Jonathan Kellerman - Flesh And Blood

We turned up a tree-lined block full of luxury apartment condominiums, and she led me to an old Nissan Sentra, once red, now faded to dusty rose. The car’s trunk was littered with leaves.

“Two-hour limit,” she said, pointing to a parking sign, “but usually they don’t check. Sometimes I park in the employee lot under the hotel, but sometimes it’s full. And I don’t like those subterranean things. Spooky.”

She unlocked the car. “Do you mind sitting in here? All my Shawna things are in here.”

I got into the front passenger seat, and she opened the trunk and closed it and came back with a foot-square box marked KITCHENWARE and tied with a yellow ribbon that she loosened.

“I know I shouldn’t keep it in the car,” she said, “but I like to have it close by. Sometimes I get a sandwich and come out here and go through it. Dr. Yoshimura said that was fine.”

Looking to me for confirmation. I nodded.

She pulled a small, pink satin album from the carton and handed it to me. “This is Shawna when she was little.”

Thirty pages of snapshots, from infancy to sixth grade. Mostly solos of a beautiful, golden-haired girl. From early on Shawna Yeager had possessed a flair for the optimal pose.

Agnes Yeager was present in a handful of shots, dark-haired, plain. A few others – early, faded photos – featured a very tall, fair-haired man with a movie-idol face marred by protuberant jug ears. In the snaps where he and Agnes were together, both parents smoked. Shawna surrounded by loving smiles and haze.

“Shawna’s dad?” I said.

“My Bob. He was a long-distance trucker, worked for himself, then Vons markets. He was killed by a drunk driver when Shawna was four. Not even driving. Walking from the men’s room to his rig at a truck stop in Indio. Shawna didn’t remember him – even when he was alive he wasn’t home much. But he was a loving man and a virile man. Not much for expressing his feelings, but never a cross word. And he did love Shawna – she got her looks from him, color-wise and size-wise. He was six foot four and a half, a big basketball star in high school. Shawna ended up five-nine. I’m five-two and a quarter.”

As I studied Bob Yeager’s face, something struck me. I kept it to myself, returned the album, only to receive another, larger, blue-bound.

“This is her pageant stuff,” said Agnes. “Local newspaper stories, each time she won. I never pushed her into none of it. The first time she saw the Miss America pageant on TV she said, ‘Mommy, dat what I want.’ She was four.”

I paged through the clippings, endured smile after smile.

Agnes Yeager said, “I know none of this will help you, but maybe this – the stories this kid reporter for the college paper did. He was really interested in Shawna, wrote up a lot of stories-”

“Adam Green.”

“You talked to him.”

“I have.”

“Did he tell you his suspicions about Shawna?”

“Suspicions?”

“That she’d taken off her clothes and posed for dirty pictures – He didn’t actually come out and say it. He thought he was being subtle, but from the questions he was asking, I could tell that’s where he was leading. So of course I got mad and managed to end the conversation and didn’t take any more of his calls. Later, I wondered if that had been a mistake. ’Cause that boy was the only one who seemed to have any interest in what happened to Shawna. And even though I got offended…”

“Do you think there’s a chance Shawna might’ve posed?”

Her shoulders rose and fell. “I wish I could say no way. But time passes and your head clears – The truth is Shawna loved her looks. Loved her body. One day she came home with an old mirror she’d picked up at some junk shop and hung it in her bedroom – a huge mirror. She was fourteen. I didn’t argue – everyone also says choose your battles. Besides, you didn’t want to go up against Shawna. She was headstrong. The truth is, if she could’ve hung four walls of mirrors, she would’ve. Probably my fault, a day didn’t go by when I wasn’t telling her how gorgeous she was. And if I wasn’t, other people were.”

“Did she have any boyfriends back home?”

“The usual. Boys coming and going, she’d dump them like the trash. One of them – this stringbean named Mark, a basketball player like her dad – seemed a little more serious, and I asked her if they were boyfriend and girlfriend and she laughed and said, ‘ No, Mom.’ You know, in that tone they get? ‘No, Mom. He’s just my boy, comma, friend.’”

“Mark was her age?” I said.

“No, he was a senior, and she was a freshman, the older boys always went for her, and it was mutual – she liked them mature, looking old for their age. And tall, real tall. Why do you ask about Mark?”

“Just trying to get a feel for her state of mind.”

“You’re thinking ’cause she lost her dad she was looking for a dad, right? Someone older and tall. Maybe some older guy asked her to pose and she did it because she was vulnerable.”

I stared at her.

She said, “I’ve had plenty of time to think. So am I right?”

“That did cross my mind.”

“Crossed mine, too. And Dr. Yoshimura’s. She and I went all through that, her helping to analyze everything. But as far as Shawna having any much older boyfriends back home, I don’t think so. Mostly she didn’t have time for dating, was really concentrating on her pageants and getting into college – That’s one thing about Shawna, she was always a serious student. I never had to tell her to study. And if she didn’t get an A it was a world tragedy, she’d be arguing with the teacher.” Weak smile. “And sometimes she got her way – let me show you. Those report cards are on the bottom.”

As she rummaged I said, “Just to be thorough, where’s Mark now?”

She looked up. “Him? Oh, no. He joined the Army right out of school, got stationed in Germany, married a German girl. He was out of the country when Shawna disappeared. Wrote me the sweetest condolence card when he found out – I’ve got that, too. Right here.”

A hearts-and-flowers Hallmark landed in my palm. Soppy verse, and a block-printed notation:

Dear Mrs. Yeager,

Please accept our sincerest condolense about Shawna. We know she’s up with the angels.

Astrid and Mark Ortega, and Kaylie

Stapled to the facing page was a studio shot of a skinny, blond, young man, crew-cut and mustachioed, a chubby brunette woman, and a grinning, pie-faced baby.

“Nice boy,” said Agnes. “But Shawna was too much for him. She needed someone to stimulate her brain. Lord knows I couldn’t do it, never finished high school – Here we go, these are her report cards.”

She handed me a rubber-banded stack. Twelve grades’ worth of nearly straight A’s. Achievement tests consistently above the ninety-fifth percentile. Teachers’ comments: “Shawna’s a very bright little girl, but she does tend to visit with her neighbors.” “A joy, wish they were all like her.” “Has a firm grip of the material and loves to learn.” “Strong-willed, but she always ends up doing the work.”

At the bottom of the stack was a transcript from the U.

Four courses during the quarter she’d never finished. A quartet of incompletes.

“It arrived after she was gone,” said Agnes. “When I opened the envelope, I just lost it. That word. ‘Incomplete.’ When you’re in that state, everything’s got a double meaning. You’re looking for something to be angry about. I nearly ripped this into shreds. Now I’m glad I didn’t. Though I did give away the clothes Shawna left behind. Waited until a few months ago, but I was able to do it.”

I stared at the transcript, placed it back on the bottom.