by Mara Purl
“Deputy Johnson!” announced Del, his voice crashing through the still night air.
A low hum resonated with the smooth motion of a well-oiled gate as it swung slowly inward. The driveway then sloped back down toward the ocean and a Y-intersection came into view with a sign pointing in each direction. A right arrow indicated Service Entrance; the left arrow was labeled Main Entrance & Cottages. Taking the left, Del stepped on the accelerator to travel the final quarter-mile around and down to the level site of the main house.
This must be it . . . a circular driveway in front of the entrance. Old California they call this. Built in the style of the Santa Barbara Mission.
He noticed that the driveway continued onward, apparently toward the cottages—whoever used them. But he parked at the main house and crunched across gravel, then walked up the three wide steps. By the illumination of wrought-iron wall sconces on either side of the entrance, he took in the details of the heavy carved oak front door and its seasonal dcor, an elaborate pine wreath festooned with gilded cones and shiny red berries. Real, or fake? Just as Del’s hand reached up to touch the wreath, the door opened abruptly, and he yanked his arm back to his side.
Del looked into the cool, gray eyes of a handsome, well-dressed man who stood about his own height of six-foot-two. Mid-sixties, fit, self-assured. Silver hair neatly trimmed and perfectly groomed; tan sweater, probably cashmere; high polish on expensive loafers. Must be Joseph Calvin.
“Good evening, Detective.” The man looked past Del into the dark. “Weren’t there supposed to be two of you?”
“I’m afraid Detective Dexter has been detained and won’t be able to get here in time. I’m Deputy Johnson.”
“I see. Come in. I’m Joseph Calvin, by the way.” He paused in the doorway only long enough to let Del enter, then spun on his heel, leaving Del to close the front door. As Calvin led the way into his home, the footsteps of the two men echoed on terra cotta tile, the sounds rising through the high atrium of the central stairway. Del’s nostrils flared at the spicy scent of cut lilies that perfumed the chill air from their perch on a foyer table.
As they entered a spacious room lined with bookshelves, Mr. Calvin began, “I appreciate your meeting me this late. I thought we’d talk here in my library. Please have a seat. My butler has the night off, but I’ll go get us some mineral water. Please make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”
Before sitting, Del took the moment to take in the hand-wrought elegance of the home—what he could see of it. I’ve only seen a home like this in photographs at the library. It’s obvious nothing in here is mass-produced. The exterior is the traditional Spanish style of El Pueblo Viejo, like the County Courthouse and the Lobero Theatre with paseos, courtyards, cornices. And inside, these open spaces, but with alcoves tucked into corners; that arched hallway leading off from the foyer, maybe to the kitchen, but who knows? And I think this fireplace is made from cantera stone. Though massive, it sent forth a glow that warmed the room and gleamed softly on the oversized mahogany desk.
Del walked toward the desk and, before sitting as Calvin had suggested, he angled one of the carved chairs so his back wouldn’t face the door.
Calvin returned, walked to the far side of his desk and placed a tray with two bottles of designer sparkling water. “Hope you don’t mind drinking from the bottles.”
“No, not at all.” Interesting way to start this . . . with the master of the mansion serving me. Del twisted the cap off the cold glass container, listening to the hiss of escaping gas. “Appreciate it.”
Calvin, now seated in his high-backed leather swivel chair, said, “I . . . I really don’t know how much I can tell you, but I want you to know I take this matter very seriously. Chris—Ms. Christian—is a friend of mine. I’m worried about her.”
“I see.” As Del shifted his weight to reach into the inside breast pocket for his notebook, his leather belt creaked. He adjusted the belt, wincing as his keys and cell phone case scraped against the beautiful chair. Before he could stop himself, Del glanced up at his host, realizing he must look as guilty as he felt. Last thing I need to do is damage the man’s property. “Sorry if I—”
“Not a problem,” Calvin interrupted.
