"U" is for Undertow (4 page)

You’d think I’d have been pleased to discover the existence of close kin. Instead, I was pissed off, convinced they’d known about me for years and hadn’t cared enough to seek me out. I was thirty-four when the first family overtures were made, and I counted their twenty-nine years’ silence as evidence of crass indifference for which I blamed Grand. I really didn’t have a quarrel with my aunts and cousins. I’d tossed them into the pit with Grand because it was simpler that way. I’ll admit it wasn’t fair, but I took a certain righteous satisfaction in my wholesale condemnation. For the past two or three years, I’d made a halfhearted attempt to modify my attitude, but it hadn’t really worked. I’m a Taurus. I’m stubborn by nature and I had my heels dug in. I shoved the invitation in my shoulder bag. I’d deal with it later.

Sutton returned after twenty minutes with five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, for which I wrote him a receipt. Once he was gone again, I locked the cash in my office safe. Since I’d be devoting Thursday to Sutton’s business, I sat down and did a rough draft of one of the client reports on my To Do list, figuring I might as well get one chore out of the way. By the time I’d finished, it was close to 4:00 and I decided to shut down for the day. One reason I’m self-employed is so I can do as I please without consulting anyone else.

I rescued my car from the semilegal parking spot I’d found earlier. My office is on a narrow side street barely one block long. For the most part, the surrounding blocks are posted No Parking, which means I have to be inventive in finding ways to squeeze my Mustang into any available space. I was due for a parking ticket, but I hadn’t gotten one yet.

I drove home along the beach, and within minutes my spirits lifted. Spring in Santa Teresa is marked by early-morning sunshine, which is eradicated almost immediately by dense cloud cover. The marine layer, known as the June Gloom, usually stretches from late May until early August, but that’s been changing of late. Here we’d scarcely made it into April and low clouds had already erased the offshore islands. Seabirds wheeled through the fog while sailboats, tacking out of the harbor, disappeared in the mist. In the absence of sunlight, the surf was the color of burnished pewter. Long strands of kelp had washed up on shore. I inhaled the salty essence of damp sand and sea grass. Cars rumbled along the wooden wharf with a sound like distant thunder. It was not quite tourist season, so traffic was light and many of the beach hotels still sported vacancy signs.

I turned left from Cabana onto Bay and left again onto Albanil. I found a length of empty curb across from my apartment and paralleled my way into it. I shut the engine down, locked my car, and crossed the street, passing through the squeaking gate that serves the duel purpose of doorbell and burglar alarm.

Henry Pitts, my landlord, was in the backyard in a T-shirt, shorts, and bare feet. He’d set up a ladder near the house and he was hosing out the rain gutters where a thick, nasty mat of wet leaves had collected over the winter. During the last big rain, small gushers had poured down on the porch outside the kitchen door, drenching anyone who dared to enter or leave.

I crossed the patio and stood there for a while, watching him work. The day was getting chilly and I marveled at his determination to cavort about in so few clothes. “Aren’t you going to catch your death of cold?”

Henry had turned eighty-eight on Valentine’s Day, and while he’s sturdy as a fence post, the fact remains he’s getting on in years. “Nope. Cold preserves most things, so why not me?”

“I suppose.”

The spray from the hose was creating an area of artificial rain so I stepped back out of range. He turned his hose in the opposite direction, inadvertently watering his neighbor’s shrubs. “You’re home early,” he remarked.

“I gave myself the afternoon off, or what’s left of it.”

“Hard day?”

I waggled my hand, indicating so-so. “I had a guy walk in and hire me for a day’s work. As soon as I said yes, I knew it was dumb.”

“Tough job?”

“More pointless than tough. He gave me five hundred dollars in cash and what can I say? I was seduced.”

“What’s the assignment?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Oh, good. I like it when you’re challenged. I’m just about done with this. Why don’t you stop by for a glass of wine and you can bring me up to speed?”

“I’d like that. There’s another issue up for grabs and we can talk about that, too.”

“Maybe you should stay for supper so we won’t feel rushed. I made corn bread and a pot of beef stew. If you come at five-thirty, I’ll have time enough to shower and change clothes.”

