“Appreciate the confirmation. He talked me out of a pet deposit. I must’ve been smokin’ crack that day. You’re not a local?”
“I’m not. I drove up from Santa Teresa this morning.”
“What’d he die of, the old guy?”
I didn’t see any reason to tell this guy the whole of it so I shrugged. “I don’t know the details. Just the broad strokes.”
“The broad strokes being what?”
“Probably a heart attack,” I said. “I’d like to talk to Ethan’s sisters as long as I’m in town. Ellen and Anna. Are they still around?”
“The younger one for sure. Anna’s the wild child. She does manis and pedis in some dump of a salon. The other girl, I never met.”
“‘Manis and pedis’—meaning manicures and pedicures?”
“Whoa! You are really
sharp
.”
I ignored the sarcasm. “Do you know how I can reach them?”
“What’s your stake in this?”
“What makes you ask?”
“I can’t believe you drove all the way up here for something you could’ve done by phone.”
“I didn’t have Ethan’s number. Besides, if I’d called I’d have missed him by a week, right? I thought it would be a kindness if they heard it from me instead of reading about it in the paper.”
“You’re a good Samaritan.”
“Some would call it that.”
“Any rate, you don’t want to rent the place, it’s time I locked up.”
“I appreciate the information about Ethan’s wife. I’ll see if I can track her down.” I held a hand out. “My name’s Kinsey Millhone.”
“They call me ‘Big Rat.’ And don’t ask. Long story and it really doesn’t have a point.”
We shook hands.
“If I run into Ethan, I’ll tell him you’re in town,” he said.
“He won’t know who I am. I didn’t find out about him until yesterday.”
“You expect to be here overnight?”
“Unless I catch up with him today.”
“I run into him, I’ll let you know. Where you staying?”
I didn’t think it was any of his business, so of course I lied.
“Don’t know yet. I haven’t found a motel. What would you suggest?”
“Padre Hotel. It’s been around for years. Used to be high-class. Now it’s so-so, but location’s good. Close to downtown.”
“What happened to Evelyn Dace?”
“She married someone else. Some guy from her church. I have a friend rents a little place above their garage.”
He slipped his wallet from his back pocket and removed a business card that he held out. “Tell you what. I get back to the office, I’ll look up Dace’s application and get you his wife’s name. Probably a phone number listed as well. Might save you some time. Give me a call in an hour or so and I’ll try to help you out.”
“Thanks.” I glanced down at the card, noting that his last name was Rizzo. I was betting his nickname, “Big Rat,” originated from the film
Midnight Cowboy
, twenty years before. Dustin Hoffman played the part of Ratso Rizzo.
Big Rat said, “I don’t guess he’s coming into money now his old man’s croaked?”
“None as far as I know, but it never hurts to ask.”
“Amen to that.”
• • •
I sat in my car for a moment, making a quick note about the club where Ethan played on weekends and an approximation of his wife’s last name. I watched as Big Rat locked the front door and climbed into his truck, which he’d parked at an angle in the foreshortened driveway. He backed out and swung wide, giving me a jaunty wave as he disappeared down the street. His red Nissan pickup with yellow flames custom-painted along the bed was as conspicuous as my car, which served as one more reminder to dump the Mustang and find something else.
I got back on Truxtun and turned right, trolling in an eastward direction. I confess I was having trouble getting the hang of how the streets were laid out. Some were numbered and some of them had names. The ones I was passing were lettered, as in E, F, G, H, and Eye, the latter probably spelled out so the I wouldn’t be mistaken for the number one. Truxtun and California Streets seemed to be parallel, but other streets were a-kilter, as though the whole geographical plain had taken a forty-five-degree turn. I was looking for the Beale Memorial Library, which according to my map was no more than half an inch away.
Once I spotted it, I parked in the lot to the left of the structure and headed for the entrance. The exterior was handsome, buff-colored, with a band of desert rose along the roofline. The building was new with a plaque on the side indicating that it had been dedicated only six months before, April 30, 1988. A time capsule had been sealed in the foundation to be opened in April of 2038. It might be worth a trip back just to see what was buried there. I’d be pushing eighty-eight years old and ready for a touch of excitement, assuming it didn’t prove too much.
The interior was spacious and smelled of new commercial carpeting. The ceiling was high and the light was generous. I couldn’t even guess at the square footage or the number of books the building housed, but the patrons had to have been thrilled with the facility. I asked a woman sitting at the information desk where I might find old city directories, and she suggested the Jack Maguire Local History Room on the second floor. I bypassed the elevator and trotted up the stairs. The door to the local history room was locked and empty from what I could see through the glass. I spotted a woman in a wheelchair working at a desk in the room next door.
