Killer Swell (2 page)

Marilyn Crier peered in the window, and I knew the past was about to kick me in the ass.

I was sitting at a small table near the front of the SandDune, a cramped and noisy bar in Mission Beach, a block north of the old roller coaster and a block east of the Pacific Ocean. The pub is sandwiched between ten other beach-themed saloons on Mission Boulevard and draws the same crowds. Half yuppie, half nowhere to go. Everyone is tan, the floors are covered with sand and peanut shells, and you can't hear the ocean over the din of music and conversation. But on good nights, you can smell the salt in the air.

Marilyn had called me and said she needed a private investigator. She didn't mention that we hadn't seen each other in over a decade, that she'd despised me when I dated her daughter in high school, or that she'd orchestrated our breakup.

Had to admit I was curious.

We agreed to meet at the SandDune because she said it was on her way home. I couldn't figure out how that might be true, as she didn't work and she lived on the wealthiest side of Mount Soledad over in La Jolla, a world away from the beer and party crowd of the San Diego beach bars. But it was only a couple of blocks from my apartment, and I didn't have to put away my surfboard too early in order to meet her at seven.

I was sipping my beer and following the Padres game on the television monitors when I spotted Marilyn Crier outside the window.

She glanced up above the faux saloon doors, probably checking to make sure she was in the right place. Her green eyes were identical to her daughter's, pale and deep. She looked back in the window, and I waved at her, rising out of my chair. She stared at me for a moment, as if making sure it was me, then nodded and came into the bar. Her red Chanel suit was as out of place as a cat in a giraffe's mouth, but she didn't seem to notice.

She stood at my table, her thin lips in a tight smile. “Noah Braddock,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “You haven't changed at all.”

I had, but not in ways Marilyn Crier would notice. I did, after all, look pretty much the same, just a little older. I was in a navy T-shirt and white cotton shorts, worn leather sandals on my feet. My hairstyle hadn't changed since high school, still cut short for low maintenance. And I knew she was thinking my tan was too dark for me to be working hard. She had said something similar to me when I was eighteen, but I couldn't recall her exact words.

We shook hands, and I gestured at the empty wooden chair across from me. She continued to look at me as she sat down, silently sizing me up. I did the same. Her blond hair was still blond, no trace of gray despite the fact that she had to be in her mid-fifties by now. It was cut short, blunt, tucked behind her ears. She was still petite, like her daughter, and she reminded me of those plastic-looking news anchors you see on television.

“Mrs. Crier,” I said, smiling. “It's good to see you.”

She laughed quietly, waving a perfectly manicured hand in my direction. “Noah. I think it's okay if you call me Marilyn now. You're not in high school anymore.”

I shrugged. Old habits. You should always be polite to the parents of the girl you desperately want to have sex with in high school.

The girl behind the bar came over, and Marilyn ordered a glass of white wine. The girl didn't laugh, but I figured she might be gone awhile trying to find a bottle.

Marilyn eyed the inhabitants at the bar for a moment and then looked at me, clearing her throat. “Are you living down here?”

I recognized the condescension in her voice, but ignored it. “Couple blocks down, on Jamaica.”

“You were a surfer, weren't you?”

“Still am.”

She nodded, again taking in my appearance. “I guess you are.”

The waitress came back with the glass of wine. I wondered where she found the glass. Marilyn tasted the wine, didn't spit it out, and placed her purse in her lap, settling in. “I'll try not to waste your time, Noah,” she said, folding her hands on the table. “Kate is missing.”

Hearing Kate's name did something to my stomach. I hadn't seen her since she'd left for college. She'd headed off to Princeton; I'd stayed around to go to San Diego State. In the eleven years since I'd last seen her, I hadn't forgotten Kate Crier.

“Kate's missing,” I repeated, turning the beer glass slowly on the table.

Marilyn nodded tersely. “For about a week. She came down for the Fourth. We went to Catalina, did some shopping, things seemed normal.”

Kate and I had gone to the Crier family's Catalina Island condo on prom night. And she broke my heart there two months later.

“She was supposed to catch a plane to go home to San Francisco on the eighth,” Marilyn continued, the lines at the corners of her mouth tightening. “But she didn't.”

A dull roar went up from the bar, and I glanced up at the television. Padres had scored. First time in July.

“She didn't get on the plane?” I asked, looking back to Marilyn.

She shook her head, the pearls in her earlobes jiggling. “No. Randall called when she didn't arrive in San Francisco.”

