Cal campus. I wanted to show him where I had spent a great part of my growing-up years, and where I had earned my degree.

The day was already warm, uncomfortably so. But the campus under its canopy of redwood trees was sweet-smelling and cool, a lovely break from the ugliness of the night before. Instead of cutting straight across, we wandered arm-in-arm along Strawberry Creek, through the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Grove, and then over to the physics building where my dad’s office had been for so many years. I was feeling a bit wistful, wondering if I would ever take that particular walk again. Saying another good-bye to Dad.

Jean-Paul interrupted my reverie. “Tell me, my friend in television, if you were to film a dramatization of the murder of Trinh Bartolini, how would it unfold?”

I rested my head against his shoulder and thought for a moment. “I can think of various scenarios, but the one that makes the most sense to me after seeing the lab reports would begin with Mrs. B in bed with Chuck, his house, drapes closed to keep the room dark so she wouldn’t have to see him, gritting her teeth, praying he’ll finish and roll off her. They hear someone in the house. He pushes her or she falls off the bed, bruising her bottom and her shoulder when she lands on the floor. She grabs the first thing she finds to cover herself-his shirt. Chuck ends up standing behind her. Was he trying to hide, or to use her as a shield?