“When was the last time you saw him?”
“When I was home for Mother’s funeral in January. When I came home again for spring break, he’d been gone maybe three days. I figured the whole thing would blow over, but it never did. By the time I graduated and came home in June, the subject was never mentioned. It’s not like we were forbidden to refer to him. We just didn’t, I guess out of consideration for Dad.”
“You never heard from Guy at all? Not a call or a postcard in all these years?”
Jack shook his head.
“Didn’t that bother you?”
“Of course. I adored him. I saw him as a rebel, a true individual. I hated school and I was miserable. I did poorly in most classes. All I wanted was to play golf and I didn’t see why I had to have a college education. I would have gone off with Guy in a heartbeat if he’d told me what was going on. What can I tell you? He never called. He never wrote. He never gave any indication he gave a shit about me. Such is life.”
“And nobody outside the family ever reported running into him?”
“Like at a convention or something? You’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel on that one.”
“You think you’d have heard something.”
“Why? I mean, what’s the big deal? People probably pull this shit all the time. Go off, and nobody ever hears from them again. There’s no law says you have to stay in touch with people just because you’re related.”
“Well, true,” I said, thinking of my own avoidance of relatives. “Do you know of anyone else who might help? Did he have a girlfriend?”
Jack smiled mockingly. “Guy was the kind of fellow mothers warn their little girls about.”
“Donovan told me women found him attractive, but I don’t get it. What was the appeal?”
“They weren’t women. They were girls. Melodrama is seductive when you’re seventeen.”
I thought about it briefly, but this seemed like another. dead end. “Well. If you have any ideas, could you get in touch?” I took a card from my handbag and passed it over to him.
Jack glanced at my name. “How’s the last name pronounced?”
“Mill-hone,” I said. “Accent on the first syllable. The last rhymes with bone.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. You won’t hear from me, of course, but at least you can say you tried.” He smiled. “I’m sure Don was way too cool to mention this,” he said mildly, “but we’re all hoping you won’t find him. That way we can file a petition asking the court to declare him dead and his share can be divided among the three of us.”
“That’s what ‘diligent search’ is all about, isn’t it? Tell Donovan I’ll call him in a day or two,” I said.
I walked back across the grass toward the house. What a bunch, I thought. Behind me, I could hear the whistle of Jack’s swing and the sound of the clubhead on impact. I could have knocked at the front door again and asked the housekeeper if Donovan’s wife, Christie, was at home. As an old college chum of Tasha’s, she might at least be gracious. On the other hand, she wasn’t married to Donovan at the point when Guy departed, and I couldn’t believe she’d have anything of substance to contribute. So where did that leave me?
I got in my car and started the engine, shifting into first. I eased down the long drive toward the street beyond. At the front gate, I paused, shifting into neutral and letting the car idle while I considered the possibilities. As nearly as I could tell, Guy Malek hadn’t been a property owner in Santa Teresa County, so there wasn’t any point in checking the tax rolls or real property records. From what his brothers had indicated, he’d never even rented his own apartment, which meant I couldn’t consult with a past landlord, or query the water, gas, electric, or phone companies for a forwarding address. Most of those records aren’t kept for eighteen years anyway. What else? At the time he’d left Santa Teresa, he had no job and no significant employment history, so there wasn’t any point in checking with the local labor unions or with Social Security. He didn’t vote, own a car or a gun, didn’t hunt or fish, which probably meant he didn’t have any permits or licenses on record. He’d probably acquired a driver’s license and a vehicle by now. Also, using past behavior as a future indicator, he probably had a criminal history in the system somewhere, certainly with the National Crime Information Center. Unfortunately, I didn’t have access to that information and, offhand, I couldn’t think of anyone who’d be willing to run a computer check. A law enforcement officer with proper authorization has all sorts of databases available that I couldn’t tap into as a licensed private eye.
