Nobody's Child (The Jeri Howard Series Book 5)

by Janet Dawson

  I hovered in the corridor outside Widener’s office, joining an increasing number of students waiting for classes. I kept my eye on the door to the classroom the student had indicated. Finally it opened and people began filtering into the hallway. Through it came a man I assumed to be the instructor. He was surrounded by students, all of them female. As he made slow progress down the corridor toward his office, I took a good look at Douglas Widener.

  He was about six feet tall, with a head of thick, dark brown hair sprinkled with gray. Early forties, I guessed, with a handsome smooth-featured face and a lanky frame. He was dressed in a pair of brown corduroy slacks, loafers, and a russet turtle-neck sweater. Over all this was a loose-fitting tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. Somehow I knew that one of the inner pockets held a pipe and some sweet-smelling tobacco.

  The young women buzzed around him like a flock of hummingbirds surrounding a luscious exotic bloom, and he obviously relished this attention. As the students peeled off one by one to go to other classes, Widener noticed me waiting at the closed door to his office. He had several file folders tucked under one arm and a set of keys in his right hand, aiming at the lock. Now he flashed a white-toothed smile as he unlocked the door.

  “You’re not one of my students,” he said in a silky baritone. He turned up the charm but so far I was resisting. He knew it and it made him curious.

  “No, I’m not. I’m a private investigator. From Oakland.” I handed him one of my business cards.

  “Really?” He glanced at the card, looking amused as he stood in the doorway, then he turned and walked into his office. I followed. It was a good deal neater than Dad’s office at Cal State Hayward, but maybe that’s the difference between math professors and history professors. Dad had a poster from a Buffalo Bill exhibit on his wall, bookshelves everywhere, and his desk was a perpetual nest of paper. Widener had one bookcase, a swivel office chair upholstered in gray fabric, and a standard-sized wooden desk which was a model of organization, everything in its place. Even the desk blotter was squared and free of encumbrances. No Buffalo Bill for the math professor. His framed poster was from a recent production of Queen of Spades at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House.

  “You like opera,” I said. That was, according to Vee Burke, the mutual interest that brought Naomi Smith and Douglas Widener together.

  He smiled as he placed the file folder and my business card on his pristine desk blotter and took a seat in his chair. The desk faced the door, and there was an extra chair to one side, standard student variety with a right-hand armrest, for taking notes. I ignored this and remained standing, looking down at the professor.

  “I doubt that you came here to discuss opera. What have I done to merit your attention?”

  “What makes you think you’ve done anything?”

  “Suppose you tell me, Ms. Howard. I don’t have time to play games with you. Office hours are for students. You are not one, and there are several lurking in the hallway, seeking enlightenment.” He nodded toward the door. The smile was still on his lips, but it was tempered by irritation. His brown eyes weren’t smiling at all.

  I glanced at the doorway and saw two students, both female. I shut the door, then turned to face the professor. “I’m seeking enlightenment too. About Maureen Smith.”

  Now his eyebrows shot up. “Maureen Smith? Did she turn up?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” I paused, long enough to raise Widener’s tension level. “Any idea why she ran away from home?”

  “Probably to get away from her mother. Ultimately I did the same. Naomi Smith sent you, didn’t she?”

  “Why would she? You only dated her for a short time. I am curious about that relationship, Professor. Naomi is older than you, and you don’t have much in common besides your mutual interest in opera.” I nodded toward the framed poster. “Or could it have been Naomi’s money?”

  Widener’s lips thinned. “My relationship with Naomi, mistake though it was, is my business,” he snapped. “You’re playing games with me, Ms. Howard. I won’t play.”

  “Naomi never reported Maureen missing,” I told him.

  “That doesn’t surprise me. The woman is so self-centered she probably didn’t notice the girl had gone.”

  “Maybe it’s because she thought Maureen had run away with you.”