“Is there any way I can get in there? I’d like to check city directories from a few years back.”
“You might ask Verlynn at the reference desk. She has a key.” She pointed to a desk halfway across the vast carpeted expanse.
I crossed and waited my turn. When Verlynn was free, I explained what I wanted and she followed me back to the history room with her key in hand.
She unlocked the door and opened it, flipping on the overhead lights. “The volumes you want are on that wall straight ahead. We have city directories going back to 1899 and telephone books from about 1940. Those shelves over there you’ll find yearbooks from elementary, junior high, and high schools in the area. Not every year is represented. We depend on our patrons for donations. Will you be okay on your own?”
“I’ll be fine. Thanks.”
“Let me know when you’ve finished and I’ll lock up.”
“I’ll do that.”
I already knew where Dace had lived before his incarceration. I’d picked up that address from the expired California driver’s license in his safe deposit box. What I was interested in were two other sets of addresses. I hoped to track back in time to the point where Dace interacted with his beloved Uncle R. The dates on the backs of the two black-and-white photographs I’d seen were September 1941 and June 4, 1945. Something else occurred to me. My parents were married in 1935, which meant my mother might well have been with him on trips to Bakersfield. What if she was the one who’d taken the two photographs? The notion sent a chill down my spine.
I was also looking for any Millhones in the area at that time, and for Quillen and his wife, Rebecca, in particular. If my father grew up in Bakersfield, there might be other family members still in town. I pulled the Polk and the Haines directories for 1942, 1943, and 1946. The 1941 city directory was probably published early in the year, which meant that by fall of 1941, the information might be six months out of date. The same was true of the photo taken in June of 1945. People move. They die. Couples get divorced. The constant shift in status and location far outstrips any attempt to report.
The Polk Company has been publishing city directories since 1878, beginning with a simple alphabetical listing of the residents of any given town. In 1916, the directory was expanded to include both an alphabetical listing of residents and an alphabetical listing of street addresses, with names of the occupants included. The Haines directory, also known as a crisscross, is a mechanical reversal of the information in the phone book, its listings ordered by street names and by telephone numbers in sequence, beginning with the area code, then moving on to the exchange. If you have a street address and you want to know who lives there, you can consult either publication. If you have a phone number but no clue whom it belongs to, you start a search with the Haines and work backward to the name and address of the person to whom the number has been assigned. There are a certain percentage of unlisted numbers, but in the main you can uncover more than you’d imagine.
In addition to the six directories I had, I pulled both the Polk and the Haines for the calendar year 1972 to see if any of the names carried over. I toted all eight volumes to the closest table and sat down. I loved having the room to myself. It was quiet and smelled of old paper. The windows were clean and the light spilling in had a peaceful quality. I reached into my shoulder bag and found my index cards. I removed the rubber band and shuffled through them until I found the address I’d cribbed from Dace’s driver’s license. I picked up the 1942 Polk and began a finger walk through the pages.
Moving from page to page, I uncoupled my emotions, like a string of railroad cars I was leaving behind while the engine chugged on. This was about numbers and street names, which meant nothing to me. I simply recorded the information as I came across it. Later, I would attach sights and sounds to each location as I discovered it.
There were two Dace families. The first, Sterling Dace (Clara): util wkr, PG&E, (h) 4619 Paradise. The second was Randall J Dace (Glenda): srvc rep, PG&E, at 745 Daisy Lane. I was guessing these were Dace’s parents. If so, it looked like he’d moved into the family home at some point after his mom and dad had passed away. I circled the address in my notes and then picked up the names, occupations, and addresses of the nearby neighbors. I wasn’t sure what the relationship was between Randall and Sterling. Brothers? Cousins? Maybe father and son. I turned to the M’s and found Quillen Millhone (Rebecca): winch trk oprtr, Keller Ent (h) 4602 Choaker Road.
I pulled the 1946 Polk directory from the stack and placed my hand on the cover as though swearing an oath. I worked my way through the oversize pages and found the same two listings for Randall and Sterling Dace at the same respective addresses.
I backtracked to the M’s and again found Quillen Millhone. I could find no other Millhones. Again, I made a note of the neighbors on either side of the Choaker Road address on the off chance there might be someone still living who remembered them. A quick study of the city map showed Choaker Road off Panama Lane, which was too far out of town to worry about at this point. I’d confirmed that the Daces and my grandparents were contemporaries. I’d seen both sets of names in the years 1943 and 1946. All were present and accounted for.
