30

When I reached the McCabes’ condominium, Hollis was home. He’d gone over to the police station, where he filed the missing person’s report on his son, and then called his secretary to tell her he wouldn’t be in. The three of us sat down in the living room. Just in case the forthcoming conversation wasn’t going to be difficult enough, Lauren hadn’t told Hollis she’d fired me. When I repeated the terms I’d laid out for my continued employment, he had no idea what I was talking about. We spent ten minutes sorting out the details, which seemed to make Hollis cranky. What a surprise.

Lauren was busy smoothing things over. “You’ll want to see his room,” she said. “Maybe you can figure out where he went.”

Given that I’d never stepped a foot in Fritz’s room, I couldn’t see the point, but we were all now on our best behavior and I was pretending to be agreeable.

Lauren showed me in, saying, “I’ll leave you to look around.”

She left, closing the door behind her. My guess was that she and Hollis would engage in a low-level argument, probably a continuation of the one sparked by the discovery that Fritz had forged his mother’s signature and walked away with twenty-five thousand in cash. Their murmured conversation in the living room had a rising and falling tone to it that reminded me why I’m so happy to be single.

Fritz’s room was not what I expected. I’d tagged him as spoiled and overindulged, so I’d assumed he’d have the best of everything and lots of it: his own phone and answering machine, a television set, stereo components, cameras, tennis rackets, skis, a surfboard, skateboards, guitars, and whatever else a young lad like him might consider essential. I was right about the phone and answering machine and wrong about everything else. His room was as plain as a jail cell, which made a certain amount of sense. Lauren was right about his closet being crammed, but only because she and Hollis had moved every article he owned before he went off to prison. The hangers were packed together so tightly, it was hard to determine what was there, let alone what he might have removed. Most of the garments had all the sophistication of a fifteen-year-old’s taste, roughly his age when the legal bombshells started going off in his face. His life had come to an abrupt halt for eight years and now that he was home, all the items of clothing he owned were outdated, out of style, and probably too small.

No books, no school texts, no magazines, no photographs, no artwork, no records, no cassettes, no Sony Walkman, no personal correspondence. No trash in the trash can. There was nothing out of place because he had so little in the way of possessions. In the bathroom, I saw his safety razor, his deodorant, his toothbrush and toothpaste arranged on the glass shelf above his sink. In the shower, his Mickey Mouse soap-on-a-rope dangled from the shower fixture. In the medicine cabinet, a bottle of aspirin and an unopened box of assorted Band-Aids. To me, it didn’t look like he’d left with any of the usual toiletries. As for changes of clothing, I had no way to guess.

I circled his room again and studied the phone and his answering machine. No indication he had messages, but I pressed Play nonetheless. A mechanical fellow wholly without enthusiasm assured me Fritz had no messages. I opened and closed his desk drawers but found nothing of interest. To demonstrate how thoroughly an investigator of my caliber proceeds in such matters, I got down on my hands and knees and peeked under the bed. I also inspected the underside of drawers in his chest of drawers, the interior and the back of the toilet tank, and the space between his mattress and his box spring. For the first time, I felt sorry for him. Not that he needed my pity or my dismay, but I knew now how small his life had become.

•   •   •

When I emerged from Fritz’s room, Hollis was standing at the wet bar, fixing himself a drink. It was two in the afternoon, which for all I knew was the usual cocktail hour for him. “So, Sherlock, did you find any clues?” Hollis asked. “Any secret messages written in invisible ink?” The jocular tone barely disguised his belligerence.

“I don’t need secret messages. Either he was delivering the twenty-five thousand to the extortionist or he was taking it for himself,” I said.

“Of course he was taking it for himself,” Hollis snapped. “Are you just now figuring that out? Lauren can’t accept the fact, but it seems obvious to me.”

“All he had to do was ask,” she said. “We’d have given him the money if we knew it meant so much to him.”

