by Sue Grafton
The house came into view, looking like something in an old horror film. I parked in the driveway and approached with a curious mix of anxiety and excitement. Bare wooden trellises affixed to the porch rails at intervals suggested that roses or morning glories might have climbed there once. Now the beds were overgrown. I climbed the front porch stairs, which seemed remarkably sound. The house, though a shambles, had been built to last. I remembered talk at some point of moving the house into the city limits, restoring it as a possible tourist attraction. I could see where the city would be reluctant to make a claim. Even the idea of renovating the house in situ would be an expensive proposition. To what end?
I tried the front door and to my surprise I found it unlocked. I pushed it open and went in, assaulted by the dense smell of soot and mildew. I spent the next thirty minutes wandering from floor to floor, sometimes awed at the grandeur that remained. High ceilings, the sweeping staircase in the foyer, all the marble and mahogany still gracing the rooms. A large butler’s pantry opened into a vast kitchen with servants quarters built on behind. A second staircase led up to the second floor from there. I could feel memory stir. Vague images, shapeless and filled with shadows, moved at the edge of my vision. I could hear sounds, talking and laughing in another room, without being able to distinguish the words.
I was standing on the wide second-floor landing when I heard someone walking in the hall below. From the bottom of the stairs, someone called, “Kinsey?”
For one wonderful moment, the voice was my mother’s and she’d returned from the dead.
Chapter 7
*
I crossed to the banister and peered over the railing. Tasha stood in the stairwell, looking up. “I saw your car parked outside.”
“I’ll come down.”
I descended the stairs, embarrassed that I’d been caught poking around the house uninvited. She’d taken a seat on the third step up, leaning against the wall. I settled on the same step, sitting close to the rail.
“How’d you know I was here?”
“Arne saw your car pull in and called me. My office isn’t that far.” She was dressed in lawyer clothes: a crisp navy-blue pantsuit with a white silk shell under the two-button jacket. She wore pearls. I’d always heard you could tell real pearls from fake by running them across your teeth, but I wasn’t clear what information that was meant to impart. I thought it’d be rude to ask if I could bite her necklace. She had dark eyes, delicately enhanced with a smoky eyeliner, a straight nose where mine was ever so faintly bumpy from having been broken twice. Her dark hair was tastefully highlighted with blond and pulled into a rope at the nape of her neck. I could see a bow of red chiffon peeking into view from the hair clip behind.
It’s odd to see someone you know looks like you. The face we see in the mirror is always reversed so that our impression of ourselves is Hipped left to right. If you stand in front of a mirror and put your right index finger against your right cheek, the mirror will tell you you’re touching left to left. The only way you can see yourself as you appear to others is to hold a mirror to the mirror and check your image in that. What I saw now of Tasha was what others saw of me. Already, I liked her face a lot better than mine. I usually ignore my own looks, not from distaste, but from a sense of despair. So many women have mastered an arsenal of beauty products: foundation, powder, blusher, eye shadow, pencils for lining their eyes, brows, and lips. As a rule, I avoid makeup, having little experience with the selection and application process.
It was clear at a glance that Tasha knew her stuff. I couldn’t identify all the kinds of goop on her face, but she’d tinted herself with care. Her skin had a healthy glow, her cheeks showed a hint of pink, and her eyes looked enormous because her lashes were so thick. I could see her assessing me while I assessed her. We smiled at the same time, which only furthered the notion we were looking at ourselves. We had identical teeth.
She said, “After our telephone conversation, I had a long talk with Mom. Her version of events is different.”
“Oh, really. How so?”
“She says your parents made that trip to meet with Grand and Granddaddy in hopes of a reconciliation. They were killed on the way.
Grand blamed herself. Aunt Gin blamed her, too. Mom says Grand tried to keep in touch, but Gin was having none of it. Finally, Grand gave up, but only after years of trying to make contact.”
“Bullshit. I don’t believe it.”
“I’m not asking you to believe. I’m telling you what Mother said.”
