A Little Too Innocent

A Little Too Innocent


Chapter One


I leaned against the side of my dusty red Toyota pickup for several minutes, trying to decide if I should walk up to the door of the ranch house, or get back in my truck and return to the furnished apartment that I had leased two days before. There were probably not many people inside that I would recognize. The thought of entering a house full of strangers, or at best, past acquaintances, was unnerving. A couple approached, laughing and talking excitedly, and walked past me, oblivious to my presence. They turned into a path that led to a side door and entered the house.

I felt strangely out of place even though the San Fernando Valley is where I grew up and attended school. Even graduated Cum Laude. After I got my teaching credential, I headed for the mountains near Yosemite National Park where my grandfather lives. He found a little cabin for me close to the school where I accepted a position. At first, I felt I never wanted to leave there. A home, a job, communion with the mountains and the giant trees: my own personal Rite of Passage. However, reality in the form of ten year olds finally set in. Three years in the mountains teaching elementary school children had convinced me that as much as I grown to care for them, I did not want to spend the rest of my life closed up in a room with a bunch of noisy adolescents. So I took down the posters, said goodbye to the students and faculty, and turned in the key to my classroom.

I also said a reluctant good-bye to Chloe. Chloe is just about the most appealing woman I have ever known. She is beautiful, intelligent, sexy. And she is easy to understand. More important, Chloe wants to be understood. Chloe is a nurse in her father Dr. Jake Vallarde’s office. I met her the second winter after I started teaching. I had stopped in at Beans, a little coffee house that sits by itself on the curve of a road a few miles west of the park. Beans sells nothing but the brew of the day and cinnamon rolls. She was sitting alone by a window, looking out over the distant mountainside as if she were seeing it for the first time. When I spoke, she smiled and invited me to join her. We started meeting at Beans, first on Saturday mornings, and then most evenings. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but later we began picnicking and hiking together. Soon we were together most of the time. I told her that I wanted to find a larger place and asked her to move in with me. She said she didn’t think that “would be wise at this time.” Later, when I invited her to come to L.A. with me, she said that sounded interesting. Maybe after I got situated, she would visit and decide if she wanted to make a permanent move.

And then I got the letter. I no longer tried to persuade Chloe to come with me. It was because of the letter that I was standing outside of Dr. Rutherford’s house now. Addie was the last person I expected to hear from when I notified the English Department that I was returning to the university to work towards a Masters Degree in Literature. Someone in the English Department had told her that I had signed up for the fall semester. She was certain that I would want to attend this evening’s event: the welcoming party for post-graduate students ready to begin a new year of study. Even though Dr. Rutherford had been my favorite teacher and closest confident at the school, I had never been to his home.

Three or four people walked hurriedly past me now and went into the house. I decided to go in, also. If I were uncomfortable, I would simply leave and go home and unpack some boxes. Although the others had gone in the side door, I chose the front entrance. Dr. Rutherford greeted me warmly and welcomed me to his home. I entered the enormous living room. It was furnished with comfortable chairs and sofas placed in a way that invited small groups to enjoy private conversations. Beyond a narrow archway was another smaller room where several professors had congregated. One of them was the ever friendly, ever energetic, Robert Meade, whom I had seen in the campus library earlier in the day. From what he had revealed at that chance meeting, I learned that his life had changed dramatically since I was in his class, “A Study of Film: Classic Mystery Series.”

I stood by a wall just inside the front door, studying faces. A few I remembered, but most were new to me. But it was hers that I was looking for. I was feeling a bit disappointed, believing that she wasn’t present, when I was taken by a small group of people. Several young men, some on chairs pulled up close, others on the floor, sat in a semi-circle in a far corner of the room. In the center of them, a woman, slender and seductively beautiful, perhaps in her twenties, sat casually in an overstuffed chair. A soft light from a floor lamp behind her caressed her long glistening hair and caught glints of fire flashing from her red satin dress. What seemed a particularly appealing accessory, a cameo—a white profile against jet black—lay shadowed in the hollow of her throat.

I walked toward them, intrigued. A few feet from the group, I stopped and gasped. At first I hadn’t recognized her. But it was unmistakable.

My mind flashed back to Professor Meade’s class and Addie sitting silently in the middle of the room. She was soft and shy and a little too round, a little too innocent. Her appearance then was anything but deliberately evocative. She wore plain dark skirts and white blouses with collars and her curly hair was cut, not short, but rather in what I remembered one of my aunts calling “that in between stage.” But some mysterious quality emanated through her silence and made insignificant the manner in which she dressed or wore her hair. Even Professor Meade seemed captivated. His eyes invariably would be drawn to her as he lectured.

I remember feeling like a frightened child just watching her from across the room during class. One evening I decided to talk to her during the break. She was pressed to the wall standing beside her friend, Rochelle. Rochelle was always with Addie, walking the halls between classes, in the cafeteria, during breaks. It was as if she had assigned herself to guard Addie. She was a little snipping Chihuahua of a guard. Still, I was able to talk to the two of them for a few minutes that night. Even got Addie’s telephone number. I wrote it carefully in pencil in the back of my text book. It was soon after that when I was included in the small group that met at Addie’s to review the films we were studying in class.

Addie then. Addie now. What had happened? I wanted to go up to her at the grad party, but I couldn’t. I turned to leave when she looked up and smiled. Her lips formed a silent, “Mark.” She closed her eyes and opened them to me and smiled again. And then it was as if I had vanished. She was smiling once more at her entourage.

As I started to walk away, I noticed someone I perceived to be a guest. He appeared to be younger than most of the others at the party. He was dressed differently, also. While everyone else, even most of the professors, had on jeans, he was wearing gray, neatly pressed, dress slacks and a navy jacket. His one attempt at being casual was a red and navy plaid shirt. The shirt was open at the throat, emphasizing the slight form of his body. I felt uneasy as I studied him. It was as if he were an intruder, lurking as he did, close to a large planter, peering around it, his eyes fixed on Addie. As uncomfortable as his presence made me, I recognized in his eyes the same fascination that I had felt those years before as I sat across the room from her during class.

“Well, well, look who’s come down from the mountain top.”

I turned to find the Chihuahua standing behind me. She held a glass of wine in each hand, and as she motioned toward Addie, she tipped a glass and spilled some chardonnay on me.

“Still can’t take your eyes off her?” Her voice was even more shrill than I remembered. “Ah, Mark, my friend, do not venture into the Valley of Despair.”

“I think I already have. But it has nothing to do with anyone here. I just miss the mountain top. And the kids. I’ve signed up to sub at some private schools, so that’ll take care of the kids thing. And hopefully the food thing. And the rent thing.” We both laughed.

I gave her a quick hug. “How you doing, Rochelle?”

“Like I’ve always done.” She sounded a bit sad as she smiled. “Have to go, but we’ll get together, okay?”

As she walked away, she called, “She still has the same number. You can get us both there. I live in an apartment downstairs from hers.”

I watched Rochelle go through the archway. Meade nodded as she approached him. He took a glass of wine and kissed her on the top of the head. She appeared to whisper and he nodded again. He emptied the glass quickly, set it on a table, and looked at his watch. He gave Rochelle a pat on the arm and left the room and the house without saying anything to anyone.

I glanced back at Addie, and she was rising, still smiling serenely at the men around her. She smiled at me again as she passed me. Rochelle met Addie a few feet from the front door, and they left together.

