by David Daniel
“Was she inside?”
His silence was all the answer I needed. I felt as if I’d been punched. I let out a breath and looked away and for the first time saw that a length of wooden guardrail had been broken off.
“She didn’t make it,” Delcastro said in a quieter voice. “We took her out already.”
It was my duty as a citizen to report what I knew. It wasn’t much—I didn’t even know the young woman’s name for sure—but I gave him what I had. I realized that I was probably one of the last people to have seen and spoken with her, possibly the very last; and oddly Delcastro kept a firm look on me, then motioned me over to his cruiser, out of earshot of others. “Around nine-fifteen P.M., you said. At the lighthouse.”
I nodded. “We spoke for ten minutes, maybe less, and then she left.”
“And what did you do?”
“I made a quick stop to get some food supplies, then went back to where I’m staying.” I was about to add that Ted Rand could vouch for me but realized that I didn’t have to; no one suspected me of anything. I did tell him that I drove out to the Beachcomber, and I said I’d just been at the police station, since he’d find out anyway. He didn’t seem much interested in lights on the beach at night; he had a fatality on his hands. “Okay, the driver’s last name was Kearns. How was she involved with this allegedly missing Nickerson girl?”
“I’m not sure she was. She overheard me asking questions out at the sports market and left the note on my car. I called and set up a meeting. She and Ben Nickerson evidently picked each other up in a bar Tuesday night. She said she went back to his rented house with him and they partied a little, but she left just before midnight.”
“And Nickerson’s daughter?”
“She claimed she never saw her.”
He posed a few more questions, and I replayed what I could. “You still have the note?” he asked me.
“It was on my windshield in lipstick,” I said. “Paradise Plum, if it matters.”
He didn’t seem stirred by anything I’d told him, or convinced of its importance. “Well, I appreciate your coming forward, but I don’t think there’s any mystery to solve.” He glanced toward the Daytona sitting atop the wrecker, one headlight goggling out like a displaced eye, a brown frond of seaweed dangling from a broken door mirror. “This is a bad road, and people sometimes go at it wrong for the conditions. It got foggy last night. Add in the fact that the victim may have been drinking …”
“I don’t think she had been when I spoke with her.”
“I’ve got witnesses who put her at the Cliff House near closing.”
“Which is how you came up with the estimated time of her crash?”
He shot me a glance. “Dashboard clocks aren’t what they used to be. They don’t freeze the moment of impact.”
“Was she with anyone at the Cliff House?”
He pointedly ignored the query.
“Who claims they saw her?”
Ditto.
“Do you happen to know her real first name? It seemed a multiple choice last night.”
“To answer the next question I know you’re going to ask—and so you won’t think I’m being rude—we will investigate the accident.” He turned and headed back to the scene.
“I never doubted it, Chief,” I called after him.
As I reached my car, the wrecker drew past, and it occurred to me to do what I hadn’t thought of last night: I jotted down the Daytona’s plate number. For an instant, as I put my notebook away, something stirred at the edge of my memory, but a police siren whooped and the something was gone before I could grab it. I slid the Ford back into the halting flow of the curious.
I’d told Delcastro that I didn’t doubt he would investigate the car crash, and I assumed there would be an autopsy; what I did have doubts about—and mulled as I drove back to Standish Center, slowly—was whether my meeting with the woman in the Daytona had somehow contributed to her death, directly or otherwise. As I’d said to Delcastro, she had seemed nervous last night, but when he’d pressed me on it, I didn’t have a reason. I played with possibilities now. Was it about the softball player she’d wanted to duck at the Cliff House? Someone in the van that had cruised the lighthouse? Being seen talking to me? Did it concern Ben Nickerson? If she’d been inebriated and driving dangerously on account of it, as the police seemed to be promoting, I could let myself off the hook because that had come later. She wouldn’t have been my bet to win any safe-driver awards, and yet I had to ask myself what, if anything, I might have done to prevent it. Until I knew more, I was going to wonder.