I checked the 1972 Polk and found R. Terrence Dace. Evelyn was there as well (her name tucked next to his inside parentheses), followed by his occupation, tree trmr, and the street and house number, 745 Daisy Lane. I noted the names and addresses of neighbors on either side. There was a David Brandle at 741, a Lorelei Brandle at 743, and a Penrose and Melissa Pilcher at 747. No Millhones. I returned the books to the shelves. On a hunch, I moved forward in time to the current telephone book in hopes of finding the last names Pilcher or Brandle, wondering if Dace’s neighbor lady was still living. There was an L. Brandle at another address, though I didn’t expect the two were a match. There was no sign of Mr. and Mrs. Pilcher. In that same phone book, I flipped through the residential listings to the H’s, searching for Ethan’s wife. I ran a finger down the page: Heiman, Heimendinger, Heimluck, Hein, Heindle, Heinemann, Heining, Heinrich, Heintz, Heiser, Heisermann. The name after the surname Heisermann was Mamie, complete with a street address in the 5600 block of Laurel Canyon Drive. That was the best news I’d had all day. I made a note of the phone number, though I didn’t intend to call first. In my business, it’s better to tackle certain interviews without warning the subject in advance. Metaphorically speaking, you can sometimes catch people with their pants down around their ankles.
I stood on Ethan’s front porch and rang the bell. Mentally, I amended that to
Mamie’s
front porch, as the house was in her name. This place was a big improvement over the one he’d been renting. No doubt, his budget was limited. A wife who kicks her hubby out for idleness is usually not that eager to pay for his idleness somewhere else. A banged-up white Toyota was parked in the drive. As I passed, I peered in, making a note of the car seats, toys, board books, Happy Meal boxes, and cracker crumbs, which suggested he used the vehicle to tote the children from place to place, as why would he not?
This was a neighborhood of tract homes probably built in the past ten years. All of the exteriors were peach-colored stucco and the roofs were the standard red tile. It was clear the occupants took pride in their properties. The backyards I could see through a succession of wire fences sported evidence of young children: a chunky-looking plastic sliding board, a tricycle, two Big Wheels, a wading pool, and a one-room playhouse also made of plastic, complete with shutters and window boxes.
Ethan answered the door with a girl-child on his right hip and a boy-child crowded against his left leg. He said, “Yo!” as a form of greeting.
“Hi, are you Ethan Dace?”
“That’s me.” His expression changed from pleasant to cautious.
“I’m Kinsey Millhone,” I said, holding out my hand.
Obligingly, he shifted the baby so we could shake hands. His manner was pleasant, but it was clear my name meant nothing to him. The Millhones must not have occupied a prominent place in the family lore. He said, “If you’re here trying to sell me something, I’m afraid I can’t help. Sign says no soliciting.”
He gestured toward a stenciled notice to the right of the front door.
“I can see that,” I said. “I’m here for something else.”
“You better make it quick. Baby needs a diaper change.”
“I drove up from Santa Teresa this morning with bad news about your dad. Would it be all right if I came in?”
He stared at me briefly, his expression opaque. “Might as well.”
He moved aside, allowing me to step into the living room. He closed the door behind me. “These are my kids. Two of ’em, at any rate. I got another girl in first grade.”
The little boy was staring at me, trying to make up his mind if I was of interest.
The baby’s age was indeterminate. He looked down at her, jiggling her in a manner that made her smile. She had four teeth the size of freshwater pearls. “This is Bethany. We call her ‘Binky,’ and this is Scott. Amanda’s still at school, though she should be home shortly. A neighbor picks her up.”
“How old is the little one?”
“Ten months. Scott’s three and a half, in case you’re about to ask.”
From somewhere in the back, two big Doberman pinschers trotted into the living room side by side and checked me out. Lean and muscular and black, with caramel-colored trim, they flanked me, giving me the sniff test, which I hoped I would not flunk. I wondered if there were traces of Ed, the cat, on my jeans. Ethan didn’t issue a warning, so I assumed there was no danger of an attack.
“Do the dogs have names?”
“Blackie and Smokie. The kids came up with those,” he said. “Have a seat.”
