“You’ll have to help,” she said, raising her right hand out of her lap and shoving it toward my face.
Even in the darkness I could tell it was not a human limb, rather something bent and smashed, a hand that had been twisted, grotesquely and diabolically, into a cubist fist of altered proportion, skewed perspectives, sabotaged utility. The fingers, broad and bent, were flattened against the palm as though permanently pressed there by an act of torture. The flesh over the thumb was white and bloodless. I thought of dungeons, of freaks, of madness.
“Lift my finger.” The words were firm and shockingly brave. “Go on. It won’t hurt. No more than usual. You act like you never seen a case of rheumatoid arthritis before, Doctor. You must be new.”
I mumbled that I hadn’t seen it before, and it was true. I had no idea, no idea at all. Whenever I think I’ve seen cruelty at its most fiendish, whether inflicted by man or god, I am soon reminded that it is in fact illimitable and infinite.
After another moment I was able to follow the woman’s directions closely enough to fit the cigarette between the base of her thumb and the index finger, which was pressed tight against it, and then to light it for her. Within seconds she was smoking away behind her fist, a savage parody of every tough guy who ever, cupped a hand around a butt.
As I was about to try once more to find out who the woman was, the door to the bathroom opened and another woman rolled out from behind it and, without a word or glance, pushed herself into the hall and out of sight. “The poor soul spends half her time in there,” the woman said to me. “This isn’t even her room. I don’t even know her name. I’m not sure she knows it herself. Thank God I still have my mind. Most of the time, at least. Now, do you have any pills for me? Dr. Slavin always brought pills.”
“I’m not a doctor,” I said. “I’m sorry. But I’ll tell the nurses you’re in pain if you want me to.”
“The nurses,” she scoffed. “They know I’m in pain. Everyone here is in pain. Did you know Papa, did you say?”
“No. No, I didn’t.”
“He suffered, too, toward the end. But he was a wonderful man. Who are you, anyway? I can see you’re not my husband. I thought he might come one day. Are you cousin Floyd? Mary said he might come.”
I told her I wasn’t cousin Floyd. “I’ve come about Teresa, Teresa Blair,” I explained.
“Blair? I don’t know any Blair. I do have a daughter named Teresa. Teresa Goodrum’s her name. Her picture’s right over there, unless that old woman stole it again.”
“It’s there,” I assured her. “I saw it.”
“She’s lovely, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Poor Mary lost out all around. Looks. Brains. Her own father didn’t even love her.”
“Have you seen Teresa recently?” I asked.
“Why, I don’t know.” She frowned. “I don’t think so. Have I?”
“Do you know where she might be right now?”
“Why, she’d be home, wouldn’t she?”
“Where’s home?”
“Why, El Gordo. We’ve lived in El Gordo ever since I married Mr. Goodrum. I think I was even born in El Gordo. Was I?”
“Where does Mr. Goodrum live?” I asked, trying to keep up.
“Mr. Goodrum’s dead,” she said brusquely. “He passed on just after his business burned. That was back in fifty-nine. He was only forty-eight. His people took his body with them, if you’d like to know.”
“What street did you live on with Mr. Goodrum?”
“Winthrop Avenue. Six-forty-nine. That’s where I brought Papa, after Mama died.”
“Who’s the woman in the other picture?”
“What picture is that?”
“The one on the table. With Teresa.”
I pointed and she looked. “Why, that’s Mary, isn’t it? Mary and the baby.”
“Mary Quilk?”
“Mary Goodrum.”
“Is she Teresa’s sister?”
“Well, I don’t know who else she would be, do you?”
I shook my head. “Where does Mary live?”
“Home.”
“Winthrop Avenue?”
“That’s what I said. Mary’s home with Papa, unless she’s run off again. Both my girls run off a lot. I can hardly keep track.”
“How old are you, Mrs. Goodrum?” I asked.
