She smoked. She slept around. She failed all of her classes. She came home in the middle of the night, stoned out of her mind. They were pretty sure she had at least one abortion, maybe two. As far as goals, she really didn't have any except for a vague idea of maybe being an artist. Becky tried to encourage this interest by buying her art supplies and enrolling her in classes at the community center, but the art supplies never left their package and she never once attended the classes.
About a year after first moving in with them, Abby started disappearing for days at a time. They'd ground her, but she only laughed. She'd stumble into the house in the middle of the night looking like she'd hadn't changed her clothes or showered since they'd last seen her, scrounge around in the fridge, and curse them when they asked where she'd been. Usually, she was gone in the morning.
The absences changed from days to weeks. She moved in with a boyfriend twice her age, a toothless jerk they were pretty sure was a drug dealer, and moved back a couple months later. Then she disappeared one night a year ago last September and left a note on the dining room table: "Dear Becky, I'm going to do some traveling. Don't come looking for me. Thanks for everything. I know you were trying to help, but some stuff's just too broken to fix, you know? Love, Abby."
It was the only time she'd ever used the word love. Becky cried for weeks, but they followed her wishes and didn't go looking for her. When six months passed with no word, Becky hired a private investigator to see if they could track her down, just to placate Becky's worries, but he hadn't been able to find anything. Then they got the call from Chief Quinn.
* * *
When they were finished, Becky said she wanted to go back to the hotel and lie down. John demanded to know by the end of the day whether they could arrange to have Abby's body sent to Santa Fe. Becky wanted her buried next to her parents. Quinn said he'd do everything he could to make that happen.
On their way outside, John disappeared to use the restroom, leaving Gage and Becky to walk out together. Gage had been hoping to catch her alone. Even though it was sunny, the wind had an icy bite.
"I'm really sorry about this," he said.
She turned. The sun was in her eyes, and she held up her hand, the shadows of her fingers falling across her face. "Thank you," Becky said. "I really . . . really do miss her. I know it's silly—"
"It's not silly."
"Well, John thinks it is."
"That says more about him than it does about you."
"I guess. He just . . . he handles things differently, that's all. He has a harder time showing that he cares."
The breeze rippled her hair around her neck like a scarf. His shadow on the pavement was tiny compared to hers. It made him wonder what kind of childhood she'd had, being so big. Or was it a condition that came on late in life? Either way, she couldn't have had it easy.
He stepped to her side, so she didn't have to look into the sun. "Look," he said, "there might be more we can do. I'm a private investigator. If you'd like—"
"I don't think we can afford a private investigator."
"Well, you can afford me," Gage said, "because I'm not going to charge you anything."
She looked taken aback. "Why not?"
"Don't need the money."
"But you must have better things—"
"No, I don't."
"But there has to be a reason . . ."
Gage shrugged. "I found her, that's enough. Plus my joints were starting to rust here in this weather, not moving around much. Listen, I'm going to keep on working on this whether you hire me or not, but I'd prefer to say I'm working for you."
"Oh. Well, I'm sure John—"
"Not him," Gage insisted. "You."
"Oh. Okay. I guess that's fine. Do I need to sign something?"
"Your word is good enough. But I was wondering if you might be willing to do one thing for me. Would you mind talking to a reporter friend of mine?"
"Reporter?" She looked worried.
"I know. Talking to the press is probably the last thing you want to do. But there comes a point when getting the press involved may not be a bad thing. It can shake things up a little. And this reporter—she'll make people know the real Abby, you know? It'll be a way of making something meaningful out of her life, sharing her story."
"I don't know," Becky said. "She did some awful things—"
"There are other girls out there living the same way. Reading her story might make them feel less alone. If we save one girl, it's worth it, don't you think?"
The door to the police station opened and John emerged. When he saw them talking, he seemed perturbed. Becky watched him coming, then glanced at Gage.
"I think you're right," she said. "We're staying at the Inn at Sapphire Head. Room 223. Have her give us a call."
"Thank you."
