"You want me to what?" I ask and to my right Avery grin and echoes, "whut", more than a little amused.
"You heard me," Weaver says, head only half out of the open fridge door, glancing at the clock on the wall then down at her wrist to verify
the time. "Avery and I will go shopping, paper plates, cups, ice, all that. I'll call Kate on my cell phone, invite her, your Sergeant too~~"
"Oh good," I put in, but she studiously ignores me.
"~~Jinny, of course, Magda and her son... Be sure to stress the bring-your-own-beverage-and-meat or tofu part, okay, Cooper?"
I've been assigned to Neighborhood Recruiting for this little block party Weaver's dreamed up.
"Yeah," I say darkly. "Okay. You sure you want a bunch of gawkers over here?"
She straightens, eyeing me, brows lifted quizzically into her bangs. "Why Cooper, I'd have thought you'd jump at the chance for
intelligence gathering."
I blink and she deftly tosses a rather slimy and mildewed half head of lettuce into the open trash bin, glanced pointedly at Avery who
obediently scribbles another item on the grocery list, before looking back at me.
"I don't see any reason why we can't ask if they saw or heard anything last night, can you? Granted, I'm sure they've been asked
already, but it can't hurt to ask again over a hotdog and a cup of soda."
Only if any of them were in on it, it'll be inadmissible unless they've been Mirandized first and the whole evolution any evidence tends to
take on when passed mouth to mouth in a group of people, but hey~~ whatever. The uniforms will already have gotten statements pre-festive Dr. CIA.
"Fine. But let me go to the store with you and send Avery out knocking on doors. I bet she was even a Girl Scout,
weren't you, Bad Ass? She's got that whole knocking on doors thing down."
Avery rolls her eyes and snorts, grinning at me. "Oh, no, Cowboy. I'm sure that was you. I can just picture you in that
little hat and the green skirt and everything. Bet you got all those little pin deals, even, probably sold the most cookies."
She and Weaver share a bemused and mirthful look; they've somehow bonded in less than twenty minutes. I feel rather dizzy and flustered
at this newest development and sputter into silence as Weaver continues calling out a grocery list to her.
"Fine," I say, tone making it clear that it is anything but. "I'll canvass the neighborhood and invite them over for dinner." I
lean and thump a grudging tattoo on Murphy's rib cage. "Tell me you've done this before."
"Shopped for groceries? Certainly. More than once even."
"Ha, ha," I intone dutifully and shake Murphy's entire head, earning a sorrowful canine glare and what amounts to a shower of drool.
"The whole block party thing, Dr. CIA. Tell me your neighbors aren't going to spit in my face and curse me, or run screaming for the po-lice."
She blinks at me and treats me to a wide eyed innocent's gaze.
"My neighbors, Cooper? Shrieking from an unexpected knock on the door? Why, whatever could have spooked them so?"
Forty minutes later San Francisco has suddenly become the hottest, most humid place on earth.
I've shed my jacket willingly for the first time since the plane touched tarmac; the SIG is clearly visible now but I've decided I don't give a rip since it
appears to have some sort of magical effect on Weaver's neighbors who clearly associate it with the titillating drama which has been unfolding down the street from them
recently.
I couldn't avoid getting more statements if I wanted to and by the third house I've given up attempting to explain I'm not with SFPD, I'm not there to take
a statement or check facts with them on their previous statement, I'm honest to God just inviting them down the street for barbecue.
"They always put flyers up," I'm informed blankly by at least five different people. "For their block parties."
The first time I'm told that I blink, startled with the realization that, God help us, Dr. CIA and Knuckles do throw block parties.
"This is kind of spur of the minute," I find myself responding, but can't resist adding, "Flyers?"
On the windshields if the car is parked on the street, I'm told, in the mailbox sometimes, now and then thrust through the latch of the front door.
"There's always been at least two days notice," one matriarch enlightens me, small brown eyes suspicious even after she's asked for and seen my badge and
ID. "And this doesn't leave me much time for my tiramisu."
I nod sympathetically and apologize and move on.
By house number four I've invented some story about 're-working the area' in hopes someone might have recalled some previously forgotten bit of information
and dug a rather disgusting looking pocket note pad from the jacket draped over one arm, confiscated and seized a pen and begun to actually take notes of what I'm being
told. At the very least I can turn it over to SFPD and they can compare it with the original statements taken the night before.
At house number eleven I hit the jackpot in the unlikely form of the elderly white and silver wind suit person. Rod Stewart growls a falsetto whine at me
through the glass as she blinks rapidly, before opening the door and tugging me imperiously inside after a cursory glance at my ID.
