The Night Searchers (A Sharon McCone Mystery) (5 page)

“So your uncle might not know how much they’re worth?”

Suzy smiled wickedly. “He only knows what Aunt Jane wants him to. And that’s not much.”

“You seem to have a very firm grasp on what goes on in this family.”

“What can I say? I’ve got excellent hearing and an acute case of nosiness. I’ll tell you this: they’re dysfunctional as hell. Make my family look like Beaver Cleaver’s.”

I grinned at that. “Well, keep your ears fine-tuned. Will you give me contact information for Melinda and Catharine?”

She rattled off addresses and phone numbers from memory, and I scribbled them down.

I asked, “You’ll keep me informed if you hear anything?”

“I will.” She reached for the paper on which I’d written the two numbers. “That’s for my cell, if you need to talk with me again.”

“Thanks. Let me know if there’re any phone calls from your uncle. And if anything else isn’t right here, anything at all, please tell the guard.”

“Of course.”

When I left the potting shed, Suzy was wiping dirt off her hands onto her grubby jeans.

1:11 p.m.

Palo Alto has always held a strong attraction for me. Although it is the home of Stanford University and currently the center of the now-reviving tech and venture capital markets, it still seems, with its quiet treelined streets and friendly people, to offer a pleasant contrast with the hustle and aggressiveness of Silicon Valley.

I found BodyWorks, co-owned by Catharine Hoffman, down an alley off University Avenue, where ivy and other vines twined over aged bricks. It was a stately building dating from California’s golden era—possibly the 1880s—but its Revival period façade had been spoiled by the addition of large windows behind which men and women of various sizes and shapes climbed StairMasters, strode along treadmills, and pumped stationary bikes.

As I opened the door, the clump of feet and grunts and groans came to my ears. I stopped in the middle of the entry and looked to my right, where a dance class was in session. To my left, a dozen or more people were performing tai chi. A honey-blond woman with a cordial smile greeted me from behind a lectern-style desk.

“You are here for…?” she asked.

“Catharine Hoffman.”

“And you are…?”

I handed her one of my cards. “Please take it to her. I called a while ago, and she’s expecting me.”

I waited, wondering if the lack of anything resembling a chair in the lobby was intended to keep the clients on their feet and moving even before their classes began. This spa, with its soft recessed lighting, pastel walls, and—I saw from discreet signs posted at the hallways that branched off toward the rear—a juice bar and swimming pool, was a far cry from the rehab center where I’d gone after my bout with locked-in syndrome. A far cry from the private gym where I now worked out two or three times a week with my friend Piper, whom I’d met in rehab.

Not that my gym was such a bad thing. In these surroundings I would have lolled in the pool or idled at the juice bar. I still needed a considerable boot in the butt to get myself going, and the attendants there were only too glad to provide it.

After a few minutes the woman returned and said, “Ms. Hoffman will see you in her office. Go down the first hallway to the left, turn to the right. Last door on the left.”

I followed her directions, over deep carpet and past walls hung with innocuous pastels of wild flowers, and knocked on the door. A husky voice told me to come in.

The light in the office was pale lavender. The scent that tickled my nostrils was also lavender. A tall woman in violet sweats and a baseball cap was standing behind a maple desk, my card in her hand. As I got closer, I saw her features were very like her mother’s.

“Ms. McCone,” she said. “You said on the phone that you’re working on my father’s disappearance.”

“Yes.”

“Sit down, please.”

I did, and she sat at the desk.

“I assume that if you’d found out anything you’d have said so.”

“I’ve found very little so far. There have been various e-mails, none of them amounting to much, and piggybacked off different accounts. Do you know of anybody who would want to harm your father?”

She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “Any number of people. He isn’t a particularly likable man.”

“Why is that?”

Shrug. “For one thing, he’s into power. Likes to dominate anyone he perceives as weaker than himself. For another, he’s a womanizer. And for a third, he’s a lousy father.”

“What about people who are stronger and more powerful than him? How does he treat them?”

“He either acts indifferent or kisses ass.”

“Who would those individuals be?”

“Politicians—local, state, and national. The board members of the Forum. Wealthy businessmen who make contributions or give him stock tips.”

