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Cover art: W. F. Soare, 1936
CONTENTS
Fiction: OFF PAPER by Patricia McFall
Fiction: WAKE ME UP FOR MEALS by Bev Vincent
Fiction: DUMMY by Brian Muir
Reviews: BLOG BYTES by Bill Crider
Department: 2008 READERS AWARD
Reviews: THE JURY BOX by Jon L. Breen
Fiction: IDENTITY THEFT by Jon L. Breen
Passport to Crime: WITHOUT ANESTHESIA by Maceias Nunes
Fiction: SHINING ROCK by Blake Crouch
Fiction: 667, EVIL AND THEN SOME by Marilyn Todd
Fiction: FOR THE JINGLE by Jack Fredrickson
Fiction: UNRULY JADE by Terence Faherty
Fiction: L'ETANG DU DIABLE by Caroline Benton
Fiction: FOR THE LOVE OF MARY HOOKS by Christopher Bundy
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Fiction: OFF PAPER by Patricia McFall
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Art by Laurie Harden
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Patricia McFall is a freelance writer, editor, and journalist who also teaches fiction writing. She's the author of the suspense novel Night Butterfly and a half-dozen short stories, three of them (including this one) mysteries and all published in EQMM. See 2004's “The Foreigner's Watch” and 2005's “The Resurrection of Daniel Mason.” The latter featured Lane Terry, the performance artist
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Whenever you're playing a role, you're lying, which may be why all of Southern California wears the unfair mantle of Hollywood's artificiality. But be nice. We're only practicing our lines. I'm a good liar because I used to be an actress, more of a performance artist, really, but now I practice in the line of work. As a private investigator, I sometimes have to assume an identity. I work as Lane Terry & Associates, and that last word is technically another lie, nothing more than a performance with a supporting cast when I need one. I prefer to act alone, in both senses.
With an agency located in luxurious Laguna Beach, I often call upon my theatrical background. Recently, my being a good actress even saved lives—mine, for instance.
I'll start with the woman standing in my open office door staring at the lettering on the glass. A mousy little woman about my mother's age, tail end of the Baby Boomers, but that was the only resemblance. Mom is well kept, in an artistic, natural-beauty, wouldn't-think-of-plastic-surgery, handcrafted-clothes-and-jewelry kind of way. This woman's sloppy T-shirt, padded vest, and stained grey relaxed-fit jeans weren't aimed at effortless classic style. They were aimed at keeping the rain off and the wind out, and could as easily have come from a shelter as a thrift shop.
I wondered if she was some poor soul who had lost her home and family and was in need of someone to share with. She surprised me by opening the door, giving me a sharp look, and asking, “Are you Lane Terry or an associate?” When I said I was Lane Terry, she mumbled that she'd expected a man, and that I looked awful young to be an investigator.
I get this underestimation all the time if I don't dress right or wear makeup. I'm twenty-six, but since I look younger, these days I've taken to wearing my hair expensively cut to shoulder length with feathery bangs I can peer intelligently out from under. I also acquired a business wardrobe of sorts.
But at that moment, my expensive hair was stuck up under a baseball cap, and I was wearing deck sandals, a pair of khaki cargo shorts, and a Hawaiian shirt in aggressive tropical-bird colors. Maybe I looked like a surfer, but I was culturally appropriate since it's a beach town and the morning had been unusually warm for March. Besides, why should she care? She didn't have an appointment.
I grabbed a pair of horn-rimmed glasses with zero prescription I keep by the phone. Not much, but the only prop I could find on short notice, and this was improv. I stuck them on and asked, “Did you have a question about something?"
All she did was stare back, looking forlorn, catching her breath from the walk up the hill. I almost felt sorry for her, but my clients generally come from referrals, and she was a walk-in. I wanted her to make her point so I could get some work done.
She took a quick breath and said, “I need you to find my daughter."
Outside, a driver honked at a too-mellow pedestrian carrying his Boogie Board across the street in a leisurely mid-block diagonal. With her back to the windows, the woman couldn't see, but she flinched and glanced over her shoulder. She was still out of breath, so I offered her a chair.
She sank into it, sighing, “Lord, what a hike."
It was. My new hilltop office is on a nice little side street near the public library. People who can't find a parking place have to walk, and a lot of visitors to Laguna Beach don't know where to look for one. It's like cracking a cipher. I consider it good exercise for them and always give newcomers a minute to defib before I ask any questions.
But she didn't wait. “I'm Ruth Holloway,” she said. “My girl's seventeen, be eighteen in June. Her name's—” she hesitated, which struck me as unusual—"Megan Doyle, but she could be using some other name. See, she run off from our home in Westland. Just a little town nobody's ever heard of, population of two thousand. It's south of Jackson in Calaveras County, off Route Forty-nine, up in the gold country where they have the Jumping Frog Gun Show?"
