The Rainy Season (26 page)

“I wonder, too.” She looked at the hole and shrugged.

Elizabeth heard, right then, the sound of a window sliding shut, and she glanced at the second story of the house, where she saw movement beyond the lace curtains of the corner room, as if someone who had been watching at the window had just then shut the window and slipped out of sight.

“You didn’t see anyone digging while you were inside the tower? You might have seen something through the window.”

“I was only looking at books.”

“It’s a big hole that he’s dug—big enough to hide a treasure. I
guess
it was Phil who dug it.”

“Uh-huh. I guess.”

“So you didn’t see
anything
?”

“No.”

“And there was nothing but books in the tower?”

Betsy nodded.

“When you climbed in through the window did you see that someone had dug a big hole here? You must be a good enough detective to have noticed a bunch of loose dirt like this.” She gestured at the digging.

Betsy pursed her lips and shook her head again.

Elizabeth winked at her. The little liar. She was holding tough. Clearly she’d had some practice at deception. “So what’s in the bag, then, kiddo?”

“Nothing,” Betsy said. She still held tightly to it, and Elizabeth wondered for a moment whether she shouldn’t just snatch it out of the girl’s hands and have a look inside. “Just some things of mine.” She reached into it now and pulled out a Piglet doll, which she showed to Elizabeth. Then she dropped it back into the bag, closing the bag after it. Clearly she was lying about it all.
Something
was happening here: the locked tower door, the digging, the sneaking around. Betsy knew something, the little sneak. Maybe a twenty-dollar bill would loosen her tongue. …

But a screen door banged shut just then, and Phil stepped down into the yard. Elizabeth waved, putting on a big smile for him, and in that moment Betsy ran toward the porch without a word, straight past her uncle and into the house. Phil turned toward Betsy as if he would slow her down, and Elizabeth glanced again at the corner room on the second floor, certain once again that someone was standing at the window watching. She slipped the coin into her jeans pocket and walked out to meet Phil on the lawn.

THE THING THAT
struck Mrs. Darwin the most about southern California was the terrible change that had taken place since she had lived there in the 1950s. The close press of speeding traffic, the housing projects in the foothills, the shabby strip malls and industrial parks, all of it had pretty much killed any charm that the place might once have had. Of course Texas, and especially Austin, had had its share of growth and headaches, but somehow Texas never put on airs. Southern California was the land of vanity, and it seemed to her that Phil Ainsworth typified the self-centeredness and self-righteousness of the place. Certainly it was nowhere for a sensitive child like Betsy to grow up.

She honked the horn long and hard at a car that cut her off, and then opened another package of Fig Newtons, watching the street signs for Chapman Avenue. She pulled into the exit lane finally, got off the freeway, and swung into the parking lot of a nondescript shopping center where she took out a street map with a route already marked out with a highlighter. Sitting in the quiet car, she felt as if she were at a true crossroads, and she was struck with a sudden sense of disconnectedness. The preparations she had made in Austin had separated her from her past, as had the road miles she had put on the car over the last couple of days, revisiting old haunts in the southwest, recalling the ghosts of old memories, putting them to rest at last.

But her future wasn’t apparent to her yet, and there was a certain thrill in that for a woman her age. Just a few weeks ago the canvas of her life had been largely painted in, and that had begun to look dismal to her. The only hope she had was Betsy. The only thing that recommended the future was Betsy. Then Phil Ainsworth had come along and thrown dirt on everything. And now Marianne’s death was all for nothing, and Betsy was taken from her. That was the real irony of the thing: Phil Ainsworth had invalidated his own sister’s death. “I hope he’s satisfied,” she muttered, but of course he couldn’t be. He had no idea what he’d done. She would have to teach him.

She saw that there was a gas station on the corner, and she drove up to one of the self-serve pumps now, got out of the car, and went inside to pay the cashier for ten dollars’ worth of gas. On her way out she put a quarter in the pay phone, called Phil’s number, waited until he answered, and then hung up. Chuckling, she went out to pump her own gas, something she had started doing when she’d left Austin, as a lesson in self-sufficiency. A man who had been sitting outside the minimart stood up and walked toward her. She could tell from his shaggy hair and sunburn that he was homeless, and she considered what she would say to him when he asked for money. And speaking of self-sufficiency, a small lecture on that subject wouldn’t hurt him at all. She smiled at him graciously, seeing then that he carried a wad of newspaper and a spray bottle of Windex.

