by Sue Grafton
“If you buy into it,” I said.
“That’s my job—promoting the concept. Coaxing the gullible into taking the bait.”
“So why don’t you quit and do something else? No one has a gun to your head.”
“I’m fifty-four years old, a little long in the tooth for any big career change. Can I buy you lunch?”
“In matters of food, you can always count me in.”
I pictured McDonald’s, but then I was always picturing McDonald’s. I’d take a Quarter Pounder with Cheese over just about any other foodstuff on earth.
He drove us across town and pulled into a supermarket parking lot where a fellow and his wife had set up a portable barbeque that was attached to a camper shell. The rolling metal rig was black, about the size of a double-wide utility sink, with a pulley and chain that allowed for the raising and lowering of a rack. Chunks of meat had been laid on the grill over hot coals, and the smoky smell of charred beef filled the air. To one side, buttered rolls had been cut in half and placed on the grill.
A steady stream of cars was turning into the lot, taking advantage of the numerous empty parking spaces. On a card table, I could see piles of paper napkins, paper plates, plastic cutlery, and numerous plastic tubs of salsa and beans. Nearby three portable picnic tables were set up with aluminum lawn chairs. An ice chest contained cold cans of soda for a quarter apiece.
We parked as close as we could and eased into a line that was easily twenty-five people long. The wait was worth it, and I made no attempt to tidy up my manners as we ate.
“Geez, how do they do this? It’s great!” I said with my mouth half-full.
“Santa Maria barbecue. That’s tri-tip,” he said. “You rub it with salt, pepper, and garlic salt, and cook it over red oak.”
“Fabulous.”
Both of us licked our fingers before opening the moist towelette packets provided with the meal. When my hands were clean, I said, “Thanks. What a treat.”
“You’re welcome.”
We walked back to his car, freeing up our lawn chairs for the people waiting to sit down. We lingered outside his car while he lit his aftermeal cigarette. His thin candy-coating of mirth had dropped away and something darker had emerged. This was not a happy man. There was a heaviness about him that seemed to taint the very air. Apropos of nothing, he held up his cigarette. “Know why I’m doing this?”
“She won’t let you smoke inside.”
He flicked a look at me. “How’d you know?”
“I was in the house. No ashtrays.”
“She runs a tight ship.”
“A lot of people feel that way about smoking,” I said mildly, not mentioning that I was one.
“Hey, don’t I know it. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that.”
I didn’t ask what “that” he was referring to. Instead I said, “Fine. We can talk about Violet, then.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “She was a tramp.”
Kathy had used the same term. I said, “Come on. Everybody says she was a tramp. Tell me something I haven’t heard.”
I watched his face, wondering what was going on behind his eyes.
He studied the bright ember of his cigarette. “Kathy’s jealous of her.”
“Is or was?”
“Is.”
“That takes some doing. Violet’s been gone for thirty-four years.”
“Try telling her that.”
“I thought they barely knew each other.”
“Not quite true. Liza Mellincamp was Kathy’s best friend. Then Violet came along and Liza got caught up in the Sullivan family drama. Liza’s parents were divorced, which in those days was a much bigger deal than it is today. Now it’s the norm. Back then it wasn’t scandalous, but it was looked on as low-class. And there was Violet, already outside the pale. She took Liza under her wing. Kathy couldn’t stand it.”
“Is that why she hated Daisy?”
“Sure, she hated her. Daisy was another link to Violet. Liza spent a lot of time at the Sullivans’. She also had a boyfriend that summer, though he broke off the relationship the same weekend Violet disappeared.”
“I don’t get it. So many events seem connected to Violet. Maybe not directly, but peripherally. You got fired. Tannie’s mother died.”
“Sometimes I think there are people who generate that stuff. They don’t mean to do it, but whatever happens to them ends up affecting everyone else. Day I got fired was the worst day of my life. Twenty years old and there went any hope of a college education.”
“What were you planning to do?”
“I don’t even remember. Something better than what I got. I’m not a salesman. I don’t like manipulating people. Cramer sees it as a game and it’s one that he wins. The whole deal makes me sick.”
“But it looks like you’re doing okay.”
“You ought to see my credit card bills. We can barely make ends meet. Kathy’s out there spending money faster than I can earn it. Country club membership. The new house. The clothes. Vacations. She doesn’t like to cook, so most nights we eat out…” He stopped and shook his head. “You know the irony?”
“Oh, do tell. I love irony,” I said.
