Sue Grafton - U Is For Undertow

“You’re saying if she was right, she wouldn’t have used the information?”

“Not publicly, no. I was worried she would do something underhanded. She was devious and I didn’t want to give her the ammunition.”

“So you told her Aunt Gin was straight?”

“She was.”

I squinted at him. “Are you leveling with me?”

“Why wouldn’t I? To me, the idea was ridiculous. There was never a shred of evidence Virginia Kinsey was anything other than a dyed-in-the-wool heterosexual. She preferred being single, but that’s not aberrant behavior. A lot of folks are like that. I’m one.”

“Me, too,” I said. “I don’t understand why Grand would even raise the question.”

“It must have been the worst thing she could think of, so naturally, she wanted it to be true.”

“As old-fashioned and proper as she seems, I can’t believe she even knew about such things.”

“Don’t kid yourself. Even Victorian women had their ‘special’ friends. When two ‘single’ women settled in together, eyebrows went up. The arrangement was referred to as ‘a Boston marriage.’ ”

“Did Aunt Gin know what Grand was up to?”

“I believe she did.”

“I don’t know what to do with this. For years, I’ve been feeling sorry for myself because I thought my grandmother didn’t give a shit. Now it looks like she cared so much, she’d have blackmailed her own daughter to achieve her ends.”

“That’s about the size of it. On the bright side, she failed.”

“Yeah, and on the dark side, look at what it cost. My poor Aunt Gin. I had no idea what she was going through. She made sure no whisper of it ever reached my ears. For years, I wasn’t aware I had family beyond her. I only learned about my relatives when she was gone.”

“A woman of contradictions. Forthright and secretive in the same breath.”

I studied him, wondering if I was missing something. “I don’t want you bending the truth. I’m truly fine with it either way.”

“Why so suspicious? You must have ‘trust issues,’ as they’re referred to in the common parlance.”

I laughed. “Maybe. And what about you?”

“You’d have to be a fool to trust most people. I credit myself with more intelligence.”

I glanced at my watch. “Oops. I have a meeting in Belicia, so I should hit the road. I appreciate your confidence. My lips are sealed.” I made a zipping motion across my mouth.

Hale wadded up the paper sack and tossed it in the trash. “If you have other questions, don’t hesitate to call.”

It wasn’t until I was on the road again that I realized he hadn’t actually answered my question about whether he’d lie.

The business address Shawn Dancer had given me in Belicia turned out to be his home address as well. The town itself was small, spread out like a net between the highway and the beach. The main source of income was the tourist trade, visitors attracted by the setting and the work of local artisans, who made everything from cheeses to breads to boutique wines. I spotted seven art galleries on the main thoroughfare, where there were also shops selling jewelry, handmade furniture, textiles, and other one-of-a-kind crafts. Countless small hotels and bed-and-breakfast places lined the narrow streets, with high-end restaurants, cafés, and bistros sufficient to service the locals as well as the numerous travelers who’d come to explore the area. At this time of year, rates were reasonable and I saw a number of No Vacancy signs.

Shawn Dancer lived in a one-story gray-painted frame house, with a suggestion of Victoriana in its steep gables, fish-scale shingled roof, and gingerbread trim. I pulled up in front and parked. I knocked at the front door and waited the requisite few minutes, wondering if anyone was home. The door was opened by a young woman I judged to be scarcely out of her teens. She was just a slip of a thing, with large hazel eyes and a halo of black curls. She was barefoot, wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt that she’d knotted in the front. Her right arm was weighted with silver bracelets.

I said, “Hi. I hope I have the right house here. I’m looking for Shawn.”

“He’s in his shop around back.”

Since she offered nothing else, I thanked her and then went down the porch steps, turned right, and followed the drive. The workshop was the main house in miniature, connected by a breezeway. The door was standing open and the scent of glue and raw wood perfumed the air. I could hear the high-pitched singing of a lathe. Shawn, in coveralls and goggles, was intent on his task, which allowed me a moment to study him without his being aware.

He was tall with a mop of dark curly hair. The seams of his white coveralls were etched in sawdust. Unacquainted as I was with the tools of his trade, I could still identify buffing and drilling machines, routers, planes, disk sanders, miter and band saws. He’d glued the edge joints of two wide flat panels together, then placed them in a big C-clamp. Rough lumber was stacked on end against one wall. Hundreds of drill bits, small tools, and wooden templates were arranged neatly on wall-mounted pegboard panels.

He turned, and when he saw me he shut down the lathe. “Hey.”

“Are you Shawn?”

“Absolutely. You must be the investigator from S.T.”

“Kinsey Millhone,” I said. “Nice meeting you. I see I caught you hard at work.”

“Always. I’m glad you figured out where I was.”

“The girl who came to the door told me you were back here.”

“You met Memory.”

“I assume so, though she didn’t introduce herself.”

His expression was wry. “She sometimes comes up short in the manners department. Sorry about that. She doesn’t mean to be rude.”

“No need to apologize. You’re the one I came to see.”

“Hope I can help. How’s Deborah doing these days?”

“Good. We did a beach walk last Wednesday, and she’s in better shape than I am.”

“Have a seat if you can find one,” he said.

“This is fine.”

He hoisted himself onto a bare patch of workbench while I leaned against the table, keeping us eye-to-eye. We chatted for a bit, working our way around to the subject at hand.

Finally, he said, “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

“I’ll try to be succinct about this,” I said. I launched into my tale, distilling it down to the salient points. “An old kidnapping case has popped into view again for reasons too complicated to go into. A little girl named Mary Claire Fitzhugh disappeared in July of 1967 and hasn’t been seen since.”

“That’s bad.”

“Very bad, but at least there’s hope we’ll find out what happened to the child. As I understand it, you and your mom and dad were in Santa Teresa that same summer-”

“Greg wasn’t my dad,” he said. “Just want to be clear on that since Mom was.”

“Sorry. I’m hazy on the details, which is why I’m here.”

“Matters not. Go on.”

“I know the three of you were staying with the Unruhs. Deborah tells me Greg was pressing them to hand over the money his grandfather had left him so he and Shelly could buy a farm…”

Shawn was already shaking his head. “I heard ’em cooking up the story, but it was fiction, every word of it. Nitwits. I don’t know what they were thinking. Patrick wasn’t going to underwrite their cockamamie plan, even if it had been legitimate. The money was in trust and there was no way they could’ve busted into it. Well, maybe with a legal hassle, but Greg wasn’t in a position to stick around for that.”

“What was he up to? Can you fill me in?”

“Sure. Greg dropped out of Berkeley in his sophomore year, which meant he lost his 2-S student deferment and was reclassified as 1-A, ready for immediate induction. His draft notice caught up with him and he promptly burned it. He and Mom were both paranoid about authority, her more than him. He decided to go to Canada. She wasn’t keen on the idea, but he had friends in hiding up there and he figured he could take advantage of the connections. If he got his hands on his inheritance, they’d have enough to live on while they applied for citizenship.”