Muller, Marcia - [09] There's Something In A Sunday [v 1.0] (htm) (49 page)

"Is Rina the one your mother thinks your dad is having an affair with?"

Lindy abruptly looked away. Betsy nodded, her eyes suddenly brimming. "Rina
wouldn't
," she said.

Not Daddy wouldn't—Rina. These kids were growing up fast.

We were only a couple of yards from the car now. I said, "Of course she wouldn't. Your mom's just—"

"Nuts," Lindy said flatly.

I had no answer for that. As we approached the BMW, I saw there was a child's seat in the rear, a small head sticking up from it. "You guys jump in the back with Susan, okay?" I said. "I want to sit with Rina."

They both nodded and ran ahead to the car. As Lindy climbed in the back door, I slipped into the front passenger's seat.

Irene had been turning to greet the girls, but she jerked her head toward me. Her face went very pale.

"Hi, Rina," I said. "The girls are kind of down today. Maybe we could take a drive and get them some ice cream."

Irene bit her lower lip and glanced over her shoulder. Betsy was chattering and cooing at Susan, but Lindy sat very still, watching us. "Sure," she said after a moment. "That's a good idea."

Slowly she put her hand on the key and turned it. She then placed both hands on the wheel, checked the side-view mirror before pulling away from the curb. Her motions were like those of a person who is just learning to drive and has to consult a mental checklist before each step.

I said in a low voice, "Sorry—I don't mean any harm to you, but we have to talk. Let's just act normal, for the kids' sake."

She looked quickly at me, then back at the street. I sensed a small degree of relaxation within her. "How was your day, girls?" she asked. Her voice trembled only slightly.

"Awful," Betsy said. "The lace of my gym shoe broke, and I got called on twice in math when I hadn't done the problem, and the lunch sucked—"

"Betsy."

"Lunch was Tuna Surprise, and that
sucks
."

Irene's mouth twitched and she looked over at me. I smiled too. That seemed to reassure her, because when she spoke again, her voice was level. "No more of that, Betsy."

"Mom says it all the time. 'UC Med Center sucks. Those fucking chain-store capitalists suck.' "

"Betsy! Do you want to be dropped off at home before we go for ice cream?"

"No ma'am!"

"Then no more of those words."

Betsy lapsed into silence. I looked back at Lindy and saw she was determinedly staring out the window.

I said, "So where should we go?"

Irene concentrated on her driving. "You choose."

"How about the park?"

"Fine—but where?"

"The Murphy Windmill?" I waited to see how she would react to the mention of the place Bob Choteau was hiding.

She merely looked puzzled. "Is that the one they've restored? The gardens are nice, but I don't think we can get ice cream there." The response seemed genuine—and that puzzled
me
.

"What about Stowe Lake?" I said. "We could get ice cream cones at the snack bar and rent the girls a paddle-wheel boat. It would keep them occupied while we talk."

She smiled faintly. "You seem to know how to handle kids."

"I ought to. My older brother has two, and between them my younger sisters have nine."

Irene looked over her shoulder at the toddler in the car seat. "Well, I only have the one, and she means everything to me. I'd kill before I'd let anyone harm her." Her suddenly grim face matched her words; they were intended to be a warning to me.

Close to an hour later Irene, Susan, and I arrived at the Chinese Pavilion on Stowe Lake. We'd rented the girls a paddleboat and told them to go around the lake until we could see them from the pavilion; then we'd start back to meet them at the landing.

The pavilion is a small pagoda-style building that sits on the large island in the middle of the lake. It is accessible only by a couple of pedestrian bridges and pine needle-carpeted footpaths that wind around on the shore below the steep incline to Strawberry Hill Reservoir. Its bright red pillars and gilt and green roof festooned with mythical beasts present a sharp contrast to the wild underbrush, palms, and cypress that surround it. Beyond it stretch the mirror-smooth waters of the lake; seagulls and other aquatic fowl glide there, and snapping turtles take the sun on half-submerged logs.