  My random stab in the dark turned Widener’s face pale with what appeared to be astonishment, or a good imitation of it. Then he reddened as blood surged through his veins. “Good God, the woman’s paranoia has no bounds.”

  “There are some rumors floating around. About why you left your last teaching position in Southern California. Supposedly you had an affair with a student.”

  The professor’s mouth tightened and he stared at me through narrowed eyes. “I’ve had affairs with a number of women over the years. All of them over the age of consent, I assure you.”

  “What about Maureen?”

  “A little young for me.” He studied his fingernails. I didn’t point out that Maureen hadn’t been much younger than the students who’d been congregating around him. “I’m afraid I didn’t pay too much attention to her in the short time I was involved with her mother. Maureen was a shy girl. She kept withdrawing. One day she simply wasn’t there.”

  “I doubt if it was that simple,” I said. “Did she have any friends?”

  “Only two that I can recall. The three Musketeers. They were always together. A very attractive blonde, named Kara. The boy, I don’t remember his name.” Widener fingered his pipe. “I think he had a crush on Kara, but she viewed him as more of a buddy than a boyfriend. What was his name? Avery, Emmett, something like that. He was big and unsure of himself, the way adolescent males often are.” He said it as though distancing himself from the tribulations of adolescence. I doubted Widener had ever been unsure of himself.

  “Naomi probably thought Maureen was sleeping over at Kara’s,” Widener continued. He’d hit that on the mark. “Maureen used to stay with Kara frequently. Escape. You should be aware that Naomi has a serious drinking problem. Ultimately that’s why I broke off the relationship. Hell, the housekeeper, Ramona, was more of a mother to that girl.”

  I filed this tidbit in the back of my mind for future reference. “When was the last time you saw Maureen, Professor Widener?”

  He hesitated, just long enough to pique my interest. “Why? I thought you said she’d turned up.”

  “I didn’t say it. You did.”

  “And you said, ‘In a manner of speaking.’” Widener narrowed his eyes as he quoted my earlier words. “Just what did you mean by that?”

  “Maureen is dead. Her body was found in the Oakland hills several weeks ago.”

  He looked stunned for a moment, leaning forward over the surface of his desk. “How did it happen? How long had she been dead?”

  “I don’t know. Do you think she’s been there since she ran away?” I watched his face as he hesitated again. “No, you don’t. Because you’ve seen her since then.”

  He tented his hands in front of him, elbows on the desk. “Yes, I have,” he said slowly. “The year before last. In Santa Rosa.” He looked at me sharp-eyed. “When you first showed me your card, I wondered if Naomi had hired you to find me, for whatever reason. Then I assumed she’d hired you to find Maureen. But if Maureen is dead, under some mysterious circumstances, no doubt the Oakland police are handling that investigation. So why are you here, Ms. Howard? Just where do you fit into the scheme of things?”

  “Maureen had a child,” I told him. “The child is missing.”

  His mouth turned downward in a frown. “There was a baby with them, but I didn’t think it was Maureen’s. A little girl, Hispanic or African-American. I thought they were watching it for someone.”

  “Back up, Professor, and give me more detail. When was this?”

  “A year, year-and-a-half ago,” he said vaguely.

  “Where in Santa Rosa did you see Maureen? And who do you mean by ‘they�
��?”

  “It must have been a Thursday. Santa Rosa has a farmers’ market downtown every Thursday evening. All the local growers bring produce. I often do my shopping there, have dinner or a drink.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “It’s a pleasant way to spend an evening.”

  “And you saw Maureen there?” I prompted. “On the street, in a restaurant?”

  “She was with an older woman, selling something. I don’t remember what, except that I bought some of whatever it was. Vegetables, I think. I was astonished to find Maureen behind this table, taking money and making change. She was just as surprised as I was, asked about me and about her mother. The baby was in one of those carrier things. Behind the table, in a van.”

  “What kind of van? Can you remember anything else? Color? A name or a logo painted on the side?”

