Keeper of the Keys

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “He’s our biggest client!” Martin, by now bursting blood vessels in his face, shouted. “I didn’t finesse him, I tried to do what he wanted. Why, oh, why can’t you give him what he wants?”

  “He wants special. He wants unique. I’ll give him that and I will make this firm famous beyond anything you ever dreamed.”

  “You’re an egomaniac, Ray! You want to ruin us?”

  “All you care about is the money. Art doesn’t enter into it. You think so small, Martin. So puny. You cheat on your wife and family. You’ve forgotten what it means to be honest and true. You’ve forgotten what it means to be a man, or a creative professional.”

  “It’s about Leigh!” Martin shouted.

  “Don’t even speak her name! You want to take this outside?”

  “And have you pound on me again?”

  “Then let’s discuss this.”

  Martin tried to fight him with words, but Ray, sure of himself for the first time in a long time, refused to engage. Martin hated him and his ideas; he hated Martin and his ideas.

  The clarity of this notion burst on them both at the same time.

  “I guess we’ve come to a parting of the ways, Martin,” Ray said, after more futile discussion.

  “What? Is that what you’re leading up to? You’re leaving? You’re nothing without me. You need me to sell your so-called visionary bullcrap to an unsuspecting public!”

  “Actually, I explained to Antoniou that this might be in the works, but he was so excited about my ideas by then, well, he didn’t care, Martin. He really wants me to design this house, and I regret that you didn’t have enough faith in me to back me when I most needed backing.”

  Maybe Martin would have a regret or two himself, Ray thought after Martin had banged the door shut on his way out, and Ray began packing boxes, pinging and panging here and there about the things he had to leave behind. He took three trips out of his office, all the while stalking past Martin, who stood, frowning, hands in his pockets. Suzanne had already spread the news; staffers came and went, some just checking it out, some wishing him well. But Martin stayed the whole time.

  “You make quite the statement, Ray,” was all he said.

  Ray lugged boxes out, understanding that Martin felt nervous about the contents of the boxes, but also understanding he could not figure out how to interrupt this process without risking another pop on that cleft chin of his.

  The final box stuffed into the trunk of his car, the bagged shirt and peanut shells now sitting on the passenger seat beside him like an accusation, he twisted the key. The car roared to life.

  Pounding at the window.

  What the hell?

  He let the window down.

  “Oh, honey. Don’t think you’re leaving without me.” Denise was smiling like the brave little creative professional she was. “Give me a second to go steal some pertinent drawings and files. I’m going where you’re going.”

  “I have no plan.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll help you with that.” Denise came back in five minutes, finished filling up the trunk of the Boxster, leaned in the window again, pulled out a business card, eyed it like someone paying attention, then said, “New name.”

  “What?”

  “ Bell Jackson.”

  “Oh, Denise, no. I can’t offer anything like the benefits Martin’s got lined up, at least not yet.”

  She didn’t care, she informed him. She would go where he went because, and he felt the first joy in a long time hearing this. Ray had a vision, he was the talent in the firm.

  “My ideal is to be a full partner in two years. Martin would never let that happen. He’s so greedy, Ray. He wants to retire at fifty. Did you know that?”

  “What’s that got to do with your promotion?”

  “He has his own agenda, and I don’t fit it. Makes me sad for myself. He’s got two protégés, neither one of whom is me. I want to go where you’re going. What do you say, Jackson-Bell Associates? Now doesn’t that sound fine!”

  He couldn’t help laughing.

  She smiled, and two dimples popped out in her cheeks. “You might not like hearing this, but all these years with Martin have rubbed off on you. You’ve become quite the salesman these days. You sold me as well as Antoniou.”

  He sent her home to draw up a business plan for Jackson-Bell Associates.

  And he finally went to see Rappaport.

  Kat had a house in Hacienda Heights to assess. She could make Whittier her last stop fairly easily.

