by Jan Burke
“Very strange,” Lorenzo agreed.
“Something a human might arrange, even if there was no storm.”
“In fact, I don’t believe the ocean is to blame. The sea is not the one who did this, and neither is the sky.”
15
O’CONNOR TALKED TO SEVERAL MEMBERS OF THE COAST GUARD TO GET an opinion of Lorenzo’s theories. All but one said, in one way or another, that Lorenzo was full of hooey. The one who hesitated was in charge of the investigation. He said, “If Mr. Albettini had seen as many of these situations as I have, he might not have come to those conclusions. But perhaps I’ve seen so many, things that aren’t alike begin to look alike — so I will certainly consider his points.”
The others explained Lorenzo’s questions away without much trouble: The group aboard the Sea Dreamer had been wearing expensive evening clothes, and therefore probably didn’t bother with life jackets. They could have all been washed overboard with one wave, before anyone had a chance to use a radio. The key could have been lost overboard as well, or, if two or three of the members of the party went overboard, someone who was inexperienced, panicking at the thought of leaving them behind, might have tried to stop the boat by turning the engine off and taking the key out of the ignition. If that individual was also lost overboard, the key would have gone with him.
O’Connor went back to the Nash, made some notes, then found himself cursing his tiredness, because he had missed asking a question. He went back to the investigating officer and asked, “When did the storm arrive here?”
“Not until about five on Sunday morning.”
“If they were only out on a pleasure cruise…”
“It was preceded by fog and heavy swells,” he added.
“When?”
“The fog? It started rolling in around one, and by two o’clock, visibility between here and Santa Catalina Island was less than one hundred feet.”
O’Connor thanked him and went back to the car.
O’Connor was not a man who simply did as he was told, but exhaustion was setting in, and so he obeyed Wrigley’s orders. He wrote the story, handed it to a copyboy, and walked next door to the deli that had replaced Big Sarah’s diner when she retired. He picked up a couple of ham sandwiches, then went home without going back into the building, not waiting for what he was sure were bound to be fireworks. He had a phone. They could call him.
Thinking about this, when he got home, he took it off the hook. He pulled the 45 RPM adapter off the spindle of his record player and switched the speed to 78. He set a small stack of records on the spindle, brought the changing arm over, and settled it gently over the 78s. He listened to them while he ate — until Nat King Cole’s “Send for Me” began to play. By the second verse he found the lyrics too close to home, and he turned the phonograph off. His appetite lost, he cleaned up, put the phone back on the hook and undressed, then fell asleep.
The phone rang an hour later. He lifted the receiver, heard Mr. Wrigley say, “Your pet theory has been cut. I didn’t want you to find out when you opened the paper tomorrow, so there it is. Get some sleep.”
“I was,” O’Connor answered, and hung up.
He tried to resist falling asleep again, but could not.
At two that afternoon, he was dressed again and on his way out to his car. Just as he fished his keys out of his pocket, he heard the familiar whistle of a Helms Bakery truck. He stopped the light yellow van and bought a doughnut, which he ate as he drove to the hospital.
Jack was asleep. Helen motioned to O’Connor to step into the corridor.
“He sleeps most of the time,” she said, “and when he’s awake, he’s not coherent. Mostly he talks about that damned car.”
“Did they bring his clothes up? The ones he was wearing when he was admitted?”
Her eyes widened. “You’re not thinking of dressing him and taking him out of here?”
“No. I just need to see the clothes.”
They went back into the room, and she opened a cupboard. “Here, take them,” she said, handing him a large paper bag. “Hold your nose when you open it. They reek to high heaven.”
He moved back outside to the corridor, Helen following him. He opened the bag, caught a whiff of its contents, then said, “Have you got a coat with you? Better to do this outside. I’ll meet you on the patio.”
A few minutes later, they had spread a bloodied set of men’s clothing out on the patio.
“Good God,” Helen said, lighting a cigarette. “Do you think he’s got any blood left in him?”
