Black Evening (35 page)

You increase speed toward your destination and brood about your irrational stubborn refusal to let Rebecca travel here with you. Why did you insist on coming alone?

Because
, you decide with grim determination.

Because I don't want anybody holding me back.

The Pacific Coast Highway pivots above a rocky cliff. In crevasses, stunted misshapen fir trees cling to shallow soil and fight for survival. A weather-beaten sign abruptly says REDWOOD POINT. With equal abruptness, you see a town below you on the right, its buildings dismal even from a distance, their unpainted listing structures spread along a bay at the center of which a half-destroyed pier projects toward the ocean. The only beauty is the glint of the afternoon sun on the white-capped waves.

Your stomach sinks. Redwood Point. A resort? Or at least that's what your uncle said. Maybe in nineteen thirty-eight, you think. But not anymore. And as you steer off the highway, tapping your brakes, weaving down the bumpy narrow road past shorter, more twisted pine trees toward the dingy town where your birth certificate says you entered the world, you feel hollow. You pass a ramshackle boarded-up hotel. On a ridge that looks over the town, you notice the charred collapsed remnant of what seems to have been another hotel and decide, discouraged, that your wife and your uncle were right. This lengthy, fatiguing journey was needless. So many years. A ghost of a town that might have been famous once. You'll never find answers here.

The dusty road levels off and leads past dilapidated buildings toward the skeleton of the pier. You stop beside a shack, get out, and inhale the salty breeze from the ocean. An old man sits slumped on a chair on the few safe boards at the front of the pier. Obeying an impulse, you approach, your footsteps crunching on seashells and gravel.

"Excuse me," you say.

The old man has his back turned, staring toward the ocean.

The odor of decay — dead fish along the shore — pinches your nostrils.

"Excuse me," you repeat.

Slowly the old man turns. He cocks his shriveled head, either in curiosity or antagonism.

You ask the question that occurred to you driving down the slope. "Why is this town called Redwood Point? This far south, there
aren't
any redwoods."

"You're looking at it."

"I'm not sure what…"

The old man gestures toward the ruin of the pier. "The planks are made of redwood. In its hey-day" — he sips from a beer can — "used to be lovely. The way it stuck out toward the bay, so proud." He sighs, nostalgic. "Redwood Point."

"Is there a hospital?"

"You sick?"

"Just curious."

The old man squints. "The nearest hospital's forty miles up the coast."

"What about a doctor?"

"Used to be. Say, how come you ask so many questions?"

"I told you I'm just curious. Is there a courthouse?"

"Does this look like a county seat? We used to be something. Now we're…" The old man tosses his beer can toward a trash container. He misses. "Shit."

"Well, what about… Have you got a police force?"

"Sure. Chief Kitrick." The old man coughs. "For all the good he does. Not that we need him. Nothing happens here. That's why he doesn't have deputies."

"So where can I find him?"

"Easy. This time of day, the Redwood Bar."

"Can you tell me where…"

"Behind you." The old man opens another beer. "Take a left. It's the only place that looks decent."

The Redwood Bar, on a cracked concrete road above the beach, has fresh redwood siding that makes the adjacent buildings look even more dingy. You pass through a door that has an anchor painted on it and feel as if you've entered a tackle shop or have boarded a trawler. Fishing poles stand in a corner. A net rimmed with buoys hangs on one wall. Various nautical instruments, a sextant, a compass, others you can't identify, all looking ancient despite their gleaming metal, sit on a shelf beside a polished weathered navigation wheel that hangs behind the bar. The sturdy rectangular tables all have captain's chairs.

Voices in the far right corner attract your attention. Five men sit playing cards. A haze of cigarette smoke dims the light above their table. One of the men — in his fifties, large-chested, with short sandy hair and a ruddy complexion — wears a policeman's uniform. He studies his cards.

A companion calls to the bartender, "Ray, another beer, huh? How about you, Hank?"

"It's only ten to five. I'm not off-duty yet," the policeman says and sets down his cards. "Full house."

"Damn. Beats me."

"It's sure as hell better than a straight."

The men throw in their cards.

