by Janet Dawson
“I want to find her, Cassie.”
“You don’t have a client.” She got up and put on her shoes. “And I need a background check, remember?”
“I’ll start tomorrow. Do you want to get some dinner?”
Cassie shook her head. “I can’t. I have some work to do.”
“See you tomorrow, then.”
When Cassie closed the door I tossed the beer bottles into the wastebasket. I switched on the computer and updated the Foster file, noting, as Norman Gerrity had, that the case had been terminated at the client’s request. While the last page printed, I totaled a final bill and subtracted Philip Foster’s retainer. Tomorrow I’d send a statement, along with the personal papers and the photograph Philip had given me.
As I carried the folder to the filing cabinet something slipped out and I knelt to pick it up. It was the phone bill, the one with that call to Granny’s Attic in Oakland. I looked at the number, circled in pencil. One last shot, I thought, and picked up the receiver. If nobody answers I’ll forget the whole damn thing.
I punched in the number of the antique store. The phone rang twice. Someone picked it up, and I heard a woman’s voice say, “Granny’s Attic.”
Seven
JUST INSIDE THE FRONT DOOR OF GRANNY’S ATTIC a woman with a shopping bag stood at an oak dresser, idly examining an old album full of someone else’s photographs. The antique store was long and narrow, with a central aisle. On either side I saw rows of furniture: tables, chairs, bookcases, dressers, all of them looking as though they’d spent years in someone’s attic.
A colorful patchwork quilt was displayed on the wall to my left. The other wall held a framed collection of samplers. The wooden floor creaked as I walked toward the glass-fronted counter at the rear of the shop. It contained jewelry, cigarette cases, and other small items, illuminated by a floor lamp with a fringed fabric shade.
The store’s proprietor was showing a customer a bracelet. I stood to one side and watched her. She was of medium height and sturdy build, in her late fifties. I saw hints of Frances Willis in her round strong-featured face. Curly dark hair streaked with silver fell to her shoulders, unfettered by combs, permanents, or sprays. She wore a bright turquoise-colored caftan and several strands of cloisonné and cinnabar beads around her neck. The beads clicked together musically as she leaned over to clasp the bracelet around the customer’s wrist. After a moment of holding the bracelet up to the light at various angles, the customer said she’d think about it. She removed the bracelet and handed it back, then walked up the center aisle to join the woman with the shopping bag.
“Vera Burke?” I asked as the proprietor put the bracelet back into the display case.
“Yes?” Her eyes were bright and intelligent, and matched the blue of her caftan.
“My name is Jeri Howard. I’m a private investigator.”
“Really?” She smiled. “I’ve never met a private investigator. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for your niece.”
“Which one? I have several.”
“Elizabeth.”
The smile disappeared. “Beth. What do you want with Beth?”
“She left her husband and child in Los Gatos last week. She hasn’t been seen since.”
She frowned. “How do you know that?”
“Her husband hired me to find her.”
Vera Burke looked me over, the sharp blue eyes taking in my rumpled slacks and shirt. She could probably smell beer on my breath. She thought about it for a moment, then she nodded.
“Please, come in and sit down. Tell me everything.”
I stepped behind the counter and saw a sagging sofa with a long tear on one of the flowered cushions. Opposite the sofa an oak desk stood with its surface three inches deep in paper. A small table at one end of the sofa held a hotplate and a simmering teakettle.
As I settled onto the sofa, she offered me tea. It was a strong spice-scented brew in a chipped china cup. My hostess poured another cup for herself, pulled out a straight-backed chair, and sat down.
“Mrs. Burke,” I began.
“Call me Vee,” she said, waving her hand. “Everybody does.” Then she looked past me at the back door and whistled. I followed the direction of her eyes. The door was ajar. An elderly Yorkshire terrier, gray at the muzzle, walked stiffly through the door, coming from the alley behind the shop. The dog solemnly inspected my foot, then climbed into a wicker basket on the floor nearby and settled with a pleasurable groan onto the cushion.
“Tell me about Beth,” Vee Burke said.
“Her husband hired me a few days ago.” I sipped the steaming tea and burned my tongue. “He drove up here because there was an Oakland phone number on his last bill, the number of this store. He told me she’d been born in Oakland and she went to Cal State Hayward. I’ve been trying to reach you since then.”
“I was in Stockton, burying my father. He died Friday.”
“I’m sorry. Why did Elizabeth call you?”
“To ask about Dad. I called her when he had his last stroke.” Vee sipped her tea, then set her cup and saucer down on the little table. “He wasn’t expected to live. I asked if she could come back to Stockton. None of us has seen her in five years.”
“Why?”
Vee sighed. “Beth always wanted to get away. From her memories, her family. She’s drifted all her life. The girl needs an anchor. I thought when she married Philip things would change. The way she described him, he seemed a steady young man. But Beth is terrified that people will know about what happened to her parents. As though it were her fault.” She shook her head and lifted her cup to her lips.