She took a strand of her hair and curled it around her finger, staring down at it. "I just keep wondering if there was something I could have done differently," she said. "I keep wondering if I could have done something that would have prevented all this. Do you know what I mean?"
Despite her size, in that moment she didn't seem large to him at all, but small, a child in a cruel and lonely world. He thought about that dreadful surprise, five years earlier, when he'd pushed open a bathroom door. At that moment, he'd felt like a child, too. John walked up to them, only catching Gage's parting words.
"Unfortunately," he said, "I know exactly what you mean."
Chapter 14
When Gage walked into Books and Oddities with two coffees and a couple of donuts, he found Alex reading a yellowed copy of the Enquirer, the front page picturing Ronald Reagan standing next to a bug-eyed, green alien. A circular blue stain, like from a paint can, marred the back page. Alex's feet were up on the counter, bits of sand embedded in the soles of his deck shoes. He wore no socks.
His already dark skin appeared a shade darker, his bald scalp tinted pink. His glasses rested at the end of his nose, and he read with his head tilted far back, as if cringing from an unpleasant smell. A cardboard box in about the same condition as the paper rested on the counter.
He glanced at Gage, and in all seriousness said, "Did you know that Ronald Reagan wanted to shut down Area 51, but Nancy told him to keep it open because visitors from Alpha Centauri would be landing by Christmas to tell him what to do about the Iran Contra scandal?"
"I didn't know that," Gage said.
"You learn something every day," Alex said, tossing the paper into the cardboard box.
Gage took a seat on the other stool and leaned his cane against the counter. "Find some good books?"
Alex shrugged. "Picked up ten boxes at the auction the other day for a buck a box. Mostly old magazines and Reader's Digest condensed books, but I did find a first edition of an early Robert B. Parker that made my day."
"Good for you. You been out in the sun?"
"Painting that south side this morning. Eve demanded it. I wanted to put it off another year, but she still wants to open the B&B this summer."
"And Eve told you not to wear sunscreen?"
"I'm a Spaniard. I don't need to wear sunscreen."
"Uh huh. And how many pre-cancerous moles have you had removed now?"
"My God," Alex said, "you're worse than Eve." He snatched the donuts away from him. "What do you have here? Nothing but old-fashioned? A man can't pick up a chocolate bar with raspberry sprinkles?"
"The aliens took them all," Gage explained.
They drank their coffee and ate their donuts. A woman in the back was helping her toddler pick out Dr. Seuss books. After she'd made her purchase, Gage caught Alex up on everything that had happened since they'd last talked—finding out who Abigail Heddle was, the poker game with Jimmy Lourdenback, and meeting the girl's parents. Alex listened intently, stroking his mustache and saying "mmm" or "ah" whenever Gage said something of interest. When Gage was done, Alex patted his lips with a napkin.
"I have to say," he said, "that was a pretty damn good do
nut for being just an old-fashioned."
"That's it?" Gage said. "I give you all this great information and you make a comment on the donuts?"
"Well, it was a good donut. The coffee, however, could have used a little more cream."
"Take it out of my tip. Come on, I want to hear your take on this."
"No, what you want is for somebody to act as a sounding board for your take on this. But fine, here's my thoughts. John Larson sounds like a good candidate, but it sure doesn't make a lot of sense. What, he flies out here, kills her, then flies back and pretends she's gone missing? Plus his wife would notice. Unless he and his wife were in it together."
"He is a traveling salesman," Gage said.
"Still pretty risky. And what about a motive?"
"If my hunch about him is right, it might have been as simple as trying to blot out the guilt he felt for what he'd done. A sexually repressed, domineering guy with a sexually confused teenager in the house—it's not hard to connect the dots."
Alex wrinkled his nose. "Do you really think something like that happened?"
"Honestly? No. Why not sooner? Why wait so long? But maybe he was going to, but then she disappeared. Maybe he found out where she was, and thought, 'Hey, I can kill her and pretend I never even knew where she was.' Maybe that's why she wrote down 'Abby Carson' in that library book. He was the one she was running from."
