Midnight Baby

CHAPTER 9

I took the most direct route south, skirting along the blighted eastern fringe rather than traveling down the more genteel Westside. Not that it mattered; from the freeway, all neighborhoods look more or less the same.

When the freeway ended, I followed the signs toward Long Beach. As soon as I crossed the bridge over the cement gash labeled the San Gabriel River, the air freshened and the sky was clearer than it had been downtown. The ocean was only two or three miles farther on. I could see it on the left, a flash along the horizon.

The first public telephone I spotted was at a bus stop in front of the large state university. Parking was by permit only. So I stopped in the bus zone and left the motor running while I got out to use the directory attached to the phone.

The night before, Dennis, the jeweler, had told us that the Ramsdales were part of the yacht-club set. I wrote down the listed address for the yacht club, then flipped to the M’s.

There were two listings under Metrano: George and Leslie, and Amy Elizabeth. Both gave telephone numbers only, no address.

Out of curiosity, I called Amy’s number first.

A recording kicked on after the first ring. A soft, woman’s voice, sounding very nervous, said, “Thank you for calling the Amy Elizabeth Metrano Search Foundation. Correspondence may be mailed to…” A post office box was given. “Messages are checked regularly. If you have any information about our Amy, please wait for the tone and speak clearly.”

I wondered how often the message phone rang. Anytime that phone rang, I knew it must sound like a fire bell in the night to the family.

I dialed the second listed number. The same soft voice answered. Live this time.

“Mrs. Metrano?” I said.

“Yes?”

“This is Maggie MacGowen. We met at the morgue yesterday.”

“Oh.” A response with new energy. “Are you the one that said you have videotape of Amy?”

“I have videotape of the girl in the morgue.”

“That’s what I meant to say. The girl in the morgue.” She seemed chagrined.

“We made some stills from the tape. Would you like to see them?”

“Oh! Yes. Oh, thank you,” she said in a breathy rush. “I have to go to work right now. I have to be there when the shift changes. But I could get away right after. Where do you want me to come?”

“Maybe we could meet. I’m in Long Beach right now. At the university.”

“My job isn’t so far from there. I need about forty-five minutes or an hour.”

I said fine. She told me she worked at an outlet for Bingo Burgers, and gave me directions.

“Mrs. Metrano,” I said, “would you bring along some pictures of Amy?”

She hesitated. “All right. If you need them.”

“Thanks.”

I saw a bus approaching fast up the street behind Mike’s car.

I said goodbye to Leslie, scooped up my notepad and change, and made a dash. I didn’t peel rubber when I pulled away, but almost.

Bingo Burgers sat on a corner across from a large city park, an ideal location. As it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the place was humming. Dodging kids and minivans, I managed to get inside unscathed.

The menu was the usual fast-serve bland-in-a-bun the several thousand Bingo Burgers restaurants sell nationwide. This particular outlet had evolved a long way from the sticky plastic-and-linoleum places Casey used to drag me to when she was little. If Ronald McDonald and Walt Disney had done it in the dark, this place would have been their offspring. I walked into a two-story fantasy of tropical birds and giant aquariums, of ten-foot palms and tables in imitation grass shacks. A long spiral slide connected the upper dining room to the lower. The racket of over stimulated children and squawking birds merged into a steady, high-decibel roar.

My thought was that whoever owned this franchise saw life in the big picture.

I found Leslie behind the service counter, directing a couple of dozen adolescent employees. She wore slacks and a blazer with the company’s clown logo on the breast pocket. The manager’s blazer. She was pretty, trim in her uniform, but there was a hardscrabble edge about her. Leslie was a working woman, not a mom with a weekend job.

When Leslie saw me, she grabbed a manila envelope and two large drink cups and came around the counter.

“Maggie?” She handed me a cup. “Get yourself a soda. It’s a little quieter in the back. We can talk there.”

We filled the cups and I followed her into a beachless cabana with a view of the street in front. When we sat down, we did show and tell, lining up both our sets of pictures on the table.

I gave her a minute to look them all over.

“What do you think?” I asked when she sat back.

“I just don’t know.” There was some country twang in her speech. “I really hate it when I get told that Amy would have changed a lot by now. Like I didn’t already know that? I look at my older girls.” She glanced up at me. “Did you know I’m a grandma now?”

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Don’t congratulate me. I didn’t have anything to do with it. It was just one of those things. Or that’s what my oldest told me at the time.” She smiled, resigned.

“What I mean to say is,” she continued, “they look so different when they start to fill out. Amy had real fair hair when she was little. I suppose it darkened up some. Like mine did. I never was as blond as she was. The last time I saw my natural color it was sort of lightish brown.”

Her hair that day was about the color of honey. She held one of the Hillary pictures at arm’s length to study it. Hillary’s hair had been bleached white. “What color do you think her real hair was?”

I shook my head. “Maybe the coroner can tell us.”

She had to swallow hard, and I regretted having said that so baldly. She shook it off. “I’ve been going through this routine for a lot of years. You’d think I would get used to it by now. But I just don’t seem to.”

“I think that’s normal,” I said.

