Chapter 13

“But it was a lovely idea,” I said, peeling a red rose petal off Jean-Paul’s cheek. “Incredibly romantic.”

“In theory, yes. There was such a large bucket of red roses, and what to do with them all, yes?” He got up to scoop crushed petals off the sheets and drop them into the trashcan he had brought in from the en suite bathroom. “But in application, a bit sticky.”

“I think I’ll dream about seaweed,” I said.

He laughed as he slid back between the sheets and wrapped me in his arms. “I shall leave rose petal-strewing to the movies in the future.”

“Maybe so,” I said, picking yet another petal off his bottom. “But it was still a lovely idea.”

He yawned, reached across me and turned off the bedside light.

The house was quiet, all doors securely bolted, windows locked, the loaded Colt in a drawer next to the bed. I nestled down against Jean-Paul and hoped for sleep, but I still buzzed with the events of the day. Every time I began to drift off, an image, a fragment of conversation, the sound of gunfire and shattered glass would seep through and set my mind racing again. I felt restless. If I had been alone and at my own home, I would have gone for a run in the canyon below my house. But that wasn’t something I would do in the middle of the night in a dark Berkeley neighborhood. I tried to lie still to let Jean-Paul sleep. I thought he had dropped off when he kissed the top of my head and spoke into the dark.

“Did your father speak about what he did in Korea?”

“No,” I said. “Dad might say he hadn’t been so cold since Korea, or that if he wanted to camp out he’d rejoin the army—he’d say a hotel without room service was as close to camping as he ever wanted to get again. And I knew about his wounds; couldn’t miss the scars when he wore shorts or swim trunks. But he didn’t talk about what happened over there, and I knew not to ask because it made him sad.”

“Oui,” he said. “Same with my father. He talked about the airplanes he flew in Indochina, but not much else. One time, he took me to an air show and told me about flying the Bearcats. Papa had far more to say about what the Germans did to his family during the world war than about what the French did in Indochina when he was there ten years later.”

I smiled at that. My recently discovered French grandmother, Élodie Martin, had much to say not only about what the Germans did in Normandy, but also about what she and the women in her village did to the Germans: a bloody tale she told with relish, and one I was hoping to capture on film.

“What happened to your family during the German occupation?” I asked.

“My father was just a boy at school in Paris when the Germans conscripted him and forced him to work in a munitions factory in Belgium. His father died in a prisoner of war camp,” he said, an edge of sadness in his voice.

“Papa was a reasonable man, an intellectual,” he continued. “But for the rest of his life he refused to buy anything made in Germany or to invest in any company that held German interests. I cannot tell you the scolding I got when I bought a Mercedes. He would always say, ‘Scratch a German, find a Nazi.’ And there was nothing anyone could say or do that would make him change his mind.”

“Wars do not necessarily end when the armistice is signed, do they?”

“No.” He stroked my back. “It is not only war we are talking about, is it, chérie?”

“No?”

“The police are investigating the death of your friend’s mother, yes?”

“Kevin Halloran is.”

“And he is competent?”

“He seems to be.”

“And yet, when you found a lead on a line of inquiry, you did not inform him immediately, but went yourself, first.”

“You mean Duc?”

“Yes, Duc, and this Larry who keeps popping up late at night.” After a pause, he said, “Do you believe what Larry told you?”

“About Mrs. Bartolini? Sorry to say, but I do.”

“Maggie, my dear, I hear your questions and they all seem to come back to your father. Are you afraid he was involved in some illicit way with the woman or with her death?”

I started to deny it, a protective reflex. Instead, I said, “I think he knew something that worried him enough that he made inquiries. But he never went to the police.”

“Because he was protecting someone?”

“Probably.”

“Perhaps he found what he was looking for,” he said.

“He would have gone to the police if he had.”

“Unless it was too dangerous,” he said, raising my hand to his lips. “And perhaps it still is. Maggie, I have to leave tomorrow.” He lifted his head up enough to see the bedside clock; it was already Sunday. “Today, actually. Please come with me. Lyle and Roy will finish the work here.”

It was an attractive idea. I thought about it, but told him, “I can’t leave until Tuesday at the earliest. My cousin is coming this afternoon and staying overnight. We have some decisions to make before I can finish up here. There are haulers to arrange, a cleaning crew to boss around, truck repairs to see about, and—”

“Yes, yes, but you should not be here alone.”

“I’ll hardly be alone,” I said. “Max will be back, Guido is coming up to talk about what we’re going to do about the Normandy film, and Susan will be here in the afternoon. Her entire book club will show up Monday.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“I love that you are concerned, but I’ll be fine,” I said.

“Everyone leaves again on Monday,” he said. “Yes?”

“They do.”

He yawned. “I have business to tend to in Los Angeles, but I’ll be back Monday evening.”

I did not protest. Instead, I snuggled down against him, and fell asleep.

— —

First thing in the morning, we went for a run up Grizzly Peak Road. I had been bending, stooping, and lifting for nearly a week and cherished my early morning runs to stretch my legs, breathe fresh air, and clear my mind. Jean-Paul ran easily next to me, though I knew he was the better runner and could have sprinted ahead or run circles around me. I had hoped to show him the view from the peak of San Francisco rising like Camelot out of the Bay. But the City was shrouded by its summer cloak of gray fog, as usual, and we couldn’t even see the top of the Transamerica Building. Jean-Paul seemed more interested in the towering redwoods on the Cal campus below us than on the postcard-quality view of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge rising up out of the gloom.

Altogether, it was a good run. By the time we returned home, my head felt decluttered, as it generally does after a good run or a hard swim. A few bits and pieces of what happened in my neighborhood thirty-some years ago were beginning to come together.

