McCone and Friends (25 page)

“Bad news.”

“Why?”

Tom drew one of his legs up on the desk and fiddled with the lace of his sneaker; from the looks of the shoe, Lillian
should
have invested in Reebok. “Okay,” he said, “Kirby’s…always into something. Always scamming. You know what I’m saying?”

“Drugs?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think they’re his main thing.”

“What is?”

He shrugged. “Just…scams. Like a few times he got his hands on some test questions beforehand and sold them—for big bucks, too. And for a while he was selling term papers. Scalping sports and concert tickets that you knew had to be stolen. He’s always got a lot of cash, drives a sports car that everybody knows his folks didn’t buy for him. He tells his parents he’s got this part-time job in some garage, but all the time he’s just scamming. The only job he ever had was cleaning up the food concession area at Ocean Park Plaza, but that didn’t last long. Beneath him, I guess.”

“What about Adrian—you think she was in on his scams?”

“She might’ve been. I mean, this past year she’s changed.”

“How?”

“Just…changed. She’s not as friendly anymore. Seems down a lot of the time. And she’s always with Kirby.”

“Did this start around the time her father left?”

He shook his head. “After that. I mean, her old man left. Too bad, but it happens.” His eyes moved to a photograph on Lillian’s desk - the two of them and a younger girl, no father. “No,” he added, “it was after that. Maybe six months ago.”

“Do you remember anything that happened to Adrian around that time that might have caused this change?”

He thought. “No—sorry, I know Adrian okay, but she’s not really a good friend or anything like that.”

I thanked him and asked him to call me if he thought of anything else. Then I walked across the park to the freshly painted Victorian where our main offices—and the attic nest where I live—are.

The set-up at All Souls is kind of strange for a law firm, but then even the location is strange. Bernal Heights, our hillside neighborhood is the southeastern part of the city, is ethnically mixed, architecturally confused, and unsure whether it wants to be urban or semi-rural. At All Souls we’re also ethnically mixed; our main building is a combination of offices, communal living space, and employees’ separate quarters; and most of us don’t know if we’re nineties progressives or throwbacks to the sixties. All in all, it adds up to an interesting place to work.

And Sharon McCone’s an interesting person to work for. That afternoon I found her behind her desk in the window bay at the front of the second floor—slumped spinelessly in her swivel chair, staring outside with that little frown that says she’s giving some problem a work over. She’s one of those slim women who seem taller than they are—the bane of my pudgy five-foot-three existence—and manages to look stylish even when she’s wearing jeans and a sweater like she had on that day. When I first came to work for her, her dark good looks gave me attacks of inferiority because of my carrot top and freckles and thrift-shop clothes. Then one day I caught her having her own attack—mortified because she’d testified in court wearing a skirt whose hem was still pinned up waiting to be stitched. I told her she’d probably started a new fad and soon all the financial district power-dressers would be wearing straight pains around their hemlines. We had a good laugh over that, and I think that’s when we started to be friends.

Anyway, I’d just about decided to stop back later when she turned, frowned some more, and snapped. “What?”

The McCone bark is generally worse than the bite, so I went in and sat in my usual place on her salmon-pink chaise lounge and told her about the Conway case. “I don’t know what I should do next.” I finished. “I’ve already talked with this Kirby kid, and if I come back at him to soon—”

“Aunt June.”

“What?” I’d only mentioned Adrian’s favorite aunt and Donna’s apparent dislike of her in passing, and Sharon hadn’t even looked like she was listening very hard. She’d been filing her nails the whole time—snick, snick, snick. Someday I’m going to tell her that the sound drives me crazy.

“Go see Aunt June,” she said. “She’s Adrian’s closest relative. Mom disapproves of her. Go see her.”

If it didn’t save me so much trouble, I’d hate the way she puts things together. I stood up and headed for the door. “Thanks, Shar!”

She waggled the nail file at me and swiveled back toward the window.

II

Adrian’s aunt’s full name was June Simoom—no kidding - and she lived on Tomales Bay in western Marin County. The name alone should have tipped me off that Aunt June was going to be weird.

