Girl With a Past (24 page)

“Yeah, I mapquested both addresses. Meet you
in the main entry hall?” Steven said.

“Yeah, I think I can find it.”

We shared an insincere chuckle as neither of
us actually felt like laughing.

I passed back through the breakfast room.
Nancy looked up from her laptop. “Alexandra, there’s lots of winter
clothes in the closet of your room. And extra jackets in the
mudroom.”

I thanked her and got ready to take off with
Steven. Nancy handed Steven keys to a Range Rover and waved us in
the direction of the hall that connected to the garage. She gave me
a plate of bagels with cream cheese and insulated travel mugs
filled with hot coffee.

We headed over Fanny Bridge into Tahoe City.
Fanny Bridge got it’s nickname because lines of tourists bend over
the railing to watch fish ride the Truckee river out of the lake.
The result looks as though the railing is composed of butts in the
air. I have no idea what its actual name is.

We found Ron’s condo in a planned community
in Tahoe City.

“Do you think he’s still home? Maybe we
should’ve gone to his office?” I asked.

“According to Nancy, his second divorce,
together with the falling housing market has pretty much wiped him
out. He’s not at his office much these days. She’s not even sure he
still has one.”

When I was little, Dad took me to a place
with what I thought were dollhouses. The models of planned
communities scattered through a two-story lobby were just at eye
level for me. My imagination wandered through them. But it wasn’t a
plaything; it was Ron’s development company.

That development company was a partnership
with his first father-in-law that ended with Ron’s first divorce.
His second wife came with her father’s mega construction company
and more development projects.

“There he is.” Steven pointed to a tall,
wiry man clad in bike riding gear, a helmet, spandex leggings, and
a windbreaker. Ron was walking a bike down a meandering path to the
street.

“Hey, Ron,” Steven yelled. We trotted toward
him.

Ron stood still, looked at us seemingly
without recognition, but he grinned a lopsided smile, as we got
close.

“Yo, kids. What do we have here? What are
you two up to?”

“Hi,” Steven and I said in unison. Seeing
him again, remembering his fun loving, amiable personality, it was
hard to imagine that he would be involved in anything evil. What
were we thinking?

But then wasn’t the capacity for evil in all
of us?

I hugged him.

“We’re trying to find Mom,” I blurted
out.

“What do you mean? Did you lose her?” he
joked. Then he noticed my serious expression. “What’s up,
guys?”

“Mom went missing,” Steven said.

“Then someone shot at me,” I said.

Ron pulled back his head and studied us for
a moment before he spoke, “Did you think I might know something or
someone who could help find her?”

“We hoped you could help us,” I said. “I
don’t know what we thought. I‘ve had this idea that this whole
thing had something to do with the farm you guys lived on in
1969.”

Ron stared at me.

“I can’t explain why. It’s just a feeling.”
And a memory of an overheard conversation, but I wasn’t about to
get into that.

“I’ve no idea how to help, but I’ll do
whatever I can. Just excuse me for a minute. I need to call my
riding partner. The one I was just leaving to meet.”

He punched a number in a cell, turned his
back to us, and walked away six feet before he spoke to
someone.

He turned back to us. “Okay, I’m all yours.
Come inside. I think I have some coffee or tea or juice or
something.”

We followed him back down the winding path,
through a patio gate where he parked his bike, and in through a
garage door where he removed his helmet exposing thinning blonde
hair touched with gray. He led the way upstairs to an open and cozy
living, dining, and kitchen room.

He opened a refrigerator. “Juice? I’ve got
orange or apple.”

“I’m fine thanks,” I said.

Steven accepted the orange juice.

We sat on the love seat and two armchairs
that furnished the living area.

“So? How can I help?” Ron asked.

“Tell us about life on the farm.”

“That could take awhile. We lived there over
a year, from May of ‘68 to August of ‘69.”

“How often did Tom bring new girls
around?”

He laughed, reddening. “About as often as I
did. I’m embarrassed to admit it was a contest.”

“So there were a lot of strange girls
around?”

‘Not a lot, but some.”

“What about around the time that Lexi was
killed?”

