“Thank you for coming, Mr. Phillips,” she said.
“I’m here for Etta, Mrs. Merchant.”
“Sheila. Call me Sheila.”
“What is it you need?” I asked.
“Hasn’t Etta told you?”
“Your daughter has run away with one of your employees. That’s really about all I know.”
“Sin is a full-grown woman,” Sheila Merchant said. “She didn’t run away, she just left. But she also left a note behind for her father, informing him that she was leaving with Willis. That poor boy has no idea what game she’s playing with him.”
“Now let me get this straight, Mrs. Merchant,” I said. “You’re worried about the black man? His well- being?”
“Sin is like a cat, Mr. Phillips. She’ll always land on her feet, and on a pile of money too. This is just a game she’s playing with her father. She doesn’t believe he loves her unless she can make him mad.”
“I guess shackin’ up with a poor black hobo is about as mad as he’s gonna get.”
“He loves Sin more than any of the other children,” she said. “It’s really unhealthy.”
I waited for her to say something else; maybe she wanted to but at the last moment she held back. I noticed then the errant strands of gray in her hair.
“When Etta told me about your daughter and Willis,” I said, “I told her that there wasn’t much I could do. I mean, L.A.’s a big town. People around there move from house to house like you might go from one room to another.”
“I know something,” she said. “Something that neither Lymon or Abel are aware of.”
“What’s that?”
Sheila Merchant looked from side to side as if there might be spies in her sewing room.
“There’s a big bush next to the left-hand post that marks the beginning of the eucalyptus drive. It bears red berries.”
“I saw it.”
“Under that bush is a basket. It’s in there.”
“What is?”
“A little journal that Willis carried with him. He could barely read or write, but there are some notes and lots of clippings.”
“Excuse me, Sheila, but what are you doin’ with Willis’s diary?”
“He asked me to hold it for him,” Sheila Merchant said. “He didn’t want somebody to steal it out of the bunkhouse. And we were always talking about music. In my house, when I was a child, we all played an instrument. All except for Father, who had a beautiful tenor voice. None of my children are musical, Mr. Phillips.”
“What about that ivory piano I saw?”
“That is an abomination. It cost thirty thousand dollars to build and the only one who ever played it was Willis Longtree.”
“I see,” I said. “So you said he was talkin’ to you one day…”
“Yes. He was telling me about how much he loved music and performing. He showed me his journal, really it was just a ledger book like the accountants use. He had articles clipped about movie stars and L.A. nightclubs.”
“If he couldn’t read then how would he know what to clip?” I asked.
“You not here to give nobody the third degree,” Etta warned.
“No I’m not. I’m here to help you. Now if you want me to do that, just button up and let me ask the questions I see fit.”
EttaMae glared at me. I’d seen her strike men for less.
“It’s alright, Etta,” Sheila said. And then to me, “Willis had people read to him. He’d go through the newspaper until he saw words he knew, like Hollywood, or pictures of performers, and then he’d have someone read the article to him.”
I got the feeling that she had read to the young man once or twice.
“What do you want from me, Mrs. Merchant?”
“Find Willis before Abel does,” she said. “Tell him what Sin did. Try and get him somewhere safe.”
Sheila Merchant reached into her apron and came out with a white envelope.
“There’s a thousand dollars in here,” she said. “Take it and find Willis, make sure that he’s safe.”
“What about your daughter?”
“She’ll come home when she runs out of money.”
Sheila Merchant looked away, out the window. I looked too. There was a beautiful pine forest under a pale blue and coral sky. It seemed impossible that someone with all that wealth, surrounded by such natural beauty, could be even slightly unhappy.
