Marcia Muller: Vanishing Point

Book 23 in the Sharon McCone series, 2006

Special thanks to:

Melissa Meith, my expert on legal matters-and mothers!

Bette Lamb, extraordinary nurse, artist, and writer.

And, as always, Bill Pronzini: Dammit, why are you always right?

VANISHING POINT

1. a point of disappearance, cessation, or extinction

2. (in the study of perspective in art) that point toward which receding parallel lines appear to converge

– Random House Unabridged Dictionary , 2nd edition

“My God, what’s going on down there?” I asked Hy.

He peered through the Cessna’s side window as I banked over Touchstone, our property on the cliffs above the sea in Mendocino County. “Hate to say it, but it looks like a party.”

“Oh, hell, I never should’ve called the office from Reno.”

It did indeed look like a party: tables dotted the terrace, their brightly colored cloths fluttering in the sea breeze; smoke billowed from the barbecue; a crowd of people stood on the mole-humped excuse for a lawn, staring up and waving at the plane.

“There’s Mick,” Hy said. “And Charlotte. And Ted.”

“Probably the instigators.” I banked again and began my approach to our dirt landing strip along the bluff’s top. “How on earth did they organize this in just a few days?”

“Well, your people’re nothing if not efficient.”

“Yours, too.” I pointed down at Gage Renshaw, one of Hy’s partners in the security firm of Renshaw and Kessell International. “He made it up from La Jolla in time.”

“Nice of him. And I see Hank, Anne-Marie, and Habiba. And Rae. But all these people kind of put a damper on the rest of the honeymoon.”

“Oh, Ripinsky, we’ve been honeymooning for years.”

“That’s a fact.”

I concentrated on making a smooth landing, then taxied toward the plane’s tiedown, where my nephew Mick Savage, his live-in love, Charlotte Keim, and several other friends had converged. When I stepped down, I was smothered in one hug after another, while Mick helped Hy attach the chains to the Cessna. The hugging and exclaiming continued as we started toward the house, and then I heard someone singing.

“Tough lady thought she couldn’t be caught by the rhythm of the blues

Till she fell right hard for a flyin’ man who had nothin left to lose…”

The voice belonged to my former brother-in-law, country music star Ricky Savage. The song, apparently, was one he’d written especially for Hy and me.

“So did you get married in a wedding chapel?” Hank Zahn, my former boss and closest male friend, asked.

“Plastic flowers and a rented veil?” This from his wife and law partner, Anne-Marie Altman.

“Were there Elvis impersonators?” The dark eyes of their daughter, Habiba Hamid, sparkled wickedly.

“You guys are thinking of Las Vegas,” I told them. “We spent the night in Reno, then drove to Carson City, the state capital, applied for a license, and were married that afternoon by a judge. It was nice. Private. Tasteful, even.”

Hank and Anne-Marie nodded approval, but Habiba looked disappointed. She was a teenager who probably would have delighted in the image of Hy and me rocking-and-rolling down the aisle.

“What, no ring?” Ted Smalley, my office manager, demanded.

“Neither of us likes to wear rings. Besides, we feel married enough as is.”

“Nobody can feel too married,” his partner, Neal Osborne, fingered the gold band that matched Ted’s. They’d exchanged them at a ceremony at San Francisco City Hall, during the brief period when the mayor had declared the clerk’s office open for the issuance of marriage licenses to gay couples.

“I guess not,” I said. “And you two are a good example for all of us.”

“Tell that to the governator.”

“He’ll be told, come next election. You’re married in the eyes of your friends, and someday you’ll be married in the eyes of the state.”

“Sure is nice to be working for an honest woman.” Charlotte Keim, my financial operative, punctuated the comment with a bawdy laugh.

My nephew Mick said, “I think that’s a hint. She wants to fly off to Reno like you did.”

“Flatter yourself, already!” Charlotte elbowed him in the ribs.

“One of these days I just might weaken and ask you.”

“One of these days I just might weaken and ask you .”

“Well?”

“Well?”

I smiled and left the happy couple to their half-serious standoff.

“So, McCone, you gonna tame him down?” Gage Renshaw, one of Hy’s partners, smiled slyly at me, dark hair blowing in the wind off the sea.

“No more than he’s going to tame me down.”

“Yeah, I guess that would take some doing.”

Gage never discussed personal things with me. I glanced at the champagne in his glass, wondering how many he’d had.

“In my experience,” he added, “a man gets married, he gets cautious, loses his edge. In our business, that makes for mistakes. And mistakes can be fatal.”

No, Gage wasn’t drunk; he was trying to send a message.

“I hear you,” I said, “but you’re talking to the wrong person.”

“Don’t think so. We’ve got a situation coming up that’s gonna require all our resources. See that your man’s ready for it.”

Nice wedding gift, Gage.

Hours later, clouds had gathered on the horizon, orange and pink and purple in the afterglow of the sunset. The others had retreated from the clifftop platform to the house, presumably to raid the dessert table, but Rae Kelleher and I remained behind to take in what, to me, were the most spectacular moments of the sunsets here on the Mendocino Coast. Rae-my onetime assistant, close friend, and near-relative, having married Ricky after his divorce from my younger sister Charlene.

I said, “Nice song Ricky wrote. On short notice, too.”

She laughed. “He wrote it a year ago. He’s been waiting for the two of you to get married before he performed it.”

“Oh, and he really expected that would happen?”

“We all did-except for you.”

I sighed. Sometimes our friends and relatives know us better than we know ourselves.

“It’ll be on his next CD,” she added.

“Our little piece of immortality.”

“Well, we all want that, don’t we?”

Did we? It seemed to me that right now I had everything I’d ever wanted. Even if I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted it until Hy turned the plane toward Reno a few days ago.

We sat silent for a moment. The surf boomed on the rocks in the cove below, eating at the steep cliffs. What was it the geologist who had inspected our land before we sited the house had said? Something about it possibly sliding into the sea if we intended to live there for more than a thousand years.

Right now I felt as if I could live forever.

Rae said, “What was it that tipped the scales in favor of marriage?”

“It just seemed right. Hy’s been wanting this for a long time, you know. But he had a good first marriage, even if Julie was very sick for years before she died. My history with men, on the other hand-”

“Right. No need to rehash that.” Rae looked down at her diamond-studded wedding ring. “Or to rehash my checkered past. What a bunch of losers-including me, for getting involved with them. What did your mother say when you told her the news?”