“Great! Well, good night, all. See you at my house for breakfast tomorrow.”
“You mean today, don’t you?” Rhythm joshed.
“I’m sure Susan knows what time it is,” Blues stated flatly. “And I’m sure she’s as exhausted as we are. Let’s get going, Robert.”
“I …”
“Now, Robert!”
They went.
Susan and Stephen exchanged looks—as much as that was possible in the darkness. There was a pause, and then … “You followed me here, didn’t you?” he asked.
Why lie? “Yes.” After a shorter pause, she said, “Did you actually lose the ring?”
“No, of course not. It’s in the safe at the Inn. When I asked if I’d be able to get it out tomorrow morning, that nice man who owns the place, Charles, said he would come in and open it up just for me. I’d never lose that ring. Chrissy loves it. We designed it together. Her favorite instructor at RISD cast it for us. I’d never misplace anything that meant so much to her. I just couldn’t think of anything else on the spur of the moment when Mom asked why I was here.”
Susan was more than a little glad to hear it. But, she realized, that didn’t answer most of her questions.
“So why did you say David had it?”
“Poor David’s been taking the rap for things that went wrong in our group for such a long time that I automatically blame him,” Stephen said. “And, don’t worry. He wouldn’t—won’t—mind at all. He may be drinking too much this weekend, but it’s not like him. He’s usually a responsible son of a bitch—more responsible than his parents or my parents would ever believe.”
Did every word out of this young man’s mouth have to bring up more questions? But this wasn’t an ideal place to interrogate anyone. “We told your parents that we were going to the Inn …” She left the statement unfinished.
“And they will expect us to be there. So I guess we’d better go.”
“You think they’ll check?”
“I know they’ll check. My parents talk a lot about trust and claim to believe in my honesty, but they’ll want to see for themselves that I’m doing what I said I was going to do. Of course, you can do what you want.”
“Actually, I’m supposed to be meeting someone at the Inn …” Susan began slowly, remembering Kathleen should be waiting there for her.
“Now? Do you have any idea what time it is?” The response was automatic, and almost immediately Stephen recanted. “I’m sorry. I’m tired, but there’s no excuse for being so rude.”
Too bad, Susan thought, that she had to include Stephen in her mental list of murder suspects. As the night wore on and became insanely more complicated, she found herself liking this young man more and more. “You weren’t. In fact, you’ve been very …” She paused and looked around her tired brain for the correct word. “Sweet,” was all she came up with. Apparently it didn’t offend him in the least.
“Thank you. I think you’re going to be a wonderful mother-in-law,” Stephen said, and surprised her with an awkward peck on the cheek. “Now, what are we going to do about that body?”
Susan gasped. “You … you know … you … I …” Words failed her. Completely.
“I know about her. I know where she is. I don’t know who killed her, though.”
Stephen seemed amazingly calm. “Do you …” Susan asked the first question that came to mind. “Do you know who she is?”
“I think so.”
“You think so!”
“Shhh! Chrissy said you tend to get emotional, but we don’t want to draw more police attention, do we?” Stephen asked.
Maybe she wasn’t going to like him quite so much. Susan insisted on sticking to what she thought was the primary question. “Who is the dead woman?”
“I said I’m not sure. Listen, why don’t we drive over to the Inn and I can explain all this on the way?”
Susan agreed without giving more than a quick thought to her own car still parked around the corner. She could pick it up later. “Fine.” She started for the car she had followed here less than half an hour ago.
“Does she have something to do with why you’re here in the middle of the night?” she asked.
“Yes. Since she was in the box the dress was delivered in, and since David told me that he brought the dress straight from the airport to the Yacht Club, I thought this might be the place to start finding out what’s going on.”
Susan thought that sounded sensible. And she had some questions she wanted to ask. The first being, “So who do you think the dead woman is?”
“I think she’s David’s mother.” He climbed into the driver’s seat, but Susan wasn’t going to wait one moment more.
“Didn’t I just meet David’s mother today? Wind Something is what she calls herself.…”
“Wind Song isn’t David’s mother—she’s his stepmother.”
“Okay, but still … David’s your best friend and you’re not sure what his mother looks like?” She hoped that didn’t sound too undiplomatic. She was old enough to understand that family relations came in many shapes and sizes. And women do change their hair colors, have facelifts and tummy tucks, all sorts of things that might make recognition difficult.
“She didn’t raise him. I don’t think I’ve seen her more than a few dozen times in my entire life. And as far as I know, David hasn’t seen her all that many more.” He put the key in the ignition and then paused and looked straight at Susan. “You probably already realize that I didn’t have a very normal upbringing.”
“Well, I’ve never known anyone raised in a commune before.”
“It wasn’t as interesting as it sounds—no group sex or wild, illicit drug use. At least, I don’t think there was,” he concluded with less assurance. “What I’m saying is that it was unconventional, but … well, my parents—all the parents—weren’t irresponsible.”