Irene led the way across the bridge and along the path to a multitiered waterfall that channels the reservoir's overflow into the lake. There I took hold of the front bumper of Susan's stroller and helped carry it across the rugged stones at the falls' base. Around the curve was the pavilion. Again we lifted the stroller—up the white concrete steps—and seated ourselves on mushroom-shaped stools at the round green marble table directly under the pagoda's peak.

It was chilly here, the hill blocking the late afternoon sun. Irene pulled her sweater tighter, shivering. When she first spoke, the roar of the nearby falls distorted her words. I leaned closer.

"I suppose you want to alk about Rudy," she repeated.

"Rudy, and Bob Choteau. You and Susan and the Cushmans." I paused. "Frank Wilkonson and Harlan Johnstone."

Her face went pale, as it had when I'd gotten into the car. "You
do
know quite a bit," she said after a moment. "Vicky warned me that you have a reputation as a rather… determined investigator. That was why we thought it best that you have contact only with Rudy." A sheen of tears appeared in her huge blue eyes. "And look what happened to him," she added softly.

"You think he was killed because he knew your whereabouts?"

"Yes."

"By whom? Frank Wilkonson?"

She shrugged and looked down at Susan.

"Why don't you tell me all of it," I said. "From the beginning."

She compressed her lips and placed her hands on the table. It had a brass plaque inlaid: a commemoration in both Chinese characters and English of the gift of the pavilion to San Francisco from her sister city of Taipei. Irene's forefinger moved to it and she rubbed it over the signature of the mayor of Taipei before speaking. "All right. I guess I can't hide any of it anymore. You know I was married to Harlan Johnstone?"

"Yes. I got that part of the story from Walt Griscom, the tavern owner down in Tres Pinos."

"Well. You certainly do get around. Walt is a nice man. I'm sure he didn't say anything… unfair. But I guess he told you Harlan and I weren't very happy after the first couple of years. Harlan is… a very domineering man, a jealous man. When I began to make friends in the area and participate in community activities, he became insecure and eventually demanded I give everything up and stay close to the ranch. In order to have something to do, I worked in the office. That was where I got to know Frank."

"You had an affair with him."

"… Yes."

"Is Susan his daughter?"

She was silent, her eyes fixed on the plaque. Finally she avoided the topic entirely, saying, "After I became pregnant, I couldn't stay on the ranch. Harlan would have known the child couldn't be his—he'd had a vasectomy years before, because his wife was in poor health and couldn't risk any more children. I couldn't bear to have an abortion; I'd always wanted a child, and this might have been my last chance. After all, I was thirty-five—the old biological clock, you know. Even under the circumstances, the pregnancy seemed like a reprieve from a lifetime of disappointment."

"What about Frank? Did you tell him you were pregnant?"

"No." She was breathing faster now, and shallowly, still not looking at me. "He'd been unhappy in his marriage for years; he would have wanted to divorce Jane and marry me. But there were their six kids to consider." Finally she glanced up; I must have looked skeptical because she added, "I know. I should have thought about those kids before I started with Frank. I genuinely cared for them; I cared a great deal for Jane. But in these things, we're not always rational."

"I know. Go on."

"Even if it hadn't been for his family, I wouldn't have wanted to marry Frank. He's the controlling type, just like Harlan, and he has a violent temper. It's ironic that I would have become involved with the same sort of man as my husband—but that's what we women tend to do, isn't it?"

"Sometimes."

"Well it's what I've always done. At any rate, I was determined to break out of that pattern, and pregnant or not, I would have had to get off that ranch eventually. I couldn't breathe or grow there. I just wanted to be myself. So I left without telling anyone I was going, went to a women's shelter in Tustin, Orange County. And I had my baby."

"Do you think Frank's looking for you just because he wants you back, or does he know about Susan?"

"Oh, he knows. You see, Jane realized I was pregnant. I'd been exhibiting signs, and she's had too many children of her own not to recognize them. She thought the baby was Harlan's—she didn't suspect about Frank's and my affair— and she innocently mentioned it to Frank. That was the day before I left there. He came to the ranchhouse demanding to see me. I claimed to be sick and had Hal, my husband's son, send him away. But from the things he said to Hal, I knew what he had in mind. That's why I left in such a hurry."

