A PLAGUE OF SECRETS Chapter 1 Friday, the end of the work week. On the small deck outside his back door, a lawyer named Dismas Hardy sat with his feet up on the deck's railing and savored a rare moment as the sun spent the last hour of its day lowering itself toward the horizon behind his home. The house cast its ever-lengthening shadow out over the neighborhood to the east—San Francisco's Richmond District—and it threw into relief the bright west-facing facades of the buildings in the city before him as it stretched away to downtown. The random window reflected glints of sunlight back at him, fireflies in the gathering dusk, shimmering in the Indian Summer air. He sipped his gin and ice, placed the glass down on the meshed metal of the picnic table they'd set up out here, and was suddenly and acutely aware that he could not be more content. His wife, Frannie, whom he still loved after twenty-three years, was inside the house behind him, humming as she did whatever she was doing. His two children were away and doing well at their respective schools—Rebecca at Boston University, and Vincent at UC San Diego. The lawfirm of Freeman, Farrell, Hardy & Roake, of which he was the managing partner, was humming along as though it were on autopilot. Hardy looked for a moment into the blue above him, blinking against a wave of emotion. Then, being who he was, his mouth cracked into a small grin at himself and he lifted his glass for another sip. Inside, the telephone rang twice and stopped, which meant that it was someone they knew and that Frannie had picked it up. Her voice, with notes of sympathy and understanding, floated out to him, but he didn't bother trying to make out any of the words. She had begun to have a somewhat thriving career of her own as a Marriage and Family Therapist and often would wind up counseling her clients from home. Hardy drifted, not off to anywhere, but into a kind of surrender of conscious thought. For a long moment, he was simply there in the same way that his drink or his chair existed; or the light, or the breeze off the ocean a little over a mile west of where he sat. So that when the door opened behind him, he came back with a bit of a start. Frannie put a hand on his shoulder and he brought his hand up to cover hers, half-turning, seeing the look on her face. "What's up?" he asked, his feet coming down off the railing. "Are the kids all right?" Always the first concern. She nodded a yes to the second question, then answered the first. "That was Treya." Treya was the wife of Hardy's best friend, Abe Glitsky, the head of San Francisco's homicide department. Anguish in her eyes, Frannie held and released a breath. "It's Zack," she said, referring to Glitsky's three-year-old son. "He's had an accident." * Accompanied by her five-year-old daughter Rachel, Treya Glitsky opened the gate in the Hardys' white picket fence. Dismas Hardy, in his living room watching out through the plantation shutters of his front window, called back to his wife in the kitchen that they were here, then walked over and opened his front door. Treya turned away and, closing the gate, reached down for a small duffel bag. By the way she picked it up, it might have weighed a hundred pounds. When she straightened up, her shoulders rose and fell, then she brought a hand to her forehead and stood completely still for another second or two. With her tiny hand, Rachel held onto the front pocket of her mother's jeans while she looked up at her face, her own lips pressed tight. Hardy crossed his porch and descended three steps to the cement path that bisected his small lawn. The sun had gone down behind the buildings across the street although true dusk was still twenty minutes away. Turning and seeing him now, Treya's legendary composure threatened to break. She was a tall woman—nearly Hardy's size—and strongly built. Her mouth, expressive and normally quick to smile, quivered then set in a line. Hardy came forward, took the duffel bag from her, and put an arm around her neck, drawing her in, holding her for a moment. Finally he stepped back and whispered. "How is he?" She shrugged and shook her head. Then, her voice as quiet as his. "We don't know yet." Frannie came up, touched his shoulder, and came around to hug Treya. Hardy stepped to the side and went down to one knee to face Rachel at her level. "And how's my favorite little girl in the whole world?" "Okay," she said. "But Zack got hit by a car." "I know he did, hon." "But he's not going to die." Hardy looked up at the two women. Treya gave him a quick nod, and he came back to her daughter. "No, of course not. But I hear you're going to stay here for a couple of days while he gets better. Is that okay with you?" "If Mom says." "And she does. Is that duffel bag your stuff? Here, let me get it. If you put your arms around my neck, your old Uncle Diz will carry you inside." Then they were all moving up the path and into the house. "Abe went with the ambulance," Treya was saying. "We don't know how long we're going to