Back at the house, after showers, we made breakfast and took it outside to eat at the big table under the grape arbor. On Sunday mornings, both of us had transcontinental phone calls to make. My college-junior daughter, Casey, was spending the summer on her grandmother’s farm estate in Normandy with about half a dozen cousins who were more or less the same age. Jean-Paul’s son, Dominic, was staying in Paris with his aunt, now gearing up for a two-year preparatory course before he entered one of the grandes écoles. It was already late afternoon in France when we pushed our breakfast dishes aside and took out our phones.

“Mom, great, I was waiting for you to call,” Casey said with unusual enthusiasm for this Sunday ritual. “When are you flying over?”

“Does my darling daughter miss me?” I asked.

“What? Oh, yeah. Sure, of course. But when are you coming?”

“One way or another, in a couple of weeks. What’s up?”

“Are you bringing a whole film crew or just Guido?”

“Probably just Guido,” I said. “Why?”

“We had this great idea—”

“We?”

“David and Dom and I.”

I turned to look at Jean-Paul, who had the strangest expression on his face. I knew he was speaking with his son, Dominic. Catching Jean-Paul’s eye, I asked Casey, “Dom Bernard?”

Jean-Paul heard me and was nodding when Casey affirmed, “Yes. You know his grandmother is Grand-mère’s friend. She brought him to see the farm.”

“Let me guess, his grandmother and your great-grandmother are plotting something,” I said.

“They’re matchmaking,” she said, very matter-of-fact. “As always. Grand-mère hopes that you two will get married and move to France so you can come over every Sunday for dinner.”

From the look on his face, Jean-Paul was hearing something similar from his son. He smiled and lifted a palm in a whatcha-gonna-do? gesture.

“Anyway, Mom?”

“Yes, dear.”

“We had this great idea to film promo spots to raise awareness about the amazing local farm products. You know, globally.”

“Sounds like fun,” I said. “Where will you broadcast your spots?”

“We need to talk to Jean-Paul about that. Dom says that’s his area of expertise.”

“We’ll talk more about it when I get there.”

“We’ve drafted a shooting script. I’ll email it to you so you can punch it up.”

“Casey, I didn’t know you were interested in filmmaking.”

“You kidding?” she said with some heat. “No way. I’ve seen what you have to put up with. Nope, not my gig. But I am really getting into cheese making. Who knew, huh? The chemistry of it is fascinating.”

She told me that she and some of the cousins were leaving in the morning on a road trip into the Dordogne to do some kayaking and hiking. I refrained from offering a string of maternal warnings and wished her godspeed. She promised they would be back, intact, before I arrived.

Jean-Paul was in the midst of a business-related call when I said good-bye to Casey. I called Mom next.

“The piano mover is scheduled for first thing tomorrow,” she told me. “Can you be there when they arrive?”

“I’ll wait for them.”

Mom gave me the mover’s number in case there was an issue. She updated me on her plans to move into the Tejedas’ casita, and seemed very upbeat about the prospect. After I filled her in on progress with the house, I said, “I ran into an old friend of yours yesterday, a man named Khanh Duc.”

“Oh, dear. Duc. I was just thinking about him. Funny how that happens, isn’t it? I hadn’t thought about him for years, and then out of the blue you mention him.”

“I don’t remember him,” I said. “But he apparently spent a lot of time with Dad.”

“I suppose. They had roses in common.”

“Were you thinking about him because I brought up Mrs. Bartolini the other day?”

I heard her let out a deep breath before she said, “Yes.”

“Is there a story there?”

“If there is, it isn’t my story to tell,” Mom said.

“Duc told me he and Mrs. B were from the same village in Vietnam.”

“Maggie, you’re digging.”

“I am,” I said. “Shamelessly. I heard something last night that cast what happened to her in a whole new light. Was there something between her and Duc?”

“I couldn’t say,” Mom said. “I only know they lost touch after their families were evacuated to Saigon.”

“Until she ran into him at the refugee camp at the Presidio?”

“Yes.”

“Did something develop after that?”

“Can we just say that they were old friends, and leave it at that?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “There was another man from their village that I think you knew.”

“Van Thai?” she asked. “Yes. A very angry man.”

“Do you have any idea where he is now?”

“None at all. Van worked for Tosh for a while. When Tosh fired him, he moved out of the area. I doubt I ever heard his name again until today.”

The conversation was making Mom very uncomfortable. She knew something. But if Mom didn’t want to talk about it, she wouldn’t, so there was no point pursuing the issue. Didn’t matter; her reluctance to answer had been answer enough. I changed the subject to Susan’s expected arrival and news about various neighbors.

After we said good-bye, I called Kevin. His phone went straight to voice mail, so I left a message: “I want to see Mrs. B’s murder book. And we need to talk. Very soon.”

I hit speed dial and connected with my assistant, Fergie. I gave her the little I knew about Thai Van and his father, Thai Hung, and asked her to go into the network’s news archives to see what she could find. And, if possible, find out where Van was now. As long as we were still connected to the network, I might as well use their resources.

A call from Uncle Max beeped the line. I ended the call to Fergie and said hello to Max.

“I’m on my way to SFO to pick up Guido,” Max told me. “Do you want me to rent you a van or a pickup while I’m at the airport?”

“Please,” I said. “I hope I’ll only need it until Tuesday.”

I looked at my watch as I calculated Max’s travel time. If Guido’s plane was on time and traffic on Bayshore wasn’t too god-awful, they would be here in a couple of hours. I said good-bye to Max, turned off my phone and put it in my pocket.

Jean-Paul had wandered over to the garden. When I joined him, he was wiping bloom dust off a perfect tomato.