“We wouldn’t have given him a cent! Kid gets out of prison and thinks he’s entitled to a lump sum? For doing what?”

I closed my eyes briefly, wishing I could click my heels and be somewhere else. This was exactly the reason I didn’t want to work for these people.

Hollis turned to me. “It would have been nice if you’d come up with the insight before the kid ripped us off.”

“She did,” Lauren said, blinking back tears. “I didn’t want to hear it.”

“Why are you getting all emotional? Big boo-hoo. Do we have to go through this again?” he said.

I raised a hand. “All I did was suggest the possibility. In the meantime, it doesn’t look like he left with any of his personal belongings. Certainly not with his toiletries, which suggests he didn’t expect to be gone long.”

“Well, at least now you’re earning your keep. That’s a refreshing turnabout,” he said.

“I can do without the sarcasm, Hollis, if you don’t mind,” I said. I’d already been fired once, so being fired a second time was of no consequence. Turned out there was no danger there because both of them ignored my comment.

“We should have gone to the police in the first place,” Lauren said. “Fritz has taken matters into his own hands and he’s going to make a mess of it.”

“It’s already a mess!” Hollis said.

“I don’t think it’s too late to talk to law enforcement,” Lauren said. “He’ll just have to take what’s coming to him. Here we are, trying to protect him and we’re only making matters worse.”

“How can it get worse? Fritz has already stolen the money. We don’t even know where he is.”

My gaze settled on the answering machine that sat on a side table inside the arch between the foyer and the living room. “Mind if I check that?”

“What for? If there were messages, the light would be blinking,” Hollis said.

“I’m interested in the old ones,” I said. “Iris came into my office this morning to report seeing Austin twice this past week. She also mentioned that the extortionist had left a message for Fritz on your machine. I checked the one in his room and there’s nothing on it.”

I glanced at Lauren and she shrugged, giving me the okay.

I crossed to the machine and pressed Play. The mechanical butler who handles these matters assured me there were no new messages. He went on to say, “You have ten old messages.”

As I continued to hold down the Play button, the machine said, “Message one.” There was a beep. “Lauren, sweetie, this is Florence. I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to make it Tuesday night.”

Florence was explaining why she and Dale couldn’t make it when Lauren cut in, saying, “You can erase that.”

I dutifully pressed Delete and the mechanical butler started again at the beginning of the amended sequence. “Message one.” Beep. “Mr. McCabe, this is Harley at Richard’s Auto Care. Your Mercedes is ready. Let us know if you want the shuttle to pick you up.”

I looked to Hollis, who frowned impatiently. “Erase,” he said, gesturing with his drink.

I deleted the message and pressed Play. We went on in this fashion through seven more old messages, none of which were significant. The last was as follows: “Yo, Fritz. Hope you recognize this voice from your past. Enough with the bullshit excuses. It’s pay-or-play time. I want that money, so you better find a way to get it. I’ll pick you up at the corner of State and Aguilar Friday at noon. If you’re not there, good luck, pal. Your life’s going to get very, very tough.”

Hollis’s expression shifted from impatience to dismay. “Who the hell is that?”

“Austin is my best guess,” I said. “The second time Iris saw him was Friday around noon, driving up State. She thought he had a passenger, but she couldn’t see who it was. The timing would have coincided with the instructions about Fritz being downtown.”

“You’re saying Austin’s behind this?” Lauren asked.

“Looks that way.”

“Do you think he’s had the tape all this time?”

Hollis said, “Who cares? Either he’s had it or he knew where it was and came back to collect. Whatever the case, that dumb cluck son of yours has just handed twenty-five thousand bucks to a fugitive, so you can kiss that cash good-bye.”

“It’s not about the money,” Lauren said.

“You say that now, but that’s not what you were saying when this business came up.”

“You think you haven’t changed your tune? If we’d talked to the FBI in the first place, we wouldn’t be in the trouble we’re in.”

“I don’t know where you get that. If we’d gone to the authorities, Fritz would be in jail.”