have to be down there. I don't know how to thank you for watching Rachel." "Don't be ridiculous," Frannie said. "We love Rachel." She reached out and touched the little girl's cheek where she rested it on Hardy's shoulder. "She's our favorite little girl." * Hardy and Frannie walked Treya out after they got Rachel settled in with cookies and milk in front of the television. They stopped again on the path just inside the fence. "Was he conscious?" Hardy asked. "No." Treya paused, then lowered her voice. "He didn't have his helmet on." "What happened exactly?" Frannie asked. "We may never know," she said. "Abe had just brought down his big wheels bike and Zack was on it, but Abe told him to just sit still and wait a minute while he turned around and got his helmet. Which he'd set down like two feet away on the stairs. But then as soon as his back was turned, Zack got aboard and either started pedalling or just rolling down the driveway just as another car was coming up the street. One of our neighbors. He was only going like five miles an hour but Zack just plowed into him and got knocked off the bike and into the street." She flashed a pained look from Hardy to Frannie. "He banged his head." She hesitated. "I've got to get down there now. You guys are great. Thank you." "Go," Hardy said. "Call when you can." * "The best bit of news," Treya was saying to both of them as they listened on the two extension phones, "is that he's out of his twos. Evidently the younger you are, the worse the prognosis. Three is way better than two. And this is a Level One hospital, so they had a neurological resident in house, which is also lucky since he could go right to work." Her voice, while not by any stretch remotely cheerful, was strong and confident-sounding. Conveying facts, keeping to the bearable news, she was keeping herself together the way she always did, by sucking it up. "They've cooled him down to make him hypothermic," she went on, "which is what they always do, and taken some scans and they've got him on a continuous EEG and his vital signs are good, so that's all heartening." "But he's still unconscious?" Hardy asked. Frannie and Hardy heard Treya's quick intake of breath and flashed their reactions to one another. "Well, that's really not so much of an issue now, since they've induced a coma. He's going to be unconscious for a while. Maybe a week or more." "He's in a coma?" Frannie, before she could stop herself. "It's not as bad as it sounds," Treya said. Silence collected in the line as this bit of horrifying, yet perhaps good, information began to sink in. Finally, Hardy cleared his throat. "So how's Abe?" Treya hesitated. "Quiet. Even for him." "It's not his fault," Frannie said. "I know that. It might not be so clear to him." Again, a stab at an optimistic tone. "He'll get to it." "I know he will," Frannie said. Hardy, not so certain of that, especially if Zachary didn't make it, turned to face away from his wife. The women's words continued to tumble through the phone at his ear, but he didn't hear any of them over his own imaginings—or was it only his pulse, sounding like the tick of a clock counting down the seconds? Chapter 2 Bay Beans West enjoyed a privileged location, location, location at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets in San Francisco. The large, wide-windowed coffee shop had opened in the summer of 1998 and from its first days became a fixture in the neighborhood. It opened every morning except Sunday at 6:00 o'clock, when it opened at 8:00, and stayed open until 10.00. Between the UCSF medical school a couple of blocks east, the University of San Francisco a few blocks north, the tourists visiting the epicenter of the birth of hippiedom, and the vibrant and wildly eclectic local neighborhood, the place rarely had a slow moment, much less an empty one. The smell of its roasting beans infused the immediate vicinity with a beckoning aroma; the management provided copies of the city's newspapers—the Chronicle, the Free Press, and the Bay Guardian—for free on the honor system that they wouldn't be taken. The papers rarely disappeared before three o'clock. Even the homeless honored the custom, except for Crazy Melinda, who used to come in, scoop all the papers up, and try to leave with them. Until the patrons started setting aside a copy of each paper for her at the counter for her to pick up whenever she wanted them. Comfortable, colorful couches were available as well as the usual chairs and tables; the ethic of the place allowed an unlimited time at your seat once you'd claimed it, whether or not you continued to drink coffee; for the past five years or so, customers could avail themselves of free wireless internet service; and legal or not, pets were welcome. For many in the neighborhood, BBW was a refuge, a meeting place, a home away from home. At a few minutes before seven o'clock on this Saturday morning, the usual line of about twenty customers needing their morning infusions of caffeine was already growing along