An Equal Opportunity Death (25 page)

The Underwoods nodded slowly and I suspected that Ward McElvey had been helping them to drinks since they arrived. It explained Mr. Underwood’s decision not to try standing up.

With their assurances that he was excused, Ward McElvey led me back into the hallway and leaned stiffly against the wall. In his sweater, he looked hot and uncomfortable. And now that the novelty of being out of the sun had worn off, I felt the heat inside too.

“What’s this about Michelle?” he asked.

“I need to get in touch with her. I can’t find her. She wasn’t home last night. I just thought you might have seen her in the last day or two.” Even to me my statement sounded disjointed. I hoped Ward McElvey wouldn’t question my relationship to Michelle or why I needed to see her so urgently.

But he didn’t. He glanced anxiously back toward the living room. “Her husband—”

“He wasn’t much help. Maybe he’s too busy. I just thought…” I let the words trail off, but gave no suggestion of leaving. I was beginning to see what a ridiculous position I had allowed myself to get into. How do you ask about someone you can’t admit is missing?

Ward’s mouth twitched, as if wavering between a variety of replies. Finally, he said, “You know, I did see her last night.” Glancing back at the couple in the living room, he motioned me a few steps further into the hallway and said softly, “You work for PG and E. You know about the sewer.”

The sewer was in no way connected to the electric company, but as a homeowner, I knew as much as the next person about the sewer project that had run millions of dollars and several years over estimate. It promised to be completed soon. After all, the sewer pipe had made it through town and as far as this street.

“I know about the sewer.” Adding to the fiction of my friendship with Michelle, I said, “Michelle told me about your cesspool.”

“She did? Well, that’s what she was carrying on about last night. She’s probably told everyone in town. She even threatened to complain to her congressman. I said I was sorry about the mosquito larvae. No one wants them on their garage wall. I didn’t let my leach lines work their way there on purpose, you know.”

Cesspools and septic tanks were elements of rusticity I hadn’t been prepared for when I had moved here from San Francisco. But I learned all too quickly. Cesspools were wooden boxes; septic tanks were larger cement cylinders with one or two compartments. Both took care of the solid material. The liquid was carried out of them and into the ground by underground fingers of gravel called leach lines. Initially, the water drained only to the ends of the leach lines, but over the years the force of the water or the vagaries of the soil and rock changed or extended the flow till it came to a wall, or a stream—or in this case, Michelle Davidson’s garage.

“What Michelle has leaking into her garage isn’t pure sewage, but it’s not something she would want next to her car window either, is it?” I asked.

“Well, no. I tried to be reasonable. It’s not a disaster. I offered to come in and scoop up the mess. I would have done that. But, well, you know Michelle.”

“How
did
she react?”

“Like she always does. You can imagine the magnitude she’s blown it into, can’t you? Last night’s tirade was standard. She’s gotten so bad that I never go out without checking to see if she’s there. I have to park my car down the street, and when I leave the house, I use the back door and skirt around behind the people on the far side and down through their property.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to deal with the cesspool?”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “You’d think, but the thing is—I’ve explained this to Michelle, but you know how she is—the sewer will be in shortly. You can see the hole right in front of my garage, so even if I wanted to park there I couldn’t. Anyway, when the sewer is in, there will be a hook-up charge.”

I nodded. I knew that only too well.

“And the question is, how much will it cost, right? It’s based on how many people hook in, right? If it’s reasonable, I’ll hook in. If not, I’ll get a septic tank. But, as I’ve told Michelle over and over, I’m not going to get a septic tank now if there’s a chance I’ll hook into the sewer in a month. That’s reasonable, isn’t it?”

I nodded again.

He gave my shoulder a squeeze and released it, an affectation I found increasingly irritating. “Tell that to Michelle,” he said. “She’s called the county; she called Mosquito Abatement. Environmental Health sent a man out. She called the county again. They called me. You know Michelle; when she gets on a jag like this she never lets go.” He took another step into the hallway. “I’ll tell you what I think, Vejay. I think Craig Davidson spends too much time at his nursery and Michelle just doesn’t have enough to do with her time.”

