The Color of Light (23 page)

“Coroner hasn't released the cause of death,” I said.

“Of course, by the time he was found, we could smell him,” George said baldly. “I told you the other night that Dumpster would start to smell, didn't I? But I never once thought a decomposing human would be the source.”

“George.” Karen shuddered. “Don't talk like that.”

Ignoring her, he raised his glass. “Here's to the poor bugger. Guess he won't be hanging around anymore.”

“Honestly,” Karen said. She rolled her eyes at him before she sipped her drink. “You do make a fine martini, George. But please, the language.”

After a healthy quaff, she leaned forward in her chair and stretched a hand toward me. “It was very considerate of you to come over and tell us, Maggie. If you hadn't, we wouldn't have slept a wink tonight, worrying about some lunatic out there on the loose. It makes me think about that other time—when was that, George? No one got any sleep then, either.”

“Do you mean when Mrs. Bartolini died?” I asked.

“Oh.” The question surprised her. “Of course that was a terrible, terrible thing. But, no, I was thinking about that poor woman who was shot in her own home right in front of her children. Was that about a year before the Bartolini woman died? Anyway, a man, a Black Panther or something, just pushed his way into her house and shot her, left her for dead. It happened only a few blocks over. Your mother knew her; what was her name?”

“Do you mean Fay Stender?” I asked, appalled anew by this callous woman. Fay Stender was a brilliant attorney, a Berkeley native who stayed in town to raise her own children. During the wild and crazy 1970s, Stender became involved with the radical prison reform movement, defending underground superstars like Soledad Brother George Jackson. It was Stender who got Jackson's prison letters published, making him a media star for a moment. The man who broke into her home and shot her was a con named Edward Brooks who may have been put up to it by the Black Guerilla Family, a deadly California prison gang, to avenge her abandonment of Jackson. She would not provide him with a gun in prison, and they parted ways.

Fay Stender did not die the night she was shot. A year to the day after, in terrible pain, she took her own life.

“Was that her name, George?” Karen asked her husband. “Fay Stender?”

“Yes,” he said, sounding sanctimonious. “She was a local, you know. Came from a good family. I knew her father. Salt of the earth.”

He stopped short of saying that Stender was “one of us,” as perhaps Trinh Bartolini had not been. I remembered well that the Lopers did not want their daughter Sunny to date Beto, though she loved him crazily. But I never knew what their objections were. Until that moment.

Karen was still going on about how they were afraid men like that gangster would burst in and murder them all in their beds when I turned my attention to George.

I asked George, “Were you really afraid?”

“Well, of course we were.”

“Afraid enough that you armed yourself?”

The question took him aback. He gave his wife a guilty glance, suggesting she did not know that he had a gun. Before she could chime in with the inevitable barrage of questions, I asked, “Is that when you gave my dad an unregistered handgun?”

He looked at me over the rim of his empty cocktail glass. “How the hell do you know that? We promised to keep that to ourselves.”

“A gun?” Karen half rose from her chair. “George, you gave Al a gun? Where did you ever get a gun?”

“You had one, too,” I said.

“You never told me,” Karen harped. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“There were kids in the house,” he snapped. “I acquired a gun and I put it where no one would run across it, but where I could get at it if I needed to. Maggie, your dad told me his was well hidden, too.”

“It was,” I said. “Mr. Loper, is that what you were looking for in Dad's workbench Saturday when you found his Purple Heart?”

“
His
, who?” he asked.

“You found Dad's Purple Heart,” I said. “Not my brother's.”

He picked up the cocktail shaker for something to busy his hands while that sunk in.

“I'm sorry, Maggie,” he said, sounding rueful. “I overreacted when I saw that medal just piled in with the screwdrivers and drill bits. It's just, I'm a veteran, too, you understand. I earned a Purple Heart of my own and I know what that means. But hell, if your dad wanted to keep his medal out with his tools who am I to say anything about it?”

“Were you looking for Dad's gun?”

