False Conception Read online

  She thought about it. “There’s a box full of stuff in the closet I keep meaning to throw out.”

  “May I see them?”

  She thought it over. “Why not? In fact, you can have them. I only promised not to talk; I didn’t promise not to clean house.”

  She led me up the circular staircase to the loft-like bedroom overhead. It, too, had sliding doors on all sides and came complete with a fireplace and a clutch of fishing gear canted in a corner—Louise was prepared for guests. There was a deck off the side like the one in the back and a nook on the end to sit in and read or to contemplate the fickleness of fate. I decided I could live there just fine except for the concrete slash of the off-ramp that defiled the view toward the city.

  She opened a closet and disappeared in its innards. A moment later she backed out tugging a Bekins box marked DIVORCE—STUART’S SHIT.

  “Help yourself,” she said. “If anyone asks, I threw this all out years ago.”

  I put the box under my arm and got down the winding stairway without falling on my face. “Come back and see me some time,” she said when I was at the door. Her voice was as thick as the freeway risers.

  “The sunrises are beautiful.”

  “I don’t get up that early.”

  “Maybe you never had a good reason.” Her entendre kept me company all the way back to the car.

  When I got back to the office, I thumbed through the files and pulled out one that looked promising—a folder filled with photocopies of what seemed to be Stuart Colbert’s personal check register. I flipped through the pages idly, looking for oddities or outrages.

  Nothing jumped out at me at first—he had charged about five thousand a month to his credit card and paid four grand a month to Louise, presumably for mad money. The rest of the payees were predictable, albeit at exalted levels compared to my own, except for one item: each and every month, Stuart Colbert wrote a check in the amount of three thousand dollars payable to Luke Drummond’s mother, Fern.

  CHAPTER 24

  When I’d finished with the Frankel files, I called Russell Jorgensen to see if there was any news in the form of a ransom demand or otherwise. He told me no one had heard anything from anybody.

  “How’s Stuart holding up?” I asked.

  “He’s more agitated than I’ve ever seen him. But compared to Millicent, he’s as serene as Gandhi.”

  I didn’t tell him that I’d witnessed Millicent’s jitters myself the day before. “Has he said anything about the Drummonds?”

  “Why should he?”

  “I thought he might have mentioned Mrs. Drummond to you at some point.”

  “What on earth would Stuart Colbert have to do with Fern Drummond?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Russell swore, then coughed, then asked what I’d been doing since he’d seen me last.

  “Poking around.”

  “Poking in the Colberts’ dirty laundry, you mean.” His voice was strained and exasperated. “I’m not sure I like you buttonholing every member of the Colbert family you can find, especially without warning. You’re acting like Mike Wallace, for Christ’s sake. They don’t like it. And if they don’t like it, I don’t like it.”

  “Shall I tell you what I don’t like, Russell?”

  “What?”

  “Your sub-rosa relationship with Cynthia.”

  “I—”

  “Don’t bother to deny it, just tell me if there’s more to it than money.”

  He got huffy. “Certainly there is. There’s love, for one thing.”

  “Is there more to it than that? Control of the Colbert empire, for example?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with that. If it did, why would I be helping Stuart and Millicent to produce an heir? Christ. I don’t know why you’re so upset about this.”

  Russell’s divided loyalties had singed my nerves. “I’ll tell you why. I’ve got a job to do and you’re the one who hired me to do it. Maybe you remember. Well, the more I get into the situation, the more it seems to have roots in what went on twenty years ago on Santa Ana Way.”

  “How can what happened to the Colberts twenty years ago have anything to do with Stuart and Millicent trying to have a baby?”

  “I don’t know, yet. But we’re dealing with elemental issues here—families, generations, dynasties. In my experience, problems with elemental issues don’t materialize overnight; they’re always grounded in history.”

  “No offense, Marsh, but I don’t see how history is going to help you find out who kidnapped Greta Hammond.”

  “It might tell me who would want her out of the way or more likely, who would want to keep Stuart and Millicent from producing an heir to the Colbert stores. On the other hand, if it’s not a kidnaping, which seems increasingly likely, then history might tell me who Greta Hammond is running from.”

  “But why would she run from the Colberts? She didn’t know they were involved in the surrogate business.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said, then hung up and did something I don’t do enough of in the middle of an active case—take time to think.

  Panning the waters of the Colberts’ fractious past yielded several nuggets. For one, it seemed that Ethan Brennan was not a suicide, as had been commonly accepted, but had been murdered, or at least killed, by Rutherford Colbert. Her father’s death at the hands of the Colberts—any Colbert—would give Clara/Greta a motive to throw a wrench in Stuart’s plans to rent her womb to hatch an heir to the killer’s dynasty, once she had learned of those plans from someone who might have wanted to provoke that reaction. Which would mean her disappearance was both obstreperous and voluntary, and that she would resist any efforts to bring her back.

