When we got back to her cottage, Jennifer went into the bathroom to freshen up, and I again studied the photographs on the table. Laurel: a nice small-town girl with her college friends. The Greenwoods: a nice small- town family. And then it had all gone wrong…
“Aunt Anna salvaged those,” Jennifer said from behind me.
“When?”
“Right after my father burned my mother’s paintings. Anna went over to the house while he was at the clinic and saved the photographs and other mementos. She wouldn’t give them to Terry and me, though. She said she was afraid if Dad found out we had them, he’d destroy them, too.”
“Then how did you get these?”
She sat down in one of the chairs at the table and fingered a photo of Laurel and Terry. “I knew where Anna kept them in her attic. When I was about to go away to college, I sneaked up there and took the ones I wanted. I never planned to live at home again, so they’d be safe with me. And Anna wouldn’t miss them; as far as I know she never so much as looked at them after Mom disappeared.”
I sat down opposite her, picked up the studio portrait of Mark. “And why’s he here?”
“He’s part of the puzzle.”
“The puzzle?”
“Why this is happening to me, and how can I survive it.”
“You mean what you call the craziness.”
“The current craziness, yes.” She hesitated, then drew a deep breath. “Sharon, am I your client, or is Mark?”
“You’re the one who signed the contract, and Mark wrote the retainer check on your joint account. When he asked me to find you after you disappeared last Sunday, there was no new contract or addendum to the existing one. So, yes, you’re the client.”
“Then you’re on my side?”
“I’m always on my clients’ sides-so long as they’re truthful with me.”
“Okay, then, I’ll tell you what happened. Sunday morning I overheard a conversation between Mark and his attorney. They have a regular date to play tennis on our court, and they’d come into the house afterwards, were talking in his office and didn’t realize I was coming down the hall to ask if they wanted coffee or juice. Mark was quizzing him about how he could get me committed for psychiatric observation. I thought, since he’d agreed to fund your investigation, that he was fully supportive of me. He said more than once that he understood the pressures I was under, and would let me work through them in my own way. I was very upset by what I heard, so later I made up an excuse about meeting Rae in the city and got out of there.”
“And went to the flat you rent on Fell Street.” When her eyes widened, I added, “Yes, I know about that. And about your conversation that afternoon with the downstairs tenant.”
For a moment she sat very still, then she sagged and sighed-with relief, I thought. “Thank God I don’t have to explain all that to you. I’ve been over and over what Melissa Baker told me about the day Josie died, and everything I imagine is so ugly.”
“And that was what made you come down here?”
“Yes. First I called Terry, but she didn’t want to listen to me, told me I needed to get help. What I needed was space and distance-so badly I could barely breathe. So I took my neighbor’s car and some money that I knew she had stashed in the house. I didn’t have any conscious purpose in coming here, except that I thought maybe being where Mom disappeared would help me understand things.”
“And since then, you’ve been reliving the past through these drawings.” I tapped my finger on the one of her childhood home.
“I’ve followed the same routine every day: up early, drive into Paso Robles. Draw the house. Drive west on Forty-six. Draw a roadside scene there. I’m at the vista point at the exact time my mother was sighted there, and I draw that. Go to Cayucos. Another drawing. Go to Morro Bay, wander around the park and the waterfront area, wondering where she went from there. Yet another drawing. I don’t like what I’m doing, but I can’t seem to help myself. And then, this morning at the vista point, I ran out of steam.”
“Maybe because you’ve worked something out?”
“I doubt it. The only conclusion I’ve come to is that I must be worse off than either Mark or I imagine.”
I hesitated, carefully framing what I would say next. “You could probably use a few sessions with a good therapist. But you’ve been on the right track.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Whether you realize it or not, you’ve been doing detective work. On a deeper psychological level than I-but you’ve got a very deep psychic investment in the investigation. And I think you’ve come to many of the same conclusions as I have.”
Long silence. Then: “My mother killed Aunt Josie, didn’t she?”
“I suspect she may have.”
“Because Josie was having an affair with my father?”
“Most likely.”
She nodded. “There were signs that something was wrong between Mom and Dad. Little ones. Kids pick up on signs, but then they forget them until something happens to bring them to the surface again-like my conversation with Melissa Baker at Fell Street last Sunday.”
“Do you think your mother confronted your father about the affair?”
“I doubt it. It wasn’t her style. But I do remember that my dad was gone a lot for a few years before Josie died. And then afterward, my mother seemed cold and distant around him. But, no, even though Mom was with Josie when she died, I doubt my father would have ever suspected her of… murder.”
Jennifer said, “Earlier you said that you think I’ve come to the same conclusions you have. What else?”
“Well, consider what you’ve been doing-following your mother’s trail over and over, and never coming to its end.”
For a moment her gaze held mine, then it dropped, and she leaned forward until her forehead touched a photograph of Laurel that lay on the table in front of her.
“Because it has no end,” she said. “Because my mother-damn her to hell!-ran out on us and is still alive somewhere.” She raised her head, looking me straight in the eyes. An odd mixture of fury and sadness twisted her features.
“I hope you find her,” she said, “but I also hope you don’t. Because if I ever come face-to-face with her again, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Jennifer didn’t want to go home or to Fell Street, so I suggested she stay with her sister in Davis. She liked the idea and felt she was okay to drive there. After calling Terry to tell her she was coming, she called her neighbor in Atherton to apologize for taking her Porsche and cash. When she got off the phone she was smiling.
“Your neighbor’s not angry?” I asked.
“No. Estee understands I’ve been going through a very rough patch. I’m going to miss her when I move away.”
“You’re leaving Mark, then?”
“I’m ninety-nine percent certain I am. For about six months now I’ve suspected he’s been having an affair, and what I overheard him telling his lawyer last Sunday pretty much confirmed it. He said that I had become an inconvenient burden and an obstacle to his future happiness. I think now that when he agreed to pay for your investigation, he was looking at it as a way to distract me from the trouble in our marriage until he could hide most of our assets.”
She grimaced bitterly. “It’s hard to face the fact that your marriage was only a balance sheet to your husband. I see now that Mark married me because I was an asset-attractive, reasonably well-spoken, with an interesting career. And he wanted me gone because I was a liability. Hard to face, but I’ll have to.”
When she heard what Terry had to tell her about Mark’s recent behavior, she would be a hundred percent certain about a divorce. I decided not to reveal what Rae had uncovered about Mark’s past and how it had precipitated the break between Ricky and him; Jennifer would find out soon enough.
I helped her pack her things and load them into the Porsche. She was smiling when she dropped me off at the
