Steven Gore - Act of Deceit

Donnally was lying in the back of the wagon, his head once again covered with the ski mask. But this time, instead of holding his gun, he held his cell phone, pressing “send” to call his home number, then disconnecting after his voice mail picked up in order to create a cell site trail back to the area of Trudy’s house.

“So she fled up here so she couldn’t be used as a witness against them?” Donnally asked.

“That’s what she thinks. But it’s no more real than her symptoms.”

“You mean they’re all psychosomatic?”

“Of course. You saw all the craft stuff she’s made. She’s like everybody else in the world. People do what they want to do. While most people rationalize when they don’t want to face something, Trudy paralyzes herself physically.”

“Why don’t you all confront her instead of coddling her?”

“It’s not my problem, it’s Bear’s. But he ain’t gonna do it either. She pretends he’s suffering from post-traumatic stress from the Vietnam War and he pretends she really is sick. It’s a perfect marriage of neuroses.”

“Where was he last night?”

“On guard duty.”

“Against who?”

“Everybody.” Sonny chuckled. “Real and imaginary.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Donnally asked, “What’s upstairs?”

“Which upstairs? Anna’s?”

Donnally laughed. “You know I’m not asking about Anna’s.”

“Let’s just call it their workshop.”

Donnally rolled from his side to his back on the hard wagon bed and waited for Sonny to explain what he meant.

“You want to drag this out or just tell me?” Donnally finally said.

“You’ll never find the place again, so why not? They make most of their money sorting and cleaning marijuana for the growers up here.”

“I figured it was something like that, but I assumed they were the growers. I saw the tanker and generator.”

“Not for twenty years or so. Now they rent the equipment out to others. I think they’re nuts to keep doing what they’re doing. A lot of people would kill to find out where this place is so they could bust in when they’re sorting and steal the crop. It would be the quickest hundred grand anybody ever made.”

“Would kill or did kill?”

“You’re quick,” Sonny said. “That was one of the theories in the days after Anna was murdered. Some people thought that R2T2 did it. Trudy had made a run up to supervise a harvest. People were thinking that R2T2 were trying to get Anna to give up where the grow was so they could rip it off. Life on the run costs a lot of money, and it wasn’t like they could hold day jobs. But Rover getting busted put that theory to rest.”

“Did Anna even know what was going on up here?”

“Sure. She didn’t like her mother doing it, but couldn’t stop her. Anna grasped what Trudy had refused to. Peace and love were dead and marijuana had become a business no different than heroin and speed. By the early 1980s even the Hare Krishnas were into the drug trade and had left a trail of bodies from Twin Peaks in San Francisco to the New York harbor.”

“Somehow I don’t see Trudy being capable of marijuana growing. It’s tough work. Hiking the hills, planting and harvesting.”

“She wasn’t always that way.”

“You mean she didn’t have these symptoms when Anna was growing up?”

“They kicked in later.”

“When?”

Sonny laughed and accelerated down the dirt road. “I’ll let you answer that one yourself.”

It wasn’t until Donnally once again heard the popping gravel that he got it: Trudy hadn’t gone into hiding after the police knocked on her door to question her about Tsukamata, but only after her daughter’s murder in 1986. And her guilt revealed itself, to everyone but herself, in the form of her psychosomatic symptoms.

“You mean it really was R2T2 who killed Anna, trying to find out where the marijuana operation was?” Donnally asked. “And Trudy had once protected the guys who later came back and killed her daughter?”

The question died in the rumbling of tires and grinding of gears, and Sonny answered with his silence.

Donnally was glad that Mauricio’s cowardice had kept him from looking for Anna himself. It had saved him from the truth, and from the tragedy that he’d delivered his sister up to an equally cowardly woman that Anna had sacrificed her life to protect.

He remembered a line spoken by a janitor, leaning on his broom in an army hospital hallway during one of his father’s movies: A hypochondriac is just a sociopath without courage.

That was Trudy Keenan.

And in that moment, Donnally felt sadder for Anna than at any time since he first read her name in Mauricio’s letter.

“W here is she, Sonny boy?”

A grim voice shook Donnally awake. He looked out from the bed of the Willys and recognized the side of the apartment building bordering Sonny’s driveway. He propped himself on an elbow and looked over the driver’s seat toward the front of the wagon. Two men, one black, one white, both in their mid-fifties, stood facing Sonny, who was leaning back against the hood.

“We’re tired of screwing around, asshole. You’ve been fucking with us for over thirty years. It stops tonight. Where’s Trudy?”

Sonny held his hands out and looked at the black one.

“Come on, Jenkins, I don’t know where she is.”

Donnally glanced toward the street to see if there was backup. A vacant Ford Expedition blocked the driveway, probably the one that got cut off in San Rafael. He heard a thud and a grunt, then looked back to see Sonny doubled over.

Jenkins pointed a leather-gloved finger at Sonny’s head. His other hand was still formed into a fist.

“I’ll tell you all I know man,” Sonny said. “Just go through my lawyer.”

Jenkins punched down toward Sonny’s face. His head rocked to the left.

“Fuck your lawyer.”

Donnally eased toward the rear door.

The white one stepped between his partner and Sonny.

“Take it easy. He won’t be able to talk through a broken jaw.” He then set his hand on Sonny’s shoulder. “You better come up with something, Sonny. I’m not sure how long I can control him.”

“Give me the address,” Jenkins said.

Donnally turned the handle to flip up the top half of the gate and gripped the lower latch. He yanked it hard and in one motion kicked the bottom gate and slid out. By the time he’d pulled his gun and crouched down at the back of the truck, there were two Glocks pointed at him.

“I’m a cop,” Donnally called out. “Back off.”

“You used to be a cop, asshole,” Jenkins yelled back. “Why don’t you go back up to Mount Shasta and flip your flapjacks?”

“Not a chance.”

A light came on in a second-story apartment window. Donnally glanced up as the curtain was pulled aside.

The window slid open and a female voice called out, “Everything okay?”

Donnally lowered his gun and slipped it into his back pocket. Jenkins and his partner holstered theirs.

“Yeah, fine,” Donnally said to her, “Sonny just got drunk and passed out. We’ll take care of him.”

“W hy don’t you just cut a deal and get this over with?” Donnally asked.

Sonny pressed the ice pack against the side of his head as they sat at the kitchen table, then quoted back Donnally’s earlier line about Mauricio: “There’d be too much to explain.” He took in a long breath, then exhaled. “Look, man. Anna was everybody’s baby, not just Trudy’s. She was a little goddess that appeared out of nothingness. Everybody showed up at the house after she was murdered. I mean everybody. Crooked and straight. People who were still in the movement and some who’d long left it behind. Even that asshole Sherwyn showed up, but we chased him away.