I spoke to a few people – the same conversation with each of them – “Glad to see you. How’ve you been? What classes are you taking?” I thanked Dr. Rutherford and his wife for their hospitality and was leaving when I heard a commotion in the kitchen.

I followed a few others through an archway that led to a library and then into an expansive country kitchen that held a large rocker and three or four wooden stools, lined in front of an impressive fireplace. Like the other rooms in Dr. Rutherford’s home, this was an inviting space, an area that called out for intimate conversation. The loud voice that I had heard seemed strangely out of place here.

There was an audience of intrigued observers. I stood in the library a few feet from the door, studying the activity in the kitchen. A man, probably in his late thirties or early forties, was talking in an animated manner with several “Meade members,” students who were, in effect, camp followers: Year after year they enrolled in any class that Robert Meade happened to be teaching. It appeared that the man was agitated, and that the others were offering solace.

A rush of whispers swept through the library. Meandering from group to group, I could make out only isolated words and phrases; “now Meade will. . .” “that cop in the kitchen. . .” “Rochelle told me not to say anything, but. . .” they should have known that sooner or later. . .” Most of those talking seemed to be enjoying the whole affair. I wanted to ask questions, but I didn’t say anything.

I found Dr. Rutherford, thanked him again, and left.

As I drove back to my small furnished apartment, my mind was flooded with the events of the evening. Why had Professor Meade left the party so suddenly without saying goodbye even to Dr. Rutherford? Was it something that Rochelle said to him? And why had Addie and Rochelle gone so soon afterwards? The policeman in the kitchen – was he there on professional business? If so why hadn’t he worn a uniform? Or was he some sort of a detective who didn’t wear a uniform? Everyone seemed to know him. That was strange, too.

Putting together the snippets of conversation that I had heard, I wondered, was it possible that Robert Meade was involved in something illegal? If so, was Rochelle an accomplice? Maybe even Addie, too? This was becoming absurd. I decided that I had nestled too long in the tranquility of the mountains. Actually this had been a relatively calm soiree for the English Department.


Chapter Two


More than three weeks went by and I was well into my post-graduate studies. Neither Addie nor Rochelle was in any of my classes. However, I did see Dr. Meade one evening. He was walking away from a coffee machine, holding a white styrofoam cup to his mouth. He was looking down. His shoulders pushed forward as if he were hovering against a chill. I ran to catch up with him, but when I spoke, he nodded disinterestedly and looked down again. I stopped in the middle of the hall and watched the professor walk slowly to his room.

That night I showered, pulled on a pair of knit shorts, poured myself a beer, and checked my e-mail. There was one letter. Two sentences. “Haven’t heard from you, Mark. What does that mean? Love, Chloe.” If I hadn’t been captivated by Addie, haloed in the soft light of a lamp, lips posed in a silent, “Mark,” I would have been at my lap top days earlier sending long “missing you” messages. I was nipped with a feeling of guilt, but I shut down the computer without responding to Chloe.

I started to study, but my mind was not on my books. Instead, I thought of the changing postures of the professor: Meade, animated and friendly the day I saw him in the library; Meade agitated and in a hurry, leaving the party after talking to Rochelle; and Meade, just a few hours ago, detached, walking down the long narrow hall of the east wing of the building that houses the English classes.

And I thought about Addie. Rummaging through boxes of still packed books, ones that had been in the same box, in the same position since I graduated, I finally found the paperback edition of the text that held her phone number. It was late, so I decided to wait until morning to call her.

It was a little after 9am when I dialed her number. “I’m not here right now. Call me later or leave a number. Bye.” Her soft voice did not suggest the image of the lady in the red dress. I called three more times before noon. The first and the last times, the message machine came on after three rings. The second time I called, the phone rang at least a dozen times before I gave up, disappointed. If the machine was not on the second time I called, but was on later, Addie must have come home, listened to her messages and left. Why hadn’t she returned my calls?

It occurred to me that I was seeing myself as a little too important in her life. After all, we hadn’t seen each other in over three years. We’d never had a real date. I always managed to sit next to her at Irwins when the class went there after the campus closed. And several times she had invited me and two or three others to her apartment to watch films we had been assigned. One of those nights I stayed later than anyone else. She was having difficulty with her computer. I offered to help her and was able, relatively quickly, to retrieve a document that she had lost. She called me a guru and I confessed to being only an aspiring hack. We laughed and Addie hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. Her lips were warm and moist, and I had the impulse to take her in my arms, but she turned away quickly and invited me to have coffee with her. We talked until morning, mostly about the old mystery films we had watched for Meade’s class. The last thing she said before I left was, “Are you really a computer hack?” My only response was a laugh. I hugged her and told her that I would see her in class. After that she seemed strangely distant.

Better to forget all this now. I had to get my mind geared to study the material that I had neglected the night before. I pulled some pastrami and cheese out of the refrigerator along with the one whole wheat bun that was left from a package I had bought days, maybe weeks, earlier. As I opened the bun, the bread squawked like a wounded jay and my hands were filled with dry crumbs. I brushed my hands free of the scraps, wrapped the pastrami around the cheese, ate it without thinking, and washed it down with cold coffee.

I sat down on the floor and leaned against the couch, intending to study, but images of Addie in a red dress, smiling at me, smiling at a circle of men at her feet, kept intruding on my thoughts. Something had happened in the years since I graduated and moved north. The girl I had idolized had turned into one beautiful and mysterious woman. When the phone rang, I resented having the images interrupted.

“Hello, Mark. I don’t know why I’m calling you of all people, but there were two calls on the machine from you and I have to talk to someone, and like everyone else, you adored her. I know you haven’t seen her in years, but you did call, after all, so you must be interested. So, Mark, will you meet me at the pub where we used to go for beer after Meade’s class?”

“Rochelle, what are you talking about? What in hell is wrong?”

There was a loud click on the other end. I grabbed my keys and a sweat shirt and headed for Irwins.

* * * * * *

It hadn’t changed much. Same beat up looking tables and chairs. Same posters of Irish poets staring solemnly down from the walls. Same bartender still behind the bar, polishing glasses. I waited for almost an hour. It was close to midnight when I decided to go home and work on a paper that was due on Tuesday. “Where, oh, where are you, Rochelle?” I muttered as I pushed a chair up to a corner table.

“Sounds like a song. Or a poem.”

“Rochelle! Where have you been? It’s late.”

“Yea, I know.”

We sat down at a table near a window. She leaned forward, head bowed, caressing her temples with her finger tips. She asked for a cigarette. I got one from Al, the bartender. I lit it for her and she smoked, still not looking up.

“Rochelle, why’d you call? Where’s Addie? Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Same answer to all your questions.”

“What do you mean? You must know something. What’s this all about?”

“Get a pitcher of beer, will you, Mark?”

“Sure, sure, if that’ll help –anything that will help you tell me what the hell is going on.”

I stood at the bar watching Rochelle. She was sitting up straight now, pressing her back into the wire frame of the chair. Her hands were folded in her lap. Her head was erect and motionless like an eagle tipped on the branch of a tall tree, not yet ready to spread its wings. She was staring at the opposite wall, her eyes fixed on the dart board. Suddenly she relaxed. She poised her left hand as if she were holding a dart and released it in a deliberate arc toward the board. She smiled widely and folded her hands and placed them once again in her lap. She always could peg a bull’s eye.

