The sky was turning dark as Colleen drove down Paris Street, making one in the afternoon feel like early evening. The light was on in Steve Davis’s bedroom. She was tempted to walk right up and knock on the front door. He’d stood her up last night at The Palms.
She held off. She had no need to get into another spat with Mary Davis just yet. The woman had enough on her mind. Too soon.
Down on Mission, she found Frank Madrid’s truck parked in front of Dizzy’s. She wondered if there was a guy in the bar with a bandage on his face, thanks to the rebar she had applied to it when he and his punk friend tried to set fire to H&M.
She drove back down to the beach, swung by Fort Funston one more time. The sack of food she had left was gone. That meant one of two things: her wild woman had shown up, taken the sandwiches, and now hopefully trusted Colleen more, or the raccoons or someone else had gotten a free meal. She’d come back tomorrow.
She drove home.
In her office she called her answering service. Howard Broadmoor from the Chronicle still hadn’t returned her call. There wouldn’t be anything from Moran yet. It was too early to call Alex.
So she sucked in a breath and called the Davises. The ploy she had used last night, having some male call, wasn’t going to work twice in such a short period of time. And she had no stand-in this time anyway. She’d wait until Steve answered.
Mary Davis answered in one ring, her voice brittle and nervous. “Yes?”
Colleen hung up, feeling like a rat. She smoked a cigarette, waited ten minutes, called again. The same breathy yes was followed by more silence.
“Whoever this is can go to hell.” Mary Davis slammed the phone down. Colleen smoked another cigarette, waited twenty minutes, and, feeling like a bigger rat, called again. Maybe Steve Davis would get the hint.
“Hello?” Finally, Steve Davis. “Who is this?”
“You stood me up last night, Steve,” she said.
He dropped his voice. “I was there. I couldn’t stick around.”
“Okay,” she said. “That makes me feel better. When can we meet? I’ll fit into any time and place that works for you.”
She heard Steve take a breath. “It’s not a good idea now.”
In the background Mary Davis said in a sharp voice, “Who’s on the phone, Steve?”
“Look, Steve,” Colleen said. “You’re the one who called me. You set it up.”
“I made a mistake,” he whispered.
“No, you didn’t. You’ve got something you want to tell me. And I want to hear it.”
“Who the hell is it, Steve?” Mary Davis snapped in the background.
“Ma, will you just go away already? It’s personal.”
“I want to know who it is, damn it. The same person who’s been calling and hanging up? What the hell are you up to? It’s that woman, isn’t it?”
“It’s just a girl I know!” Steve’s hand went over the receiver. There was a long, muffled exchange that ended in shouting and the slamming of a door. Finally, he came back on the line.
“I got to go,” he said.
“Where and when do we meet?” Colleen said.
“Get a clue, already. Can’t you see I’ve changed my mind?”
“Unchange it.”
“Look, I can’t help you. I thought I could. But I can’t.”
“Someone threaten you?”
He gave a laugh of false bravado.
“Who?” she said. “Frank Madrid?”
“I’m hanging up the phone now.”
“Your father was murdered,” she said, her voice full of venom.
There was a long pause. “I know,” Steve said. “The transients at the beach …”
“Spare me the bullshit. It’s something to do with that case your dad worked on. Eleven years ago. He was going to talk to me about it, and I was all set to meet him but—wouldn’t you know it?—some transients at the beach killed him for no good reason after he decided to just wander down there instead of meeting me. No coincidence there, huh?”
“You don’t know any of that,” he said.
“I know enough,” she said. “And my gut’s telling me the rest. Just like yours is telling you. That’s why you wanted to talk to me. But someone scared you off. Who? Ten to one it was Frank Madrid. And it’s got to do with the Margaret Copeland murder. How am I doing?”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re getting into.”
“Oh, I have a pretty good idea, Steve. And I rattle just like you do. But when push comes to shove, I don’t let scumbags like the ones who killed your father get away with it. Maybe it’s a character flaw. Now you’ve got to ask yourself one question: How are you going to feel when I figure this out without your help and nail the killer your dad wanted to nail? And the one who killed your dad? How you gonna feel then? Proud of yourself? You’re a young guy. You’ve got a good fifty years to walk around, looking at your shoes, telling yourself how you should have stood up to those vermin instead of letting your old man down. Your mother, too. Because she’s going to carry this around with her, too.”
And for one blissful second, she thought Steve was going to change his mind.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said, “but don’t call back.” He hung up the phone, leaving her ears buzzing with dial tone.
Colleen exhaled a sigh of exasperation. She had just been dealt a two when she was pretty sure she was going to get a decent card.
But if it was meant to deter her, it wasn’t working.