by John Decure
He sat back, resting a boot up on the dashboard. “Remember how I was tailing the old lady? Well, she made a stop at a hair salon and I just knew she was gonna be a while. So I kind of went back to their place and checked out their mailbox.”
“What do you mean, you checked out their mailbox? You tamper with mail and get caught, that’s a felony, Einstein.”
“Knew you’d fuckin’ wig,” he said.
I passed a small U-Haul van on the wrong side of the double-yellow. The driver took exception to being blown off the highway and leaned on his horn. “Give me the rest,” I said to Jackie.
“I’m on the porch, my hand in the damn box, if you can picture that, and this van pulls up. But I don’t see ’em and next thing I know, this nerdy dude and a long-haired chick—they look like Mormons on a lost mission or something—they’re standing right there behind me! I’m thinking ‘Fuck me, I’m dead.’ Thought for sure I was caught in the act. But they start feelin’ me out, so I figure hey, I’ll just go with the flow and see where it takes me. You wouldn’t believe the wild-ass story I came up with.”
“Try me.”
“I tell ’em I’m a concerned relative of the D’s, trying to help out with the baby any way I can. I tell ’em I’m building a new nursery for the kid and I was looking for a check the D’s were supposed to leave out front, so I could buy more building materials.”
“Very creative.”
“And they went for it. But here’s where it gets crazy.”
I was tired of being the last to know what the hell was going on. I began to think of my mother again and the deal I’d made to get Egan. The trial was over. I was free to keep looking for Marielena Shepard, and Jackie couldn’t stop me.
“You mean we’re not to the crazy part yet?” I said.
“Ha-ha,” he said. “Anyway, the dumb turds start confiding in me. Chick said they were going to see to it that the Randalls never got the baby, even if they had to take drastic measures. I asked what she meant, but she wouldn’t say. Her man was just standing there with his thumb up his ass, lettin’ the chick do all the talking, but when she went back to the van to get her shades, I leaned in to him, asked him ‘What kind of drastic measures you got in mind?’ He tells me they were part of a network of like-minded individuals who would see that the child got lost and never found. A ‘network of like-minded individuals,’ can you believe that? Like he was part of an international spy ring.” He laughed. “Fucking pantywaist.”
“They steal babies,” I said. “In my book, that takes some serious sack.”
Jackie grew pensive. “Stealing babies . . . Jesus.”
The Danforths lived in a gorgeous Pasadena neighborhood off Fair Oaks, just north of the Norton Simon Museum. Driving there in daylight, the homes looked older and smaller than those in Phoebe’s part of town, but they were equally splendid. We found the street and Jackie pointed out the house, the lovely Country English I remembered from the night they’d almost done the adoption without me.
A white van was at the top of the driveway, facing the three-car garage. It looked like the one that was blocking my garage that day I’d come home from work two weeks ago. I could see the tailpipe vibrating—the engine was running. A guy was in the cab, behind the wheel, waiting for something. The Danforths were standing on their huge front porch a few feet from the van, looking forlorn. Through the van’s side windows I could see little Nathan in the arms of someone on the passenger side. A long-haired girl. The girl looked up and saw us, paused, then jumped in the van.
I cut the Jeep across the base of the driveway just as the van started jamming down backwards. They were headed straight for us, and if they didn’t stop, we’d have to bail. But about halfway down the long drive, the van braked to a halt, the driver reconsidering.
“He’s gonna fly over the curb!” Jackie shouted. “Just keep it here!”
He leapt from the car and ran up the driveway as the van redirected its front wheels and cut hard in reverse onto the lawn. Jackie reached the cab and leaned in to grab the wheel. I was out of the Jeep and headed up the drive behind him when I heard a woman inside the van yell “Go! Go! Go!”
“Jackie!” I yelled. “Look out!”
The van lurched again in reverse, with Jackie hanging on, his head and arms inside the cab. “Go! Just Go!” I heard the woman inside the van shouting.