By the time I returned with the beer, Rochelle was slumped over the table, her face pressed into her hands, and she was sobbing.

“Rochelle. Give. You have to talk to me. What is this all about?”

I filled two glasses. Rochelle blew tunnels in the foam and then quickly drank her beer. When she emptied the glass, she pushed it towards me to fill again and said, “Addie is missing.”

We were at Irwins until it closed, going over and over the same story. It never changed. There never new details. On Friday, Addie had told Rochelle that she was going to her Mother’s house in Madera for the weekend and would be back Sunday night. She didn’t come home, so Rochelle called Mrs. O’Daniel. She hadn’t heard from Addie in weeks and didn’t know of any plans for her to visit. She didn’t return on Monday, either, or today. Five days and no word.

In the morning Rochelle had called Meade. He and Addie had been together since the Films class. He stayed at her place more than at the apartment he had taken when he left his wife. Meade hadn’t seen nor heard from Addie in over a week. She hadn’t said anything to him about visiting her mother. He was distraught. He knew that she was seeing Cal Packard, the police officer who was in the kitchen at the grad party, but that didn’t appear to matter to him as long as she saw him, too. The last thing that I said to her before we parted was, “There has to be a way to figure this all out.”

It was all too strange to comprehend. Innocent Addie. Mysterious Addie. And where did Rochelle figure in all of this? The watchdog “took care of Addie so that no one would take advantage of her.” What did that mean? One more unanswered question.

I lay awake all night thinking. I knew that I had to do something. Rochelle said that she didn’t expect anything from me. She just needed to talk. Strange that she picked me. We hardly knew each other, really. She must have many closer friends. Maybe not. As far as I could see, and from what I heard when we were in class together, her identity was all entangled with and shadowed by Addie’s. Or was it the other way around? There must be some logical reason why Addie didn’t tell anyone where she was going. It had never happened before, according to Rochelle.

The letter that Addie wrote to me kept intruding on my thoughts. I got out of bed and found it folded in the book that held her phone number. There was no news in it. No clue that anything was bothering her. She just wanted to welcome me back to the university and she ended by writing, “I can’t wait to see you!” Yet there was only a smile that night at Rutherford’s.

There was also the P. S. “Remember? You were voted the best sleuth in the class.”

If that were true, she surely was testing my abilities now because I couldn’t figure out her actions since I had returned, even in relation to me. She must have picked up the first message when I called, but she had not tried to get in touch with me. And then nothing. Not a word to anyone.

Nausea. Feeling weak. Almost dizzy. What if. . . Don’t even finish the thought. If, as Rochelle said, Addie’s seeing both Meade and the policeman, she’s probably off thinking, trying to make a decision. Maybe she’s with the other guy now.

I put on a pot of coffee and walked to the door to get the newspaper. As I returned to the kitchen, I unfolded the paper and was stunned as I saw a color photo of Officer Packard on the front page. The headlines read “Police Officer Found Dead on the Beach.” According to the paper, Packard was “off duty yesterday.” His wife told reporters that, except for criminals, she knew of no enemies that would want to hurt her husband.

Wife! Damn! He had a wife! The whole affair was incomprehensible. Innocent Addie involved with two married men, one of them now dead, found murdered on the beach.

The article went on to relate: Detective Rod Selwyn would only tell reporters, “Yeah, it’s a homicide. We’re not revealing anything else. We do have some evidence, but we’re not giving the S O B who did this any comfort in knowing what it is.” The only other information that the newspaper revealed was that Packard was stabbed to death, Repeatedly stabbed, according to the article.

Evidence. What could the evidence be? Did it involve Addie? I really only had Rochelle’s word on anything concerning Addie’s relationship with Packard or with Meade. Rochelle’s word and an image of the seductress in the red dress, an assembly
of mesmerized men waiting for a word or a smile. The strange little man behind the potted plant -- he seemed hypnotized by her, also.

But now, think of this in concrete terms. Surely Addie’s disappearance has nothing to do with Packard’s death. Maybe it does. Maybe she’s in danger, too

Addie had been missing since Friday. If she hadn’t returned last night, today would be the sixth day since anyone had seen her. Packard was killed Tuesday night. According to the news story, Packard was watching Monday night football with several friends the night before he was murdered. If they had been together this past week, where was she Monday night? No one would leave Addie to watch football with a bunch of guys.

A terrible truth: Addie hadn’t been seen nor heard from for nearly a week. A man that the Chihuahua said was the second of Addie’s lovers had been viciously knifed to death.

The nausea returned. And the dizziness. Maybe Addie had been. . .No. Don’t finish the thought. Maybe, just maybe, Addie was the one who. . .no, no, no, don’t finish the thought.

I decided to call Rochelle, but there was no answer. It occurred to me that Addie might have returned and Rochelle was with her. No one picked up the phone at Addie’s either, but the machine was on and I left a message: “Addie, please call as soon as you hear this. I’m worried. Rochelle, if you stop by, call me immediately. I read the paper this morning. Can’t help thinking about last night’s conversation. Have you heard from Meade? See you, Mark Hitt.

I waited all morning by the phone hoping one of them would call. A little after noon, I decided to go for a walk. I walked for maybe two hours. Finally I picked up a six-pack of beer and a sub sandwich at the nearby Seven Eleven and returned to my apartment. I unlocked and pushed open the front. I yelled an excited, “Yes!” when I saw the red light blinking on the answering machine. I dropped the beer and the sandwich on a chair and ran to the phone. There was one message. It was a high school wanting me to teach American Lit for the next two days. – the classes were studying Emerson and Thoreau. I couldn’t believe it. I’d signed up maybe three weeks earlier and this just happened to be the first time the school called. The American Lit teacher just happened to get sick today. I shook my head, disappointed, but I really couldn’t turn down the chance for some income and a place on the sub list. One concern -- Rochelle might try to reach me while I was teaching. Or Addie.

I tried both numbers again. No response at Rochelle’s. This time Addie’s phone rang a dozen or more times, but no answer. No soft voice on the other end inviting a message to be left. I felt completely cut off from Addie and the whole situation.

Images kept swirling in my head so rapidly that words could not attend them. My mind was at last stopped by one emphatic image: Addie in the red dress, men surrounding her like. . Whatever it was that had changed her so dramatically had happened after I took the teaching job near Yosemite. Addie was almost childlike when I had last seen her. More like a small silent flower opening to the first stretch of dawn.

And the dawn after the killing. What was she like then?


Chapter Three

I sat on the couch near the phone for what seemed like eons, thinking and hoping, scrutinizing the changing pictures of the past few weeks in the torment of my mind. I believe I slept for awhile. At some point, I was aware of being hungry. The beer was warm, but I opened a can and put the other five in the refrigerator. I had dropped the six pack on the sandwich and it now was a soggy heap ready for the garbage disposal. Standing at the sink, picking out the “choice pieces,” I tried to salvage some of the ham and cheese. I started to put the warm, limp slices to my mouth, but instead I dropped them into the disposal and drank another beer. My stomach kept rumbling ,crying out for sustenance. I admire those people who say they can’t eat when something is bothering them. As for my constitution, it meant another trip to Seven Eleven.

It was just after midnight when I bought two subs and a bag of chips. When I returned to my apartment, the red light on the answering machine was blinking again. I placed the subs and chips carefully on the kitchen table. I walked slowly to the phone. My stomach was churning, but this time it was not from hunger.

