Indigo Slam

'You make it sound like he abandoned us.'

I stared at her, and the washing machine changed cycles.

'He isn't anything like that. He isn't a drunk, or have brain problems. He's a good father. He's kind and sweet, and he's been gone before, but he's always come back.' She shook her head. 'There are too many printers and too few jobs. When you hear of something you have to follow up fast or you'll lose out.' She looked affronted, like how could I suggest anything else? 'I'm worried that he went somewhere and had an accident. What if he has amnesia?' Amnesia.

I circled Enright Printing on the little pad. 'Okay. I'll talk to the folks at Enright and see if they know something. Also, it might help if I had a picture.'

She frowned. 'I don't think we have a picture.'

'Everybody has pictures.'

She bit at her lower lip. 'I don't think so.'

'Well, maybe you have a snapshot.' I knew a friend with a fifteen-year-old daughter. She had about a zillion pictures of her cat and her friends and siblings and vacations and school and things. Boxes of the stuff.

Teresa shook her head. 'I guess we're just not camera people.'

I put away the pad and stood. 'Okay, let's go look in your dad's bedroom.'

She looked horrified. 'I don't think he'd like us snooping in his room.'

I spread my hands. 'When you hire a private eye, you hire a snooper. Snooping is how you find people who walk away without telling you where they've gone. Snooping is what I do.'

She didn't like this either, but we went along a little hall and into a bedroom at the back of the house. It was a small room, sparsely furnished with a double bed and a dresser and a nightstand. There were no photographs on the nightstand or the dresser, but large ink drawings of all three children were thumbtacked to the walls. The drawings were done on coarse construction paper with colored felt-tip pens, and appeared to have been torn from a notebook. They were signed CH. 'Wow. Did your father do these?'

'Yes.'

'He's some artist.' The drawings were almost photographic in their realism.

'Uh-huh.'

When I opened the dresser's top drawer Teresa stiffened, but said nothing. I looked through the dresser and the nightstand. Maybe a half-dozen undershirts and underwear and socks were in the dresser, and not much else. There was a closet, but there wasn't much in it, just a single sport coat and a couple of pairs of thin slacks and a raincoat. 'Does it look like he packed for a long trip?'

She peeked into the closet like something might jump out at her, then shook her head. 'Well, I know he had two coats, and two pairs of pants are missing.'

'Okay. So he packed some things.'

'I guess so.'

I stood in the center of the room and tried to come up with an idea. 'Do you have any pictures of your mother?' If there was a picture of the mother, maybe Clark would be in it, too.

She shook her head. 'I don't think so.' Jesus. I had never seen a house without pictures before.

'Okay. Forget pictures. Where does he keep the credit card receipts and bank statements and things like that?'

'We don't use credit cards.'

I stared at her.

'We pay for everything with cash. When you're on a budget, cash is the best way to manage your money.' She was very certain of herself when she said it.

'Okay. No pictures, no credit cards.' No clues.

'We have a checking account and a savings account, though. Would you like to see them?'

'That, and your phone bills.'

The eyes narrowed again. 'Why would you need to see that?'

'The phone bills will show any toll calls made from or charged to your phone. You see?' My head was starting to throb. I guess she wanted me to find him without clues. Maybe I was supposed to use telepathy.

But she finally said, 'Well, okay.' Grudgingly.

'You know where to find that stuff?'

'Of course I know where to find it.' Offended.

I thought that she might find the stuff in her father's room, or maybe lead me out to the kitchen, but she didn't. She brought me to her room. Two twin beds were set against adjoining walls, a small army of stuffed animals on one, pictures of David Duchovny, Dean Cain, and Gillian Anderson above the other. Again, there were no photographs of Teri or her family. I said, 'Who likes Duchovny?'

Teri turned red and disappeared into her closet. Guess I'd gotten my answer.

She reappeared with a shoe box held together by a large rubber band. She put the box on the empty bed, then sorted out thin packets of paper held together with large paper clips. She knew exactly what was what and where it belonged. 'Are the phone bills in there?'

'Un-huh.' A large wad of cash was mixed in with the packets, even larger than the roll she'd brought to my office. She saw me looking at the cash, frowned, then put it in her pocket. Better safe than sorry.

Far away something chimed, and Teri stood. 'That's the washing machine. I have to put our clothes in the dryer.'

'Okay.'

The checking and savings accounts were from the First Western Bank of Tucson, Arizona. The savings account was a simple passbook account with a balance of $1,104.16, and showed no unusual deposits or withdrawals. The checking account held a balance of $861.47, with the last deposit having been made just before they'd left Tucson for Los Angeles. The entry record was neat and orderly and made in a teenage girl's rounded hand. I put the banking papers aside and paged through the phone bills. Since they had been in Los Angeles for only four and a half months, there were only four bills, and most of the toll calls were in the LA area, with more than half to Culver City. Most of those were in the first month. Probably Clark looking for a job, but maybe not.

Two of the calls were to Tucson, and five to Seattle, three of the Seattle calls made in the last month, and two of them lengthy. When Teri came back, I said, 'Who's in Seattle?'

She stared at me as if she didn't understand what I'd said.

'You've got five calls to Seattle here, three in the last month, two of them for a pretty long time.'

'My mom's up there.'

That's where she's buried?'

Nod.

'So your dad might have friends there.'

'I doubt it.' She adjusted her glasses. 'We didn't like it there. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't go back.'

'We'll see.'

'I'm positive he wouldn't.'

'Fine.' Like I shouldn't even waste my time.

I tamped the phone bill pages together, folded them, then put them in my pocket. She didn't like it when I did that either. I gave back the rest of her bills. 'Okay, I'm going to try to find your father, but we have to have an understanding.'

She stared at me, watchful and suspicious.

'I will not notify the authorities that three minors are living here alone so long as the three of you appear safe and in good care. Maybe your father will come home today, but maybe not. Maybe I'll find him fast, but maybe not. You're doing okay right now, and that's good, but if at any time I feel it's in your best interest to notify the police, I will do so. Are we clear on that?'

She looked stubborn. 'Will you tell me first?'

'I won't tell you first if I think you'll run.'

She liked that even less.

'I'm willing to let things stay as they are for now, but I won't lie to you. That's the way it has to be.'

She looked at me for a time, and then she looked at her papers. 'Are you finished with these things?'

I nodded. She took the checkbook, secured it to the bank statements and canceled checks with the same paper clips, and returned it to the shoe box. She did the same with the utility bills and the little pack of cash receipts all written in her hand. Fifteen.

'How long have you been paying the bills?'

She knew exactly what I was saying. 'My father is a good man. He loves us very much. He can't help it that she died on him. He can't help it that these things are hard for him.'

'Sure.'

'Someone has to take care of Charles and Winona. Someone has to clean the house.'

I nodded.

'Someone has to hold this family together.'