Point Deception

by Marcia Muller

  Family and friends described Claudia as extroverted and fun-loving, but self-centered and unfocused. She was a natural at selling homes, but lacked attention to detail and often lost out on closing sales by failing to keep appointments. She banked part of her commissions, hoping to buy a house someday, but ran up large credit card balances that forced her to dip into her savings. Her marriage by and large seemed a happy one, but her parenting skills were below average and several times her mother spoke to her about neglecting Eric emotionally. Workers at the daycare center Eric attended noted that the grandmother was a more significant presence in the boy’s life than the mother.

  Guy turned the page, removed the photo clipped to Eric’s profile. Taken the year he died, it showed an eight-year-old with a chipped front tooth, curly reddish-blond hair, and a scattering of freckles across his snub nose. He looked at the camera in a tentative way, as if unsure of his place in the world or his ability to fill it.

  The little boy’s expression plucked at Guy’s emotions, set off chords of pity, because in it he recognized himself. His parents had been remote, wrapped up in one another to the exclusion of their only child, and he’d struggled to measure up to friends who were secure of their parents’ love. In his self-aware moments he realized that the arrogance he’d developed once he discovered the thing he could do and do well stemmed from that early deprivation. In his less aware moments he simply felt sad.

  Guy wondered what Eric might have been like had he reached his own age. A fiercely driven overachiever like himself? A total loser? Mr. Average? No use in speculating. The boy who was described as an avid reader and clever storyteller had died along with his parents in the living room of the small canyon house Guy had visited that afternoon. A bullet from a semiautomatic weapon seemed a brutal fate for an eight-year-old whose worst crime had probably been to sneak a puff off one of his parents’ marijuana cigarettes when no one was looking.

  And then there was his father, Mitch Blakeley. The face in the photograph Guy next looked at showed a thirty-year-old man with rough-hewn features, unkempt dark hair and beard, and small eyes whose faraway gaze said his thoughts were elsewhere. According to those who knew him during his childhood in the Central Valley town of Fresno, Mitch had always been a dreamer. He read voraciously: during and after school; in the library and at the dinner table; through television shows and family gatherings. His mother despaired because he “always had his nose in a dirty old dust-catcher,” but Mitch ignored her. When he wasn’t reading, he enlisted his few friends in acting out parts in dramas he created: Amazon boatmen battling piranhas; rebel soldiers in the hills of Cuba; crew members of a spaceship under attack in a faraway galaxy.

  Eventually Mitch raised his nose from the “dust-catchers” long enough to discover the movies, and from then on his spare time and allowance were consumed by trips to the theaters. He began his first screenplay when he was fourteen, learning the format from a library book, and had completed over a dozen by the time he graduated high school. His English teacher deemed them “technically competent.”

  UC Santa Cruz offered Mitch a scholarship, but once there he became more interested in drugs and women than in studying. After two years he dropped out and moved to an apartment near the waterfront, supporting himself by dealing marijuana and working part-time delivering pizzas. But he returned frequently to the campus in the hills, because he’d become intrigued by a young woman named Claudia Robinson.

  For two years after his marriage to Claudia and the birth of their son, Mitch worked full-time as an assistant manager at the pizza restaurant and wrote like a demon in his spare time, but his screenplays were ignored or rejected. When the pizza franchise folded and Claudia’s father offered to set him up in a career in banking, he reluctantly packed up his typewriter and moved the family to San Diego. The life of a struggling artist, he told friends, was not his thing.

  Neither was banking. According to colleagues in the trust department, Mitch hated his job. He put in the bare minimum of hours and often left early, asking others to cover for him. His salary was good, but he spent all of it, and whenever he managed to get ahead he’d make a trip to Las Vegas and blow the money at the blackjack tables. The trips, he told one of his coworkers, were the only way he could cope with the mediocrity of his existence.

  Apparently the mediocrity had persisted until his death, Guy thought. Investigators had found no completed screenplays in the canyon house, only a fifty-page fragment that had been penciled over and over until it was barely readable.

