U Is for Undertow (Kinsey Millhone 21)

“They were burying a bundle . . .”

“I believe you saw something, but it wasn’t Mary Claire.”

He shook his head. “No. They took the body somewhere else and put a dog in the hole. It was right where I showed you.”

“Let’s quit with the arguing and deal with what’s true instead of what you dreamed up.”

He lifted a hand. “Never mind. You’re right. I wasted your time and I misled the police. Now all parties concerned are fully aware of it. So much for me and anything I might say.”

“Would you stop that shit? I can’t sit here and sympathize when you’re wallowing in self-pity. I understand your embarrassment, but take your licks and move on.”

He got up abruptly and walked away.

Watching him, I could see how he wanted the scene to play out. My role was to hurry after him, offering reassurances. I was supposed to fling myself into the conflict to help him save face. I couldn’t do it. The bottom had dropped out. The search for Mary Claire was over and he knew it as well as I did. She might be buried somewhere, but it had nothing to do with him. While I understood his humiliation, his behavior was calculated to generate a response. He was the vacuum. I was meant to be the air rushing in to fill the space. Stubbornly, I stayed where I was.

I heard the car door slam. The engine roared to life. I looked over and watched him back out in a wide arc before he threw the car in first and drove off with a chirp of his tires.

To no one in particular, I said, “Sorry about that. I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”

I picked up the folder and returned to my car. I slid under the wheel and sat for a moment, watching pigeons pecking in the grass. I was only five blocks from home and my instinct was to run for cover. What I was facing wasn’t new. Past investigations had occasionally come apart in my hands and I hadn’t felt the need to fall on my sword. I’m an optimist. I operate on the assumption that if a question is legitimate, there’s an answer out there, which is no guarantee I’ll be the one to find it. While the current failing wasn’t mine, I couldn’t shake the sense that I’d messed up somehow.

It was midafternoon and I probably could have talked myself into quitting for the day, but one can only do that so often before it becomes habitual and, therefore, unprofessional. Playing hooky wasn’t the antidote to disappointment. Work was. I had a business to run and I needed to get back to it. Easier said than done.

When I reached the office I set up a pot of coffee and then I sat at my desk and did nothing. I’d chastised Sutton for feeling sorry for himself, but it wasn’t such a bad idea. When you’ve been dealt a blow, self-pity, like rationalization, is just another way of coping with the pain.

A sound penetrated my consciousness and I realized someone was tapping on one of the panes in my outer office door. I glanced at my calendar. I wasn’t expecting anyone and there was no note of an appointment. For a moment I had the bizarre sense of skipping back in time. I pictured myself getting up to look around the corner at the front door. Through the glass, I’d catch my first sight of Michael Sutton. It would be April 6 again and I’d be forced to relive the same series of events.

I left my desk and crossed to the inner-office door, where I peered into the reception area. There was a woman on my doorstep, pointing at the knob. For the second time in two weeks I’d locked up automatically after letting myself in. I turned the deadbolt and opened the door. “Sorry about that. Can I help you?”

“I wondered if I might talk to you.”

“Sure. I’m Kinsey Millhone. Have we met?”

“Not really. I’m Joanne Fitzhugh. Mary Claire’s mother. May I come in?”

“Of course.”

I stepped aside as though admitting an apparition. She was probably in her mid-fifties, with one of those lovely mild faces assigned to dead saints on Catholic calendars. She was half a head shorter than I, with shoulder-length blond hair worn in the sort of flip I’d longed for in high school. She wore a dark skirt and a matching cropped jacket with a green silk blouse under it. For having thought about her so often, I was unprepared for an encounter. What was I going to say to her? I’d come up against a blank wall. How could I explain where I’d started and where I’d ended up?

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

She sat down in one of the guest chairs and pulled the other one closer, giving the seat a quick pat as a way of encouraging me to sit near her instead of on the other side the desk. She was clearly in charge. When I settled in the chair, the two of us were almost knee to knee.