I pressed the button to get the message. Just one word, a whispered, “Mark.” And then a click on the other end. I played it back again. “Mark.” Again and again, I listened to a whispered, “Mark. . . Mark. . .Mark.” There was no way that I could identify the voice. Did it sound desperate? Frightened? Pleading for help? I dialed Addie’s number. No answer. I called Rochelle. Her phone rang maybe fifteen times. I hung up and listened to the message one last time.

At one-thirty, I ate a sub and went to bed and fell asleep immediately.

The next morning it wasn’t easy keeping my mind on Emerson and Thoreau, but all in all, it wasn’t a bad day. Most of the kids were respectful. No sub tricks at least. Their regular teacher, Mrs. Rothenbush, must be either inspiring or terrifying. It was good to be back in a classroom, but it was also good to see the school day end.

I walked the ten blocks to my apartment. Three wheels of thought took turns riding the curves of my mind, each spinning out of control and crashing into another. First the assignment due for the evening’s class – it has always been my practice to compose the first paragraph of an essay in my head, memorize it, and then go to the computer and put it down word for word as I had created it. After the first paragraph, Voila! The rest of the paper writes itself. I was wrestling with Marcel Proust’s great edifying novel, Swann’s Way. I’d thought of the opening sentence for my paper a couple of days earlier: “In the Combrey Section of Swann’s Way, the narrator tells of his summer afternoons spent reading books, moving through the pages, he believes, “toward the discovery of Truth.’” Towards the discovery of truth. . .the discovery of truth. What is truth? Who killed Packard? Is Addie only missing or. . .? How does Rochelle figure in all of this? And Meade. . . Meade. . .teacher. Teacher. Class. My class, the one I teach tomorrow. Have to prepare for Emerson’s “Experience’ for one class and Thoreau’s Walden Pond for two other classes. Nothing for the writing class. I can handle that without preparation. Remember writing a paper on Walden Pond in an undergraduate class. Have to get it out. That’ll help But , “Experience,”-- only remember snippets of that. Experience. Innocence. How innocent is Addie? What do I mean by innocent? Innocent as implying naiveté? Or innocent as not being guilty? Back to the paper that’s due. Have to get it finished. Can’t bomb the first semester back. Okay. Think. Write:“In the books that he reads, young Marcel . . .” Proust’s words. . . Proust’s words. . . I thought of them earlier. Oh, yeah! Got it. “In the books that he reads, young Marcel views events of life ‘more dramatical and sensational. . .than occur , often in a life time.’ Addie’s life time. Sensational Addie. Innocent Addie. Yes. Innocent. No reason to believe otherwise.

Innocent Addie. The thought was still in my mind as I drove to the campus in the evening. Since I had been assigned the task of leading the discussion for the English War Poet’s class, I decided to leave early, have dinner in the cafeteria, and review the material while I was eating. Just as I was paying the cashier for the burger and fries, I looked up to see Plaid Shirt, the anonymous fellow from the grad party, standing by a window across the room, staring intently at me. There was some indefinable quality about him that suggested “lurking,” When I dropped my tray on the nearest table and started to walk toward him, he raced for the elevator and disappeared behind its doors before I could intercept him. It seemed futile to follow him since the cafeteria is on the fifth floor and classes are held on all the other four. He could have a class in any one of a hundred or more rooms. Still, as I walked to the English Department library on the third floor where the Poet’s seminar was held, I stopped at the door of every room and glanced in, hoping to find the allusive lurker.

When I got home, I put on a pot of coffee and sat down at the computer. I didn’t even turn it on. And I didn’t drink the coffee. Instead, I decided to take a short nap, maybe twenty minutes. I hadn’t slept well in days, and missing sleep was not something I was good at. I was, however, good at taking short naps and being revived, another undeniable part of my constitution, right up there with needing food every few hours.


I awoke at six-thirty the next morning when the alarm went off. I showered, dressed and left for school with Thoreau, Emerson, and Proust all shoved into my backpack. I decided that I would glance at Proust during breaks and lunch. Most of the teachers in the city carried brief cases or canvas bags advertising their teacher status, but backpacks were definitely more the mode at the small school where I had been teaching the past three years. I had also discovered the amenities of walking during my sojourn in the mountains: fresh air, the beauty of nature, exercise. Guess I’d have to settle for exercise, at least for awhile. I felt better when I saw a sign advertising a coffee shop and a promise of breakfast. The bacon was crisp and just thin enough, but the eggs were not as fresh as the ones my neighbors in North Fork, from whom I rented a small cabin, provided for me in exchange for tutoring their son. The Kendals live in an awe inspiring structure, a jumbled mix of uneven rocks, some of them feldspar infused boulders, fire formed reminders of ancient volcanoes that issued forth their fiery breath upon the land, making the area around Yosemite one of the most beautiful on earth. Garrett Kendal built the house, starting with one room, adding others. It stretches in a colorful maze, winding its way up and down a sun spent slope that begins at a water’s edge and climbs the gentle hill to the top where a ledge of imposing trees stand.

Seven year old Clay followed behind as his father carried or towed each unique stone to the spot where, when placed properly, it was stationed irrevocably to its purpose. Garrett was working on the seventh and final room, one that turned again toward the water, when slipping on the rain soaked bank of the stream, both feet left the ground, his body twisting uncontrollably toward the youngster at his side. He managed to hold tightly to the large rock, preventing a more serious accident. But even though cradled in the strong arms of Garrett Kendal, the boulder hit the boy’s head with a mighty force. Garrett and his wife Dani were with their son throughout the long days of his coma. When he came home, they nursed him to a degree of health that surprised his team of worried doctors. Still, the energy that had streamed so freely and actively through the youngster’s veins, slowed, and the spontaneous, curious mind became cautious and tentative. I volunteered to help Clay reclaim what his brain had lost in the long sleep of his recovery and to guide him in his studies as long as he needed my assistance. It had been two years since the accident. In the last months of his fourth grade studies, he had required only intermittent tutoring, but the eggs, the invitations to dinner and to family outings continued. Life was good on the hillside. Young Clay once again followed at the side of his father. The seventh room of the Kendal home, however, was left unfinished, a grey ghost of dreams past. Garrett carried the rock that had crushed the skull of his son hundreds of feet from the house where it sat in exile close to the water’s edge.

This fall Clay would not be racing across the wooden bridge that spanned the shallow water between our homes to show me his latest project. He cried when I told him I was leaving but later turned cartwheels in front of my cabin when I promised to return to North Fork at least once during the holidays.

That would be months away. At least two months before I would taste the scrumptious yield of Dani’s hens. I sat at the counter of the coffee shop for several seconds pushing a cold, flat yolk around the edges of my plate with the half piece of toast I hadn’t eaten.

Finally a waitress smiled and questioned, “You done?”

“Yeah, thanks.” I pulled my backpack onto my shoulders and left for school.