  After surveying the Hacienda Heights house, standard three bedroom but lacking that all-important second bath, she drove to Whittier, to Franklin Street. Whoever had bought their old house after their mother sold it had kept the paint on the house gray and white, just like it had been when she had lived in the place decades before. Strange. It had reverted to its true nature.

  Across the street at the Hubbels’ Spanish-style mansion, the curtains were closed. No cars. No telling if they were around on this windless, eye-stinging hazy day. The green, anomalous yard made her think about the high desert past Idyllwild. Southern California was just a continuation of the Mexican Mojave, and the sooner they started living like the desert-dwellers they were, the later the basin would run out of water.

  Kat sat in the Echo, parked on the curb of the wooden-frame house she had grown up in, across the street from the house Leigh had grown up in, sipping a Fresca, playing with her cell phone.

  No one came in or out of her own old house for a while, then a boy aged maybe twelve blasted out the front door. He propped his skateboard against the thirties glass brick flanking the entryway, fiddling with a helmet. She prayed, since apparently his parents were unavailable to pray, that he did not plan to go down the steep hill. Surely, at ninety miles an hour toward the bottom, he would die when he hit the busy intersection below.

  He finally got the strap attached, then headed up a side street toward the college. She let out a long relieved breath. Then she called Ray again, who did not answer.

  Lights came on in her old house. Panicked parents? She wished she could reassure them. “Your son went up the hill, not down.” Instead, she called Ray one more time. This time, he answered.

  “I’m in Whittier,” she said. “The house looks empty. Did you see Rappaport?”

  “He’s got the shirt. I’m not sure what they think but I should get a lawyer,” he said. “I think they’re going to arrest me and it won’t be long. He thinks the shirt is important.”

  Thinks she’s dead and I did it, was what Kat heard.

  “He listened to everything I had to say about Idyllwild and the reservation. He taped it and said he’d be back in touch about it. He’s got your phone number and he wants to see you, too. And-”

  “But what?”

  “He showed me the bank video of the ATM withdrawal. He was very interested in seeing if I could identify Leigh. I saw a person hiding under a watch cap and sunglasses. I saw someone who was nobody or who was anybody.”

  “Damn it! Was it Leigh or not? Could it have been her? Can’t you recognize your own wife? The way she moves? Her nose? You really couldn’t recognize her?”

  “Could have been Leigh! Could be you!” he said. “It was just a feeling.”

  “What?”

  “That it was her.”

  “You had a feeling it was her?”

  “Just a movement-something. Like-I don’t know.”

  Was he lying? “So what are the cops going to do?” she asked.

  “He says Leigh’s been gone ten days and it’s a matter of concern and he is assigned to it. He’s going to see Leigh’s parents and go to Leigh’s office. It’s really starting now, Kat. And he asked me again if I knew where she is. What’s your plan right now?”

  “I’m just sitting here. A fool on a hill. I don’t know where the Hubbels went.”

  “Let’s see, it’s almost six. He walks his dog at Penn Park after he gets off duty. He’s done it for years. It’s a beagle. I’ll b
et that’s where he is,” Ray said again. “He stays out there feeding the ducks and cooling off from his job until sunset. I’m coming out. Wait for me.”

  “But you said-”

  “I called my mother right before I called you and she picked up and then she hung up on me. So I know she’s physically okay. Let’s do this together. I need to have it out with him anyway.”

  25

  O n a summer’s eve, the lingering heat of the day drifting romantically around like incense, the sun glowing, no other word for it, people in Penn Park had a right to feel superior to most other folk. They had their kids, their steaks and barbecue sauce, their dogs, and their greensward. Greensward-Ray loved that word. Up the grassy hill, couples kissed in that golden light and ducks quacked along the slow-moving creek that ran through the center of the park.

  They stepped through air thick with the sweetness of blooming flowers over boulders and dips in the path.

  Leigh had grown up close to Penn Park. She had told him about the summer programs and the heat, and how much she longed for those lengthy days to come again when she had no needy clients coming after her, no deadlines to work her up.

  “We spun on the merry-go-round,” she said. “Oh, you have no idea how hot it used to get, how dizzy we got. We fell on the ground. It tasted sweet, the dirt.”