“What can be done?” he said, taking a bite out of the tomato. The juice ran halfway down his arm. He shook it off. “My mother is plotting with your grandmother.”

“It’s kind of cute,” I said, wiping his chin with the tail of my shirt. “Very teenagery. Or is it dynastic? We aren’t cousins to some degree, are we?”

“Not that I am aware. And certainly there is no great fortune at stake.”

“Well, let them have their fun,” I said.

“All is well with your mother?” he asked. “I didn’t hear the usual laughter when you were speaking with her.”

“She doesn’t want me asking her questions about Trinh Bartolini.”

“But she should know that only makes you more curious.”

I laughed. “You’d think she would by now.”

He touched my cheek. “I overheard you asking Fergie to locate Thai Van. There are some resources I can call on, if you want.”

“Would you?”

“I should know better, but I will, as soon as I am back in Los Angeles.”

“What time is your plane this afternoon?” I asked.

“Too soon.” He looked at his watch. “Rafael is coming for me in the consul’s car.”

“Is there anything you want to see or do before you go?”

He smiled. “I can think of a couple of ways to pass the time that might be quite interesting, but instead, I want you to make good use of me for the little time remaining so that we can lock the door and leave here by Tuesday afternoon.”

“Well then.” I handed him a stack of sticky-note pads. “Pink is for the furniture I’m taking. Yellow is for Robnett family pieces my cousin needs to look at. Thrift store items are green and need to go to the garage for pick-up, and blue is staying here. Dad’s books also need to go out to the garage.”

We spent the rest of the morning affixing sticky notes and hauling stuff to the garage where it would be accessible for the trucks from the thrift store and the university library to haul away. Fortunately, the kitchen was finished. Roy and Lyle had sorted the kitchen cupboards when we were at the dump on Saturday, leaving full complements of dishes, pots, pans and utensils the tenants might need neatly stowed in the cupboards. The rest was carefully packed and labeled and ready to go. There was a nearly complete set of very old Wedgwood china for Susan, my parents’ wedding china for Casey one day, and a few things that I wanted to keep. Lyle and Roy had taken with them a set of brightly colored vintage Fiestaware they had always admired. The rest we carried out to the garage for the thrift store truck that was due Monday morning.

The locksmith showed up while we were moving things into the garage. He reminded me about Sunday rates and I told him to install good bolts on all the doors, and to check all the windows on the ground floor to make sure their locks were good. And then we left him to his work.

When Max and Guido arrived, Jean-Paul and I took a break for lunch.

There was a frisson in the air between Jean-Paul and Guido, most of it emanating off Guido. We were longtime co-workers, good friends and nothing more. Except for one night when we were in Central America trying to file a news report about an attempted coup while we were under fire and had only a bottle of mescal for sustenance. Whatever happened that night—both of us blamed our lack of precise memory on the mescal—was never mentioned afterward. But Guido, of the Sicilian Patrini clan, just couldn’t help being a bit possessive, and despite his efforts not to be, paternal.

I admit to feeling some relief when the front doorbell rang and interrupted their overly polite conversation. Though it was early, when I opened the door I expected to see Rafael standing on the welcome mat. Instead, it was Father John, wearing his white cassock and looking quite angelic.

“Come in,” I said. “This is an unexpected pleasure. We’re just sitting down to lunch. Will you join us?”

“I rarely say no to a meal.” He followed me through the house to the backyard, commenting on the jumble the place was in at the moment. “Was there an earthquake I missed?”

“Looks like it,” I said. “What brings you?”

“I need a favor,” he said. “Beto was going to take all the food that the hungry ghosts and hungry friends didn’t eat at the party last night and deliver it to the soup kitchen. I’m counting on it for lunch tomorrow. But he called me a bit ago to say that he had to take Bart to the hospital in the middle of the night and is still with him.”

“What happened to Bart?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Father John said. “But it looks like he’ll be okay. I told Beto I would go by and see him later. But in the meantime, Larry, my fine cook and backup delivery boy, is nowhere to be found, again. Beto suggested I borrow your truck to pick up the leftovers and get them to the church basement.”

“Sure. My truck’s in the shop but we have a van,” I said. “Do you need help loading the food?”

“I’d appreciate that,” he said. “And there’s one other little thing.”

“Why am I suddenly quaking in my boots?”

He grinned. “I don’t drive anymore.”

After lunch, Uncle Max, doing a bit of matchmaking himself, volunteered his and Guido’s services to Father John so that Jean-Paul and I could have our last few minutes alone. Before they left in the van Guido rented at the airport at Max’s behest, we picked everything out of the garden that was ripe and sent it along.

The silence that followed the three of them out the door felt loaded, as if a bomb were about to drop inside the house.

“It was an interesting weekend, yes?” Jean-Paul slipped his hand into mine and walked me into the living room. Looking weary, and still holding my hand, he dropped into an easy chair.

“Interesting, yes,” I said, perched on the arm of his chair. “It isn’t every weekend that I dance in a couturier gown one day and get shot at the next. Or make love on a bed of rose petals.”

“Ah, the damn rose petals.” His cheeks colored from chagrin. “I was afraid I would bore you.”

“You, bore me? Dear God, Jean-Paul, you may be the least boring man I know. I was afraid that the chaos of this weekend would frighten you away.”

“I don’t frighten easily.” He canted his head to one side and quietly studied me for a moment, pensive.

“Maggie, you know that my wife, Marian, and I were very happy, as I know you and Mike were. I have missed her so terribly these last two years. Between us, everything was so—” He searched for the right words. “Peanut butter and jelly. I don’t know how else to say it. Comfortable, I suppose. Sometimes, you remind me of her.”

