Bones(72)

“I also doubt that,” he said, “since everything you've said is an outrageous tall tale.” He seemed to have relaxed completely, to have regained his arrogant manner. The hate was still in his eyes, but it was shaded now by a thin veil of amusement. He took out one of his fat green cigars, turned his back to the wind, and managed to get the cigar fired with a gold butane lighter. When he faced me again he said, “You don't have a shred of proof to back up any of your allegations and you know it. You can't prove that I conspired with Angelo Bertolucci to cover up a murder in 1949. A letter addressed to me that happens to resemble Harmon Crane's suicide note is hardly evidence of any wrongdoing on my part. The police were satisfied that Crane's death was suicide; you have no legal grounds for reopening the case after all these years. You have no proof that I ever even met this man Bertolucci. You have no eyewitnesses who can identify me as being in or near his home on the night of his death. You have no physical evidence of any kind against me. You have nothing, in short, except a great deal of fanciful speculation. Fiction, not fact.”

“That isn't going to stop me from taking it to the authorities,” I said.

“Do as you like. But I warn you, detective. I'd like nothing better than to instigate a lawsuit against you for harassment and defamation of character.”

“And I warn you, Yankowski, you won't get away with it this time. Not this time.”

He smiled at me mirthlessly around his cigar. “Won't I?” he said, and turned his back—a gesture of contempt and dismissal—and walked a short distance away. Stood there smoking and looking out to sea, with his back still turned.

Frustration was sharp in me; he was right and I knew it, and I hated him, too, in that moment, as much as I have ever hated any man for his corruption. The hatred brought on an irrational impulse to go over and give him a push, one little push that would send him hurtling to his death. Immediately I swung around and went the other way, back through the sand and iceplant to Sunset Trail and along it to the parking lot.

I could never have done it, of course—pushed him off that cliff, killed him in cold blood. It would have made me just like him, it would have turned my soul to slime. No, I could never have done it.

But on the long drive home, thinking about him standing up there so smug and sure, so goddamn safe, I almost wished I had.





TWENTY-TWO



I

did not call Sergeant DeKalb that night, although I considered it. What I had to say to him, the full story of Yankowski's guilt, was better dealt with in person. It could wait until the morning.



On Monday, before I drove up to San Rafael to see him, I stopped by the office to find out if there had been any weekend calls. And damned if Eberhardt wasn't already there, even though it was only ten past nine—making coffee and cussing the hot plate because it was taking too long to get hot.

“Surprise,” I said as I shut the door. “The prodigal has returned.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You haven't been around the past few days.”

“Yeah, well, I took a long weekend. So what?”

“So nothing. But a lot of things have been happening.”

“So I read in the papers. You can't keep your ass out of homicide cases, can you? One of these days somebody's going to shoot it off for you.”

“Or part of it. Then I can be as half-assed as you.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“No, I guess not.”

“I don't feel very comical today,” he said.

“Neither do I.”

“Then don't try to be funny.” He smacked the hot plate with the heel of his hand. “Frigging thing takes forever to get hot,” he said.

“Any calls on the machine? Or didn't you check it?”

“I checked it. No calls.”

“Figures.” Leaving my coat on, I went over and cocked a hip against my desk. “Where'd you go for the weekend?” I asked him.

“Up to the Delta.”

“Fishing?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanda go with you?”

Pause. Then he said, “No.”

“I kind of figured she didn't.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“She called me up Saturday night.”

“What for?”

“To tell me she hated my guts. Kerry's too.”

“Drunk?”

“Sounded that way. Eb, listen …”

“Shut up,” he said. He put his back to me and went to his desk and sat down. Out came one of his pipes and his tobacco pouch; he began loading up, getting flakes of the smelly black shag he used all over his blotter.

Neither of us said anything for a while; we just sat there, Eberhardt thumbing tobacco into his pipe as if he were crushing ants, me listening to the coffee water start to boil on the hot plate.