"It's a stretch," Alex said.
"Yeah, that's why my gut says 'no.' But I'm going to press Becky a little about it when I see her later. If something was happening, she would have been aware of it, even if she was denying it to herself. Her little 'he's really a good man deep down' routine was a bit too earnest. Maybe I can provoke a reaction. It probably won't be a fun lunch. I hate making women cry."
"You jest," Alex said. "You like it and you know it. What about that director of the Northwest Artist Colony. What was his name? He seemed a possibility."
"Ted Kraggel," Gage said. "He's definitely on the list. Maybe they had something going for a while, then she wanted out. Somebody came in to The Gold Cabaret that night and scared her. Might have been him."
"Might have been John Larson, too," Alex said.
"Might have been John Wayne, back from the dead. That's the problem—could have been anybody and everybody. Could have been somebody who saw her dance a few times, creeped her out because he touched her ankle once or something, then grabbed her in the parking lot. A total stranger."
"But you don't think so?"
Gage shook his head. "There was nine months between that meeting in the strip club and when she showed up on the beach. Something more complicated happened than a stranger raping her and tossing her off the bluffs. There was also the message left for me."
"There are other girls," Alex said, nodding. "I've seen and heard a lot of creepy stuff, but that's right up there. Any idea who wrote it?"
Gage wadded up the paper bag and leaned over the counter, tossing it in the wastebasket. "If I knew that, you think I'd be here with you, adding to my waistline?"
"Okay, okay. Just wondering if you had suspects."
"Half the town," Gage replied. "If I could find that person, I'm pretty sure I could crack this wide open. How somebody had time to lay all those stones without being seen is beyond me."
"If this was an episode of CSI, we'd bring our crack investigative team and they'd find human hairs on your driveway and match it with DNA in some database."
Gage nodded. "Who needs CSI? Sherlock Holmes didn't have any of that fancy equipment, and he could solve a case just by noticing the color of mud on someone's boots."
"We've had this conversation before, haven't we?"
"How long has that CSI show been on?"
* * *
The Inn at Sapphire Head was just around the next bend, but Gage was still twenty minutes late meeting Carmen and Becky Larson.
It was the poshest hotel in town, with a dozen stories and a hundred rooms all nestled into one of the steep cliffs that gave Barnacle Bluffs its name, each one with a stunning ocean view. In addition to the award-winning restaurant and the twenty acres of professional-caliber golf course, the hotel also contained an Olympic-sized indoor pool, spacious meeting rooms, and impeccable catering that attracted conferences related to everything from the American Dental Association to National Kite Flyers Club. The oceanside view of the hotel had graced the cover of Architectural Digest twice.
Gage knew all this because he'd read it in the in-room binder the one time he'd stayed there, when he'd flown out from New York to close the deal on his house. It was one of the few times in his life he'd decided to treat himself; afterwards, he'd decided the experience didn't suit him. He just wasn't a 'treating himself' sort of guy, regardless of the circumstances.
He flipped his keys to the valet, a scrawny Asian kid who wrinkled his nose at Gage's van. Five minutes later, Gage limped his way to Room 223. Becky answered and directed him to the rattan love-seat, where Carmen was sitting with a notebook in hand and a digital audio recorder beaming its red light from its place on the glass coffee table. On the deck, John slouched on one of the white lawn chairs, smoking a cigarette in the purple twilight.
"Took you long enough," Carmen said. She wore a two-button navy blue jacket, matching pants, and brown sandals.
"Sorry," Gage said, "forgot I was having my legs waxed."
Only Becky laughed. It was the kind of too-hearty laugh of someone especially nervous. Carmen, sitting on the loveseat, scooted over to make room. Gage navigated his way toward her, but the tight space between the coffee table and the wooden arms of the loveseat made for tough maneuvering, and his cane came down on her foot. She let out a yelp that would have woken a coma patient, and in his surprise he stumbled into her. Making matters worse, he found that his hand was cupping one of her breasts.