Last thing I wanted to hear: You remind me of my dead wife. Perhaps reading my reaction, though I tried not to show anything, he smiled in a self-deprecatory way, acknowledging a flub, and I relaxed.

“About the rose petals,” he said, pulling me across his lap. He swept some loose hair from my cheek and tucked it behind my ear. “I was trying so very hard to be a dazzling French lover; it is expected of my countrymen, is it not?”

“You do your nation proud, Jean-Paul.”

“Tu es très gentille.” With his palm against my cheek, he looked deep into my eyes. “You reminded me this afternoon that a small, spontaneous gesture can touch one’s heart more profoundly than the most elaborate grand geste.”

“Did I?”

“Without any hesitation, you wiped my face with your shirt and then carried on as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world for you to do.”

“It was. There was tomato juice on your chin.”

“It was a gesture between intimates,” he said. “Something I have missed very much.”

“Yes.” I put my hand over his, happy, comfortable, yet wary: Where were we headed?

“What I tried to say and got all muddled up earlier was that Marian always took whatever was thrown at her in stride—no fuss. It is a quality I cherish in you as well.”

“Oh, I can make a dandy fuss,” I said.

“No doubt. But when I stupidly did not tell you that evening attire was required for the reception Friday, you never complained, and on short notice found a solution that turned heads. Maggie, if you had shown up Friday wearing this stained shirt...” He tugged my shirttail. “You would have turned heads.”

“I’m sure I would have.” I laughed, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I can hear them now, ‘Who’s the babe with the imprint of the consul general’s face on her shirt?’”

“Exactly.” He kissed the top of my head. “Natural, like peanut butter and jelly.”

Rafael arrived before that conversation could walk us further into the woods than we were ready to go.

Jean-Paul went upstairs and quickly changed into slacks and a dress shirt for the flight to Los Angeles. Because he would only be gone for a day, he took nothing with him except a book he found in Dad’s den.

George Loper must have heard the Town Car pull up because he was on his front porch, standing watch, when I walked out with Jean-Paul.

Jean-Paul eyed him warily over my shoulder. “How long until Max and Guido are back?”

“Any time now.”

When he made no move to get into the car, probably thinking of some way he could stay, I said, “Go. And hurry back.”

I watched the Town Car disappear around the corner before I turned to go inside. George Loper was still on his porch. When I went in, I turned both of the new bolts on the door, hearing a very satisfying pair of clunks when they shot home.

I took advantage of the few available moments before the next wave of people arrived to gather myself. I found a bottle of good pinot noir in the stash Mom left behind for me, uncorked it, poured a glass, and to avoid the racket of the locksmith’s drill, carried it out to the backyard. It was early maybe to indulge in wine, especially when there was so much work to do, but it was summer and the afternoon was warm and sweet-smelling. I took a few minutes to do absolutely nothing except savor the day and sip my wine and walk around the garden. I felt buried beneath stuff, old family stuff, and not all of it was of a physical nature. It could just wait a little longer, I decided. I took out my phone and called Beto.

“How’s your dad?” I asked.

“He’ll be okay,” Beto said. “Looks like he woke up in the night all confused, didn’t know where he was. He went walking around in the dark and took a pretty good tumble. The docs are keeping him overnight again to check him out. They’re talking about doing a brain scan tomorrow.”

“He got overtired getting ready for the party.”

“Probably,” Beto said. “You saw how he was. He had a little fit during the party and I sent him to bed. I probably should have asked Doc Saracen to put down his beer and his egg roll and come inside to take a look at him right then. Twenty-twenty hindsight, huh?”

“I’ll hope for the best.”

“Hey, did Father John get in touch with you?”

“He did. My uncle is helping him.”

“Our old friend Larry was supposed to do the delivery, but he flaked out.”

“You weren’t bothered that Larry was coming to your house to pick up the leftovers?”

“Why should I be?” he said. “That was then, this is now, if you know what I mean. We deliver bread from the deli to Father John’s kitchen every morning. I’ve always had one of my guys make the run so I wouldn’t risk bumping into Larry. But after talking to him, I know that was just stupid on my part. The man atoned; time for all of us to move on.”

“Dear God, Beto,” I said. “You sound like a grown-up.”

“I’m just parroting Father John.”

“And you sound tired,” I said. “But it was a great party.”

“Must have been,” he said. “Dad wasn’t the only casualty of the evening.”

“Who else?”

“Lacy,” he said. “Kevin put her in rehab last night.”

“I’ll light a candle.”

“If only it were that easy. Hey, girly, I gotta go. I’ll call if anything comes up.”

“Please do.”

Next, I texted Kevin: “Call me. Now.”

* * *

Max and Guido were back and it was time to talk film business. Under the grape arbor, we went over our options for the Normandy project. Max had left several messages for Lana Howard, our executive producer at the network, but she hadn’t responded to them—not a good sign. He was fairly confident that the network would eventually release funds to us, but the issue was when. Whatever they did, it was clear that our position with the network was increasingly fragile. We had alternatives. We could wait out the network. We could take the project to the French television production company and hope that a long-term relationship with them would develop. Or, as Guido preferred, we could strike out on our own and try to scare up independent funding and distribution. All three prospects had both potential benefits and unknown perils.

In the middle of the conversation, my phone buzzed. I looked at the I.D. screen. “Lana,” I said, flipped on the speaker function and set the phone in the middle of the table.

“Lana,” I said, speaking loudly. “This is the Lord’s day. Why are you at work?”

“Are you underwater or something?” Lana snapped. “You sound weird.”

“You’re on speakerphone,” I said. “I’m here with Max and Guido.”

