Keeper of the Keys (6 page)

Then, jumbled at the bottom of a box, he found the keys.

He picked them up for inspection. Every house they stayed in, whenever they moved, he had kept the key. His mother, who held many day jobs, insisted he have a key to any house they lived in, so he did. She was always careful with keys. The houses were kept locked. Keys were precious. “Protectors,” she called them.

His younger self had assembled the collection onto a large silver key ring, which jingled promisingly. Some of the keys still bore traces of labels in Magic Marker or squiggles on masking tape.

He shook the key ring, enjoying its jingle. Then, opening the book to its blank front page, he read the addresses he had painstakingly printed, one after another and another:

Norwalk, Whittier, Downey, Redondo Beach, Yorba Linda, Placentia, Fullerton.

The list went on, scattering his past through all the bleak suburbs of Los Angeles and Orange County. Sometimes they only moved a few miles, from tract to tract. So his mother could keep her job?

Eight schools by the time he started high school, he told himself again.

Why?

As he sat there, his chest filled with a nameless emotion, he heard the doorbell ring upstairs. He checked his watch: one-thirty. From a bin in the closet he grabbed a baseball bat, then jumped up the spiral stairs. He didn’t want to answer the door, but if he didn’t answer, they might think he wasn’t home and decide to break in. Imperiously, the bell rang again.

Without turning on any lights on the main floor, he crept toward the front door. He peered outside, then unlatched the lock.

In burst James Hubbel, Leigh’s father. He must have come straight from work, because he wore his dark blue cop uniform and appeared tired. “Put the bat down,” Hubbel commanded.

Ray put the bat down. “It’s late.”

“I see you can’t sleep, either,” Hubbel said. “You think her mother and I are sleeping? You think that?”

“What’s the problem, Jim?”

“Where’s my daughter?”

“Not home.”

“This is no time to play games, Ray.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“I’m not here because I insist on pancakes instead of eggs for breakfast!” Hubbel yelled. “I’m not here wondering why no grandkids yet!”

Ray was happy he was still dressed. He would hate to be wearing his skivvies, facing this six foot three ex-Marine-turned-policeman with eyebrows as thick as overgrown grass. Leigh loved her father, describing him as a tough guy with a good heart.

Hubbel pushed his way past Ray, more bully than heart at the moment, looking around. The living room, serene, bare, full of textured beiges, remained empty and did not speak. He went to the white granite fireplace, and pulled the LCD screen aside.

“No sign of her in there,” Ray said. He knew this was not the right thing to say to Leigh’s father, and yet he could not help himself. He felt terribly defensive.

“I’m going upstairs,” Hubbel said. He climbed the main stairway, the cantilevered concrete stairs that seemed to float upward, to the second floor. Ray heard him above, opening doors and drawers, slamming them shut. He sat down on the couch and stared dully at the fireplace. The uncurtained windows felt like black holes sucking out his insides. I’m having a breakdown, he thought, but found it hard to care.

Moments later, Hubbel marched down the stairs again, long arms swinging. “This is goddamn dangerous, this stairway. You have a problem with rails?”

“They’re ugly.”

“Aw, I hate this aesthetics over function crap.” He landed in the entryway, and stood close to Ray, who had gotten up and opened the front door.

“You satisfied?” Ray said.

“You kidding? Where is my daughter?”

“She hasn’t called you?”

“Not since Friday. Her mother’s upset. She was supposed to go shopping with her Saturday. Aren’t you listening to your phone messages? You two have a fight?”

The unwelcome memory of Leigh’s last night at home assaulted Ray. “An argument, yes. Look, I don’t know where she is, okay? She’s gone.”

“She left? When? Did she take her car?”

Ray answered the questions. Hubbel never let him lower his eyes, look away. Yes, she took the car, took her purse, packed a bag. No, she didn’t say where she was—she was very—he thought she’d come back after clearing her head for a while—no calls. No, no calls, no e-mails, no notes.

