He brought the mugs over and set them on a low table between two of the chairs. As we sat I studied him. He had curly silver hair, a bony, tanned face, and penetrating blue eyes that regarded me with frank interest.
“I’ve never met a private detective before,” he said. “You’re from San Francisco?”
“Right.” I handed him one of my cards.
He looked it over, then placed it on the table. “And you said on the phone that Laurel Greenwood’s daughter has hired you to look into her disappearance. It’s been a long time. I don’t know how I can help you.”
I set my recorder on the table. “I’d like to go over what you remember.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you read the statement I made to the sheriff’s department?”
“Eventually I hope to. But first I’d prefer hearing about that day in your own words; it’s possible you may remember something that you didn’t tell the police.”
Ziff smiled, the lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling. “That’s the first time anyone’s suggested that my memory’s gotten better with age. But I’ll give it a try.”
“Thanks. According to the news reports, you were driving south on the coast highway that morning.”
“Right. Around eleven. I’d been up to Cambria to look over a building site. Had a one o’clock lunch with a client here in town, so I wasn’t in a hurry. There was an old VW bus parked at the overlook, and this woman had set up an easel beside it and was painting. I don’t know exactly why I stopped; it’s not like me to approach strangers. But there was something compelling about the way she was working.”
“Can you describe it?”
Ziff leaned foward, hands on his knees, staring out the window at the sea. “You know, I haven’t thought about that day in years, but now it’s all coming back. The weather-it was exactly the same as today. Well, maybe a little warmer. The fog was just beginning to burn off, and there were occasional flashes of sun on the water.”
I looked in the direction of his gaze, where faint glints of light had begun to dapple the gray waves.
“The woman,” Ziff went on, “she was so intense. Her posture, her motions. As if she was working on something very important. She didn’t seem to hear my car, didn’t look up till I was standing right beside her. And when she did she acted as if… as if she were waking up from a dream, or maybe as if I were pulling her back from some other world she’d been inhabiting. She wasn’t at all intimidated about a strange man coming up to her, just said hello.”
“And then you talked about what?”
“Her painting. It wasn’t bad. Representational, but something more, too; she’d captured the emotional feel of the coastline. I complimented her on her technique, and we discussed that for a while. She told me where she was from, and that she was a greeting card designer. That was about it. Two hours later I went to the Sea Shack to meet with my client, and she was on the oceanside deck, drinking wine and talking with this biker type.”
“Did you speak to her?”
“No. I don’t think she even saw me. My client arrived, and we went into the dining room. When we left the restaurant an hour later, they were both gone.”
“Can you describe the biker?”
Ziff thought for a moment. “Long dark hair. Leathers. No club logo or anything like that. He might’ve had an earring, but I can’t say for sure. I only saw him for a few seconds. But he stuck in my mind because I wouldn’t have expected a woman like that to be hanging around with someone like him.”
“A woman like what?”
“Well-spoken. Obviously talented. And she was quite lovely. If I hadn’t had the appointment with my client, I might’ve considered asking her to lunch.” He turned from the window, his eyes troubled. “I wish I had. Maybe it would’ve prevented whatever happened to her. But probably not. She seemed…”
“Yes?”
“You know, the passage of all these years is putting a new spin on what happened; I’ve never articulated this before. She seemed as if something was ending for her.”
“What?”
“It had to do with the painting. When I complimented her on it, she said, ‘Thank you. But it’s done. That’s all over now.’ And she sighed. There was a regretful quality in her voice. It was as if she was saying good-bye.”
“To what, do you suppose?”
Ziff shrugged. “Maybe to her art. Maybe even to her life.”
After I left Ziff, I drove north along the main street of town. Cayucos was an old-fashioned beach community, and in spite of the proliferation of antique and tourist shops, it felt as if it hadn’t changed much since the day Laurel drove away in her VW bus. The space where the Sea Shack had been was now a gourmet-foods shop, but the liquor store where Laurel’s biker companion had been headed was still there. I parked and wandered along until I came to the municipal pier, turned, and walked halfway out, where I leaned against the railing and regarded the beach. The sky had cleared, and people were setting up umbrellas and speading blankets for picnics. Children ran eagerly toward the water’s edge. Had Laurel witnessed a similar scene from the deck at the Sea Shack? Commented to the biker on what a nice a day it had turned into? Or had they been too involved in their discussion to notice? A discussion that had to do with the regret Jacob Ziff had heard in her voice?
Ziff’s words had once again suggested that the reason for Laurel’s disappearance might be suicide. I understood why no one had thought it a serious possibility at the time: by all accounts Laurel had been content, if not wildly happy with her existence. And her personality was hardly consistent with that of a person who would be prone to take her own life. Also, no suicide note or body had ever been found. Still, it was one more possibility I’d have to consider.
Morro Bay is a working fishing village, with a sheltered harbor whose entrance is dominated by a huge rock that looms like an offshore sentry. The Spanish word
I confess to being irritated by tourists unless I’m one myself. Then anybody who gets between me and my souvenirs had better watch out!
The street dead-ended at the parking lot where Laurel had last been sighted. I left my car near the restrooms and walked along one of the paths to a bench facing the water, sat, and took out the sandwich and Coke that I’d bought at a deli in Cayucos. It was peaceful there; the only sounds were the cries of children from a nearby play area and the sloshing of the wake from a boat that motored past in the channel between the shore and a long sandbar. After I ate, I walked back to the parking lot where Ira Lighthill had agreed to meet me at two-thirty. Lighthill, a seventy-three-year-old former civil engineer, lived on the slope above the park.
At exactly two-thirty, a slight bald-headed man in jeans and a blue windbreaker came toward me, walking a black dog whose fur hung in cords that reminded me of dreadlocks. The cords on its head were gathered up in a yellow band, presumably to keep them out of its eyes, and it trotted along at its master’s side, matching its speed to his.
“Ms. McCone?” the man said.
“Yes. You’re Mr. Lighthill?”
“I am. And this”-he motioned to the dog-“is Csoda. That’s spelled C-s-o-d-a. Hungarian for ‘wonder.’”
“Unusual dog. What kind is it?”
“She’s a puli, a herding dog. My wife and I breed them for a small and select clientele. Shall we walk?”
Lighthill turned toward the path leading to the water, and I fell into step beside him. Csoda moved ahead of us on her lead, keening the air and stopping here and there to sniff at objects of interest.
“So you’re investigating the disappearance of that young woman, Laurel Greenwood,” Lighthill said. “Of course, she wouldn’t be a young woman anymore, but when someone vanishes like that, I suppose they’re frozen in time. A high school friend of mine was murdered; I remained close to the family for many years, and every time I visited them there would be Jon in the photographs on the mantel, forever sixteen, while I became twenty and twenty-five