“I guess so.” She dropped her eyes and busied her hands unwrapping her straw. She stuck the straw into the cup.

Some people have about them an appealing mantle of vulnerability. You are drawn to them because you think they need protection. They make you feel like big stuff, strong and capable. Leslie made me feel that way. Until she took a drink through her straw.

Leslie pushed her cup aside and roughly grabbed the arm of a passing busboy. Her expression was severe enough to scare the boy.

“Tell Arturo to come over here,” she ordered. “Tell him I said move fast.”

I turned to watch the boy scuttle away. “Something wrong?”

“These kids. Just when you get one trained right, they go quit on you. It’s just constant aggravation.” She softened again.

“I’m used to it, though. I always said I had six big babies, five kids and George. Now I have about ten times that many. Believe me, you gotta know how to handle them.”

A tall, lanky boy about seventeen sidled over. He had dark, close-cut hair and a single stud earring. If I’d had to choose which of them, him or Leslie, needed a protector, I would have taken the boy. His knees shook.

“You want me, Miz Metrano?” His voice changed register twice.

She handed him her cup.

He paled as he took it. “I forgot.”

“Arturo, your job is recharging the soda base. There’s nothing in this cup but fizz and water.”

“The fry timer went off when I was standing right there. I had to take care of the fries.”

“Are fries your responsibility?”

“No, ma’am.” He looked weepy.

“Were the fry people around to take care of their job?”

“Yes.”

“Your job is the soda dispensers. You come on in the middle of the lunch rush, Arturo. The soda base is gettin’ real low by then. If you don’t do your job, what happens when the customers get their drinks?”

“I’m sorry, Miz Metrano.” Arturo was backing away. “I won’t forget again.”

“You got that right,” she said. “Go back to work.”

I did a quick reevaluation. The woman was no creampuff. She turned her attention back to me. “Sorry. Where were we?”

“Mrs. Metrano, do you know a family named Ramsdale?” I asked.

“Ramsdale?” She ran it over in her mind. “Commonish name, I guess. I can’t think of anyone in particular, though. Why?”

“They had a fourteen-year-old daughter named Hillary.” I tapped a Pisces picture. “She has been identified as Hillary Ramsdale.”

“Did she run away?” Leslie asked.

“She ran or was pushed away.”

“Dammit, though,” she said in her soft voice. “If I’d known how hard it is to hang on to your kids, I would have had them all tattooed.”

“Amy has something better than a tattoo. She has her parents’ DNA. Did you and your husband give samples to the police so they can run a DNA screen?”

“I did.” She emphasized I. I couldn’t read her. All she had to do was give a small amount of blood. It was neither scary nor painful. Nothing to be embarrassed about. “They only needed one parent. Might as well be me. George doesn’t like needles.”

“My pictures haven’t helped, have they?”

“Tell you the truth? They only make things more confusing.”

I gave her my card with Mike’s home number written in below mine. “Call me anytime. You can leave messages.”

As I gathered up Guido’s pictures, Leslie Metrano gathered hers. She handed them to me. “You might as well have them. You never know what will help.”

“I’ll keep in touch,” I said. “I’ll let you know what happens.”

Following Leslie Metrano’s precise directions, I approached Belmont Shore from the east end this time. I crossed the bridge onto Naples Island, passing over the ski boat basin and the channel to the open sea. The scenery on Naples was more boats, more yacht harbor, more million-dollar houses.

I had looked up the address of the yacht club in the Thomas Guide map book I’d found in Mike’s car. The area was a maze of narrow streets and intersecting waterways. I got lost a couple of times, stymied by one-way passages and dead ends, before I found the right path.

I drove around a horseshoe-shaped bay and over a two-lane bridge. Past a swimming beach with an opalescent boat-oil veneer shimmering on the water, and past the Sea Scout headquarters, I found the yacht club.

The main building sat on a promontory that bulged out into the boat channel. A spiky collar of naked masts defined the contour of its water side. The clubhouse looked something like a Polynesian restaurant left over from the sixties, a long arc of heavy wood and fieldstone shaded by shaggy-leafed banana trees and leggy coco palms.

Though everything looked well tended, I wouldn’t have described the club as posh. It was the boats out back and the cars in front that defined its status. Here were Mercedes station wagons, sleek Jags, more Cadillacs and Lincolns than I had seen in one place outside of Detroit, and litters of Volkswagen convertibles – the California teenager’s car of the moment. What this said to me was that there were at least three generations of the affluent playing in the same sandbox.

I walked in past the brass plaque on the door that said “Members and guests only,” crossed the parquet entry, and headed straight up the stairs toward the sound of voices. Not a soul said boo to me.

On the second floor, I found the bar, a large, cozy lounge walled by glass. Terraces overlooked the Olympic-size pool on the deck below and ranks of moored boats beyond. Through the open windows a brisk breeze blew in off the water, smelling more of bait and petroleum than sweet ocean. A dozen fat brown pelicans rocked in the wake of a passing harbor patrol boat. A peaceful place.

I stood to the side, next to a popcorn machine, and surveyed the crowd, looking for an opening wedge. The atmosphere was friendly, the wealthy at ease among their familiars. My father, who teaches at Berkeley, would have described the group as Establishment. Even worse, Republican.