He blanched, but that could have been at the
bad memory. They, make that we, had been good friends at one point,
until Lexi, that is I, had spurned his attentions.

“Ya know, we didn’t have anybody around
then. We weren’t in a partying mood.”

“And what was Mrs. Mac sick with?”

“Huh?” He looked at me with a blank
stare.

“Nancy said that she and Carol came to the
farm a day or so after the murder, but were told to leave because
Mrs. Mac and Tom had a bad flu.”

“I guess I’d forgotten that. Ya know, I
don’t remember all the details.”

“Were you at the Berkeley house the night
Lexi was killed?”

“Yeah. I had been around earlier that day,
and I stuck around after to see if I could be of any help.”

“When did you return to the farm?” I
asked.

“Let’s see. I went home––that is back to the
farm––right after rush hour at the end of the week. Ya know, we
used to have what we called rush hour, then it became rush hours.
Now it’s all the time down there, isn’t it?” Ron was still selling
the benefits of mountain living, in denial, forgetting the summer
traffic jams around the lake.

“What girls had been around right before
that? Over that weekend?”

“You really think I can remember that? No
way, Jose.”

“Did you have a girl there then?”

“I’d been in town for a couple days. Suzy
was my Berkeley girl.”

I wondered if she knew that was her
classification, but then, it wasn’t cool to fuss over things like
that in those days.

“What about over the weekend?” I asked.

“It’s possible, I don’t remember. That was a
long time ago, ya know."

“I’ll call Mrs. Mac.” She had the best
memory of them all. She hadn’t lost brain cells with drugs. Those
hallucinogens were killer.

Ron looked startled, perhaps uncomfortable
that I was going to talk to Mrs. Mac.

“Did Tom have someone there?”

“Tom was in Berkeley.” Ron studied my face
as though trying to understand where I was going with these
questions.

“Do you recall if he went back to the farm
with you that Friday evening?”

“No, I distinctly remember driving back by
myself.”

“Who was there when you arrived?” I
asked.

“No one. Well, the Macs were probably in
their place, but of course I didn’t go in there, I just went to
bed. I think I had a hangover.
Maybe I
had the flu.” He
grinned, it was that lopsided, flirty grin, the one where he kinda
dropped one side of his head and his blue green eyes twinkled at
you.

I couldn’t help but return the smile, but I
continued, “When did the others show up?”

“I really don’t remember. Boy, you should be
an interrogator. Hey. That could be a career.” Another grin. “Maybe
the guys were in their bedrooms. Nobody was in much of a mood to
socialize, ya know?”

“Do you remember when you heard about
Lexi?”

“Of course.” His smile disappeared. “Police
pulled us all out of bed the night it happened.” He rubbed his
eyes, blinked a few times. “That was a hell of a time. For
everyone, ya know. Back at the farm, Mrs. Mac was crying in the
kitchen the next afternoon when I got up.”

“Who was there then?”

He thought for a moment, looked out the
window at the lake. “Pretty much everybody who lived there: Jamie,
Tom, Elliott,” he hesitated. “I don’t think anyone else.”

“Got any idea where my mother might be?”

He shook his head very slowly with a sad
smile on his face.

“Al, maybe we should go over to our place,
here at the lake,” Steven said.

“What for?” Ron asked.

Was that alarm fleeting across Ron’s
face?

Steven shrugged.

“Want me to go to see Jamie with you?" Ron
asked. "I know how to get there, it’s a bit tricky.”

“If you want,” I answered.

“Sure,” Steven said. “That would be
great.”

“Give me a minute to change.” He hurried
down the hall.

“Steven, what was the name of that place
where the Macs are?”

He ran fingers through his blonde hair.
“Happy Valley, I think.”

“I’ll be back in a minute.” I stepped
outside onto a deck and called information. When I was connected to
Happy Valley Retirement Home, I asked for Mrs. Mac, and was
informed she had her own number. I called her private line.

“Mrs. Mac? Hi. It’s Alexandra. Remember
me?”

“Yes, of course, dear. Can’t decide if it’s
your mother you remind me of, or for some reason, you make me think
of Lexi.”

This woman was the most perceptive of them
all.