Haight Street at the establishment's front door. A long-haired man named Wes Farrell, in jogging pants and a t-shirt that read "DAM—Mothers Against Dyslexia," stood holding in one hand the hand of his live-in girlfriend, Sam Duncan, and in the other the leash of Gertrude, his boxer. They, like many others in the city that morning, were discussing the homeless problem. For decades, San Francisco has been a haven for the homeless, spending upwards of $150 million per year on shelters, subsidized rental units, medical and psychiatric care, soup kitchens, and so on. Now, suddenly, unexpectedly, and apparently due to a series of articles that had just appeared in the Chronicle, came a widespread outcry among the citizenry that the welcome mat should be removed. Wes finished reading today's article aloud to Sam and, folding up the paper, said, "And about time, too." Sam extracted her hand from his. "You don't mean that." "I don't? I thought I did." "So what do you want to do with them, I mean once you give them a ticket, which by the way they have no money to pay, so that won't work." "What part of that statement, I hesitate to call it a sentence, do you want me to address?" "Any part. Don't be wise." "I'm not. But I'd hate to be the guy assigned to trying to diagram one of your sentences." "You're just trying to get me off the point. Which is what would you do with these homeless people who suddenly are no longer welcome?" "Actually, they're just as welcome. They're just not going to be welcome to use public streets and sidewalks as their campsites and bathrooms anymore." "So where else would they go?" "Are we talking bathrooms? They go to the bathroom in bathrooms, like the rest of us." "The rest of us who have homes, Wes. I think that's more or less the point. They don't." "You're right. But you notice we're loaded with shelters and public toilets." "They don't like the shelters. They're dangerous and dirty." "And the streets aren't? Besides, this may sound like a cruel cliche, my dear, but where do you think we get the expression 'beggars can't be choosers'?" "I can't believe you just said that. That is so, so... " Sam dredged up about the worst epithet she could imagine. "... so right wing." Wes looked down, went to a knee and snapped his fingers, bringing Gertrude close in for a quick pet. "It's all right, girl, your mom and I aren't fighting. We're just talking." Standing up, he said, "She's getting upset." "So am I. If you try to pet me to calm me down, I'll deck you." "There's a tolerant approach. And meanwhile, I hate to say this, but it's not a right wing, left wing issue here. It's a health and quality of life issue. Feces and urine on public streets and playgrounds and parks pose a health risk and are just a little bit of a nuisance, I think we can admit. Are we in accord here?" Sam, arms folded, leaned back against the windows of the coffee shop. unyielding. "Sam," Wes continued, "when I take Gertie out for a walk, I bring a bag to clean up after her. That's for a dog. You really think it's too much to ask the same for humans?" "It's not the same thing." "Why not?" "Because a lot of these people, they have mental problems, too. They don't even know they're doing it, or where." "And so we should just tolerate it? You send your kids out to play and there's a pile of shit on your front stoop? Next thing you know, half a school's got hepatitis. You don't think that's a small problem?" "That's not what's happening." "Sam, that's exactly what's happening. They've got to check the sandbox near the merry-go-round in Golden Gate Park every morning for shit and needles. Some of these people think it's a litter box." "Well, I haven't heard of any hepatitis epidemic. That's way an exaggeration." "The point is the alfresco bathroom kind of thing that's been happening downtown for years. I think you'll remember we had a guy used our front stoop at the office every night for a month. We had to wash the steps down every morning." "There," Sam said. "That was a solution." "It's a ridiculous solution. It's insane. To say nothing about the fact that using the streets for bathrooms punishes innocent, good citizens and devalues property." "Ah hah! I knew property would get in there." "Property's not a bad thing, Sam." "Which is what every Republican in the world believes." "And some Democrats, too. Dare I say most? And for the umpteenth time, Sam, it's not a Republican thing. You can be opposed to Bush and still not want to have people shitting in your flower pots. Those aren't mutually exclusive." "I think they might actually be." "Well, no offense, but you're wrong. Public defecation and homeless encampments on the streets and in the parks are gross and unhealthy and sickening. I don't understand how you can't see that." Sam again shook her head. "I see those poor people suffering. That's what I see. We're got a fire department with miles of hoses. We could deploy them to wash down the streets. The city could get up some work program and hire people to clean up." "What a