Where Echoes Live (38 page)

Erickson, Sanderman went on, told him that he'd been staying in one of the trailers at the mine site for the past few days and had twice met and attempted to reason with his father-in-law at his cabin in Stone Valley. Hopwood had been difficult to reach because he was no longer living there but camping out somewhere while he continued his harassment and vandalism at the Transpacific property. On the second occasion—that morning—they quarreled and Hopwood pulled a gun on him. Erickson took it away from him, accidentally inflicting a flesh wound.

“It shook Mick up a lot,” Sanderman said. “He liked the old man and never intended to hurt him. And he was afraid of what it might do to his chances of reconciling with his wife. But it had also given him the idea that it might be necessary for Hopwood to, as he put it, meet with an accident. Anyway, we kicked that idea around for a while, but neither of us was really for it. I was nervous, though; it would have destroyed me with the Coalition—with the entire environmental movement—if the deal had fallen apart and they had found out that I'd sold out Promiseville.”

“Why did you do that?” Lark asked. “Money?”

“Yes. A lot of it.”

Behind me, Ripinsky hissed.

Sanderman glanced at him. “It wasn't for myself, though—it was for the Coalition. Transpacific made two substantial cash payments to me, which I donated, and they promised a much larger one once construction began on the project. Some people”—he threw an accusing look at Hy—“don't realize the costs of running our campaigns. The administrative expenses alone … Sometimes you have to jettison one cause in favor of a more worthy one.”

Ripinsky remained silent, but I could feel his rage building.

“Go on with what happened that evening,” Lark told Sanderman.

“We'd been talking for about an hour. Somebody knocked at the door and I went to see who it was. At first I thought he was one of these mountain men—wild eyed, unkempt—but Mick came forward, called him ‘Mr. Hopwood.'”

Sanderman had also thought Hopwood drunk, although he'd soon realized he was seriously unbalanced. He and Erickson quickly took up their quarrel where they'd left off earlier, and soon Hopwood was reeling around the cabin, raving and making strange accusations.

“What kind of accusations?” Lark asked.

“Archaic-sounding things, like he was quoting Scripture. He called Mick a deceiver and a fanged serpent. Said he was a servant of Satan.”

“Was Mr. Hopwood armed?”

“No, Mick had kept his gun after he shot him, locked it up somewhere.”

“Go on.”

“Things were seriously out of control. Hopwood ran into the kitchen. Mick went after him, yelling something about knives. Then there was a shot. Mick started to fall. Another shot, and then Hopwood leapt over him, carrying my twenty-two, and ran out of the cabin.”

“Where did he get the twenty-two?”

“From the refrigerator. It's a good hiding place.”

“How do you suppose Hopwood knew it was there?”

Sanderman looked blank.

I motioned to Lark. She frowned, switched off the recorder. “What do you want to tell us, McCone?”

“I think Hopwood saw the gun when he broke into the cabin right after Ned came up here.”

She nodded, looked back at Sanderman. “Was it in the fridge the whole time you were staying there?”

“Except for one time when I went back to Sacramento.”

“Okay.” She restarted the recorder, recapped what we'd said. “Now, Mr. Sanderman, what did you do after Mr. Hopwood ran away?”

“Went to see if Mick was dead, of course. He was. Then ...for a while I couldn't do anything. Finally I realized I had to get the body out of there. If I called the authorities, it would all come out and I'd be ruined. It was awfully difficult; he was heavy, and I couldn't move him very far. Finally I just dragged him down to the lake.”

Ripinsky made a disgusted noise. I knew how he felt; it hadn't helped that Sanderman had spoken in a self-pitying whine.

Lark kept her expression neutral. “And then?”

Sanderman sighed, as if the effort of recounting it made him weary. “I drove the Bronco he'd been renting into town and parked it on the highway. Walked back and started to clean up the blood. There was a lot of it, so I went back to town for some cleaners. While I was scrubbing the floor I realized I couldn't locate one of the spent shell casings from the gun. I looked everywhere, but I never did find it.”

After a moment Lark asked, “Is there anything else you'd like to tell us?”

