by Paul Heald
“Wait a minute.” She cocked her head slightly to the side. “You think that the object of the burglary was my father’s papers?”
“Well, they took the computer and a bunch of other stuff, too, but James is convinced that whoever broke into his house doesn’t want him looking into the disappearance of Diana Cavendish.”
“But what the hell could my father’s papers have to do with her disappearance?” She shook her head, deeply distracted by Thor’s revelation. Whatever connection they had enjoyed earlier in the evening had come undone.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I’m going to find out. I’ve met Murphy a couple of times, and I bet that he knows more than he’s telling you.” She began to compose herself. She had a plan of action, and a flash of her former self returned. “I’m going to have a little talk with him tomorrow. He at least owes me an explanation for why he wanted to go through Papa’s stuff.”
Thor nodded his sympathy and at that moment the bill arrived. He grabbed it and slipped his credit card into the black leather bifold. “Why don’t I go with you?” he suggested. He wanted to see her again, but did not want to risk asking for a second date. “I should get a copy of the police report from him in case the vestry wants to make an insurance claim or something.”
She nodded and gave him an unsatisfying, formal thanks for the dinner. As they walked to her downtown apartment building, the conversation was desultory and inconsequential. Oddly, her response to the bad news had only magnified his feelings for her. Such passion! Her father wasn’t the only strong personality in the Rodgers family.
Although he concluded that she did not bear him a grudge, he did not dare angle for even a peck on the cheek as they parted.
XIV.
RUNAROUNDS
Stanley Hopkins sat in a doughnut shop in Claremont, California, plotting his next move in the increasingly frustrating search for the operator of Mygirlfriendsbikini.com. He polished off a large chocolate muffin and went back to the counter to refresh his coffee and get a couple of custard-filled Bavarian creams. The attorney who had registered the website’s trademark had promised to provide the name and address on the cancelled check used to pay for the trademark application. After leaving the Burbank lawyer three unreturned messages, however, the professor now considered that trail a dead end. Instead, he turned his attention to the Internet market for soft-core pornography, something that he knew little about. His previous research and interviews had taken him into the world of hard-core porn stars, not college students in bras and panties taking selfies in dorm rooms.
His searching had revealed several sites that looked like they were competitors to Mygirlfriendsbikini.com, including Sweetiesixteen.com, Myspringbreak.com, Daytonamemories.com, Bykerbabes.com, Carshowhotties.com, and Yourdanceclub.com. Stanley hoped that if he contacted the owners of the competition, he would discover who ran the site that had posted the pictures of the disappeared Diana Cavendish.
Unfortunately, the owners of competing soft-core websites were as difficult to track down as the owner of Mygirlfriendsbikini.com. Almost every one of them used misleading information when registering the websites. What the hell did the IRS do when it wanted to audit one of them? Some of the addresses were outright fraudulent, others were legitimate addresses unconnected to the website, and one led Stanley to a tight-lipped lawyer. Only the address provided by Yourdanceclub.com seemed to be legitimate, but an employee who answered the phone reported that the owner of the site was momentarily away, so Stanley sat in the doughnut shop, fighting the urge to order a couple of crullers while he waited for his call to be returned.
After he finished the morning paper, Stanley denied himself more sweets and quelled his impatience by driving to the physical address associated with the Yourdanceclub website in nearby Rancho Cucamonga. The address listed in the Whois database turned out to be a small store selling dance togs, situated between a dry cleaner’s and fabric store in a strip mall. The window in the storefront showed conventional leotards for sale along with more daring outfits. He asked for the owner, and a thin young woman with dyed orange hair emerged from behind a clothes rack and led him through an aisle of tights and shoes to a small office in the back of the store. She rapped her knuckles on the open door, pointed at Stanley without saying a word to her boss, and walked back to attend to a customer.
“Mr. Andrews?” Stanley stuck out his hand to a young man with the most immaculately maintained eyebrows he had ever seen.
