by Inga Vesper
Mick slams his coffee mug on the table. It makes an ominous bang and a zigzag line appears around the handle. Coffee slops out and pools on his desk. He is seeing red, literally. Bubbles of it are dancing in front of his eyes. They blot out the moronic face of Sergeant Hodge, who is standing there, cap in hand, chewing on his words. Standing, because a senior officer of the force can’t even get a second chair in this godforsaken backwoods shithole of a station.
‘Didn’t seem important, sir.’ Hodge crumples his cap to his chest. ‘On account that we found nothing.’
Mick closes his eyes until the red spots fade and he’s reasonably certain he’s not going to keel right over with a coronary. He spent the whole morning running around the mall, only to find out that Hodge and Simmons had already done interviews there without result.
‘It was her last damn trip to the outside world, man. She must have talked to someone. Paid at the grocery store till. Had some boy carry her bags. How can she walk around that place with her cute little ankle-biter dressed like a show doll and no one notices?’
‘Dunno, sir,’ says Hodge.
‘And now I’ve wasted half a day.’
‘Sorry, sir.’
Mick picks up the mug and slams it down again just to hear the satisfying crack of the handle breaking off. Hodge makes use of the moment to beat feet. On his way out, he bumps into Jackie, the secretary, who is waving a pile of papers. She takes in the state of Mick’s office, of the man himself and the broken mug. Her face pinches.
‘Detective, the call-ins.’
‘Thanks, Jackie.’
‘And might you keep it down? I can hardly hear the phone.’
‘They’ve been ringing, then?’
‘About three dozen callers.’
‘That’s a lot. Any good ones?’
She looks up and there’s a flicker of surprise in her eyes. Seems her opinion doesn’t get asked much around here.
‘Two or three, I’d say.’ She smiles. ‘Also a UFO crank, three unemployed bounty hunters and a long-lost sister.’
‘Thank you.’
She lingers a moment, half-hopeful. ‘Anything else?’
Mick thinks about throwing her a bone, but he is in no mood. ‘Get me a second chair,’ he snaps. ‘And close that door.’
He flings the mug into the trash where it cracks apart entirely. Business thus taken care of, he spreads the call-ins out on his desk.
He warned Murphy that this would happen, but the chief was adamant that there should be a reward for information, and it should get advertised in the press. The mayor, keen on maintaining Sunnylakes’s image as the ultimate idyll, has pegged it at one thousand dollars. Now, three dozen nutcases have burned up the lines, all sure that they’ve solved a riddle that’s dumbfounding a professional detective. Three dozen more problems fanned out on his desk, slowly soaking up the coffee stain.
Seems like everyone who went to Paradise Plaza Mall yesterday has some kind of theory. She’s been zoomed away by aliens, dragged into a van by ‘Soviet-looking’ foreigners, carried off by two big Negroes. A few callers are a little more sedate: ‘Saw a woman with toddler struggling to park her car, offered help, was rebuked’. ‘A neat-looking woman sat by the fountain and fed a child some strawberries, which are out of season, thought it strange, please call if reward’. ‘Woman in question bought painting materials – would recognize’. ‘Woman, possibly victim, looking slatternly, seen at Clarkson’s inquiring about marital aid. Might have gone off with lover.’
Mick sighs. He’d talked to every goddamn shelf-stacker in the grocery store until the manager asked him to leave and come back after hours. But what’s the point of that? It was as if Joyce hadn’t been there at all.
And then he realizes. The refrigerator was empty, the shopping list still tacked up on its door. Joyce Haney had, in fact, not gone grocery shopping at all, but had been looking for something else.
Maybe . . .
Blood rushes to his head. He shuffles the papers, then finds the one he is looking for. Painting materials – would recognize .
He grabs the phone, dragging his tie through the coffee stain, and misdials only twice before he gets a connection. The phone is picked up by a matronly-sounding woman. ‘Reubens Arts and Crafts, how can I help?’
*
Paradise Plaza Mall is dowsed in twinkly music, a mirage in the dust-strewn nowhere between Sunnylakes and what’s been built so far of the Santa Monica Freeway. Inside, walkways crisscross the space at every level. In the foyer of this air-conditioned splendor stands a metal sculpture depicting some sort of fan or garden rake or inter-dimensional force field. Modern. Everything here is modern.
