“I don’t know if Tannie mentioned this, but Dad thinks she was having an affair and the two of them ran off.”
“An affair. Based on what?”
“Based on her past behavior. My mother was wild…at least that’s what everybody says.”
“Assuming there’s a guy, do you have any idea who?”
“No, but she did have enough money tucked away to support herself. For a while, at any rate.”
“How much?”
“That’s a subject of debate. She claimed fifty thousand dollars, but that was never verified.”
“Where’d she get that kind of money?”
“From an insurance settlement. As I understand it, there was a problem when I was born. I guess the doctor botched the delivery, and she had to have an emergency hysterectomy. She hired a lawyer and sued. Whatever she collected, she signed a confidentiality clause promising she wouldn’t disclose the details.”
“Clearly, she did.”
“Well, yes, but nobody believed her. She did keep something in a safe-deposit box she rented in a bank down here and she emptied that the week she left. She also took the Chevy my dad bought her the day before.”
“Tannie says there’s been no sign of that either.”
“Exactly. It’s like she and the car were both vaporized.”
“How old was she when she disappeared?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Which would make her what, now, fifty-eight or so?”
“That’s right.”
“How long were your parents married?”
“Eight years.”
I may be lousy at math, but I picked up on that. “So she was sixteen when she married him.”
“Fifteen. She was sixteen when I was born.”
“How old was he?”
“Nineteen. They had to. She was pregnant with me.”
“I could have guessed that.” I studied her face. “Tannie tells me people in Serena Station think he killed her.”
Daisy flicked a look at Tannie, who said, “Daisy, it’s the truth. You have to level with her.”
“I know, but it’s hard to talk about this stuff, especially when he’s not here to tell his side.”
“You can trust me or not. It’s up to you.” I waited a couple of beats and then said, “I’m trying to make a decision here. I can’t operate in a vacuum. I need all the information I can get.”
She colored slightly. “I’m sorry. They had what you’d call a ‘volatile relationship.’ I can remember that myself. Big screaming fights. Slaps. Broken dishes. Doors slamming. Accusations, threats.” She put an index finger in her mouth and began to worry the nail with her teeth. I was getting so tense watching her, I nearly slapped her hand.
“Either of them ever hit you?”
She shook her head with certainty. “I usually stayed in my room till it was over.”
“Did she ever call the cops?”
“Two or three times that I remember, though it was probably more.”
“Let me take a guess. She’d threaten to file charges, but in the end, she’d always back down and the two of them would get all lovey-dovey again.”
“I think someone from the sheriff’s department was working on that. I remember him coming to the house. A deputy in a tan uniform.”
“Trying to talk her into taking action.”
“That’s right. He must have made headway. Somebody told me she’d asked for a restraining order, but there was some kind of screwup and the judge never signed.”
“So given their marital history, after she disappeared, the sheriff’s department talked to your dad because they thought he might’ve had a hand in it.”
“Well, yes, but I don’t believe he’d do that.”
“But what if I find out he did? Then you’ve lost both parents. At least now you’ve got him. Do you want to take that risk?”
Tears formed a bright line of silver along her lower lids. “I have to know.” She put a hand against her mouth to still the trembling. Tears had made her complexion a patchy red, like a sudden case of hives. It took courage to do what she was doing, I had to give her that. Stirring up old dirt. Most people would have been happy to sweep it under the rug.
Tannie pulled a tissue from her jeans pocket and passed it over to her. Daisy took a moment to wipe her eyes and blow her nose, composing herself before she put the tissue away. “Sorry about that.”
“You could have done this years ago. Why now?”
“I started thinking. There are still a few people left who knew her back then, but they’re scattering and a lot of them are dead. If I put it off much longer, they’ll all be gone.”
“Does your dad know what you’re up to?”
“This isn’t about him. It’s about me.”
“But it could affect him nonetheless.”
“That’s a chance I’ll have to take.”
“Because?”