He was handsome in a low-key way; dark straight hair. One lock fell forward across his forehead and the rest of it he wore shoulder length. On most men, this style is not flattering, but fellows will persist. He was otherwise clean-shaven with straight brows and green eyes. He carried the baby to one of a pair of brown leather couches separated by a big blond-wood coffee table. He laid her on her back and picked up a disposable diaper from a wicker basket at his feet. Binky arched her back and turned one shoulder, intent on rolling over. I figured babies must be like turtles; when they’re on their backs, they’re always working to right themselves. There was a doorknob resting between couch cushions. Ethan handed it to the baby. She held it by the shaft like a lollipop and gnawed on it, sufficiently distracted that he was able to proceed with the diaper change. If Big Rat wanted his doorknobs back, he was going to have to come over here and wrestle with Binky, who was clearly attached.
She had perfect baby looks, like something you’d see in a print ad for baby food. Her brother was also blessed with prettiness; big dark eyes, curly dark hair, luscious coloring. He returned to a small table and chairs, arranged to the right of the kitchen door. He was in the middle of a scribbly piece of art, using a red marker pen.
Ethan was decked out in jeans, desert boots, and a white long-sleeve waffle-pattern shirt with a button placket that suggested thermal underwear. I watched him tape a clean diaper into place, after which he made a neat bundle of the urine-soaked specimen he’d just removed. This he placed on the coffee table, where it sat like a big, white plastic turd. He lifted Binky and stood her upright against the table. I watched her sidle around the edge, banging on the top intermittently with her doorknob when it wasn’t in her mouth. Maybe she was teething and the metal felt good on her gums.
He leaned toward me with his elbows on his knees, returning to the subject at hand. “By bad news, I’m assuming my father passed away.”
“He did. Last week. I’m sorry to have to spring it on you.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” he said. “What happened?”
“He was found in his sleeping bag at the beach. He probably died of a heart attack. The coroner’s investigator is still hoping to track down his medical records.”
Scott piped up and said, “Daddy, you didn’t give us any lunch yet.” Not whining or lodging a complaint, simply stating a fact.
Ethan said, “Shit. Hang on a sec.”
He got up and crossed the room, disappearing through a doorway. I caught a glimpse of a run of upper kitchen cabinets with the doors ajar. One of the drawers under the kitchen counter extended by six inches as well. I’ve noticed there’s a whole class of people who can pass an open cabinet door or drawer without reaching out to close it. I am not one.
I took advantage of Ethan’s absence to do a survey. The wall-to-wall carpeting was beige. The walls were also beige except for the multicolored crayon marks. There was a corner fireplace constructed out of white-painted brick, and a big picture window looking out to the street. A bicycle was propped against the wall near the front door. The rest of the home furnishings consisted of two toy boxes, a stationary exercise bike, a high chair, a stroller, and a television set. Someone had assembled a series of bins for the children’s belongings, each neatly labeled. So far everything seemed to be strewn on the floor. The house smelled of doggie breath.
The pile of clothes to my right was a distraction. I’m a neatnik and it was hard to sit there without starting to fold little T-shirts and onesies and child-size blue jeans with elastic in the waist. This is not proper behavior for a hard-boiled private eye, especially on an occasion such as this, telling a perfect stranger he’d been disinherited. I was already anxious about the conversation coming up and I had to put my hands between my knees to keep from matching stray socks.
I could hear Ethan banging and thumping in the kitchen. Blackie and Smokie were currently on the floor having a pretend doggie wrestling match, mouths open while they worried at each other with their teeth. Scott flung himself into the fray, landing on one of the pair, which put them into an ecstasy of squirms and fake growls.
“Leave the dogs alone,” Ethan called idly from the other room.
Scott rolled off and returned to his seat at the little table. Moments later, Ethan appeared with two small plastic plates that each held half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He put the plates down and Scott began to eat, holding the sandwich in his left hand so he could color with his right. There was a coffee can of marker pens he was using one by one. Most lay uncapped on the table in front of him.
“Hey, Binkers, you want lunch?”
The baby dropped to her hands and knees and made a beeline from the coffee table to the lunch plates, crawling with speed and assurance. She looked like a wind-up toy, hands and knees moving with mechanical efficiency. Scott pushed her plate closer to the edge of the table. She pulled herself up on fat baby legs, grabbed the half sandwich, and banged it on the table. Then she stuck it in her mouth.
“Sorry about that,” Ethan said as he returned to his seat. “Nice of you to drive all this way. Were you a friend of his?”
I shook my head. “A relative. Rebecca Dace was my grandmother. She was married to Quillen Millhone. I believe their son, Randy Millhone, was your father’s favorite uncle.”
His face was blank, unclouded by recognition. “You lost me there.
Who’s
this?”
