His father’s tone changed instantly to concern for a fellow officer. “Shot! Not Garreth,” he said to someone at that end. “His partner. What happened!”
“I’ll give you all the details when I come home.” What fun that would be. “Probably toward the end of the week.” Give his father no time for questions now and avoid lies Lien could hear. “I promised the lieutenant I’d finish up reports for Harry and me. Since Grandma’s worried about me being dead, put her on the phone and let me talk to her.”
“She’s gone to Evening Prayer to pay for your soul but here’s your mother.”
“I don’t know what set Mother off again,” his mother said. “I thought she was over that after talking to Lien when you were in the hospital. I’m glad you’re coming so she can see for herself you’re all right. You are, aren’t you? How long will you be staying?”
A tricky question. Not long enough to satisfy her, of course, but probably longer than comfortable for him. So he lied. “Maybe a couple of weeks.” Way longer than he knew he could bear. Before going he needed to work out an escape plan.
“That’s wonderful. You’ll be able to spend time with Brian.” She paused. “Judith has been wanting to talk to you.”
“Judith?” Fear touched him. “Is something wrong with Brian?”
“Oh, no. He’s fine. It’s something else; she’ll tell you.”
“Do you know?”
She hedged and wandered off on a tangent, which told him she knew, all right.
“Tell me. Don’t let her hit me cold with it.”
“Well.” He heard her take a breath. “She wants your permission to let Dennis adopt Brian.”
With that sentence her forgot all about his impatience to be rid of Lien and on his way back to the Hall. “She what! You can tell her — no, I’ll tell her myself!”
He stabbed down the switch hook. Releasing it again, he punched Judith’s number. “What do you mean, you want me to let your husband to adopt my son? What the hell makes you think I’ll ever agree to that!”
Her breath caught. “So much for polite amenities. Like father, like son. No, it’s all right,” she said to someone on the other end. “Just a minute, Garreth.” He heard her moving and a door shutting, cutting off background sound. “Now. I thought maybe you’d agree because you love Brian and want what’s best for him. Brian and Dennis are so close already, and — ”
“And I’m his father. I stay his father!”
“He needs someone full-time, Garreth, someone he can feel he belongs to. What are you? He’s lucky if he sees you four or five times a year now.”
“You were the one who insisted on moving back to Davis. My job doesn’t give me enough time off to — ”
“Your job is exactly what you let it be!” Her bitterness came over the wire. “It wouldn’t have to be twenty-four hours a day every day, but you like it that way. You chose that job over Brian and me.”
Oh lord here they went…not even a minute of conversation and down into the same old rut. “Judith, I don’t want to start that again.”
“With Brian adopted, you wouldn’t have to pay child support anymore.”
She thought she could buy Brian for her precious Dennis? “Forget it!” he snarled. “Brian is my son and I’m not giving him to anyone else!”
He slammed down the receiver, shaking, and turned to find Lien regarding him with sympathy.
All the anxiety about her presence here returned in an icy flood. “I’m sorry you heard that. Thanks for bringing me home. I’m sorry again for not visiting Harry earlier.”
“It means more now that he’s awake. Come again tomorrow.”
He closed the door behind her, thinking longingly of his pallet. Only now, feeling the sun starting to set, life crept back into him. And he had things to do. He peered out the window to be sure she was out of sight, fetched a notebook from his desk, and headed for his car.
5
The Records clerk took a while time finding Claudia Darling’s record. “She goes way back,” she said. “You’re lucky there’s an entry recent enough for the record to still be here, not shipped off to storage.”
Yes, thank you Lady Luck.
“No, I don’t need to check out the record, just copy a few facts from it.” Avoiding a paper trail betraying his continued interest in Lane Barber.
He noted all the names and dates and carried them to Homicide. This time he found himself alone in the office, freeing him to study the notes with no pretense of writing reports.
Claudia Darling had been born Claudia Bologna in 1920. Her yellow sheet listed twelve arrests for solicitation between 1934 — she had been turning tricks at fourteen? — and 1945. No criminal complaints after that, but involvement in two no-injury traffic accidents, in 1952 and 1965 — by which time her name had become Mrs. William Drum with a Twin Peaks address — and victim of a purse snatching in 1970.
If Lady Luck remained with him, she still lived in San Francisco. He pulled out a phone book to look up listings for William Drum.
While he turned pages, his mind slipped back to his conversation with his ex-wife. Anger boiled up again thinking of it. Let Dennis have Brian? No way in hell! Yet he recognized that Judith had a valid argument. Maybe that was what he found so infuriating. He had never been much of a father…and what kind could he ever be now? Come on, son; let’s go out for a bite. You have a hamburger and I’ll take the waitress.
Three William Drums lived in San Francisco, none in the Twin Peaks area. Dialing the number of William C. Drum, he connected with a woman too young to be Claudia, and who knew no Claudia Drum. No one answered William R. Drum’s phone.
He dialed William R. Drum, Jr. A child answered.
Hearing the high-pitched voice, Garreth grimaced. This did not sound promising. “Is your mommy there?”
“Mommy?” The voice rose, calling. “Mommy!”
A woman’s voice came on the line a few moments later. He introduced himself. “I’m attempting to locate a Mrs. Claudia Drum.”
“I’m sorry; no one by that name lives here.”
He swore silently. Had he hit a dead end? “Do you know a Claudia Drum? She’s an older woman, in her sixties. Her husband’s name is William Drum.”
“Just a minute.” Her voice became muffled as she called, “Bill, what’s your mother’s name?”
Several voices murmured, unintelligible to Garreth, then the voice of an older man came on. “This is William Drum, Sr. You’re looking for a woman named Claudia? Can you describe her for me?”
“Five-one, blue-eyed, brunette. Her maiden name was Bologna and in 1970 she lived in the Twin Peaks area.”
“You say you’re with the police?”
Garreth gave Drum his name and the phone number and invited him to call back. Drum did, then explained that Claudia Drum was his first wife. “We divorced in 1971.”
“Do you know what her name is now and where she is?”
Drum hesitated. “I’m curious what you want with her. If all you know is that name and address, this must concern something old.”
“We’re looking for information on a woman who assaulted her in 1942.”
A long silence greeted that remark. Garreth pictured Drum staring nonplused at the receiver, wondering why the police cared about a forty-year-old assault. Finally, with a shrug and a dry note in his voice, Drum said, “Her name is Mrs. James Emerson Thouvenelle and she lives on the wall.” He gave a Presidio Heights address and phone number.
Garreth wrote them down, impressed. Claudia had done well for herself, rising from hooker to the mansions overlooking the Presidio. He wondered if Drum’s dry tone indicated he knew he had been a mere stepping-stone to that mansion. Garreth made sure he thanked William Stepping-stone Drum warmly before hanging up and dialing the Thouvenelle number.
How would his request to see her be received? As a rude reminder of her past?
When he mentioned Mala Babra, however, the rich voice on the other end of the line laughed. “What do you want with that crazy singer? Are things so slow for you boys you’re digging into the basement files? Yes, I’ll talk to you.”