Old Ghosts, page 10
Having justified his actions to God and man, the Dean unleashed a spray on the thick Persian rug, swirling his hips as if trying to scrawl his signature in urine. He whistled a song through clenched teeth, tuneless and off-key. His dark-suited men, lining the walls on either side of him, struggled heroically not to laugh.
At the enormous desk behind the Dean, Simon also fought to keep his expression neutral. His round sunglasses helped, but it was hard to keep his lips from peeling into a snarl. He busied himself with lighting a cigarette, telling himself: best to let this pizdá get it out of his system. I can always have a rug cleaned, and a war is something I don’t need right now.
The Dean shook out his last drops, zipped up his fly, and swiveled on his heel. His eyes blazed with fury. From the jacket of his herringbone suit he drew a thin cigar, bit the tip, and spat a wet nub of tobacco at the silver bowl on a nearby table. “Now,” he said, patting his pockets for a lighter or matches. “Where was I?”
“You were blaming me for Fiona and Bill,” Simon said.
“Yes, and you didn’t seem to be empathizing properly, so I made an example of your rug.” The Dean, finding no fire for his cigar, snapped his fingers for Simon’s gold lighter on the desk. “Fiona comes to the city, asks for your help, and you not only give it to her, but you neglect to tell me?”
“I don’t work for you.” Simon blew a smoke ring, making no move to hand over the lighter. “You and I are business partners, out of convenience. And your conflicts are not mine.”
“That’s what you think.” The Dean took the seat across from Simon. “Speaking honestly, when Bill first stole that money from me, and Fiona joined him, I pictured it as a small issue. Just send men with guns.”
“A straightforward solution. How many has she killed?” Simon asked.
“Enough to give me heartburn.” The Dean began to reach for Simon’s lighter, and stopped. It was clear from his expression that he wanted Simon to hand it over, to complete this little power game. When Simon crossed his arms and leaned back, smoke trickling from the corner of his mouth, the Dean’s cheeks reddened.
“It’s not easy replacing men with guns,” the Dean continued, adjusting his collar. “Not like you can go online and just order more, two-day shipping, satisfaction guaranteed. And now Fiona and Bill are back in the city, merrily wrecking things left and right, which just draws attention to us. You included.”
“I am not concerned,” Simon said. “What bothers me is, how you discovered she came to me.”
“We have eyes everywhere. Who crashed a car into her cab?”
“Excuse me?”
“Someone rammed her taxi off the highway. Not long ago. We have the video. Security camera on a building nearby.” The Dean frowned. “Fiona and Bill ran off. They’re hurt, albeit not badly enough for my tastes.”
Simon shook his head, wondering (not for the first time) what kind of man used words like ‘albeit’ in everyday speech. “Fiona and Bill make enemies like a dog picks up fleas.”
“Well, it wasn’t my men who crashed into her.” The Dean, rather than suffer the indignity of begging for a light, chomped the unlit cigar. “So, who the hell did?”
Simon shrugged.
“Our purchased cop, he said the cab was on an airport run. They’re trying to get out of town.” The Dean laughed. “We have people at every airport, and Penn and Grand Central, and as many subways as we can cover. We will expose those cockroaches to the light, given enough time. Keep that in mind if she reaches out to you again.”
“I’ll remember my rug,” Simon said. “Hundred dollars per square foot.”
“As if you didn’t have the funds to repair it.” The Dean pointed the cigar at the lacquered woods and gold-leaf highlights of Simon’s office, the antique furniture, the ornate paintings hanging on the walls. “Fiona appears, you tell me. No equivocations, no prevarication. Understood?”
Simon stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray by his elbow and lit a fresh one. His next smoke ring drifted into the Dean’s face. “I understand perfectly,” he said, stuffing the lighter in his pocket.
The Dean’s cheeks colored heart-attack purple. “Fine,” he hissed through a tight throat. Slipping his unsmoked cigar into his vest, he stood and marched for the door, his men falling into line behind him. “Otherwise, this all ends in tears for you.”
