me so far was an outrageous bill.
'Kelly then,' I added. 'Did you find her?'
'Sort of,' Dave Livingston allowed gloomily. 'More or less.'
For a supposedly hotshot accountant, Dave was being damnably nonspecific. Meanwhile, my homicide cop's mentality was working overtime, filling in the most gruesome kinds of missing-person details-the dry ravines where unsuspecting people sometimes stumble over vulture-scattered human remains. Memories of long-overlooked and rotting corpses loomed in my mind's eye. Unfortunately, cops have chillingly realistic imaginations. We've seen it all. More than once too often.
'Tell me then, for God's sake!' I urged. 'What the hell do you mean, ‘more or less'? Is she alive or not? And if she's alive, is she all right?'
'I haven't talked to her yet,' Dave put in quickly. 'Not in person; neither has Karen. As a matter of fact, Karen knows nothing about all this. She was so bent out of shape when Kelly ran away that I didn't exactly tell her I was hiring a detective.'
Great minds think alike. So Dave and I had both hired private eyes. His had gotten results. I'd have to fire mine.
'So where is she?' I prompted. 'Is she okay?'
'In a little town in southern Oregon. A place called Ashland. Ever heard of it?'
I had heard of it, as a matter of fact. Months earlier, the town of Ashland had been nothing more than a green-and-white freeway exit on 1–5, the last stop in Oregon before hitting the California border. Now, thanks to my new friend Alexis Downey, the director of development for the Seattle Repertory Theater and the lady with whom I had spent most of the previous evening, I knew a whole lot more than I would have otherwise.
From listening to Alex, as she likes to be called, I knew that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland has, over the last fifty-some-odd years, created a multimillion-dollar business out of doing Shakespearean reruns every summer. In Ashland the Bard of Avon translates into big business. People come from all over the country year after year to see the seven or eight plays that run concurrently in three separate theaters.
Because of increasingly stiff competition for regional arts dollars, Alex Downey keeps a close eye on all the theaters on what she calls 'the 1–5 route.' She had even suggested that we might want to skip down to Ashland for a romantic weekend once over the summer to take in a couple of plays, all in the name of knowing what 'everybody else is doing.'
At the time Alex mentioned it, a trip to Ashland had sounded like a treat-your basic roll in the hay with a dollop of culture thrown in for good measure. Now, that selfsame Shakespearean weekend didn't seem like nearly such a good idea. The thought of running into my daughter on the streets of Ashland threw a real wet blanket on my fantasies of sexual/cultural adventure.
Call me a prude if you will, but I didn't want to give my already headstrong daughter any bright ideas that she might not think up on her own.
'What's Kelly doing there?' I asked. 'Acting?'
When she was little, that's what Kelly always said she wanted to be when she grew up-an actress. In high school she had played major roles in several school productions, but by then her mother and I were divorced. I never actually saw her perform onstage. My experience with Kelly's acting capability came primarily from being on the receiving end of emotional temper tantrums whenever the two of us wound up in a nose-to-nose confrontation. Highpowered theatrics aside, I didn't regard acting as a realistic career choice. All little girls can't become actresses any more than millions of little boys can all grow up to be cops or firemen.
'Hardly,' Dave answered. 'She's working as a hotel maid and doing some baby-sitting on the side.'
Baby-sitting was no surprise. All her life Kelly had been exceptionally good with little kids, but I couldn't imagine her working as a maid. Neither could anyone who had ever seen her room. Incredible irony-that's what Mrs. Reeder, the beautiful woman who taught my senior English class at Ballard High School, would have called it. Kelly is the only person I've ever met who can totally trash any given room within fifteen minutes of entering it. On the odd occasion when she's stayed with me in Seattle, I've watched her make a shambles of my whole apartment in far less time than it takes to say, 'When's dinner?'
'Kelly, a maid?' I choked. 'You've got to be kidding.' I did my best to stifle a relieved chuckle, but Dave Livingston was not amused, and he wasn't laughing, either.
'I'm not kidding,' he returned doggedly. 'And I'm not making this up. I just found out. She plans to get married sometime early next week.'
That got my attention.
'Hold it! Did you say married? She can't do that. She's only eighteen years old, for Chrissakes. And she hasn't done a damn thing about getting her education.'
'I know,' Dave agreed. 'I was hoping you could go down there and maybe talk some sense into her thick skull.'
'Karen's way better with her than I am. Has she tried?'
'Like I said,' he confessed uneasily. 'I haven't exactly told Karen about this. She was upset enough to begin with. When she hears what's going on now, she'll go crazy.'
Dave had a point-a good one. Once or twice I've had the misfortune of being in close proximity to Karen Moffit Beaumont Livingston when she's busy kicking ass. It isn't a pretty sight. Karen is a lady who knows how to indulge in histrionics. By comparison, Kelly is a rank amateur.
Wide awake now, I sat up and groped on the nightstand for pencil and paper. 'Who's the boyfriend?' I asked.
'His name's Jeremy Todd Cartwright, the Third,' Dave answered.
'Sounds impressive. What does he do?'
'I've got a short bio right here. It says he's a part-time actor and musician. Up in Ashland this season he's in something called the ‘Green Show.' He plays a character called ‘The Laredo Kid' in a play called The Majestic Kid, and he's ‘servant' in Taming of the Shrew.'
I might have known-an actor. Talk about music to a future father-in-law's ears. I could already visualize the flaky son of a bitch. Long, greasy hair. At least one earring. Maybe even a single tasteful diamond chip in one side of his nose. But then I forced myself to look on the bright side. If Dave's bio information came from a current playbill, Kelly's intended was at least working. He had a job. From what I know about actors, that's highly unusual in and of itself.
'Great. Do you have an address for this boy genius?' I asked, sitting there with my bare feet on the carpeted floor and with pencil poised over paper.
'As a matter of fact I do,' Dave Livingston answered. 'One-forty-six Live Oak Lane-the same as Kelly's.'
The pencil lead snapped off as I wrote down the address. I wasn't upset. Not much.
'So will you go see her?' Dave asked, almost pleading. 'I need to hear what she has to say for herself before I tell Karen. I'll give you my work number so you can call me here. It's the end of the fiscal year. I'll be working off and on all weekend. If you don't mind, I'd rather Karen didn't find out I've gone behind her back on this.'
I can only describe it as one of life's supremely surrealistic moments, finding myself involved in an underhanded plot with my ex-wife's second husband, both of us scheming together behind Karen's back. But then, that's what makes life interesting-those little unforeseeable surprises. I took down Dave's work telephone number at the chicken-raising conglomerate in Rancho Cucamonga where he was the chief financial officer.
'How soon will you go?' Dave asked.
'That depends,' I told him, 'on how soon I get off the phone.'
With that, we hung up. After a quick detour to the kitchen to start a pot of Seattle's Best Coffee in my Krup's coffeepot with its thermal carafe, I headed for the shower. I figured I could go a long way in my little red Porsche on a full tank of gas with a full pot of coffee along for the ride. While I showered, though, reality set in. Alex and I were supposed to have dinner together that evening, and Ralph Ames, my attorney from Phoenix, was scheduled to arrive on Sunday afternoon.
Once out of the shower, I called Ralph first. He's an early riser. Alex isn't. Ralph listened quietly while I brought him up-to-speed. When I finished my tale of familial woe, Ralph's reply was infuriatingly unflappable and lawyerly.
'What's the plan?' he asked.
'What do you think? I'm going to drive down, tell Kelly how the cow ate the cabbage, and put her on the first
