Goldengirl

by Peter Lovesey

  And La Jolla? He was hard put to analyze that with any detachment. It had started so promisingly, as each development slotted into his plan. And ended in that grotesque coupling in the sand. Really, it was what she had said that influenced him: her statement of helplessness. That was all it had been — a statement. She hadn’t asked for help or sympathy. She just believed her only chance of self-preservation was to win in Moscow. If that was her conviction, it was probably true. What Dryden knew was that when she won — if she won — she would need support of a kind he was uniquely placed to give. There was nothing he could do yet to preserve her from humiliation and perverted science, but when the time came he could save her from annihilation by the media.

  The possibility that he was rationalizing, that his concern about the girl arose from the hunch that she was a winner, he put in the back of his mind. It was a practical decision. He could help Goldine survive as a personality. Nobody else would.

  The dealing at Cambria Pines had been a first step. She now had the best share of the revenue she could reasonably hope for, and in the most secure form. There were details to watch — the terms of the trust fund were important — but the principle of her right to a major share had been established.

  It still puzzled him that Serafin had agreed so readily to the changes. The specter of adverse publicity may have frightened him a little, and perhaps he assumed his influence over Goldine would guarantee him fat pickings, but the way he had capitulated without a syllable of protest was difficult to understand. It seemed he was not interested in haggling over terms. If that was so, it would be useful to know what did interest him in all this.

  Now that he was back in circulation, Dryden could begin to check some of the details Serafin had mentioned in his account of Goldine. Her mother’s accident: there should be something in the files of the Los Angeles Times. The Tamarisk Lodge children’s home: did it exist? What were Serafin’s professional qualifications? That kind of information was easy to verify in a library. It was the second stage of research, the business of visiting people and asking questions, that could raise problems. He would be in a spot if anything got back to Serafin.

  Jackie came in again with the calendar. “I’ve put off all the lunch dates up to Friday, and I’m working on next week. By the way, Mr. Dryden, did you wear those shirts I bought?”

  “Forgive me, Jackie. I should have mentioned that. They were fine.”

  “Your weekend was okay?”

  “Fine. Just fine.”

  “I’ll get back to the phone, then,” said Jackie.

  She had come to him a year ago with a rave reference from one of the top executives at Gulf Oil. So far, she had measured up to it. Quick, thoughtful and intelligent, she had not given him the least doubt of her integrity. He didn’t like damaging the confidence between them, but he would rather say nothing than fabricate an account of his weekend.

  The Times building on West First Street was nearer than the Huntington Library, so he used the Information Service there. He turned to the Directory of Medical Specialists and found:

  SERAFIN, William Joseph. Physiologist, b. Salzburg Sept. 16, 1920. s. Anton and Olga (Merttens). M.D. Geneva, 1945; Ph.D. Yale, 1951; Research Fellow, Yale Sch. Medicine 1951-2; m. Jean Dixon, 1952; Calif. Inst. Hum. Sc., 1953-; Prof, of Anthropometry, 1969-; Weinraub Found. Med. Research Fellow, Vienna, 1962-3; Fellow, Amer. Ac. of Phys. Ed.; Member Amer. Assn. U. Profs.; publ. Hereditary Factors in Human Physique, 1964; Anthropometric Data and Human Growth, 1966; address: Calif. Inst, of Human Science, Bakersfield 3105, California.

  On a quick inspection, nothing conflicted with the information Serafin had given out at the retreat. A second reference book, Who’s Who in U.S. Medicine, carried the same details with the addition of Goldine’s name among the family particulars.

  He looked up another entry:

  LEE, San Fen. Psychologist, b. Peiping, China Apr. 18, 1935; ss. Kwok Lo and Hui Tao (Tang); B.Sc. National Central U., Chung Kiang, China, 1956; M.Sc. Peking, 1959; B.Sc. Columbia, 1969; Ph.D. Columbia, 1972; Faculty, Berkeley, Calif., 1972-4; Consultant, Los Angeles County Gen. Hosp., 1974-; Member Amer. Inst, of Psych.; address: c/o L.A. County Medical Assn., 1925 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.

  He wasn’t learning anything of importance he didn’t know already, so he went to the room where the Times files were kept, and asked for the April through June volume for 1964. According to Serafin, Trudi’s death from drowning had happened in May. As he turned the pages, he reflected that Serafin himself had handled them in 1964, if his story was reliable.

