Vanishing Point

by Marcia Muller

  Ferris frowned. “Some sort of neurotic identification, perhaps.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “She told me her mother and father stayed here on their honeymoon, and that her mother had painted a picture of the place. I wouldn’t know about that; I only bought the resort nine years ago. At the time I’d just sold my commercial real estate holdings in San Jose, and my wife and I were looking for a business that would pay the bills and allow us to live comfortably on our savings. We came down here and operated profitably for a time, but then business dropped off. Four years ago, my wife died suddenly, and since then I haven’t put much effort into the place. I don’t get a lot of guests, just older people who have been coming year after year, but I like it that way.” Momentarily his gaze turned inward.

  I said, “Is my friend here now?”

  “No. She’s out on her appointed rounds.”

  “And they are…?”

  He spread his hands. “I have no way of knowing. She leaves in the morning around eight. Returns around four, always with a bag of groceries-I’ve installed microwaves and little refrigerators in the cottages since I no longer operate the restaurant-and she always has her sketchbook in hand. One time I asked her what she was drawing, and she gave me a strange smile and said, ‘The past.’ Then she looked embarrassed and said she was something of a historian.”

  “And she’s staying in one of the cottages?”

  “Yes. I’ve closed up the rooms in this building. She’s in cottage three.” His gaze shifted to his watch. “You’ll have to excuse me now; there’s a film I want to watch.”

  I stood. “You won’t tell her I’ve been here? I think it’s best if she’s not expecting me when I come back this afternoon.”

  “Of course I won’t.” He began searching for the remote control to whatever TV he planned to use. “When you come back you can wait for her in the cottage-they’re never locked.”

  I hurried along flagstone steps that scaled a small rise toward cottage three. It was fronted by a small deck with an old redwood hot tub and a couple of plastic chairs. Inside, I found the same kind of furnishings as in the main building-outdated rattan, shabby but comfortable-looking. The double bed was unmade, but the rest of the unit was tidy. On the glass-topped dining table that sat next to the tiny galley kitchen photographs and charcoal drawings lay scattered.

  The photographs: informal shots of Laurel, Roy, Jennifer, and Terry; a formal portrait of the entire family. Candids of Laurel with Sally Timmerman, Josie Smith, and other people whom I didn’t recognize. A studio portrait of Mark Aldin.

  The drawings: the Greenwoods’ former home in Paso Robles, as seen from four different perspectives; four scenes that I vaguely recognized as lying along Highway 46 between Paso Robles and the coast; four sea views that resembled the ones from the overlook where Laurel had made her final oil painting; the Cayucos pier, the beach adjoining it, a liquor store with a mailbox in front of it, and a biker astride a motorcycle, his face obscured by his helmet; four different views of the waterfront park in Morro Bay.

  And one drawing that didn’t fit with the others, done over and over again in dark, angry slashes of charcoal: the building on Fell Street in San Francisco. Not so much a representational portrait of an ordinary building as an expression of rage.

  I hurried from the cottage, down the steps, and along the path to the parking area.

  If my intuition was correct-and it was, it had to be-I knew where I would find Jennifer.

  She was at the overlook north of Cayucos: a slender figure dressed all in black, sitting on an aluminum folding chair, one foot propped on the low retaining wall, the sketch pad supported by her knee. Her neighbor’s silver Porsche was parked a short distance away. She didn’t look around as I drove in, but she wasn’t immersed in her drawing. Instead she stared out to sea.

  I parked and got out of the car. The weather was the same as it had been when I’d first come here-fog burning off above the hills. The same as it had been when Jacob Ziff had stopped here to speak with Jennifer’s mother all those years ago.

  I crossed toward her, gravel crunching under my feet. Still she didn’t seem to notice me. Finally, when I was beside her, she looked up. For a moment her gaze didn’t focus on me. How had Ziff described the look on Laurel’s face when he’d approached her?

  As if she were waking up from a dream, or maybe as if I were pulling her back from some other world she’d been inhabiting.

