The Color of Light (19 page)

“Sure,” he said when I showed him what I needed moved. “That's nice stuff. You just going to leave it out in the garage?”

“Eventually it's going to my house.”

“Where's that?”

I told him, up in Malibu Canyon, not far from where he was taking the piano.

“When I take the piano down, I won't have a full load,” he said. “I can haul your stuff at the same time for you. We have a concert hall job for the next couple of days so we won't head south until Friday. If that's okay with you.”

I told him that was just fine, and it certainly was. One less thing for me to contend with. We negotiated a price, shook hands, and I went out to sweep the garage floor while Hong's crew loaded Dad's chairs, the pretty marquetry table, a few other pieces of furniture and about two dozen boxes of random stuff, much of it to be sorted later, when I had time.

Before Hong got into his truck, he scooped a collection of fast-food wrappers out of the truck's cab and took them to the Dumpster.

“Pee-yoo,” he declared after lifting the Dumpster lid enough to drop in his trash. “Haven't smelled anything that rank since some guy ran over the neighbor's dog and dumped it in my trashcan. Like to never got the stink outta the can.”

“It does smell,” I said, looking up from sweeping. “The Dumpster is supposed to go away today.”

Still carrying the broom, I went out front and directed Hong's wheels away from the flower borders as he pulled out onto the street. After I waved the movers good-bye, I went over to the Dumpster and lifted the lid to see what was causing the horrible stench. Had someone dumped in some domestic roadkill? A Fluffy or a Rover who strayed into the street at the wrong moment? Whatever was in there did smell dead.

The stench hit me like a hot, viscous wave. I turned my head to fill my lungs, then holding my breath, with the end of the broom handle I started pushing aside refuse to see if I could find the source. Under a pile of old kitchen gadgets, Dad's outdated professional journals, and various junk cleaned out of bathroom cupboards, there was an opened-up sleeping bag that I did not recognize. I reached in and lifted a corner of the bag.

I don't know how I got there, but next thing I knew, I was on my butt, on the driveway, back against the Dumpster, vision blurred, ears ringing, bowels threatening to let go. Anoxia, maybe? I tried to stand but seemed to have left my legs somewhere else.

Max was beside me somehow.

“Jesus Christ.” He slammed down the Dumpster lid before he grabbed me under the arms and half dragged, half carried me across the driveway to the patch of front lawn. I saw Karen Loper hobbling down her front steps and summoned enough presence of mind to raise an arm, point at her and croak, “Go away,” loud enough for her to hear. Reluctantly, she went.

I lay back on the cool grass and tried to breathe.

“I heard you scream,” Max said. “What the hell happened?”

“Call 911.”

“Maggie, honey.” Worry clouding his face, he looked me all over, checked the back of my head for blood, felt my limbs. I reached into his pocket and took out his phone. I was connected to the 911 dispatcher before he finished his examination.

“What is your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.

“It isn't exactly an emergency,” I said. “Not anymore. But could you please ask the police to get over here, right now?”

“What is your emergency, ma'am?”

“A man is dead.”

I handed the phone to Max
and tried to sit up. That horrible smell coated the inside of my mouth and nose and seemed to prevent new air from getting into my lungs. I lay back down, looked up at the clouds, and tried to breathe.

From somewhere in the distance, I heard Max talking to the emergency dispatcher on his phone. Next I heard the squeal of the Dumpster lid rising, heard him utter, “Holy Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” and then the lid slammed back down. Sirens approached almost immediately. And the refuse haulers arrived to pick up the Dumpster.

The sirens stopped and there was some shouting before the refuse haulers went away again. I just pulled up my knees, spread out my arms on the grass and looked up at the sky. Was I supposed to have intuited when George Loper said the Dumpster stank and I heard that Larry Nordquist was MIA that the missing church cook, childhood bully, and adult felon was taking his eternal nap among my family's castoffs in that big green iron box on the driveway? It seemed that he wanted to be brought inside our family circle, but, man, had he chosen the wrong way to do it.

I felt tired. Psychically, physically tired. Too many people coming and going, too many people hovering. Too many family relics to deal with. Too much good-bye. I knew that Mom was right when she said that some bodies need to be left as they are, where they are. Except that Larry, after sweltering in that box in my front yard for a while, did need to be removed. Soon.

Dark blue-uniformed Berkeley cops came pouring out of black-and-white cars and Max went to meet them. More arrived on bicycles, others ran up the steep street. They all converged around Larry Nordquist's less than auspicious catafalque. I intended to stay as far away from the activity as I could.

I don't know how long I lay there, quietly working things through. Sooner or later one of those badge-wearing people was bound to come over and yank me back into the here and now, so I savored my moments of solitude.

Kevin lay down on the grass next to me and rested his head on his hands. “Looking for the Big Dipper?”

“Too early for that,” I said, watching the shapes I conjured out of the few sparse stratocumulus clouds above me morph into new shapes, change again.

“You want me to call Father John?” he asked.

