Socorro glanced over her shoulder toward the inside of the house, then lowered her voice. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”
“I won’t pass it on.”
She took in a breath, then nodded. “Brandon was mugged a week or two before Charlie was shot. His wallet was stolen. Charlie was looking into it.”
“Did Charlie tell that to Spike? After all-”
Socorro shook her head. “Charlie was positive the two robberies weren’t related. The man who mugged Brandon was Hispanic. Brandon was too embarrassed to report it himself because it happened in the Tenderloin. He cut through one night on his way from the Federal Building to a law office on Van Ness. He thought it would play badly in the media, him getting mugged a few yards away from drug dealers and prostitutes. I can’t blame him.” Socorro shuddered. “I’m afraid even to drive through there.”
“Had Charlie done anything to find the wallet?”
“He’d hung up some posters offering a reward, just using Brandon’s initials, and searched around in garbage cans and dumpsters.”
Gage nodded. “I wondered what had happened to Brandon. I had a meeting at the U.S. Attorney’s office a couple of months ago. I saw him in the courthouse lobby. He gave me that limp-wristed wave he does. He had a bandage above his left eye. I heard he was telling people he had surgery.”
“More like stitches.”
“Was he sure it wasn’t some angry defendant or plaintiff coming back to get even?”
“Charlie wondered about that, too. But I doubt Brandon would remember one face out of the thousands that have passed through his court.”
That was true. Brandon might not have remembered the face, but Gage was certain the person wearing it would’ve reminded Brandon who he was before or after he swung his fist, otherwise there was no point.
“Any other condolence calls?” Gage asked.
“None work-related.” She sighed. “I guess Charlie was old news.”
Not that old, Gage thought, that somebody wouldn’t risk a daytime burglary to search Charlie’s computers.
Viz joined them on the porch, standing behind his sister’s chair, resting his hands on her shoulders. When her attention was drawn toward a barn swallow flitting past, Viz caught Gage’s eye, then tilted his head toward the house. Gage nodded.
“I’ll think I’ll stay here for a few days,” Viz said.
“You don’t have to do that,” Socorro said, glancing up at him. “I’ll be okay.”
“I know I don’t have to. But I want to. I’ll keep you company. Maybe I can help you catch up on chores you put off while you were taking care of Charlie.”
“I guess I could use some help there. I hated Faith to see the house in such a mess.”
“Trust me,” Gage said, “she didn’t notice. You should see her office at UC Berkeley. The head of her department tells people it looks less like a professor’s office and more like one of the archeological sites she works at.”
F aith and Gage walked hand-in-hand up the sidewalk to where Gage had parked his car before Viz had driven them and Socorro to the cemetery.
“Viz was right,” Gage said. “She doesn’t have a clue who Charlie really was.”
Faith looked up at him through clear hazel eyes framed by her slim face and auburn hair.
“Do you think it’s willful?” Faith asked.
“Probably not. I suspect there was just an unbridgeable chasm between them.”
Faith glanced back toward the house. “I’m wondering whether she decided at some point in their marriage it was emotionally safer to be oblivious. I got the feeling talking to her that she’s spent the last twenty years hiding inside of her children’s books where lessons were taught by stubbed toes and missing bracelets and grandmothers’ stern looks-”
“And not by a gunshot that cuts a husband down in the street.”
Gage pressed the remote on his key chain and unlocked the car.
“It hasn’t even crossed her mind yet,” Gage said, as he opened Faith’s door, “that there might be a connection between the shooting and the burglary.”
Chapter 7
The big man is pissed,” the caller said, in a voice both sarcastic and frustrated.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass,” the Texan answered. “I did the best I could in the time I had. There was no way I could haul out every damn computer in the place. He had a couple in his office, one in his bedroom, and a server somewhere in the house I couldn’t even find.”
“He wants you to go back in.”
“There’s nothing there.”
“What do you mean, there’s nothing there?”
“Just what I said. A rental van showed up a few hours later. A couple of guys cleaned out the place and took it all to Graham Gage’s office.”
“Damn.”
“I made some calls. Palmer was the brother-in-law of a guy who works for Gage. Got the job through his sister.”
“Go get it. Take somebody with you this time.”
“What? You said he wanted me to do it alone. If he’d let me take somebody in the first place we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
The man laughed. “Let’s say our leader has engaged in a soul-searching reconsideration.”
“What is it about these suits? They think it’s just a little harmless chess game, until something goes sour and they panic like schoolgirls in a high wind, their little dresses flapping up in their faces.”
“What’ll I tell him?”
“Tell him two people, twice as much money-in cash and in advance.”
“Where?”
“Same place.”
“Leave a hundred grand in a paper bag?”
“I’ll be watching. Nobody’s walking away with my money.”
“And keep an eye on Gage. If he gets too far into this thing, we’ll need to do some damage control.”
Chapter 8
Thanks for coming over.”
Gage settled into a wingback chair across from Judge Brandon Meyer in his eighteenth floor chambers in the Federal Building. In the orange glow of the setting September sun, the judge’s angular features and dark eyes made him seem lizardlike as he sat perched behind the expanse of his desk.
Looking past Meyer, Gage spotted a worn paperback on the credenza, its spine shadowed under the day’s legal newspaper. He smiled to himself when he saw that it was Longarm: Frontier Justice, one of a series popular among judges who needed to excite themselves with fictional gunslinging before striding onto the bench, and was handed off from judge to judge as furtively as child pornography or balloons of cocaine.
“How many people do you have over there now?” Meyer asked.
“Twenty, plus support staff.”
Gage watched Meyer adopt a nostalgic expression.
“I remember when it was just you, and Faith helping out with the books. Now you’ve got people working on
