by Dianne Day
“I like rain.” She smiled up at me in her unassuming way. “Though it does interfere with my sculpting. The roof of my studio leaks. So I caught a ride over the hill with Oscar—he’s gone on into Monterey. I’ve brought something I thought you might like to have. If we could go inside? Or are you on your way out rather than in?”
“I am going out—” I indicated the sign in my window that said CLOSED “—but I can delay for a few moments. Come on in.”
I unlocked the door and we dripped across the floor. Phoebe went straight to the desk, wiped her portfolio off with a handkerchief, and opened it out. “Come and look,” she beckoned to me, “you can choose the one you like best.”
Uh-oh, I thought, remembering part of our last conversation, but I went ahead and looked. And soon felt teary—the drawings were of Misha, my Michael, and they were that good. “You drew these, Phoebe?” I asked. “I thought you were a sculptor.”
“The drawings are the first step. You have to draw before you can sculpt. At least, that’s how I was taught.” She grinned and poked me gently in the ribs with her elbow, a mischievous light in her eyes. “I’ll bet you thought you were about to see some drawings of Misha in the nude. Didn’t you?”
I nodded, smiling. “Something like that.” “Well, I want you to know I tried, but he went all priggish on me and wouldn’t take off his clothes. So I’m having to do Misha’s head on Khalid’s body.”
“How did you know Khalid’s body would be worth doing, considering those voluminous robes he wears?”
“I know Irma Fox. She can afford anything, so why would she keep a man who’s less than well put together?”
“Good heavens!”
“What did you think? That Khalid was Irma’s adopted son? Surely you aren’t that naive, Fremont.”
“No,” I admitted, “and why shouldn’t she, considering that it’s done the other way around all the time. It’s just—I don’t know—I suppose it’s just that I’m not accustomed to talking openly about these things.”
Phoebe shrugged, and looked down at her drawings as if dismissing the topic. “That’s because the world is full of hypocrites, except for those of us who choose to live in Carmel. Now, which one of these do you want, Fremont? Or do you want one at all?”
“Of course I do! They’re wonderful.” She had captured him so exactly that I could see the familiar expressions of my Michael within the curling hair and gypsyish neck scarf of Misha. The drawings were ink on heavy paper, done with a sure hand and great skill, not a tentative line among them. And as I went through them one by one, I had an idea that had nothing whatever to do with either Michael or Misha. A wonderful idea!
“This one,” I said, taking out a three-quarters profile that was so perfect it almost broke my heart. I might have lost him, but now I would always have this to remember him by. “Thank you so much, Phoebe.”
“You’re welcome. There’s a framer on Calle Principal in Monterey who’s pretty good. I’ve never learned to frame.”
“For the moment, at least until it stops raining, I’ll leave the drawing here in the office. Tell me, Phoebe: Are you free for the next couple of hours? And can you keep a secret?”
I have observed that conspiracy produces a certain amount of camaraderie. I do believe, however, that Phoebe and I would have become friends even without conspiring. She was plainspoken and straightforward, both qualities that I appreciate in a person, male or female. Though I have made some disastrous mistakes where choosing friends is concerned, I did not believe that Phoebe would turn out to be one of them.
“Don’t worry,” she said when I inquired about materials, “I have my sketchbook and pencils with me. I never go anywhere without them. And I shall play my part to perfection, I assure you!”
Mapson’s Mortuary is in a boggy part of Monterey near Lake El Estero, where a cemetery is also located. Bessie did not quite enter into the spirit of our adventure; she couldn’t have been more recalcitrant if she were a mule, and I could hardly blame her for not wanting to sink her fetlocks in the mud. A double row of eucalyptus trees with scabrous bark leaned mournfully over a peeling adobe building with a moon gate—a cultural mixture that one sees occasionally in California.
“Ugh!” Phoebe said.
“My sentiments exactly. But look, there is a sort of shed at the side. At least we can get the horse and carriage out of the rain.”
We secured Bessie and entered the mortuary through a side door. Inside it was dark and dank, but at least there was no unpleasant smell.
