Muller, Marcia - [09] There's Something In A Sunday [v 1.0] (htm) (47 page)

The Cushmans obviously didn't believe in tackling the world too early on a Monday. It was close to eight when the automobile gate opened and Vicky's BMW emerged. I slouched down in my seat as the car went past me, then sat up and turned the key in the ignition.

The BMW proceeded with the flow of rush-hour traffic down Oak Street, the east-bound arterial bordering the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park. I stayed a couple of car lengths behind it, straining to get a glimpse of its occupants. Vicky appeared to be wearing a dark scarf over her wilted curls; a couple of blond heads bobbed in the back seat. She must be taking her girls, Betsy and Lindy, to school.

The BMW turned on Divisadero and drove to Pacific Heights. When we reached a block on Broadway where buses and cars disgorging children jammed the street, I realized the Cushman daughters attended the Abbott School, a bastion of upper-middle-class respectability that for generations had shielded the offspring of the city's affluent families from the ugly realities and poor instructional quality of our public institutions. The girls delivered—properly uniformed and waving happily—Vicky headed back to the Haight.

Instead of turning toward the cul-de-sac, however, she climbed the hill on one of the roads that skirt Buena Vista Park. The land above the park is steeply terraced, and the small streets twist and turn. I followed slowly, downshifting all the way to first gear on the switchbacks. Rounding a curve, I found myself a few yards from the BMW's rear bumper. As I backed off, it pulled to the curb in front of a vacant lot surrounded by a double line of young grapevines. Beyond them was a rough board shed and regularly laid-out rows of plants. Some of them I recognized: brussels sprouts, artichokes, lettuce.

It was one of the community gardens that seem to be springing up on vacant lots all over the city. Given her background in horticulture, Irene Lasser might very well be involved in organizing this one, and Vicky might have come here to see her. I eased the MG to the curb in front of a small apartment house, hoping she hadn't noticed me.

But the woman who got out of the BMW wasn't Vicky. What I had taken for a dark scarf over blond curls was a rich fall of chestnut hair fastened at the nape of her neck.

It was Irene Lasser who had driven the Cushman girls to school.

I gripped the steering wheel with tense fingers as she went to the rear door, opened it, and leaned in. When she backed out and straightened, she had a small child in her arms. She set the child down, took it by the hand, and they walked toward the garden.

Even though I couldn't actually tell the gender of the child, I assumed it must be Susan Lasser—the daughter whom no one in the Hollister area seemed to know existed. She looked to be about two, meaning she would have had to have been born a number of months after Lasser had fled the Burning Oak Ranch.

Whose child, then? Harlan Johnstone's? Frank Wilkonson's? Or had Susan been fathered by someone her mother had met after she ran away?

I remained in my car while the Lassers went inside the shed and emerged with gardening tools—a hoe and spade for Irene, a plastic bucket and shovel for Susan. They carried the tools to the back of the lot where there was an area that apparently had been cleared of the summer crops. Irene proceeded to cultivate the earth, while Susan squatted nearby, filling and emptying and refilling her bucket. Irene moved in a steady, strong motion, breaking up the clods and leveling the fine soil. Every now and then she would pause to say something to the child, or wipe sweat from her face and refasten her heavy hair. The rhythm of her movements and the way she serenely squinted up into the clear sky while resting exuded an air of contentment. Susan played quietly, her round face now and then breaking into a delighted smile; when she spoke to her mother, she seemed to laugh, and Irene replied in kind.

I watched for a while, knowing that soon I would have to shatter their shared tranquillity. As I did, I tried to figure out an approach that would not panic Irene. She would recognize me, of course. I was sure Vicky had told her of my visits—probably with a good deal of melodramatic embellishment and speculation as to my motives. It made approaching Lasser a tricky proposition.

Vicky and Irene—now that was interesting. What
was
the relationship between them? Irene used Vicky's car, drove Vicky's children to school. Did she also live at The Castles? From the relatively early hour that she'd left with the kids, I guessed she must.

