McCone and Friends (26 page)

Her eyes slipped away from mine, but not before I saw something furtive in them. Suddenly she started stirring the fire, even though it was already roaring like crazy.

I said, “But you have suspicions.”

She stirred harder. Aunt June wasn’t telling it like it was, and she felt guilty.

“You’ve heard from her since she disappeared, haven’t you?” Sharon taught me that little trick: no matter how wild your hunch is, play it. Chances are fifty-fifty you’re right, and then their reactions will tell you plenty.

June stiffened. “Of course not! I would have persuaded her to go home. At the very least, I would have called Donna immediately.”

“So you think Adrian’s disappearance is voluntary?”

“I…I didn’t say that.”

“Assuming it is, and she called you, would you really have let Donna know? You don’t seem to like her at all.”

“Still, I have a heart. A mother’s anguish—”

“Come off it, June.”

June Simoom heaved herself to her feet and faced me, the poker clutched in her hand, her velvet-draped bigness making me feel small and helpless. “I think,” she said, “you’d better leave now.”

When I got back to All Souls, it was well after midnight, but I saw a faint light in Sharon’s office and went in there. She was curled up on her chaise lounge, boots and socks lying muddy on the floor beside it. Her jeans, legs wet to the knees, were draped over a filing cabinet drawer. She’d wrapped herself in the blanket she keeps on the chaise, but it had ridden up, exposing her bare feet and calves, and I could see goosebumps on them. She was sound asleep.

Now what had she gotten herself into? More trouble, for sure. Was she resting between stakeouts? Waiting for a call from one of her many informants? Or just too tired to go home?

I went down the hall to the room of an attorney who was out of town and borrowed one of his blankets, then carried it back and tucked it around Sharon’s legs and feet. She moaned a little and threw up one hand like you do to ward off a blow. I watched her until she settled down again, then turned off the Tiffany lamp—a gift long ago from a client, she’d once told me—and went upstairs to the attic nest that I call home.

Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll turn out like Sharon: illusions peeled away, emotional scars turning white and hard, ideals pared to the bone.

Sometimes I’m afraid I won’t turn out like her.

We’re already alike in some ways. Deep down we know who we are, warts and all, and if we don’t always like ourselves, at least we understand what we are and why we do certain things. We often try to fool ourselves, though, making out to be smarter or nobler or braver than we are, but in the end the truth always trips us up. And the truth…

We both have this crazy—no, crazy-
making
—need to get at the truth, no matter how bad it may be. I guess that’s how we’re most alike of all. The withheld fact, the out-and-out lie, the thing that we just plain can’t understand—none of them stands a chance with us. For me, I think the need began when my grandmother wouldn’t tell me the truth about the car wreck my parents were killed in (they were both drunk). With Sharon, I don’t know how the need got started—she’s never said.

I didn’t used to feel so driven. At first this job was a lark, and I was just playing at being detective. But things happen and you change—Sharon’s living proof of that—and now I’m to the point where I’m afraid that someday I’ll be the one who spends a lot of nights sleeping alone in her office because I’m between stakeouts or waiting for a phone call or just too tired to go home.

I’m terribly afraid of that happening. Or not happening. Hell, maybe I’m just afraid—period.

III

The next morning it was raining—big drops whacking off my skylights and waking me up. Hank Zahn, who pretty much holds the budgetary reins at All Souls, had let me install the skylights the spring before, after listening to some well orchestrated whining on my part. At the time they seemed like a good idea; there was only one small window in the part of the attic where my nest is, and I needed more light. But since then I’d realized that on a bad day all I could see was gray and wet and accumulated crud—nothing to lift my spirits. Besides, my brass bed had gotten crushed during the installation, and although the co-op’s insurance covered its cost, I’d spent the money on a trip to Tahoe and was still sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

That morning I actually welcomed the bad weather because my rain wear being the disguise it is, it actually furthered my current plan of action. For once the bathroom (one flight down and usually in high demand) was free when I needed it, and in half an hour I was wrapped in my old red slicker with the hood that hides nearly my whole head, my travel cup filled with coffee and ready to go. As I moved one of the tags on the mailboxes that tell Ted Smalley, our office manager, whether we’re in or out, I glanced at Sharon’s. Her tag was missing—she’s always setting it down someplace it doesn’t belong or wandering off and completely losing it—and Ted would have quite a few things to say to her about that. Ted is the most efficient person I know, and it puzzles him that Sharon can’t get the hang of a simple procedure like keeping track of her tag.

The Ramblin’ Wreck didn’t want to start, and I had to coax it some. Then I headed for Teresita Boulevard, up on the hill above McAteer High School, where Kirby Dalson lived. I’d already phoned Tom Chu before he left for school and had a good description of Kirby’s car—a red RX-7 with vanity plates saying KSKAR—and after school started I’d called the attendance office and was told Kirby hadn’t come in that morning. The car sat in the driveway of his parents’ beige stucco house, so I u-turned and parked at the curb.

