Trophies And Dead Things

I still valued the legacy of those years. A war had been stopped, the will of the people had prevailed, society had been altered in profound ways. But there was a darker side to the legacy, and the personal cost had been high on both sides.

I'd been right on Monday night when I'd told Rae that what the sixties had been about was rage-but that was only part of it. What they'd also been about was the same as any other decade: winning and losing. Winning the war against communism in Southeast Asia; winning the war against the Establishment in the streets at home. Losing the country because it had become bitterly divided over the Asian conflict; losing yourself because the conflict in the streets had left you bitter, broken, alone.

That was another legacy of the sixties: trophies and dead things. Nets to catch the wind…

McFate was the first person I saw when I entered the squad room: standing near Greg's office, looking pressed and combed and clean-shaven, even on such short notice. He glanced at me-took in my mud-stained clothes and dirty face and disheveled hair-and sneered. The pressure of my anger soared, and then I totally lost it.

I strode over to him, put my grimy hands against his pin-striped chest, and gave him a shove. 'You son of a bitch!'

Greg came to the door of his cubicle, eyebrows raised.

'You fucking pompous jerk!' I shoved McFate again, making sure I left a dirty handprint on the front of his pale blue shirt.

McFate shoved me back, said to Greg, 'You saw that! She assaulted a police officer! What are you going to do about it?'

'Shut up, Leo,' Greg said wearily. 'Get in this office. You, too,' he added to me.

McFate did an about-face and went in there, brushing fussily at his shirt. 'I don't know why you let her get away with things like this,' he told Greg. 'If you ask me-'

'Nobody did. Sit down, Leo. Sharon, close the door.'

I closed it, then moved the second visitor's chair as far from McFate's as possible, and sat.

'You could at least make her apologize,' McFate said.

'Unfortunately, she's not very good at that.' Greg turned to me; I could tell I was putting a heavy load on his patience. 'Will you explain why this is necessary, please?'

I took a deep breath, gathering the vestiges of my shattered self-control. 'The man who killed Tom Grant shot himself tonight-on Hog Island in Tomales Bay.'

Slowly McFate turned his head toward me; his pupils narrowed to pinpoints. Greg merely waited.

I filled them in on what had happened, making it sound as if I'd gone up there on business about Hilderly's will and walked in on a family crisis. When I finished, I said to Greg, 'That's one of the reasons I'm so pissed at him.' I jerked my chin at McFate. 'If he'd told me about Grant's early career as a federal undercover agent, I would have realized who had motive to kill him, and Taylor might not have died.'

McFate said, 'Doesn't sound as if he was worth keeping alive.'

I turned on him. 'Shut up, you! You don't know anything about… anything.'

Greg sighed and rolled his eyes.

'Okay,' I said. 'I'm sorry. But he can be such a pain in the-'

'If I may be heard,' McFate said. 'I withheld that information for two reasons. First, I do not feel required to share the details of my investigations with civilians. And second, the identities and records of undercover agents are classified information. I was not provided with full details of Grant's activities, so I could hardly be expected to connect it with the other persons named in Hilderly's will.'

Greg said, 'He has a point, Sharon.'

'Half a point. I mentioned the probable connection with Hilderly to him-and more than once. If he had followed up on that, shared what he knew with me… Just yesterday didn't you say it's making the collar that counts-not who makes it?'

Greg nodded.

'Then as a corollary, I'd say it's utilizing the available information that counts, not whether the information was uncovered by a civilian or a member of the department.'

McFate said, 'I still could not have been expected to make the connection-'

'I think you could have, given the other information you got from the Intelligence Division-but conveniently neglected to put in your reports.'

McFate stiffened slightly. Greg leaned forward, interested.

I said to Greg, 'Yesterday you also told me you were annoyed at how Leo kept disappearing.'

'That's right.'

'On at least one of those occasions-and I'm willing to bet quite a few others-he was over at his old detail.'

'So?'

I glanced at McFate. He was sitting very still now.

'I suspect what he was doing there was going through back files on radicals they spied on in the sixties, looking for information on Hilderly and his other heirs-just in case the lead I'd given him was valid after all. One of the things he discovered was the circumstance that twenty years later caused Hilderly to change his will-which in turn triggered Grant's murder.'

'Why did Hilderly change his will?'

'Hilderly was never a part of that collective, at least not in the sense its members thought he was. He was close to the people, and they assumed he was using his job as a reporter to further their propaganda efforts. What he was really doing was gathering information for a story, perhaps something along the lines of 'Inside a Weather Collective.' But when they began to formulate plans to bomb Port Chicago-plans that were certain to result in the deaths of innocent people-he became disillusioned and concerned.'

McFate said, 'Why would he? He was a radical. None of them cared-'

'Hilderly cared. He valued human life above anything. Even above his loyalty to his closest friends. I think he went to the ID-their activities were well known even in those days-and warned them about the bombing plans. He knew he'd done the right thing, but his guilt over the betrayal more or less soured the rest of his life. Then last May he ran into Tom Grant, who handed him an untrue story about his ruined life, and Hilderly decided to atone for what he'd done-by leaving money to three of the people he'd harmed, plus to the only living heir of the other.'

Greg looked at McFate. 'Is it true that Hilderly went to the ID, Leo?'

It was a moment before he replied. 'Yes. I don't know about the business with the will; I don't know how she can surmise all that. But Hilderly did talk with the ID. They, in turn, contacted the FBI. When the Bureau got back to them, they said they already had the situation covered and that arrests would be forthcoming. Hilderly needn't have felt guilty about anything; he didn't even try to turn them in to the agency with jurisdiction.'

McFate spoke as if what had happened was amusing-a joke that Hilderly had led a guilt-ridden life and then attempted to atone for something he hadn't actually done. I frowned at his callousness, saw Greg was frowning, too.

'How did you, put all that together?' Greg asked.

'I'll explain later.' I was notgoing to tell him in front of McFate about my dream of the previous morning-the sly visual pun on the word 'intelligence,' in which a gilt suit of armor stood for 'guilt' and a gnawed diploma indicated its possessor had 'ratted on' someone.

'All right,' Greg said. Then to McFate, 'Why wasn't I apprised of any of this, Leo?'

'I didn't find it relevant-'

'Bullshit! The reason you didn't report it to me is that you were protecting your pals at the ID.'

'Lieutenant, twenty years ago it was acceptable for the division to maintain surveillance on groups who could be deemed-'

'Yes. But it hasn't been acceptable since nineteen seventy-five, when the commission adopted rules against such activity. And recently the ID has taken a lot of heat for having ignored those rules. They like to maintain a low profile over there these days; I'm sure your pals made it clear they'd appreciate being kept out of something like the Grant case-even though their involvement was a long way back and very peripheral.'