J is for JUDGMENT Page 15

  Brian sat down, slouching on his chair, hands held loosely between his knees. He seemed shy, but maybe that was just a trait he affected… sucking up to adults. “I talked to my mom. She said you might be in to see me.”

  “Did she tell you what I wanted?”

  “Just something about my dad. She says he might be okay. Is that true?”

  “We don’t really know at this point. I was hired to find out.”

  “Did you know my dad? I mean, like before he disappeared ?”

  I shook my head. “I never met him. I was given some photographs and told where he’d been seen last. I did run into a guy who looked a lot like him, but then he disappeared again. I’m still hoping to track him down, but right now, I don’t have any leads. Personally, I’m convinced it was him,” I said.

  “That’s incredible, isn’t it? To think he might be alive? I can’t get over it. I mean, I don’t even know what that’d be like.” He had a full mouth and dimples. I found it hard to imagine he could fake such ingenuousness.

  I said, “It must seem weird.”

  “Hey, no lie… with all this stuff going down? I wouldn’t want him to see me like this.”

  I shrugged. “If he comes back to town, he’ll probably be in trouble himself.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Mom said. She didn’t seem all that happy. I guess I can’t blame her after what she went through. Like, if he’s been alive this whole time, it means he laid a bum deal on her.”

  “You remember much about him?”

  “Not really. Michael does, my brother. Did you meet him?”

  “Briefly. At your mother’s.”

  “Did you see my nephew, Brendan? He’s really cool. I miss him, little pea-head.”

  Enough of this chitchat. I was getting restless. “Mind if I ask you about Mexicali?”

  He shifted uncomfortably. He ran a hand through his hair. “Man, that was bad. Makes me sick to think of it. I didn’t have anything to do with killing anybody, I swear. It was Julio and Ricardo had the gun,” he said.

  “What about the breakout? How did that come to pass?”

  “Uhm, hey, you know? Like, I don’t think my attorney wants me to talk about that.”

  “I just have a couple of questions… in strictest confidence. I’m trying to get a feel for what’s going on here,” I said. “Whatever you say goes no further.”

  “I better not,” he murmured.

  “Was it your idea?”

  “Heck no, not me. You probably think I’m a jerk. I was stupid to go along with it… I can see that now… but at the time I just wanted to get out. I was desperate. You ever been in juvie?”

  I shook my head. “You’re lucky.”

  I said, “Whose idea was it?”

  He gave me a direct look, his blue eyes as clear as a swimming pool. “It was Ernesto came up with it.”

  “Were you pretty good friends?”

  “No way! I only knew ‘em because we were all in the same cottage at Connaught. That guy, Julio, said he’d kill me if I didn’t help. I wasn’t going to do it. I mean, I didn’t want to go along with it, but he was big… real big guy… and he said he’d mess me up bad.”

  “He threatened you.”

  “Yeah, he said him and Ricardo would turn me out.”

  “Meaning sexual abuse.”

  “The worst,” he said.

  “Why you?”

  “Why me?”

  “Yeah. What made you so valuable to the enterprise? Why not another Hispanic if they were headed into Mexico?”

  He shrugged. “Those guys are twisted. Who knows how they think?”

  “What were you planning to do down in Mexico if you didn’t speak the language?”

  “Bum around. Hide. Cross back into Texas. Mostly I just wanted to get out of California. Court system here is not exactly on my side.”

  The jail officer knocked, indicating time was up. Something about Brian’s smile had already caused me to disconnect. I’m a liar by nature, a modest talent of mine, but one I cultivate. I probably know more about bullshit than half the people on the planet. If this kid was telling the truth, I didn’t think he’d sound nearly so sincere.