I have to admit that my sometimes evil mind immediately suggested
ménage à trois
. But no—while such an arrangement might fit what I knew of Gerry, it was nothing Vicky would go along with. Gerry had wanted an open marriage many years before, at least that was what Vicky had told me. She'd also said,
I can't… I won't…
.

So what
was
the relationship between the two women? Were they just friends? Related… ?

And then I thought of Vicky, frazzled and overworked by her numerous causes. Too overworked to properly care for her daughters. And I remembered her comment about the woman who worked for her, who had said she should take up a hobby, "something peaceful that will give me a chance to be alone with my thoughts." A peaceful hobby such as Irene was indulging in right now.

I also remembered Betsy coming into the living room and asking her mother if it was all right if Rina and Lindy and she made popcorn in the adjacent kitchen. Rina—a nickname for Irene.

No wonder Vicky's negative response had been so vehement and out of proportion to the request. She'd just gotten done insisting she hadn't loaned her car to the woman with the long chestnut hair, didn't even know anyone of that description— and there was her daughter, about to parade that very woman through the room. Vicky had reacted in a similar way yesterday morning, when I'd suggested we go to the kitchen and I cook something for her—probably because it was about the time when Irene would be there, preparing breakfast for the kids.

Irene was the Cushmans' nanny, nursemaid, governess, or whatever such people called them. She must live on the grounds of The Castles, possibly in the structure originally built for servants. She and her little girl had been there all along. But why the secrecy? Because Irene was hiding from her former husband? Because Frank Wilkonson was looking for her? Because Susan was the daughter of one of the men, and Irene didn't want him to have contact with her? In any event, lying to the police in a felony case seemed extreme.

But then, I reminded myself, people like the Cushmans often feel they're above the law. They're the first to howl about inadequate police protection, the first to arm themselves with handguns. But they're also the last to volunteer information that might help the cops make a collar.

The thought made me angry. To hell with the gentle approach, I decided. I didn't care anymore if I scared Irene Lasser. I just wanted some truthful answers.

As I started to get out of the car, however, two men in jeans and plaid shirts who had been ambling down the sidewalk veered off into the garden. Irene waved to them, and they waved back and went to the shed for tools. Soon they had hung their shirts on grapestakes and were working beside her, pausing occasionally to roughhouse with Susan. Within half an hour two older women had shown up; they dragged out long hoses and began watering. A young man appeared with two kids about Susan's age; the kids joined her and they set to building an elaborate dirt castle. The young man hung around Irene, talking to her and generally getting in her way. After a while she spoke sharply to him, put her tools away, and called to Susan. They left the garden, waving good-bye to the other laborers, got in the BMW, and drove off.

I debated following them but decided against it. It was after eleven; chances were they were going back to The Castles for lunch. If Vicky was there, I wouldn't be able to set foot inside the wall. Instead, I got out of my car and wandered into the garden.

The first person I came to was one of the women with the hoses. When I spoke to her, she turned abruptly, and the stream of water ran over my boot. "Sorry about that," she said. "But you shouldn't be wearing such good dress boots in here anyway. The heels'll sink into the mud and it'll ruin the leather."

"They're old and the leather's already shot," I said. "Can you tell me—was that Irene Lasser and her daughter, Susan, I just saw leaving?"

"The woman with the little girl? I don't know her name. I'm in town from Fresno, visiting my sister Beth, and she dragged me along. Beth'd know, though. That's her over by the shed."

I thanked her and moved toward the shed. The other woman—tall and muscular, with salt-and-pepper hair cut sleek and close to her head—was leaning against its wall, deep in conversation with the young man who had seemed to be trying to hit on Irene. As I approached, I heard her say, "… can't do things like that. She's not interested. Besides, that's not what the garden's all about."

"I was only—" He broke off when he saw me.

"Hi," I said to the woman. "Are you Beth?"

The young man said, "We'll talk more later," and moved to where the kids were still building their mud castle.

Beth stood shading her eyes against the sun. "What can I do for you?"

"Your sister told me you might know the woman and the little girl who just left in the BMW. I think they might be old friends of mine, Irene and Susan Lasser."