“That’s me.” His hands were small, but the professor felt a firm grip compress his knuckles. “Can I help you?” The store owner took a second look at his visitor, and Stanley brushed some powdered sugar off of his shirt in response.
“I hope so,” he replied and handed over one of his business cards. “I’m helping out the FBI with the investigation of a website called Mygirlfriendsbikini.com. I’m contacting owners of other websites with a similar user profile to see if we can find out anything about its owner.”
Andrews repeated the name of the website and shook his head. “Never heard of it. Swimsuit shots of girlfriends, I suppose?”
Stanley nodded. “I knew it was a long shot, but your website is pretty similar: pictures of pretty girls in swimwear, pictures of pretty girls in clubwear.”
“We’ve got some video, too,” the store owner added enthusiastically. “I make five times more money from the website than I do from the store. And all the content we post is free! The word is out that if you think you look hot on the dance floor, just snap a photo or a video with your phone and we’ll post it the next day.” He shook his head in amazement. “These girls bump and grind like strippers and they’re begging to be seen online. It’s the easiest money that I’ve ever made.”
“Do you charge anything?”
“If you want access to the whole archive, yeah, but not to see the latest week of uploads. We make most of our money from the advertisers.” He added quickly, “And pay taxes on all of the revenue, too.”
Stanley smiled indulgently and made one last stab at getting anything useful out of his visit. “I noticed that both your website and the bikini website have an advertiser in common, an herbal, uh, enhancement pill.”
“Yeah, Herbal Wood! It’s fabulous. Great product.”
The professor gave him a doubtful look and asked whether Andrews would be willing to provide him with contact information for the pill purveyor.
“Sure, but I just deal with them via email. I get paid into my PayPal account, so I’ve never even talked with them.” He wrote down the URL for the Herbal Wood website and its email address on the back of a yellow Post-it. “They might be able to tell you more about your guy.”
Stanley thanked him for his help, walked out to his car, and drove back to the doughnut shop. He brought in his laptop and checked out Herbal Wood, which appeared to be a legitimate business taking advantage of the FDA’s failure to regulate the market for herbal remedies as stringently as it did the market for pharmaceuticals. Its web page showed a picture of the virile founder of the company and even provided a physical address in Washington State, where unsatisfied customers could apply for a full refund. The general email address was [email protected] and the address provided by Andrews was [email protected]. He emailed each a carefully worded query about Mygirlfriendsbikini.com, suggesting a cozier relationship with the feds than was technically accurate, and went up to the counter to order a cinnamon roll and a banana smoothie.
There was nothing more to do except wait patiently, a formerly strong talent that had deteriorated steadily since Angela had died.
On the way back home, he passed a home-improvement store and impulsively pulled in. He had been putting off an important project at home for a while and now he decided to finish it. He entered the airy steel-and-concrete edifice and found a waterproof plastic container. To this he added a small bag of concrete and stowed them both in the trunk of his car. As he drove home, his felt his resolve begin to ebb. Nonetheless, as the
sun shone high over the San Gabriel Mountains on that clear Tuesday afternoon, he stood in his carport, traced the bottom of the container onto a piece of cardboard, cut carefully along the circle with a utility knife, and laid it as a template on the grass in the corner of his backyard.
If he had been forced to search too hard for his shovel, he might have wavered, but it stood leaning in plain view against the garden shed. He lifted the tool with care and creased the turf around the cardboard outline, leaving a neat pattern in which to dig a hole. He took his time, looking up at the snow-capped peak of Mt. Baldy whenever he doubted the wisdom of his plan, and dropped the soil neatly into a toddler pull-behind for bicycles that served as a makeshift wheelbarrow.
His first attempt at sinking the container into the hole proved that he had dug too shallowly, so he scraped another six inches of dirt from the bottom and saw that the fit was now snug. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and went inside to get a drink of water.
