by Sue Grafton
The house itself was a two-story white frame, flanked by a one-story wing on either side of the facade. There were four porches visible, providing shade and sheltered ventilation so that doors and windows could be left open to the elements. A porch wrapped around the house at the front, with a second porch stacked on top. A widow's walk encircled the roof. The numerous paired windows were narrow and dark, many of the panes sporting the sort of tattered holes that rock-throwers make when they score a hit.
Johanson waved at the house, scarcely slowing his speed. "Been empty for years. I'm in the gardener's cottage on 'tother side of the barn," he yelled. I found myself averting my gaze as we passed the house and headed for a compound of structures I spotted in a shady area ahead. Barn, toolshed, greenhouse. There were arbors of grapevines as gnarly as rope. Weathered wooden tables were arranged under the trellises. I had the sensation of cold blowing down on the back of my neck.
Johanson pulled up in front of a ramshackle frame cottage. Beyond, I could see a raw wood barn that listed to one side, and beyond that there were endless stretches of three-board wood fence.
I leaned forward again and laid a hand on Johanson's shoulder. "Excuse me, who'd you say owns this?"
He killed the engine before he turned. "Miz LeGrand. I guess I should say Miz Kinsey to be accurate. She's a widder woman, must be ninety-some by now. Married to Burton Kinsey, the fella who leased the quarry from her pappy. He made his fortune off the mine, though the whole of it was rightly hers once the old man died..."
I'd ceased to listen and the silence in my head seemed as profound as temporary deafness. He was talking about my maternal grandmother, Cornelia Kinsey, born Cornelia Straith LeGrand.
Chapter 4
* * *
Friday morning, I arose at 5:59, switching off the alarm a moment before the clock radio was set to burst into song. I stared up at the skylight above my bed. No rain. Shit. I didn't feel like exercising, but I made a deal with myself: I'd do the jog and skip the gym. I leaned over and scooped up the sweats I'd left folded on the floor. I wriggled into pants and top. I sat up and tugged on a pair of crew socks, shoved my feet into my Sauconys, and had my key tied to the laces before I'd left my bed. It occurred to me that if I just made it my habit to sleep in my sweats and crew socks, it would be a lot more efficient. All I'd need were my running shoes and I'd be ready to go. I went into the bathroom and availed myself of the facilities, after which I brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, and then used my wet hands to comb the sleep-generated peaks and valleys from my hair. I trotted down the spiral stairs, checked the thumblock on the front door and pulled it shut, then rounded the studio to the gate.
The neighborhood was quiet and the air felt damp. I walked half a block down and one block over, crossing Cabana Boulevard to the bike path that parallels the beach. I began to jog, feeling sluggish, aware of every footfall and every jolt to my frame. With me, jogging is seldom a subject for debate. I get up and do the run, unless it rains, of course, and then I burrow in my bed. Otherwise, five mornings a week, I shake off the sleep and hit the road before I lose my nerve, knowing that whatever I'm feeling at the outset of a run will be gone by the time I reach the end. The gym I can do without, though I'd been good about lifting weights for the past several months.
The sunrise had already presented itself in a dazzling light show that left the sky a broad and unblemished blue. The surf looked forbidding, a silt-churning cold, applauded only by the sea lions who waited offshore, barking their approval. I ran a mile and a half down to the Cabana Recreation Center, did a U-turn, and then ran the mile and a half back, finally slowing to a brisk walk as I headed for home.
I'd been resisting the urge to ponder events from the day before, but I could feel my thoughts stray. Dolan and Stacey had both caught the name "Kinsey" as soon as Johanson mentioned it, but my expression must have warned them to keep any observations to themselves. I had said little or nothing while the ranch foreman showed us through the barn, the old orchards, and the greenhouse, which was largely abandoned. Most of its panes were intact. The air was humid and smelled of mulch, peat moss, compost, and loam. In that protected environment, alien vines and opportunistic saplings had flourished, creating a towering jungle that pushed against the glass on all sides, threatening to break through. The minute we walked into the space, I knew I'd been there before. Cousins I'd discovered in the course of a previous investigation had sworn I'd been at Grand's house when I was four years old. I had only the scantiest recollection of the occasion, but I knew my parents must have been there, too. The three of them – my father, my mother, and her sister Virginia – had been banished from the family after my parents eloped. My father was a mailman, thirty-five years old. My mother, Rita Cynthia Kinsey, was an eighteen-year-old debutante whose mother was convinced she was destined for someone better than Randy Millhone. Instead, my mother ran off with him, thumbing her nose at the entire Kinsey clan. Virginia sided with the newlyweds. Thereafter, all three were cast into the Kinsey family equivalent of the Outer Darkness.