The two men sat in silence for a moment, sipping their drinks. Aware that Calvin was likely taking his measure, Del did the same, using his police training to keep his face neutral. Calvin’s expression seemed to him tightly controlled. A hard man . . . in his own way maybe as hard a man as any I’ve collared and cuffed. How will he respond if I don’t begin the interview?
Calvin looked at him. “So, shall we get started?”
“If you don’t mind.” Doesn’t seem uncomfortable even though we’re alone . . . or with my being just a deputy . . . or even with my being black.
Calvin lounged back in his deep library chair, his demeanor suddenly more relaxed, and gave Del an expectant look.
“You last saw Ms. Christian exactly when, Mr. Calvin?” Del held his pen poised over a blank page in his blank notebook, moving it the moment the man spoke.
“It’s been a while now . . . seven weeks or so.” Calvin shifted position in his chair and crossed his legs.
“Seven weeks? You must’ve known she was missing. You didn’t worry till now?”
“She travels a lot. Overseas, for example. Some of her stories are shot in Asia, some in Europe. She keeps me posted, usually. She was leaving on a trip, going to San Francisco, then to Tokyo. She missed our last appointment, but her plans could sometimes change suddenly. I figured she’d get in touch with me when she wanted to.”
“And where did your last encounter take place?” Del looked up from his spiral pad, catching a wistful look on Calvin’s face. The man does seem to have genuine affection for the missing woman.
“It wasn’t an encounter, Deputy. It was a date. She, uh . . . we met at her place in Santa Maria. She’d invited me over—she was working late . . . I didn’t get there till about eleven. We’d both been too tired to, uh . . . for any sort of entertainment that night. We simply went to sleep. We both had early appointments the following morning.”
“And you left on friendly terms?” Del used the flat tones of a practiced professional, insinuating nothing into his question.
Calvin recrossed his legs and cleared his throat. “Yes, very friendly. We, uh, we were intimate that morning. Although we were interrupted.”
Del looked up. “By what, sir?”
“A phone call. Again!” Calvin looked out the window into the dark, his brows knitting into a deep furrow.
“You find these calls she receives . . . irritating?”
“She doesn’t have good boundaries. Be nice if she could turn the damn machine off once in a blue moon.”
Now there’s heat in the man’s voice, color rising up his neck. “Did you have an argument?”
“A disagreement,” Calvin admitted, “even though she didn’t pick up.” He paused. “But she did listen to a voice message. I overheard it. That call altered her mood.”
“So . . . Ms. Christian has some kind of voice messaging? There was no answering machine in the preliminary report.” Del’s mind leaped forward. Is the message still there? Does anyone else have access? Could they have erased it?
“Yes, yes, she’s a journalist, of course she has an answering machine. She often tucks it out of sight. But she never turns the blasted thing off. Drives me crazy.” Calvin’s voice dropped, choked off by the anxiety that seemed to rise by the minute.
Del edged forward in his chair. “Mr. Calvin, to your knowledge, did Ms. Christian erase that message?”
“Not while I was there.” Calvin composed himself, uncrossed his legs. “We both dressed in a hurry after that,” he continued. “She seemed distracted, rushed. I had an early business meeting. We made another date—a make-up date, we called it . . . literally, in this case—for that very evening, before she was due to take her trip. That morning we had a quick bite—toast and coffee, I thi
nk—then left immediately. I opened her car door for her in the parking garage—and watched her drive away before doing the same myself.” He paused again. “I never saw or heard from her again.”
“What was in the message you overheard?”
“It’s been a while now. I don’t recall the details. But it was a man’s voice saying something about a time frame having changed, and that she had to go to some house if she wanted the story.”
“Perhaps we should start there, sir.”
“I’m sorry, where, Deputy?”
“The last place you were with Ms. Christian. At her residence.”
Joseph leaned forward in his high-backed desk chair. “I . . . it’d be terribly odd being there without her—”
“Her permission? I think she’d want your help, don’t you?”
Calvin sighed. “I do. Yes.”