Mick resists the urge to kick a little boy who is leaning over a chrome pool shaped like a honeycomb. Behind the pool sits the information bubble – that’s the best description for the plastic barnacle growing out of the floor. The bubble is manned by a guy in a green suit.
‘Reubens Arts and Crafts,’ Mick says. ‘Where can I find them?’
‘Section B,’ the man responds.
‘All right, and where’s that?’
‘This is section D.’
Mick rests both his palms on the bubble. ‘And how, my good sir, is a body to get from section D to section B?’
‘Please keep your hands off the glass, sir. Section B is on the second floor. Up the stairs, past the partition and into the red zone.’
‘The red zone? I thought they weren’t big on consumerism over there.’
‘Pardon me?’
Mick bows. ‘You’ve been extremely not helpful, thank you.’
The man gives him a pained smile. ‘Have a wonderful day, sir.’
Mick heads upstairs and onward until the carpet changes to brick-red. On the other side of a walkway he discovers Reubens Arts and Crafts.
The store is flanked by an underwear retailer displaying discrete bathrobes and children’s petticoats, and a radio store crammed with gleaming steel and beige plastic. In contrast, Reubens’ store front is a jumble of colors and materials. Yellow knitting wool in a green box. A set of inkwells next to a rainbow of crayons. An antique frame with a neat little watercolor, leaning against a basket of twine that only women would know the use for.
On entering, Mick’s neck muscles tense. It’s the same feeling he gets when he’s forced to attend Prissie’s high school plays or pick Fran up from her committee. He’s in foreign territory, trespassing in an alien world.
A lady approaching her autumn years sits behind the counter. She licks her finger and flicks a page in an exhibition catalog, then looks up and pulls her eyebrows into quizzical union. Keen to maintain a veneer of professionalism, Mick picks up a ball of wool, looks at it and puts it back. But it’s too late. The woman knows he’s an impostor.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asks.
He flashes his ID. ‘Mrs Reubens? I’m Detective Blanke, Santa Monica PD. We spoke earlier?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Mrs Reubens closes the catalog and puts it aside. ‘I’d be only too glad to help. But if someone enters the store, please pretend you’re a customer. I wouldn’t want . . .’
She leaves it unsaid, and something about that makes her instantly sympathetic. She’s not out to get a lick of fame. She really wants to help.
‘You knew Mrs Haney?’ Mick asks.
‘Not exactly.’ Mrs Reubens adjusts her glasses. ‘She frequents my store. Not a regular. But she would come in every . . . oh, three to four months, perhaps. A few times a year.’
‘Doesn’t sound like often enough to remember her.’
‘Well, sir, it’s a funny business. She would browse for a long time. She’d look at all our inks and paints and paper stock. She’d open a box of crayons, run her fingers along the weighted paper, really take her time. But she never bought anything.’
‘Never?’
‘Not even an eraser, sir. And when I asked if she needed help or if she was looking for anything specific, she’d just decline politely and move t
o another area of the store. At first I suspected her of . . . well, of being long-fingered.’
‘You thought she was stealing?’
‘Maybe.’ Mrs Reubens looks to the side. ‘I don’t mean to talk ill of my customers, but the folks in Sunnylakes are . . . there’s a lot of theft. More than we used to get in the city center.’
‘You had a store elsewhere before?’
‘In Clifton. But business there was on the downturn ever since the freeway cut us off from Brentwood. When they built the mall, I knew it was sink or swim. I relocated.’
‘I see.’
‘Anyway. Mrs Haney came in on Monday, and bought a set of watercolors, several reams of paper, a sable brush, coal pencils, a putty eraser, whitening and a box of children’s crayons.’
Mick takes out his notebook. Now there’s something to digest. ‘But you said she never bought anything before.’
‘That’s why it was so remarkable.’
‘You talked to her?’
‘Not much. She seemed . . . elsewhere with her thoughts. I didn’t want to frighten her away.’
‘Did she use store credit?’