  Except for interrogating Rutherford Colbert himself on the past and its implications, I wasn’t sure how to find out what had happened to Ethan Brennan twenty years ago, or why, and Rutherford was either incompetent or off limits, depending on whom you talked to. The only other path to enlightenment involved three disparate scraps of information I’d uncovered. One was a name—Nathaniel; one was a place—Hickory Avenue in San Bruno; and one was a woman—Fern Drummond, the recipient of a healthy stipend from the bank account of Stuart Colbert. If I was lucky, and the Colbert case congealed the way my cases sometimes do, those three scraps might combine to form a single magic carpet provided I could come up with the right incantation.

  Since Stuart Colbert had been sending her a check for many years, the obvious approach was simply to ask him where Fern Drummond lived. But Stuart hadn’t been forthright from the beginning, and I didn’t know whether he was friend or foe at this point. Until I had time to find out, I opted for another source.

  Her boss didn’t like it, but I made it sound official, so he hunted her down and put her on the line.

  “Mrs. Webber?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Marsh Tanner. I spoke with you in your home several days ago. About Greta Hammond.”

  “I remember. What do you want?”

  “First of all, I was wondering if you’d heard from her since we talked.”

  “I promised to call if I did.”

  “Then you haven’t.”

  “No.”

  “Have you asked her landlady, or Leo, if they’ve heard from her?”

  “No, but I’m sure they would have told me if they had. They know I’ve been worried.”

  “You don’t sound worried now.”

  “Well, I am. Extremely.”

  “Have you come up with any information at all that might help locate her?”

  “I said no, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “So is that all? They don’t like me to do this on company time.”

  “One thing I was wondering was if Greta ever mentioned her mother-in-law to you. A woman named Fern Drummond.”

  “Her mother-in-law? No. I’m sorry.” She paused so long I thought she’d hung up, “Come to think of it, I think Greta mentioned that
she lives back East somewhere. Massachusetts, maybe.”

  I laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty, Mrs. Webber.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I’m sure all she expected you to do was play dumb with me. I doubt if she expected you to send me on a wild goose chase.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do. You’ve talked to Greta. Maybe even seen her. And she’s told you not to cooperate with me.”

  “She hasn’t told me anything. I—”

  “She’s your friend,” I interrupted. “You should do as she asks. But I want you to give her a message.”

  “But how can I? I haven’t seen her.”

  “Greta signed a contract. She made a promise and she agreed to all sorts of penalties if she breached it. She could end up bankrupt or in jail if she doesn’t cut some kind of deal. If she’s done what I think she’s done, she could be charged with murder.”

  Her voice became a screech. “You don’t even know her. She could never murder anyone. Never.”

  “Not even if it was called an abortion?”

  I’d hoped to provoke her and I did. “Abortion isn’t murder, you bastard, abortion is …”

  In the echo of Linda Webber’s furious grope for an adjective, I offered a quick spiel. “Tell Greta I know who she is. Tell her I know about her father and her first pregnancy. Tell her I’m working for Russell Jorgensen, but that he doesn’t know what I’ve learned as yet. And tell her I’m the only one who can get her out of this.”

  “But I don’t…” She traded her protest for information. “Are you saying Greta’s pregnant?”

  “She got pregnant several weeks before she disappeared.”

  “But she’s had an abortion?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “I don’t understand. Who was the father? You?”

  “My client.”

  “Who’s your client?”

  “I can’t tell you that. What I can tell you is that I think Greta disappeared so she could arrange to have an abortion. By now, she’s probably had it. She may be ready to come back to her old life again but she should talk to me before she does. If I understand everything that’s been going on, maybe I can get her out of the fix she’s in. But it’s going to be up to you to persuade her to let me.”

  I didn’t expect her to yield without thinking it over and she didn’t. All she said was, “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

  “There’s obviously a lot about this you don’t know, Mrs. Webber, and some I don’t know, either. So give Greta the message. And my phone number. She can call me anytime. I can meet her any place she chooses.”

  I recited the digits and waited. When Linda didn’t say anything, I made my final plea. “And tell her one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Tell her I was off duty the night I spent with her. Tell her that was real.”

  “I don’t think she’s going to believe you,” she said.

  CHAPTER 25

  I was about to leave the office when the phone started ringing.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “How are you?”

  “Fine. You?”

  “I’m good. Is this a bad time?”

  “No. It’s fine.”

  “You use that word too much.”

  “What word?”

  “Fine.”

  “What’s wrong with fine?”

  “It’s a nothing word. Empty. It doesn’t communicate anything helpful.”

  “Sorry. I’ll try to do better. The next time I’m inclined to be helpful.”

  Betty Fontaine coughed nervously. “You don’t sound sorry. You sound mad. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Good.”

  “Fine.”

  Betty laughed and finally I laughed, too. “I’ve missed you,” she said, the knot of feeling that clogged her throat a match to the lump in mine.

  “I’ve missed you, too.”

  “I don’t have a reason to call, really, it’s just that this weekend was particularly lonely for me and I was thinking about you and trying not to believe that we weren’t ever going to see each other again, so I thought … I don’t know, I guess I thought I’d try to remedy the situation.”