“I suppose there’s nobody lying in waiting, or whatever you call it,” Phoebe whispered. “The place seems deserted.”
My eyes had grown used to the gloom. I picked a door and said, “This way.” Of course I didn’t have the slightest idea where I was going, but I have found that in such a situation it is not a bad idea to act as if one knows.
We had entered into an enclosed side porch with a tile floor. The door I chose was at the far end of this porch, leading to what I surmised would be the back of the building. The door was locked, so I knocked. While waiting for it to open, I glanced down at Phoebe, who was so excited she almost shot sparks. “Calm down,” I whispered, “and try to look doleful or morbid or something.”
The door opened outward, so I had to step back; I trod on Phoebe and she yelped. “My friend is rather nervous,” I explained to one of the tallest, thinnest men I had ever seen, not to mention one of the most silent. He wore an apron and a stern expression, which led me to speculate that we must have interrupted something unspeakable.
As he was obviously not going to say anything, I continued: “I hope you can help us, as we are on a difficult errand. My friend is looking for her cousin, a woman who seems to have disappeared on a trip to this area about a week ago.”
“Just over a week, actually,” Phoebe chimed in, demonstrating an excellent memory of the facts I’d told her in the carriage on the way over.
“My name is Fremont Jones. Dr. Frederick Bright told me that you have the body of an unidentified woman here, and—oh dear, this is really very difficult—”
Head bowed, my co-conspirator had begun to cry, not at all silently (and probably not with tears, but I didn’t intend that anyone should look closely enough to find that out). I put my arm around Phoebe, whose small stature helped her to look all the more bereft and helpless. She shook most convincingly.
“So if you would just allow us to take a look at this Jane Doe,” I pleaded, “we’d be most grateful.”
Phoebe sobbed.
“I’m the only one here, and I got no authority. You can come in, but you’ll have to wait for Mr. Mapson.”
At least he could speak! I was beginning to think the man had started out a normal size but somehow had been stretched like an India-rubber band, and in the process had lost the use of his vocal cords.
Mr. Long and Tall led us through a dark corridor, turning on gas wall sconces along the way that did little more than cast strange shadows. The rain, falling harder now, rattled on the tile roof of the adobe. Our footsteps echoed on the floor, which was also tile. There was a musty smell about the place, and I brooded over what might be behind all the closed doors.
“You can wait in here,” he said. It was a parlor with a gas chandelier hanging from an already low ceiling. He lit two of its six globes, which immediately began to do their work of casting fantastic shadows. And then he faded away.
“I wonder how long we’ll have to wait,” Phoebe fretted.
“Not long. In about five minutes I’m going to go and bribe him.”
“Fremont!”
“It will be much better that way, because if he takes money to break the rules, he’s not very likely to tell anyone we were here. Don’t worry. I’ll tell him you’re just too distressed to wait. It was your crying jag that kept him from closing the door in our faces, I’m sure of it. Keep up the good work!”
Long and Tail’s name was Tom and he took the bribe with alacrity. We went back to the parlor for Ph
oebe, who began sniveling as soon as she heard our footsteps; then Tom showed us through one of the closed doors that led to yet another corridor. “The cold room,” he said, pushing open the door at the end.
“This is where we keep ’em, but we can’t keep that one you came to see much longer. After a while the ice isn’t enough, if you know what I mean. She’s about to go over. It’s this one right here. I’ll wait outside.”
He left, and I put my right hand over my nose and mouth while with my left hand I drew down the cloth that covered the body. That face! And the stench! Oh my God.
Phoebe was made of stouter stuff than anyone has a right to hope for. “Go on, Fremont, keep him occupied. I can do it. I can extrapolate the other side of the face from the bone structure. It won’t be an exact likeness because the two sides of the face aren’t exactly alike—did you know that?”
It was a rhetorical question; her hands were busy sketching already. I said, “If you’re sure you’ll be all right …”
“Of course I will!”
I squeezed Phoebe’s shoulder in mute thanks and slipped through the door.
“I wanted her to have a minute alone with the body,” I said to Tom in a hoarse whisper. “She isn’t sure. With the face half gone like that—you understand.”