  As she left the Scurlock house Rho noted that both vehicles—Will’s big white superaccessorized Dodge Ram, and Virge’s little blue Toyota pickup—were in the driveway. If Virge had left voluntarily, she’d gone on foot or caught a ride with a friend. But what friend? As Will had indicated, his wife had gradually closed off to others during recent years. Rho could remember a time when Virge’s friendly smile would welcome you to the hospice thrift shop and the volunteer fire department spaghetti feeds, but the memory was dim at best.

  She started the cruiser and continued up the driveway. It was paved only to the house, then turned into your standard dirt ranch road. To either side lay softly sculpted meadows where Will’s father used to run dairy cattle. Will, however, had no love of ranching and sold the herd after he inherited the property.

  Up here on the ridge the fog had receded. Cold moon-rays highlighted details: a eucalyptus tree split by lightning many years before; a downed rail fence; a rocky outcropping from which Will’s dad used to fly the flag for the family’s Fourth of July barbecues. Rho and her father had attended all of those gatherings, and if Jack Antolini drank more than most others, his daughter understood. Her mother’s leaving had been a bitter blow to them both.

  Dad, Rho thought, assailed by guilt as she remembered his earlier phone call to the substation. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her father or want to see him, but she would’ve liked to see him under normal circumstances, and those didn’t prevail anymore. Jack had been forcibly retired after being badly injured in a high-speed chase near Calvert’s Landing only two months before the canyon murders. He’d chafed at his inability to take part in the investigation, tried to orchestrate Rho’s every move, and ultimately became her harshest critic. If she thought Will had been rough on her tonight, she had only to remember the things her own father had said.

  The cabin came into view, and now Rho recognized it as the place teens would sneak off to during the parties: brown-shingled, with small, high windows and a flat roof topped by a rusted stovepipe. To one side was a ramshackle shed and a big stump with an axe stuck into it; a neat stack of firewood leaned against the cabin wall, tarped against the coming winter rains. An old pickup near the woodpile was jacked up as if Lawrence had been working under it. Light glowed from behind the cabin’s drawn curtains, and as she approached the door, it opened and a tall, thin man peered out at her.

  “Mr. Lawrence?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Deputy Rhoda Swift—”

  “Ah, yes, I’ve seen you in town. You belong to the handsome Lab, Cody.”

  “How d’you know his name?”

  “I made his acquaintance outside the post office one day. I was admiring him and a passing gentleman introduced us.”

  Rho was standing on the doorstep now, a round of tree trunk embedded in the earth and slick with moss. Clay Lawrence towered over her, his head nearly touching the doorframe. His lips, in a nest of gray-brown beard, were smiling, and laugh lines crinkled at the corners of his deep-set eyes. In spite of the lateness of the hour, he looked fully awake.

  She said, “You must be a dog person, if you know I belong to Cody and not the other way round.”

  “Actually I’m an animal person. I like all kinds.” He motioned for her to come inside.

  The cabin was tiny, with a galley kitchen on one wall and a woodstove in the corner. Single bed with a shelf above it holding dozens of paperbacks. Broken-down easy chair upholstered in lurid pu
rple flowers that matched the fabric of the curtains—Virge’s taste. Nothing else, but where would he put it? Rho couldn’t imagine living in such a small space.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, Clay Lawrence said, “The rent is very cheap,” and motioned for her to take the chair.

  She sat, unable to avoid a mental comparison between it and the white leather chair at the Lindsay house. Lawrence added, “I’d offer you something, but I’m short on supplies.”

  “That’s quite all right,” she said. “I only want to ask you a few questions. When was the last time you saw Virge Scurlock?”

  He sat on the bed, eyebrows knitting as he thought. “Friday morning, before I made my monthly trip into Santa Carla. I dropped off my rent money and we talked. What’s this about?”

  Rho ignored the question. “You’re sure you didn’t see her on Saturday or Sunday?”

  “No. I stayed over in Santa Carla. What’s going on?”