Tomales Bay is a thin finger of water that extends inland from the Pacific forty-some miles northwest of San Francisco. It’s rimmed by small cottages, oyster farms, and salt marsh, and the largest town on its shores—Inverness—has a population of only a few hundred. The bay also has the dubious distinction of being right smack on top of the San Andreas Fault. Most of the time the weather out there is pretty cold and gloomy—broody, I call it—and it’s a hefty drive from the city—across the Golden Gate Bridge, then through the close-in suburbs and rolling farmland to the coast.

It was after seven when I found the mailbox that June Simoom had described to me over the phone—black with a silver bird in flight and the word WINGSPREAD stenciled on it, another tipoff—and bounced down an unpaved driveway through a eucalyptus grove to a small cottage and a couple of outbuildings slouching at the water’s edge.

My car is a 1964 Rambler American. A couple of years ago when I met my current—well, on again, off again—boyfriend, Willie Whelan, he cracked up at this first sight of it. “You mean you actually
drive
that thing?” he asked. “On the
street
?” No matter. The Ramblin’ Wreck and I have gone many miles together, and at the rate I’m saving money, we’re going to have to go many more. Barring experiences like Aunt June’s driveway, that is.

The cottage was as bad off as my car, but I know something about real-estate values (money is my biggest fascination, because I have too little of it), and this shoreline property, bad weather and all, would have brought opening offers of at least a quarter mil. They’d have to demolish the house and outbuildings, of course, but nature and neglect seemed to already be doing a fine job of that.
Everything sagged, including the porch steps, which were propped up by a couple of cement blocks.

The porch light was pee-yellow and plastered with dead bugs. I groped my way to the door and knocked, setting it rattling in its frame. It took June Simoom a while to answer, and when she did…Well, Aunt June was something
else
.

Big hair and big boobs and a big voice. My, she was
big
! Dressed in flowing blue velvet robes that were thrift-shop fancy, not thrift-shop cheap (like my clothes used to be before I learned about credit and joined millions of Americans who are in debt up to their nose hairs). Makeup? Theatrical. Perfume? Gallons. If Marin ever passed the anti-scent ordinance they kept talking about, Aunt June would have to move away.

She swept—no,
tornadoed
—me into the cottage. It was one long room with a kitchen at the near end and a stone fireplace at the far end, all glass overlooking a half-collapsed deck. A fire was going, the only light. Outside I could see moonshine silvering the bay. June seated me—no, forced me down—onto a pile of silk cushions. Rammed a glass of wine into my hand. Flopped grunting on a second cushion pile nearer the hearth.

“You have news of Adrian?” she demanded.

I was struggling to remain upright in the soft nest without spilling the wine. “Umpfh,” I said. “Mmmm-r!”

Aunt June regarded me curiously.

I got myself better situated and clung to the wineglass for ballast. “No news yet. Her mother has hired me to find her. I’m hoping you can—”

“Little Donna.” She made a sound that might have been a laugh—
hinc, hinc, hinc
.

“You’re Donna’s sister?” I asked disbelievingly.

“In law. Sister-in-law. Once removed by divorce. Thank God Jeffrey saw the light and grabbed himself the bimbo. No more of those interminable holiday dinners—‘Have some more veggies and dip, June.’ ‘Don’t mind if I do, Donna, and by the way, where’s the gin?’” Now she really did laugh—booming sound that threatened to tear the (probably) rotten roof off.

I liked Donna Conway because she was sensitive and gentle and sad, but I couldn’t help liking June, too. I laughed a little and sipped some wine.

“You remained close to Adrian after the divorce, though?” I asked.

“Of course.” June nodded self-importantly. “My own flesh and blood. A responsibility I take seriously. I tried to take her under my wing, advise her, help her to deal with…everything.” She flapped her arms, velvet robe billowing, and I thought of the name of the cottage and the bird on her mailbox.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

Now, June’s expression grew uncertain. She bit her lip and reached for a half-full wineglass that sat on the raised hearth. “Well. It was…of course! At the autumnal equinox firing.”

“Huh?”

“I am a potter, my dear. Well, more of a sculptor in clay. I teach classes in my studio.” She motioned in the direction of the outbuildings I’d seen. “My students and I have ceremonial firings on the beach at the equinox and the solstice. Adrian came to the autumnal firing late in September.”