The van wobbled drunkenly in reverse, found some purchase on the grass and shot backward, Jackie hanging on and screaming at the driver, the full warrior cry. A brick-lined flowerbed, anchored by a white-lantern lamppost and two large, smooth boulders, lay directly in the van’s path at the foot of the driveway.
The van’s back bumper cracked like a rifle shot against the lamppost, buckling the rear doors and thumping the post into the soft dirt with a tremendous slap. The tires spun as soil and bright flowers exploded into the air. Jackie moaned from the far side of the van. “I said stop, dickwad!” I heard him shout.
I ran to the passenger door and pulled out a mousy young woman whose long black hair fell down to the small of her back. Nathan was wailing his head off, and I pried him from the girl’s arms. She tried to dart past me but I reached out with my free hand and caught her hard by the arm.
“Get back in the van!” I ordered her. The Danforths stood frozen on the porch.
The woman wriggled against me, and it took all my strength to hold her. I squeezed her biceps so hard she let out a crazed yelp. “Get in the van,” I said again. The girl stopped struggling, slid back onto the passenger seat, and spit in my face.
A man grunted in pain on the other side of the cab.
“Stay put,” I heard Jackie tell the driver. “Or your ass is grass.” He jerked the keys from the ignition.
A police cruiser pulled in behind us a few minutes later and quickly secured the scene. The van was pretty much dusted, the kidnapping couple hooked up and stuffed into the back seat of the squad car to cool out. They were the same pair Jackie had run into on the Danforths’ porch. Two emergency social workers showed up; one handled Nathan, the other took our statements. The police did the same with the Danforths in their living room. The Danforths looked terribly subdued to me. Deflated. I wondered if they would be arrested.
Jackie had turned his ankle badly, and the paramedics loaded him into an ambulance in front of a dozen curious neighbors as he shot the crowd a Hawaiian shaka greeting. The driver told me they’d have X rays taken at Woodside Hospital, and asked if I knew how to get there. I got directions and headed over.
Holly Dupree was already outside Jackie’s room when I arrived. She was alone, no microphone, no crew.
“You look naked without your little band of merry men,” I said to her. “How did you hear about this so fast?”
“I have friends in the department,” she said.
I recalled the fiasco that was Sue Ellen’s first scheduled visit at the county offices. “There’s a news flash.”
She looked offended. “I try to be as evenhanded as possible in my reporting.”
I stared at her hard. “You mean backhanded.”
Holly’s crew was jangling down the hallway now. I cut past her and into Jackie’s room.
“Hey, man,” Jackie called out from the edge of his bed, “life is beautiful. A nice, firm bed. Convalescing with a little help from my friends.” The head of the bed was tilted upright, and a comely young nurse was spoon-feeding cherry Jell-O to him while another one fluffed a pillow behind his head.
“Tough break,” I said.
“Well hey, I just might pull through,” he said, flashing a brilliant smile on his helpers. “What do you think, ladies, am I gonna make it?” They giggled as he took another spoonful of colored sugar.
Within seconds, Holly was stringing together a live hallway spot in her usual indefatigable way. She’d collared the doctor who’d X-rayed Jackie and was wheedling a prognosis out of him when I shut the door with a hardy pull.
“Unbelievable,” I said to Jackie. “You
outdid yourself this time.”
“What do you mean, this time?” he said. “Like I’ve ever helped you on a case, man.”
“You know what I mean. You saved my life on this case. Just like that day at Holys.”
His face grew pensive. “Ladies, a million thanks,” he told the nurses. “But would you leave us, please?” He waited until they’d gone out. “Forget what happened at Holys,” he said. “I mean it. It’s ancient history.”
“I misjudged you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He waved me off. “Don’t apologize.”
His modesty made me blush. I felt truly inadequate in his presence.
The phone on the nightstand rang and Jackie answered it. “Yeah, he is.” He held out the receiver to me. “For you.”
“Hello, J.? Is this J. Shepard?” A familiar voice I could not yet place. An older man. “It’s Charles Baumann, the historian from City Hall?”
“Sure, hi,” I said. “What’s up?”