“Wash your windows,” he mumbled.

“By all means,” she said. The windshield was a mess from the open road, and she watched as he dabbed at the dried bugs with the newspaper. “Let the Windex sit for a moment,” she said. “Wait till it softens the dirt, then rub at it.”

He worked away as if he hadn’t heard her, which burned her up just a little bit. Clearly this wasn’t the first time he had failed to take good advice. When he was finished, the windshield was still smeared and dirty, especially around the perimeter. “Give it one more try,” she told him evenly. “Get along the edge there.”

He went at it again, using up his entire stock of newspaper and an inch or so out of the bottle by the time he was done with the entire car. He stood waiting then. “Did you want something more?” she asked.

“I washed your windows,” he said to her, gesturing at her now, as if he were losing patience.

“I’m aware of that,” she said. “Oh, did you want
money?
Because really, if that’s what you wanted, you should have said something. The gas station supplies a bucket and squeegee, and I had intended on washing my own windows. I do for myself.”

He stared at her in silence for a moment, and she wondered suddenly if he might be on the edge of violence. The look of passive ignorance on his face might be the result of some kind of numbing psychosis. “In fact I
will
pay you,” she said to him, after giving him time to think about what he had learned. “But next time, be more forthright with a customer. I realize that you can’t do a lot with your dress or personal habits, but you
can
learn to speak up and to make it clear exactly what you’re selling. I’m happy when you homeless people are willing to work for a living, and I honestly wish you all the success you deserve. I have money in the car here.” She stepped around to the driver’s side and climbed in, pushing the button to lower the passenger-side window and pulling two quarters out of the change tray beneath the radio. She handed him the quarters. He looked at them, spit on her windshield, dropped the quarters on the ground, and dumped the dirty newspaper in through the open window.

Her heart pounding, Mrs. Darwin shifted into drive and sped out of the gas station, turning east onto Chapman. Clearly the man was insane. She picked up the wadded newspaper, intending to pitch it out into the street, but instead she pulled over to the side of the road, got out of the car, and cleaned the spittle off the windshield, dumping the paper in the gutter afterward. Southern California—the land where even homeless bums threw away good money! This was evidence of everything she had come to suspect. Everyone wanted something for nothing. Everyone was ready to take what they wanted without asking, Phil Ainsworth included. Well she’d see about that. She’d damned well see about that.

She headed east into the foothills, spending half an hour simply driving around, acclimating herself to the area. She didn’t know the country, and that might be a bad thing, depending on what happened. She discovered that there were only a couple of highways leading away from the Ainsworth house, which was out on the edge of town, and before long she began to develop a feel for what the lines on her road map actually meant. The afternoon was wearing on when she drove back down Santiago Canyon, straight past the old Ainsworth house before she knew she’d missed it. She turned around farther down the hill, waited for a long break in traffic, and set out uphill again, driving past slowly and looking up the driveway.

There was Betsy! Walking across a little plot of grass in plain sight! Mrs. Darwin nearly stopped the car right there in the road, and it was all she could do to drive on, up to a turnout above the house where she reversed direction again, then parked the car for a moment in order to catch her breath. There was another car parked at the turnout, empty, perhaps broken down. She wondered what Betsy would say if she simply strode up the driveway, out of the blue like this. Here comes the cavalry, she thought, and she pictured herself throwing her arms open and Betsy running to her and hiding beneath her coat, and the two of them walking away forever like a pair of mismatched Siamese twins!

