U Is for Undertow

by Sue Grafton

  “Did Aunt Gin know what Grand was up to?”

  “I believe she did.”

  “I don’t know what to do with this. For years, I’ve been feeling sorry for myself because I thought my grandmother didn’t give a shit. Now it looks like she cared so much, she’d have blackmailed her own daughter to achieve her ends.”

  “That’s about the size of it. On the bright side, she failed.”

  “Yeah, and on the dark side, look at what it cost. My poor Aunt Gin. I had no idea what she was going through. She made sure no whisper of it ever reached my ears. For years, I wasn’t aware I had family beyond her. I only learned about my relatives when she was gone.”

  “A woman of contradictions. Forthright and secretive in the same breath.”

  I studied him, wondering if I was missing something. “I don’t want you bending the truth. I’m truly fine with it either way.”

  “Why so suspicious? You must have ‘trust issues,’ as they’re referred to in the common parlance.”

  I laughed. “Maybe. And what about you?”

  “You’d have to be a fool to trust most people. I credit myself with more intelligence.”

  I glanced at my watch. “Oops. I have a meeting in Belicia, so I should hit the road. I appreciate your confidence. My lips are sealed.” I made a zipping motion across my mouth.

  Hale wadded up the paper sack and tossed it in the trash. “If you have other questions, don’t hesitate to call.”

  It wasn’t until I was on the road again that I realized he hadn’t actually answered my question about whether he’d lie.

  26

  The business address Shawn Dancer had given me in Belicia turned out to be his home address as well. The town itself was small, spread out like a net between the highway and the beach. The main source of income was the tourist trade, visitors attracted by the setting and the work of local artisans, who made everything from cheeses to breads to boutique wines. I spotted seven art galleries on the main thoroughfare, where there were also shops selling jewelry, handmade furniture, textiles, and other one-of-a-kind crafts. Countless small hotels and bed-and-breakfast places lined the narrow streets, with high-end restaurants, cafés, and bistros sufficient to service the locals as well as the numerous travelers who’d come to explore the area. At this time of year, rates were reasonable and I saw a number of No Vacancy signs.

  Shawn Dancer lived in a one-story gray-painted frame house, with a suggestion of Victoriana in its steep gables, fish-scale shingled roof, and gingerbread trim. I pulled up in front and parked. I knocked at the front door and waited the requisite few minutes, wondering if anyone was home. The door was opened by a young woman I judged to be scarcely out of her teens. She was just a slip of a thing, with large hazel eyes and a halo of black curls. She was barefoot, wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt that she’d knotted in the front. Her right arm was weighted with silver bracelets.

  I said, “Hi. I hope I have the right house here. I’m looking for Shawn.”

  “He’s in his shop around back.”

  Since she offered nothing else, I thanked her and then went down the porch steps, turned right, and followed the drive. The workshop was the main house in miniature, connected by a breezeway. The door was standing open and the scent of glue and raw wood perfumed the air. I could hear the high-pitched singing of a lathe. Shawn, in coveralls and goggles, was intent on his task, which allowed me a moment to study him without his being aware.

  He was tall with a mop of dark curly hair. The seams of his white coveralls were etched in sawdust. Unacquainted as I was with the tools of his trade, I could still identify buffing and drilling machines, routers, planes, disk sanders, miter and band saws. He’d glued the edge joints of two wide flat panels together, then placed them in a big C-clamp. Rough lumber was stacked on end against one wall. Hundreds of drill bits, small tools, and wooden templates were arranged neatly on wall-mounted pegboard panels.

  He turned, and when he saw me he shut down the lathe. “Hey.”

  “Are you Shawn?”

  “Absolutely. You must be the investigator from S.T.”

  “Kinsey Millhone,” I said. “Nice meeting you. I see I caught you hard at work.”

  “Always. I’m glad you figured out where I was.”

  “The girl who came to the door told me you were back here.”

  “You met Memory.”

  “I assume so, though she didn’t introduce herself.”

