Vanishing Point

by Marcia Muller

  Dunn seemed to sink into thought, and Rae prompted, “So she stayed on here and you took care of her?”

  “Of course. I wasn’t going to let her move into her house alone, not in her condition. And neither was Laurel Greenwood. She came often while Josie was sick, although she could only stay a night or two at the most; then, when the insurance that paid for the nursing had run out, she came and stayed to the end.”

  “Did Josie die here or in the hospital?” I asked.

  “Here. I wish we’d had her hospitalized.”

  “Why, Mr. Dunn?”

  “I don’t know if you’re familiar with brain cancer, but with the type Josie had and at the stage she was when she died, you can be lucid one moment, totally disoriented the next. While Laurel was napping one afternoon, Josie got out of the bed in the front room where we had her and wandered into the hallway. Fell down the stairs and died.”

  It took a moment for my thought processes to kick in. Then I tried to remember the cause of death Derek had reported to me. Complications resulting from brain cancer.

  Some complications.

  I asked, “Were you here at the time?”

  “No, I was out showing a property to a client. I returned just as the ambulance was taking Josie away.”

  “And Laurel? You said she was napping?”

  He nodded. “She was exhausted. Slept right through Josie’s fall. By the time Laurel found her, she was gone.” He compressed his lips, his eyes moist. “We never got to say good-bye, either of us. And then I never got to say good-bye to Laurel.”

  On our way out of the building, I hesitated in front of the door to the first-floor flat. “Didn’t Dunn say the woman down here has been his tenant as long as he’s owned the building?”

  “Right.”

  “So she would have known Josie, maybe Laurel. And probably Jennifer.” I pressed the doorbell.

  After a minute or so a slender, dark-haired woman in a black tailored suit looked out at us. I introduced Rae and myself and handed her my card. “We were speaking with Mr. Dunn upstairs,” I added, “and he tells us you’ve lived here since nineteen seventy-nine.”

  “Nineteen seventy-eight, actually. The year before Carl bought the building. Is there some problem?”

  “Nothing concerning you, but we would like to talk to you about the tenant on the second floor.”

  She glanced at her watch. “I can give you half an hour before I have to change for my book group.”

  The woman opened the door wide and ushered us into a flat that was slightly larger than the upper ones because it lacked a staircase. The living room was to the left, darker than Dunn’s or Jennifer’s and furnished in what looked to be good-quality antiques. When we were seated she said, “I’m Melissa Baker, by the way. Or did Carl tell you that?”

  “He didn’t mention you by name, but he did say you were a good tenant.”

  She smiled. “And he’s a good landlord. Has repairs made promptly and hasn’t ever raised the rent, except for cost-of-living adjustments. He could, you know, since this building is owner-occupied and only three units, and thus isn’t covered by rent control. But you said you’re interested in the people who lived on the second floor. What did they do? Steal the bathroom fixtures?”

  “They?”

  A look of confusion passed over her features. “You’re asking about the Jordans, aren’t you? The people who vacated a few months ago?”

  “No. We’re interested in the present tenant.”

  “Jennifer Aldin. Lovely woman. Such a change, after the Jordans.”

  “Do you recall when you last saw Ms. Aldin?”

  “Last weekend. Sunday. We had a cup of tea together.”

  Rae and I exchanged glances. “D’you recall what time that was?” I asked.

  “After lunch. One, one-thirty.” Melissa Baker’s brows knitted together in concern. “Has something happened to Jennifer?”

  “She hasn’t come home since Sunday, and her husband has asked us to locate her.”

  “Oh no. I hope she wasn’t upset by what I told her. Although she didn’t seem to be.”

  “Perhaps you could start at the beginning.”

  “Well, Jennifer has been renting her flat as a studio. You probably know she’s a textile designer. There was some problem with her studio at home.”

  “Did she tell you what?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I gather her husband also works at home, and there are tensions in the marriage.”

  “Such as?”