“You don’t know that and neither do I,” she said.

“Well, at least we wouldn’t be out the twenty-five grand. We could have used that as a retainer for a hot-shot defense attorney to get us out of this.”

I said, “Hey! The bickering isn’t going to get us anywhere. I’ll need a recent photograph of Fritz. I’ll show his picture to ticket agents at the bus station, train station, and the airport and see if anyone remembers selling him a ticket.”

•   •   •

In the car on my way home, I reviewed their discussion about the time frame for the pivotal call, which might have come in at any point in the last ten days. Neither of them was in the habit of checking messages. Fritz had made his trip to the bank Friday morning and hadn’t been seen since. It looked like the extortionist was Austin Brown. I wasn’t convinced, but I really had no reason to doubt the report. The point was Fritz met someone Friday at noon and it was Tuesday afternoon now. If they’d left town together, they had a four-day head start. How far would twenty-five thousand take them? Austin didn’t strike me as a guy who’d share, so he’d probably dump Fritz before too much time had passed.

I circled my neighborhood twice and found a parking spot a block and a half away. On the walk to the studio, I decided I’d better carve out time for my three-mile jog. I bent down and plucked the afternoon paper from the sidewalk as I let myself through the gate. On the front page, there was the same black-and-white photograph of Ned Lowe I’d seen on the STPD bulletin. The recap that ran below the picture summed up Ned’s criminal history.

Authorities are hunting for a California man they say assaulted and severely injured a Perdido resident before fleeing the area on Saturday, September 23. Identity of the victim is being withheld pending notification of her kin. Ned Lowe, 55, was last seen on Monday in downtown Santa Teresa, where he emptied a can of gasoline against the side of a bungalow in an attempt to set fire to the structure. Evidence suggests that he had been living in the crawl space under the small office building for a week before his presence was discovered. The occupant fired shots that are believed to have struck the fugitive shortly before he escaped on foot. Lowe is wanted in connection with the deaths of five teenaged girls in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas over the past six years. He is also a person of interest in the death of his first wife, Lenore Redfern Lowe, in Burning Oaks, California, in 1961.

The California Highway Patrol said Lowe is believed to be driving a stolen 1988 red Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with a California license plate LADY CPA. Lowe is described as Caucasian, 5 feet 11 inches tall, and weighing 195 pounds.

That should turn up the heat, I thought.

It bugged me that the manager of the condominium hadn’t acted swiftly to change the locks on Phyllis’s apartment. From what Erroll said, Ned had worked his way through every moving carton she had on hand and had then torn up the rest of the place. Seemed logical to assume he hadn’t found what he was looking for. If he had, he’d have hightailed it out of town on his way to find Celeste. Assuming she still had his souvenirs, of course. The press had alerted the public to the dangers of this man on the loose. Between that and his festering gunshot wound, he’d be looking for another place to hole up.

I changed into my sweats and walked to Cabana Boulevard, where the bike path paralleled the beach. I chunked my way through the first half mile, feeling rusty and unenthusiastic. My muscles were still in a state of shock from my self-defense class the day before. The afternoon was a pretty one with temps in the low seventies and a breeze whipping up whitecaps out on the ocean. For the time being, I set aside the specter of Ned and focused on another problem.

In my conversation with Henry, he’d brought up an interesting point, that being that Anna’s views of motherhood were, in part, the function of her exposure to parental attitudes that were largely negative. Her brother, Ethan, and her sister, Ellen, had six children between them. Ellen seemed to be happily married, but her life was weighted down by exhaustion. I hadn’t met her three kids during my brief time in Bakersfield, but from what I’d seen of her, she wasn’t radiant with maternal love. Ethan’s marriage was less than ideal, and while I respected his parenting, the presence of his children put a damper on his pursuit of his career. In a little Bakersfield bar, I’d watched him perform, accompanying himself on the guitar while he sang. The transformation was stunning. I could see that being confined to Bakersfield would limit his chances of being picked up by an agent or a record company. As far as I knew, Anna had neither talent nor ambition, but she had dreams of a better life, and to her way of thinking, children were nothing more than an impediment.