“I’m at home. Had the TV on just now, four o’clock news on Channel Six. You know they’re doing a live interview, right there at the hospital?”
“I figured as much. They’re right outside.”
“The reporter said your associate, the fellow who injured his knee—”
“His ankle.”
“Right, his ankle. She said his name is Jackie Pace.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I went in half-day today, this morning. Found a copy of the business license for Provencal Limited, the one you wanted? And the name on it is John Hampton Pace, the Second. Thought maybe that was your friend, there, so I figured I’d call to let you know. Imagine that, I turn on the TV and say to the wife ‘Hey, honey, I know this guy, I helped him search an old license just today, just today!’ Can you imagine?”
“Thank . . . uh, thank you . . . very much for all your help,” I said blankly. I handed the receiver back to Jackie.
“What’s up?” he said. “You don’t look so hot.”
“You’re John Hampton Pace, the Third,” I said. He nodded. “That makes John Hampton Pace, the Second your father.”
His blue eyes didn’t blink. “Who was that on the phone?”
“Provencal Limited,” I said. “Your father owned it.” Jackie said nothing, which confirmed his answer.
“J., I’m telling you, leave it alone,” he said. “You don’t know—”
“What I’m talking about? Damn right I don’t know! So help me out here, Goddam it. What’s your father got to do with Provencal and Sea Pointe?”
His face was ashen. “She’s dead, J. Your mother is dead.”
My mother had been gone for thirteen years, and I’d often thought logically, out loud, that she must be dead, but to hear the words spoken like this, with such conviction, confirmed it as fact for the first time ever. My shoulders shook, and my tongue couldn’t form any sounds. Then my knees went weak and I crumpled onto the edge of the bed.
Jackie waited to speak and wouldn’t look at me directly when he finally did. “You want the full story, you’ll have to talk to the old man himself.”
“Where can I find him?” I said.
“Go up Christianitos Boulevard a mile or so from PCH and turn left at the police station. Follow that road all the way.”
“To what?” I said. “There’s nothing but marsh out there, a onelaner full of potholes. That’s not a through street.”
“It is if you own the land,” he said. “There’s a metal cable across the road. Looks like it’s locked but it isn’t. Mailman wouldn’t deliver if he had to screw around with a padlock every time.”
He was still avoiding my gaze. “How do you figure into it?” I asked. “How did she die?”
“Go see him,” he said. “Not now. It’ll probably be close to dark by the time you get there. He’s been ripped off before, so he watches the road sometimes at night. You don’t want to get shot. Wait until morning.” He swallowed hard. “Go!” He rolled over and stared at the bare wall opposite the TV. The bowl of red Jell-O lay on its side, spilling across the sheets like synthetic blood.
I made my way along the walls and stumbled past Holly and her crew in a fog of shock and grief. Whatever she might have asked me didn’t even register. I had no answers left.
Twenty-Two
The gate at the end of the road past the Christianitos Police Department was just as Jackie had described it, with a rusted heavy cable looping a few feet above the crumbling pavement and a sign that said ABSOLUTELY NO TRESPASSING! dangling in the center of the road. I unhooked the cable and drove over the flattened sign, a fat jackrabbit lighting out into the brown weeds just ahead. The sun was high and rising in the midmorning sky, and wide rays fanned down through the last scattering patches of overcast. The stale scent of dry mud and salt air filled the air. I drove slowly, carefully avoiding the many pockmarks in the narrow lane, which was about as bad as the typical neglected coastal roads I’d bounced down many times before in Mexico. My Jeep wagon was the right vehicle to have at the moment. I was surprised the mailman came out here at all.
I drove another quarter mile, past gentle dunes and high-tide marshes blackening in the September light. In the distance, the waters of the Back Bay crept languidly inland like the outstretched fingers of a dying man.
The road had been steadily rising, and rounding a slow, westward turn, I saw a remarkable ocean vista: the North Jetty, Long Beach Marina, a wisp of Point Fermin; and when the morning haze cleared off completely, I imagined, Catalina and beyond. The place was magically desolate. A large home stood in solitary relief against the bleached sand and sea grass, a grand, two-story redwood ringed by elaborate wooden decking below and an enormous balcony across the second level, facing out to the sea.
