Muller, Marcia - [McCone 04] Games to Keep the Dark Away (v.1,shtml) (3 page)

"By 'anyone,' you mean Jane."

"Yes." She drained her wineglass. "Jane. And me."

Liz Schaff hadn't given me any more concrete facts than Snelling,
but her short, resentful speech about Salmon Bay had breathed life
into the photograph I had in my bag. I finished my wine and slipped
into my jacket.

"Have I helped?" Liz asked.

"Yes. Thank you."

"Will you let me know what you find out?"

"Sure." I gave her one of my cards. "The first
number is where I work—All Souls Legal Cooperative; the other's
my answering service. Call me anytime if you think of anything else."

Liz scribbled a number on the back of what looked like a grocery
list. "And that's where you can reach me. Please do let me
know."

I told her not to worry, and we left together. Liz headed for her
car and I went home to pack for a trip to Salmon Bay.

I
couldn't decide whether my studio apartment was untidy or
just looked that way in contrast to Jane Anthony's impeccable room.
True, there were unwashed dishes in the sink and rumpled quilts on
the bed, but that didn't necessarily make me a sloven, did it? As I
entered the combination living-and-bedroom, my cat, Watney, brushed
against my legs, purring as if to reassure me. I scratched him and
then sat down cross-legged on the bed, staring at the want ad section
that was spread out there.

The ads from the Sunday paper were turned to the heading
"APARTMENTS FOR RENT—S.F.," and a good number of the
boxes were circled in red ink. Unfortunately, most of them had X's
over the circles. When I'd decided it was time to start looking for a
new place to live, I hadn't realized what a short supply of decent
apartments there was in the city.

But I'd definitely decided to move. There had been two murders in
the building the previous year—which I had been involved
with—as well as numerous upheavals in the neighborhood stemming
from the crimes. Frankly, coming home depressed me these days. And
the apartment really was too small; the sparklies in the acoustical
paint on the ceiling were tacky; the old icebox that ran off the
compressor in the basement didn't hold enough or keep things very
cold; even the little garden of plastic flowers in the lobby had
ceased to amuse me. It was time to move.

Wasn't it?

But I'd been here for years. I was settled.

Wasn't I?

Besides, was I really ready to pay over six hundred dollars for a
one-bedroom in another neighborhood?

I cut the debate with myself short. Obviously I wasn't going any
place in a hurry; all the apartments I'd looked at yesterday had been
rented by the time I'd gotten there.

I reached for the phone and called my answering service. There was
a message from my friend Linnea Carraway, who had recently taken a
news anchor position with a small TV station in Seattle; she'd just
called to chat. Paula Mercer, my artistic friend from the de Young
Museum, had heard of an apartment I might like and wanted me to phone
her. One of my sisters had called. All she'd said to the operator at
the service was, "This is Sharon's sister," so I didn't
know which of the two she was. And I was damned if I was going to
spend longdistance money to find out. There was no message from Greg.

Well, why should there be? That was over. After a year and a half,
Lieutenant Gregory Marcus and I had called it off. We'd had good
times—even wonderful times—but our stormy natures had
turned our affair into a battleground. I was glad the relationship
was over, it was a relief to be without the constant, energy-sapping
conflict. But still, you get used to that daily phone call after all
that time. You get used to shared laughter and loving and nice
moments. Not finding a message left me with a mild sense of
depression. I needed to do something. I needed to get out of here.
Now.

I got up and took my suitcase from the closet. Watney eyed it
suspiciously.

"Yes, I'm leaving you again," I told him. "Tim will
feed you."

Watney merely turned his back and licked one black-and-white
spotted shoulder.

That was another problem, I thought as I threw jeans and sweaters,
and a skirt in case I needed to look grown up, into the bag. Where
would I ever find another apartment manager who would take such good
care of my cat? Maybe I should…

"Enough, Sharon!" I said aloud. "You've got a case
to work on. Let the housing problem take care of itself."

As I drove down the Junipero Serra freeway toward San Jose, I
decided to bypass Salmon Bay and take a motel room in Port San Marco.
I remembered spending a week there one childhood summer with Linnea
and her parents. The memory conjured up images of a boardwalk and
amusement park rides, cotton candy and corn dogs.

And the thought of corn dogs made me realize it had been a long
time since supper. I fished in my bag for one of my emergency-ration
Hershey bars and unwrapped it with one hand. The squares of chocolate
lifted those traces of depression that remained.

