Marcia Muller: Vanishing Point

“Which one?” I had two: the adoptive mother who’d raised me and the birth mother with whom I’d finally connected a couple of years ago.

“Both.”

“Well, Ma carried on as if I’d announced I’d won the Nobel Peace Prize; then she had me put Hy on the phone. To him she said, ‘Congratulations on joining our family.’ And then she laughed and added, ‘Well, considering the family, maybe congratulations aren’t in order.’”

“Oh my God. And Saskia?”

“More restrained. But she was pleased. She met Hy last summer when she was in town for a bar association meeting, and they really hit it off.”

“You call Elwood?” Elwood Farmer, my birth father, an artist who lived on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana.

“Yes. He was… just Elwood.”

“Meaning he didn’t say much and now he’s thinking over the deeper meaning of it all.”

“Right.”

“Must be complicated, having all those relatives. Sometimes I’m glad I’ve got no family left.”

“What d’you mean? You’re a stepmother six times over.”

“That’s different.” She paused. “Shar, I need to talk to you about a potential case for the agency.”

I felt a stirring of unease. Ricky had been a notorious womanizer throughout his marriage to my sister. If that had started again, and Rae wanted me to investigate, I couldn’t possibly take it on. Conflict of interest on too many levels.

“I’m asking for a friend of mine,” she added. “It’s something that really means a lot to her, and it could be very lucrative for you.”

I relaxed. “Tell me about it.”

“Her name’s Jennifer Aldin. She’s a textile designer, works with a lot of the high-society decorators in the city. I got to know her through Ricky; her husband, Mark, is his financial manager.”

“I thought Ricky managed his own money.”

“No, Charlene always did that.”

“Right.” My younger sister hadn’t finished high school because she was pregnant with Mick, but years later she’d gotten her GED and gone to college; now she possessed a PhD in finance and helped her new husband, international businessman Vic Christiansen, run his various enterprises.

“Anyway,” Rae went on, “after Ricky and Charlene split and he established the new record label, he realized he was in over his head. I’ve got no talent whatsoever with money-you remember how my charge cards were always maxed out-so he went to Mark, who has a lot of clients in the entertainment industry. Mark keeps things on track, and makes us a small fortune from investments.”

As if they needed more. Ricky made millions yearly, and Rae’s career as a novelist was about to take off.

“So,” I said, “Mark’s wife is a friend of yours.”

“Yes. At first it was one of those situations where the husbands get together over dinner for business reasons and the wives’re supposed to make small talk. But neither Jen nor I is much good at polite chitchat; when we loosened up and started talking about things that really mattered, we discovered we had a lot in common. One of those things being a horror of artificial social situations. Now Mark and Ricky go sailing to talk business, and Jen and I do whatever pleases us.”

I realized that I didn’t know all that much about Rae’s everyday life since she’d married and become a published author. We had lunch occasionally, talked on the phone every couple of weeks, and spent Christmas Eve together because that was when all six of Ricky and Charlene’s kids gathered at the Seacliff-district house he and Rae shared. But I didn’t really know how she spent her time, or who her other friends were.

“What kinds of things do you and Jennifer do?” I asked.

“We take hikes.” At my incredulous look, she grinned. “Yeah, I’ve hiked some of the toughest trails on Mount Tam. No more collapsing to rest every quarter mile.”

“Better watch out-soon you’ll be running the Bay to Breakers.”

“I haven’t reformed that much. Anyway, we also go antiquing, and to galleries, visit museums, or run up to the wine country and do some tasting.”

“Sounds nice.” And it made me feel wistful. I’d been so busy managing the agency-which was growing month by month-that I seldom saw most of my women friends. My male friends, too; I couldn’t remember when I’d last spent time with Hank.

Hell, it was a wonder I’d found the time to get married!

“Okay,” I added, “now tell me what Jennifer wants investigated.”

Rae nibbled on a fingernail, looking out to sea. “It’s a long shot, I think. Twenty-two years ago, when Jennifer was ten, her mother, Laurel Greenwood, disappeared down in San Luis Obispo County. One of those cases where it looks like the person’s either disappeared voluntarily or committed suicide, but everybody says, ‘She never would have done that; it must be foul play.’ And in this case they may be right. There was no trouble in the Greenwood marriage. Laurel was content with her life, a good mother, as well as a successful businesswoman, and very involved in her community.”

“And no body was ever found.”

“No trace of her. Afterward, Jen’s father became very closed off, didn’t permit her or her sister to so much as mention their mother’s name. Seven months ago, when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Jen tried to talk with him about her mother, but he flat-out refused. He died two months later, and then Jen started obsessing about the disappearance. Finally she looked up the newspaper accounts of it. There was a big media flap for the first few days, then nothing. Almost as if someone had put a lid on the case.”

“This was handled by the SLO County Sheriff’s Department?”

“Right.”

“She talk to the investigating officers?”

“The guy in charge has died. The deputy she spoke with wasn’t very interested in helping her. Can’t blame him; it’s a cold case, and he’s got better things to do with his time.”

“So she came to you, since you used to be an investigator.”

“Actually, no. Mark got worried about her obsessing. She was losing weight, not sleeping or eating properly, not working well. So he decided he’d bankroll a full-scale investigation into her mother’s disappearance, and asked Ricky if he thought your agency would be right for the job. Of course, he said it would.”

“A full-scale investigation into a cold case?”

“The works. Mark’s willing to spend whatever it takes to give Jen peace of mind.”

“Sounds like he loves her a lot.”

“Yeah, he does.”

I asked, “So why didn’t Jennifer Aldin approach me directly? Why have you pave the way?”

“She only decided to go ahead with the investigation yesterday. Last night, the four of us were having dinner, and when I mentioned that Ricky and I were coming up here for the party, she asked me to speak with you. The thing is, she wants you to handle the case personally.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re the best there is.”

“According to…?”

“Ricky and me. The man on the street. Oh, hell, Shar, will you take it on? Jen needs closure in order to get her life back on track.”

I considered. Late last month I’d wrapped up a case that had been very personal and had threatened my career, as well as the existence of the agency. After having my attention taken away from normal business affairs for two weeks, I’d been trying to make up for lost time, but managing our heavy caseload and the attendant paperwork threatened even now to overwhelm me. Still, Ted could pick up some of the slack in the paperwork department, and I had a couple of new operatives who were coming along fast…

I was mentally shifting priorities and assignments as I said to Rae, “Okay. I’ll call Jennifer tomorrow, and maybe we can set something up for later in the week.”