The Ophelia Cut (21 page)

“I don’t know what he deserved. I can’t think about him being killed. It’s too confusing.”

“It is? You’re not relieved that he can’t hurt your daughter anymore? She’s not okay with that?” Hardy drew a breath and lowered his voice. “Susan, listen to me. This guy was a plague upon the earth. And now he’s gone. For you or Brittany to feel bad about that is a waste of your time and energy. What you’ve got to remember now is that this is a strategic issue. Brittany must not tell anybody else—and I mean anybody—about what happened to her on Saturday night. If she needs to talk about it, she can go back down to the center, see a psychologist, whatever it takes, so long as it’s privileged.”

“You’re protecting her father.”

“Well, yes.”

“That sounds like you believe he did it.”

“No, I said it’s strategic. In case he did, we don’t want to supply the DA with a reason.”

In a different voice, Susan said, “Dismas, how am I going to keep living with him?”

“Do you love him?”

“Of course.” Then, “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Whatever he did, I’m sure he thought he was justified.”

“Justified like before? I mean the other thing.”

“A little bit, yes.”

“And that’s what matters? That you feel justified? That’s enough?”

“No. Obviously not. The last time, we were out of options. We were going to be killed if we didn’t do something. This time, maybe, just maybe, Moses read this guy as a threat to Brittany’s life. He’d already beaten her and raped her. Moses didn’t want to find out what would happen next.”

“What if he gets mad at me one day? Or one of the girls? What if all of a sudden I think he’s dangerous to us?”

“Do you think that now?”

“I don’t know. When he’s drinking, maybe. Which seems to have picked up right where it ended.”

“Yes, well, I agree that the drinking has to stop.”

“Even if it does,” Susan said.

“What then?”

He heard her sigh. “I just don’t know.”

“Where are you now?”

“Back home. Both of us. He’s sleeping. The bar’s locked up.”

“Don’t worry about the bar,” Hardy said.

“I won’t. There’s a lot more to worry about than the damn bar.”

B
RITTANY OPENED HER
eyes.

Sunshine outdoors, the window open a crack, the breeze, without any nip, fluffing the bright yellow curtains in her bedroom. What day was it?

Her head rested on a man’s chest, which was covered by a lightweight green sweater. In her sleep, she’d thrown an arm over him.

“She moves,” his voice whispered.

Leaving her head where it was, she closed her eyes again, aware that she was wearing all of her clothes from the day before. Or was it two days?

“How long was I sleeping?”

“I don’t know. Three hours, maybe. Four.”

“Was my head on you the whole time?”

“Yeah. It’s been hell.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. But I could use the bathroom.”

She took in a deep breath, reluctant to move her head, to move anything, to wake up officially and have to face it all again. “Can I leave my head here another minute?”

“Okay.” She felt a gentle hand brush the hair away from her forehead. “Long as you want.”

“It’s a nice day,” she said, then closed her eyes.

B
RITTANY LIVED IN
a second-floor one-bedroom apartment in a six-unit building on Oak Street near Divisadero.

When she came back into her bedroom after the shower, wrapped in a towel, he had gotten off the bed and closed the door behind him, leaving her some privacy.

Now in the living room, he was on the couch, leafing through a copy of
Popular Mechanics.
She had changed into cargo pants and an orange tank top. She’d combed her wet hair and wore no makeup. “Hey,” she said.

He put down the magazine. “Hey yourself.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“The space.”

He shrugged. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m not.”

“Right. I know.”

“I’m not ready for anything yet.”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t expect you to be.”

She walked over to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair. “I feel like I’ve taken advantage of you. Especially Saturday. But I didn’t know where else to go. I thought my dad would be tending—”

“No sweat. It was me. I’m glad I could be there, take you to your mom and dad, where you needed to be.”

“My point is, I didn’t mean to get you involved. I should have just stayed on at Mom and Dad’s. But I couldn’t be there anymore. And then asking you to stay here, and sleeping around the clock . . .”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s been agony, being here. Making sure you’re okay.” Tony looked at her for a moment, then stood up and took the chair next to her. He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face. “Hey.”