  His expression was wry. “She sometimes comes up short in the manners department. Sorry about that. She doesn’t mean to be rude.”

  “No need to apologize. You’re the one I came to see.”

  “Hope I can help. How’s Deborah doing these days?”

  “Good. We did a beach walk last Wednesday, and she’s in better shape than I am.”

  “Have a seat if you can find one,” he said.

  “This is fine.”

  He hoisted himself onto a bare patch of workbench while I leaned against the table, keeping us eye-to-eye. We chatted for a bit, working our way around to the subject at hand.

  Finally, he said, “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  “I’ll try to be succinct about this,” I said. I launched into my tale, distilling it down to the salient points. “An old kidnapping case has popped into view again for reasons too complicated to go into. A little girl named Mary Claire Fitzhugh disappeared in July of 1967 and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “That’s bad.”

  “Very bad, but at least there’s hope we’ll find out what happened to the child. As I understand it, you and your mom and dad were in Santa Teresa that same summer—”

  “Greg wasn’t my dad,” he said. “Just want to be clear on that since Mom was.”

  “Sorry. I’m hazy on the details, which is why I’m here.”

  “Matters not. Go on.”

  “I know the three of you were staying with the Unruhs. Deborah tells me Greg was pressing them to hand over the money his grandfather had left him so he and Shelly could buy a farm . . .”

  Shawn was already shaking his head. “I heard ’em cooking up the story, but it was fiction, every word of it. Nitwits. I don’t know what they were thinking. Patrick wasn’t going to underwrite their cockamamie plan, even if it had been legitimate. The money was in trust and there was no way they could’ve busted into it. Well, maybe with a legal hassle, but Greg wasn’t in a position to stick around for that.”

  “What was he up to? Can you fill me in?”

  “Sure. Greg dropped out of Berkeley in his sophomore year, which meant he lost his 2-S student deferment and was reclassified as 1-A, ready for immediate induction. His draft notice caught up with him and he promptly burned it. He and Mom were both paranoid about authority, her more than him. He decided to go to Canada. She wasn’t keen on the idea, but he had friends in hiding up there and he figured he could take advantage of the connections. If he got his hands on his inheritance, they’d have enough to live on while they applied for citizenship.”

  “I can understand the kind of pressure he was under.”

  “Well, yeah, from his perspective. I’ll tell you what was dumb. I didn’t realize this until later, but in July of ’sixty-seven, Greg was twenty-five years old. Once he turned twenty-six, he’d be off the hook, so all he had to do was wait. I don’t think they were taking married guys, so if he and Mom had been willing to go that far, he’d have been home free. Not that they’d have done anything so pedestrian. They were hippies and way too free-spirited for anything as mundane as a civil ceremony. Anyway, once it was obvious the Unruhs weren’t going to cooperate, we hit the road, which was their solution to just about anything.”

  “Why such an abrupt departure?”

  “They did everything on impulse, though there might have been something more going on. I heard a lot of heated whispers from the back of the bus. Greg was in a panic.”

  “Any idea when that was?”

  “Not a clue. I was a kid.
What did I know? I remember Mom lobbied hard for San Francisco. There was all this talk about the Summer of Love and she was pissed she’d be missing out. She said it wasn’t like they’d have a posse on their tails. There were thousands of guys ducking the draft, so all they had to do was keep on the move and they’d be fine. Cut no ice with Greg. He was anxious to get out of Dodge, so to speak. As far as she was concerned, that was his problem, not hers. She knuckled under in the end, but not without a lot of knock-down, drag-out fights. You want my take on it, I got the impression somebody called the draft board and dimed him out.”

  “If they left empty-handed, what’d they do for money?”

  “The usual—panhandled, sold dope, stole stuff. It’s what they always did when they were down and out, which I might add was their permanent state. The trip took weeks because of all the stops we made, scoring cash for gas and food. To this day, I bet I could support myself standing at a four-way stop with a funky cardboard sign.”

