Muller, Marcia - [09] There's Something In A Sunday [v 1.0] (htm) (12 page)

"What were you about to say, Mrs. Wilkonson?"

"Nothing that makes any sense." But sense or no sense, whatever she had thought of badly disturbed her. She threw her cigarette to the ground and crushed it angrily with the toe of her sneaker.

I tried another tack. "Has your husband been in a bad temper lately? Does he get unusually angry with you or the kids?"

"He's never hurt any of us."

Which meant yes. But now she must have reminded herself I was there in a quasi-official capacity, because she hardened her voice and said, "What does all this have to do with the accident he's supposed to have had, anyway?"

I explained about the violent outburst the "witness" had observed near Cost Plus. It made me feel a little better because it was the truth, and something she ought to be aware of.

Jane Wilkonson studied the ground for a moment, then sighed. "It doesn't surprise me."

"Have there been other incidents like that?"

"Not with the car, no."

"With what, then?"

She hesitated. Obviously she needed to talk with someone— and preferably another woman—or she wouldn't have told me as much as she had. In the silence, I envisioned her life here: isolated from even small towns by miles and miles of cattle graze; a cut above the wives of the men who worked for her husband; a step below the Johnstone women—if there were any. And she had a husband who couldn't talk about the "things that matter," was surrounded by children too young to understand why Mom was upset.

She said, "With who is more like it. Frank quarreled with Mr. Johnstone—Hal Johnstone—a couple of times recently. Pretty violently, to hear tell."

That explained Johnstone cautioning me to be careful when I talked with Wilkonson—and perhaps his reluctance to discuss the ranch manager's violent temper. "Over what?"

"Do you think I'd know? The ranch hands and their wives, they made sure I heard about it, but they were mighty careful what they said." Her mouth twisted and she glared angrily at the pack of cigarettes, as if they and not the conversation had left a bad taste in her mouth.

"Nobody here ever tells me anything," she said. "Plain Jane—that's what they think of me. The brood mare who only cares about her kids. I'm Frank's wife, and Randy's mother, and so on and so on. But take Frank and Randy and the rest of them away, and I'm nobody at all. So nobody ever tells me anything."

After that bitter recital, I didn't have the stomach to go on questioning her. I said—fully meaning it—"Mrs. Wilkonson, I'm sorry if I've upset you or made you sad."

She shook her head and briskly rubbed her hands on her big bare thighs. "Not your fault. If it's anyone's, it's mine. Actually, the talk did me good." Then she picked up the pack of Camels, stood, and stepped out of the arbor.

I ducked under the low-hanging vines. Jane Wilkonson was standing still, gazing out over the valley. From the rise that the arbor stood on you could see across acres of sunburned cattle graze, the road a grayish ribbon curling through them. The tile roof of the Johnstone house was visible, and the funeral trees surrounding it.

Jane turned to me, her face concerned, as if she'd upset me, rather than the other way round. "You didn't make me sad," she said. "Not really." Then her eyes moved back to the distant ranchhouse, and an emotion that I couldn't quite interpret crept across her features.

"It's a sad place here, that's all," she added.

Before I left her, Jane gave me directions to the offices where I could find her husband. They were several miles back the way I'd come, toward Paicines and Tres Pinos, just inside the ranch's north gate. A pair of blue and white mobile homes stood in the middle of a graveled lot, surrounded by cars and pickups. Wilkonson's Ranchero was parked close to the first trailer, and I left the MG beside it and climbed the steps to the trailer door.

I knocked on the door's closed louvers, and a female voice called for me to come in. Inside the temperature was chill; an air-conditioning unit hummed noisily. A young woman sat behind an L-shaped desk that held stacks of files and a word processor. The trailer was one large room, with three other desks, file cabinets, and a Xerox machine. A map of the ranch with varicolored pins stuck in it took up one whole wall. Two of the desks were unoccupied, but Frank Wilkonson sat at the third, directly under the map. He was talking on the phone, his booted feet propped on the desk's edge, his swivel chair tilted back. He glanced at me, but there was no recognition in his eyes.