I was tempted to comment that no amount of work or time spent on hobbies would make sewage leaking into your garage acceptable. Instead, I asked, “Do you have any idea, anything at all, about where she might be?”

“Maybe she went off with the Environmental Health man.” He laughed. “No. I don’t want to say anything out of line. But Michelle is a very attractive girl. She knows it, too. She’s particularly attractive if she doesn’t open her mouth. To a guy in a bar…well, you know what I mean.” He smiled conspiratorially. “Doesn’t dress like a nun, either, up there on her deck railing in a leotard.”

That railing was two and a half feet above the deck. From it the drop to the ground was anywhere from ten to twenty-five feet. “What was she doing up there?”

He shrugged. “Walking. Sometimes backwards. One time she did a back roll. She knows how to show off her best features, if you know what I mean.”

Ignoring that observation, I asked, “Do you think your wife might have talked to Michelle recently?”

Ward glanced toward the living room. “My guests,” he said in way of explanation. “Jenny? I doubt it. You probably don’t know Jenny.”

“No, I don’t think so.” I might have seen her or spoken to her, but I didn’t connect any particular woman to this house.

“She does those little sketches on the sidewalk downtown. You know, the souvenir pictures the summer people buy.”

“Oh yes, I have seen her there. She’s very good.”

He nodded absently. “She may know something about Michelle, but I doubt it. She doesn’t like to be bothered, particularly by Michelle. But you can ask her.”

“Why particularly by Michelle?”

He looked again toward the living room. “My guests…I really can’t leave them any longer, you understand. They’re anxious to get out to the site.”

“But why particularly Michelle?”

He shrugged. “Jenny doesn’t have much patience.”

That didn’t answer my question, but I couldn’t ask again. Instead, I asked to use his phone.

“Certainly,” he said with clear relief. “Right back in the bedroom. Let yourself out when you’re through.” He patted my shoulder again—I restrained comment, again—and he hurried back to the living room.

I sat on the bed, pulled the phone book out from under the phone, and looked up the number for Craig’s nursery. Sitting there with my finger marking it, I wondered why Ward’s wife found Michelle especially offensive. It didn’t sound like she was a protagonist in the cesspool dispute. Was the problem something entirely different? Was it Michelle’s not dressing like a nun, as Ward put it? Did she suspect Ward’s wandering hands had found their way to Michelle’s body?

Outside the window, on the porch, was a tall man with light curly hair leaning against the railing, staring down thoughtfully into the underbrush. Was he another of Ward McElvey’s prospects? Or perhaps the neighbor whose yard Ward cut through? He looked familiar, or almost familiar. But I saw so many people in my work that I recognized people I didn’t really know.

Changing my mind about calling Michelle’s husband now, I put the phone book back. It was nearly two o’clock. Lunch first, then Craig.

Ward and the Underwoods were still in the living room. I caught his eye and waved as I left.

Stepping from the house into the sunlight was like walking into a sauna. I forced myself to hurry down the stairs, and along the street. As I passed the next house, I noted a red AMC Pacer with license plates saying
MCELVEY
.

It wasn’t till I was halfway down the hill that I realized who the man outside Ward McElvey’s reminded me of—the man with Michelle in the photo I’d found between the pages of her yearbook.

E
VEN IN THE SHADE OF
the eucalyptus trees it was much too hot. My polyester uniform slacks were like sweat pants. My shirt clung to my back. I was only pleased that it was just two blocks into town.

Michelle Davidson’s street, Half Hill Road, ran high above and parallel to the river. It ended at Zeus Lane, so named because it rose straight up to the gods, or viewed from the top, steeply down toward town. The one advantage of being dressed in work clothes was that my boots were made for clambering up driveways and through underbrush to the obscure places builders chose to put meters. Walking down a slope was child’s play.

As I skirted from shady spot to shady spot I wondered who the man behind Ward McElvey’s house, the man in Michelle’s picture, was. More to the point, what was he doing next to Michelle’s house the day after her disappearance? Had she gone off with him and then sent him back for her clothes? If so, why was he sitting on Ward’s porch instead of walking in Michelle’s door? Surely she would have given him the key. But perhaps I had caught him while he was waiting to make sure the house was empty. I hadn’t wanted to run into Michelle inside her house. How much more would her lover do to avoid a confrontation with Craig there?