A tear broke from her left eye. A bitter little laugh escaped. “Here I go again,” she said. “Little Miss Drama Queen.” She shook her head, wiped the tear. “I just can’t seem to help it. I’m so sorry.”

“What you’ve been through the last four days, some people never get over it.”

“I don’t know. The way I feel right now, I hate the way I am.”

“And how is that?”

“Irresponsible. Stupid. If I hadn’t started it all by flirting with him.”

“So now it’s your fault that he raped you?”

“Maybe I led him on somehow. I didn’t want to meet him at Perry’s. I should have listened to myself, but I didn’t, because that’s not what I do, is it? I don’t know what I was trying to accomplish.”

“You were trying to be a good person, to be fair to him, to protect your dad.”

“If I hadn’t done that, he’d still be alive.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know why he died. If it had anything to do with what he did to you.”

“Of course it did. If I hadn’t gone to Perry’s—”

He placed his index finger on her lips. “Brittany. Get this into your head. No part of this was your fault. You were the victim, not Rick Jessup. He did what he did, and whatever happened to him, he’s the one who made it happen. Whether it was because of you or something else altogether.”

“No,” she said. “It was me. It was my dad. I saw his face when I told him. I never should have told him. Or anybody else.”

“And then what? Then it’s your secret forever, and it eats away at you and ruins your life because you haven’t done the right thing, which is report what he did. And then maybe Rick Jessup does it again. Hell, he
does
do it again, just like he’d probably done it before. His being gone is a good thing, Brittany.”

“Not if he’s gone because of my dad.”

“You don’t know that. For all you know, it might have been me. I knew what he did. I could have gone over and taken care of him. Or how about all the other women he probably did this to? Or their fathers. Or their brothers.”

“Except you were bartending when it happened.”

“No, I wasn’t. Sunday was Lynne’s day. I was home alone, no alibi.”

She pushed him away. “Let’s not do this. It’s not funny.”

“I’m not being funny. I’m telling you there are other possibilities.”

“Then how do you explain my dad last night? Almost drinking himself to death?”

“You think he was trying to kill himself out of remorse over killing Jessup?”

“He could have been.”

“Coulda, shoulda, woulda, Brittany. He could also have been having a
hard time coping with your situation, for example, and lost track of how much he drank. He hadn’t been drunk in how long? Maybe he miscalculated or didn’t see it coming till it whacked him upside the head.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It all seems connected.”

“It might be, I’ll concede that. But it doesn’t have to be.”

S
UPERVISOR
L
IAM
G
OODMAN,
back at his desk at city hall, knew nothing about any rape. Nevertheless, Diane had told him about the Homicide inspectors’ visit, and their discovery, based on the hard evidence of Diane’s calendar, that a man named Moses McGuire—whom he’d never heard of—had come to the office to talk to Rick about Brittany McGuire.

To complain about how Rick had treated her.

Goodman remembered, again with the help of Diane’s calendar, that Rick had taken the following two days off from work. When he returned, he had the remains of a black eye and swelling in his cheek. His nose looked as though it had taken something of a beating. The excuse had been feeble—an elbow in a pickup basketball game—Goodman had seen no reason to follow up on it.

Now he had a good one.

Rick Jessup had had his own life, one that had been getting increasingly out of control on a lot of levels over the past several months, but Goodman had been thinking that the best thing was to stay out of the investigation unless and until it began to touch upon him or his political relationships.

His three interns were standing in front of him, and Goodman was giving them something of a pep talk. “No one,” he was saying, “appreciated Rick more than I did. And I don’t see how we’re going to function as an office without everything he did on a daily basis. But the only thing we can do to honor his memory is go on in the job, try to serve the needs of our constituents, be sensitive and caring and honest, the way Rick was.

“I hope the couple of days we’ve been shut down have allowed all of us to come to some sort of closure, although of course it will take a lot longer before we’re back to normal. I understand that, and if you feel like you need more time to come to grips with this senseless and terrible tragedy, just clear your time with Diane and take as much as you need. Of course, we’ll be closed again tomorrow morning for the funeral. While
we’re on that, if you have an idea that you’re leaning toward needing more time, maybe you could let me know for planning purposes?