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Chapter 1
San Francisco
The door to the construction shack swung open and banged against the wall, causing the overhead florescent lights to stammer off and on for several seconds.
Kurt Thorsen snapped his head around and saw the hulking figure and scowling face of Benny Machado, his lead foreman.
Thorsen jumped to his feet and slammed his coffee mug to the desk sending a spray of hot coffee onto the project blueprints. He was a tall, well-built man in his early sixties, his once blond hair now a silvery gray and worn in a lion’s mane style. “What’s up, Benny?”
“You better come with me, boss. I think we got us a problem.”
Thorsen grabbed a hardhat from a peg near the door and followed Machado out to the construction site.
It had been a cool summer, interrupted by a tropical storm from the Mexican coast that dropped several inches of rain on the city. Dark, cauliflower-shaped cumulous clouds dominated the sky. The bay waters were the color of gunmetal. The wind, stronger than it had to be, tossed food wrappers and old newspapers around like wounded birds. The air was filled with the smell of diesel smoke from the tractors, backhoes, and trucks lined up to haul away the mud Thorsen’s crew was moving to enable the placement of underground parking garages and foundation pillars.
Thorsen had to hand it to his employer, Cinco Construction Company, for having the guts to build a sprawling fifty-seven-story Art Moderne-style complex, featuring a hotel and conference center, along with retails stores, office space, and high-priced condos, in this undesirable section of the city—eleven acres of raw, deserted land, parts of it running right alongside the bay, consisting of crumbling, rat-infested piers that were once attached to thriving shipyards, abandoned commercial hot houses with every single pane of glass missing, and railroad tracks that had sat idle for fifty years.
Before accepting the job, Thorsen had checked out Cinco with people he trusted in the construction game. Cinco had built complexes similar in size and scope to this one in cities up and down the East Coast. Six months ago, the firm was taken over by a man by the name of Henry Chung. Chung was Chinese, via Brazil, having run a construction firm in São Paulo for several years. He was a nervous nail-biter who spoke Cantonese, Portuguese and English with equal ease. According to Chung, Cinco was well-financed and committed to the project. There would be no worries of work stoppages from banks or insurance carriers due to a lack of funds.
Thorsen hurried to catch up to Machado. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on, Benny, or am I just supposed to guess? Don’t tell me it’s another garden snake.”
His last big job, a high-rise on the peninsula, had ground to a halt when a single garden snake, an endangered species, the size of a licorice stick was found under a rock.
“No snakes, boss. Bones. Lots of them. Over on section A-six.”
The construction site was divided into sections. A-six skirted the bay’s shoreline.
“Bones? What kind? Cats? Skunks? What, Benny?”
Machado, a hatchet-jawed man with a thick neck and the heavily muscled shoulders of a wrestler, increased his pace, the hammer in his tool belt slamming against his thigh like a cowboy’s six-shooter. “Human.”
A ring of workers—laborers, carpenters, electricians and plumbers—were standing around the end of a ruler-straight foundation trench, four-feet wide, ten-feet deep, stretching out some fifty yards. The dark green backhoe that had been digging the trench stood silent, the tilted digger-bucket at the end of the two-part articulated arm looking like a yawning, prehistoric animal.
Thorsen peered down into the trench and swore silently. There were several ravaged bones and small skulls lying in the clammy, foul-smelling mud. He sat down and dangled his feet over the edge. “Give me a hand, Benny,” he said, holding his arms above his head. Machado grabbed both of Thorsen’s wrists and lowered him into the trench.
Thorsen landed in a heap, dropping to his knees before righting himself. All three sides at the very end of the trench were layered with bones of various shapes and sizes, exposed when the backhoe had taken its last gulp of mud. There was no sign of coffins—just bones. He looked up at the ring of faces staring down at him like mourners at a funeral. Only these guys weren’t mourning for the dead. It was for their jobs.
