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  Suddenly, I wanted to tell her that I knew about Crocker, that she didn’t have to tell me the sad tale. But maybe I didn’t know the whole story. I thought of Wayne and kept quiet.

  “At first, Gregory did fine at Crocker,” she continued. “But then he started taking drugs, mostly psychedelics. Acid, mescaline, peyote, anything he could get his hands on. Some people can handle that stuff. He couldn’t. He got weirder and weirder. He dropped out of school. Lived on the street for a while. Got rousted by the police over and over. He got himself a job at an ice cream store once. He kept it for three weeks. And on, and on.” Her voice was exhausted. “You’ve known people like that, right?” she asked suddenly.

  I nodded. I’d known a few. She didn’t have to tell me the details.

  “By the time I got out of prison, Gregory had come back home to live with my parents. He had stopped taking the heavy psychedelics, but he wouldn’t stop smoking dope. My parents pretended they didn’t know what he was smoking. And his motivation was gone. No physicist. No mathematician. He couldn’t even hold down a janitor’s job for more than a month.” She paused.

  “I saw the waste of a man who had been my shining star of a brother. There was nothing behind his eyes anymore. Just space. I couldn’t believe it.” Valerie’s voice was bitter now, her eyes narrowed in anger. “Not that I hadn’t seen what drugs could do to people. In prison, I saw the grief drugs brought people every day. But he was my brother!

  “So I came back to the Bay Area and did some community organizing. Became part of an organization called Drug Watch. First, we found out who the drug dealers were. We had connections all over—cons, ex-cons, police, even rival drug dealers. And we didn’t bother with the obvious guys on the corners. We found out who the big dealers were. The ones that were getting rich. The ones that the police knew about but couldn’t touch.

  “Then we went public. We published a newsletter naming names. We put posters up on phone poles, kiosks and bulletin boards, with lists of local citizens who made their money from drugs. We even picketed their houses. So their neighbors would know just who lived on their block. We went on talk shows, talked to newspapers. We did a lot of nasty shit.”

  Suddenly she grinned. “I have to admit I enjoyed it. I had a lot of rage in those days. But then I met Guru Illumananda. After a while I just didn’t have the anger to fuel me anymore. Except when something came up to remind me.”

  “Like Scott Younger?” I prompted.

  She looked at me like she had forgotten where she had started her story. Then she nodded.

  “Like Scott Younger. I had never met him personally, but I knew his name from Drug Watch. When I saw the smug yuppie face that went with that name, and remembered my brother’s empty eyes, I exploded. I do have a temper.” I looked at her strong dark features, now chiseled by remembered anger into frightening severity.

  “Uh-huh!” I agreed fervently.

  She threw her head back and laughed, long and loud.

  - Twenty-One -

  Her laughter echoed through the now deserted dining hall. We were the only people left among the remains of the feast.

  “You know what I do now for my temper?” Valerie asked. Her eyes were gleaming.

  I shook my head. I hoped it wasn’t anything violent.

  “I laugh,” she said with the intonation of a comedian delivering a punch line. As audience, I dutifully produced a nervous chuckle. Even that wasn’t easy. I was still caught in the pathos of her brother’s life story.

  “Guru Illumananda taught me that. I don’t think I really laughed once in my entire adult life before I met her. Everything was serious. Everything was a cause. She taught me to laugh.” Valerie did look better for the laughter. The tension was gone from her face.

  “Whatever happened to your brother?” I asked. I had to know the end of the story. I braced myself for further tragedy.

  “He’s a computer programmer now. How do you like that? Not what my parents hoped for maybe, but enough. Just like my life is enough.” Upon that positive note she rose to leave the hall.

  But the heart-to-heart was not over as far as I was concerned. Now I motioned her to sit back down. She stood looking at me for a moment, head cocked quizzically, and then gracefully lowered herself back down into her chair.

  “Was Scott Younger the one who sold your brother drugs?” I asked. Valerie’s face grew serious again.

  “I suspected as much. He was selling drugs at Crocker at the time my brother went there. But I don’t know for certain. And I’m not sure it’s even important to me anymore.”