  He thought for a moment. “Blue. Old. It had a side door that was open. The baby was inside, near the front.”

  “What did the other woman look like?”

  “Like an old hippie,” Widener said. “There are a lot of them up here, in Sonoma County. She had long gray hair, down past her shoulders. She must be a regular at the market. I’ve seen her there several times.”

  “How often did you see Maureen?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “Did you give her a Sonoma State sweatshirt?”

  He looked startled. “Yes. She looked as though she needed some warm clothes. So I must have seen her twice. How did you know that?”

  I answered his question with one of my own. “You say Maureen asked about her mother?”

  He nodded. “Yes, she did. I hadn’t seen Naomi but I’d heard through a mutual acquaintance that she’d been ill. Some respiratory thing. Not surprising. The woman smokes too damn much.”

  “What else? Did Maureen say anything to indicate where she was living?”

  Widener shook his head. “She and the older woman were quite busy. We didn’t have much time to talk. I told her where she could find me, but she never looked me up. That’s really all I can remember, Ms. Howard.” He glanced pointedly at his watch. “My office hours are nearly over. I have a class at noon.”

  It didn’t appear that Widener could tell me much else, at least not at the moment If I found something that indicated he was lying to me, I’d be back.

  As I turned to leave his voice stopped me. “Have you talked with Ramona Clark?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “I told you she was more of a mother to Maureen than Naomi was. I’ve often wondered if Ramona knew more than she was saying.”

  I’d wondered the same thing myself. “About what, Professor Widener?”

  He studied my face and frowned again. “About why Maureen left. And where she went.”

  Twelve

  HOW WAS I GOING TO FIND AN OLDER WOMAN WITH long gray hair who sold vegetables from a blue van? It wasn’t much of a description to go on, nor had Douglas Widener been certain that it was vegetables he bought from Maureen that evening at the Santa Rosa farmers’ market.

  I didn’t know whether the Santa Rosa market operated year-round. The one in downtown Oakland did, every Friday from eight A.M. to two P.M., rain or shine. The Oakland market was crowded in high summer, when the stalls overflowed with berries and peaches and vegetables of all descriptions, less so in winter, when the pickings were as thin as the sunshine.

  Still, this was California, blessed with a long growing season. Something was always in season and farmers’ markets flourished everywhere, different days in different cities. The growers came to the Oakland market from miles around, bringing produce from the central valley and the central coast as well as the counties north of San Francisco. If the Santa Rosa market was like its Oakland counterpart, finding one grower on the basis of a vague description was needle-in-a-haystack time.

  My first stop was the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce. The woman at the desk gave me a fistful of brochures and publications, all of which I perused over a sandwich at a nearby café. One brochure was a fold-out, stylized map, called the Sonoma County Farm Trails. A legend in the lower left corner answered one of my questions. It listed certified farmers’ markets throughout the county, town by town, giving the days of the week and times. The Thursday evening market in downtown Santa Rosa operated year-round and it was one of several markets in the town.

  I studied the map again. It told me what products were in season and when, and showed locations of wineries, farms, and shops that sold the county’s agricultural products. Each section of the county was color-coded, and within sections each establishment was numbered.

  I shook my head slowly, shoved away the plate that had held my sandwich, and spread out the map. Sonoma County covered a lot of territory, most of it agricultural. Up here they grew everything from wine grapes to Christmas trees. A veritable blizzard of numbers dotted the county’s many back roads. I could spend weeks visiting farms and shops of all descriptions, buying apples, antique roses, berries, jams and jellies, dried wreaths, vegetables of all descriptions, organic herbs and goat cheese, tasting wine until I was pie-eyed and pixilated.

  I pulled out a pen and began circling all the places that grew vegetables. But there were so many of them that I had to narrow the field a bit. I got a pocketful of change from the cashier and found a pay phone with an intact directory. First I called the phone number on the map, but, with only my bare-bones description, was unable to get any information on the woman in the blue van. Then I leafed through the phone book until I found several likely candidates, stores that sold local organic produce. At the first such place, the owner told me he bought from plenty of local growers but he couldn’t recall an older woman with long gray hair.