  His memories of heat mostly involved bungalows without air-conditioning, the air so tight it choked you. He remembered Penn Park only vaguely, like Disneyland, a one-time event, magical, hazy. Why hadn’t Esmé brought him more often when they lived on Bright Street? He really didn’t know. Maybe she was too busy working, trying to keep them fed.

  “They had craft programs. I learned how to weave a plastic bracelet. Kat and I brought our dolls here and made a whole world for them. And if we forgot them, the lantana made a pretty hoop-skirted doll.”

  Searching for James Hubbel, Ray and Kat strode into the swing area. Ray found himself amazed at how high these swings seemed to be. He sat down on one. Kat shoved him hard, and he flew.

  “You see him there?” Kat muttered, because James Hubbel stood in the nearby meadow while his dog crouched only a few dozen yards away from them.

  “Yeah.” Ray slowed to a stop.

  “He didn’t even bag it!” Kat said, outraged.

  “I imagine the minute he arrived in the park with a dog he was breaking rules.”

  “Well, people shouldn’t-”

  “Listen, Kat. I want you to stay right here.”

  “What? It was my idea.”

  “Haven’t you ever noticed how much harder it is to speak from the heart when there’re more than two people talking?”

  Still holding on to the swing’s chain, she gulped. “Well, okay. True.”

  “So I’m going to talk to him.”

  “I have a more friendly connection. He remembers me, Ray. I knew him when I was a kid.”

  While they argued in whispers, a couple of kids screamed by them, fighting over a bouncing ball. “Gimme.”

  “No, you gimme!”

  Before the fight ended up deadly, a graybeard picked one up by the neck of her shirt, like a tomcat lifts a kitten. “It’s her turn,” he said firmly, then carried the kicking child back to the red gingham-covered picnic table. “Your mom has a hot dog for you, if you can shut your mouth long enough to open it.”

  The child shut up and stuffed her face with a hot dog loaded with mustard. The child who had won the ball returned and sat across from her. The two little girls made ugly faces at each other. They tossed fries and competed as to how much ketchup.

  “He thinks I killed his daughter,” Ray said quietly. “He needs to talk with me.” He got off the swing and walked toward Hubbel.

  Kat let him go. She sat down on the swing and watched.

  “Here, Marley. C’mere, boy!” Hubbel had let the dog off the leash. Marley chased a little boy. The boy’s father arrived, purple-faced, to chastise Hubbel, who apologized, although not profusely. Once the beagle finally decided to come back, he was spoken to in a mild but firm tone. “You’re a bad boy and you know it,” Hubbel told it, snapping the dog’s collar to his nylon tether. “You know we love you but you’re a bad boy.” Like all bad parents, he gave the dog a good petting, and even a kiss on his head.

  “Hello, Jim,” Ray said.

  Hubbel, clearly startled, jumped up and examined him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I used to come here years ago.”

  “Nostalgia strikes me funny coming from a man your age.”

  “I came here once with Leigh.”

  “Have you heard from her?”

  “No.”

  “No,” he repeated. He shook his head, and Ray saw him as a father who was sick with worry about his daughter.

  Ray said, “I know you are angry and suspicious of me right now.”

  “Damn straight I am. I just had a talk with Detective Rappaport about you.”

  “I want to show you-explain-that I’m looking for Leigh. I’m worried, too.”

  Marley, snuffling in a hedge, pulled his owner a few feet. Hubbel followed, as if he didn’t know what else to do under the circumstances, and Ray fell into step beside him.

  “Tell me more about this shirt you found up there,” Hubbel said. Ray went over it carefully. When he was finished, Hubbel said, “I don’t know if you’re trying to help or if you’re destroying evidence. The trunk of your car! Don’t you watch cop shows?”

  “All I know is, I’m looking now, Jim.”

  “You’re really looking for her?”

  “I should have gone looking a lot earlier,” Ray said. Hubbel took this in. They entered a narrow path, deserted, between rosebushes.