  I looked into her face and believed her. At that moment, it was probably not important to her whether Scott Younger had been the individual who sold her brother psychedelics. But I had seen her personality shift firsthand. The question was not whether this transcendent Valerie cared, but rather whether the angry Valerie would have cared, cared enough to kill over. How could I answer that one? I moved on.

  “Why did you want to tell me about your brother?” I asked. Valerie leaned forward in her chair with a little sigh.

  “When the police questioned me about Younger’s death I panicked. Prison is… is unimaginably terrible.” The mahogany sheen of her skin greyed as she spoke. “Not even so much prison itself, as the person you must be to survive there. I don’t ever want to go back. And I have a record. I was afraid the police would decide that I had killed Scott Younger, and fill in the blanks with evidence that supported that decision. Whether I killed him or not.” She looked me in the eye. “And I didn’t kill him.”

  Pinned by her eyeball, I found myself nodding in agreement, although I wasn’t really sure I believed her. She went on.

  “I meditated on my fears. And my Guru’s voice came to me. She told me that total openness would save me. To tell the police everything. So I did. Then Maggie said you were going to find out who killed Younger. So I decided to tell you too. This way there are no terrible secrets to be uncovered, no wrong conclusions to be drawn.”

  “I see,” I said slowly. For all of her openness, I was still uneasy with the interview.

  “But primarily,” she said with a sudden burst of energy, “I wanted to introduce you to Guru Illumananda.” She sprang up and reached for my hand. “So, let’s go.”

  I had to admit that Valerie’s guru had presence, even on the video screen. Her lecture on “Siddhas, the Path of Grace,” was sensible, intelligent and witty. And she embodied serene enlightenment. But I felt no connection to her, no spark of awakening spirit. So I sat alone and unmoved in a sea of rapt devotees who hung on her every word, and wondered if Valerie had killed Scott Younger.

  There was still no call from Wayne when I returned home at nine o’clock. That meant that the police had been questioning Wayne for over eight hours. What kind of questions could take that long? Serious ones, I answered myself. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I turned off the answering machine and turned up the volume of the telephone bell. When Wayne called I wanted to answer the phone personally.

  Then I went to bed, where I was visited by hopelessness instead of sleep. I lay stiffly on my back. No murder solution. I turned on my left side, seeking comfort. No Wayne. I turned on my right side. No spiritual enlightenment. I curled my body into fetal position. Not even a cat. C.C. had gone night-prowling. I straightened out and lay on my back again. After repeating this performance a few hundred times I succeeded in twisting both my sheet and my mind into a labyrinthine tangle.

  I threw off the sheets angrily. Then I got up and did paperwork in my pajamas until three o’clock. When I returned to bed I managed to untangle the sheets, but I never did quite untangle my mind.

  I got almost two hours’ sleep before the telephone rang. Drowsily, I waited for the answering machine to kick in. Then I remembered I had turned it off for Wayne’s call. I jumped out of bed and ran groggily down the hall, bouncing off the walls like a human pinball a couple of times along the way.

  “Wayne?” I shouted eagerly
when I picked up the phone.

  “Yes,” his voice answered. I felt warm relief flooding my body. “Didn’t mean to wake you. Thought you’d have the machine on.” His voice sounded strange, devoid of feeling. My relief began to ebb.

  “You are home, aren’t you?” I asked. “They did let you go?”

  “For now,” he replied. Still no enthusiasm in his voice. It might have been a robot’s. Now I felt very cold standing there in the dark in my pajamas.

  “Anyway,” he continued, his voice tinged with the faintest of feeling, “I got your message. Wanted to let you know I was home.” He paused. “Thank you for caring.” On the last words his voice cracked.

  “Oh God.” I said. “I do care. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.” I was babbling.

  “Kate, you shouldn’t…” He stopped.

  I waited for him to finish.

  “Sorry,” he said finally. “I’m just too tired. Need some sleep.” I looked at the clock. It was almost five in the morning. Had they questioned him for sixteen hours? No wonder he was tired.

  “Go to sleep.” I said. “Don’t try to explain now. Will you come over when you wake up?”

