Golden Orange (19 page)

“No, it's jist that, well … he offs himself with a handgun. And somebody took a shot at us with a handgun.”

“Somebody … wait a minute! Where? When?”

While Winnie briefly described his desert holiday with Tess Binder, leaving out hammocks and kitchen tables, Tess was having a tall glass of iced tea on the beach at her club. The temperature on the sand had reached 100 degrees. Corky Peebles's power bob had lost its sizzle. Everything seemed to droop after twenty-four hours of relentless Santa Anas. Nature had unplugged the power in
all
the power bobs.

Corky was limp and lifeless on the sand, defanged and declawed. An F.F.H. millionaire showed up, but not a single feverishly hot momma could so much as budge. On a day like this you could actually
see
what was rumored: Each hot momma averaged three eye jobs and one and a half facelifts. The unlifted hands looked parchment dry, the flesh seeming to curl like old wallpaper. After her ice melted, Tess went home.

When Winnie was finished with his story, Buster said, “You been off the job too long. I think you're lookin for new employment. I mean, just 'cause your girlfriend's old man ices himself don't mean there's some connection with a gunshot in the desert. Which may not have been a gunshot? Which may have been an accident in the first place? Maybe you shouldn't look into a P.I. job, Win. You got too much imagination already.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Winnie said. “Jesus, it's hot! Maybe the Santa Ana winds're making me goofy.”

“Must be it,” Buster agreed. But then the big cop sipped at his drink, put it down and said, “On the other hand, where
was
this guy when the shot was fired? The one you say Binder gave the ranch to? His boyfriend?”

“Warner Stillwell? Supposedly went to the hospital for a few days. She don't know what's wrong with him.”

“Maybe
my
brain's gettin scorched from these Santa Anas but …”

“Yeah?”

“But, with old man Binder and his daughter outta the way … Naw, that don't work out. You said Stillwell
already
has the property.”

“Wait a minute!” Winnie said. “What if there's
more
property? Assets. Stock. Gold. I don't know, whatever rich people stash for a rainy day. What if there's a lotta assets Tess don't know about? Maybe assets he can't get till she dies. Make sense?”

“Ya got me,” Buster shrugged. “I'm jist a dope cop.
Former
dope cop. By the way, I decided to put a move on the boss to get the environmental services job. Hazardous waste dumpin, chemical spills, midnight flushers in the bay. Trash cop. I was born for that job. Officer Trash. Anyways, I don't know about probates and wills and like that. Maybe you oughtta talk to Sammy Vogel if you really think there's somethin to all this. And if there is, maybe you better get another girlfriend … No, wait a minute.
Don't
get another girlfriend! If her dead old man's ex-boyfriend
is
tryin to snuff her, it must mean she's got somethin he wants. She might be rich and don't know it. How about arrangin another introduction for
me
, Winnie!”

“You took enough a them off me over the years,” Winnie said, finishing his vodka. “This one's a keeper.
If
she ever calls me again.”

“Yeah, well, she wasn't my type anyways. I can't stand broads wearin white. Means there's a black heart under there.”

“She was wearing
red
the night you met her.”

“Yeah, but she's the white linen type if ever I saw one,” Buster said. “Am I right?”

“You
do
know women, Buster,” Winnie agreed.

Buster Wiles looked up and said, “Uh oh,” but couldn't get away in time. Tripoli Jones had just come in and spotted them at the corner table.

He wasn't Libyan, he'd gotten his nickname from the Marine Corps hymn. Tripoli Jones was a living embodiment of “Once a Marine always a Marine.” He made Ollie North look like a draft dodger, everybody said. Two drinks and the fifty-eight-year-old telephone lineman was back at the Chosin Reservoir fighting his way up icy Korean slopes, firing a B.A.R. with one hand. When he was ten years younger, Tripoli Jones was more dangerous than New Year's traffic. They said he'd busted more skulls than Harley-Davidson, but he'd had a triple bypass that had slowed him down some. And he
despised
Vietnam vets.

Without being invited, Tripoli Jones sat next to Winnie and said, “Whatcha doin, boys? Reliving Nam? Remembering all the good Thai stick you smoked?”