  He found the report in the issue for Saturday, May 25:

  KILLER WAVE: FIVE DROWN IN BEACH TRAGEDY

  LOS ANGELES, May 25 — A 20-foot wave, described by oceanologists as a “one in a million hazard” caused five deaths on popular Huntington State Beach at 3:16 yesterday afternoon. From a sea so calm that surfers had mostly given up waiting for rides, the wave built into a vast wall of water within seconds. Eyewitnesses described it as “terrifying — like a street block coming at you.” Parents along the crowded beach screamed to their children as it towered above them, but few got clear before it hit them, sweeping them as much as fifty feet up the beach.

  Fatalities

  The effect of the killer wave was clear seconds later, when scores of bathers were seen struggling in deep water, dragged out of their depth by its undertow. Many were temporarily blinded by the sand in the water. The six lifeguards on duty were assisted by volunteers in the rescue operation. It was thought for a time no fatalities had occurred, but a search of the water by helicopter revealed three bodies. Two more were recovered later. The dead were identified as John Paschal, 15, of Palm Springs; Patrick Lamont, 24, Huntington; Darryl Horn, 20, San Diego; Miss Anne English, 30, Santa Barbara; and Miss T. Hofmann, 22, Inglewood.

  The report went on for another column, but there were no other particulars on Trudi. He found those in the issue for May 27 on an inside page under her photograph: the one he had seen in Goldine’s quarters.

  BEACH VICTIM DIED RESCUING CHILD

  LOS ANGELES, May 27 — A victim of Friday’s tragedy on Huntington State Beach, when a freak wave caused five drownings, actually died going to the rescue of her two-year-old daughter, who survived. She was Trudi Hofmann, 22, a TWA stewardess, of Lincoln Boulevard, Inglewood. The incident was described yesterday by Mrs. Diane Pershore, who was sitting near Miss Hofmann when the 20-foot killer wave reared up unexpectedly in a calm sea. Stated Mrs. Pershore, “I noticed the young woman playing with her daughter, and presently the child went down to the water’s edge, leaving her mother sunbathing. As the screaming started along the beach at the sight of the advancing wave, she got up and raced toward her daughter. Next thing they both disappeared in the foam and must have been dragged way out of their depth, as other bathers were. The water was two feet deep where I was sitting, forty feet behind the tideline. In the confusion, I lost sight of those two, but later I saw the little girl carried from the water by a lifeguard. She was just a scrap of a kid.”

  Devoted to Child

  Miss Hofmann’s body was washed ashore on adjacent Newport Beach late Friday evening. The child, Dean, who will be 3 on June 6, is at present in the care of the Los Angeles County Welfare Service. No relatives have yet been traced.

  Neighbors of Miss Hofmann in her Inglewood apartment on Lincoln Boulevard described her as a gentle person devoted to her child. German-born, she had come with her mother to California in 1953. She engaged a babysitter to be with Dean while she was on duty with TWA, but she frequently took the little girl to one of the local beaches. It is understood that Miss Hofmann was a nonswimmer.

  Dryden leafed through the next half-dozen issues, but there was no more on the accident. Now that he had confirmed so many details of the story, he would not go looking for the back number of Time that Serafin claimed had first caught his attention. He was prepared to believe it existed. Instead, he turned to the more delicate assignment of digging out more inf
ormation on Serafin himself.

  He used a public phone booth to call the San Diego Union, and asked for the sports desk. “I’d like to speak to the guy who wrote the piece on the Metro Track Club Meet in Sunday’s edition. My name is Frank Rademacher, Southern Pacific AAU.”

  In a moment a voice said, “Grantland Davis here.”

  He repeated the bogus name, disguising his accent. “I’d like to invite this mystery blonde of yours to our meet at the Coliseum, Saturday. The Metro Club people could only come up with a Bakersfield P.O. box number. I saw your piece on Sunday and figured you must have checked her out by now. It’s getting late to start mailing box numbers. If I could phone Miss Serafin today, I might be able to get her name on the meet program. You don’t mind me asking if you located her?”

  “No luck, I’m afraid, Mr. Rademacher,” said Davis. “After calling at the Salk Institute for the dope test, she vanished. I can’t help you.”