  “She didn’t mention anything specific, but I could sense she wasn’t very happy. She’s a successful professional woman: there was an article on her in a home-decorating magazine that I picked up at my hairstylist’s; it said her career had really taken off. But whenever I ran into her she seemed depressed and distracted. And I think she drank alone upstairs. A few times when I encountered her, I smelled it on her breath.”

  Depressed and distracted-by her marriage, or by her obsession with her mother? Or a combination of the two?

  I said, “How often did the two of you get together?”

  “Only three or four times. Yes, three.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing special. Her work, mine. The books my group was reading. She did display some interest in Carl and the previous tenants of her flat. I guess that was only natural; she may have been thinking about staying there on a more regular basis.”

  “She said that?”

  “No, but at first she wasn’t there more than once a week, then I noticed her quite often. I work in the building also-I’m a CPA-and the hours Jennifer put in here at her studio have escalated in, I’d say, the past two or three weeks. Almost as if she didn’t want to go home.”

  “And when she stopped by to see you on Sunday…?”

  “She seemed much better, as if she’d made up her mind to make some changes. And she hadn’t been drinking. We talked more about the neighborhood and the building, and I felt I had to tell her the one thing I’d been withholding because I was afraid it might upset her. You see, there was a tragedy that happened in her flat. I’ll never forget it. For a while it almost made me want to move away.”

  “What Melissa Baker told us puts a different slant on Carl Dunn’s account of Josie’s death,” Rae said.

  “A disturbing one.”

  We were seated by the pit fireplace in the living room of her Seacliff home-backs to the windows, ignoring the fog that was still streaming toward the Golden Gate. Our feet were propped on the raised brickwork, and we had glasses of wine in hand.

  She said, “We should be glad Baker’s office window opens onto the airshaft, and that she’s a bit of an eavesdropper.”

  “What’s wrong with eavesdropping?”

  “Nothing. I’ve always considered it a professional asset-both as an investigator and as a writer.”

  “Okay.” I began ticking off items on my fingers. “Laurel has been staying with Josie for a week. Josie’s in the terminal phase of her illness, but still lucid at times, and has the unfortunate tendency to get out of bed and wander. On the afternoon of Josie’s death, Laurel receives a phone call, which Baker overhears via the airshaft. She can’t make out much of it, but it upsets Laurel, because she shouts, ‘You’re making it up! You’ve always been jealous of my friendship with Josie, and now for some reason you want to hurt me.’

  “Then Baker hears Josie’s voice in the background. Laurel moves far enough away from the shaft that Baker can’t make out their conversation-except that very soon after they start arguing. It’s tax season, Baker’s busy, so she closes the window in order to concentrate on the forms she’s preparing. When she goes outside an hour and a half later to walk down to the corner mom-and-pop store, the police and an ambulance are in front of the building, and Josie’s being taken away on a gurney. Laurel’s hysterical. Carl Dunn arrives and takes charge of her, and they retreat to his flat. The next day, Laurel goes back to Paso Robles and doesn’t return, excep
t briefly for the funeral.”

  Rae nodded and took a handful of popcorn from a bowl on the hearth. “Easy to jump to the conclusion that Laurel and Josie were quarreling when Josie fell down the stairs.”

  “Quarreling for nearly an hour and a half?”

  “That’s kind of hard to believe. Maybe they quarreled, Laurel got Josie back to bed, and then took her nap. It could’ve happened the way Carl Dunn thinks it did.”

  “Or they quarreled, Josie fell, and Laurel didn’t call nine-one-one till later.”

  “Why? Because she was in shock? I don’t think so. Remember, Laurel had also been a nurse.” Rae munched on the popcorn, thinking. “Accidental death? Or did Laurel push her?”

  “If there was anything suspicious about Josie’s death, there would’ve been an investigation.”

  “Do we know for sure that there wasn’t?”