“Insiders’ tips?”

“I suppose so. He hasn’t done very well, though. His sense of timing is off.”

“Any women among them?”

“No, my father dislikes and distrusts women. As far as he’s concerned, we’re all here to be used in one way or another.”

“So, in short, there’re a lot of people who might want to harm him?”

“A lot. Including me.” She held up her hand like a crossing guard. “But no, I didn’t. I’ve severed my life from his, gotten on with things.”

“What about your mother? She seemed somewhat protective of him.”

“It’s an act. She’s the one who holds financial power. For a long time he hadn’t figured that out, but I guess he finally did. At least he started staying out late at night a year or so ago, against her wishes. She claims he’s involved in ‘spy activities.’ So far, no one’s been able to dislodge the idea and get her to face up to the obvious.”

“Which is?”

“What does any insecure middle-aged man who feels whatever power he once had is slipping away do?”

“Has an affair. You have any proof of it?”

Catharine shook her head. “Just a suspicion, is all.”

“Why does your father feel he’s losing his grip on power?”

“I only know what I read in the papers and on the Net. Public contributions to the Forum are down, so is governmental support. Not a single relevant idea on public policy has come out of there in years. The current administration in D.C. is considering setting up its own advisory boards in various regions of the country. Then, I’m afraid, my father and his cohorts will be forcibly retired.”

I made a note to learn more about the situation. I was getting conflicting stories, about both Hoffman and the Forum. “Would you say he’s in financial difficulty?”

“That I wouldn’t know. He may be; Mom isn’t.”

“The house in Atherton seems run-down.”

“Does it? I haven’t been there in a long time.”

“Not even to see your mother?”

“No. She has Suzy; she doesn’t need me.”

“You don’t like Suzy.”

“Actually I do. She’s funny and bright, and she takes good care of Mom. Keeps her off my back, you might say.”

“So it’s your mother you don’t like.”

“No law says you have to like your mother.”

I stood, thinking how good it was to like both my mothers. “You’ve been very kind to give me so much of your time, Ms. Hoffman. I’ll be speaking to your sister next.”

“Melinda?” She looked startled.

“Yes. Is there something wrong—?”

“I’d prefer to let you form your own conclusions about my sister.”

2:25 p.m.

Melinda Campton’s house was in a crumbling old subdivision on the outskirts of Millbrae, about three-quarters of the way between Palo Alto and the city. Most of the sixties ranch-style homes needed paint; their yards were weedy and largely unbarbered. Discarded toys skulked in the weeds, cars stood helplessly on blocks, and a couple of garbage cans were overturned, spilling refuse into the street.

The woman who answered my ring had blank gray eyes and a slack jaw. There were bruises on her cheeks and forearms. I could see some faint resemblance to her sister and mother, but not much.

“Unnnh?” she grunted, tucking a strand of dirty, blond hair behind her ear.

“You’re Melinda Campton?”

“Yes. Who’re you?”

“Sharon McCone. I called earlier.”

“You’re the one who’s looking for
him
. Van. The asshole.”

“May I come in so we can talk?”

“…I guess.”

I stepped into a living room that was cluttered beyond belief: newspapers and junk mail strewn everywhere; dirty glasses and dishes and ashtrays balanced on tables and chair arms. The air reeked of stale cigarette smoke. Melinda went straight to an old recliner chair, flipped its leg rest up, and lit a cigarette. For a moment, inhaling deeply, she seemed to have forgotten I was there.

Deeply disturbed. Abused, definitely. Mentally challenged? Emotionally, anyway.

I said, “Do you have any idea what might’ve happened to your father?”

“No.”

“You know it’s possible he was abducted.”

“Who’d want him?”

“You tell me.”

“Well, it can’t be for money. He doesn’t have any. He gambles everything away on the stock market. I asked him to pay for this life skills class at the community college—so I could be a better mother to my kids, you know? You want to see pictures of them?”

Before I could reply, she got up and fetched a couple of framed photos from the mantel over the fake fireplace.

“That’s Janey, she’s named after my mother.” A towhead of about six with an incipient frown and thin, stern lips.

