Dear Daughter (17 page)

“How long has it been since you lived in Adeline?” I asked Kelley.

“Not long enough,” said Renee.

“We left in eighty-five,” Kelley said, “when I was ten and Renee was twelve. That’s how we met, actually—me and Leo and Renee. The not-entirely-white-trash from the wrong side of the pass.”

“Don’t forget Walt—” Renee said.

“Like he would let us.”

“And what about Eli?” I asked.

Kelley tilted her head to the side. “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “Eli was there, too. We didn’t see much of him—or Tessa. They were a few years older than the rest of us. After their dad passed they each had to work like six jobs—Renee, remember when she used to work at MacLean’s?”

“Oh man, that was the best; she’d give us fleischkuekle with ketchup whenever that old bat was being a bitch.”

“We got a lot of fleischkuekle,” Kelley said.

“What about the kids from the
right
side of the pass?” I asked.

Renee stuck out her tongue. “That would be Mitch Percy’s crowd. How he found Lacoste in rural South Dakota, I’ll never know.”

“That’s Mitch Percy of
those
Percys,” Kelley said. “Stanton’s son.”

Cora’s voice intruded: “—to the southwest is the acreage purchased by Energy Innovation Corp during the uranium bubble of oh-seven, and to the northwest we have the Odakota Nature Preserve, which is a wonderful place to visit if any of you happen to enjoy hiking—”

I turned back to Kelley and Renee. “Stanton seemed nice enough,” I said.

“He is, mostly,” Renee said. “No clue how he spawned such a colossal fuckup asshole.”

“Genes,” I said, “are a son of a bitch.”

I looked out the window again. I could see a clearing in the distance. We were almost there—to the place that had made my mother. I knotted my scarf and pulled it tight enough to hurt.

•   •   •

Adeline may once have been laid out in Ardelle’s mirror image, but the resemblance now was less striking than sad, as if someone had taken Ardelle and given it a tanning bed and fifty cigarettes a day. I stepped out of the shuttle bus directly onto a lump of something fetid and brown.

“Guess the burros are back,” Renee said. “Welcome to beautiful downtown Adeline!”

I scraped my boot off on the shuttle’s front bumper before heading to join the others in front of a weathered greige house. The supports on the front porch had begun to give way, and the overhang sagged on either side, the architectural equivalent of a pair of aging tits. It was a house, I thought, that had given up on Adeline long before Adeline had given up on it.

“This,” Cora was saying, “is the childhood home of my dear husband, Eli, and you may recognize the similarities to our current home, which we passed as we were leaving Ardelle. It was built in the eighteen—”

“How long did they live here?” I asked Renee.

“Eli sold the house when he enlisted, back in eighty-five—the same time most of the rest of us left.”

Eventful year.

“—we soon hope to return the buildings to their prior glory.” Cora took a breath to puff out her chest in pride, and I seized the opportunity to raise my hand.

“Can we go inside?” I asked.

Cora looked back at the house and scratched the side of her head. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable,” she said. “I really don’t think it’s safe. But maybe you could come back when we’re finished with the restoration! We plan on fixing up not only the old Kanty house, but also the old post office and city hall, which are just a half mile away—so if you’ll come with me, we’ll get this tour started!” She led the herd forward, the visitors following docilely behind, Rue trailing off to the side like a distracted toddler. I walked with the group for a hundred yards or so, just until we rounded a corner and I saw Kelley and Renee turn their attention to one another.

I doubled back to the Kanty house and examined the porch. What was Cora going on about? It might not look too good, but it certainly seemed sturdy enough. But I held on to a wood column for balance and prodded the boards of the porch with the toe of my boot, just in case.

See? Fine.

I stepped forward and pushed open the front door—which promptly fell off its hinges. I caught it just as it hit the floor, the crack of wood on wood echoing through the hall. I went still and silent and waited. For the sound of footsteps. For the sound of voices. But, thank god, no one came.

