I just keep hearing this grating in the back of my mind,” Gage told Faith as they hiked up the hill from their house toward the pine- and oak-lined trails of the regional park early on Saturday morning.
Gage hoped the perspective of distance and high places would help him discern a pattern in what seemed contradictory and incongruous.
“Maybe it’s just Porzolkiewski lying all the time,” Faith said.
“That’s part of it, but not all. I’ve got this peculiar feeling I’m doing someone else’s work.”
“You mean helping someone frame Porzolkiewski?”
“You should’ve seen the way he broke down at the end of the recording of my interview of Wilbert Hawkins. I don’t think he was faking.”
“How do you know it wasn’t just relief he’d killed the right guy? Maybe he had a lingering doubt about what happened, then you proved the company was guilty and Charlie was part of the cover-up.”
The road jogged west just before the park entrance. They paused, surveying the bay from San Francisco north toward Mount Tamalpais in Marin County. Low fog still lay outside the Golden Gate, extending past the Farallon Islands twenty-seven miles out into the Pacific.
Gage’s eyes settled on the Richmond refineries in the distance, miles of jagged metal fragments jabbing upward.
“Imagine the men watching the flames shooting up the tower toward them,” Gage said, “trapped, helpless…”
Faith finished the thought. “Then imagine Porzolkiewski living it over and over in his mind for fourteen years. Like Sisyphus, condemned to pushing the boulder up the hill, then watching it roll back down time and again. Then you showed him he could pick it up and use it as a weapon.”
“Maybe it would’ve been better if he’d never learned the truth.” Gage closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “But…”
“Something doesn’t fit?”
Gage looked again toward San Francisco, first focusing on the Hall of Justice south of downtown, then making out Russian Hill rising above the incoming fog to the north.
“Why don’t we cut this short,” Gage said, “and go visit Socorro.”
V iz answered Socorro’s door, wearing a sweaty T-shirt, grimy with dirt.
“We were in the neighborhood,” Gage said. “We thought we’d check on your sister.”
“Come on in. We were just taking a break from cleaning up the backyard. It got a little overgrown in the last couple of months.”
They found Socorro in the kitchen, finally changed out of her saggy sweats into faded Levi’s and an oversized plaid shirt, dropping ice cubes into a pitcher of tea.
She turned at the sound of their footsteps, then smiled and said, “Reinforcements have arrived.”
Faith stepped forward and reached out to her hug her, but Socorro held up her hands.
“I don’t think you want to be wearing mud and lawn clippings on your sweater for the rest of the day.”
Socorro motioned toward the veranda.
“Sit down. I’ll bring you out something to drink.”
They walked out into air perfumed by the smell of cut grass and fresh earth, and then sat down in the heavy wicker chairs now arranged in a semicircle facing the lawn.
A minute later Socorro arrived and set down their drinks, and then smiled at them.
“So, what do you need to know?”
Faith blushed. “Can’t people just drop by?”
“Yes, but Graham has the look.” She settled into her chair and patted Viz’s arm. “I first noticed it on my brother’s face after he’d been in the DEA for a couple of years.”
Gage put up his hands. “I surrender.”
“So?”
“I’m interested in the last week before Charlie died.”
“Are you still putting the case together against John Porzolkiewski?”
“I wouldn’t call it that exactly, but basically that’s right.”
“He didn’t come by when I was home, and Charlie didn’t say he was here.”
Viz caught Gage’s eye. Of course he wouldn’t say anything, there’d be too much to explain.
Socorro shuddered. “The idea of Porzolkiewski sneaking into my house and poisoning Charlie. I haven’t been able to sleep. I just keep imagining it over and over.” She lowered her gaze and shook her head and said in a grim tone of self-reproach, “If I just hadn’t left him alone.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Gage said. “I’m not sure we even know when it happened or how the poison was given to him.”
Socorro shrugged. There was nothing Gage could say to defend her against her self-accusation. He knew it and she knew it. So he moved on.
“Let’s go back a little further,” Gage said. “You told me Brandon called about a week before Charlie died and they argued about something that was supposed to take place and about Charlie being unable to do some work.”
Socorro nodded.
“Anything else happen during that last week?” Gage asked.
She propped her elbows on the arms of the chair, then rested her chin on her interlaced hands.
“I’ll try to work backward. He woke up feeling weak and had difficulty breathing. Not suffocating, just really labored. I called the doctor, then went to pick up a prescription for Amantadine.” She glanced behind her toward the inside of the house. “I gave the bottle to Spike when he came by yesterday.”
She closed her eyes for a few moments, then opened them.
“Viz told me you were coming back from Zurich. I passed it on to Charlie and he said wanted to call, but he had trouble dialing the phone because of numbness in his hands. So I did. Then he broke down when he heard Moki’s name. And about forty-five minutes later I heard a thump and I… and I went back upstairs… and…”
Faith reached over and took Socorro’s hand. “It must have been terrible.”
Socorro took in a breath, then shuddered again, tears now forming in her eyes.
“Maybe I gave it to him myself, in the Amantadine-”
Gage cut her off.
“That’s not possible. Sodium monofluoroacetate doesn’t act that fast. It takes at least two and a half hours and as long as twenty. If he woke up with respiratory problems, that means he probably got it the day before.”
“The day before?” Socorro shook her head. “I don’t remember anything special happening the day before. The physical therapist came by in the early afternoon, Jeffrey something, so I went shopping. I got back about three o’clock. Jeffrey told me he went to the store for a few minutes to buy some massage lotion he forgot to bring.” She looked over at Gage, “Is that when Porzolkiewski snuck in?”
“I don’t know,” Gage said. “How can I get ahold of Jeffrey? What agency is he with?”
“Physical Therapy Associates over on Mission below Cesar Chavez Street.”
Gage pulled out his cell phone, punched in directory assistance, then let the service connect the call. He handed her the telephone.
“Ask for his last name, tell them you want to send a thank-you note. Don’t pressure them for an address. I’ll find it.”
Socorro obtained the name, hung up, and then repeated it as she handed the phone back to Gage.
“I’m sure it wasn’t Jeffrey,” Socorro said. “He was wonderful, a sweetheart, much nicer than the previous one. I was glad when she quit.”
Gage slipped the phone into his shirt pocket.
“Let’s go back a little further,” Gage said.
“Nothing. Everything was routine. No one came to see him except the kids. They flew up on Friday night and went back on Sunday. I know they were upset seeing their father in the condition he was in, but they didn’t leave his side. They even slept in chairs in his room.” She paused, probing her memory, then said, “There was a plumbing problem the day before Charlie died, but I was with the plumber the whole time.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “At least I think I was.”
“You know his name?”
“I’ve got his business card.” She walked into the kitchen, then returned with a glossy blue card with gold lettering: Sang Ngoc Pham Plumbing and Rooting.
Gage took it from her hand, examined it, and then shook his head.