“And this is Roseanne, after the TV actress, you know?” Another towhead, this one around eight, jaw thrust out aggressively, fierce little eyes.

“Lovely children,” I lied.

“Yeah, they are.” Melinda thumped the photos back onto the mantel and herself into the recliner. “They’re the best, but I haven’t been dealing too well with them since their asshole dad left. Emptied our bank account and took off in the car. Mom and Cat—that’s my sister—have helped with the rent, and I’m hoping to get a job real soon, but in the meantime I’ve kind of been taking things out on my kids, and I thought this life skills class…well, it’s only fifty dollars for the quarter, so I asked my father if he’d pay for it, and he said he was broke.”

I thought of the shabby condition of the house in Atherton, the run-down grounds. And Van Hoffman’s playing unsuccessfully in the stock market, the public policy institute that was about to go under. Still, Jane Hoffman had money.

“Did you ask your mother for the fifty dollars?”

“My mother? Are you kidding? She
hates
me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not the perfect person she wants me to be. And she hates Cat—my sister—because she’s successful.”

What kind of woman, I wondered, hates her children for both their flaws and their assets?

“What about asking Cat?”

“I can’t. Cat would want payback.”

“Of what sort?”

“She’d tell me to get my act together, take care of my kids, get some education, a job…all that shit.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad to me.”

“To you, maybe. You look like somebody who’s had a pretty good life. But when you’re like me, beaten up by my own husband, then it’s a whole different story.”

Melinda was watching me, assessing my reaction. I kept my voice neutral as I said, “Okay, I understand. But maybe somebody wanted information from your father? Classified information?”

“Nah. That forum doesn’t keep secrets; they publish their reports. My dad isn’t important to anybody.”

“I’ve heard he’s not home a lot, sometimes stays out all night.”

“He’s got a woman. I’ve met her. Who cares? At least he’s not around to give Mom and Suzy grief.”

“What kind of grief?”

“Threats, tantrums. Once he broke Mom’s wrist, and another time he slammed Suzy against a wall.”

Yet another conflicting report. How much credence should I give it—or any of the others? If it was true Suzy was there to protect her aunt Jane from her uncle Van, why hadn’t she confided that to me?

“Did either of them report the incidents to the police?”

Melinda turned her head to one side, but I could see the flush rising across her neck and cheek. “That doesn’t help. The cops come out, they’re nice, sometimes they throw the guy—like my Tony—in jail and you can take out a restraining order. But a piece of paper isn’t gonna keep somebody who wants to hurt you away for long. Tony was back, and back, and back. Especially on my paydays.”

“Where’s Tony now?”

“I don’t know. After a while he probably found somebody else who had a bigger paycheck than me.”

“And this woman your dad has—who is she?”

“Her name’s Pamela. I met her once. They were sitting at an outdoor café in Palo Alto, and I saw them and went over to say hello. Dad was embarrassed—no, horrified. I guess I’m not fit to be his daughter. But he introduced us, although he didn’t ask me to sit down. She was nice. He doesn’t deserve her.”

“Did you catch her last name?”

She scrunched her eyes closed, then shook her head.

“What did she look like?”

“Long black hair, pretty.”

“Do you remember anything else about her?”

“…She looked expensive. Nice clothes, nice fingernails. She looked like I could never look.” Her face crumpled and tears began to flow. “He doesn’t deserve her, but he thinks I don’t deserve him.”

There was nothing I could say to comfort her.

Melinda said, “I think I’d like to be alone now.”

I put my card on the table beside her and left.

4:38 p.m.

When I arrived at the RI building, I first e-mailed the report on the Hoffman situation that I’d promised Hy, emphasizing the conflicting stories on the man’s life and character that I’d received from his family members. Then I went to speak with Mick. He was on the phone, scribbling notes in the self-developed shorthand only he could read. He held up a hand, pointed to a chair.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Duck confit. Isn’t that a little passé? I mean, they’re eating it in the burbs now.”

On my time, on a company phone line, the food snob was talking to a restaurant! I stepped forward, pressed the disconnect button.

Mick turned wounded eyes to me. “Shar, do you
know
how long it takes to get through to Clos Bob, much less to make a reservation?”