Listen to the Silence

by Marcia Muller

  Saskia Hunter.

  A check made out in the amount of $2,500. August of 1962. A considerable sum in those days.

  I began pawing through the other checks, came up with a total of fifteen made out to Hunter, beginning in December of 1959 and each in the same amount. All were dated in either August or December, the last in December of 1966.

  There was a stack of bank statements accompanying the checks. I took them to the kitchen table, poured myself more coffee, and studied the pattern of deposits. Many matched the pay stubs, but others were larger; that didn’t surprise me, since the family had always suspected Fenella of allowing her gentlemen friends to supplement her income. But several of these larger deposits stood out: in July and November of every year from 1960 to 1966, her account was credited with $2,500—which she’d turned over to Saskia Hunter a month later.

  I picked up the photograph in the buffalo-bone frame and studied Hunter. Then I closed my eyes and pictured the photograph of Mary McCone that had sat in my family’s living room. Yes, what they said was true: I bore a strong resemblance to her. But I bore an even stronger one to Saskia Hunter.

  My scalp prickled and I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out the features of the man next to Hunter. The wide brim of his cowboy hat shadowed them, made them difficult to define. He had a strong jaw and full lips, but that was all I could tell.

  Well, I had a name for him—Austin DeCarlo—and soon Mick would start his trace. Right now I’d start my trace on Hunter.

  D.O.B. April 4, 1941, Fort Hall, Idaho. She’d been seventeen when the Newsweek photo was taken. Parents: Harry and Rose Tendoy Hunter, both deceased. One of the relatives Fenella had found, then.

  No record of a marriage in Bingham County. No death certificate, either. No phone listing.

  Two public high schools in the vicinity. I called one and asked for the school librarian; she pulled the yearbook for 1958. Saskia Hunter had graduated in the top half of her class, and the write-up below her picture said she hoped to become a teacher.

  Any record of where she had attended college? I asked. The librarian transferred me to the guidance counselor. She told me their records for the fifties were in storage.

  There were a number of Hunters in the area phone directory. I started calling.

  “Strange name, Saskia. If we were related, I’d remember it.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “My wife and me, we just moved to Idaho.”

  “Lady, in case you don’t realize it, Hunter is a common name.”

  “I knew a Kia Hunter in high school. Don’t know what happened to her.”

  “Kia and I are related, sort of. But I lost track of her a long time ago.”

  “Miss, I got three screaming kids and I’m babysitting my sister’s mutt. This isn’t the time to be asking me stupid questions.”

  End of list. Dead end. Now what?

  The phone rang. Mick. “Here’s the preliminary information on Austin DeCarlo,” he said. “D.O.B. 11/22/36, Salinas. Parents: Audrey Simms and Joseph DeCarlo. Mother, housewife; father, rancher. The mother’s deceased, father still lives on the ranch near King City. It was a working cattle ranch till 1980, now most of it’s in vineyards. Austin DeCarlo owns a home in Monterey, where he has his corporate offices.”

  “What kind of corporation?”

  “Real estate development. DeCarlo Enterprises. They build luxury resorts. I downloaded info from their Web site.”

  “Any further personal details?”

  “Two marriages: Dawn Chase, in King City, 1961. Divorced 1970, no children. Anna Bastoni, in Monterey, 1971. Divorced 1989, no children.”

  “Education?”

  “Graduated King City High, 1953. Attended Cal Poly from ’fifty-three to ’fifty-six, no degree. That’s all I’ve got so far. I’ll fax this over to you, and keep working on it.”

  “Thanks, Mick.”

  “You’re welcome. By the way, you didn’t tell me what file to allocate my time to.”

  “None, for now. Just keep track of the hours.”

  “Ted’s not gonna like that. You’ve been gone so much lately that he’s picking more nits than usual.”

  And that would be a great many nits indeed. “If he gives you any trouble, tell him to talk to me.”

