Silent Witness (23 page)

“Unit One, base. Go ahead.”

“I’m on Route Sixteen at Baldwin’s Lane, where someone on the Crawford place reported there was a dead deer in the road.”

“Roger.” As she said it, Grace swiveled in her chair to face Fowler, who stood before her desk. Reading Fowler’s expression, she decided that the last call from Benson had cut it: beneath the glowing pink fat of his cherub’s cheeks and jowls, Fowler was pissed. This time, really pissed. God, how she loved it, seeing Fowler pissed, and trying so hard not to show it.

“Well,” Strauss was saying, “there’s no deer here, dead or otherwise. And no blood, either.”

“Roger.” With a forefinger she lightly traced the line of her left eyebrow. On her next break, she would redo both eyebrows, and touch up the eyeshadow, too.

“Shall I ask around, see if someone carted it off and cut it up? Those Fisher twins, for instance?”

Grace looked at Fowler, who shrugged, then indifferently nodded, what the hell.

“Give it an hour, maybe.” Inquiringly, she looked at Fowler, who nodded again. “Yeah, Andy, an hour.”

“Roger. Then I’ll come in.”

“Roger.” She switched off the microphone, switched off the tape recorder, looked expectantly at Fowler.

“I’m going over to the city hall,” Fowler said. “Then I’m going out to Brookside. I’m going to talk to Price. Then I’ll go on home.”

Pleasantly surprised, her little secret, she nodded. She might not have to wait for her break, then, to work on her eyes.

“G
ODDAMMIT
.” BERNHARDT BRACED HIS
legs wide, took a fresh grip on the bolt cutters, and strained. Nothing. The jaws of the bolt cutters had hardly marked the chain. Like the padlock’s shank, the chain was hardened steel. The bolt cutters weren’t powerful enough to do the job. He straightened, took a deep breath, looked at his watch. In minutes they were due at the barn. If he’d spent an extra fifty dollars, gotten a better pair of cutters …

Furiously shaking his head, Bernhardt moved to his right, began angrily snipping at the wire of the fence. Standing beside him, Janice said nothing.

“Can’t be helped,” he muttered. “Goddammit.”

“I know …”

“I’m going to cut a flap, just big enough to squeeze through.” As he spoke, he cut the final wire.

“Yes …”

“Here—” Bernhardt thrust the bolt cutters into a manzanita bush, concealed, then gripped the wire fencing with both hands and bent it back. “Get down. Way down.”

As she crouched, then lowered herself until she was crawling on hands and knees, Janice chuckled. How many years had it been since she’d crawled in the dirt, conscious of the soil’s warmth, aware of the earth’s rich, loamy smell?

“Okay,” Bernhardt said. “You’re through.”

She straightened, brushed off her hands and knees. Turning, she saw Bernhardt struggling with the wire. “Wait—” She stepped close to the fence, took hold of the wire. “Wait, you’re caught.” Carefully, she worked at his shirt. As the shirt came free, she saw the bare flesh of his back—and the revolver, tucked inside his jeans at the small of his back. Had this quiet, thoughtful man ever used his gun—ever shot anyone? Killed anyone? Would Paula know?

“All right—there.” She watched him straighten, and look quickly around. They stood in a lightly forested grove of oak and fir trees bisected by a dirt road that led to the gate. Just ahead, through the trees, she saw the vineyard: row upon row of grapevines, following the rolling contours of the land. Beyond the low ridge of the vineyard to the left, she saw the cluster of winery buildings, only the roofs visible, metal and shingle. To the right she saw the roof of the main house, with its massive stone chimneys.

“The barn’s this way.” Bernhardt gestured to the left. “Let’s stay close to the fence, in the trees.” He spoke softly, cautiously. His eyes were in constant motion, traversing the terrain.

As she followed him over the hot, dry earth, she thought of the Hale family ranch in the San Ysidro Valley, behind Santa Barbara. The flora of San Ysidro was similar to Benedict County: scattered trees dotting the dry brown grass of the low, rolling hills. She could still hear her father’s voice warning his two small daughters: “You must be careful of rattlesnakes in hot, dry country like this. You must always watch where you step.”

Ahead, Bernhardt had stopped, and was standing in a half-crouch. Beyond him, through the trees, she saw the shape of a large barn, standing decrepit in the blaze of afternoon.

