Sue Grafton - U Is For Undertow

Once he’d rid himself of all the paraphernalia, his intention was to kill himself before the cancer put him in a position where he had no choice. Con Dolan was vigorously opposed to the plan, in part because his wife, Grace, had taken a similar route before the disease had a chance to mow her down. But Stacey had been given a reprieve, which took the subject off the agenda for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, he and Dolan ended up sharing a place, which suited them both, even with the occasional snit.

The year before, they’d invited me to work a cold case with them since both were limited by physical ills. At the time, I’d introduced Stacey to junk food, which he’d never eaten in his life. Thereafter, I tagged along with him as he went from McDonald’s to Wendy’s to Arby’s to Jack in the Box. My crowning achievement was introducing him to the In-N-Out burger. His appetite increased, he regained some of the weight he’d lost during his cancer treatment, and his enthusiasm for life returned. Doctors were still scratching their heads.

Dolan took my blazer and hung it on a hat rack, which was already decked out with a number of Victorian bonnets. We went down two low steps into the living room. The floor plan was open, with differences in elevation defining the rooms. If there were doors at all, they came in glass-paned pairs so that each area could be expanded to include those adjacent. The entire interior was dark-stained wood, including the walls, woodwork, cornices, window frames, and low ceiling. The furnishings were quirky. In addition to track lighting, Tiffany lamps were set on marble columns. The chairs were thrift-shop finds. The paintings looked like originals, not necessarily masterpieces, but an interesting mix of abstracts, landscapes, and portraits, in styles that ranged from photorealism to impressionistic to Grandma Moses crude.

The glimpse I had of the kitchen showed a 1920s stove and a kitchen window filled with a display of Depression glass on clear glass shelves. The measuring cups, vases, candlesticks, bowls, and pitchers cast a soft green light onto the linoleum floor. Headless mannequins in vintage clothing stood here and there, like guests who’d arrived early for a party. Everything smelled like cigarette smoke. Stacey sat in the living room in what looked like a Stickley chair. He, too, was in his robe, and his ginger hair was covered by a bright green watch cap. He pointed at the fan. “I’m doing this in self-defense,” he said. “Sit, sit. Where’s your manners, Dolan? Get the girl a beer. We have some catching up to do.”

I set my shoulder bag on the floor and sat down. “Water’s fine. A beer will put me to sleep.”

Dolan went into the kitchen and came back with a coffee cup of tap water that he set on the arm of my chair, which was wide enough to serve as a desk.

I glanced from one to the other. “Don’t you two get dressed anymore?” Stacey smiled. “Sure, sometimes. You know, if we’re going out and like that. We don’t get gussied up for company. We’re too old.”

“Quit that,” I said, waving the idea aside. “I take it you’re doing okay? You look good.”

“I’m better than I have any reason to hope. I figure my days are numbered, but so far, so good. We’ve been taking a lot of trips. We drove all the way up the coast and fished every chance we got.”

Dolan said, “We also drank a lot of beer and ate all the crap we could find. Stacey’s health is getting better and mine’s getting worse. Last time I had blood work done, my cholesterol was through the roof. I cut back on cigarettes and booze. That’s the best I can do.”

“So tell me about your house. I don’t know what I pictured, but it wasn’t this. It looks like a Frank Lloyd Wright.”

“That’s everybody’s guess, but it was actually an architect passing himself off as Wright’s brother, Fred. Last name was the same but there was otherwise no relationship. People took one look at his portfolio and jumped to the wrong conclusion. He made a point of denying the connection, but he did it with a wink and a nudge, claiming he’d had a falling out with a ‘partner’ of his, who’d lifted most of his ideas. After that, he’d mention Frank Lloyd Wright’s name in a tone that implied phone calls were passing back and forth between the two, more Frank asking his advice than the other way around.”

“Clever,” I said.

“Well, he made it work for him. His ploy was to ask them to list their favorites among Wright’s houses, and then he’d draw up plans that borrowed the same elements. Since his prices were low, prospective home owners felt they were getting the real deal at half the cost.”

Stacey said, “Let’s talk about the kidnap business before I take my siesta. I’m like a little kid these days. Half an hour more of this chitchat and I’ll be comatose.”

I went through what I’d been up to, again starting with Michael Sutton and including Dr. McNally and assorted others I’d talked to along the way.

When I finished, Dolan said, “You know, Deborah and Patrick took a lot of flak for not coming to us when Rain was kidnapped. By the time they gave us a description, Greg and Shelly and the school bus were long gone. The draft board was close on Greg’s heels, so chances are he was heading out of the country. Sweden or Canada. Probably the latter. Canada had numerous support groups for draft evaders. Students United for Peace. The SDS. Immigration made it easy for people to come in from all over.”

“Is Deborah aware of this? I talked to her a day ago and she never said a word.”

“She and Patrick might have been embarrassed. In the minds of most conservatives, draft dodgers were scum.”

“Did you interview Rain after she was returned?”

“Three times. The Unruhs insisted on being there, which was fine with us. We didn’t want any suggestion that the child was being coached or intimidated. After the second interview, we weren’t getting anything we hadn’t heard before.”

“Nothing useful at all?”

“Nothing that went anywhere. She talked about the yellow kitten, which is how they snagged her cooperation in the first place. She said she slept in a big cardboard box that they’d done up like a little house with windows cut into it. When she woke up, she played with the kitten or the paper and crayons that had been left for her.”

“Deborah says one of the kidnappers was dressed as Santa Claus.”

“Same thing Rain told us. She said there were two of them and one was fat and had a long white beard. The other one had glasses with paper eyes and a big nose attached.”

“Which I assume was a novelty item.”

“Exactly. We showed her a pair from a local costume shop and she recognized them right off. The shop had no record of a recent sale, but an item like that could have been ordered from the back of a comic book.”

“Was she scared?”

He shook his head. “She said she liked Santa Claus. She’d sat on his lap before. When she asked where her mommy was, he said she’d be back in a bit and then he had Rain drink her lemonade and she went back to sleep. The naps were short and from what she says, she did a lot of bouncing around.”

“In the box?”

Dolan nodded. “They’d made up a little bed for her. They told her it was a playhouse just for her.”

“What about the blanket? Deborah says she was found in the park on a picnic table, covered with a blanket.”

“No help. It was the kind wrapped in plastic on airplane seats.

There are thousands of them out there. Pan Am, in case you’re wondering which airline. That’s as far as we got.”

“And in all of this, no fingerprints?”

“The only print we ever picked up was on the back of a ransom note after Mary Claire was taken. We’ve run it half a dozen times and we’ve never found a match.”