  The material Mick faxed gave the addresses of Austin DeCarlo’s home and office in Monterey, as well as of his father’s ranch. I dragged out my California road map and consulted it, then studied an aviation sectional for the area. It would be a quick trip by plane, but Hy had Two-seven-Tango at Tufa Lake. I supposed I could rent one, but on top of that expense I’d have the cost of a car once I got there. Besides, the lure of the open road was strong; it had been a long time since my venerable MG and I had headed south on Highway 101. I made a few calls, repacked my travel bag, and soon we were on our way.

  The San Francisco Peninsula: small cities strung together, mostly indistinguishable from one another. If we didn’t check the current rate of development, California would be one border-to-border city in fifty years. San Jose: a growing metropolis that reminded me of L.A., both in sprawl and smog. Salinas: writer John Steinbeck’s hometown, and a much better place now that they’d finally decided to honor their most renowned native son. Westward on the back road from there, toward Highway 1 and Monterey.

  And, maybe, Austin DeCarlo.

  1:15 P.M.

  The sky was clear over the cobalt expanse of Monterey Bay, where the shoreline’s protective arc makes for some of the best weather along the central coast. I drove south on Lighthouse Avenue, the wide commercial boulevard on the hill above Steinbeck’s fabled Cannery Row, looking for my side street.

  Mick’s information on Austin DeCarlo was sketchy enough that I couldn’t come up with a plan on how to approach him. Taking a look at both his home and offices seemed like a good first step; then I’d phone my nephew and ask if he’d found any further details. I made a quick left turn in front of a slow-moving van and climbed uphill to Archer Street.

  DeCarlo’s house was on the northeast side: white clapboard, three stories, with many windows. A huge semicircle of glass took up most of the front wall of the third story, and there was probably an identical one opposite to take advantage of the bay view. The house was an older one, and the more modern top floor didn’t fit—a remodeling job whose architect had seen the parts, rather than the whole.

  As I pulled to the curb and idled there, the garage door rose and a woman came out: thin, with bleached and permed hair, dressed in baggy jeans and an oversized T-shirt imprinted with a sea otter. I shut the MG off, got out, and approached her. She pushed an interior button and stepped aside as the door started to close.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Is Mr. DeCarlo at home?”

  She frowned and started to walk away. I took out my ID folder and flashed my license at her, just long enough that she could see it looked official. “Tax inquiry. I need to speak with him.”

  The words erased the crease between her eyebrows, and a sly expression crept over her face. She stopped, shifting a plastic sack containing a bottle of cleaning solvent and some rags from one hand to the other. DeCarlo’s maid, and she didn’t seem at all sorry that the boss might be about to get audited.

  “He’s not here,” she said.

  “Is he at the office?”

  “No, out of town. Last week he tells me come in and clean like always. And then he didn’t leave my money.”

  “That’s too bad. D’you know where he went?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Or when he’ll be back?”

  “Who knows, with him? Maybe tonight, maybe next week. He travels a lot, but this is the first time he forgot my money.” She sighed, looking up and down the street as if she hoped to spot her employer. “I was counting on it. Now I don’t even have my bus fare back to Sand City.”

  Opportunity was fairly pounding on my door. “How much does he owe you?”

  “Fifty dollars. Doesn’t sound like much, but I re
ally need it.”

  “How about if I give you the fifty? And drive you to Sand City?”

  “What’s in it for you? You want me to rat him out?”

  I smiled.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Terry—“No last name, I don’t want to lose my job”—didn’t like her employer. As we drove north on the freeway, she made that abundantly clear.

  Austin DeCarlo was too rich for his own good: “All that stuff. Sound systems, TVs in every room, indoor hot tub, big wine cellar, boat, fancy cars. He must be cheating the government.”

  Every week he left the house in a “god-awful mess”: “He wants to cook, he oughta clean up the pots and pans and the grease on the stove. Newspapers and magazines don’t belong on the floor. Dirty dishes, hairs in the bathroom sink. And I can’t respect a man who won’t hang up his expensive clothes.”

