McCone And Friends

Sharon grinned. “I bet one of the most embarrassing things about that whole period in your life is that you were such a textbook case.”

I nodded. “Woman’s crime. Nonsensical theft. Doesn’t stem from a real need, but from anger or the idea you’re somehow entitled to things you can’t afford. You get addicted to the high, but you’re also overcome by the guilt, so you can’t get any benefit from what you’ve stolen. Pretty stupid, huh?”

“We’re all pretty stupid at times-shoplifters haven’t cornered the market on that.”

“Yeah. You know what scared me the most, thought? Even more than the security guy calling my employer? That Doug would find out. For a perpetual student who leaned on me for everything from financial support to typing his papers, he could be miserably self-righteous and superior. He’d never even have tried to understand that I was stealing to make up for everything that was missing in our marriage. And he’d never have let me forget what I did.”

“Well, both the stealing and Doug are history now.” Sharon patted my hand. “Don’t look so hangdog.”

“Can’t help it. I feel like such a…I bet you’ve never done anything like that in your life.”

Sharon’s eyes clouded and her mouth pulled down. All she said was, “Don’t count on it.” Then she scrubbed her fingers briskly on her napkin and pushed her empty plate away. “Finish your lunch,” she ordered. “And let’s get back to your case. What you’re telling me is that Adrian was shoplifting and saw a way to break free of it?”

“A way to break free of something, but I’m not convinced it was the shoplifting. It may have been related, but then again, it may not.” My head was starting to ache. There was too damn big a gap between the bag of loot under the floor of Adrian’s room in Diamond Heights and the abandoned backpack in the living room of the house on Naples Street. I’d hoped Sharon would provide a connection, but all she’d done was listen to me confess to the absolutely worst sin of my life.

She looked at her watch. “Well, I’ll try to find out what you need to know from Adah later this afternoon, but right now I’ve got to go. I’m giving a deposition at an upscale Montgomery Street law firm at three.” Her nose wrinkled when she said “upscale.”

I waved away the money she held out and told her I’d pick up the tab. It was the least I could do. Even though she hadn’t helped me with the case, she’d helped me with my life. Again.

I’ve always felt like something of a fraud-pretending to be this nice little person when inside I’m seething with all sorts of resentments and peculiarities and secrets. But since I’ve been with All Souls, where people are mostly open and nonjudgmental, I’ve realized I’m not that unusual. Lately the two me’s-the outside nice one and the inside nasty one-are coming closer together. Today’s conversation with Sharon was just one more step in the right direction.

VII

I’d come up with a plan, an experiment I wanted to try out, and while it probably wouldn’t work, I had a lot of time on my hands and nothing to lose. So after I finished my burger, I went back up the hill to our annex and got Lillian Chu to call her son Tom at McAteer and command his presence at my office as soon as school let out. When Tom arrived, he’d traded his friendly smile for a pout. To make up for my high-handedness, I took him to the kitchen and treated him to a Coke.

Tom perched on one of the counter tops and stared around at the ancient sink and wheezy appliances. “Man,” he said, “this is really retro. I mean, how can you people live like this?”

“We’re products of a more primitive era. You’re probably wondering why I-”

“Pulled this authority shit. Yeah. You didn’t have to get my mom to order me come here.”

“I wasn’t sure you would, otherwise. Besides, the people at McAteer wouldn’t have called you to the phone for me. I’m sorry, but I really need your help. You heard about Kirby, of course.”

The anger in his eyes melted. He shook his head, bit his lip. “Oh man. What an awful…You know, I didn’t like the dude, but for him to be murdered…”

“Did you hear that Adrian’s backpack was found in the house whose backyard he was killed in?’

“No.” For a few seconds it didn’t seem to compute. Then he said, “Wait, you don’t think Adrian…?”

“Of course not, but I’m afraid for her. If she’s alive, it’s possible Kirby’s killer is after her, too. I need to find her before anyone else does.”

Tom sat up straighter. “I get you. Okay, what can I do to help?”

“You have a group of friends you hang out with, right? People you can trust, who aren’t into anything-”

“Like Kirby was.”

“Right.”

“Well, sure I do.”

“Can you get some of them together this afternoon? Bring them here?”

He frowned, thinking. “Today’s Thursday, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, football practice’ll be over in about an hour, so I can get hold of Harry. Cat and Jenny don’t work today, so they should be around. Del-he’s just hanging out these days. The others…probably. But it’ll getting close to suppertime before I can round them all up.”

“I’ll spring for some pizzas.”

Tom grinned. “That’ll help. At least it’ll get Del and Harry here.”

I realized why when I met Del and Harry-they each weighed around two hundred pounds. Harry’s were all football player’s muscle, but Del’s were pure flab. Both waded into Mama Mia’s Special like they hadn’t eaten in a week. Even the girls-Anna, Cat, Jenny, and Lee-had appetites that would put a linebacker to shame.

They perched around the kitchen on top of the counters and table and chopping block, making me wonder why teenagers always feel more at home on surfaces where they have no right to plant their fannies. Each had some comment on the vintage of the appliances, ranging from “really raunchy” to “awesome.” The staff couldn’t resist poking their noses through the door to check out my young guests, but when Tom Chu, who knew full well who Hank Zahn was, pointed to him and called, “Hey, Rae, who’s the geezer?” I put a stop to that and got the meeting underway. After shutting the swinging door and shouting for them to get serious, I perched on the counter next to Tom. Seven tomato sauce-smudged faces turned toward me.

I asked, “Do all of you know what brainstorming is?”

Seven heads nodded.

“What we’re going to do,” I went on, “is to share information about Kirby and Adrian. I’ll ask questions, throw out some ideas, you say whatever comes into your heads. Anything, no matter how trivial it may seem to you, because you never know what might be important in an investigation.”

The kids exchanged excited glances. I supposed they thought this was just like Pros and Cons.

“Okay,” I began, “here’s one idea-shoplifting.”

Total silence. A couple of furtive looks.

“No takers? Come on, I’m not talking about any of you. I could care less. But think of Adrian and Kirby.”

The angelic-looking blonde-Cat-said, “Well, Adrian took stuff from the place where she worked sometimes. We all suspected that.”

“I didn’t,” Harry protested.

“Well, she did. At first she thought it was a giggle, but then…” Cat shrugged. “She just stopped talking about it. She’d get real snotty if you mentioned it.”

“When was this?” I asked.

“Sometime last spring. Right about the time things started getting very heavy between her and Kirby.”

“When she started sleeping with him,” Del added.

“Okay,” I said, “tell me about Kirby’s scams.”