Authors: Steven Gore
A
fter Gage and Viz returned downstairs, Socorro asked Gage to walk with her into the screened-in back porch. They sat in wicker lounge chairs facing a lawn enclosed by mature oaks, pistache, and weeping willows, their trunks wrapped with ivy and surrounded by flowering shrubs. Years ago it had seemed like a refuge from the chaos of San Francisco, but Gage now realized that to Socorro it must have felt like a prison exercise yard.
“Charlie called me the other day,” Gage said.
“I know. I dialed the phone for him. I was surprised. He always seemed afraid of you.”
“Afraid of me?”
As Gage turned toward her, he noticed in the corner the small table on which she had written a series of children's books before her twins were born. It was covered with flowerpots and planting soil.
“I hadn't even talked to him since the last time I was in this house, and that was over twenty years ago.”
“I think it started as jealousy,” Socorro said. “He applied for homicide, but got turned down, but they handed you the gold badge without you asking. Even now, everyone in the department still sees you as a legend and Charlie as just a guy who once dressed in blue.”
Gage shook his head. “His father was the legend, not me, and that wasn't easy in a town that hates cops.”
“As far as Charlie was concerned his father was a failure. Officer Friendly who spent his whole career walking a beat and never even put in for a promotion.”
An image came to Gage of the last time he'd seen Charlie. It was also the last time he'd seen Charlie's father. Both smiling, in uniform, standing behind a head table, the son saluting the father.
“That sure wasn't the impression I got at his father's retirement dinner,” Gage said.
“What else could he say? The whole department was listening.” Her eyes blurred as though reliving the event, maybe even the same moment that had come back to Gage, then she focused on him again. “Even after Charlie went out on his own and the movie crowd made him their rescuer and confidant, he knew the worldâor at least the part he cared about mostâwould never see him as any better than second best.”
Gage felt himself being straitjacketed into a conversation he didn't want to be involved in and wondered whether he was listening to the voice of grief forgiving all sins or the obliviousness of a too-kind heart. As he looked over at her, he recalled Faith once saying Socorro had the soul of a Hallmark card grandmother, living a life framed by transitions: by weddings, births, anniversaries, and deaths, but otherwise shut off from the world. She'd never gone with Charlie to celebrity parties, because, in their serial marriages and public funerals, they trivialized what she believed was sacred.
“I still don't see how that adds up to fear,” Gage said.
“I don't either. But somehow that's what it turned into.” Socorro fell silent, then shrugged and said, “I guess that's one of many things I'll never understand.”
W
hen Gage returned from bringing Socorro a cup of tea from the kitchen, he found her staring out toward the silent tulip leaf fountain centered in the garden, her brows furrowed in concentration.
“There was something I was going to ask you.” Socorro closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “The world's been turned upside down. Sometimes my mind just goes blank, especially about things that just happened.” She shook her head as if trying to jar loose the thought. “I know what it was. Who is Moki Amaro? Charlie fell apart when he heard the name.”
“The son of my receptionist.”
“Did Charlie do something to him?”
“It depends on your point of view. Law can be rough.”
Gage knew this also wasn't a conversation he wanted to get into, not with a grieving widow, and not with his own regret for having failed to find a way to shut Charlie down decades earlier. He wondered whether part of what had restrained him over the years was that breaking Charlie would have also broken her.
Gage decided to circle back. “You know why Charlie called me?”
She took a sip of her tea and set the cup on the table between them.
“He wouldn't say. He even asked me to leave the room if you came on the line, but I left the phone on speaker and listened just outside the door.”
“You think he wanted me to assign one of my people to finish up his cases? I'm sure there are clients who still need their work completed.”
The words were a lie in the form of a question, for Gage knew whatever Palmer wanted, it wasn't that. But Gage didn't have a clue what it was. Was it help? Or protection? And for whom? Himself? Or her? Or, even more burdensome, maybe he wanted Gage to do exactly what he was doing: protecting her from the truth about him.
“He always used to joke that you were too straight for your own good,” Socorro said. “I guess that means despite everything he trusted you.”
Gage pointed up in the direction of Charlie's office. “Viz and I were thinking it would be a good idea to pack up his files and computers and move them to my building.”
Socorro's eyes welled up and she shook her head.
“I'm not sure I'm ready to face the emptiness. When I walked in the other day I still expected to see him sitting at his desk, staring at his monitor, even though he hadn't been up there since before he got shot.”
“We'll bring everything back when we're done,” Gage said. “Set it up just the way it was.”
She sighed. “Thanks for understanding. His work was as much a part of him as his clothes in our closet.” She wiped at the tears with a tissue. “Maybe it's better if you take it all. I wouldn't be able to make sense of it anyway.”
“I'll send over our computer guy, Alex Z.”
Socorro smiled, still wiping her eyes, the skin surrounding them raw and red. “The cute rock-and-roller with the Popeye tattoos and silver earrings who makes the girls in San Francisco go gaga?”
Gage nodded.
San Francisco Magazine
had recently done a feature on club scene bands, with Alex Z's picture on the cover.
Her smile broadened. “I think I better make sure my daughter isn't home when he comes by. I don't want to take a chance of her going weak in the knees like all the rest of the girls.”
“Don't worry. He's got a girlfriend.”
“Then he can drop by anytime.” She touched her lips. “That was the first time I've smiled since Charlie was shot. It felt strange. I guess I'm out of practice.”
“You've had a tough time. The kids, too.”
Socorro's eyes settled on the gas barbecue standing on the brick patio.
“In some ways he was a good father, other ways not. I'm not sure what they'll think about him after the grief passes. A few months ago, Charlie Junior told me his father's clients appeared to trust him more than respect him. Junior found it very troubling.”
