Dark clouds pressed down on the city and a light rain fell as Gage walked up the steps to Socorro Palmer’s Russian Hill Victorian. He glanced toward the eastern hills and saw the morning sun still shining on his neighborhood, but not for long. It had been there during dinner on his deck looking across the bay and over San Francisco that Faith told him she’d called and convinced Socorro it was time to talk about Charlie and his final days. Gage had wanted Faith to come along with him, but it was midterms at Cal, so she had tests to grade and final papers to read.
Standing at the front door, Socorro seemed thinner, her eyes dark and sunken. In her saggy sweatpants and loose fleece pullover, she gave him the impression she hadn’t left the house since the day of the funeral.
Even though Gage had planned to go into his office afterward, he wore Levi’s and a sport shirt, a way of communicating that he was more a friend visiting than an investigator questioning.
Socorro was her mother’s daughter. Her first words were “Have you had breakfast yet?”
Gage nodded as he stepped across the threshold, and said, “But coffee would be fine.”
She led him to the enclosed back porch where a carafe and two mugs stood on a table between the same green wicker chairs they’d sat in the last time. She poured for both of them and they sat down.
Gage pointed at the telescope in the corner. A dust rag was draped over the crossbar of the tripod. An open packing box lay on the slate floor next to it.
“Getting that ready for your son?” Gage asked.
Socorro nodded. “It’s about all they shared. Camping in the Sierras above the city lights, looking at stars.” She sighed. “The sad thing is that the only real connection between them was made through little specks of rock millions of light-years away.”
They sat in silence for a long moment, the raindrops tapping the roof above them.
Finally, Gage asked, “How have you been holding up?”
He already knew from Viz that a truthful answer would be: It’s been the worst time in my life.
“I’m getting along,” Socorro said. “You know how these things are.”
“Faith and I were thinking we’d like you to spend a weekend with us up at the cabin, maybe a change of scenery would-”
She cut him off with a shake of her head. “I don’t think I’m ready.” She looked back at the kitchen, then toward the flower garden. “Somehow I feel like I’d be abandoning him and… and there’s kind of a mystery in this house that has to be solved.”
“A mystery about what? The burglary?”
“About who my husband really was.” Her voice was flat, as if the words were born of a nighttime resolution. “My brother told me you spoke to someone who Charlie might’ve harmed in some way. A man named John Porzolkiewski. He said when the time came you’d tell me about it.” She fixed her eyes on Gage. “The only way I’ll ever understand Charlie is by knowing the kinds of things he did.”
Gage thought back on his conversation with Faith as they’d walked to their car after the funeral. Maybe Faith had been correct. That Socorro had been blind-perhaps by choice-to the life Charlie had lived. And he wondered what would be the psychological consequences of now coming to see and to accept who Charlie had been from the beginning, even as they’d held hands or shared a dessert on their first date.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Gage asked.
Socorro reached under her chair and withdrew a manila file folder. She opened it on her lap. The top page was a retirement account summary of cash, bonds, and equities. She handed it to Gage. His eyes followed the column of figures to the bottom: two and a half million dollars.
“From the little I know of his practice,” Gage said, “this seems about right.”
She handed him another folder. Inside was a letter from AmeriWest Annuities to Charlie saying he and she would be receiving income of thirty thousand dollars a month, effective six weeks earlier. A three-hundred-and-sixty-thousand-dollar-a-year annuity meant Charlie had probably purchased it for about seven million.
Socorro didn’t wait for Gage to comment on it, instead she asked, “Where did he get the money?”
“You mean, what did he do for it?”
She nodded.
Gage flipped the folder closed and handed it back. She accepted it as if he was handing her a lab test revealing that she had cancer.
“I’m not sure I’m the best person to do this,” Gage said. “There’s a lot I don’t know about his work.”
“How about start with Porzolkiewski and his son.”
The solidity and resolve in her voice pushed Gage past his internal resistance. He described the trail leading from Jeannette Hawkins in Richmond, to Wilbert in India, then back to Porzolkiewski and his descent toward hysteria on hearing the truth about his son’s death.
Tears formed in Socorro’s eyes, but her face remained determined, so he pushed on.
“And Charlie covered it up by paying off the OSHA inspector, packing up Hawkins after his deposition and taking him first to Pakistan, and then a few months afterward to India.”
“India? Why India?”
“Because…” Gage hesitated to say the words to the mother of a daughter, but she wanted the whole truth and seemed ready for it. “Because that’s where the girls were.”
“Young girls?”
“Very young.”
“Did Charlie know about that?”
Gage shrugged and said, “I have no idea,” and then turned the conversation back to TIMCO.