Of course, it was entirely possible that the accident went down just as Delcastro had read it. The road was curvy, and certainly by the time she went off, the fog had rolled in so thickly that visibility would’ve been dicey. I used my cell phone and called the RMV in Lowell and asked for a woman I knew. The wait took only half as long as if I’d been there, standing on line to get a license. She sounded happy to hear from me.
“I need an ID to go with a tag number,” I said.
She played coy awhile, reminding me how she couldn’t possibly give out that information to anyone except a real cop; it wouldn’t be professional.
“You’re tough,” I said.
“Go on, you think so?”
“Armor-clad. You could be a CIA spook.”
“Seriously?”
“You’d get an ultra top-secret clearance easy.”
“Oh, you’re sweet.” I heard a tap-tapping of keys. “Okay, here’s the name.”
Lucky thing it wasn’t her virtue I was assailing. From my car, I called directory assistance and got a phone number and an address. I felt like Nero Wolfe on wheels.
14
The full name, according to the Commonwealth of Big Brother, was Caroline J. (for Jillian, I surmised) Kearns, with a Standish address. I located the apartment house on the inland side of town, an old wood-frame with sand-colored vinyl siding and a large front door that led into a vestibule. There were mailboxes and bell pushes for the six units. The inner door was locked. A label by number 5 said “C. J. Kearns.” No one answered my ring. I stood there for a moment, like a bit of flotsam—or jetsam—left by a wayward tide. I felt a sadness that the young woman would never answer a doorbell again. We never would’ve been dear friends, but her liveliness beat like a muted echo of her music.
My habit is curiosity. The day’s mail had already come, and there were a few envelopes visible inside her locked box. Too big for the slots, an assortment of flyers and magazines was spread across the table. I found two for C. J. Kearns: a lingerie catalog featuring the Love Potion collection and a copy of Cat Fancy magazine. Did she have a pet in the apartment? Something about her gallivanting lifestyle suggested that anything more than a guppy was unlikely.
When I got back to the town center I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten a thing all day. I went to the Storm Warning restaurant. A pointing-hand sign, smaller than the one at the town hall, directed me through the main dining room (empty at this hour and set up for dinner) out to a screened area in back overlooking the inlet of the bay. There were a few small parties at the picnic-style tables. The same waitress as yesterday, Fran, wearing her yellow rain hat, came to take my order. “We meet again,” she said amiably.
“Isn’t it fun?”
She grinned. “Are you on vacation?”
I told her what I was doing. I didn’t see any reason not to, though I left out mention of Jillian Kearns’s fatality; I’d let Delcastro and his department handle it their way. Her expression got very serious when I told her about Ben and Michelle Nickerson.
“Ben, yes,” she said. “I remember him from long ago. He grew up here. If it’s the same Ben Nickerson.”
“It is. Evidently he was here earlier this week.”
“Visiting? I didn’t think he still had family here.”
“He wanted to show his daughter where he grew up. The girl’s mother hasn’t heard from them, so she’s worried.”
“Of cour
se. Do you have any idea what happened?”
“I’m trying to find out.” I showed her the Polaroid of Michelle Nickerson that Red Dog Van Owen had given me last night.
“She’s lovely. I’d know if I’d seen her. I’ll certainly keep my eyes peeled.”
She went to place my order. I watched lobster boats move out of the inlet, trailed by opportunistic seagulls. When the food came, since Fran was of Ben Nickerson’s generation, or close to it, I asked her what she remembered of him.
“My impressions are pretty vague, I’m afraid. He was one year ahead of my older sister Ginny in school. Along with Teddy Rand. My dad might recall more—he used to be a schoolteacher.”
“What about Chet Van Owen?”
“He was in that group, too.” The other patrons cleared out, and we were alone in the restaurant. She kept busy as we talked, filling salt and sugar dispensers. “Red Dog’s still around.”
“I met him. I’m not quite sure how to take him.”
