Marcia Muller - Vanishing Point

Dean Sherman, owner of Sherman’s Printing, had enjoyed working with Laurel. Her illustrations were top quality, and she was open to technical suggestions about printing the cards. “She wasn’t like most artists; didn’t have a temperamental bone in her body. Had a nice little business going, and if she hadn’t died, it would’ve continued to grow. She wasn’t going to be another Hallmark, but she’d’ve made a nice living.” So he thought she was dead? “Of course. I know there were a lot of theories going around after she disappeared, but that’s all they were-theories.”

Lana Overland, the former dental assistant, had liked Laurel. “I liked her a lot, in fact. In some professional offices, you get these wives who’re always calling up, always dropping by to check on things. Not Laurel. She had her own career, was very self-sufficient. Didn’t bother Roy with the little stuff, like problems at home or with the kids.” How had Roy dealt with Laurel’s disappearance? “He was very sad for a long time. Angry, too. You can understand that; he’d had this great life, and all of a sudden it was taken from him. After a while he kind of evened out, but then he was like this empty shell, and nothing could fill it, ever.” What did she think had happened to Laurel? “Foul play, most definitely, and a shame it happened to such a great wife and mother.”

Impossibly perfect, that was the consensus on Laurel. But hadn’t she ever been derelict in her duties for the church? Missed a committee meeting? Forgotten some elderly parishioner who needed a ride to the medical clinic? Hadn’t she ever argued with the printer about the weight of the card stock or the quality of the ink? Failed to pay her bill on time? Hadn’t she ever interrupted one of Roy’s surgeries to tell him the washing machine was broken? Called at an awkward time to ask him to bring home a quart of milk? Apparently not.

But then, memories are colored by the passage of time, especially if someone has met with a tragedy. Little annoyances fade, quarrels are forgotten, minor lapses are forgiven. The last three people I’d spoken with were really very peripheral to Laurel’s life; perhaps her best friend, Sally Timmerman, whom I was later meeting for dinner at the lodge’s restaurant, could reveal more of the woman behind the perfect facade.

“Laurel a saint? You’re kidding, of course,” Sally Timmerman said.

“That’s more or less how most people I’ve talked with have described her.”

“I guess an untimely demise confers a sort of sanctity upon one, although I’ve never known why.”

Timmerman was a short, plump woman in her mid-fifties, with close-cropped white-blonde hair and a round, smooth-skinned face that belied her years. From my background information on her, I knew that she was an English teacher at Paso Robles High School and had known Laurel Greenwood nearly her whole life. The two had met in second grade when Sally’s family had moved south from Salinas, and had quickly become inseparable. Together they’d gone off to college at San Jose State, and when Laurel married Roy upon graduation, Sally was her maid of honor. Two years later, Laurel stood up for Sally at her marriage to her high school sweetheart, Jim Timmerman. The couples socialized frequently, and Sally and Laurel apparently had remained close until the day Laurel disappeared.

I waited as our server poured a Zinfandel from a local winery that Timmerman had recommended, then said, “How would you describe her, since you knew her better than anyone?”

“Human. Clever. Generous. And she had her wild side.” Someone caught Sally’s eye from across the inn’s spacious dining room, and she waved before turning her attention back to me. “The parents of one of my students,” she explained. “You can’t go anywhere in this town without running into someone you know. Now, where was I?”

“Laurel had her wild side.”

“I’ll say she did. But Josie and I did, too.”

“Josie-that was her cousin?”

“Yes, Josie Smith. The three of us were best buddies in high school and college. The Terrible Three, they used to call us, because of all the trouble we’d get into. Sneaking out at night to meet boys, parties when the folks weren’t home, smoking dope behind the gym. Then we went off to San Jose State-Laurel and Josie to study nursing and me to get my teaching certificate-and really partied hearty. We rented this dilapidated house together, and there was a little old Airstream trailer that somebody had abandoned in the backyard. We called it our ‘bordello’ because that’s where we’d take guys when we wanted privacy.”

Timmerman smiled wryly. “We thought we were really something, spearheading the sexual revolution, but it all seems so tame compared to what the kids are doing now. And, of course, we eventually settled down. Laurel fell in love with Roy. I reconnected with my high school boyfriend. Josie dropped out to marry her first husband and moved to San Francisco.”

“But the three of you remained close?”

“Laurel and I did. I kind of lost touch with Josie except for Christmas cards and what Laurel told me about her life. But they still saw each other frequently. Laurel helped Josie survive both of her divorces, and she was with her when she died. Brain cancer, at thirty-four. So young.” Sally shook her head.

“When the two of them got together, was it here or in San Francisco?”

“There, usually. Roy didn’t approve of Josie; he thought she was a bad influence on Laurel.”

“Because of their wild past?”

“Right.”

“But he approved of you.”

“Because by the time he and Laurel moved back here from L.A. I was a respectable wife, mother, and teacher. It also helped that I’d put on so much weight I wasn’t exactly turning heads anymore. But Josie was a divorcée, drop-dead gorgeous with all that bright red hair. Roy didn’t want his wife around somebody like that.”

“Did he try to stop Laurel from seeing Josie?”

“Well, they had a lot of disagreements about it, but she went anyway.” Sally grinned. “I’ve always suspected that while Laurel was visiting she and Josie lived it up some. Not,” she added quickly, “that she was ever unfaithful to Roy. But she liked a good time, and Roy wasn’t exactly a live wire.”

“Anna Yardley claims Laurel was seldom away from her children for more than one or two nights, except for when Josie died.”

Timmerman rolled her eyes. “What would Anna know about Laurel’s life? She was hardly ever around till she disappeared. But it’s true that Laurel kept her visits and her painting trips short.”

“Anna also said she was surprised that Laurel had the children, that she wasn’t the maternal type.”

“Now, there her instincts are correct. Laurel never wanted kids. In fact, she had an abortion during our junior year of college. It was Roy who wanted a family, and she finally caved in to the pressure. But once she had the girls she loved them and became a very good parent.”

The waiter arrived with our dinners-prime rib; how could either of us resist the Thursday night special?-and we turned our attention to them for a few minutes. When I got back to my line of questioning, I said, “What about the Greenwoods’ marriage? Was it a good one?”

“… As marriages between very different types of people go, I suppose it was. They made their accomodations. Roy was kind of rigid and very traditional; Laurel was easygoing and a free spirit. He could be overbearing and demanding, and her way of coping was to stand pat on the things that were important to her, while bending on the things that didn’t matter so much.”

“Obviously her visits to Josie were one of the important things. What else?”

“Her mental health days, as she called them. The religion the girls were raised in; Roy was Catholic, but she insisted they attend the Lutheran church.”