U Is for Undertow

by Sue Grafton

  Albert Climping had grown up in poverty with no education to speak of, but he was smart, he was an avid reader, and he had an uncanny understanding of the land. The sweeping views from his hilltop property were astonishing. The Pacific Ocean was visible to the south and the mountains loomed to the north, with the city of Santa Teresa spreading out between the two. During drought years, Climping’s acreage was always green, supported by an irrigation system that also allowed him to maintain orchards and vegetable gardens sufficient to sustain him. While his perspicacity was undisputed, his humble origins remained a fatal defect. If Climping thought he could purchase respectability among the carriage trade, he was sorely mistaken. The ladies were prepared to rebuff any overture he might make. Sadly for them, he had no desire to ingratiate himself and they were left with various biting remarks growing sour on their tongues.

  For the next twenty years, he went about his business, entertaining foreign dignitaries and Washington politicians, men who appreciated his financial acumen and his lively sense of humor. When he died, a charter school was established out of his estate. Climping Academy was richly endowed, and from the day the doors opened, the well-to-do parents in Horton Ravine clambered to enroll their kids. Over the years, with the blessings of the city, additional sandstone-clad buildings were erected, all in the same imposing architectural style, which set the school apart from, and above, its competitors.

  I pulled into the gravel motor court and found a parking space in an area screened by boxwood hedges. I locked my car and walked around to the front entrance, where I climbed a flight of low stone steps and entered the main building. While the grand architectural elements were still in evidence, the interior had been updated and furnished with all the modern conveniences. I paused to read the school’s mission statement, which had been framed and hung just inside the doorway. In support of its claims of scholastic excellence, the school boasted that one hundred percent of Climping graduates went on to college. I had to read that line twice. One hundred percent? Well, shit. Maybe if I’d attended Climp, I wouldn’t have wasted my education smoking dope with a tatty bunch of ne’er-do-wells at the public high school.

  A class bell rang and students began to spill out into the corridor. I stood and watched them passing in twos and threes. I did envy them, but I could feel an old prejudice rising to the surface. I wanted to believe the offspring of the rich were snooty and spoiled, but such was not the case. These kids were friendly, well behaved, and conservatively dressed, no flip-flops, no cutoffs, and no T-shirts imprinted with offensive expletives. Some actually smiled at me and a few said hi. They were disconcertingly nice.

  On the other hand, why wouldn’t they be nice when they sailed through the world with all the advantages? Behind closed doors, they were probably subject to the same miseries as everyone else, parents whose alcoholism, financial scandals, divorces, and emotional shenanigans left them as vulnerable as the children of the middle class and the poor. Money couldn’t possibly protect them from all of life’s woes. On the other hand of my first other hand, whatever their problems, whether inherited or self-generated, their parents could at least afford the best doctors, the best lawyers, and the most exclusive rehabilitation facilities.

  I beckoned to a passing student. “Excuse me. Can you tell me where I can find the library?”

  She was a good-sized girl, built like an athlete with a sturdy set of bones. Her dark hair was straight and sleek, pulled into a complicated knot at the nape of her neck. When she smiled, her braces gleamed. “Sure. I’m headed in that direction anyway.”

  “Thanks.”

  We walked the length of the corridor and turned right. She left me in the hall outside the library while she continued to her next class.

  The room I entered must have been the mansion’s original library. Shelves of books extended from floor to ceiling on all four walls with a movable platform ladder resting against a brass rail. The panes in the leaded-glass windows were marked by imperfections, lending a shimmering effect to all the outside views. Two groups of students sat in dark green leather chairs arranged around refectory tables. The students were quiet and there wasn’t much activity except for the turning of pages and the scribbling of pens.

  The librarian was seated at a desk under one of the windows. The name plaque in front of her read LORI CAVALLERO, HEAD LIBRARIAN. She looked up at me expectantly. She set her pen aside, got up, and crossed the room, walking on the balls of her feet to minimize the sound. She appeared to be in her late forties, her dark hair a long, careless tumble around her face. Her mouth was bracketed with deep lines and a faint frowning V was sketched between her eyes. She wore a long brown knit dress over boots, her sleeves pushed up to her elbows.

  “Are you Ms. Cavallero?”

  She smiled. “Yes.”

  “I’m Kinsey,” I said with a smile to match hers. “I was wondering if I might take a peek at the 1967 yearbook. I’m trying to track down an old friend.”

  “Of course. We keep the yearbooks in the other room. You want to follow me?”

  “Great,” I said. I couldn’t believe another closely held conviction was taking a hit. Now it turned out the faculty and staff were as nice as the kids. What was Sutton’s problem?

  She moved to a door on our left and ushered me into the room. “This was Albert Climping’s study,” she said. She gave me a moment to appreciate the room and its furnishings. The study was smaller than the library and beautifully proportioned, with a spiral staircase taking up one corner. I counted twenty built-in file drawers, each labeled with old-fashioned cursive on white cards slipped into brass frames. I could see wide, shallow drawers that I imagined held maps or documents intended to be stored flat. A massive desk took up the center of the room, resting on an Oriental carpet in muted browns and blues. A big stone fireplace with an impressive carved mantel was centered in the wall across from the door. On the far wall there was a second carved wooden door, probably leading to the hall beyond. The remaining wall was paneled in mahogany. The oil portraits that hung in the open spaces between bookshelves were darkened with age and suggested successive generations of severe Christian gentlemen and their long-suffering mates.

