The Oath (29 page)

B
racco couldn’t figure his partner out. Sometimes he was worthless and uninvolved; then he’d get some off-the-wall idea and it would get them someplace.

All day yesterday, they’d been a couple of flatfeet. Walking and talking, walking and talking. The hospital, the coffee group, the Judah Clinic. Ten hours, and then no Glitsky to report to when they’d finally gotten back to homicide. He’d rushed out someplace on some call, evidently in high dudgeon. And they’d gotten the message last time. They could report next morning here at the hall rather than at his house. Although they hadn’t been able to do that either, not today. The lieutenant hadn’t yet come in by the time they had to leave for their appointment with Kathy West, and that was sometime a little after 10:00.

Now they had all been outside on the patio—sun-dappled, no wind—at this Italian place on Union for over two hours. As far as Bracco could tell, they were having the kind of lunch society folks must have every day, and why weren’t all of them fat, he wondered? Then, of course, he realized that Harlen was. But still, two hours for lunch? And it wasn’t over yet. Maybe this was how his dad felt, hanging with the mayor.

Bracco had to admit that his partner was doing a hell of a job getting to know Nancy Ross. Of course, he had the entree and help of his aunt Kathy, who was part of their lunch foursome. Even so, Bracco thought that Fisk was handling this interrogation very well. In spite of the tape recorder that now sat in the middle of the table amidst the half-empty coffee cups and tiramisu plates, Nancy—she
was
Nancy by now—seemed to be completely at her ease.

Although Bracco believed she would be equally composed in any situation. She was a thoroughbred, seemingly born to be waited upon, to command, to direct. Though not as physically magnetic as Ann Kensing with her eyes and curvature, Nancy Ross wore a kind of timeless elegance. But she didn’t come across as an ice queen by any means. She had a good ready laugh, a naughty turn of phrase. Somehow she’d gotten into a running gag with Kathy West on the word “long”—“My, what long…bread sticks they serve here.” Or, “Did you notice the long…earlobes our waiter has?”—and the two of them had gotten nearly giddy a couple of times.

Fisk was very much at home with her. In some kind of foreign-tailored suit and a bright silk tie, with tasseled cordovan loafers and a cream-colored silky shirt, Fisk had of course taken a good measure of grief in the detail when he’d come in. But Bracco had to admit the guy looked good, like he belonged in these threads, which were cut so well they took thirty pounds off him.

Fisk had asked him to dress nice for lunch, so he’d worn his corduroy sportscoat, a sports shirt with a collar, pressed Dockers. But he felt underdressed, and as a consequence found himself more than a little reluctant to speak—not only because he felt outclassed in a literal way, but because until ten minutes ago, there hadn’t even been the pretense of doing any police work. He knew that homicide inspectors didn’t punch a clock at the end of the day, but the obverse of that—that he could sometimes take two hours off in the middle of it—made him uncomfortable.

Now it was clear that Fisk had had a plan after all. The anecdotes and chatter were prologue. Nancy Ross by now wanted to help this nice man, this nephew of supervisor Kathy West who also happened to be a policeman, in any way she could.

“I know,” she was saying. “Malachi was so nervous this morning. Can you believe this is the first time he’s ever testified before a grand jury? He’s never even gotten a parking ticket in his whole life, or really talked to any real policemen, working on something this serious. I wish he’d met you sooner, Harlen, and you, too, Darrel. He wouldn’t have thought a thing about it.”

Fisk tsked sympathetically. “I’m sure he has nothing to worry about. The main reason they wanted to talk to him is to get some kind of day-to-day sense of the pressures at Parnassus. It seems to me that your husband would be the best source of that information now with Mr. Markham gone.”

“Oh, he would, that’s true. Sometimes I thought he and Tim might as well have had the same job. And now, of course, Malachi has Tim’s, although he never would have wanted it in these conditions. This has just been horrible.”

“Do you know if he’s appointed anybody yet to take over his own old spot?”

She shook her regal head. “No. He’s looking but…well, to be honest, the basic problem he tells me is that there aren’t too many doctors who can make the hard decisions. Malachi’s had to learn to live with them over the past few years. They’ve really taken their toll on him, you know, in spite of the way that awful reporter made him sound.”