"I hoped a law enforcement official would take my call seriously," she tells me, shooing me ahead of her through a rather dark but elegantly furnished
living area I have no doubt she refers to as 'the parlor'. Marble and gilt gleams around me; raspberry satin drapes adorn the windows and are fastened back with
equally hideous gold satin swags, while cupids and cherubs beam fat cheeked demure smiles from every surface.
Always on my toes, I mumble an inventive, "Yes, ma'am" and try to shake Rod Stewart off my leg. He's still growling but I'm not quite sure if I'm
being attacked or molested.
"Ignore him," she orders with a vague, yet commanding sweep of the hand.
I'm finding that rather difficult as I drag him along with me through the house, but give it my best effort nonetheless.
"I don't normally go around writing down the license plates of vehicles," she tells me rather sternly as if I have accused her of doing so. "But then
there was that ruckus two weeks ago, all those police cars and lights and an ambulance~~" She peers at me for confirmation and I nod politely, balancing on one foot.
Rod Stewart has inched up my jeans leg and is frothing somewhere just below my knee cap.
If he makes it to my thigh, I decide, I'll take him out.
"~~really didn't think anyone would come by, they were terribly uninterested and rather inept on the telephone."
"Yes, ma'am." I consider apologizing, but decide against it mainly because she doesn't appear too disgruntled or flustered at the earlier lack of
police interest in her telephone call now that she has a real live officer on her premises.
"Here." Lacquered nails briefly scuff my skin as I take the sheet of paper from her hand. It's creamy and thick, obviously costly and the letterhead
across the top in bold, arrogant fuchsia and gold reads 'Marguerite'; I'm slightly bemused by the obvious margarita glass embossed on either side and glance up at her,
caught off guard and grinning.
"My husband," she says, face crinkling in merriment. "Alfred. He found it impossible to ink or engrave my name on anything without adding a
margarita to it somewhere. My headstone even," she adds, beaming and at the apparently unspoken question in my face she nods, seemingly without grief or rancor.
"Passed on. Yes."
I'm mumbling the appropriate and always useless trivial sympathy when the rather ornate and heavy stroked ink resolves itself into numbers and letters which
slam home instantly: 2RGB781.
"You saw this car on this street last night?"
I realize somewhat belatedly that I have taken two steps into her personal space and have gripped one of the heavily adorned hands about the wrist.
She peers up at me bewilderedly before I recover and release her and take the two steps back again, Rod Stewart really agitated with me now. He's reached some whole
new level of shrill doggy mania now that I've proven myself to be just as invasive and diabolical as he'd imagined.
I swallow and try for a saner tone.
"This car~~ you saw it last night?"
"No," she says, frowning, recovering quickly, "Not last night. I wasn't even home last night.
I flew to my daughter's house in San Diego for her baby shower. Her third child, my seventh grandchild; all of them girls, isn't that consternating? I only
arrived back in San Francisco around eleven this morning, then of course I had to go rescue poor Rimbaud from the kennel~~"
"The car," I manage to get out through clenched teeth as poor Rimbaud finally manages to drill through the denim to flesh. I thump him a good one on his punk rock
star head with one hand as she blinks and recaptures her semi-derailed train of thought.
"This car was in the neighborhood the night before I flew out. I noticed it when I took Rimbaud for his evening walk around seven thirty, eightish, perhaps, no later
than eight fifteen~~"
"Driving or parked, ma'am?" My voice is somewhat strained due to Rimbaud's renewed efforts to draw blood now that the battle lines are clearly drawn.
"Both." The succinctness of it after her mild ramblings seems to surprise both of us and we blink at one another momentarily. "Driving when Rimbaud and I set out and
then parked near the entrance to the jogging trail on our return."
"And what kind of car was it?" I ask and can barely prevent my fist from thumping air when Marguerite informs me it was a silver vehicle, an older model Volkswagen.
One of San Francisco's finest, Andrea Peyton, hard at work earning her nefarious tax payer's salary.
And no, she wasn't alone in the vehicle; there'd been a male with her and Marguerite had gotten an excellent view of him because he had been outside the vehicle when she
and Rimbaud had come back around the block on their way home.
"He was coming out of the park as we approached the vehicle from the rear. He nodded his head at me, perfectly polite and I commented on what a mild evening it was
and he agreed. An innocuous conversation and quite innocent but when he opened the door of the vehicle to get in the female was clearly distressed with him.
Yelled, even."