“In that case, could we make an appointment sometime this week to meet at her apartment? Seeing it again might spark a suppressed memory. You might notice something missing that we wouldn’t be aware of. And you could show us where she keeps the answering machine. Could prove helpful to our investigation.” Best to get a commitment from him right now. “What day would work for you?”
Calvin glanced toward the dark window again and, as though reading his calendar on the pane, he said, “Today’s Wednesday. Friday’s no good, because we have a big party here that evening and I have to be here all day.” Turning to Del, he continued, “I think tomorrow afternoon would work, Deputy. Call my secretary to confirm the time.”
“I’ll do that. And I’ll clear this with Detective Dexter, see if he can come with us, or meet us there.”
“Either way, Deputy. It’s also fine if it’s just you and me at Chris’s home.”
Del nodded. “All right. In any case, I’ll call you to confirm, Mr. Calvin.” Del put away his notebook, finished his water, and stood. “The department will appreciate your cooperation.”
Calvin saw him to the front door, and as it closed behind him, Del saw the rain had turned to a light drizzle that misted the grounds. He glanced at the circular drive, its exits marked by illuminated end posts. Each lantern seemed to hover, framed by a ghostly rainbow, the particulates of moisture that still hung in the air acting as tiny prisms. And that’s how a case gets solved . . . each clue acting like a lens.
He inhaled again the pungent aroma from the eucalyptus trees laced with smoke from Calvin’s fireplace. The missing woman probably stood right here, inhaling this same fragrance, enjoying time here with Joseph Calvin.
Calvin’s connection to her . . . the fact that he’s now revealed more than we knew. . . . It opens up a whole new avenue of inquiry, gives us something solid. Maybe we can find Christine Christian.
* * * * *
Light shot through the kaleidoscope in her consciousness and made a new geometry of her soul. When had colors been so vivid . . . complexity of design so pure?
Yet even as she yearned to touch it, flow through its matrix, lose herself to the rainbow of light and become its prism, something tugged at the edges of memory.
Christine. It seemed a nice name—a familiar one. Pristine Christine . . . a childhood song echoed but she regarded the taunt as though from a great distance.
Now an urgency began to press like a weight against her chest. A few moments ago—or was it a few weeks?—she’d wanted to breathe. Now that seemed irrelevant.
But something else prodded insistently. Yes, there it was— the need to tell.
She remembered now. The story—she had a story to tell, but she didn’t have all the details yet. She’d tried to write it. But first there was more research to be done.
The details began to come back into focus, and with them the anxiety increased. What had she done wrong? She’d been smart, diligent, kept her priorities: delayed her dinner date, gone to the house on the bluff to follow the lead, meet her source.
The reporter’s instinct that still pulsed within her said danger was still coming closer. That story was the urgency pulling at her, dragging her back to the human circumstances, holding her in the dark. She had to get this story done in time.
Deadline.
The word carried with it the weight of the world.
Chapter 1
The winter storm that lurked just off shore pummeled the Central Coast, punching the already bruised sky and jabbing without mercy at the little town of Milford-Haven.
Miranda Jones shuddered in the chill, startled each time the wind rattled her studio windows. It’d wakened her in the pre-dawn, moaning through the eaves, shaking the trees near her deck and chasing her from her cozy downstairs bedroom. Her new kitten had preferred to stay snuggled in the covers. Shadow had no interest in coming with me. I knew she was a smart kitty.
A persistent dripping beat a rhythm from somewhere nearby. Don’t know if this is a new drip or an old one. Depends how well the landlord keeps up with maintenance. I suppose it’s no surprise in this storm. I’m still getting used to winter here . . . maybe this is typical.
The rain that cascaded down the mountains slapped the siding, drenched her tall pines, and tumbled down her small yard, gathering speed as it raced to join the surf pounding at the rocky coastline half a mile away.