Again, Fisk clucked sympathetically. As Bracco saw he’d intended, she took it as encouragement to go on. “As though Jeff Elliot, whoever he is, has any idea of how difficult it is to run a company like Parnassus. What does he think the officers and directors are supposed to work for, minimum wage? I mean, really. He just doesn’t know.”

“I don’t think many people do.” Fisk, too, thought this was a sad state of affairs.

“I mean,” Nancy went on, “you wouldn’t believe the calls to the office the day of that column. I don’t know how Malachi stood up to it, how it didn’t completely break him, he was so exhausted by then. I mean, the night Tim was killed…Oh, never mind.”

“It’s all right, Nancy. What?”

She sighed. “Just that he was so much trying to do the right thing, as he always does, staying late to talk to that
Mr. Elliot.
He didn’t have to do that, you know. But he wanted to try to make him understand, which
Mr. Elliot
obviously wasn’t there to do at all. So all that talking and talking till past midnight, when he’s exhausted beyond imagining to begin with, and what good did it do him? Still it came out all wrong.”

Fisk was in sync with her. “I couldn’t believe Elliot mentioned your husband’s income in his column. Even if it is supposedly in the public record.” He included his partner. “Darrel and I both thought that was pretty low. And as though it’s that much money, after all, for the work your husband does.”

Kathy West chimed in. “And that’s all Malachi does, too. Isn’t that right, Nancy? It’s not like he’s sitting on twenty boards gouging the system.”

“Exactly right. That’s all we live on. We don’t have trusts and inheritances and outside income. Except for a few parties—and without them some important charities would suffer—we live very frugally.”

Fisk continued to lead her on. “And half goes to taxes anyway. And then half of what’s left on the houses and entertaining. I hear you. I really hear you.”

Bracco was trying to do some calculations in his head. Unlike his partner, he did not have any understanding of where 1.2 million dollars could go every year. Even if half—six hundred thousand dollars—went to taxes and then half of that—three hundred thousand dollars more—went to houses (note, plural) and entertaining. That left another three hundred grand after taxes to squeak by on. That was three times Bracco’s gross salary, including overtime. Lots of overtime.

But Fisk had briefed him beforehand that the point of this meeting would be to find out if Ross and his family considered themselves well off or knocking on poverty’s door. Astoundingly to Bracco, it was beginning to seem the latter.

“You
do
know, Harlen. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to talk to somebody who understands the numbers. I mean,
a million dollars
! It sounds like so much, doesn’t it?” Then, more seriously, “It used to be so much, I suppose, but not anymore.”

Fisk appeared to be having a grand old time, laughing at the figure. “I used to believe that I could retire if I had a million dollars. Can you imagine that?”

Nancy laughed at the absurdity of it. “If you only planned to live a year or two after your retirement, maybe. And not that long if you have any household help—I’m not even talking full-time help. And live-in? Forget it. I mean, a maid a few times a week, or the yard man, or kitchen help.”

“And don’t forget political donations,” Kathy West added, half-humorously.

“And the charities, the opera, the donations to the girls’ school, which is on top of the twenty-thousand-dollar tuition. It’s actually a little terrifying when I stop to think about it.”

Bracco almost couldn’t bear listening to any more of the litany. In his life, he didn’t even have one of the last half dozen expenses they’d mentioned. But he had no idea how to strike the familiar tone Fisk had established, especially when it was about money, and he had to hope his partner was getting to what he had come for.

But Fisk, apparently still sharing Nancy’s plight, continued. “What I find so unbelievable,” he said, “is that Elliot made it look like your husband was the prince of greed. He should have done another article on real-life expenses. It seems to me that Dr. Ross would be perfectly justified if he just bolted from Parnassus—I’m sure he’s in demand—and went somewhere that could pay him what he’s worth.”

“Actually, he almost did that. He was interviewing last year. Top secret, of course. Even Tim didn’t know.” Bracco noted that she paused—perhaps she hadn’t meant to reveal that. But then she sighed prettily. “I can’t tell you how incredibly trying it’s been, really only just getting by, if that, year after year after year. No savings, nothing put away for the girls’ colleges. And Malachi only staying on at Parnassus out of some sense of duty. And then having everybody suddenly assume we’re just fabulously rich. It’s just too great an irony.”

