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“Does Jason remember whether Mears and Ray Fentress buddied up?” I asked.

“No. He says Mears kept mostly to himself.”

So all I had for certain was testimony that Fentress and Mears had been in relatively close proximity on three occasions, close enough so that they'd at least had a nodding acquaintance; long weekends in the woods draw like-minded individuals together to some degree, even if they're strangers to each other at first. Which apparently explained how the two of them had met, but nothing else. If anything, it strengthened the prima facie case against Fentress as the catalyst in the double homicide.

This was how things shaped up: At the hunting camp Fentress either was told or found out some other way that Mears grew and sold marijuana. While in prison Fentress concocted a scheme to hijack pot and cash in order to finance a move to the Southwest and the purchase of a farm; and when he got out he checked to make sure Mears was still living in the same place, then bought a Saturday night special and drove up to the Russian River to carry out the plan. Mears wasn't home, so Fentress shot the Doberman because it was the only way he could get past the animal and into the grow shed. After he looted it, he went into the cabin looking for money and more pot. Mears came home and caught him, either was armed with the .45 or had the piece stashed where he could get at it quickly, and both of them died in a hail of lead.

Added up well enough, no evident loose ends. That was how Heidegger and his superiors viewed it, and they'd be even more satisfied when I told them of the hunting camp connection.

It didn't satisfy me, though.

What was wrong with it was that it didn't fit Fentress' character. His wife, his friends, his background, couldn't all be wrong about the kind of man he'd been. Sure, he'd committed a couple of violent felonies, but they hadn't involved sober premeditation or firearms or pot or theft. And yes, prison can change a man, but seldom to such a radical degree in only eighteen months in a minimum-security lockup like Mule Creek.

So if the obvious explanation was the wrong one, I was right back to square one. Why
had
Fentress gone to see Mears that day, if not to buy or steal marijuana?

There were other nagging questions, too. Why had the dog been shot if it wasn't to get into the shed to steal weed? Where had the Saturday night special come from if Fentress hadn't brought it with him? Why had he been so sure he could lay hands on enough money to buy himself a farm? Where had he expected to get it and by what means, and did it have anything to do with Mears?

His little tête-à-tête with the unknown blonde in the Bighorn Tavern bothered me, too. Out of character again, unless she was somehow tied into his money plans. I'd told Pete Retzyck about it and asked if Fentress had said anything to him about her. No, and Retzyck didn't know any woman who answered her description. He'd also seconded Joe Buckner's declaration that Fentress never cheated on his wife—“Ray kept his dick where it belonged,” was the way Retzyck put it. So unless somebody else I talked to knew who she was, I had no way of finding out.

Dead ends looming all along the line.

 

9

Kennedy Landscape Designs was a substantial operation that occupied an entire block, had an employee roll of more than two dozen, and serviced other nearby Peninsula communities in addition to Millbrae—San Bruno, Burlingame, San Mateo. Tamara had told me this, and a sign at the entrance corroborated it. The sign also said that it was Diamond Certified, whatever that meant, and listed its specialties: Japanese gardens, ponds and waterfalls, brick and flagstone patios and retaining walls, irrigation systems, sprinkler installation and repair, complete tree service.

It was a little before noon on Monday when I got there. I'd called ahead for an appointment with the owner, Philip Kennedy, and a good thing I had, because he was busy when I walked into the cottage-style office building and I had to wait ten minutes past the scheduled time before he was free to see me. His office might as well have been a greenhouse, as full as it was of potted ferns and schefflera and a colorful array of flowering plants I didn't recognize. Kennedy was a plump, energetic little man in his sixties; if he'd had a white beard and worn a tall red cap, given the business he was in, he'd have resembled a garden gnome.

He said, “Sorry to keep you waiting, it's been a busy morning,” and pumped my hand and invited me to sit down.