“With Max and Guido? I was hoping you and I could have a little private talk. Where the hell are you?”

“We’re in Berkeley,” I said. “Where the hell are you?”

“I’m in the middle of Malibu Canyon, sitting in my car in front of your house. That cowboy neighbor of yours wouldn’t tell me a goddamn thing about where to find you.”

“You could have called before heading up there.”

“That’s exactly what the bastard said.” She was in full rant mode; I knew it only too well. We had worked together for a long time, and it had never been easy. Not, as Jean-Paul would say, a peanut butter and jelly relationship. “Your damn uncle—and I know you can hear this, Max—gave me some cockamamie story about you and Guido taking your production to someone else. After all these years, I can’t believe you’d kick me to the curb like this.”

“Lana, no one has kicked anyone, yet,” Max said. “But you know how important this project is to Maggie and Guido, and how narrow the time window is. That makes me think that this foot-dragging over the budget is your own sweet way of kissing us off.”

Guido chimed in, “That’s how I read it.”

“You read it wrong,” she said. “This foot-dragging is more probably the head shed’s way of kissing me off.”

Max didn’t need much time to consider that before he shook his head.

“You walk out on me,” she said, “and I’m toast with the network.”

“Television is a young man’s business, Lana,” Guido offered, winking at me as he said it. He had more gray than black in his sideburns and a wrinkle or two; he was exactly my age. “A tough game.”

“Yeah?” Lana countered. “Well I’m neither young nor a man, Guido. As long as you can shoulder your cameras you’ll be okay in the business. And you, Maggie, my little sister, with a nip and a tuck and some good highlights you can last another ten, fifteen years in front of those damn cameras. I don’t have your advantage of makeup and lighting when I go into meetings with the children who run the network now.”

“By saying that, you aren’t helping your case, my dear,” Max said. “It’s time for you to test whether you have enough mojo left at the network to take care of Maggie and Guido. Tell your money goons that they have until noon Tuesday to release funding, or we walk with the project. And, maybe just for the exercise, we sue them for breach of contract.”

He snapped the phone off without uttering a sweet word of good-bye. Grinning, he said, “Bullshit. Pure manipulative bullshit.”

Guido wasn’t so sure. “If they dump Lana, will they keep us?”

“No one is dumping Lana,” Max said. “She has too many of those goons by the cojones for them to release her.”

“I liked the little sister gambit,” I said. “Last Christmas she canceled our series without shedding any tears over it, and brought us back three months later without any fanfare or apology. If that’s family, Guido my love, maybe we should run away from home.”

“Is that a decision?” he asked, looking hopeful. “You know what I want to do.”

“Lana was right about one thing,” I said, feeling every one of my years. “You have better job prospects than I do if we fall on our faces. I propose this: We give Lana until Tuesday noon to move the network to fulfill their end of the contract. But if the money isn’t in our account by the stroke of twelve, then Max should accept the French offer for the project. After that, we’ll see where we are. Whichever way it goes, I have a feeling that after this one, we’ll be on our own again the way we were when we started out.”

“Suits me,” Guido said. “But is that a good or a bad thing for you?”

“Hell if I know,” I said. “Max?”

“Nothing we can do until Tuesday.” He fiddled with his snazzy watch. “I’ve started the countdown. Lana has exactly forty-six hours, eleven minutes to move her people. In the meantime, you two need to book your flight to Paris and pack your bags. I’ll drive you to the airport, myself. One way or another, you will commence filming in Normandy by the first of August.”

There was a little more give and take, but that’s where we left it.

Roy and Lyle had worn out Max with the clubbing the night before, so he went upstairs to take a nap. Guido and I sat down to talk about old business. There were still some continuity issues with the Crooked Man film we had been working on since late spring. The air date wasn’t until fall Sweeps Week, but we had put in long hours to get it finished early so that we could leave for France as soon as the financing arrived.

We were happy with the film overall, but it still needed a final tweak for us to be completely satisfied with it. We made notes about what needed to be done, and then Guido headed off to San Francisco to use an editing bay at the studio of the network’s local affiliate. He planned to work late and bunk overnight with Lyle and Roy. If all went well, by Monday afternoon he might have a finished version to show me.

I saw him off, turned my phone back on and checked for a message from Kevin: nothing. I texted him, “Call.”

As soon as I sent the text, the phone buzzed. Not Kevin, though, but my cousin Susan. Would I mind if she arrived just a bit later than planned? She had met some interesting people during her week at wine camp—her sommelier course—and wanted to join them for a last glass of wine before everyone took off. I told her she should have fun. There were no specific plans for dinner, except that we would dine out and Uncle Max would pick up the check.

The locksmith finished his work, showed me what he had done, and handed me a bill that made my eyes roll back in my head. I dug my checkbook out of my bag, and paid him. He handed me a receipt and a fistful of nicely labeled keys to add to the growing collection. I pulled a bowl out of a kitchen cupboard and dumped them all into it.

Fergie, my assistant, hadn’t checked in to tell me what she had found about Thai Van, so I called her.

“Do you know how many Thai Vans and Van Thais there are?” she asked. “I looked into the Vietnamese nationalist groups in Little Saigon, and didn’t find your guy. A lot of people anglicize their names, so he could be calling himself Tommy Van or Vincent Thai, or Epaminondas, for all I know. But I did find his father, Thai Hung. That is, I found his obituary. The son is named in the obit, but that’s it.”

I thanked her for her efforts and asked her to keep at it. And then I went back to work.