I nodded, though I had never been there, or to a gun show, either. I have nothing against frogs, but I don't much like guns.
Ruth went on, “Megan took off about six months ago. The law was no help. They said half the kids in a little town take off.” She winced out a smile that showed how agreeable she'd look if she made a habit of it. She shrugged. “Guess they can't stand the peace and quiet."
I knew about small towns, even if this was a glamorous one. They do get to feeling smaller in your teens, and I'd done my walkabout, too. But there was something about her. This woman was afraid of something, and she was telling lies, even if they were masked by some truth.
Now that I was suspicious, I made a point of asking her why her daughter took off. She studied her ragged cuticles and shrugged, not even bothering to come up with a story. “My husband's strict, and she—she disobeyed him.” Her voice squeezed off, her expression crumbled, and she started crying. I handed her a box of tissues. Oh boy, I thought, there's an iceberg right underneath here. I wondered about the “m
y husband,” not “her father,” and the different last names. Megan's stepfather? I tried not to feel too sorry for Ruth. My kind-of-boyfriend Sean thinks I could afford to toughen up a little, that it takes a big shield to cover such a big heart. I don't know about that, but I do know I don't like to watch someone who's hurting, so I have to guard against manipulation.
Ruth blew her nose. Then she wiped her eyes and told me between sniffles that the family got information on her daughter's whereabouts, that Megan had apparently been at The Little Church on the Hill, where they helped street kids in Laguna Beach. I knew the place, and I'd heard that they were good people. In fact, I had sent a few lost kids up there, one not long before.
Ruth said she'd been to talk to “a lady preacher,” but the woman wouldn't tell her a thing, not even whether Megan had been there. She said, “And I knew she was there because she called a friend from there."
But Megan hadn't called home, had she? I waited for Ruth to finish.
"I don't know what kind of Christian that so-called pastor thinks she is,” she snapped, and I could see a nasty edge to her now.
"How do you mean?” I asked evenly.
"Well, Miss Terry, I shouldn't have said that. She was acting like some government bureaucrat, you know, talking all about how they don't give out information. I'm sure she was just doing her job.” She paused for me to respond, which I didn't, then answered herself. “But she thinks her job is to keep kids away from their own parents. Well, but I'm sure she was doing right as she seen it..."
Ruth Holloway gave me the impression that she could easily change her opinion a hundred and eighty degrees just to avoid the listener's displeasure. I had seen this kind of conversational dodging before, from someone I met at a women's shelter. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I was curious enough to ask her what they'd already done, whether they'd officially reported the girl missing to the unhelpful police in Westland or been in touch with our locals. No to both. Maybe I did feel sorry for her, but I was running out of time, patience, and a good reason to get involved.
"Can you show me some identification, Mrs. Holloway?"
"Oh, I'm sorry,” she said, putting a hand to her lank hair and looking away. “I come down here in such a rush I must have forgot it."
"That can happen,” I said. Her body language and her eyes both told me she was lying. “Do you have a picture of Megan?"
That she had remembered to bring. She hooked a finger into a vest pocket and extracted a snapshot of a dark-haired teenager leaning over a picnic table in the desert, looking up as she reached into a cooler for something. She was wearing a pink T-shirt and a denim mini that showed off long, well-tanned legs. Even so, I could see some family resemblance. The daughter was delicate-boned like the mother, but her expression was full of independent spirit that had yet to be extinguished. Pretty, smart, and her own person. No wonder she was out of there.
One more thing about that picture: I immediately recognized the girl as the one I'd sent to the church less than a month before. I'd seen her on the sidewalk in front of the library, she panhandled me, and before I gave her my five-dollar contribution I talked to her long enough to tell that she wasn't a druggie or a crazy that needed other kinds of help. On the contrary, she seemed like a nice kid. I told her about the church, and she smiled happily, thanked me three times, and took off straight up the hill. I hadn't seen her since.
I looked back up at Ruth, thinking that with such a weird family, Megan could be running away for good reason. I heard myself say, “Tell you what, Mrs. Hollo-way. I don't see how I can take you on as a client, because I just don't have enough to go on, but let me tell you what I can do. I'll go see if someone at the church will talk to me. For that I'd charge one hundred dollars as a flat fee, but if I get infor-mation and we decide to work together, that would be a deposit. That work for you?"
"Oh yes, that would be fine."
"How did you want to take care of that?"
"Oh, we only use cash,” she said, picking around in an inside vest pocket. She wasn't carrying a purse. “We're sure not rich,” she said more loudly than necessary. “Rich man's got less chance of gettin’ into heaven than a camel through the eye of a needle.” She glared out the window as though hoping that there were rich men around to hear her. “We're gettin’ our reward, though—we're rich enough in faith to know we're chosen."
Well, didn't that sound smug.
She pulled two fifties out of a vest pocket and put them on my desk.
I took them and said, “I'll also need a number where I can reach you."