Thorsen removed his hard hat and slapped it against the trench wall. “Okay,” he shouted out. “We’re through here for the day. You’ll all get full pay for your shift. I’ll get in touch with you and let you know when we can get back to work.”
He squatted down near one of the skulls. It was small, mud crusted, no sign of teeth. He stood up and wiped his hands on his pants.
There was a thudding noise and Thorsen turned to see Benny Machado placing the butt end of a ladder down into the trench.
“I got a hunch,” Machado said from above. “This many bones, I think they’re Indians. A burial ground maybe.”
“Indians? Like in cowboys and?”
“Yeah, but from before the cowboys. The Bay Area was home to a lot of Indians—then the missionaries came around and killed them. I worked on a job in Oakland and we found an Indian burial ground there.”
“What happened to the job?” Thorsen wanted to know.
“Scratched. Some tribe from up north claimed the land. I think it’s a trailer park now.”
Thorsen took out his cell phone and began snapping photographs. The mass of bones hadn’t been buried very deep. Three feet, maybe less. He was about to climb up the ladder when something caught his eye. He moved cautiously, then dropped to one knee and gently massaged the mud from one long bone, a leg, with the foot still attached at the bottom of the ten-foot-deep dig. There was a thin link chain encircling the ankle. As he picked away at it with his fingernail he realized it was gold. An ankle ID bracelet? He moistened his finger with his tongue and carefully wiped at the piece until he saw two initials: a V and an A. Thorsen didn’t know much about native Indian tribes, but he was certain they weren’t into gold ID anklets.
He took several more pictures and then climbed up the ladder and onto relatively solid ground.
A sudden crack of arrowy lighting was followed by a drum roll of thunder. Raindrops the size of nickels began falling as Thorsen headed back to the construction shack.
“What are you gonna do, boss?” Machado asked.
“Call Henry Chung, call the cops, and get drunk. But maybe not in that order, Benny.”
“Chung’s already here. I saw his car coming through the gate when I went back for the ladder.”
“Good, I’ll let him handle the police.”
Chapter 2
Beverly Hills, California
San Francisco Police Department Homicide Inspector Rick Jarnac pulled the airport rental car into the same Reserved for Guests stall at the Carlomont Nursing Home that he’d parked in earlier that morning. It was evening now, a few minutes after six.
He opened the car door and was greeted with a wave of heat. He straightened up and rubbed both hands against the small of his back. Jarnac was tall and slender, with a lean, angular face and strong jaw. He was in his shirtsleeves, which were rolled up to his elbows. His collar was unbuttoned, his tie at half-mast. He sighed, rolled down the sleeves, slipped into his suit jacket, buttoned his shirt and cinched his tie. It was oppressively hot, but he felt the least he could do was look professional when he delivered the news to an elderly woman that her missing daughter’s remains had been found and that she had been murdered some forty years earlier.
Jarnac walked along a herringbone patterned brick path bordered by a head-high privet hedge. He noticed an elderly man in a light blue bathrobe leaning back against the hedge, one hand cupped around a cigarette. He had a bald pate and his face was a grainy white color, like boiled rice. He inhaled with cheek-sunken concentration. His eyes got that deer-in-the-headlight look when he spotted Jarnac.
Jarnac nodded a hello and the man held a vertical finger to his lips and said, “Shhhh,” before giving Jarnac a conspiratorial wink.
The front entrance to the pink stucco, four-story nursing home was guarded by a stand of towering royal palm trees.
He trotted up the steps and into the lobby. The walls, ceiling, and the carpeting were in various shades of beige. Plush chairs and couches in pale floral designs sat empty. The smell of freshly popped popcorn hung in the air. The only person in sight was a young dark-haired woman sitting behind the check-in counter.
Jarnac figured her to be in her late twenties. She was wearing a beige blouse with a plastic tag on the pocket that identified her as Sherry.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m here to see Janine Ashcroft.”
“Oh, how nice,” the woman said. “Are you a relative?”
