Vanishing Point

by Marcia Muller

  Red flag.

  “You didn’t see her face? Or her hair?”

  “No. But it had to be the same woman. No one else had gone into the restrooms.”

  That you know of.

  Lighthill was frowning, as if he too had spotted the error in his logic. “It was the same jeans, the same sweater,” he said defensively.

  “And she walked off toward town, without turning around?”

  “Yes. She cut across the grass to this very path and went the same way we’re walking.”

  “How long did you stay in the parking lot after that?”

  “Only a few minutes. Bryan and I firmed up our plans. He left in his car, and Kiro and I walked home.”

  “Your friend Bryan-I wasn’t able to locate a current address for him. Do you have one?”

  “Sorry, I don’t. His wife died ten years ago, and he moved to Mexico. After a couple of years my letters were returned as undeliverable. I can provide you with that address, if you like.”

  Just in case all my other leads came to dead ends, I gave him my card and said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d phone it in to my office, collect, when it’s convenient.”

  We reached the end of the path and turned onto the main street, passing a row of small run-down cottages that perched above the water. Like many of the buildings I’d seen in Cayucos, they harked back to another, more gentle era.

  I said, “No one here in the business district ever came forward about seeing Laurel Greenwood. Where could she have gone, that she would’ve escaped notice?”

  “Hard to say. But it’s not unusual that nobody took note of her; even in those days we had a lot of tourists.”

  “The town must’ve been quite different then.”

  “Well, yes. Businesses have changed hands. Old buildings have been torn down and replaced with new ones.”

  “D’you recall what was here? Can you describe it?”

  “These cottages, they’ve been here as long as I remember, and I’ve lived here thirty years. That restaurant”-he pointed-“is relatively new; a marine supply used to be there. The shops-owners come and go, merchandise changes. Farther uphill there’re new antiques stores and boutiques of all kinds. A big wine and gourmet-food emporium is on the lot where the mini-storage and equipment-rentals place was. Like any tourist town, they take away the things that’re for the residents-I used to keep my camper in one of the little garages at the storage company-and put up things for the out-of-towners. But the lay of the land, that hasn’t changed. You can alter what’s on it, but as Morro Rock stands up to erosion, the land stands up to man.”

  I hesitated. “Can you think of anyone in the immediate area who would have been here that day? Who might have noticed Laurel Greenwood and for some reason not come forward?”

  Lighthill stopped walking, allowing Csoda to sniff around a sidewalk trash receptacle. “Well, I always did wonder about Herm Magruder. He was the local gossip columnist, wrote a weekly piece-‘Doings About Town’-for the little paper. Called himself ‘Mr. Morro Bay.’ Gathered most of his information in the bars or from the front porch of his house. It stood right across the street, where that shell shop is now. He was on the porch with a drink in his hand when I went by earlier that day, so he must’ve been there when the Greenwood woman came out of the park. Once Herm sat down with his drink, you couldn’t pry him off that porch.”

  Magruder hadn’t been mentioned in any of the news reports. “D’you know if the police questioned him?”

  “Should have. He was right there, and he was the eyes and ears of the town, but he had such a reputation as a drunk that they might not’ve bothered.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “He and his wife, Amy, moved to a condo at Pacific View, a complex on the bluff south of town, after they sold the old house.”

  “He still write his column?”

  “No, the paper closed down about five years ago. Must be hard on Herm, having no excuse to sit in the bars and poke into people’s business. He’d probably be glad to have a visitor.”

  After Ira Lighthill and I parted-he and Csoda heading up the hill toward home-I got the Magruders’ number from information and called it. No one answered. I retraced my steps to the main street and had a cup of coffee at a café, then called again. Still no answer. In response to the high temperatures inland, the fog was creeping back; Morro Bay looked bleak and inhospitable. I decided to pack it in, drive back to Paso Robles, and phone the office.