She sat on her hands, putting them under her thighs, either to warm them or to keep them from trembling. “I’m stuck. I can’t get past this. My mother took off when I was seven. Poof. She was gone. I want to know why. I’m entitled to the information. What did I do to deserve that? That’s all I’m asking. If she’s dead, okay. And if it turns out he killed her, then so be it. At least I’ll know it wasn’t about her rejecting me.” Tears welled and she blinked rapidly, willing them away. “Have you ever been abandoned? Do you know how that feels? To think someone just didn’t give a shit about you?”
“I’ve had experience with that,” I replied with care.
“It has been the defining fact of my life,” she said, enunciating every word.
I started to speak, but she cut me off. “I know what you’re going to say. ‘What she did had nothing to do with you.’ You know how many times I’ve heard that? ‘It wasn’t your fault. People do what they do for reasons of their own.’ Well, bullshit. And you want to know the hell of it? She took the dog. A yappy Pomeranian named Baby she hadn’t even had a month.”
I couldn’t think of a response so I kept my mouth shut.
She was silent for a moment. “I can’t have a man in my life because I don’t trust a soul. I’ve been burned more than once and I’m petrified it’s only going to happen again. Do you know how many shrinks I’ve been through? Do you know how much money I’ve spent trying to make my peace? They fire me. Have you ever heard of such a thing? They throw up their hands and claim I won’t do the work. What work? What kind of work can you do around that? It sticks in my craw. Why’d she leave me when she turned around and took the fuckin’ dog?”
3
I met Daisy Sullivan at my office at 9:00 the next morning. Having shown me a glimpse at her rage, she’d retreated into calm. She was pleasant, reasonable, and cooperative. We decided to set a cap on the amount of money she’d pay me. She gave me her personal check for twenty-five hundred dollars, essentially five hundred dollars a day for five days. When we reached that point, we’d see if I’d learned enough to warrant further investigation. This was Tuesday, and Daisy was on her way back to Santa Maria, where she worked in the records department at a medical center. The plan was that I’d follow her in my car, drop it off at her place, and then we’d take hers and head out to the little town of Serena Station, fifteen miles away. I wanted to see the house where the Sullivans were living when her mother was last seen.
Driving north on the 101, I kept an eye on the rear end of Daisy’s 1980 Honda, dusty white with an enormous dent across the trunk. I couldn’t think how she’d done that. It looked like a tree trunk had fallen on her car. She was the kind of driver who stayed close to the berm, her brake lights flashing off and on like winking Christmas bulbs. As I drove, the flaxen hills appeared to approach and recede, the chaparral as dense and scratchy-looking as a new wool blanket. A gray haze of dried grass undulated at the side of the road, whipped by the breeze created by the passing cars. A recent fire had created an artificial autumn, the hillsides as bronze as a sepia photograp
h. Tree leaves were scorched to a papery beige. Shrubs were reduced to black sticks. Tree stubs, like broken pipes, protruded from the ashen earth. Occasionally, only half a tree would be singed, looking as though brown branches had been grafted onto green.
Ahead of me, Daisy activated her turn signal and eased off the highway, taking the 135, which angled north and west. I followed. Idly I picked up the map I’d folded into thirds and laid on the passenger seat. A quick glance showed a widespread smattering of small towns, no more than dots on the landscape: Barker, Freeman, Tullis, Arnaud, Silas, and Cromwell, the latter being the largest, with a population of 6,200. I’m always curious how such communities come into existence. Time permitting, I’d make the rounds so I could see for myself.
Daisy’s house was off Donovan Road to the west of the 135. She pulled into a driveway that ran between two 1970s-era frame-and-stucco houses, mirror images of each other, though hers was painted dark green and the one next door was gray. Against her house, bougainvillea grew from thick vines that climbed as far as the asphalt shingle roof in a tangle of blossoms the shape and color of cooked shrimp. I parked at the curb and got out of my car while she pulled the Honda into the garage and removed her suitcase from the trunk. I stood on the porch and watched her unlock the door.