Port San Marco, as I recalled, had once been a great fishing port.
Then, as Liz Schaff had said, the industry had become automated and
large companies from the north and south had taken over, putting the
individual fisheries out of business. Unlike the village of Salmon
Bay, the larger town had made the transition to the modern age, and
now so-called smogless industries and expensive housing tracts dotted
the hills west of the port. The port itself was given over to
tourism; luxurious marinas, restaurants, and hotels lined the
waterfront. I'd even heard something about plans for a performing
arts center on the site of the old amusement park.

I had liked the town I remembered from my childhood, with its
roller coaster and pinball parlors, hot dog stands and beer halls. I
would have loved the rough-and-tumble fishing port of yesteryear, but
I was quite certain I would not like the shiny new Port San Marco at
all. Still, I resolved to get a motel on the waterfront and perhaps
recapture some of the holiday feeling of that youthful summer. After
all, Snelling was paying my expenses, and he could afford it.

The freeway skirted San Jose and connected with Route 101. To
either side were apartment complexes and housing developments, new
and insubstantial. These suburbs always reminded me of the sprawl of
Los Angeles, and I was glad when I came to the open countryside, with
its rolling, oak-dotted hills.

I slipped into a relaxed driving mood and let my mind wander back
to my conversation with Liz Schaff. Much as her concern for her
friend seemed genuine, I couldn't quite believe her exaggerated
fears. The thought of Abe Snelling killing anyone was ridiculous.
But, then, Liz had said she didn't know the photographer.

But maybe she did. What kind of a friend doesn't have you to her
house at least once in six months? Maybe there had been a meeting
between Liz and Abe. Maybe there had been some sort of disagreement
that led her to dislike and suspect him. Otherwise, why wouldn't she
just come right out and ask about Jane on the phone? Or march up to
the front door and demand to know her friend's whereabouts?

I'd have to ask Snelling about Liz Schaff.

The drive south was going quickly. Salinas was already behind me,
and I was high on the ridge heading for Paso Robles and the Port San
Marco cutoff. I debated another Hershey bar, but decided I'd be there
in time to check into a motel and have a snack before everything
closed down for the night.

All right, I thought, Jane and Liz were friends in Salmon Bay. The
little village sounded closed off, perhaps hostile. At the very least
I'd encounter coldness there. And, if Jane's relations with her
mother were really as bad as Liz claimed, I might have difficulty
getting information from her. Label Salmon Bay a possible trouble
spot.

And what about this hospice called The Tidepools?

What had Liz said? Something about some unpleasantness. And then
she'd refused to elaborate. Had she been fired? No, she'd said she'd
had an offer from S.E General. Maybe Jane had been fired. Maybe that
was the reason she'd had such trouble finding work in San Francisco.
I'd check with the personnel office at The Tidepools…

Caught up in my plans, I almost missed the Port San Marco turnoff.
The road climbed into the dark hills, then descended in a sweeping
curve. Ahead of me I spotted the black expanse of the sea. Port San
Marco formed a crescent of light along the shore. I followed the main
road through town to the boulevard that ran along the beachfront.

The Mission Inn across from the wharf appealed to me. It was
Spanish-style stucco, two stories, with an interior courtyard full of
palm trees and bougainvillea. A turquoise swimming pool gleamed
coldly in the darkness. I registered and was given an upstairs corner
room with a view of the harbor. After nodding approvingly at the
king-size bed and automatic coffee maker, I called All Souls and left
my number, then set out for the wharf in search of food.

Here, at least, the town hadn't changed. The wharf was still lined
with charter fishing boats, souvenir shops, and restaurants. I chose
the one at the very end, an unpretentious place with booths and a
shell-and-fishnet motif. When the waitress brought my crab sandwich,
I asked her how far it was to Salmon Bay.

"About ten miles up the shoreline highway. I don't know why
you'd want to go there, though."

"Why not? What's it like?"

"Like nothing. A bunch of tumbledown houses. A few
beer-and-bait shacks."

"People up there still fish for a living?"

"If you can call it a living."

"What about a place called The Tidepools? Do you know
anything about that?"

She rested one hip against the table of the opposite booth,
obviously welcoming a long conversation. She was in her fifties and,
even in the subdued light of the restaurant, looked tired. "Yeah.
It's a pretty fancy place, like a nursing home, only they don't let
you in there unless you're dying."

"Is it expensive?"