“Not for me,” I said. “And it's a little late for Larry. Besides, Father John is busy making soup. I thought you might be helping him.”

“He called,” Kevin said. “But unlike some people, on Monday mornings I have to go to work. My daughter went over with a couple of her friends to help out. I thought she could use a little time with the padre.”

“She okay?”

He bobbed his head, maybe yes, maybe no. “Any idea how Larry ended up where he is? And when?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Can we talk about it later?”

“Take your time.”

I sat up, stayed still for a moment until my head adjusted to the new altitude. The driveway looked like a police convention.

“I hope at least one of your guys stayed behind at the cop house to turn out the lights and lock the door.” I looked over at Kevin. “When was the last time you had a murder in Berkeley?”

“It happens, even here,” he said. “You think Larry was murdered?”

“Did you get a look at him?”

He nodded.

“Then you know.”

Probably because nothing else was happening in Berkeley on that beautiful Monday in summer, a fire department paramedic truck pulled up. With nowhere else to park, it stopped in the middle of the street. Two excruciatingly young men got out. One ran toward the Dumpster, the other ran to me. As I sat on the lawn next to Kevin, the medic took my vitals, shone a flashlight into my eyes and asked me what day it was.

“Monday,” I said. Uncle Max came over when he saw the ministering paramedic. “I don't remember having lunch, so it must not be noon yet.”

“Everything check out?” Max asked as the paramedic rolled up his blood pressure cuff.

“A little shocky, but she's okay.”

“Then excuse us, please.” Max took me by the hand and helped me to my feet. “Anyone who wants a word with my niece will just have to wait.”

Max walked me inside through the front door, giving the Dumpster a wide berth. In the kitchen, he reheated the leftover tomato bisque that Roy had made two days earlier. I retched when I saw the color of the soup he set in front of me. I pushed the bowl away, folded my arms on the table and rested my head on them. I kept seeing the seeping red canyon cleaved between Larry's staring, pale gray eyes.

Max knelt beside my chair and put a hand on my back.

I turned my face enough to see him. “Did I do this, Max? Did I set something in motion?”

“That's two questions,” he said. “Different answers. First question: You give yourself too much credit, Maggie. What happened to that poor guy isn't your doing. Second question: Maybe you did start something.”

I fell into his arms and wept. He tolerated the snuffling only so long before he reached for the tissue box on the counter and handed it to me. I sat back, blew my nose and took a few deep breaths.

“You know what Mike would say, don't you?” he said.

“Mike said a lot of things.” I pulled out a fresh wad of tissues and blew some more.

“Your Mike would say, you make your bed, you lie in it,” he said. “Larry Nordquist is lying in the bed he made for himself.”

“That's a bit harsh,” I said. “Whatever he did, the poor bastard didn't deserve what he got.”

“Maybe not.” He struggled to his feet and cleared the soup off the table. “Is there anything you need to tell me about this Nordquist fellow before the police start asking you questions?”

I shrugged. “Like what?”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Saturday night after we got home from the Bartolini party,” I said. “It was late, after ten anyway. I went out to the garage to look for Dad's gun.”

“Did you find it?”

“Jean-Paul did,” I said. “Dad built a false bottom into one of his desk drawers and hid it there.”

“Mm-hmm.” He nodded. “That's something Al would do.”

A sudden thought seemed to hit him with a jolt. “You didn't happen to fire the gun?”

“No, no. I never touched it. Don't worry, Larry left here, intact, under his own steam,” I said. “He got in on his own, too. He knew where Dad kept a garage key hidden and he just walked right in.”

“What did he want?”

“He's in a twelve-step program, though I think he's fallen off the wagon. He's been going around making amends with people for any wrongs he thinks he did them. But I think he wanted me to say that I had done him wrong, too,” I said. “When we were kids, we had a fight because he was trash-talking Mrs. B. And I won. He wanted me to know that what he said was true.”

“Trash-talking Tina Bartolini?” He tossed away that notion as ridiculous. “What negative thing could he possibly say about Tina?”

“It turns out Larry was a bit of a Peeping Tom,” I said. “He told me he saw her with a lover.”

That gave him pause. He thought over the possibility, shaking his head, trying to reject it. Finally, he said, “Never. Not her.”

I pointed at my chest. “Remember how I got here?” I said. “My dad, the salt of the earth, pillar of the community...”

“Point taken.” But still skeptical, he asked, “Did Larry tell you who this supposed lover was?”

“He wouldn't say. But he did confess that he showed Isabelle where to find the key to the garage.”

That bit of information cleared up a mystery for him: how Isabelle had gotten into the house at night to creep into my room. He said, “The little prick.”

“De mortuis nil nisi bonum,”
I admonished.

“Honey, I'm a lawyer. If I never spoke ill of the dead I wouldn't do much business,” he said. “Where's the gun now?”

I pointed up. “Loaded, in a drawer next to my bed.”

“I'll take care of it,” he said.

There was a knock on the connecting door to the dining room. Before we had a chance to answer, Kevin pushed through. “How's everyone in here doing?”