“Sure,” he said. He was smoking a cigarette; the smell of the burning tobacco masked the faint odor that seemed to make its way through the door, or perhaps it was the memory of that odor that still lingered in my nostrils.
I thought of what he’d said about them not being able to keep Jane Doe much longer; after seeing the condition she was in, I could understand that. But I also remembered my promise to see her decently buried.
I cleared my throat. “Ah, Tom? My friend is not exactly affluent. Assuming that this is her lost cousin, have you any idea how much the least expensive sort of funeral would be?”
“I don’t do that part,” he said, blowing smoke over my head.
“We’ll have to see Mr. Mapson, I suppose,” I said resignedly. Whatever it was, I wasn’t likely to be able to afford it.
“I don’t do it,” a slow and rather unpleasant smile spread across his face, “but I know how much everything costs. I’m an apprentice, see. Some day I’ll take over this whole business. Your cheapest funeral, wood box and all, will cost you about a hundred-fifty.”
“I see. Thank you.” That was three months of Hettie’s salary, half of what I was earning taking her place. I concluded drearily that making promises to the dead is not such a good idea.
A commotion at the door caused Tom to look around and down, and me to hasten to open it. Phoebe collapsed against me in a coughing fit, but she’d had the presence of mind to stash her sketchbook and pencils inside her duster. Her eyes were streaming—for real, this time.
She shook her head. “It’s not my cousin. That poor, pathetic creature isn’t any relation of mine!”
Tom looked skeptical.
I said quickly, “You took plenty of time to make sure. That’s all anybody could ask.” I bundled her back up the corridor and said to Long Tall Tom over my shoulder, “Thank you so much. You can see that she couldn’t have stood the strain of waiting any longer.”
He followed us to the outside door, and every hurried step of the way I felt his eyes boring into my back. He was avaricious, but also smarter than I’d at first taken him to be. I could only hope the bribe would keep him quiet.
As for Phoebe, the experience had positively electrified her. “Fremont,” she exploded the moment we reached the carriage, “as soon as I’d done the whole face I was sure! I know that woman!”
CHAPTER SIX
“That’s very interesting,” I said, “particularly since Misha has told me more than once that she cannot be from Carmel. I asked him right at the beginning to try to identify her and he refused, saying it would be a waste of time.”
“I didn’t mean I know her from Carmel,” Phoebe said. “Just that I’ve seen her somewhere. I’m sure of it. I have a good memory for faces—most artists do.”
“And how is your memory for names?” I asked, clucking up my hoof-dragging horse. Though the rain had diminished to a drizzle, Bessie still did not want to go back out in it.
Phoebe’s plain but lively face puckered in a frown. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually met her, I mean as in being introduced.… I’m pretty sure I haven’t … if only I could remember where I saw her.…”
I said, “Oh, dear.” But I hadn’t really thought it could turn out to be that easy—and I was glad Misha hadn’t lied to me.
Once Bessie got the idea that we were headed home, I was able to take one hand from the reins. I stretched my fingers toward the still-pondering Phoebe: “May I see the drawing?”
“Hm? Oh, certainly. Just don’t let it get too wet.” Phoebe flipped open her sketchbook and handed it to me.
I took a quick look, for a steady wind drove the drizzle right beneath the carriage canopy, and every now and then an errant gust would fling fine drops, stinging, in our faces. The lines of the drawing were no less sure for the necessary haste of its execution. “She was pretty,” I observed. I stared at it, hard, as if to engrave it on my brain, then returned the book to Phoebe.
“Bright blue, the shade called ‘royal,’ ” Phoebe mused. “I seem to connect that color with her, so that’s what she must have been wearing when I saw her.”
“The dress she had on when they pulled her from the water was red. So perhaps we may conclude that whoever she was, she liked strong colors and wore them with impunity.” Suddenly I snapped my fingers. “Oh, damnation!”
“What, Fremont?”
