"S" is for Silence (14 page)

“‘It'?”

“Whatever happened to her.”

“Why you?”

“For obvious reasons. I'd lost my job because of her and I was pissed off.”

“Weird. If she'd run out of gas, you'd think the pump jockey would have seen her at the station again.”

“Well, yeah. I thought maybe somebody else had seen the car, but nobody ever said. It was way out in the boonies, but I still can't believe I was the only one who spotted it. When the sheriff's department didn't come up with anything, I decided to leave it alone.”

“And you've never told anyone?”

“Kathy,” he said. “This was after we were married. I don't believe in couples keeping secrets and it bothered me a lot. So one night I'd had too much to drink and I blurted it out. She didn't think it was a big deal. She told me to forget about it and that's what I did. The detective had already talked to me a couple of times, same way he was talking to everyone else, but he never asked when I'd seen her last and I didn't volunteer.”

“And the car was just sitting there?”

“Right. Maybe fifteen, twenty yards off the side of the road. I could see it in my headlights, plain as day.”

“You're sure it was hers?”

“Positive. There was only one like it in the county. She'd been driving it around since the minute Foley gave it to her. Absolutely, it was hers.”

“Had she had a flat tire?”

“That's possible. I didn't see a flat, but it could have been that. Could have been anything.”

“Was the engine idling or off?”

“Off and the headlights were off. The road was really rough, and I'd slowed to a stop, intending to turn around. That's when I saw the car. I rolled down the window and looked out, but everything was still as stone. I actually sat there a couple of minutes, but nothing happened, so I said to hell with it and went back the way I'd come.”

“Could she have stopped to let the dog out?”

“I didn't see the dog. At the time, it didn't occur to me there was anything creepy going on. Now, I don't know.”

Winston drove us to the location on New Cut Road where he'd seen Violet's car. I wanted to take a look at the spot but didn't intend to press the point since he was due back at work.

He laughed when I expressed my concern. “Don't sweat it. Chet won't fire me. I'm the schmuck who pays his daughter's bills.”

He took Highway 166 east out of Cromwell and after three miles, turned right onto New Cut Road, which was laid out on a diagonal that intersected Highway 1 to the south. Before September of 1953, when New Cut was finished, drivers were forced to go miles out of their way when heading from Santa Maria to Silas, Arnaud, or Serena Station. The old Tanner homestead appeared, its Tudor façade jarring now that I saw it again. The acreage across the road had been planted and harvested, leaving a pale haze of wispy stalks interspersed with lush weeds.

Winston pulled into the Tanner driveway and we got out. I left my shoulder bag in the car but carried the map with me.

“Somewhere along in here,” he said, gesturing vaguely. “I remember the heavy equipment and big mounds of dirt. The road was being graded, and there was this line of big orange cones and a temporary barricade across the unpaved portion to discourage through traffic, not that there was much. Now that I'm looking at it though, it's hard to pinpoint the spot.”

He crossed the road and I followed, watching as he pivoted. He walked backward for a few steps, trying to get his bearings. “I didn't realize the road ran so close to the Tanner property. I'm almost sure the barrier was off in that direction, like a big detour, but I might be wrong.”

I said, “Maybe it's like a house under construction. When all you have is the slab, the rooms seem so small. Then the walls go up and everything suddenly looks much bigger.”

He smiled. “Right. I never have figured out how that works. You'd think it'd be the other way around.”

“Any chance you passed her on the road? If she had car trouble she might have tried walking to the nearest phone.”

“Oh no. There's no way I'd have missed her if she'd been out there. I did keep an eye out, but you can see for yourself, she'd have had to hike for miles. Funny thing is, until now I put the incident out of my mind because I felt guilty and I didn't want to deal with it. I should have stopped to see what was going on.”

“Don't do that to yourself. It's probably not important in the overall scheme of things.”

“I suppose not. She was going to do whatever she did regardless of me. I just wish I'd been a gentleman and done the right thing.”

“On the other hand, she didn't do you any favors.”

I opened the map and then folded it in thirds so I could check the relative distances between points. “Here's what puzzles me. The service station near Tullis couldn't be more than three miles away. She filled her tank at roughly six thirty so it's hard to believe she'd run out of gas so soon.”

Winston shrugged. “She could have been waiting for someone. This is a hell of an isolated spot. I was only out here by happenstance. I'd been driving around randomly. I got this far and realized there wasn't any place else to go. This was literally the end of the road.”

“Did you see any other cars?”