“Except for David’s mother?”
“She wasn’t there. David was raised by his father and his stepmother. You met them both this evening. High Hopes and Wind Song.” He glanced at her and started the car. “Yeah, the names were already pretty ridiculous when I was a kid and they were young. Now they’ve become absurd.”
“But you said you had seen David’s birth mother. Did she come to the commune to visit?”
“No, she wasn’t welcome there. I don’t know why. The details of the relationship between her and David’s father were never discussed openly in front of us kids,” he added quickly.
“So when … where did you see her?”
“The first time I actually saw her, to talk to, was when we were all together … living in the commune, actually.” Stephen stopped. “Do you think we have time to go into this now?” he asked, taking his hand off the steering wheel to glance at his watch.
“It seems to me that we have no choice but to do this. The woman was murdered, Stephen. That means there’s a murderer loose. And … and …” She didn’t know quite how to continue.
“What you’re trying to say is that you need to find out if your daughter is marrying into the family of a killer. Or marrying the killer himself.”
TWENTY-THREE
“I …” Susan didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t worry. I’m not offended. I care about your daughter. I only want the best for her, too. So I understand that we’ll all rest more easily if the identity of the murderer is discovered before the wedding.”
“I feel like I’m wandering around in the dark looking for the killer. I don’t even know who the potential murderers are—” Susan stopped, embarrassed, as she realized that he understood exactly what she was saying.
But Stephen seemed to be a young man who was completely comfortable dealing with reality. “Then I guess it’s time for you to hear a bit more about how I grew up—and the people I grew up with,” he said.
“If you think it has to do with the murder. Yes, I think so.”
“Well, you already know my parents were members of a commune, and
in some ways it was exactly what you think of when you think of a Sixties commune.”
Susan remembered his assurances about drugs and sexual activity and decided that she doubted it—but she didn’t say anything.
“And in some ways it wasn’t,” he continued.
“I know it wasn’t rural,” Susan said.
“It was in an old hotel near Union Square in San Francisco, in fact. It was torn down a while ago, and now a large luxury hotel fills most of that block. But, when I was growing up, it was a pretty seedy neighborhood. In fact, when we moved in, we displaced the winos and the hookers—they had to travel all the way to the next block to find equally cheap and filthy accommodations. Of course, for a group of hippies, overcoming that squalor was just another challenge to be met. I was barely two years old when we moved in, and my first memories are of lots of loving adults wearing brightly colored clothes hugging and kissing me, saying ‘far out’ and ‘groovy,’ and smelling of paint.”
“They redecorated?”
“That’s one way of looking at it. You know those painted VW buses which seem to have become an enduring image of the Sixties?”
“Sure.”
“They turned a six-story, twenty-four-room hotel into a large landlocked version of a VW bus, psychedelic colors and all. The room I grew up in was wonderful, actually. The walls were covered with a sort of Day-Glo zoo. The floor was painted to resemble a topographical map of Yosemite National Park, and the ceiling had images of the sun and a cloudy sky that changed at night to realistic constellations—one of the commune members had been an astronomy major at college.”
“Sounds fantastic.”
“It was. It was also noisy and disorganized—except for my schooling. My father insisted on the importance of that.”
Susan made a mental note that perhaps this indicated a less than enthusiastic embracing of this lifestyle by Rhythm, but didn’t ask about that. “You went to public school?”
“At first, but children who have been raised to put their creative needs first don’t really thrive in most public schools. So the group decided that home schooling should be part of the commune, and we were all taught that way for a few years. They built a schoolroom on the top floor of the hotel where an old ballroom had been, back at the turn of the century. It wasn’t large, but it had these wonderful plaster angels on the ceiling, and even a small stage. All the adults tried to teach us their specialties. There was some quite inspired teaching—I still think of Freedom when I have to memorize material. He showed me a bunch of actor’s tricks that came in very useful in college. But I … I sort of outgrew the teachers, and I ended up spending my junior high school years at a Catholic school. It was run by the Jesuits, and it was an excellent school. I was sorry when I had to leave.”
“Why did you?”
“Oh, well, the commune disbanded and we moved.”
“Why?”
“Well, the hotel was being sold, so we couldn’t live th— Oh, you mean why did the commune break up?”
“Exactly.”
They were arriving at the Inn’s parking lot and Stephen turned in carefully, found a spot, and turned off the engine before he answered. “I’m not actually sure if there was any one reason. The times changed. People’s lives changed. Some of the couples broke up and a few individuals left to get on with their lives elsewhere.” He shrugged. “I think it was just one of those things. Very little lasts forever, I guess.”
“You sound like you miss it.” Susan was surprised. Stephen was so conservative, so unlike anyone she would expect to come out of a communal upbringing.