I bet. I can't wipe the grin off my face. Nothing like having your B&E man stop to chit chat with the local maven under a street light right next to your
so-doesn't-belong-in-this-neighborhood battered VW.
"I probably wouldn't have thought that much of it if the girl had not been so blatantly coarse and rude," the maven Marguerite informs me, lips pursed, arms crossing over
her white and silver Nike logos. "But then it reminded me that I noticed what I think was that same vehicle and that same young woman in the area a few weeks ago.
You know, when the young ladies had their burglary incident."
Even Rimbaud pauses in his hoarse growling as I stiffen and clear my throat before speaking, my voice careful.
"You're telling me you believe you saw that same vehicle in this neighborhood prior to the break in at their residence?"
And before she can speak, although what she'll say is clear from the emphatic nodding of the lilac head, I ask if I can use the phone.
I'm stunned by how many people show up for Weaver's impromptu gathering of the Nosy and the Recently Traumatized.
By dusk at least thirty people of all ages have arrived with card tables, lawn chairs, ice chests and various bowls and Tupperware containers of food stuffs.
Weaver's set tiki torches out and lit them and a tall and sturdy female with a thrice pierced nose and enough hardware dangling from her eyebrows and lips to send Homeland
Security running for larger metal detectors, arrives with Japanese lanterns which are soon dangling from tree branches and off the open rafters of the rear patio.
Two separate grills have been fired up and I'm not surprised to see Sarge manning one of them, back in civvies and wearing an obviously borrowed apron.
"I think mauve is my color," he'd told me after McCafferty had tied it in a flamboyant knot in the center of his back, then did a swishy little waltz step to prove it.
He's deep in conversation with her now, I see, the two of them standing as they sip beer and man the larger of the two grills and I don't miss the frequent and pointed
glances winged in my direction.
I also don't miss the rather lingering glance Sarge gives her backside as she moves away toting a platter of grilled tuna and salmon steaks towards a waiting group of
hungry neighbors.
"Great," I mutter. "What do you want to bet Sarge doesn't sleep alone tonight?"
Beside me Jinny snorts. "Hey, McCafferty's a babe."
"She's fifteen years older than him."
"Oh, she is not. Don't exaggerate. And anyway, he doesn't seem to care."
I glance at her and see she's grinning, eyeing Sarge as he rather openly moons over McCafferty's ass.
"Shit," Jinny says, laughing, "This is San Francisco. And in that apron? Just be glad he's not hitting on Nate or Angelo."
Angelo is calmly making the rounds of each guest and gently diagnosing their current emotional condition by a somewhat rapturous gripping of their face as he serenely
beams at their crowning glory. Mrs. Villanueva is perched on a wooden bench under the larger of the trees in the yard, tranquilly conversing with Weaver; it's a toss
up as to which of them is keeping the closest eye on her son, ready to intervene should some aberrant guest not want their Hair Reading.
"What do you think he'll do when he gets to that bald guy?" Jinny asks me, jerking her chin in the direction of a Mr. Clean clone in a tight white tee and even tighter
acid washed denim; Dr. CIA had introduced him to me as a member of the San Francisco Fire Department. The slender doe-eyed young man seemingly attached to his hip
reminds me I'm definitely not in Texas anymore.
"No clue," I murmur. "But I hope his boyfriend doesn't freak in any way violent."
"That'd suck," she agrees flatly before swigging down a hearty gulp of her carbonated mineral water. "I'd hate to have to arrest someone for assault tonight."
"Just ruin the whole thing," I concur, then point a quick finger at Magda who is seated at a card table with CD and Nate and a small dark eyed boy who was introduced to me
as her son, Benjamin. "She pissy about me still or something else?"
"Something else called a boyfriend who is once again on the road with his band and neglected to mention until tonight they'd been held over by popular demand for another
three gigs in New Orleans."
"Yikes." I grimace, imagining Magda's reaction to that particular news and beside me Jinny echoes a sincere grunt of unity.
I'm outside, but just barely; the French doors have been left open and an electric cord run out to power the laptop which is inactive at the moment; S'Phear's IMed me
several times during the course of the evening hours to query the status on the warrant for Massey's computer.
So far all I've been able to tell him is that McCafferty has assured me it's been handed to a Judge who can be counted on to peruse the evidence garnered without prejudice
and said Judge has been given the private number to McCafferty's cell phone which is clipped to the waist of her jeans. If it were me and if this were West Texas I'd
have had the phone up to check the power and the signal availability at least a dozen times; McCafferty seems confidently unaware of the hardware on her Lees.