I was making my third trip to the garage with kitchen boxes when the service manager at the Ford dealership called with a bit of good news. Though their body shop was closed on Sunday, the police had just released the hold on my pickup, a surprise because Kevin had told me that the ballistics techs couldn’t get to it until Monday. As soon as I came in and signed the repair estimate, the service manager would order parts so they could get to work on the truck first thing in the morning. I needed my truck back. I told him I would be right down.

I texted Kevin again, asking him to call ASAP this time and adding three exclamation points. Then I wrote a note telling Max where I was headed, took his car keys and drove his rented Caddy to the dealership on MLK, Jr.

“Looks like you got caught in the shootout at the OK Corral yesterday.” Bill—that’s what his shirt said—at the service desk slid a sheaf of papers across the counter toward me. “You were the second vehicle we got in yesterday afternoon with gunfire damage. Everyone in your truck get through it okay?”

“Fortunately,” I said as I read over the estimate. I cringed: new side panel, new dashboard, new disc player, rear window, and on, and on. Insurance would cover all but the deductible, but from the list of work to be done, I wouldn’t get the truck back as soon as I hoped. I signed the bottom and slid the paperwork back. “Everyone okay in the other car?”

“No injuries,” Bill said. “Side-view mirror was blown off, there are a couple of divots in the door frame. Shots must have gone straight through that car and into yours.”

“Small silver car?” I asked.

“A Ford Focus.” He looked up from separating my copy of the estimate from the original. “Did you see it get hit?”

“Everything happened pretty fast,” I said. “Who was driving?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling as he handed me my copy. “We don’t give out personal customer information. You never know who might be suing who, right?”

“Just curious,” I said. “When do you think I can have my truck back?”

He looked at the calendar on the wall behind him as he counted on his fingers. “Friday, maybe, if all the parts come in. More likely not until next Monday or Tuesday.”

“Peachy,” I said, dismayed. With luck and hard work, I would be at home, sleeping in my own bed by this Tuesday night. I needed the truck to haul things I was taking with me. Now it looked like I would have to rent something bigger than the van Guido drove from the airport, or hire a hauler. The next problem was getting my truck picked up and stored until I could get back up and fetch it. I could ask yet another favor of Lyle and Roy, but I was loath to. That big truck would be a pain to handle on the narrow streets of their San Francisco neighborhood. Maybe I could impose on Beto to pick it up and keep it for a little while.

As I folded the paperwork I saw the signature of the policeman who released the car. I asked, “When was Detective Halloran in?”

“He left just before I called you.”

Bill wrote my name in big red letters across the top of my work order and dumped it into a rack on the wall behind the desk. As he did, I saw the name atop the work order filed just ahead of mine.

I thanked Bill, and left.

Kevin was waiting for me outside in the parking lot. He opened the passenger door of his unmarked city car and said, “Get in.”

“What happened to please?” I said as I passed him on my way into the car. He just shook his head. He looked like hell, unshaven, edgy, but in his situation, who wouldn’t? Beto told me Kevin had just signed his wife into rehab. When was the last time he’d had a full night’s sleep?

While he fumbled for his seat belt, he asked, “What’s the bite for your repairs?”

I pulled out my copy of the estimate and handed it to him. The amount on the bottom after the dollar sign made him blanch.

“Have you filed a repair claim with your insurance company yet?” he asked.

“It’s taken care of,” I said.

Slowly, he turned toward me. “Is that a yes?”

“I called my agent yesterday. She got the incident report from the Highway Patrol and gave approval to the dealership to make the repairs. Other than waiting for the repairs to be done and paying the deductible, I’m finished.”

All the blood drained from his face. He started to say something, but his eyes filled and he looked away.

“Take your time,” I said, pulling a tissue from the box in the console and handing it to him.

He blew his nose and drew a couple of shaky breaths, started the car and drove out of the lot. At the first red light, he reached behind his seat, grabbed a blue three-ring binder and handed it to me.

“This what you want?” he asked.

I looked at the binder’s spine, saw the name TRINH “TINA” ­NGUYEN BARTOLINI, the date of her death and her case number. When I texted Kevin earlier and asked for the investigation log—the murder book—I now held in my hands, I had expected a big argument, and for legal reasons there probably should have been one. But with no whining, bribery or cajolery, he had brought me the original old-style, paper-and-ink murder book that was assembled by the detectives who originally worked Mrs. B’s case over thirty years ago. The paper was yellowing and smelled of dust and maybe some mildew. I could see finger marks and penciled notations, and foxing on the edges of pages thumbed by detectives one year after the next ever since. No digital file could ever have the authenticity this hard-copy record bore.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“The crime scene,” he said. “Indian Rock Park. Okay with you?”

“Fine with me,” I said, scanning the log of evidence collected by the coroner: gunshot residue, blood type, fingernail scrapings, hair, pubic hair, sexual assault kit, bullet(s), clothing. The coroner’s narrative report and a diagram followed.

Even though the Deputy Medical Examiner’s choice of words, meant to be objective—just the facts—revealed no emotion, I found it difficult to remain detached. I kept seeing Mrs. B as I had known her in life and as I saw her in her coffin, dressed in white, as serene as a Botticelli angel. I had witnessed autopsies where case-hardened medical examiners wept, but still wrote their reports with bland objectivity. Nowhere did the report on my lap mention that Mrs. Bartolini was a beautiful young mother when she died, or that her death affected an entire community. Had Alameda County Deputy Medical Examiner R. Suzuki known how special my friend’s mother was? Was she handled with dignity? Or was she merely the next victim in the assembly line of victims to be dealt with?

The medical examiner’s report said the cause of death was a through-and-through gunshot wound to the chest. The victim had a large contusion and abrasions on her right hip, contusions on the right shoulder, contusions and abrasions on the right temple area. The injuries were consistent with a fall onto a hard, flat surface. Carpet fibers found in the hip abrasions suggested she was unclothed when they occurred. Though there was evidence of recent sex, and semen was collected, there were no vaginal or anal contusions, abrasions, or tearing. No tissue was found under her fingernails. The blood inside her mouth could have been her own.