The rain kept whacking down and the windows of the Wreck kept steaming up. I wiped them with a rag I found under the seat and then fiddled with the radio. Static was all I got; the radio’s as temperamental as the engine. Kirby’s car stayed in the driveway. Maybe he had the flu and was bundled up in bed, where I wished I was. Maybe he just couldn’t face the prospect of coming out it this storm.

Stakeouts. God. Nobody ever warned me how boring they are. I used to picture myself slouched in my car, wearing an exotic disguise, alert and primed for some great adventure. Sure. Stakeouts are so boring that I’ve fallen asleep on a couple and missed absolutely nothing. I finished my coffee, wished I’d brought along one of the stale-looking doughnuts that somebody had left on the chopping block in All Soul’s kitchen. Then I started to think fondly of the McDonald’s over on Ocean Avenue. I just love junk food.

About eleven o’clock the door of the Dalson house opened. Kirby came out wearing jeans and a down jacket and made for his car. After he’d backed down the driveway and headed toward Portola, the main street up there, I started the Wreck and followed.

Kirby went out Portola and west on Sloat Boulevard, toward the beach. By the time we’d passed the end of Stern Grove, I realized he was headed for Ocean Park Plaza. It’s a big multi-story center, over a hundred stores, ranging from small specialty shops to big department stores, with a movie theater, health club, supermarket, and dozens of food concessions. It was built right before the recession hit by a consortium of developers who saw the success that the new Stonestown Galleria and the Serramonte Center in Daly City were enjoying. Trouble is, the area out there isn’t big enough or affluent enough to support three such shopping malls, and from what the head of security at Ocean Park, Ben Waterson, had told me when I’d questioned him about Adrian the other day, the plaza was in serious trouble.

Kirby whipped the RX-7 into the eastern end of the parking lot and left it near the rear entrance to the Lucky Store. He ran through the rain while I parked the Wreck a few slots down and hurried after, pulling up the hood on my slicker. By the time I got inside, Kirby was cutting through the produce section. He went out into the mall, skirted the escalators, and halfway to the main entrance veered right toward Left Coast Casuals, where Adrian had worked before she disappeared.

I speeded up, then slowed to the inconspicuous, zombie-like pace of a window shopper, stopping in front of the cookware shop next door. Kirby hadn’t gone all the way inside, was standing in the entrance talking with a man I recognized as Ben Waterson. They kept it up for a couple of minutes, and it didn’t look like a pleasant conversation. The security man scowled and shook his head, while Kirby went red in the face and gestured angrily at the store. Finally he turned and rushed back my way, nearly bowling over a toddler whose mom wasn’t watching her. I did an about-face and started walking toward Lucky.

Kirby brushed past me, his pace fast and jerky. People in the mall and the grocery store gave him a wide berth. By the time I got back to the Wreck, he was already burning rubber. The Wreck picked that minute to go temperamental on me, and I knew I’d lost him.

Well, hell. I decided to run by his house again. No RX-7. I checked the parking lot and streets around McAteer. Nothing. Then the only sensible thing to do was drive over to the McDonald’s on Ocean and treat myself to a Quarter Pounder with cheese, large fries, and a Diet Coke. The Diet Coke gave me the illusion I was limiting calories.

I spent most of the afternoon parked on Teresita. I’d brought along one of those little hot apple pies they sell at McDonald’s; by the time I finished it, I’d had enough excess for one day.

I’d had enough of stakeouts, too, but I stayed in place until Kirby’s car finally pulled up at around quarter to five. I waited until he was inside the house, then went up and rang the bell.

While I was sitting there, I’d tried to figure out what was so off-putting about Kirby Dalson. When he answered the door, I hit on it. He was a good-looking kid—well built and tall, with nice dark hair, even when it was wind-blow and full of bits and pieces of eucalyptus leaves like now, but his facial features were a touch too pointy, his eyes a touch too small and close-set. In short, he looked rodenty—just the kind of shifty-eyed kid you’d expect to be into all kinds of scams. His mother wouldn’t notice it, and young girls would adore him, but guys would catch on right away, and you could bet quite a few adults, including most of his teachers, had figured it out.

The shiftiness really shone through when he saw me. Something to hide there, all right, maybe something big. “What do you want?” he asked sullenly.

“Just to check a few things.” I stepped through the door even though he hadn’t invited me in. You can get away with that with kids, even the most self-assured. Kirby just stood there. Then he shut the door, folded his arms across his chest, and waited.

I said, “Let’s sit down,” and went into the living room. It was pretty standard—beige and brown with green accents—and had about as much character as a newborn’s face. I don’t understand how people can live like that, with nothing in their surroundings that says who or what they are. My nest may be cluttered and have no particular décor, but at least it’s
me.

I sat on a chair in a little grouping by the front window. Kirby perched across from me. He’d tracked in wet, sandy grit onto his mother’s well-vacuumed carpet—another strike against him, even for a lousy housekeeper like me—and his fingers drummed on his denim-covered thighs.