“When she moved to the Peninsula she changed her name. No more Elizabeth Willis. She was Renee Mills. And no contact with the family. I’m the only one who knows how to get in touch with her. I had to promise not to tell anyone else. I told her it was absurd, but I went along with it. I’m always careful. I write to her at a post office box.” She waved her hand in a distracted gesture of frustration. “She doesn’t want Philip to know anything about her. It’s ridiculous. If he really loves her it shouldn’t matter.”
“He knows now. I told him. I got the details of the murders from the investigating officer. I gave Philip a full report.”
“How did he take it?” Vee’s eyes were anxious.
“He was concerned about her,” I said, choosing the words carefully.
“I knew it wouldn’t matter to him. Not if he loves her. What happened wasn’t her fault. She was an innocent bystander. I suppose she was afraid he would find out about the psychologist she saw afterwards.”
“Philip fired me this afternoon. He told me my services were no longer needed and went back to Los Gatos.”
“Why?”
I swirled my cup and looked at the tea leaves floating in the water. “There’s some evidence that Elizabeth abused the child.”
Vee Burke’s mouth rounded into a shocked circle, then clamped shut. Indignation colored her face. She got up in a blur of turquoise cloth.
“That’s outrageous. Absolutely outrageous. I don’t believe it. How could he believe it?”
“When Philip hired me he seemed eager to find his wife. Then his father showed up, apparently to tell him about the alleged abuse. That’s when the weather changed. Philip seems to be firmly under Papa’s thumb, and Papa definitely doesn’t like his daughter-in-law.”
“He’s lying. She wouldn’t hurt her own child. She loves that little boy. How dare he carry tales like that to Philip?” Her jaw tightened and her eyes burned with anger. I would have given anything to see a confrontation between Vera Burke and Edward Foster.
“You’ve got to find her,” Vee declared, “and straighten this out.”
“Philip fired me.”
“I’m hiring you. Right now.”
She reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a checkbook. “What do you charge? You need a retainer, don’t you? How much?”
“Are you sure you w
ant to do this?”
“Of course I’m sure. My mind’s made up.” She scribbled out a check, tore it from the book, and held it out to me. “Here’s five hundred dollars. Do we have an arrangement, Ms. Howard?”
“I didn’t come over here looking for a client.”
“Why did you come?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question. It boils down to one thing. I started an investigation and I’d like to see it through to the end.”
“I’m giving you the opportunity to do that. I want you to find my niece,” Vee Burke said. “And I’ll pay you to do it.”
We stared at each other. I reached for the blue paper rectangle she offered. “All right. I’ll hold the check in the file. If I find her I’ll cash it and bill you for my fees and expenses. If I don’t find her, you just pay the expenses. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.”
I put the check in my wallet. “When did you call Elizabeth to tell her about your father?”
“The week before he died. A week ago Friday.”
“Did she say she’d come to Stockton?”
“She said she’d think about it. I knew it would be hard for her to get away, with a baby. And how would she explain it to her husband?”
“Then she called you Tuesday, the day before she disappeared. What did she say?”
“Bern asked if there was any change in Dad’s condition. I said he’d gotten worse. She wanted to know if her sister, Karen, was coming to Stockton. I said I didn’t know. I asked her again if she could come. She said she didn’t think so, that it would be very awkward. I didn’t hear from her again. I went to Stockton Wednesday night, and Dad died Friday morning. I called Beth in Los Gatos, but I didn’t get any answer. I tried again that afternoon. I hoped it meant she was on her way to Stockton, but she didn’t come. Neither did Karen.”
“Elizabeth left the baby with her mother-in-law last Wednesday and said she was going shopping. She took a suitcase and some clothes, and withdrew several thousand dollars from the joint account. She left her car in the bank lot and took a cab to the train station. No one’s seen her since.”
“That’s odd,” Vee said, running a hand through her unruly hair. “She disappeared before Dad died. But where is she? Why hasn’t she contacted me?”
“How long were you in Stockton?”
“A week. I got back late last night.”
“You mentioned that Elizabeth saw a psychologist after the murders. Did she have some sort of breakdown?”
“I don’t know if you could call it a breakdown,” Vee said. Her left index finger beat a nervous tattoo on the thin china cup. She stared into her tea as though she were trying to read the leaves swimming at the bottom.
“Beth was a moody child, even before the murders. And afterwards she had trouble dealing with it. My God, who wouldn’t? Her parents killed while she was in the house. By her own brother. All those questions from the police. Seeing it splashed all over the newspapers and television. It was awful.” She shuddered.
“When we took the girls to Stockton to live with the folks, they went through the trauma of being uprooted and having to adjust to a new place. Karen was only nine. She wasn’t sure what was going on. She was always more resilient. But Beth — well, being a teenager is difficult enough without having to contend with murder. She seemed all right during the summer. But in September school started. Mark was sentenced in November. We had to go through it all again. Beth started acting out at school.”
“Acting out?”
“She exhibited all sorts of odd behavior. She accused people of staring at her and talking behind her back. Maybe they were. Stockton isn’t that far from the Bay Area. People knew who she was and what happened. She didn’t make any friends and her grades slipped. My mother is rather old-fashioned. She thought Beth just needed more discipline. Finally my sister Alice and I took Bern to see a psychologist. He said what she was going through was part of the normal grief process. She saw him for several months and it seemed to help.”