I parked my hinder in a rattan chair next to a plant that had curved, fingerlike leaves—not too close, on the off-chance it was carnivorous. Instead of occupying the chair behind his desk, Kennedy sat close by in a chair similar to the one I was in. So his broad desk wouldn't be between us, I thought. The companionable type, a contributing factor, no doubt, to the success of his business.

“Ray Fentress. Such a sad case. First that trouble with the police that sent him to prison, and now…” Kennedy sighed and wagged his head. “I feel sorry for his wife.”

“So do I. That's why I'm trying to help her.”

“In what way, if you don't mind my asking? There's no question about what happened at the Russian River, is there?”

“There might be, but I'm not investigating the homicides. Couldn't if I wanted to.” I told him what Doreen Fentress had hired me to do.

“Closure,” he said, nodding.

“One way or another.”

“You don't sound optimistic.”

“Frankly, I'm not.”

“Sad,” Kennedy said again. He scooted his chair over to the desk, scribbled on a pad of paper. “Making a note to send her flowers,” he said when he turned back to me.

Good for him. Kindhearted as well as sociable.

I asked, “Did Fentress happen to get in touch with you after he was released?”

“No, he didn't. I didn't even know he'd been released.”

“No contact at all since his arrest, then.”

“None.”

“He was employed here seven years, is that right?”

“Sounds right. I'd have to look at the records to be sure.”

“Was he part of a regular crew?”

Kennedy wagged his head again. “Ray was a jack-of-all-trades, so to speak—good at landscaping, good at tree work, good at just about everything we do. So we put him wherever he was needed, whatever project.”

“Do you recall if there was an employee he was particularly friendly with?”

“I don't, no. I didn't know him well, you understand. Thirty people working for me, can't get to know them all.” He sounded regretful of the fact. “But he was a good employee; I can tell you that. Always on time, hardly ever missed a day, liked working with plants, flowers, trees. Never any problems with him until the last month or so before he was arrested.”

“Oh? What happened then?”

“Well, he began drinking rather heavily. Not on the job, so far as I know, but he came to work badly hungover three or four times. Missed a couple of days, too. Hal Waxman finally had to give him a shape-up-or-else warning.” Another headshake. “I hate to fire a good man, but when I can't count on him anymore and his conduct reflects badly on the business…”

“Do you have any idea what caused the sudden binge drinking?”

“No. Something weighing on his mind, I suppose.”

“You mentioned Hal Waxman. Who would he be?”

“Our yard foreman. You might talk to him.”

“I'll do that. Where do I find him?”

“In the distribution center, probably. I'll phone over there and tell him you're coming.”

*   *   *

Distribution center
was a polite term for
warehouse,
the largest of the three buildings on the lot. It was crammed with all sorts of landscaping materials and machinery that included rototillers, backhoes, John Deere Gators. A greenhouse attached to the rear was lush with plants, every kind from the bedding variety of flowers to large shrubs, and multiple varieties and sizes of trees in tubs.

Hal Waxman was waiting for me at the open entrance doors. The yard foreman looked to be in his early forties, a pear-shaped man with a matching pear-shaped face—narrow at the brow, somewhat broad across the cheeks and jawline. He wore a pair of green overalls with
Kennedy Landscaping Designs
stitched over the breast pocket, had a clipboard in one hand and an empty black-bowled briar pipe clamped between his teeth.

He saw me looking at the pipe while we shook hands. “I quit smoking fifteen years ago,” he said a little ruefully, “but I can't get out of the habit of chewing on the stem.”

“I'm an ex-smoker myself. Coffin nails, to my everlasting regret.”

“Yeah. You still get cravings?”

“Not in a long time.”

“I do, but only after a big meal. Well. The boss said you wanted to ask me about Ray Fentress?”

“About the last month he was employed here, yes.”

“Uh-huh. Before he started boozing and his life went to hell. Damn shame. Nice guy, steady, no trouble until then.”

“You have any idea what happened to change him?”

“No,” Waxman said. “I asked him straight out the morning he came in still half in the bag, but he wouldn't talk about it. Whatever it was, it was eating hell out of him.”