I replaced the door as best I could and peered around. Your standard foyer, with two large rooms on either side. I had stirred up dust with my graceless entry, and for a brief moment the sun refracted through motes so profuse the air glittered like a fairy glen. But then the dust settled, and the room took on the hue of the water at the bottom of a tub after you plunge up a muck of soap-scummed hair.

I smelled cigarettes and spilled beer; vermin scuttled in the distance.

To my left was what had once been a living room. Some of the furniture had been abandoned along with the house: There was a stained couch, a maple coffee table marked with a set of three long scratches, a set of TV trays stacked in a corner. The floor was scattered with footprints, some tiny (mice, I hoped) and some larger (skunk, I feared). At least one set was human.

I headed up a staircase that was carpeted in something that once had probably been a pale yellow but years of neglect had muddied to the color of desert camouflage. Beneath that was wood so rickety I felt as if I were walking on popsicle sticks. On the walls were whitish squares where family pictures must once have hung.

I mean, that’s where family pictures are always hung in movies, right? I wouldn’t know otherwise. My mother never hung family photos in public areas.

(Or private areas, for that matter.)

At the top of the stairs were four doors; I opened the nearest one. I could hardly see inside the room—I couldn’t tell if there were heavy drapes, or maybe if there weren’t any windows at all. I took a single step forward and was waiting for my eyes to adjust when I felt the stale air shift. Something ran at me. I threw myself to the side and it raced past me down the hall, where it was joined by a second, larger, creature. The things were mostly gray, with white faces and rat tails. One showed a sharp-toothed snarl. They were possums. And they rather reminded me of Ainsley.

I took a step back; they tracked me with oil-slick eyes.

After a tense moment (for me, anyway), they dodged left and scurried through an open door. I darted forward and slammed it shut behind them. I caught my breath and hoped that room didn’t contain any clues, because I sure as fuck didn’t want to go in.

I went back to that first, dark room and stepped inside. I felt along the wall until I found a spindly chair, which I swung in front of me in swooping arcs like it was a torch in a cave as I moved toward what I hoped was a window. It was. I threw open the musty velvet curtains, receiving a spray of dust in my face for my efforts. When my vision cleared I saw that I hadn’t done much to brighten things up. The window was encrusted with dirt, and the light barely shone through it. I wiped the panes clean with the cuff of my coat, but most of the dirt was on the outside. I tried to lift the sash, but it wouldn’t budge.

I examined the room insofar as I could. Unlike the rooms downstairs, this one still had all of its furniture. There was a bare mattress on a box spring, a particle-board bureau, a low bookshelf that held three dozen paperback classics with unbroken spines. A nightstand with a missing leg and an empty drawer. There weren’t any posters or pictures or knickknacks or even indications that there had ever been posters or pictures or knickknacks. Instead there was a sense of deliberate absence that didn’t fit with the rest of the house. This room hadn’t been abandoned; it had never really been lived in to begin with.

I looked at the nightstand again. It was cheap furniture trying to look expensive, with wood stained so dark you couldn’t see its imperfect grain and an alloy bail pull that was a clumsy copy of a Chippendale design. I pulled the drawer back open, examining the insides. I frowned. The proportions were wrong.

Wait, I’d seen this before—in every house I’d ever lived in.

I tapped one corner of the bottom of the drawer until the opposite corner popped up. Beneath the plywood was a manila envelope marked with a girlish roller-coaster scrawl: “Confidential!” I ran a finger across the letters before opening the envelope and upending it.

Something heavy slipped out and fell to the mattress. I looked at it, then smiled.

Playgirl
, April 1985.
Tom Selleck: A Bachelor in Paradise. Tim Hutton: Sex Symbol with a Conscience. Yuppies: Nude.

That’s when I knew absolutely and without question that this room had been my mother’s.

MARION ELSINGER

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Marion Jenkins)

Marion Jenkins Elsinger (1957–2003) was a Swiss American philanthropist. In 2003 she was murdered in Beverly Hills, California. Her daughter, Jane Jenkins, was initially convicted and is still suspected of having been responsible for her death.