  Rho explained about his landlady being missing. “Will said she often visits you. Did she ever mention someone named Samantha Lindsay?”

  “No. Who’s she?”

  “Another missing woman. I thought there might be a connection.”

  “You mean, they might’ve gone off together?”

  “It’s not probable, but I’d like that better than Virge going off by herself.”

  “Yeah. I can’t imagine her doing that.”

  “I gather you know her fairly well.”

  His lips tightened. “As well as I want to.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Virge can be… difficult. When I first moved in I thought she was charming in a ditzy sort of way. She’d show up here with cookies or brownies, and I’d invite her in and make tea. Sometimes we’d play cards. But then she started showing up every day. And she got demanding.”

  “How so?”

  “She wanted me to be here whenever Will was away at night. Wanted me to drive into town with her. Ordered me to come over and fix stuff at the house. I tried to put some distance between us but it didn’t work, and she’s gotten clingy and kind of obsessive. To tell the truth, she’s turned into a pain in the ass. I’ll be glad when my lease is up.”

  “When’s that?”

  “Three weeks, and I’ll be going home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Seattle. I was born and raised there.”

  “What made you leave?”

  “Is this an official inquiry, Deputy Swift? Or are you just being neighborly?”

  “It’s Rhoda. And I’m being neighborly.” Truth, mostly. She found herself liking Clay Lawrence and wishing she’d gotten to know him earlier in his stay.

  “Okay, I left because my marriage busted up. My wife was involved with one of my coworkers, and I needed to get away. So I got in my car and drove south till it broke down in some godforsaken town. From there I hitched.”

  “How come you stopped hitching here?”

  “My last ride dropped me off in front of the hotel, and I was hungry. A pretty woman waited on me, and we hit it off, so I decided to stay a while.”

  “Becca Campos.”

  “Right. She does housecleaning for Virge and knew about this cabin. Aside from Virge, the place has been good to me. I’ll miss it.”

  “So why go home?”

  “It’s time.”

  “Becca going with you?”

  “No. From the first we’ve known our relationship was no-strings. I’m not ready for another commitment. Maybe I never will be. Becca understands that.”

  Rho wondered. She’d seen the way Becca linked arms with Clay as they walked through town, noted her smiles and body language. But that was none of her business.

  “Clay,” she said, “can you think of anyplace Virge might’ve gone tonight?”

  He considered, shook his head.

  “Would she hitchhike on the highway?”

  “God, no! Woman’s afraid of her own shadow.” He thought some more, eyes moving quickly, and then they grew still. “There’s the canyon,” he said.

  “Cascada Canyon?”

  He nodded.

  “She wouldn’t go there.”

  “Well, you probably know her better than I do, but for the past six months or so she’s been talking a lot about those murders. Asked me a couple of weeks ago if I’d go there with her and help her confront her fears. Of course, I said no. I was afraid of what it might do to her.” He paused. “You know, yesterday evening… There’s this grove of redwoods to the far side of this property.”

  “And?”

  “I was up there around dusk watching the fog. I go there late almost every day. It’s kind of like meditation for me. Anyway, I noticed this guy down in the canyon, following the driveway toward the highway. First person I’d ever seen there, so I followed him and we talked. He claimed he was sent out from New York by the owners to check up on the property, but his story didn’t ring true to me.”

  “Describe him, please.”

  The description matched Guy Newberry. He’d certainly been busy since he arrived in town.

  Guy stood on his balcony, listening to the wash of surf on the rocky beach before tackling the remaining profiles of the victims. Claudia and Mitch Blakeley, he thought, were examples of a type he’d encountered all too often: indulged as children; blessed with small talents and large aspirations; cursed with an unwillingness to work long and hard at anything. In short, dabblers.

  And no doubt envious of those who had succeeded. They didn’t recognize the toil and sacrifice that success demands. They didn’t acknowledge the years of paying dues to a club in which the payee was denied full membership. What had one of the New York dabblers said to him several years ago? Oh yes: “Talentwise, there’s not much difference between the best and the worst of us, but some are chosen and some aren’t. It’s as if somebody’s sprinkling gold dust around. One person it sticks to, another it doesn’t.”

