Crazybone

12

At the office Monday morning I gave Tamara a couple of research jobs to work on first thing. Number one priority was to try to get a line on the woman named Karen, the stained-glass artist, through North Coast galleries, antique collectives, artists’ associations, and the like. The task was one I should’ve put her on Friday — but until Trevor Smith’s call and the events of yesterday, it hadn’t seemed urgent. Now it was. Karen’s identity was the only lead I had to Emily and her mother, and at that it was a tenuous one.

As good as Tamara was with the computer, her chance of success depended on a number of intangibles. First, on whether Karen was the woman’s real name — Emily calling her “Aunt Karen” wasn’t proof of that or of a blood relationship. And even if it was her real name, she might not use it to sign her work. There was how successful and well-known she was, whether she was a joiner, whether she displayed her pieces in galleries or other retail outlets. If she happened to have a website, she’d be easy to locate. If she was a contract artist working for a manufacturer or a wholesaler, or a hobbyist whose creations were limited to a few pieces for herself, relatives, friends, she might be damn difficult to track down.

Tamara’s second job was Cybil-related: Find out who or what Inca or Inco was, when the San Francisco phone number had been disconnected, the name of the person representing Inca/Inco (if in fact it was a company or organization) who had applied for the phone number in the first place, and the billing address. That one should be easy enough when she got around to it. Tamara had developed a cyber contact in Pac Bell’s main office, and it had taken her only a few months to do it. Whereas I’d spent years establishing a personal contact there, using what charm I possessed supplemented by small bribes — and a couple of years ago my contact had quit unexpectedly and moved to Minneapolis. Good old technology. It even simplified ethics bending.

I fidgeted at my desk while Tamara tapped away on her Mac, paying a few bills and getting a bank deposit ready. Then I went to work on the phone. I returned a couple of calls, one of which earned me a minor commission for an employee background check. It was after ten by then, so I rang up Emerald Hills and spoke briefly to Trevor Smith. Still no word from Sheila Hunter. Or if she had contacted him, he wasn’t admitting it.

On impulse I punched out the Hunters’ number. No answer; no answering machine. Was that Audi of hers still in the garage? Only way to find out was to drive down there, but I wasn’t ready for that just yet. Wait a while, see how Tamara’s searches shaped up.

I called Archie Todd’s attorney, Evan Patterson. Not in the office yet. Some lawyers keep bankers’ hours, I thought in my cynical fashion, and left my name and number. Dr. Leonard Johannsen next. He was in, and willing to answer my questions when I said they pertained to a routine insurance investigation. I didn’t say anything about suspicious circumstances.

What the conversation amounted to was a medical confirmation and little else. No, there wasn’t any reason for Archie Todd to have taken a larger dosage of digitoxin; his daily maintenance dose was sufficient and had in fact stabilized his condition. Now and then, Johannsen said, a patient would attempt self-medication, often with disastrous results, but Captain Archie had not been that kind of fool. And yes, a large dosage of the drug could easily induce a heart attack in a CHF patient. The peak toxic effects following an acute overdose could take up to twelve hours, but fatal ventricular fibrillation might happen a lot sooner, depending on the individual and the size of the overdose.

Tamara wasn’t getting anywhere with the Karen search; she shook her head at me when I asked her. Restlessness prodded me out of the office and downstairs to see if the mail had come. The mailman was there and just putting it up. I sifted through mine as I went back upstairs.

Nothing much until I came to the next to last envelope. Handwritten address, no return address, and the handwriting had a careful, slanted roundness — more the hand of a child than an adult. I ripped open the envelope. Folded sheet of ruled paper tom from a notebook. When I opened the fold, something fell out: an address label, one of those small printed mail-order kind, torn off a red envelope.

I looked at the label first. The name on it was K. Meineke; the address was 410 Port Creek Road, Gualala, CA.

Gualala. A little town on the coast, in southern Mendocino County. A town noted as something of an artists’ haven, among its other attractions.

I opened the letter. The same careful writing filled both sides. The salutation was formal and the body of it read:

I’m writing this letter because my mom is watching the phone and she took away my pc so I can’t e-mail you. She heard me making plans to meet you at the riding academy and locked me in my room. I don’t know what else to do. I have a stamp and I’ll try to sneak out and put this in our mailbox. I’ll have to put up the red flag so the mailman will take it but maybe Mom won’t notice.

We’re going away. Running away, I guess. To Aunt Karen’s first but I don’t think we’ll stay there very long. I don’t know where we’ll go after that. Mom won’t tell me. Aunt Karen lives in Gualala. She sent me a birthday card a few days ago and I still have the envelope. I’ll put her address label in here so you’ll know where to find us.