Kevin stayed on MLK, Jr. to Hopkins. I didn’t look up until he took the hairpin loop to connect with Indian Rock Avenue so fast I had to grab onto the hand rest to stay upright. I said, “Careful, Officer, you’ll get a ticket.”

Finally, a trace of smile crossed his face, but it wasn’t much. Something was up with him, and I had a very bad feeling I knew what it was.

Kevin pulled over near a park entrance, got out and waited for me. I brought the murder book along, opened to the plastic sleeves that held the Polaroids taken of Mrs. Bartolini lying among the boulders nearby.

According to the first homicide investigation report, Mrs. B’s body was discovered by a mailman who stopped on his route during his lunch break to fill his water bottle at the fountain near the park sign. But because there are no rest rooms in the park, before he filled his bottle he went between some boulders to relieve himself, and that’s when he saw her.

Feeling a little queasy to be standing on the spot where she was found while looking at photos of her body, I turned to look down across the Bay, saw that the sun had already dropped into the fog bank obscuring the Golden Gate. It was late in the day, already cooling off. The rocks around us would radiate accumulated heat for hours after the sun disappeared. Mrs. Bartolini had been found before noon on a cool but sunny fall day. She was lying in the shade, but the rocks around her would have been warm.

I looked back and forth between the Polaroids and the place.

“Kevin, what time did we head off for school in the morning?”

“Around eight, I guess.”

“Mrs. B died some time between then and just before noon, right?”

“Yep.”

“When she saw Beto off that morning, she was wearing a powder blue shirtwaist dress and low-heeled black pumps.” I held the coroner’s evidence log for him to see. “According to this, when she was found she was wearing a white blouse and nothing else.”

“Okay.”

“It isn’t a blouse.” I pointed at the button placket visible in the Polar­oid close-up of her chest area, a bloody mass speckled with black gunpowder burns. “It’s a man’s shirt.”

As he looked at the photo, he fingered the placket at the neck of his polo shirt, checking which side the buttons were on. He said, “I’ll be damned.”

“According to the medical examiner, Mrs. B was naked on the bottom when she fell or was pushed. At some point, and in some order, she had intercourse, put on a man’s shirt, and was shot in the chest.”

“That’s what it says.”

“Where is the shirt now?” I asked.

“In a sealed evidence bag locked up in my office.”

“Is there a laundry mark? Maybe remnants of fluids from more than one person?”

He glanced askance at me. “How much do the TV people pay you to snoop, Sherlock?”

“I’m doing okay.”

“I’ll send the shirt to the crime analyst and ask him to check it out.” With the back of his hand, he wiped away sweat running down the side of his face. “See anything else?”

“Lots of blood on the shirt, but there wasn’t very much blood found here in the park,” I said. “She was murdered elsewhere and dumped. It wouldn’t take a very strong person to carry her because she barely weighed a hundred pounds.”

“That we know, but no crime scene was ever determined,” he said. “You think you know what happened?”

“I have some ideas,” I said. “How long can I keep the book?”

“You can’t keep something you never saw,” he said. “It’s an open murder case and that’s a confidential police document. Besides, I don’t ever, ever want Beto to get a look at what’s in there. I keep the book.”

I looked around for a boulder in the shade to sit on. “Then give me a minute with it, okay?”

“Take your time.” He started up the steps that were cut into the face of a granite tower. “Whistle when you’re finished.”

I opened the book and began reading the investigation reports. Mrs. Bartolini’s body was identified by Patrol Officer Ray Gutierrez, who knew her because he frequented the Bartolini Deli and because he and the victim attended the same church. The police captain who responded to the scene dispatched Officer Gutierrez to collect Father John and to go with him to inform Bart of his wife’s death. Bart took the news as expected, hard, and was driven home from his place of work by Officer Gutierrez. Father John stayed with Bart while Officer Gutierrez went to the school to pick up Beto. Father John was worried enough about Bart’s state of mind that he summoned the family physician, Dr. Benjamin Nussbaum, who administered a sedative. Any questioning of Mr. Bartolini was postponed until, in police-report-speak, “such a time that he was not under the influence of sedation.”

The first conversation between Bart and the police happened three days after the murder. Bart went by the police station to retrieve his wife’s wedding ring so that she could be buried with it, and stayed to answer some questions posed by Detective Charles Riley. According to the interview summary, he was at the deli all that morning. His lovely wife had no enemies. Period. I could hear what my late husband, Mike, would have to say about the softball questions Chuck Riley lobbed at Bart, who should have been his first suspect. But Mike worked detectives in great big, occasionally murderous Los Angeles, and not in relatively peaceful little Berkeley. Kevin had already told me that his department didn’t get much experience working homicides. Everyone in town knew Mr. B, and knew that he doted on his beautiful young wife. But still...

What happened to Beto? I flipped through the pages but found nothing except that when the police left the Bartolini house that evening, Beto, Father John, Doc Nussbaum, and Dr. Brian Halloran, the head counselor at the high school—Kevin’s father—were “inside the residence.”

“Hey.” Kevin’s shadow fell across the book. I looked up and spotted him leaning over a ledge about fifteen feet above me. “Did you know there’s a cross chiseled on the rocks up here?”

“I saw it the other day,” I said. “But I don’t remember seeing it before.”

“Me either.” He started down the steps. “Last time I was up here I think I was with you. We wouldn’t have seen it though, because it was dark when we came up to watch submarine races.”