  After a moment Jennifer recognized me. “Sharon. How did you know I was here?” Her tone was curiously unsurprised.

  “I guessed where you would be.” I glanced down at the sketch pad. Blank, although she held a stick of charcoal in her hand. “The work’s not going so well today?”

  “Work? Oh, this.” She flipped the pad shut, dropped the charcoal on the ground. “It’s not work, it’s just…”

  “Just?”

  “Craziness.” She stood, handed me the pad, began folding the chair. “I suppose Mark asked you to drag me back home.”

  “I can’t make you go home if you don’t want to.”

  “I don’t know what I want.”

  “Shall we talk about it? Maybe I can help you decide.”

  “Yes. Maybe.”

  “Why don’t we go back to Creekside Springs? We can take my car, come back for yours later.”

  She hesitated. “It’s not my car. I don’t feel right about leaving it here.”

  “Okay, then we’ll take it. But I think I should drive. You look… tired.”

  To my surprise, Jennifer smiled. “I’m not so crazy that I can’t drive, but if it will make you feel better, go ahead.”

  When we got back to her cottage, Jennifer went into the bathroom to freshen up, and I again studied the photographs on the table. Laurel: a nice small-town girl with her college friends. The Greenwoods: a nice small-town family. And then it had all gone wrong…

  “Aunt Anna salvaged those,” Jennifer said from behind me.

  “When?”

  “Right after my father burned my mother’s paintings. Anna went over to the house while he was at the clinic and saved the photographs and other mementos. She wouldn’t give them to Terry and me, though. She said she was afraid if Dad found out we had them, he’d destroy them, too.”

  “Then how did you get these?”

  She sat down in one of the chairs at the table and fingered a photo of Laurel and Terry. “I knew where Anna kept them in her attic. When I was about to go away to college, I sneaked up there and took the ones I wanted. I never planned to live at home again, so they’d be safe with me. And Anna wouldn’t miss them; as far as I know she never so much as looked at them after Mom disappeared.”

  I sat down opposite her, picked up the studio portrait of Mark. “And why’s he here?”

  “He’s part of the puzzle.”

  “The puzzle?”

  “Why this is happening to me, and how can I survive it.”

  “You mean what you call the craziness.”

  “The current craziness, yes.” She hesitated, then drew a deep breath. “Sharon, am I your client, or is Mark?”

  “You’re the one who signed the contract, and Mark wrote the retainer check on your joint account. When he asked me to find you after you disappeared last Sunday, there was no new contract or addendum to the existing one. So, yes, you’re the client.”

  “Then you’re on my side?”

  “I’m always on my clients’ sides-so long as they’re truthful with me.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll tell you what happened. Sunday morning I overheard a conversation between Mark and his attorney. They have a regular date to play tennis on our court, and they’d come into the house afterwards, were talking in his office and didn’t realize I was coming down the hall to ask if they wanted coffee or juice. Mark was quizzing him about how he could get me committed for psychiatric observation. I thought, since he’d agreed to fund your investigation, that he was fully supportive of me. He said m
ore than once that he understood the pressures I was under, and would let me work through them in my own way. I was very upset by what I heard, so later I made up an excuse about meeting Rae in the city and got out of there.”

  “And went to the flat you rent on Fell Street.” When her eyes widened, I added, “Yes, I know about that. And about your conversation that afternoon with the downstairs tenant.”

  For a moment she sat very still, then she sagged and sighed-with relief, I thought. “Thank God I don’t have to explain all that to you. I’ve been over and over what Melissa Baker told me about the day Josie died, and everything I imagine is so ugly.”

  “And that was what made you come down here?”

  “Yes. First I called Terry, but she didn’t want to listen to me, told me I needed to get help. What I needed was space and distance-so badly I could barely breathe. So I took my neighbor’s car and some money that I knew she had stashed in the house. I didn’t have any conscious purpose in coming here, except that I thought maybe being where Mom disappeared would help me understand things.”