I don’t know why I was even thinking about my father. Actually, I do know. I say the same little prayer of gratitude every time I am in an opulent environment and I do not find my father. It’s a knee-jerk sort of thing.

When I was immediately postpubescent, my mother enrolled me in a cotillion at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. All the better sort from our area sent their little future ambassadors to learn to dance, bow, and curtsy so that they wouldn’t disgrace their families should they be invited to dine at the White House. The boys had been okay, and the dancing instruction wasn’t so bad. It was my father’s presence that caused me pain.

My father, who has never missed a meal without intending to, or lived in a house with fewer than five bedrooms, carries a tremendous load of guilt for the comfortable circumstances of his birth and upbringing. So, while I box-stepped and cha-cha-chaed, he sat in the parents’ gallery, double bourbon in hand, and did his best to convert the local matronage to the virtues of socialism. Some of the mothers instructed their sons not to ask me to dance, lest I taint them. I heard enough pinko jokes that I will never wear pink again as long as I live.

As much as I love Comrade Dad, I made a quick sweep of the yacht-club bar to make sure he wasn’t there before I made my move. One can never be too cautious.

A pair of elderly matrons with tight butts and champagne-colored hair brushed past in an aureole of perfumed air. The smaller of them smiled at me.

“Hello, dear,” she said. “Beautiful day.”

“Lovely,” I said, and fell in behind her. They walked out to a table on the terrace. I found a vacant stool at the bar and sat down.

The bartender in a private club is almost always the keeper of the real scoop. For the price of a drink, maybe a flash of cleavage, chances were he could be mine. As a source of information.

The bartender was at the far end of the bar from me, in the middle of what appeared to be a good joke. There was no hustle in him. I was in no hurry. I didn’t mind having a little time to figure out my opening gambit. The first problem was that drinks were being signed off to club accounts rather than paid for. I had no account. I could always ask for water.

The stool behind me changed ownership. I swiveled around and found myself eye to eye with a middle-aged man with a good tan and smooth hands, doctor hands. He was spare in his frame, in his movements, and in the smile he gave me. He pushed his sweat-stained yachting cap back on his blond head and leaned toward me.

“Nice nose,” he said. “Good workmanship.”

“Thank you,” I laughed. “I paid a lot for it.”

“Chicago, late 1970s.”

“Dallas, 1981.”

He took my chin in his hand and turned my face so he could inspect my nose from the side. “Maybe the work was done in Dallas, but the surgeon trained in Chicago.”

“Could be. Even a snake from Chicago can buy lizard-skin boots in Dallas.” I refrained from touching the itch at the bridge of my nose where once there had been a hump. A hump like my father’s. “Are nose jobs some kind of hobby for you?”

“Noses make the payments on that Bayliner tied up in slip fifty-two.” He offered his hand. “Greg Szal. I don’t remember seeing your nose around here before. Or any of the rest of you, for that matter.”

“I’ve been up in the Bay Area,” I improvised.

“What are you drinking?”

“Diet Coke,” I said.

He caught the bartender’s attention. “Dos Cocas, Sammy, por favor. Tall skinny ones.”

I filed the bartender’s name for possible future use.

Greg Szal sat forward so that his shoulder almost touched mine. At five-seven I am no giant. His eyes were just about level with mine.

“How come you aren’t out there racing with the big girls?” he asked. “Isn’t this the last day of qualifying?”

“Racing isn’t my thing.”

“I know what you mean. Sabots are kid boats.”

He brushed my hand with his as he reached for one of the glasses Sammy the bartender set in front of us. I couldn’t tell whether Szal was coming on to me or just being friendly. Not that it mattered. What I wanted from him was conversation, and he seemed to be a willing donor. I could worry about his intentions later.

I took a sip from my glass and smiled at him.

“I’ve only been back in town since yesterday,” I said, trying to sort out the essentials of the information Dennis the jeweler had given to Mike and me. “I haven’t connected with the Rams-dales yet. Have you seen them lately?”

“Which Ramsdale, him or her?”

“Either of them. Or Hilly. Hilly is the same age as my daughter.”

He frowned. “Your daughter goes to Rogers?”

“No,” I said, thinking fast. “As I said, we’ve been up in the Bay Area for a while. You know Hilly?”

“Sure. My son is on the club swim team with her.”

“When did you see her last?”

He was looking at me sideways, thinking about something hard enough to put a crease between his nearly white brows. I took another sip of Coke for something to do.

“How long did you say you’ve been gone?” he asked. “Quite a while.”

“And no one told you about the Ramsdales?”

“No,” I said. “I’m afraid I haven’t done a very good job of keeping up. Has something happened to Randy?”

“Something’s always happening to Randy,” he chuckled. “You know how he is. Old Ramsdale can be a royal pain in the ass, but to tell you the truth, I kind of miss him. He’s a pushy son of a bitch, but he has a good heart.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He and Elizabeth split up. It seems to me one day he was here, the next he was gone. If you really want to know the gory details, why don’t you check with information central?”

