Time and Trouble

by Gillian Roberts

  He deliberated for a while, his daughter studying his face the entire time. Then he shook his head. “I don’t think their paths crossed. Sorry.”

  So was Billie. She tried to think of what she’d learned. Surely there was a nugget of information there, but if there was, she couldn’t detect it.

  *

  Sally O’Neall answered the door with a tissue in one hand and welcomed Billie with the desperate joy of a woman who’d been talking to children for too long. “Stayed home today. Feel like shit,” she said. “I won’t breathe at you, I promise. Come in, if you can stand chaos.” Her children, a boy of around three and a girl who looked eight were mashing ground beef and mashed potatoes on their plates, asking, “Do I have to eat it all?” with whiny regularity, and when their mother’s back was turned, transferring the unwanted edibles to a dog who sat below the table.

  Sally’s counter held several open containers—of tissues, jumbo-sized graham crackers, plastic-wrapped sliced bread, open, peanut butter jar, and bottle of brandy. Theirs and hers. There was also a fan of unopened mail, most of which had the glassine windows of bills. Dishes and pans soaked in the sink.

  “I am not generally quite this much of a slob,” she said. “But then, I am not generally here all day. Join me?” she asked Billie as she poured brandy. “Helps the coughing, I swear. Breaks something up. Maybe consciousness.”

  “Thanks, but—”

  “Not on the job, eh?” Sally said, producing a small thrill of professionalism in Billie’s solar plexus.

  “But as soon as I get home,” Billie said. Not necessarily true, but kinship established. I’m sure as hell not going to quarrel with whatever gets you through the days.

  “Good going,” Sally told her children. The girl was pale and hostile-looking, her features thick and her expression sour, a face and a stage that only a mother could love. “You did a great job and nearly cleaned your plates.” She offered them a special treat—watching a video. The girl, of course, sneered at the choice, then gave in sullenly. Maybe she was getting her teens over early.

  “The dog’s obese,” Sally said when the children were upstairs. She settled into an easy chair in the cluttered living room. “I should banish her to the yard during meals, but I figure they aren’t starving to death and it gives them pleasure to think they’re putting one over on me. Anyway, I have to confess something. You’re my first grown-up all day, or I would have told you right away that I don’t think I can help. I don’t know much about Penny. I mean, I checked references and all. She’s a sweet-enough girl, and smart, too. And good with the kids. I told her I thought she should consider teaching young ones. She has a special talent. If you’d see her with her little brother, you’d know what I mean. She had to bring him along one time, and I was touched by their relationship. Mine never stop bickering.

  “But there was something sad about her, too. Some…wistfulness. I’d look at her and actually feel it, catch the sadness, if that doesn’t sound too ridiculous.”

  “She never gave you a clue as to why?”

  Sally shook her head. “I feel really bad about it now. Maybe there was something I should have asked. I…If I say I’m hanging on by the skin of my fingernails, that doesn’t justify it, but maybe explains it. I don’t want to sound whiny, just honest, okay? I didn’t want one more set of problems—or one more kid. And she seemed needy as hell, ripe to latch on to any sympathetic soul. Oh, God, I sound like a creep!”

  How wide could anyone throw the net of concern? Did Sally, too, wake up near dawn in a sweat, worrying what would happen if she slowed down to take a breath?

  “I feel incredibly guilty now that she’s run away. I knew something wasn’t right.” Sally put her juice glass of brandy on the end table. “I didn’t mean to become a person who’d let a girl go under for the third time because it was easier.”

  “Don’t take it on yourself. She didn’t tell anybody anything, and your plate’s already overfull. But here’s an easy one—how did she get home after sitting for you?”

  Sally smiled. “Mostly, she rode her bike over and back, or walked. We don’t live that far and I wasn’t hiring her to go out dancing or on a date. The men are not exactly lined up out there for me, the kids and the dog. Besides, I’m too tired and too broke. I always feel like a pariah saying that in Marin. End of the rainbow, wealthiest county in the galaxy, or whatever. I feel like the Ancient Mariner—water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Only it’s money, money everywhere…except in my house.”