“No. I just remember the pitch-black dark. It was a clear night, and I could hear the muffled sound of the fireworks in Silas, off in that direction.”

“Which means it had to be before nine thirty when the fireworks display ended.”

“True. I hadn't thought about that.”

“Foley swears he was at the park and I gather there were people willing to vouch for him. Meanwhile, what was she doing out here? By nine thirty she should have been two hundred miles away.”

 

We chatted idly of other things on our way back into town. When we pulled into the dealership, Winston dropped me at my car. I got out and then leaned in the window. “Thanks for lunch,” I said. “I can't tell you how much I appreciate your telling me about the car. I'm not sure it's significant, but it's fresh information and that's encouraging.”

“I'm glad.”

“One more quick question and then I'll let you get back to work. This business about you and Kathy. Is that classified?”

“You mean, is it a secret? By no means.”

“I'm asking because I'll be talking to Daisy later, bringing her up to speed. I can certainly keep the information to myself if you'd prefer.”

“I don't care who knows. Kathy's always airing our problems, blabbing to her girlfriends and then sharing their opinions, as long as they coincide with hers. You can tell anyone you want. The more the merrier. Let her see how it feels.”

 

Once I left him, I pulled off on a side street and made notes. I'd been the happy beneficiary of Winston's anger at his wife. His report about the car had created more questions than it answered, but at least he'd placed her on New Cut Road when the sheriff's department assumed that she'd already left town. Or died. But if Foley killed her and buried her, how had he pulled it off? The Sullivans had only one car, and if it was parked out on New Cut Road, how did he get there and back? The park in the little town of Silas was six miles away. Granted, there was a three-hour gap between the end of the fireworks and his arriving home, but it would have taken him that long just to walk as far as New Cut Road and back. And what could he have done with the car? Winston had speculated that Violet might have been out there waiting for someone, in which case they might have hightailed it out of town as soon as he showed up. That possibility was at least compatible with the facts. What seemed worrisome was the dog. From all reports, Baby yapped incessantly, so why hadn't Winston heard her bark?

At 4:00 I presented myself at Liza Clements's front door. The house itself was plain, a long wood-frame box with a nondescript porch built across the front. The Santa Maria neighborhood was nicely maintained, but it had seen better days. Trees and shrubs had grown too large for the lots, but no one had had the nerve to cut them down. Consequently, the yards were dark and the windows were obscured by evergreens that towered above the rooflines. The shade created a chilliness that seemed to shroud all the houses on the block.

The woman who answered the door looked much younger than her years. She wore tennis shoes, baggy pants, and a double-breasted white chef's jacket that buttoned across the front. Her fair hair was shoulder-length, parted down the middle, and pulled back behind her ears. She had blue eyes, wide straight brows, and a wide mouth. Her complexion was pale and creamy, with a smattering of freckles across her nose. She wore a silver heart-shaped locket that glinted in the V of her shirt. She stood and looked at me blankly. “Yes?”

“You're Liza?”

“Yes.”

“I'm Kinsey Millhone.”

It took another half a beat before she remembered who I was and then she put a hand to her mouth. “I'd forgotten you were coming. I'm so sorry. Please come in.”

“Is this an okay time?”

“Fine. I didn't mean to cut you short yesterday, but I was halfway down the walk when I heard the phone ring.”

I stepped into a living room that was ten feet by twelve, furnished out of Pier 1 Imports with very little money but a good eye for design: wicker, plump Indonesian tan-and-black block-print pillows, a reed rug on the floor, and lots of houseplants that, on a second glance, turned out to be fakes.

“No problem. Thanks for seeing me today. Are you a chef?”

“Not with any formal training. I bake as a hobby, but I've been doing it for years. I make wedding cakes in the main, but just about anything else you'd want. Why don't you have a seat?”

I took one of the white wicker chairs with sturdy canvas cushions forming both the seat and the back. “My landlord was a commercial baker in his working days. He's retired now, but he still bakes every chance he gets. Your house smells like his—vanilla and hot sugar.”

“I've lived with it so long I don't even notice it. I guess it's like working in a brewery. Your nose eventually goes dead. My husband always thought that was just how our house smelled.”

“You're married?”

“Not now. I've been divorced for six years. He owns a party rental business in town. We're still good friends.”

“You have kids?”

“One boy,” she replied. “Kevin and his wife, Marcy, are expecting their first baby, a little girl, sometime in the next ten days unless the little bugger's late. They're naming her Elizabeth, after me, though they plan to call her Libby.” Her fingers moved to the silver locket, touching it as though for luck.