“Perfect. See you shortly.”

Henry is the only person alive I’d talk to about a client, with the possible addition of his sister, Nell, who’d be turning ninety-nine in December. His brothers, Charlie, Lewis, and William, were ninety-six, ninety-one, and ninety respectively, and all were going strong. Any talk about the frailties of the elderly has no bearing on them.

I let myself into the studio and dropped my shoulder bag on a kitchen stool. I moved to the sitting area, turning on a couple of lamps to brighten the room. I went up the spiral staircase to the sleeping loft, where I perched on the edge of the platform bed and pulled off my boots. Most days, my work attire is casual—jeans, a turtleneck, and boots or tennis shoes. I can add a tweed blazer if I feel the need to dress up. Though I’m capable of skirts and panty hose, they’re not my first choice. I do own one dress that I’m happy to say is suitable for most occasions. It’s black, made of a fabric so wrinkle-resistant, if I rolled it up and stored it in my shoulder bag, you’d never know the difference.

At the end of the day, my clothes hurt and I’m eager to be shed of the restraints. I stripped off my jeans and hung them on a peg. I pulled off my shirt and tossed it over the rail. Once I was downstairs again, I’d retrieve it and add it to the garments waiting in the washing machine. In the meantime, I found a set of clean sweats and my slippers, rejoicing, as I always do, that Henry and I are beyond the need to impress each other. As far as I’m concerned, he’s perfect and I suspect he’d say much the same thing about me.

I’ve been his tenant for the past eight years. At one time, my studio was Henry’s single-car garage. He decided he needed a larger one to accommodate his station wagon and his pristine 1932 five-window coupe, so he converted the original garage to a rental unit, which I’d moved into. An unfortunate explosion had flattened my apartment six years before, so Henry had redesigned the floor plan, adding a half-story above the kitchen. On the ground floor I have a living room with a desk and a sofa bed that can accommodate overnight guests. The kitchen is small, a galley-style bump-out off the living room. There’s also a bathroom and a combination washer-dryer tucked under the spiral stairs. The whole of it resembles the interior of a small boat, lots of highly polished teak and oak, with a porthole in the front door and nautical blue captain’s chairs. The new loft, in addition to a double bed, boasts built-in cubbyholes, as well as a second bathroom with a view that includes a small slice of the Pacific Ocean visible through the trees. Henry had installed a Plexiglas skylight above my bed, so I wake to whatever weather’s drifted in during the night.

Between the studio and Henry’s house there’s a glassed-in passageway where he proofs batches of bread, using a Shaker cradle like an enormous buttered bowl. In his working days, he made his living as a commercial baker, and he still can’t resist the satiny feel of newly kneaded dough.

At 5:29 I grabbed my shoulder bag, crossed the flagstone patio, and tapped on the glass pane in Henry’s back door. Most of the time he leaves it unlocked, but our unspoken agreement is to respect each other’s privacy. Unless my apartment was in flames, he’d never dream of entering without permission. I peered through the glass and saw Henry standing at the sink, filling it with hot water into which he was squeezing a long shot of liquid detergent. He took three steps to the side to open the door and then returned to his task. I could see numerous place settings of tarnished silverware on the counter with a roll of aluminum foil and a clean towel laid out. He’d set an eight-quart pan on the stove and the water had just reached a rolling boil. On the bottom of the pan there was a crumpled section of foil. I watched him add a quarter cup of baking soda, after which he placed the silverware in the bubbling water with the foil.

“Oh yum. A pot of flatware soup.”

He smiled. “When I pulled the silver from the canteen, most of it was tarnished. Watch this.”

I peered into the boiling water and watched as the foil turned dark and the tarnish disappeared from all the forks, knives, and spoons. “That doesn’t do any harm?”

“Some people think so, but anytime you polish silver, you’re removing a thin layer of oxidation. That’s a Towle pattern, by the way. Cascade. I inherited service for eighteen from a maiden aunt who died in 1933. The pattern’s discontinued, but if I haunt garage sales, I can sometimes find a piece.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“Silver’s meant to be used. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. It lends a meal an air of elegance, even when we’re eating in here.” He poked the silverware with a set of tongs, making sure all the pieces were totally submerged. “I put an open bottle of Chardonnay in the refrigerator for you.”