  “Trust me, I understand.” There were a lot more people like them than anyone wanted to admit. The men who waited for jobs along the freeway exit. The leftovers from divorces.

  “I hired Penny about five times in as many months when I thought I’d go crazy if I couldn’t be by myself for a few hours.” She held up her right hand and ticked off fingers. “Once, I went to an afternoon movie. Once, to a masseuse—a birthday gift from the women I work with. Once, I hiked on Mount Tam, once I sat on a bench at the transportation center where the bus lines stop. All I wanted to do was watch other people need to get somewhere while I didn’t. And once I drove up to Napa, then turned around and drove back. And there you have it—my social life. Except for forays into court, trying to get my husband to pay his share of their support. I think Penny was here one time while I did that, too.”

  “Listen,” Billie said. “I really do understand.”

  “So I’m sorry,” Sally said. “For you, too. In any case, I’m useless.”

  “Nobody picked her up after she was here, then. No boyfriends mentioned?”

  Sally shook her head. Upstairs, the video provided a steady background of screams and metallic crashes. At least, Billie hoped it was on tape, and not live.

  Not too long after, Billie made her farewells. She liked this woman, knew they could be friends if either had a spare minute or emotion. Billie left her card. “Call me if you think of anything,” she said. “And good luck. See you, I hope.”

  Not quite a Sam Spade interview, but what the hell. Maybe the next would be different.

  The Feldspars had found a replacement for the missing Penelope Redmond, a prudent girl who refused to open the door to Billie, but spoke briskly and with finality through the intercom. And all she would offer was, “Go away.”

  Only one more on the list. Billie thought about how bad things came in threes. Catastrophes. Strikes. Information-challenged interviews. She’d had four. Did that mean she was on to her second disastrous set of three?

  “Please,” she said prayerfully, and left it at that.

  Fourteen

  She’d saved the least promising for last.

  Sunny Marshall lived next door to the Redmonds, too close for Penny to keep secrets there, and too close for the mystery man to have driven Penny home after a job.

  Billie retrieved the Independent Journal from where the paperboy had tossed it and carried it to the front door as a pass.

  “Come in,” Sunny said after Billie had identified herself.

  Billie was surprised to feel an unpleasant sense of familiarity. Where had they crossed paths before?

  Or was it only her imagination? Sunny, who could not have been friendlier or more at ease, showed no sign of recognition. She led Billie to the back of the house, the kitchen, explaining that her children were “at the trough” and she hoped Billie would understand.

  I don’t like her, Billie thought. Beyond that, nothing was forthcoming.

  Sunny Marshall’s house looked designed and furnished for elegant comfort. It was twice the size of its next-door neighbor, the Redmonds and with more lavish materials—what looked like rich and long-gone virgin redwood, windows etched with peacocks, French doors leading to deep porches, plump, pillowy sofas and chairs in glowing colors. A dream house, if Billie allowed even her dreams to wander this far from possibility.

  The kitchen was—because of her name?—sunshine yellow. It was also filled with the noise of two-year-old twin boys, and an o
lder child—four, Sunny said—plus high-pitched squeals and shouts issuing from a TV built into the wall. The counters were clear except for a vase of daisies. Out of season, but real, Billie verified by a quick and surreptitious touch.

  “Sophia said you might stop by,” Sunny said. “I’m making coffee; care for any? Peet’s Decaf Sumatra.”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine.” Billie wondered if male PIs were offered libations at each stop.

  “Harley’s at a fund-raiser,” Sunny said. “People think he only works two, three hours because that’s all they hear him on the radio, but aside from all the preparation for the show itself, there are all these charitable and civic events the station expects him to attend. I try to go along, but since Penny’s gone, I’m having a hard time finding somebody willing to put up with these monsters”—she smiled indulgently at her children as she said the word—“at the cranky time of day. Somebody as good as Penny was.”

  Her laugh was a silver-gold sound, and again Billie felt the shiver of dislike, of familiarity that had bred contempt. “I wanted children just as soon as I was married, and I got my wish—but I forgot to say I expected them one by one. Three under four terrifies even the agency sitters. Takes a strong teen—who needs money—to tackle my gang.”