“Well, of course she’d say that. She’s still tied into Grand. How can you afford to think ill of someone who has the power to pull the rug out from under you? You’d do just about anything to see them as good no matter what they’ve done.”
“Kinsey, if you really want to find out what went on back then, you can’t start by rejecting the messages you don’t want to hear. There are two sides to every story. That’s why we have the courts. To settle disputes.”
“Oh, right. Compare this to litigation. That’ll win you points,” I said. “Most people can’t stand lawyers. I’m one of the few with any respect for the trade.” I stopped. I stared down at the floor for a moment and then shook my head. “I’m sorry. Forget it. I didn’t mean to get into it with you again.”
Tasha smiled slightly. “I told you we couldn’t talk without hassling.”
“You set me off.”
“That’s not my intent.”
“I know. The hard part is that neither of us has any concrete proof. We can do this ‘Did too! Did not!’ routine until the cows come home. It’s Grand’s word against Aunt Gin’s, or my mother’s word against your mom’s. There is no fact of the matter.”
“Probably not. Just keep an open mind. That’s really all I ask.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that. My mind’s been made up since the day I met Liza. I wasn’t interested then and I’m probably not interested now.”
“At least you use the word ‘probably.’ That’s progress, isn’t it? You used to be adamant. Now you’re obdurate.”
“Which means what?”
“Resistant, but less flinty. It’s a big improvement.”
The comment seemed patronizing, but I shrugged it off. Why take offense when she might not have actually meant it that way? I said, “It feels like unfinished business and that bothers me. Regardless of how it comes out, I’d like to think I’m doing the right thing.”
“That works both ways. We’re having to go back and revisit the past, which is good for all of us. The point is, we have time to work this out.”
“Thirty-two years of it so far.”
“So what’s thirty-two more? We can’t settle a long-standing quarrel in a few casual talks.” She glanced at her watch and then rose. “I have to get back to work. Did you finish the tour?”
I pulled myself up. “Essentially. I hoped I’d remember something, but I’m drawing a blank.” The two of us paused simultaneously to brush off the backs of our pants.
We crossed to the front door, our shoes making scratching sounds in the grit that had accumulated on the marble floor. She said, “What do you think of the place?”
“It must have been beautiful in its day.”
Tasha turned back, letting her eyes travel across the foyer and up the stairs. “You know Grand moved out shortly after Aunt Rita’s death.” Rita Cynthia Kinsey was my mother’s maiden name.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Granddaddy Kinsey was fit to be tied, but she finally got her way. That’s when they bought the house in town. You remember him at all?”
I shook my head.
“Maybe I can find some family photographs.”
“I’d like that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen pictures of anyone. Aunt Gin discounted sentiment as a form of sniveling. She refused to let either of us sink to such depths.”
“She was tough.”
“That she was.”
“Well. I better go.”
“Me, too,” I said. “I do have one request. I know you’ve already talked to your mother about me, but please don’t bring Grand into this.”
“My lips are sealed.”
It was 4:35 by the time I reached Santa Teresa. I made a stop at the public library, leaving my car in the adjacent four-story parking structure. My conversation with Roxanne Faught had raised unsettling questions, namely, what did she know and when did she know it? I wondered if there was any way to check. I trotted down the carpeted stairs to the periodicals room, where I asked the reference librarian for the microfilm records of the Santa Teresa Dispatch from the week of August 3, 1969. Since the body was found that Sunday, I didn’t expect the news to hit the paper for another day or two. Once I had the box of film in hand, I sat down at the machine and unreeled the strip, which I threaded under the lens, catching the sprocket holes. I hand-cranked it until the strip caught properly and then pressed a button and watched the Sunday paper speed by in a blur. My eyes picked up a remarkable amount of information on the fly. I bypassed the sports, the business section, and the classified ads. I slowed now and then just to see what was going on. The oil spill off the Santa Teresa coast was in it 190th day. Funny Girl and Good-bye Columbus were playing at the local movie theater along with Planet of the Apes. There was talk that Don Drysdale’s fourteen-year pitching career might be coming to an end because of a recurrent injury, and a Westinghouse 2-Speed Automatic Washer was selling for $189.95.