Yanking again at the wool socks that’d fallen to pool at her ankles, she zipped up her fleece top, then carefully stepped around the edges of the maps she’d spread out. She sat cross-legged on her studio floor to examine them more closely by the hinged light clamped to the edge of her desk.
The scattered sheets made as colorful a display as if she’d chosen eclectic prints for a possible gallery showing. Were she to arrange them end-to-end, they’d actually look something like her favorite quilt over on the daybed.
Such a special gift. I love it now even more than when Mer gave it to me. The quilt of puffed cotton squares—printed with reproductions of her own landscape paintings—had been a house-warming gift. In good weather, it kept the chill away when she relaxed in the hammock on her deck. Now that winter had truly arrived, it draped cozily at the foot of the daybed occupying the studio’s far corner.
Her gaze returned to the maps—more representational than much of her own work, yet in some ways more richly layered, and certainly more embedded with metaphor and meaning.
Representational . . . yes, the art of cartography, where each printed object represents a thing or a thought. Red lines stand for interstate highways, thin orange indicate state roads; pale blue for ocean and lakes contrasts with tan for land that’s punctuated with light green areas for state and national parks, dark green for mountain ridges.
What else made them different? She scooted closer to her desk, then reached up to grab the magnifying glass she kept handy. Holding it over the closest map, she bent over to inspect the image.
The lettering! Yes, unlike my work, these art pieces contain words. Moving the lens over different portions of the image, she pondered the significance of the written designations. Of course, they give the names of the streets, the counties, the highways. But these are not just words, they’re graphical elements too. Fascinated, she focused on one of the tiny words. They’re fonts, carefully chosen so each style of printing represents something specific, just the way colors do.
Fatigue seeped around the edges of her mind as she bent over the maps, and as her eyelids drifted down, the images blurred for a moment as she pondered the blues of the waters, the greens of the terra forms . . . almost as if they were under water.
Colors swirl in liquid patterns, funnel into rivulets, form into drops. Drip . . . drip . . . Where am I? In a boat. Is water getting in?
The thought jolted her awake—which is when she realized she’d nodded off. Did I hear more of that dripping? She stood to walk the perimeter of her studio, touching windowsills to ensure nothing felt wet.
That’s good. But my miniatures are leaning against the desk windows. Maybe I’ll move them for now. She took the one finished image in its small frame, and the
five studies for the new one, and slid them away from the panes. She also moved away the short stack of postcards, picking up the top one to study it for a moment.
It really is a good reproduction of my Milford-Haven watercolor—the colors vivid, Main Street beckoning, Pacific sparkling blue at the end of the street.
Her manager Zelda had ordered a thousand of them to be printed—and distributed that many in a week. They’d been so well received, sales of Miranda’s full-sized paintings had spiked, at least temporarily. Marketing of her work was beyond Miranda’s ken, but Zelda seemed to know exactly what she was doing.
Between them they now seemed to have created a monster. “It’s time for the next postcard,” Zelda had announced recently. That’s Zelda McIntyre—always has an angle. Furthermore, she wanted it in time for Christmas. Miranda’d resisted at first, not liking the notion that commerce would drive her artistic endeavors.
She thought back to why she’d started creating the small images. Her idea had been not only to celebrate her new home, but to chronicle what was turning out to be a significant internal journey. Not so much a logical one. More of an intuitive adventure, a heart-journey.
At first, she’d been inspired to paint something for each season. These were—literally and figuratively—external works, and she’d satisfied that urge by completing four Japanese calligraphy pieces. When it came to the miniature watercolors, her concept had expanded to mark something more internal: the seasons of her life. They were becoming visual metaphors. First was the season of finding my own home; now it seems to be the season of remapping my life.
That’s why maps had captured her fancy for the second postcard. The more she studied them, the more she understood they stood for both journey and destination, content and context. She wanted an original watercolor by her own hand that’d be not of the town, but of the whole California Central Coast. Somehow it seemed a perfect bridge from past to present, and from her own roots to the branches she was developing. She’d done rough studies of the image. Now she was refining it.