  He behaved in an unseemly fashion for one of his age: “Women. Different ones. Young ones. All the time. And he’s gotta be pushing sixty. Disgusting!”

  DeCarlo was rude, too: “He yells at me if I start vacuuming while he’s on the phone.”

  Even his choice of pets was unfortunate: “Big dog. Irish setter. Goes everyplace with him. Leaves its hairs everyplace for me to clean up. Man treats that dog better than he treats most people! Hey, that’s my exit up ahead.”

  “Anything else you can tell me about him?” I asked as I put on the turn signal.

  “Not really. I mean, it’s not like I saw his tax forms or anything. But I’m sure he’s a cheater.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, he’s trying to cheat those Indians, so why wouldn’t he cheat the IRS too?”

  “What Indians?”

  “Up north someplace. My old boyfriend Chuck told me. He’s got Indian blood, and he said old Austin’s trying to cheat them. The Indians.”

  “How?”

  “Something about putting a resort on their land. I can’t remember anything more about it.”

  “Can you put me in touch with Chuck?”

  “Nope, he’s history. Moved away two months ago.”

  “You sure you don’t remember anything else?”

  “Uh… a name, maybe. Ghost? Nope, that’s not it. Spirit? Yeah, Spirit something.”

  “What something?”

  “Can’t remember. Hey, drop me here, would you? I don’t want you knowing where I live.”

  Spirit.

  The word had a familiar ring in connection with Austin DeCarlo. Maybe it was mentioned in the material Mick had supplied on DeCarlo Enterprises. I pulled the MG into the parking lot of a strip mall and took the file from the briefcase in the carrying space behind me.

  The company’s Web site described it as the leading developer of exclusive resorts in the United States: Saguaro in Santa Fe; Blue Glacier in Homer, Alaska; Merlot in the Napa Valley; Mountain High outside of Boulder, Colorado; The Breakers in Neskowin, Oregon. And those were just the ones I’d heard of. Photographs showed impressive architecture, golf courses, swimming pools, restaurants, and guest bungalows. Projects were currently under construction or in the planning stages on the Hawaiian island of Lanai and St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands; in Sedona, Arizona, and Modoc County, California.

  Up north someplace. Well, Modoc County was about as far north as you could get in the state, tucked up in the corner against the Oregon and Nevada borders. I’d never been there, and its only town of any size that I knew of was Alturas, whose population couldn’t be more than a few thousand.

  I reached for the side pocket where I kept my AAA guide, paged to the listing. Right, there were 4,300 people in Alturas. Formerly called Dorris Bridge after the first white settler, it was the Modoc County seat and a marketing center for local ranchers. Its sole tourist attraction was a historical museum, and the guide recommended two motels, no restaurants.

  I exchanged the guide for my state Thomas Guide. The majority of the county was national forest, tiny towns, and reservoirs. A large lake—Goose—extended north over the Oregon border, and there were a number of smaller lakes and rivers. Highway 395—which, if taken south, would eventually lead to Tufa Lake, near Hy’s ranch—bisected the county. To the east the Warner Mountains rose as high as 9,000 feet.

  Spirit something. I scanned the map in segments, finally found it: Spirit Lake, near a small settlement called Sage Rock. A remote place for a resort, but not if you were aiming at the high-end traveler who valued isolation and privacy. Put in a world-class restaurant and golf course, an airstrip capable of accommodating good-sized jets, and you’d be in business.

  But the lake wasn’t on an Indian reservation, or even near one. How could Austin DeCarlo be trying to cheat anyone?

  I took out my phone and called Mick at the office. Ted, sounding annoyed, said he’d assigned him to call on a new client. “Whatever you’ve got him working on is cutting into our billable hours,” he complained.

  “Let me worry about that.”

  “You ought to worry. We’re looking at a rent increase come spring, and do you know what the last PG and E bill was? When’re you going to be back in the office?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “So in the meantime I’m supposed to hold everything together.”

  “I trust you to do that, yes.”

  A long silence. “Oh, hell, I’m worried about you, is all. You haven’t been yourself since your dad died.”