Beth had stiffened slightly, but there was a quick relaxation when I said the name "Lasser." It must be something from the old days when she had been surnamed Johnstone that Irene was afraid of. "Old friends from where?" she asked.

"Not Hollister, if that's what you're thinking. I know all about that business, and I don't blame any of Irene's friends for being wary."

"Where, then?" Beth's expression was pleasant enough, but she hadn't completely let down her guard.

I remembered that Irene's divorce papers had come from a Los Angeles lawyer. "L.A.," I said.

"Ah. You must have been one of the people who helped her before Susan was born."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry to have acted so suspicious of you, but we have to be careful."

"Of what? Has Harlan Johnstone—"

"Oh no, not him. He hasn't been a problem for quite some time. No, it's Susan's father. Irene's terribly afraid of him."

"Who
is
Susan's father?"

"Irene didn't tell you?"

"She never wanted to talk about him."

"She doesn't want to talk to us about him, either." From the slightly wistful way she spoke, I sensed she was telling the truth.

Before she could ask more about my alleged friendship with Irene, I said, "Did Irene plan this garden? She has such a talent that way."

Beth nodded. "Yes, it was her idea. Vicky Cushman—that's Irene's employer—got a friend to donate the land. Irene is really on the cutting edge of the urban gardening movement."

"Oh, really? I'm seeing more gardens all the time, but I didn't know there was an actual movement."

"Well, it's pretty loosely organized, but the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners—they go by the acronym SLUG, if you can believe that—took a census a while back and found there are at least sixty community vegetable gardens in about twenty different neighborhoods. Most of them aren't as progressive as ours, of course, because they don't have Irene's ideas behind them."

"Such as?"

"Irene views the urban garden in terms of helping develop the world food supply. She says it's possible for us to set an example as to how cities can become more productive in the agrarian sense. Urban planners don't tend to think in agrarian terms, but there's a lot of space just crying out to be used— rooftops, parks, planter boxes, those grassy areas between the sidewalks and the streets, even freeway median strips. Think of what that kind of planning in places like Bombay or Nairobi would do for the Third World food supply! And there are secondary benefits: a single tree is capable of filtering pollution equal to what twenty cars put out—"

"So this garden is a sort of ecological experiment—"

"Not 'sort of! It is. Do you see any waste space here? Any land lying fallow?" Beth flung her arm out at the rows of vegetables and freshly tilled earth.

"None."

"That's right. Irene is planning to establish others just like it all over the city, with Vicky Cushman's help. She's carving out a career for herself while working to aid world hunger. She consults to organizations like SLUG and Urban Resources Systems, and to UC-Davis." A shadow touched Beth's animated face. "At least, she'd be carving out a career if she didn't have to hide and worry about this damned man."

"What exactly is she afraid of, do you know?"

"No. I've gone on the assumption that he's violent or perverted or crazy—you know, that sort of thing."

I knew that sort of thing. "And you say Irene works for Vicky and Gerry Cushman?"

"She lives at The Castles and takes care of their daughters. Do you know the Cushmans?"

"Quite well," I said.
Too
well. "How do you suppose Irene got to know them?"

"I gather they're old friends."

"Tell me, has Irene ever mentioned another old friend named Rudy Goldring?"

The name didn't seem to mean anything to her, but now Beth's eyes were growing wary. My questions were too numerous, my way of asking them too practiced. "… No."

"Well," I said, "thanks for talking with me. I think I'll run down to The Castles now and see if Irene and Susan are at home. If not, it'll give me a chance to catch up on things with Vicky."

"You said you and Vicky are good friends?"

"We have few secrets." And I was very close to finding out those that she'd kept from me.

When I arrived at All Souls half an hour later, Ted handed me a stack of message slips. I leafed through them, saw they were all routine. "How come you didn't refer these people to Rae?"

"She hasn't come in." Ted—so long as the news isn't too awful—actually likes to be the bearer of bad tidings. Now he leaned across his desk toward me, savoring what he was about to impart. "Doug's in the hospital, went in yesterday. Food poisoning, Rae said. What
I
think is that it was a suicide attempt."