  “So that’s where things stand,” I said to Patrick. “Rob Traverso at the Paso Robles PD is letting me go over their files on the case tomorrow morning. He couldn’t help me with Laurel’s final painting; it was returned to Roy years ago, and I assume he destroyed it like the others. Traverso’s putting me in touch with a Deputy Selma Barker at the county sheriff’s department. After I go over the PRPD casefile, I’ll meet with her and try to talk with the Magruders. And the babysitter has agreed to see me in the late afternoon.”

  I was sitting at the desk in my room at the lodge, the air-conditioning cranked up to maximum. Today the inland temperature was in the high nineties, and showed no signs of cooling, even though it was after five o’clock.

  “You want me to ask Derek to background the Magruders?” Patrick asked. “He said he’ll be working late tonight.”

  “I’d better talk with him personally. Will you transfer me? And why don’t you take your files on the case home and review them over the weekend. That is, if you don’t have plans.”

  “No plans. My ex is taking the kids to Disneyland, so I won’t have them this week.”

  I waited for Derek to pick up, asked him to run checks on both Amy and Herm Magruder. Then I said, “I haven’t checked my e-mail yet; did you find anything on Josie Smith or the inmates who attended Laurel’s art class at the Men’s Colony?”

  “The prison wouldn’t give out information, so I’m trying to get in touch with Craig’s contact at DOC. Probably I won’t be able to get you anything on that till Monday. I’ve got basic background on Josie Smith: date of birth, marriages and divorces, date of death.” He read them off to me. “Smith went by her husbands’ names during her marriages-Dunn and Bernstein-but took back her birth name after the second marriage failed.”

  “Any children?”

  “None. Smith studied nursing at San Jose State. Dropped out to get married after her junior year, then went back and finished the course after the first divorce. Worked at SF General for three years, did private-duty nursing after that. Otherwise I couldn’t turn up anything. You want me to dig further?”

  “I don’t know as it’s necessary. We’ll talk when I come back up there next week.”

  “You staying over the weekend?”

  “Yes. My plate’s pretty full for tomorrow, and Sunday I have to fly down to my mother’s place near San Diego. She’s giving Hy and me what she calls ‘a little wedding reception.’ Lots of family, and my birth mother and her son and daughter are coming from Boise.”

  “You don’t sound too happy about it.”

  “I’m not. McCone family parties are always horrible, and this wedding reception is a disaster waiting to happen.”

  Saturday

  AUGUST 20

  My room-service breakfast tray arrived at eight, a copy of the San Luis Obispo Tribune neatly folded next to the croissants and coffee. I took it to the little table on the balcony and began to eat, scanning the paper. A headline below the fold on the front page made me set my coffee cup back in its saucer.

  NEW INQUIRY INTO LAUREL GREENWOOD DISAPPEARANCE

  Information on Missing Paso Robles Woman Sought by Private Investigator

  I picked up the paper and skimmed the article. It identified me by name, and as a “San Francisco investigator who in recent years has been involved in a number of high-profile cases,” and quoted a “source who wishes to remain anonymous” as saying that I had been hired by one of the Greenwood daughters to search for new leads in the twenty-two-year-old
disappearance. “McCone,” it said, “is in the area to interview friends and relatives of the missing woman, as well as reinterview witnesses who gave statements to the authorities in the original investigation.” It added that my offices would not confirm or deny the source’s information. The remainder of the story was a history of the case, complete with photographs on an inside page of Laurel, Roy, and their daughters.

  Ted, or Kendra Williams, had been right in protecting client confidentiality, but why hadn’t I been told that a reporter was asking about the case? Probably Kendra had taken the call and, in her inexperience, hadn’t thought it significant. Too bad, and also too bad that the newspaperman-Mike Rosenfeld, the byline read-hadn’t thought to check area motels, locate me, and ask for a personal interview. I might have been able to deflect, or at least delay, this publicity.