“Randall?”

Marilyn took another micro sip from the glass and fixed her eyes on mine. “Kate's husband.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Ah.”

“He's a doctor in the Bay area,” she said.

She didn't need to add “and you're not.” Her tone implied it.

I tried to be mature. “But she didn't get on the plane?”

Marilyn nodded. “I checked with the airline. She never checked in.”

The crowd at the bar groaned and I glanced up to see the end of the double play finishing the Padres' half of the inning. That was more like it.

“I got your name from Jack Meyers,” Marilyn told me, leaning slightly forward. “He said you assisted him a year ago. He said you're very good.”

I'd found Jack Meyers's wife screwing his attorney after three nights of tailing her. When I told him, he thanked me profusely, placed her clothes in a cardboard box, and lit the box on fire. We watched the burning mass float in his backyard pool as he wrote me a check.

I wondered if it hurt for Marilyn Crier to admit that I was good at something. I knew it had to hurt to be sitting in a bar with me.

“So you want me to find her,” I said, finishing my beer and setting the mug on the table. “Find Kate.”

She stared at me for a moment, perhaps trying to make me squirm like she had when I was in high school. I resisted the urge.

“Noah, I know you don't like me,” she said, her eyes even and her voice flat. “But you don't have to like me to help me. I recognized your name when Jack mentioned it. I need an investigator and I figured it might be helpful to have someone do this who knows Kate. Things may not have worked out with Kate way back when…”

“And that just crushed you, didn't it, Marilyn?” I said, smiling, but not bothering to warm it up. “I mean, I know you just dreamed of having me for a son-in-law.”

She paused for a moment, then folded her hands on the table. “As I was saying, your relationship with Kate didn't work out. But I know you cared about Kate. And I was hoping that might still count for something.”

Another groan went up at the bar, but I didn't look up. I stared at Marilyn Crier, but I saw Kate's face. The one that had made high school bearable for me. The face that I used to look to for sympathy as I sat on the bench during high school basketball games. The face attached to the first female body that I saw naked. The face that crushed me that night on Catalina. The face that was going to let my past do a little ass kicking.

So against my better judgment, I told Marilyn Crier that my caring for her daughter did, in fact, still count for something.

I ordered another beer, waited for it to arrive, and then asked Marilyn, “Why would Kate disappear?”

She hesitated and then shook her head. “I don't know.”

“Things with Randall are okay?”

She fiddled with one of the gold buttons that ran down the middle of her suit and glanced around the bar. “Randall is wonderful.”

“Not what I asked.”

Marilyn chuckled and shook her head. “Maybe I made a mistake in coming to you, Noah.”

I nodded, thinking the same thing. “I've been wondering if I should put that on my business cards.”

She leaned across the table. “Kate loves Randall. You won't be able to turn this into a ‘win her back' contest. She loves him.”

I took a long swallow from the beer and stared at her without saying anything. I tried to recall the name of the cartoon superhero who could shoot lasers out of his eyes because, at that moment, I really would've liked to use those lasers on Marilyn Crier.

“I am not interested in a ‘win her back' contest,” I said, finally, setting the glass down and moving closer to the table to meet her gaze. “I'm an investigator, so in order to do the investigating, I normally ask questions.” I paused, watching her lean back, away from me. “I asked if things with Randall were okay because it's what you ask when a married person disappears. You investigate—there's that word again—the missing person's relationships first.”

I sat back in my chair, exhaling and folding my arms across my chest. I momentarily wished I'd had the guts to speak like that to her in high school.

“I'm sorry,” Marilyn said, nodding tersely in my direction. “I was rude.”

“Yeah. You were.”

“It won't happen again.” She paused and then refolded her hands on the table. “Their marriage is…a work in progress.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means their marriage is no different than anyone else's. They have their good times and their bad times.”

I stood up, angry with myself for having entertained the thought that I could work for Marilyn Crier. I had hated her in high school, and the eleven years that had passed hadn't changed my feelings. So much for maturity.

“This isn't gonna happen,” I said, fishing some money out of my pocket. “In order to find a person, Marilyn, I need straight answers. About everything. You'll be better off telling this story, whatever it is, to someone you won't be embarrassed to tell it to.”

I tossed several bills on the table and avoided looking at her. I walked away from the table and headed out of the bar. The gas fumes and salty haze were stifling in the evening air as I headed up Mission toward my place.

“Noah! She needs help!”

