Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

He went through the dining room, past the pantry, and into the kitchen, where Felipe and the cook were washing the breakfast dishes. There was no coffee, hut Felipe promised to make him some in the little two-cup drip pot. The extension phone on the kitchen wall rang harshly.

Tom grabbed it. He didn’t want Katherine intercepting any calls for him.

“McCauley residence. Tom Bell.”

“It’s Alan,” the lawyer said in his ear. “Guess who I just talked to?”

“Mary Jane,” Tom said. “Checking my references.”

“Right. I gave her a brief outline and gave you a glowing review. She agreed to see you around ten-thirty this morning, at the motel.”

“No problem.”

“Good,” Alan said, and rang off.

Tom checked his watch and went upstairs to start packing, tendrils of dread still weaving their way through his skull and around his rib cage.

15

By ten-twenty, he was driving north on Pacific Coast Highway through a stretch of California contentment marked by tackle shops, seafood restaurants, small boutiques, and no sign of poverty. On his left, between slightly eccentric houses tightly strung along the highway, he got an occasional glimpse of blue ocean with polite surf tickling the edge of a sandy beach. On the right, beyond the roadside businesses, the land sometimes rose to clifflike heights where houses enjoyed stately separation and spectacular views. Both sides of highway were money country.

Malibu, California, 90265.

A folksy-looking hand-painted sign announced NEEDHAM’S FLOWER SHOP AND NURSERY. He looked for Shannon out of the corner of his eye but didn’t see her, then Needham’s was behind him and a sign was coming up fast that said BEACHFRONT MOTEL.

The motel wasn’t very big but looked well-cared-for and confident. Standing on the ocean side of the highway, it shared a corner lot with a small restaurant and cocktail lounge. Tom eased into the center lane, waited for a break in traffic, then turned into the lot, going past the office and parking in an unmarked slot behind the restaurant.

He got out into a fresh ocean-smelling breeze, locked the car, and headed reluctantly back toward the office. Up two steps, a small white porch, a screen door on a spring. Behind it a half-glass door with a brass thumb latch, then he was in a tiny empty reception area with a registration counter, a switchboard, and a half-open door behind the counter leading into what looked like someone’s living room.

He was reaching for the bell on the counter when the door opened all the way and a woman came through it.

She saw him and stopped, a hint of anxiety in her eyes. She had to be in her mid-forties but looked younger, tall and less than fanatically slender, hair brown and done simply and about shoulder length, tan blouse, brown skirt.

“Mr. Bell, I’ll bet.” No mistaking that sunlit piney voice. He said he was. “Customers usually park right by the door. Hi, I’m Mary Jane. Alan explained about this other girl showing up, but now you’re here, I’m not sure I should talk to you.”

“I can’t make you,” Tom said, “but I can’t talk to Estelle Marchand because she died in nineteen seventy-four.”

She became very still. For a moment he thought her eyes were looking at something way back in time, but they came back to fasten on him. Thoughtfully. Carefully.

“Oh.”

Tom said mildly, “I’ve met two people who apparently knew Estelle. You, because you never asked who I was talking about, and a lady named Eileen Scott Farr. She and her husband adopted the other twin, didn’t they?”

After a moment, Mary Jane sighed. “All right.” She raised a hinged section of the counter. “Come in, we may as well be comfortable.”

He went through the counter. She lowered the hinged part and led him through the door into a small, comfortable living room. She waved him to a chair, then sat on the edge of the sofa.

Tom asked, “Are you the manager here?”

“Manager and part-owner,” Mary Jane said. “It’s what I did with the cash settlement when Chuck and I were divorced.” It was the first time Tom had ever heard Charles called Chuck. Times had changed. Charles had changed. “How did you connect me with Estelle after all this time?”

“Eileen Farr mentioned her name. Did you know Estelle’s real name was Anne Merchant?”

“No. I’m not surprised. I don’t think she ever told me the truth about anything. Look, she was a very pregnant street kid who took advantage of my sympathetic nature, okay? She said she’d run away from abusive parents and needed a place to crash until the baby was born. So I let her move in with me. She said she’d already arranged with a family to adopt the baby.”

“When was this?”

“October, nineteen seventy-three. I had this tiny one-and-a-half-room apartment in San Bernardino.”

“Did she say how old she was?”

“Seventeen.”

“She was killed in an accident in San Diego in February, nineteen seventy-four. Her fingerprints identified her as Anne Merchant, who was twenty-two and had been in trouble most of her life.”