False Conception Read online

  His tone turned imploring. “I don’t understand. Closer to what?”

  “To knowing why Ethan Brennan died, for one thing.”

  “Will you get off that? It’s over and done with. It was nothing to do with anything.”

  “It’s not over and I think you know it. It’s being played out in the lives of the kids.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know Greta Hammond and Clara Brennan are one and the same.”

  “No, I—”

  “Come on, Russell. Cynthia’s known it for weeks; she must have told you.”

  He couldn’t meet my eye.

  “I don’t know why Greta was scared off when she learned she was carrying Stuart’s child, but within twenty-four hours I’m going to and the chips will fall where they may. The child in Greta Hammond’s womb is going to be presented to the Colberts two days after it’s born, just the way they wanted.”

  Russell went to the window for his customary shot of confidence. “Stuart fired you, remember?”

  “He’s not the one who hired me.”

  “Well then, I—”

  “Are you sure you want me out of it, Russell? Are you sure you want someone else rummaging around in all this?”

  “It’s not what I want, it’s—”

  “Even if you do fire me, there’s an interested party in this besides Stuart and Cynthia Colbert.”

  “You mean Greta Hammond.”

  “Clara Brennan. Right.”

  He blinked. “Have you found her?”

  “No, but I spoke with her yesterday.”

  His eyes widened to the size of bottle caps. “Where is she? What happened to her? What’s she done with the baby?”

  “I don’t know where she is.”

  “But—”

  “She called me.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “To ask me to stop looking for her.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  I smiled. “You just told me I had to.”

  He was flustered. “This may change the situation. What’s the status of the child?”

  “She says the child is fine.”

  “Really? Good. Then why did she disappear?”

  “She was afraid someone was going to try to stop her from giving birth.”

  “Who?”

  “She didn’t say, but Luke Drummond is one candidate. I need to talk to him. Do you know where he lives?”

  Russell shook his head.

  “Stuart has been paying Mrs. Drummond three thousand a month for years. Do you have any idea why?”

  Russell ran his hand through his hair, then collapsed in his chair. “God. This is like a video game. You solve one problem and another takes its place.” He looked at me with intensity. “You have to find Clara.”

  “Why?”

  “So we can monitor her. To make sure she follows the contract.”

  “She told me she would.”

  “We can’t accept her word on it. She’s already breached the prenatal portion of the agreement.”

  “She’s getting medical care, she says.”

  “How do we know it’s adequate?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Russell grumbled into silence.

  I waited till he dared a look at me. “She said something interesting about you, Russell.”

  A brow lifted. “Me? What did she say?”

  “I asked her if you and Cynthia were the ones who didn’t want the baby to be born.”

  “And?”

  “She said that wasn’t it at all. She said that what you wanted was for history to repeat itself.”

  “What did she mean by that?”

  “I don’t know. But I came by to tell you that I’m going to find out. And to tell you to pass the word to your girlfriend not to get in my way.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Hickory Avenue in San Bruno ran east and west between the Bayshore and Junipero Serra freeways through a nest of comparatively inexpensive postwar houses in a neighborhood not far from the Bayhill Shopping Center. The home that matched the address on the envelope I’d found in Greta Hammond’s trash was a squat, beige bungalow with stucco walls, green composition roof, blue-trimmed arched doors and windows with wrought-iron overlays to give them a Mediterranean aspect while fending off prowlers as well. There was a view of the airport and the bay from the front yard, with Mount Diablo a hint in the hazy distance.

  Although the house was well maintained, evidence of habitation was skimpy: the shades were drawn and the gate into the small fenced yard was closed against itinerants, as was the door to the adjacent garage. The only object that suggested joy or even occupancy was a warped wooden tennis racket buried in the grass in the side yard. The racket was an old Jack Kramer; two of its strings were broken. When I looked for a ball it could mate with I didn’t find one.

  I raised the latch and eased through the narrow gate, leery of guard dog or owner. When I didn’t encounter either, I knocked on the door and waited to see what would happen. What happened was that the door was opened by a stout, gray-haired woman with a bowl in her hand and a scowl on her face. The glint in her eye was combative.

  If she was who I thought she was, she had to be pushing seventy, but her taut gray flesh and kinetic blue eyes made her seem twenty years younger. “I suppose you’re a lawyer,” she said with a snide twist.

  I shook my head. “I’m not a lawyer, I’m—”

  “I told him I wouldn’t stand for any more of this,” she interrupted before I had a chance to say my piece. “So don’t try to talk me out of it.” Anger brought blood to her cheeks and several more years fell away.

  “Told who? Stand for what?”

  “Have you got the money? Just tell me that.”

  I shook my head.

  “Then you know what I got to do. So just turn right around and march out of here. Go on. Scat. I’ve got no more to say to you than I had to the last one. I’ve got to get these biscuits in the oven before they set.”

  After her tirade she looked at me more closely. “What tried to skin you alive?”

  “Your son.”

  She shook her head. “Who are you? Why would he do something like that?”

  “I’m a detective. I’ve been working for Stuart Colbert. You didn’t like the work I was doing, so you told your son to stop me.”