"Well," she whispered into his ear, both of them cheek to cheek, "you certainly know how to make your intentions known."
"Sorry," he said, climbing off her. It wasn't all that easy. He got his hand off her breast right away, but it required him to put all his weight on his left, which meant he had to make a herculean effort to propel himself off that one arm to the other side of the couch. Which he managed to do, barely.
All the while, Becky was giggling. In other circumstances, her reaction might have annoyed him, but he was glad to have somewhere else to focus his attention. What was annoying was that his brilliant move was the one thing that finally caught John Larson's attention, who was staring at Gage through the glass like he might gape at a monkey in a zoo.
"Well, really," Gage said, with mock seriousness, "you do understand that it's not at all kosher to make fun of a cripple. Especially today, on Disabled Person Day."
Becky's face sobered. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't know—"
"He's joking, dear," Carmen said. "He's just trying to cover for the fact that he went to all that effort just to cop a feel. And there's no such thing as Disabled Person Day."
"I can't help it if you put your chest where I'm falling," Gage said.
"Mmm, I'm sure," Carmen said. She turned to Becky. "Now that we've got that little business taken care of, can we talk about your daughter? Don't bother explaining anything to him. I'll fill him in later."
They talked for over an hour. In the end, Gage wasn't sure how much "filling in" there would be, because it was obvious Becky didn't know this girl who'd lived under their roof for a couple of years very well. What he did learn was really just an elaboration of what he already knew—that she loved art, that she hung out with too many guys, and that she walked around with a lot of anger.
Gage kept trying to nudge Becky into revealing something about John that she might be hiding, but either there was nothing there or she'd done such a good job of hiding it from herself that even she wasn't aware of his true nature. At one point he bluntly asked if John had ever had an affair, or if she suspected he'd had one, thinking this would break through her walls, but even that didn't faze
her. She said he'd never do that, that he had many faults but he'd always been loyal to her.
When they finished, Gage and Carmen walked out together. Once they were safely ensconced in the elevator, only the two of them, he said, "Sorry about that in there. I really am a damn klutz."
"It's okay," she said. "In fact, I think it's the most action I've gotten since moving to Barnacle Bluffs."
"Come on, be serious."
"I am," she said. When he didn't say anything, the amusement drained from her face, and she said quickly, "Well, what did you think about our little interview?"
"Was there anything I missed?"
"Nope."
"Well, it's like they had a stranger living in the house."
"My take, too," she said. "You pick up anything that makes you think more about John as a suspect?"
"Still not ruling him out, but I wouldn't place money on it at this point."
In the confined space, it was hard to ignore the jasmine scent of her perfume, or the way she had curled her blonde hair behind her ear. She glanced at him, and there was a shared look, an awareness of their proximity and their mutual attraction. He found himself staring at her lips. The doors opened and they walked past the fountain and over the ceramic tiles to the covered drive. He was aware of the way her body moved inside her clothes, the way her breasts swayed gently inside her jacket. They handed the two valets their keys the kids scurried to retrieve their cars.
The sky was black, the mist in the air wetting their faces. Under the pale yellow lights, he watched how the moisture glistened on her cheeks.
"Well," he said, "let me know if you find out anything else."
"Likewise," she said. And then, after a moment, she added, "Aren't you forgetting something?"
He looked at her.
"We have a date tonight," she explained.
"Oh, right."
"Well, gee, that reaction just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."
"Sorry. I've just been focusing so much on this case—"
"It's okay. We're still on, though, right?"
He saw that look again, the vulnerability. She put up a tough front, but she wasn't fooling him. She was someone who bruised easily, who obsessed about little things, who worried and fretted and wrapped all that anxiety in the useful but burdensome cloak of modern womanhood. She had to be strong. She had to be tough. In her line of work she spent a lot of time swimming with the sharks, after all, and weakness was not allowed. But it was there in the eyes. There was never any hiding it from the eyes.
The Gray and Guilty Sea Page 15
