Golden Orange (26 page)

Finally she said, “Yes, of course. From the beginning, here's how I explain it: Warner told Daddy that
he'd
discussed the land purchase with me. Daddy assumed that I knew all about it.”

“Something
that
important? Doesn't wash,” Winnie said. “He'd talk it over with you himself, your father.”

“Remember, I told you that Warner was the dominant one in their relationship? Besides, Daddy had something more pressing on his mind.”

“What could be more pressing?”

“Maybe he was preoccupied with the HIV virus. He could've known about it for years.”

Winnie thought a while and said, “That could obsess a guy for sure, but dumping all that cash in a huge land purchase? Naw, he'd tell you if he wanted you to know.”

“Okay then, goddamnit! Martin Scroggins was right! Daddy and Warner decided that I
shouldn't
know. That I was too … immature, and always had been. And when my marriage to Ralph Cunningham failed, as Daddy knew it would,
then
he'd tell me all about it. Then he'd tell me I wouldn't be a pauper after he was gone. That I'd be well provided for.”

“Yeah, I'd call that well provided for,” Winnie agreed.

“He probably developed symptoms last year. And he started thinking about it: AIDS. The dreadful agony. The … the
humiliation
of it. He couldn't see any way out except to take his gun and go back to where he'd been happiest, back here where he'd been a husband and a father …”

Tess stopped then and sniffled. Winnie waited a moment and said, “Okay,
that
scenario I can almost buy. A guy like your old man, living all those years in a closet …”

“He
thought
he was closeted. Of course, everyone knew.”

“Yeah, well, he had to get outta this world right away. I can see that part. And he figured after he was dead Warner'd let you know about the land. About how you'd be rich in a few years after Warner was gone.”

“Don't count on a
few
years, old son,” Tess said. “Warner is an amazing physical specimen for a man of seventy-two.”

“Yeah, but you said he's probably got the virus, if not AIDS itself. Otherwise, how would your dad …”

Tess's chin trembled, so Winnie stopped right there. He signaled to the waitress. When she came over he looked at his watch and said, “I'll have a vodka on the rocks. Polish if you got it. It's late enough.”

Tess at last addressed the painful subject. “Okay, let's assume that Daddy got the virus but Warner doesn't have it. Or, let's say they
both
have it but Warner's optimistic. Maybe he believes in that Tijuana AIDS clinic that claims to have a handle on it. Or he thinks a cure's on the way. He always was more of an optimist than Daddy. Let's assume he isn't about to kill himself. On the contrary, he's going to enjoy life. He wants to try to spend those millions in the years he has left. Now, go with
that
one.”

“Where you're trying to take me, I got trouble going,” Winnie said. “See, all this would rest on a personality switch. Warner Stillwell's spent half a lifetime with your dad. Let's say, he only
pretended
to love your father because a the life-style he was provided with. Still, the man's over seventy. He's got it made the rest a the way, long as he stays on the ranch and continues what he's been doing, and …”

“Hack Starkey!” she interrupted. “Maybe he's been heavily involved with Starkey. Maybe Starkey doesn't want to live on the ranch. Maybe he wants to do the things with Warner that Daddy did with Warner.”

“Return to Sorrento?”

“Something like that.”

“And Starkey persuades him that
you
gotta go, so the ranch can be Warner's to sell. But Starkey's not a professional killer and he butchers the shot he takes at you out on the trail. And he's a pretty sloppy guy on a surveillance too, when he's checking out your house.”

“Exactly.”

“I don't like it,” Winnie said. “How do you explain the will and the trust arriving at your house, but
not
the land deed?”

“There was something I deliberately withheld from Martin Scroggins. Something that would've made him interrogate Warner Stillwell immediately, no matter what.”

“Yeah?”

“At the time those documents were sent, I was
staying
at the ranch. Arranging for the funeral at the desert cemetery after the coroner was through with Daddy's body. Making notifications. Doing a thousand little things. Helping to see Warner through his grief, at least I
thought
he was grieving.”

“Who had access to your mailbox on Linda Isle?”

“Anybody on the list I've given to the gate guards.”

“Who would that be?”

“A housekeeper comes in once a week, a girl from Guatemala who's worked around this island for years. Then there's the water delivery man. Corky Peebles and three other girlfriends're on the list as well. I put Ralph Cunningham on the list in case we had more business about the divorce. And Warner Stillwell, he's on the list. Hack Starkey could've come and claimed to be Warner Stillwell.”

“How would he get inside your house?”

“The maid and the service people get the key from the guard and return it when they've finished with their work. Warner and Daddy, they had their
own
key, in case they ever cared to drop in unexpectedly, but they never did. They were old-fashioned gentlemen who'd never come unannounced.”

“Would the gate guards keep the logs from last year? And would the logs have license numbers of your visitors?”

“I assure you our gate guards are not policemen.”

“Okay, so Hack Starkey coulda got in and stolen that piece a mail. Still, I don't like the notion that Warner suddenly turned homicidal over big bucks because your dad
conveniently
killed himself. That's the part I don't like. I don't like convenience when it comes to a murder for profit. Which is
not
a crime of impulse.”