“I
’LL TELL YOU WHAT
—” Martelli reached for the fishing rod. “Why don’t I take your stuff back to my house, and you can pick them up after you’ve talked to your Aunt Janice?”

“But we’ve only been fishing for a little while. And I almost had one,” John protested. “I think they’re biting.”

“Yeah, well—” Firmly, Martelli took the rod, then began tying both rods to his mountain bike, and hanging the bait bag from his handlebars. “Well, we got a late start, because of that busted conveyor belt. We’ll make it up, I promise. But for now—” He pointed to the path that led to the barn, just visible through the trees. “For now, you shouldn’t keep your aunt waiting.”

“But—” Lifting his own bike, just like Al’s, only smaller, John looked toward the barn. How could he say it? How could he tell Al how he felt, when he’d learned that his Aunt Janice was here, and wanted to see him?

“She wants to talk to you,” Al had said. “It’s very important.”

Very important …

At the funeral, he’d stood between his father and Aunt Janice. His Aunt Janice had held his hand. The touch of her hand and the shape of the coffin, one of them real, flesh on flesh, one of them a mystery from far beyond, together they had caused the whole world to shift around him. It was a lost, sudden ache, an emptiness that would never end.

And now, in this golden afternoon, with the sunlight slanting through these tall trees as he stood leaning against the bike, the world was about to shift again. He’d seen it in Al’s eyes, heard it in Al’s voice. Coming secretly, not to the house but here, to the barn, his aunt was connecting them.

He, his aunt, the image of his mother in his thoughts, they were all drawing together—all connecting, centering on him, on the memory of that night, and the terror at the top of the stairs.

S
TANDING WITH MARTELLI BESIDE
the dusty road that led past the barn and down to the winery, Bernhardt watched John push his mountain bike behind a screen of manzanita that grew close beside the barn. Janice stood in front of the big barn door that sagged decrepitly on its rusted hinges. Now the boy turned to the woman and gestured. Together, they tugged at the door, dragging it open enough to let them slip through. As Bernhardt watched, they pulled the door closed behind them.

“He likes her,” Martelli said. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t invite her inside. He’s got some, you know, secret stuff in there. His fort, like that.”

“Has he ever invited you inside?”

Martelli smiled. “Not really.”

Remembering the forts of his childhood, most of them constructed of blankets and ropes stretched in the far corner of his mother’s loft, Bernhardt returned the smile. Then: “Does John have many playmates?”

“As far as I know,” Martelli answered, “he doesn’t have any playmates, up here. Not—” He hesitated. “Not now, anyhow—not since his mother died. Before that, before she died, Connie would gather up some kids from down the road, to swim and roast hot dogs, things like that. And sometimes she invited kids from the city, on weekends.”

“Does he go to school here?”

Martelli shook his head. “No. He goes to school in the city. It’s a fancy private school.”

“Well,” Bernhardt said, “he probably has friends there, in the city.”

“Yeah …”

Bernhardt thrust his hands in the pockets of his jeans, rose on his toes, took a deep breath and surrendered to the radiance of the late summer afternoon: the sound of the birds, the smell of the sun-baked earth, the oaks and the pines, the narrow dirt road that bordered the vineyards. It was a road made for a boy walking barefoot, whistling in the sunshine. Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer—this was their kind of road, their kind of day.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Martelli asked.

“John and Janice, you mean?”

“That—and everything.” Martelli hesitated, then decided to say, “Price. The murder. Everything.”

“Do you think Price did it?” Bernhardt asked.

“I doubt it. At least, I don’t think he planned to do it. He just doesn’t have the stones. But I think he knows more than he’s telling. Maybe a lot more.”

Still staring at the barn, Bernhardt spoke quietly, as a confidant might speak: “What about you, Al? What’d you know?”

Also staring at the barn, Martelli responded in kind: “I don’t
know
anything. I’m just going on configuration, as the horse breeders say. And Price’s configuration is the shits. He was a shitty husband, and he’s a shitty father. And, what’s more, he’s scared. Very scared.”

“Scared of what?”

Martelli shrugged, then shook his head, signifying that he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer the question.

Thoughtfully, Bernhardt stepped to the side of the road, picked a long stem of wild grass, put the stalk between his teeth. How long had it been, since he’d sucked at a stalk of green grass? For years—decades—his life had been shaped by the concrete slabs of Manhattan and the cityscape of San Francisco, two compelling urban imperatives. But where had the flowers gone, and the smell of the dirt?

