“He’s the one Violet dealt with up front. He was a pipsqueak, all of twenty years old. Woman like Violet, she’s always going to find a way to get what she wants. She comes waltzing in here when I’m off the lot and she starts working on him. I’d’ve put a stop to it if I’d seen what was going on. First thing you know she talks him into letting her take that Bel Air on a test drive-alone. I’m serious. Without him in the car. He never should have agreed, but he’s so busy trying to impress her, he doesn’t know what hit him. When she finally shows up again, she’s put two hundred and fifty-seven miles on a brand-new car. I fired him on the spot and then called Foley and told him to get his butt in. He finally came around Friday morning and I completed the deal-approved the loan and handled all the paperwork.”

“I still don’t understand why you sold it to him. From what I’ve heard, his finances were a mess.”

“I have no use for Foley; man doesn’t have a brain in his head. I felt sorry for Violet. I thought she deserved something nice for putting up with him, fool that she was.”

“What was in it for you?”

His smile was sheepish. “Hey, even an old dog like me can do a good turn now and then. Everybody thinks I’m a hard-ass, but I can be generous when it suits. Of course that might’ve been the last time I ever did a good deed. When that car went missing, I was sick to death. Foley did pay it off. I have to give him that.”

“So you weren’t out anything?”

“Not one red cent.”

“Violet didn’t tell you how she managed to put two hundred and fifty-seven miles on the odometer?”

“No, but I can make a pretty good guess. That’s the day she showed up at a Santa Teresa bank and emptied her safe deposit box. I figured it out afterward, because the distance was about right-hundred and twenty-five miles each way. She said the day was gorgeous and she couldn’t resist. At the time, I was under the impression she drove north along the coast, but she never said as much.”

“If she wanted to drive to Santa Teresa, why not take Foley’s truck?”

“That thing was on its last legs. No surprise she’d prefer to tool around in a fancy car like mine. Maybe she was planning to sweet-talk the bank manager into making her a loan.”

“Did she give any indication she intended to leave town?”

“Never said a word. Not that she had any reason to confide in me. I barely knew the woman. So what was in her safe deposit box? I never heard.”

“Foley thinks it was cash from an insurance settlement. Fifty thou sand is the number I’ve heard. In addition to that, her brother says he lent her two thousand dollars on Wednesday of that week.”

“Calvin Wilcox. Now there’s a piece of work.”

“As in what?”

“Those two were always at each other’s throats. He assumed the full care of their parents and Violet wouldn’t lift a hand. He didn’t give a damn if she disappeared or not. I’m sure it cheered him no end that when his mother died, all the money came to him. If his sister had been around, he’d have had to split it with her.”

I felt my attention narrow like a cat’s at the sound of a little mousie scratching in the wall. “Money?”

“Oh, yes. It was a sizeable estate. Roscoe Wilcox made a fortune perfecting phosphorescent paint. Got a patent on some new, improved formula, or so I’ve heard. Every time you see a paint job that glows, it’s money in the bank-or Calvin’s pocket in this case.”

“How well do you know him?”

“We’re both members of the same country club and the same association of local businessmen. He built that company from scratch, which I’ve always admired, but the fellow himself? I got my doubts about him. Maybe it’s just that he and that wife of his have never cared for me.”

“What happened to Winston Smith? I’d like to talk to him if you know where he is.”

“That’s easy. The week after I fired him, I took him back and he’s worked for me ever since. It’s like I told him: You don’t want to act in haste. What seems tragic in the moment can sometimes turn out to be the best thing in the world.”

“Meaning what?”

“He ended up married to my daughter and now they have those three gorgeous girls. He’s a very lucky man.”

12

Jake

Wednesday, July 1, 1953

Jake Ottweiler pulled up a chair beside his wife’s hospital bed and sat with her as he had every evening since June 17 when she’d been admitted. Mary Hairl was on heavy medication. She slept deeply and often, her face in repose as sculpted as stone. Her hand lay in his, her palm against his, her cold fingers threaded through his warmer ones. She was as pale as a piece of paper, lavender veins showing through the skin on her arms. She was thin, brittle-looking, and she smelled like death. He was ashamed for noticing, ashamed of himself for wanting to recoil.