It usually doesn’t rain in Southern California during the latter part of October. However a light shower greeted me as I left the restaurant. There’s something about walking in the rain that traps one deliberately and entirely in the moment. No room for retrospection while clouds pour down their cleansing elixir. Since I’m not a scientist, I looked skyward and thought, “Ah, Sweet Miracle of Nature, you have come to save me.”
Just as dusty sidewalks are washed clean, minds ensnared by a web of troubled thoughts, rest, attentive to the spill of free flowing molecules falling from the sky. It is an awaking. It seemed that for the first time since the grad party, I looked outside the cavern of my mind and saw the workings of the world around me. Cars followed cars to a red light and stopped. Children swatted at each other or at raindrops as they ran in scattered rows in front of the straight lines of vehicles waiting dutifully for the youngsters to lay claim to the pavement on the other side of the street. A squirrel skittered from a tall skinny tree trunk to a shaggy bush a few feet away. “Sorry you live here, squirrel, “I called after him sympathetically. As I continued on I thought of the little animal shivering under the sparse branches of the scrub. Ah, yes, squirrel, in the mountains you would have shelter from every storm. A refuge of thick foliage grows there from roots that grab lustily into the earth and know that they belong.

The shower slowed and stopped, and the sun began its work of drying off the earth. Children now were crossing the street silently, no longer offering up a discordant cacophony to the silent rain. Only moments earlier splashes of happiness spurted forth from them, matching the dance of water on their faces. Now that the dance had stopped, the music with it. I thought of the kids in the mountains.

The job of teaching them was satisfactory most of the time. Not much money, but a good group of fifth graders. Some of the girls had a crush on me. That was to be expected according to Chloe, but still, it was more than a little disconcerting. They liked my pony tail, so I cut it off. Then they decided that short hair was “just the best.” Same with when I sacrificed the beard that I had pampered since high school. First they moaned and hugged each other in groups, trying to cry their disappointment, but as soon as Crystal Whitfield cooed that she thought that I looked “cuter with just a mustache,” they all hugged each other again and squealed their agreement. It was definitely not what I had anticipated when I gave up my long held desire to study law in order to instead, “ guide this generation of children towards a future it deserves.” Either the goal or my ability was left wanting. Most days were satisfactory. Satisfactory. That only deserves a C. I have never been satisfied with satisfactory; however, the clarity of thought, the determination, the vital spirit of wanting that I needed to transcend my discontent deserved an even lesser grade.

There was no strongly held desire in me right now. On impulse I had quit my job and applied for readmission to the university. A professorship in English, maybe at an Ivy League school, crossed my mind a few times, but it was not a goal that was driving me. Writing. That was appealing. That meant having something to say. Something important.
I couldn’t lay claim to that.

When I got to the classroom, I pulled off my tie and wet shirt. The t-shirt that I kept in the bottom of my backpack was warm and unconfining. A replica of Half Dome, painted in bold blues and purples, covers the back of the shirt. On the front, in small cursive letters, “Yosemite Calls.” I sat down at the desk and opened a notebook. Over and over I wrote on a sheet of paper – Yosemite Calls, Yosemite Calls,
Yosemite Calls. And finally, Where is Addie?

The morning was uneventful, but the students in the afternoon Emerson class were a lively bunch. And interesting. They actually seemed ready to discuss and question the selection they had been assigned. Lauren, a girl who sat near the window, raised her hand and asked, “How can this be true? On page 42, Emerson claims that ‘when virtue is in presence, all sub-ordinate powers sleep.’ Doesn’t that defy a major theme of literature?
You know, the good versus evil thing?”

A student in the back added, “Yea, evil seems to put up a pretty good fight even when it gets defeated. In most of the stories I’ve read . . .

“That’s stupid.” It was a kid who was in second period writing class. His head was shaved and he wore several tiny loop earrings around the edge of one ear.

“Oh, shut up, Ryan. You probably didn’t even read it.”

“Like you know! But you don’t need to read a book to know that evil is not a subordinate power.”

“Good conquers evil. Almost always. Everyone knows that.”

“Come on! Read a newspaper, Lauren. Or watch cable news. Some talking head will clue you in. But that isn’t what Emerson says that digs me the deepest. He says here, “’there is an optical illusion about every person we meet.’ Do you believe that Mr. Hitt?” He was smiling at me and playing the looped notes on his ear.

“I don’t know, Ryan. Is there an optical illusion about you?”

“Yeah, man. You got it.”

“Must be true then.”

Emerson was forgotten. The remainder of the period was spent with the students focusing and refocusing on the optical illusions that they perceived in each other, bending in kind to the enlightened expositions of their peers. Innocent play. Illusions unveiled.

Except for Ryan’s. His was kept intact. Kinship with Addie established


Chapter Four

The two days in the classroom had regenerated me. In the evening I completed the Proust paper and read assignments for two other classes. At three in the morning, I showered, pulled on a pair of faded – seams coming apart, holes in the knees – blue sweats that I called my good luck partners, and sat down to write letters. It was going to be difficult to explain my negligence toward everyone. My grandfather’s letter lay unanswered on top of the dusty refrigerator. Several other letters, most from students who had been in my class last year, were stuffed into a large manila envelope and wedged between the bed and the legs of an old maple table whose paint had been scraped away in long uneven grooves, like a blackboard scratched by unrelenting nails. Two letters from Chloe lay on the computer table; one of them I had left unopened due to the guilt I felt in not contacting her. I emailed her first. I explained my busy schedule – teaching, studying, going to classes. And I told her how much I missed her: “Life would be good if only you were here.” I reread the sentence and wondered at its veracity. True, if the lady from the mountains were diverting my attention from dwelling on the mysteries of the city woman, mysteries that I could not understand, undoubtedly life would be more fathomable. Or would it? Two days in a classroom had allowed me only brief respites from my impenetrable perseveration with the “Addie Addiction.” Oh, that Chloe’s presence could help me break the habit. Thoughts intruding . . . red dress . . . glints of light from long amber hair . . . lips formed in a silent, “Mark.” Headlines . . . headlines . . . headlines . . death on the beach . . .and Addie missing . . . missing . . . missing.

“Missing you, Chloe, more than you can possibly know. Have
a coffee and cinnamon roll and think of me. Better yet, think
of us. Think of us at Beans looking out over the serenity of the
distant mountain. Count the trees and multiply by one hundred
years. That’s how long it seems since I’ve seen you. Sorry I
haven’t returned your calls. I will. Love, Mark

A little after four AM, I wrote a short note to my grandfather and lay down on the couch, intending to take a twenty minute nap before tackling the task of answering the letters from my North Fork students. A loud “BOOOOOM” loosened the workings of my brain.

Chloe and I were sitting in the park on the valley floor, sipping black coffee that we had bought at Beans, when a large boulder came crashing down. It was alive and racing toward us on granite legs. As it approached, I covered Chloe’s eyes with my ragged sweats and shielded and averted my own view with my hands. The boulder began walking seductively, a Mona Lisa smile across the expanse of its surface. I cried out in horror . . . “NOOOOOO!” The sun was blazing directly off the enchantress, rays of fire dancing off the swath of red silk hugging her. . .

Another loud bang and I sprang to my feet to defend Chloe. I tripped and fell, and my toes were pulled apart from each other by a sturdy leg of the coffee table. “NOOOO!
DAMNNNN!”

Another bang, and “Hitt! Answer your door before I break it down!”

Detective Selwyn was a granite statute, tall and well formed, his platinum hair shaped impeccably above a somber face. When I opened the door, he was dangling a badge at waist level.

“So what’s going on in there, Hitt? Someone attacking you?”

“Nah, Stubbed my toe.”

“Quite a response to a stubbed toe. Can I come in?” He pushed past me and looked around the room.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked.

“Detective Rod Selwyn, LAPD.”

“You must be at the wrong place. I haven’t even run a red light since I’ve been here.”