“Where?”

“Come with me.” He slid off his bar stool and waited for me to follow him.

He took me to a cluster of low sofas arranged around a massive stone fireplace. Two women about my age lounged there, feet up on a free-form granite cocktail table. They were an attractive pair, unaffected, casually dressed, obviously loaded – between them they wore enough rocks to ransom Aladdin. The taller woman, an aristocratic blonde, held a swimsuit-clad toddler sprawled across her lap. The child slept with his mouth open, dried Popsicle streaks staining his chin.

The second woman was her opposite, a small, voluptuous brunette. She was pretty in a romantic mold, dark curls, long lashes, pouty valentine-shaped lips. When she raised her manicured hand to brush a stray strand of hair from her face, I saw flecks of green fire in her brown eyes.

The pair were whispering back and forth as Greg Szal and I approached, sharing a few private nudges; curious rather than catty.

The brunette looked up at Szal through her lashes, and I saw a tremor pass through him. She saw it, too, and milked it a little.

“Greg?” she cooed.

He took a gulp of air and turned to me. “You remember my wife, Regina.”

There was something about the way she looked at me, a wry, smart-aleck appraisal, that made me like Regina Szal immediately. More steel town than steel magnolia. I offered her my hand.

“Maggie MacGowen,” I said.

“Maggie MacGowen,” Regina repeated for the benefit of her friend.

“No.” The woman shook her head. “That isn’t it.”

“Isn’t what?” I asked the blonde.

“Your name. Actually, I suppose, it is your name if you say so. But that isn’t who we decided you are.”

Regina smiled. “We were just trying to remember where we met you. I know it wasn’t PTA. Cynthia suggested John Tracy Clinic volunteers.”

I felt my face grow hot, and I knew I was blushing. There was a time everyone in town – whatever town I might have been working in – knew my face. I left network broadcasting in the mid-eighties, and being recognized on the street is getter more and more rare. Almost the only on-camera work I do anymore is promos for PBS. Even with my expensively edited nose, I feel more comfortable on the back end of the camera. I always have. Still, I am around enough so that now and then people who watch public television recognize me on some level.

I had had this who-are-you conversation and variations on it dozens of times. I did what I always do: I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled innocently.

“I was asking Greg about the Ramsdales,” I said. “He thought you might be able to help me.”

“What about them?” Regina asked.

“For starters, where are they?”

“Why?” Regina seemed skeptical. And smart.

“I want to talk to them about Hillary.”

“Is she in some sort of trouble?”

I nodded. “Big-time trouble.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“She ran away from home,” I said. “I want to know why.”

“Are you a social worker?”

“No,” I said. “I’m a mother.”

“Well, then.” Regina looked up at her husband and batted her eyes again. “Greg, on your way out, please tell Sammy to send over another bottle of Moet. And keep them coming. We have some serious talking to do. I want to hear all about Hilly. But I have a feeling I need to be about half blind first.”

“On my way out?” Greg asked, gazing at her with a hangdog longing. “I just got here.”

She pressed his arm. “I said, this is serious.”

As he sloped away, dejected, I had a feeling Regina had already been served a few by Sammy. She was certainly willing to talk.

I turned my smile on her. “It’s wicked what you do to that man.”

“I know,” she purred. “And after all these years. It’s the ultimate power, you know, to hold a man’s balls in the palm of your hand that way.”

The blonde snorted. I guffawed.

Regina grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me down beside her. “Maggie, meet Cynthia.”

“Hello,” I said.

“Nice to meet you.” Cynthia sounded as highbrow as she looked, very long vowels, very Vassar. The grubby child on her lap didn’t quite suit the stereotype. But he suited her. “What nature of trouble is Hillary in?”

I took out the stills of Pisces again, and silently asking the girl for forgiveness, handed them to Regina. This wasn’t the same as showing them to Leslie Metrano. Hillary would have been mortified if either of these women had seen her on the street.

Regina held the prints so that Cynthia could look on and leafed through them twice.

“Do you know this girl?” I asked.

“It’s Hillary Ramsdale.” Regina grimaced. “Do they dress this badly on the Continent, or were these taken on Halloween? She looks like a little whore.”

“That was her intention,” I said. “I filmed her in Los Angeles just a few days ago.”

“Ah-ha.” Cynthia raised a slender hand. “Now I have it. Maggie MacGowen. Aged and Alone. We showed your film at a Junior League seminar about the sandwich generation. You know, adults raising children and caring for elderly parents at the same time. You remember, Regina.”

Regina still seemed confused. She held up one of the pictures. “Hilly was in makeup for a film?”

“No,” I said. “That’s how I found her. Hillary was a working girl.”

The frozen horror on Regina’s face melted to mortified tears as she leafed again through the stills. She turned the stack facedown on the table before she wiped her nose on the sleeve of her sweater. The valentine poutiness was gone from the gaze she turned on me.

“You said ‘was,’ ” she said.

“Hillary is dead.”

“An accident?”

“No. She was murdered.”