“Let me get some windows open,” she said as she went in.
I stepped in after her. The house had been closed up for days and the interior felt hot and dry. Daisy moved through the living and dining rooms to the kitchen, opening windows along the way. “The bathroom’s off that hall to the right.”
I said, “Thanks,” and went in search of it, primarily because it gave me the opportunity to peek into other rooms. The floor plan was common to houses of this type. There was an L-shaped living-dining room combination. A galley-style kitchen ran the depth of the house on the left, and on the right, a hallway connected two small bedrooms with a bathroom in between. The place was clean but leaned toward shabby.
I closed the bathroom door and availed myself of the facilities—a polite way of saying that I peed. The tile in the bathroom was dark maroon, the counter edged with a two-inch beige bullnose. The toilet was the same deep maroon. Daisy’s robe hung on the back of the door, a silky Japanese kimono, dense sky blue, with a green and orange dragon embroidered on the back. I gave her points for that one. I’d imagined something closer to a granny gown, rose-sprigged flannel, ankle-length and prim. There must be a sensual side to her that I hadn’t seen.
I joined her in the kitchen. Daisy had put a kettle on the stove, flames turned up high to speed along the process. On the table, she’d set out tea bags and two heavy ceramic mugs. She said, “I’ll be right back,” and disappeared toward the bathroom, which allowed me the opportunity to peer out the kitchen window. I studied the neatly kept yard. The grass had been trimmed. The rose bushes were thick with blooms—pink, blush, peach, and brassy orange. Tannie had told me Daisy drank to excess, but whatever angst had been generated by her mother’s disappearance, her exterior life was in order, perhaps in direct counterpoint to the emotional mess inside. While she was gone…as a courtesy…I refrained from peeking into the trash to see if she’d tossed any empty vodka bottles. The kettle began to whistle, so I turned off the burner and poured sputtering water into our cups.
When she returned she carried a manila folder that she placed on the table. She settled in her chair and put on a pair of drugstore-rack reading glasses with round metal frames. She removed a sheaf of newspaper articles, clipped together, and a page of notes, neatly printed, the letters round and regular. “These are all the newspaper accounts I could find. You don’t have to read them now, but I thought they might help. And these are the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the people you might want to talk to.” She pointed to the first name on the list. “Foley Sullivan’s my dad.”
“He now lives in Cromwell?”
She nodded. “He couldn’t stay in Serena Station. I guess a few people reserved judgment, but most thought poorly of him to begin with. He’d been a drinker before she left, but he quit cold and hasn’t had a drop since. This next name, Liza Clements? Her maiden name was Mellincamp. She’s the babysitter who was watching me the night my mother ran off…escaped…whatever you want to call it. Liza had just turned fourteen and she lived one block over. This gal, Kathy Cramer, was her best friend—still is for that matter. Her family lived a couple of houses down—big place and nice, relative to everything else. Kathy’s mother was a dreadful gossip, and it’s possible Kathy picked up a few tidbits from her.”
“Is the family still there?”
“The father is. Chet Cramer. Foley bought the car from his dealership. Kathy’s married and she and her husband bought a place in Orcutt. Her mother died seven or eight years after Mom disappeared, and Chet married some new gal within six months.”
“I bet that was a popular move.” I indicated the next name on the list. “Who’s this?”
“Calvin Wilcox is Violet’s only brother. I think he saw her that week, so he may be able to fill in a few gaps. This guy, BW, was the bartender at the dive where my parents hung out, and these are miscellaneous customers who witnessed some of their famous public shoving matches.”
“Have you talked to all these people?”
“Well, no. I mean, I’ve known them all for years…but I haven’t asked about her.”
“Don’t you think you’d have better luck than I would? I’m a stranger. Why would they open up to me?”