‘Oh, no, she paid for everything in cash. But I remembered her face and outfit. She had her little girl with her. I put all her items into a big bag, and added the small bag she was already carrying. I asked her if she had a significant project planned. She said yes and I said I hoped she would enjoy it, or something along those lines. And she said, “Oh, I will not enjoy it. No one enjoys purgatory”.’
‘That sounds odd.’
‘It did. She left in a hurry.’
‘You said she already had a bag. What was in it? Groceries?’
‘No, it was too small for that.’ Mrs Reubens cocks her head. ‘It was a brown paper bag. Not branded. But when I picked it up, it rattled. And there were bottles inside. Pill bottles, I should say.’
‘You didn’t ask her about it?’
‘Of course not.’
Mick opens his notebook and writes ‘Pills’ on a blank page. Then he draws a lot of little circles around the word. Watercolors. Paper. Coal pencils. And crayons for the kids.
‘What was she wearing?’ he asks Mrs Reubens.
‘A yellow dress and matching hat,’ comes the answer, fast like a gunshot. ‘The dress had a bow around the waist. She was also wearing gloves. Very neat, I thought.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I had the impression that she was dressed for an occasion. Maybe something to do with the Women’s Improvement Committee.’ Mrs Reubens points at the catalog. ‘The first time Mrs Haney came here, it was with the leader of the committee, Mrs Crane. She shops here frequently and organizes art classes and trips to the city . . .’ She holds up the catalog. ‘Amblioni is exhibiting in LA at the moment. I thought maybe Joyce Haney had signed up.’
‘So, she might have been on her way to an art class?’
Mrs Reubens hesitates. ‘Well, if she was, she wasn’t looking forward to it.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Her eyes were . . . stirred, somehow. I can’t quite put my finger on it.’
‘Scared? Angry?’
‘No, not like that. She was all smiles and friendliness. But it seemed to me that the dress was a show. That underneath it she . . .’
Mick waits.
‘She was coming undone,’ Mrs Reubens says. ‘Her eyes were dazed. You know, when the letter came that my brother, God rest his soul, had died in Korea, my mother had the same expression. Desperate and fearless, because there was nothing left to fear. She . . . Joyce Haney looked as if Fate had already brought down its hatchet and she was just waiting for her limbs to fall off.’
Mick wants to reply, but he is interrupted by the twinkle of chimes. A lady with a little dog on a leash and a sour expression enters the store. She is carrying a bag from which poke several balls of baby-pink wool.
Mrs Reubens puts on a professional smile and waves. ‘Hello, Mrs Smith. Was the color not right after all?’
‘Thank you,’ says Mick. ‘You’ve really helped me.’ And looking at Mrs Smith’s curious expression, he adds loudly: ‘You’ve helped me immensely. I cannot wait to tell my wife about your incredible store.’
Outside, he examines the store window again. There are more colors here than he ever knew existed. Their names sound like magic spells – viridian green, phthalo blue, alizarin crimson. By comparison, the handful of items displayed by the underwear store look cheap and sterile under the fluorescent lights.
He takes a closer look – and freezes. In the window, sprawled out over a plastic cube, is a blue sleepsuit with little white feet and tiny cowboys falling off their horses.
He rushes into the store and is immediately surrounded by several young women in gingham dresses, who are wearing too much hair spray and don’t know anything about anything. Finally, a matron appears and confirms that several sleepsuits were sold on Monday, and yes, one of them to a lady in yellow. The sleepsuit is a popular item, she says, and no, they don’t keep a record of customers.
He eventually finds the mall’s exit and steps out into the dusty afternoon. The freeway is a silver river. Traffic has narrowed to a trickle around the huge construction site on the road to Sunnylakes, where they’re building the flyover bridge to connect the burbs to LA proper. Mick gets into his Buick and inches his way back toward Santa Monica.
So, Joyce Haney had picked up some pills. For what? Pain? Periods? A cold? He’s going to have to find her doctor and have a long and serious talk with him. Because he has a nasty little suspicion. What if she went to have something else seen to? A little problem best taken care of while the dear husband is out of town? Something illegal, something the doctor needed to do in the privacy of her own house, in the afternoon?
