Past Tense Read online

  “What store was that? The Bluxome Bakery?”

  “It wasn’t a bakery, it was a tavern. Don’t you remember? It started by the fuse box and then spread to the apartment above. Charley was on night shift and by the time Flora woke up and realized what had happened the entire nursery was consumed in flames. She tried to save him, of course, but the hallway was a wall of fire by that time. It singed most of her hair as it was; the tip of her nose was red for weeks. They all said little Harold never had a chance. There was barely anything left of him to bury.”

  Emily looked out the window again. “She was never the same, really. Neither was Charley. I think they still cry over it every night of their lives. A thing like that won’t leave your mind. Not ever. Not if you live to be a thousand.” She turned back toward me, her eyes bright with resolution. “I think I’ll make Flora a spice cake. That’s one thing we agree on. Spice cakes are the best, don’t you think? Especially this time of year.”

  I told her I thought Flora would like a spice cake just fine. Then I asked her the date of the fire.

  “Why, it wasn’t that long ago—1960 something, I believe.”

  “Where did it happen?”

  “On Post Street. Not far from the Opera House. It was a nice neighborhood back then.”

  “Who owned the tavern, do you know?”

  “I forget. Some Armenian, I think. They never had relations after that, you know.”

  “Charley and the Armenian?”

  “Charley and Flora. She was afraid that if she got in a family way again something bad would happen to the new one. She never let him enjoy her favors after little Harold died, not one single time. Isn’t that the saddest thing you ever heard?”

  As a matter of fact, it was.

  CHAPTER

  24

  WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE CITY, I SET MY SIGHTS ON THE widow of Charley’s former partner, Roberto Sanchez. I got her name—Maria—from Joyce Yates at the Chronicle, who punched up the article on the shooting and gave it to me, along with a few details I hadn’t known before but nothing I thought was important. Since her computer didn’t have a current address for Maria Sanchez, I went searching in the phone book.

  Not surprisingly, there was no listing. Since my source at the phone company had been a victim of the plague of corporate downsizing, which left her without a job or a pension, I was on my own. I finally got lucky by calling the PBA—the Police Benevolent Association—and asking to speak to the widow Sanchez for reasons that had to do with an annuity policy. They gave out her number a little too easily and I used a reverse directory to look up her address.

  I was surprised that she lived in the city—most cops don’t, allegedly because they can’t afford it but in truth because they don’t want to raise a family in the place where they enforce the law, which isn’t reassuring to the rest of us. I decided not to call first, since I wasn’t sure what to say and it’s too easy for people to duck you when they’re hiding behind a phone line. Hoping to catch her before she sat down to dinner, I drove to her home on Alvarado Street in the Outer Mission.

  The house was a handsome two-story box, with a brown stucco facade, a covered front stoop, and even a smidgen of yard. I climbed to the door and knocked, reluctant because I was going to be dredging up a horror that had doubtless been long buried. Since it’s what I do more than anything, you’d think I’d be used to it.

  The woman who answered was younger than I expected, plain but attractive, dressed in Levi’s and sweatshirt and Reeboks. “Yes?” she said, with more than a little annoyance.

  “My name is Tanner. I’d like to speak to you, if I may. About your husband.”

  Her lips wrinkled sourly. “Good luck.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean I don’t have a husband.”

  “I’m sorry. I was referring to your late husband.”

  “Early, late, whenever. You must have the wrong place.”

  “Are you Maria Sanchez?”

  She shook her head with burgeoning disgust. “Now you’re half right.”

  My brain finally kicked in. “You’re Maria’s daughter.”

  “You finally hit a winner. Congratulations. You must be hell on the lotto.”

  It was tempting to work that sarcasm over a bit, but since that wasn’t part of the job, I made do with apologizing for the confusion. “Is your mother at home?”

  “Why?”

  “I need some information from her.”

  “What kind of information?”

  I smiled. “Maybe I should save that for her.”

  She stiffened and crossed her arms. “I don’t know what she could possibly have to say that you’d be interested in hearing.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, she hasn’t been out of the house in twenty-five years except to go to church.” She looked at her watch. “Which she’s going to be doing in about ten minutes, by the way. She goes to confession on Saturdays.”

  I repeated my earlier theme. “I’d like to talk to her about her husband.”

  “Her husband’s been dead almost thirty years.”

  “I know he has.”

  She’d expected to surprise me and was jarred when she hadn’t. “Then what could she possibly know of importance after all this—”

  “Just tell her I’m a friend of Charley Sleet’s,” I interrupted. “And that he’s in trouble and I’m trying to help him out. Please. It really is important.”

  “I don’t think she—”

  “Please tell her that much. If she won’t see me, she probably doesn’t have what I need anyway and I’ll leave without any trouble.”

  “Wait here,” she said glumly, after a moment of indecision. Cooperation wasn’t something that came naturally to her.

  When she returned, she was frowning with disapproval. “I guess you can come in, but please don’t take long. Her strength isn’t what it should be and she really does need to go out in a while.”

  “Is she ill?”

  “She’s in mourning.”