Sanderman shook his head, eyes closed.

Kristen switched the recorder off. “Mr. Sanderman,” she said, “I'll tell you right now in the presence of your attorney, this doesn't look too good for you. Your story's uncorroborated. You admit the weapon was yours, and now you can't produce it. Why should I believe you aren't conveniently pinning this crime on a man who's dead and can't contradict you?”

I said, “Because he doesn't know what happened in Stone Valley, doesn't know Hopwood's dead.”

The startled look on Sanderman's face confirmed that.

“Besides,” I added, “Hopwood had the twenty-two with him in the mine tunnel.”

Lark stared at me, unblinking. Her expression said she didn't believe me. “You saw the gun, McCone?”

“As I stated earlier, Hopwood fired at Lionel Ong and me. It was a twenty-two automatic. If you run a check, you'll probably find that Hopwood didn't own one.”

“You didn't mention the type of gun in your earlier statement.”

“I didn't think of it. It didn't seem important.”

“And now it's buried under tons of rubble with Hop-wood.”

“I guess so.”

Lark regarded me steadily for a moment. “You'd testify to that?”

“If I had to.”

“Sanderman,” Kristen told him, “you owe McCone a big one.”

Quickly I flashed him a look that said,
Don't thank me.
As Lark began packing up the recording equipment, I wondered why I'd come to Sanderman's aid. I had no idea what kind of gun Hopwood had held on Ong and me in that tunnel, couldn't truthfully testify to what I'd said. But I believed Ned's story and wanted to help him.
Why?
I didn't like the man one bit. He was a type we're seeing more and more of: passionless, programmed opportunists who will cheat and lie and—yes, if they can get away with it—murder, not for personal gain but to further a program.

Not a cause, a
program.
Not something they deeply believe in, but an agenda that is merely an exercise in management skills and control. I dislike that bloodless kind of individual, and, more important, I fear them all. They are the ones who someday will sell out the world if it means they will win at their own particular intellectual games.

So why help Sanderman?

Perhaps because under all his lies and self-serving statements I'd sensed a smoldering of humanity. Because under the false things he'd told me there lurked a trace of truth— and pain. I remembered his face when he'd told me that all his life he hadn't related; I heard the hollowness of his voice when he tried to speak proudly of his self-imposed isolation. As I'd told Hy that night when we drifted together on the lake, maybe there was
something.
Maybe there was hope for Ned Sanderman….

Lark said to me, “Chopper's about to take a run down to Stone Valley. If you two hurry, you can catch a ride to Vernon.”

I glanced at Hy. He nodded and stood. I followed suit, not looking back at either Sanderman or his attorney. Lark accompanied us to the door.

“Sharon,” she said, clasping my hand, “I owe you, too. Plenty.”

“Maybe someday I'll need to call in the debt. Who knows?”

“In the meantime, you come back up here. We'll go fishing, hell around in the bars, whatever. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said, knowing I never would.

On the way out of the building I glanced at Hy. His jaw was bunched with anger—whether at Sanderman or at me for backing up Ned's story, I couldn't tell. He asked, “Now what?”

“I want to go home.”

He nodded, didn't protest. “I'll fly you to Oakland.”

Back at the Vernon airstrip, I called Hank and asked him to meet me at General Aviation in Oakland. Then I sat drinking a Coke with the owner while Hy gave the Citabria its preflight check. I hadn't wanted to return to the lodge for my things; too many questions would be asked, and I couldn't bear to face Margot Erickson yet. Hy said he'd tell Rose Wittington to ship my bag down to the city.

Dawn was bleeding over the eastern hills as we took off. I watched the lake staining pink, took a last look at the alkali plain and the cones of the fire mountains to the south. Then I dropped into an uneasy sleep.

Even after I woke somewhere over Livermore, Hy and I didn't speak. The intimacy between us had vanished, it seemed. It was as if the danger we'd faced together had allowed it to flower; in the less fertile soil of safety, it had withered and died.