“I think Price is seeing a tall blonde named Theo Stark,” Bernhardt said. “She drives a white Toyota Supra.”

Martelli nodded. “I told you about her.”

“You didn’t mention the Supra. Or her name, either.”

“A white sports car, I said.”

“That’s right,” Bernhardt said, remembering. “You did. Sorry.”

“No problem.” Martelli began checking the tension on the bungee cords that secured the two fishing rods to the mountain bike.

“Have you ever talked to John about what he saw the night his mother was killed?” Bernhardt asked.

“No,” Martelli answered, “I haven’t. Not directly, in so many words. But that’s because he was so upset, at least at first. No way would I have asked him about that night. Then, later, it became—” He broke off, searching for the phrase. “It became habit, not to ask him what happened.”

“You were present when Fowler interrogated him, that night.”

Martelli shook his head. “I wasn’t present during the interrogation. I was in the house. But they split us up, to question us. Fowler took John into the kitchen, with his father. Afterward, they asked me to take John down to my place, while they carried Connie out.”

“I didn’t know that.”

His dark eyes clouded by painful memory, Martelli nodded heavily. “Yeah, that’s what happened.”

“He must’ve said something, then.”

Martelli shook his head. “He said nothing. He was frozen. Absolutely frozen.”

“How long was he there—at your house?”

“All night. He went to sleep on the couch, almost immediately. Price came down about three o’clock, I guess it was, after everyone had left. If John had still been awake, he would’ve taken him back to the house. But we decided to let John sleep.”

Bernhardt nodded. “That was wise, probably.” He looked at his watch. They’d been together for fifteen minutes, John and Janice. Almost certainly, more time would be required. “Listen—why don’t you go back to the winery and wait for John? When they’re finished talking, I’ll send him down to you.”

“You think that’s best?” Martelli spoke speculatively, dubiously.

“If Price should be looking for John—if he’s suspicious—you could head him off.”

“How’d you get here? Into the vineyard?”

“I cut the fence,” Bernhardt admitted. “I tried to cut the chain on the gate, but I couldn’t do it. I’ll try to wire the fence back together.”

“Yeah …” Martelli frowned. Then, playing the part of the foreman: “I’ll take care of it, later.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry about the fence.”

“No problem.” Martelli nodded, swung one leg over his mountain bike, pushed off. “Good luck. And be careful.”

“Thanks. I will.”

B
EFORE THE TELEPHONE’S FIRST
ring had ended, Price lifted the receiver. “Yes?”

“It’s me.”

“Jesus—” He lowered his voice, looked down the hallway to the kitchen, where Maria was cooking dinner. “Jesus, I’ve been trying to get you.”

“There’s another one, following me.”

“Another
one? Besides—” Instinctively, he lowered his voice. “Besides Bernhardt?”

“Yes. He’s black. Very big, very black.”

“Where are you?” As he spoke, he heard the sound of an engine, of tires on gravel. As the sounds registered, he felt his stomach contract. Someone was coming. Who?
Who?

“I’m in Calistoga.”

Calistoga—the next town up the valley, barely ten miles away. Why had she come so close? Was it wise for her to be so close? If she was followed, was it wise?

“Is he still following you?”

“I don’t think so.”

Outside, the engine-sound died. A car door slammed.

“Someone’s here. Hold on, a minute.” He laid the phone aside, went to a front window. A Benedict County Sheriff’s white Ford sedan was parked behind his Porsche. Waddling as he walked, wearing a broad-brimmed felt hat with a gold insignia, Sheriff Fowler was rounding the rear of the white car. The car, too, had a gold insignia, painted on the door.

Quickly, Price stepped away from the window, crossed to the phone.

“Theo?”

“Yes.”

“The sheriff’s here. Fowler.”

On the wooden steps, Fowler’s steps began to thud: a slow, heavy cadence. Was this the sound of doom? Destiny, in a broad-brimmed hat?

“What’s he want?”

“I don’t know. Listen—” He looked at his watch. Now the sound of his footsteps placed Fowler on the porch. In moments the doorbell would chime. Price took the telephone’s cradle from the hallway table and stepped around the corner, out of sight from the screened front door.