by Sue Grafton
At 4:00 I presented myself at Liza Clements’s front door. The house itself was plain, a long wood-frame box with a nondescript porch built across the front. The Santa Maria neighborhood was nicely maintained, but it had seen better days. Trees and shrubs had grown too large for the lots, but no one had had the nerve to cut them down. Consequently, the yards were dark and the windows were obscured by evergreens that towered above the rooflines. The shade created a chilliness that seemed to shroud all the houses on the block.
The woman who answered the door looked much younger than her years. She wore tennis shoes, baggy pants, and a double-breasted white chef ’s jacket that buttoned across the front. Her fair hair was shoulder-length, parted down the middle, and pulled back behind her ears. She had blue eyes, wide straight brows, and a wide mouth. Her complexion was pale and creamy, with a smattering of freckles across her nose. She wore a silver heart-shaped locket that glinted in the V of her shirt. She stood and looked at me blankly. “Yes?”
“You’re Liza?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Kinsey Millhone.”
It took another half a beat before she remembered who I was and then she put a hand to her mouth. “I’d forgotten you were coming. I’m so sorry. Please come in.”
“Is this an okay time?”
“Fine. I didn’t mean to cut you short yesterday, but I was halfway down the walk when I heard the phone ring.”
I stepped into a living room that was ten feet by twelve, furnished out of Pier 1 Imports with very little money but a good eye for design: wicker, plump Indonesian tan-and-black block-print pillows, a reed rug on the floor, and lots of houseplants that, on a second glance, turned out to be fakes.
“No problem. Thanks for seeing me today. Are you a chef?”
“Not with any formal training. I bake as a hobby, but I’ve been doing it for years. I make wedding cakes in the main, but just about anything else you’d want. Why don’t you have a seat?”
I took one of the white wicker chairs with sturdy canvas cushions forming both the seat and the back. “My landlord was a commercial baker in his working days. He’s retired now, but he still bakes every chance he gets. Your house smells like his—vanilla and hot sugar.”
“I’ve lived with it so long I don’t even notice it. I guess it’s like working in a brewery. Your nose eventually goes dead. My husband always thought that was just how our house smelled.”
“You’re married?”
“Not now. I’ve been divorced for six years. He owns a party rental business in town. We’re still good friends.”
“You have kids?”
“One boy,” she replied. “Kevin and his wife, Marcy, are expecting their first baby, a little girl, sometime in the next ten days unless the little bugger’s late. They’re naming her Elizabeth, after me, though they plan to call her Libby.” Her fingers moved to the silver locket, touching it as though for luck.
“You look too young to be a grandmother.”
“Thanks. I can hardly wait,” she said. “What can I help you with?”
“Daisy Sullivan’s hired me in hopes of finding her mother.”
“That’s what I heard. You talked to Kathy Cramer earlier.”
“Nice woman,” I lied, hoping God wouldn’t rip my tongue out.
She smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear. “I wish you luck. I’d love to know where Violet ended up. She changed the course of my life.”
“Really. For better or for worse?”
“Oh, for better. No question. She was the first adult who ever took an interest in me. What a revelation. I’d grown up in Serena Station, which has to be one of the crappiest little places on earth. Have you seen it?”
“Daisy showed me around. It’s like a ghost town.”
“Now it is. Back then, a lot more people lived there, but everyone was so boring and conventional. Violet was like a breath of fresh air, if you’ll pardon the cliché. She didn’t give a hoot about obeying the rules and she didn’t care what other people thought about her. She was such a free spirit. She made everybody else seem stodgy and dull by comparison.”
“You’re the first person I’ve talked to who’s had anything nice to say.”
“I was her lone defender even back then. I can see now she had a self-destructive streak. She was impulsive, or maybe ‘reckless’ is the better word. People were attracted to her and repelled at the same time.”
“How so?”
“I think she reminded them of all the things they wanted but didn’t have the courage to pursue.”
“Was she happy?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. She was desperate to get away. She was sick of being poor and sick of Foley’s knocking her around.”
“So you believe she left town?”
She blinked at me. “Of course.”
“How’d she manage it?”
“The way she managed everything else. She knew what she wanted and she outfoxed anyone who got in her way.”
“Sounds ruthless.”
“Again, that’s a matter of semantics. I’d say ‘determined,’ but it sometimes amounts to the same thing. It about broke my heart that she left without saying good-bye. Then again, I had to say ‘Go and God bless.’ I wasn’t that articulate at fourteen, but that’s how I felt. I couldn’t bear it for my sake, but I was glad for her. Do you know what I mean? She saw a chance and she took it. A door flew open and she zipped right through. I admired her for that.”
“You must have missed her.”
“It was awful at first. We always talked about everything and suddenly she was gone. I was crushed.”