The last communication with S'Phear had been initiated by me over half an hour earlier when I had grown fretful and bored with the continual blinking of the cursor in the
IM box:
H. Cooper Finn: You around?
There'd been an excruciating pause of eighteen minutes before he had responded with an enigmatic:
S'PhearHead: Closer than you think.
"What do you think that means?" I ask Jinny, pointing to the screen.
"Same thing I thought the last three times you asked me," she says before removing the sting of the rebuke with a brief kiss as she stands and shakes the empty bottle.
"I'm going to go put this in Weaver's glass recycling can and then make the rounds of the uniforms and plain clothes here, see if anything new has turned up about the
incident here last night from the neighbors."
The 'uniforms' aren't in uniform tonight; the two who responded to the scene first and who had the joy of the initial discovery of an irate and headachy Weaver with a much
agitated and slobbering Murphy, are happily downing beer like there's no tomorrow. I assume this means they are headed into days off and are determined to celebrate
being included in the bash. The plain clothes are drinking iced tea and the inevitable coffee since they are on call again for this sector tonight. Their
presence has unsurprisingly insured the neighbors invited have all, at one point or another, been meandering over to them to recount their version of events seen and heard
the night before.
I seriously doubt anything new has turned up but they've diligently produced their notebooks and pens each time, no doubt very aware of Captain McCafferty monitoring their
movements.
The imperious and self-possessed Marguerite is currently holding court in a white wicker chair placed on the bricked patio floor beneath a gently swinging Japanese
lantern. She's changed from her wind suit into an equally dazzling set of wine colored velvet lounging pajamas embroidered with gold thread and demurely sips at her
token drink of choice. Rimbaud lies complacent and indifferent on her lap having finally gathered that Murphy is immune to being annoyed by a creature he can barely
even see.
Her interview had been conducted by McCafferty personally; there's now a second search warrant being placed before the same Judge, this one for Andrea Peyton's
Volkswagen and residence.
I slide the laptop off my lap and stand, wincing slightly because I've been seated cross legged on the patio stones for an hour and a half. McCafferty has delivered
the platter of food and returned to the grill where Sarge is carefully transferring patties onto another plate she's holding. It takes a good thirty seconds of
polite throat clearing before either of them stop laughing at one another's excessive wittiness and actually register my presence.
I swipe a hand at my own hip then gesture at the phone clipped to hers.
"You sure it's turned on?"
The look she gives me is eerily familiar and for once it doesn't even throw me. Much.
"Yes, Cooper. It's on and I'm positive."
Her head's to one side, her eyes dark and amused and mildly sardonic.
"And you're sure you got coverage here?" I wave a vague hand which encompasses the yard and trees and she nods, glancing back at Sarge once. He gives her a look of
commiseration and places another patty of some undetermined meat-like substance on the plate she's holding.
"Coop, this isn't West Texas. Katie's phone is on and she has coverage and you can't make the legal process move any faster by pestering her. So cut it out."
Katie, my mind registers. Katie waiting on the veggie burgers Karl's cooking up in his mauve apron. Jesus fucking Christ.
"Yeah. Okay." My voice is flat and I wait until McCafferty has turned before I extend my third finger in his direction. Flipping him off he'll forgive me for;
flipping him off in front of Katie might do more than color his face the shade of his apron.
I'm a third of the way to the house when Avery pops up in front of me, grinning.
"Poppy wanted me to remind you~~"
"He wants to talk to me. Yeah. Got it."
I sound more than a little flustered and way more than a little pissed off. I shove a hand through my hair and Angelo shrieks in some kind of hair telepathy and
spins to stare at me in torment from a good thirty feet away, hands wrist deep in the bouffant darkly dyed 'do of the tiramisu matriarch. Mrs. Villanueva and Weaver
both stiffen in alarm and glare at me in unison.
"Oops, sorry," I call out to the three of them and send him what must be a half-decent attempt of an apologetic smile because he relaxes and turns back to the matron
whose hair he is diagnosing. Mrs. Villanueva sniffs and I swear Weaver shakes a warning finger at me before turning to listen to the Hair Guru at work.
"~~more soufflés," I catch as he resumes his tranquil assessment. "Your hair is telling me you use chocolate to pacify and appease yourself too often. You need
to be a lighter color and need to make more soufflés~~"
"Fucking unreal," I murmur to Avery, then lift a brow at her. "You let him touch your head yet?"
She snorts, grinning at me, one arrogant hand cocked on her hip. "He told me my hair and my soul are in unity, Cowboy. Some of us actually got our shit
together."