Despite being exiled, my parents apparently made secret visits to the ranch whenever my grandparents were away. Rumor had it there were numerous contacts with the three remaining sisters, but I only knew of two occasions. On the first, there was an incident in which I'd fallen off a porch and hurt my knee. I did remember the sight of the scrape with its alternating stripes of dirt and blood, which smelled like iron. I could also remember the searing pain when my mother dabbed at the abrasion with a cotton ball that seemed to hiss on my skin. She and I took turns blowing on the wound, huffing and puffing to dry the medication and thus ease its sting. On the only other drive to Lompoc I remembered, my parents were killed before we ever arrived. My grandmother had known of my existence since the day I was born. I was still smarting from the fact she'd never bothered to make contact.
Walking the property with Arne Johanson, I'd dreaded the idea of entering the house, and I'd been hoping to avoid it when I realized Stacey's breathing had become labored and much of the color had drained from his face. I laid a hand on his arm and called, "Con?"
Dolan turned and looked back. Stacey shook his head, making one of those gestures meant to assure us we needn't worry about him. Johanson had forged on ahead and he was still chattering about the ranch when Dolan caught up with him. "Mr. Johanson? Sorry to cut this short, but I've got a meeting coming up in town and we have to get back."
"This won't take long. You don't want to miss the house."
"Maybe another day. We'll take a rain check."
"Well. I guess that's that then. Whatever you say." Within minutes, he'd delivered us to Dolan's car and we were back on the highway. The drive home had been low-key, with Stacey slumped on the backseat, the red knit cap pulled down to shield his eyes.
"Are you all right, Stace ?" I asked.
"Walking wore me out. It's my damn back again. I'll be better in a bit." In the absence of animation, his face looked old.
Dolan readjusted the rearview mirror, keeping one eye on Stacey and one on the road. "I told you not to come."
"Did not. You said the fresh air'd be good. Said I ought to take advantage while I was up to it."
I said, "You warm enough?"
"Quit worrying."
I turned my attention to Lieutenant Dolan. "What's next?"
Stacey answered before he could. "We'll meet at my place tomorrow morning. Ten o'clock suit?"
"Fine with me," I said.
Dolan said, "Sounds good."
We dropped Stacey first. He lived close to downtown Santa Teresa, five blocks from my office, in a small pink stucco rental house perched above a pink cinderblock wall. Dolan had me wait in the car while he retrieved Stacey's gun from the trunk and then followed him up the six stairs to the walkway that skirted the place. I could see how tightly Stacey had to grip the railing in order to pull himself up. The two disappeared, moving toward the rear. Dolan was gone for ten minutes, and when he returned to the car,
he seemed withdrawn. Neither of us said a word during the drive to my apartment. I spent the remainder of Thursday afternoon taking care of personal errands.
Having finished my jog, I walked the block between the beach and my place. When I reached my front door, I picked up the morning paper as I let myself in. I tossed the Dispatch on the kitchen counter and started a pot of coffee. As soon as it began to trickle through the filter, I went up the spiral stairs to take my shower and get dressed.
I was halfway through my bowl of Cheerios, sitting at the counter, when the telephone rang. I dislike interruptions at breakfast, and I was tempted to wait and let the answering machine pick up. Instead, I leaned over and grabbed the handset from the wall-mounted phone. "Hello?"