“Nobody? Thank you. You’re as fine and loyal a staff as anyone could hope for. If you change your mind, though, please, there is no problem. I may take an hour here and there myself. This is not an easy thing to get through, and no one knows it more than me.”

Goodman met each of their eyes in turn—Joseph, Rochelle, Logan. Though he didn’t think any of them had been particularly close to Rick, they all appeared moved by Goodman’s sincerity, if not by Rick’s misfortune. Rochelle’s eyes were shining with unspent tears. The other two nodded with sober expressions.

“Before I let you go today, I also want to tell you, if you haven’t already heard, that a couple of Homicide inspectors investigating Rick’s murder came by the other day.” With an understanding smile, he held up a hand at the silent chorus of concerned looks. “Don’t worry. To my knowledge, and it is accurate, none of us is under any kind of suspicion. The police were just doing their job. But they did make a discovery here that they evidently thought was important, and they asked if we might enlarge upon it in some way.

“Apparently, about two months ago . . .”

He briefly laid out the scenario as Diane had explained it to him. “The problem is,” he concluded, “that we know this McGuire fellow came here and went out in the hall with Rick to discuss something about McGuire’s daughter, but we don’t know what happened out there. If it helps jog any of your memories, Rick took a couple of days off following that incident, and he returned looking like he’d been in a fight. The point is that the police need to know if McGuire attacked Rick in a violent rage. If we can verify that he did, the police will want to ask him some hard questions. Yes, Rochelle? No need to raise your hand.”

“Do they think he killed Rick?”

“It’s possible,” Goodman said, “that if he beat Rick once, he found a reason to do it again. Or take care of what he’d left unfinished. I think that’s what they’re going on. But as far as I know, they don’t have any real proof.”

After a small silence, Joseph spoke up. “It’s probably not proof, since I didn’t actually see them fighting, but the guy just went off on him.”

“You’re saying McGuire hit Rick?”

“I don’t know why Rick would lie about it.”

“He told you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do we know why?”

“Rick had gone out with the daughter, and evidently, she was a crazy person. When he broke up with her, she made up all these stories for her father about how bad he’d treated her, and McGuire came down here and attacked him without any warning.”

“And Rick didn’t report it to the police?”

Joseph shrugged. “He didn’t want to get the girl in trouble. Obviously, the family was pretty dysfunctional. Rick figured this was a onetime thing, probably worth it if the girl would leave him alone. So he decided he could handle it; he’d just ignore it.”

“Yes.” Sorrow dripped from Goodman’s voice. “That sounds like Rick, doesn’t it? Able to handle things. I hope that decision didn’t help get him killed.”

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER,
with the ammunition he needed, Goodman was on the telephone with San Francisco’s chief of police, Vi Lapeer. “Yes, ma’am,” he was saying in a patient tone, “but all I’ve been hearing, all anybody’s been hearing, for the past few days is that the investigation is proceeding. The investigation is ongoing. Now, the last thing I want to do is add to your many concerns, but frankly, I’m getting a little frustrated with the refrain. I’d like to hear that the investigation is progressing, not just proceeding or going along. This fine young man has been dead for three days, and I haven’t heard a shred of information about any leads, any possible suspects. And we all know the statistic that after two days, if a murder isn’t solved, there’s a great chance it never will be. We can’t let that happen in this case.”

“I appreciate your frustration, sir,” Lapeer said, “but we’ve got two experienced Homicide inspectors working full-time and then some on this. It’s my understanding that they are pursuing some eyewitnesses, and—”

“All that’s fine, but it doesn’t appear to be taking them any place fast.”

“Fast isn’t the primary goal, sir. Getting it right is the goal.”

“Meanwhile, evidence gets cold, maybe the murderer leaves town, people forget what they saw.”

“Yes, but—”

“Excuse me, Chief, but it seems that when they’ve got what appears to be a substantial lead in the case, they should be using all of their efforts to pursue it. Wouldn’t you agree?”