“When exactly did it start, do you remember?”

He worked his memory, gnawing audibly on the pipe stem like a dog worrying a stick. “While we were doing a major relandscaping job at the Holloway estate in Burlingame. Fountains, waterfalls, flagstone paths, you name it.”

“Fentress worked on that job?”

“From the first. About three months.”

“Did anything happen during that period that might explain his sudden drinking?”

“Not that I know of. Everything went real smooth, no problems. Well, except for the Holloways' young daughter, but her behavior didn't have anything to do with Ray.”

“Behavior?”

“She liked to parade around in a bikini, her and some of her friends, and flirt with the crew.” Waxman shook his head disapprovingly. “Spoiled rich kid. If she were my kid, I wouldn't have put up with it.”

“Just harmless flirting, then?”

“Well, none of the men said otherwise. Or seemed to mind except when she followed them around and got in their way. Maybe she was the reason for the stop-work order, but I don't see how, since nobody here complained about her.”

“Stop-work order?”

“Mr. Holloway called it in when we had less than three weeks left on the job. No workmen allowed on the property until further notice.”

“He didn't give a reason?”

“Nope. Just the order. Then a couple weeks later, somebody in his office calls up and says okay, now we can go ahead and finish up.”

I chewed on that before I said, “Can you tell me exactly when the stop-work order was issued?”

“Must've been the middle of June,” Waxman said. “I remember because it was right after the Fourth of July that the crew went back to work.”

“Middle of June. Just about the time Ray Fentress was arrested.”

“Say, that's right. Day or two afterward, I think it was. But that couldn't've had anything to do with Ray or his boozing. I mean, I don't see how it could, do you?”

“No,” I said, “I don't.”

Coincidence, probably, I was thinking as I returned to my car. Puzzling, but irrelevant. Even if there'd been some sort of personal connection between Fentress and the Holloway family that had triggered the change in him, it had all happened nearly two years ago; a connection, after all that time, to the double shooting at Floyd Mears' cabin seemed inconceivable.

And yet …

I've had stranger cases, a few with such seemingly disjointed facts as these that turned out to be interrelated after all. This one was a muddle no matter what linked up and what didn't, and I was fresh out of other leads to help untangle it. Unless I wanted to report failure to Doreen Fentress and walk away from the investigation—and I was not ready to do that just yet—I owed it to her and to myself to explore even the most tenuous possibilities.

 

10

When I got back to South Park, the noise level from the renovation work on the three-quarter-acre oval seemed even louder than usual. The clamor, continual when the weather permitted, penetrated the old walls of our building and made conducting business a literal headache at times. Not that Tamara or I begrudged the necessity for it; on the contrary. The “town square of Multimedia Gulch,” smack in the middle of SoMa and its technology ecosystem, had become something of an eyesore in recent years—dead grass, cracked asphalt paths, sycamores and elms in poor shape, the creosote-covered children's play structures so dilapidated the city had finally removed them, leaving a sandy pit that had devolved into a dog run. Finally a group of residents and businesses, ours included, had gotten together and spearheaded the renovation, the first in more than forty years. When it was finished, South Park would have wider pathways, open meadows and raised grass hillocks, plazas, concrete retaining walls with benches, and a new kids' play area. The sooner the better, for more reasons than one.

In the office I asked Tamara to find out anything that might be even remotely relevant about the Holloways of Burlingame. She was busy with other, more pressing work, so it took a while for her to accommodate the request.

“I pulled up some interesting bits,” she said when she called me into her office. “Might be worth looking into.”

“Such as?”

“Let me give you a little background on the Holloways first. The family head, Vernon, is a near one-percenter—not Silicon Valley mega-rich, but worth around twenty mil on paper. Venture capital profits. Has a rep as a cutthroat businessman.”

“Cutthroat meaning what? Honestly aggressive, or one of the fast and loose players?”

“None of those dudes ever got where they are without their share of dirty tricks.”