The McCone Files (26 page)

The town, I found, was just a strip of homes and businesses between the densely forested hills and the sea. A few small shopping centers, some unpretentious eateries, the ubiquitous realty offices, a new motel, and a hotel built during the logging boom of the late 1800s—that was about it. It would be an ideal place, I thought, for retirees or starving artists, as well as a young woman seeking frequent escape from the pressures of a career in the entertainment industry.

Don's record-company friend had checked with someone she knew in Steff Rivers' producer's office to find out her present whereabouts, had sworn me to secrecy about where I'd received the information and given me the address. I'd pinpointed the turnoff from the main highway on a county map. It was a small lane that curved off toward the sea about a half mile north of town; the house at its end was actually a pair of A-frames, weathered gray shingle, connected by a glassed-in walkway. Hydrangeas and geraniums bloomed in tubs on either side of the front door; a stained glass oval depicting a sea gull in flight hung in the window. I left the MG next to a gold Toyota sports car parked in the drive.

There was no answer to my knock. After a minute I skirted the house and went abound back. The lawn there was weedy and uneven; it sloped down toward a low grape stake fence that guarded the edge of the ice-plant-covered bluff. On a bench in front of it sat a small figure wearing a red rain slicker, the hood turned up against the fine mist. The person was motionless, staring out at the flat, gray ocean.

When I started across the lawn, the figure turned. I recognized Steff Rivers from the publicity photo Don had dug out of KSUN's files the night before. Her hair was black and cut very short, molded to her head like a bathing cap; her eyes were large, long-lashed, and darkly luminous. In her strong features I saw traces of Jody Greenglass'.

She called out, “Be careful there. Some damn rodent has dug the yard up.”

I walked cautiously the rest of the way to the bench.

“I don't know what's wrong with it,” she said, gesturing at a hot tub on a deck opening off the glassed-in walkway of the house. “All I can figure is something's plugging the drain.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Aren't you the plumber?”

“No.”

“Oh. I knew she was a woman, and I thought…Who are you then?”

I took out my identification and showed it to her. Told her why I was there.

Steff Rivers seemed to shrink inside her loose slicker. She drew her knees up and hugged them with her arms.

“He needs to see you,” I concluded. “He wants to make amends.”

She shook her hear. “It's too late for that.”

“Maybe. But he
is
sincere.”

“Too bad.” She was silent for a moment, turning her gaze back toward the sea. “How did you find me? Atlas and my agent know better than to give out this address.”

“Once I knew Stephanie Weiss was Steff Rivers, it was easy.”

“And how did you find
that
out?”

“The first clue I had was ‘It Never Stops Hurting.' You adapted the melody of ‘My Little Girl' for it.”

“I what?” she turned her head toward me, features froze in surprise. Then she was very still, seeming to listen to the song inside her head. “I guess I did. My God…I
did
.”

“You didn't do it consciously?”

“No. I haven't thought of that song in years. I…I broke the only copy of the record that I had the day my mother died.” After a moment she added, “I suppose the son of a bitch will want to sue me.”

“You know that's not so.” I sat down beside her on the wet bench, turned my collar up against the mist. “The lyrics of that song say a lot about you, you know.”

“Yeah—that everybody's left me or fucked me over as long as I've lived.”

“Your grandfather wants to change that pattern. He wants to come back to you.”

“Well, he can't. I don't want him.”

A good deal of her toughness was probably real—would have to be, in order for her to survive in her business—but I sensed some of it was armor that she could don quickly whenever anything threatened the vulnerable core of her persona. I remained silent for a few minutes, wondering how to get through to her, watching the waves ebb and flow on the beach at the foot of the cliff. Eroding the land, giving some of it back again. Take and give, take and give…

Finally I asked, “Why were you sitting out here in the rain?”

“They said it would clear around three. I was just waiting. Waiting for something good to happen.”

“A lot of good things happen to you. Your career's going well. This is a lovely house, a great place to escape to.”