  Chapter 14

  *

  On the way back to the office, I stopped off at the Hall of Records, which is located in one wing of the Santa Teresa Courthouse. The courthouse itself was reconstructed in the late 1920s after the 1925 earthquake destroyed the existing courthouse as well as a number of commercial buildings downtown. Hammered copper plates on the doors to the Hall of Records depict an allegorical history of the state of California. I pushed through the entrance doors into a large space, dissected by a counter. To the right, a small reception area was furnished by two heavy oak tables with matching leather chairs. The floors were tiled in polished dark red paving stones, the high ceilings painted with faded blue-and-gold designs. Thick beams bore the echo of the repetitive patterns. Graceful wooden columns were visible at intervals, topped with Ionic capitals, again painted in muted hues. The windows were arched, the leaded-glass panes pierced with rows of linked circles. The actual work of the department was accomplished with the aid of technology: action stations, telephones, computers, microfilm projectors. As a further concession to the present, sections of the walls had been paneled with the soundproofing equivalent of pegboard.

  I kept my mind blank, struggling with a curious resistance to the piece of digging I was about to do. There were several people at the counter, and for one brief moment I considered postponing the chore until some other day. Then another clerk appeared, a tall, lean fellow in slacks and a short-sleeved dress shirt, wearing a pair of glasses with one opaque lens. “Help you?”

  “I’d like to check your records for a marriage license issued in November of 1935.”

  “The name?” he asked.

  “Millhone, Terrence Randall. Do you need her name as well?”

  He made a note. “This will do.”

  He pushed a form across the counter, and I filled in the blanks, reassuring the county about my purposes in asking. It was a silly formality in my opinion since births, deaths, marriages, and property recordings are a matter of public record. The filing system in use was called Soundex, a curious process whereby the vowels in the last name are eliminated altogether and consonants are awarded various numerical values. The clerk j helped me convert the name Millhone to its Soundex J equivalent, and then he sent me over to an old-fashioned card catalog where I found my parents listed, along with the date of their marriage, and the book and page numbers of the volume where the license was recorded. I returned to the counter with the information in hand. The clerk made a call to some web-footed creature in the bowels of the building, whose job it was to conjure up the relevant records consigned to cassettes. The clerk sat me down at the microfilm machine, rattling off a rapid series of instructions, half of which I missed. It didn’t matter much, as he proceeded to turn the machine on and insert the cassette while he was telling me how to do it. Finally he left me to fast-forward my way through the bulk of the reel to the document in question. Suddenly, there they were-names and incidental personal data neatly entered into a record nearly fifty years old. Terrence Randall Millhone of Santa Teresa, California, and Rita Cynthia Kinsey of Lompoc, California, had married on November 18, 1935. He was thirty-three years old at the time of the wedding and listed his occupation as mail carrier. His father’s name was Quillen Millhone. His mother’s maiden name was Dace. Rita Kinsey was eighteen at the time of her marriage, occupation unlisted, daughter of Burton Kinsey and Cornelia Straith LaGrand. They were married by a Judge Stone of the Perdido Court of Appeal in a ceremony that took place in Santa Teresa at four in the afternoon. The witness who signed the form was Virginia Kinsey, my aunt Gin. So there they were, those three, standing together in the public register, not knowing that in twenty years husband and wife would be gone. As far as I knew there were no photographs of the wedding, no mementos of any kind. I’d seen only one or two pictures
taken of them in later years. Somewhere had a handful of snapshots of my babyhood and early childhood, but there were none of their respective families. I realized what a vacuum I’d been living in. Where other people had anecdotes, photograph albums, correspondence, family gatherings, all the trappings of family tradition, I had little or nothing to report. The notion of my mother’s family, the Burton Kinseys, still residing up in Lompoc conjured up curious emotional contradictions. And what of my father’s people? I’d never heard any mention of the Millhones at all.