He averted his face from me when he nodded. “I was afraid it would get into the wrong hands after you turned the house over. Some kid of a visiting professor could run across it. You know how curious kids are, into everything.”

Jean-Paul set his glass on the coffee table, on top of an Avon catalogue that had Marva Riley's contact information stamped on the front in red. He asked, “Mr. Loper, may I ask where you got the guns?”

George looked at Karen, who hadn't yet caught up with the idea that there had been a handgun in her house, under her nose, for over thirty years, and she never knew about it. Karen liked knowing things.

“Second Thursday of the month, we always got together with the Rileys from down the street for bridge. It was serious bridge, but after a few rubbers we'd take a break. The guys would always go out to the backyard for a cigar and a stiff drink and leave the wives to talk about kids or whatever girls talk about.

“One Thursday, not long after the Stender shooting—we were at the Rileys' that time—Chuck brought out these four Colts, brand new, still in their original boxes, with cleaning kits. He gave me two and kept two. I gave one to your dad, and kept the other.”

“Where did Chuck get them?” I asked.

“He told me some BS about the PD passing them out to good citizens so they could protect themselves and their families. I wanted the gun, so I didn't ask a lot of questions. You know Chuck, always has something going on. Could have gotten them anywhere.”

“It appears they were the property of the National Guard,” Jean-Paul told him.

“I'll be damned.” For some reason, George found that bit of news to be amusing. “All this time I thought Chuck lifted them from the police department.”

“For heaven's sake, George,” Karen offered, thoroughly nonplussed by the revelations of the afternoon. “Stolen federal property. In my house. What are you going to do about it?”

Once again George seemed not to hear her, and I began to understand how he coped.

“Maggie,” he said, “I was a little surprised that your dad accepted the gun when I offered it to him. I wanted one to protect my family. You know, 1979, those were crazy times. There were still remnants of the Symbionese Liberation Army around here, robbing banks and setting off bombs. We had Black Panthers and La Raza and women burning their bras. And then Fay got shot by that guy. Jesus, I could not keep track of it all. But your dad took it all in stride. Didn't seem to worry him. We live in interesting times, he'd say.”

Jean-Paul chuckled to himself; the phrase meant something to him. I didn't ask what because I wanted to keep George on topic. I gave Jean-Paul's hand a squeeze and turned my attention back to George.

“If Dad was taking things in stride, then why did he accept the gun?” I asked.

“Because of that woman,” he said. “Your mother. I guess you know by now that she was stalking you. Even got into your house one night. I thought he might want protection if she tried that again.”

My turn to be nonplussed. I managed to ask, “You knew about Isabelle?”

“Not the gory details,” he said, smiling again. “Honey, we were right next door here when you came to live with your folks. An extra little kid shows up one day and people are bound to notice.”

“What did Mom and Dad tell you about me?”

“Not much. Back then, adoptions were confidential. We didn't think there was much to say.”

“I asked Betsy about you,” Karen chimed in. “But clearly it was a topic she did not wish to discuss. And when Betsy doesn't want to talk about something, she absolutely won't.”

True enough, I thought.

Again, George went on as if his wife hadn't spoken. “When that woman started showing up, your dad told me she was the birth mother and she had some psychological problems, and he and Betsy sure would appreciate our help keeping her away from you if we saw her sneaking around.”

“Did you ever see her?” I asked.

He nodded. “A couple times. Once, I saw her hiding in the bushes by the house. We just got used to keeping an eye on you folks.”

“George, our guests need their drinks freshened.”

“Thank you, but no,” Jean-Paul said, taking my hand and encouraging me to rise with him. “We need to check on the barbecue.”

As the Lopers saw us out, Karen made conversation of her usual sort.

“I saw the locksmith van at your place yesterday. Were you having the locks changed?”

“We did, yes,” I said. “There was break-in on Thursday night, so I thought it was a good idea.”

“A break-in, oh my,” she gasped. “No wonder you were willing to pay the locksmith Sunday prices. Anything taken?”