“You know, I didn’t at the time. I’d wanted to live a more normal life, and I did when my parents moved out. The best thing about growing up in a commune was the shocked looks on the faces of my friends in high school and college when I told them about it. But somehow, everyone being here for my wedding—it’s the first time we’ve all been together again in years—well, I guess it’s just making me sentimental for that time again.”
“It sounds like it was very special,” Susan said, wondering how she could return the topic to the identity of the murdered woman. Luckily, Stephen was more directed than she was.
“It was. But David’s mother wasn’t a part of it. She and David’s father—”
“High Hopes.” Susan identified the man.
“Yes, but we usually call him Art these days,” Stephen said. “Everyone seems to have taken on their old identity at this wedding.”
“You mean the group doesn’t usually use their … their commune names?”
Stephen chuckled. “No way. They’re respectable people now—with real professions, and living in the suburbs, likely as not. And really, no one past the age of twenty-five should call themselves something like Red Man or Moonbeam.”
“I won’t argue with that. You were telling me about David’s mother,” she reminded him.
“Well, she left his father right after David was born—just abandoned the baby and left town—so you can see why David’s father was sort of bitter.”
“Bitter?”
“Well, he didn’t want David to have anything to do with his mother. In fact, he insisted that she not be allowed to visit him at the commune.”
“You knew this then? When you were young?”
“Not in so many words … at least I don’t think so. I didn’t talk about David’s mother—I remember that I had the impression that it would make him unhappy to mention her … at least, that’s the way I remember it. You know how you forget what it was like to be young.”
Susan smiled. If he thought he was forgetting things now, wait until he hit forty-five! “But you did see her,” she prompted.
“Yes. The first time that I remember her was at the commune, in fact. She just sort of appeared in the common room one morning after our family focus moment.”
“Would you mind translating?”
“Well, the common room was the lobby—with the front desk removed, lots of pillows strewn on the floor, and, I must admit, a lava lamp or two on the windowsills. The members of the commune met there every morning right after breakfast for announcements and what were called focus moments.”
“What were they?” Susan’s image of this commune was sending her right back to her college days—although she had always thought lava lamps particularly ugly.
“The commune members believed that if everyone focused on a problem, they could solve it mentally.”
“Some sort of brainstorming?” Susan was familiar with the concept from Jed’s work at an advertising agency in New York City.
“Not really. More a positive energy-flow type of thing.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but it probably wasn’t important. “And what does all this have to do with David’s mother? Was she the problem the group was trying to solve?”
“Oh no. I don’t remember what the problem was that day—probably something small like accomplishing world peace. That was when I first saw her. She sort of snuck in the front door of the building, and sat down on the floor. Probably no one paid all that much attention immediately.”
“How strange …”
“It wasn’t, actually. The hotel had been decorated with big swirls of Day-Glo paint outside as well as inside. We were always attracting stoned hippies off the street. They wandered in, sat down, and sometimes stayed for a few days. Not that we were a flophouse or anything like that. And if anyone had heavy drug problems, they were directed to the free treatment center over in the Haight. But this time was different, of course. When Art recognized his ex-wife, he just blew up.”
“How?”
“He screamed and yelled and ranted and raved. It was amazing. One of the major tenets of the group was peaceful action and nonviolence. There was not a lot of yelling and screaming in the commune—or what there was went on behind closed doors. I remember David’s mother’s visit mainly because I was stunned by seeing one of the adults I’d come to depend upon acting like that.�
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“What about David?”
“He burst into tears. He told me years later that he was scared to death.”
“Why?”
“Well, first, because his father was acting so … so out of character. And second, because he had been told for as long as he could remember that his mother was an evil person—although a person with bad karma was probably closer to the exact wording his father used—and David worried that she might do something awful.”
“And did she?”
“No. Not that she was given much chance. First, there was all this shouting, and then David crying, and then the poor woman was surrounded by the adults and rushed back out onto the street. We kids were hustled up to our schoolroom and told that it would be insensitive to the needs of others if we asked a lot of questions.”
“Wow! That’s quite a statement.”
“Doing the right thing was raised to an art form in the commune—of course, for us kids, the right thing was defined as whatever our parents wanted us to do.”
“Just like kids outside the commune,” Susan suggested.
“Except that it’s one thing to rebel against your parents’ wishes, and another to act in a manner considered to be immoral.”
Susan could see his point, but this wasn’t the time to discuss child-rearing techniques with her future son-in-law. “So David didn’t get to know his mother.”
“Not until later.”
“And did he like her then—or would liking her have been insensitive to the needs of others?”
“He loved her,” Stephen said simply. “He said she was a warm and loving person.”
“But why did his father say differently?” Susan asked the next logical question.
“He has no idea.”
Susan heard the present tense. “Has no idea?” she repeated. “He still doesn’t understand?”
“That’s right. His father refuses to talk about it. Still refuses to talk about it—at least, that’s what he told me, the last time the subject came up.”
“And when was that?”
Weddings Are Murder Page 17