  “They didn’t turn around and head back to Santa Teresa for any reason?”

  “No way. Greg was freaked out. They were happy to be gone.”

  “Patrick believed they’d come up with a scheme to get money. He was convinced they never really left town.”

  Shawn shook his head. “I’m the only one who ever came back and that was three years ago when I read about Patrick being killed. I wanted to pay my respects.”

  “Are you aware that Rain was kidnapped right about the time Greg and Shelly left?”

  “Rain was?”

  “Less than a week after they took off. The ransom demand was fifteen grand, which Patrick paid. She was returned in good shape and ten days later, the other little girl was snatched. The Unruhs thought Greg and Shelly had a hand in it.”

  “Not true. Once we left the States, that was it. Why would Patrick blame them?”

  “Because it made sense. At least in his mind. The two were desperate for money. The Unruhs refused and the next thing they knew, Rain was abducted and they were forced to pay. The plan was lame, but Deborah says their brains were addled from all the dope they smoked.”

  “Well, that’s a fact. I was stoned half the time myself.”

  “At ten?”

  “That’s what life was like in those days. Don’t get me wrong. Mom had her principles. Until I turned sixteen, she wouldn’t condone peyote, cocaine, or heroin. She also drew the line at LSD. Very strict, she was. She got into the heavy stuff herself, but not until later.”

  “You were homeschooled?”

  “That was her claim, but it was BS. She quit school when she was fifteen and pregnant with me. That was ninth grade so she didn’t know enough to teach me anything. I survived by looking after myself. If I’d been a pain in the ass, she’d have dumped me the way she did Rain.”

  “When did you last see your mom?”

  “She died of AIDS in ’eighty-six. Ugly business. I could have done without that.”

  “What about Greg?”

  “He died of an overdose when I was fourteen. That’s when Mom and I came back to the States. Mom’s first thought was San Francisco. Man, she was really burning up the road. Of course, the Haight was dead by then, but she was ever hopeful. We lived in Berkeley for a while and then Santa Cruz. Eight months in Mexico and I can’t remember where else. We didn’t stay long in any one place. It was a crappy way to grow up.”

  “How’d you end up in Belicia?”

  “It was one of our many stops along the way. I met a guy here who handcrafted furniture, and he said he’d mentor me if I was ever interested. By the time I was twenty, I’d had it with all the moving around so I settled here. He taught me everything I know.”

  “It looks like you’re doing well.”

  “This is true,” he said, with mock modesty.

  “How long have you and Memory been together?”

  He smiled. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “I’m sorry. I just assumed.”

  “She’s my sister.”

  “Really? I’m not sure Deborah knows about that.”

  “No reason she would. We left Santa Teresa in July. Memory was born in Canada the next April. Greg was pissed about the whole deal. He said the last thing they needed was another mouth to feed. He wanted Mom to put the baby up for adoption, but she was having none of it. They went after that subject hammer and tongs. He said since she’d dumped Rain, she could dump this one, too. Mom wouldn’t budge. Personally, I don’t believe the baby was his.”

  “Wow. Whose, then?”

  “Who knows? Anyway, if we’ve covered the subject, I’ll get back to work.”

  “Sure thing. I may call you later if something new comes up, but for now I appreciate your time. Do you mind if I tell Rain about Memory? I’m sure she knows about you, but I’m guessing she’d want to hear about her sister. Deborah, too.”

  “You can tell them anything you like. I’d love to see Rain if she ever has the inclination to come up. Or maybe Memory and I will drive down.”

  “If I talk to her, I’ll tell her you said so.”

  “Give both of them my love.”

  Driving south again I had a lot on my mind. I was still mulling over the account Hale Brandenberg had given me about Grand. When it came to Greg and Shelly’s departure, I confess I felt vindicated. They hadn’t turned around at all, let alone snatched first Rain and then Mary Claire. I understood Deborah’s reasoning, but the points she cited were circumstantial, a crude cause and effect that didn’t hold up to scrutiny. This was the kicker from my perspective: if Greg and Shelly weren’t guilty, then who was?