“Uncle Kevin,” I said, ignoring the remark. “When did you and Beto become such great friends?”

“It started then.” He indicated the book on my lap as he walked toward me. “Old Bart was a basket case after Mrs. B died.”

“I remember. The report says your dad was at their house that after­noon.”

“Father John asked Dad to go over and talk to Beto, to make sure he had what he needed. They decided that because Dad was a school counselor and Mom was a nurse, they’d be able to look after Beto until Bart could pull himself together, so Dad brought him home. He stayed with us off and on for maybe a year, until Aunt Quynh got out of Vietnam and contacted Bart. There were a lot of crazy rumors going around. Dad wanted me to make sure the kids at school weren’t...”

He searched for a word. I said, “Kids?”

“I was going to say little shits.” His color was better than it had been when he picked me up.

“That’s when you started walking to school with us.” My shade had disappeared so I got up and moved into the shadows cast by the rocks.

He followed me. “Yeah. I’d walk him over to your street and meet you guys, make sure you didn’t stop to rumble with any more bullies on the way to school.”

“I keep seeing Father John’s hand in our lives,” I said, leaning my back against the rough, warm stone. “He’s the keeper of everyone’s deepest, darkest secrets. I wonder how he can sleep at night.”

“Maybe he doesn’t.” Kevin fell quiet, his focus on something far, far away. “Maybe that’s why he’s sick.”

“You’re not going to say Father John is dying for our sins, are you?”

“No.” The corner of his mouth came up in a semblance of a wry smile. “Dying from the weight of them, maybe.”

“Kev?” I put my hand on his arm and waited until he looked down at me. “You ready to tell me why you decided to show me the murder book?”

There was a fresh breeze coming in off the Bay, and we were in the shade, but he broke out into a sweat again and seemed to have difficulty breathing. I was afraid he would pass out. I put my hand against his cheek and made him meet my eyes.

I said, “Beto told me you signed Lacy into rehab last night.”

He shook his head. Choked with emotion, he managed to say, “I committed her on a seventy-two-hour psych hold. Danger to herself and to others.”

“Namely, a danger to me?”

“You had it figured out, didn’t you?” he said.

“After overhearing what you said to her last night when you manhandled her out of the Bartolinis’ backyard, I started to wonder,” I said. “But it wasn’t until I saw your name on the work order for repairs to a certain shot-up silver car that I actually knew.”

“That crazy bitch,” he said, dropping his head into his hands for a moment before he straightened up and faced me. “Yesterday afternoon, I went over to the dealership to make sure your truck was locked in a secure area until the ballistics techs could go over it. And there was Lacy’s car, already parked at the body shop. She shot off her own side mirror, for chrissake.”

“The good news is, Lacy is a lousy shot and no one got hurt.”

He let out a long, labored breath. “My career is over.”

“Oh, sweetie, lots of cops have crazy wives.” I patted his shoulder. “If they all got fired when their wives spun out of control, there would be no one left to write tickets. You’ll get through this, Kevin. Just tell me you haven’t done anything really stupid yet, like filing a false report or making anything disappear?”

“I’ve thought about it.”

“Does Lacy have a psych history?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Then get her a good lawyer and let it all play out, Kev,” I said. “It’s up to the Oakland PD to file charges, and so far they don’t seem inclined to get overly involved. Your insurance company will probably pay mine off and then cancel your coverage, but that’s the worst they’ll do.”

“I’ll have to file a report with my department,” he said.

“Do what you need to do,” I said. “I won’t press charges, Kevin. You didn’t need to try to bribe me with the murder book, but I’m glad you did.”

He let out a long breath, one he may have been holding for the last day. “Know a good lawyer?”

“Uncle Max will,” I said. “He’s at the house now. Take me back to my car and then you go right over and talk to him.”

“Are the Lopers on patrol?”

“Of course they are, but surely you haven’t forgotten the secret way into my backyard?”

He laughed, a big, full-chested ha-ha-ha that verged on sobs. Without warning, he pulled me against him and held me in a tight bear hug.

“God, Mag, I’ve missed you.”

“Just don’t flip me, Kev,” I said, my face pressed against the front of his sweaty polo. “And don’t tickle me. Okay?”

“Okay.” He set me on my feet and released me. “Not this time.”

As he drove us back down the hill, I turned toward him. “Yesterday, no one knew where Jean-Paul and I were going, not even us. So, how the hell did Lacy track us down?”

“She followed you,” he said.

“All day? Impossible. I would have seen her.”

“How many silver cars do you think were out there on the freeway yesterday? Would you notice one little piece-of-shit Focus?”

“Maybe not. So, has Lacy been lying in wait for me?”

“She didn’t have to,” he said. “You know where her folks live, right?”

I nodded. “Across from Beto.”

“The other night, when I picked her up from your house, I took her to her parents’ house because I didn’t want my daughter to see her like that. She had it in her head that I was hanging out with you. When she saw your truck go by on Saturday with a man driving, she assumed it was me. So she grabbed her dad’s gun from a drawer in the front hall table and lit out after you.”

“And stuck with us all afternoon?”

He nodded. “All afternoon, probably dogging you, waiting to get a good shot. This isn’t exactly pickup country so your truck wasn’t hard to follow.”

“It wasn’t me she was shooting at, though, was it? It was you.”

“What can I say?”

“Hell hath no fury?” I said.

“Crazy jealous bitch?”

“Hey, Kev?”

“Mmm?”

“The other night, when Lacy was pounding on my front door because she thought you were inside with me, what if the door had been unlocked and she had been able to come in, and if she’d had her dad’s gun with her then, what would she have done?”

“Probably woulda shot you through the heart.”