“Sixty-two. I’m the youngest one here. The prettiest, too, not counting the nurses. And even some of them!”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Since my stroke. Two years, I think. Seventy-six, it was. The Bicentennial.”
“How old’s Papa?”
“Papa’s dead, you fool.”
“Where’s Teresa?”
“No one’s supposed to know. Don’t you even know that, mister? No one’s supposed to know.”
I didn’t know that, or anything.
10
By the time I got back to the Bay Bridge, my mind had become almost as stormy as Mrs. Goodrum’s from trying to separate the real from the fantastic in what she had told me. My guess was that the woman in the other snapshot was Mary Quilk, née Goodrum, Teresa Blair’s sister and the recipient of Mrs. Blair’s semimonthly check for three hundred dollars. But it was too late to go prowling around down on Winthrop Avenue in an effort to learn whether any Goodrums still lived there or whether the home existed only in Charlene Goodrum’s stroke-altered perspective. When I reached the city, I cheerfully abandoned my plan to endure a night in an El Gordo motel and hopped off the freeway at Clay Street, put my Buick in a lot, and walked down the alley that led to my office, feeling ancient and feeble and unable to become otherwise.
The building was dark except for the Tiffany lamp that Carson James, the owner of the building and operator of Runnymede, the antique shop on the first floor, kept burning all night above the rolltop desk that served as his office. As I climbed toward the second floor, my footsteps echoed in the narrow stairwell like picks falling in a hardrock mine. My neighbor, the tax lawyer, had gone for the day. He’s always gone for the day. The door to my office rattled as I fitted the key in the lock and gave way only when I shoved it. By the time I was settled into my chair with a highball in my fist, it was after nine and dark, both outside and in. I switched on a lamp.
Peggy had left me a note. It said, “Hi!” That was it. If there had been anything else I needed to know, it would have been on there, too. That Peggy would write me a note even though there was nothing to say was why I loved her.
I picked up the telephone intending to call James Blair, but dialed Peggy instead. The phone rang twelve times before I put it down. She was out. She’d been out a lot, lately. I didn’t like it, and I didn’t like it that I didn’t like it, but there it was. Peggy would never tell me whom she was seeing, and I would never ask. I fixed a second drink.
Loneliness entered through my defenseless pores. The familiar trappings of my office became no longer comforting but instead accusatory, symbolic of my plight. I gulped my drink, swiveled my chair, and put my feet up on the credenza that stretched along six feet of the wall behind the desk.
My eyes drifted toward the Klee hanging high on the wall above my feet, toward the airy but ominous geometry the artist had employed to reflect his view of urban life, its complexities, its immediate and insubstantial nature, its interdependent maze. The lines of Klee’s abstract city all met each other, somewhere, sometime, sooner or later. Inevitably but unpredictably. For me, the painting served as a job description. That’s what I did. I helped those lines meet, I linked people with each other and with their pasts. In the process I usually encountered—too often for comfort—some lines of my own. I turned away from it, picked up the phone, and called James Blair and asked if he had heard anything from his wife.
“No, I haven’t,” he said heavily. “I was hoping you had.”
I told him I hadn’t come up with anything helpful. “I’ve talked to some of her friends, and I talked to her mother, but
no one has any idea where she is. At least so they say.”
“Her mother? I’ve never heard Teresa mention her mother. Where does she live?”
I gave Blair most of what I knew about Mrs. Good-rum, which was precious little, but apparently it was all news to Blair. I kept Winthrop Avenue to myself, though, so I could be certain to be the first to check it out. James Blair seemed like the type who might try to take over the investigation himself, given half a chance, and in the process beat all the leads into scrap with his blundering.
Blair was anxious, eager. His voice uncharacteristically trilled with frustration. “I’m afraid the more time that goes by, the less chance there is of finding her. Would you agree?” he asked.
“You could be right,” I said. “On the other hand, time’s not always an enemy. I’ve still got a few more leads to check, and I’ll get on them in the morning. It only takes one, remember.”