“What’d you do?”
“What could I do? I learned to get by on my own.”
“She never got in touch?”
“No, but I was so sure she would. Even if it was a postcard with one line, or no message at all. A postmark would have been sufficient. Anything to let me know she’d made it to wherever. I used to imagine her in Hawaii, or Vermont—someplace completely different than this. I haunted the mailbox for months, but I guess she couldn’t take the chance.”
“I don’t see how a postcard could have put her in jeopardy.”
“You’re wrong about that. Sonia, the woman at the post office, would’ve spotted it when she was sorting the mail. I wouldn’t have told a soul, but word would’ve gotten out. Sonia was a blabbermouth, which Violet well knew.”
“You were the last person who had any substantial contact with her.”
“I know and I’ve thought about that night. It runs like a loop in my head. You ever get a song on your brain and no matter what you do, it keeps playing and playing? That’s how it is with her. Even now. Well, maybe not so much now. The images do fade, but you know what? I smell violet cologne and bang, she’s there again. It brings tears to my eyes.”
“Did it ever cross your mind something might have happened to her?”
“You mean, foul play? People talked about that, but I didn’t believe it for a minute.”
“Why not? You’d seen what Foley did to her. Didn’t it occur to you she might have come to grief?”
She shook her head. “I thought it was something else. I was there earlier that day and saw these brown paper bags sitting on the chair. I recognized some of her favorite things on top and I asked her what she was doing. She said she’d cleaned out her closet and the stuff was going to Goodwill. Well, that seemed looney even at the time. Later—this was after she was gone—it occurred to me that she’d been packing.”
“To go where?”
“I don’t know. A friend’s house? There must have been some place.”
I blinked. “Did she say anything to that effect?”
“Not a word. Foley was gone—I don’t know where—and I’d gone over to the house to hang out. She went on talking about something else so I let it drop.”
“How come this is the first I’ve heard of it? I’ve read all the articles about Violet, but I didn’t see a reference to any bags
of clothes.”
“I don’t know what to say. I told the sheriff ’s deputies, but they acted like they didn’t want to hear. By then they were busy quizzing Foley about where he was on Saturday night. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it. I figured since she hadn’t mentioned it, she didn’t want anyone to know.”
“But you had to think someone would have been in touch with the authorities once word got out that she was considered a missing person. Surely someone could have contacted the police without compromising her safety.”
“Exactly, but the papers ran the story twice and no one came forward, so then I figured I must have made a mistake. She might have left town instead.”
“And that’s what you told them?”
“Well, no. I got worried that if they thought she’d run off, they’d put up road blocks or something.”
“What for? She was an adult. If she left of her own accord, they’d have no right to interfere. Cops aren’t in the business of chasing runaway spouses, assuming that’s what she did.” I was trying not to sound accusatory. She’d been fourteen years old and the account she was giving me was her adolescent reasoning, untempered by later maturity or insight.
“Oh. I guess what you’re saying makes sense, but I didn’t understand it at the time. Foley was a basket case by then, and I didn’t want him hearing about it either, for fear he’d go after her.”
“But this was what, five or six days later? She could have been in Canada by then.”
“Exactly. I thought the bigger head start she had, the safer she’d be.”
Inwardly I was rolling my eyes. “It didn’t bother you that your silence left Foley on the hot seat?”
“He put himself there. I didn’t do anything to him.”
“He’s always maintained she ran off. You could have backed him up.”
“Why would I help him? He beat her up for years and no one ever said a word. She finally got away from him and good for her. He could stew in his own juices as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t going to lift a hand.”
“I’m curious why you’d tell me when you never mentioned it before. Reporters must have asked.”
“I wasn’t under any obligation to them. For one thing, I don’t like journalists. What do they call themselves…‘investigative reporters.’ Oh, please. Like they think they’ll get a Pulitzer out of the deal. They’re rude, and half the time they treated me like I was on the witness stand. All they cared about was selling papers and promoting themselves.”
“What about the sheriff ’s department? You didn’t think to go back and set the record straight?”
“No way. By then they’d made such a federal case of it I was scared to say a word. I’m willing to admit it now because I’m fond of Daisy and I’m glad she’s doing this.”
I thought about it briefly, wondering how this fit in with what I knew. “Something else came up today. Winston Smith told me he saw her car out on New Cut Road that night. This was sometime before the fireworks ended because he could hear ’em in the distance. He didn’t see Violet or the dog, but he knew the Bel Air. I can’t understand why she wasn’t gone by then if she’d left the house at six fifteen.”
Liza shook her head. “I can’t help you there. How does that fit in?”
“I have no idea.”
“So why didn’t he bring it up before? You talk about me keeping quiet. He could have said something years ago.”