  “If you want. But I shouldn’t involve you.” His voice had gone dead again.

  “We’ll talk about it when you come over. Don’t worry now,” I said, willing my shaky voice into a soothing tone. I wanted to ask him if he thought he was going to be arrested, but it wasn’t the right time.

  “Will eleven or twelve be okay?” he asked.

  “Perfect,” I said. “See you then.”

  After Wayne hung up I went back to bed. I lay hovering in that twilight zone between waking and sleeping for half an hour. Black and white horror images startled me into wakefulness each time I began to drift back to sleep. Wayne in prison, Valerie in prison, Wayne gruesomely executed to the delight of cheering crowds. I gave up on bed.

  I went to the bathroom and ran steaming hot water into the tub. While it was filling, I chose a volume of Far Side cartoons to read. Judy had suggested a hot bath for my flu. I didn’t have the flu, but I was certainly heartsick. I shed my pajamas and stepped into the tub, deriving a good measure of masochistic joy from the searing heat of the water. Then I opened my book of cartoons and began to sweat.

  Two hours later I woke up shivering in cool water. C.C. was yowling. How could she claw my lap if she had to go underwater to get there? And my Far Side lay soggily at the bottom of the tub. It was the beginning of another day.

  I showered and dressed. My new hairdo looked a little better after being washed, but not much. The morning was appropriately overcast. I went to the kitchen, fed the cat, stirred some oatmeal into boiling water, and tried to clear my brain of fuzz. Not an easy task. Four hours of interrupted sleep does not begin to un-fuzz a brain like mine, especially under stress. I had started working on a mental to-do list, my version of brain calisthenics, when the doorbell rang.

  Wayne? I rushed to the door and threw it open. My heart was racing. It stopped when I saw who was on my porch. Two rubbery smiling Reagans.

  I tried to slam the door, but the stocky one already had his foot and most of his body inside. I executed a swift tai chi backstep before thinking. It took me temporarily out of arm’s reach, but now both the Reagans were inside my hallway. I looked out my doorway for a source of rescue, but the weekday morning neighborhood looked deserted as usual. The tall Reagan saw my look and shut the door. So much for rescue.

  “Hi,” I said. I was aiming for a friendly, casual note. I hit high and squeaky. My body began to tremble. I wasn’t sweating yet. I wondered idly if the hot bath had boiled all the sweat out of me.

  “Lady, it’s been forty-eight hours,” the stocky one boomed. Hugo, I remembered, that was his name. I asked myself how I could have forgotten these guys. Because I had. Wayne’s detention had wiped them from my mind.

  “Wayne burned those pictures as soon as Scott died,” I said. I kept my voice as low and steady as possible.

  “We saw the fuckin’ ad,” Hugo replied. There was a trace of uncertainty in his deep voice. He turned and looked at the tall one. The tall one nodded. I had no idea what the signal meant. Their masks hid all facial expression.

  “Perhaps we could sit down?” suggested the tall Reagan.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I apologized. Mere terror had not extinguished my social reflexes. I led them to the living room. The tall one sat on the couch. I sat in the swinging chair. Hugo remained standing.

  “We were not able to visit Mr. Caruso yesterday,” said the tall one. “He was gone all afternoon and evening.”

  “The police were questioning him,” I said.

  “Aw, that’s too bad,” said Hugo. His voice sounded almost friendly. “What about?”

  “Scott Younger’s murder. They held him for sixteen hours.”

  “Fuckin’ cops,” he said, shaking his masked head.

  “Enough, Hugo,” the tall one said and turned back to me. “I would like to believe you and Mr. Caruso are being straightforward about this matter. Convince me.” His voice was quiet and polite.

  “If either of us were going to use these pictures for blackmail, don’t you think you would have heard by now?”

  “Perhaps,” he answered.

  “I didn’t even know what pictures you were talking about until I asked Wayne. And he wants no part of them, no part of your boss’s business, no part of your boss’s money. That’s why he burned them. Anyway, you know who he is. He’d have to be crazy to try any blackmail.”

  “And he hasn’t skipped town?”

  “No,” I replied bitterly. “He isn’t going anywhere. The police wouldn’t let him.”