  Billie smiled tolerant acknowledgment of sitters and babies and anything else. “Your husband has a radio show?” she asked. Harley Marshall. Billie couldn’t place the name, not that she was a connoisseur of the airwaves, and definitely not of DJs.

  “I must sound arrogant!” Sunny put her hand to her mouth. “As if everybody should know that! Truth is, nobody uses his name. He’s called the Talkman.”

  “Oh, of course.” That’s right. They’d found him. His real name. But there was no justice on earth, if this was the lair and refuge of the expansive-voiced, narrow-minded Talkman.

  Sunny invited Billie to join them, the twins in their high chairs, the four-year-old in a booster seat and herself at the white kitchen table to which she brought a tray carrying her cup, a china coffeepot, a small pitcher of milk, a sugar bowl, a white ceramic oblong that held artificial sweetener, two yellow-and-white homespun napkins, and a second cup: “In case you change your mind,” she said.

  The twins, busy twining strands of spaghetti into their mouths and hair, stared at the novelty of her. Their faces were splotched with tomato sauce, making them look like disaster victims. Their older sibling—Billie could not tell if the androgynous figure with the bangs was female or male—stared at the TV and swung its foot, kicking the table with each bump. Cups rattled, but Sunny said only, “What would you like to know?” And that was directed at Billie.

  “Anything that might help me find her. What she was interested in lately, who she saw, hung around with. Whatever seemed unusual, or that didn’t fit what you knew of her.” She waited to once again be told that the lady of the house hadn’t noticed much of anything, ever, let alone that which might be unusual.

  Sunny shrugged. “She didn’t confide in me much. You know how kids are about anybody with three kids. I’m just the old married lady next door.” She laughed, showing beautiful even teeth, radiating a joyful self-confidence that came only to those who were adored since birth. Why would she be with Talkman, unless his sexist messages were a lucrative persona, nothing more. And why Billie’s lingering sense that she knew this likable woman and didn’t like her?

  “I was part of Penny’s college fund and not much more,” Sunny added, “which is how it should be, don’t you think? Teenagers can’t waste time noticing adults or they’d never get there themselves. She was fond of the children, though, and that’s what mattered.”

  “Did you think she’d changed lately?”

  “In what way?”

  “Did she seem depressed? Withdrawn? Worried about something?”

  Sunny leaned back in her chair and smiled. “Not at all.”

  Perky people don’t recognize angst when they fall over it. Billie should have known she’d answer that way.

  “Penny’s an even-tempered girl,” Sunny said. “That’s what makes her wonderful with my boys. I’m not saying she doesn’t have mood swings. What teenager doesn’t? But I actually thought she was happier lately.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, she didn’t tell me this outright, mind you, but I think she had a crush. At long last. She was too much of a loner before, if you ask me. And this one wasn’t one of those woe-is-me things.” She waved her hand, as if to shoo away the very idea of such negative emotions.

  “This is recently?”

  Sunny nodded. “I think one reason she didn’t date much was because her parents didn’t let her be a kid. Off the record, they behaved as if Wesley were her responsibility. It’s to my advantage, because she’s so good with kids, but I don’t know how good it was for Penny. She’s such a serious girl. All she used to think about was her schoolwork, and I’m not saying it’s good to let your studies slide, but all of a sudden, she didn’t seem as intense about it, which seems to me healthier. She stopped arriving here with ten textbooks and lined tablets asking if she could use the computer. After the boys were asleep, she’d watch TV, relax a little instead.”

  Billie was less than convinced that Penny’s changed interests signaled happiness. Her symptoms sounded more like lethargy, an inability to focus or concentrate, closer to clinical depression than lovesickness. But such interpretations wouldn’t be in Sunny’s smiley-faced data bank.

  “Love does that to people, you know?” Sunny said. “Always did it to me at her age! Oh, how Mom complained about that vacant air, the daydreaming.”