  “That’s tough,” said Dryden. “It might have added a hundred or so to our gate. Too bad. That Dr. Serafin you mentioned in the piece. Is he the father?”

  “Could be. We haven’t traced him either. He was a professor of something I can’t get my tongue around, at the CIHS in Bakersfield. Seems to have retired two years back.”

  “He must have left a forwarding address,” said Dryden.

  “Sorry to disappoint you. Seems Prof Serafin wasn’t giving much away about his retirement plans. He called in a couple of times to collect mail, and that’s all they know.”

  “He didn’t have friends there?”

  “Seems not,” said Davis. “In the words of the Registrar — this is off the record — he thought he was God, but he had trouble convincing his colleagues. They were that glad when he offered to retire that nobody’s kept up with him since. Of course, we can’t even be sure he’s the father of our blonde.”

  “You got nothing else on him?”

  “We spoke to his neighbors in Bakersfield. He alienated them, too. Cut them stone dead in the street. His wife was a local doctor, nice woman, our man in Bakersfield was told, and there was this pathetic daughter who didn’t resemble our whiz kid one bit. Frankly, the story’s spiked till we turn up something new. If you get a lead, let me know, won’t you?”

  Dryden went back to the Times Information Bureau and looked for Tamarisk Lodge in the Register of Social Agencies. It didn’t appear, yet he was sure he had the name right. He asked the girl if they kept old editions of the register. She said no, she thought they would have one at the County Welfare building on Wilshire.

  There, he was shown a shelf of registers going back to the forties. In the volume for 1960 he found:

  TAMARISK LODGE, Casitas Springs, Ventura. Acc. 25cm/f under 11.

  Matron: Mrs. G. Van Horn.

  He asked for a telephone directory and confirmed that someone of that name was listed and still lived in Ventura. He dialed the number. An elderly voice answered.

  “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Van Horn?”

  “That’s so.”

  “I wonder if I’ve got this right. Are you by any chance the lady who was formerly Matron at Tamarisk Lodge?”

  “I am. Who is this speaking?”

  “That’s great. My name is Hofmann. I don’t suppose by any chance you recollect a child named Dean Hofmann, a girl of about three years of age?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” the voice answered cautiously.

  “Wonderful! Mrs. Van Horn, I’m one of the family visiting Los Angeles and I dearly want to find out what I can about Dean. We lost trace of her, you see. If she’s the child I think she is, I’m her cousin. Could you spare me half an hour if I came out to see you at Ventura?”

  “I suppose I might be able to, Mr. Hofmann, but I can’t tell you a lot.”

  “Thanks, ma’am. What’s the time now? I should be with you by five-thirty, if that’s really okay.”

  He put down the phone before she could say no. He could make a sizable list of the mean things he had done in his life, but telling lies to sweet old ladies was new. He got into the Excalibur and drove west on the Hollywood Freeway.

  Mrs. Van Horn had a small house one block past the Mission San Buenaventura on Main Street. A regiment of poinsettias, spaced and sized, lined the front. He saw the old lady watching him from behind her chintz curtains as he came up the path. He didn’t blame her.

  “Mrs. Van Horn? I’m Jack Hofmann.”

  “I supposed you were. Do come in.”

  The room was tidy, but stacked with ornaments, and smelled of lavender. A red-faced man in a dark suit was standing at the mock fireplace, fixing him with a penetrating stare.

  “This is Mr. Hardaker, my lawyer,” Mrs. Van Horn explained. “He — er — happens to have dropped by. You don’t mind if he stays?”

  “Lord, no,” said Dryden. The old lady had got her reinforcement organized fast.

  “And it’s about Dean Hofmann, I understand?” she said. “Do sit down.”

  “That’s right. I hope to trace her while I’m over here. I’m from London,” he said, lowering himself into a leather armchair showing signs of wear.

  “How interesting. Yes, I remember the child very clearly. There was an accident, you know.”

  “I just read it up in back issues of the Los Angeles Times. Terrible tragedy.”

  “Her mother was an air stewardess,” said Mrs. Van Horn. “Now what exactly would your relationship be to her?”