  “For whom?”

  “Her husband.”

  “But he’s been—”

  “I know. I spent years trying to get her to move on with her life, but I’ve given up. She lives how she lives and there’s nothing I can do about it. Funny thing is, when I look at my own life and the lives of most of the people I know, what I see is that even living like a nun, she’s happier than the rest of us.” She shrugged. “Go figure.” She stuck out a hand. “I’m Carmen, by the way.”

  “Marsh. Nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah.” She started to add something but decided not to. I had a quick sense that she had considered coming on to me. I get that sense a lot lately. I must be going nuts.

  She led me through the living room and down a narrow hallway and into one of two small bedrooms in the back of the house. Along the way, I caught a glimpse of what amounted to a shrine to Maria’s dead husband, complete with icons and artifacts and votive candles. I wondered if she conducted formal services and decided she probably did.

  Maria Sanchez was sitting in a chair in her bedroom, her lap covered with an intricately knit afghan, her shoulders draped with a soft woolen shawl, her fingers knit into the lumpy lace of a rosary. The curtains were drawn and the lights were off. The only luminescence was a soft white light that came through a thin gauze drape, as though it was filtered through a cloud. A thick black Bible lay on the table beside her, along with an asthma inhaler, a half-full glass of water, and a small brown pill bottle. Woeful, maybe, but lots of lives are lived with less.

  When I entered the room, she looked my way but her face remained expressionless. Her hair was gathered in a graying bun at the base of her skull. Her feet were shod in slim black slippers, her fingers were bare but for the beaded rosary and a single gold band. Her shoulders were slumped and her breaths were labored. Everything about her suggested advanced age and decrepitude except her face.

  Her face could have belonged t
o a teenager. Seamless and blemish-free, her skin glowed as if it were the wrapper around a single source of illumination whose origin was somewhere near the soul. The shadows that played across her face added to the hint of mystery and indication of suffering. Her eyes, while neither sparkling nor warm nor welcoming, were alert and knowing and challenging, implying that nothing I was bringing with me could possibly dismay her.

  Her teeth gleamed like pearl inlays in the mahogany mask of her complexion, but the fact that I could see them at ail was encouraging. “Mrs. Sanchez? My name is Marsh Tanner. I’m a friend of Charley Sleet’s.”

  She nodded once, then spoke in a reverential timbre. “I know who you are. Charles mentioned you many times. He used to say that if I needed anything and he wasn’t available, I should feel free to call on you.”

  I’d never heard anyone call him Charles before. “That’s still true, Mrs. Sanchez. You may call on me at any time.”

  She bowed her head, then raised it. “I would not presume to do so, but it is kind of you to make the offer.”

  I smiled. “It sounds like you know Charley pretty well.”

  “He and Roberto were like brothers; he is as close to me as my family. After Roberto died, Charles came to see me every day for many weeks. He still comes,” she added softly. “Just not so often.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “Two months, perhaps. Just after Christmas.”

  “Have you read the papers in the past few days?”

  She nodded. “Carmen has told me about it. I think it must be a mistake. I’m sure they will see the truth soon enough.”

  “Not all of it’s mistaken, I’m afraid.”

  She glanced toward the Bible. “I am sorry to hear it. But there must be a reason for what he has done. Charles is a good man. The only man I’ve ever known who was the equal of Roberto.”

  I let the eulogy resonate before I continued. “The last time you saw him, did he seem different to you at all, Mrs. Sanchez?”

  “No. Not really. He was tired, but then he was always tired.” She smiled. “He was still with the jokes. Still with the names of men he thought I should see. Still with the suggestions of where I should go to have fun.”

  “So he was the same old Charley?”

  “Yes. Of course. Why wouldn’t he be?”

  It seemed cruel to tell her what I suspected about his health. “So you haven’t heard from him recently?”

  “No. But I have worried. Is he all right?”

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully.

  “Perhaps you should go to the jail and see him.”

  “He got out of jail.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  I shook my head.

  “You mean he did it improperly?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.”

  After a moment’s thought, she seemed more pleased than shocked by the development. The Ten Commandments must leave wiggle room.

  “May I ask you about your husband, Mrs. Sanchez?”

  “Roberto? What about him? All that was so long ago, I don’t see how it could mean anything to anyone but me.”

  I thought of the shrine in the next room and saw that she was thinking of it, too. “Was there anything odd about his death, Mrs. Sanchez?”

  “Odd? How do you mean odd?”

  “Was it an unavoidable part of police business? Did he just make a rookie mistake? Or was there something else involved?”

  Her lips stiffened and her back straightened. The rosary beads fell to her lap, untended for the first time since I’d entered the room. “Roberto did not make mistakes. Even as a rookie, he did the right thing, always. He had a commendation from the mayor and it was only his first year on the job. Charles put him in for it,” she added, as if to confirm the strength of their bond.

  “He and Charley must have been close.”

  “As close as brothers, as I told you. They would have given their lives for each other. Whenever he was late getting home, I worried that Roberto had done just that and that Charles would come to call and tell me Roberto was gone.” She closed her eyes. “And one day, he did.”

