“This is fine.” I tucked my Smith-Corona on the floor, tossed my duffel in the rear seat, and got in. I tried hauling the door shut, but the hinges responded sluggishly and refused to budge. Dolan finally reached across me and gave the door a yank. It closed with a thunk. I wrestled with the seat belt, jerking until I’d pulled sufficient length to reach the catch and snap it down. I spotted a fresh pack of cigarettes on the dash. “I hope you don’t intend to smoke.”
“Not with the windows closed.”
“You are so considerate. You have a map?”
“In the side pocket. I thought we’d go the back way. I’d take the 101 to the 405 and hit the 5 from there, but with my bum ticker, I don’t want to risk the freeway in case I die at the wheel.”
“You’re really making me feel good about this.”
Dolan turned onto the 101 heading south while I flapped at the California map and refolded it into a manageable size. By my estimate, Peaches was ninety miles away, roughly an hour and a half. Happily, Dolan didn’t like chitchat any more than I did. I sat and stared out the window, wondering if love would blossom between Henry and Mattie.
The coastline looked smoky. There was a harsh light on the ocean, but the surf was calm, advancing toward the shore in long, smooth undulations. The islands were barely visible twenty-six miles offshore. Steep hills sloped down to the highway, the chaparral a dark mossy green, flourishing after a wet autumn and the long damp winter months.
In many sections of the hillside, the vegetation had been overtaken by thick patches of cactus shaped like Ping-Pong paddles, abristle with thorns. I’ve always thought California prisons could discourage escape by seeding the surrounding landscape with vicious plants. Missing prisoners could be located by their howls of dismay and could spend their stay in solitary confinement picking thorns out of their heiniebumpers.
After twenty minutes, I glanced at Dolan. “You have kids?”
“Naw. Grace used to talk about it, but it didn’t interest me. Kids change your life. We were fine as is.”
“Any regrets?”
“I don’t spend a lot of time on regrets. How about you? Are you planning to have kids?”
“I can’t quite picture it, but I won’t rule it out. I’m not exactly famous for my relationships with men.”
At Perdido, we caught the 126 heading inland. The power lines disappeared. There was a dusting of snow on the distant mountain peaks, an odd contrast to the vivid green in the fields below. In the citrus groves, oranges hung on the trees like Christmas ornaments. The roadside fruit stands were boarded up, but they’d be open for business in another month or so. We passed through two small agricultural communities that hadn’t changed in years. This section of the road was known as Blood Alley: only two lanes wide with an occasional passing lane in which the fiery crashes usually occurred. I kept a close eye on Dolan in the event he was on the verge of conking out on me.
He said, “Quit worrying.”
At Palmdale, we turned east off Highway 14, picking up the 18. Ancient, cranky-looking billboards indicated land for sale. I saw a sign for 213th Street with a dirt road shooting off to a vanishing point. We passed a hand-painted sign that read PAIRALEGALS AVAILABLE: WILLS, CONTRACTS, DIVORCES, NOTER REPUBLIC. According to the map, the road we were on skirted the western border of the Mojave Desert at an altitude of 4,500 feet.
I checked the map again and said, “Wow. I never understood the size of the Mojave. It’s really big.”
“Twenty-five thousand square miles if you include the portions in Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. You know much about the desert?”
“I’ve picked up the occasional odd fact, but that’s about it.”
“I’ve been reading about scorpions. Book claims they’re the first air-breathing animal. They have a rudimentary brain, but their eyesight’s poor. They probably don’t perceive anything they can’t actually touch first. You see two scorpions together, they’re either making love or one of them is being eaten by the other. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, but I can’t figure out what. Probably has to do with the nature of true love.”
I don’t know why, but the information made me smile. We passed a sign that read PEACHES, POP. 897. The town was marked by a scattering of Joshua trees and was notable for its abundance of abandoned businesses. The San Gabriel Mountains loomed on our right, antiqued with snow, which had settled into all the crevices, defining them in white. Timbers formed a windbreak along the crest, while below them, I could see stands of evergreens laden with white. A freak spring storm had left mounds and patches of aging snow on the ground. Five cars had pulled over and parked on the berm where five sets of parents stood by chatting while their respective children played in the drifts. Most of the kids looked underdressed. As with the ocean, they’d frolic in the elements until their teeth were chattering and their lips had turned blue.