I put the VW in first gear, hung a left, and drove over to the Department of Motor Vehicles. It was just shy of closing time and the place was clearing out. I filled out a form, asking for a records’ search. Often, DMV records will be out of date. People move, but the change of address won’t show up in the DMV computers until a driver’s license or a vehicle registration is renewed. In this case, if Guy Malek had left the state, all the data might well be years out of date, if it showed up at all. At the moment, however, it seemed like the quickest way to get a preliminary fix on the situation. Since I didn’t have his driver’s license number, I picked up an ANI Multiple Record Request Form, filling in his full name and date of birth. The Automated Name Index file would either show no record for the criteria given, or would show a match for last name, first name, middle initial, and birthdate. As soon as I got back to the office, I’d put the form in the mail and ship it off to Sacramento. With luck, I could at least pick up his mailing address.
In the meantime, since the office was nearly empty, I asked one of the DMV clearks to check the name through her computer.
She turned and gave me her full attention. “Are you nuts? I could get fired for doing that,” she said. She turned the monitor on its swivel so I couldn’t peek at the screen.
“I’m a PI,” I said.
“You could be the Pope for all I care. You’ll have to wait to hear from Sacramento. You get nothing from me.”
“It was worth a try,” I said. I tried a winsome smile, but it didn’t get me far.
“You got a nerve,” she said. She turned away with a reproving shake of her head and began to pack away her desk.
So much for my powers of persuasion.
FOUR
I returned to the office, typed up the envelope, wrote a check to the state, attached it to the form, affixed a stamp, and stuck the packet in the box for outgoing mail. Then I picked up the phone and called Darcy Pascoe, the secretary/receptionist at California Fidelity Insurance. We chatted briefly about the old days and I caught up on minor matters before making the same request to her that I’d made to the DMV clerk. Insurance companies are always running DMV checks. Darcy wasn’t actually authorized to inquire, but she knew how to bend the rules with the best of them. I said, “All I need is a mailing address.”
“What’s your time frame?”
“I don’t know. How about the first thing tomorrow?”
“I can probably do that, but it’ll cost you. What’s this kid’s name again?”
* * *
When I got home, lights were on in the apartment, but Dietz was still out someplace. He’d brought in a soft-sided suitcase that he’d placed beside the couch. A quick check in the closet showed a hanging garment bag. In the downstairs bathroom, his Dopp kit was sitting on the lid to the toilet tank. The room smelled of soap and there was a damp towel hung across the shower rod. I went back to the kitchen and turned on the radio. Elvis was singing the final chorus of “Can’t Help Falling In Love.”
“Spare me,” I said crossly and turned the thing off. I went up the spiral stairs to the loft where I kicked off my Reeboks and stretched out on the bed. I stared up at the skylight. It was well after five o’clock and the dark had fallen on us like a wool blanket, a dense, leaden gray. Through the Plexiglas dome, I couldn’t even see the night sky because of the overcast. I was tired and hungry and strangely out of sorts. Being single can be confusing. On the one hand, you sometimes yearn for the simple comfort of companionship; someone to discuss your day with, someone with whom you can celebrate a raise or tax refund, someone who’ll commiserate when you’re down with a cold. On the other hand, once you get used to being alone (in other words, having everything your way), you have to wonder why you’d ever take on the aggravation of a relationship. Other human beings have all these hotly held opinions, habits, and mannerisms, bad art and peculiar taste in music, not to mention mood disorders, food preferences, passions, hobbies, allergies, emotional fixations, and attitudes that in no way coincide with the correct ones, namely yours. Not that I was thinking seriously of Robert Dietz in this way, but I’d noticed, walking into the apartment, an unnerving awareness of the “otherness” of him. It’s not that he was intrusive, obnoxious, or untidy. He was just there, and his presence acted on me like an irritant. I mean, where was this going? Nowhere that I could tell. I’d no more than get used to him than he’d hit the road again. So why bother to adjust when his company wasn’t permanent? Personally, I don’t consider flexibility that desirable a trait.