  It took me the rest of the afternoon to visit stores. After all, Santa Rosa is a good-sized city. I tried several restaurants as well. Since my mother owns such an establishment, I knew that she often bought her produce direct from the grower. By six o’clock that evening I had a list of possibilities to check out. But it was time to go home. Not only would Abigail be waiting impatiently for my arrival, there was Black Bart to consider.

  It was raining again as I headed south, hoping I’d missed the worst of the rush hour both in Santa Rosa and the Bay Area. But even in an area where it rains most of the winter, it sometimes seems drivers forget how to navigate the roads in bad weather. It was past eight when I got home to Oakland. Rain fell steadily as I crossed the courtyard to my front door. I have a lamp on a timer in the living room so I wasn’t coming home to total darkness. Through the half-closed blinds I saw Abigail peering out the front window from her perch on the back of the sofa. By the time I opened the front door, she was there to greet me, tail up, a steady chorus of meows designed to inform me how neglected she was. I fed her and went outside to fill Black Bart’s bowls and move them a few inches closer to my back door. It was way past the usual time, and I wondered if I’d see the kitten tonight.

  I must be crazy, I thought. I’m sitting out here, in the dark, in the rain, waiting for a feral kitten to decide it’s safe enough to come eat. There’s no guarantee I’ll ever catch it. With my lifestyle, it’s already difficult enough to take care of one cat. I work odd hours and I’m gone all the time. Besides, Abigail will pitch a monumental fit if I bring in another cat. She thinks she’s the only cat in the world. I sat there feeling decidedly grumpy, but then I’d been grumpy for weeks.

  “Come on, kitty,” I said out loud. “I’m freezing my butt off out here.”

  There was no immediate response. Then, from the darkness under the bushes, I saw movement, then a white face surrounded by black fur. The kitten crouched at the edge of the patio and stared at me with wide eyes that appeared yellow in the light spilling from my kitchen window. Black Bart gazed at me and the bowls of food and water as though he knew his capture was exactly what I had in mind. But he was hungry, and over the past week he’d grown used to getting his supper here on the concrete square outside my back door. He crept closer and cautiously d
ipped his head into the kibble. I watched him eat, his skinny little body not quite within reach of my hands. I’d give it another couple of days before I made my move.

  I went back inside the apartment and called my brother Brian in Sonoma. He’s a schoolteacher and tonight he’d gone to a meeting, said my sister-in-law Sheila, who answered the phone. According to the Farm Trails map, there was a year-round market each Friday in Sonoma. Sheila told me she sometimes went to the market. I asked her to go on Friday and keep an eye out for a woman who matched the description Douglas Widener had given me.

  I had planned to head north again the next day, but I had a few things to take care of at my office first I arrived early, made a pot of coffee, and worked my way to the bottom of the urn as I caught up on paperwork and returned phone calls. Just after eight that morning the phone rang. When I picked up the receiver I heard my erstwhile client, Naomi Smith. Her words were slurred. Was the woman drinking at this hour?

  “They haven’t released the body. Why haven’t they done that?”

  “I don’t know, Naomi,” I broke in.

  It was as though I hadn’t spoken or she hadn’t heard me. “Why are they doing this to me? I want to have the funeral. Get this over with.”

  There was a break in this litany as Ramona Clark’s voice came on the line. “I’m sorry,” the housekeeper said briskly. “I didn’t realize she’d called you.”

  “Is it true what she said about the police not releasing the body?”

  “Yes. Naomi wants to have the funeral before Christmas. I told her that the police must have a good reason for not releasing the body, but she’s upset.”

  I sighed. “I’ll talk to Sergeant Vernon, and see if I can find out what the holdup is.”