"I guess it would be. There was an article in the paper about
it once. Says they have a new way of dealing with death there."
She shrugged. "I don't know. Seems to me there's only one way to
deal with it—and that's to go through it."

"I guess."

She shifted from one foot to the other, a thoughtful look on her
face. "You know, I get the feeling they're playing games up
there."

"Games?"

"You know, trying to pretend they're really not going to die.
Playing games to keep the dark away."

The phrase sent a shiver up my spine. "Aren't we all?"

"Yeah, aren't we?" She straightened, glancing over at
the cash register where a dark-haired man was counting change "I
better get back to work. You want something to drink with that? Some
wine?"

"Sure. White."

I ate my crab sandwich and drank my wine, and afterward I had a
second glass, staring out at the water and the people who passed on
the wharf. It was not the height of the season, but the tourists were
in good supply. They strolled hand-in-hand or walked together, yet
apart. I imagined that for some couples the vacation had brought them
closer; for others, it had only reminded them of their loneliness.

I thought about Greg and me and wondered how it would have been
for us. We'd never had the chance to find out, and now we never
would. Sometimes I wondered if I'd ever again be one of the ones
holding hands and, for a time, banishing loneliness—playing
games to keep my own dark away.

By
morning my private demons had returned to whichever
corner of my mind they usually resided in—for a long stay, I
hoped. I got up, turned the coffee maker on, took a shower, and then
called Jane Anthony's mother. She was reluctant to talk to any friend
of Jane's at first, but finally agreed to see me at eleven, after she
did her marketing. I had eggs and bacon in the motel coffee shop and
then set out for Salmon Bay.

It was a warm day with only the slightest hint of fall in the air,
and what fog there was promised to burn off quickly. I followed the
Shoreline Highway north, past an expansive housing development with a
golf course, into farmland. Pumpkin fields, colorful with their ripe
fruit, stretched west toward the sea; to the east were the sunbrowned
hills. After eight or nine miles, the land curved, forming a little
bay where boats rode at anchor. Half a mile farther a leftiturn lane
with a flashing amber light and a weathered sign indicated the road
to Salmon Bay.

It was actually more of a lane, rough and not recently paved. I
put the car in low gear and bumped across a field covered with scrub
vegetation. The pavement meandered for a while and then paralleled
the shore. The first thing I came to was a boatyard surrounded by a
chain link fence. Full of no-nonsense fishing craft upon hoists for
repairs, it seemed deserted save for one man who was scraping paint
from the bow of an old green boat. I continued on, past Johnson's
Marine Supply, Rose's Crab Shack, and a general store. Soon unpaved
lanes lined with ramshackle houses began appearing to my right. None
of them had street signs.

I hadn't asked Mrs. Anthony for directions to her house. Who would
have thought it necessary in a village the size of Salmon Bay? I kept
going, passing the Shorebird Bar and a place advertising bait, and
finally ended up at a dilapidated pier that looked like nobody had
set foot on it in years. Two brown-and-white mongrels trotted along
the side of the road, but otherwise I saw no one. All the businesses
except for the general store were closed.

I turned the MG in front of the pier and went all the way back to
the boatyard. No, there wasn't a single street sign in town. After
parking near the gap in the chain link fence, I got out of the car
and went into the yard. The shack that served as an office was also
closed, and the only sounds were the cries of seagulls and the steady
scraping of the man's putty knife on the boat. I started toward him,
glancing at the craft at anchor.

These were not the luxurious pleasure boats of the Port San Marco
marinas, but clumsy utilitarian vessels that had seen better days. A
wharf with fuel pumps ran along the edge of the water, but there was
no one to man them and no customers either. Had it not been for the
man working on the boat, I would have felt I'd stepped into a
long-abandoned stage set for a seafaring drama. My feet crunched on
the gravel as I approached him, but the man did not look around.

"Excuse me," I said.

He glared at me, nodded curtly, and went on with his scraping. He
had black hair, a full beard, and, although he couldn't have been
much more than forty, a face as tanned and leathery as an old man's.

"I'm looking for Hydrangea Lane. Can you—"

"Who are you looking for?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Who on Hydrangea Lane?"

"A Mrs. Anthony. Sylvia Anthony."

The putty knife faltered in its regular motion. "She know
you're coming?"

"Yes, she does."

He stopped his work and wiped the putty knife on his faded jeans.
"You sure?"

I'd expected coldness, but not the third degree. "Of course
I'm sure. Look—"

"Just asking." His tone was mild, but his dark eyes were
narrowed in suspicion.