  Ray heard a sound like a sob. Hubbel had stopped and turned his back to him. He found himself patting the beefy shoulder of his father-in-law.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t swear it’s her on the videotape. I can’t promise you she was all right at that time.”

  “It’s her mother. She seems to have given up on everything. When she heard about the shirt, she broke down. She is sure Leigh is dead. I don’t know what to think about this video, whether it’s a hopeful sign. I’ve been a cop a long time, and when girls go missing like this, the news is usually bad. Ray. Swear to me-swear you didn’t-”

  “I swear, Jim.”

  Hubbel looked hard at him. “Okay,” he said. “I want to help. Anything.” He continued to keep his opinions in reserve, though.

  “I came to talk to you about the cabin.”

  “Ask me anything.” They kept walking, the little dog keeping to the side, sniffing at the flower beds.

  “Has she ever gone there on her own, to get away for a while, as a refuge?”

  “No. I don’t think so. I don’t think she liked it much. Maybe there is a ghost scaring people away. I don’t think anyone will ever buy it. This rumpled-up T-shirt you found. You’re right, it’s odd.”

  “If it’s hers-if she went to the cabin, where could she be heading?”

  Hubbel rubbed his mouth. “If Leigh was in charge-” He stopped and the dog looked back at him. “I would think Palm Springs. She used to rave about a trip she took there a few years ago. She ever tell you about that?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, I guess she wouldn’t because she went there with her old boyfriend.”

  “Tom Tinsley?”

  Eyebrows raised, Hubbel said, “You know about him?”

  “You know I do.”

  Leigh’s father shrugged. “Yeah, well, she and Tommy stayed at the Blue Sky Motel and took a hike in Borrego Springs. She wanted us to go see the waterfalls at the end-you know how Leigh gets sometimes. We don’t go out to the desert, though. My wife can’t take the heat.”

  The park lamps came on suddenly.

  “Here comes night,” Hubbel said conversationally. “Let’s sit down. I’m walked out.” They sat on a low brick wall against a viney hillside. They had walked deep into the forested part
of the park and were alone.

  Hubbel, stroking the dog, who had his head back and eyes half-closed in pleasure, sighed, and Ray suddenly realized how much emotion James was suppressing. He kept turning his head away, swiping at his nose. He was like a big old dog himself, wary, with that barrel chest. “You and Leigh ever talk about having a baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t volunteer much, Ray.”

  “I didn’t want a baby.”

  “Oh. That cause problems?”

  “And the thing is, I’d love to have a child. But I didn’t think I’d make a good father. Didn’t trust myself. Leigh had no doubts.”

  “Doubt’s like a pesticide in a marriage. Kills the love. You should trust her.”

  Ray felt an intense longing to talk to Leigh. There was so much to say.

  “You’re some schmucky kid, then you have a baby, you know? Oh, I guess you don’t. But let me fill you in on the parenting thing. It’s like getting hit by a semitruck on the interstate, a horrible surprise. You don’t know how to cope with this emergency. You’re thrust into a new world of disability. You can’t go out at night to dance, to dream, to drink. You can’t even sleep, for Chrissake.”

  Hubbel said, “I never got my degree from Cal. She ever tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” Leigh’s father petted the dog below him who circled twice, then plopped down directly on his feet. “Studied criminal justice with the help of the G.I. Bill.”

  “She never said, Jim.”

  “I married her mom in my sophomore year because we were going to have a little girl. I got a steady job. I’m a good deputy. I’d rather be on the street than sitting behind a damn desk anyway. I don’t regret my life, but I wanted Leigh to be safe, to have a skill. I wanted her husband, when she married, to have a good degree.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Hubbel smiled. “You don’t get why I’m saddling you with this ancient history.”

  “Not really. No.”

  “Then she had to go and fall in love with Tom Tinsley.” Hubbel pushed the dog off his feet. In the glimmering twilight, in the distant bursts of light from the park’s lampposts, children screamed and played. Ray wondered if Kat was eavesdropping.