“What do you mean since you’ve been here? Where else have you been, Hitt?”

“What’s this all about?” I didn’t hide the fact that I was annoyed by his intrusion. “I mean, do you have a search warrant or something? Why are you here? Did something happen at the school, yesterday . . . one of the kids, maybe?”

He pulled the chair away from the computer desk and sat down. “Get comfortable, Hitt. We’re gonna talk. Sit over there on the couch.”

“I don’t want to sit. I just want to know what’s going on.”

“Sit down, Mr. Hitt.”

It wasn’t just that he was intimidating, his badge still swinging in his hand, it was also that I wanted to discover his reason for waking me rudely at eight on a Saturday morning. I sank into the cushions of the couch and looked up at him sitting erect and tall in the straight wooden chair, a sober judge in black slacks and a black silk shirt.

“Why did you call her?”

“Call who?”

He heaved and leaned forward. “Oh, so it’s going be one of these, is it? Exactly how many missing people have you been calling, Mr. Hitt?”

I felt he could sense the tension that gripped me when he said, ‘missing people,’ but I didn’t answer him.

“Miss O’Daniel, Mr. Hitt. Why’d you call her?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like the tape from a telephone answering machine. “Why’d you call her, Mark?”

“We had classes together.”

“Working on an assignment together? Was that it? Which class exactly?”

“No. It was a few years ago that we were in class together. I got back in town
and. . .”
“You got back in town and Addie O’Daniel disappears.”

“I had nothing to do with it. I just want to know. . .”

“How do you know that something’s happened that you have nothing to do with?”

“You just told me that Addie disappeared.”

“Sure didn’t register much surprise at that little bit of information, did you?”

“Sorry.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“You just happened to get back in town. Miss O’Daniel just happens to disappear, and her friend just happens to get murdered. Right, Mr. Hitt?”

I stood up. “Wait a minute, this is really crazy. I make a phone call. Now I’m a murder suspect.”

“Did I say you were a murder suspect?”

“You implied it.”

“You inferred it. Where were you the night of Tuesday, September 27?”

“I was studying and then I met a friend at a pub, and I got home a little before two.”

“That was fast. You got all your days and nights memorized like that?”

“No, but that was the night Rochelle told me Addie was missing. I read in the paper the next morning that Detective Packard had been killed.”

“Whoa! Wait a minute. That’s quite a connection. Miss O’Daniel’s missing. Packard is murdered. What’re you saying, Hitt?”

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? The detective was killed. Rochelle told me about him and Addie. She said everyone knew about them. That’s all I know. I’ve been teaching in the mountains east of Fresno for three years. I just got back in town. Called some people. Period.”

“Not quite, ‘period,’ Hitt.”

Selwyn interrogated me for over an hour. He found incredulous the fact that I had called Addie repeatedly although I hadn’t spoken to her in over three years. It was especially unbelievable to him since I denied any feeling other than friendship for her. “No. No correspondence between us while I was away.” It also seemed strange to him that I could not provide the name of any other person that I had called since returning to the area. Except for the one call to Rochelle. What disturbed me the most was his continuous insinuation that I must have some knowledge of Calvin Packard.

Finally, he stood up. “We’ll be talking to you again. If you hear from Miss O’Daniel or her friend, Rochelle, call me right away.” He handed me a card, pushed the chair back under the computer table, and left.

For a moment, I had considered telling him about the man who was gazing at Addie from behind the plant the night of Rutherford’s party, but I didn’t know his name. It would be ludicrous to identify him simply as Mr. Plaid Shirt. I didn’t know anything about him, really, except that he appeared enamored of Addie, and that, he darted away one evening when I saw him in the cafeteria. From the manner in which Selwyn was questioning me, it didn’t seem likely that he would jump on any information I gave him except to accuse me of trying to point a finger at someone else.

A knock on the door, and it was Selwyn again.

“Sorry, Mr. Hitt. I forgot something.” He walked over to the computer table, picked up what he had implied was Addie’s telephone message tape, and started to leave. When he got to the door, he turned and smiled. “By the way, we’ll probably get to know each other pretty well. Okay if I call you Mark?”

“Sure.”

The smile turned to a straight line, held tight by a solemn, granite face whose only sign of life was two penetrating blue eyes fixed accusingly on me.

When he left, I turned the knob to lock the door and secured it further with the dead bolt. Then I lifted out the phone tape that held the whispered, “Mark,” and replaced it with a blank one. It occurred to me that it was rather remiss on his part not to ask if I had messages on my own answering machine. I put the tape in the toe of a sock and rolled it with another sock and put them in the dirty clothes hamper, being careful to stir th all down into the other clothes. The other socks in the hamper had been tossed in one at a time, so I carefully removed all of them, rolled them together in pairs and stirred them into a tangle of dirty clothes before I realized that I had made a mistake. The socks that held the tape were clean, the others dirty, so I retrieved the pair that held the mystery voice and maybe a clue to Addie’s disappearance; leaving the tape in a clean sock, I gave it a dirty mate.


Chapter Five


Since returning to the Valley, I had been pretty much a recluse, spending the time I wasn’t either teaching or at the university, moving about in a somnambulant state or sitting on the floor, inert, my back pressed against the couch, my mind caught inexorably in one exhausting confusion of thoughts. I couldn’t explain, even to my self, the reason for my obsession. The memory of Addie in the films class, the unexpected letter, Addie, alluring in the red dress, her disappearance, either or all, held me hostage at times.

After writing to Chloe in the middle of the night, I had decided to get up on Saturday morning and start the weekend with some type of commingling recreation, probably a trip to Santa Barbara: breakfast and a walk on Sterns Wharf, and then a long jog down State Street to my favorite book store. The visit from Selwyn, however, had destroyed the mood.

This was all unbelievable. I had made the simple decision to return to school to earn a Masters Degree in English, and in just over a month, I had managed to achieve the unenviable status of master chump. I had neglected my family and friends, done merely an adequate job in teaching and in my studies, and I had been questioned about the disappearance of a woman with whom I had had no contact in over three years. Most remarkably, I was even able to blunder my way into becoming a suspect in a cop’s murder.

It was the murder that was most pressing on my mind when the detective left. If I was going to be suspected of killing someone, I needed to do something to alleviate that suspicion. Selwyn had suggested a connection between Addie’s disappearance and the merciless killing of the policeman. If I could find Addie, then I would be able to clear her, and subsequently myself, of any involvement in Packard’s death.



I dressed, picked up the letters I had written the night before, and mailed them on the way to Addie’s apartment. After riding up and down several streets that intersected Victory Boulevard, I finally recognized the building where Addie lived three years ago. I left my truck in a super market parking lot in case the police were surveying the surroundings where she lived and walked the half block to her apartment.

The neat complex was just as I remembered it. Three tri-level buildings met at right angles, and with the ornate entryway, enclosed a large attractive garden which offered a view to every tenant’s door. The back building, the one parallel to the entryway, contained an empty expanse in the middle of the first floor the width of the apartment, This open area led to a fenced swimming pool and behind that the parking garages for the inhabitants of “Lotus Arms.”

As I started down the sidewalk on the side of the garden where Addie lived, I could see Lillian, the apartment building manager, lounging in a chair beside the pool. She was facing the apartments. Lillian is an elderly lady, probably in her late seventies, her skin brown and wrinkled in rubbery layers from years of exposure to the sun. One evening someone from Meade’s class complained that Lillian had interrogated him exhaustively because he was moving about the buildings, going from door to door trying to find Addie’s apartment. Addie laughed and told us that everyone regarded Lillian as a doting, rather intrusive aunt, looking out for the well being of those in the complex.