"Well, can you tell me how to get there? I didn't see any
street signs."

"Of course not." His lips turned up in a mirthless
smile. "There aren't any."

"How does anyone find anybody else?"

"Don't need street signs to do that."

"Maybe not if you live here, but what about outsiders?"

The smile dropped off his face. "We don't welcome outsiders
here." There was ill-concealed menace in the words and his hand
seemed to tighten on the putty knife.

I stood my ground. "I guess you don't. But Mrs. Anthony is
expecting me, and I don't want to keep her waiting."

The man regarded me for a moment, then turned back to the boat and
began scraping again. "You go along to the last lane on the
right. Take it to the end, then turn left. It's a white house with a
driftwood fence and blue hydrangeas, lots of them. That's where
you'll find her."

I thanked him and got out of there, vaguely oppressed by his
senseless hostility. Were all the residents of the village like that?
I wondered. Or had I stumbled across the one hardened case?

The boatyard man had meant it about lots of hydrangeas. They
filled Mrs. Anthony's tiny front yard, their blue blossoms escaping
through the misshapen crossbars of the driftwood fence and cascading
onto the front porch. The house was freshly painted, in contrast to
its neighbors, which were shabby and, in a couple of cases,
surrounded by junk-filled yards. I went through the gate and along a
shell-bordered walk, and knocked at the door. The shades on the
windows were pulled to the sills and for a moment I wondered if
Jane's mother had returned from her marketing trip.

In a few seconds, however, the door opened and a tall, gaunt woman
looked out at me. She was the woman in Snelling's photo grown older,
with gray hair instead of black and wrinkles where Jane's flesh was
smooth. Deep lines bracketed her mouth from her prominent nose to her
chin. Briefly I wondered if Jane would look like this in twenty or
thirty years, or if getting out of Salmon Bay had put her beyond the
reach of the bitterness that had so aged her mother.

I introduced myself and Mrs. Anthony ushered me into a dark
parlor. It was crammed with what looked like good antiques—a
rolltop desk among them—and every surface was covered with
china knicknacks. My first impression was of clutter, but as my eyes
became accustomed to the dimness, I saw that each object was
carefully placed and dust free. Jane was her mother's girl in more
than looks.

Mrs. Anthony indicated I should sit on the couch and lowered
herself slowly into a platform rocker, the way a person afflicted
with arthritis will do. She snapped on a floorlamp next to her and I
looked for signs of the poor health Snelling had mentioned. There
weren't any, but many illnesses are hard to spot; broaching the
subject of Jane's disappearance would still require care and tact.

Before I could speak, Mrs. Anthony said, "You mentioned on
the telephone that you're a friend of my daughter's. What brings you
to Salmon Bay?"

"I'm trying to locate Jane."

"Why?"

"I need to talk to her."

"About what?"

I decided to ignore the question. "Do you know where Jane is,
Mrs. Anthony?"

An odd look passed over her face. It could have been anger or
perhaps fear. Whatever, it was gone before I could put a label on it.
"No."

"Have you seen her recently?"

She was silent a moment. "What if I have?"

"Mrs. Anthony, I really need to locate Jane. It would help me
tremendously if—"

"Why should I help you?"

"You would also be helping your daughter. It's very important
I talk to her."

"About what?"

"I'm afraid I can't say."

She hesitated. I sensed she was unsure which would be in her
daughter's best interest—protecting her privacy or putting me
in touch with her. "It's very important, you say?"

"Yes."

"All right; she was here last night."

"Last night?"

"Yes, came to pay her old mother a visit." She spoke the
words with a biting sarcasm.

"How long did she stay?"

"An hour, maybe less. That's about the usual length of one of
her visits."

"Did you tell her her friend Abe Snelling had been trying to
get in touch with her?"

She raised her eyebrows. "And what do you know of Abe
Snelling?"

"We're both her friends—"

"Seems Jane has a lot of friends all of a sudden. Funny, for
a girl who never did." She got up and went to raise one of the
window shades, as if to throw light on the subject of her friendless
daughter. Turning, she said, "Look, Miss McCone, I told Jane
that Abe Snelling had called. She said she'd get back to him when she
could. And then she left."

"And she didn't say where she was going?"

Again the odd expression crossed her face. This time I put a name
to it: disgust. "No. My daughter does not confide in me."

