by Janet Dawson
“Betsy?” His eyebrows drew together and he stared at me. “Did you call the shop yesterday?”
“Yes. You hung up on me before I had a chance to tell you why.”
“Tell me now.”
“Elizabeth disappeared. Ten days ago. I thought she might contact you.”
“I haven’t seen Betsy in fifteen years. I don’t understand. Why are you looking for her?”
“It’s a long story and I’m cold.” A few more snowflakes floated lazily in the air, glittering as they caught the light. I drew my jacket tighter around me. “I’d like to tell you if you’ll listen. But I want some answers too.”
“Suppose I don’t have any to give?”
“Then I enjoyed having dinner with you.”
I turned and started up the sidewalk. I’d gone about twenty feet when I heard him move behind me. He caught my arm. I stopped and faced him, meeting his cold eyes.
“That’s quite an exit line,” he said. “And it’s having the desired effect. All right, Jeri Howard. That is your name, isn’t it, or do you have another surprise to spring on me?”
“I’ll show you my investigator’s license.”
“Save it. I’ll make us some coffee. If you don’t mind coming to my place.”
Mark lived in a Victorian house that had been converted into flats. It was on the other side of Cibola Creek, past the Murdock House and the church I’d seen earlier. We went around the house to the back, where there was a staircase to the second floor. He unlocked his door and switched on the light, motioning me into a small living room.
“Have a seat,” he said, walking to a kitchen separated from the living room by a counter. On this side of the counter was a small drop-leaf table with two chairs. Across from me, between the windows, a shelf held some stereo equipment and a television set. I took off my jacket and settled on one end of an old sofa upholstered in blue and brown. To my left I saw a tall narrow shelf jammed with books and a door leading to the bedroom.
“So talk,” Mark said, his voice level as he scooped coffee grounds into an electric percolator. “What’s Betsy done now?” He made it sound as if Betsy had done a few things in the past.
“She changed her name to Renee Mills and married a man from Los Gatos. His name’s Philip Foster. They have an eighteen-month-old son named Jason. A week ago Wednesday she left the kid with her mother-in-law. She said she was going shopping. Instead she went to the bank and cleaned out the joint account. She didn’t come back.”
I watched him as I spoke, looking for some reaction, but I didn’t see one. He looked controlled, guarded, as he filled the percolator with water and plugged the cord into a wall outlet.
“Did Philip Foster go to the cops?” Mark asked, coming into the living room, a glass ashtray in one hand. He set it on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down, lighting a cigarette.
I nodded. “Yes. Then he hired me. It’s gotten complicated since then.”
I stopped. Mark didn’t react. His face was a mask as he drew in smoke and exhaled. The silence stretched as we listened to the percolator pump water through the coffee grounds. He stubbed out the cigarette, stood, and walked to the kitchen, filling two mugs with coffee.
“Black, right?” he said.
“Yes.” I walked to the counter and took the mug he offered.
“What made you think I’d know where Betsy is?”
“Karen told me you and Elizabeth were close. She said Elizabeth might come to you if she were in trouble.”
“Is she in trouble?”
“I think so.” I sipped the strong black coffee.
“So Karen thinks I might know where Betsy is. Just out of curiosity, how did Karen turn out? Vee never mentions her.”
“She makes porno movies.”
His head went back and he laughed, the sound filling the small apartment. I watched him. He was amused, but there was something else behind the laughter.
“Interesting reaction,” I said.
“If Karen wants to screw in front of a camera, it’s her business. Somehow I find it appropriate.”
“Why?”
“Karen’s the cuckoo in the nest. She’s not my father’s child.”
“Are you sure?”
“Even at the age of nine I could count.” His mouth twisted. He stared past me at the wall. “My father was on a carrier out of San Diego when Karen was conceived. He managed to ignore the fact that she was born two months after he got back from a nine-month cruise.”
“Who is her father? Or do you know?”