“I meant to ask if we could look at her clothing, but I forgot!” We clattered over a bridge that spans an inlet, and the street did a jog toward the large, shabby whaling station overlooking Monterey’s inner harbor. Misha’s sailboat—a sloop called the Katya—is anchored there. A busy wharf lies off to the right, and just at the left looms Presidio Hill. There is an old building on that hill which is popularly called Fremont’s Fort, after my illustrious relation. On my first day in this area I went there, simply to stand where he might have stood.
“Why would we want to see her clothes? Ugh!” Phoebe said.
“Never mind,” I said, “it doesn’t matter now. We already know three important things, Phoebe: She was not from Carmel, or you would have known her; she was not from Pacific Grove, for several reasons I won’t go into; and that leaves Monterey. My own pet theory, that she was a guest at the Hotel Del Monte, no longer holds water because you’ve seen her somewhere. Unless that was where you saw her?”
She wrinkled her small, upturned nose. “The Del Monte is hardly a place I frequent. But you are forgetting the whole of Del Monte Forest, Fremont, along the Seventeen Mile Drive. There are some houses—estates, really—in there. We Carmelites often go exploring and picnicking in those woods, especially around Point Cypress.”
“Oh? Do you know Braxton Furnival by any chance? He lives over there, and is a new client of mine.”
“Hah!” Phoebe said. “Yes, I know him, but I’m hardly his type.… Oh, my goodness! Fremont, you’re a genius!” She practically leapt out of the carriage.
Startled, I tightened my grip on the reins. Bessie does not like this stretch of road, which skirts the burned-out remains of a Chinatown; she tends to act as if she might bolt along here. I said, “I beg your pardon?”
“Braxton Furnival had a huge party at his place about six months ago, and he invited all of us. Have you ever seen his house? It’s simply amazing.”
“No, I haven’t. By us, you mean everyone in Carmel?”
“Yes. He’s friends with Oscar Peterson’s family. They’re prominent in the East Bay, you know, around Oakland, though they have practically disowned Oscar. I’d guess Braxton didn’t know that. I don’t know if he really meant to invite everyone or just Oscar and Mimi, but you’ve seen how the Petersons are—the evening of Braxton’s party they just said to whoe
ver was around, ‘Come on, let’s go!’ and we went. Most everyone, except now that I think of it, Misha wasn’t there; I think he was up in San Francisco.”
“And …?” I encouraged, when for all her former animation Phoebe fell silent.
“I’m thinking. I want to be sure.” She was quiet again. I glanced at her and then past her at the wide water of the bay. So gray and dreary today. The hills far across on the other side were only dimly visible through a veil of blue-gray mist. The seals that often play along the rocks in this area had gone into hiding, along with everyone and everything else. Not even a gull flew overhead. At least for the moment, we were alone.
I was itching with impatience by the time Phoebe said, “I can’t be absolutely sure, but I think that’s where I saw your Jane Doe. At Braxton Furnival’s party! There were at least a hundred people there, all milling around and making noise and drinking too much, especially the men. I’m sure I never got a proper introduction, but I remember that face, the long black hair, the blue dress … Yes! Oh, Fremont, come on. Let’s go right now to Braxton’s house!”
Thus, in a high fever of excitement, Phoebe and I undertook a wild goose chase. I began to suspect she had been among those who’d had too much to drink at that party, because she couldn’t remember the way to Braxton’s house. She directed me down half a dozen or more side tracks through densely wooded stretches of forest, and more than once it was only the roaring of the sea that warned me when the track was about to dead-end. We would come out on the edge of a cliff somewhere, all rocks and scraggly cypresses flat-topped from the wind, and below, the crashing waves; and while this was all beautiful in a wild sort of way, it wasn’t getting us anywhere.
Finally I had no choice but to take Phoebe home to Carmel. She had missed her ride back with Oscar, and I had to return to the lighthouse to relieve Quincy from watch duty. I admit if I had been driving the Maxwell instead of a fatigued horse, most likely I’d have kept on going, regardless of the inconvenience to Quincy. Of course if more people in the area had telephones (particularly myself and Braxton Furnival), it would have made a world of difference. As it was, I supposed I should either have to write to him or wait until he next appeared at my office.