“It’s possible. The police don’t seem to think so, but
I’m hoping they’ll revise their opinion if I can come up with some evidence. I get the impression a lot of people wanted Daggett dead.”
“Well, I sure did. I’m thrilled to hear the news. Somebody should have killed him at birth,” she said. “Would you like to come in? I don’t know what I can tell you, but we might as well be comfortable.” She glanced at my business card again, double-checking the name and then tucking it in her shirt pocket.
She held the door and I passed over the threshold, pausing to see where she meant for us to go. She led me into the living room.
“You and your husband were home Friday night?”
“Why? Are we suspects?”
“There isn’t even a formal investigation yet,” I said.
“I was here. Wayne was working late. He’s a C.P.A.”
She indicated a chair and I sat down. She took a seat on the couch, her manner relaxed. She was wearing a thin gold bracelet on her right wrist and she began to turn that, straightening a kink in the chain. “Did you ever meet John Daggett yourself?” she asked.
“Once. He came to my office a week ago Saturday.”
“Ah. Out on parole, no doubt. He must have served his ten minutes.”
I made no comment, so she went on.
“What was he doing in Santa Teresa? Returning to the scene of the slaughter?”
“He was trying to locate Tony Gahan.”
This seemed to amuse her. “To what end? It’s probably none of my business, but I’m curious.”
I was discomfited by her attitude, which seemed an odd mix of the wrathful and the jocular. “I’m not really sure what his intentions were,” I said carefully. “The story he told me wasn’t true anyway, so it’s probably not worth repeating. I gathered he wanted to make restitution.”
Her smile faded, dark eyes boring into mine with a look that chilled me. “There’s no such thing as ‘restitution’ for what that man did. Megan died horribly. Five-and-a-half years old. Has anyone given you the details?”
“I have the newspaper clippings in the car. I talked to Ramona Westfall too, and she filled me in,” I said, lying through my teeth. I didn’t want to hear about Megan’s death. 1 didn’t think I could bear it, whatever it was. “Have you kept in touch with the other families?”
For a moment, I didn’t think I could distract her. She was going to sit there and tell me some bloodcurdling tale that I was never going to forget. Cruel images seemed to play across her face. She faltered and her expression underwent that transformation that precedes tears-her nose reddening, mouth changing shape, lines drawing down on either side. Then her self-control descended and she looked at me with clouded eyes. “I’m sorry. What?”
“I was wondering if you’d talked to the others recently. Mrs. Westfall or the Polokowskis.”
“I’ve hardly even talked to Wayne. Megan’s death has just about done us in.”
“What about your other children? How are they handling it?”
“Better than we are, certainly. People always say, ‘Well, you still have the boys.’ But it doesn’t work that way. It’s not like you can substitute one child for another.” Belatedly, she took out a Kleenex and blew her nose.
“I’m sorry I had to bring it all up again,” I said. “I’ve never had children, but I can’t imagine anything more painful than losing one.”
Her smile returned, fleeting and bitter. “I’ll tell you what’s worse. Knowing there’s a man out there doing a few months in jail for ‘vehicular manslaughter’ when he murdered five people. Do you know how many times he
got picked up for drunk driving before that accident? Fifteen. He paid a few fines. He got his hand smacked. Once he did thirty days, but most of the time… .” She broke off, then changed her tone. “Oh hell. What difference does it make? Nothing changes anyway and it never ends. I’ll tell Wayne you stopped by. Maybe he knows where Daggett was.”
Chapter 12
I sat in the car and shuddered. I couldn’t think when an interview had made me feel so tense. Daggett had to have been murdered. I just didn’t see how it could come down any other way. What I couldn’t figure out was how to get my thinking straight. Usually the morality of homicide seems clear to me. Whatever the shortcomings of the victim, murder is wrong and the penalties levied against the perpetrator had better be substantial to balance out the gravity of the crime. In this case, that seemed like a simplistic point of view. It was Daggett who had caused the world to tilt on its axis. Because of him, five people had died, so that his death, whatever the instrument, was swinging the planet upright again, restoring a moral order of sorts. At the moment, I still didn’t know whether his desire to make restitution was sincere or part of some elaborate con. All I knew was that I’d been caught up in the loop and I had a part to play, though I had no idea yet what it was.