Lillian jumped out of the chair and pulled a large towel around her waist, and raced towards me, the tail trailing behind her. She was waving at me, and I was amazed to think that she had remembered me.

“Lillian! Glad to see you! How’ve you been?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Mark Hitt. You remember. Addie’s friend.”

“I don’t remember any such thing. People coming around here asking questions. I’d like to know what’s going on. You snoopin’ on her, too?”

“Uh, no. Not at all. We’re in a class together, working on a project. Remember? That’s when I was here before. About three years ago. A bunch of us came for awhile, watching films for a class. That’s when I met you.”

“So many strange people come in and out of here that I don’t remember them all.”

I smiled and patted her wet shoulder.

“Not that you’re strange. That isn’t what I meant.” She shifted her towel and wrapped it securely around her waist.

“I understand, Lillian. The reason I’m here is that Addie has some information in her computer that I need for our class Monday night. If I don’t get it and finish up our assignment, we’re both in deep trouble.”

Well, she’s not here.”

“That’s a problem. I’ve been trying to reach her for days, and she doesn’t answer her phone. Do you suppose I could get in to her place just long enough to retrieve our work?”

“You gotta be kidding,”

“Promise you, Lillian, I’m not a thief.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Lillian, please. This project is really important. What could it hurt to get an assignment out of her computer?”

“How do I know you’re not just taking advantage of her being away? She coulda done all the work and you take the credit.”

“Addie told us that you watch out for everyone here. I see what she means.”

Lillian was smiling smugly and tugging at her towel. “That’s right. Good luck with your homework anyway, young man.” She turned to walk back to the pool.

“Lillian, wait. I’ve got an idea.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if you’re just full of them.”

“You let me into Addie’s apartment and you come in with me. We’ll stay just long enough for me to check some statistics against what I have. I won’t even print out anything.” If she would allow me entrance to Addie’s apartment, I could check her computer menu and perhaps discover a bit of information that would give me a clue as to what was going on.

I could feel her eyes spitting angrily at me behind her dark glasses, but she did not turn away.

“Please, Lillian.”

Her head and shoulders dropped as she muttered, “Let me go get something on over this, and we’ll stay in there no more than five minutes.” As we entered Addie’s apartment, Lillian repeated, “No more than five minutes.”

The computer table was still on the same wall, the one that faced the kitchen and to the right of the living room, in an area that also held a dinette table and a small hutch. As I walked toward the desk, my heart began to race as I saw a Palm Pad lying half hidden beneath a stack of papers on the hatch. I turned on the computer and monitor, but I was thinking only about how, without Lillian’s knowledge, I could lift the Palm. I moved the mouse and another surprise—an expansion card for the Zire 21.

She stood at my shoulder as I shifted hurriedly from file to file, not studying any of them really.

“I hope you found your figures ‘cause your five minutes are just about up. Makes me nervous, spyin’ on a person like this.” She turned a half circle to examine the room. ”She’s a good little housekeeper. That’s what I told that detective guy.”

“What detective?”

“Some tall guy. Good lookin’, but not very friendly.”

“What did he want?”

“Do you really think he was gonna tell me? Kid you might have some book smarts, but you really are naïve. I could tell the stories. Workin’ here I see cops. Some of them by name, but not this one. But what ever it was that he wanted, he didn’t get it.”

“Now how do you know that, Lillian?” I chuckled and winked at her. “Did he look disappointed?”

“You just stop that.” She slashed her hand through the air as if slapping and invisible invader. “I know because he got a phone call almost as soon as he got here. He had one of those little cell phones, you know, the kind that fold up. If I ever had one that’s the kind I’d get. Anyway, he left right away. Said he’d be back.”

“When was that?

“Hey! What is this, Twenty Questions?”

“Twenty questions?”

“Never mind. Guess I should’ve said Jeopardy.” She shook her head in disbelief at my ignorance. “It was yesterday afternoon. ‘Spect he’ll be back today. But, Mr. Student, your five minutes are up. What’d you say your name is?”

“Frank.” The name of my great grandfather, Frank Matson Hitt, popped into my mind. She’d be talking to Selwyn, and I hoped he wouldn’t conclude that I’d been here.

“Well, goodbye, Frank, or Mr. Frank, whichever it is.”

I walked down the steps and out of Lotus Arms, trying not to appear anxious. When I got to the street, I began running toward the parking lot where I left my truck. A dark green car pulled out of a spot across the street and moved slowly in the direction I was going. Behind the wheel—a face that I recognized: Plaid Shirt. I decided that he must be a cop. But that didn’t explain his appearance at the grad party. Nothing had happened before that night, nothing that I knew about anyway. And he did have books that evening in the cafeteria. But that could have been a ploy in case I saw him.

Seconds after I entered the parking area, the green car pulled slowly into the lot and stopped at a spot close to the main exit. I sat in my truck a minute or two, trying to decide if I should confront Mr. P S or attempt to elude him. If indeed he were a cop, he might find a reason to search me. I felt the Palm in my pocket. He could search me even if he followed me to my apartment. Finally, I turned on the ignition, reved up and raced across the lot and out an exit that intersected an alley. I turned left and then on to Laurel Canyon Boulevard and headed for the Ventura Freeway, not looking back to see if I was being followed until I left the on ramp and entered the flow of traffic heading west.

I felt like a fugitive traveling down the freeway shielded by a body of unknowing defenders, a patrol of innocent citizens who drove on all sides. Driving the speed limit was important, and I stayed in the same lane until I left Los Angeles County, but fortunately there wasn’t one policeman or highway patrolman on the road from LA to Santa Barbara.

When I drove onto Stearns Wharf, I felt a sense of relief. I parked the truck near the restaurant where, before I left home, my parents took my sister and me to Sunday brunch on special occasions. I sat at a small table by the window that overlooked the bay. I probably was hungry, but ordered only black coffee. It was as if even surveying the menu required more thought than I wanted to give to anything outside of the predicament I had fallen into. A pelican landed on a wooden pole a few feet from me; and peering through the blotched window at the space which should have held a plate of ham and home fries, it gave me a look of disgust and flew away. I decided to leave, too.

There was a long row of bins filled with salt water taffy near the cash register: strawberry, blueberry, chocolate, mint, pecan, vanilla and more. Any flavor a connoisseur of taffy could desire. I filled a brown paper bag with almost two pounds of candy, paid for it and the coffee, and walked out onto the wharf.

Three children were playing a hopscotch type of game on the warn planks of the boardwalk; the little girl was teasing the two boys about her expertise at maneuvering past the cracks that they were falling into; a young couple were pressed together, their arms coiled tightly around each other, staring blankly at the water as if its peaceful surface held beneath it messages of a halcyon future, a future which with one mind, they could see and eagerly anticipate. They smiled at the water. They smiled at each other. I envied them. I glanced back at the children and felt a kinship with the little boys being taunted by the adolescent vixen.

I sat down on a bench overlooking the water, stretched my legs straight, rested my feet on the wooden rail that formed an open barrier between the bay and the wharf, and began eating taffy. It wasn’t a candy that I particularly enjoyed, but it was a family tradition, almost a ritual, to buy saltwater taffy wherever it was available when we traveled. My father has a passion for the sticky sweet confection, and it was always the souvenir or remembrance that we searched for to please him.

