“I’ll tell you the answer, as long as you keep it to yourself.”
“What about Porzolkiewski?”
“I’ll quiet him down.”
“Okay. Just between you and me.”
“I think Brandon and Anston have been involved in a few things that may slop back-”
“Maybe we should talk in person.”
“Where?”
“I’ll be in Des Moines tomorrow.”
“W hat did you think you were going to accomplish?”
“I don’t know,” Porzolkiewski said, “I don’t know what I was doing. Maybe it was a substitute for not having a gun to blow my brains out.”
Porzolkiewski stared down at the table, as if embarrassed by his own weakness.
“Just listen to the noise in this place,” Porzolkiewski said. “I don’t understand why more people aren’t committing suicide in here.”
Only then did Gage’s mind register the yelling and clanging that composed the relentless gray background noise of the jail.
Porzolkiewski finally looked up. “You’re the reason I’m locked up in this joint.”
Gage shook his head. “Like I planted the poison in your storeroom?”
“No. You got them to search for it. How do I know you’re not in it with them?”
“In with who?”
“Brandon Meyer and Marc Anston. You sure as hell aren’t doing anything to get me out of here.”
“Tell me what I should be doing.”
Porzolkiewski spread his arms. “How should I know, you’re the investigator.” He tapped his chest. “I’m just the schmuck who pushed his kid too hard.”
Gage squinted at Porzolkiewski. “Now you’re blaming yourself because he took the job at TIMCO?”
Porzolkiewski’s shoulders slumped, and then he exhaled and said, “Now that you repeat it back, it sounds stupid.”
Gage leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table.
“Look,” Gage said, “everything in life could’ve turned out differently. Just because you think back and one thing seems to have led to another, doesn’t mean everything was inevitable and you’re responsible. That applies to Brandon Meyer, too. And threatening his brother just makes you look like a paranoid lunatic.”
Porzolkiewski rose and stared out through the wire mesh window of the visiting room door.
“This place is unreal,” Porzolkiewski said. “It makes everything unreal. There’s no way to control your thoughts, they just fly around with nothing solid to hold on to. Then they start to hook together in weird ways.” He turned back toward Gage. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I called the senator’s office. Everything just seemed like a huge conspiracy.”
“You want to talk to a psychiatrist?”
Porzolkiewski shook his head. “Jailhouse shrinks just want to drug people up because they know there’s nothing they can do about this place and the way it makes you go crazy.”
“Then let me give you a few things you can to hold on to when things seem to start spinning.”
Porzolkiewski sat down.
“Lieutenant Pacheco is having toxicology tests done on every liquid or powder that was in Charlie’s room. We’re also checking out the background of the physical therapist. How he got hired by the agency and how he got assigned to Charlie. Spike says they’re stonewalling, but we’ll keep pushing. If we can prove he was planted there, the case here will look weaker and maybe we can get you transferred out to Contra Costa County. There’s no law that says you have to go to trial in the county where you were first arrested.”
“How does that help?”
“It’s a quieter jail and close enough for your lady friend out in the Delta to visit you every day.”
“They have conjugal visits out there?”
“Sorry. You’ll have to get convicted and sent off to state prison for that.”
Porzolkiewski winced. “I think I’ll pass.”
Chapter 69
'Thanks for bringing dinner,” Faith said to Gage as they sat on the edge of the circular fountain near the Hearst Anthropology Museum on the UC Berkeley campus. It was at that spot decades earlier that an ex-cop chanced to offer a napkin to a graduate student who’d splashed coffee on her blouse just before her first meeting with her dissertation committee.
Between them now lay sourdough French rolls and paper take-out boxes of grilled vegetables, olives, mushrooms, and tuna salad. Both were sipping on sodas and watching students and staff flood from the buildings and separate into streams, some heading to the garages, some to the buses, some up or down the sidewalks to dorms or frat houses or the apartments surrounding the campus.
“How’s Porzolkiewski?” Faith asked.
“Off the deep end.”
“There’s a student group here that visits prisoners. You want me to give them his name? Maybe some outsiders would keep him in contact with reality.”
Gage shook his head. “I can’t take a chance he’ll start ranting about Brandon and TIMCO. Next thing you know one of them is running to the press, either because it would be a big story or because Porzolkiewski looks like the victim of a conspiracy. They’re good-hearted kids and too likely to believe everyone is innocent. And once they get a glimpse of that hangdog face of his, they’ll be marching on San Francisco City Hall. That’s the same reason I told him not to hire a lawyer. I didn’t want to lose control of the case.”
“What do you think?” Faith peered at him. “Is he innocent?”
“I don’t know. I can see him losing control and committing a manslaughter, but premeditated murder, I’m not sure.” Gage opened the grilled vegetables and handed Faith a plastic fork. “On the other hand, he was on a mission for years trying to prove TIMCO lied about the explosion and that Brandon was involved. He was damn methodical about that.”
“He had to have been furious when Brandon got appointed to the bench. It must have felt like a betrayal, like the devil being appointed God.” Faith smiled at Gage. “As I recall, he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.”
“I don’t know what Landon was thinking when he put in his brother’s name. It was like opening the door to the henhouse and laying out a red carpet for the fox.”
“But I thought you said you can’t link any of the premium payments into Pegasus to any decisions he’s made in cases.”
“None of those companies really thought they were buying insurance. Charlie Palmer didn’t run an insurance company and the Pegasus money we’ve traced came back as payoffs to witnesses, not as payments on insurance claims.”
A car backfire rocked Bancroft Avenue as it bounced off the concrete facade of the building behind them. They both glanced over to see smoke envelop an early-seventies Suburban as it rolled to a stop.
When it cleared Gage noticed a familiar brown Taurus with a man in the passenger seat. Unlike everyone else on the street, he didn’t watch the spectacle. He kept staring down toward the bay. He was also too old to be a student and too tough to be staff or faculty.
Gage lowered his eyes. “Look away from the street.”
Faith reached for the vegetables and made a point of picking through them. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll try to find out.” Gage pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and called a number in its memory.
Viz answered on the first ring. “What’s up?”
“I’m in Berkeley with Faith, near her office. Boots Marnin just showed up across the street. When can you get here?”
“I’m at the Federal Building waiting for Brandon to come out. So about a half hour.”