“Now she tells me she needs her ‘space.’ She broke the news to me last night. She says with the girls as good as gone, she thinks it time for her to reevaluate her goals.”
“Divorce?”
“She’s not using the word, but that’s what it amounts to. Tiffany’s wedding will keep her entertained, but after that, it’s every man for himself. Meanwhile, she thinks I should find a place of my own. When she called earlier today? I was hoping she’d changed her mind, but all she wanted was to make sure I didn’t mention it to you.”
“Oops.”
“Yeah, oops. I’ve spent years doing what I’m told, giving her everything she wants, for all the good it did. Now it’s freedom she wants and I’m supposed to foot the bill for that, too. She probably has a stud in the wings. Not that I’ve asked. She’d lie to me anyway so what’s the point? The only good part is I don’t have to take any more crap off of her.”
“Counseling’s not an option?”
“Counseling for what? She won’t admit we’ve got a problem, just that she needs ‘distance’ so she can get ‘clarity.’ I should get a little clarity myself—hire some hotshot attorney and file before she does. That would shake her to her shoes.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I had advice for you.”
“Who needs advice? I could use some comic relief.”
“Maybe she means what she says; she needs breathing room.”
“Not a chance. She must have been planning this for months, waiting until we moved before she lowered the boom.” He smoked in silence, leaning against the door on the driver’s side while I leaned against the fender near him, both of us watching the crowd thin around the barbecue. Like a trained therapist, I let the silence extend, wondering what he’d offer by way of filling it in. I was just about to get antsy and jump into the breech myself, when he spoke up. “Here’s something I never told anyone about Violet. This is minor, but it’s weighed on my mind. The night she disappeared? I saw the car.”
I didn’t look at him for fear of breaking the spell. “Where?”
“Off New Cut Road. This was long after dark. There was road construction going on so everything was torn up. I’d been driving around for hours, more depressed than I’ve ever been in my life. Except maybe now,” he added, drily.
I could feel the hairs go up along the back of my neck, but I didn’t want to push. “What was she doing?”
“I didn’t see her. Just the Bel Air. I figured she was having car trouble…like maybe she’d run out of gas…but I didn’t give a shit. I thought, she’s so smart, let her figure it out herself. Later, when I heard she was gone, I should have mentioned it to the cops. At first, I didn’t think it was relevant, and later, I worried it would look like I’d had something to do with it.”
“‘It’?”
“Whatever happened to her.”
“Why you?”
“For obvious reasons. I’d lost my job because of her and I was pissed off.”
“Weird. If she’d run out of gas, you’d think the pump jockey would have seen her at the station again.”
“Well, yeah. I thought maybe somebody else had seen the car, but nobody ever said. It was way out in the boonies, but I still can’t believe I was the only one who spotted it. When the sheriff ’s department didn’t come up with anything, I decided to leave it alone.”
“And you’ve never told anyone?”
“Kathy,” he said. “This was after we were married. I don’t believe in couples keeping secrets and it bothered me a lot. So one night I’d had too much to drink and I blurted it out. She didn’t think it was a big deal. She told me to forget about it and that’s what I did. The detective had already talked to me a couple of times, same way he was talking to everyone else, but he never asked when I’d seen her last and I didn’t volunteer.”
“And the car was just sitting there?”
“Right. Maybe fifteen, twenty yards off the side of the road. I could see it in my headlights, plain as day.”
“You’re sure it was hers?”
“Positive. There was only one like it in the county. She’d been driving it around since the minute Foley gave it to her. Absolutely, it was hers.”
“Had she had a flat tire?”
“That’s possible. I didn’t see a flat, but it could have been that. Could have been anything.”
“Was the engine idling or off?”
“Off and the headlights were off. The road was really rough, and I’d slowed to a stop, intending to turn around. That’s when I saw the car. I rolled down the window and looked out, but everything was still as stone. I actually sat there a couple of minutes, but nothing happened, so I said to hell with it and went back the way I’d come.”
“Could she have stopped to let the dog out?”
“I didn’t see the dog. At the time, it didn’t occur to me there was anything creepy going on. Now, I don’t know.”
14
Winston drove us to the location on New Cut Road where he’d seen Violet’s car. I wanted to take a look at the spot but didn’t intend to press the point since he was due back at work.
He laughed when I expressed my concern. “Don’t sweat it. Chet won’t fire me. I’m the schmuck who pays his daughter’s bills.”