“Did you get sick a couple days after Lexi
was killed? Or maybe right after?” I asked.

“Lord girl, I’ve never been sick a day in my
life.” She chuckled.

“Didn’t you come down with a bad flu?
Weren’t you and Tom both sick?”

“No. I was heartsick, but I didn’t have no
flu.”

I took a deep breathe of the clean mountain
air before I asked the next question. “What about Tom?”

“One time he and the other boys all got real
bad food poisonin’, not from my cookin’ mind you––but now, that
wasn’t around when Lexi died. That was months later.”

“Who was at the farm the weekend before
Lexi’s murder?” I leaned against the railing, stared at the lake
without really seeing it. Below me, a cyclist got off his bike,
walked it off the cycling path and cut through the evergreens.

“Let me think: the four boys, not the usual
girls. As I recall, it was gettin’ close ta finals, or midterms, or
somethin’ where the girls all had studies. Girls that were usually
around were all at school that weekend. ‘Course, your mother didn’t
come around until much later.” She was quiet for a moment. “No, I
think there was just the one girl that weekend.”

“What girl was that?”

“Oh, a very not nice girl,” she answered.
“Honestly, a bad girl.”

“Bad?” I held my breath awaiting her
answer.

“A slut, a real slut. Even in those days of
that free love stuff, she was a sick one.”

Wow. Mrs. Mac was usually so permissive.
“Why do you say that?”

“Cause she was. She was a . . . I gotta
think of the word . . . I know, a nymphomaniac.”

“What did she do that made you think
that?”

“Cause she made the rounds of the bedrooms.
She seduced every one of those boys, one right after another, and
maybe even more than one at a time,” Mrs. Mac said with a tsk,
tsk.

Yeah, like that would be real hard. “What
did she look like?”

“That was just it. She didn’t look like a
whore, she didn’t wear much make up, she was only a little pretty,
not like the other girls. Real curly, frizzy hair, dark auburn,
kind of freckles, a pug nose.”

“What was her name?”

“I never knew her last name. Her first name
was Jennifer.”

“Where did she come from?”

“One of the boys picked her up hitchhikin’.
She needed a place ta stay, so he brought her home.”

“How long was she there?”

“Come ta think of it, she was the one that
got sick,” Mrs. Mac said. “Then she got well and left all a sudden
like.”

“Please tell me what happened.” I watched a
domestic cat stalk a bird in the grass peeking through the snow.
The cyclist continued to walk between the trees, heading toward a
neighboring condo. Something about his walk and physique was
familiar, but his helmet hid his head and face.

“She was there for ‘bout three––no four
days––then the boys left ta go into the city, but told me that
Jennifer was sick and ta leave her alone. They didn’t want me ta
catch anythin’ from her. I thought that was funny, I made a joke
about I wouldn’t be the one catchin’ something from her. You know
in those days people were maybe less worried ‘bout social diseases,
I mean the ones that the young people knew ‘bout then were easily
treated with a shot of penicillin.” She sighed. “She locked herself
in the master suite. I knocked on the door, asked if she needed
anythin’, but she didn’t answer, and since one of the boys had
already taken a tray inta her, well, I just left her be.”

“When and how did she leave?”

“I don’t know the how, ‘cause I went on my
day off. When Mr. Mac and I got home, she was gone.”

“What day of the week were you off?”

“Wednesday. Always Wednesdays, so as I could
get stuff ready for the weekend, and clean up after.”

“Who brought her home?”

“I don’t know as I ever knew that, she just
was there in the livin’ room, and when I saw her behavior . . .
well, I asked Elliott where she’d come from.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Mac, you’ve been a big
help, as usual.”

I looked around for the cyclist but he had
disappeared.

When I turned to go back into the condo, I
ran into Ron who had been right behind me.

“Talking to Mrs. Mac?”

I nodded.

“How is she?”

“Well.”

“Hey, I loved that old dame. She still
sharp?” he asked without his usual jovial attitude.

“As a tack.”

Did my answer make him nervous? I didn’t see
any obvious change in his demeanor.

“Ready to go?”

“Sure.”

He opened the door. We went inside and down
the stairs to the garage.