“I suggest you ask Joe Franklin. He and my mother were fucking each other regularly for years.” His words were ugly, filled with contempt. They fell into the charged air between us and lay there glittering and dangerous, like a razor-sharp blade.
“Leo Mercer told me about the bruises.”
He looked at me over his coffee mug and didn’t say anything. He was wary, at bay behind the barrier of the counter.
“Betsy’s husband didn’t know any of this?”
“No. He was upset when I told him.”
“But he wants you to keep looking.”
“He fired me. He went back to Los Gatos.”
“Why?”
“By the time I found out Renee was really Elizabeth, Philip’s father showed up in Oakland. He was pressuring Philip to drop the whole thing, forget about his wife, and go home. He told Philip Elizabeth had been abusing their child.”
Mark’s hand tightened on the handle of his mug and some of the coffee sloshed out onto the counter. He stared down at it. Then he picked up a dishrag and mopped up the spill. The silence in the room grew and stretched between us.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he said finally.
“I need some answers, Mark.”
“I don’t have any.”
“I think you do.”
He shook his head. “No. Not tonight.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
I set my coffee mug on the counter, buttoned my jacket, and crossed the small apartment to the front door. As I reached for the door handle, he spoke.
“Wait. I’ll walk you back to the inn.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
While we were inside, the drifting snowflakes had marshaled themselves into an orderly snowfall. Swirling white crystals crowded the air. Most of them melted into oblivion when they hit the ground, but some clung tenaciously to the grass and bushes outside Mark’s apartment. We moved out of the range of the porch light into the darkness. I shivered, partly from the cold and partly from the emotions which left me unsettled.
“Why are you doing this?” Mark asked as we passed the churchyard, its gravestones silvered by snow.
“Vee wants me to find Elizabeth. And I’d like to hear her side of the story.” We walked on in silence. When we reached the Murdock House I saw a light burning in the parlor and heard someone playing the piano.
“Besides...” I didn’t finish. He stopped and turned to look at me, more questions on his face. “We’ve met before. Alameda High School. You Can’t Take It With You. You were Mr. De Pinna. I was Essie.”
He stared into my eyes. In the glow from a nearby street-lamp his somber face was light and shadow, the scar standing out in relief. “I thought you looked familiar,” he said finally, his voice quiet. “But I don’t remember things or people. I don’t want to.”
“Will you talk to me tomorrow?” I asked. “Or am I wasting my time?”
He didn’t answer. Instead he pulled me close and put his mouth on mine. I tasted coffee and cigarettes, and my arms twined around his neck as I kissed him back.
“Maybe,” he said, with just a hint of a smile. Then he stuck his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and disappeared into the falling curtain of snow.
Thirteen
SUNDAY MORNING NANCY COULTER SERVED HER Murdock House guests an enormous breakfast: omelets with cheese, bacon, and vegetabl
es, big enough to cover a plate and cut in wedges, accompanied by home fries and baskets full of blueberry muffins. On this off-season weekend the dining room was half full. I shared a table with two middle-aged sisters from Eureka and a divorced father from Los Angeles whose teenagers were on spring break. The kids, boy and girl, looked bored, but their father was full of Gold Country lore. The Angelenos planned to go north to Jackson and Sutter Creek, while the two sisters were headed south for Murphys and Angels Camp.
I listened to the buzz of conversation and ate too many muffins. Gradually the dining room emptied of people and the clean-up began, with two helpers ferrying dirty dishes to Nancy Coulter, who stacked them in the dishwasher. I reached for the insulated coffee pitcher and poured another cup, telling myself I would not eat the remaining muffin in the basket.
I hadn’t slept well. It was too quiet up in the mountains for someone who was used to the city sounds of Oakland. But it was more than a strange bed in a strange town that kept me awake. The Willis case was fast becoming an obsession. I wanted to know what happened fifteen years ago and why. Mark Willis was the only person who could tell me, but he wouldn’t answer my questions. Suppose I got my answers and I didn’t like them? Was it better not to know? There was an invisible line there. I wasn’t sure I wanted to cross it.