“No,” I said. “When the police showed up whoever it was went out a window and over the back fence.”

The Lopers, smiling, exchanged knowing glances. George said, “It's more likely that he went out through the gap the boys made in your fence.”

“You know about that?” I asked.

“Everyone does,” Karen said. “At least, everyone who had kids your age. You think we didn't keep an eye on what you kids were up to?”

Her parting comment was, “Don't forget to take one of the new keys down to Chuck Riley.”

“Why would I do that?” I asked.

She shrugged. “We always have. All of us. In case of emergency, you know. He is—well, he was—the police.”

I was dialing my mom on the phone before Jean-Paul and I reached our front door.

“Give Chuck Riley our house key?” Mom's reaction was a guffaw; I wish I could have seen her face when I asked her if she had. “I would not give that reprobate the time of day, much less access to our house. Whatever gave you the notion that I would, dear?”

“Karen Loper told me ‘all of us' have left a key with Chuck the Cop,” I said, grabbing the wine bottle off the kitchen counter as I followed Jean-Paul and his platter of raw meat out to the backyard.

“She and George may have trusted Chuck with their keys,” Mom said firmly. “But the Lopers are great friends with the Rileys, and we never were. As far as old Chuck being a cop, hmm. I think that when his department suggested that he had put in his twenty years and should retire, immediately, he lost some of his cop credibility. If he ever had any.”

“He was forced out?” I asked.

“That's what Ben Nussbaum told us, but I don't know the details. Probably got in trouble over one of his money-making schemes. The Rileys always seem to be in over their heads,” she said. “How did the topic of keys even come up?”

“Karen saw the locksmith at the house when I had the locks changed.”

“Why did you have the locks changed?” Mom asked. “Did the housing office ask you to?”

“No,” I said, refilling Jean-Paul's wineglass and taking it to him. “Someone broke into the house, so I thought it was a good idea.”

“Dear lord, we've never had a break-in before. Were you home?”

“I was,” I said, not reminding her about Isabelle's nighttime call.

“Margot, darling.” I could have kicked myself for telling her about the break-in; now she would worry. “He didn't...” She couldn't even say what she was thinking. “You weren't hurt?”

“I never saw him. He just disappeared into the night.”

“Thank God for that.”

I laughed. “I love you, Mom. The first question everyone else asks is what was taken?”

“As far as I'm concerned there's nothing in the house of real value, except you,” she said. After a little pause she asked, “Were you thinking it could have been Chuck?”

“The thought crossed my mind,” I said.

“Whatever else Chuck might be,” she said, “I can't imagine he's a sneak thief. But I'm glad you changed the locks.”

While Jean-Paul cooked, Mom and I talked about the last few house details to be sorted out. I told Mom we should be finished with everything by the following afternoon and be back in LA later that night.

“And then what?” she asked. I knew her question was several layers deep. Jean-Paul, the Normandy project, my situation with the network, the future for her and me once the house—our last physical link—was gone, were all wrapped in there somewhere.

“I leave for France August first,” I said.

There was a long pause. I knew that my discovery of Isabelle and her family in France had opened old wounds, a fresh reminder of Dad's affair. And though she fought it, she couldn't help but feel that in some way I, too, was betraying her by getting to know Isabelle's family. She always tried to sound supportive, but I had come to expect long pauses before she could bring herself to utter words of encouragement for the film about my grandmother, Isabelle's mother, in Normandy.

I heard some false starts before she said, “Margot, is it possible that the break-in had anything to do with the questions you have been asking about Trinh Bartolini?”

“It's very possible.” I hadn't told her about Larry or being shot at by Lacy, and I didn't intend to. She's not the only one in the family who can keep secrets.

“Margot, dear.”

Uh-oh, I thought, this conversation was about to get very serious. Only my mom called me Margot, my legal name. And when she pronounced that name as she did then, with a ton of gravitas, I knew to be prepared.