The policeman scoops up quarters. "My deal. Seven-card stud." As he shuffles the cards, he squints in your direction.

The bartender sets a beer on the table and approaches you. "What'll it be?"

"Uh, club soda," you say. "What I… Actually I want to talk to Chief Kitrick."

Overhearing, the policeman squints even harder. "Something urgent?"

"No. Not exactly." You shrug, self-conscious. "This happened many years ago. I guess it can wait a little longer."

The policeman frowns. "Then we'll finish this hand if that's okay."

"Go right ahead."

At the bar, you pay for your drink and sip it. Turning toward the wall across from you, you notice photographs, dozens of them, the images yellowed, wrinkled, and faded. But even at a distance, you know what the photographs represent, and compelled, repressing a shiver, you walk toward them.

Redwood Point. The photographs depict the resort in its prime, fifty, sixty years ago. Vintage automobiles gleam with newness on what was once a smoothly paved, busy street outside. The beach is crowded with vacationers in old-fashioned bathing suits. The impressive long pier is lined with fishermen. Boats dot the bay. Pedestrians stroll the sidewalks, glancing at shops or pointing toward the ocean. Some eat hot dogs and cotton candy. All are well-dressed, and the buildings look clean, their windows shiny. The Depression, you think. But not everyone was out of work, and here the financially advantaged sought refuge from the summer heat and the city squalor. A splendid hotel — guests holding frosted glasses or fanning themselves on the spacious porch — is unmistakably the ramshackle ruin you saw as you drove in. Another building, expansive, with peaks and gables of Victorian design, sits on a ridge above the town, presumably the charred wreckage you noticed earlier. Ghosts. You shake your head. Most of the people in these photographs have long since died, and the buildings have died as well but just haven't fallen down. What a waste, you think. What
happened
here? How could time have been so cruel to this place?

"It sure was pretty once," a husky voice says behind you.

You turn toward Chief Kitrick and notice he holds a glass of beer.

"After five. Off duty now," he says. "Thanks for letting me finish the game. What can I do for you? Something about years ago, you said?"

"Yes. About the time these photographs were taken."

The chief's eyes change focus. "Oh?"

"Can we find a place to talk? It's kind of personal."

Chief Kitrick gestures. "My office is just next door."

It smells musty. A cobweb dangles from a corner of the ceiling. You pass a bench in the waiting area, go through a squeaky gate, and face three desks, two of which are dusty and bare, in a spacious administration area. A phone, but no two-way radio. A file cabinet. A calendar on one wall. An office this size — obviously at one time, several policemen had worked here. You sense a vacuum, the absence of the bustle of former years. You can almost hear the echoes of decades-old conversations.

Chief Kitrick points toward a wooden chair. "Years ago?"

You sit. "Nineteen thirty-eight."

"That
is
years ago."

"I was born here." You hesitate. "My parents both died three weeks ago, and…"

"I lost my own dad just a year ago. You have my sympathy."

You nod, exhale, and try to order your thoughts. "When I went through my father's papers, I found… There's a possibility I may have been adopted."

As in the bar, the chief's eyes change focus.

"And then again maybe not," you continue. "But if I
was
adopted, I think my mother's name was Mary Duncan. I came here because… Well, I thought there might be records I could check."

"What kind of records?"

"The birth certificate my father was sent lists the time and place where I was born, and my parents' names, Simon and Esther Weinberg."

"Jewish."

You tense. "Does that matter?"

"Just making a comment. Responding to what you said."

You debate, then resume. "But the type of birth certificate parents receive is a shortened version of the one that's filed at the county courthouse."

"Which in this case is forty miles north. Cape Verde."

"I didn't know that before I came here. But I did think there'd be a hospital.
It
would have a detailed record about my birth."

"No hospital. Never was," the chief says.

"So I learned. But a resort as popular as Redwood Point was in the thirties would have needed
some
kind of medical facility."

"A clinic," the chief says. "I once heard my father mention it. But it closed back in the forties."

"Do you know what happened to its records?"

Chief Kitrick raises his shoulders. "Packed up. Shipped somewhere. Put in storage. Not here, though. I know every speck of this town, and there aren't any medical records from the old days. I don't see how those records would help."

