'None, merely an RFD number,' she said. 'He wrote me a letter some years ago. I did not reply. Vaughn ceased to be of any interest to me years before his death.'
'Vaughn is his first name?'
'His middle name actually, but he used it. His full name is Lawrence Vaughn Richard.'
'Tell me a little about Angela,' I said.
'She was a recalcitrant, disobedient child,' M. Richard said. 'She and her father drove me nearly insane.'
'Tell me about it.'
'He was a drunk and a womanizer.'
'A man,' Marty mumbled on the couch beside her. I'd probably wasted the killer smile on Marty.
'And she was his daughter,' M. Richard said. 'The stress of them drove me to alcohol addiction.'
'From which you've recovered?'
'The addiction is lifelong, but I no longer drink.'
'AA.'
'Yes. It's where I met Marty.'
'And how come you've not been in touch with your daughter in all this time?' I said.
'She has not been in touch with me.'
'And if she were?'
'I would not respond.'
I nodded. The walls of the sitting room were a dark maroon, and dark heavy drapes hung at each window. There was a dark, mostly maroon oriental rug on the floor. Somewhere, perhaps in the draped living room, I could hear a clock ticking.
'All of that is behind me,' M. Richard said. 'Husband, child, marriage, alcohol, pain. I am a different person now. I live a different life.'
I looked at Marty. She looked back at me the way a hammer eyes a nail.
'Did you know your daughter was married?'
'No.'
'You ever hear of anyone named Luis Deleon?' I said.
'I have not.'
'Lisa St. Claire?'
'No.'
'Frank Belson?'
'No.'
'Your daughter is also a recovering alcoholic,' I said.
'That is no longer a concern of mine.'
'Mimmi has no interest in your world any longer,' Marty said. 'Why don't you just get up and go back to it?'
Marty was very tense, leaning forward slightly over her narrow thighs, as she sat on the couch next to M. Richard.
'I never realized it was mine,' I said.
M. Richard rose gracefully to her feet. Her voice was calm.
'I'll show you to the door, Mr. Spenser. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.'
'I am too,' I said and gave her my card. 'If something helpful should occur, please let me know.'
M. Richard put the card on the hall table without looking at it and opened the front door. I went out.
She said, 'Goodbye,' and closed the door.
As I walked down the walk toward my car parked at the bottom of the sloping lawn, a bluejay swooped down, clamped onto a worm and yanked it from the earth. He flew back up with it still dangling from its beak and headed for a big maple tree at the side of the house. I got in my car. Be a cold day in hell before I gave either one of them a look at my killer smile again.
'Vaughn,' I said to the jay. 'Son of a gun!'
Chapter 25
The drive to Brunswick took about two hours, and locating Vaughn Richard's address in the city directory at the Brunswick Public Library took me another forty-five minutes. Fortunately there was a donut shop in town near the college and I was able to restore myself before I went out the back road, south toward Freeport, and found Richard's RFD box, with a pheasant painted on it along the left-hand side of the road. I turned off and drove down a two-rut driveway that ran through a stand of white pines and birch trees. The driveway turned past an unpainted garage with an old Dodge truck in it, and stopped in front of a small weathered shingle house on a hillside that
