Marcia Muller - Vanishing Point

The Yardley house was white clapboard surrounded by a picket fence with an arched gate, on a corner lot. An oak tree-oaks, on Olive Street!-took up most of the front yard, and an old rope swing hung from one of its massive limbs. Anna Yardley came to the door before I could ring the bell.

She was a big woman, tall and heavy, with iron gray hair pulled back from her face and coiled at the nape of her neck. Her features were severe, her jaw strong, her lips drawn into an uncompromising line. Although the temperature must have been in the low nineties, she wore a long-sleeved black dress of a heavy fabric whose folds rustled as she led me to a formal front parlor.

At her suggestion I sat on a settee upholstered in pale green brocade. While she settled herself on a matching chair, I placed my briefcase beside me and took out my recorder.

“You can put that away,” Anna Yardley said. “Anything I tell you is to remain in strict confidence.”

“The tape is only for accuracy’s sake.”

“Take notes instead. I have no guarantee where that tape might end up.”

I wasn’t about to argue with her, so I put the recorder back in my case and took out a legal pad. After noting the date, time, and her name I began, “Ms. Yardley-”

“Before you get to your questions, I want you to know that I’m only talking to you as a favor to my niece Jennifer. Quite frankly, I think this investigation is a horrible idea. She should have made her peace with what happened years ago. There are some things we’re not meant to know, and my sister Laurel’s fate is one of them.”

Odd way of putting it. I wrote down the word “fate” and circled it.

Anna Yardley squinted at the legal pad. Before she could ask what I’d written, I said, “What about you-have you made your peace?”

“Well, certainly. It’s been nearly a quarter of a century.”

“Tell me-what kind of a person was Laurel?”

Anna Yardley’s thin lips curved downward. “A very impractical woman. A dreamer. Always reading. Painting. Dabbling in those silly greeting cards.”

“I had the impression that she was a successful businesswoman, and the greeting card business looked promising.”

“I admit that the cards were beginning to sell, and she was making a small profit. But she could have earned much more if she’d kept up with her nursing.”

“Laurel had a nursing degree from San Jose State, right?”

“Yes. She worked at a hospital in Los Angeles for a few years while Roy studied dentistry at USC. But after they moved back here and the girls were born, she gave it up. Frankly, I was surprised that she chose to have children; Laurel possessed no more maternal instinct than I.”

“Her daughters remember her as a good mother.”

“No doubt she was. She had the children, and they deserved a proper raising. It was her responsibility to provide that. We Yardley women live up to our responsibilities.”

“But in the end Laurel didn’t live up to it.”

“She would have, had she not died.”

“You’re convinced she’s dead?”

“What else? Laurel must have been a victim of random violence; that’s the only possibility. She never would have left her girls. Until she disappeared she was never separated from them for more than a night or two, except when Cousin Josie was dying of cancer. Then she went to stay in San Francisco for a while, but she called home twice a day, sometimes more often.”

I made a couple of notes, then asked, “What about the Greenwoods’ marriage? Was it a good one?”

“Of course. They had the girls, and Roy had his dental practice. They were active in their church and had a nice group of friends. There was no trouble in that marriage.”

Interesting that she thought I was implying there had been trouble; the way she’d jutted out her chin when she spoke raised a red flag for me. I hesitated, framing my next words carefully.

“But every marriage has its strains from time to time, when one partner is unhappy for reasons unrelated to the other. Or when there’s a difference of opinion about something major.”

“Well, I’ve never married, so I wouldn’t know about that, now would I?”

“You were close to the family; you might’ve picked up on something-”

“I was not all that close to them before my sister disappeared. Laurel was nearly ten years younger than I, and she’d spent years away from home. When she returned to Paso Robles, her time was devoted to her children, and I was busy with a highly demanding career. My parents and I got together with them for the holidays and family birthdays, but I didn’t really know Laurel or Roy or the children. After my mother and father passed away I saw even less of them.” Anna Yardley’s mouth pulled taut. “Of course, that changed afterwards. Roy needed me to help raise Jennifer and Terry. I wasn’t happy about the responsibility, but it was my duty. No one else was going to do it.”

No, warm and fuzzy wasn’t Aunt Anna’s thing.

I said, “Jennifer tells me you might have some of Laurel’s belongings.”

“A few, yes. Some mementos, her postcard collection, some letters. I took them when Roy… started getting rid of her things. I’ve never looked at any of them, but I thought the girls might want them someday. They’ve never asked, though.”

“You say Roy started getting rid of Laurel’s things. I understand from Jennifer that he burned her paintings only days after she disappeared.”

“… Well, yes, he did. The man was distraught, not himself at all. Afterward, he regretted his actions.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Not in so many words. As I said, we weren’t close. But I could sense his regret.”

“Do you have any idea why he destroyed the paintings so soon after Laurel’s disappearance? What might have triggered it?”

“Roy had been… drinking a good deal that day. I suppose in his inebriated state he resented the paintings. After all, it was Laurel’s going off to paint that proved to be her undoing.”

“I wonder if I might see the items you saved.”

“They’re in the attic. I’ll have to hunt for them. If I drag them down, they’re not going back; you can take them to Jennifer and let her dispose of them if she wants.”

“I’m sure she’d like to have them.”

“Well, I can’t get to it today. How long will you be here?”

“At least till tomorrow night. Why don’t I call you?”

Anna Yardley nodded and stood, looking pointedly toward the front door. The interview was over.

Three hours later I was sitting on the balcony of my room at the Oaks Lodge, a newish, rambling resort hotel at the north end of town, with a main building containing a bar and restaurant and several guest wings set on large, lushly landscaped grounds. The temperature was still in the high eighties, and I’d changed to shorts and a tee and had a glass of cool white wine at hand. Spread on the small table in front of me were the notes I’d taken after playing the tapes of my interviews with Laurel Greenwood’s pastor and the man who had printed her greeting cards, as well as Roy Greenwood’s former dental assistant. They’d added little to the picture I’d already formed of Laurel.

The pastor, Bill Price of St. John’s Lutheran Church, had spoken of Laurel with enthusiasm undimmed by the passage of time. He remembered that she had contributed much of her time and energy to the church’s youth committees and had done the artwork for posters for various fund-raising events. “She no longer practiced nursing,” he told me, “but she often made herself available to accompany our older members to medical appointments and aided them in communicating with their doctors. It was a great tragedy when we lost her.” What did he think had happened to Laurel? “I suspect she is in God’s hands.”