McCone and Friends (18 page)

I rode in the back of the van on our way home to the city, making sure the Seeburg Trashcan didn’t slip its mooring. Both Shar and I were quiet as we maneuvered it up my building’s elevator and into the apartment.

Later, after Neal promised to become the fifth party to a closely held secret, I told him the story of August 16, 1978. He was quiet too.

But still later, when we’d jockeyed the Trashcan into position in our living room and plugged it in, the nostalgic tunes of happier times played long into the night, heralding happy times to come.

My eyes were burning, and I felt not unlike a creature that spends a great deal of its life underground. I marked the beat-up copy of last year’s
Standard California Codes
that I’d scrounged up at a used bookstore on Adams Avenue, then shut it. When I stood up, my limbs felt as if I were emerging from the creature’s burrow. I stretched, smiling.
Well, McCone
, I told myself,
at last one of your peculiarities is going to pay off
.

For years, I’d taken what many considered a strange pleasure in browsing through the tissue-thin pages of both the civil and penal codes. I had learned many obscure facts. For instance: it is illegal to trap birds in a public cemetery; anyone advertising merchandise that is made in whole or in part by prisoners must insert the words “convict-made” in the ad copy; stealing a dog worth $400 or less is a petty theft, while stealing a dog worth more than $400 is grand theft. Now I could add another esoteric statute to my store of knowledge, only this one promised a big payoff.

Somebody who thought himself above the law was about to go down—and I was the one who would topple him.

Two nights earlier, I’d flown into San Diego’s Lindbergh Field from my home base in San Francisco. Flown in on a perilous approach that always makes me, holder of both single- and a multi-engine rating, wish I didn’t know quite so much about pilot error. On top of a perfectly natural edginess, I was aggravated with myself for giving in to my older brother John’s plea. The case he wanted me to take on for some friends sounded like one where every lead comes to a dead end; besides, I was afraid that in my former hometown I’d become embroiled in some family crisis. The McCone clan attracts catastrophe the way normal people attract stray kittens.

John was waiting for me at the curb in his old red International Scout. When he saw me, he jumped out and enveloped me in a bear hug that made me drop both my purse and my briefcase. My travel bag swung around and whacked him on his back; he released me, grunting.

“You’re looking good,” he said, stepping back.

“So’re you.” John’s a big guy—six –foot-four—and sometimes he bulks up from the beer he’s so fond of. But now he was slimmed down to muscle and sported a new closely trimmed beard. Only his blond hair resisted taming.

He grabbed my bag, tossed it into the Scout, and motioned for me to climb aboard. I held my ground. “Before we go anyplace—you didn’t tell Pa I was coming down, did you?”

“No.”

“Ma and Melvin? Charlene and Ricky?”

“None of them.”

“Good. Did you make me a motel reservation and reserve a rental car?”

“No.”

“I asked you—”

“You’re staying at my place.”

“John! Don’t you remember—”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t involve the people you care about in something that could get dangerous. I heard all that before.”

“And it
did
get dangerous.”

“Not very. Anyway, you’re staying with me. Get in.”

John can be as stubborn as I when he makes up his mind. I opted for the path of least resistance. “Okay, I’ll stay tonight—only. But what am I supposed to drive while I’m here?”

“I’ll loan you the Scout.”

I frowned. It hadn’t aged well since I last borrowed it.

He added, “I could go along, help you out.”

“John!”

He started the engine and edged into the flow of traffic.

“You know, I’ve missed you.” Reaching over and ruffling my hair, he grinned broadly. “McCone and McCone—the detecting duo. Together again.”

I heaved a martyred sigh and buckled my seat belt.

The happy tone of our reunion dissipated when we walked into the living room of John’s stucco house in nearby Lemon Grove. His old friends, Bryce and Mari Winslip, sat on the sofa in front of the corner fireplace; their hollow eyes reflected weariness and pain and—when they saw me—a kind of hope that I immediately feared was misplaced. While John made the introductions and fetched wine for me and freshened the Winslips’ drinks, I studied them.

Both were a fair number of years older than my brother, perhaps in their early sixties. John had told me on the phone that Bryce Winslip was the painting contractor who had employed him during his apprenticeship; several years ago, he’d retired and they’d moved north to Oregon. Bryce and Mari were white-haired and had the bronzed, tough-skinned look of people who spent a lot of time outdoors. I could tell that customarily they were clear-eyed, mentally acute, and vigorous. But not tonight.

Tonight the Winslips were gaunt-faced and red-eyed; they moved in faltering sequences that betrayed their age. Tonight they were drinking straight whiskey, and every word seemed an effort. Small wonder: they were hurting badly because their only child, Troy, was violently dead.