great idea! Should we pay them to clean up after themselves, or after each other? Except then again, where does the money to do that come from?" "There it is again, money! It always comes down to money." "Well, as a matter of fact, yes, sometimes it does." "The point is, Wes, these people just don't have the same options as everybody else." "And they never will, Sam. That's rough maybe, okay, but it's life. And life's just not fair sometimes. Which doesn't mean everybody else has to deal with their problems. They get rounded up and taken to the shelters whether or not they want to go, and I say it's about time." Without either Sam or Wes noticing, several others in the line, both male and female, had closed in around them, listening in. Now a young hippie spoke up to Wes. "You're right, dude," he said. "It's out of control. It is about time." A chorus of similar sentiments followed. Sam took it all in, straightened up, and looked out into the faces surrounding her. "I just can't believe that I'm hearing this in San Francisco," she said. "I'm so ashamed of all of you." And with that, she pushed her way through the crowd and started walking up Ashbury, away from her boyfriend and their dog. * Sam was the director of San Francisco's Rape Crisis Counseling Center, which also happened to be on Haight Street. Her plan this morning had been to take her early morning constitutional from their home up on Buena Vista with Wes and Gertie, share a cup of coffee and a croissant at BBW, then check in at the office to make sure there hadn't been an overnight crisis that demanded her attention. But now, seething, just wanting to get away from all the reactionaries, she had started out in the wrong direction to get to the Center. Fortunately, the line for the BBW stretched down Haight Street, and not up Ashbury, and she'd gone about half a block uphill when she stopped and turned around, realizing she could take the alley that ran behind the Haight Street storefronts, bypassing the crowd and emerging on the next block on the way to her office. But first she stopped a minute, not just to get her breath, but to try and calm herself. After an extraordinarily rocky beginning to their relationship, she and Wes hadn't had a fight in six or seven years. She'd come to believe that he was her true soul mate and shared her opinions about nearly everything, especially politics. But now, apparently not. It shook her. And okay, she knew that she was among those whom conservatives would include among California's "fruits and nuts." She certainly didn't too often doubt the rightness of her various stances. She was in her early forties, and had seen enough of the world to know that the dollar was the basic problem. The military/industrial complex. Big oil and corporate globalism. Republicans. But here now Wes, who had registered Green and hated the right wingers as much as she did, was arguing for something that she just knew in her heart was wrong. You couldn't just abandon these homeless people who had after all flocked to San Francisco precisely because of the benign political environment. That would be the worst bait and switch tactic she could imagine. She would have to talk to him, but after they'd both calmed down. She crossed back to where she wouldn't be visible to Wes or anyone else in the line as she came back down the hill. It was the kind of clear morning that people tended to expect when they visited San Francisco during the traditional summer months. Those people often left in bitter disappointment at the incessant fog, the general inclemency of the weather. But today the early sun sprayed the rooftops golden. The temperature was already in the low '60s. It was going to be a perfect day. She got to the alley, squinting into the bright morning sun, when here was an example of exactly the thing she and Wes had been talking about—a pair of feet protruded from the backdoor area of BBW. Not wanting to awaken the poor sleeping homeless man, she gave him a wide berth and only a quick glance as she came abreast of where he slept. But something about the attitude of the body stopped her. It didn't seem to be lying in a natural position, the head propped up against the screen door. She couldn't imagine such a posture would be conducive to sleep. Most of the weight seemed to be on his left shoulder, but under that the torso turned in an awkward way so that both feet pointed up, as if he were lying on his back. Moving closer, she noticed a line of liquid tracing itself down over the concrete and pooling in the gap between the cement of the porch and the asphalt of the alley. In the bright morning sunlight, from a distance it could have been water. But another couple of steps brought her close enough to remove any doubt on that score—the glistening wet stuff was red. Leaning over, Sam shaded her eyes against the glare and she saw the man's face; a face she recognized, had expected to see morning behind the counter where he always was at BBW. Her hand, already trembling, went to her mouth.