“Time to go,” Buster said.

“That movie
Platoon
was about
your
war, all right,” Tripoli Jones sneered. “The enemy is
us.
What bullshit! The enemy is the left-wing assholes that make that garbage. Always easy to tell the good G.I.'s from the bad ones in those pinko movies. The good ones all smoke pot, the bad ones're the rednecks drinking beer.”

After his film analysis, Tripoli Jones signaled to Spoon for a beer.

“We don't
really
have to go back to the thirty-eighth parallel tonight,” Winnie said. “Do we, Tripoli?”

“What'd us Korea vets get when
we
came home?” Tripoli Jones said, sneering to the ceiling this time. “
They
get psychiatrists and a slab a granite in Washington and Jane Fonda. What'd
we
get? Who gave a shit about the fifty-four thousand dead? But
we
don't sit around and whine about flashbacks and Agent Orange and posttraumatic stress disorder! Shit! We killed gooks and came home and worked for the telephone company, is what
we
did!”

“Yes, Tripoli,” Buster sighed. “And
we
jist smoked dope and made babies in Cambodia and Vietnam and Thailand.”

“And two in Burbank,” Winnie said. “Don't forget those.”

“The
whiner's
war, is what,” Tripoli Jones said. Having gotten it off his chest, the loyal legionnaire yelled to Spoon, “Bring my comrades a drink!”

Then he got up and staggered over to the snooker table to see if there were any other veterans around.

“Can't stand a roamin drunk,” Buster said. “If they stay put, you can avoid 'em.”

“His wife's in here looking for him five nights a week,” Winnie said. “Guy needs a beeper collar.”

Spoon brought them the drinks from Tripoli Jones just as the phone rang. Spoon shuffled back to the bar, picked it up and said, “Yeah, he's here.” Then to Winnie he yelled, “For you.
Mister
Farlowe.”

Winnie had run out to his car and was starting the engine before he even realized he'd forgotten to say good-bye to Buster Wiles. Tess Binder had asked him to come to her house right away. She said she was frightened for her life.

The gate guard at Linda Isle looked at his clipboard and said, “Go right in.” He didn't even give Winnie's battered VW ragtop a second look. Probably figured Winnie was a boat cleaner or maybe one of the car polishers who regularly visited the island.

Tess's house was one with an electric gate buzzer. Winnie figured such precautions were overkill. In all his years with NBPD he couldn't remember a significant burglary on Linda Isle except for a few inside jobs by employees or local kids. It just wasn't worth it for opportunist thieves to overcome kiosk security, or to raid by boat.

The gate buzzed and clicked open. Tess stood at the door waiting for him in an off-the-shoulder white jersey and a sarong skirt. She didn't look as scared as she'd sounded on the phone. She threw a suntanned, well-muscled arm around his neck and kissed him. A long one. A probing one. When she finally stepped back he said, “
That
don't feel like a scared kiss.”

“It's a scared kiss and a grateful kiss. Come on in.”

Tess led him to the living room, to the sofa he well remembered. She offered him a double vodka without asking. She'd stocked up on Polish vodka. She had a diet drink.

After he'd taken a few sips she said, “I hadn't planned on seeing you so soon. I wanted to give it a rest. I wanted to sort it out and see how I really feel about you, but something happened. I had to call.”

“So tell me.”

“When I got home, I did my mail and watered a few plants. I'd planned to skip dinner and was upstairs when the phone rang. I answered, but the caller hung up. I was about to get undressed and take a shower. It's so bloody hot I went to the French doors. You know, the ones beside the bed?”

“I'm not likely to forget.”

That brought a little smile, then she continued: “I opened the doors and the Santa Ana wind just seemed to rush in. Took my breath away. Something made me look across the channel. I saw a man. He was in the parking lot by the restaurant, standing by an old blue car. Looking up at my window. Oh, he pretended to be just admiring the boats docked in the channel. I stepped back from the window but kept an eye on him. He walked around for a while, then he came back.”

“Is that when you called me?”

