Marcia Muller - Vanishing Point

“And you’re sure giving him dextrose instead of saline was an accident?”

“Of course it was! I’m… I was a nurse. I would never deliberately kill anyone. Never!… No, don’t you give me that look. Bruce Collingsworth’s death was an accident !”

“I decided to settle in Klamath Falls because my van broke down here, and I’d run out of the energy to keep going. The first year I lived in a cheap apartment, hoping I’d get it together and move on. Then I realized I wasn’t going anyplace, so I bought a house. For the past ten years I’ve worked in a nursing home. Just grunt work-changing beds, wheeling the patients outside to get some air, cleaning up after them. I don’t mind it. I like helping people. And I volunteer for our hospice. Easing the last days of the terminally ill, it’s rewarding. And, I suppose, something of an atonement for the things I’ve done-to Josie, to my family, to Bruce Collingsworth. I live very quietly. One of my neighbors has been kind to me, and tried to forge a friendship, but I find I’ve lost the ability to function socially. I’m only good with the dying.”

“All right-I’m sorry I haven’t asked about Roy or the girls. How are they?”

“Roy died seven months ago. Of pancreatic cancer. Terry’s married and teaches at a cooking school in Davis. Jennifer is a textile designer; she was living in Atherton, but now is separated from her husband and temporarily staying with Terry.”

No reaction to that news. “You said it was Jennifer who hired you to find me?”

“Yes.”

“That makes sense. She was always the inquisitive one.”

“And she loved her mother.”

“Did she? I wouldn’t know. Children are such voracious creatures. What we think of as love is often pure need. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with satisfying a child’s need. Someone has to fill it.”

Until it becomes inconvenient or difficult, and then you just walk away.

“So now are you satisfied? You’ll go away and leave me alone?”

“Yes, but I’m required to report any evidence of wrongdoing that I find in the course of an investigation to the authorities.”

“You promised-!”

“I said I wouldn’t bother you again. I can’t speak for the police in San Francisco or Crescent City. Or the state board of nursing.”

“You lied! You’re going to turn me in to them, even though I’ve told you everything.”

“It’s the law, and if I don’t comply, I’ll lose my license. Even if you can convince them that your version of what happened is true, there will be consequences. You’ve committed fraud, practiced nursing under another person’s credentials.”

“I’ll lose my livelihood. The nursing home will fire me. The hospice will turn me away.”

“As I said, consequences.”

“But my work is my whole life. I have nothing except helping dying people.”

“You have something else, Laurel, or have you forgotten why I’m here?”

“What? Oh, my daughters.”

“Yes, your daughters.”

“… Do they want to see me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you talk with them? Ask? At least do that for me before you go to the authorities.”

“All right, if that’s what you want.”

“It’s what I want. When will you do it?”

“I’ll make a verbal report to Jennifer tomorrow. If they agree to a meeting, probably my office in San Francisco would be the best place.”

She considered. “No. Not down there. Please. Ask them to come to Klamath Falls, to my house.”

“Why?”

“Because maybe a visit there will explain a few things to them. Maybe it will be a new beginning for the three of us.”

“You’d better not be using this as a delaying tactic so you can run again. Because I guarantee I’ll find you.”

Her eyes grew bleak and she looked away at the lake. “Run? How could I? I have no place left to go.”

After I’d promised again-against my better instincts-to ask Jennifer and Terry to meet with their mother, Laurel went inside to her room. I remained on the veranda, staring out across the lake at the fiery sunset.

Given her character as I understood it, Laurel’s demeanor had seemed natural throughout our talk. None of it had been scripted; it couldn’t have been, given the circumstances.

But I wondered.

Her involvement in the death of Josie Smith. Her alleged mistake that had cost Bruce Collingsworth his life. Her desertion of her daughters.

I was the one who had had to prompt her to ask about those now grown children, and suddenly she wanted to see them.

I feared for Jennifer and Terry, should they decide to reconnect, but they were adults, and it was their prerogative to say yes or no to a meeting with their mother.

Momentarily I banished the investigation from my mind. Accepted the glass of wine I’d ordered from a passing waiter. Above the towering outcroppings on the far side of the lake, the sky blossomed with the last violent protests of the dying sun; purple clouds outlined in pink and gold billowed above them.

The end of a day for me.

The end of a reconstructed life for Laurel Greenwood.

“I am not going to meet with her!” Terry Wyatt exclaimed. She stood in the living room of her Davis home, hands on hips, eyes flashing.

From the sofa where she and I sat, Jennifer watched, wary of her sister’s anger. I kept my expression noncommital; I was the messenger, bearing bad tidings.

But Terry’s rage wasn’t directed at me. It was aimed at her mother, and she vented it with full force. “What she did is unforgivable! And now she wants a new beginning ? What does she think? That we’ll just pick up where we left off? Maybe she wants to tuck me into bed and read me a Littlest Lamb book? Where the hell does she get off?”

Jennifer cleared her throat and said in a tentative tone, “Terry, I think we should give her a chance, hear her out.”

“No, we should not! For years I’ve believed she’s dead, and as far as I’m concerned, she can stay dead.”

“But she had her reasons-”

“Oh, yeah, she had her reasons. She killed Cousin Josie and was afraid she’d get caught.”

“She told Sharon it was an accident.”

“I don’t believe that for one minute. And neither should you. This is all your fault, you know. You should’ve left well enough alone.”

“But Terry, just think-we could be a family again!”

I studied Jennifer, frowning. She certainly was cutting her mother a lot of slack. Of course, her life had been torn apart in the wake of her father’s death and my investigation; it was natural that she’d cling to what shreds were left-one of them being her image of Laurel as a flawed but good person. It was an image with which she deeply identified, as evidenced by last week’s journey back and forth across the territory where her mother had vanished.

“Jesus Christ!” Terry exclaimed. “ Family ! I can’t believe you said that.”

I stood up. Time for the messenger to depart before she became a target. “This should be a private discussion,” I told them. “When you come to a decision, let me know.”

I’d flown down to Sacramento that morning from Klamath Falls, rented a car, and gone directly to Terry’s house. Now I got onto Interstate 80 and drove south. I’d drop off the rental at Oakland, where my MG was parked at North Field. It seemed like years since I’d left it there and flown for the second time to Paso Robles.

I was tired, mildly depressed, and looking forward to getting home, taking a long, relaxing bath, and going to bed. One of the downsides of my work is the toll other people’s emotions take on me.