“Sure. He took hits to the nose and mouth,” he said absently. “They bleed easily.” He had been looking at the soles of Jack’s shoes. He set the shoes down and began turning Jack’s pockets inside out. In the pocket of Jack’s suit coat, he found a long, thin, damp leaf.
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
“Don’t expect me to bet against the chance of that happening. What have you got?”
“A eucalyptus leaf.”
She took a drag on the cigarette. “I’m going to guess that you haven’t suddenly developed a mania for botany.”
“Jack saw the car being buried. He really saw it.”
“I should have known. Whenever anyone carries a leaf in his pocket, this is the sort of thing that happens. And all these years, drink has taken the blame for it.”
“He told me that when he came to from the beating, he was in a eucalyptus grove, a windbreak.” He thought back on what Jack had said. “A dairy nearby — I think he said it was across the road from the farm.”
He searched through Jack’s other pockets, but found nothing. He frowned. “His keys.”
“What?”
“The hospital staff found his wallet, his broken watch, but there aren’t any keys. Jack said his keys cut into him when someone kicked him.”
Helen paused halfway in the act of bringing the cigarette to her mouth and said, “Maybe they fell out of his pocket during the fight.”
“The beating, you mean. Jack didn’t get to counter any blows.”
“But his hands—”
“Stepped on.”
“Jesus.”
“I’ve got to find that farm.”
She stubbed out the cigarette and said, “Conn, it’s just one leaf. Eucalyptus trees are everywhere.”
“Not in newsrooms or swamps or even inside the mansion where the party — oh hell.” He ran a hand over his face. “Wrigley was right, I’m not thinking. Poor Lily. I haven’t even called to tell her how sorry I am.”
“For what?”
“About Katy. Don’t you know?”
She went very pale, and he suddenly realized how clumsy he had been, his mistake in not mentioning this to her as soon as he saw her. She had been here all day, with Jack, and didn’t know. Of course she didn’t know. And she thought the world of Katy.
“Tell me,” she said, in a hoarse voice. “Tell me.”
He stood. “They found the yacht. No one aboard. The Coast Guard is looking…”
“Katy…” Helen’s eyes filled with tears.
It shocked him. In over twenty years, he had never known her to cry.
“Oh, Swanie, I’m so sorry. That was no way to tell you. I’m such an oaf. I know you love her dearly and you deserve a better messenger than you got. Can you ever forgive me?”
The tears spilled over, and he put an arm around her shoulders. She cried harder, and he pulled her closer.
He thought of telling her that he didn’t think Katy had ever been on that yacht, but recalled the reactions of the Coast Guard and Mr. Wrigley. If they were right and he was wrong, it would be cruel to raise false hope.
And he wasn’t really sure that his ideas were ones that should provide hope. If Katy and the others didn’t get on the yacht, were they alive and missing? Or murdered?
He thought of those years of missing Maureen. He would wait, he decided. And talk to Dan Norton.
He gave Helen his handkerchief. He heard her murmur, “She should have left t
hat fucking idiot Todd the Toad a long time ago. I kept telling her… Oh, damn the Ducanes! Because she married into a family of asinine show-offs, she’s dead.”
He was relieved. She was feeling better if she could swear like that.
She stood up straight, thanked him, and said she’d better get back to Jack. “Don’t tell him, Conn. Not yet.”
“I’ve no intention of doing so. I’m sorry I—”
“No, please, I’m glad you were the one to tell me.” She wiped her face with the handkerchief and said, “And if you ever tell any of those knuckle-walking simians in the newsroom that you saw me cry…”
“Never.”
“Thank you.” She sighed. “Who knows how long I’ll last there, anyway. I get tired of it every now and then and have to do something else.” Her eyes clouded again, but she took a resolute breath and shook her head. “We’ll see. For now, I want to be with Jack.”
“I’m going to take a look at the place where he was found, and then I’m going to try to find that farm. I know you don’t think I’ll succeed, but I’m going to look, anyway. I can’t just sit around.”
“No, I don’t suppose you’ve ever been able to do that.”
