Trophies And Dead Things

"What happened to all the heroes?" he asked.

I had no answer for him, because I suspected there had never been any heroes-not in the world he was longing for. That was a world all too often re-created not from fact but from wishful fantasy, and none of us could ever know where the truth left off and the lies began.

I turned, bent to pick up the lantern. Behind me I heard Taylor make a sudden movement.

Then I heard the click.

I froze, skin acrawl; the click was the unmistakable one of a safety being flipped off an automatic. I glanced back, ready to run. And saw that the.22 he'd had concealed somewhere on his person was not pointed at me.

Taylor held the gun in both hands, muzzle in his mouth.

As I lunged at him, screaming for him not to do it, he pulled the trigger.

Twenty-Six

I left D.A. Taylor finally at peace on the slab on top of his island. Climbed back down, feeling sick, the lantern guttering and going out when I reached the easy section of the trail on the beach. There I rested until I heard the irregular stutter of the returning motorboat.

Ross was piloting it. I slogged through the shallow water and climbed aboard.

"D.A.?" she asked.

"Dead. He shot himself."

She compressed her lips, turned the boat around. I made no effort to speak to her on the return trip. When we reached the dock behind Taylor's, I jumped from the boat as soon as it bumped against the pilings.

"Wait!" Ross said.

I turned, looked coldly at her. "Before he killed himself, D.A. told me about the map you drew him. What did you do-go down to the city and case Grant's property before you sent D.A. out to exact revenge for you?"

The faint light from the restaurant's windows showed her face, surprise altering its set lines of strain.

"You knew what would happen," I added. "You're an accessory-more guilty than D.A., to my way of thinking."

"… What do you intend to do about it?"

"Nothing. You'd only cover up with more lies. Besides, enough people are going to be hurt by this without me compounding it."

She raised her hands, then let them fall limply to her sides. "Everybody I ever cared about is dead. Everything that ever mattered to me is over."

"And now you'll just have to live with what you did, won't you?" I strode up the rickety dock, away from her self-serving deceptions, out of her wasted life.

From the phone booth outside Nick's Cove I called the sheriffs department. Later, when I was finished dealing with them, I made two other calls.

The first was to Goodhue, relaying what had happened and saying that I would be able to leave her out of my version for the authorities. "There's something I want you to do in exchange, however," I told her.

"Certainly. What?"

"Since Taylor's dead, his share in the Hilderly estate will be divided between you and Libby Ross. The same with Tom Grant's. I want you to give the amount you receive beyond your original inheritance to Taylor's wife and children. They're going to need money to start a new life."

Goodhue agreed without hesitation.

Next I called Greg at home. I asked him to meet me at the Hall in an hour, said I wanted McFate there, too. Greg didn't ask many questions; he was used to peculiar requests from me and, besides, he probably relished dragging McFate out of whatever bed he might occupy at that hour on a weekend morning.

By the time I parked at the nearly deserted curb in front of the Hall of Justice my anger had built to full pressure and I was primed for a confrontation. As I passed through the echoing marble-walled lobby, I glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes to four on Saturday morning-a week after I'd become involved in the case that for me had stripped away what little remained of the mythic charm of the 1960s.

I still valued the legacy of those years. A war had been stopped, the will of the people had prevailed, society had been altered in profound ways. But there was a darker side to the legacy, and the personal cost had been high on both sides.

I'd been right on Monday night when I'd told Rae that what the sixties had been about was rage-but that was only part of it. What they'd also been about was the same as any other decade: winning and losing. Winning the war against communism in Southeast Asia; winning the war against the Establishment in the streets at home. Losing the country because it had become bitterly divided over the Asian conflict; losing yourself because the conflict in the streets had left you bitter, broken, alone.

That was another legacy of the sixties: trophies and dead things. Nets to catch the wind…

McFate was the first person I saw when I entered the squad room: standing near Greg's office, looking pressed and combed and clean-shaven, even on such short notice. He glanced at me-took in my mud-stained clothes and dirty face and disheveled hair-and sneered. The pressure of my anger soared, and then I totally lost it.

I strode over to him, put my grimy hands against his pin-striped chest, and gave him a shove. "You son of a bitch!"

Greg came to the door of his cubicle, eyebrows raised.

"You fucking pompous jerk!" I shoved McFate again, making sure I left a dirty handprint on the front of his pale blue shirt.

McFate shoved me back, said to Greg, "You saw that! She assaulted a police officer! What are you going to do about it?"

"Shut up, Leo," Greg said wearily. "Get in this office. You, too," he added to me.

McFate did an about-face and went in there, brushing fussily at his shirt. "I don't know why you let her get away with things like this," he told Greg. "If you ask me-"

"Nobody did. Sit down, Leo. Sharon, close the door."

I closed it, then moved the second visitor's chair as far from McFate's as possible, and sat.

"You could at least make her apologize," McFate said.

"Unfortunately, she's not very good at that." Greg turned to me; I could tell I was putting a heavy load on his patience. "Will you explain why this is necessary, please?"

I took a deep breath, gathering the vestiges of my shattered self-control. "The man who killed Tom Grant shot himself tonight-on Hog Island in Tomales Bay."

Slowly McFate turned his head toward me; his pupils narrowed to pinpoints. Greg merely waited.

I filled them in on what had happened, making it sound as if I'd gone up there on business about Hilderly's will and walked in on a family crisis. When I finished, I said to Greg, "That's one of the reasons I'm so pissed at him." I jerked my chin at McFate. "If he'd told me about Grant's early career as a federal undercover agent, I would have realized who had motive to kill him, and Taylor might not have died."

McFate said, "Doesn't sound as if he was worth keeping alive."

I turned on him. "Shut up, you! You don't know anything about… anything."

Greg sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Okay," I said. "I'm sorry. But he can be such a pain in the-"

"If I may be heard," McFate said. "I withheld that information for two reasons. First, I do not feel required to share the details of my investigations with civilians. And second, the identities and records of undercover agents are classified information. I was not provided with full details of Grant's activities, so I could hardly be expected to connect it with the other persons named in Hilderly's will."

Greg said, "He has a point, Sharon."

"Half a point. I mentioned the probable connection with Hilderly to him-and more than once. If he had followed up on that, shared what he knew with me… Just yesterday didn't you say it's making the collar that counts-not who makes it?"

Greg nodded.

"Then as a corollary, I'd say it's utilizing the available information that counts, not whether the information was uncovered by a civilian or a member of the department."

McFate said, "I still could not have been expected to make the connection-"

"I think you could have, given the other information you got from the Intelligence Division-but conveniently neglected to put in your reports."