Socorro looked over at Gage, as if for an explanation. It seemed to him she'd used the words of her son as a proxy to ask questions she was afraid to ask for herself, as though she was trying to protect herself from the abyss by looking at its reflection in a mirror held by another.
Gage felt a wave of sadness for the courage she'd lost during the years she'd spent in a world walled off by Charlie. This wasn't how he remembered her when she was young and fearless, backpacking with Faith in the Sierras and talking long into the night, no subject off-limits, no thought stifled or left unfinished.
He avoided responding to her veiled question by changing the subject.
“Did Charlie have any ideas about who shot him?” Gage asked.
Socorro shook her head. “He just said a man stuck a gun in his back and demanded money. Charlie spun around swinging, but missed and lost his balance. Then the man pulled the trigger. Charlie never got a good look at his face. Just a tall, thin, white guy.”
“Do you know what he was working on that day?”
“A tax fraud case, something to do with yacht donations.”
“Which side?”
“The broker and the appraiser. A lawyer down in Beverly Hills figured out his clients could get bigger tax deductions for donating their boats to charities than they'd make back by selling them, if the appraisals were pumped up two or three times. Charlie didn't think the case had anything to do with him getting shot, but is it possible?”
Gage shook his head. “People don't go to war over tax cases. The penalties are too light.”
“I think that's all he was doing that day. He was winding down his practice even before he was shot. With the twins graduating from college in the spring, he could retire.”
Socorro stared down at her hands folded together on her lap.
“It doesn't seem real,” she finally said. “Everything feels hollow. Even the cars driving by seem to echo in my ears.” She dabbed at new tears. “Hardly anybody called, even after the
Chronicle
article. I guess Charlie was just hired help to the people he worked for.”
“People pretend, but there isn't much loyalty in the legal community,” Gage said, knowing the people who hired Charlie to do the dirty work would now want to pretend they never had their hands in the grime.
“Judge Meyer was the only ex-client who called.”
Gage felt his body tense. Brandon Meyer had Charlie on speed dial during their years working as San Francisco's stable boys cleaning up after clients with more money than morals. Apparently, their connection hadn't broken when Meyer grabbed on to the coattails of his brother, Landon, and hoisted himself onto the federal bench a decade earlier.
“What did he say?” Gage asked.
“That he was sorry to hear about Charlie and something about whether Charlie had learned anything new since they'd last talked.”
“About what?”
Socorro glanced over her shoulder toward the inside of the house, then lowered her voice. “I shouldn't have said that. I'm not supposed to tell anyone.”
“I won't pass it on.”
She took in a breath, then nodded. “Brandon was mugged a week or two before Charlie was shot. His wallet was stolen. Charlie was looking into it.”
“Did Charlie tell that to Spike? After allâ”
Socorro shook her head. “Charlie was positive the two robberies weren't related. The man who mugged Brandon was Hispanic. Brandon was too embarrassed to report it himself because it happened in the Tenderloin. He cut through one night on his way from the Federal Building to a law office on Van Ness. He thought it would play badly in the media, him getting mugged a few yards away from drug dealers and prostitutes. I can't blame him.” Socorro shuddered. “I'm afraid even to drive through there.”
“Had Charlie done anything to find the wallet?”
“He'd hung up some posters offering a reward, just using Brandon's initials, and searched around in garbage cans and dumpsters.”
Gage nodded. “I wondered what had happened to Brandon. I had a meeting at the U.S. Attorney's office a couple of months ago. I saw him in the courthouse lobby. He gave me that limp-wristed wave he does. He had a bandage above his left eye. I heard he was telling people he had surgery.”
“More like stitches.”
“Was he sure it wasn't some angry defendant or plaintiff coming back to get even?”
“Charlie wondered about that, too. But I doubt Brandon would remember one face out of the thousands that have passed through his court.”
That was true. Brandon might not have remembered the face, but Gage was certain the person wearing it would've reminded Brandon who he was before or after he swung his fist, otherwise there was no point.
“Any other condolence calls?” Gage asked.
“None work-related.” She sighed. “I guess Charlie was old news.”
Not that old, Gage thought, that somebody wouldn't risk a daytime burglary to search Charlie's computers.
Viz joined them on the porch, standing behind his sister's chair, resting his hands on her shoulders. When her attention was drawn toward a barn swallow flitting past, Viz caught Gage's eye, then tilted his head toward the house. Gage nodded.
“I'll think I'll stay here for a few days,” Viz said.
“You don't have to do that,” Socorro said, glancing up at him. “I'll be okay.”
“I know I don't have to. But I want to. I'll keep you company. Maybe I can help you catch up on chores you put off while you were taking care of Charlie.”
“I guess I could use some help there. I hated Faith to see the house in such a mess.”
“Trust me,” Gage said, “she didn't notice. You should see her office at UC Berkeley. The head of her department tells people it looks less like a professor's office and more like one of the archeological sites she works at.”
F
aith and Gage walked hand-in-hand up the sidewalk to where Gage had parked his car before Viz had driven them and Socorro to the cemetery.
“Viz was right,” Gage said. “She doesn't have a clue who Charlie really was.”
Faith looked up at him through clear hazel eyes framed by her slim face and auburn hair.
“Do you think it's willful?” Faith asked.
“Probably not. I suspect there was just an unbridgeable chasm between them.”
Faith glanced back toward the house. “I'm wondering whether she decided at some point in their marriage it was emotionally safer to be oblivious. I got the feeling talking to her that she's spent the last twenty years hiding inside of her children's books where lessons were taught by stubbed toes and missing bracelets and grandmothers' stern looksâ”
“And not by a gunshot that cuts a husband down in the street.”
Gage pressed the remote on his key chain and unlocked the car.
“It hasn't even crossed her mind yet,” Gage said, as he opened Faith's door, “that there might be a connection between the shooting and the burglary.”