  “Not yet.” I went to where I’d left my purse on a side table, took out my cellular, and speed-dialed the apartment that my friend Adah Joslyn, an inspector on the SFPD homicide detail, shared with Craig Morland. She wasn’t at home, but Craig told me to try the Hall of Justice. Adah was at her desk, working late, and-per usual-in no mood for idle chitchat.

  “What?” she said.

  “Information on a nineteen eighty-two accidental death that may have fallen under suspicion as involuntary manslaughter.”

  “Don’t want much, do you?”

  Typical Adah grumbling, but I knew she’d come through for me, because she always had. And she was more bark than bite these days, since the trouble-plagued department, and her career, was on the mend after the appointment of an intelligent, evenhanded female chief of police.

  “Too much,” I admitted, “but it’s important to the major case we’re working on.”

  “Yeah, Craig’s told me about it. Why can’t you ever come up with something minor, like a skiptrace?”

  “We do our fair share of those, too.”

  “Okay. Particulars?”

  I recited them.

  “I’ll get back to you. When I can.”

  I set the phone down, saw Rae smiling. “Adah,” she said, “she’s really something. D’you think she and Craig’ll ever get married?”

  What was it about married people? As Wolf, my investigator friend, was fond of saying, they all wanted to see everyone else locked up in the same institution. Of course, he was married now and, good God, so was I!

  “I don’t know,” I told Rae. “It could be that Adah and Craig don’t want the attendant hassles. Craig is from a WASPy, conservative Virginia family. And you know Adah…”

  Adah was half black, half Jewish, and her aging leftist parents still participated in-or helped to organize-whatever radical protest movement was currently gaining momentum. The picture of the Joslyns and the Morlands coming together at a wedding reception made Ma’s gathering for Hy and me seem like a stroll through the park on a sunny spring day.

  Rae seemed to be picturing the same scene. Her lips twitched in amusement, but then she looked up at the archway that led to the foyer. I followed her gaze, saw Ricky standing there. He dropped his travel bag on the floor, slung his leather jacket over the back of a chair, and came toward us. His expression was brooding, and he moved as if he was tired.

  Rae went to greet him, going up on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Hey,” she said, “what’s wrong?”

  He hugged her, forced a smile over her shoulder at me. “I’ve just come from the Aldins’ house, and I need a drink. Be right with you.”

  Rae watched him walk toward the kitchen, turned to me, and shrugged. Ricky returned shortly, a thick crystal tumbler containing a dark amber liquid in hand. His chestnut hair was tousled, and worry lines stood out on his handsome face. He sat next to Rae, took a swallow, and said, “Something’s wrong down there, other than the obvious, and I really don’t like what I’m thinking.”

  When he didn’t go on I said, “And that is…?”

  “Mark’s acting very upset and concerned for Jen, but that’s exactly what it is-acting. I’m enough of an actor myself that I can tell it from the real thing. And after we’d been talking a while and he’d let his guard down some, he said that in a way it would be a relief if she disappeared for good like her mother did, because he wasn’t sure he could take any more of her obsessing.”

  Rae said, “That’s normal. There’re times in any marriage when one partner thinks it would be a relief if the other disappeared into thin air. And Mark’s had to put up with more than most spouses.”

  “Red, this wasn’t like that. It was the first time during our conversation that I heard genuine feeling in his voice. And twice after that he referred to Jen in the past tense. Besides…” He shook his head, sipped his drink.

  “Besides?” I prompted.

  “I think he’s been having an affair.”

  “Oh? What makes you think that?”

  “Shar, as you very well know, I’m no stranger to cheating and the kind of behavior it generates. I thought it through on the way home, and there’ve been little signs for a few months now.”

  “Such as?”

  “He’s late a lot of the times when we get together, and never has a good explanation for it. An attractive woman walks by, I comment on her, the way guys do, and he doesn’t respond, as if he’s trying to avoid the subject of women entirely. He’s overly complimentary in what he says about Jen and his marriage. Overly sympathetic with her obsession with her mother. Overly willing to throw money at the problem, rather than deal with it in a personal sense. Besides, the times he’s been late, he’s had the look.”