I had to face something else. I was attracted to Mark Willis and that bothered me.
“Hi, Mark,” I heard Mrs. Coulter say from the kitchen. “You hungry? I’ve got half an omelet here.”
I looked up and saw Mark walk into the kitchen, dressed in blue jeans, a work shirt, and the leather jacket. He gave me a guarded smile.
“Sounds good. Thanks.” Mrs. Coulter handed him a plate, a fork, and a mug. He carried the plate into the dining room and sat down next to me.
“Any coffee in that pitcher?” he asked.
“Sure.” I handed it to him, along with the muffin basket. “Eat that muffin before I do.”
“Saving you from yourself?” He broke the muffin apart and buttered it. Then he dug into the omelet and finished it before speaking. “I have some work to do at the shop. I talk better when my hands are busy.”
Cibola on a Sunday morning was quiet and placid, its empty streets washed with sunlight and its air cool and clean. Remnants of last night’s snowfall lingered in the shadows where the sun had not yet melted it. The town had an early-morning look about it, as though it had just gotten out of bed and was stretching before that first cup of coffee. The loudest noise was the peal of bells from St. Anselm’s Church, and the only other people we saw on the street were an elderly man and his wife headed up the hill to Mass.
Neither Mark nor I spoke as we walked down Main Street. He unlocked the door to the frame shop, then locked it behind us, leaving the closed sign facing the street. I followed him back to his chilly workroom, where he switched on the light. His worktable was clean and bare, and the room looked as though he’d tidied it up before leaving last night. He reached under the table, pulled out an electric space heater, and plugged it into a wall outlet. Then he straightened and looked at me across the table, his hands on his hips.
“I have to explain something,” he said. “I’ve worked hard since I got out of prison, trying to be Joe Citizen. I support myself and I stay out of trouble. I’ve never had so much as a traffic ticket since the day I walked out of San Quentin. People up here accept me, even if they know who I am. I don’t look back. I look forward. It’s a balancing act. When the past comes up, it upsets my balance. I get defensive.”
“Do I upset your balance?”
The smile crept back onto his face. “Oh, yes. You do.”
I opened my purse and pulled out the five-by-seven photograph Philip Foster had given me, the picture of Mark’s sister and her family in front of last year’s Christmas tree.
“This is what she looks like now,” I said, handing it to him.
Mark studied the photograph for a long moment. Then he set it on the table and pushed it toward me. He went to the cabinet against the wall and pulled out a sheet of art paper, a pen-and-ink drawing of a derelict old house. He placed it in the middle of his worktable and reached for his tape measure.
“None of us looked alike,” he said, bent over the sketch. “I thought maybe it was because we had different fathers.”
“Did you?” I put the picture back in my purse and perched on the stool, leaning against the wall.
“I don’t know. I’m positive Karen’s father is Joe Franklin. She looks like him, in the planes of her face. Besides, I know Franny was screwing Franklin. They were careful to keep it from Lenore, but they acted like I didn’t have eyes or ears.” He shook his head and laid several mat samples next to the sketch.
“I don’t know about Betsy. I was only four when she was born. It wasn’t until later I realized Franny was sleeping around. With anything in pants, every chance she got. Franny didn’t like being married to George. But they had to get married, you see. I was born eight months after they hit the justice of the peace. She never let me forget it.”
“Franny resented you?”
“I’m not making excuses.” Mark fixed me with a somber gaze. “I never have. I’m just telling you so you’ll understand about Betsy.” He selected a charcoal gray mat and put the rest of the samples away. Then he went to a piece of equipment mounted on another table and carefully cut the mat.
“Home was hell,” he said when he was finished. “I stayed away as much as possible.”
“Did your parents beat you?” My words hung in the workroom like a malevolent presence. I saw his hands tighten on the mat cutter.