  For a moment I considered phoning the office to ask who had taken the call from Rosenfeld, but it was Saturday, and chances were I’d just get the machine. Even my workaholic employees ignored taped messages after regular business hours.

  I set the paper aside. Sipped coffee and buttered a croissant as I contemplated the turn of events. It hadn’t occurred to me that any of the people I’d spoken with might go to the press, but the source had to be one of them. Why had he or she done so? And why the condition of anonymity? More important, what effect would the story have on my investigation?

  Possibly it could help me, prompt someone whose existence I wasn’t aware of to come forward with fresh information. But more likely it could frighten off someone with something to hide. Or-if Laurel was alive and the story was picked up by the wire services-it could drive her deeper underground.

  Which of those had been the person’s intention?

  I could call the reporter and ask where he’d gotten his information, but he’d most certainly insist on his right to protect his source’s identity. I could ask each of the persons I’d interviewed if they’d talked with the press, but that seemed even more unlikely to elicit a straight answer. A better use of my time would be to proceed with my day’s plans unaltered.

  I didn’t like the idea that the people I’d be talking with-assuming they read the Tribune, which called itself the “newspaper of the central coast”-would anticipate and possibly prepare themselves for my questions. A good interview always contains some element of spontaneity, and it would be a shame to lose that. Besides, press coverage always made me feel exposed and vulnerable; for some reason this story made me particularly edgy.

  In spite of my edginess, the day proceeded without significant incident. From the Paso Robles police files I learned that three days after Laurel’s disappearance Roy Greenwood had asked Chief Collingsworth to instruct the department’s press liaison officer to give out as little information as possible on their investigation. He wanted his daughters’ lives to return to normalcy as soon as possible, he said, and that would only happen if the story dropped off the front pages. The files provided by Deputy Selma Barker at the county sheriff’s department headquarters in San Luis Obispo confirmed that Collingsworth had passed on Roy’s request to them.

  Despite Greenwood’s explanation for asking that the investigation be downplayed, it seemed odd to me; in most missing persons cases, family and friends go to great lengths to keep the story in the public eye. They distribute flyers and photographs, make impassioned appeals on TV, offer rewards. But so far as I knew, none of those things had been undertaken by Roy Greenwood.

  Otherwise the files contained no surprises. The statements by Jacob Ziff and Ira Lighthill were substantially the same as what they’d told me. Lighthill’s friend Bryan Taft had confirmed the circumstances under which they’d seen Laurel at the park. The waitress and bartender at the Sea Shack could provide no more detailed descriptions of the biker than Ziff had, and a busboy who had seen Laurel and him leave was unsure as to whether the biker actually entered the liquor store down the street. The liquor store clerk had no recollection of him.

  By two that afternoon I was on my way back from San Luis. Derek’s information on the Magruders had been on my laptop before I left the inn that morning: Herm and Amy Magruder were both natives of Morro Bay, and his gossip column for the local shopping paper had been only a hobby; Herm’s real work was operating a self-storage and equipment-rentals company, probably the same one that Ira Lighthill had mentioned as being replaced by a gourmet-foods and wine emporium. Herm and Amy, who had managed the office there, had retired five years ago and moved to the Pacific View condominium complex. They had a son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren living in a suburb of Chicago. I tried the number I’d gotten from information yesterday before leaving San Luis, but no one answered.

  Although Morro Bay was a significant detour on my way to Templeton, where the Greenwoods’ former babysitter lived, I had a few hours before our appointment, so I headed up the coast. Derek had supplied an address for the Magruders’ condo, but when I arrived there no one was at home. I drove around town, periodically checking at the condo without results, until I found a neighbor who said the Magruders were on vacation until sometime next week. I left my card in their mailbox, asking that Herm call me, and drove to Templeton, a short distance south of Paso Robles.