Dan Norton had given something more like directions rather than an address to the Mayhope egg ranch. As O’Connor drove out to it, he was struck by how different this world was, for all its closeness to downtown Las Piernas. Dairy farms, horse ranches, citrus groves, and long, low rows of plants. Mile after mile of roads lined with eucalyptus trees. He found himself curious about what might be growing in the fields he passed. In both Las Piernas and Orange Counties, these farms were becoming endangered. Subdivisions were beginning to merge. What would the people in those houses eat, he wondered, once all this rich farmland was covered in cul-de-sacs?
Ezra Mayhope was pleased to hear that Jack had regained consciousness. O’Connor found him to be a friendly man, eager to be of help. He learned that Mayhope was a widower, struggling but getting by.
Mayhope showed him about where along the road he had encountered the speeding car. When O’Connor asked him what kind of car it was, Ezra said he was sorry, he hadn’t had a very good look at it, but thought it was a big, fancy car — definitely a city car.
“Something new and dark-colored. Because of the fog, I didn’t see much of anything until he was just a few yards ahead of me, and then he about run me over. He was driving like a bat out of hell. Awfully fast for that road and the fog. I think I scared him as much as he scared me.”
“Driver a man?”
“Just caught a glimpse of him, too, but yes.”
“What race?”
“White. Had dark hair. But he could come up to me tomorrow and I doubt I’d know him. Didn’t really see much of him.”
“Alone?”
“I couldn’t swear to it, but I think so.”
Ezra showed him the intersection near the place where he found Jack, and pointed out the very spot where he had dragged Jack from the marsh — which wasn’t hard to see, because the reeds and grasses were flattened there.
O’Connor took Mayhope back home. He thanked Ezra and offered to reward him for his time. The thanks were bashfully accepted, the offer flatly refused. O’Connor bought two dozen eggs.
Before he left, O’Connor asked Ezra if he could think of a place nearby that matched the description given by Jack — a eucalyptus windbreak, farm on one side, dairy across the road. He added that he assumed the field he was looking for was fallow or just recently plowed. Ezra grinned and told him that described about a hundred places.
He drove around for a while, discovered that what Ezra said was true. Eucalyptus trees were a common windbreak, as ubiquitous as another import — palm trees — were in cities. Farms and dairy farms were often located across the road from one another. He wasn’t getting anywhere in his search.
He drove back to the place where Jack had been found. Only an hour or so of daylight remained, and he hoped that in that hour he might discover if those who injured Jack had left other clues.
Even before he stepped outside the car, he was struck by the rank odor of the marsh. It wasn’t always this strong, he knew, and there were many places along the marshland where it wouldn’t have been bad at all. He hated to think of Jack lying in this fetid water. Small wonder Jack was feverish.
He thought of the time frame. Jack had been taken from the party before midnight, taken out to the farm, and then moved from there to this marsh. Found near here an hour or so before dawn on Sunday, about thirty-six hours ago. Rain had fallen on Sunday, but not until a few hours after Jack had been found. Even before the rain, the ground here would be soft and damp.
A group of noisy gulls scolded O’Connor, then went back to their interest in something a little farther away.
O’Connor saw footprints in the muddy earth as he approached the edge of the water. He carefully avoided them. He had a feeling that no one from the police had bothered to come out here, or if they had, no one from the crime lab had been with them. He couldn’t say that he blamed them. The rain had undoubtedly disturbed almost any kind of evidence that might have been here.
He saw one set of rain-filled footprints that he thought must be Ezra’s, because they were close to the marks left where Jack had obviously lain on the grasses, and because as they headed back to the road they seemed deeper, since Ezra had dragged Jack’s weight along with him. When he thought of the muddy mess Jack must have been, it was small wonder Ezra might have mistaken him for a movie monster.
That’s where Jack had come out of the water. Where did he go in? From everything O’Connor had been told, and what he had seen of Jack’s condition, he didn’t think Jack would have been able to move far.