I thought she was going to ask me to leave, but instead she
returned to the rocker and settled in. It occurred to me that she was
lonely and glad she had someone to talk to. I glanced around the
room, trying to find a way to keep the conversation going, and
spotted a framed photograph. It was of the old pier I'd seen before,
moody and mysterious in the fog. I got up and went to look closer.

"That's a nice picture," I said.

"Jane took it."

"I didn't know she was a photographer." But as I spoke I
realized Snelling had said they had a mutual interest in art.

"She isn't anymore. She doesn't do anything but live off—"
Abruptly she cut off her own words.

"You mean live off Abe Snelling? He's only helping her out
until she finds a social work job."

Mrs. Anthony sighed. "Him too?"

"What?"

"Nothing. A social work job, eh? I warned her about choosing
work like that. You depend too much on the government, and the
government isn't to be trusted. Now she's out of a livelihood, just
like her father was when the fishing went bust."

"Jane's father was a fisherman?"

"All his life. Didn't know anything else. When the fishing
went bust, he didn't know what to do with himself. He's dead now;
been dead nearly thirty years." Her voice had taken on a bitter
singsong quality, as if this were a speech she'd repeated many times
in those thirty years. "I raised my girl all by myself, working
as a maid for the so-called fine folks in Port San Marco. I saw she
had everything, just like the other kids. And she repaid me. How she
repaid me!" She laughed hollowly.

I stood very still, not wanting to break the train of her
memories. "How?" I said softly.

"I had the money saved. I was going to send her to art school
in Port San Marco so she could maybe make something of her
photography. She could have lived at home, helped out with a
part-time job. But, no, not for her. She had to go away to college,
up to San Jose. And she had to get fancy ideas about what she called
social responsibility, working with those less fortunate than her.
Those were her exact words—'those less fortunate than I am.' If
she wanted to help someone less fortunate, she only had to look to
her own mother."

She fell silent and I moved back to the sofa. "When did Jane
come back from San Jose?"

"After about a year of working with bums and drug addicts. I
thought she was cured of that'social responsibility' nonsense. But,
no, she had to go and get a job at The Tidepools, working with more
'unfortunates.' Unfortunates, my hat!"

"Why do you say that?"

"You have to be rich to get in there. Rich and dying. But do
they pay their help well? No, they don't. Jane had to moonlight,
working at a drug abuse clinic in her off time. And she wasn't the
only one. Her friend Liz did too—at the Safeco Pharmacy. And
what did Jane spend that extra money on? Did she come home and help
out? No, she moved to a fancy apartment in Port San Marco and took up
with that Don. Oh, Don was all right; I know that now. She's done far
worse in her time…" Her voice ran down and she stared
into space, probably cataloging all the men who had been worse than
Don.

"Mrs. Anthony," I said, "what's Don's last name?"

She shook her head. "We'll leave him out of this."

"She may have gone to see him—"

"No, not Don. He wouldn't have her. Not after what she did."

"What did she—"

"No." She shook her head firmly. "That's over. I
won't go into it."

I sighed. "So you have no idea where she's gone now?"

"I don't know, and I don't care." But her eyes said she
did care. "The reason you need to see her—is it about a
job?"

I hated to disappoint her. "No. Actually, Mrs. Anthony, I
don't know your daughter."

Her sad eyes became puzzled. "But you said—"

"I'm a private detective; Abe Snelling hired me to find Jane.
She left home a week ago without telling him where she was going, and
Abe was afraid something had happened to her."

"A private detective." She shook her head slowly. "The
kinds of jobs you girls will get into today… This Abe
Snelling—is he in love with Jane?"

"They're just friends, but good friends."

"That's good. She never had many friends, you know. She never
fit in here in the village. The other children thought she was
different… and I guess they were right. I'm glad she has a
friend like Abe Snelling."

"So am I, Mrs. Anthony." I stood up.

Mrs. Anthony stood up too. "You must think I'm a bad mother,
Miss McCone."

"Not really."

"You must understand—I love my daughter."

"I'm sure you do."

"If I didn't love her, she wouldn't be able to make me so
angry."

"Of course. I understand."

She looked into my eyes, her hand on the front doorknob. "Do
you have children, Miss McCone?"

"No, I don't."

"Then you can't understand."

"Yes, I can. I also have a mother."

As I went down the front walk, Mrs. Anthony lowered the shade on
the window once again. It reminded me of Abe Snelling locking himself
inside his house with his treasured solitude.