The young woman—a sandy-haired, snub-nosed teenager— looked expectantly at me. I gave her Alissa's card and asked to speak with her boss. She compressed her lips nervously— probably because of Wilkonson's earlier visit from the sheriff's men—and took the card back to him.

I looked around the trailer. I'd been envisioning something along the lines of a shed with tack hanging on the wall, and it surprised me to find myself in an office that looked like the business end of a small manufacturing company. Of course, I thought, that was what a cattle ranch was: small manufacturing—in this case, of steaks and roasts and hamburger.

The teenager consulted with Wilkonson. He looked at the card, shook his head, and gestured at the phone receiver. She came back and said Mr. Wilkonson would be quite a while. Did I want to make an appointment? No, I replied, I'd driven all the way from San Francisco, and it would be inconvenient to come back. Would she tell him I only needed a few minutes of his time? She relayed that to him, and he talked for half a minute longer and then hung up.

Wilkonson stood, tucking his red patchwork cowboy shirt into his faded jeans. He moved in an easy, loose-jointed manner, his posture more relaxed than it had been when he was prowling around San Francisco. I felt that strange smugness that always comes when I meet face-to-face a person I've tailed. I knew a good deal about Wilkonson, and the covert knowledge gave me a feeling of power.

Before he spoke to me, he said to the secretary, "Nearly five, isn't it, Ginny? Why don't you pack it in for the night?"

Ginny glanced at me, as if she were afraid to leave her boss in my clutches. Then she looked at her watch—it was only around four-thirty—and pleasure at the early dismissal won out over her protective instincts. "Thanks, Frank," she said, and went to straighten her desk.

Wilkonson looked down at the card in his hand. "Miss Hernandez, is it? Allstate?"

"Yes. Mr. Wilkonson?" I held out my hand.

He took it limply, as if he weren't accustomed to shaking hands—or at least to shaking hands with women. "What can I do for you?" he asked. His accent held more of a Texas twang than his wife's.

"I'm investigating a hit-and-run accident," I began, and went on with my well-practiced spiel. Wilkonson listened, glancing nervously at the secretary. When I finished, he waited until she'd left the trailer before speaking.

"Your witness copied down my license plate number?" he asked.

"Yes."

"What time on Sunday did this happen?"

"Around five."

"I see." He looked down and began straightening a stack of printouts in the IN basket of the desk next to him. When his eyes met mine again, they were genuinely puzzled. "I
was
there at the Wharf, Miss Hernandez. I can't deny that. And I do admit making a U-turn. But I could swear I never hit another car—I'd have felt the impact."

"The witness said you appeared to be angry. Perhaps you just didn't notice… ?"

"No," he said firmly, "I'm sure I'd have noticed." Now I sensed tension rising in him, reined in, as it had been on Sunday.

"Well," I said, "there's a possibility the witness could be wrong. He might have just thought you hit the other car, since there were no green paint scrapings on it. My theory is that it was hit earlier, by a white vehicle, and your… performance was what attracted his attention. I'll have to look deeper into this than I expected, I guess."

What I'd said didn't seem to ease his mind. He asked, "Look, how much would it cost to repair your policyholder's car?"

I chose a figure I thought would seem high to him. "At least eight hundred dollars."

His lips twitched but he said, "I'll be glad to pay for it. In fact, I'll give you a check right now."

"Don't you want to contact your own insurance carrier? They'd pay—"

"No. I don't want my rates raised… Besides, it's a group policy for employees here at the ranch, and something like this—hitting a car in a fit of temper and then driving off—would make me look bad."

"I understand. And believe me, Mr. Wilkonson, I can understand how the accident could have happened; it's a zoo at the Wharf on Sundays. I suppose you and the family were up there for an outing?"

"Uh, yes."

"Well, I know how those family outings can be: the kids are whining because you won't let them go to the Wax Museum; the wife's stopped and used the MasterCard in every store in Ghirardelli Square; you want a beer, but everyplace is too expensive and crowded; the panhandlers and street merchants… Oh yes, I know what you were going through."

"That's exactly right. I hate San Francisco, anyway. Never go there if I can help it."

"Is that right?"

"It sure is. You want a check now to cover the damages?"