  I felt a sudden shift in my perspective. I could see in a flash what a strange pleasure I’d taken in being related to no one. I’d actually managed to feel superior about my isolation. I was subtle about it, but I could see that I’d turned it into a form of self-congratulation. I wasn’t the common product of the middle class. I wasn’t a party to any convoluted family drama – the feuds, unspoken alliances, secret agreements, and petty tyrannies. Of course, I wasn’t a party to the good stuff, either, but who cared about that? I was different. I was special. At best, I was self-created; at worst, the hapless artifact of my aunt’s peculiar notions about raising little girls. In either event, I regarded myself an outsider, a loner, which suited me to perfection. Now I had to consider the possibility of this unknown family unit… whether I would claim them or they would claim me.

  I rewound the reel of film and took the cassette up to the counter. I left the building and crossed the street, heading toward the three-story parking structure where I’d left my car. On my right was the public library, where I knew I could rustle up the Lompoc phone book if I was interested. But was I? Reluctantly I paused, debating the issue. It’s only information, I said to myself. You don’t have to make a decision, you just need to know.

  I took a right, going up the outside stairs and into the building. I turned right again, pushing through the turn-stiles designed to capture book thieves. The city directories and various telephone books from towns all across the state were shelved on the first floor to the left of the reference desk. I found the telephone book for Lompoc and leafed through the pages where I stood. I didn’t want to act as if I cared enough to sit.

  There was only one “Kinsey” listed, not Burton but Cornelia, my mother’s mother, with the telephone number but no address. I found the Polk Directory for Lompoc and Vandenberg Air Force Base, checking the section where the telephone numbers were listed in order, beginning with the prefix. Cornelia was listed with an address on Willow Avenue. I checked the Polk Directory for the year before and saw that Burton was listed with her. The obvious inference was that she’d been widowed sometime between this year’s census and the last. Terrific. What a deal. First time I find out I have a grandfather, he’s dead. I made a note of the address on one of the deposit slips at the back of my checkbook. Half the people I know use deposit slips in lieu of business cards. Why don’t banks add a few blanks back there for memos? I shoved the checkbook in my bag again and resolutely forgot about it. Later, I’d decide what I wanted to do.

  I went back to the law office and let myself in the side entrance. When I opened the door, I found the message light blinking on my answering machine. I pressed the playback button and then went about the business of opening a window while I listened.

  “Miss Millhone, this is Harris Brown. I’m a retired Santa Teresa police lieutenant and I just got a call from Lieutenant Whiteside over there who tells me you’re trying to locate Wendell Jaffe. As I believe he mentioned, that was one of the last cases I worked before I left the department, and I’d be happy to discuss some of the details with you if you’ll give me a call. I’ll be in and out this afternoon, but you can probably reach me between two and three-fifteen at…”

  I snatched up a pen and caught the number as he recited it. I checked my watch. Poot. It was only twelve forty-five. I tried the number anyway on the off chance he’d be there. No such luck. I tried Renata Huff again, but she wasn’t home, either. I still had my hand on the receiver when the phone rang. “Kinsey Millhone Investigations,” I said.

  “May I speak to Mrs. Millhome?” some woman asked in a sing-song voice.

  “This is she,” I replied with caution. This was going to be a pitch.

  “Mrs. Millhome, this is Patty Kravitz with Telemarketing Incorporated? How, are you today?” She’d been instructed to smile at this point so her voice would sound very warm and friendly.

  I ran my tongue along the inside of my cheek. “Fine. What about yourself?”

  “That’s good, Mrs. Millhome, we know you’re a busy person, but we’re conducting a survey for an exciting new product and wonder if you could take a few minutes to answer some questions. If you’re willing to assist us, we have a nice prize already set aside for you. Can we count on your help?”

  I could hear the babble of other voices in the boiler room behind her. “What’s the product?”

  “I’m sorry, but we’re not allowed to divulge that information. I am permitted to indicate that this is an airline-related service and within the next few months will result in the introduction of an innovative new concept in business and leisure travel. Can we take just a few minutes out of your busy schedule?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “That’s good. Now, Mrs. Millhome, are you single, married, divorced, or widowed?”

