It made him angry to think that this rich lady thought she could decide when she would talk, and who she would talk to, and have a bunch of lawyers smoothing the way.
“Let me explain,” Georgia said.
“She needs to talk to Detective Markowitz, not me. He’s handling the follow-up.”
“Let me explain, Sam. There were two guys on the boat when Ben drowned, and a girl. The latest friend, I gather. The girl thinks Ben may have been involved in some type of illegal behavior.”
“You’re beginning to sound like a lawyer, Georgia.”
“I am a lawyer. I’m representing this girl.”
“Why?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? This could get awfully messy.”
“But why you? Do you think I’ll help you all make it less messy?”
“Maybe.”
“What did you tell these people about us?” he asked.
“Which people?”
“Your lawyer partners and your rich lady client who owns the
Tribune
and half the free world. Those people.”
“I told them we’re neighbors and friends.”
“Friends,” he said with sarcastic amusement. “None of the good stuff?”
Georgia did not smile. She had not smiled once since coming. “No.”
“And the girl? What did you tell her?”
“I told her she could trust you.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“She knew Alberta Sanchez pretty well, Sam. She could help.”
“You’re talking to the wrong cop. Like I said, Markowitz is handling the follow-up. He’s the expert here.”
“I’ve read your follow-up reports,”
Georgia stared into his eyes. Her eyes were not as he had ever seen them before, not as when they were eye to eye with his and demanding nothing more than pleasure. Faint wrinkles spread from the corners of each eye and deepened into future folds. She looked almost sad. He considered reaching across the table and touching her hand, but what would he do after that?
“I wish you would have told me about this,” she said softly.
“How could I tell you? I just found out about this
“That’s not what I mean. I wish you would have told me about the baby.”
“Why? What good would that do?”
Georgia remained silent a moment, but did not answer his question. “This is
Volunteer
Park
. The girl will be there at
She stood, picked up her coffee cup, and took it to the sink. If she had left the cup on the table, if she had not hesitated, he might have remained silent and let her go. He rose and stood beside her at the kitchen counter.
“The baby’s funeral is tomorrow afternoon,” Sam said. “Maybe you should tell Mrs. Abbott—in case this baby is her grandchild.”
“I will.”
“I guess it’s really not a funeral. It’s a memorial service of some kind. They’re not going to bury the baby until we find the mother.”
Georgia brought her hand up to her mouth to cover her tightly pressed lips. Nothing covered her eyes, however—sad eyes that he had never seen before.
Sam looked away from her, out to the blue, sunshine water, and tried to hear its soothing sounds. He didn’t want to think about the baby. He wanted to take his coffee out to the deck in these last days of summer, or take the kayak,
Gloria
, past the bluff and up to Shilshole Bay, or fix the crack in his bedroom ceiling. He didn’t want to think about Alberta Sanchez, or Ben Abbott, or baby Olivia. He didn’t even want to think about Georgia.
“This little baby seems to be turning up everywhere,” he said softly—to himself.
The Abbott property occupied an entire block with the house standing in the center. A wrought-iron fence surrounded the property. There was a gate at the entrance supported by brick columns. Sam drove his car through the open gate and parked in the circular drive beside Georgia’s red sports car. The house was like the English manors he’d seen on television, and he wondered if a butler would answer the doorbell.
“You must be Officer Wright,” said the woman who opened the door. She was in her fifties and looked more like a librarian or a gardener than a butler. “I’m Mildred Abbott. Please come in.”
“I’m sorry about your son, Mrs. Abbott.” He thought he should say that. He would have said that in any home.
“Thank you. Your police divers are still trying to find him.”
Mrs. Abbott turned abruptly and led him down a long hallway. His footsteps clashed loudly on the hardwood floor. In a small room with big windows, Georgia was sitting in a white wicker chair among a forest of plants.
“You know Georgia, of course,” Mrs. Abbott said. “We thought it would be best if we discussed a few things before calling Diane. Please sit down.”
Sam chose a chair next to Georgia. She greeted him with a face that looked like a sheet of paper with nothing written on it, with none of the good stuff anyway. Mrs. Abbott sat across from them.
“Would you like coffee or tea?” Mrs. Abbott asked and gestured to a tray with two silver pots on a glass table.
He was tempted to say tea just to see if Georgia’s face would change, but he chose coffee instead. He wondered what Georgia was drinking. Mrs. Abbott poured coffee into a cup with a saucer beneath it and handed the saucer to him. The china felt fragile and he could not slip his finger through the narrow cup handle. He thanked Mrs. Abbott, took a sip, and put the cup and saucer back down on the table. He thought the coffee ought to taste better with all the fuss that attended it.
“That poor child,” Mrs. Abbott whispered. “Georgia has told you that we believe Ben was the baby’s father. Georgia has suggested we could check the blood types to be certain, but I see no point in that. I just can’t understand how my son would let such a thing happen.”
Mrs. Abbott looked at him and waited for him to say something that would help her understand, but it had been too long since he had trouble believing such things. He remained silent.