I slowed to a stop, listening to horns honking as cars cruised the boulevard. Kids leaned out of windows, waving at one another, their faces illuminated by the moon and streetlights. I turned around slowly.

Marilyn walked quickly to me, her face as tight as a drum. But her eyes were different than they'd been. Worry now invaded them.

“She needs help,” she repeated, clearly struggling for what to say. “I'm not sure what the problem is. I don't know if she's hiding. I don't know much about her marriage, but I do know there are some things she is unhappy about.” She stopped, catching her breath, glancing at the line of cars moving slowly along the street. She looked back to me. “I need your help—to find her and to see if she's okay.”

I shoved my hands in the pockets of my shorts, her words making me uncomfortable. If she wanted my help, there was probably a reason to think Kate might be in trouble. Marilyn probably would've been happy never hearing my name again. But here she was.

I looked past her at the roller coaster that dominated the Mission Beach skyline, rising high above the street. Small dots of light illuminated the tracks against the black night. Kate and I had ridden the coaster on our first date.

“Where's Randall?” I asked.

“He's here. He's staying at the La Valencia,” she said, her voice relaxing at my interest. “He's been here since Sunday.”

I nodded absently, watching the coaster cars crest the top of the tracks and dive to the bottom, the elated screams of the riders echoing down the boulevard.

“I'll start with him,” I told her.

“So you'll help me then?” Marilyn asked, gratefulness almost creeping into her voice.

The screams on the coaster died as the hydraulic brakes screeched and cracked in the dark, the ride coming to an end.

“No,” I said, moving my gaze to Marilyn's eyes, wanting her to see my face. “But I'll try to help Kate.”

Marilyn Crier wrote me a check for two thousand dollars on the spot and assured me she would pay whatever it took to find Kate. I assured her I would ask for more money if I needed it. I also explained to her that I would be around asking questions and if she got uncooperative, my services would come to a halt without refund. She said she understood, told me Randall's last name was Tower, and walked to her silver BMW 530i, edging it carefully out into the traffic and disappearing into the sea of cars.

I wondered why she hadn't contacted the police first and probably should have asked that question. But Marilyn hadn't mentioned any danger, just that Kate was having some problems. I felt certain that she came to me first because involving the authorities would've meant drawing the kind of attention that families like the Criers did everything in their power to avoid.

I crossed Mission Boulevard, cut down an alley, and headed north on the boardwalk. The moon was shining on the small, gentle waves, and the sand looked bright white because of it. Couples strolled along the walk; kids hung out on the beach, smoking and feeling adult, their small bonfires dotting the shoreline.

I remembered hanging out at the beach in high school. It was a safe haven for teenagers. You could smoke a cigarette, drink a can of beer, or make out with a girl and feel like no one was watching, the ocean serving as a giant security blanket of noise and privacy.

I ducked my head under the breeze, my chin digging into my chest. Kate and I had spent a lot of nights at the beach. She always told her parents we were at the movies or shopping. They didn't like the thought of us going to those places either, but they seemed less illicit than the sand and water. Of course, my alcoholic mother, the father I had never known, the tiny house in Bay Park, and my penchant for spending more time on a surfboard than in class provided plenty for them to disapprove of.

I hopped the wall into the small courtyard at the back of my house and slid open the glass door to the living room, shutting it behind me. My place is small, a one-bedroom bungalow built in the 1930s with wood floors and the permanent smell of wax. Four of us had lived here during college, two bunk beds in the one bedroom. Everyone had left but me. The old couple that owned it dropped the rent for me when I graduated and left me alone. It was a steal for the price, and you can't beat eating your breakfast as you head down the sand to the early morning waves, which I tried to do most every day.

I grabbed a Red Trolley Ale from the fridge and collapsed on the sofa. A knot had formed in my stomach, and I didn't like it. It surprised me that Marilyn hadn't asked me how I had become an investigator, but I figured that would've been too much interest in me for her. She would've loved to hear how it took me six years to finish college, that I waited tables for two years after that until I'd spotted an ad in the paper for an insurance company looking to train an investigator. I liked the job, the freedom of the hours, the solitary environment. I didn't like the reports, the suits I had to wear to the office, or the fact that I had a supervisor. I completed my hours, applied for my license from the state, and said adios. Not glamorous, not lucrative, but it had become my life and I had grown to appreciate it.

Marilyn probably would not, and that made me smile in the darkness of my living room as I sipped the beer.