It occurred to me that my friend Vera, with her five gorgeous, well-behaved kiddy-winks, might be the perfect role model for Anna to contemplate while she pondered her choices. When I finished the run, I showered, dressed, and then put in a call to Vera, explaining the situation.

“I’d love for Anna to see you in action,” I said. “She equates motherhood with the end of life as we know it. She actually talks about loading her coat pockets with rocks and walking into the river. Not that we have one around here . . .”

“Got it. No problem. Round her up and bring her over by five. The twins should be home from school by then—”

“Wait a minute. Scott and Travis are in school? That can’t be true. The twins are only six months old.”

“I’m being facetious, dear. If you’ll remember, you didn’t meet Abigail until she was a year and a half.”

“But I met the twins months ago! I knit both of them those booties with the teddy bears on the soles.”

“So you did and they were adorable. I had no idea you possessed such homely skills. Anyway, Neil is on call tonight, so he won’t be home till late and dinner’s anything we choose. Get here in the next hour and she can witness feeding time. It’s better than the zoo.”

I locked up and then trotted the three doors down to Moza Lowenstein’s house, where I knocked on the door. When Moza appeared, I remembered she was not only hard of hearing, but still under the impression I was soon to be great with child. I didn’t have time to set the record straight. “I’m looking for Anna. Is she in?”

“She’s taking a nap.”

“At this hour? It’s nearly dinnertime. Was she up late last night?”

“I don’t know what she ate last night.”

“Why don’t I go rouse her myself?” I said as I proceeded down the hall.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she said, but I was already halfway to Anna’s room. Moza followed me, looking on uneasily as I knocked on her bedroom door, then opened it and stuck my head in. “Hey. We have a dinner date. I want you to meet a friend.”

Anna sat up in bed and pushed a tangle of dark hair away from her eyes. She wore an oversize tatty T-shirt in a robin’s-egg blue, which of course looked fetching on her. “Is this a joke?”

“I don’t have a sense of humor, Anna.”

“Who’s the friend?”

“Vera Hess. She lives in that gray Victorian house next door to Cheney’s. You’ve probably seen her.”

“The big blonde,” she said. “She intimidates the shit out of me.”

“Oh pooh. She’s great. You’ll love her to pieces. Now, come on. You even have time to shower if you make it quick.”

•   •   •

When we arrived at Vera’s back door, it was close to five thirty. I knocked once and let us in. Vera doesn’t believe in guests knocking or ringing the bell because it forces her to drop whatever she’s doing and come running. Her three older children, Peter, Meg, and Abigail—ages five, three, and almost two, respectively—were in the kitchen, seated at a little white wooden table with matching chairs. The twins were in their infant seats nearby, both of them asleep, their dark hair faintly damp. All of them were clean and scrubbed, already in the kind of pajamas you’ve seen in children’s catalogues featuring sleepwear no ordinary mortal can afford. They were eating their dinner, which in the case of Peter, Meg, and Abigail consisted of grilled cheese sandwiches and cups of tomato soup, my personal favorite.

Vera does have “help,” I have to be honest about that. Mavis was at the stove tending the soup, which was close to simmering and smelled divine. Vera was in charge of the grilled cheese sandwiches. Anna and I sat at the counter looking on. I could see why Anna would be intimidated. Vera was a force of nature and seemed to do everything well. I’d worked with her at California Fidelity Insurance in the “olden” days when she was single, smoked cigarettes, and drank bottles of Coca-Cola she kept in a little cooler behind her desk. She’d tried to fix me up with her now-husband, Dr. Neil Hess, a charming general practitioner whom she felt was too short for her. I could see they were smitten with each other and I confess I played Cupid, which mostly consisted of Vera being furious with me in the ladies’ room at work because she thought I’d been flirting with Neil.