There was not much left to do. He would pour the bag of concrete into the buried container, add water with his garden hose, and create a solid home for the ceramic vase that held the remains of his wife and daughter, cremated together, child on mother’s breast. Imbedded in concrete and safe from the elements, the improvised columbarium could be moved when he sold the house or found a more appropriate spot. Prior self-examination had revealed this as a brilliant and eminently sensible plan.
Unfortunately, as he stood on the back porch and surveyed his handiwork, he had to admit that Angela would have hated the idea. She would have no problem with the mountain view or even his selfish desire to keep them close at hand; rather, the unconventionality of it all would have unnerved her. Who buries his wife in the backyard? Usually a husband who’s knocked her over the head and rolled her up in a carpet first. The plan might be clever and reasonable, but not a single person out of a hundred would have thought to execute it. Probably not one in ten thousand. But wasn’t that why she loved him? That streak of unconventionality? Not really, he had to admit.
When Angela’s father died, Stanley took control of the burial arrangements in a successful attempt to keep the two grieving daughters from being ripped off by the only mortuary in their town. He called every funeral director within a fifty-mile radius and was absolutely appalled at the cost of embalming, transportation to a simple graveside service, and the most basic casket. At times, long before his passing, both Angela and her father had decried the expense of funerals and the ridiculous extravagance of planting $15,000 worth of burnished hardwood forever in the ground, so he felt vindicated when he finally found a place that offered a price fifty percent below the closest competition. The two Spanish surnames of the partners who ran the operation gave him pause, but Stanley had gotten a law degree before going to graduate school and he knew that the funeral industry was heavily regulated. There was no reason why he should not honor his father-in-law’s parsimony and go with Vásquez & Benitez, Funeraria y Crematorio.
It seemed like a brilliant idea, but Angela and her sister felt uncomfortable in the tiny mortuary, and the crowd of mourners at the cemetery emitted an audible gasp when the hearse emblazoned with the Hispanic trade name pulled into the cemetery. Sr. Vásquez was confused by the simple Episcopal service and kept asking what more he could do (nothing—just leave). Looking back, it was not really a big deal, but the unconventionality of it was remarked upon by many with disapproval. He did not care. He was proud to avoid the traps set by a corrupt industry, no matter how badly society demanded it. But Angela told him afterward that she wished they had spent the extra money. Their subsequent discussion, albeit civil, showed just how far apart they were when it came to satisfying the expectations of their community, at least when it came to the interring of a loved one.
So, he stood next to the hole where he proposed to place the remains of his wife and daughter and looked up again at the mountains. He admitted that burying them himself had never been a good idea. No matter how respectfully and sensibly he laid them down, he would eventually have to tell people about his do-it-yourself columbarium. After all, what if he died suddenly? Someone had to know where his loved ones lay. At a minimum, her sister and mother would need to know what he had constructed in the backyard of his California home. He imagined the conversation and knew that at best they would think him disrespectful, and at worst, some kind of lunatic. His own will mattered little. He threw down the shovel and trudged back into the house.
The despondent grave digger stayed inside only long enough to grab his laptop. Avoiding the urn in the laundry room, he left through the front door, got in his car, and drove north, halfway up the mountain that had been his only companion during the backyard fiasco. His destination was a small coffeehouse in Baldy Village, a tiny outpost at 4,100 feet above sea level, inhabited by ex-hippies, Park Service workers, and the owners of the handful of businesses servicing hikers and skiers on their way up the steep forest road. The converted log cabin had a surprisingly fast wireless connection and a mouthwatering selection of fruit scones. He pulled into the small gravel lot in front of the café with a satisfying crunch of his tires and saw all the chairs under the porch’s tin roof were still free. No one was around, and he could sit among the rustic scenery for as long as he wanted, pretending that the weather-beaten cabins and tourist shops were really two thousand miles away, in northern Wisconsin or the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, instead of a short ride from Los Angeles.