  He couldn’t debate the first assumption; with a few notable exceptions, talent fell into a fairly narrow range. And luck certainly played a strong role in any individual’s career. But if there were some latter-day Tinkerbell flitting about, what made her dust stick to one person and not the other was a coating of good, honest sweat.

  In accordance with that thought, he went back inside to the profiles.

  Susan Harrison Wynne, murder victim, thirty-one years of age. The wealth that flowed from Harrison Industries had cushioned her from birth: nannies; private schools and lessons; the brownstone in the East Seventies; summers at the family estate in Bar Harbor. But the cushion was not without its protruding springs. Her father divorced her mother for a younger woman when she was thirteen. Her only sibling, Dunbar, was usually away at school—no source of comfort. Her mother took to traveling and bringing home lovers who never lasted out the year.

  Great sums of money and a difficult family life usually bring isolation and loneliness, but not so with Susan. She went out of her way to make friends, and they helped her keep intact her natural warmth, intelligence, and humor. Classmates and teachers from her boarding school days described her as an instigator of hilarious pranks and harmless disruptions for which even an ogre of a headmistress found it hard to punish her. Adventurousness and intellectual curiosity became her hallmark.

  When the time came for filling out college applications, Susan tore up those from the eastern schools her adviser recommended and instead applied only to the “alternative” campus at Santa Cruz. There she became intrigued with organic gardening and worked tirelessly in the campus plots. Horticulture led naturally to the culinary arts, and soon she was taking lessons from a chef at an innovative California-style restaurant downtown. The owner had brought in a fine arts major from the campus to create a sculpture for his courtyard dining area, and Susan, who had seen the young man around but never spoken to him, soon fell in love with Forrest Wynne. Before long they took an apartment together, and when Susan, on the recommendation of her mentor, was accepted at the
Academy of Culinary Arts in San Francisco, Forrest transferred to the College of Arts and Crafts in nearby Oakland. Before they moved north, they married and soon conceived their first child, Heath.

  There were two photographs of Susan Wynne clipped to the profile. Guy removed them and studied the one dated shortly after Heath’s birth. A heart-shaped face framed by straight light brown hair; faint smile revealing dazzlingly white teeth. Nothing exceptional about the features until you looked into her eyes.

  They glowed with warmth, intelligence, and kindness. Even in a photograph they appeared to look beyond the surface of what they saw. This was a woman who was sure of who she was and could accept others on whatever terms they presented themselves. She would have been a good listener and willing to aid friends with her considerable insight. And she wouldn’t have been afraid to tell you when you were being an asshole.

  Susan Wynne had had eyes like Diana’s. How could someone look into such eyes with hatred and cruelty? And yet they had died in much the same manner.

  Shaken by the thought, Guy set the photo down and picked up the second one, dated the year Susan died. In it, her hair was short and uneven, as if she’d lopped it off herself. Her skin was roughened and blotchy, her lips cracked and unsmiling. But her eyes were the worst evidence of change: dark pools in which nothing lived. Cold pools that offered nothing to anyone.

  Drugs, Guy thought. Disappointment, too. And the daily grind of a primitive life in a damp canyon where everybody’s dreams had died.

  Quickly he turned the photo over and went back to the profile.

  Susan had difficulty finding suitable work after graduating from the culinary academy. The restaurant business was demanding for the mother of—now—two small children, and even though she could afford help, she missed spending time with Heath and Oriana. For a while she considered opening her own restaurant, but felt she lacked the necessary experience. Besides, Forrest’s once-promising career had foundered, and he needed her attention. Instead of a restaurant she decided to invest a portion of her trust fund in a property where she and he and their best friends could pursue their work in peaceful surroundings. Her old mentor in Santa Cruz had urged her to write a cookbook, and promised to recommend it to his publisher.