“How’s it going?” she asked Anna.

“Not well,” Anna said.

“Kinsey filled me in on your situation. She thought you ought to see motherhood in action, so here it is,” Vera said.

I raised a tentative hand, wanting to protest. I hadn’t expected Vera to take so direct an approach. I pictured subtlety, Anna gradually taking in Vera’s competence and her love of her job. Vera had had her children comparatively late in life and she’d adapted to motherhood as though she’d been born with a gift. I thought Vera would be the perfect antidote to Anna’s view of babies as poisonous. Vera’s children were beautiful, cheerful, good-natured, and cooperative. When they finished their dinner, the older three took their plates and bowls to Mavis at the sink, handing them over with a pretty “Thank you.” This wasn’t as obnoxious and syrupy as it sounds.

Vera produced crayons and coloring books and the three sat down again and began to scribble vigorously. Peter was industrious, Meg precise, and Abigail was the clown. I was watching them with frank appreciation, so it took me a moment to tune into what Vera was actually saying. “Oh yeah. Most of the time they drive me nuts. You can imagine having the lot of them age five and under. I’m lucky I get a shower in every third day. This is them being good, which I’m happy to report occurs sometimes as often as once a week. Wait until one of them comes down with a cold. Then they’re all sick as dogs, including me and sometimes Mavis. Right, Mav?”

Mavis said, “Amen.”

“I don’t know your feelings about termination,” Vera went on, conversationally. “What’s your current thinking?”

“I’m still debating,” Anna said.

“I can offer you an alternative,” Vera said. “I was hoping to have one more, but I’m getting a little long in the tooth and Neil’s not that happy with the idea of me being as big as a house again with milk squirting out of my jugs. Good news is he’s not opposed to adding a kid, so if you decide to go through with the pregnancy, you might consider the notion of open adoption.”

“Give the baby up?” Anna said.

“To the perfect family, which you’re looking at. Next door to Cheney, so you could see the baby as much or as little as you want. My kids get a sister or brother out of the deal and everybody’s good.”

“I don’t know,” Anna said with uncertainty. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”

“It’s a possibility to factor in,” Vera said, ever practical. “Travis and Scott will be fifteen months old by the time yours comes along. The age difference is ideal.”

I raised my hand again. “Vera?” I said, cutting into her proposal. “Jonah has a say in this, don’t you think?”

Vera waved dismissively. “Men don’t care about these things.”

“Well, he does,” I said. “He’s already got three great kids and he’s crazy about them. He’s nuts about Anna and he’s looking forward to having one with her.” I hadn’t spoken to Jonah on the subject, so I was making this up, but it sounded right.

“Forget Jonah. How much do you think he’ll pitch in? Nada. So let’s focus on Anna. The choice is hers. That’s where we started, with you telling me she was going to load her pockets with stones and jump off a bridge.”

“You told her that?” Anna said with a sudden look at me. “I can’t believe you’d mention it.”

“You’re the one who said it,” I remarked defensively.

“I was joking!”

“Sorry.” I could feel the heat mount in my cheeks. I couldn’t believe the abrupt right-hand turn the conversation had taken.

Vera said, “Don’t sweat it. I’ve felt that way myself early on. You’ll go through all kinds of emotions. Eventually things work out. Jonah might not be as opposed as you’d think. I mean, he knows us. Might be a win-win for everyone while he sorts himself out with Camilla. Change your mind, it’s no big deal. All I’m saying is, consider it when you’re weighing your options.”

“No, I like that. I appreciate your perspective,” Anna said.

Shortly after that, Mavis took the three older children upstairs to the playroom while Vera, Anna, and I ate our sandwiches and soup. Vera and Anna were chatting delightedly while I tried to remember the point at which my plan had gone so far wrong. It always comes back to the notion of doing a good deed, which I’ve known for years is the definition of disaster in the making.