"I'll come back tomorrow or call you tonight,” she said, taking a business card.
"No, that won't work. I'm not in the office and I'm in the process of changing my cellular service,” I lied. “Why don't I leave a message on your home phone?"
"Don't have no phone.” She sounded smug about that too.
"How about a motel number or something local, then? Where are you staying?"
"With an old friend in Anaheim,” she said reluctantly. “I'm sure she'll be glad to take a message for me.” She got out and unfolded a piece of paper from some grinning realtor's giveaway pad and pushed it across for me to copy the friend's number penciled across it.
I gave back the original, noting that the phone number was in the 714 area code, which would be right for Anaheim. A little nugget of truth? Who knew? I stood up and told her I'd call her that evening or the next day. “You have transportation, Mrs. Holloway?"
She nodded and said, “You can call me Ruth. I left my girlfriend waiting in her car.” She pointed up the hill.
You don't generally get all breathless walking downhill.
I gave her a good lead and put on my uncolorful jacket before I tailed her—downhill—to a public coin lot where she got into a mud-spattered old pickup with Texas plates. No girlfriend, either. A man was at the wheel, and I watched them stop at the bottom of the hill and turn left on Pacific Coast Highway. South, the direction opposite Anaheim.
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I returned to my office, called in a chip to Ron Walker, a really nice but unfortunately married acquaintance in a slightly shady netherworld of employment, to see if he could find out who owned the truck. I put the hundred dollars into my floor safe to protect it from me. Maybe I'd give it to the kid if I found her. In the combination break/conference/quick-change dressing room, I put on a dress, sandals, hoop earrings, and a jacket, grabbed my leather tote, and hiked up to The Little Church on the Hill.
According to the glass-front announcement board in the foyer, there was a youth-group meeting in session, and I decided to wait until it let out. There was a pretty little meditation garden which had not been sacrificed for more parking area, which made me like the place even more. I tried to keep my imagination in check while I picked up messages. One from my mother inviting me to see Medea with her that weekend, assuring me, “It's entirely modern. I understand the whole cast is only going to meet on the one night of the performance. No rehearsals. Thought you'd like it, baby. Let me know."
They really shouldn't let schoolteachers retire early. I decided to call her back later.
I'm not religious myself, but it was a meditation garden, so I meditated on how lucky I was to have great parents, even if my mother was a bit ethereal at times, my dad a bit too analytical all the time. This kid Megan had run away from her parents, and one of them had just been lying to me. I connected the dots to create dramatic links from Texas to a mousy housewife who talked in religious references to a family that hung out at gun shows. Then I reminded myself not to get ahead of the information I had.
I scanned the cloud-sponged sky to its shimmering horizon, then closed my eyes to smell the ocean, wet earth, sage, and eucalyptus. Maybe yesterday's would be the last rain of the season.
A minute later, a group of teens came out of the church with a middle-aged woman. She wore her salt-and-pepper hair like a helmet, and her short, stocky build, made shorter and stockier by a thick b
rown sweater and wide tweed slacks, resembled a mother bear. When she caught sight of me, her expression turned wary. She finished her conversation with a couple of lingering boys with a gentle shoulder-punch for each, and they left looking happy, one with a book-bag slung carelessly over his shoulder, their running shoes scuffling along. I approached her with a business card held out, explaining that I was looking for a runaway named Megan Doyle. Could she help?
"I doubt it,” she said, the welcome dimming in her eyes as she read the card, adding, “You didn't think she was in our little group here, did you? Because—"
"No, I was just waiting to talk to you. Nice little garden. Very Zen."
"—because you're no doubt aware the place to report missing persons is the police. Have you contacted them?"
"Not yet. I have a picture. Would you mind?” I dug for it in my leather tote.
"Don't bother. I already saw it,” she said, shaking her head. “So you're working for the mother. I already told her I don't know the child. Even if I did...” She let her voice trail off, and the downward cast of her eyes told me worlds about why she wasn't always eager to send runaways back home.
"Just so you know,” I said, “I met Megan on the street and sent her up here to you. And Ruth Holloway isn't really a client. I only said I'd see if you'd talk to me. That's the extent of the deal."
She took another look at me, and waited, maybe for more information.
I said, “I took off myself once,” not entirely lying but stealing a glance upward for incoming bolts of lightning. “I know some kids have good reasons for leaving and don't want to be found. But I understand that a friend heard from Megan and she said she was here, at least she was a few days ago—"
"The mother didn't tell me that, not that it makes any difference, Miss—” She glanced down at the card— “Miss Terry."
"Why don't you call me Lane? That's what my friends call me."
"Then call me Marcella. I'm assistant pastor.” She smiled a little in spite of herself, maybe hoping I really wasn't on the wrong side of things. But she didn't offer to shake hands or invite me inside, either. We were still in the little garden, both of us standing, neither giving way.
EQMM, May 2009 Page 1