“Thanks. Will you be having some with dinner?”

“As soon as I finish this.”

He paused to take a swallow of the Black Jack over ice that constitutes his usual late-afternoon pick-me-up. I retrieved the Chardonnay, took two wineglasses from the cupboard, and filled mine halfway. Henry, meantime, was using the tongs to move the silver from the kettle to the sink of soapy water. After a quick rinse, he laid the freshly polished silver on the waiting towel. I took a second towel from the linen drawer and dried the pieces; I set places for two at the kitchen table, where Henry had laid out freshly ironed cloth napkins and mats.

We postponed our conversation about the job until we’d each eaten two servings of beef stew. Henry crumbled corn bread in his, but I preferred mine on the side with butter and homemade strawberry jam. Am I in love with this man or what? When we finished our meal, Henry put the dishes and silverware in the sink and returned to the table.

Once he was settled, I gave him the
Reader’s Digest
condensed version of the story Michael Sutton had related to me. I said, “Where have I heard the name Michael Sutton? Does it mean anything to you?”

“Not offhand. You know what his father does for a living?”

“Not much. He’s deceased. Sutton told me both his parents were gone. He’s got two brothers and a sister, but they’re not on speaking terms. He didn’t explain himself and I didn’t ask.”

“I wonder if his father was the Sutton who served on the city council. This was maybe ten years ago.”

“That I don’t know. I suspect the reference will come to me, if there is one.”

“In the meantime, you have a game plan?”

“I’ve got some ideas percolating at the back of my brain. I want to see what the papers have to say about the Fitzhugh girl. Sutton might have forgotten something relevant or embellished where he should have left well enough alone.”

“You don’t trust him?”

“It’s not that. I’m worried he’s conflating two separate events. I believe he saw two fellows digging a hole. What I question is the connection to Mary Claire’s disappearance. He says the dates line up, but that doesn’t count for much.”

“I guess time will tell. So what’s the other one?”

“The other what?”

“You said there was another issue up for grabs.”

“Oh, that.”

I leaned toward the empty chair where I’d placed my shoulder bag. I retrieved the still-sealed envelope and passed it across the table. “I don’t have the nerve to open it. I thought you could peek and tell me what it is.”

He put on his reading glasses and studied the front and back of the envelope in the same way I had. He slid a finger under the flap and lifted it, then removed a card with an overleaf of tissue. Inside, there was a smaller card with a matching envelope, so the recipient could RSVP. “Says, ‘The Parsonage. Groundbreaking and Dedication Ceremony, celebrating the removal of the Kinsey Family Homestead to its new location at . . .’ blah, blah, blah. May 28, 1988. I believe that’s the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Four P.M. Cocktails and dinner to follow at the country club. Very nice.”

He turned the invitation so it faced me and I could read it for myself. “Big family do,” he said. “Doesn’t say black tie optional, so that’s good news.” He picked up the smaller card with its stamped envelope. “They’d appreciate a reply by May 1. Couldn’t be easier. The envelope’s already stamped so that will save you return postage. Well, now, what do you think of that?”

“This is just not going to go away, is it?” I said. “Why do they keep harassing me? It’s like being nibbled to death by ducklings.”

He pulled his reading glasses down low on his nose and looked at me over the rims. “Two contacts a year isn’t ‘harassment.’ This is an invitation to a party. It’s not like someone put dog turds on the front seat of your car.”

“I barely know these people.”

“And you won’t if you keep avoiding them.”

Reluctantly, I said, “I’ve dealt with Tasha and she’s not so bad. And I’m fond of Aunt Susanna. She’s the one who gave me the photograph of my mother and then sent me the family album. I’ll admit I was touched by that. So here’s what worries me. Am I just being stubborn for the sake of it? What do they call that, ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’? I mean, most families want to be close. I don’t. Does that make me wrong?”

“Not at all. You’re independent. You prefer being alone.”

“True, and I’m pretty sure that’s considered the opposite of mental health.”

“Why don’t you sleep on it and see how it looks in the morning.”