  Hardaker must have primed her. Dryden wondered why. He started on the story he had fabricated on the drive over. “It’s a little complicated. My father was born in Germany, but he took a job making clockwork toys in London in the thirties and got married to an English girl. When war broke out in 1939 he found himself on the wrong side, you see. He decided to change his name to Harrison and stay in London. So I grew up as Jack Harrison. It wasn’t till Dad’s death last year that I learned our name was actually Hofmann. Going through his papers I found some newspaper clippings describing the 1936 Olympic Games. I’m not sure which paper they were from, but it was all in German. One name was underlined in each of them, a Fräulein G. Hofmann. My German isn’t good, but I could understand enough to make out that she had been a member of the German National Gymnastics Team which had won the gold medal. I asked my mother about it, and she told me Miss Hofmann was Dad’s sister. I found it incredible at first, he had always seemed so English to me, but the papers proved it. In the war he had bought a forged identity card — it cost him thirty pounds — and after that he’d had no trouble.

  “Well, when I learned the truth and got over the shock, I was curious to know if I had relatives alive in Germany. After changing our name, Dad had never contacted his own people again. He was funny like that; it was as if he really had started a new life, and even the ending of the war made no difference. But Mother told me that Dad’s sister had a child named Trudi, born, I believe, in 1940. The father was an army officer, who was killed not too long after. Last summer I visited Germany and tried to trace my aunt and my cousin Trudi. No luck. I discovered they had emigrated to the States soon after the war. Santa Barbara, I was told.

  “But I’m not easily put off once I start something, and this summer here I am in your country. I tried Santa Barbara first, and managed to find out a little more. My aunt died when Trudi was eighteen or so, and Trudi moved into Los Angeles to work as an air stewardess, still using the name of Hofmann. The personnel section at TWA still have a record of her, and told me about the accident in 1964. Terrible. I heard there was a small daughter, and that she was taken to Tamarisk Lodge. How sad, I thought — that little girl of two years old with no family. I supposed she must have been adopted after a time, and maybe she’s quite happy now. On the other hand, if she isn’t, if there’s any way I can help her, I’m not short of money now, and I’d like to. So I set about contacting you, Mrs. Van Horn. I found your name in the County Welfare building on Wilshire Boulevard.” Dryden held out his hands. “That’s how I’m here.”


  “Can you prove all this?” asked Hardaker stiffly.

  “Prove it?” repeated Dryden.

  “Mr. Hofmann has said enough to satisfy me,” said Mrs. Van Horn emphatically. She was small and fragile-looking, with a marked curvature of the spine, but she spoke to Hardaker as if he was a boy being difficult in Tamarisk Lodge. “Do you drink coffee or tea, Mr. Hofmann?”

  “Tea would be most acceptable if you have some, but I didn’t come to put you to any trouble.”

  She shook her head. “You won’t do that, I’m sure. Mr. Hardaker can brew a pot of tea while you and I talk. You don’t mind, Charles? I shall be quite all right with this young man. You know where the canisters are? You’ll find the Earl Grey in the willow-pattern one.” Practically before Hardaker had left on his errand, she leaned toward Dryden and said, “Don’t mind Charles. He’s what we used to call a dude when I was younger, but he has my interests at heart. Lawyers will ask for pieces of paper all the time. I know from what you just told me that you’re not the FBI or anything. Darn it, they couldn’t possibly know all the facts you’ve just given me.”

  “Would they want to?” said Dryden, mystified.

  “I hope not.” She looked toward the kitchen door and said in a whisper, “You see, the adoption was a little irregular, and we’ve had some scares since.” In her normal voice, she continued, “What exactly do you want to know, Mr. Hofmann?”

  “First, can you confirm that we’re both talking about the same child?”

  “No question of it,” said Mrs. Van Horn.

  “In that case, could you tell me how long she was with you, and what happened to her?”

  “I don’t have any records here, Mr. Hofmann, but I remember that it was the summer of 1964 when she came to us at Tamarisk. We gave her a birthday party a few days after she arrived, but I don’t believe it made much impression. She was still in a state of shock. By Christmas, she had got over it enough to take a much livelier part in our celebrations.”

  “And after that?”

  Mrs. Van Horn’s brow puckered. “The adoption. A couple had visited the Lodge sometime in the fall and asked questions about Dean. They must have gotten her story from someplace. I don’t know where, but they were clever people, both doctors. I liked the woman. She seemed genuinely warm toward Dean. You can tell.”