"Hello, Kinsey. This is Tasha, up in Lompoc. How're you?" I felt my eyes close. This was one of my cousins, Tasha Howard, the only member of the family I'd ever dealt with at any length. She's an estate attorney with offices in Lompoc and San Francisco. I'd met her sister, Liza, a couple of years before, and during our one and only conversation discovered hitherto unplumbed depths of disaffection in my otherwise placid frame. My reaction was probably only a side effect of the fact that Liza was telling me things I didn't want to hear. For one thing, she told me, in the giddiest manner possible, that my mother was regarded as an idol among her living nieces and nephews. While this was meant as flattery, I felt it dehumanized the woman whom I'd never really known. I resented their prior claim, just as I resented the fact that my pet name for our aunt Virginia, that being "Aunt Gin," was a term already in wide use among these same family members. So, too, was the penchant for peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches, which I'd assumed was a secret link between my mother and me. Granted, my reaction was less than rational, but I was left feeling diminished by the idle tales Liza told.
Tasha was okay. She'd bailed me out of a jam once and on another occasion she'd hired me for a job. That hadn't turned out well, but the fault wasn't hers.
Belatedly, I said, "Fine. How are you?" We always have conversations that sound like they're punctuated by transatlantic delays.
"I'm good, thanks. Listen, it looks like Mother and I will be coming down your way to shop and we wondered if you were free. We can have lunch if you like, or maybe get together for drinks later in the afternoon."
"Today? Ah. Thanks for asking, but I just started work on a case and I'm completely tied up. Maybe another time." I hoped I didn't sound as insincere as I felt.
"Must be a busy time of year."
"Feast or famine," I said. "It's the nature of the beast." I was really trying my best not to be prickly with her. Even in the briefest of conversations, we often manage to butt heads on the subject of family relationships. She favors closer ties while I favor none.
"I suspect you'd refuse no matter what."
"Not at all." I let a silence fall.
We breathed in each other's ears until she said, "Well. Mother will be down again on Tuesday. I know she's anxious to talk to you. Are you still in the office on Capillo?"
"Actually, I'm not. I've rented a bungalow on Caballeria. I just moved in a couple of months ago."
"I'll tell her."
"Great. That's fine. Not a problem."
"I don't want you to take offense, but I hope you'll be polite."
"Gee, Tasha, I'll try to behave myself. It'll be a struggle, of course."
I could hear the smile in her voice. "You have to give me credit for persistence."
"Right. Duly noted. I have you down for that."
"You don't have to be sarcastic."
"That's my dry sense of humor."
"Why are you such a pain in the butt? Couldn't you try meeting me halfway?"
"I don't understand why you insist on pursuing me."
"For the same reason you insist on rebuffing me. Being pigheaded is a family trait."
"I'll give you that. It still pisses me off that Grand thinks she could treat my parents like shit and then waltz in years later and make it all evaporate."
"What's that got to do with us? Pam and Liza and I didn't do anything to your parents or Aunt Gin. Why should we be held accountable for Grand? Yes, she behaved badly. Yes, she's a bitch, but so what? Maybe your mother and Aunt Gin delivered tit-for-tat. At the time your parents died, we were only kids. We didn't know what was going on and neither did you. It seems ridiculous to nurse such bad feelings. To what end? We're family. You're stuck with us whether you like it or not."
"So far, I've done very well without 'family.' So why can't you drop the subject and get on with life?"
"Why can't you?" She paused, trying to gain control of herself.
"I'm sorry. Let's try again. I don't understand why every time I call we get into these wrangles."
"We don't get into wrangles every time."
"Yes, we do."
"No, we don't!"
"Name one conversation when we didn't come to blows."
"I can name three. You hired me for a job. We had lunch together that day and we got along fine. Since then, we've chatted on the phone two or three times without bickering."
"That's true," she said, reluctantly, "but I'm always aware of the anger percolating just under the surface."
"So what? Look, Tasha, maybe in time we'll find a way to settle our differences. Until then, we're not going to get anywhere arguing about whether or not we're arguing. I don't claim to be rational. I'm nuts. Why don't you let it go at that?"
"Okay. Enough said. We just wanted you to know we're still interested. We hoped yesterday's visit to the ranch would provide an opening."
"Ah, that. How'd you find out?"
"Arne Johanson called Pam. He said he saw someone who looked so much like your mother, it gave him goose bumps. I was surprised you'd even step a foot on the family ranch."