Fisk volunteered that maybe he could go and talk to Mr. Elliot. “At least try to make him see your side.”

“No. Thank you, Harlen, that’s very nice, but I don’t think it would be wise. He’d only turn it against us somehow. Although I don’t know how that could be.”

“It couldn’t be, is the answer,” Kathy West said. She was patting her hand and reaching for the check. “It’ll all blow over, I wouldn’t worry, Nancy. The best thing to do with these kinds of articles is forget them.”

Fisk neatly palmed the tape recorder and slipped it into his pocket. “I’m sorry we got on this difficult subject,” he said. “It’s a part of the job I don’t much enjoy. But you’ve been very helpful and the lunch was fantastic.”

Nancy Ross also reached for the check. Harlen and his aunt objected, but she overrode them both. Bracco, deeply relieved, stammered out his thanks. He’d caught a glimpse of the figure—$147.88, not including the tip. This was half what Bracco paid his father every month for rent.

Then everybody was standing up and kissing everyone else on both cheeks. Nancy Ross seemed to have completely recovered from the depressing financial talk. For Bracco’s part, he shook Nancy’s hand and then Kathy’s, told them how pleasant it had been, how much he’d enjoyed it. And in a way, he realized, it was true. It had been an intimate glimpse into another, totally separate world that coexisted with his own.

And in that world, Malachi Ross had money trouble.

Wes Farrell got the news about Mrs. Loring from Strout’s office about five minutes after he arrived at his office. After thinking about it for a minute, he decided that this wasn’t the kind of uplifting information you wanted to immediately share with your client: “Hi, Chuck, it’s Wes Farrell here. Great news. They’re digging up your mom’s body and cutting it up for science.” No. He didn’t think so.

It was, however, a good break for him, a cause for celebration, and in the past months there’d been few enough of them. He made a valiant attempt to conduct other business until lunchtime. But once he locked the door and headed back for his house, he suddenly knew that it was going to take more will than he possessed to get him back in his office before a new day had dawned.

He had an artichoke and a can of tuna fish for lunch, then took a half hour power nap in his living room. Now he was outside, accompanying his sixty-five-pound boxer, Bart, on a walk around Buena Vista Park. He sported a pair of threadbare slacks, high-tech tennis shoes, and a sweatshirt that from a distance read
BUSH
and up close contained the tiny, lowercase fill-in letters ll it. Farrell liked to think that hanging in his closet he had perhaps the world’s premier collection of bumper-sticker wisdom affixed to shirtwear.

The sun had broken through the cloud cover and the day threatened to grow almost warm. It had been warm only two days before, and no San Francisco native would reasonably expect a reprise so soon. And yet it appeared to be happening. Wonders would never cease.

And among them was the appearance of his beloved, Samantha Duncan. Cute, fit, feisty, and now almost forty, Sam had moved in with Wes over five years ago and both considered the arrangement permanent, although a formal marriage was not in their plans—Wes had been there, done that, and had issues with it, and Sam thought that was fine.

As soon as he’d gotten home, he’d called her where she worked at the Rape Crisis Counseling Center on Haight Street and asked her if she wanted to take some time off and maybe engage in some consensual adult activity—the kind of humor she hated in everyone else in the world, but tolerated in Wes. But she’d been busy and wasn’t likely to be able to get away.

But suddenly now here she was, falling in step beside him, taking his hand. He stopped, kissed her, held her against him for a minute. “How’d you get away?”

“Fate. One of the volunteers just decided to come in and work.” Bart was pulling at his leash, and they both started walking. She turned to look up at him. “So what happened that it’s suddenly a holiday?”

He told her, trying to give her some of the flavor of Hardy’s idea, Strout’s original reluctance, this morning’s turnaround, the immediate and salutary effect it might have on his billings. He could, for the first time in about five years, find himself involved in a high-profile case, get his name in the paper, attract a broader client base.

“Which I’ve heard you say more than once you don’t want to do.”