When we taxied into a visitor's space at Oakland, I saw Hank leaning on the chain-link fence near the General Aviation terminal. His sleepy face and wind-ruffled steel-wool hair spoke of the familiar comforts of home. Wordlessly, Hy got out and helped me from the plane. Then he turned away to hook the wings to the chains on the tarmac.

I waited. He moved around the Citabria. “Better go now,” he said. “Your boyfriend's waiting.”

“He's not my boyfriend. He's my boss, Anne-Marie's husband.”

“Whoever.”

Stung, I turned and started toward Hank.

“McCone.”

I kept walking, then glanced over my shoulder. Hy stood next to the plane—double-luck two eight niner—left hand resting on its high wing. “Yes?” I asked.

He gave me a long, solemn look and leveled his right index finger at me, as he had on the day I'd met him. “Glad you didn't say good-bye,” he told me, “because it hasn't even begun with us yet.”

The yellow roses continued to arrive at my office—one every Tuesday morning, with never so much as a card. They brought visions of gnarled tufa towers and ice blue water, of alkali dust devils and fractured stone. And on those occasions when I couldn't block the memory, I also saw a flaming mountaintop and ashes settling over a town where—now—everybody's dreams had died.

Our winter was a wet one for a change. Soggy gray days naturally depress me, but this year my moods sank deeper and lasted longer. The story of what had happened in Stone Valley remained in the news for weeks; as I'd expected, Lionel Ong set out to gain maximum mileage from his self-proclaimed heroism. The Coalition put a stop to that, however, by holding a press conference and baring the details of Transpacific's dealings in Mono County. With the cessation of the media coverage, my life regained a semblance of normalcy. George and I put off the talk we'd promised each other.

After my return from Mono County a haze of questions that he'd rather not have asked and I'd rather not have answered filtered between us; even our good times were blunted by excessive politeness and caution. We drifted, unsure of our destination, as Hy and I had drifted in the boat on Tufa Lake.

For Thanksgiving we threw a big dinner party at George's place; unlike in the days before I'd gone to the high desert, we felt more comfortable in a crowd. Three of his colleagues, most of the folks from All Souls, and several other friends attended. The cleanup took an entire day.

In early December Ned Sanderman pleaded guilty to and was sentenced for improper disposal of a body and failure to report a homicide, thus relieving me of the need to return to Mono County for a trial. My feelings about that were strangely mixed—and briefly I wondered why.

Around the same time Anne-Marie returned to San Francisco and announced that in the future she'd be working with the Coalition from her home. An elated Hank organized a chili cook-off in her honor, at which we charitably allowed him to claim third prize.

Before the holidays I got Lily Nickles's address in Reno and sent her a new Pendleton shirt to replace the one I'd ruined. In her thank-you note she said she'd gotten scared by the AIDS epidemic and opted for a straight job. If I ever needed my sensibilities ruffled, however, I was to look her up; she still behaved “pretty damn shocking.”

And George and I continued to drift. He asked me to go to the Bahamas for the holidays, but—in light of the recent upheaval—I felt obligated to visit my family. George didn't act terribly disappointed and decided to go alone.

After the usual festivities in the city, I flew to San Diego on Christmas Eve and, with initial reluctance, spent it with Ma and That Man at their new home in the retirement community at Rancho Bernardo. Melvin Hunt proved to be charming, and seeing Ma so happy laid most of my reservations to rest. However, when I coyly asked her if I should shop for a dress to wear to a wedding, she told me I was crazy if I thought she would remarry at her age. On Christmas Day, I met my brother John, his kids, Charlene and Ricky and their brood, plus half the Savage backup musicians at the old family home, where we fixed dinner for Pa. He was in fine fettle and didn't venture near the garage all day, so the last of my reservations joined the others.

In January Rae received her private investigator's license from the state of California. We all celebrated at the Remedy Lounge, and as she and I touched glasses after one of the toasts, I realized that the distance between us had begun to narrow.

In February George again asked me to move in with him, but I sensed the proposal was a halfhearted gesture at best. By now we'd drifted so long that neither of us really believed we had any destination. When I said no, he seemed relieved. At the end of the month we finally had the long-delayed talk; its upshot was a promise to remain friends—one we've thus far kept.