When I reached Monday’s paper, I slowed to a dead stop and scanned it page by page. On Monday, August 4, five column inches were devoted to the discovery of the body near the Grayson Quarry in Lompoc. Con Dolan and Stacey Oliphant were both mentioned by name, but there was little to report. The next day, August 5, in a column called “North County Events,” I caught the second squib. By then the autopsy had been done and the cause of death was detailed. The same few physical traits were noted-hair and eye color, height and weight-in hopes of identifying the girl. I cranked the reel forward, through Wednesday and Thursday of the same week. Thursday’s j paper included a brief follow-up, with the same information I’d read in the initial account. Both gave a brief description of the girl’s clothing, detailing the dark blue voile blouse and the daisy-patterned pants.
Neither article specified the color of the pants. I knew from police reports that the daisies were dark blue, a red dot at each center, on a ground of white, but if you relied strictly on this data, it would be natural to assume the daisies were “daisy-colored,” as Roxanne Faught had so aptly summed it up. Factoring in her certainty about the tom earlobe, the big feet, the big-boned wrists, and the closely bitten nails, I doubted the girl she’d dealt with was actually our Jane Doe. It was always possible, of course. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously shaky, easily influenced, subject to subtle modification with each telling of the tale. Roxanne had admitted she’d gone back to reread the very clippings I was looking at myself. I didn’t wholly discount what she said, but I wondered at its relevance to our investigation. Stacey had hoped to establish a time line, working backward from Roxanne’s encounter to Cloris Bargo’s sighting of the girl hitchhiking outside Colgate. Now Cloris had recanted and I suspected Roxanne’s observations were too tainted to be of use. I fast-forwarded. That same week, on August 9, five people, including film and television actress Sharon Tate, were found slain in a Bel Air home. Two days later, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were discovered murdered in a manner similar to the Tate slayings. I tracked forward again, but there was no further mention of Jane Doe. I jotted a few notes on my index cards and then made copies of the news stories, paid for them at the counter, and returned to my car.
It was just after 5:00, and Con was doubtless at CC’s, knocking back Happy Hour drinks on a two-for-one deal. For my sake, I hoped he hadn’t been at it long. I spotted his car as soon as I pulled up in front, but the area was otherwise deserted. Across the street at the bird refuge, two women in sweats were just starting a walk, chatting with animation. Closer to the water, a mother looked on placidly as her five-year-old child fed day-old bread to the gulls under a sign that read: PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE BIRDS.
I went into CC’s, pausing in the doorway to let my eyes adjust. A plank of daylight had fallen in the open door, enhancing the contrast between CC’s and the outside world. The place was dark. There was no one in the front room except the bartender and a waitress engaged in intimate conversation. Stacey and Dolan were seated in a booth in the rear. Stacey got up when I appeared. He was looking better today. I said, “Hi. Am I late?”
“Not at all,” Dolan said. Both had glasses in front of them. Dolan’s contained whiskey dark enough to pass for iced tea. Stacey’s was empty except for the ice cubes and a wad of freshly squeezed lime. Dolan hauled himself to his feet just as Stacey sat down. “What can I get you?”
“Water’s fine for now. I may switch later.”
“I’ll take another Tanqueray and tonic.”
Dolan frowned. “You just had one. I thought the doc didn’t want you mixing meds with booze.”
“Or else what, I drop dead? Don’t worry. I’ll take full responsibility. I’d be doing myself a favor.”
Dolan gestured impatiently and then moved off to the bar. I slid into the booth and put my shoulder bag on the seat beside me. He said, “How’d your day go?”
“So-so. I’ll tell you about it as soon as he gets back.”
