Marcia Muller: Vanishing Point

Jennifer shrank back against the sofa’s cushions, crossing her arms, hands grasping her elbows. The singsong, childlike quality in her voice had become more pronounced. She shivered.

I remained still, sensing she was coming to a critical point in the narrative.

“Then, on the third morning, your dad’s acting just like he used to before your mom disappeared. He’s dressed for work, and has had Aunt Anna-who came over early-get you and Terry ready for school. But he’s not really the same; he’s too cheerful, and he’s never cheerful in the morning. He’s even made oatmeal, and it’s all gluey, but you choke it down to please him, because he’s been so upset, and now he seems so sad under all those big smiles. When you’re finished, he pushes back from the table and looks at you and Terry and says, ‘I’m sorry, girls, but we have to get on with our lives. Your mother would have wanted it that way.’

“Terry starts to cry, and you ask, ‘Why, Daddy? Is she dead?’

“And then his face changes-scrunches up, gets red and ugly. He says, ‘Your mother is not dead. We don’t know what happened to her, but she is not dead. You are never to suggest that again. Never . Someday you will understand why.’

“Terry stops crying and looks really scared, and you don’t say a word because you know better. There’s that tone in his voice that you’ve heard before when he’s warned you not to do something. It’s a tone that tells you he means what he’s saying, and you obey. Besides, then his expression changes, and he looks so sad that you’re afraid if you say anything more, he’ll start shaking and then maybe break into little pieces. And then you’ll be all alone in the world, with nobody to love you-because Aunt Anna doesn’t really like kids, and Aunt Sally and the neighbor lady have families of their own to look after. You’ll be all alone, except for Terry, who is so little and needs such a lot of looking after. That’s too much for a ten-year-old to bear, so you keep quiet, in order to save your dad and yourself.

“That night, after you’ve gone to bed, your dad lights a big bonfire in the backyard and throws all your mom’s paintings into it. You run out, crying, and he holds you and tells you it’s for the best, so you can all make a new life without missing her so badly. But after he’s put you back in bed, you cry some more because you loved those paintings, especially the one of the old hotel where Mom told you she and Dad spent their honeymoon.

“Then, after a while, you realize your dad was right, because things do kind of get back to normal. You go to school and to your ballet lessons; for a while Aunt Anna fixes meals that are actually better than Mom’s; then Dad learns to cook and do the laundry and takes you camping like he always did. When you mention your mom, he sounds kind of absentminded. ‘She loves you,’ he says at first. And then, ‘She lov ed you.’ Gradually you stop talking about her, and it goes on for years and years like that, but there’s still this… place inside you where something’s not right-”

“Darling?” a voice said from outside. “You okay?”

A man in tennis whites stood in the doorway. Medium height, thick gray hair, deep tan. Craggy face, nose that looked like it had been broken more than once; deep lines around his eyes and mouth. He moved quickly into the room, toward Jennifer.

“Oh, God.” She put a hand to her pale face, leaned forward. “Mark, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s all right, darling.” He stepped between us, as if to hide her distress from me, put his arms around her.

After a bit, he straightened. Jennifer got up from the sofa, saying, “Excuse me for a minute,” and hurried from the room.

Mark Aldin turned toward me, his rough features drawn into worried lines. Up close I saw that he was much older than Jennifer-at least twenty years. Perhaps she was a trophy wife? The disparity in their ages and appearances would point to that.

“Sharon,” he said, “I’m Mark. I’ve heard good things about you from Rick and Rae. In the newspapers as well.”

I smiled wryly. “Don’t believe everything you read in the press.” I motioned toward the archway through which his wife had fled. “Is she going to be all right?”

“For now.” He sat down in the space she’d vacated. “Telling the story of her mother’s disappearance has a cathartic effect on her. She’ll feel better for days afterwards. Then the downward cycle begins.” He ran a hand over his forehead, pushed thick fingers through his hair.

“This has been going on since her father’s death?”

“Yes. Before that, she was matter-of-fact about her mother’s disappearance; it was something that had happened a long time ago. But once Roy Greenwood died… well, you’ve seen her relive the events.”

“Must be difficult for you.”

“I don’t care about me. But it’s wrecking Jen’s whole life. She spends hours in her studio out back, not working, just poring over old newspaper clippings and brooding about what happened. Her clients are angry with her for missing deadlines. Her friends-except for Rae-have drifted away. I’m afraid if she doesn’t have some closure on this soon, she won’t have much of a life to come back to.”

“I have to warn you: I may not be able to provide her with that closure. This is a very old, cold case.”

“I realize that, but I don’t know where else to turn.”

“Have you talked to Jennifer about getting professional help?”

“Of course I have. Psychotherapy is not something she wants to pursue. So…” He smiled, his skewed features transformed so he looked nearly handsome. “You’re the professional help, Sharon. What do we need to do to get this investigation under way?”

Driving back to the city with a contract signed by Jennifer and a large retainer check from Mark in my briefcase, I was glad that I’d boned up on the events surrounding Laurel Greenwood’s disappearance before I met with her daughter. The facts of the case were rendered dry and brittle by time, but hearing Jennifer speak of her experience in a voice that more resembled a bewildered ten-year-old’s than an adult’s had brought the events fully alive.

Twenty-two years ago, the Greenwoods had been living in Paso Robles-officially named El Paso de Robles, the Pass of the Oaks-a small town at the intersection of state highways 101 and 46, some two hundred miles south of San Francisco. The convergence of these major east-west and north-south routes makes Paso Robles a natural stopping place for travelers; I myself used to pull off there to gas up while driving between UC Berkeley and my parents’ home in San Diego. About all I remembered of the place was an A &W drive-in where I occasionally stopped for a chili dog, and the Paso Robles Inn, an old-fashioned mission-style mineral-bath spa.

In December of 2003 a devastating earthquake-6.5 on the Richter scale-had shaken the town, killing two women and sending more than forty other people to area hospitals; a number of the older buildings were seriously damaged, and financial losses soared into the millions. I’d recently read somewhere that Paso Robles had recovered from the San Simeon quake and was undergoing fast growth; wineries had sprung up in the surrounding countryside and were becoming popular tourist destinations. But back when the Greenwoods lived there, it was basically a little town where people led quiet, ordinary existences.

And up until June of 1983, the family’s existence had been just that. Roy Greenwood, a native of nearby Atascadero, was an oral surgeon with offices in a medical-professional building a block off the main street. His wife, Laurel, whom he had met when they were undergraduates at San Jose State, was a graphic artist who owned a company specializing in greeting cards for children; she worked out of their home. The Greenwoods were comfortably off, but by no means rich, even by the standards of a country town; Roy’s practice suffered because he extended liberal credit to patients who couldn’t afford necessary dental work, and Laurel’s greeting cards, while popular in stores as far north as Monterey and as far south as Santa Maria, turned only a small profit. Jennifer Greenwood and her younger sister, Terry, attended public school, where they were considered exceptionally bright and well adjusted. Both parents were active in the PTA and on various committees of St. John’s Lutheran Church.