Till the Butchers Cut Him Down (37 page)

“I guess I know that now. The guy loves me. And I love him.”

“So why didn’t you come forward, ease his grief?”

“Fear. Sharon, he makes so many enemies. Don’t you see that it doesn’t matter who set that explosion? I was almost the victim
of an enemy of his once before that; I can’t live with the possibility always hanging over me.”

“The enemy you’re talking about was Ed Bodine, in Lost Hope?”

“If you know about that, you can understand why I can’t leave here.”

I hesitated, framing my reply carefully. “Anna, a lot of things have happened that you’re unaware of. Josh Haddon, for instance.”

“Josh?”

“Is the man who ordered the explosion. He didn’t mean for you to die, but he was the one who was harassing Suits.”

She stared at me, eyes filling with pain and dull horror. “And the person who actually set the charges?”

“Is dead now. Josh ran him down, probably to avenge your death.”

“No …”

“Josh is dead, too.”

“… How?”

“He died in a helicopter crash a week ago.”

Anna covered her face with her hands, leaned her forehead against her raised knees. In the trees behind us a mockingbird began
a monotonous trilling; a harsh chorus of jays joined in.

After a while Anna looked up. “You’re not telling me everything.”

“It’s too complicated. I’ll leave that to Suits.”

“Suits …” The single syllable was full of longing. She stared bleakly at her mother’s grave. “You know, what happened was
all my fault.”

“Your fault? Why, for God’s sake?”

“I knew Josh was obsessed with me. I should’ve warned Suits.”

“Josh hated him for other reasons besides you.”

“I’m sure he did, but I was the big reason. After Monora … You know what happened there?”

I nodded.

“After that, Suits and I separated. For good, I thought. And Josh and I … became close again. He’d come to the house when
Suits gave him time off. Once I let him make love to me.”

“So when you and Suits reconciled …?”

“Josh was upset, but he claimed he could accept my decision. What really tore it was Lost Hope. By then he was pretty sick
of having to mop up after both Suits and me. Last summer when those things started to happen to Suits, I went to see Josh
and asked if he was behind them. He lied, and I believed him, but I should’ve warned Suits anyway.”

“Well, that’s behind you now. And Suits need you. He’s aware that he has to make some major changes, and you’re the only person
who can help him—and keep him honest.”

She shook her head. “It’s not all behind me. There’s something about Lost Hope that you don’t know.”

I didn’t know, but I suspected. And if I was right, this something would have to go unsaid between us. “I know that Josh shot
Ed Bodine to protect you,” I told her. “I know that he buried him in the wash with the help of your friend Brenda Walker.
The deputy in charge of the case has my statement to that effect, and I’m sure Brenda will back it up.”

“But that’s wrong. I was down in the wash, going to see the bottle house, and I’d taken along my gun in case of rattlers—”

“But Bodine overpowered you. And Josh shot him.”

“Sharon—”

“That is
exactly
the way it happened, Anna.”

Our eyes locked. Finally she nodded and clasped my hand.

“I’ve got to talk to Franny Silva’s parents, and say my goodbyes,” she said. “It’ll take a little while. Wait for me.”

I watched her disappear into the redwoods, then got up and moved restlessly among the graves of her people. They’d had little
enough to begin with, and over time, harsh circumstance had forced them to accept the notion that life is often a series of
givings-up. I suspected they’d understand the compromise I’d made here today. Sometimes the dead must bear the burden of a
lie; sometimes the truth must be warped in favor of the living.

I didn’t suppose Josh Haddon would have minded, anyway. After all, he would have done anything for Anna.

December 31

“I still don’t understand why you wanted to spend New Year’s here.”

“Why not?” Hy rubbed his palms together, surveying with satisfaction the fire he’d built on the hearth at Moonshine Cottage.
“It’s cozier than the cabin in the Great Whites, which we can’t even get to this time of year. It’s got a killer view, and
after this storm blows over we can walk on the beach and look for treasure.”