I don’t want to go. I tried to talk Mom into staying but she wouldn’t listen. She’s so scared she’s acting crazy. She won’t tell me why. The only thing she said was “If he finds me he’ll kill me.” I said who would. She said “Somebody I knew a long time ago, before you were born.” She wouldn’t tell me his name or where she knew him or why he wants to kill her.

I’m scared too. That’s why I’m writing this letter to you. You’re the only person I know who can help us. Mom doesn’t think so but I do.

Please help us if you get this letter. Something bad is going to happen, I know it. I’ve already lost my dad, I don’t want to lose my mom too.

It was signed “Sincerely, Emily Hunter.”

Tightness in my throat and a bitter taste in my mouth when I finished reading it. You’d have to be a pretty hard case not to be moved by a letter like this.

Back in the office I said to Tamara, “You can quit the Karen hunt. I just found out who she is and where she lives.”

“No lie? How?”

“This came in the mail.”

“Some kid,” Tamara said when she finished reading the letter. “Sure puts a lot of faith in you.”

“Not too much, I hope.”

“You be going to Gualala?”

“Have to. Even if they’re not there I might be able to get something out of Karen Meineke. I can make it to Gualala by one-thirty or so. Not much more than a three-hour drive.”

“Anything you want me to do?”

“One thing. If you’re willing. Drive down to Greenwood and check out the Hunters’ property. If nobody’s there, look in the garage and see if Mrs. Hunter’s Audi is still inside.”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be willing? More field work I get to do, the better I like it.”

“Well...”

She gave me a slow, lopsided grin. “You worried about a black face getting too much attention down there?”

“Not that. You. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“Me? Trouble? Hey, man, I was born in Redwood City, remember? I knows all about how to deal wif rich white folks in dey fine homes.” Her voice had risen to a shrill, grating parody of African-American speech. “Lawdy, I’se been comin’ over cheer to do foh Miz Hunter and other folks foh a long time now. Yassuh, nosuh, I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong, I sho’ wasn’t.”

“I hate it when you do Butterfly McQueen.”

“Not half as much as I hate black stereotypes.”

“All right. Just don’t lay it on too thick.”

“You leave that to me.”

“If Mrs. Hunter is home, or anybody else is there, make up an excuse and get away as quickly as you can. Don’t tell anybody you work for me unless you have to.”

“Boss,” Tamara said, “quit fussin’ and get movin’. I’m a big girl now. And I already have a daddy.”

I was on Highway I between Jenner and Fort Bragg, the narrow, winding stretch that hugs the high cliffsides and gives height-fearing people like me sweaty palms, when the car phone buzzed. I negotiated another tight curve before I answered it.

“I’m down here in White Folks Heaven,” Tamara said. “On my way out and back to the real world.”

“No trouble?”

“Few looks, that’s all. You know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah. What’d you find out?”

“Nobody home at the Hunters’, alarm system still on, big Audi sitting in the garage.”

“Look like anyone’s been there since yesterday?”

“Uh-uh. Got that deserted feel.”

“Okay. Thanks, Tamara.”

“What else you got for me to do?”

“Nothing on the Hunter ease until I see what I can find out in Gualala. When you get back to the office, go ahead with the Pac Bell search—”

“Way ahead of you there. I e-mailed my man before I left and he already got back to me.” She was a true child of the new age; she carried a laptop with her everywhere she went — to bed and the bathroom, for all I knew — and checked her messages with compulsive regularity. “Might just be your mother-in-law’s right about Mr. Todd. Be something funny goin’ on anyway.”

“How so?”

“Subscriber was Inco of California. Impressive, right? Big outfit of some kind. But the thing is, they had the number exactly one month. September first to October first.”

“Cancelled by them or Pac Bell?”

“Them. Paid the setup charge in advance, paid the one month’s bill and cancelled at the same time. Not much of a bill, either — few dollars over minimum, all on toll calls to Marin.”

“Who opened the account and signed Inco’s check?”

“Man named John Klinghurst. Mean anything?”

“Not to me.”

“Well, Mr. John Klinghurst has himself another phone number listed in his own name. Same billing address as Inco’s — twenty-six-eleven Kirkham. That number’s still in service.”

“Inner Sunset. Residential area.”

“Right. All of this say to you what it does to me?”

“Scam of some kind.”

“With just one target. Mr. Archie Todd.”

“When you get back to the office,” I said, “see what you can find out about this John Klinghurst. Call my mother-in-law, ask her if she knows him or has heard the name. And check with Dunbar Asset Management. Todd’s financial consultants. If they won’t give you any information about his account, talk to his lawyer, Evan Patterson. See what he knows about Todd’s financial situation.”

“Will do,” Tamara said.

We rang off. By then I was through the worst of the cliff-hugging turns and on my way past the old Russian stronghold at Fort Ross. A phrase popped into my head: Trouble ahead, trouble behind, and me somewhere in the middle. I smiled a little, wryly. You could use those words, pretty much verbatim, as an epitaph for a private eye.