  “And since then, you’ve been reliving the past through these drawings.” I tapped my finger on the one of her childhood home.

  “I’ve followed the same routine every day: up early, drive into Paso Robles. Draw the house. Drive west on Forty-six. Draw a roadside scene there. I’m at the vista point at the exact time my mother was sighted there, and I draw that. Go to Cayucos. Another drawing. Go to Morro Bay, wander around the park and the waterfront area, wondering where she went from there. Yet another drawing. I don’t like what I’m doing, but I can’t seem to help myself. And then, this morning at the vista point, I ran out of steam.”

  “Maybe because you’ve worked something out?”

  “I doubt it. The only conclusion I’ve come to is that I must be worse off than either Mark or I imagine.”

  I hesitated, carefully framing what I would say next. “You could probably use a few sessions with a good therapist. But you’ve been on the right track.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Whether you realize it or not, you’ve been doing detective work. On a deeper psychological level than I-but you’ve got a very deep psychic investment in the investigation. And I think you’ve come to many of the same conclusions as I have.”

  Long silence. Then: “My mother killed Aunt Josie, didn’t she?”

  “I suspect she may have.”

  “Because Josie was having an affair with my father?”

  “Most likely.”

  She nodded. “There were signs that something was wrong between Mom and Dad. Little ones. Kids pick up on signs, but then they forget them until something happens to bring them to the surface again-like my conversation with Melissa Baker at Fell Street last Sunday.”

  “Do you think your mother confronted your father about the affair?”

  “I doubt it. It wasn’t her style. But I do remember that my dad was gone a lot for a few years before Josie died. And then afterward, my mother seemed cold and distant around him. But, no, even though Mom was with Josie when she died, I doubt my father would have ever suspected her of… murder.”

  Or he suspected, but chose not to open up that particular can of worms.

  Jennifer said, “Earlier you said that you think I’ve come to the same conclusions you have. What else?”

  “Well, consider what you’ve been doing-following your mother’s trail over and over, and never coming to its end.”

  For a moment her gaze held mine, then it dropped, and she leaned forward until her forehead touched a photograph of Laurel that lay on the table in front of her.

  “Because it has no end,” she said. “Because my mother-damn her to hell!-ran out on us and is still alive somewhere.” She raised her head, looking me straight in the eyes. An odd mixture of fury and sadness twisted her features.

  “I hope you find her,” she said, “but I also hope you don’t. Because if I ever come face-to-face with her again, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  Jennifer didn’t want to go home or to Fell Street, so I suggested she stay with her sister in Davis. She liked the idea and felt she was okay to drive there. After calling Terry to tell her she was coming, she called her neighbor in Atherton to apologize for taking her Porsche and cash. When she got off the phone she was smiling.

  “Your neighbor’s not angry?” I asked.

  “No. Estee understands I’ve been going through a very rough patch. I’m going to miss her when I move away.”

  “You’re leaving Mark, then?”

  “I’m ninety-nine percent certain I am. For about six months now I’ve suspected he’s been having an affair, and what I overheard him telling his lawyer last Sunday pretty much confirmed it. He said that I had become an inconvenient burden and an obstacle to his future happiness. I think now that when he agreed to pay for your investigation, he was looking at it as a way to distract me from the trouble in our marriage until he could hide most of our assets.”

  She grimaced bitterly. “It’s hard to face the fact that your marriage was only a balance sheet to your husband. I see now that Mark married me because I was an asset-attractive, reasonably well-spoken, with an interesting career. And he wanted me gone because I was a liability. Hard to face, but I’ll have to.”

  When she heard what Terry had to tell her about Mark’s recent behavior, she would be a hundred percent certain about a divorce. I decided not to reveal what Rae had uncovered about Mark’s past and how it had precipitated the break between Ricky and him; Jennifer would find out soon enough.