"Are you absolutely certain you don't want me to look into this any further? After all, you may not have been at fault."

"No, I'd just as soon have the matter dropped. You know how it is."

I certainly did. "Well, then, I'll file my report, and someone from the claims department will be in touch with you. I don't need any money now."

"Thanks, Miss Hernandez. You've been real understanding." His words were gracious, but I could feel anger just below the surface. It wasn't necessarily directed at me, but as I'd watched this man, I'd forged enough of an empathy with him that I knew he handled his anger in an inappropriate and scatter-gun fashion. I thanked him for his cooperation and got out of there quickly.

As I reached my car, the wisdom of that decision was confirmed. From the trailer came a crash and a shattering, as if Wilkonson had heaved something against one of the louvered windows.

I drove slowly up the valley, considering what I'd found out at Burning Oak Ranch. Frank Wilkonson was seriously upset about something—or perhaps obsessed would be a better word. He'd been willing to part with eight hundred dollars in order not to call further attention to his Sunday in San Francisco; he'd twice quarreled with his employer's son; he'd become distanced from his wife. And according to her, he'd been in the same state at some time during the previous year.

Exactly how had Jane Wilkonson put it? "He got that way last year, around the same time…" Now I wished I'd pressed her about it.

I wasn't worried about Jane relating our conversation to her husband. Given what she'd told me of the marriage, she'd wait to see if Frank would mention my visit to the ranch offices. And he certainly wouldn't—not after he'd been so eager to have the purported insurance investigation dropped. When Jane realized he wasn't going to bring the subject up, she would merely store the knowledge of our talk with all the other important things that went unsaid in their household.

It was now a little after five, and I supposed I should be heading back to San Francisco, so I bypassed Walt's Tavern in Tres Pinos, where I'd planned to stop for a beer. But by the time I got to Hollister I knew I wasn't returning to the city that night; I had no real reason to, no plans for the weekend, no obligations. Where Route 25 turned northwest toward Highway 101, I saw a Best Western motel called the San Benito Inn. I executed a sudden right turn—enraging the driver of the pickup behind me—drove to the office, and took a room.

Time to think about what you're doing, I told myself.

Fortunately I always keep a bag packed with toilet articles, cosmetics, and a couple of changes of clothes in the car—in case a job unexpectedly takes me out of town and keeps me there for a while. I carried it up to the second-floor room and dumped it on the luggage rack. Then I lay down on the bed and stared at the rough-plastered ceiling.

I'd come to Hollister because I'd sensed Rudy Goldring's reasons for having me tail Frank Wilkonson had more of a connection with his death than Ben Gallagher and the SFPD wanted to believe. I'd thought if I found out more about Wilkonson, I might uncover those reasons. But what I'd uncovered were more free-floating facts and innuendoes. Taken apart, none of them meant anything. Taken together, they merely increased my confusion. I needed to find out even more.

Leave that for a minute, I told myself. You're avoiding the real issue—why you're bothering with this at all.

I had no client, not anymore. My obligation to Rudy Goldring had ended with his death. All Souls still had a responsibility to him because his attorney would probably have been named executor of his estate. But that had nothing to do with me or my job. So why was I acting as if this were an ongoing investigation?

Boredom, because lately I'd had too much time on my hands? Curiosity, because I don't like loose ends? Commitment to seeing the truth come out, because I'm just made that way?

When you become involved in a murder case, I reminded myself, the best course of action is to turn it over to the police and let them handle it. In fact, that's not just the best course of action—it's the only
legal
one.

But I'd never been good at observing the technicalities, or avoiding unnecessary risks. And I
was
bored. I
did
have too much time on my hands. I
was
curious, and those loose ends were bugging the hell out of me. Besides, I've always had this somewhat naive—and probably abnormal—preoccupation with the truth.

I sat up, reached for the phone, and direct-dialed Alissa Hernandez's office in San Francisco. The person who answered her extension said she'd gone for the day. I tried her home; her machine said to leave my name and number and she'd get back to me. I didn't want her to have to pay for a long-distance call, so I simply left my name and told the machine I'd try again later. Then I called All Souls.