But that was speculation. First I needed to find out who the man was. And even before that I needed lunch. I hurried on down to North Bank Road and along the sidewalk toward the café.

One of the things I had gained since becoming a meter reader was an enormous appetite. I walked more in a week now than I had in a year as an account executive in San Francisco. If I ever stopped reading meters, I’d either have to go on a hunger strike or seek work with the circus. But for now I just hoped it was too hot for tourists to think of food.

I was wrong. The café was jammed. Every stool at the counter was taken, every table crowded, and there was a line waiting to get in. In disgust I stomped across the street to Fischer’s Ice Cream and joined the line there. The Fischers had run the shop for years and they moved the line through with a speed any bank would have envied. There were five flavors a day and by the time you reached the front of the line, you were expected to have your choice ready. Mine was strawberry, double-scoop. It would do for an appetizer.

Cone in hand, I wandered along the sidewalk, skirting toddlers, jumping back to avoid a boy in cutoffs who was backing toward my cone. At the far end of the sidewalk was a beach umbrella, and under it, I made out as I neared, was a woman sketching. Presumably, she was Jenny McElvey.

I had seen her there before, but I had never taken the time to look closely at her work. Today the subject of that work, a man in his early twenties, sat on a folding chair, staring tensely to one side of Jenny. He looked edgy and self-conscious, as if he were sitting there on a bet. The corners of his mouth seemed about to break into a nervous grin. I glanced from him to the sketch. Nearly done, it approximated his features but missed the singular qualities that would have transformed it from a likeness of a pale young man into a portrait of this particular one. Still, there was a certain flair to it, perhaps the angle of the head, or the thick definite strokes that seemed fitting for a charcoal sketch acquired while on vacation.

I moved around behind the man so I could watch Jenny. She looked to be a little younger than I, probably about thirty. Her brown hair was drawn back at the neck, folded over and clasped up on her head, so that none of it hung against her neck. Her face was bare of any makeup. Her eyebrows were thick and seemed to have grown randomly. But her eyes, large and dark brown, stared fiercely at the paper, moving only briefly to view the subject.

Abruptly she put down the charcoal, and without an appraising glance, handed the paper to the young man. She looked exhausted, like a psychic recently revived from a trance.

I glanced at the crowd, expecting the man’s friends to push forward to get their money’s worth of amusement, but no one elbowed in. The crowd as a whole moved closer and their murmurs, of approval bubbled up. The man himself gave the drawing all the careful evaluation that Jenny had not. Finally, he smiled, and returned it to her to be wrapped. The crowd stood a minute or so, apparently waiting to see if another subject would take his place. When none did, individuals and small groups wandered off. The man stepped up to Jenny, extricated a bill from his wallet, and accepted the drawing.

A couple walked up, glanced at me, and moved on.

“Are you trying to decide?” Jenny asked me.

“No, actually, I’m looking for your neighbor, Michelle Davidson.”

“She’s not here.” Jenny adjusted the sketch paper in its clasp. Clearly, to her the subject was closed. She wasn’t even curious as to why I couldn’t find Michelle or why I was bringing my problem to her.

“I’ve been looking for her since last night. I talked to your husband.” I hesitated, then decided to plunge in. “He said you particularly disliked her.”

“And so you figure I’ll know where she is?” There was a mixture of irony and irritation in her voice.

“Actually, I thought you might be pretty straightforward.”

She fingered the charcoal.
“Straightforward
is that you’re hurting my business. People don’t come to watch me talk, they’re attracted by seeing me draw. Either you want a picture, or leave the space for someone else.”

Again, I hesitated. I hated to invest more than time in Michelle’s whereabouts. But I did like the idea of having my picture done, so I said, “Let me finish my cone, and then do a sketch of me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“But while I’m eating answer my questions.”

“An eight-dollar interrogation?” she said with the barest hint of amusement.