“No, I waited. I had a cigarette. He was still out there, but sitting in the old blue car. Then he got out and walked over to the water and pretended to look at a big sailboat. He walked along the railing and I could see him the whole time except when he'd disappear behind one of the big powerboats. I don't have binoculars, but I think I know who it was.”

“Who?”

“I
think
it was Hugh Starkey. They call him Hack. A guy who used to work for my dad and Warner. Hack took care of Daddy's boat for several years and often went out to
El Refugio
to do their cars or other odd jobs. The man finally got back in the old blue car and drove away. I think it was a Plymouth.”

“Is he gay?”

She nodded. “He's about, oh, now he'd be about fifty years old, a big strong guy. Always had his hair permed, and dyed it black as he got older. I think it was Hack Starkey and he was trying to figure how to get in this house!”

“So whaddaya suppose he had on his mind?”

“I don't know, Win! Look, I have a confession. I've been thinking about that gunshot out on the trail.”

“Yeah, so've I.”

“Well, Starkey knows his way around the ranch. He's ridden those trails with Warner. In fact, during the last couple of years Hack and Warner seemed a little
too
friendly.”

“Tess, I'd like to talk about your dad's death.”

“Oh God!” She got up and went to the wet bar. She poured herself a double Scotch. When she came back her hands were shaking.

“Tell me about his suicide. How it happened. Who informed you. Details. I know it's tough.”

Tess sighed and took a good long hit on the Scotch before saying, “I didn't even know Daddy was ill. He couldn't have been
terribly
sick yet, but … well, according to Detective Vogel at the police department, my father simply walked down to Little Corona Beach, one night last summer. One warm, starry night, last summer. And he put a gun to the side of his head. And he did it. They found nothing by way of a note. His wallet and money were still in his pocket.” She paused to sob for a second, gained control and said, “Why does a man go off to a lonely beach to do something like that, Win?”

“I don't know,” he said, taking her hand. “They do it in unpredictable ways. Did the police find the gun?”

“Yes. It was Daddy's gun. A thirty-eight-caliber revolver he'd kept at the ranch. His body eventually slid down the beach when the tide came in. By the time he was spotted by a fisherman, Daddy had been in that cold water all night. They found … what do you call it … dark marks on both sides of his body?”

“Lividity?”

“Yes. They said it indicated he was lying for several hours on one side and then the tide turned him over on the sand and he lay for several more hours. He was nearly afloat in the water when a fisherman finally spotted him the next morning.”

“And the gun was still on the beach?”

“Yes, partly buried by the tide. He'd had it registered with the Indio sheriffs.”

“What happened to it?”

“I gave it to Warner when it was returned to me with Daddy's things: his wallet, wristwatch, his Stanford graduation ring, his clothes and shoes. I kept all the other things, but I gave the gun to Warner. I wanted to throw it away, but where do you throw a gun? I thought about tossing it in the ocean. I thought about burying it in the ground. Finally I just gave it to Warner.”

“Tess, was there
any
, I mean,
any
suggestion of foul play?”

“How foul can it get?”

“I mean, that it was anything other than suicide?”

“No!” she said quickly. “None whatsoever. There were powder marks on his temple. What do you call it?”

“Stippling. From the gunpowder tattooed under the skin.”

“The coroner and the detective from Newport Beach, everyone was satisfied. Especially after they talked to Daddy's doctor and found out about his … illness.”

“You said he was sick, but he
wasn't
sick. What was it?”

And then she
did
cry. Tess buried her face in the back cushion of the sofa and began to weep. Winnie sat helplessly and touched her shoulder once or twice. He guessed.

“AIDS?” he said.

“HIV,” she said, still sobbing. “It wasn't AIDS yet. But he was carrying the virus. His doctor and the pathologist concurred.”

“How about Warner? Is
that
why you say he goes to the doctor periodically?”

Then she wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, put her glasses back on and said bitterly, “I don't know. He
must
have it. The virus at least. He
must
have given it to my father. Where
he
got it I can't say.”

“He's an old man, isn't he?”

“Seventy-two. Old men get it too. But he's a fit, athletic man who looks ten years younger. I
know
he gave the disease to my father!”