He saw more crushed reeds near where the seagulls were so busy. It was muddier there, and slippery, so he had to walk slowly and carefully as he moved along the edge of the marsh, glancing between the water and the road.
He came across tire prints. They were mostly washed away, but he could see the furrow of the deep tracks stopping just a couple of yards short of the water. A few more feet, and the car might have been stuck in the mire.
He saw footprints, one set very large and deep. The other, smaller set was on the other side of the tire tracks and seemed to show that someone merely stood there.
O’Connor tried to picture it. The car didn’t turn around. From what he could tell from the tire tracks, the car had probably backed toward the water from the road, so that if the two men needed to leave in a hurry, they could do so. Risky with the mud, though — he could see where the mud had built as the rear tires spun to move the car forward again.
The big man — the giant who had beaten Jack? — walked to the back of the car and stood near the center of the tire tracks, but slightly back, closer to the water. To open the trunk? The footprints of this man were huge and deep as they moved away from the tire tracks toward the water.
He followed the path of the footprints. It was only when he reached the water that he saw the shoes among the grasses. He knew, even before he thought of the scavenger nature of seagulls. He shouted and waved his arms, and for a moment they flew away, long enough for him to see the body, bloated and unmoving, fully clothed, face unrecognizable. He knew who it was.
Jack had outlived the blond giant.
16
HASTINGS ENTERED THE LIBRARY WITH QUIET STEPS, BUT LILLIAN HAD heard the phone ring and expected him. She left her contemplation of the fire and looked up. She received a mild shock and wondered if her own face bore as many marks of grief as the butler’s. Poor Hastings. Doing his best to hide it.
“Mr. Yeager on the telephone, madam,” Hastings said.
Lillian sighed.
“No one would blame you for not taking calls at a time like this,” Hastings said.
Lillian nearly took this offer to be shielded, then thought, as she knew a corporate wife must always think, of the implications for her husband’s company. Since the war years, under Harold�
��s less-than-stellar leadership, Vanderveer-Linworth had moved from the position of nearly owning Yeager Enterprises to nearly being owned by it. If Lillian hadn’t taken a hand in matters, it might well have come to pass. She shook her head and said, “Harold does far too much business with Mr. Yeager for me to snub him in any way. And knowing Mitch, he’ll come to the house if I don’t speak to him on the phone. I’ll take it in here, thank you.”
“May I bring you anything? Coffee? Tea?”
“Tea would be lovely,” she said, not really wanting it, but knowing he would feel better if occupied.
She picked up the phone, heard Hastings drop the extension into its cradle, and said, “This is Lillian.”
“Lillian, I’m so damned sorry. I can’t believe it.”
“Thank you, Mitch. I’m not sure I’ve really taken it in myself. And I admit, I still hope they will find her. Kathleen would have put on a life vest.”
“Of course she would have! She was — she is — a smart girl. Takes after her mother.”
Lillian couldn’t speak.
“I feel especially bad because thanks to you, I’m a parent now.”
“Thanks to me?” she said, bewildered.
“Didn’t Harold tell you? We adopted a few weeks ago! Two months ago today, in fact.”
She could hear the joy in his voice, the exuberance. She wasn’t sure she could bear anyone’s joy right now. “No … no, he didn’t mention it.”
“A little boy. You know my wife has wanted a child, but — well, I won’t go into all the details, but Estelle is barren.”
Lillian was shocked that he would disclose such a thing to her, and felt embarrassed on Estelle’s behalf. She had been friends with Estelle in high school and had always liked her. She was pretty and sweet and generous, one of those girls who could be lively without being a cat — a trick Lillian would admit that she herself had not mastered. But since Estelle’s marriage to Mitch, Lillian had more often pitied than admired Estelle.
“You’re always in the papers,” Mitch said, reclaiming her attention, “because of the work you do for those girls and adoption. And I decided, well, we should go ahead and adopt. Give one of those poor kids a chance, a better life. And I have to tell you, Lillian, Mitch Junior has made a big softie out of me already. I can’t help it.”