  “The well-fucked look.”

  “Thank you, Sister Sharon, for being so delicate.”

  I smiled. “Sister Sharon” had been Charlene’s nickname for me-as in “Sister Sharon who is holier than thou, unless nobody’s looking”-and Ricky still used it occasionally.

  I said, “You’re welcome, Brother Ricky, and if anybody could recognize the look, it’s you.”

  Rae asked, “Am I gonna have to referee?”

  “No,” we said in unison.

  I added, “I think you may be on to something, Ricky. And you”-I turned to Rae-“are going to have to pursue this line of investigation while I’m down in Paso Robles.”

  She frowned. “Wait a minute, Mark’s the agency’s client. We can’t investigate our own client.”

  “No, Jennifer’s the client. Her name’s the only one on the contract.”

  Ricky stood. “I don’t want to hear any of this. It’s none of my business and, besides, I need another drink.”

  When he’d left the room I said, “You’ll do it? Check out Mark?”

  “I’ll do it. If he’s done anything to Jen-”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself. It could be Ricky’s reading more into the situation than there actually is.”

  “Or it could be he’s right-and we’ve got a real disaster on our hands.”

  Wednesday

  AUGUST 24

  By the time Rae and I had finished on Tuesday night-mapping out our next courses of action and bringing Patrick up to speed on the new developments-it was late and I’d decided against driving to Paso Robles until morning. My alarm woke me at six, and I found the fog had receded; aviation weather confirmed good conditions all the way. So once again Two-Seven-Tango and I headed south.

  When you’re piloting an aircraft, your senses are heightened, even on the longest and most tedious of flights. You’re checking the gauges, monitoring the radio, watching for other aircraft, maintaining your altitude, making adjustments for the wind, as well as enjoying the view of the terrain below. You experience a great feeling of freedom, having broken loose of the earth and the concerns that envelop you there. And after a while your thoughts also soar free, often in ways that they don’t on the ground.

  This morning as my thoughts turned to the investigations, I found I wasn’t thinking of them as separate or even loosely connected entities. The parallels were
simply too strong. After a while the facts melded into a decades-long continuum, and I began to sense what had happened to Laurel and Jennifer. I felt with a growing certainty that I would find both of them and, by the time I did, I would already understand the reasons for their disappearances. It was simply a matter of putting everything into its proper place.

  After I had left the Cessna in the tiedowns and claimed my rental car, I called Jacob Ziff’s number but reached only a machine. Although I loathe the practice of hanging up when no one answers, I broke the connection before the beep; a certain amount of surprise would work to my advantage with Ziff. Next I dialed Herm Magruder’s condominium in Morro Bay; the gravelly voiced man who answered identified himself as Magruder and told me yes, he’d found my card in his mailbox. When I said he’d been recommended to me as an authority on his town, he invited me to come over as soon as I wished.

  “I’ve got to warn you, though,” he added, “the wife and I just got back from vacation last night, and the place is a mess.”

  The spacious condominium was something of a shambles. A heap of dirty laundry sat on the living room sofa, and unpacked cartons were stacked on the floor. Beside one stack sat a terra-cotta donkey wearing a sombrero that also served as a planter-a variation on the garden gnome, perhaps?-and atop the other were two brightly colored pinñatas.

  “You’ve been to Mexico,” I said. Detective work at its finest.

  “Yeah.” Magruder, a stocky, balding man with a hooked nose and horn-rimmed glasses, looked around as if he were surprised to find such objects in his condo. “We took the motor home down to Baja for some camping and fishing, then stopped in Tijuana to shop. Tequila for the son, the donkey for the daughter-in-law, piñatas for the grandkids. They live in the Midwest, think crap like this is exotic. Our Christmas shopping is done.” Then he flashed me a quick grin. “Of course, there’s the other crap we bought for ourselves.”