Early Life
[edit]

Marion Elsinger, born Marion Jenkins, lived in Switzerland from 1985 to 2001. She was married four times (most recently to Jakob Elsinger) and had a well-documented relationship with Swiss industrialist Emmerich von Mises, with whom she had her daughter, Jane. She lived in Los Angeles, California, from August 2001 until her death.

Philanthropy
[edit]

A dedicated patron of the fine and decorative arts, Elsinger was an active supporter of several prominent museums throughout Europe, including the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, the Fondation Beyeler, and the Kunstmuseum Basel and Museum für Gegenwartskunst.

She was also known for her charitable work, frequently raising money for the Midwest Food Bank, Hunger Relief International, Orphan Grain Train, and the Cleft Lip and Palate Association.

Death
[edit]

On July 15, 2003, Elsinger was found dead in her home in Beverly Hills. Her daughter, Jane Jenkins, who was allegedly seeking control of Elsinger’s fortune, was arrested and convicted of her murder.

In 2013, Jenkins was released. The case, however, remains closed.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I sat down on the bed and flipped through the magazine, looking less at the pictures than for traces of its owner—a dog-eared page, maybe, or the sweaty print of a titillated finger—but as far as I could tell the magazine was in mint condition. She had never even looked at it.

Which made perfect sense. The magazine was another of her red herrings. A salacious morsel meant to keep you from looking for more.

So where’s the good stuff?

I stood and lifted the mattress off the box spring but found nothing, so I got down on my back and inched my way under the bed frame. On the far side of the bed I could just barely make out a flap that had been cut into the fabric lining the bottom of the box spring. I reached in and withdrew a bright pink diary with a heart-shaped lock.

Another red herring, no doubt. It was also entirely too obvious. I picked open the lock with the aglet of a bootlace and turned to the first page.

Fucking fuck off, Eli.

Love,

Tessa

The rest of the pages were blank. It wasn’t really a diary, after all—it was a warning to her brother. But to me it was another clear sign that there was something else left to find.

I reached in my mind for my catalog of all my mother’s favorite hidey-holes. It took a moment to work my brain back there, and I squinted a little, as if slightly sharper vision might somehow sharpen my memory, too.
The books
, I remembered. She liked to hide things in books she thought no one around her would ever read, never realizing, of course, that I would read everything, because when had she ever credited me with anything other than disloyalty.

I examined the bookshelf. Thirty years ago my mother lived alone with her brother, so what would she have least expected
him
to read?
A Tale of Two Cities.
Too fun.
The Count of Monte Cristo.
Too swashbuckling.
Women in Love
. Too intriguing.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Too smoking-hot gypsy.
Crime and Punishment
. Yahtzee.

I pulled it out and rifled through the pages. Nothing, nothing, a million pages of nothing. I was about to exchange it for another title when finally something caught my eye, a sentence scrawled in the same loopy hand:
This book sucks.

I shoved the book back on the shelf. That little hypocrite. The last time I used “sucks” in her presence she had looked at me, taken a sip of her bourbon, and then said to my stepfather with a lazy wave of her hand, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I checked the rest of the books. Nothing there, either.

I wiped the sweat off my neck. Fortunately there was still one last place left to look—my mother always did love her closets.

As soon as I stepped up to the door I knew I was in the right place. I could smell the sachets.

Sure enough, the closet wasn’t empty: There were three bulky garment bags hanging from the closet rod. I unzipped one and pulled out a dress. Size 2, basic black, a high neck and low back. Donna Karan. I kept looking. A wrap dress, Calvin Klein pants, something off-the-shoulder. No way were these my mother’s clothes. These were clothes bought by someone who thinks Nordstrom sells high fashion. Plus, they were too new. I leaned in, and beneath the lavender and rose I caught the clean-slate smell of fresh dry cleaning. I groped about until I found a claim tag—they had been taken to a dry cleaner in Rapid City, and recently.