Evidently the SFPD wasn’t any more satisfied with the carjacking explanation than we were. Except for the usual stock handouts, they put a tight lid on their investigation. So tight that Tamara’s friend Felicia refused all further requests for progress information.
The homicide inspectors in charge got around to us soon enough. They interviewed Tamara alone first on Thursday; Runyon and I weren’t in the office at the time. They talked to me at home, and Jake at the Hall of Justice where he went voluntarily.
The three of us had worked out exactly what we would and wouldn’t be free to say, and for once Tamara held herself in check and followed instructions. Runyon’s private conversations with Kenneth Beckett were one of the off-limits topics; our suspicions that Margaret Vorhees’ death was premeditated murder was another. This is what we admitted to:
That Runyon and I had spoken to Andrew Vorhees in his office the day before he was killed, at his request. That he’d wanted to know what we knew about his wife’s death, which was nothing more than what Runyon had told the police after his discovery of Margaret Vorhees’ body. That it was common knowledge Vorhees had been involved with a woman named Cory Beckett, who had at one time been our client, and her name had come up during the course of the conversation. That a former friend and campaign worker of his, Frank Chaleen, was reputed to also be having an affair with the Beckett woman, and that Vorhees had been upset about it. And that Vorhees had called in person the following day with the stated intention of hiring us, saying he would explain what he wanted us to do when he met with Runyon that evening on his yacht.
There was enough inference in all of this to put the inspectors onto the Cory Beckett cabal, if they weren’t already headed in that direction and whether or not either she or Chaleen was involved in the Vorhees homicide. The two of them would tell different stories than we had, of course, but it was their word against ours and we were on pretty solid ground. For all we could tell, the closemouthed inspectors seemed to think so, too. There had not been a suspicious or adversarial edge to the interview with me, nor to the ones with Jake and Tamara.
That was the way things stood through Friday. No more visits from the police. No new information leaked to or revealed in the media. And no word from Cory Beckett, her brother, or Frank Chaleen.
On Saturday, Kerry and I had a small argument over her mother’s cremains. It started when I suggested that it would be a good day, the weather being clear and sunny, for the three of us to drive over to Marin County and honor Cybil’s wish to have her ashes scattered in Muir Woods.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.
“Why not? Too soon?” She’d gotten the box of cremains from the Larkspur mortuary on Wednesday.
“No, not exactly.”
“What then, exactly?”
“I’m not so sure we ought to do it at all.”
“Why not? It’s what Cybil wanted.”
“I know that, but… Muir Woods, a national park full of people on nice weekends.”
“We can find a private place off one of the trails.”
“Even so. You know as well as I do it’s against the law to scatter human remains in a public place.”
“A misdemeanor that a great many people don’t happen to believe should be a crime at all. Loved ones’ ashes are scattered in natural surroundings every day with no harm done.”
She gave me one of her sidewise looks. “You’ve always been such a stickler for following the letter of the law,” she said. “This bizarre business with Andrew Vorhees and the Becketts, for instance. And now you want to step over the line.”
“A stickler professionally, yes, for the most part, especially when a case involves a couple of homicides and the integrity of the agency. But I freely admit to having bent and stretched points of law a few times, and even to committing a couple of small felonies when it seemed necessary.”
“So you’re honest and law-abiding only when it suits you.”
I said gently, “Kerry, I’m going to make an observation. Think about it before you snap back at me.”
“What observation?”
“That you’re reluctant to scatter Cybil’s ashes for the same reason you have her personal belongings displayed in your office and you’re determined to get all her fiction back into print.”
“What are you saying? I’m trying to keep her with me even though she’s dead and gone?”
“Yes, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Up to a point. But buying an urn for the ashes, putting it in your office with the rest of her stuff-”
“I wasn’t going to do that.”
“The box is in there now, isn’t it? On the bookcase?”
She had no answer for that.
“I’m not criticizing you,” I said, “and I’m not saying this to hurt you. I know how important it is for you to keep Cybil’s memory alive; I’m in complete agreement there. But holding onto her cremains is not only borderline morbid, it goes against her express wishes and your promise to honor them. You never defied your mother when she was alive. Don’t start now.”
She moved away from me without answering, out onto the balcony where she stood stiffly outlined against the sweeping view of the city and the bay. I had the good sense not to follow her. She was not out there very long. And when she came back inside, it was without any trace of anger or resentment.
“I thought it over,” she said, “and you’re right. You know me so well it’s scary sometimes.”
“Not as well as you know me. Which is even scarier.”
That earned me a wan smile. “You fetch Emily while I get ready. Then we’ll head over to Marin.”
We spent two hours in Muir Woods, part of it wandering the network of marked trails among the groves of giant coast redwoods in search of a suitable spot. When we found one, we slipped off among the towering trees-another small law respectfully broken-and once we were sure we were alone and unobserved, Kerry opened the mortuary container and carefully scattered Cybil’s ashes among several of the tall trees. Then the three of us held hands and murmured words of remembrance to one another and thought our private thoughts. Kerry was solemn throughout; I imagined she might cry a little, but she didn’t. She gave me another small smile, this one sad, wistful, on the walk back to the car.
All in all, it was a private, peaceful, dignified ceremony.
We agreed that Cybil would have approved.
I treated Kerry and Emily to Sunday morning brunch, and afterward we went to the park for a leisurely walk around Stowe Lake, then home to our individual pursuits. Normal, quiet, relaxing day that I expected would continue through to bedtime.
But it didn’t.
Because this was the day the Cory Beckett powder keg suddenly and lethally blew up.
23
JAKE RUNYON
Most wage earners look forward to time off on weekends, one or two days of freedom to rest, putter, engage in recreational pastimes. Runyon wasn’t one of them anymore. Not after the long, empty months in Seattle following Coleen’s slow and agonizing death, not after the move to San Francisco and his failure to end the long estrangement with Joshua, not even after he’d become involved with Bryn. Work was his primary focus, the one thing he was good at, the only activity that gave him any real satisfaction.
Weekends when he had no business to occupy his time were nothing more than a string of hours of enforced waiting, to be endured and gotten through. He had no hobbies, no particular interest in sports or cultural events; he was constitutionally incapable of sleeping more than five or six hours a night, or of sitting around the apartment reading or staring at the tube or just vegetating. An active diversion more job-related than pleasurable was the only sure way he’d found to deal with those empty Saturdays and Sundays: close himself inside the Ford and burn up long miles and tanksful of gas on the highways, back roads, streets, and byways of the greater Bay Area and beyond, familiarizing and refamiliarizing himself with the territory and what went on in each part of it. The better he knew his turf, the better he could do his job.