Tired of coffee, he ordered a hot chocolate and a scone and sat down on an Adirondack-style wooden chaise on the front porch. Computer in his lap, he lurked on Facebook, sipped his drink, and watched an intermittent stream of battered pick-up trucks drive past. Ever since his wife’s death, he had found it too painful to socialize with their old friends, so he instead followed them online. It was nice to know that life was going on without him in a hail of LOLs, LMAOs, and ROFLs. He had posted his own status just once since the accident, and the avalanche of well-meaning comments had been overwhelming. Thereafter, he surfed anonymously.
While reading a heated battle of comments about a friend’s left-leaning political post, he felt his phone vibrate in his front pocket a split second before it started playing “Careless Whisper” by Wham! Angela had made the damn song his ringtone and he couldn’t figure out how to switch it to something less embarrassing. He fumbled the Android onto the rough-sawn floor and barely managed to reach down and swipe its face before it went to voice mail.
“Hello?” He snuck a quick peak at the number but did not recognize it. The connection was erratic, and it took him a moment to realize that the caller was the trademark lawyer who had registered the Mygirlfriendsbikini.com website. After several frustrating repetitions of his message, the attorney finally managed to communicate that he had an address for the website’s owner. As the call began to break up, Stanley shouted for a text and hung up hoping that he would soon have the breakthrough he needed.
Less than a minute later, the address had arrived at his phone and he was mapping the location on his computer. The Google satellite view revealed a large house in Silver Lake, equidistant between Griffith Park and Dodger Stadium. He looked at his watch and saw that any attempt to pay an immediate visit would require a trip across the east-west length of Los Angeles at the beginning of rush hour. Instead of fighting the traffic, he decided to stay put and do some Internet sleuthing on the owner’s name, William Simmons, and save a face-to-face confrontation for the next morning.
A Google search for William Simmons returned almost a half-million results, so he tried pairing the name with other search terms. Typing Mygirlfriendsbikini.com yielded nothing new. Searching under the house address plus the name was also fruitless. Entering the address alone elicited the name of a former owner, whose name surfaced in connection with the neighborhood association in Silver Lake and a community choir. When Stanley linked the name Simmons to some words associated with soft-core pornography, like babe, he was bombarded with irrelevant hits promising
to titillate him, enlarge his penis, or both. On a whim, he also searched William Simmons or W. Simmons in connection with Jacob Granville and Diana Cavendish, but no results surfaced beyond a nineteenth-century genealogical entry showing a long-deceased William Simmons to have been the great-uncle of a long-deceased Diana Cavendish. He then reran all of his prior searches using Bill, Billy, Will, and Willy instead of William, before giving up. He reminded himself that Simmons was not a suspect in the disappearance but rather was probably a hapless purchaser of the photos from a third person who might have knowledge of the crime.
The sun was beginning to set and the air was rapidly cooling when he performed one last search, linking the Simmons name together with Sweaty Palm, the corporate entity that officially owned the bikini website. Nothing. He slapped his laptop shut and drove back down the mountain to Claremont.
* * *
Stanley waited until mid-morning the next day to drive west to Silver Lake in search of William Simmons. He killed the time waiting for traffic to clear by filling in the empty hole in his backyard, carefully arranging the broken pieces of sod on top and tamping them down until little trace of the disturbance remained. Once on the road, he stopped at a coffee shop a few blocks away from the I-10 interchange and picked up a double latte and two pieces of coffee cake to eat during the ride. Rush hour had mostly subsided, so he made it to Silver Lake in less than an hour. He had never been to the neighborhood before and was surprised by the number of eclectic shops and local eateries dotting the hilly landscape.
He did not expect to find Simmons at home during the day, but he had been unable to find a phone number for the physical address Quintana had provided, so he planned on approaching neighbors until he got better contact information. At worst, he could leave a note and then run some errands and return in the evening. As it turned out, he did not have to work very hard before being disappointed once again.