“No. Absolutely not. You show up at my house, I will call the police.” Then she hung up.
Shit. Now what? If I’d had my wits about me, I’d have put the old mailing pouch in a larger mailing pouch and addressed it to April Staehlings and made a trip to the post office. But somehow I had it in my head I should hand-deliver the items since Pete Wolinsky, among others, had gone to so much trouble to see that the package reached her after all these years. Lenore to Clara to Father Xavier, from him to Pete Wolinsky, and from Pete to me. I’d put in a fair number of hours, not to mention the miles I’d driven. Now I wanted to finish the job I’d started.
What was I thinking? This was one more example of the do-gooder mentality that gets me in trouble every time it surfaces.
I made a note of her street address, which I located on my city map. She lived on the north end of Colgate in a subdivision I was dimly acquainted with. I could see how it looked from her perspective. She’d assumed I was running a scam, which I knew I was not. I grabbed the mailing pouch, locked the office, got in my car, and took the 101 north to Colgate. All I had to do was drop off the mailer and I’d be done with it.
29
April and her husband lived in a large Spanish-style home on a lot that was probably half an acre in size. The exterior was rough stucco with a terra-cotta tile roof, arches, and ornamental ironwork. A three-car garage dominated the front of the house. Most homes on the block looked much the same, barring a balcony or two. I was guessing the Staehlings’ residence had four bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, a family room, an eat-in kitchen, and a large sheltered patio across the rear of the house. There would be a modest-size swimming pool. The neighborhood conveyed solid middle-class values. Or maybe I arrived at that conclusion because I knew William was an orthodontist and I put his 1989 annual income in the range of a hundred thousand dollars—not much in light of all the schooling he’d been required to complete. He might still be paying off his student loans.
For a moment, I sat in my car with the mailing pouch on the passenger seat in easy reach. My call had accomplished nothing except to trigger April’s hostility, and I was sorry I hadn’t done a better job of explaining myself. All I wanted to do now was slip up the front walk and lay the mailer on her doorstep. I wouldn’t even ring the doorbell, trusting she’d discover the package at some point during the day.
I was on the verge of exiting my car when I glanced in my rearview mirror and caught sight of a Santa Teresa County Sheriff’s Department black-and-white sliding into the stretch of curb behind my Honda. For a moment, I thought the deputy’s arrival was an independent occurrence. Maybe he lived next door; maybe he was doing a welfare check on the occupant. Nope.
A uniformed deputy emerged from his car and approached mine, coming up on the driver’s side. I couldn’t believe April had called the police and reported me, but it was clear she had. Shit. In my side-view mirror I saw the officer unsnap his holster, but the gesture was discreet; not the action of a man seriously intent on gunning me down. I glanced at the telltale mailing pouch, which I longed to tuck on the floor under the passenger seat. With the deputy so close, I didn’t dare lean forward lest the movement be misconstrued as my reaching for a weapon of my own.
Traffic stops are dangerous. A nonconfrontational encounter can turn deadly in a heartbeat. I was a stranger sitting in a parked car. He knew nothing of my criminal history and nothing of my purpose. What had April complained about? Harassment? A threat to her personal safety?
I pressed the button that lowered the driver’s-side window and then put both hands on the steering wheel where he could see them. I could write a primer on how to behave in the presence of law enforcement, which basically boils down to good manners and abject obedience. He leaned toward me, holding a flashlight in his left hand. He trained the light on the dashboard, not because there was anything to be seen, but because the device was equipped to pick up any hint of alcohol on my breath.
“Afternoon.” He was white, in his fifties, clean-shaven, and looked like he could pack a punch.
I said, “Hi.”
“May I see your vehicle registration and proof of insurance?”
“They’re in the glove compartment.”
He gestured. I flipped open the glove compartment and pawed through the papers until I found the documents, which I handed to him. He took his time examining both documents before handing them back. “You have identification?”
“I can show you my driver’s license and a photocopy of my private investigator’s license.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
I took out my wallet and opened it to the window where my California driver’s license was displayed. “Is there a problem?”
“Can you remove the license?”