“No.” Cynthia drew the sleeping toddler tight and buried her face against him. Regina reached out and grasped the child’s hand. The gesture was very tender, but the green in her eyes sparked with her wrath. It was the right reaction. It showed genuine concern. I liked her even more. Why hadn’t Hillary turned to people like these when she was in trouble?

Sammy came over with champagne and tall flutes and began pouring. Glasses were passed from hand to hand in just the way Kool-Aid was being passed among a group of youngsters down at the pool. As long as Sammy was present, no one said a word.

Sammy draped a white towel around the neck of the half-full bottle and went away.

“To all the bastards.” Regina tipped her glass toward mine.

“Hear, hear,” Cynthia intoned. She arched her long neck back and took a hefty slug from her glass. The price of Moet being what it is, I figured her intake to be about a dollar-fifty per swallow.

“Where is Hillary now?” Regina asked.

“County morgue,” I said.

“All alone?” Regina seethed. She reached for the bottle. “That goddam fucking son of a bitch Randy.”

“What did he do?” I asked.

“All his brains are in his prick. He all but abandoned Hilly. When Elizabeth caught him screwing his latest bimbo, she tossed him out. Literally. Dumped all his shit into the canal. The neighbors watched her do it. Then he took right off, left the country, and left Hilly behind.”

“Left her with her mother,” I said.

Cynthia sneered. “Elizabeth is not her mother. By my count, she’s wife number three.”

“Then where is her mother?”

“She died.” Regina turned to Cynthia. “Was it five or six years ago?”

Cynthia shrugged. “I’m not sure. Five or six years and two wives ago, anyway. It was a terrible shame. Hilly’s mother was such a lovely person. You can see her influence in Hilly.”

“Hold the phone,” Regina snapped, draining the bottle into her glass. “Hilly ended up a streetwalker. How lovely is that?”

Cynthia looked down her narrow nose. “You know what I mean. Mother and daughter were both gracious and well-spoken. They kept a bit to themselves, but they were very charming. If Hilly ended up on the streets I would look to Elizabeth before I placed blame on Hanna.”

“Why?” I asked.

Regina summoned me closer so she could whisper. “Because Elizabeth is a tramp. Any idiot could see right from the beginning what she wanted from Randy. Everyone except Randy.”

“And what did she want?”

“This.” Regina’s gesture swept the room. “And the Virginia Country Club membership, a house in Naples. For a little waitress who grew up in Northtown, she did all right for herself.”

“Nasty Reggie,” Cynthia reproved.

“But it’s true.” She sat back. “Randy must have a thing for waitresses. Look at his latest conquest. What’s her name? Lacy? Apparently he likes them young and deft at juggling hot dishes.”

“Richard likes Lacy.” Cynthia was beginning to slur her words. “He says Lacy’s awfully intelligent. More like Randy’s first wife than Elizabeth. She’s working on a teaching credential at State. And she’s good with Hilly. He thinks maybe Randy is beginning to pull himself back together.”

“Who is Richard?” I asked her.

“My husband,” Cynthia said as if any idiot should have known.

Listening to them, I was beginning to feel like a spectator at a tennis match. The wine and bouncing back and forth between them was making my head buzz.

“Wait a minute,” I said, holding up my hands. “Where can I find Elizabeth?”

“Haven’t seen her for a while. Have you, Cynthia?”

“No.”

“She still has the Naples house,” Regina said.

“I’d like the address,” I said. More than that, I wanted an introduction. I hoped Regina was up for a Sunday-afternoon social call. “I’m sure the police have already contacted Elizabeth. But I want to talk to her.”

“Why?” Cynthia challenged. “Seems ghoulish.”

“Research,” I said, perhaps defensively. Maybe she was right.

Regina had an impish smirk on her face. “You want to do the Nancy Drew thing. Snoop around. Get into some trouble.”

I laughed. “Exactly. Want to come with me?”

“Seriously?”

“Elizabeth will be more receptive to a chat if I’m introduced to her by someone she knows. Like you.”

“True.” Regina got to her feet. “Besides, she lives right on a canal. It’s a tricky place to find. Be easier if I just drove you. Cynthia, are you coming?”

“I pass.” Cynthia’s sleeping child was beginning to stir. “David needs lunch.”

Regina gave little David’s leg a pat. “Keep an eye out for my boys. I’ll call you later.”

“My car’s out front,” I said.

But she shook her head. “We’ll get there faster by water.”

On the way past the bar, Regina scooped up a second bottle of Moet and tucked it under her arm. At double-time march, she led me downstairs and out the back way to the ranks of moored boats.

When Greg Szal mentioned his Bayliner, I had assumed big. It wasn’t. It was a behemoth. There was enough gear on the fishing tower to go into the tuna business if his nose-job practice failed.

A craft that size would tear up the open water, but in narrow passages like the boat channel or the canals of Naples it would be a nuisance, a shark in a goldfish bowl. I was thinking it might be faster to swim to the Ramsdales’ than go through the bother of bringing the beast out when Regina ripped a tarp off a four-man Zodiak raft that was tied alongside.