“Basically, they paid out a couple of million dollars to Brandon Meyer’s firm, Charlie, the OSHA inspector, and Hawkins to save thirty million in a civil judgment and prevent the prosecution of the plant manager and corporate officers for manslaughter.”
Socorro reached out and touched his arm. “I need to go see Mr. Porzolkiewski. I need to apologize for… for us.”
“That’s not a good idea. I didn’t tell him about Charlie’s part in it. I was afraid he’d use it as a bridge to Brandon Meyer and walk over it carrying a gun. He’s-” Gage caught himself. He wasn’t going to tell her he was almost certain Porzolkiewski shot Charlie.
“He’s what?” Socorro wiped her eyes.
“He’s… a very angry man.”
She drew back. “You don’t think he’d go after Brandon?”
“He might-despite there being no evidence linking Brandon to what Charlie did. It could’ve been someone else in Brandon’s firm. Maybe just a deal between TIMCO and Charlie directly without the firm involved.”
“Did Charlie…” She searched his face. “Did Charlie do this kind of thing a lot?”
“A lot? That I don’t know.” Gage knew he did, but she only needed to know about one other. “There’s a woman whose son was beaten up in Pacific Heights.”
“Tansy? The woman who answered when Charlie telephoned.”
“Yes, Tansy.”
“Is it because of Charlie that she works for you?”
“Indirectly.”
They fell silent, listening to the rain, watching flower petals beyond the screen bounce as drops struck. Socorro’s aging golden retriever ambled in and rested its head in her lap. She petted it without looking down.
Gage picked up their cold coffees and emptied the cups into the kitchen sink. He returned and refilled them from the carafe and sat down.
“Do you know what was on Charlie’s mind when he called me?” Gage asked, looking over at her.
“He wouldn’t say,” Socorro said, gazing out toward the garden. “But my guess is regret. I think for the first time in his life, he understood what suffering was. I think it’s why he broke down when he heard Moki’s name.”
Socorro paused and her eyes went blank.
“All those years as a police officer,” she finally said, “he was oblivious to what it meant to be a victim. I mean he said the right words in the right tone. Sympathy. Understanding. But he didn’t mean them.”
She blinked and then looked over at Gage.
“I noticed the change in him about a week before he died. Brandon called. They argued about something. When Charlie hung up his face was white, like he’d suddenly found himself at a cliff edge, looking down. He seemed defeated afterward.”
“Could you tell what the argument was about?”
“Specifically, no. But generally about trust. Something had broken down between them. That, and somebody had been chosen to do the work Charlie used to do. Something important had to be done and Brandon was tired of waiting for Charlie to get better.”
“What exactly was Charlie doing?”
Socorro shrugged. “I don’t know. But not doing it left him feeling abandoned.”
She lowered her gaze, seeming to finish a thought in her head, then nodded and reached into her sweatpants pocket. She pulled out a folded check and held it out toward him.
“I need you to find out where Charlie’s money came from.”
Gage shook his head. “I can’t let you hire me.”
“I’m not. The people whose lives he ruined are hiring you. I merely wrote the check. Even if money can’t remake the past, at least they can learn the truth of what it really was. That’s what you did for Mr. Porzolkiewski.”
He accepted the check from her. Fifty thousand dollars.
“I’ll charge my expenses,” Gage said, “and give you back the rest.”
Gage folded it and slid it into his jeans pocket.
“And there’s one more thing.” Socorro pulled out another folder from under her chair. “Charlie left an insurance policy with the children as beneficiaries.”
“From who?”
“A company I hadn’t heard of until Charlie showed me the paperwork. It’s called Pegasus Limited. It’s in the Cayman Islands.”
“How much was the policy for?”
“Two million. One for each of them.”
“Has it been paid out yet?”
“I haven’t notified the company of Charlie’s death. I’m not sure I want them to have the money if it’s…”
“Tainted?”
“Yes, tainted.”
Socorro rose from her chair. She wobbled and reached a hand toward the armrest. Gage stepped forward and put his arm around her waist, then guided her to a sofa in the living room and laid an afghan over her. She stared up at the ceiling and closed her eyes.
“There was something else I was going to tell you,” she said. “But my mind has gone blank. I can’t think.”
“When was the last time you ate?”
She opened her eyes again. “I don’t know. I guess yesterday.”
“Or the day before?”
She forced a smile. “Maybe.”
Gage walked into the kitchen and fixed an omelet and brought it to her. She was sitting up when he returned.
“I know what it was,” Socorro said. “The key.” She pointed at the low table by the front door. “It goes to a storage locker. It was in an envelope with the rental agreement.” Her brows furrowed. “I didn’t even know Charlie had it.”
“Have you gone inside the locker?”
“No. I just found the key last night.”