back and finished the course after the first divorce. Worked at SF General for three years, did private-duty nursing after that. Otherwise I couldn’t turn up anything. You want me to dig further?”
“I don’t know as it’s necessary. We’ll talk when I come back up there next week.”
“You staying over the weekend?”
“Yes. My plate’s pretty full for tomorrow, and Sunday I have to fly down to my mother’s place near San Diego. She’s giving Hy and me what she calls ‘a little wedding reception.’ Lots of family, and my birth mother and her son and daughter are coming from Boise.”
“You don’t sound too happy about it.”
“I’m not. McCone family parties are always horrible, and this wedding reception is a disaster waiting to happen.”
Saturday
My room-service breakfast tray arrived at eight, a copy of the
NEW INQUIRY INTO LAUREL GREENWOOD DISAPPEARANCE
Information on Missing Paso Robles Woman Sought by Private Investigator
I picked up the paper and skimmed the article. It identified me by name, and as a “San Francisco investigator who in recent years has been involved in a number of high-profile cases,” and quoted a “source who wishes to remain anonymous” as saying that I had been hired by one of the Greenwood daughters to search for new leads in the twenty-two-year-old disappearance. “McCone,” it said, “is in the area to interview friends and relatives of the missing woman, as well as reinterview witnesses who gave statements to the authorities in the original investigation.” It added that my offices would not confirm or deny the source’s information. The remainder of the story was a history of the case, complete with photographs on an inside page of Laurel, Roy, and their daughters.
Ted, or Kendra Williams, had been right in protecting client confidentiality, but why hadn’t I been told that a reporter was asking about the case? Probably Kendra had taken the call and, in her inexperience, hadn’t thought it significant. Too bad, and also too bad that the newspaperman-Mike Rosenfeld, the byline read-hadn’t thought to check area motels, locate me, and ask for a personal interview. I might have been able to deflect, or at least delay, this publicity.
For a moment I considered phoning the office to ask who had taken the call from Rosenfeld, but it was Saturday, and chances were I’d just get the machine. Even my workaholic employees ignored taped messages after regular business hours.
I set the paper aside. Sipped coffee and buttered a croissant as I contemplated the turn of events. It hadn’t occurred to me that any of the people I’d spoken with might go to the press, but the source had to be one of them. Why had he or she done so? And why the condition of anonymity? More important, what effect would the story have on my investigation?
Possibly it could help me, prompt someone whose existence I wasn’t aware of to come forward with fresh information. But more likely it could frighten off someone with something to hide. Or-if Laurel was alive and the story was picked up by the wire services-it could drive her deeper underground.
Which of those had been the person’s intention?
I could call the reporter and ask where he’d gotten his information, but he’d most certainly insist on his right to protect his source’s identity. I could ask each of the persons I’d interviewed if they’d talked with the press, but that seemed even more unlikely to elicit a straight answer. A better use of my time would be to proceed with my day’s plans unaltered.
I didn’t like the idea that the people I’d be talking with-assuming they read the
In spite of my edginess, the day proceeded without significant incident. From the Paso Robles police files I learned that three days after Laurel’s disappearance Roy Greenwood had asked Chief Collingsworth to instruct the department’s press liaison officer to give out as little information as possible on their investigation. He wanted his daughters’ lives to return to normalcy as soon as possible, he said, and that would only happen if the story dropped off the front pages. The files provided by Deputy Selma Barker at the county sheriff’s department headquarters in San Luis Obispo confirmed that Collingsworth had passed on Roy’s request to them.
Despite Greenwood’s explanation for asking that the investigation be downplayed, it seemed odd to me; in most missing persons cases, family and friends go to great lengths to keep the story in the public eye. They distribute flyers and photographs, make impassioned appeals on TV, offer rewards. But so far as I knew, none of those things had been undertaken by Roy Greenwood.
Otherwise the files contained no surprises. The statements by Jacob Ziff and Ira Lighthill were substantially the same as what they’d told me. Lighthill’s friend Bryan Taft had confirmed the circumstances under which they’d seen Laurel at the park. The waitress and bartender at the Sea Shack could provide no more detailed descriptions of the biker than Ziff had, and a busboy who had seen Laurel and him leave was unsure as to whether the biker actually entered the liquor store down the street. The liquor store clerk had no recollection of him.
By two that afternoon I was on my way back from San Luis. Derek’s information on the Magruders had been on my laptop before I left the inn that morning: Herm and Amy Magruder were both natives of Morro Bay, and his gossip column for the local shopping paper had been only a hobby; Herm’s real work was operating a self-storage and equipment-rentals company, probably the same one that Ira Lighthill had mentioned as being replaced by a gourmet-foods and wine emporium. Herm and Amy, who had managed the office there, had retired five years ago and moved to the Pacific View condominium complex. They had a son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren living in a suburb of Chicago. I tried the number I’d gotten from information yesterday before leaving San Luis, but no one answered.
Although Morro Bay was a significant detour on my way to Templeton, where the Greenwoods’ former babysitter lived, I had a few hours before our appointment, so I headed up the coast. Derek had supplied an address for the Magruders’ condo, but when I arrived there no one was at home. I drove around town, periodically checking at the condo without results, until I found a neighbor who said the Magruders were on vacation until sometime next week. I left my card in their mailbox, asking that Herm call me, and drove to Templeton, a short distance south of Paso Robles.
And then I got lost. In a country town whose population couldn’t have been more than a few thousand, I couldn’t find Edie Everett’s house-at least not from the directions she’d given me over the phone. After stopping at a deli to ask, I finally located it-the directions were curiously dyslexic, and I suspected it was my fault-but by that time she and her husband, Joe, were on their way out to dinner. Fortunately they were gracious about my tardiness and invited me along to a small cafe called Mr. Mom’s that served excellent burgers and microbrews.
The only new light Edie could shed on Laurel was that she took a lot of mental health days during the year before her disappearance. “She was constantly calling me up to look after the kids,” Edie said. “I doubt her husband was aware of it, because she always came home before he did. And I’m pretty sure that if he had known, he’d’ve raised hell. I didn’t charge much, but I could tell he didn’t like shelling out for child care.”
Not a great deal of information, but the Everetts were pleasant people and good dinner companions. For the rest of the meal we talked about their business-they owned an antiques shop in Paso Robles-and the nature of