She smiled knowingly. “He’s hard to read sometimes. Sometimes he seems like a big teddy bear, or a guru or something. Other times he’s someone to steer clear of.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“He just is. He used to run a little surf shop out there on the jetty.” She pointed past the open window to the line of big rocks jutting into the harbor mouth. “He didn’t make much money. I think it was something to do, because he loves surfing and the life that goes with it. Eventually, the town got on him to fix up the shop—it was little more than an old fishing shack, really—or get rid of it. It didn’t meet the town codes, or something. Anyway, no one here would give him a loan. That’s the story anyhow. I was living out west in those days.” There was that wistful note again, as if it was something she would’ve liked to be still doing. “I should let you eat in peace.”
“No, I like talking.” She smiled, as though not quite convinced. “What happened?” I asked.
“My husband decided he didn’t want to be married anymore.” I’d meant with Van Owen, but she seemed to want to talk about her situation, so I listened. “He said he’d missed his youth being responsible and now he wanted it back. He was going to live in Vail and be a ski bum.” She lifted a shoulder. “You can’t reason someone into loving you. My dad needed help with his business back here, so I came home.” She stopped wiping and laughed. “I’m sorry, you didn’t mean me. You were asking about Red Dog.”
I smiled. “I was interested in both,” I said truthfully.
“Well, you’re nice. End of my story. I’m living with Dad. Red Dog, though—he couldn’t get a loan, and then his shop burned down one night. It blazed out there on the jetty like a Roman candle.”
“Poor man’s lightning?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Was it burned to collect insurance?”
“Oh, I doubt he had any at all. I don’t really know. Afterward Mr. Rand stepped in and set him up as manager at the sports store. That’s what Red Dog does now.”
“Rand has pull, huh?”
“Oh, yeah. He owns the store.”
“That sports supermarket?”
“He’s a silent partner I guess you’d call him.” A party of four had come in. She gave them time to get settled, then rose. “Duty calls. Nice talking with you, Mr. Rasmussen. I sure hope you find Ben and his daughter and they’re okay.”
This was the day I’d promised Ross Jensen we would talk about the progress of the investigation. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t much. I was circling around, learning bits of Standish’s history, but they weren’t adding up yet to anything that helped me. Still, there was some kind of method to it, and at the moment, it was all I had.
Recalling the item in the police log from three nights ago—the same night that Jillian Kearns had visited Nickerson at the beach house, and left before midnight—I drove out Sea Street in that direction. There was a sidewalk along it. I passed the Strand Theater and beyond that I noted that the sidewalk ended as the road grew narrow. Had the young woman who’d been seen walking along here been Michelle Nickerson? Was she going back to the beach house? If so, from where? I U-turned and went back. I stopped at the Strand Theater, which was closed, not scheduled to open until 5 P.M. I rapped on the glass a few times and waited. Finally, I saw a man approaching from inside. He was a rotund, dark-haired young man, with long greased-back hair. He pushed open the door. “First show’s not till five-forty,” he said.
I told him what I was there for and handed him Michelle Nickerson’s photo. He looked at it thoughtfully. “Geez, I don’t know—this flick we’re screening now brings in a lot of youths.” Mr. Old-Timer: he looked all of twenty-two. “But, hmmm … I might’ve seen her. The night you’re talking, I saw a kid about her age standing outside after the last showing.”
“What time would that have been?”
“Show gets out at eleven-forty. I saw a kid standing out here like she was waiting around for a ride. When I came out later—maybe twelve-twenty—she was gone. I didn’t even remember it till now, on account of you asking.”
“You didn’t see anything else? Other people, or a car hanging around? Anything?”
“No. Is there a problem?” He seemed genuinely concerned. I thanked him for his help.
So what did it mean? The last show let out shortly before midnight, and a teenage girl who might possibly have been Michelle Nickerson had waited for a ride. So what if Nickerson, wanting an evening alone with a woman, had dropped his daughter at the theater, say, around eight-thirty or nine. No, he hadn’t known yet that he’d meet a woman. But what had Jillian Kearns said? That they met at the Sand Bar and talked only briefly before they left together and went to the beach house. She’d said that Nickerson had a phone call that seemed to be about meeting someone. And if he’d gone to meet someone, perhaps he’d missed the pickup time for his daughter at the Strand. It was a stretch, without a lot to hang it on, and yet I felt an eerie sense of possibility.