“Because people like to talk, but a lot of stuff they might not be willing to say to me. Who wants to tell a woman how often her dad punched her mother’s lights out? Or refer to the time when her mom got mad and threw a drink in some guy’s face? Now and then I get wind of these things, but mostly people are falling all over themselves keeping the truth under wraps. I know they mean well, but I get weirded out by that. I hate secrets. I hate that there’s all this information I’m not allowed to have. Who knows what’s being said behind my back even to this day?”
“Well, I’ll be giving you regular written reports, so whatever I learn you’ll be hearing about.”
“Good. I’m glad. About time,” she said. “Oh, here. I want you to have this. Just so you’ll know who you’re dealing with.”
She handed me a small black-and-white snapshot with a scalloped white rim and then watched over my shoulder as I studied the image. The print was four inches square and showed a woman in a floral-print sleeveless dress, smiling into the camera. Her hair, which could have been any color, was a medium-dark tone, long and gently wavy. She was small and pretty in a 1950s kind of way, more voluptuous than we’d consider stylish in this day and age. Over one arm she carried a straw tote from which a tiny fluffy pup appeared, staring at the camera with bright black eyes. “When was this taken?”
“Early June, I think.”
“And the dog’s name is Baby?”
“Baby, yes. A purebred Pomeranian everyone hated except my mom, who really doted on the little turd. Given the chance, Dad would have taken a shovel and pounded her into the ground like a tent peg. His words.”
A two-by-four porch post appeared to be growing from the top of Violet’s head. Behind her, on the porch rail, I could read the last two house numbers: 08. “Is this the house where you lived?”
Daisy nodded. “I’ll take you by when we’re over there.”
“I’d like that.”
We were silent on the drive to Serena Station. The sky was a flat pale blue, looking bleached by the sun. The hills rolled gently toward the horizon, the grass the color of brown sugar. Daisy’s was the only car on the road. We passed abandoned oil rigs, rust-frozen and still. To my left I caught a glimpse of an old quarry and rusting railroad tracks that began and ended nowhere. On the only visibly working ranch I saw, ten head of cattle had settled on the ground like brawny cats in the slatted shade of a corral.
The town of Serena Station appeared beyond a bend in the two-lane road, with a street sign indicating
that it was now called Land’s End Road. The street ran in a straight line for three blocks and ended abruptly at a locked gate. Beyond the gate, the road wound up a low hill, but it didn’t look like anyone had traveled it for quite some time. There were numerous cars parked in town—in driveways, along the streets, behind the general store—but nothing seemed to move except the wind. A few houses were boarded up, their exteriors bereft of color. In front of one, the paint on the white picket fence had been stripped to the wood, and portions of it sagged. In the small patchy lawns, what little grass remained was dry, and the ground looked hard and unforgiving. In one yard, a camper shell sat under an overhang of corrugated green plastic sheets. There were tree stumps and a tumble of firewood. What had once been the automobile-repair shop stood open to the elements. A tall, dark palm tree towered above a length of chain-link fence that extended across the rear. A stack of fifty five-gallon oil drums had been left behind. Weeds grew in dry-looking puffs that, in time, the wind would blow free, sending them rolling down the middle of the road. A hound trotted along a side street on a doggie mission of some kind.
Behind the town the hills rose sharply, not mountains by any stretch. They were rugged, without trees, hospitable to wildlife but uninviting to hikers. I could see power lines looping from house to house, and a series of telephone poles stretched away from me like hatch marks on a pencil drawing. We parked and got out, ambling down the middle of the cracked blacktop road. There were no sidewalks and no streetlights. There was no traffic and, therefore, no traffic lights. “Not exactly bustling,” I remarked. “I take it the auto-repair shop went belly-up.”
“That belonged to Tannie’s brother, Steve. Actually, he moved his operation into Santa Maria, figuring if someone’s car broke down, the owner would never manage to get it out here. He wasn’t about to offer to go get them. At the time, he only had one tow truck and that was usually out of commission.”
“Not much of an advertisement for auto repair.”
“Yeah, well he was bad at it anyway. Once he moved, he hired a couple of mechanics and now he’s doing great.”