I took a sip of champagne.

“McCone, don’t tell me you’re still spooked about the explosion and that girl dying?”

“Not really. Now that the debris is cleared away, it seems peaceful again. And it was nice of Anna and Suits to let us use
the cottage. But we could just as easily have spent New Year’s at my place.”

“With your nephew? No thanks.”

“He’s almost always with his girlfriend these days, and he’ll be moving into her condo next week, after her roommate finally
moves out.”

“How’d his folks take the news?”

“Not very well at first. Then he took her home over Christmas, and now they’re singing her praises. Charlene told me Maggie’s
a steadying influence—the implication being that I’m not.”

“So you’ve got a permanent assistant.”

“It’s only temporary.”

“It’ll always be only temporary.”

I was not to be diverted from the original topic of conversation. “Anyway, as I was saying, we really could’ve stayed in town.”

“And then we’d’ve been obligated to go to All Souls’s New Year’s Eve party and meet Rae’s computer-freak boyfriends. I’m not
ready yet to see little Rae Kelleher in a ménage à trois.”

“I’m not sure that’s what it is.”

“How do you define it, then?”

“It defies description. But I guess you’re right; San Francisco would’ve been a bad idea. But why not your ranch, if you want
privacy?”

Hy picked up his champagne glass and came to sit beside me on the floor in front of the fireplace. “Look, McCone, that wouldn’t’ve
been good, either. On holidays there’re still ghosts of Julie stirring around. I like it when we’re together at your place
and at the ranch, but what we really need is a place of our own.”

“Well, a borrowed cottage on the Mendocino coast isn’t half bad.”

“It’s not exactly borrowed.” He grinned lazily and handed me a sheaf of papers that had been sticking out of the pocket of
his wool shirt. “Soon as you sign these, Moonshine Cottage is ours.”

“… Ours?”

“Uh-huh. Joint tenancy. I bought it from Anna. Someday maybe we’ll build a bigger house; there’s room for an airstrip, too.
But for now this little beauty’ll do just fine for us.”

“Hy, I can’t afford—”

“Won’t cost you but fifty cents.”

“Hy, I can’t take—”

“I bought it for a dollar.”

“What!”

“Anna wanted to offload it, and she wanted us to have it.”

“Good Lord. Suits must’ve been furious.”

“He wasn’t too happy; the man’s tight with a buck. But Anna gave him a look, and he backed off.”

I knew that look and the effect it had on Suits.

“Oh, McCone,” Hy said, “don’t go getting sentimental on me.”

“I’m not.”

“You think I can’t see that tear? Brush it away and sign the papers.”

I signed where he indicated, handed them back to him.

“Where’s my fifty cents?”

I found some change in my jeans pocket, counted it into his outstretched palm.

Hy folded the papers and tucked them away. Stoked the fire and poured more champagne. “Here’s to us.”

I returned the toast, still somewhat stunned at suddenly owning a piece of the California coastline.

Hy added, “We’re going to have to change the name of this place. Moonshine Cottage—it’s not us.”

“No.”

“So what’ll we call it?”

A memory of last summer stirred. “How about Touchstone?”

“Touchstone.” He nodded, and I saw he remembered, too. Then he raised his glass and motioned around the room. “I christen
thee Touchstone. We’d break a bottle of champagne over you, but it’s too expensive.” To me he said, “So what do you have planned
for the new year?”

“Well, I’m going to decide what to do about Mick.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, really. And I’m going to get my pilot’s license. Then maybe I’ll have you teach me some of the fancy stuff.”

He grinned.

“That the Citabria’s capable of,” I added.

He frowned.

“And …” I hesitated. “And,” I went on, “I’m going to find out what you were up to all last fall if I have to mount a full-scale
investigation.”

“I was wondering when you’d ask.”

“So?”

“Not much to it. I had a wild-hair, save-the-world kind of idea. Traveled around running it by people I know who’re in that
line of work and discovered I’d need more resources than either the Spaulding Foundation or I have got.”