"My file would mention who my mother was. See, I'm a lawyer, and — "

The chief frowns.

" — the standard practice with adoptions is to amend the birth certificate at the courthouse so it lists the adopting parents as the birth parents. But the
original
birth certificate, naming the birth parents, isn't destroyed. It's sealed in a file and put in a separate section of the records."

"Then it seems to me you ought to go to the county courthouse and look for that file," Chief Kitrick says.

"The trouble is, even with whatever influence I have as a lawyer, it would take me months of petitions to get that sealed file opened — and maybe never. But hospital records are easier. All I need is a sympathetic doctor who…" A thought makes your heart beat faster. "Would you know the names of any doctors who used to practice here? Maybe
they'd
know how to help me."

"Nope, hasn't been a doctor here in quite a while. When we get sick, we have to drive up the coast. I don't want to sound discouraging, Mr…"

"Weinberg."

"Yeah. Weinberg. Nineteen thirty-eight. We're talking ancient history. I suspect you're wasting your time. Who remembers that far back? If they're even still alive, that is. And God knows where the clinic's records are."

"Then I guess I'll have to do this the hard way." You stand. "The county courthouse. Thanks for your help."

"I don't think I helped at all. But Mr. Weinberg…"

"Yes?" You pause at the gate.

"Sometimes it's best to leave the past alone."

"How I wish I could."

Cape Verde turns out to be a pleasant attractive town of twenty-thousand people, its architecture predominantly Spanish: red-tiled roofs, arched doorways, and adobe-colored walls. After the blight of Redwood Point, you feel less depressed, but only until you hear a baby crying in the hotel room next to yours. After a half-sleepless night during which you phone Rebecca to assure her that you're all right but ignore her pleas for you to come home, you ask directions from the desk clerk and drive to the courthouse, which looks like a Spanish mission, arriving there shortly after nine o'clock.

The office of the county recorder is on the second floor at the rear, and the red-haired young man behind the counter doesn't think twice about your request. "Birth records? Nineteen thirty-eight? Sure." After all, those records are open to the public. You don't need to give a reason.

Ten minutes later, the clerk returns with a large dusty ledger. There isn't a desk, so you need to stand at the end of the counter. While the young man goes back to work, you flip the ledger's pages to August and study them.

The records are grouped according to districts in the county. When you get to the section for Redwood Point, you read carefully. What you're looking for is not just a record of
your
birth but a reference to Mary Duncan. Twenty children were born that August. For a moment that strikes you as unusual — so many for so small a community. But then you remember that in August the resort would have been at its busiest, and maybe other expecting parents had gone there to escape the summer's heat, to allow the mother a comfortable delivery, just as your own parents had, according to your uncle.

You note the names of various mothers and fathers. Miriam and David Meyer. Ruth and Henry Begelman. Gail and Jeffrey Markowitz. With a shock of recognition, you come upon your own birth record — parents, Esther and Simon Weinberg. But that proves nothing, you remind yourself. You glance toward the bottom of the form. Medical facility: Redwood Point Clinic. Certifier: Jonathan Adams, M.D. Attendant: June Engle, R.N. Adams was presumably the doctor who took care of your mother, you conclude. A quick glance through the other Redwood Point certificates shows that Adams and Engle signed every document.

But nowhere do you find a reference to Mary Duncan. You search ahead to September in case Mary Duncan was late giving birth. No mention of her. Still, you think, maybe she signed the adoption consent forms
early
in her pregnancy, so you check the records for the remaining months of 1938. Nothing.

You ask the clerk for the 1939 birth certificates. Again he complies. But after you reach the April records and go so far as to check those in May and still find no mention of Mary Duncan, you frown. Even if she impossibly knew during her first month that she was pregnant and even if her pregnancy lasted ten months instead of nine, she still ought to be in these records.
What happened
? Did she change her mind and leave town to hide somewhere and deliver the two children she'd promised to let others adopt? Might be, you think, and a competent lawyer could have told her that her consent form, no matter how official and complex it looked, wasn't legally binding. Or did she —