“Why not check them now?”
“Because they’re the kind of leads that tend to be asleep at this hour.”
Blair’s snort was porcine. “It just seems more should be done. I think I should bring someone else in on the case.”
“That’s your right,” I said calmly, “just as it’s my right to resign if I feel your decision will hamper my work. Who have you got in mind?”
“I was thinking of a large agency, one with lots of men available.”
“Just where are you going to send all these men?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might have a suggestion.”
I kept my suggestion to myself. “Just because an agency employs a lot of men doesn’t mean they’ll put them all on your case, Mr. Blair. Most of the time they assign only one operative per customer, and even then he’s seldom on it full time.”
He thought that one over, then came with his counter. “I’ve also been thinking of psychics.”
“What?”
“Psychics. Those people who seem to be able to divine the location of dead bodies and missing persons through some sort of telesthesia. I read about them frequently.”
“So do I.”
“What do you think? Their abilities seem quite credible, at least to me.”
What I thought was that it was nonsense, but I didn’t say so. “They couldn’t hurt, I suppose, as long as they stay put and spend their time being receptive to extrasensory vibrations instead of getting in my way out in the field. Have you got a name?”
“Yes. A man named Brutus Therm.”
“Where’d you dig him up?”
“A business acquaintance recommended him. He read of the man in something called True Detective, I believe it was. Therm lives in San Francisco, but he’s been able to locate people in many different states. Apparently all he requires is a photograph of Teresa and an article of her clothing.” Blair paused, as if to rerun the previous sentence. I envisioned bloodhounds. “What do you think?” he asked again.
“If it makes you feel better, then do it.”
“If Mr. Therm tells me where he thinks Teresa is, will you look into it?”
“Maybe. If it’s halfway credible. No promises, though. And I’d advise you to get the fee arrangement in writing.”
“Of course.”
“You know, Mr. Blair,” I said slowly, “there’s almost no chance of my finding your wife unless you’re completely candid with me about both her and your relationship with her. I hope you realize that.”
“Of course. What are you implying?”
“I’m just asking if there’s anything else you care to tell me.”
“Nothing.”
“I’m a member of the California bar, Mr. Blair. If you’re worried about the confidentiality of anything you might tell me, you can hire me as your attorney. I can get a retainer agreement to you for signature by tomorrow. The attorney-client privilege is very difficult for the authorities to break down. Virtually impossible. I could, and would, keep whatever you tell me entirely confidential. Do you understand?”
“Of course. But there is nothing more. Believe me, I wish there were.” Blair paused. “You must think I’m demented, I know so little about Teresa.” Blair’s voice seemed suddenly childlike and distant.
“I imagine sometimes it turns out better that way,” I said. “Ignorance is bliss.”
“It seemed appropriate for us,” Blair replied. “At least until now. Have you learned anything about Teresa that I should know?” he asked, turning my question back on me.
I thought about Tancy Verritt’s description of her friend Tessa and her life-style; I thought of what I’d said to Tolson. “No,” I said instead. “Nothing you need to know.”
I told Blair good night and then disturbed the directory-assistance lady long enough to get the number for Kathryn Ellington Martin. She didn’t pick up the phone until the ninth ring. I told her who I was and said I’d gotten a message to call her.
“Davy was throwing a tantrum,” she explained, pausing between words to catch her breath. “He’s not taking Wayne’s departure well.”
“He’ll come out of it,” I said, speaking from ignorance.
“I guess they all do, don’t they?”
“Not all, maybe, but most,” I said, thinking about the runaways I’d chased over the years. Some of them had tried to forget what was happening at home in ways that made it impossible for them ever to be the same again.
“Yes, well, I won’t bore you again with my personal problems. Have you learned anything about Teresa?”
“Yes.”
“Oh? You mean you know where she is?”
