Liz followed me back inside. We poked through the rest of the boxes, none of which seemed particularly interesting. Then we stood for a minute, watching dust particles drift through the shafts of light streaming in through the windows.
I went to the kitchen with a sudden urge to clean up the mess we’d made. Liz stood and watched me scrape the broken glass into a pile near the back door and toss the rock back outside.
“I don’t suppose it matters much,” I said. “I suppose Becky or someone will have to come out and get the rest of the stuff at some point. Then I guess they’ll sell it.”
Liz looked around the kitchen and then at me. After a few seconds she said, “They’ll have to do something about that bad deed first.”
27
I hit the west side at rush hour and dropped Liz at her place. Then I braved the jammed freeway all the way downtown. It took forever and it was late when I finally made it back to the firm. I parked the rental car in the basement garage and lugged the hope chest and photo albums up to my office where I placed them in a wide, four-foot long file drawer and locked it.
I was only there a few minutes when the phone rang. It was Ed. He sounded flustered.
“Man, good to talk to you. You make it up to Topanga?”
I told him all about it. I could hear him rummaging through paperwork as I talked. He was only half listening.
He said, “That’s great. I can’t believe that stuff was still there.” I could feel him masking some kind of dark worry. “Hey, listen, I can’t talk long. I don’t think we’re going to make it to the press tomorrow morning. My editor is excited but understandably concerned. He wants to be sure this thing is right before we run it.”
“Of course.” I did not want to wait another day.
“So look, man. I’ve been talking to some people about Steele and Andersen. Most people have said they never knew anything like that, never suspected anything. I even had one guy say he didn’t remember. Can you believe that? Anyway, no one wants to get involved. You know, no comment and all of that. I’ve still got a few more leads and people to get a hold of, but it’s getting late and I doubt I’ll make much more progress tonight.”
“Is anyone talking at all?” I was concerned that I’d hitched myself to someone who couldn’t get the job done. But who was I to complain?
He said, “I started trying to find guys that went to school with either of them. I found a guy who was at law school at Berkeley with Andersen. He said that a bunch of them used to go hang out in the Castro sometimes, you know, go to the clubs, the bars. He said he remembers seeing Steele around sometimes. Andersen and Steele could have met there. Hell, this thing between them could have been going off and on since the mid-70s.”
“Really. That’s interesting. But I can’t believe that Steele was able to keep something like that secret all those years.”
“I can’t either. But it happens. People in the gay community aren’t in the business of outing people, so as long as Steele was discreet, maybe people figured they had a friend in high places. But something like that would also make Steele very vulnerable to blackmail too. So, I don’t know.”
We talked for a few minutes about who might want to blackmail Steele. It didn’t seem likely to me. We knew that Sharon wanted a divorce. That seemed like the most likely reason for the murder.
“True,” Ed went on, “but Andersen represents a lot of big oil companies. I think the reason Andersen seemed so concerned when you called him is because there’s more to this than just an affair. I agree with you, I don’t think Andersen would care too much about that coming out because it’s already out. I think Andersen had something to do with Steele changing his mind on the Alaskan oil issue.”
I grimaced. I couldn’t tell if Ed was a loon or really on to something. He seemed obsessed with the issue. “Well, yeah, maybe. I mean he might have lobbied for his clients or something. I mean, that’s a helluva political contact to have. But even so, how does that have anything to do with Steele killing his