“What’s the idea?”

“Has to do with human rights, helping people who need to get out of tight spots. It came to me after our little adventure
last June.”

“Mmm. So what did you decide to do?”

“Went to my old buddies Renshaw and Kessell.”

“Six months ago they were gunning for you; now you’re old buddies.”

He shrugged. “It’s always been an uneasy relationship. Anyway, they made me a gold-plated offer: ownership position; freedom
to call my own shots and pursue my own projects.”

“In exchange for …?”

“My availability when a tricky situation like a hostage recovery comes up.”

I was silent.

“Don’t frown like that, McCone. The deal doesn’t involve any major compromise on my part. What it all boils down to is that
I was getting stale running a foundation; I need to get back to what Gage calls the old action—with a dash of idealism thrown
in, of course.”

I sipped champagne, looked into the fire. I could feel its heat, feel the heat of Hy’s body pressing long and lanky next to
mine. For a while I was silent, turning over a question in my mind. And decided that now was as good a time as any to ask
it.

“So what about this old action? Are you going to keep me in the dark forever?”

“Thought you’d never ask that, either.”

I stared at him.

“A while back I decided it was time to tell you about it.”

“So why didn’t you tell me then?”

“A man likes to be asked.” He smiled complacently.

“All right—I’m asking!”

Hy got up and fetched some pillows. Fluffed them and tossed them to me. Stoked the fire, poured more champagne. Opened a bag
of pretzels.

“It’s a long story,” he said. “We might as well be comfortable.” He lay down alongside me, arranged a pillow under his head.

“I’m comfortable. Start talking.”

“Well, it all began when I was a small boy in Fresno. I was a charming lad. …” To my outraged look he added, “Uh-uh, McCone.
You want my life history, you’re gonna get
all
of it.”

I sighed. Reached for a pretzel. Settled back against the pillows. And waited for the good stuff.

Marcia Muller and her PI, Sharon McCone, took big chances in
Wolf in the Shadows
, risks that Marilyn Stasio of the
New York Times Book Review
says “pay off all around.” The
Washington Post
deemed it “a triumph for Founding Mother Marcia Muller.” In this, her fifteenth adventure, Sharon takes to the road, revealing
yet another side of the San Francisco investigator
Publishers Weekly
calls the “Alpha female of the pack of American PIs.”

TILL THE BUTCHERS CUT HIM DOWN

In the biggest professional move of her life, Sharon is cutting her umbilical cord to All Soul’s Legal Cooperative and opening
her own shop. But even before the phone lines are installed, McCone Investigations gets its first case—one that lifts Sharon
off a roof in a helicopter and deposits her on a posh hideaway on the north California coast.

Her new client is T.J. Gordon, a “turnaround man”—that rare breed of corporate troubleshooter who creates profits and enemies
while reviving failing companies. Gordon owns more than the helicopter that whisks Sharon away … much more. And he’s not really
“new.” A friend from her radical student days in Berkeley, T. J. was a campus nomad with a lifestyle shadier than most. Now
T. J. Gordon—grown ever more quirky, eccentric, and reclusive—is convinced someone is trying to kill him. He wants Sharon’s
help. Then he does another kind of turnaround: he vanishes.

Hanging in the balance with T. J.’s life is his latest project, a visionary deal to revitalize an abandoned stretch of the
San Francisco waterfront. His zigzag trail will lead Sharon both to Lost Hope, Nevada, a desert ghost town transformed into
a booming tourist mecca with a mysterious long-buried corpse … and to Monora, a decaying Pennsylvania steel town where old
resentments simmer beneath the grim shadows of empty mills. The clues are baffling and include a hermit living in a hovel
built of bottles and the saddened father of a missing union organizer. As the bizarre pieces of the puzzle start to fall into
place, Sharon is desperate to find T. J.—and headed toward his deadly confrontation with his California dreams.