“Give me a hand,” she said. We untied the raft and pushed it through the slip until we had cleared the Bayliner’s stern. Regina jumped in, heedless of her white linen slacks, and I followed, gracelessly, bouncing on the rubber bottom. I had just managed to get to my knees when she fired up the powerful outboard motor and blasted out into the channel, knocking me flat.

The bottle of Moet rolled against my leg. I grabbed it and slid into the bow. With my legs stretched out front, my back against the inflated side, I was thoroughly comfortable. Wind snapped through my hair, a fine sea spray chilled my face. I popped open the wine, let the foam spew over the side, then took a big swallow.

“Beautiful,” I shouted over the ratchety motor noise. I passed the bottle into Regina’s outstretched hand.

“Cheers,” she shouted back, and took a slug herself.

With practiced skill, Regina maneuvered the Zodiak through the channel and then cut into the wide bay instead of continuing out toward the open sea.

Both sides of the bay were lined with dense-packed houses, everything from tiny cottages to three-story confections of glass and wood. There was an East Coast feel about it all: old money, restricted entree.

Regina powered up to pass a black-and-gold gondola that was being poled by a striped-shirted, opera-singing gondolier. His passengers were snuggled together drinking red wine. Very romantic. Regina raised our bottle to them and they waved back.

At the mouth of a narrow canal, Regina cut her motor to an idle. We glided into a shady canyon between rows of big houses. The cross streets that had been so confusing to me earlier were charming arched bridges from our perspective. The bridges trailed dusty green ivy and bright bougainvillea from either end. The air was rich with the smells of moss and salt water and star jasmine. The atmosphere was just short of exotic. A secret place discovered.

The houses we passed were magnificent. They faced the canal as they would a street, shamelessly flaunting their graces to passersby. Sunday strollers filled the walkway at the edge of the canal on both sides, festive in the weird clothes Southern Californians wear near water. Altogether it was like a Disneyland ride, a sort of Pirates of the Upper Middle Class. I was having fun.

Every house we passed had a small dock in front. And almost every dock had a boat of some sort, or evidence of a boat: lines, tarps, chains. Some of the docks were furnished with patio chairs and tables, here and there pots of geraniums or trailing succulents.

After the second bridge, Regina killed her motor and coasted to an empty dock. She tossed her line over the metal stanchion and pulled us in close. The house before us was an Italianate mansion with a pink marble terrace overlooking the water. Tall windows along the front must have filled the house with southern light.

It was a warm day. Had it been my house, at least some of the tall windows would have been open. That was my first reaction; a nice place, but stuffy.

I clambered out of the raft and pulled Regina up after me. “Looks awfully quiet,” I said.

“The boat’s gone. I know the neighbor. I can ask her when it sailed.”

“Let’s try the front door first.”

Regina was edgy, excited, definitely high. I wondered if she needed more adventure in her life. As adventures go, the one we were on was so far tame stuff. I let her ring the bell.

When no one answered, I stepped to the first set of terrace doors and brazenly looked inside.

I saw a professionally decorated living room, good antiques, polished wood floors, original artwork on the walls. Everything in order. I went to each set of doors and saw more of the same in different rooms. The message was lots of money, knows how to spend it.

“Maggie?” Regina walked across the terrace toward me waving a gray business card. “This was in the door. Should I just leave it?”

I took the card from her and read: Los Angeles Police Department. When I saw the name next to the gold-embossed detective shield, I got a knot in my stomach. Detective Michael Flint, it said, Robbery-Homicide Division, Major Crimes Section. There was a note on the back in Mike’s careful hand: “Mrs. Ramsdale, please call immediately.”

Patience is a virtue. Unfortunately, it’s not one of mine. In my rush to find out about Hillary, I had neglected some of the essential groundwork. That is, it was not my place to tell Elizabeth Ramsdale that her stepdaughter was dead.

Mike has told me that the most important part of a murder investigation is the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The physical evidence is fresh, and that’s nice when he gets the case into court. But it is usually more important to him to have fresh emotional evidence. When he questions someone, he listens to the body language as closely as he does the verbal answers: an inappropriate laugh, eyelids that drop before an answer, any reaction that catches the liar. For me to spring the news on Elizabeth would be evidence-tampering as egregious as tramping through the murder scene would be.

It was time for me to back off. I went over to the front door and tucked Mike’s card back into the space above the deadbolt where Regina had found it.

I started down the slick marble steps. “Want to take me back now?”

Regina stayed her ground. “While we’re here, let’s talk to the neighbor. She’s such a dear old thing. I’m sure she’s seen us. She’d think it rude if I didn’t stop in to say hello.”

I hesitated. An old lady next door wasn’t the same as talking to the family, but they can be wonderful sources of information.

I smiled at Regina. “Lead the way,” I said.

The neighbor’s house was a slate-gray Cape Cod with white trim and a lot of polished brass. Standing alone it would have been a charming beach cottage. But sandwiched between a faux English Tudor manor house and the Ramsdales’ palazzo, it seemed as contrived as a movie facade.

Regina banged the huge knocker a few times and we were let in by a maid wearing blue jeans and a flowered tunic.

“Have a seat in the living room,” the maid said. “I will tell Martha you’re here.”