Instead she drove on down the hill again, but this time, when she passed the driveway, Betsy was nowhere to be seen. Phil himself stood on the patch of lawn, and he had a woman with him, an easy flyer from the look of her. He might at least have waited a decent length of time before he brought in … before he brought in his women! Mrs. Darwin thought suddenly of the empty car in the turnout, and it occurred to her that the car might belong to this woman, who couldn’t park on the property for some reason. What sort of illicit relationship was he hiding, and from whom? This whole thing stank to high heaven, as if it wasn’t rotten enough to begin with. She nearly turned around again and went back. If nothing else, she could break up this little tête-à-tête just for the sake of spoiling something for him.

But that would be unwise. She would tip her hand, and right now she wasn’t quite sure what kind of cards she held. It was better, perhaps, to wait and watch. But by God if she had to walk in there and take that girl out wholesale, she’d do it! She spotted a TraveLodge with a vacancy sign, and she pulled into the parking lot, anxious to clean up and settle in. For today, aside from a little bit of telephone activity, she would be patient and bide her time.

“I LEFT IT
up at the turnout again,” Elizabeth said when Phil mentioned her car. “I pulled off to look at the view, and the day was so beautiful that I just walked down. Getting out of your driveway is a pain, by the way, because of that curve going downhill. There’s always someone coming out of nowhere. How’s Betsy, by the way? She seems pretty peppy. We had a nice talk.”

“She’s doing fine,” Phil said. “Last night she was feeling a little bit down. Sorry to chase you off like that.”

“I
fully
understand.” She smiled at him and hooked her arm through his. “You still haven’t given me a tour of your house,” she said. “I’d love to see it. I was looking in the historical records in the library basement, and it turns out that this very house is one of the oldest houses still standing in the area.”

“That’s true.”

“Well, then show me around. What do I need, an E-ticket? What if I told you I was friends with the owner?” She set out toward the porch, hauling him along, patting his hand. “If you still have what’s left in that bottle of wine, we could celebrate something.”

“I’d love to celebrate something,” Phil said, “but I can’t. I was just going out. I’ve got to see about getting Betsy into school.”

“Right
now
? School must be about over for the day.”

“I have to go down to the district office. Then we were going out to buy school supplies. She’s starting fresh, so she needs fresh stuff—notebooks, pencils. You know how kids are.”

“I guess I do.” They stood outside the porch now, and from what Elizabeth could see, the living room was empty. Betsy must have gone upstairs, which is exactly where Phil wasn’t going to take her. “You’re not trying to avoid me, are you, Phil? I think I come on too strong sometimes, especially when I find an attractive man. There’s not a lot of guys like you left in the world, you know.”

His grin was as much embarrassment as anything else, but she could see that he wasn’t going to cave in.

“Honestly,” he said, “I’m
not
trying to avoid you. This whole thing with Betsy came right out of nowhere.” He shrugged, turning his palms up as if none of this was his fault, but before he could detach himself from her, she leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.

She let go of him and stepped back a pace. He was blushing so brightly that she almost burst into laughter. He didn’t look angry, though. “Next time I’ll call first,” she said. Halfway down the drive she looked back, guessing correctly that he was still there, watching her go. She smiled and waved, then continued up to the street and around the corner. It was possible that he had watched her leave because he liked the look of her in tight jeans. It was equally possible that he wondered what the hell she was actually doing there. And in that case, she could hardly hang around and make him any more suspicious. She hadn’t gotten anywhere with Betsy, either.

But she sure as hell wasn’t going to drive away again, like she had last night. Appleton was right. There was no time to be subtle. At the turnout she climbed into her car, started it up, and headed downhill, honking the horn as she passed the drive, although she didn’t see him outside anymore. Twenty yards farther down, a street turned off to the right, into a neighborhood. She pulled over at the end of this street, which dead-ended where a trail led down into Santiago Creek and the arroyo beyond. She set out down the trail toward the back of Phil’s property, past a stand of eucalyptus and into the back of the avocado grove.

If Phil was telling the truth about going out with Betsy, then this would be a prime opportunity to have a little bit of a look around. If there wasn’t an unlocked door in the house, then there would probably be an unlocked window. It wouldn’t hurt, if nothing else, to take a quick peek into Betsy’s room in order to investigate the book bag secret. Of course if Phil was lying about going out, then … hell, she’d have a look around anyway.