“My father’s name was Randy Millhone. Uncle R.”
“Oh, sure, sure. Uncle R. I remember hearing about him.”
“I don’t know if my father was actually your father’s uncle. The title might have been used to simplify the blood tie.”
“So
we’re
related? The two of us?”
“It looks that way. My guess is we’re cousins, but I’m not sure what kind. First, second, once removed.”
He cracked his knuckles and his right knee jumped a couple of times. This was the first hint I’d had that he was anxious about the subject. I could see the neck of a guitar resting against the back of the couch behind him. He reached over, picked it up, and tucked it in against him as though prepared to play. His action had the same air as a man reaching for a pack of cigarettes.
“I like your guitar,” I remarked.
“It’s a 1968 Martin D-35. Guy let me take it out on loan to see if I like it. Three thousand bucks, I better like it,” he said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Your dad grew up here, is that it?”
“That’s right. At some point, he moved to Santa Teresa. He and my mother married in 1935 and I was born fifteen years later.”
“That must have been a surprise.”
“A good one, I hope. When I was five, both were killed in a car wreck, so I was raised by a maiden aunt, my mother’s sister. I didn’t know anything about my father’s side of the family until recently.” I wanted to kick myself for babbling on and on. What was it to him?
I noticed we’d hopped right over the fact of his father’s death and I wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad. At least we were having what passed for a conversation, though the small talk was making me tense. He seemed happy enough to have me sitting there with the subject matter wandering this way and that. Maybe he appreciated the company, being hemmed in all day with the little ones. He focused on his guitar, idly approximating various chords; not actually playing them, but positioning his fingers on the frets, his gaze fixed on his hands. The pads of his fingers made a faint metallic sound as he moved them across the strings. While he wasn’t being rude, it was like trying to have a conversation with someone filling in a crossword puzzle. He caught my look and smiled briefly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you off. You were talking about your father.”
“I was explaining why I knew so little about my Bakersfield kin.”
“How’d you hook up with my dad?”
“We never met. The first I heard of him he was in the morgue as a John Doe. My name and number were on a slip of paper in his pocket, and the coroner’s office called, thinking I might know who he was.”
“And you turn out to be related? That’s a hell of a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“Not really. I’m told he came to Santa Teresa to look for me.”
“Because of his prior relationship with your father,” he said, as though assembling the facts.
“Exactly.”
“Are you the only Millhone in Santa Teresa?”
“That’s right. I’m actually a private investigator, so he might have found me in the phone book.”
“No fooling. Well, ain’t that a kick in the pants. I never met a real private detective before.”
“This is me,” I said, raising my hand.
He turned his attention to his guitar, trying a chord or two. In a whispery falsetto, he put together two lines of a song he was apparently composing extemporaneously.
“When your daddy dies, it should come as no surprise . . .”
He stopped and tried the line again.
“When your daddy dies, you have to realize . . .”
He shook his head, holding the guitar against him like a shield.
I said, “When did you last see your father?”
“September. A year ago, I forget the date. I heard a knock at the door and nearly fell over when I saw who it was. You knew he went to prison?”
“Someone told me about it.”
“Man was a loser, big time. What’re you going to do?” The latter wasn’t meant as a question. It was verbal filler.
“I can see why you were shocked when he showed up. Did he tell you why he was released?”
“Said his new lawyer punched all kinds of holes in the case and insisted they submit blood and semen for DNA testing. No match on any of it, so they had to let him go.”
“He was a very lucky man finding someone who’d go to bat for him.”
“Yeah, right. Want my take on it?”
“Sure.”
“Just because they let him out doesn’t mean he was innocent.”
I blinked. The statement was the last thing in the world I expected to hear from him. “That’s an odd point of view.”
“Why? You think guilty people don’t get away with murder?”
“On occasion, of course they do, but he was exonerated. There wasn’t any evidence that tied him to the crime.”
“Except Cates, the other guy.”
“Herman Cates knew he was dying and he admitted he’d implicated your father just because he could. His accomplice was someone else altogether.”
“So I heard,” he said in that tone that screamed of disbelief. “At any rate, I appreciate your going to so much trouble for someone you never met.”
“I thought it was the least I could do . . .” I was going to add “under the circumstances” but I stopped where I was. Ethan must have picked up on the missing words.
“How so?”
“I understand the two of you quarreled.”
“Says who?”
“A friend of his in Santa Teresa.”
“I wouldn’t call it a quarrel. More like a tiff.”
“He told his friend there was an ugly scene.”