Stacey reached into his vest pocket and removed a pipe and a tobacco pouch, then filled the bowl. He fished around in another pocket for a pipe pick and tamped down the tobacco before he took out a wooden kitchen match and slid the head along the underside of the table. I waited while he puffed at the pipe. The smoke was sweet. smelling, like a meadow full of dried hay.
I said, “You’re as bad as he is.”
Stacey smiled. “On the other hand, suppose I only have a few months left? Why deny myself? It’s all in your perspective.”
“I guess it is.”
We engaged in idle chitchat until Dolan returned, bearing a tray with my water and two fresh drinks for them. He’d added napkins, a bowl of popcorn, and a tumbler of nuts.”
“Look at this guy, buying dinner for us,” Stacey said.
“Hey, I got class. More than I can say for you.”
The air was cool and free of cigarette smoke, which Dolan corrected for as soon as he sat down. I didn’t bother to complain. Stacey’s pipe tobacco and Dolan’s cigarette smoke masked the faint whiff of noxious gases from the excavation site outside. Dolan helped himself to a handful of nuts, popping them in his mouth one by one while he looked at me. “What’d you get?”
“You’re not going to like it.” I went on with a summary of my travels, starting with Cloris Bargo and the lie she’d told.
Stacey said, “I talked to her twice myself and she never said a word about that.”
“It’s my charm and finesse.”
“Well, shit. I didn’t realize she was married to Joe Mandel. He worked with us on this.”
“I know. I remembered the name.”
Dolan said, “I can’t believe she was blowing smoke up our skirts. She actually admitted that?”
“Well, yeah. She said at the time she couldn’t see the harm.”
Stacey said, “Let’s leave that one alone. No sense butting into their business. I tell you what we might do though is ask Joe if he could locate Jane Doe’s effects for us. It’d be good to take a look. Might spark an idea. I’ll make a call and clear it with the sheriff. Don’t think he’d object, but you never know about these things.” He made a note to himself and turned back to me. “What else?”
“After I left her, I drove on up to Lompoc, stopping off at Gull Cove, which is closed, by the way.” I laid out my conversation with Roxanne Faught, what she’d said, and where the story she’d told me varied from what we knew. I gave them copies of the news clippings to demonstrate my point. “I think she lifted the details from these, which means we can’t rely on her. I believe
she encountered someone, but it wasn’t necessarily our Jane Doe.”
“Too bad. It sounds like a dead end,” Dolan said.
Stacey said, “Dead ends are a given. That’s how these things go.
We’re bound to run into a few along the way. All that tells us is to back up and look somewhere else. Lucky we found out about it now before we wasted any more time on it.”
“Knocks our hitchhiking theory all to hell,” Dolan said.
“Maybe so, maybe not. She could have gone to Lompoc by train or bus and hitched a ride from there.”
I said to Dolan, “What about the vehicles seen in the area? Any way to check those out?”
“Johanson said something about a hippie van. We could track down that guy – what’s his name…”
“Vogel.”
“Right, him. Why don’t we see what he remembers.”
“It’s a long shot,” I said.
“So’s everything else we’ve come up with so far.”
Stacey let that remark pass, still fixating on his original point about where the girl had come from. “Another possibility is she bummed a ride to Lompoc with a friend, someone she stayed with ‘til she hit the road again.”
Dolan made a sour face. “Would you quit obsessing? We went over that before. If she’d had friends in the area, they’d have wondered what happened as soon as she disappeared.”
“Not if she’d told ‘em she was on her way north. Suppose she stays in Lompoc a couple nights and then leaves for San Francisco. She goes out the door, has a run-in with the Devil, and ends up dead.”
“They’d still put two and two together as soon as the story broke.” Stacey stirred irritably. “We’re not going to find answers to every question we ask.”
“So far we haven’t found answers to anything,” I remarked.
Stacey waved that aside. “Maybe our mistake is assuming she’s from somewhere else. Suppose she’s local? Someone kills her and then makes up a story explaining where she’s gone. That’s why she wasn’t reported missing. It’s part of the cover-up.”