We passed a Liquor Mart that sold gas, tires, beer, and sandwiches. There were two cafés, one saloon, and no motels that I could see. There was a cluster of six single-wide trailers surrounded by chain-link fence and two real estate offices in double-wides with empty asphalt parking lots out front. What possessed people to move to Peaches in the first place? It seemed mysterious to me. What dream were they pursuing that made Peaches, California, the answer to their prayers?
Dolan did a U-turn, using the wide apron of gravel beside a service station, its gas pumps missing and its plate glass windows boarded up. The ground glittered with broken glass. Forlorn tatters of plastic wrap were caught in the bushes along the road. He backtracked as far as the enclave of mismatched trailers, which had the letters
A, B, C, D, E,
and
F
on small painted signs in front. A sign announced PEACH GROVE MOBILE HOME PARK, which was actually not a “park” so much as two rows of trailers with space remaining in the event a seventh trailer decided to pull in. Dolan nosed his car into a graveled area near a row of battered mailboxes and the two of us got out. I waited while he went through the ritual of tucking his gun in the trunk. “Looks like F’s down that way,” he said.
I followed him along the rutted two-lane dirt drive. “Wonder what she’s doing up here?”
“We’ll have to ask.”
The door to F stood open, with a flimsy sliding screen across the frame to allow fresh air to circulate. A small handmade plaque said NAILS BY IONA with a telephone number too small to read in passing. A faded width of awning formed a covered porch, complete with bright green indoor-outdoor carpeting underfoot. The trailer was old and small. Two women were seated in the kitchenette, one on a banquette and the other on a chrome dinette chair pulled close to a hinged table that was supported by one leg. Both turned to look at us. The younger of the two continued to paint the older woman’s nails.
Dolan said, “Is one of you Iona Mathis?”
The younger said, “That’s me.” She went back to brushing dark carmine polish on the thumbnail of the other woman’s left hand. On the table between them, I could see an orange stick, emery boards, a bottle of cuticle remover, cotton balls, a nail brush, and a plastic halfmoon bowl filled with soapy water. To the right of the older woman, there was a pack of Winstons, with a book of paper matches tucked under the cellophane. The ashtray was filled with butts.
The older woman smiled and said, “I’m Iona’s mom, Annette.”
“Lieutenant Dolan with the Santa Teresa Police Department. This is Miss Millhone. She’s a private detective.”
Iona slid a look at us before she started work on her mother’s index finger. If she was sixteen when she married Frankie, she’d be close to thirty-five now, roughly my age. Oh, hey, I was a little older, but who was keeping track? I tried to put myself in her place, wondering what might persuade me to live here and make my living nipping someone else’s cuticles and massaging their toes. She was just shy of pretty. I watched her with interest through the softening haze of the screen door, trying to figure out where her looks fell short. Her hair was a lustrous brown, wavy, shoulder-length, and in need of a trim. She kept it parted in the center, which made her face look too long. She had full lips, a strong nose, brown eyes, and dark brows that were a shade too thick. She had a mole on her upper lip and one on her left cheek. In many ways, she still looked sixteen—lanky and round-shouldered. Her feet were bare, and she wore faded knee-ripped jeans and an India-print tunic in shades of rust and brown.
Annette leaned toward her daughter and said, “Baby, if you’re not going to ask the man I will.” When Iona made no response, she looked back at Dolan. “Hon, I wish you’d tell us why you’re here because you’re scaring me to death.” Iona’s mother, surely in her fifties, looked closer to thirty-five than Iona did. She had the same strong nose, but she’d had hers surgically reduced to something thinner and more sunken. Her hair, which she wore pulled up in a ponytail, was the same shade of brown, but of a uniformly intense hue that suggested she was dyeing it to cover gray. A sleeveless white knit top emphasized her big boobs, cantilevered over a thick waist and slightly rounded tummy. She wore red shorts and red canvas wedgies. Her toenails had been polished in the same red Iona was using on her fingernails. I thought she’d have been wise to cover more of herself than she had.