“Yeah, I've done all right. ‘It Never Stops Hurting' wasn't my first hit, you know.”

Do you remember a neighbor of yours in Petaluma—a Mrs. Caubet?”

“God! I haven't thought of her in years either. How is she?”

“She's fine. I talked with her yesterday. She mentioned your talent.”

“Mrs. Caubet. Petaluma. That all seems so long ago.”

“Where did you go after you left there?”

“To my Aunt Sandra, in L.A. She was married to a record-company flack. It made breaking in a little easier.”

“And then?”

“Sandra died of a drug overdose. She found out that the bastard she was married to had someone else.”

“What did you do then?”

“What do you think? Kept on singing and writing songs. Got married.”

“And?”

I didn't reply.

“All right. Maybe I need to talk to somebody. That didn't work out—the marriage, I mean—and neither did the next one. Or about a dozen other relationships. But things just kept clicking along with my career. The money kept coming in. One weekend a few years ago I was up here visiting friends as Sea Ranch. I saw this place while we were just driving around, and… now I live here when I don't have to be in L.A. Alone. Secure. Happy.”

“Happy, Steff?”

“Enough.” She paused, arms tightening around her drawn-up knees. “Actually, I don't think much about being happy anymore.”

“You're a lot like your grandfather.”

She rolled her eyes. “Here we go again!”

“I mean it. You know how he lives? Alone in the back of his store. He doesn't think much about being happy either.”

“He still has that store?”

“Yes.” I described it, concluding, “It's a place that's just been forgotten by time.
He's
been forgotten. When he dies there won't be anybody to care—unless you do something to change that.”

“Well, it's too bad about him, but in a way he had it coming.”

“You're pretty bitter toward someone you don't even know.”

“Oh, I know enough about him. Mama saw to that. You think
I'm
bitter? You should have known her. She'd been thrown out by her own father, had two rotten marriages, and then she got cancer. Mama was a very bitter, angry woman.”

I didn't say anything, just looked out at the faint sheen of the sunlight that had appeared on the gray water.

Steff seemed to be listening to what she'd just said. “I'm turning out exactly like my mother, aren't I?”

“It's a danger.”

“I don't seem to be able to help it. I mean, it's all there in that song. It never
does
stop hurting.”

“No, but some things can ease the pain.”

“The store—it's in the Glen Park district, isn't it?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I get down to the city occasionally.”

“How soon can you be packed?”

She looked over her shoulder at the house, where she had been secure in her loneliness. “I'm not ready for that yet.”

“You'll never be ready. I'll drive you, go to the store with you. If it doesn't work out, I'll bring you right back here.”

“Why are you doing this? I'm a total stranger. Why didn't you just turn my address over to my grandfather, let him take it from there?”

“Because you have a right to refuse comfort and happiness. We all have that.”

Steff Rivers tried to glare at me but couldn't quite manage it. Finally—as a patch of blue sky appeared offshore and the sea began to glimmer in the sun's rays—she unwrapped her arms from her knees and stood.

“I'll go get my stuff.” She said.

At 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 1989, the city of San Francisco was jolted by an earthquake that measured a frightening 7.1 on the Richter Scale. The violent tremors left the Bay Bridge impassable, collapsed a double-decker freeway in nearby Oakland, and toppled or severely damaged countless homes and other buildings. From the Bay Area to the seaside town of Santa Cruz some 100 miles south, 65 people were killed and thousands left homeless. And when the aftershocks subsided, San Francisco entered a new era—one in which things would never be quite the same. As with all cataclysmic events, the question “Where were you when?” will forever provoke deeply emotional responses in those of us who lived through it

WHERE I WAS WHEN: the headquarters of the Golden Gate Crisis Hotline in the Noe Valley district. I'd been working a case there—off and on, and mostly in the late afternoon and evening hours, for over two weeks—with very few results and with a good deal of frustration.