He took Highway 166 east out of Cromwell and after three miles, turned right onto New Cut Road, which was laid out on a diagonal that intersected Highway 1 to the south. Before September of 1953, when New Cut was finished, drivers were forced to go miles out of their way when heading from Santa Maria to Silas, Arnaud, or Serena Station. The old Tanner homestead appeared, its Tudor façade jarring now that I saw it again. The acreage across the road had been planted and harvested, leaving a pale haze of wispy stalks interspersed with lush weeds.
Winston pulled into the Tanner driveway and we got out. I left my shoulder bag in the car but carried the map with me.
“Somewhere along in here,” he said, gesturing vaguely. “I remember the heavy equipment and big mounds of dirt. The road was being graded, and there was this line of big orange cones and a temporary barricade across the unpaved portion to discourage through traffic, not that there was much. Now that I’m looking at it though, it’s hard to pinpoint the spot.”
He crossed the road and I followed, watching as he pivoted. He walked backward for a few steps, trying to get his bearings. “I didn’t realize the road ran so close to the Tanner property. I’m almost sure the barrier was off in that direction, like a big detour, but I might be wrong.”
I said, “Maybe it’s like a house under construction. When all you have is the slab, the rooms seem so small. Then the walls go up and everything suddenly looks much bigger.”
He smiled. “Right. I never have figured out how that works. You’d think it’d be the other way around.”
“Any chance you passed her on the road? If she had car trouble she might have tried walking to the nearest phone.”
“Oh no. There’s no way I’d have missed her if she’d been out there. I did keep an eye out, but you can see for yourself, she’d have had to hike for miles. Funny thing is, until now I put the incident out of my mind because I felt guilty and I didn’t want to deal with it. I should have stopped to see what was going on.”
“Don’t do that to yourself. It’s probably not important in the overall scheme of things.”
“I suppose not. She was going to do whatever she did regardless of me. I just wish I’d been a gentleman and done the right thing.”
“On the other hand, she didn’t do you any favors.”
I opened the map and then folded it in thirds so I could check the relative distances between points. “Here’s what puzzles me. The service station near Tullis couldn’t be more than three miles away. She filled her tank at roughly six thirty so it’s hard to believe she’d run out of gas so soon.”
Winston shrugged. “She could have been waiting for someone. This is a hell of an isolated spot. I was only out here by happenstance. I’d been driving around randomly. I got this far and realized there wasn’t any place else to go. This was literally the end of the road.”
“Did you see any other cars?”
“No. I just remember the pitch-black dark. It was a clear night, and I could hear the muffled sound of the fireworks in Silas, off in that direction.”
“Which means it had to be before nine thirty when the fireworks display ended.”
“True. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Foley swears he was at the park and I gather there were people willing to vouch for him. Meanwhile, what was she doing out here? By nine thirty she should have been two hundred miles away.”
We chatted idly of other things on our way back into town. When we pulled into the dealership, Winston dropped me at my car. I got out and then leaned in the window. “Thanks for lunch,” I said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your telling me about the car. I’m not sure it’s significant, but it’s fresh information and that’s encouraging.”
“I’m glad.”
“One more quick question and then I’ll let you get back to work. This business about you and Kathy. Is that classified?”
“You mean, is it a secret? By no means.”
“I’m asking because I’ll be talking to Daisy later, bringing her up to speed. I can certainly keep the information to myself if you’d prefer.”
“I don’t care who knows. Kathy’s always airing our problems, blabbing to her girlfriends and then sharing their opinions, as long as they coincide with hers. You can tell anyone you want. The more the merrier. Let her see how it feels.”
Once I left him, I pulled off on a side street and made notes. I’d been the happy beneficiary of Winston’s anger at his wife. His report about the car had created more questions than it answered, but at least he’d placed her on New Cut Road when the sheriff ’s department assumed that she’d already left town. Or died. But if Foley killed her and buried her, how had he pulled it off? The Sullivans had only one car, and if it was parked out on New Cut Road, how did he get there and back? The park in the little town of Silas was six miles away. Granted, there was a three-hour gap between the end of the fireworks and his arriving home, but it would have taken him that long just to walk as far as New Cut Road and back. And what could he have done with the car? Winston had speculated that Violet might have been out there waiting for someone, in which case they might have hightailed it out of town as soon as he showed up. That possibility was at least compatible with the facts. What seemed worrisome was the dog. From all reports, Baby yapped incessantly, so why hadn’t Winston heard her bark?
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.”