  “Wow,” I said, in all sincerity. From my perspective, the prime item of interest was the spiffy-looking copy machine I’d spotted just inside the door.

  “The yearbooks are on the bottom shelf,” she said. “I’ll be in the other room if you need anything else.”

  “Thanks.”

  She moved into the larger room and closed the door.

  And just like that, I was given access to the information I thought would require a mandate from the California State Senate. I dropped my shoulder bag near the copy machine and crossed to the shelves where the yearbooks were lined up. The 1967 edition was there and I toted it with me, riffling through pages while I activated the On button and waited for the machine to warm up. The first twenty-five-plus pages were devoted to the graduating seniors, half-page color head shots with a column beside each photograph, indicating countless awards, honors, offices, interests. The juniors occupied the next fifteen pages, smaller photographs in blocks of four.

  I flipped over to the last few pages, where I found the lower school, which included kindergarten through fourth grade. There were three sections for each grade, fifteen students per section. The little girls wore soft red-and-gray plaid jumpers over white shirts. The boys wore dark pants and white shirts with red sweater vests. By the time these kids reached the upper school, the uniforms would be gone, but the wholesome look would remain.

  I turned the pages until I found the kindergartners. I checked the names listed in small print under each photograph. Michael Sutton was in the third grouping, front row, second from the right. His eyes were big and brown and worried even then. Most of his classmates towered over him. His teacher’s name was Louise Sudbury. I looked for the two other Michaels, Boorman and Trautwein. Michael Boorman was a towhead, a goofy grin showing a blank where his two
front teeth had been. Michael Trautwein was heavyset with a round face and a crown of dark curly hair. All the boys wore shoes that were comically large compared to their bony little six-year-old legs.

  The copy machine wasn’t old but it was slow. Nonetheless, my visit to the library and my return to the parking area, photocopies in hand, were accomplished in a snappy fifteen minutes. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Things seldom went this swimmingly for me, which should have been a clue.

  5

  The home address Sutton had given me was 2145 Hermosa Street, on the west side of town. His was a neighborhood of condominiums and single-family residences, many of which were rentals. The houses tended to be small and plain, with stucco exteriors and shallow-pitched asphalt roofs. Frame bungalows were tucked between two-story apartment complexes devoid of architectural interest. Mature trees towered over the tenth-of-an-acre lots on which they’d been planted, suggesting a lack of vision on the part of those first owners, who’d apparently failed to recognize that after forty-five years of California rain and sun, a red gum sapling or a two-foot spruce would dominate the front yard and dwarf the modest house it was meant to ornament.

  I slowed, scanning the progression of house numbers on a stretch of pinched-looking, one-story board-and-batten cottages. The exterior of 2145 Hermosa was painted a gaudy yellow, the window frames and trim outlined in royal blue. The effect was not as cheerful as one might hope. The strong hues only emphasized the cheap construction and the sad state of disrepair. Above the small covered porch, a square window suggested habitable attic space, which would be unbearably hot and stuffy in the summer months and cold and damp at any other time of year. To the right of the wooden porch steps, a mass of pink snowball bushes obscured one of the two front windows. To the left, the thorny paddles of a prickly pear cactus had fanned out in a configuration that rendered the narrow side yard impassable.

  I found a parking place, locked my car, and walked back to the house. Ordinarily, locking my car was more cautionary than critical, but not in this area. Hermosa came to a dead end at the 101, which was visible through a bare patch of wire fence that was otherwise blocked by weeds. Freeway traffic kicked up a buffeting wind, accompanied by an eddy of exhaust fumes. Trash had been sucked up against the fence where the rush of passing cars created a vacuum. How did a kid raised in Horton Ravine end up in a neighborhood as crummy as this? When Climping Academy boasted about entire graduating classes going on to college, there wasn’t any mention of what came afterward. I’d always imagined a high-toned education guaranteed an equivalent high-toned lifestyle, but I lived better than this guy and what was that about?

  I went up the porch steps and knocked on the screen, turning to continue my visual survey while I waited. The two houses directly across the street from Sutton’s had been torn down and someone had taken advantage of the empty double lot to offer off-street parking for ten bucks a week. This was enterprising as parking at the curb was free. Every house I saw had iron grillwork secured across the windows to deter the burglars, who probably had the good sense to burgle the pricier houses in town.

  When I heard the front door open, I turned. Sutton stood behind the screen, wearing the same shirt and tie I’d seen him in the day before. His dark brown eyes conveyed the usual unspeakable gloom. He said, “Oh, hi. I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

  “Sorry to stop by unannounced, but there’s something I want you to take a look at.”

  “I was just on my way out. I have a doctor’s appointment.”