"I wouldn't have if I'd known."
"Oh, I'll bet."
"That aside, I do recognize what it costs you to keep in touch. I don't mean to be quite so belligerent."
"No apologies necessary."
"Uh, Tasha? That wasn't an apology."
"Skip it. I got that. My mistake," she said. "The point is, I'm a lawyer. I deal with belligerence on a daily basis."
"I thought you did estate planning. How could anyone get belligerent about that, it sounds so dull?"
"Shows what you know. Anytime you talk money, there's the potential for folks to get nasty. Nobody wants to talk about dying and nobody wants to give up control of the family purse. When it comes to the beneficiaries, there's usually an undercurrent of entitlement," she said, and then hesitated. "On a related topic, you probably heard there's talk of razing the Manse."
"The 'Manse'? Is that what it's called? I thought a manse had something to do with Presbyterians."
"It does. Our great-great-grandfather Straith was a Presbyterian minister. In those days, the Church didn't have the money to build a parsonage so he paid for it himself. I think he intended to deed it over to the Church when he died, but cooler heads prevailed. At any rate, the house is a mess. It'd be cheaper, at this point, to tear it down."
"I take it Grand doesn't want to spend the money to bring the old place back."
"Right. She's tried to enlist the support of a couple of historic-preservation groups, but no one's interested. The location's remote and the house itself is a hybrid. Turns out it's not even a good example of its kind."
"Why not leave it as it is? It's her land, isn't it?"
"It's hers for now, but she's ninety years old and she knows none of her heirs has the money or the passion for undertaking the job. Besides, she's got another house in town. She hardly needs two."
"That's right. I remember now. Liza told me most of the family live within blocks of her."
"We're a cozy bunch," she said, dryly. "Meanwhile, she's got all kinds of developers sniffing around. Mostly local vintners with an eye on the slopes. Turns out the soil's perfect. Plus, she gets a lot of coastal fog, which means a longer growing period."
&n
bsp; "How much land does she have?"
"Twenty-three thousand acres."
There was a silence while I tried to compute what she'd just said.
"You're kidding."
"I'm serious."
"I had no idea."
"Doesn't matter for now because she'll never sell. Great Grand-daddy made her promise she'd keep it just as it is. The issue won't get sticky until she goes."
"Hasn't she put the estate in some kind of trust?"
"Nope. Most of those old trusts were established in the thirties – people in the east who'd had wealth in the family for generation after generation. Out here, all we had were ranchers, down-to-earth types much more likely to form limited family partnerships. At any rate, nothing's going to happen as long as she's alive," she said. "Meanwhile, if you change your mind about that drink just give me a call. You still have my number?"
"I better take it down again."
Once I hung up, I had to sit down and pat my chest. I'd actually ended up entertaining a few warm feelings about her. If I didn't watch myself, I was going to end up liking the woman and then where would I be?
On my way over to Stacey's, I popped by the office to make sure all was in order. I opened a window briefly to let in a little fresh air and checked my machine for messages. I took care of a few routine matters and then locked up again. I left my car where it was and walked the five blocks to his house, arriving in advance of Con Dolan. Stacey'd left his front door open and his screen unlatched. I knocked on the frame. "Hey, Stacey? It's me. Mind if I come in?"
He responded with a muffled "Make yourself at home." I stepped inside and closed the screen door behind me. The floors were bare of carpeting, and the windows had no curtains or drapes, so my very presence seemed to set up an echo. I could smell coffee being brewed, but otherwise the place felt unoccupied. The room was stripped down, as though someone were moving in or out with the job only partially completed. The interior of the house couldn't have been more than eight hundred square feet, most of which was visible from where I stood. The space was divided into living room, kitchen, a bedroom, and a bath, though the door to that was closed. The floor was linoleum, printed in a pattern of interconnected squares and rectangles, blue on gray with a line of mauve woven in at intervals. The woodwork was stained dark; the walls covered with yellowing paper. In places I could see tears that revealed the wall coverings from three lifetimes down; a small floral print covered by a layer of pinstripes I that, in turn, covered blowsy bouquets of faded cabbage roses.