  “I think we’ll believe you for now,” he said, rising from the couch. I let my breath out.

  “I don’t like it!” objected Hugo. He was at my chair in two angry strides. He grabbed my arm and yanked me up out of my scat. Now I began to sweat. I guess I hadn’t been boiled dry. “You’d better not be fuckin’ with us, lady.”

  I shook my head furiously, fighting back tears. He gave my arm a vicious squeeze.

  “Don’t worry,” said the tall Reagan, carefully pronouncing each word as if for a deaf person. “We will research this further. And, if she is lying, she will be very, very sorry.” The sweat on my body turned cold.

  “Yeah,” growled Hugo in assent. He squeezed my arm one last time and abruptly dropped it.

  Then they left. I looked out of my window at their black Cadillac as it backed out of my driveway, hoping to catch a license plate number, but their plates were still smeared with mud. At least they had gone. I sank into my comfy chair.

  They weren’t going to kill me! The realization pulled me back out of my chair. I hugged myself and danced a giddy impromptu jig at being alive. It’s amazing the kind of chemicals fight-or-flight experiences can release.

  A burning smell interrupted my victory dance. My oatmeal had boiled over. But I whistled while I cleaned up the gummy mess, still glowing with the relief of being alive and unharmed. I had started another pot of oatmeal cooking when the phone rang. I turned down the flame and answered the phone with a cheery hello.

  “This is Inspector Parker of the Mill Valley Police Department,” the gloomy voice informed me. My glow flickered. “Sergeant Udel wants to talk to you.” The glow faded to a glimmer.

  “When?” I asked. I looked at the clock. It was a quarter to nine.

  “Now,” he replied.

  “Oh.” Not a lot of room for scheduling. “I need to be back by eleven,” I said.

  “That’ll be up to the sergeant.”

  I told him I’d be down in ten minutes and went back to my oatmeal. This pot hadn’t boiled over, but the oatmeal had congealed. Yuck. I tossed a couple of pieces of whole wheat bread in the toaster. When they popped up I grabbed them and ran out the door to my car. The faster I got to the interview, the faster I would get out. I left a note on the door for Wayne in case I was late anyway. But I was going to do my damn
edest to be back in time to meet him.

  My last glimmer of relief dissolved into fear as I walked through the glass doors of the police station. I told the desk officer I was there to see Sergeant Udel, and sat down anxiously on the familiar plaid couch. I wondered if Wayne had sat there last night. I even sniffed unobtrusively for his scent. But I couldn’t smell anything but carpet cleaner.

  I didn’t have to wait long. Inspector Parker escorted me into the windowless interrogation room before I even had time to work up to a full-fledged anxiety attack. He didn’t look too happy himself. His plump shoulders were uncharacteristically slumped, his round red face unsmiling. And Sergeant Udel looked worse than ever. His skin was far too pale, his eyes round and staring. A happy thought brushed my mind. These guys did not look like police who were confidently prepared to arrest a man for murder. They looked more like guys who were ready to give up.

  “How well do you know Wayne Caruso, Ms. Jasper?” asked Sergeant Udel, as soon as I sat on the metal folding chair. His voice was as cold as Alaska, his face expressionless.

  “About as well as you can know someone in a week’s time,” I said. Probably not a bright answer. But I decided to compound it. I had convinced the Reagans this morning that the blackmail pictures were burned, maybe I could convince the cops that Wayne was innocent.

  “Mr. Caruso is not a murderer. He is a kind and gentle man, a nonviolent man. He is probably the last person who would have killed Scott Younger, because he was the only one who actually liked Scott, even loved him, as a friend.” I went on in this vein for another five minutes. I listed Wayne’s many saint-like qualities and cited evidence of his compassionate nature. Wayne had cried when Scott was murdered, taken care of Scott unselfishly, and defended Scott to this day. I was moving myself to tears.

  But Sergeant Udel’s deadpan never changed as I spoke. There was not so much as a flicker of emotion behind his staring eyeballs. I resisted an urge to wave my hand in front of his face to make sure he was at least conscious. The only sign he was still alive was his linger tapping on the table in front of him.