Vanishing Point

“Someplace in northern California. It’s why she came up here, she said. To escape the past.”

“It sounds as if you’re good friends.”

“Not really. She keeps to herself. Stays in that house of hers, unless she’s at work or volunteering. The way I know her is that I volunteer for hospice myself. One night I gave her a ride home because her van was in the shop, and asked her in for a glass of wine. I’m nosy, so I pried into the details of her life. I think she regretted what she told me, because she’s kind of avoided me ever since.”

“When did she move to this neighborhood? I had to ask another relative for her current address, because the one I had-from Christmas of ninety-four-wasn’t good.”

“Spring of ninety-five, I think. Yes, it was the year my first grandchild was born.”

“And you say she’s on vacation now?”

“That’s right. Every year, the last week in August, without fail. She has a standing reservation at the Crater Lake Lodge. Calls it her ‘mental health week.’ Says it’s the only thing that keeps her sane, after all the illness and death she sees at work.”

Mental health week.

Mental health day.

In spite of all that had come to pass, one thing hadn’t changed for Laurel Greenwood.

Crater Lake, less than fifty miles northeast of Klamath Falls, was formed by a massive volcanic eruption that has been carbon-dated at having occurred some four thousand years BC; the blast caused the shell of then twelve- thousand-foot Mount Mazama to collapse inward, lopping off four thousand feet and creating a vast crater. I once read that no streams flow into the lake; its water is derived entirely from rain and snow, and its intense blue color is due to the water’s purity reacting with the sunlight.

A few years ago Hy and I had flown over the lake at dawn. We crested the pines on the eastern side, and suddenly it spread below us-huge, ringed by stark volcanic outcroppings. The first rays of the sun moved across its glassy, still surface like a golden stain. Hy pulled back on power and, as we glided closer and closer to the water, a silence so great that it rivaled the whine and throb of the engine rose to greet us. This was the world as it had been in ancient times; this was eternity.

It was an experience that made me aware in a profound yet comforting way of my own insignificance and mortality. Comforting, because I realized I was part of a magnificent creation. I’m not particularly religious, but you don’t have to be to partake of the feeling; you simply have to relinquish control and exist in the moment.

Today as I drove north from Klamath Falls, I suspected that this upcoming experience of the lake would be very different from my previous one.

The lodge was an imposing building composed of several wings, stone on the lower story, dark brown wood above, with a steeply sloping green roof punctuated by two rows of dormer windows. Sturdy stone chimneys towered above it, and pine-covered hills loomed even higher. I left my rental some distance away because the parking lot was crowded and hurried toward the main wing. Although it was warm outside, the interior was cool and dark. I paused for a moment to get my bearings.

The space was wide and long, with highly polished hardwood floors dotted with area rugs and rustic wooden furnishings, the chairs with wide arms and bright woven cushions. People in tourist garb wandered through, exclaiming at the huge fireplace and beamed ceilings. I located reception, crossed to it, and asked if Josie Smith was registered.

The clerk, a slender man with large hair and a small ring in his left ear, said, “Yes, she is, but she’s not in her room. I saw her go by an hour ago with her book; you’ll find her on the veranda. She’s always there this time of day.”

“My friend is a creature of habit, isn’t she?”

He smiled. “You could say that. One of the long-term employees says she’s been coming here this same week every year since nineteen ninety-five, when the lodge reopened after it was reconstructed. She reads on the veranda every day from four o’clock till sunset, then has dinner in the dining room.”

“Is she always alone?”

“She sometimes converses with the other guests but, yes, she pretty much keeps to herself.”

“Well, I’d better go find her.”

The veranda was wide, concrete-floored, with a low stone wall topped by a wrought-iron safety fence. Rocking chairs of natural bark logs with caned backs and seats were arranged along the railing. Several groups of people sat there, their feet propped on the wall, sipping wine and talking. Farther down I spotted a lone woman in jeans and a T-shirt, her legs tucked up under her; she had a hardcover book spread open on her lap, but her head was raised, her eyes on the lake.

Laurel Greenwood.

I remained where I was, taking in what she saw: the tops of the nearby tall pines and the brilliantly blue water beyond. An island, with more pines clinging to volcanic rock, sat midway between the shore and the stark outcroppings on the far side-remnants of the mountaintop that had been blown away by the ancient eruption. The lodge faced west, and already pink traces of the sunset were streaking the sky.

Laurel sat unmoving. A light breeze caught her hair and ruffled it around her shoulders; it was straighter than it had been at the time of her disappearance, but just as long, and silver-gray streaks caught the light. She had once been beautiful, but she was not anymore. And it wasn’t just the result of aging.

I watched her for a moment, but she seemed unaware of anyone else, barely aware of her surroundings. As I approached her, she seemed not to hear my footfalls.

I stopped two feet away from her. Put my hand on the.357 in the outer pocket of my bag, in spite of the unlikelihood that I’d need to show it. Said, “Laurel?”

Slowly she disengaged her gaze from the lake and looked toward me. I was reminded of the expression in her daughter Jennifer’s eyes when I’d approached her at the overlook north of Cayucos: remote, dazed. The same expression Jacob Ziff had described on Laurel’s face when he’d encountered her there.

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.

Well, by now Laurel had been inhabiting that other world for a long time. Too long.

She stared blankly at me, and when she didn’t respond I said, “Laurel Greenwood?”

Suddenly her eyes came alive, displaying a rapid succession of emotions: bewilderment, disbelief, fear, and- finally-resignation. I waited out her silence.

“Who are you?” she finally said.

I took my hand off my gun and pulled up a nearby rocking chair; sat and handed her my card. At the same time I switched on the voice-activated tape recorder I’d earlier placed in the pocket of my light jacket.

I said, “Your daughter Jennifer Aldin hired me to find you.”

“I don’t have to talk with you,” Laurel said after studying the card I’d handed her.

“That’s true. I have no official capacity.”

“Good.” She started to rise from her chair.

I put my hand on her arm, looked her in the eyes. “Do you really want to turn your back on your daughter a second time? She still remembers you with love.”

After minor resistance, she settled down. “How much do you know about me?”

“Nearly everything.”

“Then what do you want?”

“To fill in the gaps so Jennifer will finally have peace of mind.”

“If I agree, will you go away and not bother me again?”

It troubled me that she hadn’t asked a single question about Jennifer or Terry. There was a coldness in the woman, an almost robotic quality, perhaps the product of living a reclusive life or-worse-of her basic nature.

I said, “No, I won’t bother you again.”

Emphasis on the first-person singular. Throughout most of my investigation I’d tried to understand why Laurel Greenwood had caused such ruin to the people she supposedly loved, and I’d hoped for Jennifer and Terry’s sake