"I've found evidence that Grant's real name may have been Andy Wrightman."
"Evidence."
"One of Perry Hilderly's heirs mentioned the name when I described Grant to him."
"Oh, I see-hard evidence."
With an effort I kept my voice level. "It's something you may want to look into. Wrightman was associated with Hilderly in the late sixties; he was a campus hanger-on at Cal, something of a hippie and a drifter-"
Now McFate smiled superiorly. "I can assure you that Thomas Grant was never a hippie or a drifter-quite the opposite. Frankly, I think you're becoming obsessed with this Hilderly business."
"And frankly, I think it's logical that there might be a tie-in."
"Ms. McCone, my background check on the victim was very thorough."
"Would you care to share what you turned up?"
"No, I would not. I am not, as you put it, in the habit of sharing the details of my investigations with civilians. Nor do I care for any further input from you."
I glared at him. McFate remained impassive. I said, "Do you plan to share the details of your investigation with Lieutenant Marcus? He mentioned to me a few minutes ago that he was hoping you'd brief him."
McFate's cleft chin jutted out. "I intend to speak with him momentarily." His impatient glance toward his superior's office indicated that only my annoying presence was preventing him from doing so. He picked up a file, stood, and motioned at the way out of the squad room.
I remained in front of him, blocking his path. "You know, Leo," I said, "it strikes me that the past of a man who practiced law the way Grant did can't have been any too savory."
McFate smiled thinly. "And that, Ms. McCone, shows exactly how much you know." He brushed past me and moved toward Greg's cubicle. Greg still stood in its doorway; apparently he'd been watching the entire exchange. As McFate entered and took a seat, Greg smiled at me and shrugged sympathetically.
Irresistible impulse overcame me: I made a single-fingered gesture at the back of McFate's well-barbered head. Snickers erupted from the desks around me. Greg rolled his eyes and went back into his office.
I left the squad room, oddly elated by my display of temper. I'd always been the good kid on the private investigators' block: cooperative, professional, rarely antagonistic. But even good kids have their limits. I figured I was entitled to throw an occasional fit.
As I punched the Down button at the elevators, I wondered why I'd allowed Leo McFate to enrage me. The man was petty and mean-spirited; why couldn't I just ignore him?
Because, I told myself as I brutalized the button some more, the man's an asshole. When you're dealing with someone who suffers from that altogether-too-prevalent malady, it's very often catching.
I made two detours on my way to All Souls: first to pick up a pizza, so I wouldn't have to sponge off the folks who lived there (and probably have to eat some god-awful health food), and then to my house to pick up my gun.
The strongbox where I keep my.38 is actually an ammunition box that my father pilfered from the navy years ago. The box sits on the floor of the linen closet in my bathroom, hardly an original hiding place, and one that it wouldn't take a competent thief two minutes to find. However, its lock is a good one, and when I had the closet built while I was renovating the cottage, my clever contractor put a bolt straight through the bottom of the box and into the floor joist. Any thief who wants to make off with it will have to take part of the cottage along, too.
I went into the bathroom, pushed aside a jumble of cleaning supplies, and flattened myself on the floor so I could work the lock. I hadn't had the.38 out in so long that it lay beneath the velvet pouch containing my grandmother's garnet earrings that I'd last worn on New Year's Eve. The sight of them gave me a flash of bittersweet nostalgia. I'd met George Kostakos on December 30; he'd called me for the first time at a few minutes after midnight on New Year's.
So much had happened since then: we'd come so close, only to move apart. George had said he cared deeply for me, that when his estranged wife's mental condition stabilizedhe'd come back and see if I'd still have him. But months had passed, and I'd heard nothing; now I wasn't even sure I wanted to. Maybe it was better to go through life alone, protected from its hurts and disappointments. Maybe people who only indulged in casual, short-term relationships were the ones with the greatest chance at happiness.
But casual, short-term relationships had never worked for me. And I wasn't sure that happiness was a reasonable goal, anyway. At times it seemed a myth-something an advertising agency had dreamed up to sell more toothpaste.
"Enough!" I said aloud. "You've got things to do." I took out the gun, locked the box, and got up off the floor.
That was another thing: I found that I talked to myself more lately. People always talk to themselves, particularly those who live alone, but with me it was, as if the sensible, self-sufficient side of my personality was trying to tell the other, vulnerable side to shape up. And I suspected that the sensible McCone was losing the debate.
Before I left the house I checked my answering machine in case Wolf had tried to reach me at home. The first message was from Jim Addison, sounding angry because I hadn't returned his call. I fast-forwarded through it, unwilling to allow my uneasiness about his potential for violence to compound my tension about the sniper. The only other message was from my mother, complaining because I hadn't called her last week. I should have, but I'd let it go because I really didn't have anything to say. And now I couldn't, because Ma is very sensitive to undertones in my voice and would catch on quickly to the fact that things weren't right. Then she would worm it out of me about the sniper and about my friends being in danger, and finally, because she was way down in San Diego and couldn't have done anything to help even if she were right here, she'd worry. When Ma worries about one of her children, she calls the other four and tells them all about it, and soon she has a big McCone worryfest going. The only family member who doesn't feed into it is my father; Pa just stays out in his garage workshop, playing the guitar and singing dirty folk songs in a voice loud enough-because he's getting deaf-to scandalize the neighbors.
No, I decided, I can't call Ma back until this whole thing is over.
At quarter past eleven Rae and I sat cross-legged on her brass bed playing what seemed like our thousandth game of gin rummy; we'd been at it since nine. Initially we'd discussed the snipings and the Hilderly case, but then we'd fallen silent. Now the only sounds were the slap of the cards, the distant bellow of foghorns, and small moans and sighs of contentment from the trunk under the dormer window, where Ralph and Alice curled together in luxurious sleep. Rae was baby-sitting them tonight, since Ted had gone to a memorial service for their former owner.
I had to admit how tranquilizing the presence of a sleeping cat could be. And Rae's room-which she'd created herself at the rear of the Victorian's unfinished attic, after she'd lived in her office for months and none of the regular rooms had become available-was lovely. A snug aerie full of plants and white wicker furniture and splashed with yellows and golds and greens, it revealed her heretofore unknown flair for interior decorating on a small budget.