I started the car and headed back to my place. The sky was clouding over again. It was after 5:00 and a premature twilight already seemed to be spilling down the mountainside. I pulled up in front of my apartment and switched off the ignition. I glanced over at my windows, which were dark. I was feeling edgy and I wasn’t ready to go home yet. On impulse, I started the car again and headed for the beach, drawn by the scent of salt in the air. Maybe a walk would ease my restlessness.
I pulled into one of the municipal lots and parked, slipping out of my shoes and pantyhose, which I tossed in the back seat along with my handbag. I zipped up my windbreaker and locked the car, tucking my keys in my jacket pocket as I crossed the bike path to the beach. The ocean was silver, but the breaking waves were a muddy brown and the sand along the surf line was peppered with rocks. This was the winter beach, dark boulders having surfaced with the shifting coastal sands. Gulls hovered overhead, eyeing the thundering waves for signs of edible sea life.
I walked along the wet sand with a buffeting wind at my back. A windsurfer clung to the crossbar on a bright green sail, arching himself against the force of the wind, his board streaking toward the beach. Two big fishing boats were chugging into the marina. Everywhere there was the sense of urgency and threat-the torn white of storm surf, the darkening gray of the sky. Across the harbor, the ocean drove at the shore without pity, pounding at the breakwater with a grudging monotony. A rocketing spray shot straight up on impact, fanning along the seawall. I could almost hear the splats as successive waves hit the concrete walkway on the landward side.
I passed the entrance to the wharf. Ahead the beach widened, curving left toward the marina where the bare masts of sailboats tilted in the wind like metronomes. The sand was softer here, deeper too, so that walking became a labor. I turned and walked backwards for a few steps, trying to get my bearings. Somewhere along this part of the beach was the spot where Daggett’s body had been found. A brief glimpse of the site had appeared on the newscast and I was hoping now to get a fix on the place. I thought it was probably this side of the boat launch. Ahead and to my right was the kiddie park with its playground equipment and a fenced-in area with a wading pool.
The newscast had shown a portion of the dredge in the background, intersected by the breakwater and a line of rocks. I trudged on until I had the three lined up in the same configuration. The dry sand was trampled and there were signs that vehicles had crossed the beach. Where waves slapped against the shore, all traces of activity had been erased. The crime scene investigators had, no doubt, done at least a cursory search. I scanned the area without any expectation of finding “evidence.” If you murder a man by tossing him, dead drunk, out of a rowboat, there aren’t any telltale clues to dispose of afterward. The boat itself had been left to drift and, from what Jonah said, must have washed ashore closer to the pier.
I drank in the heady perfume of the sea, watching the restless surge of the waves, turning myself slowly until the ocean was at my back and I was staring at the line of motels across the boulevard. Daggett had apparently died sometime between midnight and 5:00 A.M. I wondered if it would be productive to canvas the neighborhood for witnesses. It was possible, of course, that Daggett had actually cut the line on the skiff himself, rowing out of the harbor alone. With a 0.35 blood alcohol level, it seemed unlikely. By the time blood alcohol concentrations reach 0.40 percent, a drunk is essentially in a state of deep anesthesia, incapable of anything so athletic as working an oar. He might have maneuvered his way out of the harbor first and then sat in the bobbing boat, drinking himself insensible, but I couldn’t picture that. I kept visualizing somebody with him … waiting, watching … finally hefting his feet and toppling him backwards. “A lesson in the back flip, Daggett. Oh shit, you blew it. Too bad, sucker. You die.”