“I’d like to talk with your sister.”
“She’s living in Stockton now, with Mom and Dad — with Mom.”
Mom must be the old woman who’d answered the phone when I called Stockton yesterday. I sipped my tea, my tongue encountering a bitter tea leaf.
“Elizabeth lived with your sister in San Leandro when she went to Cal State. She dropped out after two years. Why?”
“I don’t know why,” Vee said. “She enjoyed college, or so she said. Then she seemed to lose interest. After she dropped out of school she moved over to San Francisco. She had this thing about wanting to be a dancer. She worked part-time as a secretary to make ends meet and worked with this little dance troupe at night. Then six years ago she suddenly gave it up. She moved to Sunnyvale and changed her name. That was the last I heard of dancing. She got a good job, secretary to the head of one of those computer firms in the Silicon Valley. Then she met Philip and they were married.”
Vee stopped and poured more tea into her cup. She offered to freshen mine but I shook my head. “Why the abrupt change?” I asked.
“I think she was in a relationship that didn’t work out. I don’t know for sure because she didn’t talk about it. Maybe she just wanted to get away from here, from the memories. I suppose changing her name and cutting herself off from the rest of us was the only way she could do it.”
Elizabeth’s deception had worked, I thought, until she left. She must have known Philip would look for her. By looking for her he was bound to find out the truth. It was as though she wanted him to find out. What triggered her departure? News of her grandfather’s illness? But Vee Burke said her niece never showed up in Stockton.
“What about Karen?” I asked Vee. “Were they close?”
“Not when they were growing up. There’s a five-year age difference. Now that they’re adults, I don’t know. I doubt it. Karen isn’t close to anyone. She stands alone. I suppose you want to talk to her.”
“Yes, I do.”
“She moved to Berkeley a few months ago. When I call I rarely find her at home.”
“Does her job keep her busy?”
“It must.” Vee reached across her untidy desk and pulled her Rolodex close. She flipped through the cards, wrote an address and phone number on a notepad, and handed the sheet to me.
“She works as an actress and model. She makes commercials. I haven’t seen any of them, but then I don’t watch television. When I called her last week to tell her about Dad she said she’d be shooting all this week.”
“Do you know where I can find her?”
“She usually works at a studio over in San Francisco. The Folsom Studio, near Eleventh and Folsom. She told me about it once when I complained that I could never get in touch with her. Evidently they don’t like for her to get calls or visitors when they’re in the middle of a shoot, unless it’s an emergency.”
“And Mark?”
“What about Mark?” Shutters dropped over her eyes and her voice was guarded.
“He was released from prison three years ago. Where is he? I want to talk to him.”
She was silent for a moment. A grandfather clock at the front of the store whirred and bonged six times. It was closing time, but Vee Burke made no move to lock the front door.
“He lives in Cibola,” she said finally. “It’s a little Gold Rush town up in the Sierra foothills. He has a shop on Main Street.” She flipped to another card in the Rolodex and wrote down the addresses and phone numbers for Mark’s apartment and shop.
“Thanks.” I tucked both sheets of paper into my wallet. Then I handed Vee one of my business cards. “Here’s my number in case you want to get in touch with me.”
“What will you do next?”
“I called Lawrence Kinney yesterday. He said he wouldn’t talk to me without your permission.”
“That’s no problem,” Vee declared. She picked up the phone and found Kinney’s card in the Rolodex. “He works late.”
“I’d like to see him as soon as possible.”
When the attorney answered his phone, Vee told him Elizabeth was missing. “I’ve hired a private investigator named Jeri Howard. She’d like to talk with you right away. Tell her anything she wants to know.”
Kinney’s voice was indistinguishable on the other end of the line. Vee thanked him, hung up, and turned to me. “He’s expecting you.”
“Thanks. I’ll see if I can locate Karen in the morning.”
“I don’t have children of my own, Ms. Howard,” Vee said. “I have to love other people’s children. I’m counting on you to find her.”
“I will,” I said. It felt good to be back on the hunt.
Eight
KINNEY’S BUILDING WAS AT NINETEENTH AND Harrison, one of the new high-rises near Lake Merritt. A security guard posted at the reception desk signed me in and called Kinney’s office to announce my arrival. On the tenth floor a double door and a brass nameplate marked the law firm’s entrance. The door was locked, so I pushed a buzzer on the wall next to it. A moment later a woman in a gray dress opened it.
“Jeri Howard,” I said. “Lawrence Kinney is expecting me.”
Kinney’s office had a view of Lake Merritt, but he wasn’t looking at it. He sat at a big mahogany desk, several law books piled to one side, writing on a yellow legal pad. When I entered he came from behind the desk, crossed an expanse of burgundy carpet, and shook my hand in a brief, economical movement. He was a slender, dapper man a few inches shorter than me, with close-cropped white hair and a neatly trimmed Van Dyke beard. He wore a dark blue suit with a vest over a pale blue shirt. A round gold pin anchored his striped tie.
“Have a seat, please.” He indicated a pair of wing chairs in front of the desk. I took one and he sat in the other, crossing his legs.