  I helped her pack her things and load them into the Porsche. She was smiling when she dropped me off at the overlook north of Cayucos.

  Jennifer had asked me to call Mark and tell him she was okay, so I tried his office, cellular, and home numbers as soon as I reached the Oaks Lodge. A machine picked up each time. I had a fourth number, for an office in San Francisco where he met with some of his clients and where a majority of his support staff worked, but the receptionist said he had called in this morning to say he was taking a long weekend.

  I dialed Julia’s cellular. “Aldin’s on his sailboat at the yacht club,” she told me. “Just sitting on deck, drinking beer.”

  “Alone?”

  “As far as I can tell.”

  “Okay, I’ve found his wife, so I’m pulling you off the surveillance. Will you please go down there and tell him the news, ask him to call me? And then take the rest of the day off.”

  “Gladly. Tonio’s coming home from summer camp today, and it’ll be a nice surprise if I’m there to greet him.” Tonio was Julia’s young son. A single mother, she shared an apartment with her older sister, and together they looked after him. Still, an aunt waiting to hear about summer-camp adventures was no substitute for a mother.

  “Must be nice,” Julia added, “sitting around on your boat in the sun while everybody else is working.”

  “I don’t think Aldin’s enjoying himself. Be careful when you talk with him; turns out he’s got a temper.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can, but be careful anyway.” I broke the connection, picturing Mark soaking up alcohol while he pondered what could be the first of a series of professional reverses. Word got around around fast in the kind of circles he and Ricky traveled in, and I was certain my former brother-in-law would have no qualms about spreading it.

  It was now after three in the afternoon, and I should also let Rae know her friend was okay and on her way to Terry’s. There had been no message from Patrick when I’d returned; I was beginning to worry about him. He was relatively inexperienced and shouldn’t be wandering around God knew where doing God knew what.

  And then there was Hy, who was waiting in El Centro to hear from me. This was ridiculous! We’d been married less than two weeks, and had barely spent any time together-

  A knock at the door. Who would show up here? Hy? He had friends at virtually every small airport in the state-pe
rhaps in the country-and often caught rides with them. Just like him to get somebody to drop him off at Paso Robles and surprise me. Eagerly I crossed the room.

  But it wasn’t Hy standing there. It was Rob Traverso of the PRPD and another heavyset, balding man whom I didn’t know. “Ms. McCone,” Traverso said, “this is Detective Jim Whitmore of the SLO County Sheriff’s Department. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “The dead man’s name is Emil Tiegs,” Jim Whitmore said. “He was found under the Cayucos pier by a fisherman at five-thirty this morning. Your business card was in his wallet.”

  “How did he die?” I asked.

  Whitmore ignored the question. “What kind of dealings did you have with Mr. Tiegs?”

  We were seated at the table in my room, Whitmore across from me, Traverso to my right. I glanced at the police detective; his face was impassive, and he didn’t meet my eyes.

  I said, “Mr. Tiegs offered to sell me information on the Laurel Greenwood case. When I met with him, I gave him my card.”

  “When was that?”

  “Yesterday around noon.”

  “And what did he tell you?”

  I considered. Tiegs’s information had implicated Kev Daniel in a minor crime upon which the statute of limitations had run out. Revealing it and sending the county sheriff after him would destroy any leverage I might have to force him to reveal where Laurel had gone after she received the new identification from him, or her present whereabouts. However, I’d seen Daniel returning to his home late last night, disheveled and terrified-

  “Ms. McCone?” Whitmore prompted.

  I opted for shading the truth. “As you probably know, Emil Tiegs had a criminal record. He struck me as unreliable. Also, he was asking for a good deal of money. I wanted to ask my client whether she was willing to pay.”

  “And was she?”

  “I wasn’t able to reach her. May I ask how Tiegs died?”

  Whitmore glanced at Traverso, then shrugged. “Autopsy hasn’t been performed yet, but Tiegs’s neck was broken. He could have fallen from the pier, or been pushed.”