  I was really liking her sincere, spontaneous manner as she read from the laminated card in front of her. I said, “Widowed.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said in a perfunctory manner as she breezed right on. “Do you own your home or rent?”

  “Well, I used to own two homes,” I said casually. “One here in Santa Teresa and one in Fort Myers, Florida, but now that John’s passed away, I’ve had to sell the property down there. The only place I rent is an apartment in New York City.”

  “Really.”

  “I do quite a bit of traveling. That’s why I’m helping you with the research,” I said. I could practically hear her making frantic flagging motions to her supervisor. She had a live one on the line, and she might need help.

  We moved on to the matter of my annual income, which I knew would be substantial with that extra million coming in. I proceeded to lie, fib, and equivocate, amusing myself with the questions while I honed my prevarication skills. We quickly worked our way down to the part where I only needed to write a check for $39.99 to claim the prize I’d won: a complete nine-piece set of matching designer luggage, retailing for over $600.00 in most department stores.

  My turn to be skeptical. “You’re kidding,” I said. “And this is not a gimmick? All I pay is thirty-nine ninety-nine? I don’t believe it.”

  She assured me the offer was genuine. The luggage was absolutely free. All I was being asked to cover was the shipping and handling, which I could also charge to my credit card if that was more convenient She offered to send someone over to pick up the check within the hour, but I thought it was easier to go ahead and put it on my card. I gave her the account number, inventing a nice series of digits, which she dutifully read back to me. I could tell from her tone of voice she could hardly believe her good luck. I was probably the only person that day who hadn’t damaged her hearing by promptly hanging up. Before the end of the business day, she and her cronies would be trying to charge off merchandise to that account.

  For lunch I ate a carton of nonfat yogurt at my desk and then took a nap,- leaning back in my chair. In between car chases and gun battles, we private eye types have occasional days like this. At two I roused myself, reaching over to pluck up the phone, trying Harris Brown again.

  The number rang four times and then somebody picked up. “Harris Brown,” he said, sounding cranky and out of breath.

  I took my feet off the desk and introduced myself. His tone underwent a shift and his interest picked up. “I’m glad you called. I was surprised to hear the guy had surfaced.”

  “Well, we still don’t have confirmation, but it’s looking good to me. How long did you work the case?”


  “Oh, geez, probably seven months. I never for a minute believed he was dead, but I had a hell of a time convincing anyone else. I never did manage it, as a matter of fact. It’s nice to have an old hunch confirmed. Anyway, tell me what kind of help you need.”

  “I’m not sure yet. I guess I was hoping to brainstorm,” I said. “I’ve got a line on the woman he was traveling with, a gal named Renata Huff, who has a house down on the Perdido Keys.”

  He seemed startled by the information. “Where’d you come up with that one?”

  “Ohm, I’d prefer not to spell it out. Let’s just say “I have my little ways,” I said.

  “Sounds like you’re doing pretty good.”

  “Working on it,” I said. “The problem is she’s the only lead I have, and I can’t figure out who else he’d turn to for help.”

  “To do what?”

  I could feel myself backpedal, uncomfortable articulating my theory about Wendell. “Well, I hesitate to say this, but my hit on this is he heard about Brian…”

  “The escape and shoot-out.”

  “Right. I think he’s coming back to help his kid.” There was a fractional silence.

  “Help him how?”

  “I don’t know yet. I just can’t think of any other reason he’d risk coming back.”

  “I might buy that,” he said after giving it some r thought. “So you’re figuring he’d either contact close family or old pals of his.”

  “Exactly. I know who his ex-wife is and I’ve talked to her, but she doesn’t seem to have a clue.”

  “And you believe that.”

  “Actually, I’m inclined to. I think she’s being straight.”

  “Go on. I’m sorry to interrupt.”

  “Anyway, when it comes to Wendell, mostly I’m sitting around hoping he’ll show his face, which he doesn’t seem to be doing. I thought if we could sit down together, we might come up with some other possibilities. Could I impose on your time?”