“George was away a lot,” he said finally, his voice calm and steady. “When he was around his idea of discipline was to treat us kids like recruits. He used to punctuate his orders with a smack across the face. He used his belt too.” He smiled at me but there was no humor in it.
“You see, Jeri, I was a wimp and a fuckup. I knew that because he told me repeatedly. I couldn’t do anything right. So I quit trying. For him, anyway. I did things to suit myself.”
“And your mother?”
“I hated her.” He set the newly cut mat on the worktable. His bright blue eyes blazed, then turned to ice.
“She enjoyed it. She used to get this look on her face when she was hitting me, like she was having a goddamn orgasm. Sometimes she’d burn me with the butt of her cigarette. I’d break away, run and hide. When I was older I’d stay away and wouldn’t come home. The last couple of years I spent a lot of nights sleeping at Leo’s house.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“I did, once.” Bitterness laced his voice. “When I was in junior high school. We were in San Diego then. The gym teacher asked me about some bruises on my arm. I told him Franny hit me. When he checked it out she told him I’d fallen down the stairs, that I was lying. He believed her. After that she was careful not to hit me where anyone would see the bruises. I just tried to stay out of her way as much as possible.”
“What about Betsy and Karen? Did she hit them too?”
He shook his head. “No. When George was around he would smack us indiscriminately. He even hit Franny now and then. But she left the girls alone. It was all directed at me. Until...” He stopped and bent over the picture he was framing. His jaw tightened. He seemed to vibrate like a wire.
“Until April?”
His head shot up. “What about April?”
“When I talked to Leo Mercer he said you started to get tense around April of that year, like something was bothering you.”
He sighed. “Leo saw more than I thought. Maybe I should have confided in him. I don’t know. Life’s full of maybes and should haves. You can spend your whole life wondering about them.”
“What happened in April?”
“Betsy turned fourteen in April. A few days after Betsy’s birthday, Franny burned Betsy’s arm with a cigarette. I figured it was a sign.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bet
sy was a late bloomer,” Mark said. “A skinny little kid. Then she changed overnight into this teenaged girl with hips and breasts. Franny started to pick on her.”
“Competition?”
“Maybe. I think it was something else, though. I was going away to college. I got a scholarship to UC Davis. I even had a summer job lined up on campus.” There was a wistful note in his voice as he considered the lost opportunity.
“God, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I was leaving the day after graduation. And I was never coming back. Of course that meant I wasn’t going to be around to take all of Franny’s shit. She knew it too. That’s why she started in on Betsy. It was subtle at first — arguments, raised voices, a slap or two. Then Franny burned Betsy’s arm. It left a little scar. Just like these.”
Mark unbuttoned the cuffs of his work shirt and pushed up the sleeves. I saw several little circles of scar tissue on both forearms, just like the burn scar Philip Foster had described on his wife’s left arm.
“When Franny burned Betsy I knew she’d picked another target,” Mark continued, rebuttoning his cuffs. “I didn’t know what to do. I started worrying, wondering how I could protect the girls.”
“What made you think you could protect them when you couldn’t protect yourself?”
Mark’s eyes burned at me for a moment, and I knew I had touched a particularly sensitive nerve. Then his emotion cooled.
“I thought I could protect them by being there. By getting between her and them. But things just went downhill. George got passed over for promotion. He and Franny argued about it, so he stayed away, at work, or in the bar at the officers club.”
He positioned the mat over the pen-and-ink sketch. “I saw what was going to happen. Franny would make Betsy her punching bag until Betsy was old enough to leave, then she’d start in on Karen. And George would just let it happen, like he had all along. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Is that why you killed them?”
He looked up from his work, his eyes boring into me. “Not many people ask me that question,” he said softly.
“Do they get an answer?”
“No.” His mouth hardened into a thin line. “Not even the psychiatrists who tried to dissect me got an answer.”