I phoned the confidential number on the card that Ross Jensen had given me. Someone else answered it and said attorney Jensen was in court and she thought he’d be back late, did I want to leave a message? Jensen had made it sound as if the number was a hot line that would put us in instant touch. Serves me right for believing a lawyer who wasn’t under oath. I left no message. I tried Paula Jensen at home and got her.
“Alex—hi. Anything?”
I gave her what I’d learned, including Nickerson’s apparent date with the Kearns woman. There was a brief silence. “I wonder where Shel was if she wasn’t with Ben?”
“That’s what I’m curious about, too. Would she have gone to a movie here in town alone? If Ben dropped her off?” I gave the name of the film that was being screened at the Strand.
“That is one she’d mentioned wanting to see. Still, I’d think Ben would’ve gone with her. Though they’ve been together since Shel flew out to California, so maybe they wanted a little space. But where would they go afterward?”
Of course, I had no answer. I told her what I’d seen on the police blotter, and I said I was going to check that teen club again. “Did Ben ever mention the name Van Owen?”
“He may have, I’m not sure.”
“How about Teddy Rand?”
“Why is that familiar?”
“He’s in that high school yearbook—they both are, actually. They were Ben’s classmates. And I met the sister of another contemporary today. Ginny Carvalho was one year behind them in high school.”
It didn’t ring any bell. “Teddy Rand, though,” Paula repeated. “Was he TJ?”
“TJ, right.”
“He and Ben were friends, I remember that now. He wrote in Ben’s book. I don’t think they kept in touch. Not while we were together, at least. Why?”
But I had no answer. I ran through a few more details, mostly trying to find something to probe and wanting to encourage Paula to be optimistic. Though she didn’t say so, I had the idea that Ross Jensen was too consumed by his court
case to be much support. “I’m starting to wonder if Nickerson’s business was doing as well as we’ve imagined,” I said. “When I call there, I get only a voice message that it’s closed for vacation. Is that likely if he sells live specimens?”
“It could be, if he sold out his inventory. Tanks need periodic cleaning and repair, and he’d been planning the trip with Michelle for a while.”
“Is there any way you could find out?” I thought maybe a little task might keep her mind away from worrying.
She considered it for a moment. “Well, this goes back, but he did file an amended child support form when Shel turned thirteen. I probably still have his accountant’s name. I could try it.”
I told her that anything she could learn might help. I would keep my focus on finding Michelle. I said that she and Ross could expect to hear from me that evening with an update. As we were about to sign off, she said, “Alex?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“For?”
“What you’re doing.” Her voice held the same shy gratitude that I’d seen in her eyes that first day we’d met. “You’re turning over a lot of stones.”
“Stay hopeful,” I said.
Despite my pep talk to Paula Jensen, I had begun to think that I was looking for phantoms in a fog. Or, as Ed St. Onge liked to say, hunting elephants with a BB gun. Though now that I thought about it, I realized I didn’t have any firepower. My rod was back in Lowell, locked in a drawer, where I couldn’t hurt myself with it. That was okay for now, as long as I didn’t come up against a situation where I needed it, like a real live monster emerging from the sea—or one trying to put me into the sea. Remembering to start a list of things to get when I returned to Lowell, I opened my pocket notebook and wrote “gun.” I also made a note to send flowers for Jillian Kearns, if I could find out to whom.
On a separate page I started inscribing names, several of which had turned up more than once so far. Red Dog Van Owen’s name went on there. And Ted Rand’s. Clustered around that one I wrote “Teddy/TJ” and “old Mrs. Rand,” that wheelchair-bound apparition from yesterday. I also wrote “Jillian” and “Mirror Shades.” If I had a Dr. Watson chronicling my cases, the notebook would be a treasure trove of character ideas. As an afterthought, I wrote “Mrs. Ted Rand,” followed by a question mark. They were all question marks as far as that went. As I put my notebook away, the fleeting thought that had eluded me at the crash site earlier abruptly materialized. Jillian had left Ben Nickerson before midnight, which might have put another car on the road, another pair of eyes, around the time that Michelle Nickerson might have been walking along the road. It was a lot of “mights.”