“Did she come alone, or did Donna come, too?”

June shook her head, big hair bobbing. “Donna hasn’t spoken to me since Jeffrey left. Blames me for taking his side—the side of joy and loving, the side of the bimbo. And she resents my closeness to Adrian. No, my niece brought her boyfriend, that Kirby.” Her nose wrinkled.

“And?”

“And what? They attended the firing, ate, and left.”

“Do you know Kirby well?”

“I only met him the one time.”

“What did you think of him?”

June leaned toward the fireplace, reaching for the poker. When she stirred the logs, there was a small explosion, and sparks and bits of cinder flew out onto the raised stone. June stirred on, unconcerned.

“Like my name,” she murmured.

“What?”

“My name—Simoom. Do you know what that is?”

“No.”

“A fierce wind of Africa. Dry. Intensely hot. Relentless. It peppers its victims with grit that burns and pits the skin. That’s why I took it—it fits my temperament.”

“It’s not your real name?”

She scowled impatiently. “One’s real name is whatever one feels is right. June Conway was
not
. Simoom is fitting for a woman of the earth, who shelters those who are not as strong as she. You saw the name on my mailbox—Wingspread?”

“Yes.”

“Then you understand. What’s your last name again?”

“Kelleher.”

“Well, what does that mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s just an Irish name.”

“You see my point? You’re alienated from who you are.”

“I don’t feel alienated. I mean, I don’t think you have to proclaim who you are with a label. And Kelleher’s a perfectly good name, ever thought I’m not crazy about the Irish.”

June scowled again. “You sound just like Adrian used to. For God’s sake, what’s
wrong
with you young women?”

“What do you mean—about Adrian, that is?”

“Well, there she was, given a wonderful name at birth. A strong name. Adrian, of the Adriatic Sea. The only thing Donna did right by her. But did she appreciate it? No. She wanted to be called Melissa or Kelley or Amanda—just like everyone else of her generation. Honestly, sometimes I despaired.”

“You speak of her in the past tense, as if she’s dead.”

She swung around, face crumpling in dismay. “Oh, no! I speak of her that way because that was before…before she began to delight in her differences.”

“When was that?”

“Well…when she started to get past this terrible thing. As we gain strength, we accept who and what we are. In time we glory in it.”

In her way, June was as much into psychobabble as her sister-in-law. I said, “To get back to when you last saw Adrian, tell me about this autumnal equinox firing.”

“We dig pits on the beach, as kilns. By the time of the firing, they’ve been heating for days. Each student brings an offering, a special pot. The gathering is solemn but joyful—a celebration of all we’ve learned in the preceding season.”

“It sounds almost religious.”

June smiled wryly. “There’s also a great deal of good food and drink. And of course, when the pots emerge from the earth, we’re able to sell them to tourists for very good money.”

Now that I could relate to. “What about Adrian? Did she enjoy it?”

“Adrian’s been coming to my firings for years. She knows a number of my long-term students well, and she always has a good time.”

“And this time was no different?”

“Of course not.”

“She didn’t mention anything being wrong at home or at school?”

“…We spoke privately while preparing the food. I’m sure if there had been problems, she would have mentioned them.”

“And what about Kirby? Did he enjoy the firing?”

Wariness touched her face again. “I suppose.”

“What did you think of him?”

“He’s an adolescent boy. What’s to think?”

“I didn’t care for him,” I said.

“You know him?”

“I’ve spoken with him. I also spoke with a classmate of his and Adrian’s. He said Kirby is always into one scam or another, and that Adrian might have been involved, too.”

“That’s preposterous!” but June’s denial was a shade weak and unconvincing.

“Are you sure Adrian didn’t hint at problems when you spoke privately with her at the firing?”

“She’s a teenager. Things are never right with teenagers. Adrian took her father’s defection very badly, even though he and I tried to explain about one’s need for personal growth.” June gave her funny laugh again—
hinc, hinc, hinc
. “Even if the growth involves a bimbo,” she added.

“June,” I said, “since you were so close to Adrian, what do you think happened to her?”

She sobered and her fingers tightened on the shaft of the poker. “I can’t tell you. I honestly can’t hazard a guess.”