“When my husband died ten years ago, Ben seemed to lose his way. I always thought, or at least I hoped, he would find it someday. He was not interested in business. He spent a year at the newspaper after college, but he didn’t like it. He said everybody was watching him. I suppose, Officer Wright, that you might think he was just a spoiled kid. I wouldn’t blame you. That’s what I thought, too. He lived here in this house until a little over a year ago. I told him that he must get out on his own. He lived on the boat after that. He and my husband did enjoy that boat. They would take off for weeks at a time, just the two of them, and sail around to all the islands or up to Canada. They would come back in such good spirits. But now the boat is gone, too.”
She looked at the floor and shook her head. “Everything’s gone,” she said to herself.
Sam waited quietly for her to raise her head again.
“About eight or nine months ago,” she continued, “Ben brought Alberta to the house—to introduce her, I suppose. Although I didn’t know it, she must have been pregnant at the time. He seemed fond of her and she was very nice. But I refused to take it seriously. I don’t believe I rejected her, I simply chose not to take her seriously. You see, Ben had many friends who did not stay long. He just couldn’t stick with anything.
“A few months after that, he came to the house and demanded the money that my husband had left in a trust for him. He was to receive only a modest stipend until he was thirty. He thought he was being treated like a child, that we were deciding what was best for him, rather than letting him make his own decisions. I suppose he was right, but on the other hand, he did act like a child. I wanted him to act responsibly.” Her voice became infused with anger and frustration. “I told him to get a job, to take control of his life instead of waiting for money that he had no part in making. It would have been better if he had gotten no money at all, if he had to work to eat. He might have focused himself a little better then.
“I could have accepted Alberta,” Mrs. Abbott continued, “but he had to take the first steps. He had to grow up, show he was responsible, and do something with his life. We could never get further than that.” She stopped as she suddenly realized she was not arguing with her son again. “We will never get any further than that. It was my fault, too. We never understand these things, do we?”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Georgia said, filling in the space after her question. “You did everything you could.”
“Perhaps. I’m not looking for sympathy, Georgia. I want Officer Wright to know everything he needs to know so that we can find out what happened. I am Ben’s mother, but I am also this poor child’s grandmother. I wish to know the truth, no matter what it is.”
“That’s what we all want,” Sam said, at last finding a subject to talk about. “Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez, too.”
“Of course.”
Georgia gave him a sharp, disapproving look that told him it was not necessary to bring up other sufferers.
“If possible, I would like to help at the funeral tomorrow,” Mrs. Abbott said. “I wonder if you know how I can reach the Sanchez family?”
“I doubt they have much money, Mrs. Abbott, but they have quite a lot of pride.”
“I’m not talking about money, Officer Wright. I’m talking about helping.”
“I understand,” he said, and perhaps he was beginning to understand. “I’ll get their phone number for you.”
“Thank you.”
“Is Alberta their only child?” Mrs. Abbott asked. “I don’t know why, but I have a feeling she is.”
“Yes.”
“Just like Ben. And both lost.”
Mildred Abbott stared at the big windows behind him, but he doubted she saw anything through them. More quickly than he expected, she looked at him again. “Do you have any questions you would like to ask about my son, Officer Wright?” she asked.
“Did your son ever talk about a man named Pierre Bernard?”
“Who is he?” Georgia asked.
“He owns the Donut Shop downtown at First and Pike,” Sam explained. “Alberta worked there.”
“Yes, Ben did talk to me about him a few times. Not recently, however. He seemed quite impressed with the man. He told me Mr. Bernard tried to look after the young people who drifted around the streets downtown. Some of them made his coffee shop a sort of home away from home. That’s how Ben put it. I know he gave Mr. Bernard some money to help with these children.”
“How much money?”
“At least two thousand dollars. Ben asked me for the money, and I gave it to him. I can imagine now what you may think of that. I know Ben took some of the young people out on his boat. I hope he did something worthwhile with that money.”
Sam let her hope as she wished.
“Was that why your newspaper did the story about the Donut Shop?”
“I wouldn’t call it my newspaper,” she said. “I’m simply one of the shareholders. I did mention Mr. Bernard to Gordon, Gordon Monroe, our editor-in-chief, at a fund-raising event some time ago, and as I remember, the paper wrote a story about him after that. I do not interfere with the operation of the paper, but I suppose it’s fair to say that Gordon assigned a reporter to take a look at Mr. Bernard after our conversation.”
“The reporter didn’t look very hard.”
“I don’t know if that’s true or not. I hope not. I take it you don’t think very highly of Mr. Bernard?”
“He’s a dangerous man, Mrs. Abbott. I don’t know how your son got mixed up with him, but it wasn’t a good idea.”
Sam asked a few more questions, but Pierre was the main question he wanted answered. When Mrs. Abbott left the room to find the girl, Diane, Sam reached for the little coffee cup and took a sip.
“Coffee isn’t very good,” he said.
“Mildred made it. I’m sure she would like your opinion on that, too.”
Sam could not help smiling. It was not his social skill that brought him into such fine homes and company.
He saw a young girl standing at the door. Her face was white as though she had seen frightening things or seldom saw sunshine. She held her hands in front of her. Georgia did not see her at first, and the girl seemed even more uncertain about social propriety than Sam.
“Here, Diane,” Georgia said, rising quickly from her chair. She took the girl by the arm and encouraged her to sit in the chair Mildred Abbott had used. “This is Officer Wright.”
Georgia spoke softly and gestured toward Sam in such a delicate way that he wondered if the girl would crumble with any display of harshness. She was extremely thin.