“Why wouldn’t she call us?” Hubbel said, thinking out loud. “She knows—she knows—”

“It’s just the weekend. I’m sure we’ll hear from her tomorrow. Come on, Jim, she’s an adult and it’s really late and I have to work in the morning.”

“You should have let us know. I’ve seen some things I can’t even talk about in my business, Ray. You hear? I don’t let people I love go off the radar for days. I’m going to call some people, some hospitals.”

“If you talk to her, tell her—”

“Tell her what?”

“To get in touch.”

“I don’t like the sound of this. I don’t like the lame way you’re talking. It’s like you’ve given up on ever seeing her again. She comes back, she calls, you tell her to call her mother.” Hubbel stood very close to him at the doorway, his big hard stomach pressed against Ray. “If I find out you harmed a hair on her head—well, I’ll kill you.”

4

M
onday morning before work, Kat listened to two messages from Jacki. Nothing from Leigh yet. Well, it was only eight-thirty. Still, she had always been an early bird.

She punched in some numbers.

“Leigh Jackson Designs,” a girlish voice chirped.

“Hello. I’m trying to reach Leigh.”

“She’s not in yet. Can I leave her a message?”

“Hmm. This is an old friend, Kat Tinsley. She might remember me. I mean, in case she’s there and just busy. She might want to talk to me.”

“She’s not here. What’s your number?”

“I need to talk to her right away.”

“Are you interested in custom furnishings?”

“No, but I do need to talk to her.”

“She’ll get back to you when she can.”

“When might that be?”

The receptionist sighed. “When she can.”

Frustrated, Kat left her number again. With no time to call Jacki, Kat rushed to her office in Santa Monica.

She had a Superior Court appearance, then two houses to evaluate, one in Topanga, the other in Long Beach. In both cases, a divorce was imminent. Distraught parties awaited her report as to value. She needed to be scrupulously fair or she would be challenged or impeached in court.

As she scurried through the traffic, feeling the heat already working to melt her windshield, she wondered what it would be like to have owned a property in Topanga for many years and to have watched that property’s value skyrocket. As a child, she had visited a friend who lived in the canyon, and what she remembered was her friend’s mom chasing a rattlesnake up the street with a rake, trying to cut off its head. The family used to drive to a roadside spring and fill their bottles with pure water every Saturday.

How times had changed. The decrepit cottages had morphed into estates. The estates had transmogrified into feudal fiefdoms. Topanga had become très chic, as close as you could get to L.A. without having to play L.A. games. And Leigh’s house was a work of art. Leigh’s mother had money, Kat recalled. She had grown up in the big house in Whittier across from Kat’s little house. It wouldn’t seem strange to her.

Tinsley Enterprises in Santa Monica wasn’t a long way from Hermosa Beach, it just felt that way because of the daily life-risking commute. Kat pulled into the small parking lot next to the office on Santa Monica Boulevard, pleased to get a spot so easily for a change, picked up her things, and ran up the two flights of stairs to the office, where the receptionist greeted her with a cup of coffee, half milk, just the way she liked it.

Kat and Jacki’s dad, Gus Tinsley, had opened this real estate appraisal firm in the seventies and muddled along for decades until he died suddenly, still young, not long after divorcing their mother. Kat had first gotten involved in the business during summers starting in high school, following her dad around and watching, with astonishment, as cheap fixer-uppers ascended into properties worth millions.

She continued to work for his successor, Micky Gowecki, finally passed the test to become an appraiser, and now felt confident in her work. She knew the market, the psychology, and the loopy, blustering desire and greed that drove people to question her judgment, and she was good on the witness stand in disputed cases. Her work had swiftly become almost unassailable, and she was earning a rep for fairness.

She spent the late morning in court wearing her credibility togs: fake diamond studs, fake diamond solitaire at her neck, black silk suit that nipped snugly at the waist, making her look thinner. Up on the chopping block today, a house in La Habra, an utterly basic, roofed dwelling.