“Martha knows they’re here.” The voice was estrogen-deepened, the woman behind it ancient. She came down the stairs leaning heavily on the railing, as wrinkled and fragile-looking as an orphaned baby bird. She offered her crooked hand to Regina, to hold not to shake. “So nice to see you, dear. How are the boys?”

“Getting big,” Regina said, planting a kiss on the powdered cheek. “All except Greg. He keeps hoping, but dammit, Martha, he’s just not going to grow anymore.”

Martha laughed. “Who’s your friend?”

“Martha, this is Maggie MacGowen. She’s a filmmaker and she’s interested in the Ramsdales.”

Martha turned her bright eyes on me. “Whyever would you be interested in the Ramsdales? Unless you’re doing soap opera.”

“Are they good soap-opera material?” I asked.

“Good Lord, yes. Much better than most television. I never rent videos on weekends. So much more interesting to just sit on my terrace and snoop.” She patted Regina’s hand. “Let’s go in and sit down. May I offer you some refreshment?”

Regina rose to the offer. “I wouldn’t mind a double something, on the rocks. How about you, Maggie?”

“No thanks,” I said. “I’m well past my limit.”

I looked at my watch as I followed them into the living room. I needed to be on the freeway within the hour if I was going to be in Sherman Oaks by six. The time wasn’t my problem. The wine was. I was in no shape to drive. I had known even as I accepted the first glass of champagne that I should stick with soda.

I’m a funny drunk. Charming even, according to my friends. I had never had a problem with booze, really. But I had had a rough year or so, and a little chemically induced happiness had helped me get by now and then. I was beginning to be aware how many evenings over the last few months I had been funny and charming by bedtime. There had been nights that without the help of a bottle of wine or several stiff scotches I wouldn’t have had the courage to go to bed at all.

For the first month or so after my ex-husband moved out, I went upstairs every night with the sense that an onerous burden had been lifted. There is nothing worse than going through the motions night after night out of habit, because you haven’t embraced the inevitable alternatives, with someone you wish had missed his freeway off ramp. Had gone over the side, maybe. Into the cold, unforgiving waters of the San Francisco Bay, perhaps.

Anyway, the relief wears off after a while and you begin to notice that one person can’t warm a king-size bed. Mike had helped warm the sheets for a while. Then, when he was gone, medium-priced chardonnay and Bowser had now and then sung my lullaby. I preferred Mike.

“Martha,” I said, “would you mind if I used the telephone?”

“By all means, dear,” she said graciously.

While Martha and Regina uncapped a new bottle of bourbon at the wet bar, I called Mike’s pager and programmed in Martha’s number. If he was still in Long Beach, there was no point in both of us driving all the way back to the Valley for dinner. Separately. I was thinking about his handcuffs when I rejoined the others.

Regina made room for me beside her on a velvet settee. “Martha knew Hillary’s mother.”

“Tell me about her,” I said. I hoped to keep the conversation away from Hillary’s fate. I had already told too many people. “Tell me what sort of mother she was to Hillary.”

“Hanna was a wonderful mother.” Martha seemed thoughtful. “Very careful. Now, I personally raised my children to be independent. Hanna kept little Hilly awfully close to her. Smothered her, to my way of thinking. Does that sound catty?”

I smiled. “If that’s being catty, please, go ahead. I want to know what Hillary’s home life was like.”

“It was a good life by most measures. The Ramsdales certainly wanted for nothing. If Hanna smothered Hillary, well, perhaps no one could blame her. She wasn’t a young mother, you see. Hillary was a blessing that came somewhat late in life. A surprise, after Hanna and Randy had given up on children. I think that being an only child of older parents can be a special burden, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I can see how it could be. Do you think Hillary was unhappy?”

“Good Lord, no,” Martha snapped. “Randy would not permit his girls to be unhappy. He doted on Hanna and Hillary. He would move mountains for them.”

“You said that Hillary was a surprise. Thinking back, do you think the baby was a welcome surprise?”

“Hanna always said so. She had some female problems. I don’t remember what, exactly. Hanna did tell me that she had lost several pregnancies and had a little one who died very early on. Very sad for her. So of course, after that much heartache, a healthy child like Hillary would be something of a miracle, don’t you think? Now, I only know what Hanna told me. The Ramsdales bought the house next door because of our school district. They moved in in time for Hillary to begin kindergarten. I didn’t know her as a baby.”

I was keeping two columns of figures in my head, Amy Metrano’s age when she disappeared, Hillary’s age when she entered the local picture. Four and a half and fivish. Could work.

“Was Randy as protective as Hanna?” I asked.

She pursed her thin lips. “Oh yes. More so, I believe. Poor man was desperately lost after Hanna died. And he worried so about Hillary. I am persuaded that’s why he married again so soon. He wanted to find another Hanna.”

“Was the second wife like Hanna?” I asked.

“Physically, very much so. As is Elizabeth.” Martha looked at me. “Would you call that kinky?”

“I would, yes.” My response seemed to please her.

“I always thought so, too. Poor Randy. You cannot judge a book by its cover.”

“Meaning,” I said, “that beyond their appearance, wives two and three were not like Hanna?”