"How long did you stay in Orange County?"

"Close to a year."

"Frank looked for you down there, did you know that?"

"No. How did you find that out?"

"It's too complicated to go into now. I suppose he realized where you were because the divorce papers came from there."

She was clearly agitated now. I looked away to give her time to compose herself. There was a heap of debris over against the pagoda's curving wall—beer cans and a wine bottle—and it made me think of Bob Choteau. We'd get to that in a few minutes, I told myself.

Irene said, "That would have been because of the divorce papers, yes. But him finding out I was living up here—that was entirely my fault. Once I read an article on how a person can disappear successfully. The main point it stressed was that you had to completely cut your ties with your past life—friends, associates, everything. But I violated that rule by sending Jane Wilkonson a birthday card about six weeks ago. I didn't put a return address on it, but I guess the postmark gave away the general area."

"For God's sake, why did you do that?"

"It was stupid; I realize that now. But I cared about Jane, and I knew she would have been worried about me. I put a note in the card—just said I was okay, that I'd had a baby girl named Susan. I told her I had a good job and was keeping my hand in at my old profession, horticulture. It never occurred to me that she'd show the card to Frank, or that he'd come looking for me."

I studied her, not believing that for an instant. But her expression was guileless; possibly she believed it herself. Irene struck me as one of those odd—although not uncommon— types of person who possess a strong mercenary streak, coupled with an incongruous capacity for compassion and affection. In order to reconcile the two, they often lay claim to far nobler motives than a given situation would indicate. My suspicion was that she had sent the card because she wanted Frank to know about their daughter—perhaps even wanted him to come after them. Another possibility—which was nasty enough that I didn't care to dwell on it—was that she had wanted to needle him about the fact he had a child he'd never get to see.

I said, "You violated that rule another time, too—by contacting Rudy Goldring."

"I know. I was unhappy down south; I'm a northern Californian by birth, and everything seemed so fast paced and…
alien
. So I thought of Rudy and got in touch. He got me the job with the Cushmans."

"How did you find out Frank was making a habit of coming to the city on weekends?"

"From a friend who works at a little nursery in the Inner Sunset. Frank stopped in there one Sunday and asked about me. His manner made her nervous, so she put him off, said she thought one of the other clerks might know me and asked where she could reach him. He gave her a local phone number. She passed it along to me. And that's how I found out about the motel on Lombard Street."

"So you asked Gerry Cushman to find out more."

"Yes, Gerry talked with the desk clerk and found out about Frank's patterns during those stays. I had to know what he was doing, how close he was getting. I was afraid of that temper of his, and I wanted someone to assess his mood, so I asked Rudy to hire an investigator. I couldn't have Gerry or Vicky do it— it would have been too direct a link to where I was living."

It amazed me, how people fell in line to do Irene's bidding. Annoyed me, too, how she got by not on her own initiative and abilities but by using others.

She must have sensed my reaction because she looked down at her hands again. I realized she was crying when a tear fell onto her whitened knuckles. "I'll never forgive myself for involving Rudy," she said. "He told me to come over late on Monday afternoon. He said he'd have your report by then, and we could decide where to go from there. But when I got to his flat…"

I suppose I should have felt sorry for her, but I remembered Rudy Goldring's discomfort at the lies he'd been forced to tell when he hired me. And the picture of the old man lying on his kitchen floor in his own blood was too clear. I said, "Do you want my report now?"

She looked up again, her cheeks wet, expression hurt and reproachful.

I didn't wait for an answer. "Frank had asked about you at more than that one nursery. He'd misinterpreted your note to Jane and assumed you meant that the job was in the field of horticulture." I gave her a capsule summary of what I'd observed that Sunday.

When I finished, she shook her head. "How on earth did he ever imagine he'd find me that way? I've never gone to that plant sale or to the flower mart. Half of those nurseries I've never even heard of. And the conservatory—it used to be a place I visited every time I came up to the city, but I haven't been there since I moved in with the Cushmans."

"Perhaps he just assumed he'd work at it until he got a lead. That's the nature of detective work, you know: a lot of boring legwork for very small results."