He slipped a business card from his coat pocket. “I was here earlier this morning and spoke with Mrs. Ashcroft.”
“Is there something I can help you with?”
“No. I just have to speak to her again.”
Sherry picked up a phone and did some whispering. After she cradled the phone she took a deep breath and said, “Mrs. Ashcroft is on the east patio.”
Jarnac found Janine Ashcroft sitting comfortably in a wicker chair that was positioned next to a small glass-top table. Misting fans situated under the veranda overhang sprayed tiny droplets of water into the air which evaporated immediately. She had a tall iced drink in one hand. When he’d spoken to her at nine-fifteen that morning it had been in her two-room suite, which had a view of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. She was eighty-six years of age—a thin, elegant looking woman with snow-white hair. It was obvious that she’d once been very beautiful, but now her sun-damaged face was stitched with wrinkles.
Mrs. Ashcroft had accepted the information Jarnac had given her with solemn understanding. The remains of a young woman wearing a gold ankle bracelet with the initials V.A. inscribed on it had been found at a construction site in San Francisco. The medical examiner estimated her body had been in the ground for approximately forty years. X-rays revealed a broken right femur bone and a fractured big toe on her right foot, injuries that had occurred years before her death.
Jarnac had checked old missing person’s files and found one young woman with the initials V.A.—Valerie Ashcroft, who had been reported missing by her father, George Ashcroft, a Hollywood studio mogul who had died eight years ago. He’d located Janine Ashcroft’s current address through motor vehicle records. She was no longer licensed to drive but she did have a DMV ID card.
Janine Ashcroft’s long-term memory was excellent. She remembered Valerie had been eleven years old when she’d been bouncing on the diving board of their home swimming pool and injured her right leg. She even remembered the color of the swimsuit Valerie had worn, the names of her playmates, and the name of the treating doctor.
Her short-term memory was poor. Several times during their conversation she gotten confused and asked, “Who did you say you were?”
She’d signed the medical release forms Jarnac had brought along with a shaky hand. “I hope these help, Inspector.”
They had indeed. The treating doctor had since passed away; however, a call to the state medical board revealed that his medical records were stored in Los Angeles. The X-rays matched perfectly, which was a relief to Jarnac. Somehow asking an eighty-six-year-old woman for a DNA sample rubbed him the wrong way.
Jarnac approached Janine Ashcroft slowly, so that she could get a good look at him. She’d changed from the pearl gray slacks and sweater she’d worn in the morning. She was sporting a large white straw hat and a flowing pink ankle-length dress. At first, he got a blank stare, and then she recognized him. She sat up straight, tilted her head upwards and said simply, “Bad news, I assume.”
“I’m afraid so, Mrs. Ashcroft.”
Perla, a diminutive Filipino woman in nurse’s whites, hurried over to them, carrying a wicker chair. Jarnac had met her that morning.
“Can I get you something, Inspector?” Perla asked, after setting the chair alongside Mrs. Ashcroft.
Janine Ashcroft waved her glass at the nurse. “Bring two more of these, dear.”
“These” turned out to be vodka tonics.
They sat in silence until Perla returned with the drinks, Janine Ashcroft’s head down, staring at the well-clipped grass. She took a deep sip of the fresh drink, and it seemed to restore her energy.
“Thankfully, the cocktail hour is a daily ritual, though they do water the drinks down something awful. So, Mr. Policemen. You found my girl.”
“Yes, ma’am. The remains discovered in San Francisco are definitely those of your daughter.”
Ashcroft grunted something under her breath, and then said, “San Francisco. I always felt that she was there. My husband spent an absolute fortune searching for Valerie. There were alleged sightings in Mexico, New York, Los Angeles and Reno.” She smiled ruefully. “I thought it was all bogus; schemes made up by people trying to cash in on our grief.”
She set her drink down on the table and her right hand crabbed over and grabbed Jarnac’s wrist. Her hands were knob-knuckled, the nails yellowed like old ivory. “What was your name again?”