“You look too young to be a grandmother.”

“Thanks. I can hardly wait,” she said. “What can I help you with?”

“Daisy Sullivan's hired me in hopes of finding her mother.”

“That's what I heard. You talked to Kathy Cramer earlier.”

“Nice woman,” I lied, hoping God wouldn't rip my tongue out.

She smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear. “I wish you luck. I'd love to know where Violet ended up. She changed the course of my life.”

“Really. For better or for worse?”

“Oh, for better. No question. She was the first adult who ever took an interest in me. What a revelation. I'd grown up in Serena Station, which has to be one of the crappiest little places on earth. Have you seen it?”

“Daisy showed me around. It's like a ghost town.”

“Now it is. Back then, a lot more people lived there, but everyone was so boring and conventional. Violet was like a breath of fresh air, if you'll pardon the cliché. She didn't give a hoot about obeying the rules and she didn't care what other people thought about her. She was such a free spirit. She made everybody else seem stodgy and dull by comparison.”

“You're the first person I've talked to who's had anything nice to say.”

“I was her lone defender even back then. I can see now she had a self-destructive streak. She was impulsive, or maybe ‘reckless' is the better word. People were attracted to her and repelled at the same time.”

“How so?”

“I think she reminded them of all the things they wanted but didn't have the courage to pursue.”

“Was she happy?”

“Oh, no. Not at all. She was desperate to get away. She was sick of being poor and sick of Foley's knocking her around.”

“So you believe she left town?”

She blinked at me. “Of course.”

“How'd she manage it?”

“The way she managed everything else. She knew what she wanted and she outfoxed anyone who got in her way.”

“Sounds ruthless.”

“Again, that's a matter of semantics. I'd say ‘determined,' but it sometimes amounts to the same thing. It about broke my heart that she left without saying good-bye. Then again, I had to say ‘Go and God bless.' I wasn't that articulate at fourteen, but that's how I felt. I couldn't bear it for my sake, but I was glad for her. Do you know what I mean? She saw a chance and she took it. A door flew open and she zipped right through. I admired her for that.”

“You must have missed her.”

“It was awful at first. We always talked about everything and suddenly she was gone. I was crushed.”

“What'd you do?”

“What could I do? I learned to get by on my own.”

“She never got in touch?”

“No, but I was so sure she would. Even if it was a postcard with one line, or no message at all. A postmark would have been sufficient. Anything to let me know she'd made it to wherever. I used to imagine her in Hawaii, or Vermont—someplace completely different than this. I haunted the mailbox for months, but I guess she couldn't take the chance.”

“I don't see how a postcard could have put her in jeopardy.”

“You're wrong about that. Sonia, the woman at the post office, would've spotted it when she was sorting the mail. I wouldn't have told a soul, but word would've gotten out. Sonia was a blabbermouth, which Violet well knew.”

“You were the last person who had any substantial contact with her.”

“I know and I've thought about that night. It runs like a loop in my head. You ever get a song on your brain and no matter what you do, it keeps playing and playing? That's how it is with her. Even now. Well, maybe not so much now. The images do fade, but you know what? I smell violet cologne and bang, she's there again. It brings tears to my eyes.”

“Did it ever cross your mind something might have happened to her?”

“You mean, foul play? People talked about that, but I didn't believe it for a minute.”

“Why not? You'd seen what Foley did to her. Didn't it occur to you she might have come to grief?”

She shook her head. “I thought it was something else. I was there earlier that day and saw these brown paper bags sitting on the chair. I recognized some of her favorite things on top and I asked her what she was doing. She said she'd cleaned out her closet and the stuff was going to Goodwill. Well, that seemed looney even at the time. Later—this was after she was gone—it occurred to me that she'd been packing.”

“To go where?”

“I don't know. A friend's house? There must have been some place.”

I blinked. “Did she say anything to that effect?”

“Not a word. Foley was gone—I don't know where—and I'd gone over to the house to hang out. She went on talking about something else so I let it drop.”

“How come this is the first I've heard of it? I've read all the articles about Violet, but I didn't see a reference to any bags of clothes.”

“I don't know what to say. I told the sheriff's deputies, but they acted like they didn't want to hear. By then they were busy quizzing Foley about where he was on Saturday night. I didn't want to make a big deal of it. I figured since she hadn't mentioned it, she didn't want anyone to know.”