What if that something went awfully, terribly wrong?
And another thing pesters him. Where are those art materials? Certainly not at 47 Roseview Drive. The search of the house turned up nothing. And he doesn’t recall any watercolor paintings on the wall. What happened on Monday that made Joyce Haney crave an artistic outlet, just hours before she disappeared?
One thing is for sure. When he’s done with the doctor, he will have to pay a little visit to the Sunnylakes Women’s Improvement Committee.
Chapter Eleven
Mick
T
he mall doctor, a Dr Morton, proves a total dud. Mick calls from his office and finds out that the pills were for indigestion. Yes, several bottles, because Mrs Haney is a busy housewife and does not have much time to drive around. How she found him? He was recommended, by a Mrs Genevieve Crane.
Mick gets Sergeant Hodge on the job to check Dr Morton’s alibi for Monday afternoon. He wipes his fore-head with his shirtsleeve, takes one look at the paperwork in front of him, opens the door and shouts in the general direction of the front desk, ‘Jackie, get me some details on the Sunnylakes Women’s Improvement Committee. And chase the boys on the switchboard for the Haney family’s phone records.’
‘On it, Mr Blanke,’ comes the swift reply.
The heat clogs his brain. He shimmies open the window to about a hand-width. It won’t budge any further. A breeze enters the room, shy like a prom girl, and just as unobtrusive.
To while away some time, he flicks through the crime scene photographs of 47 Roseview Drive, which were delivered this morning, along with a complete inventory of the house. They confirm what he already knows. There is no sign of any art materials, nor any mention of pill bottles. There were pills in the medicine cabinet: acetaminophen, Appetrol lunch substitutes, Miltown, children’s aspirin and cough syrup. Nothing for indigestion.
He mulls over his theory. It will be very difficult to prove, but it fits the picture. Dr Morton, trusted doctor of the Sunnylakes ladies, might be providing illegal abortions. And Mick, unfortunately, has been to more than one Brooklyn tenement, staring at what happens when abortions go wrong. It would explain the blood and the paper towel, and perhaps
even the sleepsuit.
So, here’s how it goes down. Joyce Haney goes to Dr Morton, asks for an abortion and obtains some pill bottles, maybe painkillers to prepare for the operation. She then patronizes Reubens Arts and Crafts and buys all the trappings for an aspiring watercolor artist. And when she exits the store, she passes the underwear store, sees the blue sleepsuit and buys that, too. Why? Well, who knows. Hormones, maternal hysteria, grief. Something like that. In the afternoon, Dr Morton comes to the house to perform the operation, while the younger girl is asleep. The older one is sent outside. But it goes wrong. Joyce is injured. Or dies.
He sets the photographs out again. Even in black and white, the kitchen looks sunlit and picture-perfect. Except for the blood. And the beer bottle on the counter.
A beer bottle? He spools back to his first visit to the place and his mind comes up blank. How could he possibly have missed it? And whose beer would it be? Haney’s, perhaps, or maybe Dr Morton had to steady his nerves before . . .
Jackie pokes her head into the office and hands him a note. ‘Got her address.’
‘What? Whose?’
‘The head of the Sunnylakes Women’s Improvement Committee, Genevieve Crane. Lives in Portland Road.’
He nods and waves her away. It’s just past 4 p.m. Still an hour or so of visiting time left. But first, he dials the Haney’s number.
Frank Haney picks up after the first ring. ‘Hello? Yes, hello? Haney here.’
His voice is breathy. It gives Mick a tingle in his spine. It’s been three days and no news from his wife.
‘It’s Detective Blanke,’ he says. ‘Just calling you with an update. To be honest, it’s still tricky. We’ve had some reports from the public. Your wife was sighted at the mall.’
There’s a pause. ‘I know that, I spoke to your sergeant. You got nothing. Three days, and you’ve got nothing. You’re useless.’
Whatever sympathy Mick felt drains away in an instant. ‘I did speak to a Mrs Reubens this afternoon. She owns Reubens Arts and Crafts, and she said your wife was in her store on Monday morning.’
The silence on the other end of the line is just a second or so too long. ‘So?’
