Marcia Muller - Vanishing Point

Terry said, “She kept them all these years.” When she looked at me, I saw her expression had softened.

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll hear her out.”

For more than an hour Laurel explained to her daughters the things she’d told me on the previous Tuesday, but her demeanor was radically different. She spoke softly and with regret; occasionally she cried, and Terry looked distressed, but Jennifer had become silent, aloof. Occasionally she glanced at the picture wall, a puzzled expression on her face.

I understood the change in Terry’s attitude; the display of photographs had affected her deeply. But I couldn’t understand the change in Jennifer.

Laurel refilled our coffee cups, and Jennifer studied the carafe as she poured.

“We had one like that when I was little,” she said.

“Yes, it’s exactly the same. I found it in a thrift shop. It made me think of you.”

“Not of our father?” Jennifer’s tone was sharp, her expression unreadable.

Laurel said, “It’s hard for me to think of your father, after what he did to me. But you girls were always on my mind.”

“Really.”

“Yes-every day. Especially on your birthdays. Christmases. The Fourth of July. Halloween. Thanksgiving. I missed all those occasions, and I deeply regret it. I missed your high school and college graduations. Terry’s wedding day. Your wedding to Mark Aldin.”

Red flag. I’d told Laurel Jennifer’s married name, but not that of her husband.

Terry got up and went back to the picture wall. “This is so nice,” she said.

“What else did you miss, Mother?” Jennifer asked. Her tone was even sharper now. “The big house in Paso Robles? I mean, this”-she gestured around us-“is quite a comedown.”

Laurel compressed her lips before she spoke. “I suppose, given your two lovely homes and rich husband, you would consider it so. I admit, since I left you my life hasn’t been much.”

“And do you think it might improve, now that you’ve reconnected with Terry and me?”

“Of course it would. I’d have my girls back.”

“No, I mean in a material way.”

“I’m not asking anything of you-”

“Of course you’re not. Not directly.”

Terry turned, frowning.

Jennifer stood, went to stand beside her sister. She took down the photograph of the three of them from the wall and examined it, turned it over. “How long has this been hanging here?” she asked.

Laurel ran her tongue over her lips. “Since I moved into the house, ten years ago.”

“Really.” Jennifer continued examining it. “Odd that it’s not sun-faded like the spines of the books on the shelves. That east-facing window lets a lot of light in here, even with the blinds closed.”

She stepped back, surveying the wall. “It’s also odd that there’s a big rectangle on the wallpaper where it’s not faded-as if something much larger had hung there until recently. And there’s no smaller, unfaded place where this one was-such as there would be if it had been there for ten years.”

So that’s what made her skeptical. Trust an artist’s eye. She’s a better detective in that department than I am.

“I had the walls repapered-”

“No way, Mother. You forget, I inherited your artistic talent. My eyes don’t lie.” She held up the the frame, its back toward us, where a sticker with a bar code was affixed. “In your haste to curry favor with Terry and me, you left the price tag on. It’s from SaveMart, a store that didn’t exist ten years ago. Besides, anything that old wouldn’t peel off”-she pulled it loose, stuck it on the glass over Laurel’s face-“this easily.”

Laurel closed her eyes, sighed. “All right, I was trying to impress you. The frames I had the pictures in were from a thrift shop and very shabby-”

“You’re good at covering up, aren’t you? But I guess you would be; you’ve been living a lie all these years.”

Laurel was silent. I watched Terry’s face undergo a slow transformation from bewilderment to anger, as the harsh recognition of how their mother had attempted to manipulate them sank in.

I couldn’t keep out of the family discussion any longer. “Laurel, how did you know Jennifer was married to Mark Aldin? And that he’s rich? And that they have two lovely homes?”

“Why, you told me.”

“I only told you her last name, and that they lived in Atherton.”

“No, I’m sure you mentioned-”

“A little Internet research was all it took to find out your older daughter-separated or not-is well-off. And I imagine you also found out Terry isn’t doing badly, either.”

“That’s preposterous! Why would I care?”

“Money to buy you a good lawyer. To make the rest of your life easier.”

“No!”

“The real question is, did you ever care? Did you ever think about your daughters’ feelings at all?”

For a moment I thought Laurel would protest again, but then she lifted her head defiantly, and arrogance flashed in her eyes.

“You want the truth?” she said. “All right. The truth is, I never much cared about anyone but myself.”

And that’s what isolates you from the rest of humanity.

Jennifer reached out to Terry, who was backed up against the picture wall, eyes hard with anger. At first she pulled away, but then she took her sister’s hand. Together they walked out of the shabby house and out of Laurel Greenwood’s wrecked life, leaving her to face the consquences alone.

After again warning Laurel not to run, I did the same.

Six in the evening, and Rae and I were drinking beer on the patio at Gordon Biersch Brewery across the Embarcadero from Pier 24 1/2. Fall-or what we city residents prefer to call “summer in San Francisco”-had arrived, and with it mellow sunlight and warm, balmy days. I wore a short-sleeved shirt, and she had on a tank top, a sweater tied around her waist by its arms.

“So,” I said, “you didn’t answer my question. Are you on staff or not?”

“Sorry. I was just thinking how pretty Treasure Island looks tonight. No, I’m going back to writing my book on Monday. Getting out of the house and working on the Greenwood case broke my block. Gave me a couple of good ideas, in fact.”

“Don’t tell me the book’s turning into a detective novel.”

“No. More of a psychological character study.”

“Let me guess-a mother who cold-bloodedly abandons her children.”

“Among other things.”

“And what’s this one called?”

“ A Wasteland of Strangers .”

“Good title. But I’ll miss you; it’s been nice, though I think Patrick’ll be relieved by your departure.”

“Why?”

“All along he’s been afraid you’d take his job away-in spite of my reassurances to the contrary.”

“Well, he shouldn’t be, after how he helped you break the case. Besides, your guaranteeing his car loan should’ve convinced him he’s there to stay.”

Patrick’s old clunker had proved not to be repairable, and he’d eventually been forced to take the bus back from Crescent City. Last weekend I’d dragged him down to the auto dealerships in South City, where he’d found a five-year-old Chevy Cavalier with very low mileage and an attractive price tag.

I said, “I made him buy a cell phone, too-the same kind I replaced my old one with.”

Rae rolled her eyes. “My, you have moved into the twenty-first century! Next thing I know, you’ll be lusting after a Blackberry.”

“Don’t laugh, but I’ve already started to.”

“So when’re you replacing your decrepit MG?”

“What? That car’s the love of my life, next to Hy! Speaking of whom…” I checked my watch. “Nope, plenty of time. He won’t be up from San Diego till at least eight.”