People who didn’t have much often fought the most brutally to hold on to what they had.

The soon-to-be-ex–husband started off with some dignity. He answered his own attorney’s questions calmly. Then his soon-to-beex–wife’s attorney, a female, picked away at him. The man appeared to be choking, the way he worked the tie at his throat. His face fluctuated between pasty and blotched as the emotions ratcheted up. He had a right to that house! He grew up there! His father built it! He had happy memories galore! This greedy witch would fix it up and flip it, destroying a family legacy!

The ex-wife took the stand. She still lived in the house. He had left her, cheated on her, broken her heart, and she couldn’t see why she should have to move. Why should he be rewarded for being such an asshole? He hated the house and complained constantly about it. He’d sell it for a bundle and make a huge profit.

Kat took the stand, trying to remain objective, answering questions about square footage, coverage, comps. This house had lovely landscaping, which added an extra thirty grand to its value.

She explained how she had arrived at her valuation, describing the number of bedrooms, legally only two, not three, since one had no closet, the state of the paint and rugs, poor, the repairs necessary to bring the property up to snuff. She testified that having only one bathroom cut into value, showed pictures of the street that revealed a run-down, undesirable ambiance.

By the time she was done, not a single person in the courtroom liked her.

On the way to the house in Long Beach, she called the Jackson house. When a machine answered, she hung up without leaving a message, a little nervous about her mood and what she might unleash if she let her mouth start up.

What would she blurt? “Hi, Leigh? It’s me, Kat. Let’s meet up and see a movie and hang out together like we used to do a hundred years ago, when my brother was alive and we were younger and hadn’t done reprehensible things.”

She called Leigh’s business number again. “Sorry to bug you but—I’m Leigh’s old friend—”

“Oh, yes, you again,” said Leigh’s receptionist, suddenly not sounding so certain, suddenly young. “I’m sorry. Leigh hasn’t been in.”

“Is she sick?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken with her. In fact, I don’t know what to do. I’m stuck here with no boss, you know? It’s strange. And the really strange part is—” She stopped.

Maybe she had thought twice about unloading her troubles on a stranger.

“Tell me.” Kat used her most authoritative voice.

And the younger woman caved. “She never misses a day, unless she tells me. See, on Friday, she left early for a funeral or something—she was upset and said she wouldn’t be back, so she asked me to come in yesterday.”

“On a Sunday?”

“We had some work to make up and she said she’d pay me double! She never showed up. Now here it is Monday, and she doesn’t come in and I can’t reach her. No one answers her mobile phone. This is weird. And I’m due a check today. I need my money for rent. What should I do?” the receptionist asked.

“Have you spoken with her husband?”

“I finally called him at work. He sounded mad and said he didn’t know where she was. I don’t even know if I should come in tomorrow. I mean, I don’t run this place. She’s my boss. She’s supposed to tell me what to do.”

It was strange, Leigh not showing up for work and not calling. “You should continue to come to work until you hear either from Leigh or her husband,” Kat advised, again slipping into her older, wiser persona.

“We have clients calling, wanting to know how the work is going. I don’t know what to say.”

“Tell them it’s in progress. There will be a slight, a very slight, delay. And you’ll get your check soon; don’t worry.”

Relieved sigh. “Okay.”

“Do you know Leigh’s husband?”

“Not really.” A pause. “She brags about him sometimes, how successful he is, how smart. But she makes as much as he does. Sometimes more.”

“Really?”

“She’s not famous like him. She’s nobody as far as his world is concerned but she has a fabulous reputation around here. People adore her furniture. That’s what this town worships, quality. You wouldn’t believe some of her clients. Movie stars, directors, producers—”

“So where is she, I wonder?”

“If you talk to her, tell her Ashley is having a fit. I mean, I hope she’s okay, but damn. I can’t run this place alone, and I can’t work for nothing.”