“No, I mean I’ve learned some things about her. Where she is isn’t one of the things. Why? Do you have something for me?”
“No. Nothing. It’s just that I’ve been thinking.”
“Good.”
“I think you should stop looking for Teresa.”
“Really? Why?”
“I’ve been thinking it over. I mean, there’s no real evidence Teresa’s been harmed, is there? There isn’t, is there?”
“No.”
“Well, then, she must have left home on her own. And I just think she should have the right to start a new life if that’s what she wants, without you or me or anyone else trying to stop her. So I think you should quit looking. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“You’re not my client, Mrs. Martin.”
“Ms. Ellington. I’m changing my name back.” She paused, perhaps to give me a chance to compliment her. “I just wanted you to know how I felt,” Ms. Ellington went on, “and to try to get you to change your mind about finding Teresa. I think you should consider her rights.”
“What rights are those, Ms. Ellington?”
“Her right to make a new life for herself, the way men have been doing for decades.”
“Lots of people have rights. My client has a right to get his money’s worth from me. The state of California has a right to have people with knowledge of criminal acts give testimony about them. You’ve got a right to have a husband who doesn’t treat you like a plastic statue. All kinds of rights. But it’s not my job to determine priorities.”
“I don’t think that answer is sufficient in this day and age, Mr. Tanner,” Ms. Ellington said, her voice atremble. “We all have to set priorities. The people who used to do it aren’t doing a decent job anymore. If they ever did. The government. Business. Parents. Church. The schools. Each individual has to take up the slack.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Ellington. I’ve pulled out of cases before, when things weren’t as they were represented to be or when the end didn’t justify the means, but this doesn’t seem like that kind of case. Not yet, at least.”
“Just think about it, will you?”
“I think about a lot of things. I’ll add that to the list.”
I hung up and thought about what Kathryn Ellington Martin had said, and decided I agreed with a lot of it but not quite enough, then thought about getting some fettucini on the way home from the office. I was about to leave
when the telephone rang.
“Marsh Tanner, you scum-sucking pig.”
“Ruthie.”
“Give the man a panatela. I’m surprised you remember.”
“It’s been a while, Ruthie. Too long. I’m sorry.”
“Keep talking, doll.”
“Dinner? Some night soon?”
“How soon, sugar bear?”
“Well, I’m on something now, but it’ll be over by Tuesday, one way or another. How about Wednesday night?”
“Where?”
“Wherever.”
“Gold Mirror?”
“Sure. Just like the old days. How are you, Ruthie?” I asked, hoping she would understand I really wanted to know.
“I’m fine, Marsh. Real good.”
“Busy?”
“Personally or professionally?”
“Both.”
“Business is good. Oh, nothing exciting, no one taking shots at me or anything, but good steady income. The social life, well, fifty-year-old widows aren’t in great demand in case you hadn’t noticed, not unless they wear diamonds as big as the balls on a bear. But I get by.”
“You deserve better than that.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad. Actually, there is one guy, we get along real well. He’s as frisky as a stallion in spring, but I keep him reined in. I still think of Harry every day, but I guess that makes me better than I was. I used to think of him every time I breathed.”
I knew what she meant. Not long ago I’d picked up the phone and dialed Ruthie’s number, all set to talk to Harry about a case that had me hung up. I didn’t remember Harry was dead until the first ring. I’d dropped the phone like it was a weasel and spent the next hour remembering Harry, the good part of his life, the bad part of his death.
“Did you ever hear from a woman named Martin, Marsh?” Ruthie asked. “Lives down in El Gordo?”
“Sure. Your niece.”
“So she called you after all.”
“Sort of,” I said.
“What do you think of her?”
“Well, she’s having a rough time, but she seems to be getting it together. A tough broad, Ruthie, just like you.”
Ruthie laughed. “Did she hire you, Marsh?”
“No. We talked about it, but she finally told me she’d changed her mind.”
State’s Evidence Page 11