Yesterday morning, twenty-five-year-old Troy Winslip’s body had been found by the Tijuana, Mexico, authorities in a parking lot near the bullring at the edge of the border town. He had been stabbed seventeen times. Cause of death; exsanguination. Estimated time of death: midnight. There were no witnesses, no suspects, no known reason for the victim to have been in that place. Although Troy was a San Diego resident and a student at San Diego State, the SDPD could do no more than urge the Tijuana authorities to pursue and investigation and report their findings. The TPD, which would have been overworked even if it wasn’t notoriously corrupt, wasn’t about to devote time to the murder of a
gringo
who shouldn’t have been down there in the middle of the night anyway. For all practical purposes, case closed.

So John had called me, and I’d opened my own case file.

When we were seated, I said to the Winslips, “Tell me about Troy. What sort of person was he?”

They exchanged glances. Mari cleared her throat. “He was a good boy…man. He’d settled down and was attending college.”

“Studying what?”

“Communications. Radio and TV.”

“You say he’d ‘settled down.’ What does that mean?”

Again the exchanged glances. Bryce said, “After high school, he had some problems that needed to be worked through—one of the reasons we moved north. But he’s been fine for at least five years now.”

“Could you be more specific about these problems?”

“Well, Troy was using drugs.”

“Marijuana? Cocaine?”

“Both. When we moved to Oregon, we put him into a good treatment facility. He made excellent progress. After he was release, he went to school at Eugene, but three years ago he decided to come back to San Diego.”

“A mistake,” Mari said.

“He was a grown man; we couldn’t stop him,” her husband responded defensively. “Besides, he was doing well, making good grades. There was no way we could have predicted that…this would happen.”

Mari shrugged.

I asked, “Where was Troy living?”

“He shared a house on Point Loma with another student.”

“I’ll need the address and the roommate’s name. What else can you tell me about Troy?”

Bryce said, “Well, he is…was athletic. He liked to sail and play tennis.” He looked at his wife.

“He was very articulate,” she added. “He had a beautiful voice and would have done well in radio or television.”

“Do you know any of his friends here?”

“…No. I’m not even sure of the roommate’s name.”

“What about women? Was he going with anyone? Engaged?”

Head shakes.

“Anything else?”

Silence.

“Well,” Bryce said after a moment, “he was a very private person. He didn’t share many of the details of his life with us, and we respected that.”

I was willing to bet that the parents hadn’t shared many details of their life with Troy either. The Winslips struck me as one of those couple who have formed a closed circle that admits no one, not even their own offspring. The shared glances, their body language, the way they consulted nonverbally before answering my questions—all that pointed to a self-sufficient system. I doubted they’d know their son very well at all, and probably hadn’t even realized they were shutting him out.

Bryce Winslip leaned forward, obviously awaiting some response on my part to what he and Mari had told me.

I said, “I have to be frank with you. Finding out what happened to Troy doesn’t look promising. But I’ll give it a try. John explained about my fee?”

They nodded.

“You’ll need to sign one of my standard contracts, as well as a release giving me permission to enter Troy’s home and go through his personal effects. I took the forms from my briefcase and began filling them in.

After they’d put their signatures on the forms and Bryce had written me a check as a retainer, the Winslips left for their hotel. John had fetched me another glass of wine and a beer for himself and sat in the place Mari had vacated, propping his feet on the raised hearth.

“So,” he said, “how’re we going to go about this?”

“You mean how am
I
going to go about his. First
I
will check with the SDPD for details on the case. Do you remember Gary Viner?”

“That dumb-looking friend of Joey’s from high school?”

All of our brother Joey’s friends had been dumb-looking. “Sandy-haired guy, one of the auto shop crowd.”

“Oh, yeah. He used to work on Joey’s car in front of the house and ogle you when he thought you weren’t looking.”

I grinned. “That’s the one. He used to ogle me during cheerleading, too. When I was down here on that kidnapping case a couple of years ago, he told me I had the prettiest bikini pants of anybody on the squad.”

John scowled indignantly, like a proper big brother. “So what’s this underwear freak got to do with the Winslip case?”

“Gary’s on Homicide with the SDPD now. It’s always best to check in with the local authorities when you’re working a case on their turf, so I’ll stop by his office in the morning, see what he’s got from the TJ police.”

“Well, just don’t wear a short skirt. What should I do while you’re seeing him?”

“Nothing. Afterward, I will visit Troy’s house, talk with the roommate, try to get a list of his friends and find out more about him. Plus go to State and see what I can dig up there.”

“What about me?”

“You will tend to Mr. Paint.” Mr. Paint was the contracting business he operated out of his home shop and office.

John’s lower lip pushed out sulkily.

I said, “How about dinner? I’m starving.”

He brightened some. “Mexican?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll drive.”

“Okay.”

“You’ll pay.”

“John!”

“Consider it a finder’s fee.”