  When I reached the office, I parked, snagged my shoulder bag, and got out of the car, locking it behind me. I noticed a car parked directly across from mine, a sleek white Corvette with a woman in the driver’s seat and a guy in the passenger seat next to her. The sun reflecting off the windshield prevented a clear view of the driver so I shrugged to myself and continued up the walk. I unlocked the office door, and as I was letting myself in I heard two car doors slam in quick succession.

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw Diana Alvarez moving in my direction. Her male companion was someone I’d never seen before. Oh, joy, I thought. She looked as buttoned-down as ever—loafers, black tights, and a black corduroy jumper worn over a white turtleneck. I could see that any outfit looked spiffier when paired with black tights, and I vowed to add more to my wardrobe. Since I was already the proud owner of two skirts, I’d be all set.

  Diana carried a large leather tote, bulging from the weight of an oversized book. “I’m glad we caught you,” she said. “We were just about to take off. This is my brother, Ryan.”

  Belatedly I saw the resemblance. The solemn dark eyes were clearly a family trait. “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  Ryan and I shook hands. He wore gray slacks and a charcoal sport coat over a pin-striped dress shirt. His red tie introduced the only note of color. Offhand, I pegged him as a salesman working in the retail clothing business, maybe Sears. I couldn’t imagine why she was back again.

  “Mind if we come in?” she asked.

  “Might as well.”

  I stepped back and let them move into the office ahead of me. They settled in the guest chairs, Diana adjusting her skirt before she placed her tote on the floor. She tilted the case against the modesty panel on the front of my desk. There was something self-satisfied in her demeanor, a quality I’d seen before and one that made me testy.

  I sat down in my swivel chair. “What can I do for you?”

  Even before she spoke I could tell she’d rehearsed her remarks, eager to present herself as someone organized and in control. “I told Ryan about the conversation we had—”

  I interrupted, hoping to throw her off balance. “We’ve actually talked twice—once at the dig and again the next day.”

  “I’m referring to our meeting here. Something nagged at me when you talked about Michael’s seeing the two men in Horton Ravine. If you’ll remember, I asked you then wh
at made him so certain of the date and you told me it was because it happened on his sixth birthday.”

  “Okay.”

  “Even at the time it seemed off and I remember saying so.”

  “You know you really don’t have to go through the whole thing again.”

  “I’m touching on the salient points,” she said. “I hope you don’t object.”

  “Far from it. I’m begging you to get on with it. I’ve got work to do.” She ignored that and went on. I half expected her to whip out her little spiral-bound notebook, but she’d committed her recital to memory. “You told me Mary Claire Fitzhugh was kidnapped on Wednesday, July 19, 1967. Michael claims he saw the two men two days later, on Friday, the twenty-first.”

  I waved a hand in the air, dismissing the details, which I didn’t feel bore repeating. As far as I knew, none of this was in dispute.

  She shot me a dark look and then went on. “According to his account, Mom dropped him off at the Kirkendalls’. Billie was sick so his mother let Michael wander on the property and that’s when he came across the two men. I’m repeating this for Ryan’s sake since he was the one who pointed out Michael’s error.”

  “The error?”

  “A whopper,” Ryan said.

  “And what might that be?”

  Diana reached for her tote and removed what I could see then was a scrapbook, the pages thick with newspaper clippings, programs, souvenirs, and party favors, some of which were sticking out. The assemblage was clearly the work of someone suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, who couldn’t bear to throw anything away. She’d marked a particular page and she turned to it, reversing the album so I could see the contents without craning my neck.

  Looking down, she said, “I started this when I was eight. To remind you of the family order, by the time Michael turned six, David was ten years old, Ryan was twelve, and I was fourteen.”

  “I’m aware of that,” I said. I could see she was stringing it out and I could hardly keep from rolling my eyes.