Dolan said, “We have a few questions about Iona’s ex. You mind if we come in?”
“Door’s open,” Annette said.
Dolan slid open the screen door and stepped into the trailer, then sidestepped to his left so I’d have room to enter. Once inside, I moved to the right and perched on the near end of the blue plastic-padded bench where Annette was sitting. There was a long padded cushion across the back of the bench, and I was guessing at the presence of a mechanism that would allow the couch to level out into a double bed once the hinged table had been flattened against the wall. Did the two women share the trailer, or did Mom have her own? Dolan and I had agreed that he’d conduct the interview as it was confusing to have questions lobbed from two directions at once. I was there primarily to observe and to take mental notes.
Beyond the kitchenette, I could see a sliding door on the right that I assumed was the bathroom. Dead ahead, I saw the double bed that filled the only bedroom. I’m a sucker for small spaces, and I wouldn’t have minded living in a place like this, though I’d have held out for something clean. I did love the diminutive sink and the half-size oven, the four-burner cooktop, and the wee refrigerator tucked under the counter. It was like a playhouse, designed for dollies, tea parties, and other games of make-believe. I focused my attention on Iona, whose bad posture was probably a side effect of hunching over her table all day.
Annette said, “You haven’t said which ex, but if you’re a police lieutenant, you must be talking about Frank. Her second husband, Lars, never broke the law in his life. He wouldn’t even cross the street without a crosswalk. He drove Iona crazy. Here, she went out and found a fellow as different from Frank as you could possibly get and then it turns out he’s worse. He suffered from that obsessive-compulsive syndrome? Shoot. Everything he did, he had to repeat six more times before he’d allow himself to move on. Getting anything accomplished took hours. I about went insane.” She peered closely at her pinkie. “Baby, I think you got outside the line there. You see that?”
“Sorry.” Iona used her thumb nail to eradicate the line of red that had encroached on Annette’s cuticle.
Dolan said, “Mind if I smoke?”
Annette’s eyes flicked briefly to Lieutenant Dolan’s left hand. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and it must have occurred to her that he might be a bachelor. “Only if you light one for me,” she said. “Iona has a fit if I mess up a nail before she’s done with all ten.”
Dolan reached over and picked up Annette’s pack of Winstons. He shook one free and placed it between her lips. She rested her hand seductively on his while he lit her cigarette. He then extracted and lit one from his own pack, apparently scorning her brand.
Annette inhaled deeply, blew a stream of smoke upward, and then removed the cigarette and placed it on the ashtray, being careful with her fingertips. “Lord, that tastes good. It just bores me to tears people get so tense about smoking these days. What’s the big whoop-dee-do? It’s no skin off their nose.” Her eyes slid to me. “You smoke?”
“I did once upon a time,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound quite as pious as I felt.
To Dolan, she said, “What’s Frank up to? We haven’t heard from him in years, have we, baby?”
Iona ignored her mother and concentrated on her work.
Dolan said, “You know he’s out on parole.”
Annette made a face as though afflicted by a mildly spasmingbowel. “I guess it was bound to happen. I never did care for the man myself. I hope you’re not going to tell us he knows where she is.”
“We talked to him yesterday and he didn’t mention her.”
“Well, thank god for that.”
“Are you worried he’ll make contact?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘worried,’ but I don’t like the idea.”
Dolan focused on Iona. “When did you see him last? Do you remember the date?”
Annette stared at her daughter and when Iona failed to speak up, she said, “Iona, answer the man. What’s the matter with you? I didn’t raise you like that.”
Iona shot a dark look at her mother. “You want me to mess these up or not?”
Annette smiled at Dolan. “She felt sorry for him. Frank’s parents disowned him. His father’s an oral surgeon, makes big bucks cutting on people’s gums, but he’s a stick-in-the-mud. His mother isn’t much better. They had three other boys who did well, so naturally Frank lost out by comparison. Not that he wasn’t a little shit from birth. Iona always said he was sweet, but you couldn’t prove it by me. I thought he was kind of clinging, if you want to know the truth. He certainly became possessive toward the end of their marriage. Six months.”