Milo dismissed the staff and asked for a place to work. Ramp said, “Anywhere’s okay.”
Melissa said, “The downstairs study,” and led us to the windowless room with the Goya painting. The desk at the center was white and French and much too small for Milo. He sat behind it, tried to get comfortable, gave up, and swung his glance from wall to book-lined wall.
“Nice view.”
Melissa said, “Father used it as his study. He designed it without windows for maximum concentration.”
Milo said, “Uh-huh.” He opened desk drawers and closed them. Took out his note pad and placed it on the desk. “Got any phone books?”
Melissa said, “Here,” and opened a cabinet beneath the shelves. Removing an armful of directories, she piled them in front of Milo, obscuring the bottom half of his face. “The black one on top’s a San Labrador private directory. Even people who don’t list their numbers in the regular phone book put them in here.”
Milo divided the books into two short stacks. “Let’s start with her credit-card numbers.”
“She has all the major ones,” said Ramp, “but I don’t know the numbers offhand.”
“Where does she keep her statements?”
“At the bank. First Fiduciary, here in San Labrador. The bills go straight there and the bank pays them.”
Milo turned to Melissa. “Know any numbers?” She shook her head and gave a guilty look, like a student caught unprepared.
Milo scribbled. “What about her driver’s license number?”
Silence.
“Easy enough to get from the DMV,” said Milo, still writing. “Let’s go for vital statistics- height, weight, birthdate, maiden name.”
“Five eight and a half,” said Melissa. “Around a hundred and twenty-five pounds. Her birthday’s March twenty- third. Her maiden name’s Paddock. Regina Marie Paddock.” She spelled it.
Milo said, “Year of birth?”
“Nineteen forty-six.”
“Social security number?”
“I don’t know.”
Ramp said, “I’ve never seen her card- I’m sure Glenn Anger can get you the number from her tax returns.”
Milo said, “She doesn’t keep any papers around the house?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“The San Labrador police didn’t ask you for any of those things?”
“No,” said Ramp. “Maybe they figured on getting the information elsewhere- from the city rolls.”
Melissa said, “Right.”
Milo put down his pen. “Okay, time to get to work.” He reached for the phone.
Neither Ramp nor Melissa budged.
Milo said, “Feel free to stick around for the show, but if you’re drowsy, I promise this will finish you off.”
Melissa frowned and left the room quickly.
Ramp said, “I’ll leave you to your duties, Mr. Sturgis,” and turned heel.
Milo picked up the phone.
I went looking for Melissa and found her in the kitchen, looking in one of the wall lockers. She pulled out a bottle of orange soda, twisted the cap, got a glass from an upper cabinet, and poured. Carelessly. Some of the soda spilled on the counter. She didn’t attempt to clean it.
Still unaware of my presence, she raised the glass to her lips and gulped so quickly it made her cough. Sputtering, she slapped her chest. Saw me and slapped harder. When the paroxysms died, she said, “Oh,
I came closer, ripped a piece of paper towel from a roll impaled upon a wooden holder, and mopped up the spill.
She said, “Let me do that,” and took the towel. Wiped spots that were already dry.
“I know how rough this has been for you,” I said. “Two days ago we were talking about Harvard.”
“Harvard,” she said. “Big damned deal.”
“Hopefully it’ll return to being a big deal soon.”
“Yeah, right. As if I could ever leave now.”
Wadding up the towel, she tossed it onto the counter. Lifted her head and looked straight at me, inviting debate.
I said, “In the end, you’ll do what’s best for you.”
Her eyes flickered with uncertainty, shifted to the soda bottle.
“God, I didn’t even offer you any. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just had that Coke.”
As if she hadn’t heard, she said, “Here, let me get you some.” She reached up into the cupboard and retrieved another glass. As she placed it on the counter, her arm jerked and the glass skidded across the shelf. She caught it before it dropped on the floor. Dropped it and fumbled to catch it again. Staring at it, breathing hard, she said, “Damn!” and ran out of the room.
I followed her again, searched for her throughout the ground floor of the house, but couldn’t find her. Went up the green stairs and headed toward her room. The door was open. I looked in, saw no one, called out her name, got no answer. Entering, I was hit by deceitful memories: crystalline recollections of a place I’d never been.
The ceiling was painted with a mural of gowned courtesans enjoying a place that could have been Versailles. Carpeting the color of raspberry sherbet covered the floor. The walls were pink-and-gray lamb-and-pussycat wallpaper broken by lace-trimmed windows. The bed was a miniature of her mother’s. Shelves brimming with music boxes and miniature dishes and figurines lined the room. Three dollhouses. A zoo of stuffed animals.
The precise images she’d described nine years ago.
The place she’d never slept.
The only concession to young adulthood was a desk to the right of the bed bearing a personal computer, dot- matrix printer, and a pile of books.
I inspected the books. Two manuals on preparation for the SAT.
Manuals for the future in a room that clung to the past. As if her mind had developed while the rest had stagnated.
Had I been fooled, nine years ago, into believing she’d changed more than she had?
I left the room, considered looking for her on the second and third floors, and realized how daunting that would be.
I went downstairs and stood alone in the entry hall. Man without a function. A ten-foot marble clock, with a face almost too ornate to read, said 11:45. Gina Ramp had been gone almost nine hours.
I’d been hanging around for more than half of it.
Time to catch some sleep, leave the detecting to the pros.
I went to tell the pro I was leaving.
He was standing behind the desk, tie loosened, sleeves rolled carelessly mid-forearm, phone tucked under his chin, writing rapidly. “Uh-huh… Is he generally reliable?… He does? Didn’t know you guys were doing that well… That so?… Really… Maybe I should be thinking about that, yeah… Anyway, what time was this?… Okay, yeah, I know where it is. I appreciate your talking to me at this stage of the game… Yeah, yeah, officially, though I don’t know that they’re actively involved- San Labrador is… Yeah, I know. Just for strokes, though… Yeah, thanks. Appreciate it. Bye.”
He hung up, said, “That was the Highway Patrol. Looks like my freeway theory’s getting some validation. We’ve got a possible sighting of the car. Three-thirty this afternoon, on the 210, heading east, out near Azuza. That’s about a ten-mile drive from here, so it makes sense time-wise.”