  I waited for the spasm of memory to subside. “Did Charley tell you what happened the day your husband died?”

  “Of course.”

  “What did he say about it?”

  “He was angry.”

  “At Roberto?”

  “At the man who didn’t do his job. At the one who didn’t provide the … what do they call it? … the cover. He was mad at the one who knew the danger from the killer but ignored it.”

  “How do you mean he knew the danger?”

  “The man they were after had committed much violence in his life. He was armed and dangerous and insane. The backup knew this because he had arrested the man previously but Charles and Roberto did not because they were rookies. Even though he knew his ways, the backup failed to provide a warning to Roberto when the man came out of the building. He started shooting before Roberto could protect himself.”

  “Do you know the name of the officer who didn’t provide the cover?”

  “His name was Walters.”

  “Clifton Walters?”

  Her eyes hardened like black glaze. “Yes. The man who was murdered recently. That man is the reason Roberto is dead.”

  “And Charley told you this?”

  “Many times. He seemed to need to talk about it, at least in the beginning. He seemed to need me to tell him that it was not his fault that Roberto was dead. I did so, of course, very often, but I’m not sure he believed me right away. In time he did, I think, but not at first.”

  “If I insult you with my next question, I apologize.”

  She shrugged. “I am Chicana; I am not easily insulted.”

  “Were you and Charley lovers, Mrs. Sanchez? I mean after your husband died?”

  I expected her to take my head off, but she only smiled, then shook her head. “We talked about it once, joking in the way you do when you speak of things that should go unmentioned but must be mentioned all the same, but no. Charles was married to a woman he loved very much and I was Catholic, so it was not something we could … And by the time Flora died, I had decided that this was the life I wanted. To live with my daughter and my memories and the comfort of the word of God.” She regripped the rosary and closed her eyes.

  For some reason, the description of her life was chilling to me. “It seems a shame that you don’t share your life with another man.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at me. “I tried it the other way, for a time. After a suitable period of mourning had passed, I received callers who wanted to sell me things, and went on dates with men looking for a whore or a mother, and attended parties where people were drinking and dancing and taking drugs to endure the sinful lives they led, and worked at jobs with bosses who wanted me to trade my dignity for a promotion and a decent wage. I saw all of that and I decided I preferred this.”

  She picked up her Bible and was gone, spiritually and emotionally, if not physically. I left her to her reading. When her daughter showed me out, she asked me not to return. I hoped I could honor her wish.

  CHAPTER

  25

  “MY BEST FRIEND HAS GONE ON A KILLING RAMPAGE. AND I don’t know why, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  I hadn’t intended to state the problem so baldly or pathetically, but Danielle Derwinski wasn’t in the mood for dalliance and I wasn’t in a mood that let me project anything but helplessness.

  Part of her problem was me. I’d arrived late for our meeting—traffic had snarled and it had taken me an hour to get home from Maria Sanchez’s place. When I got there, there was a message from Clay Oerter to call him back at some number that wasn’t familiar to me, in the 916 area code.

  When he came on the line, he spoke in a rush. “I’ve been in Rio Vista all day. He’s not here, I don’t think.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “If it was a
nyone but Charley, I would be. I went up to the cabin and peeked in the windows and walked around outside looking for traces of habitation and didn’t find a thing. I’m not an experienced woodsman, but the dirt and dust looked pretty much undisturbed to me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “A cafe in Rio Vista.”

  “Did you ask around town to see if anyone’s seen him?”

  “A few places. Gas station. Bait shop. Things like that.”

  “Well, do what you think’s best. If you’re sure he’s not there, come on back to the city.”

  “I can’t be sure, Marsh. Shit, you know Charley. He could set up shop at the corner of Powell and Market and no one would know he was there until he wanted them to.”

  I knew Charley, and Clay was right.

  “Come on back,” I concluded after thinking about it for several seconds. “We’ll talk tomorrow. Maybe leave your business card around town so they can call you in case someone spots him.”

  “I already did that,” he said. “I really don’t think he’s here, Marsh. I think he’s right under our noses and we’re too dumb to know it. He’s probably laughing his ass off.”

  I’d told Clay I agreed with him. Thirty minutes later, I was in the Alta Plaza Bar on Fillmore Street, standing firm beneath the weight of Danielle Derwinski’s ferocity.

  A more active issue than my tardiness was that Danielle had had a bad day. I don’t know what specific problems she’d unearthed down at the children’s project—these days it seems that there’s no boundary some people won’t cross, whether they’re cousins or clergymen or cops, when it comes to abusing kids—but whatever they were they had made her peevish and impatient and more than a little indignant. My strategy was to do and say as little as possible in the hope she would eventually calm down. So far it wasn’t working.

  The bar was aggressively yuppie and excessively crowded, the Pacific Heights swells warming up for a good time by flashing their egos and their finery within a neoclassic ambience, exactly the kind of place I abhor and avoid. But Danielle cut a fine figure in a black wool pinstriped pants suit over a yellow broadcloth blouse, so I cut the ambience some slack and tried to make myself relax.