“At least you have a motive. A motive for murder.”

“What I'm thinking now is, I'd like to get rid of all the convenient events here. We been talking about a motive for
your
murder. How about all this being a continuing plot? For a double murder? Your father first, then you.”

Tess spilled her beer across the table. But she scooted back quickly enough to keep it from staining that white linen dress.

15

Higher Power

B
uster Wiles wasn't sure if the hollow banging that woke him was from his erratic heartbeat or the cheap plumbing. He felt like he'd fought an orangutan in an elevator. He knew he'd be hurting in the morning, but not like this! From the neck down he was covered with ugly abrasions and bruises: purple, black and lime green. He couldn't remember ever bruising green before.

Worse than all of that was the hangover. Everything he couldn't see felt swollen and inflamed. His nerves twitched and danced. His hands seemed palsied, and every arrhythmical heartbeat sloshed painfully to his head. Buster needed a surgical collar to support a skull this big.

Buster tried to take a cold shower but the jets hurt. He tried to dry with a soft towel but the towel hurt. Buster limped outside his apartment and stood naked on the back porch to dry in the sun, blinded by the light. He ran the risk of some kid on the way to school seeing him and maybe telling a teacher who might call the cops, but he figured the way things were going in California these days they'd probably need videotape of the crime as well as a signed confession that he waved his whanger before anybody would bother. That made him think of last night's news. The notorious McMartin Preschool Molestation Case was entering its third
year
in Los Angeles Superior Court, and had already cost the California taxpayers fifteen million dollars. If due process in California had come to three-year trials, why should
he
worry about the misdemeanor of exposing his shattered body on the back porch of a crummy apartment in Newport Beach, U.S.A.?

Buster was hurting too much to make coffee. So he just sat facing the morning sun and thought about Life,
his
life in The Golden Orange. About living in this little city with its police force of 145 officers, where the average cop can't afford to live if he wants a decent house. And how very soon there'd be only 144. He thought of many seemingly unconnected things. For instance, he thought of how he helped to protect one of the biggest Rolls-Royce dealerships in the world, he, the driver of a Ford Escort. He thought of how a Mercedes was considered a Chevy Nova around these parts, and if you don't at least drive a Lotus Turbo keep it to yourself, they say.

Buster Wiles knew that these disturbing thoughts were flooding his swollen brain because he needed to rationalize what he knew he was going to do. What he
had
to do if the remainder of his life was to have comfort and meaning and dignity. If he was to enjoy what was left of youth. If there was any of that left to a man of forty-five.

The time had come for Buster Wiles to address the Cop's Syllogism, which has led thousands of burned-out, overwhelmingly cynical members of the law enforcement business into alcoholism or drug addiction, police corruption or suicide.

The Cops' Syllogism is very simple and exceedingly dangerous: “People are garbage. I am a person. Therefore …” Once it's consciously or unconsciously acknowledged and accepted, whatever follows is something
bad.

And so at last, after months of grappling with a tottering superego, the conscience of Buster Wiles had at last collapsed, and lay like a bloated corpse in the surf. There was no turning back now. As soon as he was recovered from the ravages of this morning he would proceed with his “career change.” He was going to take the assignment, absolutely.

“How are
you
today?” she said, hobbling down the alley.

Buster lowered his face from the sun's rays, but didn't move and he made no effort to cover his nakedness. He just sat there in a folding chair, almost dry enough to go in and get dressed, and looked blandly at the old crone pushing a shopping basket through the alley.

He'd never known where she lived. She wasn't exactly a bag lady, more of a pack rat, always wearing layers of dresses. Always pushing a shopping cart loaded with junk. The nameless old woman lived somewhere between Twenty-eighth and Thirty-third streets, near Winnie Farlowe, or so Buster supposed. Yet he wouldn't have been surprised if she owned ten thousand shares of Xerox. Around here, anything was possible.

Her stockings were rolled around ankles as white as the shells that lay on Buster's porch near a pair of black swim fins so old and rotten he didn't care if an alley thief stole them.

She looked over at Buster again and said, “Fine, I hope.”

Buster said, “Huh?”

“I just asked, how are you today?” said the nameless old woman. “And you didn't answer.”

“I don't like trick questions,” said the utterly naked man, suddenly stricken with nausea.

The smell of food woke Winnie up. He knew at once she was making him a killer omelet. He jumped out of bed, for once not reluctant to slide from between those peach-colored sheets. He showered, shaved, put on a clean Reyn Spooner flowered shirt, jeans, and Top-Siders. Forget the socks; he didn't have to impress her anymore. The omelet was ready by the time he got downstairs.

“We have become wonderful one-times-one,” she said. “I don't even have to call you.”

“The killer omelet did the job.” He sat down expectantly. “Don't you
ever
eat?”

“I haven't been going to my aerobics class. I don't dare eat.”

“I got regrets heavier than you,” he said. “Not even a piece a toast?”

“I'll watch you eat and I'll drink coffee.”

The omelet wasn't perfect in that the jalapeños weren't fresh like the ones at the ranch. But Winnie told her it was heavenly, and when he'd finished he said, “When am I going home again?”