“Precisely.”

The telephone rang before Martha got into her wind up.

“Excuse me, please.” She creaked to her feet and picked up the receiver. After hello, she did some listening. Then she told the caller, “It certainly wasn’t me, sir. But I can offer you Regina Szal or Maggie MacGowen. What’s your pleasure?”

I knew it was Mike returning my page. I had been standing beside Martha during most of this exchange. She seemed to be flirting a bit, so I waited. She was chuckling when she handed me the receiver.

“For you, dear,” she said, and mouthed, “Man.”

I put the receiver to my ear. “Mike?”

“I take it you’re not in trouble,” he said. “Who’s the old girl?”

“She lives next door to the Ramsdales.”

“Jesus Christ, Maggie,” he exploded. “What the hell are you up to?”

“Hi, honey,” I cooed. “Nice to hear your voice, too.”

He drew a noisy breath. “Sorry. But someday you’re going to get into a deeper hole than you can get yourself out of.”

“That’s why I keep your number in my pocket, cupcake.”

Finally, he laughed. “Okay. What’s up?”

“Are you still in Long Beach?”

“No. I’m home. Michael and I are watching the end of the ball game. Waiting for you.”

“I’m leaving in a few minutes.”

“Good. Who all have you talked to?”

“People at the yacht club, the next-door neighbor. Guido and I made some pictures. I showed them to Leslie Metrano.”

“And?”

“Rang no bells.”

“Seen any signs of the Ramsdales?”

“None.”

“If you do run into either of them, Maggie..

“Yes?”

“Stay away.”

“You’re as bossy as Lyle.”

“The thing is,” Mike went on, “if anyone hurt you, I’d have to kill him. So far, I’ve had a clean week and I want to keep it that way.”

“Bye, Mike,” I said.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard you. I gotta go.”

“You gotta get home. We’re hungry.”

“Bye.” I hung up and went back to Regina and Martha.

“Everything all right, dear?” Martha asked.

“Fine. But I’m out of time. May I come back and talk with you again later? Maybe tomorrow?”

“Certainly.” She smiled sweetly. “I was wondering whether you knew when Hillary and Randy would be coming back.”

Regina pulled in a breath, getting ready to spill the big news. I grabbed her arm and squeezed and she seemed to get the message.

“It seems that everyone believes Hillary and Randy are somewhere in Europe together,” I said. “Do you know when they left? Or where they went?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know that. Randy moved out next door after an especially nasty fight, sometime last winter. Elizabeth told me he had gone abroad. And not long afterward, Hillary joined him.”

“When did she join him?”

She drew in a squeaky breath as she thought. “March? Yes, I think it was the middle of March. Hillary brought me some shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, as she always does. And that was the last I saw her.”

“Did she say where her father had gone?”

“No. She did tell me she wasn’t getting along well with Elizabeth and wanted to be with her father. Apparently, Elizabeth sent her right along. I enjoy gossiping with you, dear, but you really should ask Elizabeth.”

“She isn’t home,” I said. “Any idea where she might be?”

“There was a policeman here earlier today, and he asked the same question of my housekeeper. We were trying to think. To be honest, I can’t quite remember. Since Randy left, Elizabeth seems to come and go rather irregularly. I don’t keep close tabs.

The boat has been gone for some time. A week perhaps. Maybe she’s gone off to Catalina.”

“If she comes back, will you call me?”

“That’s what the policeman said, too. Who should I call first, you or him?”

I put my arm around her thin shoulders and whispered into her ear, “The policeman and I can be reached at the same number.”

She brightened. “Oh! Oh, my. Yes, I certainly do wish to speak with you further. You must explain that to me.”

We said our goodbyes. Regina dispensed some hugs and promises of her own to Martha. Martha seemed fatigued suddenly, and I worried that we had overstayed. We left her in the living room and saw ourselves out.

“What a dear,” I said to Regina as we walked back toward the Zodiak.

“She is a dear. I’ve heard stories that she was quite a hell-raiser in her day.”

“I hope she was,” I said, chuckling at the image. It seemed fully consistent.

When I took a last look up at the Ramsdales’ house, I noticed that an upstairs window was open enough for the breeze off the water to ruffle the sheer curtains. Mike’s card was still stuck in the front door.

I was looking just about everywhere except where I was going. I walked right into the back of Regina. She had stopped dead on the walk.

“Sorry,” I said.

Regina turned a pale face to me and pointed to the Ramsdales’ dock, where we had left the Zodiak.

I saw nothing. No raft.

I ran, Regina close on my heels. Our feet clattered on the small wooden dock. We found the raft’s line attached to the stanchion and taut. When I leaned over the edge I could see the gray rubber of the raft bobbing just under the surface of the dark water. I knelt and began to haul it in. Even with Regina’s help, it was too heavy. And the effort was pointless. There was no hope of refloating the Zodiak. Ever.

Through the murky water I could see the long slashes that had reduced the thick rubber sides to ribbons.

Regina had green fire in her eyes again.

“What the fuck is this supposed to mean?” She was steamed.

“It means,” I said, “that we’re having dinner in Long Beach after all.”