  “Are you asking me for a date?”

  “I don’t think so. Not exactly. I mean, that was basically our problem, I think.”

  “Dating?”

  “Yes. We dated. And held hands. And had sex. And did all kinds of things to try to pretend we were lovers, when really what we are is friends. Good friends. But friends.” She paused. “Does that make any sense at all to you?” she asked when I didn’t say anything.

  “I suppose it might if I thought about it.”

  “What I’m saying is, I want us to go on being friends. I want us to do things together. I want to talk on the phone. I want to go to movies.”

  “Friend stuff.”

  “Right. So do you think that would be possible? Maybe not right away, but some day?”

  “Probably. But I’m sure going to miss your nightie.”

  She laughed even though she wasn’t amused, and paused long enough to get back on an amiable track. “Do you want to do something Saturday night? There’s a play at Marine’s Memorial that sounds interesting.”

  “As long as you don’t get mad if I back out at the last minute. Things are heating up in the case I have going—it may start to get busy in a day or two.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll put Lucy on backup. She likes doing things at the last minute.”

  “What time?”

  “Six? I’ll fix something light to eat, then we can go on from here.”

  “Is friend food different from lover food?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Do that thing with the skewers. If you feel like it.”

  “As a matter of fact, it’s what I had in mind.”

  I thought she was finished, but there was one more caveat coming.

  “I appreciate this, Marsh. You know I care for you. And enjoy being with you. It’s just that I need something with more texture right now. I need something brewing in my life, something taking shape that I don’t entirely understand but that feels like it might turn into something important. Something I can be proud of.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, and I did up to a point.

  “I’ve got things in me I haven’t used, Marsh.”

  “I know you do, Betty.”

  “So I’m going to start looking for someone who’s willing to help me use them,” Betty continued tonelessly. “And I was thinking it would be nice if you could help me with my search.”

  “Sort of a guide dog, you mean.”

  “A guide guy.”

  “Do I need a pith helmet?”

  “All you need is some compassion and a sense of humor.”

  She said good-bye and hung up. I leaned back in my chair and let my mind roam over the conversation, then blended it with the months and years I’d spent with Betty, comparing my evaluation of our relationship with Betty’s new interpretation of it. And she was right, of course. I hadn’t been in love with her, not really, nor she with me. There had been other women in my life during the time we’d been together, not for lengthy periods, but for significant ones—Greta Hammond was only the most recent installment. For all I knew, Betty had indulged herself as well, which meant we weren’t …

  No, she hadn’t. That was a rationalization—Betty would never do that. On the other hand, I hadn’t been a total cad. We had never pledged fidelity, never passed beyond the loose reins of dating into the bit and bridle of permanence. That stasis had to mean something and it probably meant what Betty said it did: women know those kinds of things, sort of the way men know whe
re the fish are likely to bite.

  A shadow inched across the office wall. I watched its snaily slide for several minutes, my mind wandering in and out of sense, until I grabbed my coat and headed for Zorba’s, which is where I eat, then moved on to Guido’s, which is where I drink. By the time I trudged up the hill toward my apartment, it was after 10 P.M. and I was feeling lonely and sorry for myself in the moments when I wasn’t feeling angry at Betty for the large hole that seemed to have formed at my core, somewhere between my belly and my heart.

  Maybe I would have known he was there if I hadn’t been distracted by my interior debate with Betty, or maybe he was just good. Whatever the reason, all of a sudden there was a rope around my chest, a scratchy lariat that bit deep into my flesh and pinioned my arms to my ribs. Before I could shrug it off, I was yanked off my feet and dragged on my back down the walk toward a person standing in the dark of a commercial doorway, a block west of my home, wielding a lasso as skillfully as Tom Mix.

  Like a champion roper, he worked his way toward me down the wire-taut line, a pair of pigging strings clenched in his teeth like strands of cooked pasta. His tugs on the rope kept me from regaining my feet or creating enough slack to slip out of its disabling cinch. When he reached me, I tried to strike out with my fists, but I was tied too tight to move, arms snug at my sides, hands flapping impotently at my waist like a pair of stunted wings. When I tried to get to my feet, he kicked them out from under me.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked as he loomed over me, the rawhide cords still leaking from his lips like streams of brown spittle, his cowboy hat and boots so anachronistic I couldn’t suppress a laugh. “You must have taken a wrong turn at Salinas, pal,” I said as I tried and failed to roll away from him.

  Instead of answering, he kicked me in the side with the needle nose of a lizard-skin boot, then flipped me onto my belly and put a foot in the small of my back, the high heel impaling me as effectively as a spear. I realized what he was going to do the instant he did it, which meant there wasn’t time to keep him from grabbing one leg, slipping a leather string around it, then cinching the other to it as though I was a hapless calf yanked off his feet ten yards out of the chute.

  I was still trying to twist away from his boot when he bound my wrists behind me in the same manner. The excuse I awarded myself was that he was younger and faster and stronger than I was, but such truths have never kept me from feeling like a dolt, and this was no exception.