  She straightened her back and pouted. “Who says?”

  “He does.”

  “What kind of work was it?”

  “Trying to keep a baby alive.”

  She frowned. “Why would I care about that?”

  “Because the baby belongs to Stuart Colbert.”

  She examined my face more closely, as though she was going to redecorate it. “Is the boy going to be in trouble because of what he did to you?”

  “Not if you cooperate.”

  She sighed and let go of something inside her. “I’ve been cooperating for twenty years.”

  “I know you have, Mrs. Drummond. But if you keep trying to interfere with the Colberts, Luke’s going to end up in jail. And you will, too.”

  She let out all the air in her lungs and hugged the bowl to her bosom. “I guess you should come in.”

  The tiny home was confining and claustrophobic, as dark as a cave behind its jaundiced shades. It was overstuffed with bulky furnishings, heavy and commodious objects made from oaks and leathers, primarily in the mission style. The medicinal odors that pervaded the house, and the hush in which they lingered, were a fit with the primary function I guessed it served.

  She led me to two ladder-backed chairs that faced each other across a wooden card table that was placed squarely beneath the biggest window in the room, which was only the size of a suitcase. I took a seat across from her—the chairs were caned and uncomfortable. The jigsaw puzzle scattered across the table was sufficiently solved to reveal a bouquet of leafy flowers springing out of a painted china vase that rested on a blue plaid tablecloth. />
  “I can’t find the tip to this lily,” Fern Drummond said as she sat down, pointing to an irregular gap in a fragment near the top edge. “See if you can spot it while we talk. Usually he finds them in a minute—I’ve begun to think it’s missing.”

  “How long does it take to do one?” I asked as I struggled once again to get comfortable.

  “We do two a week. We like to keep on schedule, though it’s hard to find new ones. He gets mad if it’s not a new one.”

  “Is he here?”

  She started to say something, then caught herself. “Who?”

  “The person who does the puzzles.”

  She looked at me but didn’t answer, still dubious of my motives. I had doubts about them myself. “Nathaniel,” I added when she didn’t speak.

  She blinked and tried to dissuade me. “I don’t know what you want, mister, but if you knew Nathaniel you’d know he can’t have anything to do with anything.”

  “On the contrary. I think he may have everything to do with it.”

  “Nonsense. He’s not even …” She searched for a word but couldn’t find one that encompassed what Nathaniel was and was not.

  “Normal?” I suggested.

  She sighed and closed her eyes. “That’s as close as any. He’s better than normal, and worse than normal.”

  “What’s wrong with him, exactly?”

  “His brain’s been bad since the day he was born.”

  “Is he getting any better?”

  “Not a bit.”

  “It must be hard for you, having that kind of responsibility for all these years.”

  “It’s not hard at all,” she said with pride. “He may be different, but he’s a saint. A godsend.”

  Which made him her entire universe. I hoped he would stay that way after I had done what I had to do.

  “What does it matter what he is?” she was saying. “His mother won’t come see him; his father doesn’t know he exists; he never goes out except to bat his ball. How can he be important?”

  “I’m not sure. Is he retarded?”

  Her nose wrinkled and her voice turned prim. “They don’t call it that anymore.”

  “I know they don’t. Is he?”

  She shrugged. “He does puzzles like a whiz. And sums—he can add better in his head than I can on paper. But he’s backward in most ways.”

  “How?”

  Her voice grew weary and matter-of-fact, as if Nathaniel had pieces missing just like the jigsaw lying scattered across the table. “He doesn’t talk; he doesn’t laugh; he doesn’t cry; he doesn’t do anything but work puzzles and watch me. Every minute of the day, he watches me. He knows me better than I know myself, I’m sure—it’s probably a blessing he’s mute.” She shuddered at the prospect of Nathaniel acquiring the power of speech.

  “I used to wonder what he thinks about the world,” she went on, her newly candid voice eerily disembodied. “I used to wonder what he would have to say about it, if he could talk, and I used to hope that some day he would just blurt it out. What he thought about what he was and how he got to be that way, and what he wanted his life to be about. But now I hope I never know what’s in his mind. I think it would be too awful.”

  Her estimate echoed in the house like the curse of a fiery sermon. “Has Nathaniel been looked at by any medical people?” I asked.

  “Of course he has. In the beginning.”

  “What did they say about him?”

  “They said we should put him in a home. Clara said so, too, before she left.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because it’s not right. Because it’s our burden to clean up after them.”

  “The Colberts?”

  She nodded and fiddled with the puzzle picture. “But there’s no need to talk about all that; it’s over and done with.”

  “It’s not over for Nathaniel,” I said.

  She nodded. “Poor Nathaniel. They keep saying he won’t live much longer.” Her laugh was irreverent. “They’ve been saying that since he was a babe in arms.”

  “When did you take custody of him?”

  “When he was six days old.”

  “How old is he now?”

  “He’ll be twenty in two days. I’m trying to decide what to get for his present. I suppose another puzzle.”

  “A tennis ball might be nice.”