“He did. He mentioned it to Kathy and she shrugged it off. It was one of those occasions where the longer he kept quiet, the harder it was for him to speak up. If she’d given him any encouragement, he might have passed the information on.”
Liza’s expression held a tinge of distaste. “I’m not sure how much credence you can give him. He and Kathy are having a hard time. He’d probably say anything to make her look bad.”
“Maybe so, but the point is it shores up Foley’s claim.”
“I never said Foley killed her. Just the opposite.”
“But a lot of people thought he did. His life has been ruined. The point is, with the car all the way out there and him at the park, how’s he going to kill her and get away with it?”
“Dumb luck, I guess.”
“I’m serious.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be flippant.”
“Am I overlooking something here?”
Her gaze shifted to the floor and I could see her running the possibilities through her mind. “Not that I believe this, but just for the sake of argument, what if she was already dead by then?”
“That’s not out of the question,” I said. “But if Foley was the one who killed her, how’d he pull it off? He was at the park until the fireworks ended, then he went to the Moon. How’s he going to get out there, get rid of her body, and then dispose of the Bel Air. He doesn’t have transportation because he’s traded in his truck and she’s driving the only car they own.”
“He could have borrowed a car or even stolen one. He drives out and buries her. What’s so hard about that?”
“But then he’s stuck with two cars, the Bel Air and the one he borrowed or stole. You said he came in after midnight, but the timing’s still too tight. What’d he do with her car? If he drove it off a cliff or pushed it down a ravine, he still has to walk back to the stolen-slash-borrowed car, pick that up, and drive home. It’s too elaborate and it’s way too labor intensive. It would have taken him all night.”
I saw a tint of pink rise in her cheeks. She said, “You really don’t even know if she was there. You’re just arguing for the sake of it. She could have abandoned her car and gone off with someone else.”
“Ah. You’re right about that. I like that. But then what? A car thief conveniently arrives and makes off with her Bel Air?”
Liza was getting impatient. “Oh, who knows? I don’t even care by now. I care what happened to her, but not the car.”
“All right. Skip that. Let’s go back to your point and say she ran off with some guy. Any idea who?”
“I never saw her with anyone. Besides, I’m not sure I’d tell you even if I had.”
“You still feel protective?”
“Yes, I guess I do. If there was a guy and they figured out who, it might tip them off to where she went.”
“I thought you said you wanted to help Daisy. If you have any ideas, it’d be nice to hear.”
“I didn’t say that. I said I was glad she was doing this for her sake. It’s not like I’m withholding information. I mean, what if Violet doesn’t want to be found? Shouldn’t she be left in peace?”
“Unfortunately, Daisy’s interests and her mother’s may not coincide.”
“Look, all I know is I don’t like being put in the middle like this. I’ve told you as much as I know. The rest of it is your problem. I hope Daisy gets what she wants, but not at Violet’s expense.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I guess in the long run, it’s theirs to deal with. I’ll find her if I can. What the two of them do with it is up to them. Daisy’s struggling with the notion of rejection. She doesn’t want to think her mother walked off and left her without a backward glance.”
“Violet wasn’t necessarily rejecting her. Maybe she was saying yes to something else.”
“Bottom line in that case? She put her interests above Daisy’s.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time a woman did that. Sometimes the choices are hard. If she had a guy and he was really good for her, it might have been worth the price. I don’t mean to keep defending her, but the poor woman isn’t here to defend herself.”
“That’s fine. I understand. She meant a lot to you.”
“Correction. Not ‘a lot.’ She meant everything to me.”
“Which puts you and Daisy in the same boat.”
“Not quite. I didn’t think I’d recover, but here I am and life goes on. Daisy should learn to do the same.”
“Maybe she’ll get to that one day, but for now she feels stuck.” There was a momentary pause while I roam
ed over the stories I’d heard, looking for something else. I’m sure she was wishing I’d leave her alone. “What happened to your boyfriend?”
“What?”
“Your boyfriend. Weren’t you going steady with a guy back then?”
“That was Ty Eddings. How’d you hear about that?”
“Somebody mentioned him. I forget now who. We were talking about all the stuff that went on in the same time frame. The two of you broke up, right?”
“More or less. He left the day after Violet.”
“Because?”
“I have no idea. I mean, it’s not like we had a falling out. Sunday morning, we were going to meet and spend the day together. Instead, his mother drove in from Bakersfield and hauled him off. I never heard from him again.”
“That’s a tough one.”
“Yes, it was. He was the love of my life. He was a bad boy, but so adorable. I was crazy about him. He was seventeen—three years older than me. He’d been in trouble—truancy and poor grades—things like that. His parents sent him to Serena Station so he could start fresh. I thought he was doing fine.”
“There was no relationship between him and Violet?”
“You mean like he’s the one she ran off with?”