The road ended in a circular drive in front of the house. Outside, a long, black Mercedes-Benz was at rest, its chrome sparkling. Beside the three-car garage, a red tractor was partially tucked beneath a tarpaulin. A dented American sedan was parked half in the dirt near the far opposite end of the drive, as if its owner didn’t feel worthy to take up a better space near the house.
The front walk was made up of sandstone slabs carefully laid to blend with the delicate dunes and desert shrubs that led to the house. I rang the buzzer, studying the stained-glass window that was built into the top of the wide front door. Through the colored panes I could see the glow of the Back Bay lighting the house’s interior.
A thin man with hollow cheeks and a brown pencil mustache answered the door. Probably the guy who’d parked his old car half in the weeds. “Yes?” he said.
“I’m here to see Mr. Pace. Is he home?”
“Mr. Pace doesn’t normally take visitors.” He was dressed in black slacks and long-sleeved white shirt with a plain black tie. His side panels of hair were greased straight back. “Perhaps you could call and arrange an appointment.” He began to close the door.
“Tell him Marielena Shepard’s son is here, friend,” I said. “Tell him it’s important.”
“One moment.”
He closed the door, and I watched his shadow pass behind the stained glass. I silently rehearsed a few key questions for Jackie’s father. The servant returned. “Mr. Pace will see you,” he said without passion. “This way.”
He led me inside past a large living area with vaulted ceilings and huge windows that beautifully framed the Back Bay’s sinuous inlets. The furniture, low-slung enough not to obscure the view, was all Western style—a couch with an Indian weave print over white leather, a manzanita coffee table beneath an oval sheet of glass, end tables in knotty pine. We ascended a staircase carpeted in dark red and went through an opened sliding glass door onto the long balcony.
“Mr. Shepard,” the servant announced, then disappeared.
John Hampton Pace II was seated in a padded rocking chair with gracefully rounded runners, a nubby wool blanket across his lap. On a metal table next to him was a hardbound book, a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses, and a half-empt
y martini glass. His hair was a sallow gray, as if it was once blond, and when he stood, he had the bearing of a stooped, old man. But his eyes were the clearest blue, like Jackie’s, and his face was still strong and handsome beneath the deep folds and wrinkles. He was wearing white pants, a safari shirt with big pockets and brown leather sandals over thick crew socks.
“Well, Marielena Shepard’s son,” he said with a swagger that instantly reminded me of his son. “What took you so long?”
“Point is, I’m here.” My arms were folded tightly. “Tell me what happened to her. Tell me about Sea Pointe.”
“I see.” He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a cigar, biting off the end. “This could take a little while.” He pulled a lighter from his pants pocket and slowly lit the cigar.
I shifted my weight. The view was magnificent, but I tried not to look. “I’ve got plenty of time.”
“Sit down,” he said, “you’re making me nervous.” He puffed on his cigar as I sat down in the chair opposite his. The vistas beyond the wooden railings were too striking to ignore. The puddles in a shallow marsh were lit up like a handful of gold coins. I watched a red-tailed hawk cruise the updrafts, waiting patiently. “You want a drink?” he said. “I’ll get you a drink.”
“No,” I said before he could call out to his servant. “No, thanks. Just tell me what happened.”
He settled back in his chair again. “Ah, Marielena,” he said. “From the minute I laid eyes on her, she stole my heart.” He gazed into the wetlands. “The lady had something very special, a certain freshness, a purity of being, a way of making you believe she was the most wonderful creature God had ever designed. She was pure heaven.”
“She never told me about you,” I said, hoping to back him off. His worshipful reminiscence was creepy. “No offense. You don’t seem like her type.”
“You’re right, I probably wasn’t much her type,” he said, pointing a hooked finger at me. “Twenty years older. But we had a few things in common.”
“Like what?” I didn’t believe him.