"Oh, that's good. Such a relief. Thank God you and your hair can enter heaven, Avery because I was starting to think the entire universe had got a
really bad home perm."
She throws her head back and basically bellows laughter drawing more than a few appreciative stares. I'm immune to her charms and roll my eyes, scowling and sighing
in aggravation.
"You might want to re-think that blasphemous kind of shit before you talk to Poppy, Cowboy."
I'm striding rather fast towards the house, intent on escape but she's bobbing right along and has the advantage over me since she was graced with six foot or so of legs.
I stop abruptly as we reach the entrance to the house, one hand on the French door nearest me and squint in the overhead light as I peer past her haughty Angelo approved
head. The Reverend Pennybaker is eyeing me, expression mild but otherwise inscrutable from his lawn chair. Chloe is asleep on his shoulder, legs doubled
beneath her, one long fingered dark hand thumping a comforting beat on her small back.
"Look, I know he wants to perform some sort of exorcism on me and I know that he's your dad and you think he's wonderful and that's great~~"
"Exorcism," she interrupts me, the grin spreading gleefully. "Hold up there~~ exorcism?"
I shrug. "Whatever. Prayer meeting, baptism, counseling session, exorcism~~ Call it whatever the fuck you want but I'm not doing it."
She smiles at me and shakes her head, expression remote and still somehow delighted.
"Sure you will. Poppy's said so, so sooner or later... you will."
"Uh, huh," I say agreeably and jerk my chin towards the interior of the house. "I'm going to the bathroom now, Avery. You going to follow me to the bathroom?"
"No thanks," she declines still grinning knowingly and I try to shake off the vaguely uneasy feeling of impending disaster and doom as I slide past a small group of people
chatting idly in the television room. I can smell coffee brewing and more people conversing in the kitchen area and make out the distinct sound of Jinny's exuberant
hoot of laughter from somewhere closer to the front of the house. Someone's put a CD in the stereo and I'm rather stunned to hear Bif Naked in Dr. CIA's modestly
decorated dwelling place, informing me she loves herself today, not like yesterday~~
I see him briefly down the hallway, still in the small front entrance foyer before he slides out of view and Jinny replaces him, head to one side as she listens intently.
She glanced up at me and hesitates briefly, then lifts a hand to point me out and I hear and lip read her words simultaneously.
"There she is."
There's five seconds of puzzlement as I study the young man, taking in the dark blonde forelock hanging over a whiter than pale face, the small wire framed glasses perched
on an equally white nose, trying to remember how I know him, where I know him from~~
And then there is a sheet lightening bolt of panic that jars me from head to toe as my brain places him.
The guy at the pub.
The guy who had known my name and bought me beer and kept me talking, about Jinny, about what I was doing in San Francisco, about the photographs, about Texas.
The same guy who had put me in a cab and left with me and somehow known to deliver me to McCafferty's whose address I couldn't have remembered that night if it had been
tattooed on the palm of my hand.
And now he's here in Weaver's house, in the front room, talking to Jinny who is leaning against the front door slightly, grinning distractedly as she listens to
whatever he is telling her in order to gain access to the house. I swallow, brain whirling and small aftershocks of adrenaline making my wrists and hands tremble as
I try to recall what I had heard Marguerite tell McCafferty about the young man who had greeted her congenially before sliding into the car with Peyton; blonde, she'd
said, but not startlingly so. Average height, average build, average face on which he'd worn shades which she had noticed because they had appeared rather
expensive for such a nondescript person getting into such an unassuming vehicle.
"~~they could have been prescription, possibly," she had said, noting she herself wore corrective lenses for driving and had indulged herself with the photochromic
variety.
My Hink Meter is shrieking at me by the time I've taken the first step into the hallway. He's too many degrees near to me and this situation for this to be a mere
coincidence, an odd twist of reality being stranger than fiction. And now he's here, inside, casually conversing with Jinny whose own internal gauge is quite
obviously not sounding any alarms.
And as he glances at me again, eyes lingering a half second too long, he turns back to her and laughs lightly, shoulders shrugging in a brief shrug which rakes up the
baggy un-tucked tee shirt from the waist of the equally baggy khaki cargo style trousers and I clearly see the black and chrome colored end of something jutting
haphazardly outwards at hip level.
If it walks likes a duck and talks like a duck it is probably carrying a gun.
I wait until he has glanced at me again and then turned back to Jinny before I let myself go from casual stroll to a sprint and when I hit him it's hard, spinning him
around violently and smashing his face against the wood of the door with brutal force.
"Hi," I hiss into the closest ear. "Miss me?"
END OF SEVENTY TWO