  “Did she talk about the object of her affection? Mention his name?” With difficulty, Billie kept her voice low. Otherwise it was apt to escalate into a begging, desperate shriek. Please, you have to know his name!

  “’Fraid not. All of this is speculation. It’s not as if she said anything. Only one time when she was here, for some reason, I was looking out the front window when she left, and I realized she wasn’t walking home. It registered on my memory because it was weird. I mean she lives directly behind that hedge, but there she was, waiting out front, and a car pulled up.” She allowed a momentary combination of distaste and confusion to play across her features before she continued. “I say a car, but not a normal one. It was grotesquely large and old. And,” she tapped a nail against the wall. “This color.” She shook her head. “It’s a nice color for a kitchen, I think, but a car?”

  “Penny ever mention this driver’s name? A name?”

  Sunny looked downhearted. “I don’t think so. As if I of all people would be against romance! And why else not talk about him? Golly, she knew about my whirlwind courtship. I knew Harley for two months—ten weeks, to be precise—when we married. I happen to think if you know it’s right, you know it’s right.”

  She poured herself more coffee, looked inquiringly at Billie, then sipped before she spoke. “She asked me whether I believed in love at first sight, and I said I did. I do, ’cause it happened to me. I was working at the station when Harley came to check it out. One look and I was a goner. He moved here from Vegas six weeks later, and we were married a month after that.” She rolled her eyes. “My mother nearly had a fit! Making a genuine wedding in that timespan.” She smiled at Billie, sharing her happiness.

  Billie smiled back.

  “I hope I wasn’t a bad influence,” Sunny said. “Gadzooks, I wasn’t giving advice! Heaven’s sake, I immediately became pregnant, with Jory there. I hope she doesn’t adopt that idea, too!”

  Billie wrote out notes while she thought of her ex-husband’s immediate, irresistible chemistry, and how wrong that powerful sense of “right” could be. “Then the name Stewart doesn’t ring any bells?” she asked.

  Sunny shook her head. Her smartly cut hair was a strawberry-blonde that did not, but should, exist in nature. It blended with her surroundings, finding its place in her household spectrum between the yellow walls and the polished copper of the h
anging pots.

  “I mentioned the mysterious chauffeur when she came to sit the next time.” Sunny reached over to one of her sons who was attempting to fill a nostril with compressed bread.

  “And what did she say?”

  “Not much, but she smiled. That’s why I was sure she liked the driver. And then she showed me this heart she was wearing which to me means he gave it to her. Why else would she follow up mention of the driver by showing it to me?” All the time she spoke, she fussed with her boys, cleaning the bread-stuffer’s face, spooning spaghetti into another’s mouth, grabbing a cup of milk before it tipped over.

  “Plus,” she continued as she mopped milk droplets that had made it over the rim, “another reason I thought she must be in love because the thing she was wearing wasn’t really…it was sweet, of course. A heart with a design etched in it. But to tell the truth, it was worn. Some of the plating was worn off. Kind of an odd treasure, so I thought it had to have sentimental meaning, because it certainly wasn’t valuable. I fussed over it, of course. Wanted her to feel good about it, about this secret love of hers. I told her about a similar heart I had and how I’d loved it. Of course, mine was personal—it had my initials. Hers just had a design, and that worn spot.

  “Penny’s family isn’t rich, but she’s grown up with nice things so I think its importance to Penny was as a token of somebody’s love. The only value it could have would be emotional.”

  Finished with the children’s toilettes for the moment, Sunny now smoothed the I.J. on the table in front of her, pressing it flat as she spoke to and watched Billie and her sons. Billie watched the unconscious motions, wishing she had some of that instinctive tidiness hardwired in her own brain.

  “Do I sound like I’m making fun of Penny’s charm?” Sunny’s expression darkened. She looked overly concerned. “I don’t mean to.”

  “No,” Billie said. “I understand what you’re trying to say. Not at all.”

  Sunny pursed her lips, still visibly irritated with herself. “I was a lucky child. I grew up with more than my share and sometimes I think—I’ve tried not to be like my mother that way, but I sounded like her just now.”