Sun danced the waves and a cool breeze caught strands of the young woman’s hair and pulled them caressingly across her face. The young man brushed them behind her ears and kissed her. I wished that I were an artist, and that I had a canvas. But then, the pain in the stomach, the flood of thoughts, and unavoidably the question – in three years would the image on the canvas be the same?

Enticing as it was, I knew that I could not sit on a bench at Stearns Wharf forever, watching young lovers and squabbling children at play. I decided to remain, however, long enough to give some logical thought as to how I should proceed. The Palm was stolen property, but I was certain that Lillian hadn’t seen me take it. If I threw it into the bay, I could not be implicated in its theft, but I was convinced that it might hold something that would be important in untangling the whole damned mystery of Addie and Meade as well as Packard’s murder. If I took it back to my apartment and wasn’t able to hide it well enough to escape Selwyn’s detection, I could be in serious trouble—not only for having taken it, but also for wanting it for surreptitious reasons. If the unit held information implementing Addie, or anyone, in Packard’s death, I might be a suspect as well just by virtue of having taken it.

“Chloe, why did I leave the mountains?”

Chloe. I got up, brushed past the children and the two, who minutes ago had occupied space on my mental canvas, and ran to my truck.

I rode the wooden waves of the wharf to the toll booth and proceeded straight onto State Street and drove to a parking lot not too close to the book store, where yesterday, I had envisioned myself spending a pleasant respite away from the mystery in which I had become involved. After pulling a spiral notebook out from beneath the truck’s seat, I locked and slammed shut the door and jogged the two blocks to the book store.

As I neared the store I saw people sitting comfortably in plastic chairs around metal umbrella tables – talking, laughing, drinking, eating. Walking past them, I opened the door to the warm heavy aroma of coffee and felt the immediate need for a frothy cappuccino. I bought a doughnut to go with the coffee and stood by the wall eating and drinking greedily. When I was finished, I headed for a writing table back past the fireplace and the baby grand piano.

It was an even more difficult letter to write than the one I had sent her in the morning:

Dear Chloe:

Just had some coffee, but it can’t compare to Bean’s. That’s bull, Chlo.
I might as well get to the point. I’m in trouble and I need your help.
Actually, I’m not really in trouble, or shouldn’t be, and I won’t be, if I
can get things cleared up. The Palm that I’m sending you might be important
in unraveling a mess the cops seem to think I’m involved in. I’ll be up next
weekend and we’ll try to figure out if it holds any answers. Can’t come during
the week since that might cause some suspicion.

Love, Mark PS Don’t tell anyone about this. Don’t call. I could be tapped.

Love, again. Miss you.

The Fed-Ex office was a few blocks away. After I sent the package next day delivery, I headed south. I felt a little sorry that I didn’t keep the Palm to start investigating its contents right away, but I also felt I had to be careful.

Detective Selwyn was descending the stairs of the building as I pulled up in front of my apartment. He met me on the sidewalk. Smiling slyly, he shook his head in disbelief and shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

“Well, well, well. Been busy this morning, Mr. Hitt?”

“Sort of. Not really. In a way.”

“Which is it, sort of, or in a way?”

“Don’t I remember you being here already this morning?” I asked.

“Why don’t you just invite me into your little cluttered abode and we’ll talk some more.”

Cluttered! There were boxes of books, and maybe a few on the desk, but cluttered! When I opened the door, I saw evidence of the detective’s description of my place. Drawers were open and their contents were turned onto the floor; cushions had been ripped from the couch and chairs; pots and pans were emptied from the cupboards and were lying on the floor like wounded soldiers on a battle field. The doors were open to the bedroom. I gasped when I saw the clothes from the hamper strewn about on the floor.

“Why the hell did you do this? Let me see your search warrant!”

“I didn’t do this, Sonny.”

“Then how the . . .”

His arm was outstretched toward the window that framed a picture of the stairs that lead from the outside door. “You oughta keep your blinds drawn. That aside, it seems someone was very interested in finding something. Maybe they were looking for a term paper. What do you think, Frank?”

“My name is not Frank. My name’s Mark. And I don’t keep my term papers, or anything else, in my pots and pans.”

“Well, I’m not interested in term papers, anyway.” He was annoyingly blasé. Let’s each of us clear off a spot and sit down and talk.” He pulled out the computer chair and swept some papers onto the floor. “Now, Frank . . .”

“Mark.”

“Whatever or whoever. I’d like to know why you were at Addie O’Daniel’s this morning.” He spit out each word deliberately.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I rode up to Santa Barbara this morning. Needed a place to cool off after your visit.”

“What time were you in Santa Barbara?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“And here I thought you were the computer whiz who had all your time schedule memorized to the minute.”

“When he said “computer,” I sprang up and started picking up pillows and placing them carefully on the couch and chair. I was grateful that the Palm was on the way to Chloe, but I wondered if there was any reason for him to believe that it was taken. Maybe Lillian had seen me pocket it, or maybe, he had observed it when he was in Addie’s apartment earlier in the day. I was beginning to feel ill equipped to survive in a world full of questions that allowed me no answers.

“What are you some kind of neat freak, that you can’t wait “til we’re finished talking to pick up? You should report this to the police anyway, and have them check it out before you move anything.”

“No, I don’t want to report it.”

“Some reason for that?”

I sat down on the couch and stared angrily at him. “I’ll report it if I find something missing.”

“Now, back to Santa Barbara. Did you see anyone, or better yet, did anyone see you while you were there? Any proof that you actually went there?”

“Maybe the waitress who served me coffee on the wharf could verify that I was there. Or maybe someone in the book store. And the salt water taffy. I bought salt water taffy. It’s on the seat of my truck. The receipt must be in the sack, too.”

“We’ll let it rest. You say you’re not Frank.”

“You know my name.”

“Do you know anyone named Frank who might know Miss O’Daniel?”

“No.”

“Someone who was in the class that you watched at Addie’s place a few years back, maybe? You remember that, don’t you?”

Lillian had filled him in well about my visit. “I remember, but I don’t remember a Frank. I don’t remember the names of anyone who was there, except for Addie and Rochelle.”

“Addie. Pretty unforgettable, huh?”

“Why don’t you check with the school? They might have a record. Or Professor Meade. He might know something.”

“Great! Good! Brilliant! I’ll do it. With ideas like that, you’d make one terrific detective, Hitt.” Sarcasm ran down his checks as he spoke. “Guess that’ll be it for now, unless you want me to help you clean up.” He got up and walked to the door. “I’ll check the candy as I leave.”

After bolting the door and pulling the blinds closed, I stood in the middle of the room for several minutes waiting for him to make a return call as he had earlier in the day. I heard a car start and I waited a while longer. There was no knock on the door, so I hurried to the bathroom and started unrolling socks. The tape slipped out of the third one that I unrolled.

“Yes! Thank you, you dirty, stinking, old socks. No one wanted to mess with you, did they, you disgusting, holey-toed darlings?” I threw the socks in the air and let them fall to the floor as I laughed uncontrollably. “A lot of work for some scavenger and the tape is still here!” It didn’t occur to me that the trespasser might be hunting for something else.

One other thought did come to mind. My pal in the plaid shirt. He must not be working for Selwyn.e b