  She looked at me and smiled, and suddenly we were allies of some strange sort. “He lost the old one—a dog ran off with it.” She shook her head. “He bats that ball against the house for hours. Drives me crazy, the thump, thump, thump, but he loves it. It’s little enough to indulge him.” A tear came to her eye, for a man-boy for whom life’s highest pleasure was a lonely game of solitaire with a broken racket and a fuzzy ball.

  “Where is he now?” I asked.

  She glanced toward the rear of the house. “Sleeping. He sleeps twelve hours a day. It’s a gift to both of us,” she added, then offered me a psalm. “God Almighty gives us only as much as we can bear.”

  I asked if I could talk to him.

  “What on earth about? He hasn’t been off this block in twenty years.”

  “Does anyone come see him?”

  “They do not. Not a single one. Luke takes him to the park, sometimes. But he makes Luke nervous, just like he made his mother.”

  Twenty years ago, Clara Brennan had run from Nathaniel and all that he meant, and now she was running from something else, something equally abhorrent. I was beginning to understand what it was.

  A vehicle drove into the driveway and stopped. A door slammed shut with a sound that made me shudder. I expected to hear Luke enter through the back and emerge from the kitchen to confront me, but he didn’t make an appearance.

  “The money you get from Stuart isn’t for Nathaniel, is it?” I asked in the lull.

  I thought I might slip it in casually and get an unedited answer, but I didn’t get an answer at all.

  “Except for Clara and Delilah and Opal, no one knows Nathaniel exists, do they?” I went on. “You and Luke get paid to keep quiet about something else. Right? You know something about Rutherford Colbert and he pays you not to talk about it.”

  She looked at me defiantly. “So what if he does?”

  “Concealment of a crime is also a crime.”

  “I never concealed nothing. No one bothered to ask me, so how can they say I concealed it?”

  “What do you know, Mrs. Drummond? Something about Ethan Brennan’s death?”

  She was shaking her head by the time I had finished, addressing issues I hadn’t raised. “We’re not one of them; we never will be one of them,” she proclaimed grimly, her mind on historic insults. “Folks think the Colberts and Brennans are so special, but we’re better than they are. We raise our children, at least. And we keep our word.”

  “Are you the one who told him?” I asked softly.

  “Told who what?”

  “Told Rutherford that Stuart was dating Clara Brennan?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “So Rutherford would keep Stuart from stealing Clara away from your son, which would give Luke a chance to marry into one of the families on Santa Ana. And a chance to inherit a part of the Colbert fortune.”

  Her lip stiffened and her eyes hardened to match the grain that ran through her life. “Stuart didn’t have no business messing with that girl. Someone had to put a stop to it.”

  “But it didn’t stop, did it? Even after you told him?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “They’re devils; all of them.”

  I wasn’t compelled to rebut her. “I’d like to talk to your son,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “If he tries to prevent the Colberts from having this child, he could get in big trouble.”

  Her eyes shone like candles. “Luke’s been in trouble all his life; I never should have brought him to work at the big house. The rest of them, they go about their business all fin
e and dandy, laughing and playing and fornicating, leaving it to me and Luke to clean up after. I thought when Miz Colbert took to her bed, that would be the end of it. But I guess not. I guess it’s never going to end, ‘cause the Colberts can’t leave well enough alone.”

  “What are you and Luke cleaning up, Mrs. Drummond? And why is it taking so long?”

  “The wages of sin leave a big stain.”

  In the echo of her inflamed self-righteousness, I was about to ask what she was referring to when a door opened and the house became even smaller than before, inadequate and confining and ominous. The object that initiated the transformation filled the doorway like a boulder. It was a human object, obviously, but the outlines were ungainly and disproportionate: huge head and vat-like torso, stick legs, blunted facial features pitted with the leavings of acne, hair that seemed to have been ripped from his scalp in spots and dyed with shoe polish in others; hands that were large enough to hide a grapefruit. His pajamas were flannel, with pictures of footballs. His feet were bare and gigantic, like hairless paws.

  “Unnh,” he grunted with what seemed like anger, his voice as deep as a well, his eyes shallow and inexpressive.

  “He wants his bath,” she said to me, then went to his side and patted his massive arm and cooed in an effort to calm him. “Nice warm bath, coming up. My Nathaniel gets his bath right now. Doesn’t he? Nathaniel gets all fresh and clean. Then we do the puzzle. I’ve got a new one for you. Yes, I do. A brandnew puzzle for Natty-Watty.”

  Oblivious to me and my errand, Fern Drummond grasped Nathaniel by his hammy hand and towed him toward the rear of the house. The boy lumbered after her like an upright wagon, panting eagerly through his pulpy, languid lips. I let myself out the front door, as eager to be gone as Nathaniel’s mother had been some twenty years earlier, when her child was no older than the one she was carrying now.

  Luke’s truck sat in the driveway like a relic of a different age. I walked toward the only place he could be, which was inside the one-car garage at the back of the lot. The bay door was nailed shut and bordered with weather stripping but the door on the side stood open. I walked in without being asked.