The Ancient Rain Read Online Free Page B

like a voice in his head. Why now? Are there more arrests coming? How can you reconstruct this, after almost thirty years? As the questioning wore on, the Code Pink people began to wander away, back to their signs at the other end of the plaza.
    Closer by, a woman cried out, “Fascists!” Then she yelled again, “Asshole pigs!”
    She was not with the Code Pink people. Dante had seen her earlier, sitting on a mat just around the corner, an empty tin at her feet. Her hair was unkempt, and she yelled with both hands cupped around her mouth.
    â€œNine-eleven didn’t happen! It’s just an excuse to terrorize the people, to fill us with fear!”
    Some of the Code Pink people started wandering back. Meanwhile Blackwell backed away from the mike. The press conference had ended. The woman continued yelling.
    â€œStooges … patsies. Don’t you know it’s just an excuse…? It’s oil they want, the oil … I have X-ray eyes, I see through you all…”
    The group at the podium broke apart, heading back toward the building. A couple of the Code Pink women, sensing the police’s impatience, stepped in front of the woman, so as to make it more difficult for the police to intervene. The Code Pink women made the police nervous. Many of them were well connected in social circles and had to be handled gingerly.
    Dante separated himself from the scene. He wanted to talk to one of the arresting officers, hoping to find out what had become of Owens’s children. At the entrance to the Burton Building, he got hung up in security, then caught sight of Leanora Chin leaving through an exit on the other side.
    Chin walked briskly and he did not catch up with her until the corner, where she stood waiting for the light.
    â€œExcuse me,” he said.
    She regarded him, businesslike in her blue skirt and blue jacket, her hair done up in a twist. Likely she didn’t remember, but Dante had been in a room with her, maybe fifteen years back, when he was a young cop, at the North Beach Station. Back then she was a homicide cop with notoriety in the neighborhood for having arrested a local man accused of murdering his brother’s wife.
    â€œYou’re with the press?”
    â€œNo,” he said. “I prefer not to talk with them if I can help it.” He identified himself and handed her a card. “Bill Owens called me from the Bay Bridge this morning. And asked me to find his kids.”
    A couple of patrolmen on mop-up duty lingered up the block. Chin glanced their way, as if she might gesture them over if this man in front of her proved to be a nuisance.
    â€œWhat did you say your name was?”
    He repeated it. If it meant anything to her, she did not show it. She was with San Francisco Homeland, he knew—a division carved up out of the local police force and given federal money. Before Homeland, she had been with Special Investigations. Dante had gotten involved with SI in the past—an ugly business, undercover, growing out of his time in New Orleans. All buried deep in the files. Or it was supposed to be, anyway. Even so, there were other reasons the San Francisco cops didn’t care for him. If she knew anything about any of this, it didn’t show in her face.
    â€œThe kids…” he said again.
    She stepped back, appraising him, and Dante became aware of the patrolmen still back there, hovering.
    â€œI was occupied with the arrest. At the scene, we allowed the subject to make a call, but apparently he was having trouble with his phone. So I turned the children over to the care of one of the patrolmen on the scene.”
    â€œDo you know his name?”
    â€œMy understanding, the officer took them to school.”
    â€œSchool?”
    â€œThe officer drove them to their school. It was either take them home, or to the station—and the girl wanted to go to school.”
    Chin smiled, a faint smile, as if bemused or troubled, he