  And then I got lost. In a country town whose population couldn’t have been more than a few thousand, I couldn’t find Edie Everett’s house-at least not from the directions she’d given me over the phone. After stopping at a deli to ask, I finally located it-the directions were curiously dyslexic, and I suspected it was my fault-but by that time she and her husband, Joe, were on their way out to dinner. Fortunately they were gracious about my tardiness and invited me along to a small café called Mr. Mom’s that served excellent burgers and microbrews.

  The only new light Edie could shed on Laurel was that she took a lot of mental health days during the year before her disappearance. “She was constantly calling me up to look after the kids,” Edie said. “I doubt her husband was aware of it, because she always came home before he did. And I’m pretty sure that if he had known, he’d’ve raised hell. I didn’t charge much, but I could tell he didn’t like shelling out for child care.”

  Not a great deal of information, but the Everetts were pleasant people and good dinner companions. For the rest of the meal we talked about their business-they owned an antiques shop in Paso Robles-and the nature of some of the “high-profile cases” the Tribune had mentioned I’d been involved in. By the time we parted, my frustration over the largely unproductive day had faded.

  The white facade of the Oaks Lodge was bathed in multicolored lights and the parking lot was jammed with cars. Obviously a popular place on Saturday night. I found a space near my room between two oversize SUVs, edged my rental between them. It was hot inside-I’d remembered to turn the air-conditioning off before I left that morning-so I decided to take a swim to cool off. I’d just changed into my suit when the phone rang. Probably Hy, confirming our plans for tomorrow. I was to fly down to San Diego, attend the reception at my mother’s with him, and then we’d spend the night at RKI’s condo in La Jolla.

  “Ms. McCone?” an unfamiliar male voice said. “This is John at the front desk. We have a Federal Express package for you.”

  “Will you have someone bring it up to my room, please?”

  “Sorry, I can’t at the moment. We’re shorthanded tonight, and I can’t leave the desk.”

  “All right, I’ll be down for it in a few minutes.” I threw on shorts and a tee over my suit, took a shortcut across the courtyard to the lobby. Music from a live band drifted from the bar, and a group of people waited at the restaurant’s hostess stand. A young Asian woman sat behind the desk, reading a magazine.

  “I’m Sharon McCone,” I said to her. “John called about a FedEx package that’s arrived for me.”

  “John went off duty an hour ago.”

  I frowned. “Well, could you check for the package?”

  She got up, looked under the counter. “There’s nothing here.
I could see if he put it in the office.”

  “No, don’t bother.”

  There was no package. Someone had used it as a ruse to get me out of my room. Had the door automatically locked behind me? I couldn’t remember. I hurried out to the courtyard and took the path toward my wing. It led me across a bridge over the little stream that fed a koi pond, then into a grove of exotic plantings-

  A sudden whining and thud close by. Sounds I knew all too well.

  I was on the ground before the echo of the shot died out, heart pounding, facedown in a flowerbed. I inhaled damp soil, sucked a leaf into my mouth, and began coughing; rolled away from a spotlight that shone up on the branches of a nearby tree and crouched in the shadows.

  There were no more shots. All I heard were doors opening and alarmed voices in the courtyard.

  “What happened?”

  “That was a shot!”

  “Where’d it come from?”

  “Stay back, folks. Please stay back!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Is somebody hurt?”

  “Go inside, people, please! Let us check this out.”

  Hotel security, getting things under control. The shooter would be far away by now. Shakily I got to my feet and moved onto the path.

  How close to me had that bullet passed? Not very. And it wasn’t all that dark out here-not dark enough for the shooter to miss accidentally. Whoever had lured me out of my room hadn’t intended to kill me, just scare me.

  Footsteps came from the direction of the main wing, and then I spotted a guard coming toward me. A second guard followed him, sweeping the shrubbery with a flashlight.

  I raised my hands so they could see I wasn’t armed. Called out, “Someone fired into the courtyard. It sounded like a handgun, small-caliber, and it came from over there.” I motioned to the right.