  “This won’t take long. A minute tops.”

  By way of a reply, he held open the screen door. I crossed the threshold and stepped into his front room. The light was muted, filtered through the pink hydrangea blooms that crowded against the window glass. The air smelled of bacon, scorched coffee, spilled beer, cigarettes, and dog hair. A golden retriever lumbered to its feet to greet me, long tail banging against an overstuffed chair. The room was too small to accommodate an animal that size. Dogs need a yard to wander in and a shady spot where they can curl up and snooze. A retriever might also appreciate the opportunity to actually retrieve something, like a ball or a stick. I’ve never even owned a dog and I knew that much.

  There was a rail-thin girl stretched out on the sofa in shorts and a tank top, bra visible through the fabric. Her bare legs were thrown over the arm of the couch, treating me to a view of the blackened soles of her feet. She was pretty in a pouty sort of way. Her dark hair was long and her eyes were lined and smudged with kohl. She wore flashy dangle earrings that sparkled when she moved her head. A full ashtray rested within reach, but happily for me, she wasn’t smoking just then. There were three beer cans on the coffee table, two of them empty and lying on their sides. Languidly she extended her hand, picked up the third can, and took a long swallow before she put it back again. I could see a series of overlapping circles on the tabletop where she’d placed the can. If I counted rings, I could re-create the timeline of her alcohol consumption.

  Expressionless, she snapped her fingers and the dog crossed the room and settled on the floor close by. I looked at Sutton, anticipating an introduction, but none was forthcoming. I’m reluctant to discuss a client’s business in front of someone else, especially in a circumstance like this when I had no clear sense of their relationship. I wasn’t sure what he’d told her or how much I was at liberty to reveal.

  Sutton said, “So what’s up?”

  I glanced at the girl. “Would you prefer to talk on the porch?”

  “This is fine. She’s cool.”

  I opened the flap on my shoulder bag and removed the pages I’d photocopied, handing them to him. “Take a look at these and see if you spot the kid whose house you visited.”

  He stared at the photographs, holding them close to his face. I watched his attention shift from face to face. He pointed and said, “That kid.”

  I peered over his shoulder. “Which one?”

  “Him. I remember now.” He indicated a kindergartner in the middle of the top row. A thatch of dark hair, receding chin, ears that protruded like the handles of a jug.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. His name’s Billie Kirkendall. I hadn’t thought of him in years. His dad embezzled all this money, but it didn’t come to light until the family left town. Overnight, they were gone. It was like this big disgrace. Does this help?”

  “Absolutely. The address won’t be hard to find unless Kirkendall was his bio-dad and the couple got divorced. If his mother remarried, we’d have no way of knowing who his stepfather was.”

  “Boorman would know. He was always good at stuff like that. He’s the one who organizes our reunions. Not that I go,” he added in haste. He checked his watch. “I have to run.” He held up the picture. “Can I keep this?”

  “I’ll make a copy for my files and get it back to you.”

  Sutton returned the photograph and picked up his car keys. The girl on the couch watched us, but Sutton didn’t say a word to her. I trailed out the door after him and we trotted down the steps together.

  I said, “Give me a call when you’re free and we’ll pay a visit to the Kirkendall property. Maybe you’ll find the spot you were talking about.”

  “I’ll be home in an hour and a half. I can call your office then.”

  “Good,” I said. “Mind if I ask about the girl in there?”

  “That’s Madaline. She was a heroin addict, but now she’s clean. She needed a place to crash.”

  “And the dog?”

  “She belongs to Madaline. Her name’s Goldie Hawn.”

  We parted company with the usual insignificant pleasantries. Sutton turned to the left, angling up the driveway to the point where his car was parked, while I turned in the opposite direction. Once in the Mustang, I fired up the engine and waited until Sutton passed in his car before I pulled out. He drove a banged-up turquoise MG that dated probably from his high school days.

  As long as I was downtown, I covered the seve
n blocks to Chapel, where I hung a left and drove eight blocks up, then crossed State Street and took a right onto Anaconda. Half a block later, I turned into the entrance of the parking facility adjacent to the public library. I waited by the machine until the time-stamped parking voucher slid into my hand and then cruised up three levels until I found a slot. The elevator was too slow to bother with so I crossed to the stairwell and walked down. I emerged from the parking structure, crossed the entrance lane, and went into the library.

  The reference department was directly ahead. The wall-to-wall carpet was a dusty rose with a muted pattern of teal green dots. The chairs were upholstered in the same teal green. Light flooded in through six tall arched windows on the far wall. Most of the tables were empty except for a lone man playing himself in a game of chess. In the fiction department to my left, an assistant librarian shelved novels from a cart piled high with books. At the nearest empty table, I set my shoulder bag on one of six empty chairs.

  On the wall to my immediate right, the floor-to-ceiling shelves were lined with telephone directories for numerous California cities and towns. The shelves below were filled with additional phone books from assorted cities across the country. I circled the periphery in search of the Polk directory, the Haines, and the six decades’ worth of Santa Teresa city directories that I knew were housed nearby.