The hotline occupied one big windowless room behind a rundown coffeehouse on Twenty-Fourth Street. The location, I'd been told, was not so much out of choice as of convenience (meaning the rent was affordable), but had I not known that, I would have considered it a stroke of genius. There was something instantly soothing about entering through the coffeehouse, where the aromas of various blends permeated the air and steam rose from huge stainless-steel urns. The patrons were unthreatening—mostly shabby and relaxed, reading or conversing with their feet propped up on chairs. The pastries displayed in the glass case were comfort food at its purest—reminders of the days when calories and cholesterol didn't count. And the round face of the proprietor, Lloyd Warner, was welcoming and kind as he waved troubled visitors through to the crisis center.

On that Tuesday afternoon I arrived at about twenty to five, answering Lloyd's cheerful greeting and trying to ignore the chocolate-covered doughnuts in the case. I had a dinner date at seven-thirty, had been promised some of the best French cuisine on Russian Hill, and was unwilling to spoil my appetite. The doughnuts called out to me, but I turned a deaf ear and hurried past.

The room beyond the coffeehouse contained an assortment of mismatched furniture: several desks and chairs of all vintages and materials: phones in colors and styles ranging from a standard black touchtone to a shocking turquoise princess; three tattered easy chairs dating back to the fifties; and a card table covered with literature on health and psychological services. Two people manned the desks nearest the door. I went to the desk with the turquoise phone, plunked my briefcase and bag down on it, and turned to face them.

“He call today?” I asked.

Pete Lowry, a slender man with a bandit's mustache who was director of the center, took his booted feet off the desk and swiveled to face me. “Nope. It's been quite all afternoon.”

“Too quiet.” This came from Ann Potter, a woman with dark frizzed hair who affected the aging-hippie look in jeans and flamboyant over-blouses. “And this weather—I don't like it one bit.”

“Ann's having one of her premonitions of gloom and doom,” Pete said. “Evil portents and omens lurk all around us—although most of them went up front for coffee a while ago.”

Ann's eyes narrowed to a glare. She possessed very little sense of humor, whereas Pete perhaps possessed too much. To forestall the inevitable spat, I interrupted, “Well, I don't like the weather much myself. It's muggy and too warm for October. It makes me nervous.”

“Why?” Pete asked.

I shrugged. “I don't know, but I've felt edgy all day.”

The phone on his desk rang. He reached for the receiver. “Golden Gate Crisis Hotline, Pete speaking.”

Ann cast one final glare at this back as she crossed to the desk that had been assigned to me. “It has been too quiet,” she said defensively. “Hardly anyone's called, not even to inquire about how to deal with a friend or family member. That's not normal, even for a Tuesday.”

“Maybe all the crazies are out enjoying the warm weather.”

Ann half-smiled, cocking her head. She wasn't sure if what I'd said was funny or not, and didn't know how to react. After a few seconds her attention was drawn to the file I was removing from my briefcase. “Is that about our problem caller?”

“Uh-huh.” I sat down and began rereading my notes silently, hoping she'd go away. I'd meant it when I'd said I felt on edge, and was in no mood for conversation.

The file concerned a series of calls that the hotline had received over the past month—all from the same individual, a man with a distinctive raspy voice. Their content had been more or less the same: an initial plaint of being all alone in the world with no one to care if he lived or died; then a gradual escalating from despair to anger, in spite of the trained counselors' skillful responses; and finally the declaration that he had an assault rifle and was going to kill others and himself. He always ended with some variant on the statement, “I'm going to take a whole lot of people with me.”

After three of the calls, Pete had decided to notify the police. A trace was placed on the center's lines, but the results were unsatisfactory; most of the time the caller didn't stay on the phone long enough, and in the instances that the calls could be traced, they turned out to have originated from booths in the marina district. Finally, the trace was taken off, the official conclusion being that the calls were the work of a crank—and possibly one with a grudge against someone connected with the hotline.