"Thanks for bringing dinner,” Faith said to Gage as they sat on the edge of the circular fountain near the Hearst Anthropology Museum on the UC Berkeley campus. It was at that spot decades earlier that an ex-cop chanced to offer a napkin to a graduate student who’d splashed coffee on her blouse just before her first meeting with her dissertation committee.
Between them now lay sourdough French rolls and paper take-out boxes of grilled vegetables, olives, mushrooms, and tuna salad. Both were sipping on sodas and watching students and staff flood from the buildings and separate into streams, some heading to the garages, some to the buses, some up or down the sidewalks to dorms or frat houses or the apartments surrounding the campus.
“How’s Porzolkiewski?” Faith asked.
“Off the deep end.”
“There’s a student group here that visits prisoners. You want me to give them his name? Maybe some outsiders would keep him in contact with reality.”
Gage shook his head. “I can’t take a chance he’ll start ranting about Brandon and TIMCO. Next thing you know one of them is running to the press, either because it would be a big story or because Porzolkiewski looks like the victim of a conspiracy. They’re good-hearted kids and too likely to believe everyone is innocent. And once they get a glimpse of that hangdog face of his, they’ll be marching on San Francisco City Hall. That’s the same reason I told him not to hire a lawyer. I didn’t want to lose control of the case.”
“What do you think?” Faith peered at him. “Is he innocent?”
“I don’t know. I can see him losing control and committing a manslaughter, but premeditated murder, I’m not sure.” Gage opened the grilled vegetables and handed Faith a plastic fork. “On the other hand, he was on a mission for years trying to prove TIMCO lied about the explosion and that Brandon was involved. He was damn methodical about that.”
“He had to have been furious when Brandon got appointed to the bench. It must have felt like a betrayal, like the devil being appointed God.” Faith smiled at Gage. “As I recall, he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.”
“I don’t know what Landon was thinking when he put in his brother’s name. It was like opening the door to the henhouse and laying out a red carpet for the fox.”
“But I thought you said you can’t link any of the premium payments into Pegasus to any decisions he’s made in cases.”
“None of those companies really thought they were buying insurance. Charlie Palmer didn’t run an insurance company and the Pegasus money we’ve traced came back as payoffs to witnesses, not as payments on insurance claims.”
A car backfire rocked Bancroft Avenue as it bounced off the concrete facade of the building behind them. They both glanced over to see smoke envelop an early-seventies Suburban as it rolled to a stop.
When it cleared Gage noticed a familiar brown Taurus with a man in the passenger seat. Unlike everyone else on the street, he didn’t watch the spectacle. He kept staring down toward the bay. He was also too old to be a student and too tough to be staff or faculty.
Gage lowered his eyes. “Look away from the street.”
Faith reached for the vegetables and made a point of picking through them. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll try to find out.” Gage pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and called a number in its memory.
Viz answered on the first ring. “What’s up?”
“I’m in Berkeley with Faith, near her office. Boots Marnin just showed up across the street. When can you get here?”
“I’m at the Federal Building waiting for Brandon to come out. So about a half hour.”
“We’re by the fountain. Call me when you get close and we’ll figure out a plan.”
H ow long did he hang around our house after Faith and I got home?” Gage asked Viz in a late night call.
“Couple of minutes, then he followed the ridge and took Snake Road down to the freeway. I think he’s been to your house a few times, he drove those winding streets like a local.”
“And after that?”
“He was all over the place. I couldn’t tell whether he was doing countersurveillance or what. He hit about eight different restaurants and warehouses in San Francisco. Inside for fifteen or twenty minutes, then on to another one.”
“Did he make you?”
“Me?” Viz’s voice rose. “Make me?”
Gage laughed. “Sorry I asked.”