We walked through the sparsely decorated house and into a sun room overlooking a small patio. There were several framed police photos on the wall. Keating was as I remembered him, just thirty years older. Gaunt, white hair thinning, but with that same ruddy complexion.
He sat watching an afternoon news show with the stock market tape streaming by. I realized he was sitting in a wheelchair.
Helen Keating introduced us, then, finding the clicker, put the TV volume down. Keating seemed pleased to have visitors from the force.
“I don't get to many functions since my legs went. Arthritis, they tell me. Brought on by a bullet to lumbar four. Can't play golf anymore.” He chuckled. “But I can still watch the old pension grow.”
I saw him studying my face. “You're Marty Boxer's little girl, aren't you?” I smiled. “The Alibi... A couple of five-oh-ones, right, Tom?” A 5-0-1 was the call for backup, and how they used to call a favorite drink, an Irish whiskey with a beer chaser.
“I heard you were quite the big shot these days.” Keating nodded with a toothy smile. “So, what brings you two honchos down to talk to an old street cop?”
“Frank Coombs,” I said.
Keating's features suddenly turned hard. “What about Frank?” “We're trying to find him, Tom. I was told you might know where he is.”
“Why don't you call his parole officer? That wouldn't be me.”
“He's split, Tom. Four weeks now. Quit his job.”
“So they got Homicide following up on parole offenders now?”
I held Keating's eyes. “What do you say Tom?”
“What makes you think I'd have any idea?” He glanced toward his legs. “Old times are old times.”
“I heard you guys kept in touch. It's important.”
“Well, you're wasting your time here, Lieutenant,” he said, suddenly turning formal.
I knew he was lying. “When was the last time you spoke with Coombs?”
“Maybe just after he got out. Could be once or twice since then. He needed some help to get on his feet. I may have lent him a hand.”
“And where was he staying,” Jacobi cut in, “while you were lending him this hand?”
Keating shook his head. “Some hotel down on Eddy or O'Farrell. Wasn't the St. Francis,” he said.
“And you haven't spoken with him since?” My eyes flicked toward Helen Keating.
“What do you want with the man, anyway?” Keating snapped. “He's paid his time. Why don't you just leave him alone?” “It would be easier this way, Tom,” I said. “If you'd just talk to us.”
Keating pursed his dry lips, trying to size up where his loyalties fell.
“You put in thirty years, didn't you?” Jacobi said.
“Twenty-four.” He patted his leg. “Got it cut short at the end.”
“Twenty-four good years. It'd be a shame to dishonor it in any way by not cooperating now.”
He shot back, “You want to know who was a goddamn expert in lack of cooperation? Frank Coombs. Man was only doing his job and all those bastards, supposedly his friends, looked the other way. Maybe that's the way you do things now with your community action meetings and your sensitivity training. But then we had to get the bad guys off the streets. With the means that we had.”
“Tom.” His wife raised her voice. “Frank Coombs killed a boy. These people, they're your friends. They want to speak with him. I don't know how far you have to take this duty-and-loyalty thing. Your duty's here.”
Keating glared at her harshly. “Yeah, sure, my duty's here.”
He picked up the TV clicker and turned back to me. “Stay here all day if you like; I don't have the slightest idea where Frank Coombs is.”
He turned up the volume on his TV.
Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance
Chapter 79
“FUCK HIM,” Jacobi said as we left the house. “Old-school asshole.”
“We're halfway down the peninsula already.” I said to him. “You want to drive down to Stanford? See Frankie's kid?”
“What the hell.” He shrugged. “I can use the education.”
We hooked back onto 280 and made it to Palo Alto in half an hour.
As we pulled onto the campus drive - the tall palms lining the road, the stately ocher buildings with their red roofs, the Hoover Tower majestically rising over the Main Quad - I felt the spell of being part of campus life. Every one of these kids was special and talented. I even felt some pride that Coombs's son, despite his rough beginnings, had made it here.
We checked in at the administrative office on the Main Quad. A dean's assistant told us Rusty Coombs was probably at football practice down at the field house. Said Rusty was a good student, and a great tight end. We drove there, where a student manager in a red Stanford cap took us upstairs and asked us to wait outside the weight room.
Moments later, a solidly built, orange-haired kid in a sweaty Cardinals T-shirt wandered out. Rusty Coombs had an affable face spotted with a few freckles. He had none of the dark, brooding belligerence I had seen in photos of his father.
“I guess I know why you guys are here,” he said, coming up to us. “My mom called, told me.”
The heavy sound of weight irons and lifting machines clanged in the background. I smiled affably. “We're looking for your father, Rusty. We were wondering if you have any idea where he might be?” “He's not my father,” the boy said, and shook his head. “My father's name is Theodore Bell. He's the one who brought me up with Mom. Teddy taught me how to catch a football. He's the one who told me I could make it to Stanford.”
“When was the last time you heard from Frank Coombs?”
“What's he done, anyway? My mother said you guys are from Homicide. We know what's in the news. Everyone knows what's going on up there. Whatever he did before, he paid his time, didn't he? You can't believe just because he made some mistakes twenty years ago he's responsible for these terrible crimes?”
“We wouldn't have driven all the way down unless it was important,” Jacobi said.
The football player shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet. He seemed to be a likable kid, cooperative. He rubbed his hands together. “He came here once. When he first got out. I had written him a couple of times in jail. I met with him in town. I didn't want anybody to see him.”
“What did he say to you?” I asked.
“I think all he wanted was to clear his own conscience. And know what my mother thought of him. Never once did he say ' great job, Rusty Look at you. You did good.' Or, ”Hey I follow your games...' He was more interested in knowing if my mom had thrown out some of his old things."
“What sort of things?” I asked. What would be so important that he would drive all the way here and confront his son?
“Police things,” Rusty Coombs said and shook his head. "Maybe his guns.
I smiled sympathetically. I knew what it was like to look at your father with something less than admiration. “He give you any idea where he might go?”
Rusty Coombs shook his head. He looked like he might tear up. “I'm not Frank Coombs, Inspectors. I may have his name, I may even have to live with what he did, but I'm not him. Please leave our family alone. Please.”
Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance
Chapter 80
WELL, THAT SUCKED. Stirring up bad memories for Rusty Coombs made me feel terrible. Even Jacobi agreed.
We made it back to the office about four. We'd driven all the way down to Palo Alto just to run into another dead end.
What fun.
There was a phone message waiting for me. I called Cindy back immediately. “There's a rumor floating around that you've narrowed on a suspect,” she said. “Truth or dare?”
“We have a name, Cindy, but I can't tell you anything. We just want to bring him in for questioning.”