“We're still mostly vertical,” I said.

“Ready to answer some questions?”

Max sat down beside me and took my hand. I knew that if Kevin asked me anything that Max, my attorney, thought I shouldn't answer, he would squeeze that hand as a signal to stay quiet.

Before he sat down, Kevin took a glass from the cupboard, filled it from the tap and drained it in a few gulps. He refilled the glass before he sat down across the table from us. “It's that smell, you know. You just can't get rid of it. Have any lemons?”

“Look in the fridge,” I said.

“What's going on out there now?” Max asked as Kevin opened the refrigerator and began his search.

“Our crime scene investigator has taken over. The department is working crowd control; it's getting to be quite a circus.” He found a lemon in the crisper, took it to the sink and cut it in half. “Most of the neighborhood is out there, trying to get a look. Wouldn't be surprised if someone started selling ice cream and balloons. I saw a media satellite truck down the street. I advise you to stay put until they're all gone.”

I asked, “Shouldn't you be out there, Detective, detecting?”

“Not much we can do until the scientific team finishes.” Kevin squeezed one half of the lemon into a glass of water and rubbed the other half under his nose. He sat down opposite us, with the glass in front of him, and took out a notebook and a pen. “But we can get some of the bread-and-butter questions out of the way while we're waiting.”

He clicked his pen and looked at me. “You ready?”

“Fire away.”

In answer to his questions, I told him about Larry's visits on both Friday and Saturday nights. I hesitated before telling him what Larry said about Mrs. B, but somehow, whether true or not, that nugget seemed important, and so I did.

Kevin clicked his pen a couple of times, apparently concentrating on something he had written before he looked up at me.

“Why didn't you tell me that yesterday?” he said. “We spent all that time up at Indian Rock, and you never mentioned Larry or what he said.”

“Yesterday it was gossip,” I said. “Today it could be something else.”

Like a good detective, he put some effort into keeping his expression neutral. He reacted with some interest, however, when I told him about finding George Loper on my front porch Friday night, lying in wait for Larry, who was hiding behind the hydrangea. I told him that Larry had been coming into the yard all summer to look after Mom's garden. Both Mr. Sato and George Loper had shooed him away; Mr. Sato had called the police, as Kevin well knew because I'd asked him to look into it.

Thinking about Loper's baseball bat and the gash I saw on Larry's forehead, I asked, “What was the cause of death?”

“Too early to say.” He changed the subject to time frames: when did I last see Larry, when had we last deposited refuse into the Dumpster? What had we last deposited into the Dumpster? The Dumpster was out front and accessible to anyone; had I seen anyone other than people in my household use it? The answers were: Larry was last seen around eleven o'clock Saturday; the big clean-up happened Saturday, but on Sunday we were still tossing out bags and boxes of junk gathered the day before. I hadn't seen anyone other than our household use the Dumpster, but I wasn't keeping watch over it. The last deposit I knew about was Hong's fast food wrappers a little over an hour ago.

“The Dumpster started smelling bad on Sunday night,” I said. “George Loper made sure we noticed.”

“What happens now?” Max asked.

Kevin shrugged. “Nothing happens until the medical examiner clears the scene. My chief may call in a special homicide squad from the county sheriff to advise our department, but that decision will depend on what the M.E. has to say.”

A uniformed officer pushed through the swinging door. “Halloran?”

“What is it, Peng?”

“Guy outside wants to see you.” The officer, Bo Peng, handed Kevin a business card. “He seems pretty upset, and he's damned insistent.”

Kevin handed me the card and waited for me to make a decision, yes or no.

I passed the card to Max and rose from the table. “It's Beto. I'll go get him.”

Kevin put up a hand. “Better if you stay put—it's a zoo out there. Peng will bring Beto in.”

Beto entered the kitchen in a rush, face red, tears streaming down his cheeks. Kevin held out a chair for him and got him a glass of water from the tap.

“Is it your dad?” I asked.

“What?” Beto seemed confused by the question at first, but then he waved it away. “No. God, I mean, it doesn't look good, but he's hanging on. Jesus, Maggie. Zaida called me at the store and told me that there were cops all over your place and that the coroner's van showed up. I thought—”

He looked from me to Max, and back at Kevin, his lower lip quivering.

“We're okay, Beto.” I passed him the tissue box. Kevin put his big hand on Beto's shoulder to calm him.

Beto mopped his face, blew his nose, and managed to gulp in a couple of deep breaths. After a big exhale, he said, “Sorry. Flash of déjà vu, I guess. Panic response. Last time I saw that many cop cars in one place was—” He couldn't get the words out.

Kevin said, “Your mom?”

Beto nodded as he reached for more tissues. With red-rimmed eyes, he looked at me. “What the hell happened here?”

I said, “It's Larry Nordquist.”

“He's dead?”

“Very,” Max said.

“Holy Mary, mother of God.” Beto crossed himself. “But I just saw him.”

“When?” Kevin asked.

Beto finally managed a sort of smile. “Is that an official question, Officer, sir?”