  He didn’t know the half of it. “Thanks for your concern. Can you hang in there a little longer?”

  “I’ll hang in however long you need. Do you want me to tell Mick to call you?”

  “No.” I gave him the details of what Mick should search for and asked him to pass them along. Ted was a good friend, a good employee, and—although he didn’t know it yet—I had big plans for his future.

  4:05 P.M.

  The land southeast of King City was softly contoured, hillocks of sunburnt grass where brown-and-white-faced cattle grazed. This was old ranching country, not much changed from the turn of the century when little valley towns such as San Ardo and Bradley were centers of commerce for people off the big spreads and small farms. I’d even passed a dilapidated barn with a still-readable advertisement for Mail Pouch Tobacco on its wall.

  The DeCarlo ranch was on Cat Canyon Road, some dozen miles into the country; the dry brown grass gave way to vineyards where row after row of plants were beginning to show fall color. A hopper truck full of grapes was turning onto the road from a driveway, and I had to swing wide to avoid it. Harvesttime in the Salinas Valley.

  The gate across the drive stood open, so I turned in and followed the blacktop to a cluster of metal sheds where workers, mostly Hispanic, milled about. A tall gray-haired man in Levi’s and a Western-style shirt was waving for another truck to leave. I pulled the MG to one side and got out.

  As the truck departed, the tall man noticed me and started over. He was very lean, the Levi’s loose and riding low on his hips, and his unruly mane of hair gleamed in the sun. The furrows on his rawhide-tanned face told me he must be over eighty—a hearty eighty, though. Years of activity out in the elements had bred toughness and kept an agile spring in his step.

  “Hello!” I called. “I’m looking for Joseph DeCarlo.”

  He slowed, his demeanor wary now. “What d’you want with him?”

  “To talk about a personal matter. Is he on the ranch today?”

  The man stopped in front of me, his faded blue eyes squinting down at my face. He made a motion to the men behind him, and they dispersed silently and quickly—all except one, a stocky, powerfully muscled Hispanic who stood with folded arms, leaning against a pickup truck.

  I said, “My name’s Sharon McCone,” and held out one of my cards.

  The man nodded as if he’d known that all along. He took the card but didn’t read it, still studying me. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “You even look like her.”

  “Like who?”

  “As if you didn’t know. She send you?”


  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I’m a private investigator, here on a confidential inquiry.”

  He glanced at my card, then threw his head back and gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Now don’t that just tear it! Did some snooping on your own, and you liked what you found out. Well, let me tell you this, missy: I’ve had a lot of years to think on the subject. A lot of time to plan for the day this might happen. So here’s what you’re gonna do: get off my ranch and leave my boy alone.”

  His ranch. “You’re Joseph DeCarlo.”

  “You know who I am.”

  “I’d like to speak with you. And with your son.”

  “I’ll bet you would. Trouble is, my boy and I don’t want to speak with you.”

  “Why don’t we let your son decide for himself?”

  “No, missy, that’s not how it works around here.”

  “How does it work?”

  DeCarlo stepped forward, looming over me. “It works the way I say it should.” He snapped his fingers, and the man leaning on the pickup came over. “This is Tony. He’s head of ranch security. He’s gonna escort you off my property—politely. You come back, he won’t be near as polite.”

  Tony went to the MG, opened the driver’s door, and motioned for me to get in. I ignored him.

  “Mr. DeCarlo, your ‘boy’ is a grown man in his sixties. D’you really think he wants his father dictating who he can and can’t speak to?”

  “He does what I tell him to.”

  “Always?”

  His lips twitched; I’d hit a nerve. He motioned to the security man, who came over and took my arm.

  I said, “I’ve an idea that your son might be interested in talking with me about Fort Hall, Idaho. And Saskia Hunter.”

  Joseph DeCarlo’s face reddened. He said to Tony, “Get her out of here!”

  Tony tried to take my arm, but I pushed him aside. Then I took my time about getting into the MG and driving away.